Category: Events

ASWM-sponsored events: conferences and symposia and online events such as film series and scholar salons

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2025 Conference Panel: Dancing the Spiral: Cosmology, Spirits of Place and the Mystery of the Cauldron

Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ


Dancing the Spiral: Cosmology, Spirits of Place and the Mystery of the Cauldron

 Glenys Livingstone, Lauren Raine, Desiree Mwalimu-Banks ,Kristinha  Reva

  • The Cauldron, the Womb, and the Waters: The Welsh Witch Ceridwen and the Journey of Ecological Individuation, Kristinha Reva
  • Sonic Transmissions and Water Ecologies: A Voyage Into the Water Mandala, Desiree Mwalimu-Banks
  • Embodying the Triple Spiral: a Relational Practice with Place, Glenys Livingstone
  • Numina: Spirits of Place, Pilgrimage, and Myth, Lauren Raine

Glenys Livingstone Ph.D. (Social Ecology) is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion. She was born and lives in Australia, where she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony. Glenys teaches an online course celebrating the Wheel of the Year for both hemispheres. Her book A Poiesis of the Creative Cosmos: Celebrating Her within PaGaian Sacred Ceremony documents the synthesis of her work over the past decades.

Desiree Mwalimu-Banks is a Zambian-born, East Coast-raised interdisciplinary artist, educator, mother, and priestess of Auset. Her work explores somatic relationships between indigenous identity, water ecologies, and apiary culture within the framework of the sacred feminine and the African diaspora. She creates sound and video installations which reimagine the frequencies and landscapes of the archetypal feminine and its relationship to self-actualization.

Lauren Raine MFA, is an artist and Community Arts facilitator as well as a poet. She is known for her “Masks of the Goddess” Collection of over 50 masks that travelled throughout the U.S. with different communities for over 25 years. In 2013 she collaborated with playwright Ann Waters to create masks for the play “Numina: The Awakening” performed in Willits, California. In 2018 after attending the Gatekeeper Conference “Dreaming the Land: Working with the Consciousness of Nature” in the U.K. she was inspired to write about her experiences.

Kristinha Maria Reva, MA, is a PhD candidate in the Mythological Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She enjoys sharing storytelling, ritual, and expressive arts processes with an ecological focus. She has told stories for the Storytellers of San Diego, San Francisco Free Folk Festival, and Visions Art Museum. Her written work has been published in Unbroken, Dark Matter and the Mythological Studies Journal. She currently lives in Encinitas, CA.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

 

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2025 Conference Workshop: Deep Learning: Art as Medium for Interspecies Listening

Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Deep Learning: Art as Medium for Interspecies Listening

with Lori Wells

Art by Lori Wells

My artwork explores the question, “how can I tell a story that re-connects humans and nature, especially for those of us who have forgotten or forsaken our heritage as guardians of the Earth?”I began my exploration through a daily practice of painting tiny votive offerings to nature. One other-than-human a day. Sitting with the painting, I then asked for guidance on how to tell a story of how our human lives could be informed by their knowledge and innate ways of being. As I researched the other-than-humans I painted, I learned their challenges and mourned their deaths. Consciously, I lived and breathed with them, not turning away from the pain, remembering every day that I am them and they are me.
One day, I awoke with a new question, “How could I possibly tell a story that reconnects humans and nature if I leave the humans out?” Sacred women then appeared. Shortly thereafter, an image leapt out of my imagination and asked to be cut out of paper. She insisted on jumping off the page, thus becoming a sort of bas relief or a dimensional cut paper illustration. Lovingly I began embellishing my creations with embroidery and beads. Creating art is a sacred gift, meant for the community. In this presentation, I will share the images and wisdom that the sacred women and other holy beings of the world have gifted me.

Lori Wells is an artist/writer/dancer with deep roots in nature spirituality, dreamwork and ancestral healing practices. Her work lies at the intersection of ecology and spirituality, it swims in the waters of the numinous imagination, nourished by the magic of biology and myth, and reaches back in time to sit at the fires of the ancestors.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

 

 

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2025 Conference Panel: Stories from Ethno-autobiographical Engagement with the Land

Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Baboquivari Peak and Kitt Peak Observatory, Arizona

Stories from Ethnoautobiographical Engagement with the Land

with Michelle Boyle, Kimberly Davis, Dawn Johnson Harvey and Allison Smith

  • Spirit in Stones, Michelle Boyle
  • A Druidic Account of the Healing Earth, Dawn Johnson Harvey
  • Black Women Remember: The Reemergence of the Primordial Mothers for Personal, Political, and Planetary Healing, Kimberly Davis
  • Myth & Migration: Sicilian Folktales Take Root in New Ecologies, Allison Smith

Michelle Boyle, MA, recently returned from a year doing fieldwork as a guest researcher at the University of Torino, Italy. She is currently completing her doctorate, on ancestral healing and intergenerational trauma, in East West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Michelle is a mother, grandmother, counselor, and healer, and lives with her youngest child and four-footed family on Caddo and Wichita territory in north Texas.

Dr. Kimberly J. Davis is a spiritual scholar, author, teacher, life coach, and intuitive healer. She is the founder of Journey to Wholeness Center and Journey Healing Institute. Kimberly holds a PhD in Philosophy and Religion with a concentration in Women’s Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies and an MBA in Finance from DePaul University. Her scholarship centers the lived experiences of African American women as they navigate and heal the soul-wounding effects of historical trauma through embodied spiritualities.

Dawn Johnson Harvey, MS, LMHC is a PhD student in East-West Ecopsychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She also holds a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and provides trauma-informed narrative therapy. Her dissertation explores the decolonization of the self in the community through Ethnoautobiography, a process of critical self-inquiry to unlearn Whiteness and reawaken ancestral ties with the integral earth community.

Dr. Ying Xu earned a BA and MA in English in China and a Ph.D. in English from UNM, specializing in nineteenth-century American literature and Asian American literature. A contributor to OUPblog and Oxford Bibliographies, her latest work was featured in MLA’s special collection on Teaching. She translated Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony, published in 2023, and is currently translating Joy Harjo’s Crazy Brave, set for release in 2025.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

 

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2025 Conference Workshop: Earth as Canvas: A Collaborative Eco Arts Experience

Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Earth as Canvas: A Collaborative Eco Arts Experience

with Jamie Moon

In this immersive workshop, participants will explore the ecological, spiritual, and historical significance of Earth as an art form. Thiscommunal experience invites participants to work collaboratively using soil, sand, and other natural materials to create a large-scale, unified piece of art. Through guided discussions, we will explore the deep connection between humanity and the Earth, highlighting how various cultures have historically and spiritually engaged with the land as both a sacred and artistic medium. Participants will embody the Earth, not just as a physical resource, but as a living, expressive form through which we can explore our relationships to nature, community, and creativity.

The workshop also fosters an appreciation for eco-art practices, encouraging participants to reflect on sustainability, interconnectedness, and the healing power of natural materials. This unique, collaborative process invites participants to not only reconnect with the Earth through their hands but also to engage in meaningful reflection on the role of nature in art, culture, and collective human experience.

Location TBA–Outside!

Jamie Moon, MFA, is a World Mythology professor at Pueblo Community College in Colorado and a doctoral student at Southwestern College. As an integrative educator, conceptual artist, and visual storyteller, she focuses on holistic education and healing, fostering creativity and connection through her work with organic media. Extensively working with diverse and often marginalized populations, she designs immersive, kinesthetic art installations, using her work to create safe spaces for advocacy, healing, and community building.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

 

 

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2025 Conference Workshop: Tea Ceremony: The Light that Shines Though Everything

Friday  March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Tea Ceremony: The Light that Shines Though Everything

with Catherine Reynolds

When society laid aside the old stories in the name of “progress,”we stepped away from our connection to Nature, forgetting our place and responsibilities within it. We collectively forgot what it meant to be enchanted by and entangled with the world, to the detriment of the entire planet.The plant Tea (Camellia sinensis), when consumed in Ceremony, offers an initiation of return – both to the old stories and to the power that comes from remembering our interconnectedness with all beings. The myths around Tea’s origins even point to humanity’s ancient reciprocity with Nature; the Tea tree herself playing a part in the mythic exchange.

Tea Ceremony is both an art form and a means of connecting to something greater than ourselves. It offers a simple and elegant solution to begin to rebalance the imbalances humanity has wrought on the planet for centuries. A relationship with Tea is one that values reciprocity with other sentient beings, respecting and honouring the inherent intelligence of Nature.

Tea offers a deeply sacred, feminine medicine – a light that shines through everything – which can only be experienced when we relate with her as an intelligent, sentient Other. In Ceremony, we are co-collaborators with Tea, returning bowl after bowl to our entanglement with the animate Earth. She reminds us that the human, the animal, the natural and the celestial are one; each and every thing intertwines and is interchangeable. In other words, we can experience the entire universe in every single bowl of Tea.

Note: This workshop has limited participation, but the presenter is willing to repeat the ceremony at another time; sign up at the registration table.

Catherine (Cat) Reynolds is a Tea Ceremonialist and Nature Mystic living in Canada. She is an Animist, poet, and storyteller – speaking to trees and birds more often than she speaks to people. Cat holds an MA in East-West Psychology. Her work is focused on ecopsychology, connecting people with the animate Earth, encouraging re-enchantment and sparking remembrance of what it means to be a part of (and not separate from) Nature.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.