Witch hunt?
By Mark Thornton
revieweditor@bellsouth.net
When Andie Gibbs Henson recalls the fear that Camp Sister Spirit caused the people of Ovett, she can’t help but chuckle at the irony. After all, the group of lesbians who started the camp 15 years ago were the ones who had reason to be scared. They were terrorized while they tried to keep to themselves on their isolated 120-acre campground in southern Jones County.
But these days, things are different. The camp that started as a “lesbian feminist separatist” organization is now a “humanist” haven, Henson said. And as the camp’s mission has evolved, so has the attitude of the people around them.
“One of the people who shot at us, we now go fishing together,” Henson said, adding with a laugh, “and he will snap someone’s neck if they mess with us.”
Eliminating ignorance, not promoting the lesbian lifestyle, is the mission of Camp Sister Spirit these days, Henson said. That’s why she started a folk school, which features a classroom, a library and a hundred or so acres of unfettered nature. On the chalkboard, the word “clarity” is written in all caps.
“Every day, we pray for clarity,” Henson said.
But neither her classroom nor her theology are conventional. She is educated in all religions, she said, and “all of them have value.” She attends Hattiesburg Unitarian Universal Fellowship and she holds a master’s degree in education with a minor in women’s studies and a bachelor’s in criminal justice from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she is working on her doctorate in education. But all of her learning doesn’t come from books.
“What good is book knowledge if you’re cold and hungry?” she said.
So, as Henson works with illiterate adults, she also tries to learn skills from them — how to can tomatoes, how to start a generator ... — in exchange for teaching them to read.
“I am a pagan educator,” Henson said. “I’m just an old hedge witch. I worship what takes care of me — Mother Earth, Father Sky ...”
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe the things Christians believe, Henson said.
“My best friend is a Christian,” she said. “Jesus is my friend. I look forward to His return. He’s going to come hang out with me and help me with my work here.”
Another one of Henson’s passions is the elimination of poverty. The camp has an impressive food bank in storage and a kitchen in which she has prepared meals for 200 or so people.
“After Katrina, they handed out three truckloads of generators to the poor and the elderly,” said Donna Henderson, a neighbor.
Her brother, Eddie Hill, said, “They are some of the nicest people you ever met. They’ve been wonderful to me.”
Hill has spent a good deal of time at the camp, keeping the grass cut and the grounds cleaned up.
“People think they run around naked, but it’s not like that,” he said. “I’ve never even seen any of them kiss. They mind their own business.”
But there is still a stigma attached to the camp. That’s why 13-year-old Lily, a student at the folk school, won’t reveal her last name.
“People will think I’m a lesbian,” she said.
It’s that reputation that Henson is still working to overcome, even though she can’t understand why anyone felt so threatened by a group of lesbians who kept to themselves, deep in the woods of Ovett. People of all religions, ethnicities and sexual orientation — and yes, even men — are welcome at Camp Sister Spirit, except during women-only events. Dogs, cats, even a huge pig, have their run of the grounds and the homes, which can sleep up to 65 people.
“We only discriminate against people who are hateful,” she said. And she doesn’t tolerate alcohol or drug use in the camp, she added.
“The camp isn’t mine, she simply allows me to be here,” Henson said. “The camp belongs to anyone who is pure of heart.”
She tries not to disturb any of the many large golden orb spiders that have spun their webs all around the camp, but she’s not completely passive, either. Henson noted that the camp has a security system in place. A full-time caretaker named Whisper lives on the grounds along with Henson and her brother.
“Somebody’s here all the time,” she said.
Henson, 42, is a former police officer who was the whistleblower in a jail beating scandal in Harrison County that led to reform two decades ago. She was fired and faced scorn then, but it was nothing compared to the firestorm that came when her mother, Brenda Henson, helped found Camp Sister Spirit.
Over the years, they’ve been shot at, saline bombs were set off on the grounds, a car was set on fire and rolled into the camp, a dead dog was hanged on the mailbox and sanitary napkins and an inflatable replica of female genitalia have been left at the front gate. Henson gets emotional when she describes the weekly drills she had to put her Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother, Mary Henson, and young niece through in case they were attacked.
“We had a planned escape route for them,” she said, wiping away tears, “just in case something happened.”
The controversy landed them in the national spotlight — on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Primetime, Jerry Springer and The London Times, among others. It wasn’t the kind of notoriety they wanted, said Henson, who is the only writer from Mississippi to be published in a book of essays called “Voices for Change: Women’s Words for Politicians.”
Henson’s mother died of colon cancer in February. She was 62. Her death affected her daughter deeply.
People from across the country come to Camp Sister Spirit for cultural and academic events, such as the Poor People of Color Conference, which will be this spring.
But on Friday, it will be mostly about fun as they celebrate the pagan holiday All Hallow’s Eve — Halloween. Dozens of people are expected to gather there and make stone soup, carve pumpkins and go bobbing for pomegranates, she said.
And, during a quiet, personal time, Henson will try to speak with her mother.
“That’s the night that the veil is thinnest between us and those who have passed on to the afterlife,” she said. “I’ll sit in the sacred bamboo grove and talk to my mother, who I miss more than anything in the world.”
Henson pointed out that many holiday symbols have roots in paganism, including Christmas trees and the Easter bunny.
“Nine million pagans were killed during The Inquisition,” she said. “That’s 4 million more than the number of Jewish people killed in the Holocaust. Where’s our ... museum?”
But she doesn’t want to focus on divisions like that.
“If we don’t come together,” she said. “we’re not going to to survive.”
I am so very proud to have Andie as a friend and "sister" and am honored to serve on the Board of Directors for all the work that is being done for the sake of humanity and the environment.
"That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. ~ William J.H. Boetcker"
