Half-Hanged Margy

As part of my renewed passion for the interests that have followed me my entire life, I am going to start posting some essays for everyone's perusal pleasure (or pain...haha...depending...). Well, this one is from the fantastic Canadian Literature course I took last year. It's on Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. In it, you will begin to see my interest in comparative beliefs--mostly as this manifests in occult, mystical, magickal traditions in relation and in contrast to Christianity or the Way (as it was called by it's first followers).


I will begin from the beginning...

I was hanged for living alone
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts;

Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there's talk of demons
these come in handy.
….
Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.

Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,

old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.
….
Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.
….
A temptation, to sink down
into these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.

To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.
To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.
….
The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.

~Margaret Atwood, “Half-Hanged Mary”~

[God] is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse. ~C.G. Jung

The world-renowned Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, is the descendant of a 17th century witch. In 1685, by the puritan community of Hadley, North Hampton, a “witch” named Mary Webster was persecuted, tried and hanged---but did not die. It is to this ancestor, Mary Webster, that Atwood’s popular dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale is dedicated. The Handmaid’s Tale is the author’s statement against chauvinist totalitarian regimes and their consequence for women. It is also the tale of the female’s mystical journey to freedom for her physical, emotional and spiritual self. In Atwood’s view, the battle fought by the historical Mary Webster is the same waged by her novel’s fictional protagonist against a similar foe: unwarranted domination of one sex over the other. It is the battle waged for the emancipation of our subjective, creative selves from the oppression of “God”.

The domination and repression of the female sex in particular is said to stem from men’s fear of a power they do not understand; a power they cannot categorize, institutionalize or rationalize. It is a battle, feminists say, which has been fought since the dawn of the agricultural revolution and the rise of civilization. It was at this time that “matricentry, small simple societies centred about mothers, was supplanted by a different moral, economic and socio-political structure” (French, 39). Men sought greater sway over their female counterparts. Atwood, as a female novelist, has herself struggled for acceptance and respect in a realm typically assigned to men. Her solution to the timeless power struggle is the reassertion of the feminine power, the need for the female psyche to break free of its silent confines and establish its authority alongside its male foil. In the end, the goal of such thinking is gender equality on all planes (social, political, spiritual, psychological) and the collective acknowledgement that “all is one”: male and female, black and white; dark and light; good and evil. This notion is the foundation on which ancient mystery cults and the modern day “New Age” movement are built. The global society that New Agers hope to usher in in the twenty-first century is to be one of asexuality. Their goal is the transcendence of gender-determined boundaries. But first, the feminine half of the human psyche must “take back the night,” the domain of mystery, creativity, spontaneity, sensuality and emotion. It must rise again to a power equal in strength and influence to the logical, objective, mathematical and rational male authority which dominates our culture. Wicca, the religion of “witchcraft” seeks to accomplish this by tailoring a spirituality to fit the feminine contours of the soul.

Since Wicca is not founded on any comprehensive sacred text, the new-old feminine theology is to be experientially-based (Goldenberg, 118). Writing and literature play an important role in sharing the multi-faceted female experience. Carol Christ, a prominent feminist theologian and social theorist, postulates that contemporary fiction will become the main resource for reflection on new gods, images and metaphors for “our new psycho-religious consciousness” (Goldenberg, 118). Christ believes that:
…any thinking about God---any theology---is done in the form of story. Story is the way we give shape to our experiences, both when we reflect on them ourselves and when we relate them to others. [In light of this there exists] a profound handicap for women of Jewish and Christian cultures. They have not been permitted to hear their own stories…. The dialectic between experiencing and shaping experience by storytelling has not been in our own hands.(Goldenberg, 118)

In order to find what individual women are and what they might become, Christ admonishes us to “seek, discover and create the symbols, metaphors and plots of our own experience” (Goldenberg, 119). This is precisely what Atwood in her Handmaid’s Tale---a novel about a woman’s fight for freedom and positive self-identity---strives to accomplish. The works of Margaret Atwood and other modern female authors aid in the creation of women’s own religious literary canon.

It follows that the symbols prevalent in The Handmaid’s Tale are derived from the esoteric symbols of pagan cults and Wicca, which were themselves conceived in ancient mystery rites and goddess worship. The images Atwood employs to symbolize the different domains of the two sexes in her work are offshoots of either goddess-earth centred fertility rites or sky-god veneration. The feminine images are mostly procreative in nature. They include symbols of the egg, the cup or chalice, nature-imagery, the night and the moon. The most pervasive sky-god image, on the other hand, is the all-seeing eye.

Feminist spirituality sets itself against any form of forced objectivism and obedience. Traditional religion, in particular fundamentalist Christianity as expressed in Atwood’s novel through the Gilead regime, seeks to eradicate subjectivism and breed conformity. The omni-present and powerful control of the Gileadean regime is symbolized by a great winged eye. Living in fear and forced wonder, the obedient masses of Gilead know all too well that “the Eyes of God run over all the earth” (Atwood, 242). The symbol of the eye has similarly served as the central insignia of mystery and initiation cults throughout the ages. “It represents insight into the occult through spiritual illumination, inner vision, and wisdom as dispersed by the Sun deity…” (Teichrib). “The eye played a central and prominent role in Egyptian religion and their udjat eye symbol is still very popular today in esoteric and 'New Age' circles. The sun was known as the eye of Re, or of other Egyptian gods” (Cosmicegg). It is still in use today. The most powerful nation on earth has it imprinted on their hard currency. “…The symbol represents the spiritual future of the United States of America. The "all-seeing eye" signifies the Spiritual Hierarchy of Light, the "Silent Watchers" over humanity's spiritual development” (Earthlink). The “all-seeing eye” has in most cultures represented the eye of the ultimate masculine being, or “God”. Hence, it is fitting that the monotheism of the Gileadean regime---which combines warped Christianity with cultic initiation rites (such as the “Salvaging” ritual)---has as its logo this ancient symbol of dominative male power.

Unlike patriarchal religions, Goddess spiritualities are tied to the cycles of nature as seen in this world: the birth, death, rebirth of the earth and its inhabitants. Theorists suggest it is for women’s original tribal role as gatherers, and perhaps for the parallel to their own fertility cycles. The spring season, then, the “swelling genitalia” of new spring flowers, the swooning, languid heat of the sun, the “liquid ripeness” of tender seedpods and woman’s wombs are signs of the maiden earth-goddess’s flowering sexuality (Atwood, 189,190,191). The fecundity of the earth and its female inhabitants reaches its pinnacle after the long “rigid” sleep of winter. It is in the spring, Offred says, that “Goddesses are possible…and the air suffuses with desire” (Atwood, 190). It is not unintentional, then, that the code word of the underground resistance is “Mayday”. The first of May is a pagan fertility holiday. Rightly, it is the holiday when sexuality is freely worshipped (and woman truly take back the night). “The [Sun-] God’s mother is the Goddess herself. As the year waxes into spring, her son becomes her lover and their union makes the whole world bloom with sexual energy. The first of May, May Day, is the time for this celebration---probably the most joyous holiday of the witch’s year. The famous Maypole represents the God’s erect phallus and is used as a rallying point for dancing and playing games” (Goldenberg, 104).

Yet another “spring” fertility symbol is the egg. Offred’s staple meal is a breakfast of toast, orange juice and eggs. The egg is an obvious symbol of the womb, but in mystical traditions, the symbolism is carried further.
…The Great Mother was represented as all-bird. She bore the egg of creation in her buttocks….Of all possible bird capacities---flying, seeing at night, molting, nest making, singing, escaping prey---the one most celebrated in these ancient figures is that of egg laying and incubating. Many cultures trace their origins to an egg cosmogony at the beginning of time….Initiation as a feminine mystery implies submission to a natural process of transformation that is analogous to the ‘work’ of a brood hen, whose warmth brings embryonic life out of an egg into the world. This ancient metaphor moved the hand that fashioned large and small pots in egg and womb shapes. Woman as vessel embodies this womb magic, and as bird vessel she performs the task of engendering matter. This means she is capable of giving birth to herself (matter = mother, or the primary matrix). (Hall, 47)

The symbology of the womb-vessel, pot or “chalice” is also readily apparent in The Handmaid’s Tale. “We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices” (Atwood, 171); “We are containers, it’s only the insides of our bodies that are important” (Atwood, 119). The Blue Moon Light Coven, a prominent wiccan community in the United States, has as their rallying emblem a silver chalice pierced by a dagger, framed by a blue moon. The Cup and athame or ritual dagger (or sword) are all wiccan symbols of power (Crossroads). The union of the feminine cup with the masculine dagger expresses the coven members’ ambition to transcend this reality through the amalgamation of opposites. In this they hope to achieve a state of oneness they believe is the primordial life-force: the hermaphrodite divinity who is the source of all creation and all life---as well as all destruction and death (Bluemoon).

Witchcraft and feminism embody the female psyche’s attempt at emancipation from the authoritarian dominion of its male counterpart. There are some overt references to witchcraft and its inherent female connotation in The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood speaks of woman’s power of manipulation, one of the few powers left to them under the Gileadean regime. Witchcraft is manipulation: the manipulation of persons, circumstances, energy or consciousness. “Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia, and not much more. They only want one thing. You must learn to manipulate them, for you own good. Lead them around by the nose; that is a metaphor. It’s nature’s way. It’s God’s device. It’s the way things are” (p.180). Atwood also references the summoning of power through the cosmic circle: “I look up at the ceiling, the round circle of plaster flowers. Draw a circle, step into it, it will protect you” (Atwood, 265). In Wicca, the circle is “a sacred and purified space in which rituals, magical work and ceremonies are conducted. It sets a boundary for the collective and concentrated power and acts as a doorway to the world of the gods. It represents wholeness, perfection and unity, the womb of the Earth and the cycles of life and seasons….In ancient times, [circles] were drawn around the beds of sick persons and new mothers as protection from demons” (Crossroads). In addition, the “whispering of obscenities about those in power” is compared to the uttering of spells: “There’s something delightful about it, something naught, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It’s like a spell, of sorts” (Atwood, 278). The reclusive, exclusive feminine community found in nunneries is compared both to the handmaids and to wiccan covens. The nuns themselves are directly associated with witches: “[Ex-nuns] are not allowed to become Wives…they’re considered, still, too dangerous for positions of such power. There’s an odour of witch about them, something mysterious and exotic; it remains despite the scrubbing and the welts on their feet and the time they’ve spent in Solitary (Atwood, 276). As well, the handmaids are accustomed to ritualistic, almost cultic practices. “Chanting, dancing, breathing, and concentrated will, all contribute to the raising of power, which is the essential part of a craft ritual” (Starhawk, 266). The collective birthing Offred and the other handmaids participate in is similar to the transcendent, mystical, coven experiences where differentiation between beings ceases: “…we can feel it like a heavy stone moving down, pulled down inside us, we think we will burst. We grip each other’s hands, we are no longer single…. “Push, push, push,” we whisper. “Relax. Pant. Push, push, push.” We’re with her, we’re the same as her, we’re drunk” (p.157). But besides the blatant imagery and explicit references, there are underlying threads of mystic and feminist-wiccan origin covertly spun into the fabric of her work.



...to be continued... :-)