I created this altered image from an image I found on Pixabay.com by deysanz. I added special effects and text (my own words) and watermarked the image with the url of this site using the free version of graphic editing software at picmonkey.com.
For too many decades I saved things from long ago, we do it not because the object brought me pleasure but out of a sense of obligation to ancestors that cared enough to preserve the item.
Largely because I am an info nerd and love to study how meaning is generated, it finally dawned on me that I can enjoy the thought of the item when the item is not present.
A thing that is quite similar to the actual thing that creates pleasurable thought can stand in for that thing. I may no longer have the chair in which my mother, grandmother, and even her mother, sat in with their books and learned to read, but I can find one similar to it because it was from a Sears catalog in the 1890s and not a particularly rare item.
The thoughts of my own readings in that chair, and the idea of connection to reading across generations and to matrilineal ancestors I never met, are what make me smile.
The map may not be the territory, but it can remind us of the territory, and that does not even begin to look at how a map is another level of territory in and of itself.
We can tell stories that bring long gone things and times to life for others in a vivid fashion. Sometimes the idea of a thing is more important than the actual item.
Sacred Feminine
To talk about the feminine divine in today’s world, I think it is helpful to look at a basic definition of what sacred means.
sacred
adjective
1 the priest entered the sacred place: holy, hallowed, blessed, consecrated, sanctified, venerated, revered; archaic blest.
2 sacred music: religious, spiritual, devotional, church, ecclesiastical. ANTONYMS secular, profane.
3 the hill is sacred to the tribe: sacrosanct, inviolable, inviolate, invulnerable, untouchable, protected, defended, secure.
The sacred feminine is lacking in today’s world. Is there any treatment of women that shows any inviolable veneration, or reverence, of woman in the world? It is not just men who have no understanding of the sacred nature of life givers, women have lost it too, if we ever had it. Evidence from early human culture suggests that wonder and appreciation of women was present. The red ochre covering the figure when it was found points to the piece being associated with a sacred rite. The figure is feminine. There is some element of the sacred feminine that was evident to those who created it and to those people who look at it today. More than that we cannot know with certainty.
We do not advocate for one view of religion or spiritual interpretation. Women’s legacy takes in all humans and all human belief. We can say that many of the dominant religions have a decidedly patriarchal orientation. We can also say we know that this was not always the case. This does not mean that there was a matriarchal orientation in beliefs prior to that.
Either/or scenarios need not be the predominant understanding of what is correct. Perhaps there is no correct. Wonder, appreciation, respect and value rarely are found in exclusive pronouncements of right and wrong.
As we re-write our legacy to more of what we believe it should be, I personally hope we include the decentralized, communally accessible feminine sacred that resides within the bond between child and mother.
—
April A to Z Blogging Challenge, The letter S, Day 19
Juggling Jackets and Hijab
After thinking about how best to discuss the role that clothing plays in women’s culture, I decided to look at two contemporary pieces of clothing that say much about the how clothing expresses some of the most basic information about how women interact with, shape and are shaped by the clothing.
Both are worn primarily to convey a cultural message to individuals beyond the personal sphere of family, home, and intimate interaction.
The Jacket
The first item of clothing is the jacket.
Clothing is short hand, so to speak, it denotes so much information at such a basic level that it is easy to forget all the messages that clothing conveys before the wearer says the first word or makes initial eye contact.
All discussion of the fashion industry aside, this is about cultural information embedded in visual assessment at a distance of gender or method of livelihood.
For this article I am talking about suit jacket or business attire that shifted from male to female wear en masse first in the 1970s, became mandated in the 1980s, de rigueur in the 1990s, and is on its way out this decade in this millennium. The absolutely best article about this was written by Katherine Boyle and published in the Style section of the Washington Post in 2012. Women proclaimed their status as white collar workers by wearing suit jackets. Most often this first wave equal rights claiming managerial women for the most nondescript gray or blue jacket that proclaimed, “I am no different the average person (male) who works here.” Or from the perspective of men supporting the trend, “You must blend in completely and not disturb the status quo, if you wish to be accepted here.”
The Hijab
The second item is the hijab. In Arabic the word hijab simply means covering and comes from ḥajaba ‘to veil.’
Veil, as in the veil worn by brides in western culture.
Cover as in head covering, a practice observed through the wearing of hats by Christian European and American women in public until the early 20th Century, and in churches until the mid-late 20th Century.
To participants in a culture, analysis of a custom can smack of dishonor, but no such motivation is intended within this analysis.
There is the blending in as just one of a group, where individuality is down-played, in wearing stock, non-descript, unadorned scarves covering hair, neck, and upper bodice. Both jackets and hijab serve to downplay individuality , disguise femininity, and do not have to be worn indoors with family.
The similarity of some of these functions should enlighten a few westerners who think that there is something archaic about another culture’s practice when evidence of a practice drawn from similar motivations can be found in western culture as well.
Of course differences can be found in such practices. But so can similarities be found, if we bother to look.
Interpretation of women’s wear might not be as cut and dried as one would think at first appearance.
Perhaps any person who writes or discusses a material aspect of culture would do well to step back and think of it as an aspect of material culture, then give consideration to what we are overlooking by viewing it as a bland normative structure rather than as a communication-rich container of information.
—–
The letter “J” in the A to Z Blogging Challenge.
Girls Dream, Women Plan
Follow my blog with Bloglovin
Girls dream of their weddings and begin a planning process that can last for decades. We think about becoming a wife, mother, walking our education and career paths, where we want to travel, and where we live. Our wants have lots of planning and dream time. As we write the book of our lives we sometimes forget that we actually can do the writing, recording and create and frame our own lives to be whatever we want. Sometimes we spend decades planning the wrong things. But as the first group of women to be creating our life stories in this digital information age with its instantaneous global communication we can collectively publish the information our mothers, grandmothers, and their foremothers were unable to collect and preserve.
I am so thankful to be alive at this time. It has never been easier to wrap up a big beautiful present and give it to ourselves and the people we love. We are the first generation of women to mature during the Age of Information. Yes, it is a heady process to create the path a thousand generations will walk, but is it not the most glorious act of universal love and trust to be given this opportunity to shape a process?
We are writing our history the history of women for the very first time. When this awareness dawned on me I was absolutely awestruck. Women have never had a history. History is most often the chronicle of lines drawn and battles waged. The names of men who planned and waged the battles or drew the lines are writ down in the story and on rare occasion a woman’s name is salted into the mix when she, often as a last gasp effort, maintained the lines or held a territory when no proper male was available to do so. Elizabeth the 1st comes to mind as does Joan of Arc, perhaps even Kuan Yin. These were not and are not insignificant female entities!
What amazes me most about this new process is that people are not aware of how life, and indeed planet-changing, this process is. The most minute efforts dedicated to building a love-filled future that draws on the experiences and wisdom of women will have tremendous influence over our collective future.
This may seem a bit esoteric and that is okay, because, like a mother’s love, building a history exists at many different levels.
Let me share an example from my own life. I grew up hearing stories about Aunt Kit, my Great Grandmother’s sister. These stories were mainly associated with items in my mother’s house. A pie safe and a school bell were some of my mother’s treasures. She gave them to me early on in my early adulthood. I am unsure whether she gave them to me to insure they would travel along our matrilineal family tree, or whether I wanted to see them travel along with our mitochondrial DNA through time and asked if I might have them.
I am so glad I did this when she was in her seventies and I was young. It would not have worked out later. The intentions of my mother for her earthly possessions were shattered and scattered through mishandling by those in charge of her legal and medical affairs at the end of her life and her estate after she passed on.
But I have the beautiful tones of a bright, clear brass school bell and the hand-crafted safe-house for generations of pies and cakes. Education and nourishment. My feminine biological ancestors. These are treasures because they embody and evoke stories and love over and through generations. They keep the connections with us and help us tell our stories so that our future daughters, and sons, will have the best of us as well as those who have come before to draw upon as they journey through life.