Tori Amos: Piece by Piece by Tori Amos, Ann Powers Read Free Book Online Page B

Ereshkigal—passing through the seven gates of the underworld and then being hung on a hook, rotting—where she had to look at her sister, and her sister had to look at her. Both needed each other to see inside themselves, to see inside their own shadows. To come to terms with who they really were, not who they thought they were. And again, the Great Mother was learning to relate to other pieces of the Feminine.
    Many years after I faced down my grandmother as a child, the mythic astrologer Wendy Ashley told me that my chart contains a crazy number of planets in the house of religion. I mean, it's just there. It's part of who I am. I am a daughter of the Church. From very early on, I've seen howChristians can manipulate people by manipulating Jesus’ message, but I've also known loving people within the Church who walk the path of compassion. Either way, I can't fully get away from Christianity's influence, and I don't want to get away from certain aspects—the message to love your neighbor as yourself, the idea of resurrection—those aspects of Jesus’ message. Many people believe in those principles though they are not practicing Christians. The truth is, I believe that if Jesus were alive today he would not be a member of a Christian church, because hypocrisy is at the center of many a church's crossroad.
    ANN:
The oppositional elements among Amos's immediate forebears found a resolution in the marriage of her father and mother. The partnership flourished, though it had its costs. Amos grew up witnessing the dreams of her parents collide and transform, and she found both inspiration and much to challenge in their loving example.
CONVERSATION BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:
     
    My father was going to be the next Billy Graham. That was his inspiration, his calling. When I was a child, he was grooming himself for that. He was pastor at a really big church in Baltimore; I think at one time there were 2,500 members. He had his aspirations. But I'll tell you this, when somebody was on their deathbed, or a family had lost someone— and this could happen once a week in a big church—he always paid serious attention, whoever it was.
    He says ministers and priests are the last ports of call. Doctors can explain what happened clinically, and say, “We're very sorry.” But at that point the families are saying, “Where are the guys with the dog collars [our church slang for clerical collars]?” The family is standing there saying, “They've just sewn our daughter up and, you know, she's twentythreeyears old, she has breast cancer, and it's taken over her body and we're going to lose our baby.” Or, “She was in a car crash and is gone now, though she was perfectly fine an hour earlier.” These people are looking death squarely in the face. And my father will sit there with them. In that hour, in that time of need, I've seen him show up time and time again. In our own family he couldn't always show up, even for a dinner conversation. But he fully understood his responsibilities in those moments of grief.
    Sometimes all you can do is just sit and hold a space. It's the hardest space you'll ever hold. You pour the tea, you bring the food, you don't have to make silly talk. They'll talk or not talk. I watched him do that and began to see that there's a rhythm to it. And it's one that I have to find in performance, when people are bringing their grief to me in a similar way.
    What I find really intriguing about my dad is that certain aspects of his character that he doesn't think are of value are his true gold. And I believe every person has their gold. It gets tricky when people put so much value on their gifts because it makes it hard for some of us, mainly because they don't give us much of a chance to value their gifts. Other people think their gold is something other than what it really is, so they keep their gift in the background. That was his reality.
    In 1963 my father marched with Martin Luther King Jr., in the big March on