2010 Conference Summary

The Green Goddess, Our first biennial multi-day conference, was held April 23 to 25, 2010, at Kirkridge Retreat Center, Bangor, PA.

The Labyrinth at Kirkridge Retreat Center
Labyrinth at Kirkridge

Keynote speakers included Max Dashu of Suppressed Histories with a tour de force presentation on female icons, Cristina Eisenberg (a wolf biologist who is actively engaged in ecological restoration that supports sustainability of wildlife communities and of the human spirit), Dr. Ann Filemyr on healing from the nature/culture divide, and Cristina Biaggi on the Great Goddess as a green goddess, through the lens of art and history.

Margot Adler was honored with our first Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality, and the Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Goddess Studies went to Dawn Work-Makinne, Ph.D.

Lydia Ruyle’s inspiring goddess banners graced the meeting space, and she will offered an art workshop. Our film series premiered “Pink Smoke Over the Vatican,” about the ordination of Catholic women priests, and featured ethnologist Sabine Jell-Bahlson’s film on Mammywata.

Topics included lady of the beasts, publishing goddess scholarship, spiritual geometry and the goddess, archaeomythology, the divine feminine as vortex, finding your sacred language, the wheel of the year as spiritual psychology, frog mysteries, and much more.

Poet Annie Finch gave a masked reading; novelist Elizabeth Cunningham read from her Maeve novels; storyteller Diane Wolkstein presented The Monkey King; and singer Ruth Barrett gave a “concert for Gaia.”

The 2010 conference took place at the beautiful Kirkridge Retreat Center, atop the Pocono mountain ridges near the Delaware Water Gap.  Kirkridge is located about 90 minutes from both New York City and Philadelphia.

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