Ask the Priestess

Sisterhood. Sorority. The union of women. I grew up in a female environment: my mum, my grandma, my sisters. Even the cats were female. For the earliest period of my life, I attended a nun-run, female-only school. I even define as a witch, a traditionally female role. I may not have intended it, but I certainly learned the value of female inter-support. Many people talk about the strength that a sense of brotherhood grants its group; army life, for example, is highly dependent on the feelings fraternity brings to the battlefield. Similarly, one finds it creeping through as a sign of sturdy reliability on each other for organisations such as the Masons, gangs, or even college houses. On the other hand, female relationships are often observed with a certain level of mistrust, women considered more prone to backstabbing and 'catfighting' over minor issues. As such, their unions and clubs, their societies, receiving less praise, are kept in a greatly shaded area. I'm here...

There is a song by Spanish group Amaral , whose lyrics go something like 'without you, I am nothing / a drop of water wetting my face / my world is small and my heart is shards of ice'. I liked the music, thus I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics until Maite , a friend, called this a song by 'Amar mal' (to love badly, unwisely). It has been years since that quip, yet it still keeps me alert to my own conditioning. I am hardly the first person, let alone the most qualified, to point out how very unhealthy most 'romantic love stories' and 'romantic gestures' truly are. And no, I do not blame cinema or pulp fiction, since they are simply providing that which the consumer will buy. Love is another one of those marvelous elements of life, like food, dance, parenthood, even alcohol or adrenaline (to name but a few) that make us, humans, reach the highest peaks of joy and excitement for our mere existence. Love, like all of the others, has been basta...

This 12th October, 2016 is a fabulous parallel to the conflicts I find within my identity. On the one hand, today is  Yom Kippur - Day of Atonement. Observant Jews, and many secular ones as well, have been fasting since yesterday afternoon. It is 26 hours of no food, drink (even water), smoking, driving, fun... It is the time to reconsider the last year, become aware of one's mistakes and wherever we may have injured others; a time of honest soul-searching whilst hoping that God will consider us worthy of being in the book of life for another year. Here, in Israel, the country is at a standstill - there are no cars on the roads, no radio or television broadcasts, no open businesses, no music, no groups of people sharing a fag. Not only are many people fasting, but the whole nation is remembering also the beginning of the Yom Kippur War , a conflict that was both psychologically and politically decisive for the country and the world at large. In Spain, where I was born and ra...

I have a problem with praise. OK; not a problem per se , more like a disfunctional relationship with it. On the one hand, I love praising people, then observing how it empowers them. When people are praised, they realise their own wonderful characteristics, that others are aware of their efforts and achievements, and that they can go further than they thought. Praise tells them that, even though it may have been hard to reach that certain level, by having achieved they have broken their own ceiling. And if the ceiling is broken, why not push themselves just that bit further, higher, closer to their aspirations? Praise, when devoid of motive other than being the truth, is a wonderful gift, notwithstanding the relative scope of the achievement. Have you ever seen the glow on a child's face when you show your pride at their being able to spoon food into their own mouths? Or at their creativity for having drawn a rainbow with 27 different shades of 3 colours? An...