Louise Omer - Holy Woman: a divine adventure

HOLY WOMAN

Louise Omer is a writer born on Kaurna Country with essays, criticism, and poetry published in The Guardian , The Saturday Paper , The Lifted Brow , and more. Beyond Australia, she has lived in Scotland and Ireland, and has a heart connection to many lands, seas, and people.

Scribe Publications
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Published by Scribe 2022

Copyright Louise Omer 2022

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EVERYTHINGS CHANGED (Mike Guglielmucci). 2003 Planetshakers Publishing. Licensed courtesy of CopyCare Pacific Pty Ltd. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Scribe acknowledges Australias First Nations peoples as the traditional owners and custodians of this country, and we pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

978 1 925849 23 3 (Australian edition)
978 1 912854 97 4 (UK edition)
978 1 957363 05 9 (US edition)
978 1 922586 45 2 (ebook)

Catalogue records for this book are available from the National Library of Australia and the British Library.

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For all the women who came before me.

To all those who will go beyond me.

If God is male, then the male is God.

Mary Daly

The best slave
does not need to be beaten.
She beats herself

Years of training
are required for this.

Erica Jong

Ill tell you what freedom is to me. No fear.

Nina Simone

Prologue

My Husband had keys to the church. On Sundays, we would arrange the stage, set up chairs, sing and dance and hug; after, wash coffee cups and sweep the silent chapel. Then Tuesday meetings, Wednesday Bible studies, Saturday barbecues. Writing sermons, checking on newcomers, buying supplies, fundraising, and planning events.

When I left Him, everything stopped.

I no longer went to church, and then, I didnt want to go. Faith stuttered and died. When I removed myself from routine, expectation, and ideological reinforcement, I discovered my religious habits hadnt felt right for a long time. I just hadnt noticed.

In the space left by broken responsibilities, questions blew on a hot wind, questions that had long lurked at the edge of dreams and threatened my entire world.

Why was my beloved God male?

Why were Bible stories mostly about men?

Why was Eve responsible for the Fall of Man?

Why were there abusers in the church?

And how could I reconcile all of this with my feminism?

Hed confessed: He wanted to be alone. Before we had the Talk, I was a wife, a Pentecostal, a preacher. But these roles werent as solid as I thought; they dissipated in the swirl of that horrid wind.

He wanted to be alone. What should we do? After the Talk, Hed wanted to go to therapy together, get advice from church leaders. But at this crossroad, I discovered a new truth that lived between my ribs, glowing like embers: I want to leave . Everything within me had been brittle and dry, like the Adelaide Hills at summers end. My Husbands rejection sparked certainty inside my body, and now I was aflame.

Sometimes, what we want is so buried, so against our identity, that its unknowable to ourselves. Yet when its offered, we rise, propelled by a fire of inner volition. I followed the smoke scent.

My Husband and I sold our furniture. He kept the car. I moved the leftovers of my life books, clothes, a bicycle to my aunties house, and took odd jobs at a bookstore, a festival, a chain cafe. I wept against train windows, and cycled across town, sobbing. Grieving the life Id planned, the status that came with a man, my tribe.

Nothing was clear anymore. Gods voice fell to silence. But the fire between my ribs whispered: Leave home. Go in search of answers. This inner knowing told me I needed to cross borders of land and sea to liberate my mind. Leave everything you know to become who you truly are.

A journey into the unknown begins with a single step into the dark. But I never would have begun if Id known how much Id burn.

after

Australia

I yanked open the screen door. Nag-champa incense, chatter in the kitchen.

Hello-o? Auntie Liz called out, her tone both welcome and rebuke. I was late for my date with a nun.

Framed in the light of the doorway, my dark curly hair was splayed in Medusa-tangles, my mascara smeared, my heeled sandals clutched in a weak, shaking fist. I hoped there was no spew on my mouth from when Id asked last nights one-night stand my first ever, at twenty-eight to pull over on the drive across town.

I sat at the wooden kitchen table, apologising, breathless. Gurrumuls songs played soft in the lounge room. Auntie Lizs goddess drawings hung on the fridge.

Hi, Margie. I smiled apologetically at the nun Id invited to brunch. My auntie had worked with the Sisters of Mercy in the nineties. Auntie Liz thought her old colleague Sister Margie Abbott might direct me to some answers.

Everyone elses plates were maple syrupsmeared. Uncle Sal picked up a spatula to serve me ricotta-orange hot cakes. For the last three months, our Sunday pancake ritual had tempered the loss of my thirteen-year-old churchgoing routine. But today I shook my head in panic.

Not hungry, are you? His eyes glittered beneath wavy silver hair.

Auntie Liz poured me coffee with a smirk, and said, We were just talking about Margies trip to Ireland, Louise.

Lively coils of wiry white hair sprang from Margies head. No habit, no black gown; just cargo pants and a bright-blue Patagonia jacket. She emitted a stoic, pragmatic sensibility, like a straight-backed rural farmer, but held her body with light, natural ease. The author of several books, her latest was Cosmic Sparks , which suggested rituals to unite hearts with the earth. Id summoned no ordinary nun.

Margie grinned at Auntie Liz. Two years ago, I went on a goddess pilgrimage for my seventieth birthday. It was a wonderful tour through the sacred places of Ireland and the British Isles: Iona, bike riding around Newgrange, and then off to Glendalough. I had a friend to stay with in County Kerry.

I slow-breathed through my nose, trying to calm my nausea, as she described stories embedded in the Irish landscape. Mabh, Queen of Connacht. ire, the mother goddess for whom Ireland is named. And Brigit, of course, an ancient Celtic goddess; when Christianity came to Ireland, she became an abbess and a saint.

If you get a chance, do go to Kildare and meet the two Brigidines who tend St Brigids flame.

Louise, did you know Nans grandmother was born in Ireland? said Auntie Liz. Weve got our own Irish heritage.

Yes, I remember. I looked at Margie across the table. Tried to sit tall and say why Id asked her here. I just It hurts. All that praying, all that singing. To who, you know? A guy. Id always prayed to God the Father, Jesus the Son. We even called the Holy Spirit Him. But lately, it felt wrong. I trailed my finger along my mug handle. Where am I? Where are the women?