Sinister Wisdom 54
Winter 1994/95
Publisher: Sinister Wisdom, Inc.
Managing Editor: Elana Dykewomon

Editorial Group for #54: Diane Anderson, Elana Dykewomon,
Mara MathContributing editor: Gloria Anzaldua
Volunteer Coordinator: Susan Levinkind
Advertising Coordinator: Jamie Lee Evans
Fulfillment: Dolphin Waletzky
Proofreaders & Typists: Angela Koenig, Carol Ann Baker, Cath Thompson, Jess ica Bu ccia relli, Susan Goldberg, Susan Levinkind, Susan Purcell
Office help, correspondence and accounting: Carol Ann Baker, Laura
Munter-Orabona, Nina Wouk, Susan Lev inkind
Thanks to Bobby Rothschild and Rebecca Kutlin of Tamed Technology
Distribution and mailing crew: Betty Rose Dudley, Cath Thompson,
Dolphin Waletzky, Fan Warren, Hadas Weiss, Jean ne Adleman, Joyce
Pierson, Kate Rosenblatt, Laura Munter-Orabona, Michele Nichols,
Rosemary Hathaway, Samara, Sarah Carrol, Susan Goldberg, Susan
Levinkind, Susan Jill Kahn
Reader for the tape edition: Judy Freespirit
Cover design : Elana Dykewomon, with help from Susan Jill Kahn,
Susan Levinkind and Casey Fisher

SINISTER WISDOM, founded 1976
Former edi tors and publishers: Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-81)
Michelle Cliff and Adrienne Rich (1981-83)
Michaele Uccella (1983-84)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1 983-87)
Caryatis Ca rd ea (1991-94)
Copyright © 1994 Sinister Wisdom, Inc. All rights reserved to individual artists and authors.
ISSN : 0196-1853. Printed in the U.S. on recycled paper.
Sinister Wisdom, Inc •• ~O Box 3252 • Berkeley CA 94703 • USA

Winter 1994/95_________________ Contents
3
10
13
15
22
30

Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine: Religion
Upcoming Issues & Apology
Letta Simone-Nefertari Neely • gawd & alluh huh sistahs
Juliana Pegues • White Christmas
Judith Berns • The Making of a Jewish, Lesbian Buddhist
Barbara Ruth • If Kathy Power Surrenders, Can theMillenium Be Far Behind?
Julia Malott • Speaking in Tongues
Winn Gilmore • The Funeral
Avotcja. Halleluyah Y'all
Herlinda E. Arellano • My First Holy Communion
Diane Anderson • Diana the Reincarnate
Myke Johnson • Of Cowboys, Mystics & Lesbians
Lisa Gray • In the Bathtub
Lisa Williams • let us banish god
zana. spare me the solstice tree
S. Naomi Finkelstein • McRunes & Mazdas
Rachel Rosen • Subjected
Bette Talen • Dialoguing About Dialogue:
A Jewish Lesbian Perspective
87 Debby Earthdaughter • Non-christian: By Birth, versus
the Privilege of Choice

37
43
51
52
55
59
64
67
69
72
80
81

Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural, multi-class, born-womon lesbian
space. We seek to open, consider and advance the exploration ofcommunity issues. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language
to reflect our diverse experiences anq to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment, as lesbians evaluating our communities andour world.

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sinister wisdom #54 -

91
94
98
101
105
106
113
115

122
123
124
127
132
135

Lesbians &; Religion

Caffyn Kelley • Magic
Marita Avila • Connection Between Womyn
M.K. Stewart • Worshipping at the Body Altar
Mara Math • Shalom to All That: A Jewish Dyke Critiques
the New Age
Jessica Stein • The Last Supper
Sarah Jacobus • from An Oral History of Lil Moed
Stacy Szymaszek • Lombardy, Italy
Gloria Anzaldua • The Basque Brujas - c. 1492
Letta Simone-Nefertari Neely • j don't kneelAlex Dalsheimer • Nature/nurture
Elana Dykewomon • Notes for a Magazine: Goodbye
Contributors' Notes
Books Received
Announcements and Classified Ads

§§§
ART
12
29
42
50
57
58
66
68
86
90
93
97

Laura Irene Wayne • Glory
Nancy R. Levine • Ecstasy
Karen Burns • Snake Circle
Karen Burns • Dresses
Rainbow Williams • The Goddess of the Kitchen Sink
Rainbow Willimas • Pagodess
Winifred Eads • Untitled
Nancy R. Levine • Like Pap? ...
Nancy R. Levine • Julie Blows Shofar
Debby Earthdaughter • Cartoon
Laura Irene Wayne • Dressing for Kwanzaa
Samara· Here today, goddess tomorrowWinter 1994/95

3___________ Notes for a Magazine
Yes, this is my last issue as editor. What follows are thoughts
about this issue, religion. On page 124, I say goodbye.
My interest in this issue is the politics of religion. I started
out with the basic anger of being a Jew living in a christiancountry.* Working on these notes, though, I began to get into
the messy business of how religion, the religion we're brought
up in (or deliberately not brought up in), plays out in our lives .
Reading the contributions, I found something I suspected to betrue: religion is important in how we understand our connection with our families of origin and how we define not simply
our sense of ethics, but our deepest sense of how-best-to-live as
individuals and in community. The spiritual functions of religion overlap, interlock with the political often enough to makethe difference between spirituality and religion a difficult distinction - which is one of the reasons why I think religion has
been so effective in maintaining social control for so long.
When my friend Dolphin read the first draft of these notes,
she told me I didn't make it clear enough that I was talking
about religion as distinct from spirituality. She suggested I
hadn't given the womyn' s spirituality movement enough credit
for providing radical openings in consciousness that allow
womyn to express our spirituality, however we define it, outside of the organized, traditional religions .

. Which is why I originally called this issue "fuck xmas" - in a letter I
unfortunately lost when I moved last year, a christian minister dyke asked
if I thought there was no way to ethically practice christianity. Although
my libra nature wants to say it's a tough world, we all have to find comfort
where we can, my mind says: no, given the history of christianity worldwide, nope. And then my mind says: but what about spirituals, about theVirgin de Guadalupe? All these icons, that give texture to culture, have apolitical meaning - start from a political necessity and get embroidered
into our emotional lives. Dissecting them seems irreverent, arrogant, impossible at times - and still I believe we need to encourage that criticalinvestigation, be really clear about what we're doing when we introduce
elements of our religions-of-origin into our lesbian communities.

4

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &: Religion

I agree with her. Many womyn find community, purposeful work, meaning in their lives through the various forms of
womyn's spirituality. Certainly some of those forms mimicchristian practice, adopt oppressive missionary stances ortake from other people's cultures with an imperialistic arrogance - and some of the authors in this issue examine those
problems. On the other hand, many womyn's spirituality
groups grapple with questions of culture and politics, andmove honestly towards reclaimed and new ritual/spiritual
practice. Most of us appear to need at least some of the things
religions (including goddess religions) provide.
Some things religion is used for:• to institutionalize greater-than-human figures (gods or
goddesses) on which we can hang blame, praise or responsibility for what happens to us• to organize communities for their own protection oradvancement• to establish unquestionable hierarchical lines of power• to regulate sex*
• to provide hope for intercession in adversity: pray andyou will find peace, if not a change in circumstances• to cope with evil beyond our comprehension• to comfort the grieving and create rituals that help people
get through predictable moments of despair and fear
• to provide a context for sensations of awe and wonder• to maintain & rationalize class, gender & race oppressions and to determine and enforce codes of behavior for
those divisions• to provide the state with a moral imperative for any
behavior the state wishes to engage in (crusades, wars, property rights, divine right, marriage)• to link individuals to their ancestral past.
That religion provides for all of these needs at once (andlikely some I've missed) makes it extremely powerful. Attempts
to create a synthesis of non-hierarchal spiritual practice, even
. Susan Jill reminded me of this one, which I had somehow forgotten . She
added that she missed a discussion of how concepts of God replace connection with, and awe of, nature.

Winter 1994/95 5

among dykes from similar backgrounds, often come to quickends, and often the participants rejoin traditional religious
structures: It's hard to keep one function that dykes mightmostly agree on (for instance, linking ourselves to our foremothers), discard another entirely (hierarchy / priest/ priestess / rabbi) while modifying others (season-based rituals) . To
even talk about belief systems with another lesbian usuallyrequires a tremendous amount of intimacy, trust and time.
So mostly this important thing, this marker of identity,
the way we maintain our faith in "making a better world,"
how we evaluate right and wrong, just and unjust, runs underground.It's not something we talk about easily, comfortably.
When we do' discuss religion, it's often within the boundaries
of race and ethnic identity, and immediately subsumed inthose categories . What we don't know about religion, we
don't usually find out, at least, not from other dykes - we
simply ascribe religious belief and practice to being a characteristic of a group of people, belonging to them, either entirely private and respected or entirely a part of patriarchal
baggage which we encourage dykes to discard for the sake ofcreating our own community.
The problem of "either/or" in addressing religion is tremendous. Either you support the traditional ways of yourpeople, or you're a traitor. Either you understand "faith" as asuperstitious response to natural phenomena, or you're a fool.
If you think participation in some form of ritual is importantin building community, either you have to invent totally new
forms, or you're ripping off other peoples' cultures and/or
caving in to your ' 'religion of origin."
But individuals need many of the things religions offer.
We need community, and a sense of purpose within community. We need a foundation for our morality. We need ways tobury our dead and mourn. When we have visions, when weare visited by apparitions or a flood of words fills us, we needways to express that within the bounds of socially accepted. In the category of traditional I count gay synagogues, the MCC (metropolitan community church) and any form of practice to which a questing
dyke must submit herself to organized authority.

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sinister w isdom #54 -Lesbians &: Religion

behavior. When some gentle or passionate emotion suffuses
our consciousness, some sense of wonder or love that moves
us beyond our daily life, we need a context in which to say: Ifeel my heart beating and it seems like a miracle to me today.
And we need "a way to understand evil - the mass evils ofwar, our individual experiences of rape and abuse. We look
for some "wise one" to guide us through our despair.
When my father died recenti y the rabbi told us that it's
Jewish law that a corpse not be left alone. My second brotherarrived at 2 a.m., and asked why my first brother was spending the night in the funeral parlor. "Because we're Jews," I
said.
I have turned my answer over and over in my mind theselast months. I said that? Because the rabbi said it was right I
passed it on with scarcely a moment's hesitation: we do thisbecause we're Jews. I accepted that Jews have developed
rituals to get us through these moments - death, birth, coming into winter, celebrating the harvest, the new moon. Evensomeone like me, a dyke who hates organized religion, thehierarchical rabbinate, who was actually excommunicated by
the council of orthodox rabbis in New York (in 1982, alongwith all the contributors to Nice Jewish Girls) - is easily susceptible to "authority" that lays a claim on my cultural! familial
identity in times of stress. The ritual may make sense to me- but I didn't say: we decided that for our emotional wellbeing, our desire to underline the importance of this event,one of us would stay with the corpse until we buried it. I
simply relied on someone else telling me Jews do xyz whensomeone dies . The clarity of that, the community acceptance,
the fulfillment of what is perceived as a duty - is much morethan comforting. It pulls alienated individuals back into acommunal culture, a sense of belonging somewhere. It can bedamn insidious .
Our ideal community would provide structures for making
these experiences part of communal life - so everyone in agroup "knows" that when someone dies you cover the mirrors;
when the seeds are planted, you get drunk; when the harvestis brought in you take care of old business with your neighbors
because you'll rely on each other to survive the winter.

Winter 1994/95

7

In actual communities, the administration of ritual practice becomes part of the underlying justification for patriarchy. Only men* are given access to the most secret part of thisknowledge, which is handed down from god, to man, to control social interaction. In real communities, religious authority is reinforced constantly by life's emergencies. Social control is the same as it always has been: they use our birthfamilies, our sense of loyalty to our ethnic and racial groups,
against us. We need our ancestors, we need some sense ofgroup - the folks we come from as well as those we join withvoluntarily. So there it is: the gods of our fathers as interpreted by the sustaining hope of our mothers . You can't beatthat for a double-bind .
My partner, Susan, refers to this as a failure of imagination: if we thought on how inevitable certain needs will be inlife, we could invent our own ways to cope with them. We
could have our own practice for death, burial and mourning.
We could agree to celebrate seasonal change, menstruationand menopause, experiences of wonder, without invoking(or appropriating) some vague knowledge of celtic worship,
fragments of Native American rituals or biblical stories.
Dolphin suggested that we often study other cultures
because all humans are moved by common impulses: moons
and tides, planting and harvest, birth and death, eclipse andblueberry season." Even among urban womyn, it's not necessarily inappropriate to chant to a full moon rising above
warehouses. We could, theoretically, develop practice that cameout of our own communities, reflecting our own needs, using
our various backgrounds thoughtfully. We could develop
forms that acknowledge we have "big" emotions, life & deathquestions - we could say our friends and communities are
the appropriate places to take all that deep stuff. We don't
have to go back "home" (or romanticize someone else's home)
to get the resonance we seek.
. Yes, I know some women are being allowed to share small parts ofreligious authority within organized religion. That doesn't change thenature of organized religion .
.. Blueberry season is one of my sacred times - I recognize it might not beuniversal.

8sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion•••
But I've come around to saying that religion is emotional- an expression of common needs. And I mean to say that it's
political- that its politics prey upon the manufacture of emotional need, the constant push to encourage us to give up
responsibility for our lives to some form of "higher power."
When I was in 10th grade, I learned that Mohammed andMoses were social organizers - what they wanted was to give
their peoples unity and power. They decided the best vehicle
for this was religion. So they went into the desert, received
the word of god and proceeded to organize empires. I realizethat this is a very basic rendition. But religions are, basically,
myths to explain creation and to empower those who have or
want power.
I have often thought that the power to change the worldlies in creating a cultural! religious myth so strongly held bysuch a large number that it becomes the unquestioned fabricof reality. So that I could turn to a lesbian holy-dyke and say:what do I do when my mother dies? And she would tell me,
and I would pass that knowledge on: we do this because
we're lesbians . If we had a common body of spiritual practiceand understandings, then perhaps there would be a way todisagree with each other without our organizations "breaking up" all the time. Perhaps we could make community centers where we felt it was appropriate to put disagreements
aside, where we were glad to come together despite our manydifferences.
Perhaps we'd make a holy day in August, the dyke day of
Midrangle, where every lesbian lit candles when she woke,
again at 2 in the afternoon, and came together with everyone
else in her community to light scentless candles at sundown,
eat a ritual meal and stay up watching the meteor showers.
And even lesbians who thought this a silly ritual, or notaccessible, or had too many arguments running with the otherdykes to feel comfortable coming, would pause to reflect: thisis the dyke day of Midrangle - maybe I'll light my own
candle and experience my connection with other lesbians
around the world.

Winter 1994/95 9

I have had the pleasure of meeting lesbian rabbis; ofdiscussing buddhism with devoted students; of working withdykes who were engaged in the rituals of the Yoruban tradition. And I feel two things: whatever any dyke needs to communicate with her ancestors, to make peace, take on her racialor ethnic heritage - is certainly not for me to criticize, and isoften a place of intimate depth. But then there's the otherthing: any religion which supports a hierarchy, any cult of
personality - is wrong, is death to dykes, is meant to keep
womyn in place, is part of the state, becomes part of that nationalism which demands patriotism, and religion is full of
its own patriots. I don't know how to reconcile these twothings.
I don't really want a lesbian Mohammed, Buddha, Moses,
Christ or Martin Luther to set herself us as charismatic martyr
in forging a cultural! spiritual synthesis that could unite themany lesbian tribes into a people (a dykdle?). I find the"reclaiming" of goddess religions suspect - it's important tokeep analyzing alternative spiritual practise for disguised
christian and eurocentric values or for contributing to thecolonization of other cultures. But I try to "suspend my disbelief" long enough to see how many groups are creating
imaginative new forms.
And, wishing I could tie this all together, I am tempted tooffer up poetry as the religious compromise. That is, a systemof expression that any womon could turn to in joy or grief,that can be held privately or shared in groups . Imagine - oh,just indulge me, it's my next to last paragraph - if the creation of poetry were considered the common bond. Okay, us
all being who we are, raised here, there would be poetry
captains and poem bandits, competition and plagiarism but there would exist the possibility of offering up poems in
the place of authority. A possibility that every dyke could
become the center of spiritual authenticity, and recognizethat authenticity in every other dyke.
Our love, passion, anger, fear, frustration and grief could
yet be turned inside out. With a little imagination.

10 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians & Religion

Upcoming Issues~_____________#55 Open - edited by Caryatis Cardea, Jamie Lee Evans andSaud a Burch. Great new dyke work - out in April!
#56 Language - The deadline for Akiba Onada-Sikwoia's,
Kyos Featherdancing's and Janet Wallace's first issue as the
new editors is February 1, 1995.
The subject of language is complex and evokes many
responses on issues of power, privilege, class, race and color,culture. We envision works addressing questions such as:
Who gets to speak for us? What is the importance or nonimportance of being bi-, tri-, or multi-lingual? When words
like sexism, racism, homophobia, fat phobia, ageism are used
to define your oppression, do they define your experience?
(For example, over the past 10 years the definition of racism
has changed - at one time the dictionary equated racism
with economical power; now it's hard to find a dictionary
with that definition in it any more.) Who makes the definitions? Do our languages come out of our communities, dothey represent the diversity of them?
When you use language are you representing yourself as
you see yourself? Or the way you think others want to see you?
What does it mean to be defined in the language of an oppressor? (For example, rape defined by men who 99% of the time
are the rapist.) What does it mean to have your ancestors'
language forcibly taken from you? Is language just words oris it a way of communicating our feelings? How about words
like disabled, crippled, mute, blind, etc. - do they describe
the abilities we may not have or do they make us victim?
You certainly do NOT have to express yourself in some
sort of intellectual discourse. You can use just about any form
that we can print on a page.
#57 Healing - More than ever before we hear the word "heal"
being passed around. Some of us have stepped outside ofWestern medicine and formal psychology to our own paths as
non-traditional "healers." Our communities are saturated withbooks, brochures and w orkshops that speak of alternative

Winter'994/95

11

methods of "healing" - from acupuncture to past life regressions. We all know at least one womon who, in time of crisis,
has given preference to a psychic, channel, homeopath, or"medicine" person etc. in an effort to cure herself or be cured.
By now most of us are either graduates of or participants in a
12 step program, a support group and/ or some form of therapy.
We're owning our "spirituality" and re-claiming our bodies.
But as much as we continue to seek the answers to our questions and find new ways to understand the concept of healing,
dis-ease continues to ravish and escalate in our communities.
What does "healing" mean to you? If you have a life threatening dis-ease or a disability does healing mean you cure it?
How do we take care of ourselves when our "well-being"
breaks down? Is there a spiritual component to this? How are
we healing emotional dis-ease, compulsive behavior, socialand societal dis-eases such as substance abuse, battering,rape, incest, eating disorders, poverty, racism and heterosexism? We are looking for personal testimonies. How has
your "healing" affected your life - not only physically but
psychically and spiritually? What have you replaced yourdis-ease with? How have you transformed rage and pain?
What does "medicine" mean to you? Perhaps you have been
touched by someone else's process of "healing." Deadline:
June 1, 1995.

Apology _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __In #52, Allies, we mistakenly published an edited version
of Sadie green's "My Life Would Have an Altogether Different Shape Without It." This version was not the one we had
agreed on with Sadie (a mistake due to inattention and saving
the wrong computer version). Its appearance in that form has
the effect of censoring her experience. We deeply regret thiserror and apologize to both Sadie and our readers.
The story as she intended is available from us by sending
a self-addressed stamped envelope (52¢) to P.O . Box 3252,
Berkeley, CA 94703.

12 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

e·

e

,
•

e

...
GLORY

LAURA IRENE WAYNE

GloryLaura Irene Wayne..

Winter 1994/95

13

Letta Simone-Nefertari Neely

gawd and alluh huh sistahs
On dat great gittin up mornin
gawd and alluh huh sistahs
wuz weavin theyselves a fyne tuesday
some wuz fixin breakfast for each otherand some wuz still in bed
bringin in da mornin slowly/softly
one sistah said to another, "it's so much light in heah,
we need some shade""ummmmmmm hmmmmm," they all went, even the sistahs
who wuz lovin said, "ummm hmmmm" and got off the clouds
to join the circle that wuz formin
the sistahs all gathered round each other into a circle andbegan callin
colors into the sky
chantin"sunloveshe i found aplace to lay my headearth deep resonant
blackness empowerin soulful blackness ahappyblacksong pulledfrom blackness
to blackness beautifulpowerful
comfortinglovingblackness"and one tall sistah started spinnin roundwith her dreads flying round her and circles ofgreen and blue purple and blue
wuz trailin round her with gawd and alluh huh sistahs
shoutinand clappin"it's you my sistah, it's you, you bettah go on girlwit yo bad self, it's you girl,14 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

go sistaaaah, go, go sistaaaah, go, go sistah go"
and that tall tall ebony sistah raised her hands
through the sky andstretched her feets in the dirt till they became roots andshe say"sunloveshe i found aplace to lay my headearth deep resonant
blackness empowerin soulful blackness ahappyblacksong pulledfrom blackness
to blackness beautifulpowerful
comfortinglovingblackness"and don't you know soon it wuz
nightfall and alluh a sudden there wuz thissound of crickets andwaves reachin
all the way up to them clouds where gawd
and alluh huh sistahs
wuz braiden and twisten each other's hair and makin up songs
for the second day we didn't git to read about in nobible neither

From the chapbook gawd and alluh huh sistahs, by Letta Simone-Nefertari
Neely . Available from the author, 104Gates Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11238, for$5 or whatever sisters send from 50~ to something for barter.

Winter 1994/95 15

Juliana Pegues

White Christmas
It is x-mas . It is my childhood. My parents are putting up theplastic tree like they do every year, even though in Juneau,
Alaska, it seems hardly necessary to have a fake tree. We all
ask for a real one. "Please, Ma?" "Please, Dad?" But myparents insist. This tree has seen us from Taipei to Singapore
to here and x-mas isn't worth it if they can't put it up.
On the mantle, Buddha sits perched next to the nativity.
I play with Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus then rub Buddha's
belly before walking away.
BUDDHAHEAD BUDDHA HEAD BUDDHAHEAD
Hey, my family had an x-mas tree just like everyone else.
And we had ham too (though the smell of sesame oil still
lingered in the air) and ate candy canes. My sister and I sang
"Frosty the Snowman" and opened our red and green wrapped
presents. We were just like any other family.

What do you mean, did we get Mandarin oranges in our stockings?
Grandmother converted to Catholicism in Hong Kong
along with all her daughters in order to attend the British
mission school. My mother was a young girl when she wasbaptized, having left the mainland when she was four. YehYeh never converted, remaining a nationalist, traditional,
Cantonese talker to the very end.
I can't remember one cross hung in my parents' horne andthe only copy of the Old Testament was hidden under a stackof dusty National Geographies. Instead Buddha, incense,
Chinese characters of luck, happiness, and prosperity tied up
in loops of red thread adorned the house.
Morn still wore a cross that Pou-Pou had given her as a gift.
But I think her memories of the nuns' harshness and cruelty
to their young Chinese wards (always a shock to hear her callthem sisters) helped pass on a disregard for Christian religion.

16 sinister wisdom #54-T Lesbians &: Religion

Grown now, my sister and I neither believe in God nor
feel informed enough to practice Eastern religion .
Do you feel that something is missing in your life? Do you desire to

walk on a greater spiritual path?
Then experience the wonders of Buddhism! Explore the mystic waysof the Orient with a guide who has actually visited Asia. Develop
meditation skills in a modern, clean environment . Learn how higher
planes can increase your personal and financial gains. (Macrobiotic
meals available upon request.)
So easy for you. So very easy for you. Tai chi, karate,
Taoism, Buddhism. You were a Buddhist monk in a past life?
You've already taken our bodies, must you take our souls?
Take it all away.
You just have so much guilt-ridden love in your hearts
that you need to keep grabbing and grabbing. So hungry inyour empty stomachs for a vision to easily eat up and assuage
those pangs that maybe you've already done too much.
You love Asian people, Asian culture, Asian religion. Soeasy for you to love while it is so difficult for me. My love for
Asian people, culture and religion is messy, intertwined withanger and shame. I cannot embrace my own heritage without
your social message pounding on me that I am dirty, evil,
wrong. This is the new age, the new rage of imperialism. I am
choked to death by all your love.

Hey, lighten up.
I am at work at my service industry job when a young white
woman my age comes in, a large jade pendant, a circular pi,
dark green and heavy, hanging from a gold chain around herneck, hanging on the outside of her "peasant" blouse.
I am angry. And then I am ashamed. I feel under my Tshirt for my own piece of jade, small, light greenish gray,wedge shaped, and hanging on a thin thread. But at least I
know that jade is supposed to be worn under clothing against
the skin to obtain all the powers from the precious stone.
I use these powers to pretend I don't see her standing

· Winter 1994/95

17

there, requesting some "oriental rice salad." I continue towipe the counter, then walk away.
HALF BREED MIXED BREED CROSS BREED HALF BREED

If I told you I was mixed, my mom Chinese, would I be as wonderful
as your garments, objects? As jade pendant precious? If I told you I
would be telling too much . And then could I still serve you with asmile?
Can I ever be a whole Asian woman being mixed blood?
What is mine to reclaim? I feel tentative about it. Can I findidentity in this fragmentation? I come from a culture ofcolonization and I am a product of it. I long for a homeland,
any homeland, while being ashamed of it, ashamed for it, atthe same time.
I am always incomplete. I am dreaming of myself but thewhite culture vultures swoop in, picking at my searchings,
exposing me as a fraud. They leave me lying there, whitebones gleaming.
1974. I am five . It is my second year in the U.S. It is winter.
Snow on the ground, gray slush on the roads.
I am at the laundromat, sitting on a folding shelf, keeping
watch on our clothes while they dry. Ma, you walk me home,helping me carry the laundry. From across the street, I see ourapartment building and suddenly get worried, tearful. How
can Santa come to our house when we don't have a chimney for him
to slide down?
You don't miss a be<;lt, and with mother sharp sensibility,
you explain that in apartment buildings Santa has the ability
to slide down weather vanes and TV antennas. It makes sense
to my five-year-old mind.

Jingle bells, Batman smells. Robin laid an egg.
Years later when we moved up, moved out of the apartment and into a house with a fireplace, the intersection ofrace and class and culture made me envious of my brother,ten years younger, whose x-mases would be worry free . I was
angry, bitter, knowing that the racist environment in hischildhood would be tempered through class protection.

18 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians IS! Religion

FUCK CHRISTMAS! NO CELEBRATION FOR WHITE P ATRIARCHAL MATERIALIST HOLIDAYS! ACCEPTANCE
OF THE OPPRESSIVE COMMERCIALISM IS COLLABORATION WITH THE SYSTEM! BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!
I learned an articulation through feminist process, developed a politic in anarchist and socialist and communist circles.
A way to explain my anger.
Then my mother called me and asked what I wanted for xmas and I answered, "Socks and underwear? Please, Ma,
nothing fancy." I hadn't gone home for the "holidays" in overfour years. I knew it hurt her feelings but I couldn't go homeand direct this anger at her.
Whose words am I speaking? My own? What is my mothertongue? Mandarin was my first language, then Cantonese,then English. It is all lost to me. I articulate my anger in alanguage that is not mine, but it is all I know. I dream todream in Chinese. Memory and dream emerges. I need totrust that it is within me.
Assimilation, indoctrination, this has been our education. I want to spit out my words, angry.
I'd like to be righteous, let my anger be focused. Claim an
Eastern religion in defiance of Christianity. But I grew up ina white dominant, Christian dominant society and cannot
escape the fact that my mother and all her sisters are literatebecause of missionary schooling. Colonization runs deep.
Hearing my mother talk of the nuns' abuses, I realize her
pride too is mixed with self hate. That she is Asian meant she
went through the mission system. That she is Asian meant
she struggled and survived.
No surprise that my defiance is built with anger andshame. Shame for myself and for my mother. Hating her for
letting it happen and telling myself I would not be like her.
But I learned this defiance from her. learned that shame andanger are tools of survival. I only want to turn these tools into
weapons. Stop directing it inwards and strike outwards.
With all my rage.

Winter 1994/95

19

schism n. 1. a separation or division into factions. 2a. a formal
breach of union within a Christian church . 2b. the offense of
attempting to produce such a breach. 3. disunion, discord .

Confucius say: It's a white disease.
I've been brainwashed by coca-cola and MTV, the swinging sex-filled American dream has sucked me in. It's those
women's libbers in the U.s. of A. My head's been filled withthe books and words of gwai women's evil. It's a white. disease. Dykes only exist in the west. Chinese people would
never be gay on their own.
And I'm taking it on both sides. Not only do I continuously bloody my head against the walls of nonacceptance andhomophobia in Asian spaces, I am now faced with whitedykes who also believe these dangerous lies, all too ready to
be my white saviour. It's a white disease.
How about that white disease that got my mother: Catholicism? How about the white disease that has killed more
Asian people in the last half century than we could have everdone ourselves: Imperialism? Or its kinder, gentler virus:
Colonialism?
I am an Asian dyke in the tradition of Nu Shu, the silk
workers, torn sleeves and shared peaches . The only white
diseases I seem to have caught are internalized racism, a speechless rage and a lingering shame over my mixed condition.

Is my shame covert Catholicism? Was my mother still teaching me
what Christianity had taught her? If my mother had not been
converted, would she still have learned English well enough to be mydad's secretary at Pan Am? Would I have been born?
There's tofu at every dyke potluck. It's such a lesbian
food. TOFU TOFU TOFU. Hey, let's have a stirfry. STIR FRY
STIRFRY STIRFRY. Yeah, a great big old stirfry, what asymbol of lesbian sisterhood. SISTERHOOD SISTERHOODSISTERHOOD. Tofu and stirfries are such a part of lesbian
culture.

Ancient Chinese secret: Tofu is not dyke culture and stirfries only
exist in the fast food chop suey minds of white connoisseurs.

20

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians lit Religion

I was hit the most of all the kids in my family. Wooden
spoons, hair brushes, bare hands. I used to cry day after day
yet still mouth off the next time. My mother always hit on thebackside. The only time she hit me in the face, she balled up
her fist, made like she was going to strike, stopped her handin mid air and ended up digging her knuckles into myforehead and shoving me back. Then, crying, she locked
herself in her bedroom for the rest of the day.
Everyone knows I'm her favorite now. When I hint about
her hitting me, she hints back that it was because I was somuch like her.
My aunt is going back to the old ways. Though she's beenin the U.S. for ten years and is the most western dressing of
all my mom's family, she's going back to the old ways. The I
Ching, feng shui, Chinese astrology, Buddhism. My aunt
even tells me she's been talking to my Yeh-Yeh from the otherside. My aunt tells me she can teach me .
But I want to learn from my mom. Why isn't she returning
to Chinese tradition and religion? Why is she scoffing at myaunt? I want to learn but I am too scared, a fearful bile rising
up my throat when I think of discovering who I really am, or
who I really am not. Maybe I'll be ready soon. The I Ching,feng shui, Chinese astrology, Buddhism.

My Chinese aunt, my Shou Yi, did my charts, Chinese astrology, thisnew year. Confusing. Was I studying the I Ching? Was I studying
Buddhism? No? Well this make no sense, no other explanation, shetells my mom . Are you sure? Did I want to become a Buddhist nun?
No? Well, this make no sense.
Charts say, I would never get married. And in my next cycle of therooster, the next twelve years, there was not going to be a man in mylife. The charts do not lie .
Was I studying the I Ching? Was I studying Buddhism? Did I want
to become a Buddhist nun?
KUAN YIN, GODDESS OF MERCY. CHINATOWN TALKING STORY CALL HER LADY BUDDHA. KUAN YIN, ONE
WHO HEARS THE PRAYERS OF THE WORLD.

Winter'994/95

21

They think that Kuan Yin carne from the legend of Miao
Shen, a beautiful princess whose father reigned during the
Chou dynasty. But Miao Shen refused to wed, giving no sons,no heirs, to her father. Pa, I do not want to marry. But, Pa, I do notwant to marry! But, Pat
Miao Shen fled to the White Bird Monastery. Enraged, herfather tried to burn it down. But the god of rain showered
upon them, keeping Miao Shen safe. Her father ordered herbeheaded, but the sword shattered into a thousand pieces.
Finally, through trickery, he had her strangled. But when
Miao Shen arrived in hell, her touch turned it to paradise.
Yama, the god of death, ordered her back to life. She returned,
a Buddhist nun.
This Buddhist nun, this story, Miao Shen, they think thatis where Kuan Yin comes from.
KUAN YIN, GODDESS OF MERCY. CHINATOWN TALKING STORY CALL HER LADY BUDDHA. KUAN YIN, ONE
WHO HEARS THE PRAYERS OF THE WORLD.
recognize. tr.v. 1. To know to be something that has been
perceived before. 2. To know or identify from past experienceor knowledge. 3. To perceive or show acceptance of thevalidity or reality of.
My mother shows me a Kuan Yin pendant she bought forherself last Chinese New Year. She pulls down the neck ofher blouse to reveal the beautiful jade hanging on the same
chain as her cross. But now the crucifix is upstaged by themuch larger and heavier goddess . Kuan Yin hangs proudly inthe center of the chain while the cross is knocked askew.
Sideways, crooked, it's barely visible. Morn is beaming.

22 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion

Judith Berns

The Making of a Jewish, Lesbian Buddhist
1. Mother's Death

Lama Dorje's question was about my family. He wanted toknow if I had one. I told him what was left of it, and added,"It is a mess." He reminded me, "It's all how you look at it."Mother died from breast cancer when she was 46. I was 7.
Within a year father remarried a woman who soon got breast
cancer herself. Since I was 12, she has been on and off psych
wards. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" Lama Dorje
asks . "Yes, Michael is 8 years older than me and lives with his
two wives in Canada."
My voice is as distant as Michael has been in my life. I watch
my words like an audience watches the bouncing ball jumpover lines in a singalong. The audible echo in the void, not tobe confused with Shunyata,* is the hole of Samsara, the cycleof rebirth, suffering, and death. My suffering is built on longing for the family my karma** didn't give me and fear that itnever will. I spent all of my childhood, adolescence and early
adulthood searching for this family, especially a mother, andgrasping to fill up with food, geographic cures - anything thatwould momentarily relieve the loneliness and hunger I felt .
As a 6-year-old I sat in the back seat of father's custom Ford.
The Ford was parked in front of our modest, three bedroom
ranch in what was then a predominantly Jewish part of thecity. Father and mother sat in the front seat of the car. Wanting
to hold onto something of mother, I pulled a hair from herhead, later to learn it was a wig.
* Emptiness or understanding that nothing holds inherent existence/per~manence . Awakening to one's reality through moral, meditative, and intellectual educa tion, thereby becoming free from ignorance.
** The force generated by all that an individual does, says or thinks withconsequences in future lives.

Winter 1994/95 23

At 30, I returned to this house for a visit. The same people
that bought the house from father when I was 13 still lived
there. The Mezuzah* was on the doorpost and the same reed
blinds were in the front window. One of mother's plates witha bird on it was still hanging, surrounded by the current owner's plates and adornments.
Father planted honey locust trees in the yard. While one
was cut down to make way for a garage, the other was the tallest
tree on the street. The backyard cabin father built for me islong gone and a concrete slab remains in its place. The owner
let me take the Mezuzah; it is now hanging on the doorpost of
my house. Mother's plate remains on her kitchen wall.
II. Taking Refuge
Taking refuge is the initial ceremony where one chooses
to become a Buddhist. About five years ago I returned from atrip to India and Nepal with my lover at the time. She researched different Buddhist groups in Chicago and I followed her. Prior to the trip I had been studying and meditating with a Sufi group whose roots were in India . When I
started studying Buddhism I was struck by how Buddhism
was choosing me. The Four Noble Truths spoke to me like noother religious doctrine: 1) To exist is to suffer. 2) Suffering is
caused by self attachment. 3) There is an end to suffering. 4)
There is a path to enlightenment.
While growing up, I thought that life was supposed to bejoyous and that suffering was a sign of personal failure . I
have yet to meet a human being who does not suffer, and I
have yet to have any situation, miserable or joyous, last permanently. I spent most of my life searching for a mother andsuffering because of my attachment to whatever I thought
this mother could give me. Dharma, Buddhist teaching, told
me everyone had been my mother at one point or another. I
had also been their mother during prior lifetimes. Furthermore, Tara who is the universal mother and female represen*A sign put on the doorposts of Jewish homes as a remind er of the ir faith .
Inside the small case is a prayer written on parchmen t.

24sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

tation of the Buddha, chose to be a woman. She is unscathedby the patriarchy and free to lead me to liberation.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find a sangha (community of Buddhist practitioners) I am comfortable in but,like everything, this too will change. I have also struggled tD
establish a sense of community among lesbians. Perhaps I
need to let go of my attachment to what I think community
means. Buddhism speaks to my spiritual homelessness andthe terror of being a woman under a patriarchal regime.
During the refuge ceremony you are given a name and a 'small piece of your hair is cut. Refuge from what? Refuge
from the meaningless cycle of lives and deaths. Inherent inthis cycle is the suffering that comes with impermanence: nolife, no joyous moment, absolutely nothing lasts. I took refuge vows in 1991, at 34. For me, taking refuge was like returning home while at the same time accepting homelessness.
"It's all how you look at it." Was mother's death somehow
a gift? Can I tell you it makes me more mindful of impermanence and precious human life? Does it force me to become an
impartial member of the human family looking at all sentient
beings* as having been or becoming mothers, fathers, sisters,
brothers, daughters, sons of my own during one past or future life?
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist, wrote,"When you lose your mother, you lose the universe ." Myability to experience the gifts of this loss and transcend suffering are in direct proportion to my universal homecoming.
I am not there yet.
Taking refuge is a way to enter a life larger than my own.
A Buddhist takes refuge to the Three Jewels: Buddha (theenlightened or awakened one), Dharma (Buddha's teachings)
and Sangha (the Buddhist community of monks, nuns andpractitioners) .
During a refuge ceremony, Tibetan Buddhist Monks gaveme the name my mother would have given me if my parents"All living beings includin g human bein gs and everything in the plant
and animal kin gdom.

Winter 1994/95 25

had not agreed on Judith. Translated from the Tibetan, thename is "Joy." I am glad my name is not Joy. In this lifetime,
Judith, the Amazon warrior, is more appropriate. Genuine
joy or bliss, the kind that is not like a leaf in the wind, comeswith enlightenment. The Vajrayana path (one of the threevehicles that classify Buddhist teachings) means diamond or
thunderbolt. It centers on compassion as bliss and the use ofimagination to reconstruct oneself and the universe. It offers
everyone the opportunity of freedom and enlightenment inthis lifetime.
If and when I reach Nirvana, this state of bliss, I will nolonger risk returning here as a human, an animal, or a hungry
ghost entrapped by the karma of prior lives only to be stuck
once again in samsara, the wheel of lives, deaths and suffering.
I would have a choice. If I want to return to help other sentient
beings, like Tara or any Bodhisatva* chooses to do, I can. However, I am not sure I would. The world is getting very weird.
Fifteen years ago, as a lesbian separatist, I would havedefined samsara as the patriarchy. Today, I still would agreewith this, but samsara is also bigger than the patriarchy. Nirvana
is bigger than healing the inner child, developing unconditionallove, and serenity although it includes all those things.
III. Dreams and Vows
In the winter of '93 I took Yamantaka vows. Yamantaka is
the ferocious form of Manjushri. Manjushri is the Bodhisatva
of wisdom. Yamantaka is the death terminator. Truth is, I only
mumble the prayers daily, often in my car while driving toand from work. A practitioner is supposed to visualize oneself as Yamantaka and even transform into this deity, but I
rarely get that far. Nonetheless, even with my lazy approach,I feel myself changing. I am much less fearful and increasingly protected in this world. This protection comes fromboth the prayers themselves and my own sense of ferocity.

*An enlightened being who does not enter Nirvana so that she/he can saveothers who still struggle.

26 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion

Recently, I had this dream: I am walking in what I take tobe father's winter coat. He wore this coat, as he wears all his
clothes, into a smelly, worn remnant of the original. Father,although affluent, has often struck me as a homeless person
since mother's death. I remember one of the few buttons left
on his coat dangling precariously from a thread . The coat I wear
in the dream has the same fake suede skin with lamb-likeinterior and big leather buttons, but it's brand new. It is too big
for me. I put my nose into the material and there is no old man'~smell that I have come to associate with my 78-year-old father.
What does the dream mean? On the surface, it means areunion with the father who has been estranged from me sincemother's death - a connection in the form of protection andwarmth. Wearing the coat is as if I have grown a protective,
heavier skin of my own . It is a way to return home and put amezuzah on my door, so to speak. It is important to note that
although I identified the coat as father's, it's also new and myown. What is new is that I am learning to have both mother and. father reside internally for guidance, intuition and protection.
IV. Motivation
Buddhists believe it is "better to be a Buddha than a Buddhist," but for now, I am a Buddhist. I chose Buddhism because I want to feel at home in this short life, to make peacewith impermanence. This individual existence is very elusive.
Now, I exist relative to you, the read.er. No offense, blit that is
not enough to give my life meaning. Although most of you
are lesbians, some Jewish, and perhaps even Buddhist, eachof you has your own experience of me through this article.
Which reader is right? Which of you is closest to the truth,
assuming I know what my own truth is right now? What doesit mean if you do not continue reading this far in the article?
Do I cease to exist, assuming I ever did?
Nirvana means no duality, separation, me and other, writerand reader. How does this fit into being a lesbian, or a Jew for thatmatter? Both are such threatened existences, always under siege.
People often ask if there is conflict between being a Jew
and a Buddhist. Lesbians may ask why accept any patriarchal

Winter 1994/95

27

religion as one's own? For me there is no conflict. Both Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism are non-proselytizing, religious
traditions that firmly establish individual responsibility as
the focus for growth. This means I start by cleaning out myown mess .
Buddhism teaches that interconnectedness and compassion
for all sentient beings, as well as developing wisdom, areantidotes to destruction. Judaism teaches essentially the same.
Significantly, both Jews and Tibetan Buddhists have confronted near genocide. As women, especially womyn wholove womyn, we live under daily threat of rape or murder.
The Burning Times are not exclusive to Europe, circa late1500's when thousands of women thought to be witches wereburned at the stake - women are being mutilated all over the
globe today. The rain forests of mother earth herself are being
burned for the furniture and meat of the grasping West. A
rain forest takes millions of years to make itself but is wipedout in days. At times I feel I will not be able to survive thedevastation around us. B~ddhism gives me hope that one
precious human life can turn this devastation around .
Lesbians may wonder why trade in one set of boys foranother? First, the question hurts. The matriarchy has long
been destroyed and with it the lineage of our mothers' guidance. If this was not the case, we would not be where we aretoday. Lesbians make many choices in actualizing spiritual
power. In Buddhism I found an unbroken lineage of teachers
as well as teachings that are all inclusive.
There are female deities who have chosen to be womenover men. Tara is one example. She manifests in many different colors, each representing her different powers. She isboth the mother of all Buddhas and represents the miraculous activities of all Buddhas. We can count on her to remove
any obstacles that get in our way to enlightenment. She rescues all beings from suffering. Green Tara, representing longevity, hangs in the living room of my house.
There are numerous female deities called yoginis anddakinis who are both angelic and wrathful. I have neverencountered any homophobia from either the teachers, teach-28

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians & Religion

ings themselves, or members of the Buddhist community. I
cannot say the same is true in the Jewish tradition.
V. Longing and Freedom

Since Buddhism and Judaism start with individual responsibility, what of my own graspings? My greatest conflictand source of suffering originate in desire and attachment to
the trappings of samsara. As an adult child of a mother who
died young, I am especially in touch with the fear of being
unloved and alone . I have used various addictions as ways to
avoid this fear and pain. Today samsara comes out in what I
desire: namely, I want a life partner, some reconciliation withmy sick and aging father, fine rugs, great sex (perhaps on therugs), a 4 by 4 pick-up truck, a trip to Israel, Turkey and
Greece and to be a published writer. That is just what I want
this morning!
Some may argue that Buddhism is one more attempt tograb and cling at spiritual desires (i.e., enlightenment/ Nirvana) . Some Jews may hold a grudge against me and wonder
why I do not put more effort into studying Torah, Talmud,
Kabbalah, dietary laws and the women leaders of the Jewish
heritage . I wonder about this too. How will I ever get IT? "IT"being enlightenment when most of my life is driven by "constant craving" as so eloquently sung by k. d. lang?
But whether you have lost a parent early in life or yourhomeland is invaded causing you to flee, or all of society
considers you a freak of nature, there is something sacred
about claiming an outsider/exile status. I have already met
the monster face to face. There is nothing more to fear. I am
Yamantaka, the death terrifier. I am an Amazon-dakini (skywalker), armed and able to conquer ignorance and continue
the lineage of lesbians, this orphaned tribe, homeward, as
Judith led the Hebrews out of bondage. This begins with myown freedom from bondage and compassion for all sentient
beings.

Winter 1994/95

Ecstasy
Nancy R. Levine(© 1994 Nancy R. Levine)29

30 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

Barbara Ruth

If Kathy Power Surrenders, Can theMillennium Be Far Behind?
This poem was written during the High Holy Days, 1993 c.e. (christianera), a time when Jews are called upon to perform t'shuvah, which isusually translated as repentance, literally it means returning, andcan also be translated as change, revolution, reconciliation. This is apoem about t' shuvah.
When Kathy Power surrendered, I was pissed.
Why give up now, after all this time?
I tell you, these are strange days to be an anarchist Dyke.
Clinton chooses Maya Angelou to give the nationan Inaugural Poemthen four months later he withdraws Lani Guinier's nomination
because she's too strong on civil rights .
When the President reneges on his campaign promise
to lift the ban on gays in the military,
the best I can do is cheer the fags in hats whose sign reads
Gays in the Millinery.
Camp humor isn't an analysis
but at least it shifts the paradigm.
CNN says there will be more Branch Davidians, more David
Koreshes, more doomsday prophets as the year 2000 comes.
I change the channel, go about my business,but when CNN announces Kathy Power has given herself up,
I feel the first dominoof the story I have built about my past
fall over.
For 23 years her freedom has been
an article of faith for me.
She was the Dyke
the FBI couldn't catch.

Winter 1994/95

31

There are stories near two decades old
I haven't told
because I fearedin some way I didn't know
they might lead to Kathy.
And now it turns out she's gone straight,
sees a shrink, is tortured by depression,- hardly appropriate behavior
for the icon she'd remainedin my mind.
Lesbians went to jailfor refusing to testify about her.
Doesn't that mean she shouldn't give herself up
no matter what?
Kathy Power says she was naive in 1970. We were students
passionately against the war. Then after the invasion of Cambodia
for some of us
protests were not enough.
She and Susan Saxe and three ex-cons (the pros)robbed a bank, to give money to the Panthers,
to blow up the tracks so trains of weapons could not pass.
We called it "Bringing home the war."
We called it "Picking up the gun."In 1970, I was a married, battered addict.
The war was in my body every day.
The war was in my home every night.
Kathy drove the getaway car while inside the bankpoliceman Schroeder, responding to a call, was shot and killed.
His death, a certainty, amidst the murky questions ofassigning guilt and innocence.
The three ex-cons, the men, were caught right away.
But the women escaped, their faces on post office walls,
all across the country.
The FBI, who infiltrated, sabotaged
and did their best to kill

32 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion

every social justice movement in my lifetime,
the FBI, with all their armaments and spies
could not track these women down.
And as the months and years went on
as I escaped my marriage and some of my addictions
I wanted Susan and Kathy's freedom
as I wanted my own.
So five years later when the Jewish poet Dyke
I'd sat next to at an Audre Lorde reading
turned out to be Susan Saxe
I mourned her loss of freedom
and prized Kathy's even more.
Following revolutionary protocol
when captured, Susan greeted her brothers and sisters underground
told them to stay strong, stay free .
Then she said, "I continue to fight on,
as a lesbian, a feminist, an amazon."
Here was a Dyke outlaw we could love,and some of us did not.
Even though we knew that banks,
denying loans, investing in apartheid,
were repositories of evil,
even though Susan had not pulled the trigger,
still, a man had died.
I made a sign "The war is not over"and carried it outside the courthouseat Susan's arraignment. Those times were thrilling,
terrifying: I dropped the names of father, husband,and vowed to become
the womon I invented for myself
Barbara Ruth
- Born in flames.
Last week when Kathy's lawyer did the talk show circuit
no one said the L word.
Time magazine calls Susan Saxe her roommate
Phil Donahue portrays both Kathy and Susan
persuaded by their male lovers to rob that bank.
Actually I don't think it's bad strategy

Winter 1994/95

33

for her lawyer to edit out
Kathy's lesbianism.
And the truth is I don't knowwhat her sexuality was or is or might have been
beyond the slogans on our buttons
or the interrogations of the Grand Juries.
On the TV, no one talks about the plans that Kathy stolefrom the National Guard Armory
to quarantine all civilians in Boston
in the event of insurrection.
The plans that Kathy and Susan and what I think of as theirmale accessories
then turned over to a radical newspaper.
My favorite parts about Kathy Power
have been deleted from the screen.
And me, with my cognitive impairment, incomplete data
to begin withand personal labyris to grind,
I end up being the memory retrieval system. I have to.
It's my job
Because the erasure breaks my heart.
Despite the pieces of my life
I am reluctant to claim today
because they are too difficult, too dangerous
to reconcile
with my current incarnation,
I love that Barbara Lipschutz
Barbara Ruthborn in flames
hard edged, hard assed
hard to live withas she waswild in the sheets
wild in the streetsin a pre-Reagan
pre-Aids
pre-Recovery
world.

34 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Reli gion

When the FBI invaded our community
searching for Kathy Power
many Dykes went back into their closets.
Anxious . to keep their jobs, their kids, theydecided this would be a good time to play it safe
and some of us did not.
My companeras and I
formed a revolutionary girl gang of lawyers, seps and prostitutes
became a myth ourselves, an army of lovers who would not failWe egged each other ondanced to the edge of the cliff
and when the bullets came too close
we kept on mixing metaphorsthen splinteredinto more parts
than I could keep track of. We'd learned the early verses of
our litany of the apocalypse:
Black Panthers, Weatherman, MOVE, SLA. ..
Death and violence grabbed us by the short hairs
but Kathy Power was free.
Looking back on all thiswith my 1993 Buddhist, disabled, middle aged perspective
I think:
we could have used some loving kindness.
I th,ink:
part of why I (think I) remember it so vividly is because
I could and didbriefly go to jailand it was not life-threatening.
I could and did
get beat up by the cops
and it was not life-threatening.
(In the past ten years
poisoned, homeless,cut open three times,
imperiled by disasters both natural and otherwise,
my radar's been trained to recognize

Winter 1994/95

35

when my life is threatened.)
In the mid-70s
even when the death threats came,even when my lover was kidnapped and raped by men in suits,
I did not think that any of us
would actually die. We were Bionic Dykes, too young,too clever, too mythic for death to catch us.
And even if we couldn't quite become
the revolutionaries of our dreams,
even when the litany made stops at Jonestown, then at Wacoon the way to Armageddon
at least
Kathy Power was free.
Today, in this fragile body, this mind prone to despair
I learn to resist temptations of the martyr - dead in flamesas though one St. Barbara
tortured to death by patriarchy
were not more than enough.
Today there is a part of me
wishing I could learn my dharma lessons
as a street-fighting womon.
Today there is a part of meso grateful the primary way
I'm following the dharma
is learning how to bea non-combatant.
I hate Kathy Power giving up on herself, on who I thought she was!
There is a part of me
who'd rather have her die taking out a munitions truck
than be a depressed housewife (like I once was)
who thinks she ought to go to jail (like I once thought).
And where in thatis my loving kindness?
At her sentencing, Kathy said, "My whole adult life has beenan act of on-going contrition."
She wants to reconcile her past with who she is today and so
she's turned herself over to the criminal injustice system;

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sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

she got eight to twelve years, with an injunction
if she profits from her crimes,
through books or movies she writes or consults on
she'll stay in prison till she dies .
I feel such loss in this.
I want to know what she has to say
I'm sure that I could profit
from learning how this woman
regretful, moral, human as myself
is following the dharma.
She'll probably be in and out of prison
before the year 2000,
while the false messiahs, the prophets of the Last Days
burn up their followers on CNN.
And eager as I am to scorn the criminal injustice system
I wish David Koresh
would have decided a year ago
to clear his conscience by turning himself in.
I want answers
outside the confines of the stateor the authorityof sanctified secret societiesthat twist the yearnings of the soul
to torture and murder the souls of others.
I want to not forgetthat casualties of war
are never casual.
I want to shift the paradigm.
I want to reconcile
the parts of me
I don't know how to piece together.
I want more loving kindness.
I want to not give up on myself.
I want to know the real story.

Winter 1994/95

37

Julia Malott

Speaking in Tongues
As an Appalachian dyke, I find white, class-privileged,
dominant culture discussions about most anything intriguing, but religion has its own strange twang. I listen to thecomments about bible-bangers and the hell-fire and brimstone bigots alongside the comments about white trash. Somehow many working-class and above white folks feel it's safeto lay claim to my culture as theirs. Dirt farmers. Hillbillies.
Inbreds. A comedienne at a womyn's coffeehouse makes jokes
about furniture littering porches in an Urban Appalachianneighborhood and the white working/middle-class dykes alllaugh . See, I'm not a racist. I can see there's trash in white culture
too. Lil Abner. PoFolks. Appalachian womyn wonder how they
wandered into this hatred so easily, feel stupid for having
believed/trusted so simply just because we are in womynonly space. Must be fifteen people living in that apartment.
Why is it that class-privileged white womyn just don't getit - even womyn who recognize their skin privilege? Snuffy
Smith. I'll take a Poor Boy and a Coke. And I'm tired of being
lumped in with working-class womyn when class issues are
discussed. Most times, I can't even tell the difference between working-class and middle-class status and values - it
all looks like incredible privilege to me, and the bigotry ofoversight feels the same regardless of who perpetrates it.
Beverly Hillbillies. Hicks.
Maybe this is why cultural appropriation infuriates me somuch, even when the culture being occupied is not mine because I live with a kind of forced class and cultural appropriation daily. I'm being yanked into some other womyn's
reality that confuses me. And these same class-privileged
white dykes assume the same homogeneity among white"christians" that they assume across white class lines. Rednecks.
Holyrollers.

38

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians & Religion

So how do I talk about religion to the dominant lesbian
culture, without feeling like I'm speaking in tongues? Must
be brain-damaged from all that moonshine and inbreeding. I can't do
it without backing up and talking about my culture, Appalachian women, and myself.
I am born of a family of women. Men die or they leave.
Sometimes they wander in and out of women's lives, but ingeneral they're viewed as temporary. As a girl child in Appalachian Kentucky you are taught that women are permanent,
women persist, bonds with women are deep and forever. Men
die in mine fires and cave-ins, from black lung and in union
battles, in accidents while working the land . Or they go off tofind work or they go off to drink. Strength and endurance arepassed from the grandmother to the mothers to the daughters. Cultural identification is matrilineal. In my own family,
five generations of women are alive - from my great-grandmother and her sisters to my daughter and my niece.
Appalachian culture is a blend of Celtic, Native American(mostly Cherokee in Kentucky) and African traditions . It's
sometimes hard to determine what came from where, just as
it's hard to separate families into neat racial packages . My
great-grandpa was Scottish, as is my great-gramma; my biological/ first grandpa was and my gramma is Scottish; mysecond grandpa was a migrant worker whose ethnicity I do
not know; my third grandpa is Cherokee (later in life hismother took in my forty-year-old "schizophrenic" mother,becoming both great-gramma and gramma to my brother);my mother is Scottish; my biological/first father is Irish,
English and German; my second father was African American; my sister has the same biological father as I do; mybrother is the son of my mother and my second father. I
explain my heritage in this way to demonstrate the interweaving which is Appalachian culture, and the many sourcesof Appalachian religion . We are not unusual - we are a
traditional Appalachian family. The only thing unusual about
us is that only one of us is biologically bi-racial.

Winter 1994/95

39

My roots are along the Green River in the plateau region
in Southern Kentucky. I am from a family that worked theland, not coal miners. My great-grandpa owned a few acres ofland, a cow, a mule, hound dogs and some chickens. He andmy great-gramma built their barn by hand, as well as theirsmall house, which burned to the ground twice. There was awell for water and an outhouse behind the chicken coop.
Milk and butter came from Whatamatter?, vegetables andanimals from the land, blankets and clothing were repaired
and re-quilted when necessary. What couldn't be produced
was gained by bartering. Only rarely were things store-bought.
The nearest neighbors were miles away.
This is my family home, where my gramma, her sister andmy mother were born and raised, and where my sister and I
lived sporadically as children. It was sold when my greatgrandpa died, so my great-aunt Gladys, who works in a textile factory, "could look to Mom easier." I think after nearly
fifty years in that house, Gladys secretly wanted indoor
plumbing like they had at work. It didn't suit her worrying
about snakes in the summer outhouse anymore. Now anotherfamily lives in our home with lots of dogs and kids. The barn
still stands, but lightning took out the peach tree by the well.
And I make my home in Northern Kentucky, living in a mixed
Urban Appalachian, older working-class and young professional neighborhood. I feel okay as long as my feet are on
Kentucky soil.
I know you're wondering what this has to do with lesbians and religion, but I'm Appalachian - you have to sit
through lots of details so the context makes sense. I became
a woman when I was ten, and quit school to support myself
when I turned sixteen. I "lived around" in Urban Appalachian neighborhoods for a couple of years (I resist the dominant culture descriptive "homeless" - my people took mein). When I was eighteen I had my daughter, and from twenty
to twenty-five I was a welfare mother.
Becoming a welfare mother was an experience of incredible freedom for me - I knew that my daughter and I would

40

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

be sheltered, that my child would eat. The first of each month,a check for $170 arrived to be spent on rent, gas and electric,
and sometimes, if I balanced my money right, a monthly bus
ticket, which cost $30. We also got $97 in food stamps and a
medical card, which covered me, too, until 1983 when I turned
twenty-one . It was guaranteed money, guaranteed food, guaranteed health care for my child and l'd never felt safer in mylife. My neighbors were always loud, we lived with rodents
and roaches, and you had to be inside before dark, but I loved
feeling financially secure. I would get up in the morning,
walk through my apartment and swell with joy. Such times,
I would sing" Amazing Grace."
Now, christianity means something very different fromthe privileged place of being white working/middle-classthan it means when you're economically impoverished/ culturally oppressed . When you are oppressed, your only sourceof solace may be within yourself, regardless of what youname it. My culture names it "God," a word I now reject. Alice
Walker likens god to a "twin self": "the inner, the human
compulsion when deeply distressed to seek healing counsel
within ourselves, and the capacity within ourselves both tocreate this counsel and to receive it." Although I reject theword and tradition "God," when I read this, I sighed a deep
yes . Alice would understand, in her gut, my culture. For us,
the land of Kentucky is that "twin self."
My family would say we are christian, and my culture is
without question deeply religious, but the religious right would
not claim us . Attendance at an actual church is not required.
In fact, many ceremonies take place outside. My memories ofchildhood "religious practices" are of planting according to
the moon, dancing and singing without inhibition, baptisms
in the Green River, messages delivered in frenzied tongues,
processions around coffins where the unadorned corpse of
the mourned is kissed goodbye, and, yes, snake-handling.
Handling, in my mind, is about facing your fear, taking
impossible risks, and having faith. In Kentucky, the snakes
are usually copperheads, although an occasional timber rattle-

Winter 1994/95 41

snake makes an appearance. They are rounded up, blessed,
handled and released. Snake handlers, when bitten, mostoften do not die. Some old timers have been bitten many,
many times and survived the test. Many others have neverbeen bitten.
Although I have never handled snakes for religious purposes, my working/middle-class friends view me as rather
fearless at times. I don't see the point in worrying over whether
or not something will work out just right or what the dominant culture will think. I believe that if you mean well and act
honestly, no matter how scary an action is, what happens willbe the right thing. It might not be what you expected orwanted; it might even be hurtful or harmful, but there will bea purpose for it. If your heart is right, you can "handle it" honest action is never wasted. This is Appalachian faith.
It is natural that my sister chose witchery over christianity
when she became a woman - much of our culture is moonbased. Becoming a woman is marked by bleeding. At firstblood, a girl child is immediately welcomed into the circle ofwomen and is no longer sent to play with the young ones.
There is a gathering of kinswomen with much cooking andpride. When my daughter left her girl-self, non-Appalachian
women who we have claimed as kin were invited to celebrate.
They apparently thought I had created this ritual to rid mydaughter of cultural shame and distaste for bleeding - thisis how I learned that dominant culture women are taught to hatesomething which, for me, has always been a source of pride.
In my family cemetery, engraved headstones that acknowledge the moon as mother stand alongside stones proclaiming
the deceased has "gone home to Jesus." Many decisions are
made according to the phase of the moon and "right timing."
Some folks find Appalachian "right timing" frustrating. It'sa cultural strain to learn to "be on time" to keep from offending people all the time.
Appalachians are raised to believe that people are basically good, but that they make mistakes and life is hard. We
don't measure ourselves or others according to the "success/42 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

failure" scale that the dominant culture brutalizes its members with. We may be overly concerned at times with what's"right" or "fair," but I've yet to meet an Appalachian woman
with the "self-esteem" problems dominant culture women
struggle against. I think we tend to take joy and pleasure inwhat we have and view it as a gift, rather than berate ourselves for not having "achieved" more. And we certainly
know that we're entitled to what we do have.
As a lesbian feminist, I do not call myself christian orreligious, although gospel folk songs still move me and I am
often taken over by the wild pre-verbal sense of play (calledjoy) that causes my people to cry as we sing, and "speak intongues ." As an Appalachian womyn, I carry a deeply rooted
sense of place and purpose. The land of Kentucky calls andcounsels me. I listen closely to what she says.

Snake Circle
Karen Burns

Winter 1994/95

43

Winn Gilmore

The Funeral'L ouise, get on in there and dress that girl! I done
. alreadyironed the white cotton dress for her. It's hangin on her bedroom door there ."Louise switched the radio station from the piercing, selfrighteous exhortations of Reverend Ike to the equally loud,
but enjoyable, screams of Tall Paul on WENN. "Right on!
Right on! Down to the bone!" 1966 Black Birmingham's favorite DJ yelled. "Sock it to me-e-e, Brother James!"
Louise stepped in front of the mirror, pulled the afro pickfrom the back pocket of her dun-colored, bell-bottom dressslacks, and began teasing her do . She stepped back, smiled ather smart (but appropriately somber) outfit, and snapped her
fingers to the dying bass beat of James Brown's "I'm Blackand I'm Proud!".
"And now, y' all," the DJ belted out in punched syncopation to the fading sounds, "a new one from yours truly, Tall
Paul! We taking a soulful ride from the Godfather of Soul tothe High Priestess of Soul: Nina Simone, y'all, with 'To Be
Young, Gifted, and Black'!" Louise took down Pookie's fresh
white dress and looked at it uncomprehendingly. I'm a mother.
She's really my daughter.
"Louise," Mrs. Martins called again, anger replacing theweariness in her voice. "Darn it! I said to put that gal's clothes
on her!" She nestled the black felt hat on her head like anominous bird perched above a chamber door, and pulled thefinely netted veil over her tear-lined, creamy face.
Mrs. Martins was tired. Dan finally gone, praise God, shethought. Finally out of his misery, but he sure didn't leave me much.
And now this child actin foolish .. . "I ain't gonna tell you no
more, heifer," she warned, walking into the dining room andlooking up like an immovable, squat mountain into herdaughter's hooded eyes. "That ain't my child, you know.

44 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &: Religion

Ain't nobody told you to go out an get yourself in trouble
when you was just sixteen. Lord, Lord, I got too many crosses
to bear.""BJ," she yelled at another daughter, "you call the funeral
home again, now. Don't want that hearse to be late . Don'twant none of the neighbors to be jokin bout Dan being late
to his own funeral." She hitched up her girdle, then went
back to her room to finish dressing. "Louise, put that gal's
clothes on, and right now!" she threw over her shoulder.
Later, the Martins clan was all gathered. BJ sat on the front
porch swing, rocking gently and fanning lackadaisically witha Harrison's Funeral Home fan . Except for chirping crickets
and the swing's lazy creak, the air was heavy and still.
JoJo was the only one missing . She'd called from California and apologized tearfully for being unable to get time offfrom the new, integrated nursing program she'd just started.
Mrs. Martins nearly slapped Louise when she quipped overthe phone line to her tearful sister that "Tears for the dead areuseless, Sister. It's those of us still struggling that need to becried for. Especially those of us still fighting in the South.
And anyway," she'd concluded into the receiver as her sisters
stared gape-mouthed and teary-eyed, "Dan wasn't no good,anyhow. Never was a good daddy, even before he got sick,and you know it." Despite the itch to slap Louise, Mrs. Martins stayed her hand. She decided to bless her out after thefuneral.
The hearse pulled up in front of the house in all its grand,
black, dreaded glory. Behind it flowed its somber entourage,
like vultures dining on carrion.
The screen door squeaked open, then slammed behindLouise as she came out of the house. She wrapped one of her
daughter' s hands in one of her long, sweaty palms. She looked
out stonily at the cortege which was to carry Daniel Martins
to Macedonia 13th Avenue Missionary Baptist Church. Hearses
ough t to be white, she thought. Death is white, but of course therac ists link it with black. "I can't believe I' m actually going intoa church," she said absently to her daughter.

Winter 1994/95

4S

Church was the voracious beast to which world-weary
Black parents took innocent children for the beast's weekly
feast. Over her hard-won twenty years, Louise had learned
that it was not child-hate that caused the parents to sacrifice
their shiny young charges to the beast: it was their own inscrutable sense of guilt and, therefore, need for redemption.
Every Sunday would find them waking to the world fromwithin the Black skin they'd been taught was proof of theirsin and worthlessness. Every Sunday would find them, stiffbacked and sweating, marching their little ones through thechurch's white doors, the beast's gaping mouth grinning with
anticipation of the virginal human feast it was being offered.
"Damn church squeezes your mind between its whiteknuckles until you come out thinking you're worse than amurderer. And why," she asked, looking down at her daughter, "because you're a beautiful Black queen."
Left thumb stuck firmly in her mouth, fist balled up tightly
in Louise's hand, the three-year-old looked up sagely at her
mother.
"Lord, Dan," Mrs. Martins screamed as she burst onto her
front porch and stood as still as death. She snatched her eyesfrom the gleaming black hearse. "Too bad you ain't alive to
see this," she mumbled, .shaking her head and smiling sadly.
"You'da appreciated it for sure. Too bad you had to die to getyour first ride in somethin so grand." She threw back herhead and shouted, "He gone! Gone?: Gone!""Will Mae, stop that shouting before you raise your bloodpressure," Louise advised dispassionately. "No need to go
screaming and crying. You didn't even live with the man
anymore."Mrs. Martins stopped her tirade long enough to shoot abaleful glare at her youngest daughter. What she saw madeher red-rimmed, puffy eyes bulge. "Gal, you ain't even dressed
yet! Neighbors an friends already here, an you still dressed
like you goin to one of them funny-ass clubs.""I am dressed," Louise retorted, pulling herself taller.
Pookie looked up admiringly at her mother, the tall woman

46 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &. Religion

who loomed like an oak above her, her brown trunk andlimbs crowned by her incredible bush . "I told you I didn't
want to step foot in that place - or any church - ever again,
Willie Mae. At least I'm going to the funeral," she pleaded.
She lowered her voice and said, "I will not wear a dress .""And your hair," Mrs. Martins moaned, unbelieving. "You
can't expect to go into that Church, that House of God, withyour hair standin all over your head like some jungle woman!
It ain't right, Louise! What'll Rev'ren Blackmun say? And itsays right in the Bible that a woman ain't supposed to wear a
man's clothes. Lord, what have I done to deserve this punishment?" she asked the palpitating, hot blue sky.
"Please, Louise," BJ begged. She wrung her hands nervously. Like her mother, she clutched her black, patent leather
purse anxiously. "I straightened mine, and it's just for one
day. To show respect. Just wash it out after the funeral, andit'll be good as new. Please?"
Louise's nostrils flared, and she stepped away from herfamily and the curious eyes of their friends who'd come to
pay their last respects. She squeezed Pookie's hand and looked
down intensely into her eyes. "See what happens when you
start to compromise, Pookie? You start giving in just a little
bit to make somebody else happy, and soon they're asking foryour sou!!" The child smiled at her mother, hoping this could
make her happy again.
"Runnin round after all manner of womens," Mrs. Martins continued, shaking her head and throwing her hands
heavenward . The loose, tender yellow flesh below her biceps
quivered, then lay still.
"Cut it out, Willie Mae!" Louise seethed. "It's my life.""Now, Dear," BJ said soothingly. She wrapped a blackclothed arm around her mother's shoulders and shook herhead hopelessly at Louise. "Dear, don't get your pressure up.
You take your sugar medication today?" To her sister, shespat, "See what you done did, gir!!Ain't it enough that Daddy's
laying out there dead an bakin in that death car in the sun?
What you gotta go an upset Dear for?"Winter 1994/95 47"They was gonna throw you under that jail, gall" Mrs.
Martins insisted, stepping away from BI's sheltering arms .
"Talkin bout some 'Black Power' an 'All Power to the People'."Louise sucked her teeth and looked into the cloudless sky.
Here we go again.
"Where was your Black Power friends when the whitefolks had you in the jail house, them thinkin you was thatcolored Communist from up the hill?" her mother insisted.
"Not that you look that much like her, but both of you got thatwild hair stickin out on your heads, an you know we all lookalike to them. You shoulda learned your lesson then, gal.
Lookin like you do, ain't no way you ever gone get nobody's
respect.""Look," Louise said patiently, "all you old Black- "Her mother flinched . "Don't you dare use that word on
me. Colored, gal. We colored. Black is the color of that hearse
yonder." She pointed a shaking finger at the recently tarredroad, the air above it shimmering as if an invisible kitchenstove were beneath it, frying the Sunday chicken dinner.
Mrs. Martins remembered the road's being tarred . It had
been a cause for celebration among the newly Black neighborhood's residents. She was among the first wave of lightskinned Black emigres to settle in the vacated houses like
magpies warily lining up on a choice telephone pole. The streets
were impeccably maintained then. But somehow, after thelast white family scraped together enough money to flee, Birmingham's city funds for street repair dried up. It had taken
the younger, bolder residents three years to get the city to repair
the lewdly potholed street. Even that only happened after apothole-ignorant driver's new car torpedoed into a hole andflipped, smashing little Becky Daniels beneath the upended
blue Buick. But that's water under the bridge now, Lord, she surrendered. Let bygones be bygones, an get on with the business of livin.
"All you old Black people turned your backs on her,"Louise was insisting, "and I know you want us liberators to
do the same. My friends were there for me, but how could
they get me out, knowing they would've been thrown in jail,48 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &: Relig ion

too?" Her cold voice cracked like thinning ice. Her mind leapt
back to the greasy-haired cop kicking her down the stairs, toher head bouncing dully against the vomit-stained concrete
walls. "I'm tired of fighting with you about this," she sighed.
"Look, you can have me in church with my hair like it is, or
you can have me not in church at all. And," she added moregently, "I ain't wearing a dress, OK?"
There was a plea in her voice, a begging for understanding. Despite years of arguing with her mother, a faint hope forunderstanding still flickered. There was a spark wrapped
protectively inside the callous hardness, which blazed forthmightily when unwrapped, as now.
Mrs. Martins' eyes softened; her heart lurched. Was thisher baby? Could it be the same one who - just yesterday, it
seemed - was shooting marbles, wrestling with boys, andfighting for her sisters? I shoulda known then . How had she
grown up already? How had she missed it? My head been bowed
too long while I stood over them boilin pots an hot stoves in themwhite folks kitchen, she thought angrily. Her Christian sense of
acceptance returned and she thought, It's too late for all that,anyhow. What's done is done .
The phone rang and she rushed from this stranger, herdaughter. Louise's tense shoulders drooped as she heaved aweary sigh. She couldn't meet her sister's razor-sharp glance.
She almost saw me. Almost. I felt it.
She knew it was Jean by her mother's iciness on the phone.
"What you want with her?" Mrs. Martins spat loudly, holding
the phone a safe distance from her wigged head . "Don't you
know we got a death in the family? She ain't here ." Sheslammed the phone into its cradle.
Louise rushed into the house past her mother and pickedup the dead receiver. "Don't you ever do that again!" she yelled.
Mrs. Martins recoiled from the fierceness of her child.
What did I create here? Her hand flew nervously to her heart.
"You better leave these women alone, Louise . They ain't no thin
but trouble. Nasty, that's what it is . Just pure D nastiness."
She stomped out of the house.

Winter 1994/95 49

Louise dialed Jean's number. "Hey, baby," she murmured
into the cool black speaker. All anger dropped from her voice
like dew sucked from the grass by the sun's fervent kisses .
"Back at you, girl," Jean whisper-said . Her voice was cooland low, and fluttered from her lips like a soft summer wind.
"Your mom's got to go," she chuckled. "Can't believe she's
still up to her old tricks.""Yeah, I can't either." Louise ran her fingers along thewall. "I mean, she calls Yvonne 'that colored Communist;' you,everything but your name; and she can't stand me."
"Yeah, but she does love you. Baby, I know it's hard. How
are you holding up?"Louise leaned against the wall and exhaled tiredly. "I justgot to keep on keeping on, sister. I mean, Dan wasn't a saint,
but I will miss him, you know? It's this damned church funeral that I can't dig. I mean, even he never went to church,
Jean. Dig?""Yeah, baby." Jean wrapped one long, cinnamon-brownfinger in the telephone coil. She stretched her long, patent
leather-booted body across her bed. "You and your daddy
sure didn't have much in common, but neither one of you put
a lick of faith in 'The Church.' What did he call preachers?"
she half-laughed, remembering. She propped her naturally
red bush-crowned head on a pillow.
'''Chicken-swipin, uninvited Sunday supper guests!'"
Louise mimicked her father's drawn-out growl. Jean andLouise bellowed laughter.
Finally, Jean closed her eyes, took a deep breath, andmade the suggestion that always put Louise on edge. "Louise,
we can move in together. Shack up ." Her heart raced.
"You know I can't do that, Jean. As much as I love you, asmuch as I love the Movement, I need to take care of homefirst. My mom, you know. And Pookie," she added softly.
"We could take her with us . You're her mother, after all.
You're over eighteen, too.""Jean, stop jiving yourself. What court would ... I don't
even want to talk about it," she moaned. Tears sprang to her

50 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Relig ion

eyes. What I wouldn't give to just lie in your arms right now. Just
lay my burdens down for a change. Not worry about the funeral, myfamily, or the demanding Movement. "I've gotta go. The funeral,
you know.". "OK," Jean said with false bravado. Astutely, she snatched
the unresigned sorrow from her voice . "Call me later if you
need me . Be cool, baby.""Power to the people," Louise said, raising high her
clenched right fist. She rested the phone in its cradle andheaded for her family assembled on the front porch. She
stopped in the living room, looked in the mirror, and patted
her fro. Then she walked on toward the front porch and thefuneral.

Dresses
Karen Burns

Winter 1994/95 Sl

Avotcja

Halleluyah Y'all

From the Buddhist I learned compassion. They taught methat the end of suffering came with the end of desire.
From the Moslems I learned the art of being rational
while mystical, and I learned that to be strong I must firstmaster submission.
From the Hindu I learned that time & space are only
illusions, created by those who find typewriters and adding
machines more interesting than making love.
The Quakers taught me humility and gentleness .....
that even the life of the smallest ant is important.
And the Jew showed me the importance of unity &education.
The Taoist taught me that competition gave birth to theseeds of war & greed.
And from Jesus ..... I learned never to disagree withwhite folks, or you'd wind up nailed to a cross!!!

Originally published in Oh Yeah! by Avotcja: 1971, Afro Arts, NY, NY 1971;
available on Avotcja's cassette Has Anybody Heard My Song (write rOB
422340, S.F., CA 94142-2340, or check out music & book stores).

52

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &: Religion

Herlinda E. Arellano

My First Holy Communion

It was spring in Tucson, Arizona, and already the temps wereover 90 in the late mornings. It was so hot the beads of sweat
were making rivers as they traveled down my front and back.
The year was 1960 and I was about to make my first holycommunion at the church of Saint Joseph. I was eight years
old and attending catechism classes in preparation. My motherhad already bought my patent leather shoes, some white jobs
with those little straps that go over the top of your foot. The
white dress she was making! Yards and yards of white satin
and netting for the petticoats lay in a heap . I loved my mom
but I hated dresses.
After much instruction from the nuns the day was finallydrawing near. The nuns promised we would be so filled withgrace we would be able to float out of the church. I wascounting on having that experience. We even had a trial run
in the confessional so that we wouldn't make any mistakes.
OK, the day is tomorrow. Now I have to go forward into theconfessional and report all the true sins of my eight-year-old
self. Confession takes place on Saturday so you're pure toreceive communion at mass. "Please try not to commit any
sins between leaving the church on Saturday after confession
into Sunday morning when it is the time to receive the bodyof christ." I would try not to have any impure thoughts likewanting to kiss girls . "Bless me father for I have sinned andthis is my first confession." I must remember to always tellthe venial sins first ( these are the small ones).The mortal sins
are saved for last (being big and serious) . I don't have any
mortal sins this first time, but I have compiled a list of venial
ones. After all, I have two older brothers who I continuallyfight with, so there's plenty. And it's not OK to disagree or
argue - this is considered fighting and sinning. So many

Winter 1994/95

53

things are sins it's hard to keep track of them, but if you don't
that's a sin too.
Confession felt so serious and scary. I mean, look, youenter a little closet and kneel down, bow your head in shameand hope for mercy. Some male priest opens a little sliding
window with some kind of fakey net over it for privacy but
I can see him so I'm sure he can see me. You pour your guts out
to this stranger who is acting as a go-between you and an
almighty he-god . You better be scared and straighten up!
Anyway, I do my confession, say my penance, which consistsof three hail marys, two our fathers and one act of contrition.
These are names of prayers. I go home, have an early dinnerand am told my fast would begin. No food till after I receive
holy communion tomorrow morning! Oh no, I think, that's along time to go without food, not a good idea. See god, I am
suffering from hunger. This is making me a good catholic
girl. I hope this helps me get into heaven even though I love
girls and not boys. Next morning my mom wakes me up at 7
a.m. I bathe and am ready to dress. I have this little curly
hairdo because my mom gave me a Lady Clairol permanent
the week before. Ugh, I hated it. Now here comes the dress! It
could of stood on its own - so starchy and stiff. The petticoats make me feel like I'm in a cage. Then the little white
socks with lacy cuffs for the tight white shoes. Last, but
certainly not least, the little bride-of-christ veil. So here I am,in this sissy get up, all ready for church. This outfit is messing
with my identity. Off we go into the .hot morning. I am hungry, nervous and bundled tight in that outfit. I'm a fat kid andthe patterns my mom used were never designed quite rightfor my round body. We arrive and I go to the front of thechurch where all the others who are there to receive god areseated. There must be fifty of us! Oh no, it's going to be a longmorning.
The mass feels like it is taking forever. Finally we get tothe part where we go up and kneel in front of the altar. That' s
the closest you will ever get to the crucifix of a bleeding Jesus
who is nailed to a cross. I think, that's why I'm here. I don't

S4 sinister w isdo m #54 - Lesbia ns & Religion

want to end up that way. Here comes the priest, handing out
the hosts . I close my eyes, lift my bowed head and open mymouth to receive this moon shaped wafer. Now remember,you cannot touch the host with your teeth or fingers because
that's a sin. After all, it is the body of christ. I go back to myseat in the pew and the host becomes stuck on the roof of mymouth. I begin to gag. Quietly, but I am gagging. I have acouple of dry heaves on my empty stomach and know I'm in
big trouble. I'm praying really hard to not vomit in church.
Finally the service is over and we begin to file out of thechurch. I push my way through the crowd, my hand over mymouth, running to the nearest restroom. Once inside I throwup and think, oh no, there goes my body of christ down the
toilet! When I am finished being sick, I go and find my motherand tell her I am a catholic failure . I don't feel full of grace, I
didn't float out of the church and I just threw up my host.
"Please mom take me home, please! I don't feel so good ." We
finally do go home, I eat breakfast, feel better and decide I
will ask my mother for permission to stop going to church
and catechism.
But I had to continue church, confession and catechism
until I was 13 years old. I kept protesting - the older I got themore threatening and scary the teachings became. Finally mymom says, "Alright, you are old enough now to make thatdecision for yourself."
I was free at last. It has been 30 years since my last confession. I am still healing from catholicism. At 42, I can see theracism and colonialism that the church imposed on my childhood. I' m finding my own ways to float in grace, without
having to crossdress.

Winter 1994/95

55

Diane Anderson

Diana The Reincarnate

I was born on a Thursday, under a full moon; a bleeding,crying, wailing woman child, and I was named Diane. The
American melting-pot name for Diana, Queen of the Underworld of Spirits, Supreme Huntress and midwife on earth.
Diana. The word "devil" once meant "Diana of the wild woods."
Today the word devil means nothing and the word Diana
means me.
lt is a Thursday evening and the moon is full. I step out ofa hot tub full of sea salts and roses and menstrual blood. I
blowout my twelve candles, place my crystal and pentagram
back on the alter, douse my sage and remove my rosary. In the
Old World tonight, my followers feasted and danced in myhonor to insure the fertility of the fields. Thursday was amost important day. Sabbats were held on Thursdays and sowere some of the yearly pagan holidays. My followers practiced different sexual rites on different days of the week andThursday was the day for homosexuality.
Every Thursday I celebrate - my birth, the moon, the goddess Diana, my spirit guide, the Virgin de Guadalupe and mysexuality. Each celebration is different for I am a solitary witch,
an Indian psychic, a pagan Chicana Catholic, a lipstick lesbian.
I am pagan. I was born pagan and queer - the ethnic productof many cultures, and named after one of the earliest dykes.
Paganism is in my blood. It is my cultural heritage . My
mother's mother is a Mestizo - a Texas borderland Chicano- a direct descendent of the Aztec Indians. A direct descendent of Coaxicoatl- the Snake Woman - the most powerful
Indian goddess figure in Mexico. Years ago a statue of Snake
Woman was discovered under one of the many ancient squares
in Mexico City. When they pulled it up from the ground andplaced it just yards away from its burial site, the people called
it the most horrifying and powerful sight. Coaxicoatl de-S6 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

manded attention and exuded power and female sexuality.
Her successor, the Virgin de Guadalupe, is revered throughout Mexico and the Southwestern U .S. She is regarded by
Chicano people - people who practice our folk form of pagan. Catholicism - as the most important Catholic deity. Guadalupe protects us and gives us food and life. Guadalupe is seen
all over walls and kitchens and halls of churches. In many
homes, Guadalupe is certainly more important than Jesus.
My mother's father is a full-blooded Indian of mixed
heritage - Cherokee, Choctaw, Tigue. The Cherokees had aname for women who were different - warriors, leaders andinfluential council members - Beloved Women. In tribal
worlds, girls who rejected women's work as children would
be accepted as men and they married other women who were
not cross-gendered. They would be united in marriage witha Rope Baby ceremony and they would have an open, lesbian,sexual relationship . This was commonplace until the mid1880s, when the empowerment of women was suppressed forwhite, male approval.
My father is of color, but he was adopted by a white
Anglo-European family. From this I have my Wicca background. The power of the European goddess. The origin of
Diana. From this white European background I have foundthe myths for who I am; the rituals my followers used; theinvocations of my own dieties.
My sexuality is the final thread - the one that weaves
together my cultural spirituality, my paganism, my self. I ama femme to my genderfucked butch girlfriend. I am pansexual. I can relate to both the masculine \and feminine. I cancall on the horned god to fuck me and bring me rain or I can
invoke the moon goddess to ritualize me and fertilize ourearth. I can host many genders. I focus on women - for power,
sex, ritual. Women bleed - they are there for the goddess.
Unlike men, they need no ritual to "become" women. They
have power.
My religion - a combination of pagan practices and rituals - is dominated by the celebration of the goddess . It isWinter 1994/95 57

about independence and growth in women; it is about thepersonal as political. Witches and shamans can heal the earth,
protect our children, end gay bashing. I am a solitary witch
because there are no Dianic circles in my home state of Idaho;
no women-centeredness in our rural farm state. There are malecentered Druid cults and covens led by straight, white men.
I've seen what happens to women who spend all theirtime focusing on men. The religion is lost. The goddess islost. My color, my sex is lost. So every Thursday night I sit ina tub with candles and sage and my ruby-colored rosary, andI call the Supreme Huntress to midwife my spiritual birth. In
solitude, in my women's world, I reclaim who I am.
Pledge to Diana. So Mote it Be.

Goddess of the Kitchen Sink
wood assemblage
Rainbow Williams

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sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

Pagodesswood, clay, shells

Rainbow Williams

Winter 1994/95 59

Myke Johnson

Of Cowboys, Mystics & Lesbians(We all, everyone of us, have to come home again)*
My lover's hands
reach inside my skinleaving trails of surrender.
My mouth takes communion
between her thighs.
Growing up, I never heard the word Lesbian.
But I knew about love that was forbidden, determining,
disruptive. My father was the renegade. He was a mystic passionately in love with a God who demanded total surrender, whose glance imparted total ecstasy.
I must have learned to love like that, as I learned to namethe colors. I cannot remember how I began to talk to God, onlythat God was as present in our lives as the eternal dream of myfather to return to Wyoming, to the distant mountains and wide
blue skies of his childhood, to the cowboy life of his youth.
I was my father's first born, I was my father's daughter. I
remember at the age of six, living on a rented ninety acres inMetamora, Michigan. I remember my father teaching me toride, small girl on a huge golden quarter-horse, hanging on to
the leather horn of the saddle. I learned to shoot cans on afence with a .22 rifle, my careful eye and his steadying arm,
hitting right on target.
Much later, my mother told me some of the details of themove to Metamora. The original plan had been to buy theland to start a pig farm with the Mangan family, close friendsof our family. But there wasn't enough money and that dream,
like many others, never came through.

*Title line from song by Bernice Johnson Reagon (Songtalk Publishing Co.,
1977), recorded by Sweet Honey In The Rock, on We All Everyone of Us.

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sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &I Religion

It was my mother who bore the disruptive backwash of
my father's passions. In the early days, she shared those
cowboy dreams of a ranch or farm on land somewhere. I have
pictures of them with their horses, in jeans and t-shirts andcowboy boots at the riding club in Detroit where they met
and fell in love.
When my father turned to God and returned to the Catholic church of his growing up, she was baptized, too, early inher pregnancy with me . Her French Canadian mother had
drifted away from the church and never got around to baptizing the last of her eight children. I think for my mother the
church was community and a place to belong. She always
seemed at a loss to understand my father's religious intensity. The deeper his passion for God, the more she felt supplanted from his heart. As he led our growing family acrossthe country trying to follow his visions, she began to hunger
for a rooted home, for normalcy, security, an ordinary life.
After Metamora, the dream took us to Texas in the fall of
1960, our family and the Mangans. I was just starting second
grade . We were there for only six months, the last few months
all of us together, scraping by in an old house in the country.
In the midst of a blur of memories - about having nomoney, eating corn meal mush, playing rodeo on the backs ofour dads and looking for magical cities in the last glowing embers of the hearth fire in the morning - I find my first distinct
memory of a prayer of my own. I was kneeling on the floor of
the small windowless bathroom, doors carefully locked. Ourelectricity must have been turned off by then, an oil lamp was
burning on the back of the toilet seat. There, seven years old,
I made a secret vow to God that I would become a nun. I knewthat a nun was the bride of Jesus, and I was in love.
I don't remember when I learned that such a love was not
to be proclaimed to the world, that it would set me apart,subject me to disdain, be incomprehensible to those who did
not experience it, rendering me both strange and special. The
prophet Jeremiah wrote, "You have seduced me oh Lord andI let myself be seduced!"Winter 1994/95

61

Eros and spirituality were inextricably, queerly, linked. I
had never heard about, nor imagined, the hidden love of
women for women. But this hidden love for the divine lover
was kindled in me, as it had been in my father, and it shaped
my passions, my sexuality, my path into a deviant way.
While in my everyday schoolgirl world I felt myself to bequite an anomaly, I found books to read which told the stories
of others who yearned as I yearned. My father's books. Books
in the Catholic school library. The Catholic church has anabundant history of saints and mystics who were in love with
God. Sainthood was never about perfection. It was about
desire. It was about surrender. And there was the satisfactionof ritual- the weekly or daily communion celebration - thetangible host in one's mouth like a secret kiss, an erotic tryst.
It seemed like my father never quite found a way to bringhis dreams to realization. We made it to Wyoming once fornine months when I was twelve. He worked as a cowboy there
for a while. But how could he support a family - with six
children at the time - on a cowboy's pay? So we left themountains on the horizon and went back again to Michigan,
where he wo rked as a draftsman after that. Despite his lack ofa high school diploma, he eventually became a mechanicalengineer in a number of small companies which fed off the
auto indus try of Detroit. He never saw it as his true identity,
but only a job.
When I was sixteen, we finally came across other people
who were in love with God. In 1967 the Catholic Pentecostal
movement had begun igniting small groups of folk, creatinga new kind of Catholic, a speaking-in-tongues, reading-thebible, prophesying, evangelical kind of Catholic. In 1970, in
a talk at a parish high school religion class, a dark-haired
college-aged woman spoke feelings which I'd never ·heard
anyone but my dad speak aloud before: "You have to fall inlove with Jesus."
My parents and I became a part of a little spiritual utopia
in Ann Arbor, Michigan - full of students and hippies andother radicals, all on fire with a direct line to the Holy Spirit,

62

sinister w isdom #54 -Lesbians &: Religion

gathering for prayer meetings one long evening each week.
Later, I went to college and found several kindred spirits among
my classmates, and we created our own prayer communities.
Now, I'll joke with Lesbian activists about how I got theworst of both worlds, growing up Catholic and evangelical
Christian. They laugh and sigh with horror.
But that early road was something more than horrible. It
was Saint Francis talking to the sun and moon and animals
and revolting against materialism and greed . 'It was my hands
learning to heal as they sat upon the shoulders of a sick or
troubled friend. It was a still familiar feeling of not fitting
into the mainstream world, but holding to an inner vision ofloving. It was knowing in my bones that I was precious,
valuable - even if unknown, ignored, passed over, despisedby the important people of the world .
It feels strange to write about those days. I never imagined then what I have now become. And yet, years later chanting and singing with other Lesbian women in a witch's
coven - I noticed there was nothing so similar as the singing
in tongues at the prayer meetings - all of us moved to ecstasy, beyond rational language or dignified containment.
It was absolutely necessary for me to leave. The prayer
meetings became more and more structured, emphaticallyplacing men in positions of authority and admonishing
women to be submissive. Radical Catholic progressives - towhom I migrated for politics and activism - weren't heeding
the voices of women challenging their proclaimed but elusive commitment to equality. Ultimately, feminism turned
my life upside down to the core.
I sought out the Goddess like I began to seek out Lesbians, eros and spirituality inextricably linked. Like a lover
She wooed me and I went to Her.
Years later, my father also left the Catholic church. He
joined an evangelical church whose focus was on healing andfollowing the spirit. My mother joined him, as she had somany times before, but continued to remain a part of theCatholic parish they had belonged to for over twenty years.

Winter'994/95 63

My father still talks about the dream of a ranch out west.
Sometimes I try to talk to him about the Goddess. I thinkperhaps he understands the compulsion of a vision upon theheart.
Back here in my Lesbian life, we speak about the rightwing-evangelical-Christians. They are the ones who target
us, describe us as abominations. Sometimes we make jokes,
and act as if they were all nuts. We identify them as the enemy.
Sometimes they talk about wanting us to die; they speak as if
we were the devil's own children.
I know it is more complicated than that. I am my father's
daughter.
Sometimes I feel like an orphan, far away from roots orhome, following queer and female dreams of a land we mightcelebrate in. As a child, I never heard the word Lesbian, or
really knew what a woman might be. But I remember myfather's forbidden love, determining, disruptive. I remember
his search for a place in this world where that queerness in
him might be valued . I remember his hunger for distantmountains .
I am my father's daughter.

64 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &I Religion

Lisa Gray

In The Bathtub
In an attempt to stir up matted down memories of my life as afundamentalist, I braved an Assemblies of God Sunday morning
church service. I am proud to say that I came ou~ alive ... alive withrage and insight! I went home to take my Sunday afternoon bath, andwhile in the tub, this piece poured onto paper ... .
My tattoo looks really sharp under the water. I was 24, andI permanently marked myself with a two inch dancing cow
surrounded by little red musical notes. Why? What bizarre
impulse moved me to do that?
At that time I was newly free. I was beginning to think formyself. I was beginning to become myself. I was coming out
as a feminist and coming out as a lesbian. I was trying everything ' for the first time, everything from allowing myself toquestion important principles and beliefs, to allowing myself to drink, dance and have sex.
My cow is my symbol of chaos, freedom and celebration.
Her leg is kicked high and her arms above her head. I think
her leg was kicking down every door that had locked in mythoughts; every door that had hidden something from me .
Her arms were reaching to the skies, reaching for something,anything. What is out there? And the song was my celebrationof new truths, new loves and new ways.
Sounds wonderful? To get it I had to sit through millionsof needle jabs into the softness of my belly. I grit my teeth. I
bled . I kept my wound covered for a while, and cared for it
daily before I showed anyone.
I'm showing it now ... over and over in as many ways as
I can. Do you want to see it? Do you think I'm weird? Do you
wonder how I could have done such a thing? and why? Am I
different from you because I am marked?
Going to church this morning was like going back to thetattoo parlor. The people there were ugly to me, and theWinter 1994/95

65

needles, this time switchblades, went into me a million times.
The nostalgia lasted only for a minute.
If one more woman with big earrings and red lipstickwould have smiled big into my face I think I would haveburst into vulgarities! I don't need you to save me. I've already been saved - once by you, and once from you. The firsttime felt warm and fuzzy, the second time felt cold and dangerous. But your long fingernails dug deep into my belly
could not keep me from writhing free of you. I bring with me
only my scars. They look like the stretch marks I earned in myadolescence when I grew so fast.
You are such an idiot! Can't you see it? It's all a weird lie- a cult! And not only that but they hate you! want to fix you!
want to take away your rights, your freedom! and they say so.
This is not hidden. Is that okay with you, to "let the Lord have
His way with you?" You must hear the songs, "Come unto
Jesus, give Him your life today. Come unto Jesus, let Him
have His way." You want to be fucked, raped, dehumanized
by God? By His messengers? I heard the preacher today,"Pray for your pastor, your shepherd," your rapist. Jesus willtell him what to do. He ought to know.
They raped my mind too ... again and again, and told me
it was my calling. I have a calling and they used it to get theirrocks off. "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other groundis sinking sand."Sometimes I want to turn away and forget it all. Sometimes I want to cut off God's penis, and all the little penisesthat point to Him. Maybe that's what I want to do by writing
about it ... cut off their penises, their power. I want to subvert
their power and use it against them, and for my purposes, forour purposes, all of us who resist them.
You, Mr. Fundamentalist, you have a name to me, youhave a face, you have a family, but that doesn't take awayfrom the fact that you fucked me. Fucked with my head, withmy body, with my past, my present, my future. The scars you
left are deep inside my body. "Let the Lord have His way with
you," and then you sing, "Oh to be His hand extended." Are66 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

you His presence on earth? "Ma'm, spread your legs . Let the
Lord come inside, and let Him fill you with His Holy Spirit,and then the Love of God will come bubbling .out of you.
bububububblin, bubububububblin, Jesus love is bubblin'over, Jesus love is in my soul."
My heart is beating fast. I am mine now. I do have rights .
And the only love that bubbles out of me is my own.
I am sorry I defended you over lunch today. But I am stilla little bit, maybe more than that, afraid of you. Who wouldn't
be? But you don't deserve to be defended. Pitied maybe .
I'm looking at you now! I'm facing you like I used to face
the bitter winds in my Montana home town. You roar at me
and terrify me, but the only way you will not conquer me is
if I face you head on. I am looking at you now!!

Will

Winifred Eads

Winter 1994/95

67

Lisa Williams

let us banish god
let us banish god
dispatch him (her it them) to the place
where worn out legends go to die (the john wayne rest hornefor dispossessed titans)storm valhalla
turn out the deities
who have settled
on our land
we could eat them chop them up into god soupenough for all certainly
so many are there crowding the globe
elbow to elbow jostlingfor breathing room
space to cry in
to attract attention
to wail like babies
who need their milk
and don't they look like us? creatures with our eyes and smiles
hair the same color attitudes propensities for violence
for acquisition of material goods
yep our offspring all rightmonsters of the mind let loose and become large
refracted through the cultural mirror
turned into the immortals who would run our lives
with their suggestions of ways to improve ourselves
sadistic old things with strraaannnggge ideas about
how to cure what ails us immolation
genocide human sacrifice holy wars hatred
what a waste of the imagination
if we're going to create saviors how 'bout somewith a sense of fun?

68 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians [,{ Religion

slapstick goddesses who throw pies in our faces
splatter creampuffs on our suits and skirts
toss water balloons at our heads
lily tomlin goddesses
whoopi goldberg goddesses
we could fill up the sky with guffaws
hoots and howls belly laughs
each morning the sun could risea tee hee low-in-the-throat chuckle burstingby noon into haw-haws dissolving by twilight into giggles
fading away in evening
to the satisfied sigh of the very amusedand the moon a pun at midnight we could salute herwith our own upraised buns
millions of bottoms upturned awaiting her kiss the bussthat betrays our lunacy

Like Pap? '"Nancy R. Levine(© 1994 Nancy R. Levine)

Winter 1994/95 69

zanaspare me the solstice treehibernation might be the best idea. i'd love to be unconscious
for the whole damn season!
i can show you family pictures, christmas mornings : tree,
gifts, me and my sisters in our pajamas. mom was the photographer. it's her holiday, the one she always feels "blue" after.
i didn't know that till sometime in my thirties . i knew how j'dfelt though - down, going down the downside of the roller
coaster. the last present had been opened, nothing i got wasever wonderful enough, no pose for the camera made us a
happy family basking in togetherness. after months of anticipation, it was all over with no real climax.
daddy isn't in the pictures. i remember him being part of
the ritual, though. did he stay for all the present-opening,
uncharacteristically quiet and subdued? or did mom arrange
it so that he opened his present from her, his presents from us,then disappeared?
it wasn't his holiday. he didn't want to do the jewish ones
either; if not for mom's old college friend nearby, i wouldn't
have ever even gone to a seder. daddy rejected his mother's
kosher kitchen, the rules of orthodoxy. and if you didn't want
the religion, why identify as a jew? it was just something
they'd kill you for. he fought in that war. in the fifties he said,"i'm not jewish, i'm an agnostic." he'd married a gentile, andgot to live (probably nervously) in a "restricted" community
where blacks and jews were not supposed to be allowed . weall attended the community's "non-denominational" (protestant) church; he sang in the choir. neighbors must have known
he was jewish from his looks and last name, but they didn't"mind," or pretended not to . i was called a "little gypsy"
because of my dark coloring. not a little jew, which is what r
was! white people think of gypsies as romantic, mythicalbeings (until they try to move into the neighborhood!).

70 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion•••
i hate christmas because except for a few passovers, i had
no jewish holidays. i was denied half my heritage.
i hate chirstmas because i was addicted. i was taught to be
addicted by my mother passing along white gentile american
culture. when i was married, my gentile husband and i madea big fucking deal out of it too. divorced, i shuddered whena friend told me of a christmas he'd spent alone, eating tunafrom a can. i was suicidally lonely that year, saved from despair
by a christmas dinner with friends, one of whom was also a
passing jew. a few years later, alone in the flat while my dyke
roommates went home for chirstmas, i deliberately ate a canof tuna fish and smiled. it was the beginning of my liberation.
i hate christmas because you can't get away from it. ohyeah, maybe deep in the woods - if some chipmunk doesn't
jump out in a santa suit. or in the homes of jewish or paganor buddhist friends - if we all don't start talking about how
much we hate christmas. i get catalogs featuring christmas
stuff as early as july. just when i think it's safe to go in stores
again, in january, people are returning christmas presents,talking about how glad they are it's over, buying christmas
wrap on sale. the decorations are still up, the music is stillplaying. (music that continues in my head against my will!)
i hate christmas because everyone has to take part. i wanted
to frame some of my art work, and though i usually avoid
buying things during november and december, i thought i
was safe. it was still before thanksgiving. i didn't expect to be"merry christmassed" this early. i didn't think of an art supply store as a source of christmas gifts. (silly me.) at checkout,
the cashier said, "you must be framing pictures for christmas
presents." i said no. "then i guess you're redecorating forchristmas." "no." "well," she insisted exasperatedly, "it musthave something to do with christmas!" like i was trying to bedifficult. after all, why else would anyone purchase six picture frames in the month of november?
i hate christmas because even living on lesbian land it isstill in my face . even radical dyke separatists, of christianWinter 1994/95

71

background, find ways to rationalize christmas. if they'remothers, it's for the children. or it's their "cultural heritage
just like your jewish holidays." maybe a grain of truth there,
and we all want the comfort of our childhood pleasures. butwhat about the centuries of torture and genocide carried out
in the name of christianity - pogroms, "holy" wars, theinquisition, the holocaust? millions of wimin were burned
alive to complete the transition from the old earth beliefs topatriarchal christianity. i think we forget that because it's too
horrible to think about.
i hate christmas most because most white christians don't
even know when the holidays of other religions and culturesare, let alone feel engulfed by them as non-christians do bychristmas. how come, "away from the patriarchy" on dyke
land, i can't have a december without invitations for "everyone" to come to "holiday" parties, christmas goodies (which
i'm certainly tempted by) offered in common space, "solstice" trees, children singing carols and showing me theirchristmas presents?
and of course, i hate christmas because of its overwhelming, inescapable commercialism .

•••please! don't send me christmas cards with "christmas"
marked out and "chanukah" written in. (or "solstice." or evencards designed for solstice. no one sends them at summer
solstice!) don't send me christmas cards where you've writtenin, "i know you don't celebrate christmas, but." don't sendme those sneaky "season's greetings" cards. we all knowwhat "season" this is. chanukah is not a major jewish holiday
but has been puffed up into one to compete with christmas.
kwanzaa seems like an attempt to give african-americans analternative at the same time of year. these are fine holidays,
but like solstice, they always seem to have christmas lurking
behind the scenes.
i just wanna eat my tuna fish and get away from it ALL!

72 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Re ligion

S. Naomi Finkelstein

McRunes and Mazdas

I had planned with my friend Sandra to make a Seder thatyear. But Rosie was dead and I couldn't face Pesach without
her. I had been unable to feel much for about a week which wasclose to my usual state of affect, but just under the unresponsiveness was pain beyond belief. So I did what I do when
I don't want to face what's happening: I left. I called Sandra
and to her chagrin canceled the Seder. I went to the Port
Authority and got on a Shortline bus headed towards
Rommulus, New York where the Peace Camp at the Seneca
Army base was located.
I was there for a while during the summer of '83 and itchanged my life. I had never spent time around womyn who
believed our energy could make miracles and I had not, untilthat point, thought I could live in a way that might makepeace. I come from a world where violence is a fact of life, asurvival tactic necessary to get through the day alive and I
learned that not fighting back means someone can kill you.
I'm not putting down fighting for your survival, the first step
towards a peaceful life is staying alive, after all. But at thepeace camp I talked with womyn who thought the planet's
survival depends on people not taking the first punch. And
beyond that it means looking for solutions that are morecreative than killing your enemies or passively being a victim. At the time this was news to me and it led to a huge shift
in my thinking.
There was no deep meaning as to why I choose Seneca asa place to run to except that it was there, it was familiar andI could afford the bus ticket. So I packed a box of matzoh androde nine hours through New York state. I called the womyn
at the camp at 10 pm to say I wouldn't be in until 1 am, could
they please pick me up at the bus stop. I hadn't realized thatthe bus trip would take so long. Anyway Lightening and Amy
Giraffe met me at the bus, tired, crumpled and a bit put out.

Winter 1994/95

73

They introduced themselves. Living on womyn's land wasstill new to me then . I wasn't comfortable taking off myclothes in front of strangers and I couldn't quite figure out
how to change my name to an animal or nature name withoutsounding like a Native American instead of a Jew. So I apologized for the hour and said simply "I'm Susan Feinstein andI came to do some work."
Giraffe chimed in then "You're Jewish!! That's great, now
we can celebrate Passover."I made a noncommittal grunt. I didn't want to celebrate
Passover with anyone. But they had just picked me up at a bus
stop at 1 am and I didn't want to seem impolite. Then she
pushed, "We can make McRunes.""What are McRunes?" I asked, not understanding her
midwestern accent.
"You know, those cookies you eat at Passover."I frowned trying to make out just what kind of cookies she
was referring to since my orthodox family did not, in fact, eat
cookies at Pesach. I was just about to inform her of this when
I realized that she meant macaroons . "You mean macaroons,"
I said wearily. I didn't want to participate in a culture lesson
at 1 in the morning.
"Yeah. McRunes, know how to make them?""No," I said, honestly not knowing.
"Too bad," she said sounding disappointed as hell. Then
she brightened. "Maybe we can look it up."
"Maybe," I replied . I actually hate macaroons, but she
seemed to have her heart set on it so I stayed silent in order tonot disappoint her.
The next day I got up and found out what needed doingaround the camp. The compost pile needed turning. Being abutch from NYC I eagerly went to turn it, while the womyn
who lived with the compost as a daily reality wondered at myenthusiasm. The same went for the woodpile I stacked. ThenI started filling holes in the circular drive with seemingly
endless wheelbarrows full of gravel. I had figured out a longtime before that hard physical labor distracted me from suffering . While I worked the pain I was avoiding receded as

74 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

endorphins filled my brain. I stopped at 62 wheelbarrows
and went inside to eat dinner.
I wouldn't eat rice or beans or tofu. It was Pesach, after all,and even though I had rejected much of my religious upbringing, habits of a lifetime were hard to break. Since riceand beans and tofu and peanut butter were staples at thecamp I guess I looked a lot more religious than I felt. They
seemed to gawk at me when I sat down with matzoh andcheese. I thought I should have brought along some gefilte
fish too but I wasn' t sure how these girls would react toseeing gefilte fish for the first time (it's an acquired taste, I
admit, but one worth acquiring) and I wasn't sure meat waswelcome on the land . Amy was in the kitchen trying to make
McRunes. After supper we all went to the depot to join a vigilorganized by the local christian peace group. When we droveup the christians were standing next to a cross singing "Wereyou there when they nailed him to the cross?" I tried not totake this as a personal question directed at me, but I stoodback' cause crosses ain't my thing.
After the singing was over they started to make communion. The next thing I knew Amy Giraffe was standing there
giving away my matzoh, telling them that the last supper wasa seder and that Jesus was eating matzoh not bread. My desire
to get involved with communion was less than acute, so I
went over to Night Sky and asked, "What is she doing withmy matzoh?"Night Sky replied, "Making a political point."
I didn't want my matzoh to be used to make a politicalpoint. At that point my matzoh eating wasn't political. It was
just what I did at Pesach. I got pissed and went over to Amy.
"What am I going to eat?" I yelled at her as the christians
sang "By the Rivers of Babylon" in an attempt to appear
ecumenical.
Amy looked puzzled and said, "I am trying to be your allyat this overtly christian biased ritual."
Ally, schmally! I thought to myself. "I don't give a damn
about the christians but I do give a damn about that matzoh.
What am I gonna do without it?"

Winter 1994/95

75

She looked at me deadpan. "I'm making McRunes."
At this I walked away.
Back at the camp I went through the kitchen for something to eat. They were vegetarians and I followed Ashkenazic
traditions so all the peas, barley and lentils were out. I was
pondering the phrases "when in Rome do as the Romans do,"and, from the Talmud, "Don't separate yourself from yourcommunity," when Lightening came in. She offered me popcorn with Brewer's yeast and tamari on it. I wouldn't havebeen eager to try it even when it wasn't Pesach because it
looked like shit, but the popcorn wasn't kosher for Pesach
and neither was the tamari, I reasoned, because it was fermented. I wasn't sure about the Brewer's yeast. Back in Brooklyn we had never eaten, or even heard of, Brewer's yeast. I sat
on the floor munching an apple, thinking that eating fruitand cheeses for a week wouldn't be so bad and reminding
myself I was the one who hadn't thought the Pesach thing
through. Still, Pesach without matzoh or a seder was seemingly more and more alien and alienating to me.
"I need more matzoh - you know where I can find some?"
I asked.
"There's a 7-11 up the road. I'll drive you there after thenews is over."I went outside to catch a breather. It's still pretty cold in
upstate NY in April. I went to the outhouse, not happy to haveto use it, and slammed the lid to scare any spiders or animals
I was sure lived in the pit. I sat down and wondered why I'dthought coming to the camp was a good idea.
When I went back in Amy had a wide smile and wasoffering me some amber color'e d gunk.
"What is it?"
"McRunes," she replied, like - why Susan, haven't you
ever seen a McRune before?
I looked at the concoction again. "Well they must be .
McRunes," I said dryly, "' cause they sure don't look likemacaroons. What didya make 'em with?"
She looked crestfallen- "sugar and almond extract."

76 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion"No coconut?" I asked. She shook her head no.
"Well I'm no expert on McRunes, but it seems to me they're
probably made with some matzoh flour and coconut. Whatyou have here is almond candy." I scraped the hardened flat
goop off the pan and took a bite. "At least it hasn't risen," I
said.
The next day me and Lightening went to the 7-11 in searchof matzoh. I went up to the kid behind the deli case whichcontained jello with fruit in it, some olive loaf and spam. I
made a bet they wouldn't have matzoh based on this evidence.
"Excuse me," I ventured. "Do you have matzoh?"He stared at me. "What?""Matzoh," I repeated.
"No, we don't sell Mazdas here." He looked at me as if I
were an ass hole for not figuring out this was a grocery store
and not a used car dealership . And I don't know, but something snapped. It was alright with me that they didn't sellmatzoh but how could he not know what it was? I mean thiswas New York, not Kansas, and I knew what the hell spam
was even though, barring starvation, I would not eat it anytime in the next century. So I yelled, "Matzoh, matzoh, aJewish cracker, not a car, a cracker."
He looked like he decided to not make one false movearound me and said, "Maybe in Ithaca ."I stormed out. Lightening said real quiet, "I'll take you to
Ithaca.""How could he not know?" I mumbled.
"It's a small place without a lot of Jews. Don't worry, I'll
get Amy and we'll find you some matzoh."
So we went back to the camp. I went and found Amy andsaid, "Look, you gave my matzoh to the christians. Now you
have to go find me some more." She and Lightening went toIthaca, about a half hour away.
"Find someone Jewish and ask them," I advised andpaused . I had grown up in New York City where finding Jews
wasn't a difficulty. I wasn't used to small town life. "Maybeat the university," I ventured.

Winter'994/95

77

I didn't want to go on the matzoh adventure. I couldn't
face any more ignorance . And for some one who came up here
to ignore Pesach I was sure putting a lot of energy into it. I
wanted to be alone, so I went to the barn which had a muralon it with womyn dancing and the words "Circle for Survival."
Womyn had come and camped on the land the year before
on corn rows so bumpy it felt like you were trying to sleep ona camel. Lots of stuff was left behind which found its way
into the barn. I opened the door to a large junk pile and abunch of rats eating bars of ivory soap. I hate rats. In the city
they're seen as filthy, disgusting rabies-carrying, baby-eating vermin. I thought to myself - Why are they eating soap?In a millisecond came the answer. Soap is made of fat. I
wondered for another millisecond why I knew that and thenI found myself on my knees barfing. I shut the barn door andwent into the fields. I started to cry.
Helicopters passed over head as the army kept tabs on thissmall group of dykes resisting nuclear war. I hadn't criedsince long before my grandmother had died. I stopped crying
when I left home eight years before .
"She's dead," I said to no one. "My grandma is dead andwhat is left? Who's left?" I'd never speak Yiddish with anyone again. I didn't sing nigguns anymore. I didn't keep kosher or bench licht anymore . Shabbos meant nothing to me.
I hadn't been to shul for years. I didn't want much to do with
Judaism in general. I was getting whatever spiritual stuff I
needed in moon circles. But here I was in the middle of afucking field, crying because rats eating soap had triggered
me into remembering that Nazis had made Jews into soap.
She was gone and with her I saw a whole world passing
away. A world I wasn't sure I wanted. A world I hadn't had tostay intimate with because my grandparents had been intimate with it for me. But now if I didn't remember Yiddish, if
I didn't sing the nigguns my family knew, all that simple
beauty and laughter would be gone from my world. All I
would be able to pass on would be death tales of the Nazis
and a cardboard box of matzoh.

78 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion

I keened with grief that night, not merely for Rosie who
I had loved dearly, not only for the Friday nights she took me
to her breast, fat and full and a little sweaty as she lit thecandles, not only for her tears as she blessed me and all her
grandchildren, but for the world she inhabited and for theculture her life had embodied. How was I going to be a Jew
without her there being a Jew?
They say that you become a womon in Judaism when you
turn twelve. I didn't become a womon until that day when I
decided to take on the mitzvah of carrying on, of struggling
with, of reinviting my culture. I was the door stop against
genocide. The culture would not die if it lived in me. It was
and is the only mitzvah that truly guides me to this day. It was
and is the responsibility I took on. It was and is what ties me
to my people, to my ancestors, to my grandmothers.
I decided then to learn all of what my heritage means: thebeauty and the horror, the sustaining and the oppressive, thepain and the sources of joy. I decided then to learn about the
lives of all those killed and make that as important as the way
they died . I'd take time to remember what was so integral toRose. It wouldn't die with her. But it wouldn't be all thatdefined me as a Jew either. I knew I couldn't be the Jew Rosie
was. I knew I didn't want to be Orthodox anymore and that ashtetl never would have nurtured me - a smart, butch dyke
who wanted the world.
But I couldn't turn my back on how I grew up anymore,even with all the pain Orthodox Judaism had caused me. I
had been left out of the Torah . I was excluded from religious
life. Every major life passage - my period, my coming out,
my commitment to womyn went uncelebrated. Womyn in myfamily were treated like shit. I left in anger, in hurt anddisgust. I left in search of freedom. But it meant something
for me to stay a Jew. I couldn't walk away. Somewhere beinga Jew and a dyke would meet and all of us would infuse
Judaism with a radical lesbian spirit. We would renew it aswell as remember it. I didn't want Hilter or an old guy witha beard and a tallis to be the first thing I thought of when I
thought of being Jewish. I didn't want to be a Jew by proxyWinter 1994/95 79

anymore. I wanted to picture Jewish womyn laughing.
When I walked into the house there were two boxes ofmatzoh on the table. Say what you will about dykes. We makelots of mistakes but you can't say we don't try real hard. I
smiled. It was dark in the house. A three legged cat rubbed
around my ankles. I began to sing a klezmer tune I didn't
know the name of .... But I knew all the words.

For Rose, Rachel and Blanche, Alice, Rebecca and Leah, my beloved ancestors.
And for Otter, who helped.

Glossary• Ashkenazic: Eastern European descended Jews. There are also Sephardic
Jews who are, or are of Mediterranean descent and Mitzrachi Jews whoare, or are of Arabic or Indian and African descent. Each have their own
customs and traditions in the following of Je wish Law. Sephardic tradition says that man y grains are kosher for Passover.
• Klezmer: Folk music of Eastern European Jewry• Mitzvah: religious obligation• Nigguns: Wordless tune sung in preparation for prayer• Pesach: Passover (in Hebrew and Yiddish).
• Schmally: Yinglish word that .... . I can't really explain. Either you get itor you don't.
• Shabbos: Sabbath, beginning Friday at sundown and ending Saturday"when three stars are visible in the sky"
• Shtetle: a forceably segregated rural village of peasant Jews in Eastern
Europe.
• Shul: Yiddish for school, used also for synagogue• Torah: Five Books of the Pentateuch (bible)• Talmud: Ancient rabbis' commentary on the Torah• bench licht: Womyn light candles just before Shabbos.
• Yiddish: language of Eastern European Jews. Derived from Middle
Ages, · high country German.

80 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Rachael Rosen

Subjected

You have studied me well,
my books lining your shelves neatly
You know of my significant days,
yet you will never be able to pronounce them
You wander cautiously around my history, oppressions,lowering your eyes in perfect timed reverence,
thanking me for offering you burnt rememberings
Your respect is enormous, consuming my suspicions
momentarily

Winter 1994/95 81

Bette S. Tallen

Dialoguing About Dialogue:
A Jewish Lesbian Perspective

I h~ve only recently realized how much in denial I have been
about Jewishness making a difference in my life in the lesbian community. Having come out 15 years ago in a largely
Jewish community, I never emotionally understood that myJewishness was an issue in the lesbian community until I
moved to Chicago ten years ago and began to live among women
who had never met Jews.
Where I grew up, being Jewish was not something I
thought about, I just was, as everyone in my neighborhood
was. I was thoroughly insulated from non-Jewish life. I don't
think my parents have ever entertained a non-Jewish personin their home. My father works with some non-Jews, but thecontext was so Jewish (a large New York Jewish funeral home)that it did not matter.
In 1988 I moved to a small city of about 40,000 in Minnesota to become Chair of a Women's Studies department. My
lesbianism was not much of an issue, as the hiring committee
wanted an out lesbian and the administration was supportive. My non-Jewish friends all- asked me how I would feelbeing in a community with so few lesbians. I replied that I
was not worried, that there were many women-identifiedwomen there, both lesbian and non-lesbian, who understandlesbian politics. When I said I was much more worried about
the lack of a Jewish community, no one but my Jewish friends
and one non-Jew understood.

Thanks to Jeffner Allen, Judith Arcana, Elliott, Sarah Hoagland, Nett Hart ,Anna Lee, Cherie Scricca, Margaret Howe and several of the graduate students
in Women's Studies at Mankato State University.

82 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion. The Welcome Wagon Lady asks my religious affiliation. I say"Jewish." She pauses and then tells me she talked to a "Jewish gal"
three years ago . I feel alone.
I am only now coming out of my own denial about Jewhating in the lesbian community. I have long been uncomfortable with what passes for anti-racist work in our community. Over the years, I have attended many workshops on
confronting racism, but the underlying assumption they allseem to make is that our racism is unintentional. We talkabout the first time we saw racism, we share stereotypes
about people of color. These are not the same thing as understanding and confronting our racism. I have even heard women
describe racism as a disease. We rarely take responsibility forour racism. We don't see our racism as choices that we make.
I sit at an anti-racist workshop. When we talk about Jews, awoman volunteers that she wasn't prejudiced, how could she be when
she wasn't raised around Jews and didn't know any? This time, no one
confronts her. I, the only Jewish woman in the room, am frightened .
What I have found is that we do very little to understandJew-hating in our communities. What do I say to a lesbian
who has just accused me of being too aggressive and has neverheard the pushy-Jew stereotype? She uses her ignorance toprove to me that she isn't showing Jew-hating, because how
could she if she didn't know? I explain that I hear it as reinforcing a stereotype. I am frustrated that she will not takeresponsibility for her own ignorance and the pain that causes
me. Ignorance is no excuse; just because you have never hearda stereotype doesn't mean you can't perpetuate it.
A Christian friend, who knows I am Jewish, wishes me Happy
Easter. I am appalled at both her insensitivity and her lack of knowledge. Doesn't she know the entire Easter holiday was a major pretext
for the wholesale slaughter of Jews? Priests in Europe and Russia
would incite their congregations to carry out pogroms, asserting that
the Jews had killed Christ, Jews killed young Christian boys and usedtheir blood in matzos for Passover, the Jewish festival that often
coincides with Easter (the Last Supper was in fact a seder). I am
angry.

Winter 1994/ 95

83

I think it is time that lesbians, especially those who grew
up in a Christian cultural context, begin to focus on understanding Jew-hating and agree to work on making our communities safe for Jewish lesbians - as they are not now.
Question Christian privilege as you would any privilege.
I sit at a table in my own home with three close lesbian friends, allof Christian backgrounds. One suggests that lesbians should reclaim
Good Friday as a lesbian holiday. I strongly protest, citing the historyof Easter. Two of them tell me I don't understand. I leave my table intears and full of rage. My home, a place sacred to me as Jew (manysignificant rituals, largely conducted by women, take place in thehome) has been violated . Later one of them accuses me of having
ruined a good time for everyone. I don't feel safe in my house.
So I'd like to start with opening a dialogue about dialogue. How do we talk to each other? Why is my Jewishness
perceived as a disability by some or as obnoxious, undesirable or even male by others? Why are non-Jewish lesbians
content to remain ignorant of anything about Jewish life andculture beyond the media's distorted presentation?
I talk with a Black woman colleague. She tells me she hates myinterruptions. I try to explain that my interruptions aren't intended
to put down but to show interest. I explain a little about Jewish
conversational style. She says that if her culture taught her to dosomething that the rest of the world found offensive, she wouldn't doit. I think of the Black woman hotel clerk in Washington, D.C., who
was fired for wearing her hair in corn-rows. I feel silenced .
Most non-Jews I've encountered have never thought about
issues of Jewish style unless they grew up around Jews. Why
haven't non-Jews looked at any of the studies done on Jewish
conversational style or devoted any thought to it?
In my background and culture, interruptions were a wayof showing interest. Someone says something that sparks
something in you, so you blurt it out. Jews are noisy talkers .
Jewish conversational practice is highly charged, exciting,and stimulating. Non-verbal Jewish women often find themselves left out in this atmosphere, which can be highly competitive. In reality, though, all Jewish women are at risk. If we

84 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

are quiet, we are silenced. If we are verbally aggressive, weare held up to the world for ridicule in the stereotypes of thedomineering Jewish mother and the so-called Jewish American Princess.
Non-Jews assume that when a Jewish woman talks over orinterrupts she is acting from the same motivations as a man
when he talks over or interrupts, that the intent is to ignore or
dismiss . Furthermore, non-Jews associate interruptions witha middle-class style and see it as silencing working-classwomen. This assumption, while occasionally accurate, ·generally compounds the problem, because it reinforces the stereotype that all Jews are rich or at least middle-class.
Working-class Jewish women interrupt not because of
their class but because of their cultural context. I am often
accused of not listening when I interrupt. Even when I demonstrate that I was listening by repeating exactly what theother woman was saying and by explaining how I am responding to it, I am accused of violating standards of feminist politeness - standards I experience as derived fromChristian values . I do understand the issues that non-verbal
women face. The point is to stop seeing all interruptions as
being the same and deriving from the same motivation .
I am not saying that Jewish women should be given a
blanket license to interrupt and that those with Christian backgrounds should never do so. I have felt, however, that muchof the time when non-Jewish lesbians do interrupt, they are
doing so to silence me and cut me off.
Sometimes non-Jews are right in criticizing a Jewish
woman for interrupting: she may not be listening, she may betrying to dominate. What is important is that non-Jews needto understand the Jewish cultural context. If confused or
irritated by an interruption, they should confront it. At thesame time, they should stop comparing non-Jewish and Jewish style and deciding that one is politically correct and feminist and that the other is incorrect and anti-feminist. Feelingsilenced cuts both ways: non-Jewish women feel silenced byinterruptions, while Jewish women feel silenced when weWinter 1994/95 85

are accused of being "male-identified" in our conversational
styles.
The background and intention of the interrupter are notthe only issues involved. Context and skill level are alsosignificant. When I teach a class, I often interrupt, asking
students leading questions, encouraging them with body language, all of which are elements of good teaching. Clearly,
what is appropriate in class may not be so in other situations,and different people have different levels of skill in knowing
how and when to interrupt.
Judging interruptions is a complex process. What has been
missing from this process is any credence given to my Jewish
experience. Women have laughed at me or put me down when
I have insisted it is a factor as much as are other women's
cultural experiences.
When I try to conform to what I see as Christian-based
standards of politeness, I get stupid. I stop really listening toothers and focus only on my own performance. I have tried tomoderate my style, but I've found that no amount of moderation is really noticed; what is expected is that I will completely change. I had not looked on my own attempts tochange as internalized Jew-hating. I do now.
These are terrifying times for Jews and perhaps especiallyfor Jewish lesbians. We all know about the tremendous risein reported violence against lesbians and gays, but the rise in
Jew-hating incidents is not seen as relevant in many of ourlesbian and gay communities.
Non-Jews can avoid dealing with their own Jew-hating
merely by avoiding Jews. I want every non-Jewish lesbian torealize that I cannot decide to refrain from dealing with
Christians. I have no choice. The Jewish neighborhood of mychildhood is long since gone. Further, many Jewish communities are hardly any more tolerant of lesbians than any othercommunity. I cannot live in a Jewish community as an open
lesbian without paying a significant price.
For me it often comes down to a true double bind. I canonly live among Jews if I deny my lesbianism and I can only86

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians &; Religion

live among lesbians if I deny or play down my Jewishness.
It is not primarily the task of Jewish lesbians to make ourlesbian communities safe - we are not the ones who madethem such perilous places. Non-Jewish lesbians must examine their own reactions to the conversational styles of Jewish
lesbians. Stop associating Christian cultural norms with whatis desirable and feminist, and Jewish cultural norms withwhat is wrong and anti-feminist. Realize that criticizing Jewish style can be a manifestation of Jew-hating.

Julie Blows Shofar
Nancy R. Levine(© 1994 Nancy R. Levine)

Winter 1994/95 87

Debby Earthdaughter

Non-christian: By Birth, versus thePrivilege of Choice

I~ worried white pagans are recycling racist ideas -justchanging them to apply to being european pagan instead ofchristian.
I am light-skinned, from european heritage, and grew up
celebrating christian holidays. These three things combinedmean I was raised with a huge amount of privilege. I've goneon to be a pagan. But I see myself and others who make thatchange still acting with a great deal of privilege. We had
christian privilege. Even when we give it up, we still carry theeffects of all those years of it.
That seems very different from never having had thatchristian privilege. Unless we do a lot of thinking, I see us asjust continuing to do the same kind of cultural domination
we were raised with.
Privilege stays, even when we give it up.
There's been a lot of debate about whether male-to-female transsexuals should be at women only events. Whenmen dress and live as women, they often are not aware of themale privilege that they still carry. Things like taking up
space, expecting others to pay attention to them, not thinking
about others' perspective, having others doing the daily work
- all those male role things.
Some never-het lesbians have also talked about differences in privilege with women who have lived as het and are
now lesbian. It makes a lot of sense to me, when you're also
taking other privileges into account. Race, class, disability,
age, size, etc. affect coming out and finding like lesbians.
I was actively het for 5 years . I was also thin part of thattime through starving and compulsive exercise. I was treated
so differently when I fit in - being "normal," having a boy-

88 siniste r wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion

friend. Men treated me better. And I fit in with women bettertoo - I could talk about men. When I came out as a lesbian,
I lost some of that. But part of that ease, of having beennormal! of proving I could do that - that has stayed with me.
And that seems a lot the same as being raised christian,and opting to give it up. I may have been uncomfortable withchristianity. It didn't fit me. But I still had that ease of gluing
on Rudolph's nose in school as part of my holiday. Singing
the carols as my songs. Talking about christmas presents andeaster baskets with the other kids. Having decorations up in
my neighborhood for my holidays. And, of course, having
school and work off on my holidays .
My school sure never closed down for the Jewish High
Holidays or Dia de los Muertos, even though there were asignificant number of Jewish and Latino kids. And christmas
and easter were only on the roman catholic/protestant schedule, even though there were Greek orthodox kids. We neverbuilt a sukkah on the school grounds. We didn't makehamantaschen or enchiladas in home ec.
This all seems to carryover into lesbian culture, often
dominated by white raised-christian lesbians . Dykes likeme, still acting out ideas like:My holidays are the real holidays.
We may expect solstice to have the same billing as christmas
used to have. Now it's THE holiday. Of course the big events
will be solstice parties, solstice gifts, solstice trees, solsticecards, solstice catalogs and shopping, solstice decorations.
As if every woman now celebrated solstice. And did it ina northern european way as well - complete with holly andwreaths and snowy scenes.
Everybody else's holidays are weird, extra.
Sure, we can sing a song about a dreidel too at our solsticeparty. We may even acknowledge Kwanzaa. Just like we might
have had a few token menorah pictures up at christmas anda token Hanukah song in the christmas concert.

Winter 1994/95 89

Everybody else's culture is inferior. (Conversion zeal)
Everybody used to have to be a christian (preferably protestant). Now everybody has to be a pagan (preferably northern european-style).
We still get to judge what religions are OK and what
aren't. Of course we're still king - oops I mean queen - ofthe hill. Instead of other religions being primitive or "heathen," now it's that they aren't as evolved. We white pagans
have it together, still the most pure and holy. Everybody else
is clinging to their dirty patriarchal religions.
The needs of my group are most important.
Product catalogs, holiday fairs and other special sales
promotions in December are common in lesbian culture. Whilethey are usually labeled "solstice" or generic "holiday," they
still seem like christmas to many non-christian women.
When a Jewish woman objected to a "winter solstice"catalog*, she got condescending responses like - yes, I too feel
angry about christmas. But this isn't christmas. It's solstice. And
it supports craftswomen. You're too angry. I'm a pagan - I'm a
non-christian too. I'm like you. Being this angry doesn't help.
When the argument is - this allows craftswomen to survive doing crafts - I want us to look at who is getting to maketheir living doing crafts. I think the trend is that women withmore privilege (class, race, etc.) get to work less in "the patriarchy," where they'd have the better jobs anyway. The women
who have the shittiest jobs in "the patriarchy," due to fewer
opportunities for education and connections, I think are theones least likely to be getting to "leave the patriarchy." Sortof another version of white flight, instead of figuring out
how we'll all get to live better.
I went to church for a while when I was a kid. I saw good
stuff going on there. But what drove me away was the one-*See Judith Stein's letter in Lesbian Connection (Jan/Feb 1994) and later
responses (Mar / Apr, May /June 1994).

90 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

way thing. They couldn't just say "this is what I believe, mypath, but many others are OK." I saw good people who weren't
christians. So it just didn't make sense.
It's, that one-way thing that I see carrying over into everybody having to be pagan. Pretty ironic too since a big thing inpaganism is polytheism! I don't see aplace for "my goddess(es)are the only ones." That's christian ideas smashed onto paganism. Really living out the idea of pagan polytheism means
respect for other cultures, religions, ways of life.

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Winter 1994/95 91

Caffyn Kelley

Magic

You say it's magic
when we touch and I say
yes, magic.
If I dared I would
let that word resound withall the things
you mean to me.
Is it magic? Well, yes,
if a hurricane is magic
as it tears apart the world,
regardless of cities, nations . Our lives
so carefully contrived,
collapse in a storm of kisses.
The harsh wind of your breathlessness
tears my flesh away. My bones
want you. I want you
with the marrow of my bones.
Magic? Yes, if that isa woman's science, capableof this ferocity. Magic, if that abolishes
the damn fool logic ofa life without your touch.
Open your legs. I will bury myself
between them. Open your eyes.
I will drown in your tears.
It's magic, if an earthquake is magic,
when mountains tremble and split apart,and 1 fall into the gap. Maybe I'll fallright through the earth and come out
the other side, newborn, feet first.

92 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Magic, yes,
if the ocean is magic
when it swellswith a storm that will surely drown me.
But I'm diving in! Maybe I'll swim
for years, eating nothing but the saltof your body, drinking your flesh .
For years, without sleeping.
For years, without dreaming.
Until we forget our names, finallyforget to hold each other,
forget to swim. Magic,
that we wake up on an island
where we meet as if for the first time.
The sun has bleached our hair white.
We smell of seaweed. You are beautiful!
I remember three words, and say
by way of greeting,
I want you." Magic,
that you crawl into my arms.
If

Magic, yes, if that isa woma n' s science, capableof this tenderness. Magic, if that creates a world
where pleasure is cause for joy.
Touch me. I am on firewith wanting you. In the middle of a crowd
standing, watchi ng, all intent upona magician, who pulls a burning candle
out of a hat, you hold me closer. Magic,
reaching under my shirt, and I
stop breathing, your fingers curlaround my breast. It' s impossible!
M skin blisters and peels away.
e t, \1\ e will burn the whole world\I, here women scarcel dare to want each other.

Winter 1994/95 93

And build a new one, so gently
that at last
love cannot bring grief to those we love.
You say it's magic
when we touch and I say
yes, magic.
If I dared I would
call it strong enough to bea woman's science, capableof knowing, making up a life
that's strong enoughfor us .

-~I
Dressing for Kwanzaa
Laura Irene Wayne

94 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Marita Avila

Connection Between Womyn

IfI'd premonitions
could be counted on,
swing All day long your backyard blizzard
has radiated snow-shines
into my tinted lens,(the essence of god in your fingers
moving curtain edge away from pane
opens my perceptions)
Connection between womyn
called feeling too deeply
is merely an intimidating
revolution Let the truths rest.
I will reach into the air,for you,singing what we must know
as womyn to survive
in silence,
your eyes greeting mine.
Remember,sisterhood looks good in linewith setting suns,and skin glistens in moonlightstill carrying on,
still carrying our mouths shut
most of the way
we want to stop looking
yet breathing
into and fromeach other's mouths -confessing in corners give me, please,
your delicate pleasures,
I cry with the trees .

Winter 1994/95 95

Breathe to me hard,
I'll swing.
Give me each eloquent lie
and I will look
into the wind for god .
Give me each horrendous fearand I will touch
my mouth and womb while kneeling,
while there is mattered candle wax I will exchange
vulnerabilities and screams.
I will exchange
release and tears.
I will exchangeorgasms and ejaculations.
I will tell lies
to protect you, possessing
every psychic ability
as formative self defense.
Pray your skin and sweat,
floating arms around hair in summer soft curls mixed with patchouli
are sacred, and sister,to survive
the only prayer I conjure ·creams my cunt Breath-takes the blizzard.
The summer of your childhood
stories will never end
your manifes ting mind
And if premonitions could be counted on,
you'd swing too I know We would scream premonitions,scream premonitions,releasing every separation
until oxygen and carbon dioxidemeshed in blood

96 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

and we had become
one memoryof Witchcraft.

We don't usually publish contributor's cover letters, but this one spoke to the issue,
and our hearts ...

Sinister Womyn Editors,
I have written this cover-letter many times; wanting to reach allof you within your souls, wanting to speak of the importance the"Womyn and Religion Issue" has begun to take on within my life.
This time, I will not stop writing. I allow my self to communicate
with all of you freely, honestly, and I must tell you, I am afraid.
I am a ritual abuse survivor and a great artist. I have struggled,
for years, to free myself from the destructive effects of patriarchal
religion. I am differently-abled because of it. Within my healing, I
have discovered my great love of life, my talents as a literary artist.
My power as a Chicana lesbian, poet and performance artist,
mother and witch is my religion; the lines of my literary art are myprayers. I create beauty where sexual terrorism lingered. I create rage
where silence falsified. I create strength where oppression mystified.
Each poem and performance I create is a spell. I am inspired byvast revelation. Each submission of my work is specifically chosen
and sent with the energies of possibility, transformation, and peace.
As I gather work for your publication, I watch the waning moon, I
breathe and ground myself.
I discover hesitancy in offering you my work. I think of being
young and poor years ago, coming out as a lesbian and reading Sinister
Wisdom in awe of the beauty of our community. I sat on my porch,surrounded by violence in an impoverished neighborhood, and fellin love with the beauty and truth and hope of womyn's art. I mailed
off a check for ten dollars, thrilled and wanting more. However, thecheck was not cashed for some time, and living on three hundred
dollars a month with three children, I no longer had the funds in myaccount. I received an angry letter demanding payment signed only
"The Dyke," and felt horrified, ashamed and excluded.
I still cherish my copies of Sinister Wisdom. I still am poor. And
I am still a little afraid, I realize, of "The Dyke" within your publication. Yet I offer you the words of my witchcraft in hope of healing.
I offer you the words of my Ii terary art for the womon on the porch,looking to sisterhood, looking for faith and beauty and god.
Gracias,Marita AvilaWinter 1994/95

Here today, goddess tomorrow
Samara97

98

sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbia ns & Religion

M.K. Stewart

Worshipping at the Body Altar

In my spirituality there must be a throne for the body. I'm notmeaning a fancy, hard, golden throne, a pedestal for something which is to be feared and worshipped from afar. No~ thebody's throne is a warm sand dune in the summer sun; ahaystack, soft and springy and more than a little scratchy; afleshy red rock shelf under the dark desert sky with batsswooping all around; a futon underneath a skylight framing
a totally eclipsed moon; or most loving of all, another precious body lying twined until she who cradles and she who
is cradled are one and the same. The details aren't really
important. What matters is that the throne be a fit resting
place for the sacred which is to be touched and tasted andworshipped intimately, again and again and again.
I've known for a while that I experience the world moresexually and sensually than most of the women I know. So
often what I perceive or feel or do in the world makes its way
to my cunt.
Two nights ago my lover and I decorated our apartment
for Winter Solstice. I was cutting out paper suns and stars; she
was drumming. I watched her hands thump and slide on thetaut skin surface of the dr.u m and felt the pulse of her rhythm
in my body. I wanted to wrap myself tightly around her andlisten, pressing my body into hers until we were both breathing hard in time to the music, until we had no choice but tomake love right there on the floor of our living room.
Sex as ritual. I know that making love through the nightis traditional for Beltane, not Solstice, but for me choosing to
be sexual is a shift of consciousness that's appropriate to any
Wiccan Holyday. Of course, sex is not always magical. When
it is, though, a kiss can cast the circle, invoke the four direc-

Winter 1994/95 99

tions*, and ground my body right down to the liquid centerof the earth so that I channel a fire immeasurably hotter andbrighter than any I alone could generate. That connection
with the root source of passion pulls me right out of my skinlayers of ego and image, into a place where everything istouch and sensation without conscious calculation.
I have a hard time with straight people who accept mysexual orientation because "sex itself isn't really that big of adeal." Actually, they don't usually even use the "s" word. It's
more like "what you do in bed isn't really important." I'mglad that they accept the fact that my primary affectional tie
is with a woman, but this way of framing the issue still denies
a core element of my being. Similarly, I dislike it when certain elements of the queer community downplay the sex aspect of queerness. Lesbianism is about much more than sexuality, it's true, and sexuality is more than who you sleep with.
Even so, the straight community wouldn't have such a problem with us if we were all just dear friends. I've chosen to
publicly affirm my lesbianism in part because sexuality is so
important to me. These people want to disconnect sexuality
from other fires, fire from the other elements. I want integration.
I started questioning christianity because it gave me noroom to be my sexual self. There was no place in christianity
for this body of mine, and the central problem was not that
I'm a dyke. The most agonizing internal conflicts I can remember arose when I "lost my virginity" with a man. I
wouldn't believe today that I was in so much pain at that time
if it weren't for the evidence of my journals. I don't remember
ever believing in hell so strongly, but my diaries from thattime are very clear. I spent pages justifying and rationalizing
my sexual behavior. "It's ok, god will understand because we.. Casting the circle, invoking the directions and grounding are steps insetting the stage for Wiccan ritual. Casting the circle creates a protective
bubble, both a psychic barrier against the mundane and the harmful, anda vessel to be filled with magic and power. Calling the directions draws to
the circle the powers and protections of the elements of life: earth, air, fire
and water, which correspond respectively to north, east, south and west.

100 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbia ns & Religion

are really in love and that's a beautiful thing and Mark's the
only guy with whom I've ever done or plan to do this and I
couldn't possibly be eternally damned under those circumstances, could I?" I suppose that's one purpose of journals;
they keep you humble . I'm not sure by what process I resolved this conflict between my body and my faith system.
Somehow, christianity faded out of the picture. At 24 I decided that I had been on the right track after all at 17, when I
fell love with a woman. By that time, christianity was somehow no longer an issue.
As far as I can see, christianity is fundamentally andfinally about getting out of the body, getting out of this world.
You live a good life and then your spirit goes on to the real
reward . What is human and earthy is inferior to what is divine. Ma ybe it's because the physical passes; the body ages,
dies, decays. The earth shape shifts as volcanos erupt, shores
erode, summer moves into autumn. We don't want to get too
attached to that which won't be with us for very long. We say
it's not worth the investment, or the pain of loss . What we
don' t understand is that in its passing, the body is the mosttruthful thing we can know.
This is what I revere: the cycling of the earth, the slow
pulse of the moon from new to full to dark again and overagain. These rhythms I understand. They chart my life, I feelthem in my body. My body is all the evidence I need, my bodyis my guide to what is real and essential.
All of this comes together at the cauldron of fire in mybelly, where the moon turns, where the earth greens anddecays, where air fire water and earth merge and explode into
every new creation.

Winter 1994/95 101

Mara Math

Shalom To All That: A Jewish Dyke
Critiques The New Age
Although my pantheistic leanings have taken me as far as
emigration to New Zealand, I find it more and more difficult
to cuddle up to the New Age. For a long time I thought thisresistance was merely personal, natural for a critical, mouthy
type like myself. (When someone instructs women gathered
for a meeting "Let's breathe," I'm the one in the corner muttering "What a good idea ... ") Gradually, however, I have realized that most of my discomfort comes from being a Jew.
I am fortunate in that I was raised Reform, the most liberal branch of Judaism, and so escaped the overt misogyny
that drove many Orthodox and Conservative Jewish womenaway. Today I identify as more culturally than religiously
Jewish, but I do want to credit my humanistic heritage withleading me directly to anti-war activism, and then feminism,and thus lesbian-feminism.
While New Age thought is a vast and various territory,
with nearly as many versions as there are adherents, somecommon trends can be identified, and most of those I findunpalatable have direct antecedents in Christianity. *The most difficult tenet of New Age philosophy for me isthe fundamental assumption that everything happens for areason. If there is not a silver lining to every experience, there
is at least a valuable lesson which makes that experience
worthwhile.
Like most Jews, I cannot remember a time when I did notknow about the Holocaust. Six million Jews tortured, dehu"While many of the traditions may actually pre-date Christianity, I believe that contemporary dykes are comfortable with these trends because
they are comfortably familiar to those with Christian upbringing.

102 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

manized and finally murdered - and then violated further
by having their ashes made into soap, their skin into
lampshades. The horrendous total rises another two million
when the Gypsies, Communists, lesbians and gay men who
were also victims of the Holocaust are included .
What extraordinarily valuable lesson can balance, muchless outweigh, eight million lives? We didn't need a disasterof this magnitude to point up the dangers of assimilation.
The best that my New Age friends can offer is, maybe we don't
know the reason yet, but it must be part of the Grand De~ign.
With the Holocaust as heritage, it is nearly impossible forme to accept another New Age tenet, the one that says you
create your own reality. (Never mind that the concepts ofcreating your own reality and participating in the Grand
Design appear mutually exclusive. Logic has never been thedefining characteristic of New Age philosophy). "You-createyour-own-reality" translates all too easily to blame-the-victim. You didn't want to heal your cancer. You perhaps wanted
to be burned alive by napalm as a Vietnamese four-year old .
You don't remember a desire to be raped by your uncle? Itmust be your karma from a past life. You must have wanted
to end up as a lampshade. This is where I get off the New Agetrain.
The belief that we create our own reality is also an inherently anti-political belief. Change yourself, not the world.
Heart attacks and breast cancer have nothing to do with thepolluted air we breathe and water we drink, the irradiatedfood we eat, but are the result of our Type A personalities or
our need to give ourselves permission to slow down and smell
the orchids.
In a sort of spiritual Reaganomics, if we fail, it's because
we didn't believe hard enough. A verbatim quote from a New
Age acquaintance regarding a friend's death: "Maybe she
didn't really want to be healed of her cancer."
If your chanting isn't bringing you prosperity? You must
not have been chanting hard enough. (I think it's noteworthy
that the reality so many seek to create is a shallow one, one ofWinter 1994/95

103

material prosperity. The New Age is one long christmas shopping trip, you are what you buy, and your life will be so muchbetter if you purchase the right crystals ... )Belief is key to the idea of creating your own reality and totolerating your position as a yet-to-be-enlightened pawn in
the Grand Design. This preeminence of faith seems anotherprecept borrowed from Christianity. New Age members don't
call it faith, of course; it's called a belief system, or the powerof positive thinking, or effective visualization. Nevertheless,the idea is the same: rewards come from belief, not actions.
Christianity holds that faith equals redemption, and Catholicism specifies that you are saved "by grace and not by works."
In my Jewish heritage, your worth is measured by youracts and not by your faith. Judaism is not deocentric. My
rabbi was fond of saying, "You don't have to believe in God
to be a good Jew." (And when I sailed in to tell him with hip
fifteen-year old fervor that I didn't believe in God, he gaveme an archetypally rabbinical reply: "Good, at least you're
thinking about the issues!")
And this brings us to another characteristic of New Age
spirituality that I feel is essentially Christian in origin: you
must not only have faith, but unquestioning faith. Criticalthought seems to be definitely discouraged, even disallowedin the New Age community. Not only does doubt subvert
your faith/belief! visualization, rendering it ineffective, it also
begets the New Age sin of negativity.
While negativity about negativity may be linked to
middle-class values, it is also a primarily Christian trait. Judaism as a whole is a culture of questioning, debate, sardonic
humor and self-mockery. Jewish dykes tend to be verbal,
stroppy, articulate and yes, critical. I've noticed that if I instantly evaluate a new acquaintance as charming and likeable, then I'm perceptive; if, however, I assess a new acquaintance as a difficult person, my New Age friend labels me a
judgmental bitch.
Another aspect of Jewish culture that does not mesh wellwith the New Age concerns proselytizing, something that

104 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

Judaism frowns on, at least post-Abraham. The proselytizing, "witnessing" and "testifying" found in Christianity areechoed by New Age followers.
This fervor to convert is not totally foreign to me. When I
became a feminist, I, too, wanted to share the truth with thoseless fortunate, and I look back with both tenderness and awincing embarrassment on that eager young woman. As aJew, however, I am repulsed by the smug assumption of superiority and by the intrusiveness of many New Age followers(including those moments when we are instructed to breathe) .
Most galling to me is the assumption that Jewish dykes should
abandon their culture in the same way that many wasp women
think they have, as if there were no difference between philosophies-the term Judeo-Christian is an oxymoron- andno difference between being underdog and top dog.
I find many New Age lesbians insensitive to history. For
instance, in addition to assuming that Jewish dykes should
be glad to dump their own culture, these women feel that
Jewish dykes must understand and participate in reclaiming
Christian symbols such as the Christmas wreath, and we arejust spoilsports if we insist on seeing it as anything but
pagan. The Nazis took and perverted the swastika from anancient Native American symbol, too, but at least so far wehaven't had to see that reclaimed .
The New Age and Jewish culture are not completely canola
oil and water, but they cannot be blended easily. New Agedykes need to meditate on their own biases if they are not to use
this new philosophy as the bludgeon of cultural imperialism.

Winter 1994/95 105

Jessica Stein

The Last Supper
You barely want to remember the words; theyhold too much importance. That was the sederwhere Grandma sang, her weak voice quiveringon air like dust, fading like the trailinglast beats of a radio tune. Then you wore
your darkest dress . The rain cut the sun off
like a clipped fuse.
And now you float on the cadenceof prayer, buoyed by routine,that lifeguard which lifts us
to gasp above water. Heads bobbing
up and down like floating balloons.
Yit ga dal v'yit ga dash shme raba.

Amen. Then the teacher suggested
you remember a prayer. Yitgadal
v'yistabach v'yitpa'ar v'itromam
v'itnaseh. Your hair blossomed
into payes like Shirley Temple
curls . Bri chu. You davened
on an island, suspended on land while
your fellow pupils cruised byon costly yachts. Halloo! they call.
We pray the lord our souls to keep!
The only grace your family demanded
was a proud head, lifted . You shrunk down
into your seat. B'chayechon oovyomechon
oovchayeh d' chol beyt yisrael. Amen.
Now Grandma taps your shoulder, inquiring
why you don't sing. You realize
if you don't add your voice to the chorus,
the tale ends here. We need to continue
the echo in the cave, dedicate new stories
like hieroglyphs scratched into stone. If weswallow our tongues, we'll die choking.

106 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Sarah Jacobusfrom An Oral History of Lil Moed

Lil Moed (1927-91) made aliya· at the age of fifty-eight and lived forsix years in Israel. A working-class American, professional psychologist and life-long activist for progressive political causes and world
peace, she was involved in Palestinian-Israeli dialogue and women's
peace groups and was a founder of SHANI: Israeli Women's Alliance
Against the Occupation. This is our condensation of Lil's oral history
that appears in Lesbiot: Israeli Lesbians Tell Their Stories, Tracy
Moore, ed., London: Cassell, 1994. It may be interesting to compare
this with the interview Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz and Irena Klepfisz
did with Lil for The Tribe of Dina: A Jewish Women's Anthology (SW 29/30, reprinted by Beacon Press in 1989).
I grew up during the Depression in the East Bronx in New
York, a working class, mostly Jewish neighborhood. My own
nuclear family and the people that became my parents' circle
of intellectuals and friends were all socialists. It was all Jewish, Yiddishkayt. So in my formative years, I had a highly
developed sense of social justice within the framework ofbeing Jewish.
The issue of the day was unemployment. People were justscraping by at subsistence level. The idea of women's equality never even came up . Then came World War II, with atypical war economy prosperity for many people. People weregoing off to the army or finding war work, so the emphasis
then became fighting fascism - fighting Hitler, fighting
Mussolini. My parents were part of an anti-fascist movement.
But it was the dropping of the atomic bomb, the thoughtthat America could drop bombs on two cities and kill millions
of people, that was most earthshaking to me. To me, it was as. aliya isJewish immigration to Israel.

Winter 1994/95

107

big as the death of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. It wasfrom then on that I became involved in peacemaking. We
were not apple pie Americans, so this became a comfortable
place for me to hang my political hat: that the world was one
and needed social justice, that you couldn't think of peace only
for Americans, that there had to be peace around the world.
When I was living in Philadelphia, I spent about five
years working intensely on civil rights. We were with CORE,
the Congress of Racial Equality, which was more left than the
NAACP. My civil rights work was an incredible personal
development - really knowing what other people were going through and what injustices meant in a very personal
way. I've lived most of my life in black neighborhoods. The
few of us who were in these integrated areas or predominantly black areas were privileged to see another slice ofAmerican life.
I got involved in feminism in the late '60s and really tookoff. My marriage broke up, a lot due to my new consciousness
and being able to get over some of my fears about losing ahusband and having to be a single parent. I had stayed married for over twenty years.
I grew up with a mother who felt that if you just had breadon the table, clothes on your back, and you could keep a clean
little apartment, you had it made in America . So in some ways
I bought that - don't ask too much of life, because if you
don't die in your 20s or something horrible hasn't happened
to you, you have a charmed life. So I didn't really think interms of I should be happily married, or I should have apartner who's wonderful. After all, he didn't beat me, he
didn't drink, he wasn't terrible, so we stayed married.
But the most marvelous thing with feminism, unlike all
the other movements I'd been involved with, was a discovery
of myself as a person. There was so much going on at the time,
all emphasizing women's liberation. We did consciousnessraising groups and radical therapy groups, developed women's
studies and worked with women's centers and collectives. I
think at one point I was part of three or four collectives at one

108 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &I Religion

time! I would move from meeting to meeting to meeting. It
was exciting and very nourishing. Tiring, but nourishing.
I had never met lesbians before. In some ways it was
exciting, because there were so many women coming out atthat time. But it was scary too, in that I was changing my
identity in my middle years. I went through a denial stage fora year or so of not calling myself lesbian. I wouldn't even say
the word to myself.
I started coming out to some of my straight friends andtelling them about myself. I told my kids too. I was a lesbianwhen my older daughter moved out of the house, moved here
to Israel, and it was okay with her. But it was a time when it
was okay, especially in southern California, to be living a
different kind of lifestyle.
My younger daughter, Julie, was 14 at the time and still at
home. I had a lot of trouble with her. She had the hardest timewith my first relationship. Julie was angry, but when I lookback, a lot of it was my own discomfort and hiding. But, 10
and behold, when Julie was about 18, she started a relationship with one of the women in my lesbian community. And
there she was, out!
I used to test myself, saying, "Okay, if there's some homophobia within me, it should come out around my daughter."Like, "Oh, my God, my daughter's gay!" or something like that.
But I feel proud of her; I think she's doing the right thing.
Why would she want to burden herself with some man?
My mother Rose also knew I was a lesbian. She would
never have understood the word; my mother's English vocabulary was limited and we always spoke Yiddish with eachother. For years, my mother recognized that my friends wereextraordinarily caring to her. We would take her to many of
our lesbian parties. She seemed to fit right in! People would
always ask me, "Where's your mother?" She came with me toevery celebration, especially around the Jewish holidays.
My older daughter had become Orthodox and moved here.
I wanted to better understand her choice and the community
she was part of, so I had come each year to visit. And I had

Winter 1994/95

109

shifted into Middle East peace work after the invasion of
Lebanon in 1982, which absolutely floored me. How could
Jews do this? Sabra and Shatila - it was like trying to understand what happened to Jewish justice.
Since I've been here a number of years as an immigrant,
I've been very careful about telling anyone I'm close to that
I'm a lesbian. My closest Israeli friends are lesbian and I
think of that little inner circle like they're my family.
I'm not out to people I work with politically. It would neveroccur to me to tell them. I wouldn't feel safe at all. Here, I
never thought much about feeling isolated as a lesbian, because I feel isolated as an immigrant. I feel isolated as an English
speaker in a Hebrew-speaking country. I feel isolated as astaunch peace worker, a minority person in that political arena.
Putting lesbian on top of that feels like the least of my problems.
And yet in many ways it feels like the most of my problems, because being lesbian adds such another queerness to
the whole syndrome. I'm a minority in a minority in a minority in a minority and that feels like too much for me. So I havemy own psychological defenses where I just push it away.
Being an older woman and having no partner or love affairs
here, it's easy to just say, "Forget it, what's the meaning of all
that?" I have no need to identify as a lesbian. I don't have to
explain living with a woman in the same house; I don't haveto explain any of the things that I used to explain to somedegree in the States.
So I have to answer that question, "What does it mean that
I'm a lesbian?" Because it's the core of me. I see the world
through strong feminist lenses and to me, going to the edgeof feminism is being lesbian. My analysis of what's wrong
with the world is that men have always run it and do run it
and women are an undercaste, a lower class . That awarenessnever leaves me.
It's a little strange to be so deeply involved in such a core
way and then go around in the closet. To not be able to say topeople I'm in contact with, "I am not a heterosexual person."I absolutely believe that coming out is the best thing a gay

110 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

person can do as a political statement. But emotionally, I
don't have the courage to do it, so I don't.
The driving force for me here is making the politicalsituation right. That sounds presumptuous, I suppose, but
the way I see the situation is that Israel has conquered landand people and resources and is oppressing Palestinians . I
can't live with that, so I do whatever I can to correct it . Thatmeans ending the occupation, going beyond that, seeing whatkind of just peace we can have for both peoples. I dream ofPalestinians and Israeli Jews being able to live together inharmony and cooperation.
Jews and Arabs are so segregated now, and many Jews talkabout "the Arabs" in some sort of abstract way with a lot offear behind it. I found myself with some of the same fears andstereotypes when I first went into East Jerusalem and theWest Bank. But having had this whole background in civilrights work, I could at least recognize that I was having an
attack of fear because I didn't know who these people were.
I'm not a Zionist. As a Jew, I do not particularly see theneed for a Jewish state. My parents wer~n't Zionists and I
don't have an emotional tie to a Jewish state. Intellectually, I
don't have the answer to what ends anti-Semitism. Being asocialist, I have always believed that the end of exploitation
will bring the end to many of the isms, though as a woman, I
know that's not true, because of the experience we've seen in
the world of revolutions and the place of women. I recognizethat sexism, anti-Semitism, and racism are very deep things thatare learned. Just because you get rid of the economic reasonsfor those isms doesn't mean you get rid of the psychologicalgarbage people carry in their heads about anti-Semitism.
But I don't see that the Jewish state answers the need forpreventing another holocaust. In fact, I worry a lot about a
nuc-Iear holocaust in this entire area . I think that's much
more likely than another Jewish holocaust anywhere else inthis world.
If I think of the Middle East and my love for the Jewish
people, Palestinian people, and people anywhere in this area,

Winter 1994/95

111

I would say that the safest thing to do is build a state where
both people can live in harmony and equality - with its
problems, of course, as every nation around the world has.
What I think is possible and good enough for now is a twostate solution. The way politics in this world goes, we have to
see just little steps and that's one little step. I'm not into
fighting windmills!
I'm also developing my spiritual side now, which hascome late in life for me. This is almost embarrassing to talkabout, because I've been a life-long atheist. There's something about being here in Israel and the land; maybe it's evenmore about Jerusalem for me. Having close friends who are
religious, both Jews and Christians, and being around religious feminists, I've started re-evaluating that issue. I neverthought there was an open door for me here. But I've opened
those doors for myself and I want time to reflect on that. Thatfeels scary, exciting, difficult and ridiculous. But I'm doing it.
It's almost like being in the closet! I don't tell anyone
about it, except the same little core of friends, people I can say"I'm a lesbian" to. I think where the embarrassment comesfrom is immediately thinking of all my Marxist friends who
say, "Come on, the opium of the masses" and all that bullshit.
But my feeling is that there is certainly something morethan the materialism of this world. It makes me feel good tothink that somehow there is a spirit, there is a soul in every
person that's more than our cells -and the chemistry and allthat. The souls of people are meaningful and beautiful to me.
I've started asking myself what all this means for me. I
feel like there is something to letting go of the idea that you
can control everything, that I can control my life. It makes
more sense to me to say, "I can give up this control and there
is a higher power that's there working in some mysterious
way, but that I feel is working with me."I don't think I could have come to this without feminism.
Feminism made me face my own detachment from myself. I
had been so detached because I was living through a man, so
none of my experiences had validity. I didn't even see them as112 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

real. It was feminism that validated my experiences as awoman. Once they became real, I could own them and gain abetter handle on who I was and know that I was importantjust for myself. That does extend into the spiritual side of me,
which-is also there and important. I don't have to deny that.
I have a right to pay attention to the personal side.
I've been reading a lot about liberation theology too, which
is a good mix of Marxism, or socialism and theology. Somehow it fits together and makes a lot of sense to me.
I' ve never been religious. The word Judaism connotes to mesome understanding of the religion, which I have never understood . From time to time I read Torah, yet I can't connect with
it. It feels patriarchal, these Bible stories with women who
are so incidental. Everyone begets someone who begets someone. If this is the word of god, he gave it all wrong, as I see it.
But of course, I view the Bible as having been written by
men and this is the way they saw their history. So whenpeople talk about the "holy word" and the "learned rabbis
who passed this down," all I can say is that a bunch of guys
handed this down and it was not meant for me!
But I did grow up feeling Jewish, with Jewish parents
who had no other identity. They came from Europe, but thatwas just a coincidence. They happened to be Russian, butthey never felt Russian. They felt Jewish . I grew up with theidea that this is what I was. It's what I sucked in with mymother's milk. I threw it over in an attempt to be accepted by
the American Christian world, but I never got rid of it.
It' s at the core. If you peel layer upon layer upon layer ofme, like I was an onion, you'd get to the core! And there's the
Jew and there' s the lesbian, or at least the feminist, because
I became a lesbian much later in life. But the lesbianism has
been very powerful, like a rebirth. The lesbianism became arebirth, but I have remained a Jew.

Winter 1994/95

113

Stacy Szyrnaszek

Lombardy, Italy

Her mother sang loud, talked loud and prayed

loud, loved Puccini, thought Pavarotti was
too sappy, got pre-blessed glow
in the dark rosaries in the mail which she used
to talk to Uncle Benny, all the Marias and Josephs andthe wolf hybrid her husband made a coffin forand buried in their backyard after it chokedon an Italian sausage she threw it. For the wolf
she had a commemorative plate, for the deadshe had prayer cards and for Mother Cabrini she had
a special prayer card under her pillow from the summer
vacation they took to the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Chicago.
My mother was ten when she touched the nightgown
and bed Cabrini died in. No wonder she woke up
screaming when in her dream MotherCabrini's prayer card portrait was framed inside an ironbarred cage tumbling down a hill after her. Cabrini's blackeyes and white cloak behind a frame, behind bars
changed images like visions from death's kaleidoscope: a wolf
delivering cancer, the muted gurgleof a lost soprano who got married, hunglaundry, lived in houses that were three inches
apart and followed her children around with Sciortino's butter
cookies; then she was a woman in Palermo, Sicily
who wanted to be a nun but became pregnant by a traveler
named grandpa Joe who took her to America where she became
crabby and hostile. My mother dreamsof the dead women who push the ironcage with their bodies, acrobatic with anger. Nana GigantiPecararo, Bartolotta, their mouths fall open to tellbut ash pours out. My mother tries to forget114 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

but the housecoats, the eyebrows, the cheese, the curse,
the voice saying, "Devils are afraid of saints,
not little girls ." My mother dreams she has escaped
their spirits by marrying a sensible Polish man and giving
her children unsaintly American names. The Mass
for Martyrs and Virgins blessed the weaker sex
for the ability to be martyrs ("Anoint thee with oilsof gladness as I live a life of mortificationand penance") or mothers, like Saint Frances Xavier (Mother)Cabrini - born in Lombardy, died in Chicago (1917) .
but still alive in Milwaukee under my grandma' S pillow
on her bed with five inch blocks under the headboard
to alleviate her hiatal hernia, like Mother Cabrini
draped in white light with black and blue eyes
in a cage chasing my mother (who is on a horse) down
a smooth Kentucky hill still headed southbound.

Winter 1994/95

115

Gloria Anzaldua

The Basque Brujas - c. 1492
for Angie Arrien

1.
We prod the sheep up the mountainto the ungrazed heights, the shadows of
the Pyrenees fall on our faces
I play my bone flute. Amidst the bleating of sheep
her dark hair flow, whirls. Mari spreads
her shawl on the soft moving green.
A tiny lamb nuzzles her throat.
She looks up at me with the clear eyes of a lake.
r milk the heavy-uddered ewe.
Eating goat cheese and brown bread,we pass the milk jug to each other.
We fall on the small yellow flowers
rolling and tickling each other.
Propped on my elbows r stare ather face, her smile pulls me down.
Under our eyelids the sun glows orange.
Our breath becomes the breeze.
The yelping dogs wake us.
r pull Mari up. Hand in hand we walk up the mountain.
Small pebbles slide under our feet.
A ram, unblinking. and motionless,stares at us from the clifftop.
The hair on my body rises. r shiver.
On the summit, the wind is cold and sweet.
The beauty of green hills and forest below,
the winding path to the village, the tiny stone houses
sucked the breath out from me.
Dusk herds us down the hillside. We cross the river,dogs nipping the tails of the stragglers.

116 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians lit Religion

The trickling of water is lost in the sound of sheep bleating . .
Yelling shrilly we run. Behind us a cold wind drives the rain.
We're soaked before reaching the rock and its shelter.
Mari laughs, hugging the dogs and the lambs.
We huddle around the smell of wet wool and wet fur.
2.
We wake, cold cheek shivering on a rude table the rock where the Ancients sacrificed the goat.
A rusted morning is rising.
We walk down a path flanked with fern.
On their way to the fi elds, paysans
holding scythes in calloused hands pass us.
They shut their lean faces, look away.
We come to cobbled streets, stone houses andpeople who give us their backs.
In a lane overgrown with bramble
a horse cart forces us into the thicket.
The driver pretends not to see us .
When we reach our house, Mari bars the door.

She raises her hands to her hair,lets the p ins drop.
A shower of black hair canopies my face.
I burrow in the warm crevasse between her breasts.
Breathe in her smell from her armpits.
Stroke the embedded cones of her spine,smooth the taut skin over hipbone,sooth the blue veins with my tongue.
I seek the mouth of the philtre.
Her roundness fills my hollows, her fingers
pull a keening note from my throat.
The well opens. The south wind stirs
a tide in her belly, a song through my bones.
The familiar melody shocks me.
Pitching and heaving I flounder. Sink.
My love, put your hands on my hips
and your lips on my mouth and never leave me.

Winter 1994/95

3.
A neighbor points his finger at Mari and me.
Men come and take us away. The Inquisition,
their whips and racks, never-ending torture .
The sky dawns a clear blue as
tongues of fire lick our faces. The hissing,
the smell of burning flesh, the pain.
In my eyes a blue light, before me a mirror,
I enter. A wafting breeze andI'm blowing free and spinning slowly.
The wind dies. When I come to myself
I am lying on the floor by my hearth.
I sit up, stare at the flames .
On my left side a wound where she was torn from me .
N ever did I dream she would go before me.

4.
The quickening of a hundred wings. A pale sable sky.
The world is in my grasp and not alien.
The full moon watches me with its starched gazeand the silence has no ceiling.
I, who have no wings, fly - not through cracks
nor crevices but through stone walls.
I ride the downward slope with the wind and the hawk,
circle the Sea of Biscay, swoop over the moonlit cliffs.
As the dull orange sun tugs itself out of the sea,
I search the beach laced with rocks.
Like surf for the shore, I race toward her;like the wave, I recede. I cannot reach her.
Never did I dream she would leave me.
Cutting a swath through the meadow,
I run down the rutted path to the hollow,
leaving a wake of swarming flies
and the smell of crushed grass behind me.
The bracken bares its teeth;
Vines and shrouding briar whip my face .

117

118 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

At my back the evening shadows grow hungry.
I come to the circle of clearing
beside the great cave between the beach and the forest.
The sun drowns in the sea andnight dons the clothes of longing.
I never dreamed she would go before me.

5.
One by one the women climb down the hill to the hollow.
I watch for her long gait, count the women.
Twelve. My love is not among them.
I drop my wide black belt on the sand, drop my chamarra.
Breasts swinging, we clear our heads.
A wind enters. Inside: a blue flame .
Under the goatskin, behind the horn on her forehead,
I seek my lady, queen of the Sabbath.
Not she but another wears the mask.
Who would have thought she would go before me.
With left hands we draw the circle,
claim the crack between the worlds.
We rub belladonna on each other's breasts and buttocks.
Chanting, we dance to the center, dance back,dance to the right faster and faster.
We aim our thoughts like arrows.
Our spirits thicken, congeal into shapes,
glide through the hollow, over the hills,
then back to dip into the sea.
We fall on the sand in each other's arms,
pass the cup, sip our woman's blood.
Dipping our fingers we paint moons on our brows .
The waves come thicker and thicker.
Wings fan my face. Mounting the current,
I whirl away in a blue light.
The marrow stirs in my bones .
Fur sprouts on my arms. My fingers retract.
I stare at my claws, my pointy red tongue.

Winter'994/95

119

The current beaches me inside my own body.
I raise my hands, command the tideto recede, but I cannot hold the memories .

6.
Gray skies on the bare forests, frost on the ground .
My breath like smoke snatched away by the wind .
To the south rain clouds mass;in the valley, fire boils the autumn night.
Lightning strikes the horizon - its thunder piercing my skin.
A veil of rain unrolls to the ground.
I flee through the midnight woodbanging into tree trunks like a bat in daylight.
The full moon watches from the beech tree branches.
Twigs and leaves sink under my soles,
then spring up again behind me.
My feet leave no tracks.
I never thought she would go before me.
All around me cypress trees hum.
I fall on my knees among half-sunken tombs.
I bury my face in the damp earth,brush spider webs from the carved words,
search for her name. Above me a shriek.
Two branches fretting each other outline her shoulder,
the glistening leaves tangle in her hair.
She stares at me through the yellow eyes of an animal.
When she vanishes I hunt for her in the old stone hut
where my spear-throwing ancestors lived long ago.
Look for her in the roots of the old gnarled oak.
A sudden gust whips the leaves;a shadow passes over its trunk.

7.
I climb up the wild passes through the drizzling rain
where night mists drench the flowers,
and the crags and promontories brood .

120 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Up the narrow, slippery path to the grotto
to the mouth of the cave.
She sits near the fire combing her black hair.
Lady of Ambato, Dama. She is a gust of wind,a white cloud, a burning torch,a woman with the feet of a bird.
Oh, Lady, bring my lover to my bed again .
8.
The soft fanning of her wings
follows me down the mountain,from the sod path to the house.
The rusted iron gate to the garden grates .
The yellow roses she tended have wilted.
The grapevine wreathing the doorway veils my face.
I draw water for the three-legged pot,hang it over the burning logs.
From the beams I unhook the bacon, snap garlic from the braid.
Chop potatoes, throw everything into the cauldron.
Hand curled around my waist, I stare into the flames,
raise the wineskin to my mouth.
My loneliness sharp like a knife blade.
I stoke the fire .
9.
Like light I want to sink into
love and a night tasting of nettle
where flowers bloom under invisible suns and plants grow.
Like night I want to sink into
earth to dwell in the damp cave of sleep
and swim in the lake of dreams,
arms embracing one another.
A tap on the shutters . Elated, I turn.
Just a branch unnerved by the wail of the wind
flailing itself against the pane.
A voice calls, Angeles, Angeles ."The leaves of the plum tree rustle.
1/Winter 1994/95

Oh, where are you? I cannot see you.
I will wait for you, best beloved.
And if you never come I will fling myself
into the flame that took you.
Two vessels of ash we will lie together.
In the corners shadows move.
A gust of wind. The flames leap higher.
Smoke billows into the room.
Coiling serpents twine around my waist.
Oh, best beloved, put your hands on my hips
and your mouth on my lips and never leave me.
How could I doubt that you would come back to me.

Lady of Ambato: Basque goddess of witchcraft
paysans: countrywomanl man
chamarra: vest, sweater121122 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Letta Sirnone-Nefertari Neely

1 don't kneel.

1 don't kneel
or glasp my hands all thetime
the space between two hands is too small
to hold
me/hold u and all of us/ together
i fling my arms wide to holdthe ocean's breath in my armpits and under my tongue;
open my eyes toward the sky / ground/ water / trees
to know what is possible
for usi don't kneel
or glasp my hands all the time
i sings my grandmamas' spirituals
while washing collard greens
and they sing with me, snapping beans in rhythm, sitting inthey spiritselves on the backporch
i don't kneel or glasp my handsallthe time or use the telephone too often
i can hear my people all over calling mel
and we talk/ we talkwith the windWinter 1994/95

123

Alex Dalsheimer

Nature / nurture
The elegant birches who strip themselves
bare to their own woody bones
on a summer day. The tender whitethings shimmering in the glistering light.
The sharp smell of cedar
high above the water (with its own
unplaceable density; not-smell) andthat snapping taste of pine.
As we are decomposed and constituted
by natural urges and then, too,
are not at all natural, we dividendsof our own macro economy,rathering ourselves
into timely plots; if you do
think of living as holding a placein line, then sing.
Through the proud and circumstantial
choristers in unfathomable disarray:sing in the street.

124 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Notes for a Magazine: Goodbye
Now I really do have to say goodbye. Akiba OnadaSikwoia, Kyos Featherdancing and Janet Wallace will be thenew editors of SW beginning January I, 1995. They're in theprocess of putting together a great editorial board. I'm gladand grateful that such skilled and thoughtful dykes are here to
move Sinister Wisdom into its next phase.
And this is a profound change in my life. I'll be driving
somewhere and it comes to me, how privileged I've been to be
doing this work for so long - to have had these opportunities.
The quality of written interchange has been remarkable. Lesbians and writing are the passions of my life. As an editor I've
been able to live in the world of my passion.
But it's about two years past due for me to move on. I
started to wrap myself in Sinister Wisdom as an excuse for
not attending to womyn and causes I love, and have neglected
my own writing . After nearly eight years, my real enthusiasm
was getting buried. Now I'm finishing my novel and goingback to school to get credentialed enough to teach. Only
tonight, going over these notes after midnight, do I begin tofeel that surge of hope I haven't felt for quite awhile - yes,dykes can change the world with words.
There's a lot of power involved in being the editor. The
more I understand that power, the more I know it has to spiralon - it can't concentrate on anyone, or small group of, dykes
for too long without starting to build defenses to protect itself.
I look forward to what the new editors will bring. Their
excitement makes putting SW in their care a pleasure.
I have many apologies to make - to all the womyn who
sent us work who didn't get an answer soon enough, who
didn't get the attention their work deserved. I apologize tothat significant handful of womyn whose work got lost midprocess, and those who wrote difficult-to-answer letters I put
into my difficult-to-answer file, then never found the timefor. I apologize to my co-editors and colleagues for letting "thejob" take more of my attention than our relationships. Toooften, dykes had to deal with my classism or racism because
I was the one with power they had to go through to get theirwork out, or to get credit for the work they'd done.

Winter 1994/95

125

And I think all of us whQ've worked on SW in the lasteight years have done something wonderful. There are issues
we did that I like better than others, but each of them contributes to lesbian literature and politics. All of us - workers,
writers, artists and readers - have cause to be proud of what
we've made together.
I wish I had a whole new language with which to thankthe many dykes who've worked on Sinister Wisdom over thelast eight years - their visions of the magazine, their hard
work, made it what it was. Caryatis Cardea was a wonderful
and wonderfully challenging co-editor. She put an incredible
amount of emotional, intellectual and physical energy into
Sinister Wisdom all the years she worked on the magazine.
Judy Freespirit has read 20 issues for The Women's Braille
Press and continues to make Sinister Wisdom available toprint-impaired womyn. Cath Thompson, Lisa Carlin and Betty
Dudley were members of the editorial board from its beginning until issues 51, 49 and 46, respectively, and often did themanual labor that made these issues possible. Jasmine Marah
contributed her insights and artistic abilities from the beginning through issue 49. Naja Sorella was a vital member of theeditorial board from #34 through #45. For the past three years,
Saud a Burch, Laura Munter Orabona and Jamie Lee Evanshave contributed consistently to the editorial process and thedaily work. Almos t all of these womyn are wor king-class dykes.
Their energy, intelligence and dedication have made Sinister
Wisdom possible. Their class and race perspectives gave thejournal its presence and depth.
Gloria Anzaldua's thoughtful, encouraging presence has
carried me through many rough spots. Her belief in writing,in the inspired and ethical application of our best selves tothe work at hand, has helped me keep my heart and mind open.
I have relied on my intimates for many things during thistime, including their extreme patience. There is no way I can
thank enough Dolphin Waletzky (who, besides criticizing
me lovingly, did fulfillment between bulk mailings), Susan Jill
Kahn (who's worked on the editorial board since the beginningand has given me invaluable feedback on my notes) and Susan
Levinkind (who's been volunteer coordinator, got our nonprofit status and spent many hours working through the intri-

126 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

cacies of state and federal taxes & regulations the last five
years).
There are so many more dykes to thank: Nina Wouk whoheld my hand through many tax seasons; Susan Goldberg
who always proofread, came to mailings and made me laughat myself; Carol Baker who volunteered whenever we asked;
readers like Nancy Bischof who, when she read the call forsolidarity with the lesbians of ex-Yugoslavia in #51, organizeda local drive (in Michigan) for materials to send them; Barbara
Ruth who gave me good advice, did many book reviews, contributed when she could; Bobby Rothschild and Rebecca Kutlin
w hose laser printer we've relied on for eight years; Irena Klepfisz
who helped me understand the dynamics of editorial groups andwhose deep consideration of many issues widened my worldview; Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, whose parting words I've
read and reread for guidance over the years. To name a few.
Relieved thanks to guest editors who came through withwonderful special issues (Italian-American Women, Lesbians andClass, Lesbians of Color: Tell in , It Like It 'Tis, Not the Ethics Issue ...
and Old Dykes/Lesbians); thanks to every dyke who risked
joining an on-going group in order to add her perspectives toa theme. Awe-filled thanks to the dykes who made Sinister
Wisdom part of their community, who came to mailings andcleaned up the garage, sorted through exchange materials,
did any number of tasks once or twice or three times a year
because they wanted to, sent donations or notes of appreciation. Thanks to dykes for wanting to be a part of something. To
us all for what we make by choosing.
And thank you. For your attention . For supporting Sinister
Wisdom all these years. For my hope that you will encourage
and support Akiba, Kyos and Janet. Get your friends to subscribe.
Talk about the writing, the work, the ideas of community webring to each other.
Loving each other means sharing what we have. Opening
ourselves up. You all know cynicism, boredom, distraction.
But you also know hope, or you wouldn't be on this page withme. Give in to hope. What's the worst that can happen?
May you (& SW) flourish with love, strength and joy.

Elana

Winter 1994/95

127____________Contributors' Notes
Avotcja is a poet, storyteller, musician and performance artist. She can be reached at P.O. Box 422340, S.F., CA94142-2340.
Alex Dalsheini.er, whose work appears in Sinister Wisdom
for the first time, lives in Manhattan, teaches creative writing
and also works as a freelance editor.
Barbara Ruth considers herself Buddhist 48% of the time,
revolutionary 62% of the time. Once in a great while shedoesn't feel disabled. She's always Lesbian, Indian, Jew. All
in all, she's very queer. She likes that, but she didn't always.
She fervently believes more will be revealed.

AUA1,(5. I'I, ....
_ _ _ .. o.JIf . ..... Il ....... l.o.J"'. _ , " - , I I •.......
_ .(.0 ___ - _. ......
_
IoC-.Cla~.

l.

~~:;...;:....'::"~~~:..:~..p::~==!':i"'"'~'!=,~;.~'~':.!.:;:".:='.::.~,::.'::.::·,~" '~f~:':::..'~~n~~:~::!'~-:,OII~O.~~~': !1'i"f::~I~~~ID(:.I~~.I.OUIIOUl ,. OIfKl~ I::J-~_", ... _ _ .o:gl"" .-~_

1 ..· " ' . " .... ,.... ~I · I.o..
. .....' 100 D C :tI~1

I(Just a souvenir Elana found while going through her files .. .
contributors' notes continue on the next page.)128 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &; Religion

Bette S. Tallen is a 44-year-old fat Jewish lesbian living in therelative calm of Disney-dominated Central Florida. Anyone
wishing to visit the Mouse may give her a call.
Caffyn Kelley: I am a fabric artist and a writer. I work at odd
jobs for money. For fun, I edit and publish books by women
art-ists at Gallerie Publications. I live out in the country, ona steep rock cliff by the ocean; the watershed is my firstcommunity.
Debby Earthdaughter: I'm 33, raised working / middle-class.
Now living on SSI with CFIDS / MCS. Living on lesbian ·landoutside Tucson.
Diane Anderson, 26, is a mixed-race, lesbian journalist whoedits Girlfriends magazine and an anthology, Lavender Locker:
Voices of Lesbian, Gay & Bisexual Youth, out in 1995. Her work
appears in Deneuve, Washington Blade and On Our Backs. She
and her wife divide their time between Idaho and California.
Gloria E. Anzaldua is a Chicana patlache dyke writer fromsouth Texas now living in Santa Cruz. She wrote this poem tohonor her part Basque ancestry. She is the author of Borderlands/La frontera : The New Mestiza and Friends From the Other
Side/Amigos del otro lado , a bilingual children's picture book.
Herlinda E. Arellano: I am a working class, chicana dyke
scholar who lives in Berkeley. I was born in New Mexico andraised in Tucson, Arizona. My birth name is Herlinda and I
am presently called Lea . I have been writing for two years
with Cherrie Moraga in our group called Indigena As Scribe.
I am an educator, organizer and spiritual leader in my community.
Jessica Stein: Loves writing above all else, and also loves
reading, tough women and music. Has many women to thankfor many things . Is 17 years old; has won many nifty writing
contests for high-schoolers, including the Russell Sage College
poetry contest. Hates people who say, "I'm not a feminist,
but ... " Volunteers at Kitchen Table Press in Albany, NY, andloves it. Misses Vermont. Thinks this bio reads like an ad int~e personals.

Winter 1994/95

129

Judith Berns: What is not in the title is that I am 37 andrecently moved from Chicago to Minneapolis. I am a writerand bilingual, elementary school teacher and would like tolearn how to ride a horse without falling off. Recently I joined
the Minneapolis Zen Meditation Center and Shir Tikva (atemple) .
Julia Malott: I am a white Appalachian dyke separatist of
Scottish descent. I live in Kentucky, across the river from
Cincinnati, where many Appalachians migrated when themines became mechanized and began closing.
Juliana Pegues is a mixed heritage, middle-class, able-bodied
Asian American DYKE. Anxiously awaiting the revolution,
she bides her time gossiping, eating and organizing withfriends and allies in Minneapolis.
Karen Burns is a sculptor, painter and author of an unconventional new book for children - The You Can't Stay Within The
Lines So Don't Even Try Coloring Book. She lives in Rochester,NY, where she is a founding member of WAVE (Women
Against A Violent Environment).
Letta Simone-Nefertari Neely: i am an african-american
womonlovingwomyn living in brooklyn/guided by audre's
spirit/practicing a spirituality given to me by the wind andstories of eldersli am always trying to make connections that
one day will help us breathe easier. ache.
Laura Irene Wayne is an African American painter, printmaker,
graphic artist, poet, writer and illustrator of children's books .
For the past 13 years, she has exhibited locally, nationally andinternationally. Her work has appeared in and on the coversof magazines, books and newspapers. Her first book of poetry,
Journey to Feel, will be available in December 1994. Contact
her at Womyn Work: a Fine Art Company, rOB 221850, Sacramento, CA 95822, (916) 427-4567.
Lisa Gray: I am a 27-year-old caucasian lesbian with a cat(what's new?). When I'm not visiting the ocean, hiking tomountain lakes or drinking coffee, I work as a social worker
for children in crisis in the Seattle area.

130 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians lit Religion

Lisa Williams will be spending the next year in Antartica
where, in her spare time, she hopes to work on a play. She also
looks forward to celebrating her 35th birthday in the dark.
Mara Math moved from Boston to San Francisco the long way
around - via two years in New Zealand, where she was aunion organizer. A former Gay Community News feature writer ·for five years, she is currently an arts critic for The Bay Times,
and writes a column, "Medusa Oblongata," for Dykespeak. By
the time you read this she will have turned 40. She loves
women who talk with their hands.
Marita Avila is a Witch whose spells manifest into literary
and performance art. She has published work in Plazm andConfluence, and her poetry performance, "Falling on the Edgeof October," has recently been released on underground video .
She is currently writing a novella, Objects D'Art, Isabella.
M.K. Stewart is a hot and sexy dyke witch writer, searching
for ways to eat and pay her rent by doing what she loves. Thisis her first national publication, and she's tickled pink toappear here in Sinister Wisdom.
Myke Johnson is a working-class lesbian activist and witchof European and Innu descent. Her article, "Wanting To Be
Indian: Cultural Appropriation in White Feminist Spirituality," was published in SW #52 . She is currently trying to findfinancial support for her ongoing passion work, exploring
the intersections of spirituality and politics.
Nancy R. Levine is a quietly spiritual, boldly lesbian photographer and sign language interpreter.
Rachel Rosen: I love being a Jew. I'm also a proud Lesbianand Disabled Separatist. I was born and raised in the Canadian capital, a small, multicultural yet wasp dominated city.
Being Jewish was not spoken of much, yet anti-Semitism was
rampant. I fight against cultural appropriation and objectification and for recovering what truly is ours.
Rainbow Williams: born and raised in Louisiana, now living
at Pagoda, a lesbian seaside community. Member of "Old
Lesbians Organizing for Change." White, middle-class, does

Winter 1994/95

131

architectural drafting and historic timelines. Single, fat, great
hair. Plays dulcimer.
Samara: maintaining my sense of wonder and absurdity while
trying to survive in the Oakland school system.
Sarah Jacobus is a 43-year-old Jewish lesbian feminist andwriter of creative non-fiction. She lives in Los Angeles, where
she is an adult education teacher, audio artist-in-residence incounty facilities for juvenile offenders and longtime Middle
East peace activist.
S. Naomi Finkelstein - I am a writer, an activist, a troublemaker and a good cook. I have ... street smarts, a sense ofhumor, good friends, a wonderful cat, a girlfriend who keeps
me on my toes and a terrible job. I consider myself real lucky.
5.5. Szymaszek: I am originally from Milwaukee, but live
and work in Philadelphia. I have published poems in the
Portland Review and have work corning out in Sojourner. I also
have written movie reviews for the upcoming gay/lesbian
movie guide, Images In the Dark. I most recently completed awriting workshop at Bennington College in Bennington,
Vermont.
Winn Gilmore grew up in the South, went to college in New
England and lives in her newly purchased Oakland homewith her partner and dog . Between fishing, karate, writing
and working, Winn travels . Her work has appeared in Ache,
Herotica 2, On Our Backs, Writin g Desire, Sinister Wisdom andUnholy Alliances. She dedicates this story to the memory of her
mother's fighting spirit: May your passionate flame reignite!
Winifred Eads lives in Seattle.
zana: i'm disabled, 47 and going through big midlife upheavals . wondering what the landscape will look like when the
dust settles.

132 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

Books Received _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __About the Books Received List: We list (almost) all the books we getin the mail. Unfortunately, we never have room to review everything
we think we should. I tend to list books here by books/authors/
presses I think are important (although all books from one press arelisted together), with an emphasis on lesbian-owned presses. If I've
read all or part of a book I may add subjective qualifiers like "readthis." While the presence of adjectives can be interpreted as editorial
endorsement, the absence of them only means I'm going by the
publisher's press release - Elana.

Her Head A Village and Other Stories - shows the lives of Black, working-class immigrants from a lesbian perspective, by Makeda Silvera,
who edited the anthology Piece of My Heart. 1994, $12.95, Press Gang,101-225 E. 17th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V5V 1A6.
The Woman Who Loved Airports - quick-witted, delightfully wellwritten dyke stories, by Marusy Bociurkiw. 1994, $12.95, Press Gang.
The Dyke & The Dybbuk - after 200 years, a demon is freed to pursue
the descendent of the woman she was supposed to haunt, whoturns out to be a cab-driving London dyke, by Ellen Galford. 1994,$10.95, Seal Press, 3131 Western Ave., #410, Seattle, WA 98121.
Latin Satins - four Chicana dykes who share a house in L.A. form
an act and deal with the music, sex, family and racism - a good
read, by Terri de la Pena. 1994, $10.95, Seal Press.
Another America/Otra America -Beautiful, intelligent poems of conscience, by Barbara Kingsolver, Spanish trans. by Rebeca Cartes.
1992, $10 .95, Seal Press.
The Black Back-Ups - poetry on African American life written overthe last 20 years, by Kate Rushin. 1994, $8.95, Firebrand Books, 141
The Commons, Ithaca, NY 14850.
Dykes To Watch Out For 1995 Calendar - a wonderful calendar for
keeping both your days and senses of humor in order, by Alison
Bechdel. 1994, $10.95, Firebrand.
We'Moon Gaia Rhythms for Womyn - 1995 astrological datebook,
multicultural anthology, herbal resource and more, this year focusing on "Survivors: The Healer Within." $13.00, Mother Tongue Ink,
POB 1395, Estacada, OR 97023 .
1995 Sudie Rakusin Lunar Art Calendar- fantasy womyn make up "A
Tribe" of four species, beautifully illustrating every moon month,with info on astrology and goddess holidays. $12.00, 1994, Full
Womoon, POB 1205, Santa Cruz, CA 95061.

Winter1994/95

133

1995 Lunar Calendar: Dedicated to the Goddess in Her Many Guises -13
well-designed spiraling moon pages include 23 artists & writers(all genders), herbal and astrological info. $15 .00, 1994, Luna Press,
POB 511, Kenmore Sta., Boston MA 02215.
Who Cares If It's a Choice - Snappy Answers to 101 Nosy, Intrusive andHighly Personal Question About Lesbians and Gay Men - is cute, by Ellen
Orleans. 1994, $7.50, Laugh Lines, POB 259, Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004.
The Amazon Chronicles - an engaging old-fashioned thick dyke
heroic saga of the Amazons during the time of the Trojan wars, byJane E.M. Robinson. 1994, $15.95, Clothespin Fever Press, 10393
Spur Ct., La Mesa, CA 91941.
I Am Your Daughter, Not Your Lover - poetry that initiates the Dandelion Warrior Series: books for the incest survivor liberation
movement, by Marie Cartier. 1994, $8.95, Clothespin Fever.
Mother Journ eys: Feminists Write About Mother ing - lesbian andstraight mothers from wide spectrum get into the nitty gritty of it,edited by Maureen T. Reddy, Martha Roth and Amy Sheldon. 1994,$15 .95, Spinsters Ink, POB 300170, Minneapolis, MN 55403.
Give Me Your Good Ear - 15th anniversary edition of this intergenerational, early second wave novel, by Maureen Brady. 1994,$9.95, Spinsters Ink.
Lesbomania - Humor, Commentary and New Evidence That We Are
Everywhere - short pieces by Jorjet Harper. 1994, $9.95, New Victoria,
POB 27, Norwich, VT 05055 .
Nun in the Closet - murdered nuns, sex, money and a lesbian bar
owner feature in this mystery, by Joanna Michaels . 1994, $9.95,
New Victoria.
Up, Up and Away - a balloonist video specialist is chased throughLouisiana swamps for what she knows, while falling in love. 1994,$9.95, Naiad, POB 10543, Tallahassee, FL 32302.
Personal Ads - cute fantasy sex vignettes constructed around thepersonals, by Robbi Somers. 1994, $9.95, Naiad .
Triple Exposure - a lesbian romance with likely triangles, jealous
lovers and husbands, by Jackie Calhoun. 1994, $9 .95, Naiad.
A Rage of Maidens - a Caitlin Reece mystery focusing on the aftermath of sexual assault and the rage of its heroine. 1994, $9.95, Naiad.
Lesbian Visibility - a Dan ish lesbian pilot study about lesbians
within the European Community, with special reference to lesbians in the labor market, is a landmark work which comes with anote acknowledging its white, middle-class bias, by Vibeke Nissen
and Inge-Lise Paulsen. 1994, available from LBL, Landssekretariatet
Knabrostraede 3, Postbos 1023, 1007 Kobenhavn K., Denmark.

134 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

On Lill Street - set in Chicago, 1976, with a 24-year-old dyke activist
coming of age in the second wave, by Lynn Kanter. 1992, $10.95,
Third Side Press, 2250 W . Farragut, Chicago, IL 60625.
Confronting Cancer, Constructing Change: New Perspectives on Womenand Cancer - 19 essays & personal testimonies, many by lesbians,
edited by Midge Stocker. 1993, $11.95, Third Side Press.
The Sensual Thread -love and awareness of the beings on earth, set
in Tennessee, by Beatrice Stone. 1994, $10.95, Third Side Press.
Aftershocks - dykes cope with the Big One (8.0) in this well-written
novel, by Jess Wells. 1992, $9.95, Third Side Press.
Maud's House - a girl who painted on walls grows up to pa~nt arural town's mural, by Sherry Roberts. 1994, $18 (cloth), PapierMache Press, 135 Aviation Way #14, Watsonville, CA 95076.
Two Teenagers in Twenty - writings by lesbian and gay youth,
edited by Ann Heron. 1994, $17.95 (cloth), Alyson, 40 Plympton St.,
Boston, MA 02118.
Death By Denial - Studies of suicide in gay and lesbian teenagers,
compiles government sources, mostly men's comments, but useful
until we do our own, edited by Gary Remafedi . 1994, $9.95, Alyson.
Anna Day and the O-ring - a slight children's book starring a dog,a boy and his two moms, by Elaine Wicken. 1994, $6.95, Alyson.
Tilting the Tower - essays on teaching about lesbians and lesbianstudies in high schools and colleges, edited by Linda Garber. 1994,$15.95, Routledge, 29 W. 35th St., NY, NY 10001.
The Practice of Love: Lesbian Sexuality and Perverse Desire - theory on
psychoanalysis, film criticism and the nature of dyke desire, byTeresa de Lauretis. 1994, $14.95, Indiana Univ. Press, 1-800-842-6796.
The Courage To Heal - updated resources & a response to "false
memory syndrome" grace the 3rd edition of this thick guide forwomen survivors of child sexual abuse, by Ellen Bass and Laura
Davis. 1994, $22.50, HarperPerennial.
Growing Old Disgracefully - New Ideas for Getting the Most Out of Life- a playful, often engaging, fairly straight group of essays, poems& personal narrative, by The Hen Co-op (Maxine Myers, Barbara
Tayler, Anne Woolfe, Edith Redstone, Shirley Meredeen and Mary
Cooper) . 1994, $10.95, Crossing Press, POB 1048, Freedom, CA 95019 .
Indecent Exposures: Shifts in Feminist Photography 1970-90 - an illustrated slice of Australian feminist life in art theory, by Catriona
Moore. 1994, $19.95, Paul & Co., POB 442, Concord, MA 01742.
Voice of the Turtl e: American Indian Literature 1900-1970 - an important anthology of the work of five women and 14 men, edited by
Paula Gunn Allen. 1994, $24.50 (cloth), Ballantine Books.

Winter 1994/95

135_ _ _ _-'Announcernents and Classified Ads
PUBLICATIONS
Look up! THE '95 LUNAR CALENDAR: DEDICATED TO THE
GODDESS IN HER MANY GUISES - fresh works by 23 artists
and writers, 32 pages, wall-hanging, 19th annual edition! $20
postpaid from Luna Press, POB 511, Kenmore Station, Boston, MA 02215, USA, phone 617-427-9846.
ESTO NO TIENE NOMBRE, revista de lesbianas latinas en
miami, is a forum for latina lesbians with a Miami twist.
Open to all forms (Spanish, Spanglish, English), $10 per year
(checks to: Tatiana de la Tierra). Guidelines, subs to: 4700 NW
7th St. #463, Miami, FL 33126.
MAIZE,A Lesbian Country Magazine. $10/yr (4 issues). Single
issue $3.50. New address: MAIZE, POB 130, Serafina, NM 87569.
WE ARE HERE - national resource guide for lesbian and gay
youth, pub. by Gay Youth Comm. Coalition of the Bay Area,$5 (to We Are Here) from: 2215 Market St., #479, SF, CA 94114.
TEEN VOICES - by, for & about teenage and young adultwomen, $2: Women Express, POB 6009 JFK, Boston, MA 02114.
CALLS FOR SUBMISSIONSCOMING OUT IN COLLEGE: ANTHOLOGY. Seeking comingout stories by current college students or graduates within thelast three years. Send w / SASE to Annie Stevens, 3300 Teagarden
Circle, #403, Silver Spring, MD 20904. Deadline: March 31, 1995.
QUEER WOMEN ABUSED BY WOMEN - an anthology ofwritings about lesbian date rape/sexual assault, lesbian battering, and special emphasis on childhood sexual abuse by female
perpetrators. Deadline: June 1995. 5-7 pages. Send w / SASE to
Tamar Avishur, Anthropology UCSC - Women's Center, Santa
Cruz, CA 95064. Please no calls. Will send response card.
HEY PAESAN!: Writings by Italian-Descended Lesbians and Gay
Men Fouri d'Italia, seeks work in triplicate w / SASE by Jan. 15,
1995; edited by Giovanna Capone, Denise Nico Leto andTommi Avicolli Mecca. 278 State St., #2, SF, CA 94114.

136 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians & Religion

VIDEO MEMOIRS ON THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT, archival and contemporary, for "The Second Wave," a 4-part TV
series, is sought by Women Make Movies. Contact them for info
on how to participate: 462 Broadway, NY, NY 10013.
BLUE COLLAR, WORKING CLASS AND POOR LESBIANS'
identity anthology: who decides who's a lesbian? What a real
lesbian looks, acts, sounds like? What we call ourselves? For
info, send SASE to: POB 8939, Minneapolis, MN 55408.
SHORT FICTION BY WOMEN, new guidelines, send SASE to:
Rachel Whalen, ed., Box 1276, Stuyvesant Sta., NY, NY 10009.
DYKE REVIEW MAGAZINE - "We don't judge it, we justpublish it." All publishable forms of dyke expression. Call
415-621-3769 or write: 584 Castro St., Ste 456, SF, CA 94114.
YOUNG WOMEN HEALING FROM ABUSE - send allforms of publishable expression for a new anthology to the
Birch Heather Project, POB 11244, Portland, OR 9721l.
LESBIANS IN ACADEMIA anthology - send I-page abstract, or request guidelines from: Esther Rothblum, Dept. of
Psych., Dewey Hall, Univ. of Vt., Burlington, VT 05405 or EMail to bmintz@moose.uvm.edu by Jan . 1, 1994.
LESBIAN CONTRADICTION seeks non-fiction on experiencesof the Far Right around lesbian/gay & women's issues. Ongoing column. LesCon, 584 Castro St. Ste. 356, SF, CA 94114.
BLACK LESBIAN CULTURE: PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE let's be honest and claim ALL we are, have been and will be
for centuries! For guidelines, info: SASE to Terri Jewell, POB
23154, Lansing, MI 48909, running deadline.
BREAST CANCER AND BODY IMAGE anthology seeks art,
non-fiction, poetry from survivors and/ or surviving friends.
SASE for guidelines before sending work to Raven'Light
POB 135, Graton, CA 95444. New deadline: April I, 1995.
LESBIAN SELF-REPRESENTATION in photo based worksought for article and conf. presentation. Send slides, statements, cv or queries to: Cyndra MacDowell, 6018 Jeanne
Mance, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2v 4K8, 514-272-485l.
OUT IN VIDEO Festival of Lesbian/Gay Narrative Shorts,
seeks under 30 min. dramas. OVF, Box 14022, SF, CA 94114.

Winter 1994/95

137

RIPENING LESBIANS, an anthology, seeks all forms fromall dykes on growing older. Queries, submissions w /SASE to
Tirzah Gerstein, 85 Newbury St., Hartford, CT 06114.
LAVENDAR LIFE will enter all stories and poetry received
through Dec. 31, 1994 in their writing contest, prizes from $100.
POB 898, Binghamton, NY 13902-0898, attn: Pamela K. Fite.
RISING TIDE PRESS, a new lesbian publisher, seeks fulllength lesbian novels. For guidelines, send SASE to: Rising
Tide Press, 5 Kivy St., Huntington Station, NY 11746.
LESBIANS NEEDED to fill out short survey for lesbian gradstudent's dissertation. Anonymity guaranteed . Lesbian
Wellness Survey, UVM-Dewey Hall, Burlington VT 05405,
802-657-2999.
SPINSTERS INK is seeking feminist writing by women ofcolor - full-length novels and non-fiction works. More info:
POB 300170, Dept. C, Minneapolis, MN 55403, (612) 377-0287.
VAMPIRE JOURNALS, a new lesbian & bisexual quarterly,seeks writers and readers. Send SASE for guidelines, info to:
The Queen, P.O.B. 681, San Leandro, CA 94577.
QUEER GLANCES, QUEER MOMENTS - lesbian and gay
short short stories. Deadline: March 31, 1995. Canadian SASE
(or international reply coupon): Karen X. Tulchinsky, #10021340 Burnaby St., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6E 1Rl.
AIDS IN PRISON - survey by former prisoner Jeannie
Pejko to determine needs of prisoners with AIDS : write her
at 4624 N . Hamlin, Chicago, IL 60625 for more info.
EVENTS /ORGANIZING /CONFERENCES /RETREATSWOMEN, WAR AND PEACE: THE VISION AND THE
STRATEGIES - international conf. of Women in Black andwomen's peace movements. Jerusalem, Dec. 28-30, 1994. Activists and scholars invited. Contact Erella Shadmi, 4/11 DresnerSt., Jerusalem, Israel 93814. Tel: (2) 718-597; Fax: (2) 259-626.
OLOC - Old Lesbians Organizing for Change helps form
new groups of lesbians over 60, provides ageism education,
stimulates existing groups to confront ageism. OLOC, POB
980422, Houston, TX 77098.

138 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &: Religion"CROSSING THE BOUNDARY; FEMINISMS INSIDE ANDOUTSIDE THE UNIVERSITY" is the Univ. of Tulsa's 10th
Annual Comparative Literature Symposium, March 17-19,
1995. Abstract deadline Dec. 15. For info: Kerri Shaw or Sarah
Theobald-Hall, English Dept., Univ. of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104;
tsm17 466@vaxl.utulsa.edu.
"COMPLICATING CATEGORIES: WOMEN, GENDER AND
DIFFERENCE," 10th Berkshire Conf. on the History of
Women, June?-9, 1995, seeks paper proposals by Feb. I, 1995.
Query Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Afro-American Studies Dept, Harvard, 1430 Mass . Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138.
LESBIAN NATURAL RESOURCES (LNR) is a new organization dedicated to developing rural lesbian community, providing grants & assistance with land purchase, establishingland trusts, tax exemption & land skills. Emphasis on making
this resource · available to lesbians of color. For more info,
write: POB 8742, Minneapolis, MN 55408-0742.
BUSINESSESA SIMPLE MATTER OF JUSTICE 57 min. official video of the1993 March on Washington, by JEB. $28.50, inc. shipping from
Moonforce Media, POB 2934, Washington, DC 20013.
RED RIVER, 100% Cotton Menstrual Pads, comfortable, ecological, economical. Made by Land Dykes. Write for brochure: Red River, Box 130, Serafina, NM 87569.
SUPPORTLAVENDER 1.E.A.F. is the Lesbian Emergency Action Fundof money given anonymously, available to any S.F. or Alameda
County (CA) woman-born lesbian of poverty or working classbackground who needs it. Lavender 1.E.A.F.'s long-term goal
is to diminish economic disparities among lesbians . Send
checks, queries to: 1. Leaf, POB 20921, Oakland, CA 94620.
SPINSTERHAVEN, INC., a retirement haven for older women
and women with disabilities, promoting physical, culturaland spiritual well-being of women. Membership info anddonations, POB 718, Fayetteville, AR 72701.

Winter 1994/ 95

139

LESBIANS IN CRITICAL NEED have been sending us increasing numbers of requests to run announcements for theirpersonal funds. Instead of printing these individual appeals,
we urge you to contribute frequently and generousJy to localorganizations. Imagine if we just told you your childhood
best friend, your favorite gym teacher, an admired dyke activist or your first lover had metastatic cancer and couldn't pay
the doctor bills; or had developed E.!., could no longer leave
her house and had no way to get or pay for groceries. Then
make a contribution to Lavender L.E.A.F., The Dykefund, theCharlotte Maxwell Clinic, The Women's Cancer Resource
Center (these are S.F. Bay Area resources, find the ones inyour community) . We need full support networks as well as
money - dykes willing to shop, drive, talk, listen, organize.

Elana Dykewomon's
Selected Poems

Nothing Will Be As Sweet As The Taste
will be available fromOnlywomen Press
71 Great Russell Street, London WelB 3BN Englandby January 31, 1995~- - - Ask for it at your local bookstore!

~(Distributed in the U.S. by Inland)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ AD RATES
Deadline to reserve space in:#55, Open theme: January 6, 1995 (Pub: April I, '95).
#54, Language: May 8, 1995 (Pub: August I, '95).

Classified : 40¢ a word, $5 minimum.
Display: $200 whole page, $100 half, $75 third, $50 quarter,$35 2x2, for camera ready copy.
Write for other deadlines & size sheet.

140 sinister wisdom #54 -Lesbians & Religion£I£TEQ/

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sinister wisdom
Some Current & Back Issues#53 Old LesbianslDykes: guest edited by 9 old dykes, features the work of 38
womyn over 60, including Del Martin, Phyllis Lyon & Sally Miller Gearhart.
#52 Allies includes 10 interviews by Jamie Lee Evans with lesbian activists.
#51 An open issue where lesbians lay claim to our lives.
#50 Not The Ethics Issue we had planned (read it to find out why). But there isgreat work on ethics & more. Guest edited by Caryatis Cardea and Sauda Burch.
#49 The Lesbian Body: here's where flesh and theory meet - includes lesbiansof color, roles, disability, body image, fat, sex, menopause and more.
#48 Lesbian Resistance: investigations into the activist 'heart of our courage including messages from dykes in prison.
#47 Lesbians of Color: Tellin' It Like It Tis'. Special 160-page issue edited bylesbians of color, includes new work in all forms - essential reading!
#46 Dyke Lives. New, international fiction and poetry.
#45 Lesbians and Class. The first issue edited entirely by poor and working classdykes includes analysis, personal narrative, poetry, fiction & a graffiti wall.
#43/44 The 15th Anniversary Retrospective. 368 pages, over 90 lesbians' workfrom the second wave. An amazing, indispensable source collection!
#42 Lesbian Voices. Our first intentional all-lesbian issue includes legal theory,
racism, Israel, hair, surgery, the effects of rape on relationships, much more.
#41Italian-Arnerican Women's Issue. Guest edited by Denise Leto & Janet Capone.
#40 Special Focus on Friendship. Essays, fiction, editorial discussion transcript.
#36 Special Focus on Surviving Psychiatric AssaulUCreating Emotional Well
Being in our Communities. Includes testimony, prose, poetry and essays.
#35 Passing. Investigations into trying to appear other than we are.
#34 Special Focus on Lesbian Visions, Fantasy, SciFi.
#33 Special Focus on Wisdom. Lesbians of Color, non-violence, war stories,
incest, leaving a will, assimilation & The Real Fat Womon Poems.
#32 Special Focus on Illness, Death, Mourning, Healing, the disappeared, hunting season, dealing with suicide, cancer, new ritual observances.
#31 Special Focus on Sex and Fiction, coming out in the south, Found Goddesses.
#28 Special Focus on Women & Work; Body Image, Size & Eating.
#26 Special Issue: To Go To Berbir by Jill Drew, a book on being in Beirut in 1982.
#21 Separatism revisited, Jewish survival & defiance, Black lesbian writing,photos of dykes in drag, suicide, bars, letters about anti-Semitism.

We recently found a case of slightly damaged copies of #39, On Disability ($5 ea.) .
. Sinister Wisdom #1-19,27,37 & 38 are out of print. Photocopies can be provided$5 for the first article, $1 for each add. in the same order ($17 for a whole issue).
Allow one month for delivery.

144 sinister wisdom #54 - Lesbians &. Religion----_ ..

flnifTERWlfDOmSince 1976. ..

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