OnLine With Zoe

On Pilgrimage

This is a post that I wrote years ago.  How relevant today as I am leaving on pilgrimage tomorrow with Patty.  You can follow our tip at our jouney site; TWO PILGRIMS.  We hope to be posting daily and uploading our photos.

Women on Pilgrimage, On land and modem.

written January, 2005

Over the past several years, I have been reading books by women on pilgrimage.  They have traveled all over the world, in every possible direction, on every conceivable conveyance.  Some were looking for something.  Some were leaving something behind.  All of them told enchanting stories. 

I have a tendency to group books when I read; poets, novelists, seekers, a certain author.   I have no idea why or set plan when I begin, but retrospection always makes me laugh at the organization it reveals.  In this case, I have been watching how women’s ability to travel alone has effected their stories. 

They do not have to dress like men, as did Alexandra David-Neel, when she made her “Journey to Lhasa.”  They do not have to struggle with button boots and long skirts.  Even the women from the Middle East were finally able to dress as athletes at the Olympics this year and leave their purdah at home.

The first time I read Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, I longed to be Isabel.  I could not understand why she refused to marry  Larry Darrell and live in Paris on $3,000 a year.  It sounded heavenly to me.  And then one day I wondered what was it that held me back from wanting to be Larry?  After all, it was his journey that I wanted, his questions that I shared.  I believe it was the stories of brave, traveling women that gave me the courage to imagine myself with Larry’s life, not Isabel’s.  By the time I read Hesse’s “Journey to the East,” I knew I could be a traveler. I could get on a train, a boat, a jeep, a trail and make discoveries for myself. 

Women may travel now.  They may travel alone; married or not.  They may design their itinerary, earn their stipend, wheel their bags, pull on their boots, and write their magical stories for us to read.  Here are four which I love.

Longing for Darkness, Tara and the Black Madonna

China Galland  1990 Penguin Books

China Galland is a brave and intelligent woman who took off looking for images of Black Tara and the Black Madonna.  She went where the path unfolded and jumped into the local culture. 

The Bond Between Women, A Journey to Fierce Compassion  China Galland  1998 Riverhead Books

Nepal, India, Brazil, Argentina and the US, China discovers the Goddess around the world and takes all of us with her.

On Pilgrimage , A Time To Seek

Jennifer Lash 1991  Bloomsbury Publishing

This elegant woman traveled the roads of nuns and saints through France and Spain.  Her work is filled with literary humor and deep wisdom. 

The Camino, Journey of the Spirit

Shirley MacLaine 2000 Pocket Books

In this, book nine, Shirley takes all of us with her on the sacred pilgrimage of the Santiago de Compostela; the field of stars.  Of course, we travel through several of her lifetimes as well.

These three women, each with her own agenda, slip us into their pockets and take us on profound and eloquent trips around the world.  While describing the scenery, the buildings and the people, they also share with us their ever evolving, inner journey. 

These three women went on pilgrimage.  They wore pants and sensible shoes.  They packed the minimum, ignored their fears, traveled on a shoestring and stood toe-to-toe with any male pilgrim.  They slept where there was a vacancy or under a tree. They carried paper and pen; no guns, no knives, no trips to the taxidermist. 

These three women did not relocate, but stayed on the road.  They were not like Jane Goodall, Isak Dinesen or Golda Meir.  These women have not unpacked, have no familiar hello when they arrive at their bed.  Their only security was, what Jennifer Lash loved so much; the cold key in her pocket.  That rented key, jangling in her pocket, meant that she had parked her suitcase, secured a bed for the night and could now walk through the town with her hands free and her back straight.

And now women can take another type of pilgrimage; one that does not require strong legs, blocks of leisure time, expendable cash or fearless risk-taking.  Women, and men for that matter, can take wonderful trips via the internet.  Certainly it is not the same as trekking through the mountains or standing on a new horizon.  It is not the same as unfamiliar sheets or exotic cuisine, but it has its own advantages.

Emily Dickenson may have been agoraphobic, but she would not be trapped behind the drawing room curtain.  She could be on the internet, traveling across the Atlantic, viewing the magical nature drawings of Beatrix Potter.  Maybe you are wheel chair bound, require a special diet, need an oxygen tank, have financial responsibilities which limit travel, but you can still see so very much via the internet.

Last night while preparing for this essay, I ran a few interesting searches on the internet for the word, “Pilgrimage.”  Google returned 270,000 matches in 0.11 seconds.  Amazon.com returned 734 matches.  And so I began wandering around France, Spain, Italy and the U.S.  I went to bed entirely too late, but ah the things I saw and the dreams I had!

My CA NOW Resignation

Dear California NOW Board,

September 14 I will resign my position on the California NOW Executive Committee as VP Membership.  Those of you who are close to me, know how difficult this last year has been, how much I wanted this position and how painful leaving is. 

The six women I began with shared a vision for grassroots activism and, as servant – leaders, we took our direction from the members who, by majority, voted for us.  The position I have held for 15 months is VP Membership.   Originally the position tasks are increasing membership,  renewing members, oversight of chapters merging or dissolving, and convening new chapters.  I wanted to expand it to include acting as a liaison for the membership; being their eyes and ears where they could not be, reporting frankly with transparency. 

The reality is that this last year I spent countless hours dealing with a lawsuit which was implemented as a formal NOW grievance.  It was disheartening, eviscerating, suffocating and required putting aside the true work of NOW; organizing people to work for the equality and rights of women.  Several of us spent 40+ hours a week writing documents, crafting positions, recovering from attacks, assembling defenses and huddling in both disgust and triage.
 
One by one, I have watched the invigorated, impassioned activists step way.   They were repeatedly derailed by internal attacks for power which eventually and appropriately repelled them.  And finally  those who wrote the law suits, carried out the grievances and insisted on personal power at any cost are ascending to state office.   

While it was my personal hope and goal that  bright, committed, Third Wave feminists would be the leaders of CA NOW, it is obvious, understandable and honorable that they cannot be deterred another moment from the true work of California feminists.  They are committed to environmental and reproductive justice, gender and economic equality, and grassroots activism.  They are working hard to defeat Propositions 4 & 8.  They are supporting pro-choice candidates.  They are planning events for Love Your Body Day.   They do not want to spend another precious moment on internal battles, threatening lawsuits and watching women destroy women.   

I am proud to follow their lead.  I hope they will make room for me in their true, feminist and local movement to advance, protect and support women and girls. 
Most sincerely,
Zoe Nicholson

I Forced Myself to Watch

You know, I know you know, somehow we had something to do with this.  Rosie the Riveter, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem all had something to do with this.  Governor Palin would never be a mayor, a governor, a working woman without Paul, Stanton and Anthony.   Sarah Palin bought what we were selling; women can have it all.  You can be pretty, sexy, married, a mother, a working mother and nothing will stop us.  So where did it go so wrong? 

Freedom and liberty is nothing unless it is guaranteed for all.  What of all the single women, the women who have HIV/AIDS, women in prison, women who cannot manage a pregnancy but cannot afford birth control due to governmental regs, countless American women who are heads of household who are working two jobs.  What of children learning true science, not biblical edits.   What of the principles of peace?  The video of Sarah looking through a scope of a gun doesn’t thrill.  You don’t have to kill dinner and if you do, it doesn’t mean you are one of the common people.   

As a feminist, as a women, as a Buddhist, Sarah Palin scares me; not just Sarah but her many supporters.  The hall was cheering for ideas that have zero to do with women’s autonomy and advancement.  I believe there are two terrible flaws in the thinking of this charming, coiffed, skirted group of women; 1) there are no lines between religion and politics and 2) they seek social ascension and power through being agents of anti-women men. 

Okay, it has been said before.  It was said about Phyllis Schlafly and she is still doing her bidding.  Certainly we all know about the USS Condoleeza; she didn’t get that by protecting women’s liberties.   I think all of this is particularly repugnant today in the dazzling light of Senator Hillary Clinton, the loss of Congresswoman Stephenie Tubbs Jones and the pro-woman man in Senator Biden.   

Women, when they are in a majority; able to determine their own religion, their physical destiny, their definitions of power have yet to really show the world what women could be.   That is what I want to see.  We sure have a lot of work to do.