” The Gifts of the Magi Were Meant for the Mother“
with Laura Shannon
Thursday,  January 8, 2026 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

   Facebook Live Promo Interview on 1/5/26:

In the Christian Nativity story, the Magi brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, symbolising Christ’s kingship, divinity, and death. In this presentation, I suggest that the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh were actually meant for the new mother, Mary. I will also consider the theory that the Magi were not only three, and were not only men, but may have included women healers and midwives among their number.

The original gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh – now preserved on Mt. Athos – take the form of gold filigree pendants and beads of blended frankincense and myrrh. These elements are now divided into smaller segments, but originally would have been joined together in one long loop, in the style of North African bridal necklaces of scented paste beads and flat gold filigree lockets.

The flat gold lockets were known as meskiyah, and were intended to contain fragrant substances. The beads, called skhab, are also powerfully fragrant, formed from resins and spices such as cloves and roses, or indeed frankincense and myrrh. These were ritually blended for a bride before her wedding in a custom which is still practiced today in North Africa.

With this and other artistic, iconographic, and medical evidence, I hope to shed light on indigenous value systems honouring mothers and childbirth, and to offer grounds for (re)placing the Holy Mother at the heart of the Nativity story, as the one for whom the sacred gifts were intended.

Laura Shannon has been researching and teaching traditional women’s circle dances worldwide for 40 years. With degrees in Intercultural Studies, Dance Movement Therapy, and Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred, she is currently a PhD candidate researching the roots of women’s ritual dance. A faculty member of the Findhorn Foundation Sacred Dance Department since 1998, Laura is also Founding Director of the Athena Institute for Women’s Dance and Culture; Director of the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, following Carol Christ; and an Honorary Lifetime Member of the Sacred Dance Guild in recognition of her ‘significant and lasting contribution to dance as a sacred art’. Laura has published numerous articles and chapters on ritual dance in multiple languages, and as a musician and singer, has produced several recordings of traditional dance music. Laura lives in Greece and the UK.

See related article in Feminism and Religion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upcoming Scholar Salons (3pm Eastern Time):

Thursday January 22 “Women of Ancient Western Asia” “with Dr. Pinar Durgun

Thurday February 5, with Dr. Joan Marler, on the legacy of Marija Gimbutas

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event. 

“At the Heart: Honoring Palaeolithic Matrifocal Human-Animal Connection”

with Susan Moulton

Thursday,  October 30, 2025 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

REGISTER HERE

Influenced by First Nation Indigenous concepts, Nature and animal behavior, this research expands the foundational idea of “personhood” to include all forms of life, especially the behavior and central role of the “sacred female/mother” in diverse species, including Paleolithic Hominins, and the role of the wise, older “lead” females in free-ranging mammalian herds and plant communities as key to the early understanding of human social structure and expression. To understand the complexity of the remote past we must consider the experience of the first Hominins who lived in synchrony with all sentient aspects of their natural environment, including animals and plants.

Few scholars have demonstrated an expanded awareness of the interconnectedness of life within Nature or the impact of the sentience and behavior of animals on the earliest human cultures, or how the diversity of life within ecosystems has functioned to influence human beliefs, symbols, stories, mythic systems and other forms of expression. This study challenges truncated archaeological methodologies of inherited patriarchal Eurocentric overviews and biases with their Cartesian opposition between Nature and human “civilization,” presuming humans have culture whereas non-human life forms do not.

Susan Moulton  has lived with animals from an early age and began riding horses at the age of three. For the past 52 years she has lived in rural Sonoma County, California on a small farm with an array of rescued animals. Susan has learned a lot from each species, using what she has learned from them to raise her two sons. To support her lifestyle, Susan was a university professor (Art/Art History) for 44 years, teaching over one hundred courses, and chairing the Art and Art History Department, and the University Faculty. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Susan has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Carnegie Foundation Research Grant. She is the co-founder, with Joan Marler, of the International Institute of Archaeomythology. Susan has sponsored many M.A. students and PhDs, and has been blessed to share her ideas in publications and conferences globally, including numerous experiences with Indigenous Peoples in the US and abroad. Currently she is finishing a book that combines everything she loves: animals, art history, archaeology, and ecology, which is the subject of her Salon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upcoming Scholar Salon (3pm Eastern Time):

October 30, 2025:  From the Heart: the Human Animal Connection with Susan Moulton

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event. 

“Using the Past to Give Girls a Voice Today at Girl Museum“

with Ashley E. Remer

Thursday,  October 16, 2025 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

REGISTER HERE

Girls are “the most marginalized group of people throughout time and space,” says Girl Museum founder Ashley Remer.  While there have been many individual girls who have achieved a level of notoriety and achievement, they are still not seen as serious contributors to history and culture. Giving girls space to speak, to create, to simply grow up at all is not a guarantee in any society even today. To address this gap, the Girl Museum (founded in 2009) gives girls a platform to raise their voices.

As a museum, we have scope to elevate girls of the past to provide inspiration and precedent for girls of today. We use many creative pathways to share knowledge, ideas, thoughts, and actions of girls in history to ensure our audiences understand that girls have always been present and a part of making our world. These include exhibitions, podcasts, educational activities, and other collaborative projects. We work with students, teachers, NGOs, scholars, volunteers, activists, and refugees to showcase the significance and power of girls in the world. In my talk, I will discuss Girl Museum and how offering opportunities and a place for girls to connect to each other and the past, we are building a better future.

Ashley E Remer is the founder and Head Girl of Girl Museum, the first museum in the world dedicated to celebrating girlhood and advocating for girls’ rights. She recently completed her PhD at the Australian National University on girls’ representations in fine art and how they are interpreted in public museums. Ashley is an interdisciplinarian working over 30 years across many artistic fields, including museums, art galleries, and theatres, in exhibition content production, non-profit management, and creative entrepreneurship with scholars, artists, NGOs, educators, and youth globally. She co-authored the book, Exploring American Girls’ History through 50 Historic Treasures. Currently based in New Zealand, Ashley is a lecturer in Museums Studies at Massey University.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upcoming Scholar Salon (3pm Eastern Time):

October 30, 2025:  From the Heart: the Human Animal Connection with Susan Moulton

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event. 

“The Deer Mother and the Winter Solstice – A Heritage of Care and Rebirth“

with Kathryn Henderson

Thursday,  October 2, 2025 at 3:00 PM Eastern Time  

REGISTER HERE

Long before traditions of a red-clad elf, traversing the night sky with flying Reindeer, the Deer Mother brought the gift of the returning Sun on Her antlers. 

          The Image of the Deer Mother transcends time and cultures – from the tundra of the ancient arctic north, through the steppes of eastern Europe to the frozen lands of contemporary Nordic reindeer herders. Depictions of sacred deer date from Paleolithic cave paintings to Mongolian Deer Stones, through Scythian art (800 BCE – 300 CE) and beyond.

          Golden Scythian sculptures portray deer rebirthing new life. Attacked by a predator, her antlers blossom into birds, representing rebirth. This imagery is also found in tattoos on frozen female and male mummies, preserved by ice. Through time the Deer Mother becomes an antlered Goddess, as depicted on a Scythian mirror handle, her antlers composed of the predators that follow the migrating herd.  The mirror, a shamanic tool, represents the sun she carries on her antlers. Contemporary Nordic peoples tell of the Deer Mother bearing the returning Solstice sun on her antlers.

          The myth of the contemporary Reindeer-herding Saami tells a story of the earth created from the loving heart of the Doe with golden hooves, in a planet that quakes when her children engage in violence against one another.  The Deer Mother’s message is one of keeping balance, of reverence for the earth’s life-giving nurturance, death and rebirth.  Hers is a message for all time – one that the world sorely needs today.

Kathryn Henderson, Professor Emerita in Sociology andWomen’s Studies, is an Ordained Priestess of the Reformed Congregation of the Goddess
International and a Founding BOD Memberof the Association of the Study of Women and Mythology. An early version of her Deer Mother research appeared in Goddesses in World Culture, ed. Patricia Monaghan, 2011. Her research interests include the contemporary representation and spiritual importance of Deer around the world and the significance of the Octopus in ancient Cretan sarcophagus art and cultural practice.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upcoming Scholar Salon (3pm Eastern Time):

October 16, 2025:  “Using the Past to Give Girls a Voice Today at Girl Museum“  with Dr. Ashley Remer

This Salon recording will also be available to members when processed after the event.