SCMA Women’s Talk
No. 7 April 2001

Greetings all SCM women!

My name's Sylvia Edge and I've recently been appointed Women's Co-ordinator by our friendly NCG. I'm both excited and nervous about it as I've never taken on any such thing before, so please be gentle with me!!

 

I'm quite a recent "convert" to feminism. I used to be afraid to associate myself with the word because of its extremist connotations. But two formative experiences in the past year (which you may get sick of hearing about) have alerted me to the need for continuous feminist analysis and recognition of our unique qualities and needs as women: I have been learning belly dancing since last April, which has given me treasured insights into women's spirituality and sense of fun, and SCMA most beneficently sent me to Manila for the Women Doing Theology programme in August, which opened my eyes to the inequality between the sexes which still pervades the most "progressive" societies.

 

So my own feminist theology is still in its infant stage, and I hope to share something of its progression with you this year, and to learn all I can from you all. As in the past, I would like this newsletter to be a forum for us all to share our thoughts, stories, concerns and insights, and basically anything you want to get out there! I'm going to endeavour to collate these this bi-monthly, depending on the flow of information etc. So please give me feedback!

 

My contact details are:

email: sedge@angelfire.com or women@scm.org.nz

Home address: 180 Aro St.

            Aro Valley

            WELLINGTON

Home phone: (04) 3850 850

Cellphone: 025 200 1318

 

In this inaugural newsletter I'd like to share with you a couple of my recent experiences relating to my newfound feminism

 

SUMMER SOLSTICE RITUAL

 

On a sunny evening  late last December  I found myself traipsing through suburban Wellington bush with a company of Wiccans, armed with greenery, a most impressive sword and food of all sorts. We alighted in a grassy clearing by a river and pottered aimlessly while the press photographer took posed shots of a former Baptist deaconess reflected in the sword's blade.

Then the casting of the circle. We arranged the leafy branches to make the circle's outline, and a member of the company created the sacred space by slowly walking around it with the sword. An opening had to be made in the circle by a motion of sword or hand so we could all file in, each being anointed with spring water as we passed through the entrance. I managed to offend the friend who had invited me by threatening in jest to say "amen" at my anointing, but entered into what I perceived to be the spirit of the thing by consciously endeavouring to leave the resultant negative energy outside the circle as I entered. I had been told we would be warm inside the circle; it was a concertration of energy looking outward into our environment. I had to keep that in mind all the time I was in it, to avoid slipping into a dualistic mindset of sacred space vs. "other", to take one of many ways to construe it.

Once inside the circle, the portal was closed and something approximating a liturgy began. Four individuals invoked in turn the spirits of the four quarters: fire, earth, wind and water. I recall feeling a little out of place and un-pagan at this point, much as I was holding in my mind my philosophy that this division of Spirit was a valid manifestation of what I choose to worship as a singular entity.

The key ritual at the Summer Solstice is putting aside the troubles of the preceeding  year. Due to fire restrictions in public parks, we did this by placing flowers in a "virtual bonfire" in the centre of the circle. The procedure ran thus: we all joined hands and were led by a member of the company in a spiral movement and a repeated chant::

 

            She is luminous, she is white,

            She is shining, crowned with light

 

            He is radiant, he is bright,

            He is rising, he takes flight.

 

On the outer edge of the circle was a pile of flowers, from which we selected as we went  past. From there we spiralled into the centre, where we cast the flowers down again, symbolically ridding ourselves of our troubles. I think I put three flowers on the bonfire, each for an imperfect friendship I wanted to renew and improve.

The chant used in this ritual inevitably got me thinking in a Christological vein. I asked a Wiccan friend whether "she" and "he" were supposed to denote two distinct persons, or masculine and feminine aspects of the same deity. She said, "good question", as I recall. Obviously I was more inclined to, even excited about, the latter interpretation, being in a space of contemplation of gender in relation to God. The former paradigm is more typical of "traditional" Wiccanism (I use the term with caution, as the origin(s) of the Wiccan faith are the subject of much debate), whereby, as my friend put  it, "there's a goddess and a god, and they do it". As a queer witch, this emphasis doesn't particularly suit her either - she tends to concentrate on the various aspects of the goddess.

The formally choreographed part of the evening ended with something a lot like a communion service: we passed around shortbread and apple and blackcurrant juice (to avoid citrus allergies). We also passed around presents which we had all been asked to bring - anonymous but often strangely appropriate. I received a polished piece of amethyst with a list of its attributes: hmmm, I guess sobriety wouldn't hurt me!!

The communion led into a more informal sharing of food as we picnicked inside the circle. I remember cats and home decorating taking prominent roles in the conversation.

To end the ritual, the spirits of the four quarters were invoked again - thanked for their presence and apparently given permission to depart. Then the circle was deconstructed and we put the branches and flowers into the stream, cleaned up our rubbish, and started the hike through the bush back to the "real world".

 

WDT  PROGRAMME

 

This is one of the things which set me on the slippery slope to becoming your Women's Co-ordinator. As I am a woman, a student and a theology graduate, I was earmarked as an ideal delegate for the Women Doing Theology Programme in Manila, August - September 2000. The following are extracts from the diary I kept whilst there.

 

August 26

 

Arriving   in Manila gave me the weirdest feeling of disbelief - me in the Philippines! Ahhrrr, and SCM put me up to this….! I kept bursting into giggles as we landed.

…..

There's no Australian delegate and I feel BIG and pasty. The drive to the convent was amazing - the traffic, jeepneys, sidecars, people, shops, markets…..

 

August 27

 

It occurred to me during our seminar on globalization that feminism's just a word to me, but it begins to make more sense in the context of providing liberation for women in third world countries…..the speaker referred to their "triple oppression" on grounds of class, race and gender.

 

August 28

 

 

I feel like I've sampled practically every form of public transport known to man or woman today.We were driven in a van to a university where we went to a seminar on women in the Church. It was largely in Tagalog, in a large lecture theatre packed with young  female theology students……

Then we took a taxi to the Migrante office for a  press conference about the Department of Foreign Affairs screwing up compensation for Filipinas working in Kuwait who had to leave because of the Gulf War. And in the afternoon we took two jeepneys, a bus and a "tricycle" to Navotas….

Navotas looks so impoverished from the outside, with narrow streets and ramshackle houses, especially those built on stilts above the water, where the "footpaths" are made of wood, some of bamboo. I was terrified they would break under my weight. But most houses seem to have TVs and electric lighting, many fridges, most linoleum. The one we are staying in has a very low ceiling; I've bashed my head once already.

 

 

 

I noticed in the soap operas before dinner that the "ideal" is presented as western-looking - as pale as possible in skin and hair. And ridiculously affluent by comparison to the places I've experienced here.

 

August 29

 

This morning we visited another fishing community in Navotas. We hung out at the place of a woman activist/organizer. It was made of patchworky wood, like the walkways. I met a lovely girl maned Lena, who is 18 and in the first year of a four year course training as a secondary teacher. Copious little children gathered around, fascinated by my whiteness…….

About the TVs, Julius explained to us that they're no indication of affluence because they're so cheap here.

………

 

Later in the day we went to Payatas. It was full of flies. We sat on the porch of the house of the president of a community organization and heard about  people's complaints to the powers that be about the landslide at the dumpsite. They want the government to close the dump so it stops encroaching on their living space, but their complaints aren't likely to be dealt with for a matter of years….

After the "garbalanche" the families directly affected were relocated to a government housing kind of place known as Erap City (after the president I think) and we went there next. Long, straight streets, numbered by block, of homogenous, concrete, single-roomed houses. We went into one and talked to a group of children, who thought I looked like a big doll and farewelled me with "bye bye, Barbie"!!

 

 

 

August 30

 

Morning devotion was very moving, with a lovely song and a ritual which involved collecting "useless" things as a symbol of the oppressed banding together for strength. This somehow got me thinking about the oppressed in my world…queer people…depressed people…

……

I think one of my problems with "feminism" is that being involved in a "women's group" on an issue promotes, in most cases, what I see as unnecessary gender seperatism - unless it's about something which affects only or mostly women, and such things are few. On the other hand, the women's retreat at SCMA national conference was fun. I think if I spent more time with women in that manner I'd appreciate them more…

 

August 31

 

We're having a workshop on feminist theologies, with lots of illustrative examples of women's oppression, including that of Lindy Chamberlain!

 

September 2

 

We had a Muslim ("Moro") woman speaking about the situation in Mindanao. The Muslims have been deprived of land and rights since colonial times and persecuted by the government, with many still being killed by the military. A lot of their land is now occupied by international big business, for example the Dole pineapple plantation and the Firestone rubber plantation.

 

September 3

 

A busy day it was. We had our own jeepney to take us to Church, which was on the University of Manila campus or thereabouts. We looked in on the Catholic Church where a young choir was singing during communion. The building was like a big round shelter with many large openings, in between which were very indigenous-looking paintings of the stations of the cross. At the gate people were selling food and sweet-smelling flowers.

Then we went to the English service at the ecumenical Church of the Risen Lord. It was a modern, arched building with windows down the sides, making me feel like the building was inside and exotic conservatory.

….

 

POSTSCRIPT

 

Yay this newsletter is finished only a term after I promised it!! I blame disease, technology and Canada!

I'll try to get another one out  before National Conference - you will all flood me with wonderous material for this of course!!!

In the meantime, Tess from SCM Canterbury-Lincoln has very sagaciously suggested I urge you all to check out the Women's Resource Centre website : www.womanspirit.org.nz.

Have a fab Easter everyone!