A Curious Project Begins...

 A curious project is tickling my bodysoul these days, or perhaps irritating or goading it, me, into some old-new words. Rarely have I entered into a circle-way journey with a sense of ‘a project I want to work on.’ Circle has been a journey of healing for me. It opens me, returns me to myself, my feminine wisdom, my own receptivity and balance inside. An agenda or an outcome oriented approach to circle has often seemed incongruous to me. Like expecting to make applesauce out of oranges I'm about to peel. Yet here I am…

...with a deadening problem. A refused anger problem. A buried rage problem.

Before anyone gets nervous, do let me assure you that no one has been the victim of my rage but me. Not even my husband gets this fire unleashed, though there are times he’s certainly earned the right to receive it. :) I’m a connector, you see. A highly relational, honed-perceptive woman who has put these gifts to work in an establishment life. I’ve learned over the years that relational approaches to conceptual problems often work better than solely conceptual work that is not my forte anyway. I basically shamed my dissertation committee and practical theology department into a successful defense of my work, for instance, but that’s a longer story for later.

Deadening is when the lively energy you’ve been given cannot flow, for internal or external reasons. A lot of my energy no longer flows. Lots of reasons for that, I’m sure, but there are some that need speaking that I’ve not spoken plainly enough. For example, the primary mythology-theology I’ve inherited no longer nourishes, except in past tense, a memory or nostalgia. God became flesh, lived among us, dying and rising (being raised) again after the third day. I don’t disbelieve this now, but it’s no longer enough, if it ever was truly enough. Where is woman in this? Where is creation? And was Jesus one who desired worship or adoration? (ed note: No). A dream last year led me to explore earlier stories, origin myths from elsewhere...

Like the Nordic myth of Nidhogg and Yggdrasil, the serpent who gnaws at one of the nine roots of the World Tree. Of late, I can’t help but see bastardized, unconscious white masculinity as the serpent, and the World Tree shaking in that foundational root. Nidhogg’s venom poisons...decay rots the root...threatening the foundation of the universe. The foundation of my universe in these fifty-some years has been shattered into multiple fragments. I no longer have easy access to a personable-divine, God, or Goddess, given each has broken my trust from the very beginning. 

The protective-Father-Figure God “whose promises are supposedly never broken” has neglected and depreciated, demonized and discounted women’s bodies in sacred scripture, in daily life, for centuries. I’m a woman, abandoned, whose sisters have borne the brunt of these patriarchal horrors. I won’t be duped again, nor make nice and pretend we can all get along. Weekly liturgies--led by my husband, of course--are interesting for me, but his journey, not my own. And the nourishing-Mother-Figure Goddess? She came too late in life, having abandoned me as a little girl from as early as birth, or three months’ of age. So I no longer have much energy for the gifts of tradition or the rich liturgical history of the church that abandoned and betrayed me while I dutifully and creatively offered my entire life to it. 

One would think I’d have left by now, but it doesn’t work that way inside of me. I don’t disbelieve or find error in the doctrinal pieces. Sins of omission and commission of violence are obvious, but I’ve no less been guided, led, directed and nudged so care-fully, so clearly. I cannot deny the Sacred Center of it all. Yes, I’ve drunk this Christian chalice all the way to the dregs, and it’s been found lacking. But I don’t doubt the sacred ordering of the Universe in the least...too much sacred abundance, too many stunning examples of scandalous grace have been extended to me. But while I rest peacefully in the roots and branches of the World Tree, I no longer look to any foundations. 

So this curious project is about listening to my earliest scholarly self for clues about what drew me into all this in the first place. I’m embarrassed by her naivete, but I remember fondly her passion, her fierce devotion to stay with it. I’m angry that she--that I--got duped by masculinized tradition for so long, yet I know I could never have survived the feminine awakening until just when I did. It nearly tore me apart at age 45. I want to remember who this young woman was, who burned with sacred fire to do what she did, to know the Holy like she yearned so desperately to know.

So I’m returning to my Artist’s Way morning pages journals, beginning January 1999, to listen to who speaks to me. I will transcribe a couple lines, then write to them in the present tense. I no longer anticipate hearing the voice of God as I read, nor do I feel a strong seeking drive I once knew. But I am curious if there is a path of less anger, digested betrayal, relinquished abandonment. 

My sneaking suspicion is that Joy may be on the other side.