Mary Daly: Spirituality Experienced Through Nature
Mary Daly's Spirituality Through Nature: Two realms—the Foreground (patriarchal, sterile, necrophilic/death-loving) and the Background (wild, alive, women's true being connected to nature). The Apollonian Veil separates them but can be pierced. Women's liberation requires reconnecting with their wild, creative, dionysian power and with nature itself. Through becoming "Spinsters" (creative weavers of new reality), women experience spirituality as continuous becoming (be-ing), not submission to a patriarchal God. Radical ecological feminism unites women's liberation with nature's liberation. This illustration depicts Mary Daly's vision of spirituality through nature: The Foreground (patriarchal, sterile, necrophilic/death-loving) is shown as artificial, controlled, bounded by walls—separated from the living world. The Background (women's authentic realm) is depicted as wild, alive, vibrant, connected to nature—spiraling energy, animals free, plants thriving, women bonding together. The Apollonian Veil separates them but can be pierced by women's consciousness. Daly's solution involves women breaking through into the Background, reclaiming their Dionysian energy, and reconnecting with nature through spiritual practices like spinning (creating from raw materials), bonding with other women, and experiencing continuous creative becoming (be-ing) rather than submission to a patriarchal God. The illustration emphasizes that women's liberation and nature's liberation are inseparable in Daly's radical ecological feminism.
Summary
Mary Daly believed that authentic spirituality comes through women's connection with nature, not through patriarchal religion.
The Key Concept: Two Realities
- The Foreground: The patriarchal, artificial, male-dominated world that is "necrophilic" (death-loving)
- The Background: The wild, alive, natural realm where women's true being and spiritual power exist
Patriarchy's Crime:
- Separated women from nature and their natural power
- Domesticated women's wild, creative energy to serve male interests
- Destroyed the earth through its domination-based approach
- Created the "Apollonian Veil"—false ideas that alienate women from their creative, spiritual selves
Women's Spiritual Liberation:
- Break through the Apollonian Veil and reconnect with nature
- Embrace their "Dionysian" energy—wild, creative, ecstatic power
- Become "Spinsters"—women who spin/weave new reality from threads of authentic being
- Replace "God" with "Be-ing"—a continuous creative process of becoming, not submission to patriarchal authority
Radical Ecological Feminism:
"Women's liberation and nature's liberation are inseparable. The phallocrats who destroy women also destroy the earth. Radical ecological feminism fights for both."
The Foreground vs. The Background: Two Worlds
Daly's Fundamental Vision
The universe is divided into two realms:
THE FOREGROUND (Patriarchal Reality)
What it is:
The visible, organized, male-dominated world we live in
Its Character:
- Necrophilic (death-loving, not life-loving)
- Artificial and false—a distortion of true being
- Drains life energy from everything in it
- Domesticates wildness—nature and women are "tamed" and controlled
Examples:
Patriarchal religion, patriarchal science, the nuclear family, capitalism, patriarchal medicine
Effect on Women:
Women are confined, domesticated, preserved as "fair game" for male predation
THE BACKGROUND (Women's True Realm)
What it is:
The authentic realm of female be-ing, nature, and spiritual power
Its Character:
- Life-loving and creative
- Wild and untamed
- Connected to natural cycles and all living things
- The source of women's authentic power and energy
How to Access It:
Women must break through the false patriarchal world and reconnect with the Background
Nature is Sacred:
In the Background, nature is not "dominated" but honored as sacred, alive, connected to female being
Quote from Daly:
"The foreground, for Daly, was a distortion of true being, the patriarchal society in which most people live. It has no real energy, but drains the 'life energy' of women residing in the Background. In her view, the foreground creates a world of poisons that contaminate natural life. She called the male-centered world of the foreground necrophilic, hating all living things. In contrast, she conceived of the Background as a place where all living things connect."
The Apollonian Veil: How Patriarchy Controls Women
The Veil Explained
The Apollonian Veil is Daly's term for false ideas and beliefs that alienate women from their naturally creative, wild selves.
What Creates the Veil?
Patriarchal systems—religion, law, medicine, education—create false ideas about:
What women are:
women are "naturally" passive, obedient, domestic, maternal
What power is:
power is male, violent, dominating, conquering
What nature is:
nature is something to be controlled and exploited
What spirituality is:
spirituality comes from a male God, not from women's authentic being
The Mechanism
These false ideas are internalized by women. Women come to believe they are naturally inferior, that patriarchal control is normal.
Who Can Remove the Veil?
Only women have the power to remove the Apollonian Veil.
How?
- Consciousness-raising: Recognizing the falsehood of patriarchal ideas
- Language transvaluation: Reclaiming and redefining words
- Reconnecting with the Background: Breaking through to women's authentic wild power
Dionysian Energy: Women's Wild, Creative Power
Dionysus vs. Apollo (Philosophical Tradition)
Apollonian
Order, rationality, control, light, hierarchy, patriarchal values
Dionysian
Ecstasy, chaos, wildness, fertility, creativity, natural cycles
Daly's Claim:
"Only women can be Dionysian"
What This Means
- Women have an inherent capacity for wild, creative, ecstatic power
- This power is suppressed and domesticated by patriarchy
- Women's spiritual liberation requires embracing this Dionysian energy
- Dionysian energy is connected to nature, sexuality, creativity, and female bonding
Characteristics of Dionysian Female Power
- Creative and generative—constantly creating and becoming
- Wild and untamed—not confined by patriarchal rules
- Connected to earth and body—not denying physical embodiment
- Ecstatic and joyful—experiencing deep pleasure and meaning
- Relational—bonding with other women and with nature
Reclaimed Words for Dionysian Women
Daly reclaims traditionally negative words to describe Dionysian power:
Spinster
Not a lonely, unmarried woman, but a woman spinning/weaving new reality
Hag/Crone
Not an ugly, wicked old woman, but a wise, powerful elder
Witch
Not an evil practitioner of dark arts, but a woman with natural power
Dyke/Lesbian
Not a perverted woman, but a woman-bonded woman, free from patriarchal male control
Gyn/Ecology: Women's Spirituality Through Nature
The Word Play
Daly creates a slash: "Gyn/Ecology"
Breaking Down the Word:
- Gyn = woman, female (from Greek "gyne" = woman)
- Ecology = the study of relationships between organisms and their environment
- Together: Women bonding with the earth and all living things
The Critique of Gynecology
- Gynecology is supposed to help women's health
- But Daly argues it often harms women—forced sterilization, experimental surgery, treating women's bodies as sites of medical control
- Gyn/Ecology is the reclamation of women's bodily autonomy and spiritual connection to natural cycles
Women Bonding with Earth
In Gyn/Ecology, Daly argues:
- Women's spirituality is inherently ecological—connected to natural cycles, seasons, the body
- Women experience unity with all living things—animals, plants, the earth itself
- This connection is suppressed by patriarchy, which dominates both women and nature
- Reclaiming this connection is spiritual liberation
Quote from Daly:
"Radical ecological feminism. There is a desperate commitment in my writing to ecology and feminism... What the phallocrats are doing to women, they are also doing to the earth, and to all animals, plants, rocks, minerals. The earth is suffering just as women are suffering from patriarchal destruction."
Be-ing Replaces God: Spirituality as Continuous Becoming
The Problem with "God"
The word "God" is irredeemably patriarchal:
- "God" has been used to justify male authority for 2,000 years
- Even if we say "Goddess," we're still trapped in the patriarchal concept of a supreme being demanding worship
Daly's Solution: Be-ing
"Be-ing replaces God for her, a spiritual process of the continual discovery of the richness of nature."
What is "Be-ing"?
- Not a being (a fixed entity or person)
- A process of continuous becoming
- Active, creative, unfolding—never reaching a final state
- Experienced through connection to nature and other women
Contrast with Traditional Theology
Traditional
God is eternal, unchanging, all-powerful, separate from creation
Daly's Be-ing
Creative process that includes all beings, constantly unfolding, participatory
How Women Experience Be-ing
- In nature: Experiencing cycles of life, death, and renewal
- In female bonding: Deep connections with other women
- In creativity: Making, creating, spinning new realities
- In the body: Honoring menstruation, sexuality, embodied experience
Daly's Claim:
"Only women understand this creative process of be-ing, which is the spiritual process of living which Daly uses to replace an objective god."
Spinning: Women's Creative Act of Becoming
The Spinster as Creative Figure
Daly uses the traditional female task of spinning (making thread/cloth) as a metaphor for women's creative spiritual work.
What Spinning Represents
- Creating from raw materials—transforming nature into culture
- Continuity and connection—threads connect and weave together
- Endless possibility—cloth can be endlessly woven and rewoven
- Ancient female power—spinning is a primordial female activity
Women as Spinsters:
"The spiritual journey of women using the traditionally female task of being spinsters. While spinster today means a lonely single woman, Daly uses it to describe women working together to create from nature cloth."
Spinning New Reality
Women are actively spinning a new world that is:
- Free from patriarchal control
- Connected to natural cycles and earth
- Based on female bonding and creativity
- Liberated and ecstatic
The Process
- Crone-ology (not "chronology"): A women's timeline based on the wisdom of crones
- Spiraling consciousness: Not linear progress but spiraling, multidirectional movement
- Continuous becoming: Never finished, always in creative motion
Patriarchy's Destruction of Nature and Women
The Connection
Daly explicitly links the destruction of nature to the oppression of women.
Why?
Both nature and women are seen by patriarchy as:
- To be dominated and controlled
- Resources to be exploited
- Less valuable than male, rational, technological power
Examples of Patriarchal Violence
Against Women
Rape, genital mutilation, wife-burning, foot-binding
Against Earth
Deforestation, pollution, species extinction, climate destruction
Against Animals
Factory farming, medical experimentation, hunting for sport
Daly's Ecological Vision:
"I am absolutely desperate to act against what the phallocrats are doing, what the human species is doing to the earth, and to women. Women's liberation and earth's liberation must happen together."
Transvaluation: Radical Language Reconstruction
What is Transvaluation?
Daly deliberately rewrites language to shift consciousness and create new possibilities.
Nietzsche's Influence
Daly was inspired by Nietzsche's Transvaluation of All Values—a complete overturning of dominant values.
How Daly Does It
- Reclaims negative words: Hag, witch, dyke, spinster—turning insults into sources of power
- Slashes words: Gyn/Ecology, Fore/ground, Fore/play—creating double meanings
- Invents new words: Crone-ology, womancraft, crafty pirate
- Changes capitalization and spelling: A-mazing (removing the male "A" beginning), Otherworld
Purpose
Language doesn't just describe reality—it creates reality. By changing language, women change consciousness and create space for new ways of being.
Quote from Daly:
"The process of transvaluation is the conscious and radical reinvention of language. Daly's provocative use of old vocabulary used in new ways is to give women the means to talk about a new world entirely free of all forms of patriarchy."
Female Bonding and Spiritual Community
Sisterhood as Spiritual Power
Daly emphasizes that women's liberation is not individual but collective.
Female Bonding:
"Women bonding with each other is the most dangerous thing to patriarchy. When women can bond, we can change the world."
What Female Bonding Provides
- Deep relational power—connection that patriarchy tries to destroy
- Spiritual renewal—experiencing the sacred through women's presence to each other
- Creative energy—collective creativity exceeds individual effort
- Resistance to patriarchy—women together can overthrow male dominance
Daly's Personal Experience:
"I experience very, very deep connections with women; with some men; with nature; with animals—I have an incredible relationship with my cat! The kind of hope that I have, the desperate, frantic and also glorious hope, comes from these connections."
The Holy Trinity: Justice, Power, and Love
Contrast with the Unholy Trinity
Unholy Trinity
Rape, genocide, war (patriarchal products)
Holy Trinity
Justice, power, and love (women's spiritual values)
What This Trinity Represents
- Justice: Rectifying wrongs, ensuring all beings are honored
- Power: The ability to create, transform, and liberate (not dominate)
- Love: Deep relational connection to all living things
The Source
This holy trinity is rooted in women's spiritual connection to nature and each other.
Criticisms and Limitations
Strengths
- Prophetic power: Daly names the connection between women's oppression and ecological destruction
- Creative vision: Her positive vision of women's spiritual power is inspiring
- Language innovation: Her linguistic recreation opens new possibilities
Limitations
- Essentialism: Daly sometimes suggests women have an essential nature connected to nature, which risks reinforcing the gender stereotypes she critiques
- Exclusivity: Her focus on women-only spaces and "woman-bonded women" can exclude men and non-binary people
- Vagueness: "Be-ing" and the "Background" are not clearly defined philosophical concepts
- Dualism: The strict Foreground/Background dualism may oversimplify reality
- Impracticality: Her vision of total transformation is inspiring but offers little practical guidance for change
Scholarly Perspectives
Quote 1 (The Two Worlds):
"The Background is the realm of women's authentic being, nature, and creative power. The Foreground is the patriarchal, male-dominated, artificial world that is necrophilic—death-loving. The Foreground has no real energy; it drains the life-energy of women residing in the Background. Women's spiritual liberation requires breaking through the Apollonian Veil of false patriarchal ideas and reconnecting with the wild, creative, Dionysian power of the Background. This is not individual salvation but collective transformation."
Source: Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology (1978) and related works
Quote 2 (Radical Ecological Feminism):
"Radical ecological feminism unites women's liberation with nature's liberation. The phallocrats who destroy women also destroy the earth. Women and nature are both seen by patriarchy as resources to be exploited and dominated. Only by overcoming patriarchal domination can both women and nature be liberated. Women's spirituality is inherently ecological—connected to natural cycles, all living things, and the sacred being-ness of the earth itself."
Source: Mary Daly, interviews and Gyn/Ecology (1978)
Key Takeaways for Your Exam
| Concept | Meaning |
|---|---|
| The Foreground | Patriarchal, artificial, death-loving (necrophilic) reality |
| The Background | Women's authentic realm of being, creativity, and spiritual power |
| Apollonian Veil | False patriarchal ideas that alienate women from their true creative selves |
| Dionysian Energy | Wild, creative, ecstatic power inherent in women (only women can be Dionysian) |
| Gyn/Ecology | Women bonding with earth; reclamation of women's body and connection to nature |
| Be-ing | Continuous creative process replacing the patriarchal concept of God |
| Spinster | Woman spinning/weaving new reality from threads of authentic being |
| Transvaluation | Radical reconstruction of language to create new consciousness and possibilities |
| Radical Ecological Feminism | Liberation of women inseparable from liberation of earth and all living things |
| Female Bonding | Spiritual power of women together; most dangerous threat to patriarchy |
| Holy Trinity | Justice, power, and love (women's spiritual values, contrasting unholy trinity) |
Key Points to Remember
- Foreground/Background is central: Understand this as Daly's fundamental cosmology. The contrast explains her entire vision
- Necrophilia/Life-loving: Patriarchy is "death-loving" (domination-based); women's spirituality is "life-loving" (connection-based)
- Nature and Women are Linked: Patriarchy oppresses both the same way. Their liberation must happen together
- Language Creates Reality: Transvaluation isn't just word games—it's a tool for consciousness transformation
- Dionysian Power: This is NOT complementary to patriarchal values but a complete alternative to them
- Be-ing Replaces God: This is Daly's answer to the patriarchal God problem. Understand it as process, not being
Compare to Ruether:
Ruether:
Reform Christianity; recover Jesus; maintain some theological language
Daly:
Abandon Christianity; reject all patriarchal language; create women-centered spirituality rooted in nature
Evaluate:
Is Daly's vision empowering or essentialist? Can women really access an "authentic nature" beneath patriarchal conditioning?