In a post for the “Feminism and Religion” blog earlier this year,[i] “Why Feminism Needs the Fierce Goddesses,” Susan Foster argues that a “flagging” feminist movement needs the revitalizing energy of the “fierce goddesses” of ancient times to challenge the patriarchal forces that seem to be on the rise as increasingly we find women’s lives and freedoms constrained. She writes, “the dark goddesses of ancient times have been submerged in our psyches, but they serve as a repository of fierce energy, of female rage against injustice.” She continues, “It’s important and healthy for us as women to reclaim our anger, using it to protect ourselves and fight for our rights in systems that are oppressive.”
Reading this, I immediately thought of Beverly Wildung Harrison’s piece, “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,” and China Galland’s, The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion. Anger in the work of love; fierce compassion. In this time of mass shootings, insurrection, the ongoing assault on women, LGBTQ, and BIPOC peoples, when rage seems so easily fueled by hate, envy, and greed, it is the rage based in love and compassion that is most needed. It is the rage of the fierce dark goddesses who are moved to act against injustice. It is the rage of the feminism I love. With its source in love and compassion, it is a rage that rebels in the best sense of the word – that at once refuses injustice and affirms dignity and respect, that speaks truth to power, that is grounded in solidarity and friendship, and values the immanence of the earth, the water, the body, and the divine spark in all beings.[ii] As bell hooks wrote of her work in feminist and social justice movements, “It was always love that created the motivation for profound inner and outer transformation. Love was the force that empowered folks to resist domination and create new ways of living and being in the world” (Writing, 194-195).
Writing about the power of anger in the work of this love, Harrison argued, “Anger signals something amiss in relationship . . . that change is called for. . . . Anger denied subverts community. Anger expressed directly is a mode of taking the other seriously, of caring” (220). We can call upon this anger not to destroy, but to create. “We [women] have been the chief builders of whatever human dignity and community has come to expression” (217).
Hindu goddess Durga
This anger based in love is the fierceness born of compassion. In her pilgrimage “to find the waters of fierce compassion,” China Galland sought out the faith, spiritual practices, and actions of women engaged in the work of saving the world they love. She began with the mother of fierce goddesses – Durga –celebrated as the great goddess who rose up out of flames in order to defeat Mahisasura, the demon who was intent on destroying the world. Every time she and her female warriors defeated him and his warriors, he rose up again in different forms, until Sumbha, the Lord of the Demons, sought her out. Ultimately, Durga defeated even Sumbha, and once again the rivers flowed, the trees blossomed, and song and dance returned to the earth. The people begged Durga to stay and rule the earth, but she wanted none of the praise or the power. She withdrew, only promising to return if ever the earth was in danger of being destroyed again.
Galland regards the demons as symbols of the most serious of human failings – hatred, greed, jealousy, cruelty, enemy-making. The centerpiece of the prophecy that foretold of the time of destruction by these demons was that only a woman could save them. Symbolically, the woman, the female/feminine represents compassion, as the one who “suffers with” – the one who tends those who suffer with care and understanding. But Galland went to explore a different aspect of compassion – its fierceness. As Sister Chân Không, the Vietnamese Buddhist nun who taught with Thich Nhat Hanh, reminded Galland, the statues of Tara, the bodhisattva of compassion, in Vietnam appear in both her fierce and her kind forms, “’because out of compassion, sometimes you have to be very fierce’” (271). Galland’s journey took her to India and Latin America, to witness fierce compassion at work in the efforts of Aruna Uprety aiding women and girls who had been sold into prostitution at ages as young as six, in the weekly vigils on behalf of their missing children of the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, in the work of Yvonne Bezerra de Mello feeding and caring for the street children of Rio de Janeiro, and more.
As I’ve pondered where we witness this fierce compassion at work in the world today, my first thought was of Patrisse Khan-Cullors, who from early childhood had watched the older brother she dearly loved be harassed and beaten by police, thrown into juvie again and again, and had his life destroyed by the resultant mental illness that left him in tortured conditions in prison for many years; who had watched so many of the lives of black women and men in her life be similarly destroyed. So that when the white man who shot and killed “unarmed Trayvon Martin, sixteen and skinny, carrying iced tea and candy . . . walking home to his own house (Khan-Cullors, 189) was acquitted of all charges, in her outrage fueled by deep love, she and two friends formed Black Lives Matter, and later, Say Her Name. “In every demand . . . I see the faces of my mothers and my brothers, my father and my sister,” writes Kahn-Cullers. “We are firm in our conviction that our lives matter by virtue of our birth” (203-204).
I think of Jen Cousins, leading the fight against book banning in Florida schools.[iii] She was moved to act out of fierce love for her non-binary child and others like them, so that in books like Gender Queer [iv] “they could find acceptance and confirmation and know they were not alone,”[v] and so that all children might grow up in an atmosphere of love and understanding, rather than hate and fear.
And I think of the Water Protectors, who have been protesting against the destruction of the living waters in aquifers, rivers, pristine wild rice lakes, the Great Lakes, and great oceans out of a deep love – the women of Standing Rock; the indigenous women who led the struggle against Line 3 in Minnesota and continue that struggle against Line 5; the Grandmothers Gathering for Gitchigaaming; Josephine Mandamin and the water walkers who have followed in her footsteps.[vi] As Robin Wall Kimmerer and Kathleen Deane Moore wrote of the women of Standing Rock, “The land is sacred, a living breathing entity, for whom we must care, as she cares for us. And so it is possible to love land and water so fiercely you will live in a tent in a North Dakota winter to protect them.” Love so fiercely you will sit in prayer and ceremony occupying sacred ground as it is being dug up to install oil pipelines. Love so fiercely you will risk arrest. Love so fiercely that you will dedicate your life to walking and praying by the waters.
In these efforts of fierce compassion led by women, Durga rises again.
Sources
Bartlett, Elizabeth Ann. 2004. Rebellious Feminism: Camus’s Ethic of Rebellion and Feminist Thought. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fleischmann, Jeff. “Two Moms Are at the Center of Book Banning in America: ‘It’s Exhausting’.” Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2023.
Foster, Susan. “Why Feminism Needs the Fierce Goddesses.” https://feminismandreligion.com. January 26, 2023.
Galland, China. 1998.The Bond Between Women: A Journey to Fierce Compassion. New York: Riverhead Books.
Harrison, Beverly Wildung. 1989. “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love.” In Judith Plaskow and Carol Christ, Eds. Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 214-225.
hooks, bell. 2013. Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.
Khan-Cullors, Patrisse & Asha Bandele. 2017. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Publishing Group.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall and Kathleen Deane Moore, “The White Horse and the Humvees.” Yes! Magazine. 11/05/16.
Meet Josephine Mandamin (Anishinaabekwe), The “Water Walker” – Indigenous Rising
The Women of Standing Rock – WOW (wowblog.me)
[i] Why Feminism Needs the Fierce Goddesses by Susan Foster (feminismandreligion.com)
[ii] See my Rebellious Feminism: Camus’s Ethic of Rebellion and Feminist Thought.
[iii] Jen Cousins is one of the co-founders of the Florida Freedom to Read project.
[iv] Gender Queer is the most banned book in America.
[v] Fleischmann, Jeff. “Two Moms Are at the Center of Book Banning in America: ‘It’s Exhausting’.” Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2023.
[vi] The Standing Rock encampment began on April 1, 2017, when a few women from the Standing Rock tribe formed a prayer circle, praying that their land not be invaded by the “black snake” of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Among them are LaDonna Brave Bull Allard and Phyllis Young are among the leaders of the movement. Krystal Two Bulls, now the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, began the NO DAPL global movement. The Women of Standing Rock – WOW (wowblog.me) Native women water protectors, among them Winona LaDuke of Honor the Earth and Tara Houska of the Giniw Collective, were at the center of the struggle against Line 3 in northern Minnesota and continue their efforts against Line 5 that crosses Wisconsin, the UP of Michigan, and the Straits of Mackinac. The Grandmothers Gathering brought indigenous grandmothers and women from across the US to Madeline Island in Lake Superior for four days to bless, pray, and sing, share their gratitude for, and give loving attention to the water. Grandmothers Gathering for Gitchigaaming (Lake Superior) - Home. Josephine Mandamin, a member of the Wikwemikong First Nation, began the water walker movement, walking around Lake Superior in 2003, and eventually all of the Great Lakes, carrying a pail of water to bring awareness to the need to protect the water. In Anishinaabe culture, women are the protectors of the water. “As women, we are carriers of the water. We carry life for the people,” said Mandamin. Mandamin died in 2019, but others continue to walk for the water. The Nibi Walk around Lake Superior, led by water walker Sharon Day, will begin on August 1 in Duluth, Minnesota, and they invite any and all to join them. Meet Josephine Mandamin (Anishinaabekwe), The “Water Walker” – Indigenous Rising