The Ruling of Mother Julian – The Anchorite Sees

The Ruling of Mother Julian – The Anchorite Sees

Kate Pickering presents her new spoken word performance based on her longstanding interest in English anchorite and mystical writer, Julian of Norwich.

Mother Julian was a Christian Medieval ‘Anchoress’ who committed herself to an enclosed life inside a small church cell in the heart of Norwich. She filled her life with intense prayer and contemplation and became well known for her radiant visions and writings. Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love are the earliest surviving English-language works attributed to a woman. Pickering’s performance explores the patriarchal exclusions, restrictions and silencing that Julian once lived through. A series of readings from Julian’s rule book are interspersed with her mystical texts and Pickering’s own un/holy visions.

The work is informed by Pickering’s own experiences as an ‘exvangelical’ – a former participant in the often patriarchal, evangelical movement, and aims to foreground the quietly insistent voice of a medieval woman who believes her body is a vessel for a mothering God and who points to the divine in all things.

This is part of our What Is The Meaning of Life? season.

Masthead: Building a Body of Belief (2023) Performance lecture, Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht. Image courtesy: Jan van Eyck Academie