OMYGOD is a mythic and redemptive tale about the women we’ve burned, the babies we’ve buried and the Gods we have worshipped.
SYNOPSIS
You are invited to Christina’s 50th Birthday non-party as she explains to us why she is not crazy for following a persistent yet bizarre call to leave her home of Turtle Island (North America) and travel to Eire (Ireland), after watching a news story about a mass grave of ‘unnamed babies’ outside a Mother and Baby Home in Tuam County Galway, Ireland.
You are greeted by The Morrigan, a triple goddess of the Tuatha de dannan who has been called forward by Christina’s daily practice of lighting three fires.
Each of the three sisters of The Morrigan: Badb, Nemain, and Macha carry a message for Christina to help her with her journey of reconciliation, and to remind her of who she really is.
As soon as she decides to go Ireland for her Christmas Day birthday, her eight year old self, Cristiona makes an appearance reminding her about her special relationship with Jesus which began over conversations and caramels exchanged with Mrs. Wilson, her Mennonite next door neighbour. Christiona, with her skipping rope and songs about black birds and witches, is on a quest to find Inglenook, where her mom told her she could always reach her.
As she packs for her trip, she remembers a story about a 13,000 year old footprint found on Calvert Island on Indigenous land on the West Coast of Canada. As she boards the plane, she remembers a series of day-dreams about a bluff where a tall willow tree stands, and an angry and confused scribble girl who lives in the belly of a dragon and as she falls asleep she dreams of a late night talk show host who entertains us with a dark and insatiable curiosity about the witch burning of Ireland and whether it happened at all.
She reaches Tuam on her birthday and finds a quiet chapel to be in where she prepares to visit the unmarked grave of the Tuam babies, and lets us in to her own personal faith story of deciding to be a Minister, and knowing she never could.
At the gravesite of the 800 un-named Tuam babies she brings two deeply personal offerings of reconciliation, one from her mother and one from Brigid, daughter to the Morrigan and Goddess of hearth, protection and poetry.
As the story closes, Christina is visited by The Morrigan one final time to remind her of her bigger story and to introduce her to another Goddess and Indigenous sister, one who is so quiet and unassuming, her power goes unnoticed.
OMYGOD is a mythic and redemptive tale about the women we’ve burned, the babies we’ve buried and the Gods we have worshipped. It is a feminist narrative that combines humour, storytelling and poetry connecting two cultures, rich in oral history and spirituality and with hundreds of years of atrocities and grief still steeped in the land.
Written & Performed by Tina Overbury
Digital Direction – James Gardiner
Creative Consultant – Dean Paul Gibson
Dramaturge – Nicolle Nattrass
Director of Photography – Randal Hrytzak
Sound Design – Paul Tedeschini
GALLERY
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Thank you so much. I was awash with tears. I was stunned by your ability to resource an energy and flow to journey us as a collective field of over 50 people. From your conception and your maturity, I was amazed by your collaging and peopling you brought into this true offering in service to a retrieval of the soul body of Irish women. I’ve worked with Irish people for a lot of my years and you really hit it home. You hit the nail on the Catholic coffin when speaking for Magdalen, and for the women of Magdalen. I work with rose lineage women through womb healing and clearing and you really named it. You manifested your hurt for all of these women. You put in a controversial comparison with the genocide of indigenous people relative to the death, and hidden massacre, hidden genocide of all of those children and those women. From the caves of Magdalen in Northern France to you! You offer a huge piece for women in North America to wake up to the roots of why we’re doing this work as women. Thank you. Thank you so much. When I ever I meet you, we’re going for a Guinness!
Your power, your flow, and your strength became our strength. You struck some deep, primal DNA, and that’s in all of us. We carry it as women. It is a journey of deep meaning and judgment at times, because we sit in judgment of others and ourselves on a path of reconciliation, and it was also a journey of honour and vindication. I’m deeply grateful. Thank you.
The ghosts of colonial harmscapes reach beyond Turtle Island, to Ireland and around the globe. There is a growing need to amplify the social echo of truth, justice, healing and reconciliation, across time and place. The arts amplify and distill the essence of the work ahead through a visceral connection of a knowing that resides deep inside us (Morrison et al, 2020). Our children, our ancestors, are crying out to us to be heard. The harmscapes of the past are still with us. Through her own personal narrative, Tina O’s work, O My God, embodies these harmscapes, and connects with the personal narratives and histories within each of us.
We need culturally responsive and sensitive mediums to open the way forward at both an individual and collective level. Tina’s work does this through touching the vulnerabilities and knowing at the core of our common humanity. I have full faith in the commitment of the team that Tina has rallied for this important work.
Brenda Morrison, PhD Associate Professor, Director, Centre for Restorative Justice
