EULOGY DELIVERED AT FUNERAL CEREMONY
© (For Monica Sjoo.org website publication only)

Monica Sjoo

Artist, Writer, Activist, Visionary

Monica was many things to  many people. So, what an assignment I have here! 5 minutes or so to tell of her life, to do it justice, to fit it all in? If I over-run it’ll be because of her at my back prompting: you left out this…how could you leave out that..  Monica was herself never the mistress of precise.

 I have been afloat for years in similar seas with Monica, but not always in the same boat, sometimes perceiving her as a stately ship hull down on the horizon with mysterious but precious cargo, whilst I merely plied shallower inland waters. 

 Last week, three days after Monica died, at sunset I took my goddess daughter to climb Silbury Hill. I told her how, when I first came upon it in 1965 I had felt such awe. I feared women had once been burnt there as witches. Years later Monica confirmed for me that sense of foreboding. She had once spent the night tripping on that pregnant belly only to experience mother earth’s pain, caused by the abuse by patriarchy of her abundance.  This view began to inform Monica’s work more and more. After her 15 year old son Leif’s fatal accident in 1985 she became spurred on by a vision of huge white wings flying low to protect and take him- the same wings I believe she recently hoped would help her fly away to join him.

 She had always been a painter- and of mostly large, unapologetic canvasses that often also carried bold text. When she exhibited her stark but powerful  God Giving Birth at the St Ives Festival in 1971, expressing the power of the natural delivery of her own son, it had been removed by the Lord Mayor’s henchmen- and that was not to be the only time it would cause such a fuss- she was certainly on to something! Her most iconic work, it was bought in 1994 by the Anna Nordlander Women’s Art Museum, Skelleftea, North Sweden. A lifelong ardent feminist, founder member of Bristol Women’s Liberation in 1968, she fought for women’s reproductive rights and even performed in the ultra-feminist Bristol SisterShow opening tableau of 1973 as a pompous priest. Well, there’s a thing! Was also an anarchist, called herself an Eco Witch.

 Monica could feel sufficiently strongly to confront boldly petty officials or entire patriarchal systems. She has been an angry woman, as indeed so have many feminist women- but Monica sometimes seemed angrier than most. She mellowed, became less unforgiving in later years. Once she joined with 100 intrepid Greenham women to walk across forbidden MoD land to celebrate all night on the sarsen stones of Stonehenge at the moon’s eclipse. In 1993, interrupting a service of worship, she and others from the End Patriarchy Now conference, entered Bristol Cathedral to demonstrate against the lack of recognition for female spirituality by the Church of England. I believe the Dean of Bristol remarkably joined hands with them and sang a song to the goddess in front of the high altar. Only a few years later Monica could return to the cathedral parvis to celebrate the historic first ordination of women priests.

 Steven Trickey, jeweller and future father of her 2 sons, brought the beautiful blonde Monica, who was thinking of becoming a fashion model, to Bristol from Paris in the late 50’s and married her. At 16 she had left behind unfavourable family circumstances in Sweden. Her father, Gustav Sjoo, the peasant painter, had divorced, when Monica was three, the mother Monica always spoke of as a beautiful woman artist. Monica was always sexy, often flirtatious, oh yes! (She loved Johnny Depp.) She was one of the first women I met when I came to Bristol in 1967. She was by then married to and living with Andy Jubb, a gifted musician and pianist. She returned, from a solo trip to Sweden, pregnant with her 3rd son, Leif. Then she lived with Keith Motherson in Wales until Leif died on holiday, abroad. Returning to Bristol she learnt Sean, her eldest son, had been diagnosed with lymphoma. Overwhelmed by grief, she became a brooding presence, losing Sean 2yrs later.

  But her family grew, too- her middle son Toivo made her Farmor to two grandchildren whom she travelled to Portugal to see whenever she could. Toivo left Portugal and his family to care devotedly for his mother in her home in the last six months of her life. She was also a devoted Nan to her best friend Pam’s adopted daughter Nyrere, soon off to Uni.

 Her struggle to overcome such adversity was remarkable. Seeking solace and making countless pilgrimages to sacred sites, connecting ancient and celtic religions, she  embarked upon a serious search for evidence of times more balanced in outlook, not male dominated, destructive- but matriarchal, matrilineal and in tune with the earth’s powerful energies and rhythms. What a networker Monica was,  a prodigious letter-writer and poster maker of her own work, loyal friend- and a traveller! Almost from her death-bed, surprising friends and medical profession alike, arose to travel to Sweden one last time. Prior to that had popped over to the Czech republic for a Goddess Gathering. She had often been in the States- or Ireland- or Malta- or on Lewis in the outer Hebrides or at St Non’s Well, Pembrokeshire or protesting in Swedish forests and so on - always ready for the next chance to connect with/gather in more, dedicated women, to have more spiritual experience, find more sacred sites. Never flagged in the telling and disseminating of the information she considered vital to save the earth- and had enough slides about her travels and research- and was such a raconteur- for seemingly endless shows in which she willingly passed on all she knew– she longed for her work and ideas to be distributed far and wide and to make links across continents with other women in her field.

 Monica wrote and published a few influential books, too! The Great Cosmic Mother (with Barbara Mohr); New Age Armageddon (her strong reaction to the chauvinism she discovered to be inherent in the new paganism and to any suggestion that cancer was not an environmental illness requiring a shift in global awareness); The North Goddess & African Origins.  She also inspired and was part of Amu Mawu, a Bristol women’s spirituality group.

 Monica was idiosyncratic, compassionate, imposing, formidably well-read and informed in her subject, easily amused and interested, refreshingly frank and powerful, dedicated and courageous – her strengths were many but oh, how difficult she could be, too! She could be imperious, inflexible, quick to take offence, unbearably blunt, dogmatic.  Not everyone could take it, weaker mortals we! She demanded much from her many exceptional friends and followers. They were often required to be forgiving to the point of indulgence. But a great love flowed around this remarkable and dedicated woman, and unceasingly drew people to her, even as her secondary bone and brain cancer worsened, even as she is in our midst today.

 Monica’s retrospective in Bath Feb 2004 seemed like a miracle. There were fears it might be a posthumous exhibition but she rallied wonderfully under the attention of Dr Goodman at the oncology dept. of the BRI. Her impressive iconic paintings filled the space with colour and imagery. People poured in but the art press largely ignored it. No matter. Her output has been prodigious, her exhibitions many. Her work is widely known and hangs in Sweden\USA/Europe.

 It has created- and continues to create- a focus upon what she called ‘these too dangerous times’. She leaves as legacy a philosophical belief that the solution, to the threat to our environment we are now beginning to face, is the re-awakening and arising of the long-suppressed Goddess. She also offers a call to arms- to fight on behalf of a threatened Mother Earth! Her hope would be that the indwelling spirits of her beloved sacred spaces will continue, through her work and her visions and dreams, to speak to, and inspire, us all. Blessed be Monica.      

Monica Sjoo,

1938-2005

(Died Bristol UK early evening August 8th 2005 aged 66)

Pat VT West

Bristol August 2005