Festa: Stories From the Amazonian Land (Story 1) On November 3, clad in my festal red socks and a red top and sweater to go with them, I set forth to visit the Amazonian Land of Sisterhood and celebrate Festa, an ongoing Lesbian-centered event for all seasons. ---------------------------------------- 1. Initiatory journey through the Tunnel ---------------------------------------- Setting foot excitedly on North Della Street, I prepared for my initiatory journey through the Harriet Tubman Combahee River Tunnel, named in honor of a true First Wave African American intersectional feminist who escaped slavery and then won fame as the female Moses leading many of her sisters and brothers to freedom. One of her celebrated exploits is the Combahee River raid of 1863 in South Carolina to liberate slaves during the Civil War. During the 1970's, the Combahee River Collective of Black feminists in Boston, a group convening in the spirit of Harriet Tubman and this memorable episode of emancipation, addressed the needs of African American women and the feminist movement at large, as summarized in its famous Statement of 1977, one of the most important documents of the Second Wave. The tradition of Festa invites each sister walking through the tunnel to focus on some need at hand: be it her own, or the need of some other sister or community. The idea of a "primary need at hand" may mean an urgent crisis, like the need of the slaves to get across the Combahee River and find their freedom, or what Andrea Dworkin calls a "primary emergency"; or it can be some less immediate yearning or aspiration. Generally, it is, as bell hooks says, "what is most important at a given point in time." For me, what seemed important as I walked through the Harriet Tubman Combahee River Tunnel was to focus on sending some woo to the Kendall Clawson Library at the Q Center in Portland, Oregon. The Library is named for Kendall Clawson, an African American and Lesbian activist who served as Executive Director of the Q Center, and now serves the Governor of Oregon as Deputy Chief of Staff for Community Engagement. Then, after emerging from the tunnel, I had a short walk to the crossing which connects Della Street North with Della Street central, near the bus stop of California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), a crossing known to festies as the Intersection of Intersectionality. ----------------------------------------- 2. Of festal attire, and the Amazon Woods ----------------------------------------- For this visit to the Amazonian Land I was happily attired in my new festal red socks, along with the red top and sweater I mentioned above. While the socks are a special trademark of supporting the intention of Festa to include and embrace all womyn as sisters, a general philosophy is: "The more red items, the merrier." Getting really enthusiastic about sporting lots of red is called "intentioneering," maybe by analogy with "electioneering" (and my visit was, after all, the day before the November 4 election). Curiously, as I walked near the CSUS bus stop before heading for the nearby Amazon Woods, I noticed that my festal socks weren't so easily visible when I stood still, because of my maxiskirt -- but when I got back in motion, they were visible to me for part of each stride. However, my red sweater provided greater visibility. After walking a few yards more, I was in the midst of the Amazon woods, sometimes described as "a beckoning open-air bower of refined and enthusiastically consensual Lesbian BDSM." While one of the objects of Festa is to help this reputation spread, there are some interesting constraints imposed by the fact the Woods are in plain sight on a college campus. Above all, it promotes artistic creativity, given the implicit assumption of clothing-more-than-optional. Here Lesbian BDSM is understood to mean some mixture of courtly love and sisterhood; nonviolent sociodramas of the kind used by peace groups preparing for some action; and positive dog training. Above all, whatever goes on should be reasonably congenial to the assorted students, faculty, staff, non-festie visitors, and friendly campus police officers who might happen upon the scene. In an area on the south side of the Amazon Woods, there's Hadewijch Plaza, with a sculpture marking the place -- named in festal lore after Hadewijch of Brabant, a 13th-century mystic. Almost 30 years ago, when I learned of her in an anthology of medieval European womyn's writings, these words made a lasting impression: "In the school of highest love, burning passion is taught." Those are the words of a spiritual Amazon. ------------------------------------------------------ 3. Walking Umm Kulthum Way and Raymonda Hawa Tawil Way ------------------------------------------------------ After walking the rest of Della Street central, and a part of Della Street South, I came to Umm Kulthum way near the Hypatia Library, as it is known in festal lore, named for the great philosopher and mathematician who was lynched for her learning by a patriarchal mob in 415 CE. Umm Kulthum Way is named for the world-famed Egyptian singer of the 20th century who could grace any musical Fest, and whose intonational subtleties at once free the spirit and caution against the mechanical globalization of "standard" European tunings. "Wherever you are, if you are listening to Umm Kulthum and are caught up in the dance of her melody, then you are attending Festa." Umm Kulthum Way connects, through an intersection where it is good for pedestrians (including festies) to be mindful of traffic, with Raymonda Hawa Tawil Way, named after the Palestinian Arab and feminist author of the classic _My Home, My Prison_. Tawil tells in her book how she was subject both to house arrest by Israeli authorities, and to the prison of patriarchy and militarism as they oppress Palestinian Arab and Israeli Jewish society. Journeying on Raymonda Hawa Tawil Way gave me occasion to reflect on Festa's "desire that the daughters of Sarah and Hagar may live at peace in the same house." As Festa policy explains: "This desire for an inclusive Middle East fits with the main intention of Festa for inclusive blood sisterhood, although this desire is not the main focus of Festival, nor will all womyn have the same view. Some Palestinian Arab, Jewish, and other sisters have a strong binationalist orientation, for example, while others feel that only a larger regional solution can fully address the situation. Womyn are, of course, free to interpret this desire or respond to it in different ways. May the spirit of sisterly nonviolence and justice prevail." In a bit of a hurry to accomplish a rather mundane errand, I passed without a great deal of reflection through the southwestern portal from the Amazonian Land to the more everyday portion of "Area 51," the Kimberle/ Crenshaw Tunnel, of which more in a moment. I should explain that "Area 51" is the name for a secret portion of a military base actually located in Nevada in the U.S.A., but popularly associated with the region of Roswell, New Mexico, as a rumored haven for space aliens. In Festa lore, it is the second association that is the relevant one, taken to mean a peaceful and multiversal communion of sisterhood. As the saying goes, "Walking the Amazonian Land should be a walk through the cosmos, making Festa the quintessential Area 51." After my errand, I got a lesson in what all this might mean. --------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Intersectional journey through the Kimberle/ Crenshaw Tunnel --------------------------------------------------------------- Returning to the Land by way of Elvas Avenue, I reached the Kimberle/ Crenshaw Tunnel, named after the African American feminist who elegantly formulated the concept of intersectionality itself: for example, the special aspects of oppression confronting sisters who are both African American and female. Her concept can be applied to many varieties and dimensions of oppression, but should always be associated with, rather than separated from, the issues of racism and colonialism or neocolonialism that confront womyn of color around the world. Taking the Tunnel more thoughtfully and contemplatively this time, I focused on the geometric patterns that adorn the pavement -- could each represent some kind of oppression a sister might face in past, present, or future -- or maybe a new structure of liberation that might grow out of overcoming each oppression? Thinking back 200,000 years to the theory of a mitochondrial "Eve" in Africa as the mother of all modern humans, I reflected on the patterns passing underneath my feet, and an experience hinting at mysterious evolutionary divergences out of Jean Auel's _Clan of the Cave Bear_. It was a journey to places yet unrealized, and a reminder that wearing red and supporting the intention means a determination to fight against racism, a challenge that those of us with white privilege have often overlooked. Then came the walk through the Amazonian Land, more or less from south to north, ultimately taking me from my "home away from home" back to my own everyday retreat on the third floor of a nearby apartment building. Fall can be a very pleasant season of Festa because it's between the intense heat of summer and the colder and sometimes rainier weather of winter -- however mild that remains by lots of other standards! My autumn visit to the Amazonian Land brought its lesson that to travel through the Land in order to get somewhere else is human; but to walk it in sisterly awareness and solidarity can be transcendent. Margo Schulter 9 November 2014