Our thanks to Denise Kester for sharing her artwork with us for our 2022 Symposium, “Hearing the Invisible: Lessons from Sentient Beings and Inter-related Ecosystems.” Our focus is on connections and relationships among people, animals, and the green world. Denise’s monoprint “The Caretaker of the Precious” (2001) beautifully conveys the intention and spirit of our program, as does her poem that accompanies the piece:
She says it is the small things that matter.
She says it is the life force of the unseen and
the vulnerable that hold our world
together by their fragile threads.
She says these things are precious to me.
I will care for them.
Denise is a full-time artist in Ashland, Oregon. She is author of the book “Drawing on the Dream.” She specializes in monoprint and monotype viscosity printing, as well as drawing and painting, based in part on her dreams and intuition. Denise teaches a variety of workshops on the creative process, including printmaking, bookmaking, surface design, collage, and block printing.
She says of her work, “I draw from the dream and the dream draws from me. The stories and the art I reach for are also reaching for me. Together in partnership we create a visual story that is relevant to me and also to the global community. I explore the connection and interconnection with the universe through art and dreams.”
Check out Denise’s interview with Oregon Art Beat to see the behind-the-scenes creative process that results in her colorful images of animals and nature. And see more of her work on her website, Denise Kester: Drawing on the Dream.
Novelist Elizabeth Cunningham will share how her encounters with place shaped The Maeve Chronicles, a series of award-winning novels featuring a feisty Celtic Magdalen. During her twenty years of research and writing, Elizabeth traveled to the Hebrides, Wales, Italy, Israel, France, Turkey, and England. Over and over, she discovered that the land itself has stories to tell to those who will listen: “Deserts are as real as gardens. When I returned home from these pilgrimages and continued to write, my vision was enlivened by the deserts, pavements, gardens, and lakes, mountains, and brothels my Magdalen might have seen with her own eyes.”
In her essay In Search of Real Gardens: A Novelist’s Onsite Research (2012) she recounts this insight rom her travels to Jerusalem: The Anglicans have a rival theory about the site of the crucifixion and locate it outside the medieval walls of the old city. They have a rival tomb also, a real one that dates to the 1st century and is big enough to have housed a small family. Outside it is a real garden where one can imagine Jesus pruning the trees on Resurrection morning, waiting for Mary Magdalen to recognize him. Because it was outdoors and less crowded—or maybe because of all my Anglican ancestors—this site held more appeal than the traditional one. On the Mount of Olives I felt closest to the story. I sat among the lap-like roots of a huge olive tree so old it might have been young when Jesus—and Maeve—walked back and forth between Jerusalem and Bethany.
Elizabeth Cunningham
The author of nine novels and four collections of poems, Elizabeth Cunningham lives in New York State in the valley of the Mahicantuck (the river that flows both ways). In addition to the four novels of the Maeve Chronicles, she has written The Return of the Goddess, a Divine Comedy, and All the Perils of This Night, a “smart and twisted literary thriller.” Her most recent volume of poetry is Tell Me the Story Again. For more about Elizabeth, please visit her website. (You can also find both Elizabeth Cunningham and Maeve Rhuad on FaceBook.)
Elizabeth Cunningham is a fellow emeritus of Black Earth Institute (BEI). Founded by ASWM co-creator, the late Patricia Monaghan, with Michael McDermott, BEI is a community of artist-fellows and scholar-advisers creating a more ethical world. BEI seeks to help create a more just and deeply interconnected world and promote the health of the planet. To do so, artists are appointed as Fellows for a term and Scholars join as advisors. BEI then encourages and supports its present and past Fellows and Scholars to address social justice, environmental issues and the spiritual dimensions of the human condition in their art and work. Their beautiful About Place Journal has featured the work of hundreds of artists. Michael is a longtime member of ASWM’s Advisory Board, as BEI cooperates with ASWM to expand our reach to scholars and to develop special programs.
Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:
February 10 2022 3PM Eastern Standard Time Title TBA Apela Colorado
February 24 2022 12 NOON Eastern Standard Time “Recent Thinking on the Maternal Gift Economy“ Genevieve Vaughan
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
In sacred texts from the Bible to the Descent of Inanna, dreams have been a source of prophetic wisdom and profound inspiration. In contemporary times, our dreams may offer us surprising and moving images of the sacred feminine that come to inform and guide our lives.
Tree entrance to the underworld, photo by Jill Hammer
This presentation will explore dreams of the sacred feminine, some from kabbalists of sixteenth century Sfat, and some from contemporary dreamers who are discovering the Presence in their nightly visions, in feminine forms. We’ll consider how these images include recognizable mythic elements but also unexpected insights— and how they inspire dreamers to heal and transform their lives.
Rabbi Jill Hammer, photo by Gili Getz
Rabbi Jill Hammer, PhD, author, scholar, ritualist, poet, midrashist and dreamworker, is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion and co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute. Her forthcoming book is Undertorah: An Earth-Based Kabbalah of Dreaming. Her prior works include Return to the Place: The Magic, Meditation, and Mystery of Sefer Yetzirah (Ben Yehuda Press, 2020); The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership (with Taya Shere) (Ben Yehuda Press, 2015); The Jewish Book of Days: A Companion for All Seasons (Jewish Publication Society, 2006); Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women (Jewish Publication Society, 2004); and The Book of Earth and Other Mysteries (Lulu, 2016). She and her family live in Manhattan.
Learn more about sacred dreamwork in Jill’s recently launched book UNDERTORAH: AN EARTH-BASED KABBALAH OF DREAMS. This work takes readers on a journey through the root systems of the dreamworld, drawing on a deep knowledge of ancient Jewish dream practice, world wisdom traditions, and contemporary eco-theology.
“Jill Hammer is one of the most original thinkers in contemporary spirituality, and this book is her most original yet. A wonderful achievement.” —Bruce Feiler, New York Times best selling author of Walking the Bible
Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:
January 27 2022 at 3 pm Eastern Standard Time “Onsite research: Listening to the Land“ Elizabeth Cunningham
February 10 2022 TIME TBA “Recent Thinking on the Maternal Gift Economy“ Genevieve Vaughan
February 24 2022 3PM Eastern Daylight Time Title TBA Apela Colorado
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
Great news! There is now an opportunity to register to see all the recordings of our 2021 symposium in celebration of Marija Gimbutas’ centennial. The entire program of scholarly panels, arts and culture are ready for new registrations.
Registration for symposium recordings is now available to the public! Register here.
To give you plenty of time to view the program at leisure, all sessions will remain available for a year from the date of purchase.
“Hearing the Invisible: Lessons from Sentient Beings and Inter-relational Ecosystems”
Call for Proposals: ASWM Online Symposium: Sunday, April 10, 2020
“The Caretaker of the Precious,” Denise Kester (2001)
Jane Goodall has pointed out our own contemporary lesson that human global disregard for nature brought on the current pandemic, documenting that mistreatment/exploitation of sentient beings can result in an exponential crisis for the whole planet.
Our 2022 biennial Symposium focuses on meanings found in the relational reality among science, culture, and mythology in regards to animals, the green world, and ecosystems.
We especially encourage proposals from Native American/Indigenous scholars and women of color. We welcome scholars from all fields with contributions to further expanding our understanding of our universal relatedness in the community of sentient beings.
With our primary focus on interconnectedness, we welcome academic and artistic presentations concerning ecological and scientific scholarship. In particular we seek work that addresses collaborations between humans and other sentient beings, foundational myths about earth’s response to misuse, and scientific solutions to transgressions against the balance of nature.
Such topics may include (but are not limited to):
Dialogues between “Western” scientific findings and indigenous science and insights
Cautionary tales of animal guardians redressing human greed and over-consumption
Examples, in Haraway’s terms, of “staying with the trouble” of ecological devastation
Women’s roles in promoting justice for land, animals and climate
Patterns of Cross-species Companionship in Science and Contemporary Fiction and Arts
Our Cousins the Bears: Myths of Cross-species Relationships
Selkies and Crane Wives: What Shapeshifting Women can teach us
Goddesses and Sea Creatures: Wisdom from the Deep
Comparative mythologies and science about pollinator-plant symbiosis
Mythologies and goddesses of origins, transitions, liminalities, and migration
Divine interventions for healing out-of-balance human behaviors
Myths of reciprocity and partnership among sentient beings
Feminist spiritual traditions that inspire earth-centered activism
Proposal deadline: January 20, 2022
For questions, contact submissions@womenandmyth.org .
About the artwork: “The Caretaker of the Precious,” a monoprint by Denise Kester of Drawing on the Dream (2001) beautifully conveys the intention and spirit of our program.
Learn more about sacred dreamwork in Jill’s recently launched book 
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