Soulskin Poetry for the Magdalenes

Photograph by Kylie Bower taken at the ceremony held inside the Magdalene Laundries in Melbourne

Fragments of Light Returning

Such a gentle and holy reclamation

of power and birthright,

so exquisitely feminine and encompassing,

allowing the deep grief to gently swell and fall

knowing the futility of drowning in the depths

of the horror of withheld love,

only humbly touching the edges

of that unfathomable pain

of lives lived in such shadow.

So gently we danced,

like fragments of light

upon the surface of the well,

summoning that which longed to move

from that place beneath,

from the deep waters.

As we summoned our strength

from the wellsprings of memory,

through

the dappled sunlight of ancient green

forests of the heart,

seeking the seer,

reclaiming the word,

reforming the container,

stronger now and more true.

A radiant gathering of pilgrims we were,

with brimming hearts and a myriad of colours

displayed in our feathers,

in the twinkling eye 

and the joy of our togetherness,

the sweetness of it a flame 

so artfully tended

by that Lady of the Swan,

she of the water and the word,

awakening.

We journeyed deep, deep into the past

and returned ancient and wise

and more free than we had been when we left,

we returned with animal companions,

a wild menagerie in our midst,

and with us the wise ones of our blood-lines,

all gathering, strong and open,

to aid the passage of the women and children

of the Magdalene Laundries.

With a raucous reverence we walked,

we drummed and we rattled,

we danced and we sang.

Beloved sister the beacon 

and shepherd of our song.

Our bejeweled feet thumping their love

through the foundations

to caress the bones that lay below.

Gathering into the heart of our mighty sound

the lost and the silent,

the trapped and forgotten ones,

the ululation of our feelingness

enlivening the air

awakening the unseen

and calling them to return

as we wind our way back now,

to the ancient river, sparkling.

The trees bending close to hear,

swaying and dancing with the glistening sunlight,

their celebration and resonance

with this timely passage of freedom.

Our voices still entwining,

weaving the warp and the weft of the basket

that would be their boat.

And by the waters edge,

our taproots entwining with the roots

of that vast and ancient tree of life

in the heart of the Earth, our Mother.

Silent now, deep in the medicine of this mystery,

the sole voice, so intimately sweet,

the song resounding from she

who is so strong to be so soft and still be heard.

And we feel them finding their own way now,

the one's that would come,

the Magdalenes, the forgotten ones,

home to the Waiting One’s,

the air alive with the subtle vibrations of their release,

the bindings falling free,

the light returning to that which has dwelt

so long in the shadow.

Wordless now and feeling the fine filaments of love,

entraining the universe,

as though there was suddenly more room

for sunlight and love,

more room for forgiveness

and fearless becoming.

Lucy Pierce © 2013

Lucy is the artisan who created the sculptures of mother and child in the centre of our ceremony for the Magdalenes held at the site of the Magdalene Laundries at Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne. You can see more of her living sculptures (to me they look like they are almost breathing), exquisite poetry and artisan treasures at 

Soulskinmusings and www.lucypierce.com

‘Together’ a sculpture by Lucy Pierce

Spiral of Women's Medicine in the Magdalene Laundry

At the centre - sculptures by Lucy Pierce Photos by Kylie 'Ma Bower'

On sunday, the first day of Spring I sat in a medicine circle with sisters from all over Australia who had been called to come and assist the spirits of the women and children of the Magdalene Laundries at Abbotsford Convent here in Melbourne. It was a day I will never forget, a day when we saw right in front of our eyes, the power and healing magic of Women's Medicine.

I believe this is the new way for the Medicine Women. This new medicine way is not concerned with complicated ritual, hierarchy and authority outside of our spirit. Instead, we simply asked for permission. Permission from the Aboriginal ancestors of the land, permission from the Magdalenes themselves and permission from the Grandmothers who we were there to assist the young girls and children home. The new medicine way is actually the ancient medicine way of lovingly bringing intention, focus and simple action to what is in need of love and change. These simple and small drops of love from each of the medicine women given without ego flowed into the large blessing bowl that our gathering created. And this blessing bowl, created by the flesh of our own bodies as we sat in circle became filled with water, a pool of love stronger than any memory of history or binding beliefs.  

There were so many radiant moments on this day but I will never forget the gift of song from all my sisters and the songs that were channeled and gifted especially for this day by Lisa Mitchell and Kaggi Valentine. Lisa opened the circle with her song 'Thank You for Being Here' and I felt it created an opening of all of our hearts - a reminder that we are all innocent and tender at the heart. Kaggi brought the fire into our opened hearts as we stepped into the cold cement building of the actual Magdalene Laundry. And in this space of such previous pain, imprisonment and enforced silence a spontaneous chant began to burst forward leading to drumming and dancing, loud singing. We danced our own freedom dance for the Magdalenes, we sang for the silenced ones, we brought our fire to light that dark place. Here Kaggi began her chant received for the Magdalenes from the ancient women who came from a time way before the distorted beliefs and restrictions that bind the Sacred Feminine in our world now.

Ancient shadows of women spiraling

through the coils of time,

we are part of those women spiraling...

with the song of the land,

and the dance of the moon inside.

Chant received and sung by Kaggi Valentine 

Singing this chant, we proceeded to move down through the convent grounds, we drummed and singing out loud to honour the memory of the Magdelenes publicly to let them know that they did not belong in the shadow and to sing for them in the open sunshine. This beautiful line of singing medicine women snaked through the gardens and the weekend visitors to move through the trees and down to the Yarra River. At this ancient water source, we began our final work of the day - calling from the convent buildings and surroundings any spirits who had stayed too long, who were afraid, who had been forgotten. We called them down to the River, down to the Water, to be embraced by the Grandmothers and guided Home. 

My deepest thanks and gratitude to all of the women who joined us both in body and spirit at this collective healing. What did we do? We did our best. My heart is full to see your radiant return Wise Medicine WOmen.

For all of our sisters living in Queensland I will be opening a new Femmina Unbound dreaming circle for the return of the Medicine WOmen beside the sacred springs of Grail Haven on Mt Tamborine on Saturday 12th October.

Femmina Unbound - Return of the Medicine Women on Mt Tamborine QLD

Lisa Mitchell gifting her song

 

'Going Home' by sculptor, Pauline Clayton outside the convent gates "A tribute to the young women and children/ who have made epic journeys/ to return to home and country."

There is a light on in the Magdalene Laundries

In the last 2 months, Tony and I have been making journeys to the Magdalene Laundries preparing the dreaming well for Femmina Unbound at the Convent. And every time we visit we see something that seems to be signaling that we are not alone in our wish to heal this site and the spirits of the women and children here. On one visit we discovered beautiful light sculptures inside the laundries themselves as part of an exhibition called Globelight. As we viewed them in silence I felt it was a powerful metaphor that an exhibition bringing light to this place was scheduled right before the workshop. Some powerful symbology here of the spiral, the spider-web and the wooden pyre crowned with a halo.

Sinead O'Connor - Response to the Magdelene Laundries Report

SINGER Sinead O’Connor has sent the following letter to The Irish Post. It is her response to the apology by The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity concerning the treatment of women in their care. “I have written the below open letter to The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity in response to their published apology upon release of the Magdalene Laundries report,” said Sinead, who as a teenager spent time in a Catholic institution for shoplifting and truancy.

Dear Sisters,

I am one of the very few who can say with my hand on my heart that the time spent time in your institution at High Park in Drumcondra, saved my life.

It was named An Grianan, and is named so in The Residential Institutions Redress Act, where An Grianan is listed first, should there be any doubt as to whether or not An Grianan (the house of the rising sun) was a residential institution.

It was the very place indeed which gave the name ‘Magdalene Laundries’ when sometime after I left in 1984 the land was sold and some builders digging up the ground found many graves, all marked only ‘Magdalene’.

During the time I spent there the girls used to say they saw a ghostly white lady crossing the garden. I laughed and mocked them. Until the day I heard about the graves.

Sister Margaret who was in charge during the time I was there was the number one greatest thing that had up until that time ever happened to me in my life. She loved me as if I was own daughter.

Specifically she loved me because I was rebellious. She knew I had a good heart. Now that I have grown I think she saw in me the girl that she would like to have been had she not been herself a slave of the theocracy. the epilogue to the Magdalene story will be how much in fact some of you ladies were as much slaves of the theocracy as the girls were. Your stories have yet to be told.

Sister Margaret bought me my first guitar and saw music would save my life and told me to go from my dreams and to know that God was always with me and she even bought me a parka coat like all the punk rockers had, from a punk rock shop in Dublin called No Romance. The woman was an angel.

However I must state that while my experience in your institution was good for me I saw something absolutely appalling happen there to someone else and I felt very sad last night when I saw the wording of the apology you published in response to The McAleese Report on The Magdalene Laundries.

You said: “It is with deep regret that we acknowledge that there are women who did not experience our refuge as a place of protection and care.”

What I saw happen to a girl I loved in your institution deserves a much more specific response. Not least because her experience is not an isolated case. She is one of many girls who had similar experience in institutions all over the land.

The McAleese report is incorrect when it states that there is no evidence to support that women ever had babies in institutions.

Indeed on the night the report was published a woman who was born in an institution and taken from her mother a told her story.

In the Irish Times of Wednesday, February 6, 2013 On page four, there is an interview with a lady named Patricia Burke Brogan. She states she was a novice with the Sisters of Mercy in the Galway laundry. She left because she could not stand to see the women being locked up

She states: “When I asked the superior why they weren’t let out she said ‘oh if you let them out they’ll be back here in no time pregnant again’. AGAIN is the key word here.

In fact babies were often born in institutions and laundries. And often they were taken from their mothers against their mothers will.

I witnessed this happen to my friend in your specific institution. I really feel she deserves something better than you regret she didn’t experience your refuge as a place of protection and care.

My friend was 17 years old. She was pregnant and we all were with her and she was happy and so were we. My friend is the only woman that I ever met in my life that I could justifiably call a true lady.

She became pregnant whilst under the care of your institution in fact. and went joyously through the pregnancy with us there. I am not the only witness to these events.

She had a baby boy. Black hair and skin so white he shimmered palest blue, like a little Krishna.

She adored him she minded him and loved him and fussed over him and was the best mother I have ever seen in her precise ways of caring for his every possible comfort. He was her lamb. Her Christ. The light of her life. And he was also and remains a little tiny light of mine. Which is why I am writing This letter.

One morning I woke to hear my friend screaming. And I ran out of my cubicle I saw her surrounded by two or three nuns. I can’t quite remember how many. They tore my friends baby from her arms. She struggled, I tried to help as did others. Her desperate beggings and pleadings and screams were ignored. She was physically overpowered as was I and the other girls and the baby was gone. With no trace of where he went.

Again I state for the record I am only one of several witnesses to this event.

If there is true regret on your part that your institution was not a place of refuge could you please compose a more suitable response to this particular incident.

I am certain that my friend will have been gutted by the composition of the ‘apology’. Which flicks a flaccid wrist, frankly at her experience.as if it isn’t of consequence .

If you are regretful. Produce the man who was that baby. And if the Church generally is regretful. Let ye produce all the stolen babies.

And if Enda Kenny means it when he says the state intends to fully support these women for the rest of their lives and is regretful himself. Let him produce my friend’s son. And records of all the stolen children and where they went and where their children are now.

Yes the state should say sorry. But they were the dirty worker for the Church. And the Church thinks it looks like the good guy now with these so called apologies. No. It doesn’t wash. You need to go back to whomever authority composes these apologies and ask they specifically respond to this case please.

Yes you can say ‘the law was you couldn’t keep your baby if you were unmarried and under 18′. But it is for the police to enforce laws. Not the clergy. And police never tore babies from their mothers arms. Indeed they never had the power to when they should have had it, while Irish children were being savaged by clergy and theocracy.

Answer this.. Why were the nuns and not the police enforcing the laws of the land ?

I regret to say I have several friends who were never in an institution yet had their babies stolen by clergy at hospitals when they went for a shower. None of my friends that this happened to were given any choice in the matter. Indeed they were not even informed of what was to take place until after it had taken place.

Enda Kenny I admire you greatly. I hope you don’t let me down. What do you have to say about the state’s Compulsory removal of the children of un-married mothers under the age of 18? Please explain to me why the police were not the ones enforcing this law.

It is highly important the state acknowledge that it in plain terms. And apologise for that.

Sinead O’Connor

via The Irish Post