Voices of visionary women on power and belief
What is meant by ‘reality’? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable—now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech—and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Piccadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. This is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates. Now the writer, as I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of this reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us.
—Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own
PAULA MARVELLY, creator and editor of The Culturium, has spent many years writing about spirituality, culture and the arts. She has a BA (Hons) degree in English from the University of London and an M.Phil research degree in European Studies from the University of Cambridge. She is also a published author and filmmaker. You can browse her work on Amazon, IMDb, Vimeo and YouTube.
o0o
It is with immense pleasure and gratitude that a book I wrote nearly 20 years ago has been reissued by Watkins Publishing, completely revised with an additional chapter on British novelist, Virginia Woolf. Cover artwork is designed by Francesca Corsini and the audiobook is narrated by award-winning British actor, Polly Lee.
In our contemporary culture when even definitions of what constitutes being a woman itself are being called into question, The Sacred Feminine Through the Ages returns to the beginning of recorded history in order to re-examine how attitudes towards women and the female principle have changed throughout the centuries up to modern times.
Starting with the emergence of written glyphs and symbols known as cuneiform, we embark on an anthological journey comprising poetry, prose, diary entries and letters from the great cultures, ethnicities and religious traditions of the world—Jewish, Christian, Sufi, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Platonic—giving voice to an array of female protagonists, both mythological and flesh and blood reality, together with charting their agonies and ecstasies along the spiritual path.
Garth Davis, Mary Magdalene.
Image: © Transmission Films
‘Henceforth I travel toward Repose,
where time rests in the Eternity of Time;
I go now into Silence.’
Having said all this, Mary became silent,
for it was in silence that the Teacher spoke to her.
—Gospel of Mary Magdalene
Our first port of call is the empire of Mesopotamia and the priestess Enheduanna, whose literary supplications to the moon goddess Innana make her the first recorded writer in history. Next, to ancient Egypt where the formidable pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut etched inscriptions on stone obelisks of her right to rule in a time imbued with patriarchal prejudice. Then, to India and the wise ruminations of female sage Vak, whose immortal words graced the likes of Vedic scripture.
The illustrious Queen of Sheba subsequently takes centre stage with her impassioned proclamations about the nature of wisdom. Next, we hear of the Lesbian poet Sappho with her heartfelt musings on sexual desire and her love for a Greek goddess. Then, the mother of the Buddha, Mahapajapati, and her protestations to be allowed into the Buddhist sangha, something the Enlightened One was not particularly happy about, a position we find difficult to reconcile through our modern, egalitarian perspective.
Later, we read of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles, whom Jesus allegedly loved more than any other of his disciples. Next, the Chinese Buddhist nun Hui-hsü and her ode to the power of meditation. Then, we investigate the laments of Sufi mystic Rabia al-Adawiyya in the desert and her yearning for her Almighty Lord.
Hatshepsut.
Image: Public Domain
The King’s Daughter, God’s Wife, King’s Great Wife,
Lady of the Two Lands, Hatshepsut, says,
‘O my mother, Nut, stretch thyself over me,
that thou mayest place me among the imperishable stars
which are in thee, and that I may not die.’
—Lid of Hatshepsut’s excavated sarcophagus
The tantalizing power of tantric Buddhism is explored with lama Yeshe Tsogyal, consort of Tibetan master Padmasambhava, and then counterpointed with the erotically charged Hindu poetry of Andal and Mirabai for their beloved teacher, the Lord Sri Krishna. We also steep in the alluring complementary manifestations of yin and yang through the verse of Taoist Immortal Sister Sun Bu-er.
Next, we return to mediaeval Europe to examine the flowering of divinely inspired confessional literature through the writings of German abbess Hildegard of Bingen, French beguine Marguerite Porete, English anchorite Julian of Norwich and Spanish Carmelite Teresa of Avila, friend and compatriot of St John of the Cross.
Returning to India, we examine the dedicated lives of the holy Mothers Sarada Devi, wife of Sri Ramakrishna, and Mirra Alfassa, companion of Sri Aurobindo. Finally, the book appraises the transcendental poetry of Emily Dickinson, the passionate writings of Jewish mystic Grace Aguilar, the soul-searching diary entries of Sufi Irina Tweedie and the literary fervour of doyenne of the feminists Virginia Woolf.
Mahapajapati.
Image: Fair Use
Homage to you Buddha,
best of all creatures,
who set me and many others
free from pain.
All pain is understood,
the cause, the craving is dried up,
the Noble Eightfold Way unfolds,
I have reached the state where everything stops.
I have been
mother,
son,
father,
brother,
grandmother;
knowing nothing of the truth
I journeyed on.
But I have seen the Blessed One;
this is my last body,
and I will not go
from birth to birth
again.
Look at the disciples all together,
their energy,
their sincere effort.
This is homage to the buddhas.
Maya gave birth to Gautama
for the sake of us all.
She has driven back the pain
of the sick and dying.
—Mahapajapati, Therigatha
Scattered among these illustrious women are the female deities that have shaped our mythological inheritance—the goddess of creativity Saraswati from India, the goddess of compassion Kuan-yin from China, the goddess of beauty Aphrodite from ancient Greece—who have formed the metaphysical foundations of world history through their feminal words.
In a time period where the number of living female role models is significantly wanting, society choosing instead to venerate the digitally enhanced, self-serving parades of TV entertainers, pop stars and social media influencers, reviving attention towards lost and misunderstood women and celestial beings from the past could not be more urgent or timely.
Indeed, revisiting The Sacred Feminine Through the Ages (formerly Women of Wisdom) has also enabled me to reflect upon what it means to be a woman per se. Putting current debates surrounding the objective etymology of the word aside (a contentious issue I have no wish to engage with), I prefer to dwell instead within the more subjective expression of womanhood and the finesse of the “gentler sex” as she weaves her way through the multifarious roles placed upon her: nurse, mother confessor, seductress, artist’s muse.
Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock, Algerian Girl.
Image: Public Domain
Four great Aspects of the Mother, four of her leading Powers and Personalities have stood in front in her guidance of this Universe and in her dealings with the terrestrial play. One is her personality of calm wideness and comprehending wisdom and
tranquil benignity and inexhaustible compassion and sovereign and surpassing majesty and all-ruling greatness. Another embodies her power of splendid strength and irresistible passion, her warrior mood, her overwhelming will, her impetuous swiftness and world-shaking force. A third is vivid and sweet and wonderful with her deep secret of beauty and harmony and fine rhythm, her intricate and subtle opulence, her compelling attraction and captivating grace. The fourth is equipped with her close and profound capacity of intimate knowledge and careful flawless work and quiet and exact perfection in all things. Wisdom, Strength, Harmony, Perfection are their several attributes and it is these powers that they bring with them into the world . . . To the four we give the four great names, Maheshwari, Mahakali, Mahalakshmi, Mahasaraswati . . .
—Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
And yet, as Virginia Woolf reminds us in her concluding remarks of our journey together, despite identifying and profiting from the heartfelt cries of our forebears, it is vital that we retain the ability to think for ourselves and remain as authentic as possible, that our life’s work should be to investigate the very nature of self we believe ourselves to be.
And thus, through this humble offering of women imbued with visionary power and insightful wisdom, the act of engaging with sacred literature helps us assign meaning to our lives, delivering us from the bondage of ego and lifting us up to the highest good.
Furthermore, by simultaneously, and paradoxically perhaps, exploring the transcendence of singularity together with celebrating the sacred feminine principle, may we find, therefore, a modicum of peace and tranquillity from the slings and arrows of this mysterious world in our quest to find the inherent reality of life.
Irina Tweedie.
Image: Fair Use
8 November
The sunrise, the sunset, the garden, the people, the whole daily life seems outwardly the same. But the values have changed. The meaning underlying it all is not the same as before. Something which seemed intangible, unattainable, slowly, very slowly becomes a permanent reality. There is nothing but Him. At the beginning it was sporadic; later of shorter or longer duration, when I was acutely conscious of it. But now . . . The infinite, endless Him . . . Nothing else is there. And all the beauty of nature which surrounds me is as if only on the edge of my consciousness. Deep within I am resting in the peace of His Heart. The body feels so light at times. As if it were made of the pure, thin air of the snow peaks. This constant vision of the One is deepening and increasing in the mind, giving eternal peace.
—Irina Tweedie, The Chasm of Fire: A Woman’s Experience of Liberation
Through the Teachings of a Sufi Master
Post Notes
- Feature image: Sarada Devi, Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Yeshe Tsogyal,
Public Domain - Watkins Publishing
- Polly Lee
- Francesca Corsini
- Virginia Woolf: A Room of One’s Own
- Agnes Martin: Writings
- Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden & Zen Master Ryokan
- Kathleen Raine: The Land Unknown
- Wassily Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in Art
- Pocket Canons Bible Series
- The Culturium uses affiliate marketing links via the Amazon Associates Programme
