1. Mary Daly 1928-2010

2. Mary Daly and Radical Feminism As long as God is male, the male is God = sees religious authority excluding women and exalting men Reclaims and reinterprets words like “crone,” “witch,” and “lust” Recenters women, decenters men Controversial life, career and writings

3. Mary Daly and Radical Feminism Cosmological critique of patriarchy centers on how the sacred has been reified, and how death has been prized over life. She theorizes that Goddess is a Verb, Be-ing, a process that is bio-philic (life-loving). She sees resistance to patriarchy in border dwelling –Don’t let oppression define you

4. Mary Daly and Radical Feminism Her analysis of women’s oppression in religion maintains that women should not remain in, or try to reform, existing religions She thinks that ontological and cosmological questions – explicitly evaluative ones – should be raised to counter the existing necrophilia

5. Patriarchy can imagine nothingness The ontological question, the question of being-itself, arises in something like a "metaphysical shock"—the shock of possible nonbeing. This shock often has been expressed in the question, “Why is there something; why not nothing?” – Tillich’s restatement of Heidegger’s question, quoted in Pure Lust

6. Daly says, to imagine nothingness is to not recognize Be-ing when reading the question "Why is there something; why not nothing?" a Won­derlusty woman might imagine that the question thus posed cor­responds to her own ontological experience, to her Lust for Be-­ ing. She might imagine that the ontological question thus posed expresses an attitude identical with her own Wonder and gratitude that things are.

7. Daly says, to imagine nothingness is to not recognize Be-ing Caught up in this Wonder, she might fail to notice anything suspect about the second half of Tillich's question: "why not nothing?" Musing women would do well to ask ourSelves whether this question would arise spontaneously in biophilic con­ sciousness.

8. Daly says, to imagine nothingness is to not recognize Be-ing Thought that starts with the noun, being, cannot go behind it—cannot transform/transfer itself into Realms of Metabeing. Such thought is stuck, fixated, fixed and thus does not actively participate in Powers of Be-ing. It is terrified of these Powers.” From Daly’s Pure Lust

9. Negative and Positive Shocks So while I do not pray for anybody or any party to commit outrages, still I do pray, and that earnestly and constantly, for some terrific shock to startle the women of this nation into a self-respect which will compel them to see the abject degradation of their present position... Susan B. Anthony, quoted in Amazon Grace

10. Mystical Gratitude for Be-ing The Terrific Shock of encountering and Realizing Be-ing is utterly unlike the foreground shocks which keep us imprisoned and circling the masters' mazes. The Shock of meeting Be-ing is simple and direct. It is absolutely surprising and joyous. It is Self- transformative and changes Everything. It is unforgettable. It opens pathways that go on and on. It makes one Realize how Lucky she is. The Prayer that comes to mind is "Thank you! Thank you!"

11. Participation in Be-ing “All Wild creatures and Other realities participate in Be-ing, by which I mean "Ultimate/Intimate Reality, the constantly Unfolding Verb of Verbs which is intransitive, having no object that limits its dynamism.”

12. Creativity and Ontology "the woman who has met the ontologically articulate clover blossom (or pebble or blade of grass or tree or piece of ice in the snow) gradually is enabled also to meet the foreground shocks in a different way. Having encountered Background Reality that is everywhere in nature, Be-Speaking in the Chorus of Be-ing, she becomes more Adventurous. She is surrounded by Natural Friends, as she follows her own apath. She is a creator. When it is necessary she confronts the evil foreground world, taking on the attackers and oppressors of women and nature with confidence and Daring.”