In the spring of 1977, I sat at the lunch table with a few other Smith College seniors. We were going around, telling the others what our short and longterm life plans were (I would say, "career plans", only believe it or not, we were still not super career-oriented back then.) A few of these young women were planning to go to graduate school, one or two were going to do a few years of private school teaching before getting married and having a family, that sort of thing. When it was my turn, I said without a moment's hesitation, "I'm going to England, getting married, and having sons who will sing in the Choir of King's College, Cambridge." From a feminist standpoint, this was already a tragedy, because ten years earlier, I told people that I would become the first woman conductor of that very choir. In the intervening years, I guess it had become clear to me that English cathedral and chapel choirs would remain all-male in my lifetime, so the only way to have a significant contribution would be to be, effectively, a "choir mom". This would not turn out to be entirely true, but I didn't know that yet.
If a Ghost of Christmas Future had come to the table at that moment and told me that, not only would I never (at least until at least age 67) permanently live in England, never marry, and never have children (boys or girls); that I would spend the bulk of my life in the U.S., struggling to survive and find ways to make short visits to the UK, I think I might have walked the rather short distance to the Connecticut River and thrown myself in. My life has been so spectacularly not what I wanted or hoped for, that even now, it is mind-boggling.
However, if that same Ghost were -- in 1977 -- to tell me that in my 60's, I would write a journal available for the whole world to read, and that I would increasingly focus on women's spirituality and attempt to speak for the Goddess, I would have stared, incredulous. At that time, I truly would not have understood what that meant.
There is a degree to which, in my over 700 posts, I have still catered to that 45-year-old dream. I've been afraid of coming out, completely, as a woman dedicated to the feminine face of God. I've been afraid of ruining what little hope I might still have of fulfilling some small aspect of the original dream. I know from hard experience how irritating most men and most male institutions have found me (the few exceptions to this, I am so grateful for! They helped me open a few important doors.) Aligning 100% with a Goddess perspective as I understand it puts me permanently "beyond the pale". So at times in my writing, I have been vague, diplomatic, or used metaphors in order to leave myself a little wiggle room. That, of course, has diluted my power.
Starting today, I hope you will find that I no longer self-edit in this way. In the event that I return to England and even the world of the cathedrals and cathedral music, it will be from a place of honoring the divine feminine first, letting the "chips fall where they may". (Egad. How many overused idioms can I fit into one post?!) I have matured beyond the little girl from Schenectady trying to carve out a place in the world of men-and-boys'-choirs. And I have matured beyond the young then middle-aged woman trying to keep her feet on two parallel tracks, "unsuccessful" in both. It's a subtle difference, but I am now an older woman grounded in the Goddess, still embracing her passionate joy in all things English. I can finally see why things had to turn out as they did...
Goddess give me the courage to completely embody this third phase.
