Tori Amos: Piece by Piece (9 page)

TORI:

“Jesus was a feminist, dear.”

At nineteen years old I look up at my mom and with exasperation say “Ma, I've got no problem with Jesus, okay? Always dug the guy—still do. Do you really think the Magdalene would have entertained the idea of them as an item if he weren't for women's rights and equality in the workplace?”

“Yes, dear, I understand all that, dear, but you do seem to be carrying a lot of aggression concerning the Church.”

“Damn right I am, Mom.”

“Please, let's not use
damn
, dear.”

“Okay, Ma. Darn tooting I am. But I am harboring a lot of fucking rage over those Passive-Aggressive Manipulators of Authority that constitute The Patriarchy.”

“That's better, dear. Articulate the breaking of the dam, the breaking of the emotional chains that have bound women for centuries—from your young feminist perspective. Use your music to tackle the infirmities of the patriarchal structure, which at its foundation has a cancerous moral flaw.”

“Huh … ? Ma, are you all right?”

“Am I all right? Oh, darlin’, I haven't felt so alive in years. Thank heaven your generation is rising to the call.”

For a moment it seemed as if my mom were singing “Sister Suffragette,” from the movie
Mary Poppins.
She was on a roll.

“In my own daughter, in other mothers’ daughters across the land, there will be a thirst for knowledge. Yes, that is the way we will rattle the foundation of The Patriarchy's segregation. Their segregation of heart
from mind, of actions from consequences, of man from woman, of power from imagination, and of passion from compassion.”

“Jeez, Ma. I didn't know. I had no idea you still had it in you.”

And she looked away. When she turned back she took my hand and whispered, “We all have it in us, but those voices can get lost and buried. Those thoughts you just heard have only been sleeping in me. And they sleep in everybody, dear. Don't let anyone tell you that these thoughts are dead. But they have been in a deep sleep. Your passion for the Magdalene is electric. So I don't want to discourage you when I say, a majority of the people in America are just not quite ready to open up to Mary Magdalene the way you have. But be vigilant.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Be vigilant. Be vigilant against dangers. Be vigilant against the Magdalene's villains, against her vicious betrayers. And, dear, in most cases … they won't even know who she is or what she is. Some will, but many won't.”

Why is my mind remembering this moment in time all those years ago? Like a film playing in my head as I sit here—sit here waiting. In the conference room at Doubleday Jeez. It's easier to get into the Oval Office than to get into the military compound known as Doubleday Books. So here in the Broadway Division I sit, remembering my mother's monologue as Johnny and Chelsea do business in another room. Funny. I look up. I'm surrounded by point-of-purchase posters for
The Da Vinci Code.
Ah yes,
The Da Vinci Code.
The book, whether you like it or not, that struck a chord with the masses, whereby the public began to look up to the Magdalene, to open up to the Magdalene as a Being, not just as a demeaned prostitute. And yet, what is a prostitute? I know many businessmen prostitutes. What is a sacred prostitute? Do I know any? Could you be one? Could I be one? My mind wanders as I sit here …

ANN:
Rock and roll is an erotic art. That's a central truth perennially revealed, riding into the public consciousness on Elvis Presley's hips, Robert Plant's androgyne scream, even, though slightly degraded, Britney's stripper sneer. No one accepts, celebrates, and explores this given more keenly than Tori Amos, veteran traveler in the delicate areas where imagination meets the flesh From her first days as a singer-songwriter, she has stood, eyes and voice open, before subjects around which other stars pole-dance. Speaking honestly of rape in “Me and a Gun,” sexual dissatisfaction in “Leather,” or masturbation in “Icicle,” Amos undertook the feminist task of speaking women's truth to patriarchal power. Later, her investigations became both more personal and more enigmatic. Blunt lines edging toward obscenity shoot through songs like “In the Springtime of His Voodoo” and “She's Your Cocaine;” more mature statements like “Lust” and “Crazy” gain both tenderness and richness from an underlying heat. Like desire itself, deeply and often bafflingly individual, Amos's songs communicate a palpable rush through unexpected words and music.

The voluptuous lexicon revealed in Amos's songs finds a counterpart in a performance style based in bodily yearning and release. The joy of sex moves through Amos when she sits and moves at her Bösendorfer, as does its agony. Yet too many observers have reduced her onstage behavior to an undignified phrase, “humping the piano,” just as too many have read her lyrics as just a lover's diary. The truth is deeper. Amos is indeed playing a game with Eros when she gyrates aboard her instrument, but to comprehend it one must go beyond biography and the pleasures of the moment to grasp a very old story.

She states it outright: “I serve the Magdalene.” Now that Jesus’ mythical (and likely historical) consort is the stuff of a best-selling thriller, it may seem as if Amos is simply seeking the hottest spiritual avatar when she declares this loyalty. In fact, her life's work is grounded in the pursuit of reconciliation between this maligned priestess of sexual healing and her virtuous counterpart, the mother Mary, otherwise known to Amos as culture and Earth itself.

As with so much that informs her art, Amos first heard the Magdalene legend in church. But she's followed it much further, to the very base of her artistic self—the musician as a channel for a spirit as impious as it is blessed.

“For good or ill,” my father would sermonize to me, “you are a daughter of the Christian Church.” And you know what? That's probably the most accurate statement my father has made in respect to who I am as his daughter and my relationship with the Christian Church. I'm remembering the different bishops of the Methodist church, sitting around my mom's Sunday dinner and expounding on Jesus. Similar to Paul, known as St. Paul, these bishops were preaching their own theology, in Jesus’ name. They, with their theological degrees, there with my father—who subsequently was to receive his doctorate from Boston University. Yes, we had quite a group discussing the Gospels around the dinner table. Were they preaching Jesus’ message of gender equality? No. But probably the most glaring omission, to me, was when they would refer to Jesus as the Bridegroom.

So, stay with me here a second. Be with me at that Sunday dinner way back when, and hear the reasonings I was given. “We think of Jesus as the Shepherd, and we are the sheep.” “We think of Jesus as the Vine, and we are the branches.” And everybody—drumroll, please. Now, I was about eight in 1970, as this last statement was said by a bishop—not a bad guy mind you: a very, very kind man. But being kind doesn't mean that you have any idea what you're spewing. So then he announced the final “truth” in his trilogy: “And last, we think of Jesus as the Bridegroom and the Christian Church as his Bride.” Choke, cough, cough, choke. There went my candied sweet potatoes, regurgitated with the sour.

“Excuse me, sir.” Through sips of water and a driving force within, I
found my voice and looked at this very religious man and said, “Excuse me, but who did you say Jesus married?” And the bishop looked somewhat bewilderedly at my father, and my father jumped into the conversation and answered … I must say not so much as
patronizingly
, but with that glazed “I know my Jesus personally” kind of look. He answered, “We see Jesus as the Bridegroom married to the Church,” both he and the bishop shaking their heads together in reverence. Oh, jeez. I said, “But who was Jesus’ Bride?” And my father answered, “We believe the Christian Church is his Bride.” “Well, what about Mary Magdalene?” The church leader looked a little uncomfortable, and I knew I was pushing it—but I couldn't stop. He and my father went into some speech about Mary Magdalene being a sinful woman, a woman of ill repute that got saved and blessed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then she faded into the background as if she were just one of Jesus’ many followers.

What they were saying kind of reminded me of a picture I had seen of young women fainting over male rock stars. And, freeze frame. Take that picture. In that moment, I realized that my Mary had been minimalized by The Patriarchy. I realized that I knew that she truly was the Lost Bride. They were working just way too hard to convince me otherwise. This is before Margaret Starbird's book on the lost legacy of Mary Magdalene and before she published
The Goddess in the Gospels.
This is before Elaine Pagels's revelatory translation of biblical texts, texts that were discovered in the twentieth century and unveil much about the Magdalene. This is before Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy's
Jesus and the Lost Goddess: The Secret Teachings of the Original Christians.
This is before Laurence Gardner's involved research exposing the suppression of ancient concepts in books such as
Bloodline of the Holy Grail: The Hidden Lineage of Jesus.
And the list goes on.

Whatever I realized on that brutal Sunday back in 1970, I also realized
that I was in a small minority that believed that the Magdalene was a sacred and important piece to the emancipation of Christian women. I had been born a feminist, but that day I knew I had to take the next leap. I know now that my avatar all along has been closer to Lisa Simpson than anyone else. Once I understood that, I had to make a huge leap as I had the taste in my mouth of regurgitated, soured candied sweet potatoes. I understood that the Magdalene was very much still in exile—even as women were burning their bras from coast to coast, I burned an idea into my head …

What is the sacred prostitute? What is the sensual spirit? The women's mysteries are ancient and precede the Magdalene by many years. She was someone who walked the walk and integrated her teachings into her Being. Once there were schools for these teachings at which young girls would become apprentices, then initiates, and train, eventually becoming what we would call today medicine women. The information they were gathering was suppressed to the point at which the teachings had almost to be passed down encoded, or those women would be tortured and murdered in many circles. Even during the time of the Magdalene there were disciples who appeared to be against her, the Feminine, and her beliefs. I don't only serve the Magdalene. I serve an idea. The idea of the resurrected Feminine. In different cultures it will carry with it different names. The Secret Book of John, which was also discovered in Nag Hammadi, discusses hidden mysteries in the Christian myth. In the Christian myth the resurrected Feminine is called Sophia for Wisdom, and the Feminine counterpart to Sophia is called Achamoth for Consciousness. The way I understand it, many of Jesus’ core teachings, which were uncovered in many of the scriptures found at Nag Hammadi, are really about reuniting the aspects of the Feminine—Wisdom and Consciousness, Sophia and Achamoth—together at the “Cross of Light.”

In traditional Christianity the false split gave us two characters: the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene. Of course, within the psyche they must be joined, not polarized for a Christian woman to feel whole. The Virgin Mary has been stripped of her sexuality but has retained her spirituality; the Magdalene has been stripped of her spirituality but has retained her sexuality. Each must have her wholeness. I call this “marrying the two Marys.”

There are so many people who come to my shows with this division in them. It seems that you can't be thought of as a Divine Mother type and have the respect of those around you if you're also the sacred prostitute. We divide and conquer on the deepest of levels, by cutting off our own spiritual Being from our own physical Being. Talk about painful. I lived it myself at one point. To have sex, I had to take on a character, because I couldn't be the me that I know and look at in the mirror and express all the different things I wanted to. Basically I didn't know how to
“do
what I just did under the covers” and then turn around and pick up my glasses and books and go to the library as the same person. I am both of those creatures; they are one person; but it was proving difficult to gather all those pieces and have them live together as one integrated Being. And, of course, I see it in the world all the time—the men go to the mistress and then to the wife. And the wife gets resentful because she is not allowed to experience or express that overtly sexual side of herself, and then the mistress gets vindictive because she doesn't get Christmas or Easter.