“Goddesses of Healing of Ancient Greece”

with Eftyhia Leontidou

Thursday,  November 7, 2024 at 12 NOON Eastern Time  

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Anyone who has visited Greece would probably be familiar with the most common Greek expression, «γεια σου», meaning “to your health!” This phrase is used as a greeting, as a wish, as a blessing, or as a toast when raising glasses. «Γεια» or -more correctly- «υγεία», meaning health, is personified by the ancient Greek Goddess Hygieia; and is the root of many words used in different languages in association with health, cleanliness and sanitation, e.g. hygiene. Hygieia is the most well-known ancient Greek Goddess of healing, but there are quite a few more, e.g. her four sisters, daughters of the god of medicine Asclepius (Panacea, Iaso, Aceso and Aegle). Other healing Goddesses are exclusively associated with birthing/childbirth, e.g. Eileithyia, or with decent and painless death, e.g. Artemis.  I will unfold their stories and their symbols, particularly the snake, whose venom can kill or heal. These Goddesses of medicine promote health on the physical, emotional and spiritual plane; but emphasis will also be placed on the healing needed by our relationships, our societies, and our planet, Mother Earth, all of them wounded by millennia of patriarchy. 

Since the earliest matriarchal human societies of prehistory, healing has been a women’s art. Nowadays, although female healers outnumber their male colleagues, they still fight to earn their rightful acknowledgement in the health system. But the medicine women of our times also have to be warriors, as they fight for women’s rights; against the trauma of violence against women; for the healing of the planet and against destructive acts and practices. In this war they are guided by the archetype of the Goddess Athena, who was worshipped as healer and warrior, among her other qualities.

Dr. Eftyhia Leontidou MD, is a Greek Obstetrician- gynecologist, who has spent all her life healing and empowering women, as a health professional, as an author and as a feminist activist. A lover of music, archaeology, mythology, travel, photography, and Tai chi, and a member of the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, she owns a well- informed archive of various kinds of documents on women’s issues. Eftyhia has written and translated many articles on women’s rights and health issues for medical and feminist magazines in Greece and abroad. She has also coedited and contributed as an author, translator and photographer in many collective women’s books. Her activities include lectures, seminars and workshops for doctors, medical students, women’s groups as well as battered, unemployed, immigrant and socially excluded women, in collaboration with women’s and cultural organizations, groups, schools, parents’ unions, local authorities, and the European Union; in addition she has taken part in training programs for the police on violence against women.

For more than 50 years she has been active in the autonomous women’s movement being a member of self-examination, feminist activist and feminist spirituality groups in Athens. The last two years, 2023 and 2024, she contributed to the Glastonbury Goddess Conference as a presenter. Her latest project, called Feminist Gynecology, consists so far of three books: 1) Goddess in Action – Childbirth, 2) Female Sexuality – From Flesh to Spirit, and 3) Female body – A Mystical tour.

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Scholar Salon #79 November 21 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time

Truth, Lies and Possibilities: Writing about Buddha’s Wife 

with Barbara HcHugh

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Save the date and watch for details :

Scholar Salon #80, January 7 2025 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time, 

with Vicki Noble

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event.