Snapshot, 1982: The Charis "Dinner Party" Store

"Snapshot, 1982" by Charis founder, Linda Bryant

In July, 1982, Charis Books and More opened a satellite store for ten weeks only, on Peachtree, next to the Fox Theatre, in conjunction with the exhibition of Judy Chicago’s art installation, The Dinner Party. Here’s a snapshot, from my journal of July 8, 1982, of that moment in time.

The days are hectic, full, but good. Things fall together – a tribute, I say, to Mary Ross Taylor, to our good planning, the wonderful people with whom we work, and a graciousness that permeates this whole activity from the cosmos. (the cosmos?? What word do I use for the spiritual power that fills us, bonds us, moves us, blesses us?)

The project, the Dinner Party store, has been underway for many months now – months of excitement, speculation, negotiation, and work. As we near the actualization of all these plans, Kay (Hagan), Sandra (Lambert), and I (Linda Bryant) planned an evening for our new staff. This is the way the evening went.

Sandra prepared a salad from her garden. Kay and I prepared a fabulous rendition of spaghetti Betty Lou and French bread. We put long tables, long enough to seat ten, on my new screened porch. When women arrived, we served wine in crystal goblets, Chablis and rose, and there was music too, and cranberry juice when needed. After our meal, we sat at the table and the three of us gave gifts to our friends. I, first, spoke of our store’s name, Charis, describing the early naming, the understanding of the name – grace, gift, thanks. Then my learning that Charis was also a designation of the goddess, further elaborated as “she who is before all things.” The root word for eucharist – a connection, an origin, of communion, communing. My sense of the presence of this charis within us, not to be prayed to, but to celebrate, to recognize, to call out in one another, to allow the bonding, to claim and create the transformation. I held a bowl of small paper cranes in ten different colors and I told the story of Sadako and the thousand paper cranes. I spoke of my choice of paper cranes as a fitting gift. They are a symbol of our hope for peace and a belief in working for peace, a sign of our devotion to children and children’s books, an evidence of transformation – a flat paper to a lovely bird. I passed around the bowl and each woman took a paper crane.

Sandra spoke next as she held a wooden bowl of garlic cloves, the garlic grown in her garden. She spoke of our connection with the earth, with flavor and fruitfulness. She called on us to remember our bodies, to love our sexuality, during this venture. And garlic, she reminded us, wards off vampires, and we must use it to hold at bay those who would suck the life out of us.

Kay, who sleeps now in my bed, just beyond my window, held in her hands a wooden bowl from which hung white silken cords. She passed the bowl as she spoke and we each received an abalone shell to wear as a necklace. She spoke of shells as symbols of currency or exchange as we enter a retail venture. And the shell, she said, is also a sign of our sexuality. She told of taking these shells into the moonlight during the lunar eclipse to soak up the power of the moon. And she pointed out the spiral at the base of the shell, the spiral of our growth, our becoming.

Then we took a short break and met again in the living room, in a circle on the floor. Kay had the Motherpeace tarot cards spread on a beautiful blue tray and we each chose a card and read our own cards as a joint reading for our work together. The power was evident, each woman’s words clear. We looked at cups and wands, the star, the dear little fool. No swords. Enough discs to assure material success.

After the cards, we exchanged our power objects – shells, rocks, a velvet bag, a button, a crystal – words to one another of what each gift meant, why we chose them. Wishing well. Kisses. Then more wine and a walk to the park to toast the moon, ourselves, our work. We could see our shadows, a line of women outlined on the field below. Back inside for ice cream, coffee, good nights. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

This snapshot brought back lots of memories to me of a moment that was a reflection of the times in which we were living – the Reagan years, the burgeoning of the women’s spirituality movement, the deep desire to live out feminism in work and life. I am wondering if readers would like to see/read more of these snapshots in the life of Charis – let us know!