Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker [65]
A portion of the royalties from this book will be used to educate women and girls, men and boys, about the hazardous effects of genital mutilation, not simply on the health and happiness of individuals, but on the whole society in which it is practiced, and the world.
Mbele Aché.
Alice Walker
Costa Careyes, Mexico
Mendocino County, California
January-December, 1991
THANKS
DESPITE THE PAIN one feels in honestly encountering the reality of life, I find it a wonderful time to be alive. This is because at no other time known to human beings has it been easier to give and receive energy, support and love from people never met, experiences never had.
I thank all the writers—Esther Ogunmodede, Nawal El Sadawi, Fran Hosken, Lila Said, Robin Morgan, Awa Thiam, Gloria Steinem, Fatima Abdul Mahmoud and many others around the world—for their work on the subject of genital mutilation.
I thank Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor for the inspiration and confirmation I get from their magnificent book, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. I also thank Monica Sjoo for the beauty and psychic resonance of her visionary paintings.
I thank Carl Jung for becoming so real in my own self-therapy (by reading) that I could imagine him as alive and active in Tashi’s treatment. My gift to him.
I thank my own therapist, Jane R. C., for helping me loosen some of my own knots and therefore become better able to distinguish and tackle Tashi’s.
I thank Huichol culture for the amazing yarn paintings I have admired over the past several years: paintings which flew me over the pit of so much that is static and dead in the prevailing civilization.
I thank psychologist Alice Miller for writing so strongly in defense of the child. I am especially grateful for The Drama of the Gifted Child, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware, and For Your Own Good.
I thank Louis Pascal for his unpublished essay “How AIDS Began,” which introduced me to the possibility that AIDS was started by the dissemination, among Africans, of contaminated polio vaccine.
I thank the makers of the video Born in Africa for introducing me to the beautiful life and courageous death of Philly LuTaaya, a Ugandan musician who used his dying from AIDS to warn, educate, enlighten, inspire and love his people. This video reassured me that human compassion is equal to human cruelty and that it is up to each of us to tip the balance.
I thank Joan Miura and Mary Walsh for representing the Goddess in my household: for doing research, patching leaks, keeping the refrigerator stocked and shutting out the noise. For holding my hand as I reached for Tashi’s.
I thank Robert Allen for his friendship.
I thank Jean Weisinger for her Being.
I thank my daughter Rebecca for giving me the opportunity to be a mother.
A Biography of Alice Walker
Alice Walker (b. 1944), one of the United States’ preeminent writers, is an award-winning author of novels, stories, essays, and poetry. Walker was the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, which she won in 1983 for her novel The Color Purple, also a National Book Award winner. Walker has also contributed to American culture as an activist, teacher, and public intellectual. In both her writing and her public life, Walker has worked to address problems of injustice, inequality, and poverty.
Walker was born at home in Putnam County, Georgia, on February 9, 1944, the eighth child of Willie Lee Walker and Minnie Tallulah Grant Walker. Willie Lee and Minnie Lou labored as tenant farmers, and Minnie Lou supplemented the family income as a house cleaner. Though poor, Walker’s parents raised her to appreciate art, nature, and beauty. They also taught