The Arts Periodical

I am delighted to see my work in the new edition of The Arts today. I drew my first ever Síla na Gig at Winter Solstice for the cover of the Matriarchy Research and reclaim Network magazine that I was guest editing. That was the beginning of a life long love affair. Please read my article as an early Solstice greeting.

https://thearts.periodical.co/birth/sila-na-gig

"AND WOMEN"

DREAMING

I dream of all the women in the world

I dream of all the women that I mourn
I dream of all the women that are coldly cut and torn
I dream of all the women that are raped
I dream of all the women that are shaped and stitched for custom’s sake
I dream of all the women that are branded “witches”, “sluts” and “whores”
I dream of all the women that are covered up and enslaved and used in wars
I dream of all of women’s wasted blood and tears and sweat 
I dream of all of women’s sacred places that are desecrate

I dream of ancient women’s stories and I dream of ancient women’s art
I dream of ancient teaching circles to open gentle, healing hearts
I dream of ancient women’s wisdom and I dream of ancient women’s lore
I dream of times when women’s parts were named with reverence and with awe 
I dream of ancient women’s medicine and I dream of ancient women’s blood
shed in life nourishing cycles with childbirth and the moon
I dream of ancient women whispering that we can change and we can turn
I dream of ancient women encouraging us to make choices and to learn

I dream of times when every woman will be free to refuse pain
I dream of times when every woman will be free to use her courage and her rage
I dream of times when every woman will be free to choose to tell her tales
I dream of times when every woman will be free to remove her make up and her veils
I dream of times that may have been, of times that may yet be
I dream of fair ferociousness and of wild and raw beauty 

I dream with all the women in the world


by Bríd Wyldearth 2012


At first I was a little embarrassed to notice the obvious influence of Martin Luther King's famous speech on this poem. It was not deliberate.

I am always inspired when I hear King's words. I am passionate in my desire to see an end to racism. I have been shocked and hurt when I have been subjected to anti Irish racism. I have been shocked and hurt when I have watched friends of mine subjected to racism. I cannot bear to watch some films that depict this cruelty. I imagine that encountering racism every single day is similar to encountering sexism every single day. We never get used to it. It always hurts on some level although we may ignore it and feel bored by the repetition. Whenever I hear the words from the American constitution that King quotes: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal", I always want to add "AND WOMEN" and I suppose this poem is my "AND WOMEN" correction to all constitutions world wide.

I have been listening to women and men paying tribute to Martin Luther King and his dream today on the 50th anniversary, people who are famous for speaking out and marching against injustice of all kinds, people who have risked their lives and I cannot help but compare myself to them and wish I had done more and hope that I can do more.

Inspired by King and the many women and men who have spoken out and inspired the changes that have already happened in my life time, I begin by offering this small tribute today.

I Believe

I believe that if ever the son of a Jewish god of love said:
“Do this in memory of me”
it was an invitation,
not a command.

I believe that if the man who said:
“Suffer the little children to come unto me”
were to see little children being forced to go to church,
forced to sit still and in silence,
forced to parrot dead white men’s words
that they do not understand,
he would weep.

The same people who campaign against sex, nudity and violence in film and television
expose their children to images of a bleeding, dying man
hanging on a prehistoric instrument of torture,
dressed only in a crown of thorns and loin cloth,
on a weekly basis.
They explain to their children that this man was tortured to death in order to save them.
They tell them that sex outside marriage is a mortal sin,
that homosexuality is an abomination.

What then happens to their minds and souls
when priests they are told are good and trustworthy rape them?
when they are forced to serve their rapists on the altar?
when they are forced to listen to the holy word of God out of their rapist’s lips?
when they are forced to accept the body of Christ from their rapist’s hands?
Where do they go in their minds in order not to run away screaming?

And what of the rest of the congregation?
How do they live with themselves?
How do they “not notice” or “forget” or “forgive”
the rape of their own children?

I believe that if the man who chased the money lenders out of the temple
were to see his priests buggering little boys and girls in his church buildings
he would do far more than chase them out of his father’s house.

I believe that there is no excuse of ignorance for collusion with and enabling child rapists
by priests and bishops and cardinals and popes
whose seven year training and daily bible reading
must have shown them the words
spoken over two thousand years ago by an illiterate carpenter’s son:
“It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he cast into the sea,
than that he should harm one hair on the head of one of these little ones.”

I believe that churches all over the world are full of shattered and lost souls
of those who dissociated from their enslaved and imprisoned bodies
rather than experience the rape and the denial and the hypocrisy

I believe that if there are such things as abominations
and eternal fires of damnation,
that is where child rapists belong.
And I believe that if we are to heal from treating child rapists as if they were gods,
we must all cry and wail and scream and demand justice;
we must feel the pain these acts cause all of us
and accept responsibility for comforting, believing and supporting the victims
as they confront their rapists and the church which protected the rapists
and slowly reclaim their shattered and lost souls;
we must envision and create a world of equality,
where nobody takes or is given power
which they can abuse in the name of Christ
or with the excuse of ignorance
or inability to control themselves
at the expense of one single child.

The Happy Womb

Thank you to The Happy Womb - www.thehappywomb.com

For posting my poem and images on their blog today:

Wide open – and witnessed

As little girls we are told to keep our legs together. For a woman, “she spreads her legs for anyone” is an insult of the highest order. The power of the wide open vulva is deeply threatening to the very fabric of civilisation.

My four-year-old daughter loves to show us her vulva. Spreading it wide. “Your yoni’s smiling and talking to us!” I say. So proud that she’s proud and comfortable in her body. Her seven-year-old brother says “yueuch, that’s disgusting!”

And that’s pretty much how it continues. We learn to feel shame for this part of ourselves. To shut it away, not show it off. Whereas boys take great pride in pulling their penises out in public and drawing them on schoolbooks and road signs.

Wide open. It is a feeling of vulnerability. And power. Both together. Flashing our genital essence to the world. Look, this is what I am. This is what I can do.

For most women the first time they experience being wide open – and witnessed – is in the process of birth. At this time there is no room for prudity, shame or secrecy. Suddenly this hidden recess, deep, dark and private, stretched wide open to become a portal between two worlds. As a woman’s whole yoni opens so do her eyes, her throat, her heart, her whole soul to allow the birthing process to happen.




Sila na Gig on a church in Kilpeck, Herefordshire, photograph taken by Bríd Wyldearth 2012

The only exception to this taboo, in the whole of Western art, that I know of, is the Síla na Gig, (pronounced Shee-la na gig). Found in the eaves of British and Irish churches, I first learned about them from Ina May Gaskin (check out her interview, here, where she discusses their function and purpose.) There she stands, vulva wide open and proud.

My greatest hope for women is that we be safe enough, feel safe enough, to be wide open and witnessed: lovingly held, tenderly treated, standing in our power and vulnerability.

International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation

I first read about Female Genital Mutilation, whilst I was travelling to facilitate a mask making workshop. I did not have time to process my feelings but as I was making my demonstration mask, I could not get the mouth right. Eventually I covered the mouth hole up completely, a very appropriate metaphor for labia infibulation.

I recognised a similar silencing within myself regarding rape and child sexual abuse and I found myself obeying another silencing from a Muslim friend who accused me of judging with western eyes something that I could not possibly understand.

I was blamed for "asking for" or "inviting" rape, and as far as I am aware, a reason given in favour of FGM is to prevent girls and women from inviting sex or rape. Are men really so unable to control themselves that they have to blame women for rape? If I was a man I would be insulted by this attitude.

My first mask, made without consciously planning, shows me as raped child.

I was later drawn on to study Síla na Gigs, goddess figurines found on medieval churches who display their genitalia.

I felt addicted to painting and sculpting them. I did not fully understand why. Women in pottery classes who saw me sculpting their open vulvas would giggle uncontrollably. I felt their discomfort and I allowed myself to be silenced yet again.

As I contemplate and celebrate International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation and want to contribute to the debate and the zero tolerance, I notice that displaying an open vulva is the exact opposite to sewing one up. I invoke this ancient goddess to help me in my desire to help end this subjugation of women, within the context of world wide misogyny and rape. After years of copying ancient sculptures, my hands created my own original Síla na Gig.

I have yet to hear of a man blaming a Síla na Gig for making him unable to control himself from raping one or a woman.


SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT GODDESS

by Bríd Wyldearth 2011

An ancient woman squats
above an old church door.
She holds her vulva open,
impossible to ignore.

Weird witch Síla na Gig,
powerful, daring and rude,
I wish I dared sit on a church wall
wicked and wanton and nude!

Eerie faerie Síla na Gig,
bathing your quim in the sun,
your holy hole outrageously obvious,
your mouth fixed in a mocking grin,

you might as well be shouting
to pilgrims rich and poor:
“I am your mother, your sister, your wife,
your daughter, your lover, your whore."

Orgasmic dancing Síla na Gig,
are you just prehistoric pornography?
Or do you have something to say
to the twenty first century?

"I will not collude in your big cover up.
I will not clothe myself in your shame.
Uncensored and open and honest and proud,
I show the world who I am and why I came."

Why do you sit on a church wall?
Why do you show us your cunt?
Why did the stonemason carve you?
And what exactly is it that you want?

“I was here before the church was
and I’ll be here long after it’s gone.
I honour the place of original magic
the place from which we all come

I open the gate between worlds
the doorway to life and to death
this gesture is just as important
as any gesture to pray or to bless

I am your ancestral goddess.
I am swollen and violated and raped.
This is the result of your violence.
I will not disappear without trace.

When you seek to disempower me,
you invade me against my will
you build churches over my temples and groves
and convince my children that I am evil.

Remember where you originate.
Remember your spiritual roots.
Remember that god is a woman as well.
Remember deep, radical truths.

Womanhood is as sacred
as any church or holy place.
We give birth, we give pleasure and we give love,
we give comfort and healing and peace.”






And, at the risk, of repeating myself by posting the same poem two posts running, I dedicate Dreaming to all the women in the world whose genitals have been raped and mutilated, in prayer for zero tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.

Dreaming

I dream of all the women in the world

I dream of all the women that I mourn
I dream of all the women that are coldly cut and torn
I dream of all the women that are raped
I dream of all the women that are shaped and stitched for custom’s sake
I dream of all the women that are branded “witches”, “sluts” and “whores”
I dream of all the women that are covered up and enslaved and used in wars
I dream of all of women’s wasted blood and tears and sweat 
I dream of all of women’s sacred places that are desecrate

I dream of ancient women’s stories and I dream of ancient women’s art
I dream of ancient teaching circles to open gentle, healing hearts
I dream of ancient women’s wisdom and I dream of ancient women’s lore
I dream of times when women’s parts were named with reverence and with awe 
I dream of ancient women’s medicine and I dream of ancient women’s blood
shed in life nourishing cycles with childbirth and the moon
I dream of ancient women whispering that we can change and we can turn
I dream of ancient women encouraging us to make choices and to learn

I dream of times when every woman will be free to refuse pain
I dream of times when every woman will be free to use her courage and her rage
I dream of times when every woman will be free to choose to tell her tales
I dream of times when every woman will be free to remove her make up and her veils
I dream of times that may have been, of times that may yet be
I dream of fair ferociousness and of wild and raw beauty 

I dream with all the women in the world


by Bríd Wyldearth 2012  

Brigid Poetry Festival

I began to blog in order to take part in the Cyber Brigid Poetry Festival and it is coming around at the end of this week and has a facebook page with a 2011 date https://www.facebook.com/BrigidPoetryFest

The following poem began many moons ago and coalesced this summer with a subtitle "Brigid Dreams". I would love as many poeple as possible to read this and join the dream.

Dreaming
or
Brigid Dreams

I dream of all the women in the world

I dream of all the women that I mourn
I dream of all the women that are coldly cut and torn
I dream of all the women that are raped
I dream of all the women that are shaped and stitched for custom’s sake
I dream of all the women that are branded “witches”, “sluts” and “whores”
I dream of all the women that are covered up and enslaved and used in wars
I dream of all of women’s wasted blood and tears and sweat 
I dream of all of women’s sacred places that are desecrate

I dream of ancient women’s stories and I dream of ancient women’s art
I dream of ancient teaching circles to open gentle, healing hearts
I dream of ancient women’s wisdom and I dream of ancient women’s lore
I dream of times when women’s parts were named with reverence and with awe 
I dream of ancient women’s medicine and I dream of ancient women’s blood
shed in life nourishing cycles with childbirth and the moon
I dream of ancient women whispering that we can change and we can turn
I dream of ancient women encouraging us to make choices and to learn

I dream of times when every woman will be free to refuse pain
I dream of times when every woman will be free to use her courage and her rage
I dream of times when every woman will be free to choose to tell her tales
I dream of times when every woman will be free to remove her make up and her veils
I dream of times that may have been, of times that may yet be
I dream of fair ferociousness and of wild and raw beauty 

I dream with all the women in the world


by Bríd Wyldearth 2012