2016 ASWM CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS Agha

2016 ASWM CONFERENCE
ABSTRACTS
Agha-Jaffar, Tamara
Demeter, Persephone, and Iambe: Three Rebels with Cause
The story of Demeter and Persephone as told in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter presents us with three
contrasting paradigms of rebellion, freedom, and independence.
Demeter’s rebellion against the gods for the abduction of her daughter to the Underworld takes the form
of open defiance. My presentation will discuss the different stages Demeter experiences after she learns of
her daughter’s abduction before finally tapping into her inner strength as the Goddess of the Grain. She
engages in open rebellion against the gods to force the release of her daughter.
Persephone’s rebellion is covert. Hades, the God of the Underworld, kidnaps her and claims her as his
bride, presumably through rape. Traumatized by the experience, Persephone refuses to eat food from the
Underworld for a year, knowing if she does so, she will have to return. But something happens to
Persephone during her year-long stay in the Underworld. She re-frames her experience. Hades slips
pomegranate seeds in her mouth as she is exiting the Underworld. Instead of spitting them out,
Persephone swallows them, thereby intentionally ensuring her return. Through this covert act of rebellion,
Persephone creates a unique space for herself among the gods, one that ensures her freedom and
independence. She exercises agency, defines herself, and moves beyond her trauma and victimization.
Although Iambe appears briefly in the Homeric Hymn, her role is significant. She performs a lewd dance
in front of Demeter, wiggling, jiggling, and flaunting her wrinkled, aging body. She culminates her
performance by lifting her tunic and exposing her genitals. Iambe’s jig will be discussed as a form of
rebellion against a culture that worships all things young, firm, and perky. Hers is a joyous celebration of
the freedom and independence that can ensue if we rid ourselves of the shackles of youth-worshipping
culture.
Tamara Agha-Jaffar has her Ph.D. in English Literature. She has been in academia all her professional
life, serving as professor of English, then a dean, and then Vice President for Academic Affairs until her
retirement in July 2013. In 2004 she was named Kansas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation
and received its CASE Award for the Advancement of Teaching. In 2010 she received The President’s
Call to Service Award for her volunteer work in the community. Her previous books are Demeter and
Persephone: Lessons from a Myth (McFarland 2002) and Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred
Texts (Longman 2004). She has recently published her first novel A Pomegranate and the Maiden
(Anaphora Literary Press 2015).
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Avedano, Angelina
Raging Grief and the Dual Descent
Separated from their children, mothers encounter an overwhelming abyss. A tsunami of
sorrow, guilt, and rage strips the soul; like Inanna it hangs unceremoniously from a meat hook in the
Underworld. Rites of passage initiate mothers’ simultaneous descent. Separation occurs at death, but also
during the interminable absence of the hunter/warrior/traveler—or the wayward, addicted, or mentally ill
son or daughter. Mythically, mother’s death/denial flags initiation evidenced by corpse mothers,
suicidal/murderous mothers, and longsuffering sainted mothers. Corpse mother signals exile in the
Mahabharata ; Anticlea dies grieving Odysseus; Jocasta commits suicide over Oedipus; Agave
dismembers (and disremembers) Pentheus; and Sethe’s motherrage in Morrison’s Beloved alongside
Mary’s silence at the cross illustrates a grief spectrum unique to injustice. Great Mother Isis is instructive:
the grieving mother’s agency instigates transformation. Savage, suffering, or silent, she must navigate her
descent while serving as impetus and intercessor for her children.
Angelina Avedano earned a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School (HDS), a MA
in English from Boston College, and is a PhD Candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate
Institute (PGI). Her recent publication “ Violence and Veneration: Tapping a Sadomasochistic Vein in the
American Psyche ,” appears in PGI’s Mythological Studies Journal . Publications appear in The Wick
(HDS 2008 & 2009); WVU’s Philological Papers (2011); & Between: Literary Review (PGI 2013).
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Baker-McInnis, Kayden
1. The Rich Dark of Grief: The Myths of Niobe and Demeter
The mythic realm offers entry into grief, where grief is not an event to overcome but a
life long passage. In the mythic underworld, life’s rages and ravages are the keys to rapture, a process
essential to the feminine psyche. The sacred erupts out of the rich dark that women embody—where life
is cultivated in various forms. This creation process is the essence of motherhood. In Greek myth, Niobe
incites goddess wrath and is the emblem of a mother’s perennial suffering. Niobe’s paralysis over the
slaughter of her fourteen children parallels the goddess Demeter whose grief turns the world cold and
starves civilization until her voice is heard in the patriarchal halls of Olympia. Niobe remains in an
underworld experience of grief in contrast to Demeter who companions her grief with her return into a
remade life. Creation out of grief is a sacred rapture.
2. Wilderness, Women, and Soul-Making
Wilderness is an encounter with solitude and wildness, a culturally forgotten
essence of the feminine. Psychologically, wilderness is a place not yet cultivated or
inhabited and is critical for the wholeness of psyche. Never venturing beyond
consciousness diminishes the soul and is a rejection of wilderness. The wilderness within
is where women have abandoned their wild nature. Engaging with nature and myth is an
invitation for women to nurture and cultivate that psychic space. How do we continue to
traverse unmapped terrain and penetrate dense forests to find our strength and
contribution? The alchemical wolf goddess Artemis is key in learning to belong to
ourselves; her beauty exists for itself, as she protects herself and the lands she inhabits.
We will examine the myths of this goddess of wildness who calls forth our
undomesticated self. As the goddess of childbirth, Artemis reminds women to birth
themselves to their inner sacred landscape. The essence of Artemis is “choose yourself”
and is an unselfish act when nourishing our need for solitude to replenish the world. How
do we engage with the Artemis archetype where wildness and solitude are soul-making
experiences? Can the mythic imagination bring us back to the wolf, the eagle, the deer?
How does this imaginal act influence the Western psyche/nature split? Defending our
solitude is in service to our feminine nature. Standing up for wilderness is our expression
as women. This lecture will include images and writing prompts to further explore our
engagement with Artemis and inner wildness.
Kayden Baker-McInnis earned her MA and is a PhD candidate in Mythological Studies
and Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is a published poet and editor
of PGI’s Literary Journal Between. She is a creative writer, writing coach and teaches her
original writing process, Writing as a Sacred Art throughout the year in Salt Lake City. Kayden has an
intuitive counseling practice teaching somatic meditation tools and
shamanic practices.
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Bellebuono, Holly
Women Healers of the World
Celebrate an extraordinary lineage of women in Women Healers of the World, exploring
some of the most influential and controversial women of history. These foremothers were
scientists, healers, and collaborators, and they pushed difficult boundaries and risked their
safety to advance women’s discovery in medicine and healing. Their persistence, vision
and passion shaped modern pharmacology, medicine, perfumery, aromatherapy,
herbalism, and other healing arts.
Supported by 7 years of travel, research, and personal interviews, author, herbalist and
empowerment speaker Holly Bellebuono shares their provocative stories and the
inspiring process through which these women examined our world and recorded ancestral
knowledge. In this colorful and dynamic slide presentation, we explore ancient Egypt
(Hatshepsut, Maria Prophetisa, and Cleopatra), medieval Europe (Hildegard, Locusta,
and Trotula), 18th century Nova Scotia (Marie Henriette LeJeune Ross), and 19th century
Boston (Mary Baker Eddy). Bridging role models, women, and science, Holly shows how
these women’s expertise and passion continue to ignite the imagination of women today.
Celebrated for its gorgeous photography and original watercolor portraits, this
presentation is based on Holly’s Women Healers of the World: The Traditions, History &
Geography of Herbal Medicine, named Book of the Year by The International Herb
Association and recipient of the 2015 Thomas DeBaggio Award.
A dynamic storyteller, Holly Bellebuono lectures on herbalism, women’s empowerment,
and mythic symbolism at conferences, retreats and universities nationwide, including
“Afraid of the Dark,” her interpretive research on the mythic Abyss. She writes for Sage
Woman and Taproot magazines, authored 6 books and audio CDs including The
Essential Herbal for Natural Health and The Authentic Herbal Healer, and directs The
Bellebuono School of Herbal Medicine and Vineyard Herbs Apothecary.
Biaggi, Cristina
Matriarchy as Inspiration for Art abstract missing
Cristina Biaggi, artist, activist and scholar, has achieved international recognition as a sculptor of bronze
and wood pieces. Using the theme of interconnection, she has also created large outdoor installations, and
has explored collage in the two and three dimensional form. Her work has been exhibited throughout the
United States, Europe and Australia. She is a respected authority on the Great Goddess, Neolithic and
Paleolithic prehistory, and the origin and impact of patriarchy on contemporary life.
Bowman, Jessica
The Dark Goddess
The Dark Goddess is a rich representation of this year’s conference theme, Seeking Harbor in Our
Histories: Lights in the Darkness. This aspect of the Divine Feminine is often misunderstood and more
often vilified, in part because She represents the wisdom and power of the crone but also because She
exudes mystery. Of course, Disney movies are a prime example of the crone portrayed as an evil entity.
While it is true that mythologies across time and cultures tell Her story as the death bringer She also has
the unique ability to bring forth life. She is the holder of the flame, the mother giving birth and the
ultimate example of profound transformation. Her kingdom is the Underworld, also known as the
womb/tomb, which indeed holds the shadow and darkness recognized throughout history and across the
world. Yet, it also is an amazing source of light for those who dare make the journey. This presentation
will introduce some of the Goddesses that hold this incarnation and why a relationship with Her is so
powerful. The myth of the goddess Inanna is a fine example. Although Inanna is the star of the show it is
her sister Ereshkigal that embodies the life giving attribute of the Dark Goddess. While she watches
Inanna’s body wither away Ereshkigal is giving birth in the depths of the Underworld. She has no
aspirations to rise above or return to her sister’s kingdom in the heavens. She is the Queen of her own
domain.
Jessica Bowman holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology, a Master’s Degree in Women’s Spirituality
and Teaching and Administrative Credentials. She is the Academic Dean for the Emergent Studies
Institute, a Massage Therapist and an Intentional Creativity Coach. As an artist, she works in the
Contemporary Symbolism movement focusing on the Divine Feminine. She is a doctoral student at the
California Institute of Integral Studies in the Transformative Studies Department.
Brunner, Kate
1. Rhiannon, Great Queen of the Mabinogi
The Welsh tales of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, recorded in The White Book of Rhydderch during
the fourteenth century draw on ancient Brythonic mythological material and tribal moral/social
constructs. This rich source material was then artfully crafted by those who brought it into the realm of
written literature with an additional purpose in mind. The tales brought native deities of the past into the
present culturalcontext to deliver insight on living in right action to their contemporary audiences. The
power of these stories for the medieval Welsh audience was in this skillful eisegesis; thoroughly grounded
in the ancient tradition, but fully applicable to their contemporary lives. Mythological material, like the
Mabinogi, has been used in this manner for centuries. Practitioners of Goddess spirituality can continue
this process into the modern age as a powerful tool for introspection, healing, and affecting personal and
social change. This paper explores the critical literature surrounding Rhiannon in the First Branch of the
Mabinogi in order to firmly ground modern application of Her story in Brythonic mythological and Welsh
medieval historical contexts. Next, this paper examines elements of Her mythology that can be brought
forward for Goddess activists to apply towards addressing forms of oppression in their quests to advance
the light of social justice in today’s often dark world.
2. Becoming Branwen the Peaceweaver
Workshop participants will learn about the mythological and historical context of the Welsh Goddess,
Branwen, from the Second Branch of the Mabinogi. They will explore Her Brythonic roots and Her
medieval textual manifestation in order to ground themselves in Her legacy. In particular, discussion of
Her role as Lady of Two Islands and the importance of Her journeys from harbor to harbor between
Wales and Ireland will be emphasized. Next, participants will have the opportunity to apply the themes
and voices of Her narrative to their personal lives and social justice activism. This workshop will teach
participants how to utilize critical literary analysis, discussion of historical materials, meditative
visualization techniques, and creative writing exercises to bring the power of Branwen as Peaceweaver to
bear in their lives. Participants will also leave this workshop capable of applying these processes and
skills to the histories of other Goddess mythologies relevant to their lives and work in order to light their
paths into the future.
Kate Brunner is a member of The Sisterhood of Avalon and Project CoWeaver
at the Feminism and Religion Blog Project; writing, editing, & coordinating publication of interfaith
content exploring the intersection of feminism and religion. She holds a BA in Economics from Tulane
University. Kate presented at monthly Houston area Red Tents and women’s retreats before relocating
overseas for several years. In Australia, she
hosted seasonal gatherings, facilitated labyrinth rituals, and led women’s spirituality
workshops.
Cellidwen, Yuria
Tonantzin Coatlicue Guadalupe: Christian Symbolism, Colonization and Social Justice
To create stories of atonement and empowerment one is to converge seemingly opposite views of life:
suffering and hope, shadow and psychic awareness, abuse and respect. This paper argues that in order to
change the conditions of distress, dehumanization and colonization upon the collective psyche of
indigenous peoples, it is imperative to become aware of the dark side of history and engage in dialogue
with its shadow. The symbolic and depth psychological aspect of the Catholic religion and its political
impact and manipulation during the colonization of Mexico is the central topic. The paper focuses on the
image of the Mexican icon of The Lady of Guadalupe in four main points:
1) As a symbol of the dispossessed in Mexican history and contemporary immigrant populations;
2) Its shadow aspect manifesting in its iconography as conditioning for the colonization, dehumanization
and subjugation of indigenous peoples,.
3) The relationship to its Aztec mythic counterpart, the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin Coatlicue. The
imposition of the New World spirituality;
4) The recent apology by Pope Francis to the indigenous populations for the exploitation and cruelty
carried out in the times of the Spanish colonization.
I pay emphasis in the responsibility humans have as part of the movement for a conscious humanity to
acknowledge the impact of our choices in the rest of the world; and how essential it is to obtain a new
cosmological view that nurtures altruistic interactions of humans as individuals, as members of the
community, and as caretakers of the ecosystem. This is an introductory basis for inquiry, reformation and
regeneration of our perception and approach to the self and the world in a creative, compassionate way.
Yuria Celidwen is a Mexican PhD candidate in mythology and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate
Institute. She is a graduate from the Four Year Program in Sustainable Happiness, and the Contemplative
Psychotherapy Program from the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Sciences. Her research focuses on
mysticism, altruism, compassion, environmental and indigenous issues. She develops workshops on the
mythologies of the self with an emphasis on altruism, contemplative practices and eco-psychology.
Cichon, Alexandra
Reflections on Reclaiming the Wheel of Ariadne of Bronze Age Crete
We will introduce the Wheel of Ariadne and participants will join with us to call in the forgotten
Goddesses who stand with Her, sound their names, offer libations, walk /dance Ariadne’s spiral path,
ritually renaming and reclaiming the matrilineal civilization of Bronze Age Crete as Ariadnian Crete
(restored from its andro-ethnocentric attribution to Minos, Ariadne’s father in Greek myth). Ariadne
stands at the center of this wheel in triple aspect as Life-Bestower, Death-Wielder and Regeneratrix. We
look to the Cretan labyrinth as template for this Wheel of Ariadne not only because ancient sources name
Ariadne “Mystress of the Labyrinth,” but because the language of matrilineal Bronze Age Crete, Linear
A, remains undeciphered, prompting us to look to the soul’s language, image, to decode ancient Cretan
cosmology.
Ariadne’s seven-circuit Cretan Labyrinth is axis mundi, cosmic axis, world pillar, celestial and
geographical pole of interpenetration between sky and earth where the four compass points meet, thus
feminine matrix, omphalos, world navel. Ariadne’s infamous Red Thread is the subtle umbilical cord
spanning millennia, calling us back to re-member the matrilineal bloodline of Her mysteries, and forward
to recognize Her immanence, manifest in the interpenetrating fields of the postmodern quantum universe.
We will address the archeomythological underpinnings of the Goddesses, their placement upon this
reclaimed spiral wheel, and journey imaginally to Cretan caves, hilltop sanctuaries, temples, sea coast.
We will seek Ariadne and the diminished Bronze Age Goddesses who stand beside Her, many known
only by their attributes and the animals sacred to them, to honor their sacred lineage.
Alexandra Cichon, Ph.D. Priestess of the Goddess, wounded healer/researcher, actor, psychodramatist,
wrote her dissertation for Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Clinical Psychology program on Ariadne’s myth.
Recipient of Oxford University Dramatic Society’s Best Actress Award and the Jefferson Award (nonEquity) for Performance, her most recent work is published in the 2014-2015 Double Dealer, literary
journal of New Orleans’ Faulkner Society. She is a member of the Priestess of Avalon training in
Glastonbury, UK.
Clunie, Simone
The Representation of Goddess Imagery in Feminist Art
For millennia, the goddess figure has made its way through the mythologies of women’s histories, First
Peoples and down into the Western traditions of major (masculinist) Abrahamic religions, where they
have become eclipsed by a solo male god head. In the rising of the Second Wave of the western feminist
movement of the 60s in (New World) countries like the USA and the United Kingdom, female artists
started looking at a female create-tress, inspire by various traditional goddess mythologies, as the first
source of worship. The iconography of the goddess also became another way to peel away the layers of
patriarchal thought (and religion) and to interpret female energy and body as a priori site of/for creation.
Paying reverence to the spirit/creation and its interconnectedness to/within nature by remembering the
goddess presence through re-confirming pagan based practices like Wicca and Dianic witchcraft, the
calling on of the African traditions of Yoruba and Vodun, and reframing Christian tradition within a
woman’s theology. As a ceramic artist, my work has been influenced by this time and train of thought,
and moving through a trajectory of the social influences of the 1960s and onwards that informed the
feminist (art historical) thinking of various female artists, I will look at how goddess mythologies have
informed individual/specific works of Ana Mendieta (Cuba), Asungi (USA), Monica Sjoo (Sweden/UK),
Mary Beth Edelson (USA), Robyn Kahukiwa, (New Zealand/Aotearoa.
Simone Clunie is an artist who lives in Florida. Moving to the USA from Jamaica in the mid-eighties she
found out she had an affinity for clay and earned a BFA in the Visual Arts from Florida International
University in Miami. A feminist conceptual framework is the impetus for the work she focuses on,
primarily using the female body as a metaphoric container for/of magic and women’s mythology.
Crane, Betsy
Implications of the Goddess for Gendered Sexuality: Then and Now
Evolutionary biologists argue that a woman’s longer reproductive investment dictates that she needs to
secure a protector/dominator to care for her and her offspring (Buss, 2004). This presumes a biologically
encoded patriarchal order that cross-cultural and historical evidence contests (Crane-Seeber & Crane,
2010; 2013). Actually, today’s gender norms emerged from the last 7,000 to 10,000 years of patriarchal
social arrangements that legitimated sexual and physical violence against women and subverted women’s
ability to support themselves without men. But what about the time before gender relations pivoted so
heavily toward male dominance? Based on the work of goddess history scholars, e.g. Eisler (1987), &
Gimbutas (1989), participants in this workshop will experience a trip to a “pre-history” where our
ancestors conceptualized the supreme power in the universe as a female. What came to be called the Great
Earth Mother Goddess was revered as the source of material and spiritual plenty. Sculptures found in
caves from as long ago as 30,000 years BCE include hundreds of small female statues of the Great Earth
Mother Goddess, with ample breasts, bulging stomachs and buttocks.
During this time girls would have seen their bodies and social roles in relation to a creative, powerful, and
deeply mystical feminine creator (Mann & Lyle, 2003). Boys saw themselves in terms of the ‘horned
god,’ a passionate and embodied force of nature who was lover and ally to the goddess (Benigni, Carter,
& Dexter, 2007). What might all this mean for us today? Join the conversation.
Betsy Crane leads workshops that are interactive and enlightening. Professor at Center for Human
Sexuality Studies, Widener University, she earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University. Previously for 17
years she was a family planning outreach worker, and Education Director and Executive Director for
Planned Parenthood in Ithaca, NY. Co-editor of Sexual Lives (Heasley & Crane, 2003), her research
includes history of gendered sexuality and shifting gender and sexual identities of young people.
Dashu, Max
The Distaff: Fates, Witches, and Women's Power
The distaff has been a symbol of female power for millennia. European cultures associated it with
goddesses, fatas and faeries, saints and witches. Athena, the Parcae and Matronae, and Gaulish and
British goddesses are depicted with distaffs, as are the medieval figures of Berthe Pédauque and Mother
Earth. Rich folk traditions tell of women's offerings to faery godmothers, and of Habetrot (England),
Lughia Rajosa (Sardinia) and Paraskeva L'nyanitsa (Russia). Scandinavian archaeology has revealed a
pattern of völur (seeresses) buried with shamanic staffs, many of them shaped like distaffs. The
tremendous significance of this discovery is not yet fully recognized; it links the Norse völvawith the rich
mythology of spinning Fates, and with women's ceremony in other European folk religions. Like the
völur, witches in other countries were associated with the distaff, with its strong aura of female
sovereignty, even as witch hunts gradually demonized its potency. Medieval miniatures of women
jousting with distaffs against men also depicted female rebellion. By the 1400s, artists had consolidated
the somewhat humorous "battle of the sexes" motif into a virulently misogynist theme of the
Emasculating Distaff, in which women assert rulership over men by riding on them and beating them with
distaffs. Or men are forced to carry distaffs, as in the Skimminton and charivari processions that ridiculed
non-dominating husbands. Yet the Old Spinner survived in the French "Tales of My Mother Goose," the
British women's holiday St. Distaff's Day, and in the goddesses and cosmological symbols carved into
Russian and Lithuanian distaffs.
Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research global women’s history and
heritages. She teaches with images from her vast collection, bringing to light female realities long hidden
from view. She has published in numerous feminist journals and anthologies, including Goddesses in
World Culture (2010), and has produced two video dvds, Woman Shaman: the Ancients (2008) and
Women’s Power in Global Perspective (2013). Her new book is Witches and Pagans: Europe 700-1100,
first in the series Secret History of the Witches. More at www.suppressedhistories.net.
Daughter, Barbara
Women Are the Revolution: Examining the Lessons of My Motherline while Honoring the Legacy of
Deborah Simpson
This paper considers my birthplace, Boston, MA, and some of the surrounding communities in
southeastern Massachusetts where I lived and spent my formative years. I will address “myth and lineage
of the spirit of place,” by simultaneously situating my maternal family’s European lineage within the
context of southeastern Massachusetts’ watersheds and waterways, alongside the region’s Indigenous
cultures’ histories, as well as their resurgence today. I will juxtapose shared wisdom from my Motherline,
with inspiration from the herstorical figure, Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts’ woman who served –
disguised as a man – in the Revolutionary War. I will consider how each of these threads are
revolutionary, and how each can be a source of courage in the present day.
As an alumna of California Institute of Integral Studies’ Master’s program in Philosophy and Religion,
concentration in Women’s Spirituality, Barbara C. Daughter continues her life-long pursuit of spiritual
wisdom. Currently a Manager of a seniors’ independent-living community in Napa, CA, she recently
presented at The Parliament of World Religions, and the Women & Spirituality Conference in Mankato,
MN; is published in “She Rises” and her own blog, BcomingYou at wordpress.com.
Devi, Gayatri
Immersion: Sea and Sexuality in Goddess Myths
In mythologies around the world, the sea has been linked intricately to cultural beliefs about women’s
chastity and obedience to men, particularly, fathers and husbands. In this presentation, I discuss women’s
chastity stories and the role sea plays in them in select Greek myths and Indian myths. I discuss myths
resting on a patriarchal matrix first; in particular, the “floating chest” stories, where unmarried girls who
were suspected of having sexual intercourse or who had conceived out of wedlock were set in a wooden
chest and cast out into the sea (cf. Danae); and stories of women who were commanded to be drowned in
the sea as punishment for suspected sexual autonomy and choice (cf. Phronime). I then follow this with
the myth of the goddess Kanya Kumari – the “virgin goddess”—from Southern India who is synonymous
with both the power of sea and power of women’s chastity. The goddess Kanya Kumari’s temple that sits
on the very tip of the Indian subcontinent overlooks the confluence of three bodies of water: the Arabian
Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean. The myth of the goddess herself is intricately tied to the
locale. Kanya Kumari is the virgin goddess who is the protector of married women. Kanya Kumari is link
in a chain that stretches from patriarchal myths about the sexual power of women to a possible
matriarchal matrix where the power is seen as auspicious and not condemned or punished. I conclude the
discussion by connecting these overtly patriarchal myths of women’s chastity, chaste domesticity, and
marital fidelity and its connection with the sea with a discussion about the ritualistic significance of the
floating of the clay figure of the dark goddess Durga/Kali in a body of water—the river or the sea-- at the
conclusion of Durga Puja in Bengal, where women, virginity, and chastity are explicitly connected to a
goddess figure. I argue that in the Durga Puja ritual of the floating of the goddess icon in the water of the
ocean, we see explicit proof of a goddess tradition that links the “sacrificial” female mythical figures
drowned in the sea due to sexual transgressions with that of the goddess. The goddess myth and the ritual
drowning of the goddess provide a new lens to understand the mythical significance of stories of women
abandoned at sea or drowned for their perceived infractions against regulated sexuality.
Gayatri Devi is Associate Professor of English at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania where she
teaches world literatures, linguistics, and women and gender studies courses. Her writings on south Asian
and Middle Eastern literatures and films have appeared in scholarly journals and books. She serves on the
board of ASWM and is co-editor of the ASWM anthology Myths Shattered and Restored.
Daughter, Barbara
Women Are the Revolution: Examining the Lessons of My Motherline while Honoring the Legacy of
Deborah Simpson
This paper considers my birthplace, Boston, MA, and some of the surrounding communities in
southeastern Massachusetts where I lived and spent my formative years. I will address “myth and lineage
of the spirit of place,” by simultaneously situating my maternal family’s European lineage within the
context of southeastern Massachusetts’ watersheds and waterways, alongside the region’s Indigenous
cultures’ histories, as well as their resurgence today. I will juxtapose shared wisdom from my Motherline,
with inspiration from the herstorical figure, Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts’ woman who served –
disguised as a man – in the Revolutionary War. I will consider how each of these threads are
revolutionary, and how each can be a source of courage in the present day.
As an alumna of California Institute of Integral Studies’ Master’s program in Philosophy and Religion,
concentration in Women’s Spirituality, Barbara C. Daughter continues her life-long pursuit of spiritual
wisdom. Currently a Manager of a seniors’ independent-living community in Napa, CA, she recently
presented at The Parliament of World Religions, and the Women & Spirituality Conference in Mankato,
MN; is published in “She Rises” and her own blog, BcomingYou at wordpress.com.
Duckett, Kim
1. Being Audacious: Conceptualizing a contemporary Goddess community as a matriarchal culture
For over twenty years hundreds of women have gathered to follow the Wheel of the Year (WOTY) as an
earth-based spiritual psychology. They travel to the “island” to learn from a small group of radical
feminist, Goddess-honoring women who Know their social/political/psychological lineage to be femalecentered Amazons and claim the right to call themselves a culture. Most students return to their
communities/cultures to teach and model what they have learned and lived as “partnership” and
“women’s ways.” Other women find themselves finally “home,” and remain on the island. Most revisit
the island as often as possible to continue to learn and to rest, heal, and regenerate to be able to continue
their own calling to recreate the world they Know is possible.
This metaphoric/shamanic island exists in contemporary patriarchy.
According to Modern Matriarchal Studies can this community of women call themselves matriarchal?
The presenter thinks so and will articulate the pros and cons of her stance.
2. The Wheel of the Year as an Earth-Based Spiritual Psychology for Women
Kim has this to say about her work:
Although my interests and work as a Teacher and Priestess encompasses all aspects of women’s
spirituality generally, and Dianic Goddess traditions in particular, much of my work has been a
reclamation of Old European shamanic cultures as valid and viable indigenous traditions. I
believe that Circle, ritual, and the centrality of the Wheel of the Year in these traditions are
remnants of an ancient spiritual psychology.
2015 marks Kim’s and her community’s twenty-second year of teaching and living the Wheel of the Year
as an earth-based psychology for women. The basis of the Wheel of the Year (WOTY) as a spiritual
psychology is that of honoring both the seasons of nature and the corresponding seasons of women’s
lives. After a brief overview of the basic tenets of the Wheel as an earth-based spiritual psychology, Kim
will share an anecdotal herstory of the confluence of factors that initially inspired her to conceptualize and
create this unique model of the Wheel of the Year as a psychology for women.
Kim Duckett, a retired Women’s Studies teacher, has a PhD in Women’s Studies and Transpersonal
Psychologies from The Union Institute. She is an ordained Priestess in Dianic Goddess traditions. She is
the founder and Director of WHISPER: Land of the Sky affiliate of the Re-formed Congregation of the
Goddess-International, “A Year and a Day Sacred Mystery School for Women,” now in its twenty-second
year, and the Wheel of the Year as an Earth-Based Spiritual Psychology for Women training (WOTY).
She is currently completing a book on the Wheel as a psychology.
Dumont, Marion
Gateways to Submerged Histories: Biographies, Folklore, and Place
In this presentation, I share the discovery of my Appalachian ancestry through the lens of biographies,
folklore and the spirit of place. In 2015, I had the opportunity to spend a winter’s month in eastern
Tennessee. I discovered that two of my great, great grandparents were from this region. The spirit of place
drew me in and I fell in love with the music, culture, and people. Subsequently, I temporarily relocated to
Knoxville where I have had the opportunity to explore family genealogy and regional history at the East
Tennessee History Center and visit several communities in the Appalachian Mountains that were once
home to my ancestors. Biographies, folklore, and a growing knowledge of this particular region have led
to a deeper understanding of the submerged histories of a mountain people. This personal experience has
deepened my understanding of the importance of place in bringing healing, connection, and sensemaking
to our lives.
Marion Gail Dumont earned a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion with a specialization in Women’s
Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Science
in Nursing and a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. Born in Thiereville-Sur-Meuse,
Lorraine, France and named after Marion, Montana where her paternal Grandparents had a cattle ranch.
Since childhood, engagement with the natural world has played a central role in her healing journey. She
currently lives in-between Knoxville, TN and a multigenerational ménage near Olympia, Washington.
Marion is co-editor of the forthcoming ASWM proceedings anthology, Myths Shattered and Restored.
Eisenberg, Cristina
1. Dark Ecology: The Bear Mother and other Ecological Teachers and Guides
Dark Ecology is a post-modern philosophy based on the premise that there is no division between the
human and the non-human. For millennia, animals and humans shared ecosystems, moving together in a
trophic, spiral dance, celebrating life across the ebb and flow of the seasons through birth and death, great
migrations, the sanctity of the hunt. Modern humans imposed a mechanistic, anthropocentric, masculine
view of the world, one based on human dominion over nature. Today we know that such beliefs are
completely untenable and have led to the ecological wreckage we see worldwide. As we strive to mend
the tangled web of life and repair the damage we’ve wrought to whole ecosystems and all the beings that
inhabit them, the animals, particularly animal mothers, are functioning as guides as they always have.
These animals are teaching us profound lessons in dark ecology: what it means to be human and
nonhuman and how there really is no dividing line, how we are but part of the same continuum. Their
lessons will enable us to live more rightly on the earth and restore the planet and our human spirits.
Cristina Eisenberg will share some of the lessons she’s received from animal mothers she’s known and
others that have shaped her work as a scientist. She will discuss the bright chimeric hope these animal
teachers have to offer to humanity.
2. The Role of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an Era of Global Change
The world is changing rapidly today during what has become known as the Anthropocene Era. A
burgeoning human population and human values that are based on heedless exploitation and extraction of
the Earth’s resources are causing global warming and what scientists refer to as the Sixth Extinction.
Indeed, by the year 2100 ecologists project that half of the species that currently live on this planet will be
extinct. While the Earth has faced such cataclysmic change in the past, today’s crises differ in that they
are being caused by humans. World leaders are using tools such as economics to create a roadmap to the
future. Dr. Cristina Eisenberg will demonstrate how Traditional Ecological Knowledge that taps into the
divine feminine can teach us much in terms of how to live more rightly on this Earth, how to heal the
damage we have done, and how to mitigate, adapt to, and slow the processes that threaten every living
being today. She will discuss the changes taking place from ecological, ethical, and feminine
mythological perspectives, and how the values embodied by Traditional Ecological Knowledge across
world cultures contain the elements essential for human survival and for the wellbeing of all life on Earth.
She will present foundational ecological and ethical principles that indicate that only by returning to a
deeper, ancient knowledge based on a rootedness to our Mother the Earth can our species survive into the
next millennium.
Dr. Cristina Eisenberg, Earthwatch Institute Chief Scientist and Smithsonian Research Associate, has
been studying wolves and fire in the Rockies for the past decade. She recently founded a Kainai First
Nation TEK research program that provides fellowships for tribal members. Her books include The
Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving America’s Predators, and The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone
Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity. She is writing a climate change book.
Filemyr, Ann
The Story of Niibish: The Mer-People of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes
Niibish is a word in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) for fresh water. In this cultural context, water is female
and is considered sacred life force and source of all beings living with Mother Earth. Rivers, streams,
springs, lakes, ponds, oceans, marshes, swamps, all are revered as life source and for their special
characteristics. Water is honored as a powerful gift in all of its forms: ice, snow, hail, rain, rainbow,
spray, mist, fog, tears, sweat, blood, especially menstrual blood. In this story from the Anishinaabeg oral
tradition as passed down to Ann Megisikwe and Tahnahga by the late Keewaydinoquay, we explore the
curious yet significant relationship between human beings and mer beings. This story has never been
written down and lives in the bodies of the tellers who share it in community whenever it is called upon.
This year’s ASWM gathering includes a focus on water, and so the time has come once again to share the
story and discuss its meanings. From The Story of Niibish we will seek lessons which provide us with
ancient and abiding instructions on how to live in right relation to both water and water beings. Images of
Mer people from around the world will also be shared.
Ann Filemyr, Ph.D., is a poet, teacher and mentor who currently serves as the Vice President of
Academic Affairs & Dean at Southwestern College (SWC), a consciousness-based graduate school in
Santa Fe. She is also Director of the Certificate in Transformational Ecopsychology at the New Earth
Institute of SWC. She served as one of the principal oshkibewis or helpers of the late Keewaydinoquay
Peschel and continues to provide ceremonial leadership and spiritual mentoring for this lineage. With her
partner, she leads women’s spirituality retreats with a focus on the teachings of the Moon Lodge. See
www.annfilemyr.com for more information and to connect.
Finch, Annie
Poetry Witch Healing Wheel: an Interactive Ritual of Poetic Transformation
Sing, Muse! The rhythms of poetic charms, chants, spells, and incantations are magic keys that embody,
incarnate, and drive poetry’s power to enchant and transform, opening channels to unite body, soul, and
nature and awaken the Goddess powers within. Poetry’s origins lie at the heart of ritual and
transformative power, long predating the written word. How can we use those primal poetic powers on
behalf of our own specific processes of healing and growth as we face the challenges of becoming our
most powerful magical selves in a world shaped by the patriarchy? This session will provide specific tools
to activate this revolutionary work: five portals opening deep into the roots of your own incantatory poetic
nature. We will open the session with a poetic invocation of the Goddesses of poetry, including Brigid
and Sarasvati. Then we will move, each on our own written journey and in solidarity together, through
five rhythmic patterns that energize and transform the deepest levels of mind, body, heart, will, and spirit.
Invoking the element, direction, Muse, and healing aspect of each rhythm, we will use the power of
embodied language to enchant and transmute personal and collective obstacles. The session will
culminate in a cathartic group ritual during which we offer our transformations back to the poetry
Goddesses from whom they arose. Bring writing materials, drums if you have them, ceremonial attire if
desired, and a block you wish to move through or situation you wish to resolve. No experience with
poetry necessary.
Annie Finch (Poetry Witch) is a poet, author, playwright, ritualist, and performer. She has published
eighteen books, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems (2013) and A Poet’s Craft: A
Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry (2013). Her writings on spirituality appear
regularly in The Huffington Post and her epic about abortion, Among the Goddesses, was awarded the
2010 Sarasvati Award from ASWM. Annie is founder of Poetry Witch Magazine & Poetry Witches
Community, including workshops, webinars, and online training in poetry and spirituality. She is
currently completing her book The New American Witch. More at anniefinch.com.
Frank, Jaffa
Objective Relatedness, Radical Empathy, and Letting Go
Ereshkigal, the Sumerian Queen of the Great Below, rules the reality of things as they
are : concrete, amoral, paradoxically personal and impersonal, and inherently beyond our control. She is
the goddess of our individual and collective fate; we all die. She enforces natural law expressed
mythologically as “feminine justice”—natural consequences grounded in physical reality, rather than
abstract, ethical concepts of morality. Ereshkigal seems the antithesis of a Mother Goddess, so what can
she reveal about motherhood and grief? Her qualities of unrelatedness—uncompromising objectivity and
indifference—appear to challenge fundamental aspects of Eros as the feminine principle essential to
mothering. Apprehending Ereshkigal’s objective relatedness, however, initiates us into deeper
experiences of Eros and the radical empathy required to objectively enter another’s experience for him or
her rather than for oneself; empathy required to release one’s child into his or her unique and separate
destiny, or into death.
Jaffa Frank holds a BBA from University of New Mexico and MA in Counseling: Grief, Loss, and
Trauma from Southwestern College in Santa Fe, NM. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with
experience in hospice and attachment disruption. A PhD Candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica
Graduate Institute, she is published in Between: Literary Review (2012, 2014). Jaffa is the mother of two
living daughters and two deceased sons.
George, Demetra
Dark Moon Life Traditions
The Moon’s monthly phases of waxing and waning light gave early peoples their first intimations of the
alternation of life and death with its cycle of birth, growth, death and renewal. In the astrological model,
the ongoing progressed movements of the Sun and Moon after birth define three specific 30-year cycles
over the course of one’s life that mirror the beginnings, middles, and endings of core themes underlying
our soul’s purpose. Within each cycle is a 4-year waning dark moon phase period where we are plunged
into a dark night of the soul that often precedes a new beginning. By examining the life of Teresa of
Avila, a 16th century mystic visionary, discover how her descent into the madness of hallucinations
prefigured her spiritual illumination. Astrology enables us to identify our unique timing and then offers
guidance to pass through these periods utilizing the regenerative healing powers inherent in the dark of
the moon.
Demetra George, M.A., looks to classical antiquity for inspiration in her pioneering work in mythic
archetypal astrology, ancient techniques and history, and translations from Greek of primary source texts.
She is the author of Astrology For Yourself, Asteroid Goddesses, Mysteries of the Dark Moon, Finding
Our Way Through the Dark, and Astrology and the Authentic Self. She lives in Oregon, lectures
internationally, and leads pilgrimages to the sacred sites in the Greece, Italy, Egypt, and India. She offers
personal astrological consultations and mentors individual students in all levels of astrological education.
Goettner-Abendroth, Heide
Matriarchal Studies: Past Debates and Present New Foundation
Heide Goettner-Abendorth will open with a discussion of the debates that have raged in the scholarly
world for the past one hundred years over the existence of matriarchal societies, concluding with the
definition of matriarchy proposed by scholars within the discipline of modern matriarchal studies. Lydia
Ruyle will then survey the last thirty years of the development of the modern matriarchal studies
movement, focusing especially on the international conferences which have brought scholars from all
over the world together to formulate a new definition and understanding of matriarchy and matriarchal
societies. Artist/scholar/activist Cristina Biaggi will detail how this scholarship has inspired her artistic
endeavors over the last decades. Finally Kim Duckett will describe the contemporary Goddess women’s
community she has created through her Wheel of the Year teachings—a community she conceptualizes as
matriarchal.
Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth earned her Ph.D. in philosophy and theory of science at the University
of Munich. She is the founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. In 1986, she founded the “International
ACADEMY HAGIA for Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality” in Germany, and since then
has been its director. She organized the First and Second World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies
(Luxembourg and Texas); and a major conference on Matriarchal Studies and Politics (Switzerland). In
2005, she was elected by the international initiative “1000 Peace Women Across the Globe” as a nominee
for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2012, she received ASWM’s Saga Award for her contributions to women’s
history and culture.
Goodman, Laney
Mother Drum Ceremonial Circle
We will gather to drum, chant and dance in the four directions of the Medicine Wheel.
Native American traditions teach us that each of the four directions carry certain elements, qualities and
totems.
We will also send prayers to the four corners of the Earth for Global Healing For All Our Relations.
We will invoke and celebrate the Grandmothers, the Grandfathers, and the Ancestors as we sing, drum,
and dance them awake into our circle and into our lives.
We will learn how to best be in balance together in a tribal way - once again breathing new life into
ancient wisdom for our present time, where it is needed for healing our hearts, minds, and the global
community.
And the MOTHER DRUM – a large community drum which can be played by a number of drummers
together -- will help keep the "one" heartbeat throughout our journey together.
Please, bring bells, shakers, rattles, and drums of all types. Some of you will have the chance to play the
Mother Drum if you so choose.
This ceremony teaches us the power of deep listening and helps take us deeper into community to find our
commonUNITY... as we heal ourselves and our Mother Earth ... For All Our Relations-A-Ho!
Laney Goodman -- visionary drummer, ceremonialist, vocalist, and nationally syndicated radio host -leads ceremonial drum circles "Drumming in the Four Directions" with the Mother Drum. Her Cherokee
heritage from the Great Smoky Mountains blends with German, English and Scot/Irish ancestry to bridge
time and tradition in ceremonies of community, especially for women. Laney studied with AfricanAmerican drum masters and indigenous elders and has professionally presented Ceremonial Drum &
Chant for over 25 years. You can find more information on Laney's work at:
www.sacredwavesofrhythm.com
Hammer, Jill
The King and the Priestess: Mythic Motifs and Motives in the Tale of Judah and Tamar
In Genesis 38, Judah (an ancestor of King David) has sex with his widowed daughter-in-law in the guise
of a priestess/harlot. This sexual encounter is Tamar’s way of becoming pregnant and fulfilling the
requirements of levirate marriage: the symbolic resurrection of the seed of a dead man through a widow’s
union with one of her male relatives. But why present such a convoluted origin story for the Davidic
line? When we observe the connections between this story and the legends and rituals of the ancient Near
East, we begin to see that Judah is a king-substitute, and his union with Tamar evokes the mythic
narratives of Sumer and Ugarit. There are two mythic undercurrents in particular: the king/priestess
narrative, and the Baal/Anat narrative. Genesis 38, though it appears a diversion from the storyline of
Genesis, reminds us that priestesses and goddesses still had a presence in ancient Israel.
In the king-priestess union in ancient Sumer, a priestess represents the goddess conferring legitimacy on
the king. One of the reasons for the appearance of a (quasi) priestess in Genesis 38 to unite with Judah
may be as a narrative means to confer legitimacy on the house of David via this ancient mythic trope. If
King David comes from a king and a priestess, he partakes of the divine legitimacy offered to ancient
kings.
In the story of Baal and Anat, the goddess Anat’s actions against Mot, god of death, permit the restoration
of Baal as life-giver. The actions of Tamar in Genesis 38 restore the possibility of new life and allow the
line of the patriarch to continue— her actions, like that of Anat, defeat death. Indeed, the language in
Genesis 38 evokes the Baal/Anat connection. In Ugaritic myth, Anat plays a role in conferring authority
on the king. The subtle evocation of the Baal/Anat myth may be another way of securing mythic
legitimacy for the house of David.
Ultimately, the two myths in the background of Genesis 38 serve the same purpose: to give the house of
David a royal mystique. David’s ancestor Judah and his ancestress Tamar, placed in the king’s past, are a
source of divine power for the king and his lineage. The writer of the tale, intending to support the king’s
authority, hid a priestess and a goddess at his side.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, is the co-founder, with Taya Shere, of Kohenet: The Hebrew Priestess
Institute. She is the co-author, also with Taya Shere, of the newly published The Hebrew Priestess:
Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership, as well as Siddur haKohanot: A
Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. She is also the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish
Religion, a pluralistic Jewish seminary. Rabbi Hammer is also the author of Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of
Biblical Women, The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons, and The Omer Calendar of
Biblical Women, as well as a children’s book, The Garden of Time, and a forthcoming volume of poetry,
The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries. She has written a number of articles for journals and anthologies
from Religion and Literature to New Jewish Feminism to Stepping Into Ourselves: An Anthology of
Writings on Priestesses. Rabbi Hammer was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary and holds a
doctorate in social psychology from the University of Connecticut.
Hanson, Robin
Acllacunas: Sacred Women or Virgins of the Sun
Marija Gimbutas showed us that as women we must seek the truth that lies behind the restructuring of
cultural history. Piece by piece we must scour the archaeological and historical documentation of
civilization to catch even a passing glimpse of our female ancestors. In Incan historical accounts, the
Acllacunas are known as either “Virgins of the Sun” or as the “Chosen Ones”. During the reorganization
of Incan religion under the unifying leader, Pachacuti, their role was to toil as the sacred weavers, brewer
the Incan corn beer known as Chicha, and tend the sacred fires of the Sun God, Inti. As time passed the
most desirable of these women became valuable as a commodity - to be presented as “gifts” to prominent
or influential men throughout the Incan Empire. What is lost in the presentation and subsequent
translation of the role of these women is their significance prior to the ascension of Inti. Clues abound to
the earlier significance of these women - from the semi-subterranean temples of the Tiwanaku culture to
the Temple of the Moon at Macchu Picchu to the confinement of the women in acllahuasi, and the
punishment meted out to any unauthorized male who dared approach the acllacunas. A closer
examination of the myths and religious practices associated with the earlier Andean cultures, such as the
Chavin, Moche, Wari and Chimu, provides a more accurate interpretation of the importance of these
women in the religious life of the Andean people prior to colonization by the Incas.
Robin Hanson, building on master’s degrees in human relations and anthropology, received her doctorate
in American Studies from Saint Louis University. She is an expert in the areas of women’s spiritual
history and taphology with a focus on the formation of cultural identity and the process involved in
reconciling the social and personal interpretation of culture. She currently teaches courses in history,
anthropology, and political science.
Hastings, Rainweaver
Cultural Transformation through Community Ritual
This is an organic inquiry into cultural transformation through community ritual, examining the annual
harvest celebration of Vinotok in Crested Butte, Colorado. Through my findings in interviewing sixteen
ritual participants, I conclude that individuals are being transformed in numerous ways as a result of their
participation; further, I conclude that the sense of community culture has been, and is forever being,
impacted by the collective experience of place-based, ecstatic ritual. I also examine the contributions of
the celebration’s founder as they have impacted both individuals and the community in ways that seem to
be unfolding a unique contemporary culture reclaiming and remembering their ancient, indigenous
ancestral roots while cultivating authentic and reverential relationship to place spirit through archetypal
embodiment.
I began this thesis project in the Women’s Spirituality program at Sofia, and moved to Union Institute &
University. What I propose presenting is a slide show of community transformation based on ritual as
activism, focusing specifically on how we protect our landscape and watershed, simultaneously
cultivating community through deep ritual practice. I first encountered Vinotok and the local landscape in
1995. Through my studies in Women’s Spirituality, and engaging as mother, digging deeper into the
impacts a local living mythology may have on future generations, my perception of this event has
dramatically radicalized. While attending ASWM 2014, I touched on these topics with a number of
women, and became immensely inspired to share this model with all present.
Rain Hastings is a PhD candidate at Prescott College. She mother’s one son as a clinical Vitalist in
women’s and children’s health, lactation counselor, ritualist and community advocate in Crested Butte,
CO.
Hauk, Marna
Lunar Inquiry
The flowering of qualitative approaches in research methods has included attention to the planetary with
Gaian methods, to the imaginal, with intuitive and organic inquiry, and to the deep time cultural, for
example with archaeomythology. Another set of approaches also flourishes in the study of women and
myth: the lunar. This paper explores the glowing presence of lunar inquiry. The moon has been a
methodology for women's knowledge cultivation dating tens of thousands of years. What are the quality
criteria and specific approaches within this family of methods? This paper considers the reflective, tidal,
cyclic, and waxing-waning-regenerating aspects of the moon applied to research methodologies and
methods. It proposes lunar approaches to thirteen dimensions of research, including ontology,
epistemology, research design, timing, quality criteria, vigor/rigor, data processing, and findings. Lunar
inquiry offers alternate constructs to knowledge seeking and sensing to include the numinous and the
luminous, the cyclic and the renewing.
Marna Hauk, Ph.D. innovates educational offerings at the convergence of creativity, eco-restoration,
and the living wisdom traditions through the Institute for Earth Regenerative Studies
(www.earthregenerative.org) in the Pacific Northwest and serves on the board of We’Mooniversity, an
emerging resource for women’s spirituality and learning, on land and online. She has over seventy peerreviewed publications and presentations and also mentors graduate students and teaches ecofeminism and
women’s voices at Prescott College.
Heaslip, April
Reclaiming ISIS: From Terror, Trauma & Othering toward Regeneration
Boston, Paris, Iraq, Beirut, Syria, and Paris again.
Bombings and coordinated attacks.
The word Terror echoing.
A faceless and darkly shrouded global militant group located elsewhere, nowhere, yet everywhere.
Millions moving, on the road, seeking new homes.
Us. Them.
Mislabeled in Western media as an ancient and powerful goddess once worshipped from Egypt across the
Roman empire.
These are cultural shards with which we must, and can, work. Is this conflation between a dark goddess
and a terrorist organization accidental or indicative of a profound fear of the feminine? Our communities
are wounded, grieving. How can we best respond to these acts of violence and the counterpoint reactions
of our collective governments by utilizing our collective goddess scholarship?
This workshop offers a cultural animation incubator, a way to collectively and creatively collect our tools
and tend our wounds, moving us from management toward regeneration. Inspired by Alice Walker’s
recounting of a peace and reconciliation community ritual in Sent by Earth: A Message from the
Grandmother Spirit After the Attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, this workshop will
facilitate the co-creation of a mosaic of emerging models of peace and reconciliation by amplifying
grounded, feminist responses across the arts, scholarship, and spirituality including:
• Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos;
• Brené Brown’s work on shame, vulnerability, whole heartedness and resilience in her books The Gifts
of Imperfection, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong; and
• Tend & Befriend as a feminist, embodied response to trauma and grief.
Our reclamation of Isis as a dark goddess offers regenerative potential outcomes include a working group
for ongoing research, scholarship, and outreach.
An educator in the fields of Gender Studies, sustainability, and creativity, April Heaslip is a doctoral
candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute and holds a masters in Social Ecology
(Goddard College). Her dissertation “Regenerating Magdalene: The Archetypal Bride as Psychic Quest”
examines remythologizing this lost archetype in Western cultures.
Henderson, Kathryn
Deer, Women, Myth and Spirit
From Eurasian Paleolithic pictograms through Neolithic pottery and 5th Century Scythian gold work, we
can trace the material culture representations of the mother reindeer and see her transformed into antlered
woman/diety. We can pick up the thread again in Saami creation myth and shamanic practice of the far
north where an antlered female gives life, game, and rebirth as well as on the American continents where
native peoples revere the deer in spiritual ceremonies and revere Deer Women as shape-shifters providing
lessons in right behavior in regard to sex. Using these traditions and heritages as points of departure this
paper proposes to look further: from Mediterranean, Celtic, Germanic and Christian legends of mystical
and/or white deer in the west, to the golden deer of the Hindu Ramayan, Shinto sacred deer, and Tibetan
Buddhist deer dakini in the east. It will also explore legends of the stag, questioning whether they might
be transformations of the antlered female deer in more southern regions where indigenous deer did not
include antlered females so they were unknown. This exploration is intended not as a catalogue but a
comparison across cultures, holding each in reverence for its own uniqueness. The intention is not to
make universalizing claims or construct over-arching theory but to perhaps tease out, from the perspective
of post-humanism, with reverence for indigenous peoples’ understandings of nature, how deer and
humans have and continue to socialize one another and why this is important.
Kathryn Henderson, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in Sociology and Women’s Studies,
is also ordained clergy of the Reformed Congregation of the Goddess International. Influenced by a visual
arts background, her research explores visual knowledge from design engineering to mental maps, animal
networks and gender disparities of disaster survivors. Her spiritual research includes: ”The Deer Mother:
Earth’s Nurturing Epicenter of Life and Death,” (Goddesses in World Culture, Vol. 2, 2011. editor,
Patricia Monaghan. Praeger) and working with living traditions with respect. Kathryn is a founding
member of the ASWM Board of Directors.
Henes, Donna
Mythology, the Matriarchy, and Me
“The Story of Us” traces the rise and fall and resurgence of the influential power and moral influence of
women on society.
The 3000 word poetic tale begins at the very beginning with the earliest emergent humans; traces the
development of spiritual expression, arts, crafts, and culture; and continues through the development and
growth of agriculture, goods, services, and subsequent civilization. All inventions and advances served to
nurture and sustain life and were created with reverence to the Great Mother.
And then came the Patriarchal Revolution and the destruction, desecration, devastation and death that it
wrought on the Feminine Divine, on women and girls, and on Mother Earth, Herself during the past
millennia, and the demoralization that we still feel today.
Throughout this retelling/reminding of Our Story, our true story, the question “Do you remember?”
(originally asked by Merlin Stone) is repeated again and again — a call for us to recall our purpose, our
passion and our power, and put them back into play to make a desperately needed difference in the world.
An Impassioned Ritual of Empowerment follows the reading.
Mama Donna Henes is a renowned urban shaman, contemporary ceremonialist, spiritual teacher, author
of four books, popular speaker and workshop leader. She maintains a ceremonial center, ritual practice
and consultancy where she offers intuitive tarot readings, spiritual counseling and works with individuals,
groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every
imaginable occasion.
Jennett, Dianne
Reweaving the Web: Ancestral Relationships in Research and in Life
How can finding, researching, and communicating with our ancestors support our work and enrich our
lives? This paper examines the ways ancestors have been used as a source of knowledge in the fields of
psychology, women’s spirituality and transformative learning. Using organic inquiry and other
transpersonal research methods, researchers traced, invoked and communicated with their ancestors to
assist the research, explore and reclaim broken lineages, and to help the inquirer find new perspectives
and ground on which to stand. Topics of the studies included the experience of indigenous women in
academia, exploration of the everyday spirituality of women in the Italian Alps, Latina/Chicana women
exploring their Borderland consciousness and the Virgin of Guadalupe and the experiences of women
who met to mend their ancestral webs. The use of DNA testing and Ancesty.com will also be discussed.
Dianne Jenett, M. A., Ph.D., left a successful career as a high tech executive to enter academia. She has
been the Co-Director of an MA in Women’s Spirituality at New College of California and The Institute of
Transpersonal Psychology. Co-author of Organic Inquiry: If Research Were Sacred and author of The
Attukal Devi Temple her work has been published in the U.S., UK. and India. Her research focus is on
women-centered rituals, qualitative research methods, and women’s psycho-spiritual development. She
can be contacted at [email protected].
**Keating, Christine
Goddess as Transformative Remedy: Emily Dickinson’s Mythopoeic Power and the Akasha Paradigm
Christine Keating is a Lecturer in Literature, Women’s Studies and Composition at Assumption College
in Massachusetts. Focusing her research on mythopoetics, she is especially interested in how female
authors use language as a revolutionary device to subvert the patriarchal forces that divert an individual’s
quest for self-actualization. She is the author of “Unearthing the Goddess Within: Feminist Revisionist
Mythology in the Poetry of Margaret Atwood”, Women’s Studies: An interdisciplinary journal 43:4
(2014): 483-501; and “Freeing the Feminine Identity: The Egg as Transformative Image in the Magical
Realism of Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood” in Making Connections: Interdisciplinary Approaches
to Cultural Diversity 14.2.
Key, Anne
Fierce, Com/Passionate and Protective: Goddesses from Central Mexico
In this workshop, participants will explore the archetypes of thirteen ancient Goddesses of Central
Mexico: Tonantzin; La Gran Diosa de Teotihuacan; Coatlicue; Cihuateteo; Itzpapalotl; Coyolxauhqui;
Tlaltecuhtli; Malinalxochitl; Xochiquetzal; Mayahuel; Chantico; Cihuacoatl; and Tlazolteotl. Using
power point, we will show images from codices, statuary, and carvings that exemplify the rich history and
symbolism of these deities. For each Goddess, we will discuss the elements, rituals, and spiritual practices
that have been used (and still used) to honor them.
Central Mexican deities have much to teach us, about the spirituality, behavior, life/death cycles, These
archetypes can help us feel whole—complete—as women. The workshop will be interactive, combining
divination and ritual with scholarship and research to bring these Goddesses in the present.
Anne will also present images from Lydia Ruyle’s new book, Goddesses of the Americas.
Anne Key is adjunct faculty in Women’s Studies and Religious Studies and a member of the ASWM
Board. She has authored several articles on Mesoamerican Goddesses and her dissertation focused on the
Cihuateteo, women who died in childbirth and were deified. She has been traveling to Mexico City since
1988. Co-founder of the independent press Goddess Ink, Dr. Key was Priestess of the Temple of Goddess
Spirituality Dedicated to Sekhmet, located in Nevada, from 2004-2007. She is the author of Desert
Priestess: a memoir and Burlesque, Yoga, Sex and Love: A Memoir of Life under the Albuquerque Sun
and she is co-editor of The Heart of the Sun: An Anthology in Exaltation of Sekhmet and Stepping Into
Ourselves: An Anthology of Writings on Priestesses. Anne resides in Albuquerque with her husband, his
three cats and her snake.
Kincaid, Ingrid
Playing by Your Own Rules When the Gods Cheat
In order to find refuge in our histories we need to hear our stories told in our own voices, not in the voices
of men. In order to find safe harbor in our stories they must be meaningful and relevant to the lives we
live today.
The saga of Skadi is both ancient and modern. It’s the tale of a Norse giantess who was willing to rebel
against the system, demand retribution for injustice and lay claim to her rightful inheritance. She made
choices that were strategic and far-sighted and choose divorce rather than settling for anything less than
her own happiness. Skadi is an example of freedom and independence and yet there are parts of her story
that beg to be reexamined and retold. So many stories and myths have been corrupted and distorted by
the men who wrote them down. That’s why we must read them with caution, looking carefully for places
where the boots of patriarchy have trampled on the truth. Parts of Skadi’s saga were hidden away because
they were dangerous to the status quo.
Women today, the world over, still face the same issues that our foremothers faced, and that Skadi faced:
disrespect, subservience, male-dominance, violence, poverty, slavery and lack of choice. Together we
can find ways to make women’s mythology even more relevant and meaningful by retelling our own
stories. We can make our own histories come alive so they can empower and inspire us to take action,
because the gods are still cheating.
Ingrid Kincaid is an internationally known author, ritualist and community elder whose work is deeply
rooted in the spiritual traditions of her indigenous ancestors from pre-Christian Northern Europe and the
British Isles. She offers private sessions providing spiritual counseling, intuitive guidance and creative
direction. As a Keeper of Ancient Wisdom, Ingrid is dedicated to reawakening connections with our
ancestors and the neglected myths of the ancient Germanic and Norse tribes.
Kingswood, Elizabeth
Gantowisas: The Role of Women within the Haudenoshaunee
Abstract not available at this time
Kogan, Keisha
A Queering of the Waters in the Orisha of Santeria
Cuba stands as one of the foremost locations for the practice of Santeria. Throughout
their communities there are different standards about how Yemaya, the orisha of the sea and Oshun, the
Orisha of the Rivers are viewed.They each have different caminos or roads that depict the various sides of
these complicated and extremely close orishas. Anyone can be initiated into the cult of Yemaya they do to
have to be female. So when a male devotee is mounted by the goddess he can present as a woman rather
than a man and the same it true for women. In this way the religion is egalitarian and more comfortable as
a queer space. As one pataki (religious story) goes Yemaya was escaping the clutches of her husband
Orunla, because she had stolen the gift of divination from him, and she knew Ornunla’s aversion to gay
men so Yemaya, upon finding a group of gay men at the beach decided to go into the water with them.
When Orunla appeared he was so disgusted that he left Yemaya there and in this way Yemaya became the
patron saint of the gay community. This fluidity between gender is a real part of the religion. How does
that fit in with Gloria Anzalduá? Gloria writes about the borderland not just being a physical space but a
place between worlds. Spiritual experience, especially between religious ceremonies can land one in a
liminal space just like the borderlands and it marginalizes people who are just trying to express their
religious experience. It is those liminal spaces where the most transformation can and do take place.
Keisha Kogan is a third- year M.Div student at Union Theologial Seminary. She presently works at the
Manhattan Family Justice center as part of the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence as their
chaplain. She has three children, is a book hoarder and loves the religion of Santeria.
Kohser, Heather
Heroic Hummingbirds
Inspired by the captivating traits of the tiniest birds, this paper seeks to reconnect humans to the
mythology and magic of Hummingbirds. These revered pollinators, native only to the Americas,
illumined ancient stories of creation, rebirth, hero's quests, and communication with the Divine. Through
exploration, with a feminist flare, of the challenges and beauty of oral history, archeologic evidence, and
avian biology, ancient truths are revealed. Mesoamerican myths are filled with Gods disguised as
Hummingbirds impregnating maidens or Goddesses. The Goddess Coatlicue became pregnant as she
swept up a ball of Hummingbird feathers. She gave birth to the supreme God of the Aztecs. Hummingbird
was a messenger between the worlds. With smarts and stealth Hummingbird hid on the back of a Condor,
to reach the garden of Heaven, according to the Q'eros of Peru. Hummingbird was allowed secret passage
to the Underworld, to gather nectar during a great drought. The only creature who did not lose faith in the
Great Mother, in tales from the Cochiti, Hummingbird restored the relationship between the world and
Goddess. Ancient Mayan tales from Guatemala bring to light the Goddess; She who weaves the beauty of
the world on Her loom, is cruelly hidden away from it, by Her parents, Grandfather Sun and Grandmother
Moon. Her forbidden love affair with a hummingbird man, the incognito son of Father Hurricane and
Mother Ocean, thrusts the world into death and despair. Their great love was reborn, both as birds,
bringing the world into balance. Today science teaches us the miraculous specifics that make the 350
species of Hummingbirds so unique. They have the smallest bodies, but also the largest brains of any
bird. It is their incredible ability to hover, that has allowed them to fill a special niche, co-evolving with
8000 species of plants. We will dip our beaks in the nectar of sacred ecology, and discover quick actions
we can all take to save the world's pollinators. Perhaps we are being called, by the perseverance of these
fiercely intelligent creatures, to be environmental heroines in the epic story of a declining planet.
Heather Kohser is a Pediatric Nurse by night, and an eclectic Priestess of Whimsy, Reiki Master
Practitioner, and nature nerd writer by day. Her poems and essays have been published in the
anthologies, Unto Herself, and Queen of Olympos, Goddess Magazine, and The Global Goddess
Oracle. She is co-founder of The Womyn with Weeds Project, promoting “weed-roots” actions to
increase habitat for pollinators. She lives on an island in Lake Champlain, with her beloved wife, and
five fur-babies.
Lutz, Barb
Synthesizing Goddess, Nature, Priestess, and Archaeomythology
In this panel presentation, Barb will offer a visual overview of her altars and creation of sacred space in
relation to her endeavours as co-creator and co-presenter of The Wheel of the Year, and share how she
comes to her creations through a synthesis of archaeological research, daily walks in nature, her
immersion in the Wheel of the Year as an earth-based psychology for women, and the needs and requests
of her Priestess and Goddess.
Barb Lutz/Tribas. Barb’s altars and shamanic creation of sacred space and ritual have garnered her
praise and an honoured position in the Goddess community. Through her Art and her Guardian Heart, she
serves Her, as she co-creates “A Year and a Day Sacred Mystery School for Women (Asheville, NC) and
travels the country co-presenting “The Wheel of the Year as a Spiritual Psychology for Women,” with her
Priestess, Kim Duckett.
Mitchell, Lynn
Seeking Sanctuary with St. Brigid of Ireland
Saint Brigid of Ireland was a fifth-century Irish Catholic Abbess, whose remarkable rise to prominence
and religious authority included the establishment of a monastery of learning, renowned as a sanctuary
that fostered hospitality for pilgrims of diverse cultural and spiritual beliefs. Brigid’s leadership style
embodied the essence of a welcoming harbor, with guiding principles of safety, acceptance, and inclusion.
The flame of Brigid’s legacy has inspired devotion and veneration for fifteen-hundred years. There is a
blossoming revival of interest in utilizing her symbols as contemporary spiritual touchstones in rituals of
healing, personal connection, and empowerment: the cros Brighe (Brigid’s cross), crios Brighe (Brigid’s
sacred belt or girdle), and bhrat Bhride (Brigid’s sacred cloak). Ancient vestiges of these symbols within
indigenous cultures expressing worship of sacred feminine divinity will be explored, along with the
sustaining strength of these symbols as shelter, shield, and protection.
The author’s doctoral dissertation research was centered in Ireland and the Mid-Atlantic region of the
United States and now, after relocating to a sacred island off the coast of Maine, will continue in the
North Atlantic region. Honoring the spirit of place of this conference, Mitchell proposes a plausible
assumption that many within the large immigrant Irish Catholic population of Boston carried a personal
connection to Brigid in their hearts as they journeyed from Ireland to America, and that this connection
serves as harbor, sanctuary, and beacon of light.
Margaret Lynn Mitchell is a mother, acupuncturist, educator, and scholar devoted to excavating the
lineages and wisdom of sacred feminine divinity. In 2015, she completed her doctoral dissertation, a
feminist cultural history of the abiding legacy of Saint Brigid of Ireland, and graduated from the
California Institute of Integral Studies as a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy and Religion with a
concentration in Women’s Spirituality.
Musawa (Moore, Lucy)
The Moon as Muse: We’Moon
Musawa/Lucy Moore is the founder of We’Moon Land, We’Mooniversity ([email protected]),
We’Moon (www.wemoon.ws) and Mother Tongue Ink. As the Crone Editor of 35 editions of We’Moon:
Gaia Rhythms for Womyn datebook, she has also edited and narrated the Anthology In the Spirit of
We’Moon. A foremother of women’s land communities and earth-based spirituality in the early ‘70s,
Musawa is a published author, lunar priestess, techer and healer, who pioneers platforms for connecting
with Spirit in everyday life. She hopes to expand We’Mooniversity as a networking hub for bringing
Goddess myth into reality – with links to cutting edge teachers, books, classes, and resources— providing
a feminist forum for the creative expression of women’s spirituality in action—online, in person, and in
community.
Mosér, Mary Beth
1. Female Deities Flowing Across Time
Across the ages, the sacredness of water and its association to women have been acknowledged.
Primordial water deities were painted on rocks nearly 28,000 years ago in Africa, where a contemporary
double-tailed Water Spirit known as Mami Wata is still said to swim. In the folk stories of the Italian
Alps, magical women of the water, known as Anguane, provide clues for the spiritual roles and sacred
rites of women, as well as evidence for the veneration of female divinity. The Anguane possess magical
powers associated with springs, rivers, lakes and laundry. In their multicultural presence across the ages,
female water beings seem to be shimmering reminders of a shared ancestral origin, and even earlier, of
the primordial waters that are the source of life. Water, in its many forms, is considered propitious, the
medium of healing and magic. It can carry blessings and mark sacred space. Water holds the mystery of
ancient rituals that continues today in spiritual traditions and in everyday acts. In this visual presentation,
I draw from my dissertation research to illustrate how the spirit of water manifests in folk stories, sacred
rites, and everyday rituals in the folk culture of northern Italy.
2. Sacred Landscape: Folk Stories, Ancestral Values and the Importance of Place
In the Alpine villages of northern Italy, folk stories were a vital part of agricultural family life. They were
told orally from generation to generation, at night during the long winter months in the stable with the
warmth of the animals. The details of the stories are often rooted in specific places and in events that
reach across time. More important than their factuality are the values that the stories convey, which affirm
the sacredness of the source of life. In this visual PowerPoint presentation, I share examples of folk
stories from my ancestral homeland drawing from my onsite dissertation research, which utilizes feminist
cultural history, a field of study and methodology exemplified by the work of Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum.
The stories communicate values that are relevant today, including respect for nature, sharing and caring,
and the ramifications of not honoring the sacred.
Mary Beth Mosér holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion with a specialty in Women’s Spirituality
from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Mary Beth’s dissertation, “The Everyday Spirituality of
Women in the Italian Alps,” recipient of the 2014 Kore Award, reflects her passion for her ancestral
homeland. Mary Beth lives on an island in the Salish Sea in the Northwest US and serves as president of
the Seattle Trentino Club.
Noble, Vicki
Lunar Cycle Mandala and Its Cross-Cultural Evolutionary Significance
For forty years, I have been developing my work on the lunar-menstrual cycle and its evolutionary
significance, as well as the way it functions as a ritual calendar every month and for each solar year. The
Lunar Template I have created is a simple, multi-layered visual tool that supports an original synthesis of
my research into human evolution (particularly the loss of estrus in human females and synchronization
with the Moon), astronomy, astrology, lunar and seasonal cycles, and the ubiquitous shaping of
earthworks, stone circles, and temples around the world in the form of the 8-point ritual calendar. This
structure—a mandala honoring the four cardinal directions and the cross-quarter points in between—has
been honored by indigenous people on every continent and is a structural mainstay of their oral traditions
and ritual practices. Reclaiming the understanding of this ancient and pervasive schema can be
illuminating for modern urban women, grounding us in a universal reality.
Vicki Noble is a feminist healer, teacher, speaker, scholar, and writer, co-creator of the Motherpeace
Tarot Cards and author of numerous books, including Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess; Shakti
Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World; and The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power. She
travels and teaches internationally and her books have been translated into several languages. Vicki is also
a professional astrologer and teaches private individual intensives at her home in Santa Cruz, California.
Nourmanesh, Shirindokht
The Transpersonal in Women without Men, a Novel by Shahrnush Parsipur
An ambitious and daring account of Iranian women’s lives in Iran, Women
without Men is a modern tale of five women rising against social norms and traditions—
transforming and reinventing themselves, giving their existence a voice, and coming in
terms with their bodies as well as their spirits. Parsipur’s novel takes us into the lives of
five women with different backgrounds and upbringings, presenting to us their struggle to
free themselves not only from the patriarchal society, but also from misogynistic thoughts
and judgments that they themselves are stricken with. Through her text, Parsipur enters
into the primordial experiences of her characters who react in spiritual as equally as
corporeal and intellectual ways. It is through their intuition and attending to their
unconscious that they experience drastic transformations. Characters’ transformations are
introduced and highlighted by a number of motifs and archetypes, analysis of which
seems necessary to understanding of the text.
Archetypes are the collectively-inherited unconscious images, patterns of
thoughts, ideas, and symbols that are present in one’s psyche—appearing in works of art,
literature and mythology as motifs, scenes, characters, and stories. By analyzing such
symbols and motifs, one can find ways to understand a cosmology; hence the proposed
paper. By examining the text of a modern Persian novel, the researcher attempts to make
a connection between the cosmology of the author Shahrnush Parsipur and what she
promotes in her writing.
Shirindokht Nourmanesh holds AB (Philosophy) and MA (English) degrees from San Jose State
University and is working toward her doctorate in Transpersonal Psychology from Sofia University. She
is the author of Chalice of My Imagination: A Collection of Poems and Setarvan (The Infertile): A
Compilation of Short Stories. She is recognized for her work on Iranian women writers, has received
awards for teaching and promoting cultural understanding, and is also an artist.
Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, Malgorzata
Liminality, Transgression and Female Empowerment
Kali--an Indian goddess—and Pombagira—a female trickster entity from the Brazilian Umbanda religion-are surprisingly similar. They both represent the concepts of liminality, outsiderhood and structural
inferiority, embodied in the divine feminine. They are strong, independent, unrestrained, and full of
magical powers, including power over sexuality, transformation, and death. In fact, they are the opposite
of what has been promoted as the model for western females in the last millennium, with traits such as
motherliness, docility, humility, passivity, and obedience. Conversely, they are untamed feminine
divinities that are powerful, fiercely independent, childless, courageous, and wise. As is Kali, Pombagira
is associated with liminal and dangerous places, such as the crossroads, the cemetery, and garbage
deposits, as well as with possession trances, advice giving, blood sacrifice, alcohol, and the colors red and
black. Possession rituals in which women enter into trances during which the mediums speak play an
important role in women’s empowerment in the case of Kali as well as of Pombagira. The consideration
of practices connected to the diasporic devotion to Kali in Trinidad, manifested in local Kali Pujas, brings
Kali even closer to Pombagira. These weekly ceremonies include spirit possession and advice giving by
mediums, blood sacrifice, liquor, drum playing, and “wild” dancing. I compare the characteristics and
devotional practices connected to the worship of Kali and Pombagira and, in spite of their geographical
distance, demonstrate their possible common roots in dual, ambiguous and paradoxical, ancient allpowerful divine feminine figures, such as the pan-African Ìyàmi Òṣòròngà.
Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba is Associate Professor of Latin American Literary and Cultural
Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She specializes in cross-cultural, comparative research
in syncretic religions, and the feminine. Among her publications are the books, Fierce Feminine
Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kali, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte (Palgrave
2015), The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (UNMP 2007),
as well as numerous scholarly book chapters and articles. She has lived, studied, and lectured widely
around the world, and is fluent in seven languages.
Pallua, Jelka Vince
The Slavic Baba as an Aquatic Deity
This contribution builds upon the author's previous research on monolithic Babas (baba in some Slavic
languages meaning ugly old woman) published in 1996, 2004 and 2013. During fieldwork in Croatia, the
author discovered that water/humidity is the most important element, omnipresent with all the snotty and
slimy rocks Babas which are always situated by the wells, streams, lakes etc.). The Baba is detected to be
the female cultic substrate of fertility and well-being.
This paper will broaden the analysis of the topic to include other Slavic countries. Furthermore, a parallel
will be drawn between the Baba and the Slavic goddess Mokoš (mokro meaning wet) on the basis of their
mutual element – water/humidity/moisture and their position within Slavic pantheon. Having in mind the
concept of the Slavic sacred landscape (with Mokoš being one point of the triad deity structure: Perun,
Veles, Mokoš), the author will show that aquatic area marks the boundary between the earthly and
otherworldly. Both Mokoš and the Baba stand close to water, an element so much needed for fruitfulness
of the agrarian cosmic cycle. By the sacral interpretation of the landscape, as well as by etymological
interpretation of the word baba, the author will place it as a “mythologem” within the pre-indoeuropean
mythical structure.
Dr. Jelka Vince Pallua is an ethnologist and cultural anthropologist who for twenty years has taught at
the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Philosophical faculty, University of Zagreb,
Croatia. She continues to teach at the same Department on the Ph.D. level after having moved to the
Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb where she now works as a senior scientific advisor. She has
published approximately fifty papers in Croatian and international journals and publications, and
delivered presentations a international and Croatian scientific conferences. Last year her book The
Enigma of Sworn Virgins – Ethnological and Cultural Anthropological Study was published addressing
questions connected with mythological issues as well.
Paquette, Maryka Ives
Tracing Roots in Ancestral Lands: remembrance through relationship to place
My presentation examines identity and the recovery of knowledge through multidisciplinary research I
conducted for my Master’s thesis that draws on indigenous ways of knowing, genealogy, and cultural
history, and culminates in a journey to Armorica, present day Normandy. My research is founded on the
ancient premise that humans are equal and active participants in creation, a worldview maintained and
passed down by indigenous peoples and traditional societies to this day. I trace the origins of a family line
back to earth-based traditions honoring the yew, acknowledging the effects of colonization on cultural
memory, to recover wisdom hidden in plain view across the Norman landscape. This research not only
grounds my own sense of identity in the story of humanity, it also sheds light on aspects of traditional
Gallic culture that can strengthen values and build connection among all peoples through a renewed
relationship to place.
Maryka Ives Paquette, of Franco-Norse ancestry, is a cultural and environmental specialist whose
ancestral research laid the foundation for her professional work to support indigenous peoples’ voices in
environmental management and policy. She holds an MA in Indigenous Mind from Wisdom University
and an MPA in Environmental Science and Policy from Columbia University. She currently resides in
Mannahatta, present day Manhattan.
Redina, Natasha
Finding Light in Darkness: The Process of Descent from Ancient Goddesses to Modern Women
‘From the [‘great above’] she set her mind towards the great below’
Inanna’s Descent to the Netherworld.
4000 years ago Sumerian scribes created a series of cuneiform clay tablets which portrayed in detail the
story of the Goddess Inanna and her descent into the underworld. Within many subsequent myths the
motif of descent to the dark, the chthonic, the unconscious and shadow aspects of the psyche, is often
associated with the goddess and women.
Having worked as a psychotherapist for many years, I will draw upon case studies and juxtapose these
with mythical journeys exploring the dynamics constellated around these descents and subsequent
transformations. These journeys, often precipitated by events such as illness, depression or bereavement
etc. can offer access to different levels of consciousness and rather than destroying life, can enrich it.
By finding the courage to journey downwards whilst understanding this process within the greater context
of the cycle of life, death and rebirth of the goddess, a greater knowledge and understanding of the
unconscious aspects and expanded ways of envisioning oneself can be gained.
‘Sometimes it is by going down into the darkest abyss, that we recover the treasures’
Joseph Campbell
Natasha Redina is a psychotherapist and researcher. Having worked in the healthcare professions since
1998, she has an excellent clinical understanding of life-transition phases and archetypal symbology. She
studied world religions at SOAS, University of London and went on to complete her Masters in
Psychotherapy. She is fascinated by cross-cultural dialogue, having researched Peruvian Vegetalismo and
Mexican Curanderismo and lived in Brazil for six years. She is passionate about including marginal
voices in academic discourse, as well as exploring ways of disseminating narratives through arts-based
media including video. She offers one to one and group psychotherapy and supervision in London and
worldwide via Skype.
Ruyle, Lydia
1. Modern Matriarchal Studies: A Visual, Global Herstory
This Panel will address the history of matriarchal studies, especially the last thirty years since the birth of
the discipline of modern matriarchal studies, and will highlight how two individuals, one an artist and
scholar, and one a psychologist, writer, teacher, and priestess have incorporated the new understanding of
matriarchy, especially that offered by Heide Goettner-Abendroth and the field of modern matriarchal
studies, into their own work.
Joan Cichon will present Lydia’s images at the conference.
2. Images and Herstories/Goddesses of the Americas
A visual talk will focus on the images and herstories of the sacred feminine in the various cultures of the
Americas. Many Goddesses of the Western Hemisphere are unfamiliar, angular, and fierce to the classical
European western civilization ideal of beauty. The images are complex and encoded with many symbols
which connect to goddess symbols around the globe: water, serpents, shells, eyes, corn, weaving, moon,
felines, flowers, tree of life. Goddesses and their myths celebrate the creative forces of nature as earth,
cave, volcano, landscape, plants, animals, birds.
Anne Key will present Lydia’s images at the conference.
Lydia Ruyle, M.A. is an artist, author, scholar emerita of the Visual Arts faculty of the University of
Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. Her research into sacred images of women has taken her around
the globe. Ruyle creates and exhibits her art and does workshops throughout the U.S. and internationally.
Her Goddess Icon Spirit Banners have flown in over forty countries. Her art is in more than thirty books.
Smith, Jen
Finding the Feminine at MIT: The Great Mother Goddess under the Dome
The Boston area harbors a large number of colleges and students, including some of the nation’s most
historic and esteemed universities such as MIT. MIT gestates and gives birth to some of the world’s
brightest minds and advanced technologies. It has the power to perpetuate the problems of contemporary
society or to use its “magic” to find creative solutions and find lights in the darkness.
Despite their intelligence and age, MIT students still need a mother. Not a milk-teeth mother, but an
essence that balances their intellectual abilities and passion for progress with care for the earth and her
inhabitants. Also important is the Female Trickster principal to stir the students’ creativity and psyches
and increase their, and society’s, consciousness by integrating the paradoxical.
The mention of MIT rarely conjures up the feminine and goddesses, but rather brings images of the
masculine and patriarchy, and science and technology. However, my paper explores the need and the
palpable presence of the Great Mother Goddess and the Female Trickster at MIT through the lens of
Jungian depth psychology. The archetypes of the Great Mother and the Trickster can be experienced in
MIT’s iconic symbol, the historical Great Dome building. It may hold alchemical powers in its
Parthenon-inspired architecture, “infinite” hallways, and limestone walls. The Dome is also the stage for
MIT’s notorious hacks; the mysterious and extravagant pranks the students play.
Jennifer Degnan Smith (MA) is an MA/PhD student in Depth Psychology: Jungian and Archetypal
Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has conducted post-graduate research into women and worklife balance, consulted with organizations to develop their employees and cultures, and taught Leadership
and Organizational Behavior to MBA students. She is a Reiki Master and career coach and is currently
researching Greek myths and goddesses, in particular, the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Starkweather, Alisa
The Builder’s Daughter: Out of the land, out of the myths, comes our living work
Born as a woman of the north in Duxbury, Massachusetts into the terrain of nature’s cycles, present to the
storms at sea, and held by nature, what was birthed? My childhood home once belonged to the children of
the Pilgrim’s minister, William Brewster and my father restored it. As a builder he also worked on the
replica of the Mayflower and the Pilgrim’s dwellings by the Big Rock in Plymouth. He built the altar in
the historical First Parish church that split from Separatism to Unitarianism in the early 19th century. I
played in the graveyard of the first settlers and ran daily up and down the 125 steps of the Myles Standish
Monument, a sanctuary bordering my backdoor forest from our home on the harbor.
In the struggle of being a daughter, who would study women’s history alongside a massive collection of
fairy tales, what did I build from my wild imagination of this landscape into legacy?
For nearly all of my adult life, 33 years in my 56, I brought forward five separate visions, each intended
for regaining specific power lost to women. Ranging from the global grassroots movement of the Red
Tent to the longest women’s mystery school on the archetype of the priestess, I built a distinct body of
work intended to break down patriarchy from within. On the lands of the abolitionist’s underground
railroad stop that is also a 4,000 year ceremonial place of the Nipmunk’s we held Daughters of the Earth
Gathering for women’s leaders and young women entirely off the grid. And for 17 years, women by my
side, claim liberation annually in Catskill hillside of New York exactly where earth that forms the base of
the Statue of Liberty was taken from. Nearly all my work is undocumented and asked to be held in the
mystery by those going through initiatory work. Enacted with deep symbolism of story, myth and
archetypes, deeply moved by my direct mentorship for the last four years with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes,
I am mythos inspired by the courage and commitment of women across time and specifically who can be
today in a time in need of new myths. As a storyteller, ceremonialist, singer, facilitator it would be my
honor to share with you what is in the roots of sacred feminine women’s work in Massachusetts that has
inspired and rippled out throughout our world.
ALisa Starkweather is the visionary founder of the Red Tent Temple Movement, Daughters of the Earth
Gatherings, the Women’s Belly and Womb Conferences, and the acclaimed Priestess Path
Apprenticeship. ALisa is the co-founder of the international archetypal program, Women in Power;
Initiating Ourselves to the Predator and Prey Within. She is co-producer of the film “Things We Don’t
Talk About; Women’s Stories from the Red Tent” and is published in the anthologies, Women,
Spirituality, and Transformative Leadership; Where Grace Meets Power, Stepping Into Ourselves and
Voices of the Sacred Feminine. ALisa has three CD recordings of chants and spoken word.
www.alisastarkweather.com, www.redtenttemplemovement.com
Stone, Mary Louise
Ancient Andean Mother and Third Millenium BCE Hearths
As Gimbutas uncovered Goddess temples in Old Europe, Andean temple forms of 3000 BCE also appear
to focus on the Great Mother—and continue in use today in the central Andes. The temple court recessed
into the earth as a “sunken court” appears to honor the Mother’s cosmic portal where life enters earth and
returns at death. Support for this hypothesis begins with today’s daily remembrance of the Mother
Pachamama across the Andes, Peru’s and Bolivia’s largest religious festivals which are dedicated to her,
and her veneration in sunken court temples. My methods listen with participatory consciousness to
American Indians as sources of oral and ritual history, and these community colleagues during twelve
years around Lake Titiqaqa urged me to share our findings to increase respect for this major heritage of
the Americas.
Historical documents record the most common sixteenth century sacred sites as the Mother’s portal. In
archaeology, unexplained sunken courts occur throughout each millennium, and this presentation
examines third millennium BCE examples. Single-room temples show heavily used hearths centered in a
sunken floor. America’s earliest city so far, coastal Caral-Supe that unified autonomous societies, reveals
a sunken amphitheater—that could seat hundreds. Interpretation as the Mother’s portals helps understand
the widespread, long-lived use of this temple form.
Noting the strength of this earliest civilization, and its descendents that submerged five hundred years
ago, helps understand why Pachamama reemerges in Andean national constitutions and in Bolivia’s calls
in the United Nations for the rights of Mother Earth.
After cross-cultural teaching in New Mexico, Mary Louise Stone lived twelve years in communities
around Lake Titiqaqa in Peru and Bolivia. She consulted on community-run tourism with villages,
universities, and with Duke University, NC. After her MA thesis “The Andean Mother: Weaving a
Culture of Reciprocity,” Stone completed her dissertation on the “Ancient Andean Mother: A Cosmic
Portal through Five Millennia” in 2015.
Summerwood, Marie
Chanting to Heal The Spiral Everywhere
If there is one true movement of life, it is the spiral. And if there is one thing we can do with sacred
chant, it is to heal the ragged places on our inner spirals. Heal within, heal without. It all comes together,
truly, within us, with chant. Particularly simple chant, particularly short chant. Come and spend some
time in the grace of spiraled music, of chanting. With intention and the inspiration of the beauty we will
weave together. Add to the stories we carry within us. Add to the healing of The Sacred Circle of Women.
Marie Summerwood has been teaching workshops on chanting, grief and other topics in women’s
sacredness for 25 years. She has composed and produced 2 CD’s of women’s chanting, “She Walks With
Snakes,” and “Step Into The River”. She is an herbalist, cook and teacher in the Wise Woman Tradition,
having apprenticed with Susun Weed in 1990 and having cooked at The Wise Woman Center for many
years. She apprenticed for two years with ALisa Starkweather on the Priestess Path. She brings to all her
work a wise perspective around wholeness and a compassionate understanding of life.
Tarpent, Marie-Lucie
The Animal Origins of Medusa and Some Other Atypical Female Deities
Classical mythologies include a number of powerful female deities, mostly mother goddesses associated
with agriculture, like Demeter and Cybele. These mythologies also often include goddesses who are not
mothers and who engage in typically masculine activities, while still integrated in the classical pantheon,
like Athena and Artemis. All these deities are represented as beautiful women. But other female figures
marginal in both appearance and role coexist more or less easily with the classical pantheon , especially
Medusa, a frightening figure, whose legendary origin is not quite clear. The ambiguous character of this
figure and of the legends associated with her have given rise to a number of more or less credible
explanations.
The approach presented here is two-pronged: it considers the actual iconographic features of the figure,
starting from the oldest representations in which a female human body in a stereotyped pose is associated
with an animal-like head which also is found independently, and it assumes that such a figure must date
from an older period than the pantheon. These two modes of approach lead to the conclusion that the
most likely natural model for the mythological Medusa must have been the tigress, whose appearance and
habits fit very well with a mythology devised by a pre-agricultural, hunter-gatherer society having to
coexist with a fearsome predator. This conclusion also applies to other mythological females such as
Kali-Durga in India and a few others. It also provides an explanations for the continued existence of
animal sacrifices (originally to a carnivorous deity).
Marie-Lucie Tarpent is a linguist specializing in a group of native languages of Western North America.
In parallel with her linguistic work she became interested in the arts and the mythologies of the cultures,
especially in some resemblances with Asia and even Europe. Her paper presents the partial result of years
of accumulated notes on the topic, covering both the mythological and the visual aspect of these cultures.
Tazi-Preve, Maram
The Patriarchal "Mother Trap"
My thesis is that the idea of motherhood today – which I call the „Patriarchal
Motherhood“ (Tazi-Preve 2013) - is based on the historical „Matricide“ (Tazi-Preve
1992), leaving a maternal artifact with the final goal of technological replacement. In my
earliest work I had shown that in mythology, psychology, science, medicine, law, politics, philosophy and
religion the mother was eradicated and the father as supposedly first creator established, thus eradicating
the matriarchal past and establishing the new
patriarchal order.
Applying the Critical Theory of Patriarchy I will show mother`s abuse and complete
defeat represented by the patriarchal mother who is still mothering under extreme
conditions. I will show the circumstances and oppression the patriarchal mother is
enduring (isolation, mother-blaming etc.) under the political and neoliberal shifts
turning maternal culture into a FAMILY MACHINE. All the while her body is a target for technological
experiments to create the motherless life by deviding her body parts and
replacing her (in-vitro-fertilization, surrogate motherhood): she becomes split up in the
egg donor, the surrogate mother and the mother who raises the child. I will also discuss
the role of feminism which helped to pave the way to the current situation and close by
showing the decade long developments of a mindset, that has succeeded to convince
women themselves that it is for their „own good“ to surrender.
Thus the patriarchal mother is left in the „Mother Trap“ where each choice turns out to
be false as there is no right life within the wrong. In order to live a life in dignity we have to explore the
free, the wild, the matriarchal mother, to reclaim and own it.
Mariam I. Tazi-Preve is Austrian who lives and teaches at universities in the USA and Austria. She is a
feminist scholar on politics and reproduction, an international lecturer, member of FIPAZ (Institute for
Critique on Patriarchy and Alternative Civilizations) and author of Motherhood in Patriarchy (2013),
Fathers Aside (2007) and several other books and articles. Currently she is working a new book on a
critique on the nuclear family. In 2015 she co-launched Boomerang. Journal of Critique on Patriarchy
(Austria, USA), and is in charge of its first volume on “Motherhood in Patriarchy” (6 out of 11
contributions are (also) in English).
Thomae, Laura
Drumming in the Dark
Historically music has been used at end of life to comfort they dying, to assist in
transition and to create sacred space. The hospice movement is growing and with it an
expanding awareness of the value of holistic approaches in end of life care including
music and ritual practices. Music can provide a safe vehicle for expression and
communication of grief and sorrow at end of life, it can provide comfort, ease pain,
improve mood and is particularly useful when verbal communication is no longer
possible.
Current hospice music therapy practice draws primarily from medical music therapy
models that for the most part do not include indigenous music and healing practices.
What do traditional healing methods and spiritual practices have to teach us about the use
of music with hospice patients? How can we incorporate traditional practices into
current music therapy methods to improve quality of life and ultimately the quality of
death?
This workshop will highlight case examples and music therapy approaches that
incorporate traditional healing practices and spiritual rituals in interventions with
terminally ill patients. These will include chanting, singing, drumming, vs. shamanic
drumming, guided imagery and visualization and the creation of ritual as means for
healing. Through both didactic and experiential methods participants will have the
opportunity to explore and learn about music therapy approaches that incorporate
traditional healing practices and can contribute to quality of life with the terminally ill.
Laura Thomae MT-BC is a board certified music therapist, consultant and singer. She trained in Music
therapy at Immaculata College and Hahnemann University. Additional training includes Reiki,
Shamanism and yoga. She has presented nationally and regionally on the use of Music therapy in hospice
and holistic approaches for stress reduction and wellness in caregivers. Laura has a particular focus on the
integration of traditional healing practices in hospice.
Tippett, Constance
Archaeological Evidence of Ancient Women's Gatherings
Tableaus consisting of groups of small clay female figurines, which Marija Gimbutas
called “the council of Goddesses,” have been found in the archeology of Old Europe.
She references at least five such tableaus, dating from 4,000 to 5,000 B.C.E. Are these
gatherings depictions of actual women's councils, education or rituals into women's
mysteries, gatherings during synchronized menses, or possibly shamanic journeys?
Exploring these questions leads to archaeological sites of Laussel, France, the Brazilian
Amazon, anthropological accounts of Yurok Indians “talking to the moon” to synchronize their Menses,
and the Iroquois matriarchy conducting women's councils. Juxtaposed to evidence of women's councils
are legends of Amazon men taking away the power of women and Australian men kidnapping women
swallowed by the Rainbow Serpent, which testify to the prior status women held. Women's groups today,
are becoming safe harbors in a patriarchal culture as they rediscover their ancient heritage.
Constance Tippett is retired, living in Portland, Oregon, and doing her art. She is best known as the
creator of the Goddess Timeline, a 4-poster set showing 30,000 years of Goddess imagery. For the poster
and her hand made, museum quality reproductions of Goddess artifacts, go to goddesstimeline.com and/or
imageofthegoddess.com.
Truesdale, Toni
Sanctuary:feminine Centered Dwellings as Areas of Sacred Protection
Historically, the homes of women are spiritual places of prayer, safety and sustenance. The female
centered house has always held sacred symbology such as: hearth, fire and alters. This is a timeless
practice of sacred protection.
Blessings permeate our spaces with the help of guardians; icons invoke ancestors, deities, saints. This
protects us and the loved ones within and as they cross into the outer (more dangerous) world. These rites
cross virtually every race and era. This commonality is part of the “culture of women” which has always
existed, secretly in sight many times, separate from male dominated society and religion.
The formal religions of the patriarchs build huge fixed structures that are ordered, static that often rising
high proclaiming dominance. They think of themselves as “gatekeepers” of knowledge, social mores,
aesthetics, history, the very structure of the world.
Yet women have enshrined their homes, gardens and nature with icons and offerings to a spirit world that
evoke prayers of peace, health and safety for family, community and even the world through the entire
history of organized religions. For each household embellishment has an iconic value that flow and
change with seasons, passages and feasts. Even the daily bread had an intrinsic value created with love
served with beauty.
This presentation will discuss this kernel of sacredness that connects us to ancestral kitchens, the heart of
the home and the spiritual domain of our foremothers.
Artist, muralist and illustrator Toni Truesdale celebrates women, the natural environment, and the
diversity of the world’s cultures. She is currently working on a series called the “Culture of Women” that
depicts commonalities and everyday life of women. She has exhibited in over 30 exhibits, painted many
murals and is widely published; she is also an educator of many years working with Native American and
African-American populations.
Truxler, Laura
Through the Seer Stone: Locating the Radical Cultural Landscape of Ancestral Memory and Pathways
of Ancient Goddess Wisdom in Colonial Massachusetts
Women in my maternal lineage were co-founders of the early Mormon Church who carried with them
into their newfound faith an already existent belief in the female divine. Identified by different names
including, ‘Goddess,’ ‘God the Mother,’ and ‘Heavenly Mother,’ these early Mormon women’s
relationship to this thealogy is the focus of my research. This paper will center on how the progenitors of
Mormonism, living along the eastern seaboard, effectively laid the groundwork of political dissent,
religious independence, and theological questioning that may have predisposed their descendents to join
the early Mormon Church. A focus on the radical cultural context of the ancestors of early Mormons will
demonstrate that the political and religious beliefs of the early converts cannot be viewed in isolation
from their ancestors but that long family histories of dissent and questioning bound them together, often
setting them apart from neighboring communities in colonial New England. In this paper I will
specifically explore the practice of scrying with seerstones, a prophetic practice that has roots among
early Mormon progenitors in New England as well as the first converts to Mormonism in New York and
Ohio. My approach uses historical/critical method, feminist cultural history, rhetorical analysis, feminist
hermeneutics of suspicion, and intuitive inquiry. These methodologies allow me to place the ancestresses
of early Mormon women at the center of the analysis in order to reveal the roots of an engaged and
embodied thealogical practice situated and shaped by the women themselves who eventually birthed the
early Mormon Church.
Laura Truxler, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Integrative Studies Across Cultures and the academic
affairs co-director of the Connections Project First-Year Experience Program at Holy Names University
in Oakland, CA. She is a 2011 graduate of the doctoral program in Women’s Spirituality Program with an
emphasis in Religion and Philosophy at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, CA
where she worked with Dr. Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum. She is the mother to three thoughtful and energetic
boys.
Vaughan, Genevieve
The Temple of Sekhmet as Harbour and Hearth
In 1993 with the help of a group of young people I built the temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to
Sekhmet in the Nevada Desert between the US nuclear test site and what is now Creech Airforce Base,
where the drones are tested. The temple is the result of a promise I made to the Goddess when I visited
Luxor in 1965. It is located on a small oasis and is a space of tranquility in the midst of the forces of
patriarchal violence and war. Anyone can come in through its archway doors and sit in the presence of the
large statues of Sekhmet and Mother Earth. Many anti war protestors find refuge there. A firepit in the
center of the space serves as its heart and hearth. A priestess cares for the space and leads rituals.
I will tell the story of the temple and show a short film.
Genevieve Vaughan works on the idea of a gift economy based on mothering. She created the
international all-women activist Foundation for a Compassionate Society based in Austin, Texas (19872005) and initiated a network: International Feminists for a Gift Economy (2001- present). Her books are
For-Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange (1997), Homo Donans (2006), The Gift in the Heart of
Language, the Maternal Source of Meaning (2015). Her website is www.gift-economy.com
Vedder-Shults, Nancy
Science and Divination: The Blurring Lines between the Secular and the Sacred
Until recently in our culture, people considered nothing more secular than science, and nothing more
occult than divination. That's beginning to change. Modern technology is finally proving what seers and
sages have always known: a particular frame of mind favors new ideas. The wisdom keepers of the world
realized long ago that they needed to enter a specific mental state in order to let go of their narrow,
habitual responses to the situations and people around them as well as the questions they faced. As a
result, they meditated, danced, dreamed, or took a walk in the woods in order to become attuned to what I
call the Goddess – the interconnected web of all existence – and, therefore, open to Her wisdom. These
adepts were the first to perfect what we now call “thinking outside the box.”
The term divination derives from the same root as the word divine. In its original meaning, divination
consists of direct contact with deity, and as such, has occurred in all cultures and in all times. In this talk,
I want to highlight a number of oracular techniques from my forthcoming book The World Is Your Oracle
and examine the research using Electroencephalograms (EEGs) and functional Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (fMRI) into how the brain functions during these experiences. Much Goddess scholarship has
already called into question Emile Durkheim’s concept that the sacred and the profane are completely
separate. The new research in neuropsychology challenges this distinction as well.
Nancy Vedder-Shults, Ph.D., is the thealogical columnist for SageWoman magazine as well as a Wiccan
blogger for Tikkun Daily. She has offered ecofeminist and spiritual growth keynotes, workshops, and
classes since 1987. Nancy honed her speaking and workshop skills teaching in the emerging field of
Women’s Studies from 1975 – 1991. In the early 1990s her muse nudged her out of the Women's Studies
Program at the UW-Madison to record Chants for the Queen of Heaven and become the musical
consultant for Rise Up and Call Her Name. Her forthcoming book is entitled The World is Your Oracle.
Check out her website at http://www.mamasminstrel.net.
Vijayshankar, Rekha
Kali's Roar: The Rise of the Sacred Feminine as Light unto Darkness
Lakshmi Bai, the rani of Jhansi, is by far the deepest influence on Indian nationalism than any of her
contemporaries. British newspapers proclaimed Lakshmi Bai the ‘Jezebel of India,’ but Sir Hugh Rose,
the commander of the British troops against the rani, compared his fallen adversary to Joan of Arc.
Reporting her death to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, he said: ‘The Rani is remarkable for her
bravery, cleverness, and perseverance; her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities,
combined with her rank, rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders.’
Sacred Feminine and the rani of Jhansi
In traditional societies, like in indigenous societies, gender roles are sacred and revered. The sacred
feminine is multi-dimensional. Hindu mythology talks of these various roles in four aspects of the divine
feminine. The primordial source of all life is Adi Shakti. She flows as Maheshwari, Mahalakshmi,
Mahasaraswati and Mahakali. Going through two cycles of life changes, Adi Shakti renews herself and
embodies the completeness of life. All is her play with the Supreme; all is her manifestation of the
mysteries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite. All is she, for all are parcel and portion of the divine
Conscious-Force.
Lessons for modern humanity from the rani’s sacred activism
In the secular thought of mankind, there are signs of an understanding that is quietly growing. It admits to
a spiritual aspect, a spiritual basis of world view. A mother to our wants, a friend in our difficulties, a
persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile the clouds of gloom
and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing to the eternal
sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering . That is the sacred feminine. That is the rani of Jhansi, who
stood up in rebellion for freedom and independence.
Lakshmi Bai, the rani of Jhansi, is by far the deepest influence on Indian nationalism than any of her
contemporaries. British newspapers proclaimed Lakshmi Bai the ‘Jezebel of India,’ but Sir Hugh Rose,
the commander of the British troops against the rani, compared his fallen adversary to Joan of Arc.
Reporting her death to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, he said: ‘The Rani is remarkable for her
bravery, cleverness, and perseverance; her generosity to her subordinates was unbounded. These qualities,
combined with her rank, rendered her the most dangerous of all the rebel leaders.’
Sacred Feminine and the rani of Jhansi
In traditional societies, like in indigenous societies, gender roles are sacred and revered. The sacred
feminine is multi-dimensional. Hindu mythology talks of these various roles in four aspects of the divine
feminine. The primordial source of all life is Adi Shakti. She flows as Maheshwari, Mahalakshmi,
Mahasaraswati and Mahakali. Going through two cycles of life changes, Adi Shakti renews herself and
embodies the completeness of life. All is her play with the Supreme; all is her manifestation of the
mysteries of the Eternal, the miracles of the Infinite. All is she, for all are parcel and portion of the divine
Conscious-Force.
Lessons for modern humanity from the rani’s sacred activism
In the secular thought of mankind, there are signs of an understanding that is quietly growing. It admits to
a spiritual aspect, a spiritual basis of worldview. A mother to our wants, a friend in our difficulties, a
persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile the clouds of gloom
and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing to the eternal
sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering. That is the sacred feminine. That is the rani of Jhansi, who
stood up in rebellion for freedom and independence.
Rekha Vijayshankar is a healer, a story teller of Indian mythology, a writer, a nurse with special interest
in the dying, a family nurse by profession, ex-corporate executive and a mother to two beautiful children
and six lovely pets. Rekha was drawn to exploring the use of storytelling as a healing tool given her life
experience of nursing her young husband during two recurrent brain tumors and a peri-operative stroke
that left him seriously “challenged” at 35. She lives in a small village in England.
Women of the Wabanaki Confederacy
Ritual, Tradition and Feminine Intuition among the Wabanaki of Maine and the Canadian Maritimes
In this presentation, four Wabanaki Women, representing the Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe,
and the Mi’ kmaq and Maliseet First Nations, will discuss the impact of ritual in their lives. Ritual plays a
role in nearly all aspects of tribal life. It connects us to our history and helps us to propel ourselves into
the future. In this panel discussion, we will look at the ways that ritual helps to support our connection to
a traditional and cultural way of life, as tribal members and as women. We will also look at the ways that
ritual can interfere with our intuition and our traditional role of maintaining and nurturing a connection to
the divine.
The panel will consist of an Indigenous Rights Attorney and activist from the Penobscot Nation, an
educator and Mi’kmaq elder in residence from St. Thomas University, a traditional elder, ceremonial
leader and teacher from the Passamaquoddy Tribe, and the Director of the Maliseet Nation Conservation
Council. Each panelist will discuss how ritual plays a role in balancing their personal and professional
roles within their respective communities. Thus, we will discuss the many ways that ritual intersects and
defines the roles of women within Wabanaki tribal communities.
In this presentation, four Wabanaki Women, representing the Penobscot Nation, Passamaquoddy Tribe,
and the Mi’ kmaq and Maliseet First Nations, will discuss the impact of ritual in their lives. Ritual plays a
role in nearly all aspects of tribal life. It connects us to our history and helps us to propel ourselves into
the future. In this panel discussion, we will look at the ways that ritual helps to support our connection to
a traditional and cultural way of life, as tribal members and as women. We will also look at the ways that
ritual can interfere with our intuition and our traditional role of maintaining and nurturing a connection to
the divine.
Joanna Dana is a Clan Mother of the Bear Clan. She is a respected elder and spiritual leader of the
Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township. She is known for her ceremonial knowledge, but also for her
gentleness and incredibly loving heart. Brenda Dana-Lozada is Joanna’s daughter and a keeper of
ceremonial knowledge and teacher. She is a Passamaquoddy language teacher at the Indian Township
School.
Miigam'agan is a Mi'kmaw traditional teacher and spiritual leader from Esgenoopetitj, New Brunswick,
Canada. She is the mother of three, and grandmother of three. Her life-work has been dedicated to
supporting empowerment for women, youth, families and communities, while preserving and teaching
Wabanaki culture and spirituality. Miigam’ agan has participated in countless councils, commissions and
circles throughout the U.S. and Canada, addressing issues related to empowerment of Indigenous women
and the promotion and preservation of the traditional Wabanaki way of life. She is currently an Elder in
Residence at St. Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Sherri Mitchell is an Indigenous rights attorney, writer, speaker and teacher. She has been an advocate
for Indigenous Rights for more than 20 years. She was a participant in the American Indian Ambassador
program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship program. In 2010, she received the
Mahoney Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award, for research into Human Rights
violations against Indigenous Peoples, and she is the 2015 recipient of the Spirit of Maine Award, for
commitment and excellence in the field of International Human Rights. She was a longtime advisor to the
American Indian Institute’s Healing the Future Program and currently serves as an advisor to the
Indigenous Elders’ and Medicine People’s Council of North and South America. Sherri is the founding
Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization committed to the protection of Indigenous
territories and the preservation of the Indigenous way of life. She teaches workshops throughout the U.S
and Canada on building Nonviolent Indigenous Rights Movements that are based on traditional Wabanaki
teachings and values.
Patricia Saulis is Maliseet from the Maliseet Nation at Tobique. She is a mother, sister, aunt, great aunt,
cousin. She was raised in the Catholic tradition, but as an adult ascribes to universal understandings of
creation, living and being. Patricia is currently serving her Nation as the Executive Director of the
Maliseet Nation Conservation Council, addressing issues connected to the watershed, aquatic relations
and the marine life. Speaking on behalf of those without voice is important to her as a woman and
encouraging women to sing their ancestral songs is how she sees empowering our women to reclaim their
voice and spirituality.
Wouk, Judith Maeryam
Teraphim and the Role of Women
The word Teraphim is found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, but only in the plural. In the two best
known Biblical stories, teraphim are associated with women tricking their fathers. Rachel (Genesis)
successfully hides her father’s teraphim by sitting on them and claiming she is menstruating. In Samuel,
Michal helps her husband David to escape from her father by putting teraphim in his bed while he climbs
out the window.
“Teraphim” has been translated as household god(s), images, idols, disgraceful things, or things
pertaining to terah/the priest. Were they ancestor figurines? Mummified human heads? Household
deities? Images of (the image-less) YHVH (Jehovah)? Perhaps even goddesses?
Were they used for divination? Protection? Proof of land ownership? How are they associated with
women and the mother's line? This talk will combine biblical and other texts with archaeological,
anthropological, and goddess research to explore these questions and their implications for us today.
Judith Maeryam Wouk is a retired Canadian federal public servant who now indulges in her passions
for goddess research, frame drumming, end of life issues, and peace. She has several forthcoming
publications.
Zajchowski, Stephanie
Persephone’s Perception: The Paradox of Motherhood
In life there is also death: a paradox mothers embrace as we join the immortal dance of
the feminine creatrix. The rhythms of creation tear open our bodies, a wounding that is mirrored in our
psyches. The numinous joy of motherhood intertwines with a loss, the maiden-innocence once treasured
belongs now to the child in our arms. Entangled, as an umbilical cord to a fetus, our identity is no longer
our own. We grieve this loss as Demeter grieves Persephone, raging in the light as Persephone is ravaged
in the darkness. Demeter’s maiden daughter is forced from innocence in honor of wholeness; for now
Persephone can see in the light and the dark. She traverses the realms above and below, her double vision
a witness to the duality of surface and depth. Persephone’s ecstatic perception gives meaning to the
devastation of life at the heart of feminine wholeness.
Stephanie Zajchowski is a mythologist, mother to two often filthy young sons, and a PhD
candidate in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute (PGI). She holds a MA in Mythological
Studies, a BBA from Texas Wesleyan University, and has her certification in Spiritual Direction from
Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology. Her publications appear in PGI’s
Mythological Studies Journal (2014); Between: Literary Review (2015); and Cafe Luna Review (2015).
CONFERENCE FILM SCREENINGS
Water Children
Aliona van der Horst
This hauntingly beautiful film by Aliona van der Horst explores the cycles of life and the mysteries of
menstruation and fertility through women’s experiences of an art installation by pianist Tomoko
Mukaiyama. The title, “Water Children,” refers to the Japanese term for children stillborn or deceased.
Recognizing that an end will come to her capacity to have children, Mukaiyama created a multimedia art
project on the subject in a village in Japan. She made what she calls a cathedral, constructed out of 12,000
white silk dresses. She invites women to take a dress, wear it, stain it with menstrual blood (“moon
blood”) and hang it back up. Women visiting this fabric cathedral meet here to talk about issues
surrounding fertility and infertility.
“Mukaiyama’s courageous approach to a subject that remains unspoken in many cultures is explored
with an elegance and sophistication that deepens our understanding of the relationship between body and
mind.”
Van der Horst tells the story of Water Children from her own perspective. We also hear from other
women who talk about their experiences with miscarriages, children, or thoughts about fertility and
sexuality. Ultimately we see that the filmmaker herself had a powerful personal reason for making this
“dreamlike, poetic film.”
(2011; Dutch and Japanese with English subtitles)
Yemanjá: Wisdom from the African Heart of Brazil
Directed by Donna Roberts, edited by Donna Read, narrated by Alice Walker
Yemanjá explores ethics, social justice, racism, ecological sustainability and power found in community
and faith, via the stories of four extraordinary elder female leaders of the Afro-indigenous Candomblé
spiritual tradition, in Bahia, Brazil. In metropolitan Salvador, the Americas' largest slave port during the
trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery's brutal history was transformed into a vibrant religio-cultural tradition
in Brazil, the world's largest Catholic country. Candomblé is a brilliant example of resilience, profound
dedication to one's heritage and the forces of nature that sustain us all. In the face of tremendous planetary
and humanitarian crises, these ancient wisdoms offer inspiration for our shared global concerns.
Candomblé has been called the religion of nature; its beliefs, rituals, and medicines depend on access to
the natural world. Candomblé’s deities include: Yemanjá, Goddess of the Sea; Oxum, Goddess of fresh
water; Yansã of wind and storms; Oxóssi of the forest; Ossain of sacred leaves; and peace-bringing Oxalá
to name a few. Candomblé and nature are inseparable. The film’s setting is the vibrant city of Salvador the center of Candomblé - and historic small town Cachoeira, home of the heroic 250-year-old Sisterhood
of Our Lady of the Good Death (Brazil's oldest women's organization), formed to buy the freedom of
women slaves. The striking influence of Candomblé’s women leaders led American anthropologist Ruth
Landes to dub Salvador "the City of Women". Women are at the apex of leadership at Candomblé's most
traditional spiritual houses (terreiros), while the majority of devotees are women. Leaders are known as
Mães de Santo – literally Mothers of Saint - or Iyalorixás. Truly they are the mothers of their cities and
communities, spiritual and otherwise.
The film's story is told primarily through the voices of select women leaders of Candomblé, the eldest is
Mãe Filhinha de Yemanjá-Ogunté, 109-years-old when last interviewed during her terreiro's annual 3-day
celebration to Yemanjá. These women are not only keepers of the wisdom of this largely oral tradition,
but also vital references in the wider communities in which they live. They create and support social and
environmental campaigns and causes; they write books and public policy; they are sought after wise
women within their spiritual communities and throughout their regions.
Activist, writer, editor, director, Donna Read has produced films that have inspired generations of
feminists and environmentalists. Starhawk regards her as a “mentor, teacher, and good friend” whose
work represents “a lifetime of devotion to women and social justice.” She is also a tireless activist for the
preservation of the earth and the people on it Her influential visionary films include the Women's
Spirituality Trilogy: Goddess Remembered, Burning Times and Full Circle. With Starhawk she made
Signs Out of Time, about the life and work of Marija Gimbutas. Her latest project with Donna Roberts is
Yemanjá: Wisdom from the African Heart of Brazil.