Jo Wharton: My spiritual mentor, my saving grace
Jo, left, and me, with Be Hudson.
For weeks, I spilled my story. Sexual abuse and violence from multiple male family members whose warped view of their religion justified their attacks. A mother who helped it happen. A father too absent to notice. A childhood at times shot through with terror, a body so frozen in fear that PTSD lived in me for decades. All of it suppressed so I could make it through another day, until one fateful Winter Solstice when it burst out.
Bioenergetic therapist Gay Mallon took it all in. “You sound like you’re still afraid. You’re not a little girl anymore. You’re a grown woman. They’re afraid of you.” I woke up the following day covered in blood. Freed of fear, I ovulated for the first time and had a menstrual period. I became a woman at age 36.
Gay scribbled a number down on a piece of paper. “This is Jo Wharton. You need to understand what it means to be a woman. She can help you. Go find your power.”
So began my relationship with Jo. I attended her Woman Circles and soaked it all up. I learned of matriarchal societies of old where women were respected, religions where women embodied the divine, and legends where women led the way. I learned to walk their path, feel my strength, know my power, and not be afraid anymore.
Jo taught me ceremony and ritual, how to chant from my very soul, to dance in a circle and bring forth the energy of Mother Earth into my being and out to the world. She introduced me to myths and archetypes, the eternal stories and images that shaped us as humans. She taught me to fight for myself and never submit to anyone who thought they could control me.
I became a kick-ass goddess woman. Just like Jo.
But Jo also taught me tenderness. At a Mother Maiden Crone retreat, I shared my story as women around me wept. One of them remarked, “You’re so strong.” Jo said, “You don’t have to be strong anymore. You have us.” I dissolved into tears as a dozen women swarmed around me. For the first time, my heart opened wide. And I was whole.
Where Jo went, I followed. International peace conferences with women worldwide. Origami peace crane installations. Lectures by powerful women. My office is full of goddesses from her Rose Window shop. When she wanted a website on her peace cranes, I convinced my sweet husband to make one.
I felt her deep pride as I stepped into her ceremonial shoes and staged seasonal events, starting with the Winter SolstiCelebration, so that others might experience the redemptiion and rebirth of darkness that women embody with their wombs. She connected me to powerful women who launched me on a pilgrimage of the dark divine feminine of North America, from the central valley of Mexico to the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Jo lives on through me, through all of us lucky enough to have time in her presence. She lives through the women who hold elected office because they knew she had their backs. She lives through the tireless workers for peace and humanity whom she exhorted to believe. She radiates into the ages through women who raised daughters to be like Jo.
The world is a better place because Jo was in it. Let us continue her wisdom and spirit, her good humor and love of cursing, and her belief in all of us. Blessed be.
