one strong womon indeed…

mary mackillop was canonized australia’s first saint today… no mean feat for a strong, independent, feisty womon born in the 1840s...

she was born in fitzroy, victoria in 1842, the eldest of 8 children... she started work as a clerk in a stationery firm at 14, and soon became the primary provider for her family – her father was frequently absent, at one time mortgaging the family farm and leaving the family to fend for themselves while he gallivanted off to scotland for 17 months...

at 18 she became a ‘governess’ to cousins in penola, south australia (a family who appear to have been quite affluent for the time)...

she held a deep commitment to education and social justice for everyone and it was here she had the space, resources and ability to include the poor and under-privileged in her schooling activities… it was also here that she came in contact with fr julian woods… according to sr marie foal, author of Mary Mackillop: biography...

“Mary and Father Woods had a very close relationship.

"I think they loved each other very deeply," she said.

"Father Woods was such a charismatic character that when he moved to Adelaide, according to Mary, many of the mothers of the town locked their doors when they saw Father Woods coming past, because they didn't want their daughters to be running off and joining the Josephites."

in 1866 they opened the first free catholic school in penola, and the next year they formed the sisters of st joseph, the first religious order to be founded by australians, known as the josephites, and affectionately called the ‘brown joeys’ - they chose to wear a brown habit rather than the usual black one - they even had their own josephite emblem - now i'd say that was definitely 'making a statement'!!!

of course, there was a lot of resistance to the order from the clergy – religious orders were always controlled by the local bishops, but the 'brown joeys' insisted on governing themselves with mary as mother superior – a ‘slap in the face’ to the hierarchy…

nothing changes within the priesthood apparently - mary was excommunicated after 4 years with the josephites for daring to go public with claims of child sexual abuse by fr ambrose patrick keating from the kapunda parish…

 
according to an article MacKillop banished after uncovering sex abuse "The Vicar General subsequently sent Father Keating back to his home country of Ireland, where he continued to serve as a priest.

Father Paul Gardiner, who has pushed for MacKillop's canonisation for 25 years, says Father Keating's fellow Kapunda priest Father Horan swore revenge on the nun for uncovering the abuse.

"The story of the excommunication amounts to this: that some priests had been uncovered for being involved in the sexual abuse of children," he said.

"The nuns told him (fr woods) and he told the Vicar General who was in charge at the time and he took severe action.”

"And Father Horan, one of these priests, was so angry with this that he swore vengeance - and there's evidence for this - against Woods by getting at the Josephites and destroying them."

Father Horan was by now working for Adelaide's Bishop Shiel and urged him to break the sisters up by changing their rules.

When MacKillop refused to comply, she was banished from the church at the age of 29.

"Mary was not excommunicated, in fact or in law. She submitted to a farcical ceremony where the Bishop had ... lost it," Father Gardiner said.

"He was a puppet being manipulated by malicious priests. This sounds terrible but it's true."

Five months later Bishop Shiel was gravely ill and dying. From his deathbed he instructed that MacKillop be absolved and restored.”

note the priest was sent home to continue child abuse while mary was excommunicated!!!!! typical - and they still get moved around to continue their criminal behaviour today (now mary would be horrified at the extent of sexual abuse within the church - and at how long it's taken for them to acknowledge and start to address!!!!) and yes, she was un-excommunicated, but there were constant battles with the church hierarchy…

broken rites australia helps victims of church-related sex-abuse, and they confirm and expand on the above in their article Church sex-abuse victims see Mary MacKillop as their patron saint...

education wasn’t the order's only function - they also founded hospitals and orphanages, provided shelters for the homeless, former prostitutes and unmarried mothers. with no funding, they raised all of the money themselves - mostly by begging… property deeds have just been released showing mary mackillop to be a savvy investor – she had bought 11 properties with monies raised by the order and by going into debt (view youtube clip here)… definitely another ‘thorn in the side’ for ‘the powers that be’ – they would have preferred these monies go into the church coffers!!!

she died in 1909 – so it’s taken 101 years for the church to recognise her… "MacKillop's recognition as Australia's first saint might have come 20 years earlier if not for a delay that is still formally unexplained but says much about the tribulations the Melbourne-born nun faced at the hands of her male colleagues in the Catholic Church." from an article Cover-up held back Mary MacKillop's cause for decades...

growing up in a different era to mary i have a passionate hatred of misogynistic, patriarchal institutions, and i have to wonder had she lived in an era where womyn had less strictures placed on them and more opportunities available to them, would she have become a nun? somehow i doubt it… i don’t doubt that she would have been an advocate for the underprivileged no matter what, but let’s face it, there was very little scope in the mid-1800s for womyn to do anything in their own right - and people actually feared religion and abusive men less that unmarried, unencumbered womyn, so being a 'bride of christ' afforded them the ability to travel further and outreach to more people… would she be happy with all the ‘hoo-haa’ this sainthood shit is creating? i doubt it - i think she would prefer her legacy be the continued support of those in need, and that her order continue to make a difference in peoples lives…

ohhh, she was also an advocate for a womon’s right to vote and once attained, she encouraged all 'her nuns' to vote… “It is the duty of all of us to vote,” she wrote to her sisters in 1903. “Find out who are the members proposed for election and vote for those who are considered most friendly to the Church and to Religion. Every so called Catholic is not the best man.” – bet the hierarchy didn’t like that either!!!!!

goddamn she was one helluva womon taking on the misogynistic, patriarchal church hierarchy – she certainly deserves recognition here as one strong sister…

variations on a theme...

the origins of valentine's day and its traditions have been blurred over the centuries so it's hard to glean the actual facts as 'history' has constantly been altered by the prevailing 'powers that be' (and as a consquence 'herstory' has been well and truly buried within the annals of time) ... there are variations on the theme but consensus has its origin as a pagan fertility festival... but in honour of which deity?

"The tradition of Valentine's Day is believed to have originated from the pagan customs of the Third Century or Fourth Century B.C., when the Parentalia and Feralia Festivals of Purification were celebrated in Ancient Rome between February 13 and February 18. This was also the time of a Fertility Festival which celebrated a young man's rite of passage and involved animal sacrifices and fertility rituals. February 13, the opening day of the festivals, was dedicated to peace, love and household goods. February 14, the second day of Parentalia was called the Lupercalia... a day some sources believe was dedicated to Juno-Lupa, the She-Wolf." ... read more here... 

ovid wrote “A she-wolf which had given birth to her whelps came, wondrous to tell, to the abandoned twins. She halted and fawned on the tender babes with her tail, and licked into shape their two bodies with her tongue. The she-wolf (lupa) gave her name to the place, and the place gave the name to the Lupacalia. Great is the nurse for the milk that she gave.” from an essay of Lupacalia

this, from an article lupercalia, she-wolf - "The rite began in the cave of the She-Wolf in the city of Rome where legend had it that the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, had been suckled by the wolf before they were found by a shepherd. The sacred fig tree grew in front of the cave. Vestals brought to the site of the sacrifice the sacred cakes made from the first ears of the last years grain harvest.

Two naked young men presided over the sacrifice of a dog and a goat. With the bloody knife, their foreheads were smeared with blood, then wiped clean with wool dipped in milk. The young men laughed and girded themselves in the skin of the sacrificed goat. Much feasting followed. Finally, using strips of the goat skin, the young men ran, each leading a group of priests, around the base of the hills of Rome, around the ancient sacred boundary of the old city called the pomarium.

During this run, the women of the city would vie for the opportunity to be scourged by the young men as they ran by, some baring their flesh to get the best results of the fertility blessing (you can see why the Christian church tried so hard to get this ritual banned, but it was so popular that it continued for quite some time under the new regime)"...

according to wikipedia the festival derives from "Lupercus .. a god sometimes identified with the Roman god Faunus, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pan. Lupercus is the god of shepherds. His festival, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple on February 15, was called the Lupercalia. His priests wore goatskins. The second-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr mentions an image of "the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus,"nude save for the girdle of goatskin, which stood in the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf. There, on the Ides of February, a goat and a dog were sacrificed, and salt mealcakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins were burnt." ... same festival, different deity (female usurped by male!)


and then this allusion to female sexuality and connection to nature in  She-Wolves, Lupercalia, and Prostitutes - "Etymologically, Luperci, Lupercalia, and Lupercal all relate to the Latin for 'wolf' lupus, as do various Latin words connected with brothels. The Latin for she-wolf was slang for prostitute. The legends say that Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf in the Lupercal. Servius, a 4th century pagan commentator on Vergil, says that it was in the Lupercal that Mars ravished and impregnated the twins' mother."

Juno-Lupa was only one of the many epithets of  Juno - meaning 'vital force' - a juno is also the term given to the protecting guardian spirit of females.

Juno is the roman counterpart to the greek Hera.

"The month of February was sacred to Juno Februata, the Goddess of the 'fever' (febris in Latin) of love in ancient Pagan Rome. She was also the goddess of women and of marriage. feb 14 was her festival day. At that time, a box was provided from which single men could draw a "billet" -- a small piece of paper on which a woman's name was written. The couple would then form a temporary liaison for the erotic games to follow. They would remain partners for the following 12 months. Sometimes marriages resulted from this practice." ... http://www.religioustolerance.org/valentine1.htm

"With the advent of Christianity, priests attempted to replace such ancient heathen practices. In the Fifth Century A.D., the Church resolved to abolish this pagan celebration by creating its own holiday around the same date and selecting a saint who was remembered for his devotion to love. In A.D. 496, Pope Gelasius outlawed the Lupercian Festival, but cleverly retained the Juno Februata lottery. However, in order to lend the festivities Christian meaning and eliminate the pagan overtones, the drawing of saints' names were substituted for the names of unmarried girls. The names were placed into an urn or box and then young people (both male and female) drew a name from the container. During year which followed, the youths and maidens were supposed to emulate the life of the Saint whose name they had drawn. It took some time for this new tradition to garner popularity" ... http://www.novareinna.com/festive/valentine.html

 

it's been fascinating reading, and i do like the 'she-wolf' representation - of course i can't pass up the opportunity of adding another lovely wolf graphic!

before i finish, i have to acknowledge another celebration today - chinese new year - based on the lunisolar calendar - with 2010 being the year of the tiger...

but with as few as 3,200 surviving in the wild it's not looking good for the survival of these magnificent creatures by the next year of the tiger in 2022... read about their plight here 

happy  lunar  new  year,   cheers... 

Melting moments...

Did your world feel like this the last few days???

I know I felt like this after 3 days of 42+ degrees!!!!

far out, let's hope no more melting temperatures... I don't cope very well... neither does me old girl Allie!!!! and that sort of heat can wreak havoc on a person's thermoregulation...

on the relaxing, leisure side of life....

I've been reading a few biographies lately...


Cups with no handles : memoirs of a grassroots activist by Carolyn Landon

The true story of Bette Boyanton, born in St. Kilda in 1921, feminist and activist -she tried to organise the Commonwealth Match Factory women (girls would probably be more apt for that era) into the union in the late 30s - a fighter against social injustice all her life - in her later life, having, for health and family reasons, moved to the country and, having been inspired by the women's liberation movement’s campaign for women’s learning houses where "under-educated women organised their own classes in craft, drama, creative writing, first aid, nutrition, cooking, history, art, politics, health and other issues" - she was instrumental in setting up the first rural neighbourhood house - the Warragul Neighbourhood House, now called Warragul Community House.

I loved reading about her life and nominated this as my favourite summer read on the SLV voting site!!!

Connie's secret : the true story of a shocking murder and a family mystery at a time when appearances were everything by Anne Lovell

It was February 1939 when Connie Sommerlad was butchered and her brother left for dead in their family farmhouse in rural Tenterfield. The murder was brutal... Jack Kelly, a worker on the Sommerlad property, found guilty of the murder, was to become the last person to be hanged in New South Wales... but there's more to Connie's life than her death!!!!

There's a secret involved - but I'm not going to tell it here!!!! This is a real family-saga-mystery-thriller... let's not forget - it's 1939 Australia - women's place in society was that of 'damned whore or god's police' - so it's a really big secret - so read the book and find out about Connie's life - it's interesting, and very, very sad!!!!

The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy

What more can I say??? It's Judith Lucy...

I love her dry (and dark) sense of humour. She says in her postscript that someone said to her after seeing her perform and telling jokes about her parents that she "must hate her family"... she was horrified - she loves them but has no problems seeing them as a bit weird - don't we all feel that way about our families - at least some of the time????

I think my family's weird - but it's weird in a good way - I'm sure there's a lot of comedy that could be found in most family situations... anyway, I got quite a few laughs and some nostalgic flashbacks from her memories...

if only I could stay at home all summer and read... oooh, and maybe watch dvds tooooo....

I watched a documentary - Taxi to the dark side - about the inhumanity and brutality of the torture and interrogation policies and practices of the american "intelligence" agencies (a misnomer if ever I've heard one!!!) and the military (heavily 'encouraged' by a conservative Bush administration!!!) perpetrated against those considered 'terrorist threats' by christian zealots - from Bagram to Abu Ghraib, to Guantanamo Bay detention camp... it's disgusting... it's powerful - I highly recommend it...

I was reminded of a book I read some time ago... "The men who stare at goats" by Ron Jonson - it's along the same theme... and I just discovered while googling that it's being made into a movie, 'in production now', with George Clooney, Ewen McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and a cast of 1000s apparently (not really - but there's a helluva lot of names in the credits on imdb... now that will be interesting - due out in December 2009!!!

all I need to do now is decide what to read...

just finished The keepsake by Tess Gerritsen for a quick, edge of seat mystery...

Sailor 'Lil has recommended Poppy Z. Brite... her writing is described as 'dark fantasy' and 'vampiric erotica'... one of my favourite books has been "The witching hour" from the Mayfair Witches series by Anne Rice... I'd call that dark fantasy - it was definitely erotic... so if she writes in a similar vein (huh!!!) to that, I think I might like her... anyway I've decided to read "Love in vein" - edited by Poppy with a few fantasy writer's I like (but never saw as writers of erotica) in the mix... so I'll let you know what I think...

# 25 - Letterpop!!

Letterpop can be used "to create eye-popping newsletters, actionable presentations, irresistible invitations, beautiful product features, sizzling event summaries, informative club updates, lovely picture collages, and a whole lot more."

I can see the value if you're unable to access powerpoint or publisher - you can add pages, use the same or different layout for each page.

Here's something I quickly put together - thought I'd make me mother 'famous' (although don't know if she'll get a buzz out of it or not!!!)