“The Fire of Umai, a call to our sacred Indigenous power”

with Apela Colorado

Thursday,  February 10, 2022 at 3 PM Eastern Standard Time 

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As told in the final chapter of her recently released book Woman Between the Worlds, Apela Colorado, PhD, and a group of healers were hiking a mountain in Kyrgyzstan 12 years ago, passing what appeared to be nothing more than a pile of rubble. To her horror, she discovered that the rubble they were standing on had once been a Temple to Umai (the Earth Mother).

Sacred sites such as Umai and their related stories the world over—particularly those devoted to the Mother—have at best been ignored, at worst destroyed, and many all but forgotten. Hundreds of years of colonization has meant that much of the transmission of cultural practices, particularly those of women, were buried—but not necessarily lost, as evidenced by the Kyrgyz candle ceremony to honor Umai.

 

For 30+ years, global nonprofit Worldwide Indigenous Science Network (WISN) has brought Indigenous and Western science together to preserve and protect Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the carriers of this wisdom for future generations, to protect sacred sites and species, and to help students remember their indigenously and connection to life. WISN’s innovative education programs, networking of Elders and Indigenous Cultural Practitioners, dreamwork and the revival of origin satires, cutting-edge blended Indigenous / Western research, and an Indigenous regranting program have impacted programs at the United Nations, global conservation efforts, Indigenous research, and higher education. 

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Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:

February 24, 2022 at 12 Noon Eastern Standard Time 
Title TBA
Genevieve Vaughan 

March 10 2022  12 NOON Eastern Standard Time
Title TBA
Mary Condren

March 24 2022 3 PM  Eastern Daylight Time
“Healing the Earth with Traditional Ecological Knowledge”
Cristina Eisenberg

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event. 

“Onsite research: Listening to the Land”

with Elizabeth Cunningham

Thursday,  January 27, 2022 at 3 PM Eastern Standard Time 

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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.

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.)

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. 

“Dreaming the Presence: Exploring Undercurrents of the Sacred Feminine in Dreams”

with Rabbi Jill Hammer

Thursday,  January 13, 2022 at 12 NOON Eastern Standard Time 

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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.

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.

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.