Hunters and Gatherers by Francine Prose Read Free Book Online Page B

thinking and exchange her niggling trivial doubts for the bliss of total submission, for the blessed certainty and trust in some higher consciousness large enough to do her worrying for her?
    What bliss it would be to surrender your griefs, your passions, and your will, to trade them in like an old car for confidence and calm, to become like the Goddess women and float on a cloud of faith that a broken answering machine was a message from your guardian angel sent to teach you heavenly patience and spare you annoying calls that might otherwise ruin your day!
    For weeks after Dennis left, Martha called home from work every hour to see if he had phoned, though this made no sense at all; he could have called her at Mode . The computer male voice said, “No messages,” with what began to sound like triumph. Holding the receiver, Martha had sat very still as prickly shudders of disappointment coursed from her scalp down to her toes…
    “Okay, forget it,” Isis said. “Let’s lose the moment of silence. The best thing about priestess ritual,” she informed Martha and Hegwitha, “is, if it doesn’t work, bag it. There’s no rule book, no expectations, and we’re writing our own sacred text every minute of our lives.”
    The women laughed, gravelly caws of relief, and once more Martha was pleasantly surprised to find that her personal insufficiency was, in fact, a collective event.
    Isis said, “I’d like to start by welcoming you on this Harvest Night, which by Goddess’s grace falls on Labor Day weekend, so we can honor the harvest and our grandmothers who fought for the labor unions. And every woman who has ever been in labor birthing a child—which, the sisters tell me, isn’t called labor for nothing.”
    “You can say that again,” Titania agreed.
    “Blessed be,” chorused the women.
    “Goddess,” said Isis, “tonight you have sent us two new priestesses.” The women smiled at Martha and Hegwitha, genuinely welcoming, though welcome came more easily to some of them than others. It was a stretch for Freya and teary-eyed Diana, but all except Sonoma were trying, and Martha felt grateful and moved. How little it took to make one feel fractionally less unhappy!
    “This is not a sorority,” Isis went on, “with a torture initiation. No one swallows goldfish or gets naked and streaks town. Nor is it a convent; nobody shaves her head. Nor Esalen, where gangs of balding, paunchy New Age guys think initiation is getting to grope our tits. This is a priestess circle empowered by the feminine, by kindness and awareness of others’ feelings.”
    True, Martha thought, women hadn’t invented goldfish-swallowing or war. But women had other cruel rituals and barbed weapons at their disposal. Look at little girls in the schoolyard! And just last week, on the bus, she’d heard a woman telling her friend, “That gray hair looks good on you. I mean it, you look younger. We were all wondering when you would stop dyeing it that toxic dog-doo brown.”
    “Women,” said Isis, “are like the child in ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes.’ We see the truth and say it, no matter what the cost. One of the things we know is, any initiation is torture. The double horror of being new—and being put on the spot!
    “So let’s just go around the circle and say our names. I’m Isis Moonwagon.” The women laughed—they knew that!
    Isis. Joy. Diana. Starling. Titania. Freya. Sonoma. Bernie. The women introduced themselves, some with shy, retiring smiles, others aggressive or brazen. Luckily Martha knew their names, because she could hardly hear them through the fog of anxiety generated by the prospect of having to say her own.
    Hegwitha said, “My name is Randi, but my Goddess name is Hegwitha.”
    Under the murmurs that greeted this, Martha mumbled, “I’m Martha.”
    “Beautiful,” said Isis. “May the Goddess protect us all. Let’s start tonight with the Talking Stick…” Several women applauded. Joy whistled through