Friday, March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ
Scholarly and oracular discussions with the living Goddess of the Epic of Gilgamesh
The epic of Gilgamesh, in various versions, is one of the oldest examples of world literature, consisting of five Sumerian poems about the semi-divine King of Uruk. Presenters on this panel will discuss the roles and influences of goddesses and priestesses in this story of heroic conquest.
- The rejection of the Goddess: How totalitarian agriculture leads to the slaying of the Bull of Heaven, Crystal Woodling
- Chasing the Queen of Heaven and her sacred bull to the Netherworld: Tracing the formation of an underworld in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Adriana Hetram
- “You’re so Vain”—the petty portrayal of Inanna in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Amy Solara-Mackey
- Union with the Goddess: an examination of the pivotal role of Shamhat in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Jessie McKnight
Crystal (formerly Hoffman) Woodling is a scholar, poet, herbalist, translator, and ritual facilitator. She has performed and presented her scholarship on women’s spirituality and the avant-garde at national conferences such as the AWP and ATHE. She co-runs the School of Heaven and Earth and leads the oracular poetry group Sibyl’s Cave. She taught poetry in the land of Humbaba at AUB, where she co-founded Rusted Radishes: Beirut Literary and Arts Review.
Adriana Hetram is an independent scholar who completed her PhD at Queen’s University, Canada, with a specialization in Modernism, Women’s Writing, and Poetics. Her thesis focused on the mature work of Modernist poet H.D. (1886-1961) and evolved a phenomenologically-focused syncretic poetics to look at works conceived in a postwar milieu so haunted by apocalyptically-inflected states of being that a new symbolic dimension of understanding was necessary to open up space for life, consciousness, and coherence to enter once again.
Amy Solara-Mackey has been actively involved in the goddess spirituality community for over a decade, as a participant, priestess and initiator. As a mother of 3 sons much of her work with women revolves around embodying the divine feminine, birth as a rite of passage, sacred sexuality and relationships, and creative feminine expression. An astrologer, tarot reader, yogini and ceremonialist, she is working on her first Goddess Oracle deck and book.
Jessie McKnight is a mother, herbalist, poet, and astrologer. She has a degree in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her knowledge and love for the natural world then led her to pursue her passion for herbal medicine, where the plants themselves have been her greatest teachers. She currently serves her community as an herbalist, astrologer, and an educator at Pacific Valley School. She teaches both academics and dance, always with the hope of passing the flame of curiosity, wonder, and stewardship to the next generation.
Read all about the ASWM Conference and register here.