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.
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.
Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ
Bulgarian Folk Dancers, Brussels, Belgium, 2019
Artistic Creation and the Natural World: Deepening and Healing Relationships through Art, Dance, and Literature
with Cristina Biaggi, Laura Shannon, Adhi TwoOwls, and Ying Xu
Rescue and Myth, Cristina Biaggi
The Tree of Life in Balkan Women’s Circle Dance: from Mother’s Placenta to the Mothering Principle, Laura Shannon
Healing Through Spirit and Expression: The Intersection of Shamanism and Art, Adhi TwoOwls
Carrying Pebbles in [Their] Grief: Qiu Jin (1875-1907) and the Jingwei Bird/Nüwa, Ying Xu
Cristina Biaggi, Ph.D. has achieved significant recognition for her contributions in the art and in the literary worlds, in the field of feminist art and Goddess Studies. She is the author of five books: Habitations of the Great Goddess, Footsteps of the Goddess, The Rule of Mars, Activism into Art and Four Legs and Two. She has also created large installations, abstract collages, figurative works, portraits of people and their animals.
Laura Shannon has been researching traditional Greek and Balkan women’s dances since 1985. Founding Director of the Athena Institute for Women’s Dance and Culture, Carol P. Christ’s successor as Director of the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual, and an Honorary Lifetime Member of the Sacred Dance Guild, she is currently writing a PhD on women’s circle dance at the University of Gloucester (UK).
Adhi TwoOwls is an artist, educator, and alternative healing therapist specializing in the intersection of shamanism, art, and wellness. With expertise in art history, drawing, and holistic practices, Adhi leads workshops and retreats exploring creativity, spirituality, and healing. Passionate about fostering connections between ancient traditions and modern approaches, Adhi empowers individuals to find resilience and transformation through guided meditation, ceremonial art-making, and integrative therapies.
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.
Saturday, March 29, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ
Grizzly Bear, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2012
Reclaiming Animal-Human Relationships Drawing on Land Wisdom and Myth
with Claire Princess Ayelotan, Heather Taylor, Barbara Mann, and Kaarina Kailo
Foundational Myths, Witchcraft Accusations, and the Symbolism of Cats in Yoruba Cosmology, Claire Princess Avelotan
Bear wisdom and original Instructions for healthy living, Kaarina Kailo
Original Instructions: Boundary Crossing with Bears, Barbara Mann
Mythical Horses Connecting Us to the Primal Energy of Life, Land, and Imagination, Heather Taylor
Dr Claire Princess Ayelotan is a researcher in Theology, Religious Studies, and Law, specialising in African spirituality, witchcraft accusations, and Yoruba cosmology. Her interdisciplinary research explores connections between myth, social justice, and legal frameworks within Nigerian and diaspora populations. Utilising African Womanist viewpoints and symbolic interactionism, Dr Ayelotan examines the significance of human and animal symbolism in mythologies and traditions, focusing on their intersections with human rights and legal systems.
Dr. Kaarina Kailo is a cosmopolitan activist, politician, self-made artist and researcher. She has worked as professor of Women’s Studies at Oulu University, Finland, at the Finnish Academy, and has held women’s studies positions at Concordia University, Simone de Beauvoir Institute and University of Quebec, Chicoutimi, Canada. She has published hundreds of articles on the gift economy/imaginary, Bear and Great Mother Worship/mythology, the woman who married the bear, sauna and sweat lodge healing, Finno-Ugric ecomythology, and modern matriarchal studies.
Barbara Alice Mann, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of Humanities, Jesup Scott Honors College, of the University of Toledo, in Toledo, Ohio, USA. Including encyclopedias and bibliographies, she has produced seventeen books and over 500 articles. Her latest work is The Woman Who Married the Bear (Oxford University Press, August, 2023) co-authored with Finnish scholar Dr. Kaarina Kailo. Mann’s most recent monographs include President by Massacre: Indian-Killing for Political Gain; Spirits of Blood, Spirits of Breath: The Twinned Cosmos of Indigenous America; The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of Settler Advance; Daughters of Mother Earth; and Iroquoian Women: The Gantowisas (Lang, 2000, 2004, 2006).
Heather A. Taylor is the Co-Founder of the International Society of Mythology. She is also producer/director of the award-winning documentary Breaking Through the Clouds: The First Women’s National Air Derby. Heather has a PhD in Mythology and a Masters in Producing Film. Heather has a special interest in helping people find their passion (genius) which is often done with the aid of an animal, real and mythic.
Read all about the ASWM Conference and register here.
Seasons of the Witch: A Poetry Reading in Honor of Patricia Monaghan
“Poetry is an oral art. Although since the invention of writing, poetry has been written down, it begins with the voice. The Inuit people of the arctic recognize this, for they use a single word to indicate “breath” and “poem.” A poem is not a picture but a song; it lives best when spoken, chanted, sung.
“Earth-centered people must reclaim the voice of magic. We must make songs of the cycles of the year and of our own lives; we must chant the names of our own divinities; we must remember the powers of earth and air, fire and water, that ancient people honored. As we do so, we not only reconnect with their wisdom, we bring that wisdom to life and breath again.” (Patricia Monaghan, Introduction to Seasons of the Witch, Third Edition, 2004)
Tonight we celebrate Patricia Monaghan as a poet and our inspirational leader. Her words, her ideas, and her visionary works continue to feed the fires of our own creativity. We are grateful to the five poets who present their work in honor of her lasting contribution to scholarship and the arts.
Flow: Our five featured readers are Annie Finch, Ann Filemyr, Judy Grahn, Monica Mody, and Marna Scooter Cascadia. In keeping with Patricia’s organic, ever-flowing view of the art of poetry, these women will decide the order of their readings on site. Pat’s poems are read by Miriam Robbins Dexter, Mary Jo Neitz, Letecia Layson, Sid Reger, and Dawn Work-Makinne.
Ann Filemyr is the author of six books of poetry.. She speaks on the Rising of the Divine Feminine as connected with deepening Earth-based consciousness and leads a monthly New Moon Circle for gathering and grounding. She is the Founder/Director of the PhD in Visionary Practice & Regenerative Leadership at Southwestern College in Santa Fe.
Annie Finch is the author of seven poetry collections including Among the Goddesses (awarded the Sarasvati Award). Her other works include poetry translation, verse theater, writings on poetic craft, ritual, and the Divine Feminine, and the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion. Based in NYC, she teaches and performs worldwide.
Judy Grahn, Ph.D., has been writing about women’s spirituality and women’s contributions to human culture for over fifty years. She taught her own work in Women’s Spirituality Master’s Programs at New College of California and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology for over thirteen years total. Her work on Inanna includes Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power; and three book-length poems on the goddess of love, power, and beauty.
Marna Scooter Cascadia designs collaborative writing games for climate justice futures. Recent work appears in the International Symposium of Poetic Inquiry series, and in the We’Moon. Marna serves as Southwestern’s Associate Director of the Program in Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership. She tends Goddess gardens and earth dreams in Pacific Cascadia.
Monica Mody is the author of poetry collections Wild Fin (Weavers Press, 2024) and Bright Parallel (Copper Coin, 2023), the cross-genre Kala Pani (1913 Press, 2013), three chapbooks, and other creative and academic work that has been published widely and presented at international and US-based conferences and talks. Visit www.drmonicamody.com.
Patricia Monaghan, PhD
About our friend: Patricia Monaghan was a poet, a writer, a spiritual activist, and an influential figure in the contemporary women’s spirituality movement. Her own experience of the natural world and her deep connections with the other-than-human were significant for her adopting the worldwide vision of the earth as feminine. She saw the connection between ecological damage and the oppression of the feminine in Western society. Much of her work explored the question of the role of feminine power in our world, in an inclusive and multicultural way.
The creation and development of goddess scholarship were high priorities for Pat. When she and Sid Reger compared their visions, they jumped at the chance to create ASWM. Pat was devoted to mentoring new and emerging scholars; endowing ASWM’s Kore Award for the Best Dissertation. Pat’s commitment to supporting new work, to call attention to goddess scholarship within society and academia at large, led her to create our prestigious Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology. Her vision and creativity continue to inspire our work to advance goddess scholarship.
Read all about the ASWM Conference and register here.
Seasons of the Witch: A Poetry Reading in Honor of Patricia Monaghan
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