Teaching Subjectivity. Travelling Selves for Feminist ... - MailChimp

que vai fora da capacidade de mulher, confesso que temi o voar, com receios de
cair de tão alto.” 14
It is an exposure, an exercise of abandonment that also implies feelings
of discomfort and even of shame, as Mariana da Purificação notes: “Sucedeume
já há algum tempo, que estando no Coro, Nosso Senhor fez-me mercê de
me unir consigo; amanhecendo me acharam assim. Coisa que eu senti muito,
porque logo vieram umas e outras, e fizeram uma roda à volta de mim. Quando
acordei fiquei tão corrida e envergonhada que não quisera aparecer diante de
gente e por isso desejo sempre andar metida pelos cantos.” 15
In her book Il Dio delle donne, dedicated to female mystical writing,
Luísa Muraro underlines the fact that these texts talk about an experience of relation.
In mystical writing, the self is in relation with the other, besides itself.16
In fact, the narratives of the mystical ecstasies express a full abandonment, an
extreme receptiveness to that other – the loved object. These accounts place us
before subjects willing to be “affected” by otherness.
Antónia Margarida de Castelo Branco states: “Assim como o sal se desfaz
na água e fica todo incorporado nela, se desfazia minha alma para incorporar-se
com Deus.” 17 Love is experienced as a pathway that culminates in one’s “self
diluting” in divine love. Love is felt as a gift, a gift of oneself. The “I” abandons
itself, so that it can be shaped by the “other” and form into one.
The metaphors of openness, the offer, the gift succeed in rendering account
of the unspeakable experience of union with the beloved object. We are
far from the autonomous subject, a monolithic entity closing in on himself as
in the Western tradition. 18
In a different context, and without wishing to establish a strict comparison,
we may draw a faint line between the concept of love expressed by the
nuns and the concept of the love of the other as a gift explored by Butler in
Giving an Account of Oneself. 19
14
[“The path of the unitive way is a path without a road and you have to follow it by means of flying; and for
flying so high, so out of the capacity of a woman, I admit I was afraid of flying, worried that I would fall from such
height”]. Ibid.,149.
15
[“It happened to me some time ago that being at the Choir, Our Lord gave me the grace of uniting me to him;
in the morning people was entering the Choir and they have found me like that. I was very distressed, because
everyone immediately arrived and made a circle around me. When I woke up I was so scared and ashamed that I
didn’t want anyone to see me and I only wish to hide in any corner.”] Madre Mariana da Purificação, Cadernos, 272.
16
Luisa Muraro, Il Dio delle donne (Milano: Mondadori, 2003), 62-75.
17
[“Like salt melts in the water and fully blends in it, so my soul would melt to blend in with God”] Antónia
Margarida Castelo Branco, Ibid., 266.
18
For further development see Irigaray, The Way of Love (2002).
19
Judith Butler, Giving an Account of Oneself: Ibid., 138.
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