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Gaian Rants | ||||
Reviews The Burning Times by Jeanne Kalogridis; Published by Scribner Paperback Fiction, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2002 The Burning Times takes place in 1357 in medieval France during the Inquisition, a period of history that I take personally. There’s something deep within me that remembers and painful though it is, I want those memories for they tell me something about myself and what those of us who love the Earth are up against, even today. The heroine is Sybille, a young woman with the gift of Touch and Sight raised on the surface to be a pious Christian and in secret initiated into the ways of the Goddess by her paternal grandmother, Noni. It is night as the tale begins and Sybille, known at this time in her life as Mother Marie Francoise, the much-loved abbess of the Sisters of Saint Francis of the Queen of Heaven, is galloping on the road to Carcassonne, pursued by officials of the Inquisition. Her intention is not to escape but to allow herself to be captured for that is her Fate and the Goddess’s will. We learn Sybille’s story as she “confesses” to the scribe, Brother Michel. Sybille was born in 1335, in the middle of a raging summer storm. She emerged from the womb with a caul over her face, a sign that she was blessed by the Goddess. Her parents, as well as her grandmother, are members of what Noni calls the Race, people gifted with one or more of the three Talents: Sight, Touch, Dreaming. Many of those accused of heresy and burned at the stake were members of the Race which the Inquisition threatens with extinction. Noni is a very powerful healer and seer and knows that the continued existence of the Race will one day be in her granddaughter’s hands. Sybille’s father is a member of the Circle that meets every full moon in the olive grove, sacred during the day to Mary, mother of Christ, and in the evenings to the Goddess whom they call Diana. Sybille’s mother, on the other hand, is afraid of her heritage and has embraced the rigid Christian doctrines making her a danger to her daughter and mother-in-law. These were times when villagers, young and old alike, gathered together in the town square to picnic and play while “heretics” were burned at the stake. Times when the dreaded plague and the Hundred Year’s War ravaged cities and countryside alike, leaving the stench of death — and fear — in their wake. Times when anything unexplained was attributed to witches in league with the Devil. As Sybille’s story unfolds, the reader is transported effortlessly to this painful period in our not-so-distant past that saw so many good women and men brutally tortured and killed. More than once I felt myself in another time with tears running down my cheeks. So skilled is Kalogridis at recreating the horrors of the Inquisition that I was tempted to put the book down. But the story is so compelling I could not. Don’t you either — for the tale is rich with magic and mystery, love and destiny. Your hope will be restored as Sybille discovers and masters her special gifts, aided first by Noni and later by others, and ultimately accepts her Fate, to be burned at the stake as a witch, in order to save her Beloved, Lord to her Lady, with whom she is destined to make the sacred marriage to ensure that the ways of the Goddess are not lost forever. The story of Sybille is fiction, but I believe some version has occurred over and over through the ages, including our own. Like Sybille, we are called to face our deepest fears. And today the stakes are very high indeed, for the Earth is threatened and it requires the purest love untainted by fear (or any negative emotion) to save Her.
The Hundredth Woman by Kate Green, iUniverse, Inc., 2003 Last fall I was asked to interview author Kate Green about her first book, The Hundredth Woman. I’ve conducted many interviews over the years but never one with a writer of fiction. Weaving women’s history from the witch hunting craze in Europe with the lives of three modern day women, Kate has created an action-packed adventure sure to entertain. But The Hundredth Woman is more than “just” fiction because the world she writes about is our world, the trials and tribulations of the characters are ours as well, and their process of awakening and growth can be ours, too. Kate asks, “What if women hold the key to our future?” By the end of the book, it’s clear that we do. Without giving too much away, can you describe the book’s main characters? KG: Clarissa is a Cherokee environmental activist and single mother in the city facing racial difficulties as well as being bombarded with wisdom from her grandmother. Serena is a cranky, eccentric, brilliant older woman who lives in a shack although she’s a multimillionaire. Morgan, the most stable figure in the book, is in private practice as a therapist. Her life is good but it doesn’t feel right because she wants to be absolutely involved in her life purpose and she knows she hasn’t found it. All the characters seem to be looking for something that will help them become more whole. KG: True. Serena has the burning need to find the daughter she abandoned at birth. Clarissa has to stop the nuclear waste dump from destroying her town. All three have an aching need to do something but none of them believes they have what it takes to do it. How did the book come to you? KG: Brigid, who’s a characther from the past, enters the story after the book is well underway through a dream Morgan has. That dream about Brigid and the experience Morgan had of Brigid’s life was my first experience with the book. And it was very powerful. Did you have that dream yourself? KG: Yes. I immediately got up from the dream and started writing stream of consciousness. When I look back at that first draft of the dream it doesn’t even make sense. Yet when I showed it to a house guest who was here at the time her eyes were streaming with tears when she finished reading it. There were times as I read the book that I felt as though you were channeling from some universal source and the dream was one of them. KG: Years of listening to women in my practice as they speak about the deepest matters of their souls had a big role to play in that. I also believe there are truths that live inside us, running the show for good and for ill but when we bring them to consciousness they can no longer run us. The witch burnings in Europe, for example, weren’t really about witches, they were about gender. Eighty percent of the people killed, and some estimates run as high as 800,000, were women. There were villages where every female was killed. I have yet to meet a woman who couldn’t trace some of her fears or blocks back to the burning times. That’s why it was so important to give women’s history air time in the book, so women could breathe into that horror, embrace the beauty and strength of those women, and move on. In the book there is a sense of urgency. KG: We’re not going to survive as a species without women getting a lot stronger a lot faster. That’s one of the major reasons I wrote the book. We need more women in places of power, and we need more women to come home to themselves. We each have a role. The Hundredth Woman can be ordered directly from the author at www.hundredthwoman.com or from Amazon.com Resources Talking Leaves: A Journal of our Evolving Ecological Culture Published by the Lost Valley Educational Center in Dexter, Oregon, Talking Leaves brings together practical information, personal stories, local and global perspectives, insight, and inspiration. The theme for the latest issue (Fall/Winter 2003/2004) is “Voices of the Earth: People in Harmony” and contains interviews with Pete Seeger and Mickey Hart. Since Lost Valley is both an intentional community and an educational center, you’ll also find articles related to building community, ecological issues and politics, book and CD reviews, and more. Contact: Lost Valley Educational Center, 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431; www.lostvalley.org. BIONEERS is an educational nonprofit that strengthens and expands networks of practical visionaries working on behalf of people and the Earth. Projects include Bioneers Radio Series, Young Eco-Hero Award, and an annual conference. This year’s conference is called “Revolution from the Heart of Nature” and takes place October 14-17 in San Rafael, CA. For more info: 1-877-246-6337 (toll free); www.bioneers.org. Healing the War Between the Genders: the Power of the Soul-Centered Relationship by Linda Marks is a beautifully written and wonderfully practical book that will help anyone gain a greater understanding of themselves and those they love. Healing includes personal stories from Linda’s practice, as well as exercises you can do alone and with your partner. Highly recommended for all human beings! To order send check (made out to) Linda Marks, 3 Central Avenue, Newton, MA 02460. For more info: www.heartpowerpress.com. Cost: $20.00 plus shipping: $3.00/media mail, $5.00/priority.
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