Category: News & Articles

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

The Creation of “The Women of the Ramapough Lenape Nation”

“The Women of the Ramapough Lenape Nation,” is a creative collaboration between artist Lisa Levart and women from the Ramapough Lenape Nation – the indigenous people who live in the Highlands around Mahwah, N.J., 30 miles outside of NYC.  Under the guidance of Grandmother Clara Soaring Hawk, this on-going series is an artistic investigation into the sacred mythology of the Lenape Nation. Recreated as panoramic tableaus, Levart’s photographic portraits are made on ancestral land, and express the indigenous belief of  living life in connection with nature.

Filmmaker Myles Aronowitz will screen his 22 minute documentary film that has poetically captured this multi-year collaborative process. The screening will be followed by a spirited conversation among the project creators about the power of collaborative art making, community building between cultures, personal agency, and reclaiming ancestral stories.

A trailer for the film can be seen here.

Lisa Levart is a visual artist/photographer whose interest lies at the intersection between fine arts and social engagement. Her subjects are women and how our stories connect us to one another. A monograph of her work “Goddess on Earth; Portraits of the Divine Feminine” won a Gold Nautilus Book Award, and was named one of the 100 Best New Women’s Spirituality Books by the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Grandmother Clara Soaring Hawk is Ambassador of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. She  considers herself a “Spiritual Ecologist” as she prays for the balance of Spirit and the natural  world. Grandmother Clara has been facilitating ceremony, both nationally and internationally since 2013.

A well known photographer, Myles Aronowitz’ portraits of celebrities, artists, poets, musicians  and writers have been published world wide in magazines and newspapers including Time  Magazine, People Magazine, Forbes Magazine and the New York Times, to name only a few. This is his first documentary. www.MylesAronowitz.com

 

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

Born on the Connecticut River in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Rev. Areeya Marie Sharpe was gifted a unique relationship to the whispers of water. Listening to the rivers and lakes amidst the pines nourished her deep abiding love and trust in the pulse of nature, while growing up in a world seemingly unfriendly to interracial, multicultural children.  Areeya was inspired while singing with a lake to seek out the connections of the heart waters of many traditions and peoples who honored the land and waters. Remembering her parents intricate abilities and traumas, and navigating the violences of intolerance and bigotry, she heard a call from the river on which she was born to seek out waters of different lands as an offering and for guidance. After serving 8 yrs in the military, a common choice to escape the ghettos, she came to the conclusion the waters knew best… As a form of healing and honoring her family with African American, Mediterranean, Blackfoot, Cherokee and military roots of the deep south, she chose the path of carrying water. For 20yrs, she has journeyed carrying the waters between several spiritual communities. Priestess, Multicultural Ceremonialist, Interfaith Minister and Medical Qigong Practitioner, Areeya is a co-caretender and Priestess in Residence, at the Temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to Sekhmet in Cactus Springs, NV, founded by Genevieve Vaughan.

“Water Whispers of the Desert”

Rev. Areeya will share insights on the relationship of water and prayer from the vantage point of the Mojave Desert, around the Sekhmet Temple in Cactus Springs, NV.  This sacred location is in a unique dance between the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, a Drone-laden Air Force Base, and 2 maximum security prisons. And this desert is the homeland of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation and the Paiute. Where water is precious, the desert cultures speak and sing to the waters, and focus on the pivotal communion with a tiny spring. “In the daily honoring of this blessed outpost of peace, we explore our species’ deep relationship with the sacred waters of life through the vibrations of sound, thought and emotion.” This presentation honors the teachings of the belated and beloved Spiritual Leader of the Western Shoshone Nation, who lives on in the hearts of his people and the memories of water.

 

 

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

Drinking from Strega Nona’s Well: Energy Healing for All

with Carol Geisler and Janet Marinelli

We have been intrigued by Tomie de Paola’s Strega Nona books for children. Although De Paola didn’t base his stories directly on Italian folk tales, Strega Nona, the Sicilian grandmother witch, holds true for us as a healer with a big heart. In this workshop, we explore how we can embody the Strega Nona archetype, drink from the endless well of universal energy, and use the energies that keep us healthy and whole. We introduce basic energy healing principles and techniques that you will have time to experience. Additionally, we explore the connection between energy healing and water using a creative arts exercise and imagery. You will leave the workshops with “hands-on” tools to use for self-care and an image to remind you of your experiences of drinking from Strega Nona’s well.

Janet Marinelli, M.S, Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies at St. Catherine University, enjoys working with students at the graduate level and in community workshops on topics like the creative arts, energy healing, spirituality, transformative learning, and circle process. An overarching theme of Janet’s work is transformation and she deeply appreciates exploring with others on the journey.

Carol Geisler, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies at St. Catherine University. Carol’s life journey is one of integrating mind, body, spirit. She uses her experiences as a psychologist, nurse, researcher, holistic healer, ritualist, mother, and collaborator to inform her work in the world.

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

Guadalupe Urbina is a Costa Rican singer-songwriter, poet, and activist who champions and celebrates Indigenous peoples and women. She is a folk musician whose compositions reflect the oral tradition of Guanacaste, her birthplace. She has performed in both Europe and the United States and has won various awards for her work domestically and internationally. She researched the oral tradition of Guanacaste starting in 198,4 during which she collected hundreds of songs, with grants from ACAM and the Spanish Cultural Center. She then published the song book Sones de mi Tierra Caliente, which contains unpublished and anonymous songs of the Guanacaste province, and she performed these songs at a concert at the National Theatre of Costa Rica. Her creative work includes numerous albums and three books, most recently Palabras de Larga Noche.. Guadalupe is the subject of the 2019 documentary film Los caminos del amor, which covers her life and work.

THE SACRED FEMENINE IN THE WATERS OF ABYA YALA

Abya Yala is the oldest name so far known referring to the Americas as a territory. It means “land in full maturity” or “land of vital blood”, in the Dulegaya language spoken by the Guna ethnic group that inhabits Panama and Colombia. In the visions of people whose center of life is water as a vital and sacred element, the Mother Water (original grandmother) is the Origin and renewal of the life.

The work of Marija Gimbutas opened an immense door for the knowledge of the sacred feminine. Although her research was carried out far from our continent, we discovered between the lines a hermeneutic that made it easier for us to read our archaeological discoveries and our myths. And it is with these tools that I have been studying the deities and magical beings of the waters in Abya Yala. There have always been the founding tales that validate human existence, the terrifying urban legends that give credence to our deepest fears, and these legends are strongly linked to nature and wildlife. One of the most crucial protagonists of these legends is the woman in her most elemental form.

In addition to her panel presentation, Guadalupe will also share her music with us in our Saturday evening showcase, Celebration of the Waters.

 

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

A dancer, drummer, and independent researcher, Tahya is a woman of central European and Irish descent.  As a little girl, she was inspired by her mother’s reading the Thousand and One Nights and, later,  by the music of Rimsky-Korsakov. Upon hearing the intoxicating melodies and hypnotic rhythms of Egyptian music, she found herself “swept away on a magic carpet ride” that led her to study and teach the “movements and rhythms of the ancient dance of the Goddess, traditionally handed down from one from one generation to the next, grandmother to granddaughter.” She learned dance and percussion from her honored teachers, Susheela, Jamila Salimpour, Mimi Janislawski, and Layne Redmond. These experiences have led her to her work to revive interest in women’s playing the systrum, the instrument of the Egyptian goddesses.

Workshop and Panel Presentation

 Ancient Egyptian Waters of Life & the Goddess Hathor

In ancient Egypt ‘the Water of Life’ sustaining all flora, fauna and human population was the Nile River. Dotting the landscape along the river’s route are temples dedicated to deities of the ancient Egyptian pantheon. Situated on the Nile’s west bank is the temple complex at Dendera, with its main temple dedicated to the Goddess Hathor and an adjacent shrine to Isis oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius, which corresponds with the annual flooding of the Nile, essential to fertilizing crops. This presentation focuses on Hathor, the ” Mistress of the River,” as goddess of fertility, motherhood, music and dance, plus additional attributes. I also introduce participants to the rhythm of the systrum ~ Hathor’s sacred instrument and ritual iinstrument. In the tradition of her priestesses, we will “shimmer” the systrum to invoke blessings to heal and protect the waters.