I was sad to read of Mary Daly's passing early in January of this year - it was like a visible spectrum of light had dimmed. Hopefully this was a reflection of my momentary sadness and not a reality. Her wonderful and challenging books are an amazing legacy and a treasure to all those who wish to think for themselves. My brain was never more awake than when engaged in deciphering the pillaged and pirated jewels of radical truth that Mary reclaimed, so that we might understand many things much better.
Her work reclaimed language, plumbing back to its most ancient roots. She exposed lies, attacking them directly and took no prisoners. She reclaimed words like crone, hag, and spinster for our righteous use and coined many wonderful terms that returned power to women. Mary was doing the work that called her, and in reading her words, we accompany her on the voyage.
The dudes are glad she is dead no doubt - as are many in the religious right.I have met many women who were terrified of her view, her expose's, her radical conclusions! But her words live on. Her ideas have subtly changed the face of things. She passed this way in our time and we will never be the same, even if you never read a word she wrote.
Powerful voices make a mark on the fabric of time and space. This is an ancient magic that has been known by metaphysicians since the beginning. Once these powerful utterances are out, it is hard to unsound them - the world, the energy of the universe, is impacted. So it is with Mary Daly. Her voice resounds, awakening the sleepers and calling forth Amazons into the battle for possession of their own minds, bodies and selves. She calls us into battle that we might own the verb to be.
I was afraid of her words when I first came across them as a young college student - they threatened my belief that I had to have my man! Later, after becoming a mother and spouse, I read her words and saw they threatened nothing that was true - but exposed many things that were taken as truth and were founded on lies. Love could not be changed by her writings - only clarified. And so I kept reading.
In 2009 my son bought me all of her books that I did not yet own - mostly from used booksellers(through Amazon.) How wonderful to have such a gracious child, who is not scared of truths gathered by the heart, hand and mind of the preeminent Radical Lesbian Feminist Philospher of our time. His manhood is not threatened by her truths - he can see their source. Freedom is freedom, and all people are oppressed by the sickness of patriarchal structures. These dangerous and self-aggrandizing views/places/belief systems need to be torn down, blown up, pulled apart, dissolved, ignored. Renewal is necessity. Or the planet dies.
Thank you Mary Daly! Keep on dancing!
Books by this wonderful author:
Beyond God the Father
The Church and the Second Sex
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism
Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy
Outercourse:The Be-Dazzling Voyage
Webster's First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language
Quintessence...Realizing the Archaic Future
Amazon Grace: Re-Calling the Courage to Sin Big
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