This is the opening speech I shared at Wasaga Women's Retreat as their theme speaker, in 2016. This contains my life story before I moved to Canada in 2007: "From being a smiling angel to the struggle to be the Sun again."
Friday night 8:30 pm – 10:00 pm To be the Sun Again
Has anyone here ever been in a Sweat Lodge? If you have, then you’ll know it’s an unforgettable experience.
Sweat Lodges are an ancient and modern indigenous way of creating a sanctuary. It is a very small dome-shaped hut, made out of natural materials. It has a pit dug in the center where the heated rocks are brought in for the Sweat ceremony.
Women and men begin their ritual by gathering around a fire pit, outside the lodge. Rocks have been buried in the fire for hours so that when the ritual starts, the hidden rocks are red-hot, and ready to be brought into the lodge, when everyone enters it and sits in a circle.
So, at the beginning before everyone enters the lodge, they meet in a circle around the outside fire, and then they meet again at the fire outside when the sweat is done. All participants are invited to share about their experiences, reflections, feelings, pains, and hopes. In the indigenous culture, nobody leaves the circle if anyone has lingering feelings of confusion, troubles, unfinished business. No one’s feelings are neglected; everyone’s journey is equally important. The ceremony and the circle are a communal journey. Nothing is left to be dealt with by an individual, alone. When a challenge is shared, it becomes the whole community’s issue, brought into discussions.
I participated in a sweat lodge last Easter, with 20 other women and men - all genders, all ages. We crawled into it like animals looking for their dark lodge to rest in. There was a boy (teenager perhaps) – perhaps her real gender is female or non-binary – who wore skirts and joined the women’s line. And there was me who refused to wear the traditional skirt and wearing pants, who joined the women’s line, not liking the idea that women and men entered the lodge in different line ups. With the 20 people, the lodge inside was completely full: knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder.
We were all inside, and it was about the time when the small entryway was shut. I looked at the outside quickly, and just like a magical ILLUSION, I thought I saw the Sun coming in, when the lodge keeper closed the entry. To my amazement, what followed was complete blackness. A black universe. It was just like that all of a sudden, the black universe expanded like light speed in all directions to the end of everything. A sudden complete blindness, and my eyes open to see the blackness of the universe. It was a remarkable experience. It was like “the strict walls of my sense of personal boundary – who I am – were erased. Even the minimal sense of who I am was overwhelmed by the blackness outside of me.
I felt that I was like floating inside a universe that has no bottom or sides but is endlessly expanding. (There’s no distinction between the lodge and the outside of the lodge, anymore) I was the consciousness of the universe, and the consciousness which observes the universe. Then the lodge keeper brought in the burning and blazing heated rocks from the outside. Still dark, yet now these blazing, dim, red-lit heated rocks became the center of our attention, of our “I am” experience.
You know that today’s theme is to Struggle to be the Sun Again. To find the Sun within. To Become and Be the Sun is a very real journey: true, concrete, real, imaginable and achievable. I believe that we are saved when we can be touched by this force within. The Christ within. The Goddess within. The God within. The Sun within. The universe’s fire within. I need to be connected to this sacred fire or light within me to really know where I am, what I do, what I need to do, and who I would say I am.
My story of struggling to be the Sun again starts when I was in grade 3 or 4. I grew up in the Korean Roman Catholic church. My whole family was actively involved in church life. I joined the music team who played for children’s mass every Saturday. I played the piano. One afternoon, when I was returning home from church. I stood the church parking lot, thinking, “I would like to be a priest!”
The young me always thought that the Eucharist was the most important part of the service and I remember that I liked it very much. Eucharist wafers were always so sweet, melting on my tongue beautifully, and I thought the priest’s role was pretty awesome – the most important figure, with authority and privilege.(He eats the biggest wafer)!
“I wish I could be a priest! But I am not a boy!”
“Would I like to be a nun? No way! Nuns don’t get to have babies. I want to have my own children and let them carry on ‘my’ family line.”
In kindergarten and also in primary school, I already had lots of experiences of discrimination not to join the ‘boy’s roles, just because I was a girl. In preschool, I had to be a nurse, when I chose to be a doctor in a pair activity of boys and girls. Can you imagine that preschool activity with 30 kids? All boys were told to play the doctor’s role and all girls were told to play the nurse’s role. In Korean ancestral rites (Je Sa), - I had to wait with my other girl cousins until my boy cousins and even my younger brother went first to honour the ancestors. And the shock I experienced when I found out that my name was not put in my family’s genealogical record book, because I was a girl! I was discouraged from joining the soccer team when I was very proud of my sharp kicks! (When I look back, I was never like a tomboy, I just naturally identified myself in the social roles that boys were assigned.)
Above all, the realization that I couldn’t be a priest even if I wanted to was a new thing for me! I usually got furious about all the things I was excluded from because I was not a boy, but I accepted this realization because even my young self realized that this was not just a boy or girl thing but a function of a “religious” institution. These experiences of seeing how the world works are very bad. I was young, so I couldn’t figure out the exact power these negative influences had on me at the time. What I know now is that because I was excluded from the areas which were traditionally and culturally considered to belong to boys, I was never allowed to really explore what I wanted, or was meant, to be. I lost many important opportunities of personal development of my boy side or of the whole map of gifts I was given. I think that is great loss.
The greatest loss of all is that the realization that I would never be a priest even if I wished and was willing to work hard made me bury my first sense of calling. All Roman Catholic Korean churches at the time and even now are very keen to identify and recognize the boys who show the right “qualifications”, (whatever they are!) to encourage them to explore their call and their interest in ordained vocation.) At the time, I was a deep thinker. I was always interested in God questions, active as the children’s church musician. But no one cared! Those days were also when I had a few personal revelations of Jesus through my dreams. Very vivid and so real, I wrote them down in my notes and kept them in a picture album. In my dream, I was playing with my other girl friends at a cemetery, full of many graves, when the heavens opened up. My friends were frightened and immediately left the place, terrified. But I remained there, alone, as Jesus came down from the split-open clouds, and came to me, I knelt down, and he laid his hands on me to bless me.
Now, fast-forward to when I was 26 years old, in 2006.
In 2004, I was married to a Presbyterian man who already had an almost 10-year-career in ministry - as some of you know, Min-Goo. He was ordained one month before our wedding. My only condition that I made was that we would leave Korea to go abroad for study or for a life-adventure two years after our marriage. He promised it.
I gave birth to our first son, Peace, in May, 2006, and 3 months later, it was a summer night in Korea; I was sitting on a bench in the small playground in my parent’s apartment complex. I had two revelations: first, I might have bad ‘baby blues’ or I was lost without a compass to navigate where I was headed on my path to whatever I believed or hoped was the destination of my life’s purpose! Second, I was experiencing marginalization as a young woman. With a newborn baby and no job, I was out of the mainstream in a society where success was measured only by achievements, jobs and wealth. Young women of my generation could be judged at any time or anywhere – on the streets, by the neighbours or my relatives.
Our mothers, who had accepted living in conformity with the customs of Korean patriarchy, (for example, my mom quit her career as a teacher upon marrying) wanted their daughters to live as strong, independent ‘career’ women. They invested in their daughters with higher education. They expected their daughters success, but they didn’t know what they could expect from their daughters if they didn’t take the path to worldly success. Failure might mean taking a traditional gender role assigned to women. (My neighbour: “Tut,tut, a Master’s Degree and a baby and living here. Your life is … (meaning doomed..) My relative: “Tut,tut… You were great. How proud your parents were of you. … But even you got nowhere!)
By the time I finished my Master’s Degree (in Religious Studies) Korea had just gone through a national financial crisis after the 1999 IMF emergency – the economic health of Korea was terrible. In the years since my family emigrated to Canada, the situation has only gotten worse. (Hell Cho-Sun) It was not like the time when my parents graduated university and got jobs. In that little playground, I saw that in Korea, every path was shut down in front of me. My passion for spirituality, knowledge, skills, gifts had nowhere to be useful or meaningful, even at church, even at the Presbyterian church, (not Roman Catholic), because I was the wife of an ordained minister.
When I was engaged to Min Goo, all my relatives who knew well about the life of Korean churches and their extreme patriarchy warned me about or tried to prepare me for my future role at church as Samonim. Samonim is an honorary title for the wife of an ordained man in the Korean protestant church. You have to sacrifice yourself for all things that benefit the church and your husband. I said yes, not having experienced yet the bad influence the church patriarchy would have on me. I trusted myself that I could do whatever it would take to give what was needed of me. “I am smart. I am wise. and Min Goo promised that we would leave Korea after the two years are over. I’ll please people.”
In spite of my confidence, however, I had to admit that I was aware of minister’s wives who looked terrible, who were like those who forgot how to smile brightly, happily, from the inside - women who seemed hollowed out. I never lost my smile in those two years; I became a ‘smiling angel’.
The most painful time for me was when I had to say yes to all the compliments that the church women made to praise my husband; I felt that I also had to be aligned with them despite my feelings – that’s pressure. He became like a church prince. I sensed something was wrong when a church member who really cared for Min Goo and me complimented me, “Our young Samonim is really an angel!”
After the two years, I began to experience huge anxiety issues. I couldn’t be alone in a room without experiencing anxiety or having an anxiety attack. I remember one day I desperately needed to hold the Rosary beads my mom gave to me on the wedding day for blessing to overcome panic. Over the two years of being a ‘smiling angel’, I could see that my personality changed dramatically - from an intelligent, competent, independent woman to becoming anxious, passive and dependent.
I knew that I should end performing the role of the smiling angel, the ‘shadow’ of the ordained husband. So, in the summer evening I mentioned earlier, while my mom babysat my child, I thought I should share my struggle with my husband. For most people, that’s normal, but for me at the time, sharing my deepest and strong feelings, especially the negative or painful ones – were hard. But I believed that I must open up the conversation, telling my husband about my fear, my anger about church, speaking my strong critique and criticism of the church. And when we talked, the answer that came out of my husband’s lips was an enormous one. He said, “Why don’t you become a minister?” – a suggestion that I hadn’t thought of, ever since I had the same question in the church parking lot and abandoned it when I was 10 or 11. This ‘possible’ path just simply never showed up on the radar of my exploration because I was so so so caught up in the patriarchy, and my youthful realization that I can’t be a priest was so strong. And I had never met any female ordained ministers. My husband’s simple answer was world-changing for me.
It was a time of incubation for me to reinvent my whole world. A few months later, while we were considering moving to Canada, (my husband applied for a youth leader position at the Korean United Church in Vancouver.) I accidently found a book, written by Chung Hyun Kyung, a Korean feminist, eco-spirituality Christian theologian, a pioneer, a Goddess theologian, a tenured professor at Union Theological Seminary until now. The book was entitled “Struggle to be the Sun Again: Introducing Asian Women’s Theology.” I read a poem in the book, written by the Japanese poet Hiratsuka Raicho in the 1900’s, The Hidden Sun.
“Originally, woman was the Sun.
She was an authentic person.
But now woman is the moon.
She lives by depending on another
and she shines by reflecting another’s light.
Her face has a sickly pallor.
We must now regain our hidden sun.
“Reveal our hidden sun!
Rediscover our natural gifts!”
This is the ceaseless cry
which forces itself into our hearts;
it is our irrepressible
and unquenchable desire.
It is our final,
complete,
and only instinct
through which
our various
separate instincts
are united.”
Reading this poem, I immediately identified myself with this poet, who claims that “Originally, woman was the Sun. She was an authentic person. But now woman is the moon. She lives by depending on another and she shines by reflecting another’s light. Her face has a sickly pallor.” I had become the moon.
Chung Hyun Kyung explains about the title in the preface “The title of my book ‘Struggle To be the Sun Again’ comes from the poem, The Hidden Sun. In her poem, Hiratsuka claims that “originally, woman was the sun. She was an authentic person. But now woman is the moon.” That means once Asian women were self-defining women but now they have become dependent women defined by the men in their lives. Therefore she perceives the Asian women’s struggle for liberation as a Struggle to be the Sun again. I think her poetic expression aptly shows Asian women’s yearning for wholeness.”
Until I read this poem, I hadn’t had a poetic mirror or language to see myself in the wisdom of other females. This poem, this book, gave me the language and the mirror. It was a powerful awareness that I have become the moon. The past two years as a ‘smiling angel’ had been enough time to made me forget my original personality and who I was, and this poem was an epiphany. I decided to take a personal journey or struggle to be the Sun again as the poet proclaims. Some of us might wonder about the implicit dichotomy that may be inherent in the imagery of Sun and Moon.
The point I would like to make and invite us to think about with me is our journey and our striving to live a life or to create a life that reveals our own brilliance, the brilliance that comes from within, without depending on another.
Without depending on another could mean finding the Sun-ness within without depending on the system of patriarchy. But it also could mean without depending on any privilege given to us just because of skin (white privilege) or other attributes. It is a journey of how you will embrace the Sun-ness that is “a priori” – the beautiful humanity inside you like the heated rocks inside the black universe which demands to redefine the work of developing a true, daring self.
Remember the red, blazing, heated rocks in the sweat lodge ceremony. Once the rocks are brought in, the lodge is shut in complete blackness; Clean, pure black. Then the ceremony leader throws medicinal herbs on the rocks. They make fire-flares that are most beautiful, and quick, and rapid, making sounds of “Paa!” “Taa!” Flares! We all have the heated Sun Rocks, in our core of existence. We each of us are the keeper of our own Sun, happy to look out at the light of our neighbouring suns.
Q & A & Discussions (In the large circle)
Q. 1. What do the words “Struggle to be the Sun again” personally speak to you; how do you make sense of them in your life?
Q. 2. What, if any, barriers have you experienced in your journey to be the Sun again?
Q. 3. I have shared my epiphany on my journey: The poem and the women’s ordination. Have you had your own epiphany that helped make your life possible, meaningful or powerful?
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