From chapter 5 of Amazon Grace, pp. 43–54.
From chapter 5 of Amazon Grace, pp. 43–54.
Starchase: a Nag-Gnostic Intergalactic Gallop; an Amazonian Astral Voyage.
—Wickedary, p. 169
Daly’s final work, Amazon Grace, published in 2006, sings with voices from the feminist past, present, and future, as well as from Daly’s own panoply of influences. One theme that was new to her—and of deep conversational interest to her in her last decade—concerned “morphic resonance.” In this excerpt, she wants that deep background connection that is morphic resonance to carry across time and space. Thus in her capacious Background, Daly found room—and she admitted this was odd—for Susan B. Anthony and Jacques Maritain to Spark together. The shock that is shocking enough turned out to be Realizing Be-ing.
—Editors
The extent and depth of damage inflicted by phallocracy on Self-consciousness is ineffable and unfathomable. To begin to See this, and then to Name it and Act consistently with this Seeing and Naming, women may require an experience of great shocks which can move us into a state of shock. Our Foresister Susan B. Anthony believed this. In 1870 she wrote:
So while I do not pray for anybody or any party to commit outrages, still I do pray, and that earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position; which will force them to break their yoke of bondage, and give them faith in themselves, which will make them proclaim their allegiance to women first; which will enable them to see that man can no more feel, speak, or act for women than could the old slaveholder for his slave.1
In the first decade of this century Susan B. Anthony’s prayer of 1870 might seem to have been partially answered. G. W. Bush and his sordidly submissive Environmental Protection Agency delivered a “terrific shock” to this nation by abandoning all attempts at denying that climate change is real, ongoing, and man-made, and then, without missing a beat, continuing to insist on NO CHANGE in US policy that would deal with this horrendous threat. Bush & company even suggested that we can “adapt” and rely upon “voluntary efforts” to reduce US emissions of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants.2
The “shock” of this ongoing travesty is experienced not only by some women, of course, but also by some men, many of whom have been outstanding opponents of environmental destruction. So how does this connect with Susan B. Anthony and her prayer for a shock that would startle women, specifically? To work our way toward an answer to this complex question, consider the implications of the fact that the successive heads of the EPA appointed by G. W. have conveniently functioned as token torturers of our Sister the Earth and her nonhuman and human inhabitants.
What feelings and thoughts does this simple fact elicit in a woman who identifies as a Feminist and who cares profoundly about the fate of the Earth and its inhabitants? There is a sense of disappointment and horror. But often this is blended with a bland, matter-of-fact, sophisticated acceptance of “reality”: “Of course,” says our bland feminist, “they’re Bush appointees, so what can you expect?”
Over a quarter of a century ago I published in Gyn/Ecology an analysis of assimilation, psychic numbing, token torturers, and the state of total tokenism. It may be that in the expanding state of total tokenism in this century most women have become incapable of experiencing great shocks. Perhaps the worse the shocks women have had to endure, the greater our susceptibility to psychic numbing. In the early twenty-first century the media’s portrayals of everyday atrocities against women and nature all over the globe have given heightened meaning to Hannah Arendt’s expression “the banality of evil.”
This observation leads to the thought that in the state of shock we are knocked into an unshockable state.
The self-contradiction and dilemma attached to the condition of “shock” would seem to put a damper on Susan’s famous prayer for a “terrific shock.” Was she praying for the wrong thing? Not exactly; I believe that her use of the word “shock” is an indication that she was on the trail of Something Big.
Although Susan could not then adequately articulate the Wondrous Positively Shocking Reality which can hurl us beyond the self-contradiction, she intuited its existence. Indeed, her heroic life is itself a manifestation of this Reality.
The dilemma arises from hearing and saying the word shock only from a foreground perspective. Shocks that are caused by the deadbeat daddies of daddyland are simply not Terrific enough. Since they are mere foreground phenomena, they inevitably keep us stuck in a maze of contradictions. The “outrages” of fatherland, no matter how hideous and destructive, cannot of themselves be the answer to Susan’s prayer. They cannot Shock us Out of the phallocentric foreground and into the Magnificent and Infinitely Shocking Background. For this, something Other is needed.
All Wild creatures and Other realities participate in Be-ing, by which I mean “Ultimate/Intimate Reality, the constantly Unfolding Verb of Verbs which is intransitive, having no object that limits its dynamism.”3 The Terrific Shock of encountering and Realizing Be-ing is utterly unlike the foreground shocks which keep us imprisoned and circling the masters’ mazes. The Shock of meeting Be-ing is simple and direct. It is absolutely surprising and joyous. It is Self-transformative and changes Everything. It is unforgettable. It opens pathways that go on and on. It makes one Realize how Lucky she is. The Prayer that comes to mind is “Thank you! Thank you!”
Be-ing manifests in natural creatures. A clover blossom announces: “I am.” The girl or woman sitting on the grass who just “happens” to Hear these words is astonished but not afraid. The simplicity and naturalness of the event—its ordinariness—does not conflict with its extraordinariness. It simply Is, and subtly everything changes.4
This means that the woman who has met the ontologically articulate clover blossom (or pebble or blade of grass or tree or piece of ice in the snow) gradually is enabled also to meet the foreground shocks in a different way. Having encountered Background Reality that is everywhere in nature, Be-Speaking in the Chorus of Be-ing, she becomes more Adventurous. She is surrounded by Natural Friends, as she follows her own path. She is a creator. When it is necessary she confronts the evil foreground world, taking on the attackers and oppressors of women and nature with confidence and Daring.
She is aided always, all ways by Amazon Grace, which manifests as an ontological experience.
In a footnote in Beyond God the Father I commented on Jacques Maritain’s analysis of his “intuition of being”:
Although he was hardly a feminist or social revolutionary, Maritain had an exceedingly fine sensitivity to the power of this intuition, which, if it were carried through to social consciousness, would challenge the world.5
And, I now add, it could be an answer to Susan’s Prayer. On the face of it, linking Jacques Maritain and Susan B. Anthony might seem a bit odd. The result of this linkage might appear to be an Odd Couple. So? We live in an odd world.
The origin of this “marriage” is my own experience and intellectual history as a Radical Feminist philosopher. My own existential encounter with a clover blossom happened when I was about fourteen years old. I was lying on the grass after a dip in a local swimming hole in Schenectady, New York. Suddenly the clover blossom spoke two words. It said: “I am.” I recall being shocked and amazed, but the experience was not heavy. Rather it was apparently casual and it was gentle. I had the impression that the clover blossom was making a statement about itSelf—not trying to show off or overwhelm me but simply making a point. Despite the astonishing speech it had made, which would change my life, it appeared to be, well, just blossoming.
I couldn’t ever forget this experience. I’m not sure whether I told anyone about it at that time. I had never heard of an intuition like this and had no words for this event. But my life was suffused with it. It guided me on paths I was supposed to follow. I know that it was connected with my ever-growing conviction that I wanted to become a philosopher, even though I couldn’t know exactly what that word meant. Certainly it would never have occurred to anyone in those times at Saint Joseph’s Academy, the parochial high school I attended during the 1940s in Schenectady, New York, to speak to a teenage girl about the call to become a philosopher. But it didn’t matter. The clover blossom had taken care of all that.
Then there was my brief but everlasting affair with a hedge on the campus of Saint Mary’s College, at Notre Dame, Indiana. I was about twenty-three and was studying for my doctorate at the School of Sacred Theology, which had been established by the poet Sister Madeleva Wolfe, then president of Saint Mary’s, who wanted to do something about the fact that women were not allowed to study catholic theology for a Ph.D. anywhere in the US.
One morning I happened to walk past a hedge on my way to class. It spoke two words to me. These words were: “Continued existence.” I realized eventually that this was a companion intuition to the earlier one, making explicit the duration of the verb “I am,” which refers to participation in Be-ing. It Announced a Now that always Is.
By the time I encountered Maritain’s work in the early sixties (while studying for my doctorate in philosophy in Fribourg, Switzerland), I was ready for his books on the intuition of being. His work was useful and inspiring. However, with the surging of the Women’s Revolution in the late sixties, and especially in the seventies, eighties, nineties, and—yes—in the twenty-first century, it has become ever more obvious to me that the ontological intuition is about Be-ing the Verb and that it must be “carried through to social consciousness, which will challenge the world.”6
The word being, of course, can function both as a verb and as a noun. When people speak of “the Supreme Being” this refers to a noun. One cannot participate in this. It just hangs “up there.” My use of the hyphen in Be-ing is intended to indicate that I am referring exclusively to the Verb, which is Ultimate/Intimate Reality in which we (all creatures) participate by be-ing ourSelves.
The Terrific Shock that Susan B. Anthony was praying for could not come from encountering the “supreme being” (supreme block). Blocks cannot Shock. Be-ing, on the Other hand, Unblocks/Shocks. It opens the way for infinite possibilities.
Bearing this in mind, we revisit Susan’s pertinent words (cited earlier) for further revelations.
In her remarkable passage Susan describes the reasons for praying for the shock. First, she wanted it “to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position.” The first consequence of the “terrific shock,” then, is that women are startled into self-respect. This would not be an immediate effect of a foreground shock (for example, being molested). Indeed, when we consider the array of feelings associated with such an atrocious event—shame, fear, anger, disappointment, horror—it is unlikely that Self-respect would leap out, since this is precisely what is under attack.
However, if we think about the reaction of a woman who experiences the gift of an Intuition of Be-ing, Susan’s choice of words clearly fits very accurately. The recipient of this revelation has experienced Depth Hearing (Nelle Morton’s expression). She senses that she is Lucky and is honored to have received this grace, and is therefore startled into Self-respect.
Moreover, Susan is completely accurate in her observation that it is such Self-respect that will compel women to see the abject degradation of their present position and give them faith in themselves.
The Self-respect which is elicited when a woman experiences an Intuition of Be-ing naturally compels her to see the grotesque inappropriateness of her degraded position and that of all women. The contrast is glaringly obvious, intolerable, and wrong—so wrong that it forces her to break her insufferable “yoke of bondage.” She is driven to break out, and she is enabled to do this because she has begun to Dis-cover Faith in herSelf. Moreover, her Acts of Seeing and Breaking Out of bondage and gaining faith in herself constitute a continuing Spiraling process, with each Act leading to another. This is the way the dynamism of the Intuition of Be-ing works to recharge the Spiraling of consciousness and action.
Moreover, this Spiraling movement works communally as well as individually. Anthony, a Feminist Activist, wrote this passage in the plural. The use of the plural is particularly interesting to note as a theme: Communal movement is not merely collective. Rather it is interactive. As participants in Be-ing women act upon each Other. The actions of each participant not only spur her on to further Acts: e.g., of Seeing, Breaking Out, and Gaining Faith in herSelf. But also, by these further Acts each woman Gynergizes each other woman. These interactive movements constitute a complex Cosmic Dance of Be-ing. They are participation in the Creative work of the Goddess (or, as some would say, “Goddessing”).
The next Leap in Susan’s analysis of the effects upon women of the “terrific shock” is that (because it will give them faith in themselves) it “will make them proclaim their allegiance to women first.” This is the dramatic Leap to the Core of Radical Elemental Feminism. It is the taboo-breaking, threatening Leap, at the mention of which the fainthearted tremble and turn back. It is at this point that Susan reveals her true identity as Wild Woman, Positively Revolting Hag, Powerful Crone. In the Light and Wind of these words we See/Hear that she is no mere “equal rights feminist.” She is actively participating in the powers and work of the Goddess Nemesis, Elementally disrupting the patriarchal balance of terror, Passionately Spinning/Spiraling Archaic Threads of Gynergy.
Susan is uncompromising: Women who proclaim their allegiance to women first See that “man can no more feel, speak, or act for woman than could the old slaveholder for his slave.” Her speech crescendos:
The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it. O, to compel them to see and feel, and to give them the courage and conscience to speak and act for their own freedom, though they face the scorn and contempt of all the world for doing it!7
It is Time Now for our Deep Hearing of this Great Hag’s Defiant Howl!
Great Foresisters are Be-Speaking to us Now. They are Auguring, Foretelling, Speaking of what will be. They are bringing about psychic/material change by means of words. They are Be-Speaking us further and further into Be-ing.
They are Naming our interconnectedness, which involves Transtemporal/Trans-spatial Consciousness, Communication, Sisterhood, Conversations, Synchronicities, Syn-Crone-icities, Telepathic Travels.
Women who are Trivial enough to Sense and Act upon the messages of our Foresisters can confront the nothingness of the nothing-loving technomaniacs and Realize our Hope in our Selves. We do not feel unfamiliar with the interconnectedness of the quantum universe. Nor are we alienated by the thought that, instead of being empty, space is filled with unseen connections. Indeed, this is our common experience, and it makes possible Faith in the worth of our particular works and acts, which have wide-ranging effects.
While Re-Calling the words and works of our famous Foresisters, we also Sense and acknowledge the achievements of those whose names and creations have been stolen and erased in patriarchal history (even as our own names and creations are being stolen and erased in fatherland today). The influence of our Forgotten Foresisters is felt by Wild Women, who note that in astrology influence means “an emanation of occult power held to derive from stars” (Webster’s). These Foresisters are indeed like Stars whose Light and Spiritual Force flow to us/through us, producing Gynergy. They are our Hidden Power Sources, hurling Secret Weapons to Amazons, pouring into us our true Archaic Heritage, which is the Abundance of Amazon Grace.
As Wild Women actively receive this Heritage we become transmitters as well as creators. We participate in Foresisterhood, passing on the torches of our own tradition. We actualize the answer to Susan’s prayer and to the prayers of all the Foresisters by Seeing, Feeling, Couraging, Speaking, and Acting for our own freedom. By Be-Speaking beyond the scorn and contempt of the fathers’ world, we become the answer.
We also become like Stars, emanating Occult Power, influencing our Sisters. So it is that Trivial Women’s experiences of unseen connectedness also inspire Fantastic Daring and increasing Self-confidence. As Travelers and Weavers in a participative universe we increasingly trust our own judgment even when our reasons are not evident to others.
This progress happens especially when we learn to Sense the presence of morphogenetic fields. Weird Searchers proclaim that through the influence of Prayers and Dreams of all our Foresisters the evolution of Feminist consciousness continues, and these influences do not fall off with distance in space or time. They are Here Now.
The sense of all-pervasive nightmare-ishness did not come all at once. The creepy sense that “something is out of joint” had been present for years/decades/centuries, but it had somehow been possible to tune out the horror, at least enough to relax at times.
By the first decade of the twenty-first century, for some of us at least, the collusion/collision of seemingly disparate horrors had become increasingly obvious. Looking at the first page of The New York Times (or any first page of almost any newspaper) can be a way of getting the big picture “in your face.”
The effect of this barrage of bad news is overwhelming. Typically our reader seeks escape, feeling a sense of helplessness and meaninglessness, perhaps to the point of nausea. Her Rage is somehow blocked, because of an apparent inability to know what connections exist among these disastrous events. Who or what is the source of them? Specifically, no one—certainly not the newspaper—Names the overriding cause of such evils.
Something is missing. It appears that “no one” is able to find a connecting thread among these horrors. Yet thirty years ago (and twenty years ago, and ten years ago, and even ten minutes ago) many women have seen the blatant thread. We have Named it in our multiple and powerful expressions of Gynergy—our books, our classes, our workshops, our speeches, our conversations, our political activism, our mutual support and loyalty to each other. We Named/Name it with the Wicked Old Word patriarchy. For the sake of clarity and convenience to the readers of this book, I will Here and Now Howl Out again the meaning of this word, which I have elaborated upon in Beyond God the Father, in all my books, and definitively defined in the Wickedary as follows:
1: society manufactured and controlled by males: FATHERLAND; society in which every legitimated institution is entirely in the hands of males and a few selected henchwomen; society characterized by oppression, repression, depression, narcissism, cruelty, racism, classism, ageism, [speciesism,] objectification, sadomasochism, necrophilia; joyless society, ruled by Godfather, Son, and Company; society fixated on proliferation, propagation, procreation, and bent on the destruction of all Life 2: the prevailing religion of the entire planet, whose essential message is necrophilia.8
Patriarchy, discredited as passé and associated with the “jargon” of dated “seventies feminism” and the rhetoric of loathsome Radical Feminism, is often looked upon in academic circles as less than unworthy of notice. It is too embarrassingly obvious to deserve mention by the erudite professors and sophisticated graduate students of feminist theory. That foolish term patriarchy MUST BE KEPT BURIED, they assume, together with bustles and bloomers, in the attics of women’s history.
So what sort of Revolting Hag would dig up this threadbare term and haul it out for display in this decade of this century?
I, MARY DALY, AM THE SORT OF EMBARRASSING AND POSITIVELY REVOLTING HAG WHO WOULD DO SUCH AN INAPPROPRIATE ARCHEOLOGICAL DIG, AND I AM DOING IT HERE, NOW!
So the question then arises: Who or what caused (and continues to cause) the discrediting and erasure of a word, such as patriarchy, that so aptly Names the enemy of women and all of the oppressed, including our planet herSelf? Whose interest is served by this discrediting of language that enables women to Be-Speak important connections and subsequently to think and articulate coherent and liberating thoughts? Could it be that such word-suffocation benefits those who also discredit expressions like Radical Feminism? And could it be that such word-obliteration serves the purposes of those who wish to discredit and disappear our Foresisters themselves, thus destroying the possibility of Wild Women connecting with each Other and ourSelves? AND WE DO KNOW THAT FURIOUS FEMALE BONDING COULD OBLITERATE PATRIARCHY ITSELF, DON’T WE?
SO LET’S DO IT!
I leave it to the Courageous reader to answer these questions, trusting that the morphic resonance of our Foresisters of the Past will carry her through the maze of lies, distortions, and silences of the foreground now and into a truly Archaic Present and Future.