Women Talking
reflections from romjul
Happy Epiphany. Christmas-tide came to an end last night, on 12th night. There are many ways to mark the occasion across old european lore, for lands with apple trees this is a time for wassailing, a time of songs and offerings to land spirits in the deep winter of the year in hopes that fruits and greens will come again. In Italy, this is La Befana’s day-- when children leave a glass of wine out on the eve of epiphany for the old witch who comes bearing gifts, while sweeping away the problems of the old year with her old broom. This is also the feast of Frau Perchta & Berchta in alpine regions, the winter hags who demand their offerings of fish & gruel and oversee the productivity of women’s work.
My christmas is led by the women. It has always been led by the women, whether I knew that or not. It began with my own mother, acting as Santa Claus, doing the thankless, invisible labor of creating all the magic behind Christmas; from the cookies to the stockings, to buying and wrapping every single gift and hiding it somewhere in the house, keeping the family decorations and ornaments and traditions safely waiting for their time to shine year after year. Keeping all of the old stories alive. Under the guise of a jolly old bearded man, she got no credit for any of that work. Now that I’m grown and have a daughter of my own, and know more about the stories of my people, my Christmas season begins with St. Lucia on her day, December 13, and ends on 12th night with a glass of wine for the women who came before me. Behind the female saints I teach about each December in my class The Lost Women of Christmas are stories of resilience under oppression, and persistence of truth despite fiery swords and crumbling towers and horses trying to drag them away. The saints are our folk heroes, they walked among us as mothers, sisters, daughters.
Lucy is my torch in the dark. She is my guide in dark places. She is the midwife to the season, bringing us deep down into the caverns, all of us who are struggling in the dark, learning who we will be in the new year, shedding old skins. I felt her by my side during this, one of the hardest Christmas seasons of my life.
I’ve felt very heavy since early December, when I learned some information from a trustworthy mentor that sent me reeling with questions that don’t have answers, and I’ve been sitting with it ever since. Throughout my life, I have been saved many times by women talking. I trust in women talking. As a survivor of domestic abuse as a young adult, I understand the power of women talking as a form of transmitting vital information for the good of the community. Who to avoid. Who to divest from. Who abuses the power.
There’s a movie by the same name Women Talking that came out in 2022, that follows the story of a mennonite community that gathers together without their men to try and determine what to do about the men who are actively harming all the women in the village. I remember seeing the movie in theaters and thinking to myself how many times over in my life I have been saved from harm by women quietly informing me. It’s an unfortunate story that plays out over time, across cultures, across age and season. In Christmas past spinning would be banned during the 12 days, for many reasons. First because spinning was seen as a magical act that could interfere with the turning of time; secondly because it was a way for women to care for themselves and their families by making income and this was actively oppressed; but also because the act of women gathering together, spinning and talking, was seen as a threat as dangerous as the devil. Transmission of information is power. It has the ability to topple dictators.
In my work as a healer, and as an educator, I have recommended my own teachers to countless people over the course of my career. I do this as a way of transparency about my lineage as a student in oral traditions. The information does not belong to me, it belongs to the people, and I do my very best to learn from the right people and direct others only to those I keep in high regard. I do believe that this is important, particularly for people of European descent because lineage learning can be very hard to come by. Thanks to the burning times, immigrant assimilation, and cultural oppression, many folk lineages have been broken between here and the old land of my ancestors. And, unfortunately, just being a living teacher sharing this valuable information with students today does not automatically make you a well ancestor.
And so; If you have taken one of my classes or read one of my newsletters and have pursued a relationship with any of the teachers I have recommended, I want you to know that my recommendations have changed. Please reach out to me directly first if this applies so I can give you my updated recommendations. I am deliberately doing this as quietly as I can out of respect for those affected who are at the center of this matter. I am not at the center of the matter, but my grief for the situation is substantial. It is thanks to other women sharing this information with me that I know better and can be more discerning in my work from this year forward. Unfortunately, in my nearly 15 years of healing work this is not the first time I have had a teacher that was not as well as they seemed. This is not a story that is new to me, though it is a story that is getting old. I am doing my best with the resources I have to continue sharing this ancestral work and healing folkways, because I refuse to let Them win. Yet it is difficult and triggering and I’ve been taking a small step back to gather myself.
My 12 days of christmas opened with my first visit to the emergency room with my daughter. The morning after Lucy’s day, we had to rush her to the hospital to be treated for burns when she accidentally pulled a full carafe of coffee onto herself. I have never heard such a primal scream come out of my own mouth. Ordinarily cool under pressure, I barely held it together until we reached the hospital. And it was the nurses who took my baby and made her all better, who offered me a comforting word and a hug and wiped my tears. Thanks to them, Olive healed quickly and was able to enjoy her first christmas-- until she was sick again days later, and we had another hospital stay thanks to dehydration and her first stomach bug. I spent the days following christmas sleepless by her bed while a flurry of texts and phone calls not sent by me wove a soft net to fall into. Women all around me left steaming pots of soup and cookies on my doorstep, or left me comforting voicemails and messages, or let themselves into my home to help me do work or take a break. Thanks to women talking, a hive emerged around me where I thought there was emptiness. Olive is recovering and doing well now, and we didnt have the yultide I imagined, but I cant help but sit here on twelfth night in gratitude for unsilent women in all of their forms.
Wassail,
Rachael
Coming up this January:
Jan 15 + 16: Incense Making with Hard Broom at the familiar studio
(SOLD OUT- DM me to be added to the waitlist)
Jan 24th: Sauna Animism & Bathing traditions from the North @ TBD
(SAVE THE DATE). This special sauna class will be followed by an elevated sauna session and watch party of the indie film, Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, which is at its core a film about women talking. More info coming soon.