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Video: The fabulous Donnalou Stevens
Notable Women: Christine de Pizan
by Lorna Ebringer
A lot has been written about the life and work of Christine de Pizan, late medieval scholar and writer but I had never heard of her until Sibyl in chief Kerry asked me to write about her for Sibylesque. Here is a potted history for those of you who would like to become acquainted with this extraordinary woman.
According to the British Library Christine de Pizan was born in Venice in 1365, the daughter of Tommaso de Benvenuto da Pizzano who was a physician and a court astrologer. After her birth the family moved to France where Tommaso accepted an appointment as court astrologer to Charles V. It was here at the court that Christine received an extensive and wide ranging education supervised by her father, an education that was normally reserved for men of the wealthy class in that time.
City of Women by Christine de Pizan. She supervised the production of the illustrated manuscript.
At the age of 15 Christine married Ettiene du Castel. She had three children before being widowed 10 years later. It is clear from her poems that Christine loved her husband and felt her loss deeply
Alone and in great suffering in this
deserted world full of sadness has my
sweet lover left me. He possessed my
heart, in greatest joy, without grief.
Now he is dead; I’m weighted down by
grievous mourning and such sadness has
gripped my heart that I will always weep
for his death.
(from One Hundred Ballads, completed before 1402, translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski)
As her father had also died four years earlier Christine had to find a way to support herself, her children and her mother. She turned to writing and in the following 30 years published both prose works and poetry enjoying great success serving as court writer for several dukes and the French royal court of Charles VI. It is claimed that she was the first woman in western literature known to have made a living as a writer.
Initially she wrote love ballads for wealthy patrons often on commission. These proved very popular and she wrote 300 in all. Her prose works include The City of Women, the Faytte of Armies or The Deeds of War and Chivalry, The Book of Peace and the book of the Changes of Fortune.
Nowadays Christine is of interest to feminist scholars for her writings on the position of women in society. Simone de Bouvoir wrote in 1949 that she was the first woman to take up a pen in defence of her sex. In her plea for the education of girls Christine wrote
“If it were customary to send little girls to school and teach them the same subjects as are taught to boys, they would learn just as fully and would understand the subtleties of all arts and sciences.”
― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
and on domestic violence
“How many women are there … who because of their husbands’ harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?”
― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies
At the age of 55 Christine retired to a convent at Poissy.
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LORNA EBRINGER
Lorna Ebringer’s passions include trekking in remote areas of Georgia, China and Japan, opera appreciation and rock ‘n roll dancing. Her previous post was When god had a wife.
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Photo Source: British LIbrary Manuscripts online.………………………………………………..
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It’s Detox or Dementia: Why Pill Poppin’ Mamas should be worried!
Kerry Cue
As we age, many of us collect more and more medications. But specialists in geriatric medicine (Oops! That’s the 65+ age group) are telling patients around the world it is time to DETOX. Overmedication is causing more dementia than it is curing.
For instance, 40% of Australians in the 65+ age group take 5 or more medications. In an article by Jill Robotham (Health Risk for Over Medicated Elderly, The Age, 5 Jan 2009) David Le Couteur, director of the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing at the University of Sydney said ‘Ceasing to take medicines such as sleeping pills and antidepressants improved people’s mental abilities and reduced the likelihood of serious falls’. Professor Le Couteur, a geriatrician at Concord Hospital, Sydney, explained that evidence based research looking into the effects of taking multiple drugs is “almost non-existent”. Meanwhile, in one study 85% of older patients had stable blood pressure 6 months to five years after being taken off blood pressure tablets.
Dr Tannenbaum’s 18 week benzodiazepine DETOX schedule.
Meanwhile, in another informative article in the New York Times by honorary Sibyl, Paula Span (Weaning Older Patients Off Sleeping Pills, 2 Jul 2014), Dr. Cara Tannenbaum, who holds an endowed chair in geriatric pharmacy at the University of Montreal, explained ‘People taking sleeping pills are five times more likely to report problems with concentration and memory … Twice as likely to have a hip fracture. Twice as likely to have a car accident the next day if they’re driving.’
They also experience more incontinence.
Not only does Dr. Tannenbaum and colleagues want older people to detox by weaning themselves from benzodiazepines (Sleep and anxiety medication. Brand names include: Ativan, Ambien, Halcion, Klonopin, Lunesta, Sonata, Valium and Xanax.), they have produced a downloadable brochure to help them do it.
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My Book Club is Better than Your Book Club
Part-time Goddess of the Garden
by Honey Clarke
The Chooks
by Honey Clarke
I’m feeling frightfully bucolic right now. A bit like Ceres, goddess of crops tripping sylph-like through the fields, triggering all she touches into life. Winter in the Crater is the best time of the year for vegie greens and my vegies are a vision to behold. Gardening holds such power for change.
Please don’t think that I’m one of those green thumbs, who plants by the moon, grows an abundance of flowers and harvests pumpkins as huge as my head. In summer Mother Nature rides rough shod over me with her ride-on mower and I manage to save some things in her wake. But in winter, when bugs head north and possums seem to have plenty I am Goddess of the Garden.
It wasn’t always so. My turning point came in the 1990s when I had to start a garden from scratch and I discovered Gardening Australia. Here before me was garden porn for the desperate and undeserving. All the things I fantasized about apparently were there at my fingertips.
Sketch of Honey planting seed
It was revolutionary how little was needed to make life come anew. I followed blindly. When Jane propagated I snipped tips off everything. Col saved seeds; I saved seeds too. Oh and I knew what Peter meant as he sniffed his compost, threatening to put it on his muesli. Truly, it was so “bloomin’ ” marvelous. The miracle of life in seed or sprig meant whole worlds opened up for me.
Okay my “tip-pruning” took on an unhealthy twist. My kids groaned as I drove twice around the roundabouts looking at new plants and they threatened they’d leave if I whipped out my secateurs one more time at the MacDonald’s drive-thru. In the end, our house block that was once a triumph of clay ended up a lovely garden and my zealotry tempered with time.
Plenty of people realize the power of the plant. Stories of generosity flourish including: fruit and vegetable swaps where garden wisdom is exchanged as well; towns where they help the homeless by swapping vegetables for collecting waste; community gardens that burst with produce and vibrant community, and movements like Landshare where those with land share their spaces with those who haven’t any, to grow food. How powerful is that!
So there are times in summer when it’s cheaper to buy a box of tomatoes than to grow one, but the thrill of that little green shoot promises so much. I’m following the footsteps of those who have come before me and planting possibilities for the season to come.
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Honey Clarke
Honey Clarke lives on the side of a mountain in an extinct crater lake with her partner, the Rock Doctor. She’s an artist, writer and teacher who encapsulates the essence of life in the quick strokes of paint or pen. Honey has two grown up kids and seven grandchildren. She is part-owner in a bamboo farm. She would like to say her hobbies are kite-surfing and abseiling but that would be a lie. Instead she reads, swims, travels, paints and blogs as much as possible. Honey’s blog is Honeyclarkeart. To inquire about Honey Clarke’s art, books or illustraoins contact her at: honeyclarkeartATgmail.com
Other posts by Honey include: Some Grandmas are Wild Things
Gemma Sisia has a big dream to fight poverty through education.
The charity that she and the Rock Doctor champion is St Judes in Tanzania, a brilliant school educating kids out of poverty.
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Photo Source: Honey Clarke’s Blog and St Jude’s Website.
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How Lilly Pilly Jam can Change Your Life
by Kerry Cue
In her inspirational article, Living with Purpose, NYT, Paula Span cited research that shows that our health benefits from contributing to and being connected with our community.
What better way to be connected than by contributing to a Fruit and Veg Swap.
The idea grew out of the Australia wide Share and Save initiative, which aims to reduce waste by allowing locals to share, borrow, swap or access food, clothes, plants and other useful items.
Fruit and Veg Swaps can now be found in suburbs around the country. Including the Semaphore Fruit and Veg Swap, SA (LEFT), and the Upwey Grassroots Market, Victoria (BELOW) markets have sprung up around Australia
According to the Henley Fruit and Veg Swap, SA (BELOW):
‘The swap is informal and simple, and works on one main principle: people give whatever surplus home-grown produce they don’t need and can freely give, and they take whatever they can definitely use.’
Participants swap produce, stories, recipes and gardening tips. You can find the recipe for Lilly-Pilly Jelly here and here. I didn’t even know you could eat Lilly-Pillies.
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It just sounds a lot more fun than picking over damaged fruit listening to PA price checks at the local supermarket.
PHOTO SOURCE: Semaphore fruit and veg swap BLOG, crdunn blog, Henley Fruit and Veg Swap blog and alittlebitofthyme blog.
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Last Child in the Woods
Last Child in the Woods:
Saving our children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Atlantic Books, 2005
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We are the generations, who roamed free. We rode our bikes unsupervised. Explored the neighbourhood. Played in the street. We poked around creeks, ditches, anthills and gum tree forests. We built tree houses and forts. Or, if we were city dwellers, we played on building sites, on vacant blocks and in playgrounds fitted with cold-steel swings and maypoles that could crack a head or take out a tooth.
Our grandchildren live indoors.
In Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv meticulously records the relocation of children out of nature and into lounge rooms where they are exposed to the ‘one-way experience of television and other electronic media’.
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‘For some young people nature is so abstract – the ozone layer, a faraway rainforest- that it exists beyond the senses.’
‘Neither children nor wild life have been of much concern to urban planners in recent decades … public spaces have become increasingly domesticated, flat, lawyered, and boring’. In Pennsylvania three brothers, aged eight, ten and twelve, were forced to tear down their tree house in the backyard because they didn’t have a building permit!
According to Louv, it is not just the loss of interaction with nature that is of concern, but also the total loss of sensory experiences. At a time when child obesity, ADHD and other disorders are rife, we deprive children of the ‘physical exercise and emotional stretching that children enjoy in unorganized play’.
‘The young don’t demand dramatic adventures or vacations in Africa. They need only a taste, a sight, a sound, a touch … to reconnect that receding world of the senses’.
Parents are often too busy to even think about nature. But we know what it is like to explore the neighbourhood. We can take our grandchildren into natural environments to pick up a rock, a stick or, simply, dig for earthworms in the garden. How Lilly Pilly Jam can save your life shows one way of involving grandchildren in both gardening and community activities.
There are many ways we can take them outdoors and show them the amazing reality beyond their digital screens.
PHOTO SOURCE: yesilist and playlsi websites
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You named your baby, what?
The grief of an empty nest
by Kerry Cue
In her article, The bittersweet silence of an empty nest, The Australian (9 JUN 2014), Kate Legge openly and honestly describes the feeling of loss she experienced when her children finally left home.
‘The upheaval I felt at this shift in family rhythms surprised me’ wrote Kate. A working mother she just assumed that the stay-at-home mothers would feel the wrench of a childless-home more than a busy journalist, who loves her work. This was not the case.
Kate, who explained in the article that she had negotiated menopause without much ‘psychological disruption’, was surprised at the grief she felt when her children left. There is no one instance of sadness. ‘The pangs simply come upon me. I know I’m not alone.’
So much quiet wisdom can be gleaned from Kate’s writing. Those of us who have been or still are working mothers, often assume that we can schedule our days, our emotions, our lives. This is not, of course, how emotions work. We want our children to grow up and become independent adults. Yet we feel the loss of the touch, the smell, the voice, the face, the laughter and the coat on the chair, the shoes in the hall and even the dirty plates in the sink belonging to an adult child. And we feel this loss at a deep mammalian level. We grieve. No amount of logic can counter this mammalian response. We grieve.
I think Kate puts this best:
‘The anguish that wraps its arms around me stems from accepting that a wonderful period of my life is over.’
We, THE SIBYLS, declare Kate Legge an Honorary Sibyl for her openness and willingness to share her inner feelings, thoughts and wisdom.
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Kate Legge is a Walkley award winning journalist who writes for The Austraian. She has published two novels. The Unexpected Elements Of Love and The Marriage Club.
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The Portrait of the Mother by the Artist
by Kerry Cue
Rembrandt’s Mother Reading (c. 1629) . Cornelia was 60 years old.
In her book, How to Age (The school of Life, 2014) Anne Karpf writes about the imagery of old age as a ‘hideous ruin’. Sociologist Mike Featherstone called such imagery ‘a pornography of old age’. And don’t we know it. We are surrounded by such images daily including the shriveled and stooped portrails of old geezers and crones in comics, birthday cards, cartoons, advertisements, horror movies, sitcoms, TV crime series and more. And don’t forget the witches in literature from Macbeth to the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It is the aim of Sibylesque to provide the postive balance to this negativity. You can find such imagery at The Sibyls Salute: Jennette Williams.
The artist, however, runs into a dilemma when painting their own mother. Should they be sympathetic or realistic? Even artists can portray their own elderly mothers as ‘hideous ruins’. This was especially cruel as often their mother sat for the portrait when the artist’s model failed to appear. The painting that made Whistler famous resulted when the model didn’t show. (Below). The end result, however, was sympathetic. I will not dwell on the cruel images except for this sketch one sketch by Durer. I feel he was being very harsh on his own mother.
Durer’s mother at 63 years of age. She had by this time experienced 18 pregnancies.
Durer was not always so unforgiving in his portrayals of his mother. Here is an earlier oil painting by Durer of his mother. As one friend pointed out, Durer’s mother has a look on her face that suggests she’s thinking ‘Go on. Get on with it.’
Durer’s Portrait of His mother,1490. Barbara was 39 years old.
Aging is often portrayed in modern media as some kind of failure. This is the price paid for living in a youth culture, I guess. Old age, however, can be presented with love and empathy and the result is an image, as Karpf notes, of dignity and beauty. Here are the portraits of artist’s mothers with their ages included:
Paul Cezanne The Artist’s Mother c. 1866. Anne was 52 years old.
Whistler’s Mother, 1871. Painted when she was 67 years old.
This painting by Whistler was a tribute to his mother. Here is a photograph of Anna Matilda Whistler.
Anna Matilda Whistler, 1850. She was 50 years old.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portrait of his mother, Countess Adele Zoe de Toulouse Lautrec, 1883. She was 42 years old.
Van Gogh Portrait of the mother of the artist, 1888. Anna was 69 years old.
Picasso’s mother,1896. Maria was 41 years old.
Juan Gris, mother, 1912. At least Picasso painted his mother before Cubism etc.
Lucian Freud, The Painters Mother,1983 . Lucie was 77 years old.
Photo source: If it’s hip, it’s here blog.
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