WANTING TO BE INDIAN: CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN WHITE FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY

(poster by Ricardo Levins Morales at Northland Poster Collective)

I have copied an important article to share with you, which was published in Sinister Wisdom #52, Spring/Summer 1994. It was written by by Myke Johnson, a white working-class lesbian activist and theologian, whose ancestors are German, Frisian, Austrian, Canadian French, Scottish, and Innu. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree in Feminist Liberation Theology from the Episcopal Divinity School. She is currently reverend at the Allen Avenue Unitarian Universalist Church of Portland, Maine.

I discovered that a later, differently written version of this essay exists online at a website by Hawk. In all instances, the copyright for this essay remains with Myke Johnson.

Past copies of this volume of Sinister Wisdom, known as the Allies Issue, are available from them via their website at Sinister Wisdom. SW is a multicultural journal by and for lesbians which has been publishing for 30 years, a unique women's voice which very much deserves our support.

Jump to after the fold for the article.


WANTING TO BE INDIAN: CULTURAL APPROPRIATION IN WHITE FEMINIST SPIRITUALITY

(Chrystos, Menominee poet and activist, photo by Jean Weisinger)

You can't hear the grass breathe
because you're too busy talking
about being an Indian holy woman two hundred years ago
You sure must stink if you didn't let go --- Chrystos


How has racism affected white women's search for spiritual empowerment? How has white women's spiritual search adversely affected people of color? How can we work toward a woman-valuing spirituality which is deeply anti-racist?

When white woman began to be hungry for a woman-valuing spirituality, it was easy to look to other cultures and be excited about rituals and stories we saw there. Encouraged by the new age movement, many white feminists began exploring Native American and African spiritualities. We gravitated toward their greater emphasis on female deities and positive roles for women. We found a resonance with their greater focus on the earth, their grounding in the interconnectedness of all being. Because of our misunderstanding of feminism as uniting women across race and culture, it was easy to jump in and claim these treasures as our own lost histories.

Many Native and African American women have since informed us that is not how they see it. They have introduced the concept of "cultural appropriation", naming as theft the misuse of Native and African cultural symbols and practices by white people. These women of color have asked white women who truly want to be sisters, to be allie, to join them in condeming the new age appropriation of the cultural heritage of people of color. This has been a difficult challenge for white women to understand and take to heart. {See Amoja Three Rivers, Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the Well-Intentioned, 1990, distributed by Market Wimmin, Box 28, Indian Valley, CA 24105}

This challenge has been a source of deep transformation for me. I stand in a peculiar relation to the question of cultural appropriation because I am a woman of mixed racial ancestry, with both European and Native heritage. I gew up in white patriarchal christian culture, with fair skin and red hair, and only a reminder that we were "part-Indian" to link me to any other culture. It was when I began to reclaim the power of the mothers, that I found my matrilineal descent was from the Innu, who were called Montagnais by the French. My mother line led me to these women who were not white, who were made white by the racist and sexist practice of the assimilation of Native women into white culture through marriage.

Part of my attempt to reconnect with my female Innu roots drew me into exploring "Native spirituality". Luckily, it also drew me into political activity with Native people, for sovereignty, land rights, and religious freedom. It has been my engagement with these real issues and realities of Indian life that has brought me into connection with a me who is Indian. It also brings into sharper relief the me who is white, gives me a deeper insight into what whiteness is in this society. It undercuts that feature of whiteness which is about not having to look at itself, because it is the dominant norm, the "way things are".

This dual identity creates a grammatical problem when I write about cultural appropriation. How do I use "we" and "they" when I am included in both categories? In this article, I want to speak as a white woman especially to other white women. I have heard many Indian people speak out about these issues. It seems to me that it is white women in the women's spirituality movement who especially need to wrestle with these issues, if we are to be true to our commitment to the survival and liberation of all people.

White racism works in many ways. For example, many cultures have maintained a more spirit-including world view than Euro-American cultures. White racism has called these views "primitive" while considering white perspectives as "advanced". To study the cultures of people of color with new awareness and appreciation can be a positive way to undermine that form of cultural imperialism. To glorify or romanticize the stereotypes of these cultures is just another form of racism: for example, to consider all Indians as mystical and close to nature, all Africans as rhythmic and possessing powerful magic. This form of racism is currently rampant in the new age movement, as well as other contexts of mainstream life.

So-called "Native American spirituality" has been a particular commodity on the new age market.* A look at any new age magazine, center for workshops, or even the bulletin board of your favorite women's bookstore, will reveal some white person claiming to have studied "Native American beliefs, traditions, and rituals for many years." They will then offer a course or workshop, for a prise, which will use Native spiritual practices to help us to "experience our wholeness" and "our primal female energies". {Quotes from a random flyer found a women's bookstore bulletin board.}

{*I am focusing on the appropriation of Native American cultures because I am most familiar with and engaged in this particular battleground, and because this is perhaps themost popular culture for such an assault. However, the principles of which I am speaking apply also tothe appropriation of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern spiritual and cultural heritage.}

Andrea Smith, Cherokee activist and member of Women of All Red Nations, points out that actual Native religions are diverse community based religions, and reflect the particular need of each community. "The 'Indian ways' that these white, new-age 'feminists' are practicing have very little basis in reality… they do not understand Indian people, or our struggles for survival, and thus they can have no genuine understanding of Indian spiritual practices." {Andy Smith, "For All those Who Were Indian in a Former Life", Sojourner, Vol. 15 # 3, November 1990, p.8. Now in the anthology Ecofeminism and the Sacred, edited by Carol J. Adams, NY:Continuum, pp. 168-71.}

Janet McCloud, Tulalip elder and fishing rights activist reflects,
"First they came to take our land and water, then our fish and game …Now they want our religions as well. All of a sudden, we have a lot of unscrupulous idiots running around saying they're medicine people. And they'll sell you a sweat lodge ceremony for fifty bucks. It's not only wrong, it's obscene. Indians don't sell their spirituality to anybody, for any price. This is just another in the very long series of thefts from Indian people and, in some ways, this is the worst one yet. {From "Spiritual Hucksterism: The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men," in Ward Churchill, Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature, Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians, Monroe, ME Common Courage Press, 1992, p. 217. Originally published in Z Magazine, Dec 1990}

Paula Gunn Allen, Laguna Pueblo author and teacher, sums it up by saying, "You cannot do Indian spirituality without an Indian community,… it's physical and social and spiritual and they're fused together." {Jane Caputi, "Interview with Paula Gunn Allen", Trivia 16/17, Fall 1990, p. 50.}

There are also Indian individuals who are marketing these practices. Some Indian people who become "teachers" of white people defend the practice by saying it is time to share these wisdoms. They put forth the idea of a "rainbow tribe", composed of people of all races and nations living together in harmony. I have noticed, however, that the context of this sharing is in white dominated new age circles, not in Indian communities. McCloud comments "They're thieves and sell-outs, and they know that, too. That's why you never see them around Indian people anymore." In 1980, a resolution was passed by the Circle of Elders of the Indigenous Nations of North America against Indians "who use spiritual ceremonies with non-Indian people for profit." In 1984, the American Indian Movement passed a resolution supporting the Elders. {AIM Resolution, May 11, 1984, at Sovereign Dine Nation, Window Rock, ASTHMA. Full text is in Churchill, op.cit., pp 226-28.}

When I am in Native political and community contexts, among those who are struggling against oppression, I hear these sentiments echoed over and over again. Yet when I am in white and multicultural feminist contexts, women seem to have a really hard time understanding cultural appropriation. "I cannot see the harm to worshipping the Goddess in whatever cultural form you can relate to" writes one woman in a letter in a women's spirituality magazine. Another echoes in a more disgusted tone, speaking against "politically correct" wiccans/pagans saying I can't worship the Goddess(es) that I want to (that speak to me) because I'm of 'European descent' and am therefore committing 'Cultural Genocide' no matter what I do." {Sage Woman #17, 1991, pp. 45-46}

By denying the spiritual and political autonomy of Indian people, the New Age "rainbow" people subvert whatever good intentions they may have about multi-cultural community. What gets created is multi-cultural white middle class dominance in yet another form.

An even more ominous excuse I have heard, also from both new age white people and Indian "teachers", is that native peoples are dying out, and therefore these treasures much be passed on to whites so they are not lost. White Americans, at least in the United States, like to believe that Indians are a phenomenon of the past. This creates a climate in which denial can be maintained about current day assaults on Indian land and livelihood. Indians are not "dying out" but they are being killed even today, by radioactive mining, environmental waste, and FBI bullets, among other things. They are also fighting back and surviving.

I don't mean to discount the fact that there are Indian people on all sides of this issue. Like all groups of people, Native people have many different opinions and political leanings. But if we are concerned about fighting oppression, I believe it makes sense to pay attention to those Native people who are fighting against the oppression of their people. At some point, we have to choose those with whom we are going to make alliance.

To better understand cultural appropriation/theft and its deadliness, and to distinguish it from appropriate cultural sharing, I think an example from European history might be helpful. Cultural appropriation is one of the ancient tools of domination and colonization. It has been going on throughout history, whenever one culture has attempted to conquer another. Battles are not fought only by the force of arms, but also by images and ideas. Any context of domination will include such cultural imperialism. This is not unique to U.S./Native relations.

Many feminist scholars have pointed to evidence suggesting that there were early female images of divinity throughout "pre-historic Europe". The Catholic church took the image of the great mother goddess, and incorporated it as the virgin Mary, Mother of God. It used her early sacred sites for building its shrines to Mary. The church absorbed many such pagan symbols, yet distorted and transformed their meaning and their impact on the lives of the people.

The shift of context, control, and usage created important shifts of meaning and power. The conquerors took what had been an image of empowerment and valuing of women and turned it into an image promoting female acquiescence to male pre-eminence. They were able then to redefine female goodness as obedience, humility, and renunciation of sexual energy. To capture and transform the image of goddess in this way served to further solidify the subjugation of women and undermine ideas fostering resistance.

How is this similar to the cultural appropriation of Native images and practices by the new age movement? I will use the example of one practice, the "vision quest," a ritual found in Lakota culture (with variations in many other Native nations), which is now offered for a price in many new age contexts. In traditional Lakota culture, the vision quest was a time of fasting and prayer in the mountains, and fit into the unfolding of a person's role within their community. The elders of the community sent the individual forth with prayers, and received them back offering interpretation of their visions and guidance for living out their implications. The context was belief that the person's individual life and calling was a gift for the whole group, and their connection to the spirit world would bring them into deeper connection with the community, bringing life to the community. Each existed in balance with the other. {One account of the vision quest is given in Black Elk, The Sacred Pipe, New York Penguin Books, 1971, pp 44-66}

When this ritual is brought into a new age context, its meaning and power are altered. The focus shifts to white people's needs and visions. There is no accountability to a community, particularly any Native community. Secondly, the form and structure of the ritual itself have been changed. The focus of spirituality in the new age is much more on individual growth and prosperity. The giving and receiving of the Native way is transformed into buying and selling, a sacrilege in Native contexts. What is called "Indian spirituality" has actually become a distortion. It cannot be relied on. It has been warped to fit another agenda.

What are some of the effects of this warped agenda on Native people? The actual realities of Native communities are erased. Native communities have been under assault for 500 years, and are facing issues of dislocation, poverty, suicide, unemployment, addiction. In Native communities, the recovery of traditional practices such as the vision quest helps build identity and community pride, helps empower Native communities for life struggles against a racist mainstream.

"The process is ultimately intended to supplant Indians, even in areas of their own customs and spirituality. In the end, non-Indians will have complete power to define what is and is not Indian, even for Indians. We are talking here about an absolute ideological/conceptual subordination of Indian people in addition to the total physical subordination [we] already experience. When this happens, the last vestiges of real Indian society and Indian rights will disappear. Non-Indians will then 'own' our heritage and ideas as thoroughly as they now claim to own our land and resources." {Pam Colorado, Oneida activist, quoted in Wendy Rose, "The Great Pretenders: Further Reflections on Whiteshamanism," in M. Annette Jaimes, The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, Boston, South End Press, 1992, p. 405. Original quote in Ward Churchill, "A Little Matter of Genocide: Native American Spirituality and New Age Hucksterism," Bloomsbury Review, Vol. 8 #5, Sept/Oct 1988, pp. 23-24}

It is important to notice that Indian people are not saying, "Don't learn about Indian culture." Rather they are asking that white people learn more deeply and accurately about Indian cultures and in a context which does not foster their destruction. "...for those of you who want to know what Aboriginal peple are like, let us tell you. Participate in our writings, feel our visual art, move with our music, hear in your heart our stories." {Joy Asham Fedorick, "Fencepost Sitting And How I Fell Off To One Side,", in Give Back: First Nations Perspectives on Cultural Practice, North Vancouver, BC, Canada, Gallerie: Women's Artists' Monographs, Issue 11, 1992, p. 42}

There are many community rooted Indian writers, scholars, and cultural workers we can support, for example by buying their books instead of the new age impostor books, and helping to break down the barriers which stand in [their] way to full creative and cultural expression." {Joy Asham Fedorik, ibid}

Cultural sharing involves interaction with the whole of a person and community, reciprocal giving and receiving, sharing of struggle as well as joy, receiving what the community wants to give, not what you want to take. Cultural sharing begins in respect, with patience not to make assumptions but to risk stepping outside of our own frame of reference. {For those who would like to learn more about the experience of Indian people and support Native women writers, I would recommend the books of the following Native writers, as a start: Paula Gunn Allen, Beth Brant, Maria Campbell, Chrystos, Louis Eldrich, Janice Gould, Janet Campbell Hale, Joy Harjo, Linda Hogan, M. Annette Jaimes, Lee Maracle, Leslie Marmon Silko, Anna Lee Walters.}

What are some of the ways we can work toward a woman-valuing spirituality which is culturally located and deeply anti-racist? Part of what feeds cultural appropriation is a deep spiritual hunger in White people. This sense of starvation is very real, but we must realize: Native people are not keeping us from spirit. White culture has broken and disrupted its own spiritual heritage. If we believe there is such a thing as spirit, we can recreate a path to it, we can hope that it will help us in that process.

We need to explore the links of spirit to community. Ask ourselves, Who is my community? How do we negotiate the world together? Where do we find our power: What gives us meaning? What is our relationship to the world around us?

The concept "Indian" is stereotypically linked to a connection to the earth and other species. In reality, we all live here on this earth, our lives equally enmeshed with the fate of countless other beings. These beings can teach us if we are quiet with them. We need to trust that we can begin where we are, who we are, in our own lives. What are the animals and plants we rely on? What feeds us? How can we honor that gift? How can we give back?

We can also look more closely at the deep desires underlying the phenomenon of white people "wanting to be Indian." White culture has attached those desires to a fantasy creation it called "Indian", which is not accurate to the real realities of Indians. But the fantasy can teach us about our own realities. We may find that we recover some lost shadow of ourselves which was projected onto the "other".

Many Native people have encouraged us to explore the traditions of our own ancestors. Whiteness in the U.S. has served to homogenize distinct European (and some part-European) peoples into one entity, generally from the very racist intention of solidifying the Anglo-Saxon base of power against people of color. We can counter that manifestation of racism by reconstructing ethnic cultural identity. People in the mainstream U.S. have been pressured to dishonor our ancestors, to honor individuality and rebellion against our cultural traditions, as well as conformity to dominant patterns. To honor cultural location is a profound transformation of a way of thinking.

I think it is important for white women to acknowledge the risks involved in exploring a woman-valuing white spirituality. While the fantasy image of the "Indian" has been romanticized and spiritualized, the fantasy image of the "witch" is as sinister and belittling as ever, despite occasional "good witch of the North." Women accused of being witches were burned and tortured. We carry in our collective European psyche the memory of this gynocide.

When we face ourselves as white women, we face this loss, this tremendous assault on female power and value, perpetrated upon us by our own people. To embrace woman-valuing spirituality that is Euro-based implies a rebellion against the dominant "spirit-world" of Euro-Christianity. For white women to reclaim the word witch is to bring this rebellious aspect of our search into the open. There is a risk in this and tremendous power.

To be allies in the struggle against cultural appropriation, to find grounded cultural sharing, we need to realize that the answer will not evolve as a set of rules we can follow. Nothing will earn us a certificate of innocence. Cultural appropriation is much bigger than any specific, individual dilemmas. We need to understand it is in the context of structural racism. Racism is a system of oppression in which the structures of society are operated and controlled by white people. Racism combines prejudice against people of color with political, economic, and social power over their lives. Cultural appropriation is the use by a dominating or colonizing people, in this case Euro-Americans, of cultural and religious ceremonies and articles of a people experiencing domination or colonization, in this case Native Americans. On a fundamental level, cultural sharing will not be possible until we end racism. In the meantime, only when we wholeheartedly join the struggle to end racism, and all oppression, can we begin to experience cultural sharing.

I want to close with some advice offered by Chrystos:

Take nothing you cannot return
Give to others
give more
Walk quietly
Do what needs to be done
Give thanks for your life
Respect all beings
Simple
& it doesn't cost a penny

{from the poem, "Shame On!" in Dream On, Vancouver Press Gang, 1991, p. 100-101}


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For more information about how to be an ally, I recommend reading the work of Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, especially her Working Assumptions and Guidelines for Alliance-Building and Working Assumptions for White Activists on Eliminating Racism: Guidelines for Recruiting Other Whites as Allies.

For more information about Chrystos, you can read her Voices from the Gaps biography.

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WHY THERE ARE NO SKELETONS OF WIMMIN MARTYRS

Here's another short-short story from my early days as a writer. This was published in Sinister Wisdom #11, Fall 1979. I wrote it while I lived in the lesbian land collective in Durango, Colorado.

Just like the sweet apple reddens on the tip of the branch,
upon the top of the highest, [which] the apple-pickers forgot.
Yet they didn't really forget; but they could not reach it. -- Sappho




WHY THERE ARE NO SKELETONS OF WIMMIN MARTYRS: A Story

"Of course, many of my acquaintances from the outside are struck by the oddity of this womon who lives with me. They have said she seems to be, at times, removed from reality, or a visionary. I think I will have to agree with them on the word visionary. She is a visionary, she has been called such for several centuries, though they do not know it.

"As for the womon, she is very happy here, incredibly happy. If she were not, I would return her, or find another place for her. But she wishes to stay by me, in my bed, in my world; and upon her real death, what she has written will fill several more volumes. The dry period of her last decade before I came has vanished.

"I think she is most pleased when I show her the books we were taught from in school, for in them she is held up as the example, the Writer, that she feared she never was. It must be a stretch of the self-concept to know that children are reading words she wrote five hundred years ago, reading and understanding and being swept with an emotion half a millenium old. No, wait -- her greatest pleasure came the time I took her to a play based on her life. She laughed long afterward, and when she could finally speak, she said 'They were so close, and yet so far from knowing.'

"Here in the collective, of course, she can be herself, and that is who we know and love. Age has lessened the 'boldness like a wren' of her, nor the chestnut in her hair. And she still wears white, but her hair falls free over her shoulders, and the Amazon just arrived next door is teaching her to ride a horse.

"And when we love, she is a girl again, a wild-hearted girl who loved too greatly for her time but not for mine. I am trying, very hard, to make up for the decades she lived with a broken heart. I think I can do this because I loved her for decades, reading the lines both written and silent that told how like me she was.

"And her oddity to those not part of the collective, part of the secret, is no real threat. We are all considered to be odd, we here on the sprawl of land and mountain we have claimed as ours for a livelihood and a home. And if our numbers grow suddenly, it is explained by the appeal of our freedom, the lure that calls in wimmin needing a sanctuary.

"And this is no lie. From the very moment I made my discovery (or was given the secret by the Mother, as Beata insists), I knew how I would use it. I had waited too long for the womon separated from me by my birthtime to consider anything else. The rest of it came when I realized that my dream was not alone, that others of us here had room and need for their own heroines. And so now we are great gathering of lovers, poets old and new, who listen to one another with an intensity that can only grow from having been torn apart.

"Next to the first journey, where I gained my love, the best was whisking the French maid from the flames. She wears trousers and shot hair with no fear now, and hears the voices of angels each time she speaks with us. Her eyes are so very brown, and the pain is faded altogether.

"Last week I returned with the Amazon, from the Steppes, who could see the erosion of her nation-tribe coming soon. I am going back often to that place -- there are many who wished to come. What? Yes, of course the lied, all the accounts of what happened to our eldermothers were lies; they couldn't very well say that a witch appeared as they neared death and they both chuckled merrily as they vanished, now could they?

"I tell you all this, my friend, because you have joined our clan and you can be trusted with the secret. Also, I sense that you may have your own request to make of me, a need to save someone from the womon-hatred of her own time. Aha! I thought so; well, it won't be so difficult. Can you get me her last known coordinates and the date of her disappearance? Good. What did friends call her? Melly? Alright, then, I shall bring Melly to you tomorrow. Only you must promise to give her all the room the needs to adjust -- and you must let her return cheerfully if she prefers that to being part of now.

"Yes, I would have returned my scribbler if she had asked it. But I think I would have gone with her, to ease the loneliness of the huge old house and that cold world. You see, I have always loved her. And I wanted to show my love from the first time I read the plea in 'My life closed twice before its close --'

"Hush, now, here comes the mother of us all. Yes, she is quite short, and dark, but the Greeks were in those days. Wait till you hear the verse she composed yesterday…"


© Maggie Jochild.

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TRAPEZE

(Original copies of Sinister Wisdom; Issue # 16 is first in fourth row)

In the fall of 1980, I wrote "Trapeze", the short story below. I sent it to Sinister Wisdom, then the most prominent lesbian journal in the country, and it was accepted for publication in Issue #16, Summer 1981.

Right after I got my complimentary copy, I received a phone call from a pair of Dallas dykes who were on the road, heading for San Francisco and hoping I could provide them with a place to stay. This happened often in those days; lesbians put one another up in spare rooms, and there was (still is) an organized network for this as Contact Dykes in the publication Lesbian Connection. I never advertised to be a Contact Dyke because my name was already handed around lesbian circles in Texas and Colorado as a good bet for a spare bed. My roommates, too, frequently had visitors from other parts of the country. One of my roomies worked at the Women's Building, a few blocks away, and if a woman from another country showed up there looking for a safe place to crash, she was usually brought to our flat. We had one summer where a string of German dykes kept our spare mattress occupied for three solid months.

So, when I got the call, I said "Sure" and gave them directions. I had met one of the women only briefly, Siri Lini, a punk musician. She was friends with my ex in Dallas, the woman I had written "Trapeze" about, in fact. Siri and most of the women in Texas knew me as Meg Barnett then. With her was her new girlfriend, Linda Finnell, whom I did not know but would eventually consider a friend. Linda is now dead from ovarian cancer. I still have some of her handmade journals from her box-making and bookbinding business Two Women Boxing.

When Siri and Linda arrived, I gave them the house rules, a map of San Fran and recommendations about what to do and see -- in those days, the women's community was thriving. As I was about to leave them to unpacking their luggage in our living room, I saw Linda pull out the copy of Sinister Wisdom I'd just received. I said "You must subscribe, too."

She said "I got it right before we hit the road, and as we crossed the desert, I read the most incredible story I've ever seen out loud to Siri." Siri jumped in with, "Yeah, it rocked our world, you've GOT to check it out." Barely breathing, I asked which one it was, and of course they said "Trapeze."

When I stammered that I had written it, they were bowled over. I saw Siri's face register her beginning to make the connection -- it was about her friend, my ex, yikes. But Linda's expression was just raw amazement. Our friendship began in that instant.




TRAPEZE


We are snowed into the Wimmin's House. Even with the chains on we cannot move from the driveway. We wait all morning for the snow plow. I am so bored that I go into a frenzy of cleaning house. The others are glad and make sly suggestions as to what I might do next. I sing the same song endlessly, an old song with new words, whilst visions of Amazons sore in my head:

O once I was happy but now I'm forlorn
Like an old coat that is tattered and torn
Left in this cruel world to fret and to mourn
Betrayed by a girl in her teens
Now this girl that I loved, she was handsome
And I tried all I knew, her to please
But I never could please her one quarter as well
As the dyke on the flying trapeze, oh, ooooh
She flies through the air with the greatest of ease
The daring young dyke on the flying trapeze
Her movements are graceful, and how she does please
But my love she has stolen away

The plow does not come by three o'clock. At four o'clock, dark is nearly upon us, the snow is falling harder, and our electricity goes out. No heat, no water. The phone is not working. We are a little worried. I must go to work the next morning; I know my boss will not accept my excuse. Jobs are hard to find. I volunteer to walk to the nearest house, our neighbors' who are a half mile away and that much closer to a real road; they have a vehicle that can manage in the snow.

I bundle up, stuff chocolate and a flashlight in my pocket, and leave with my dog. She is so small that she keeps getting trapped in the drifts, and I pull her out impatiently. All the way I sing and think of how much you like the snow. I think grimly, I bet you wouldn't like all this. But as I think it, I am not sure. I remember that when we were falling in love, you would rather kiss me in icy fields than by a warm fire.

The neighbors are not at home, looks like they haven't been here for a couple of days. In desperation, I dig a path to the door and try the knob. It is open, and feeling like a burglar, I enter. I leave the dog outside and she howls a protest. I find the phone and, blessedly, it works. I call for help and am reassured. I call my boss and he says he will come pick me up. I thank him sourly. Then I trudge home.

When I sing my song again, moving my arms in the appropriate motions at the appropriate times, someone in the kitchen snickers. Ah, the supportiveness of collective life.

That night I dream I am a youngster, being taken up on the ropes for the first time. I stand on the small, slightly swaying platform; twenty feet below the net has been jerried; beside me is my mother, lean and firm and silent. We are both wearing old brown leotards. I am only ten.

I have been doing exercises for six months, to develop the muscles I will need. But today, after all, I do not use them.

My father and my older cousin stand on either side of the net; their faces are turned up to me, unsmiling. My mother is urgently repeating the instructions: control your fall, fall flat on your back, relax but keep your body parallel, let yourself bounce to a halt, only then try to move from the net. I am only half-listening. I do not sweat yet, but under my arms is unpleasant heat.

I am looking down, wondering how I can jump off into that emptiness. My mother lets me look; knowing always what is below is part of what I must learn in the act. Then she hugs me, says "Once you fly, you will never want to stop", and I almost smile. She says, "Now!" and raises her hand to signal the catchers. I do not go for a second, but before she can speak again, I crouch, spring, and am falling, twisting. I want to scream in terror, but there is no time before I hit the net sideways.

Great squares of hemp jerk at my body, my muscles down my spine are jangled and burn, I am airborne again for too little time to count, then I am shuttling back and forth from flight to net, a ball between two paddles, until finally the motion has subsided and I am cradled in the net. I am ready to cry.

I feel my father's hands, suddenly; he is reaching up through the net, he is telling me to move, his voice is tight with fear.

I say that I am all right. I sit up and bob in the net some more from the motion. I begin crawling to the side. When my arms or legs miss the rope and plunge helplessly through the holes in the net, my father eases me back through. He follows me to the edge. My cousin is there, trying to steady the net. I slide off into their arms and stand. I am bruised and giddy, but I have done it. Suddenly I grin and shout. I wave to my mother, who waves back joyously. I am standing on the earth but I am no longer her slave. I am ready to climb back up and jump again.

My father runs his hands over me, checking for breaks. He pulls my arms and legs, feeling the tendons, asking me if I hurt. I shake my head impatiently and pull away, swarming back up the rope ladder. At the top my mother holds me soundlessly, gripping me close for a minute. I welcome her embrace; I feel older. Her eyes are glistening as I face the edge again.

It is still not easy, to drive off into space. But as the day goes on, I become smooth and eager, able to move in the air, once crying "wheee!" all the way down. When at last we stop, hours later, I hear my mother tell my father, "I see why they are taught while they are still young; she will do fine." I am laughing as I wake.

I am startled at the vividness of my dream. That day I receive a letter from you, the first in months. It is written on the back of a flyer for a rally, a march followed by speakers. Your name leaps out at me: you are making a speech on "Classism in the Wimmin's Movement". I try to imagine you making a speech. I recall your resistance when I first explained classism to you. I turn over the flyer and read the three paragraphs.

You tell me about the rally, about your excitement, how it went well and you received thunderous applause. You say "Thank you for believing in me for so long, and helping me to learn to believe in myself." I feel a surge of pride; I am glad that you have written. Yet, as I reread over and over the paper you have sent, the pride gives way to an uneasy feeling. I am bitter that you grew only after I left, only after one too many fights over the gap between us. The bitterness turns into anger.

I rip up the letter. Jude sees me from the hall; she stops and quietly asks me what is wrong. I reply hotly "She says thanks for getting out of her life so she can live it for herself." Jude raises an eyebrow and leaves. I think about what I have just said. The ache returns. I decide to wait to write you until I am sure I will not fill the letter with passion and recrimination. I do not write for two months.

I dream again. I am chalking my hands and wrists. Again, my mother is beside me, the rest are below. But today, I will take the bar from its hook and swing out on it, hopefully to return. I listen intently to my mother: if you feel yourself slipping, she says, jerk yourself upward, pop your wrist, and get another grip. She hands me the bar, shows me where to hold. I take a breath, then pull myself up and point my legs as I start the swing.

Immediately, pain sears into my shoulders and arms. I hold on for a couple of feet, then let go, feeling the agony subside as I do so, relaxing into the familiarity of the fall. When I leave the net, I am embarrassed, but no one else appears to be. My father tells me something about centrifugal force. I listen politely and ascend again. My mother rubs my shoulders; they are already sore.

I take the bar and swing again; again, I must let go. No one laughs; no one criticizes. My mother says only "It is hard to learn." I am encouraged. As I take the bar, I think about the unbearable pull when my feet leave their support and my arms stretch out. I think about where it hurts, and try to flex those muscles. I can feel them; I realize the months of exercises have given me control where I need it. The third time, I think to myself.

I push out. Instead of abandoning my body to dangle from the bar, I keep the muscles in my shoulders just a little tight. I am holding myself up, not hanging. It hurts, but it can be borne. I am carried along to the end of the swing, like a clock's pendulum. Momentarily, I am motionless; then the return trip begins. It is too abrupt; I do not know how to make the change. I slip and fall.

No one speaks of the fall. They are glowing, praising me for being able to hold on at only the third try. Adrenaline flows through me. My mother whispers "This time," and I feel she is right.

As I fly out again, I am aware of the air brushing into the scoop of my body. In the split second at the end of my flight, I relax my legs and let my body go convex, readjusting the muscles. It is enough. I am returning, blindly, my back to the platform. I want to see the look on my mother's face, but before I can twist my head to the side, her arm is coming around me strong and sure, and I am pulled onto the stand, tumbling into my mother's arms. I tremble, with happiness, I think. Amid the cries from below, I hear my mother murmur "Fledgling rides the wind, hmm?" and I think of how much I love her. She takes a turn on the ropes, swift, fluid, and rippling, laughing as she lands back beside me. Again, I wake to my own laughter.

You write to me, asking if you may come for a visit at Thanksgiving. I call to tell you yes. I explain that we in the House will go to a cabin up by Lemon Lake on Thanksgiving Day, a crowd of dykes having a vegetarian feast. I mention that we all plan to fast the day afterward. You find this amusing. You will spend The Day with your current lover, our daughter with your parents, and you will fly up that night. I arrange to pick you up at the airport.

When you arrive, a snowstorm is blanketing the night. The effort of driving through it plus the prospect of the fast the next day has left me ravenous. When we get back to the House, I set out all the leftovers on the breakfast bar. You and the rest sit around on stools or on the floor, and we talk of the holiday while I nibble at this and that.

When we go to bed, I am exhausted. I cuddle into you and drop off. The next morning is delicious. We touch and giggle and are very cozy, until we wake fully. Then we slip back into our roles, self-consciously; you even go into the bathroom to dress. I grin at that.

I am ravenous again. I take my vitamins and watch you enviously as you make pancakes and scrambled eggs. I suggest that we spend the day up in Kenebec Pass, by Maiden Falls and the old ghost-towns. You agree and pack an enormous lunch, even after I remind you that I will not be eating. I fill a canteen and dress in several layers.

The day is still and clear, and much colder than during the snowstorm the night before. The snow is cleared away down in the valley, but as we drive higher, into the mountains, it is a thick cover everywhere. By the time we get to Kenebec, the chains are barely pulling the car along. Maiden Falls is half-frozen, with an edge of ice like new lace. An occasional sheet of ice is frozen into the swirl and tangle of the rapids, while the water can be heard rushing on underneath.

Even with all I have on, I am still cold. You look blue and enchanted; you have not seen a winter like this since you were a child. You sit on a large flat rock, gingerly, and watch the waterfall. I am hesitant to sit next to you. Because I am not watching the waterfall as intently as you, I catch a movement in the sky above us. I look, and see an eagle making passes in the windy reach over our heads. You follow my gaze; later you tell me that you have never seen an eagle before. You lie back on the rock, eyes to the sky, and stretch out an arm for me. I curl beside you, and we are an audience for the eagle.

When she leaves, a wall that was between us has fallen. We kiss shyly and then storm the mountain, following the falls ever upward but going slowly enough that we may talk. We talk of everything, open, intimate. It is scary, but you are reassuring and blunt. We talk of our other lovers; we talk of how we can raise our daughter away from each other; we talk of our parents, their progress in understanding our lives; we talk of our past, with a growing gratitude that the memories can be as good as they are, that we remember the same things; and we share what glimpses we have of our days that will rise ahead of us.

We find the remains of Parett City. I take a picture of you leaning out the three-cornered window of a crumbled gambling hall. We are friends again. That night I cannot help shaking when I slip into bed with you. You hold me, trying to soothe the tremors; then you make love to me. I am delighted to find that your body is not at all familiar, I can learn you once again, and you cry when you come, go to sleep with tears still drying on my arm. As our chests rise and fall together, I sleep, and dream.

I stand in the ring below the trapeze. All of us stand there together, my family and I. We will not chalk until we reach the top, because tonight we are performing. People must not understand how we do what we do; they want to be dazzled, mystified.

My mother goes up the rope first. For performance nights, we use a rope instead of a ladder. There is more drama in slithering up a thick, curling rope, hand over hand, without a pause. I follow her. My father holds the rope for me; my cousin is climbing the rope at the other end, to the catcher's bar. My cousin is catcher because he is the most powerfully built and least excitable.

When my father joins us, there is room only for our feet on the small platform. We lean our bodies out, hanging on the guys, trying to hide our nervousness with carefully rehearsed grace.

My cousin has begun swinging on his bar. He is sitting on the bar, his back to us. At a certain point, when the swing is going straight enough, he flips over backward. His knees catch on the bar, his legs wind round the ropes. Now he faces us, upside down.

He has practiced for hours at a time to keep the muscles in his legs from cramping, to keep from being dizzy as the blood flows to his head and stays there. If either of these happen, it could be fatal, though tonight we are using a net. We use a net because I am only twelve. In another year, we will again perform without a net.

I am not afraid of this coming, being without a net. I have learned how little a net really means: the fall is to be avoided always, whether the net is there or not. After the lessons are learned, there is no excuse for a fall. And the net is not so big. If one falls while in motion, one can twist, but not move bodily through the air to one side or the other. It is easy to miss the net altogether. Or break a bone in the net. Or slip at the platform. A catcher below is more effective than a net. But we are a small family. All of us are on the ropes.

Someday, my younger siblings will join us; then my father and my cousin will go below. They will be older, too slow to do their tricks well any more, but still strong enough and fast enough to break our fall with their bodies. Only someone in your family will volunteer to be a catcher below, because it usually means death to stop an object of a hundred or more pounds from a thirty-foot fall. Until we are more, we hope for no accidents.

I realize all this review and speculation has passed through my head in the less than a minute we have stood on the platform. With this realization, like the breaking of a spell, I awaken. The dream does not feel finished. Perhaps it is a result of the ongoing upheaval in my life.

I come to visit you, our daughter in the spring, to explain that I am moving to San Francisco, that the mountains have given me back my sense of self and now I must "do things". You are upset with my decision. You say I am always moving away from you. You are right. Still, we manage to spend time with each other that is not crowded with walls and judgement.

The night before I take my leave, crossing the continent to the land of dykes and honey, we spend hours saying goodbye after our daughter has gone to sleep. We sit in your yard, underneath a gentle crescent. It is warm enough to enjoy sitting out and damp enough to enjoy sitting close together. I keep saying "Well, it's really late and I must make an early start tomorrow", and we smile and touch hands, and then suddenly we are off again talking feverishly without realizing how it has happened. Finally I stand, looking resolute, and you hold me tightly, then you say "Wait" and run into the house.

When you return, you have a big Texas orange in your hands. You place it in my two hands, and I look at you with a wondering grin. "A present" you laugh, "to remind you of home when you miss it the most." I cannot help but cry; you cannot help but kiss my tears into your wet and wetter lips; we cannot help but kiss passionately, until I break away and jump into my car and run from your waves and cries of "Be careful!"

I leave the orange on the dash of my car. All across Texas and New Mexico I look at it, wondering if now is the time, is this when the pain is the worst, how can I tell when the bleeding will shortly begin to flow less and the wound commence healing over? The orange bothers me until Albuquerque, when I make up my mind how I will use it: When I go through the enchanted mesas and buttes just heading into Arizona, a place that had been ours once and that I had not reclaimed for my own. There, in the Painted Desert, we had gone through a sunset, and were so moved that we couldn't even talk. We only listened to the ghosts and ancient chants which came to us on the wind. One of our best times, and I had not yet come back to let the regret wash through me until I was clean and could make memories in my own name once again. When I came to that place, I would open the orange and eat it slowly, letting the smell and the acidity of the juice seep into my own flesh like salt, cauterizing swiftly, so that I might continue on without leaving a piece of me behind.

I stopped for the night, glad at least that I would not see the region at sunset again, but by the calmer light of morning, the unseen light of morning.

The next day, before I reach the place where I meant to eat the orange, I approach the inspection point that prevents citrus fruits from entering Arizona and California. I throw the orange under my seat in a panic and try to drain guilt from my eyes. Silly, to feel so paranoid over such a little crime, I've done things a thousand times worse. When I am asked, I deny that I am carrying any fruit. My voice sounds funny to me, but I guess not to them. I am waved on.

Without the orange visible, I forget about it. I reach Kingman before I remember it. Somehow I have driven through the place where I was going to eat it without noticing where I was. At this realization I am both agonized and exhilirating. I pull out the orange and eat it with relish. The trip begins to take on new symbolism for me. Not only am I cutting ties, I am filling up the spaces with new visions.

I try to remember what I had been thinking of that distracted me so when I drove through the familiar mesas. I cannot recall, but it stops mattering immediately. As I drive into California, I have a momentary sensation that I am flying. I throw the orange peels into the Mojave, hoping they will provide nourishment for the delicate life there.

That night, journey over, the dream returns, picking itself up where it had left off. I am standing in the charged silence of a people-packed tent, reaching for the bar so I may begin the show. I begin, not because I am youngest and least experienced; it is because I am the lightest, and better on my cousin to ease him into the tremendous impact of a moving body suddenly hanging onto the ends of his arms.

I do a simple move: Out to my cousin, my feet to his hands, one swing upside down, my face sweeping the crowds but I see nothing, back to the bar, then up to home. Now, in the act, there are no words of praise, no time for reassurance, only a glance that is, really, enough. My mother launches herself as soon as I hand her the bar. She catches hand-to-hand with my cousin, flips to return, and is not even sweating yet when lands. My father does a half-twist to my cousin, meaning he is caught by the backs of his hands. He does a full twist to return. My mother's hand is tensely resting on my neck. The first is over for each of us. From here, it is easier.

We build gradually until the climax of the show. I do a somersault to my cousin, still feeling a small kernel of panic rise in my throat as I hurtle end over end, trying not to flatten out in my forward flight. The panic is swallowed each time I am abruptly halted by callused flesh seizing my wrists. Then I return to the hands of my father, who has swung out on the bar just in time to catch me.

He returns me, then keeps swinging, reversing himself, as my cousin leave the catcher's bar and sends it out alone, timing its sweep to the finest fraction of a second. Now that the pressure is off me, I practice by watching my father. My mother has taught me that in order to do a series of moves as complicated as those in a single trick, practice is not enough. I must know every part of every move, like the building blocks that they are. Then I must put them together in order, imagining every detail, while an internal clock measures off the seconds. I must imagine this sequence so often that it is thoroughly familiar to me before I ever try it. But what I appreciate most about it is that it has transformed the air for me. In the beginning, the vast amount of air around the platform was just a space that thousands of my space body could fit into; I was never sure my body would do what I wanted it to in so much open space. But when I had learned a sequence in my mind, it became a track in the air, from bar to bar, a tunnel that just fit my body and seemed to hold me up. Now I stood and watched my father, remembering what he would do next, envisioning his track before he is on it. It is very comforting.

My father does a double somersault to the second bar that my cousin has sent to him, completes the swing, then returns with a one-and-a-half twist. I am impressed with the mechanical perfection of my father's actions, and I am tracking him, but I am not out there with him. I dimly hear the roar of the watchers. Already I am losing concentration, now that my role is almost over. My father and I bow.

My mother takes the bar and jumps off; my cousin has caught his bar and times is again. Now I can see the moisture on my mother's face. I hope she chalked herself before she began. We keep the chalk up here; we are supposed to use it every time under the lights, to counteract the sweat that runs down our arms. I feel a thin web of connection to my mother. As I watch her, I am learning, the empathy is so strong. I wish her part were over, yet I also thrill to the confidence and birdness of her.

My mother does not do anything on the first swing, though she could just as easily: She is playing to the crowd, prolonging their suspense. But on the second swing, she goes into a one-and-a-half somersault. The calf and ankle of each foot find the rope and swing; she has caught herself upside down, alone. Before the crowd can end its gasp, she is coming up high above the second bar and falling down to it in a two-and-a-half twist.

I want to hug her madly when she is safely back. Instead, we wave at the crowd. My cousin projects himself out and lets go, a churning spiral to the net below. My mother is next, with a series of convoluted somersaults; then my father; then me with as much as I can manage, a single flip, the colors around me blurring as I move within motion to the resistance of the net.

We flip over the side of the net in turn. I join them, the last, and we lock arms and bow. I am thinking about how much the crowd loves the solo stunts, how deceptive these are. The foot-and-leg catch is easier on the body, especially for my mother with her mighty legs. It is in a way harder to be a catcher, being responsible for those coming toward you, having to gear your timing to someone else's, keeping a sense of balance while always upside down, being jerked repeatedly, all the hard work with none of the glamour. That is why my dull cousin, who can perform over and over without making a mistake or being bored, is our catcher. I am glad to be on the other side. As we scamper out of the ring, I awaken, tired and satisfied.

The next time I see you, it is on your own territory. I come to your city, not mine any more. I drive through the heavy traffic one afternoon and knock at the door of the house you share with your lover. She is in the living room, watching television. I am slightly ill at ease; I do not know what to say to her. She ignores me altogether, her eyes on the screen. I am relieved. I stand there, watching the news with her, as you get ready.

We are going to eat. As you come into the room on our way out, the newscast takes on an urgent tone. Mechanically we watch. The camera is showing Karl Wallenda crossing the air seventy feet above a South American street. He teeters as I hear the words "…fell to his death today…" I want to look away but I do not. The wind catches him; we see him fall, try to hang onto the wire, then fingers give. He plummets to the pavement below. The camera is on him all the way.

I feel sick; I turn and bury my face in your shoulder. You say "Why are they showing that on TV?" Your lover shrugs and says "If they didn't, someone else would." She is angry at us both for embracing in front of her. I pull you out of the door.

I am unable to drive; I am shaking. We skip dinner. I buy a bottle of wine, get drunk gratefully, and we go to a quiet place in a thicketed park to talk. For some reason we are avoiding any mention of Karl Wallenda's fall. You touch me much, but are more silent than I am.

Finally I begin letting my feelings out. In some way the fall is a threat to me. I tell you about my dreams. It rushes out in a jumble and I feel better, but I need a response from you. I wait, oddly alert. You say that you think I am overreacting to the newscast, upsetting as it was.

I do not try to explain any more. I say, "I want our relationship to stay exactly as it is right now." You are very affected; you feel that you have finally pleased me, after all the years of my discontent. But I know that I have insulted you, I have laid a death knell on our association, because of course we will change, we will move from here and now, and I am not ready for this. I withdraw from you before we even say goodbye. You do not notice. You kiss me cheerfully and step away. I do not watch you go.

When I am at last home again, I pick up my dictionary and open it speculatively. I look for the root word of trapeze: trapezium, Latin meaning "a quadrilateral having no parallel sides." In front of me, suddenly, I see the bar, suspended from two ropes which are hooked to supports in the top of the tent. I see the curve of the tent, the widening ropes, the bar: a closed figure. I hear my mother's voice telling me the muscles in my shoulders that make me able to rise my head are called the trapezius. I consider my life, how the boundaries of it no longer confirm to any thing but the impulse that moves me. I think, I move from one part of my life to another, and the distance between the parts is never the same twice.

I put away the dictionary and go to bed. I stretch out in the width of my mattress, enjoying the luxury of so much space for myself. I do not dream, at all.



© Maggie Jochild.
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