News

Posted on

Nepal’s “Living Goddesses” come to life in Miranda Shaw’s Keynote

by Joan Cichon, ASWM Board member

I first read Professor Miranda Shaw’s Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism ten years ago, and I still remember how impressed I was with the depth of her scholarship and insights.  Therefore, it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to her presentation “Living Goddesses: Embodying the Divine in Buddhist Nepal” at ASWM’s East Symposium.

For her keynote address, Dr. Shaw began by briefly telling us about how she became interested in women in Buddhism.  One important factor was the representations of the yoginis she saw:  as she looked into their eyes, and observed the ferocious intensity, she knew that there was an important part that had been left out of the story of the evolution of Buddhism.  Thus she researched and wrote Passionate Enlightenment.

Her presentation at the symposium centered on the Vasudhara festival in Nepal.  Vasudhara, a female bodhisattva of wealth, prosperity and abundance, is extremely popular among the Newari Buddhists of Katmandu.   Continue reading “Nepal’s “Living Goddesses” come to life in Miranda Shaw’s Keynote”

Posted on

ASWM Honors Layne Redmond with Brigit Award (2011)

We are honored to announce that we will present our first-ever Brigit Award for Excellence in the Arts to Layne Redmond at our East Coast Symposium on March 12.

Layne Redmond

In the 1980’s, while working with percussionist Glen Velez and conducting research on the history and playing styles of the frame drum (a small hand-held drum of which the tambourine is one notable example), Layne Redmond began to notice that virtually all ancient Mediterranean and middle eastern images featuring this drum showed the player as a woman in a ritual setting. This discovery led to her lifelong work of sharing this knowledge and reviving the practice of goddess priestessing with frame drum. For fifteen years, she researched the history of this drum in religious and healing rites in the ancient Mediterranean world.

ne fruit of Layne’s work, When the Drummers Were Women, a Spiritual History of Rhythm,  was published by Random House in 1997 to great acclaim. This book, a masterful example of independent scholarship, continues to inspire both scholars and musicians.  This book details a lost history of a time when women were the primary percussionists in the ancient world and also explains why they are not today.

Layne assembled, taught, and led The Mob of Angels, a group of women who conducted deeply moving public ritual performances throughout the 1990s and New York City and beyond.

She has numerous exceptional recordings to her credit.  Invoking Aphroditefeatures the poetic works of Sappho, the Pythia Priestesses of Delphi, and the Epitaph of Seikilos (the oldest notated musical composition found to date).

Layne has taught at venues from colleges to retreat centers to gatherings of professional percussionists.

In recent years, she made pilgrimage to Cyprus, where her workshops and retreats have resulted in Cyprian women’s reviving the worship of great goddess Aphrodite via rituals with frame drum.

Layne has also researched and revived the “sacred path of the bee,” the tools of the ancient bee priestesses, and has released Hymns from the Hive, a CD celebrating this path.

Most recently, she has released a 6-DVD Frame Drum Intensive Training Program.

More information about Layne Redmond can be found on her website, throughmany youtube clips, and on her Facebook page.

Posted on

“Things We Don’t Talk About”: Women’s Wisdom from the Red Tent

A contemporary Red Tent

“Things We Don’t Talk About” is a groundbreaking feature-length documentary film that is currently being produced by filmmaker (and ASWM member) Isadora Gabrielle Leidenfrost, as part of her dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The film weaves together healing narratives from the Red Tent — a red textile space where women gather to share deep and powerful stories about their lives. The Rent Tent movement is changing the way that women interact, support each other, and think about their bodies. “Things We Don’t Talk About” seeks to humanize the stories in the red tent—to put a face on the space.

What is the Red Tent?

The Red Tent is a phenomenon and a movement that is unique to women. Inspired by the bestselling novel of the Old Testament, The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant, women have spontaneously created a contemporary tradition of red fabric “tent” spaces that honor and promote women’s healing.

Neither the Red Tent movement nor “Things We Don’t Talk About” is affiliated in any way with Anita Diamant’s excellent novel of the same name. Nonetheless, Diamant’s description of the traditional menstrual hut used by women in the book inspired, in part, the idea of the Red Tent as a special space and a healing practice.

Isadora describes the Red Tent this way:

With its ability to address social problems, reflect values, knowledge, and the basic feelings of women, the Red Tent fulfils a constellation of gendered societal needs: To create a place that honors and celebrates women; enable open conversations about the things that women don’t want to talk about in other venues; promote positive ideals for womanhood; educate women about their bodies; educate women about natural menstrual remedies; create an open dialogue about sex; share birthing information; discuss issues of body image and self-acceptance; provide a place where women’s voices can be heard; to provide a spiritual place for women where they can laugh, cry, sing, dance, give each other back or foot rubs, play with face and body painting, give or receive massage and other types of body work, tell stories, eat soup, drink tea, sleep, meditate, journal, share poetry, create artwork, knit … just to name a few!

‘Things We Don’t Talk About” will be released in May 2012. For more information visit http://www.redtentmovie.com and http://www.facebook.com/redtentfilm

Posted on

Call for Writers: The Red Tent Anthology

A Red Tent, Arlington, VA
Call for Writers
Womanspace, a not-for-profit organization in Rockford Illinois is seeking submissions to be part of their “Red Tent Anthology” of women’s poetry and non-fiction to be published in time for the Red Tent Events, June 21-26, 2011. These Events are to be held in conjunction with the forthcoming documentary “Things We Don’t Talk About–The Red Tent Movie,” by Isadora Leidenfrost.
There is no entry fee for submissions, but you do have to submit your entry by March.
If you want more info or the application visit: http://www.redtentmovie.com/red_tent_anthology.html
Posted on

Engaging Living Traditions

by Kathryn Henderson, Ph. D.

Goddess Spirituality is eclectic in that we pursue scholarly research about female deity from traditions spanning time, cultures, and space and use that information in our spiritual practice.  We draw on many sources, ranging from scholarly research generated from the study of ancient surviving images and texts, to oral tradition mythologies, to our own intuitional or psychic connection to sacred energies.  We also draw on contemporary spiritual traditions, our own and others.  Engagement of Deities and religious practices of living traditions outside our own raises the thorny issue of balance between attempts at cultural inclusiveness and cultural appropriation.

Read PDF article:  Engaging Living Traditions by Kathryn Henderson