The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology
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.
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.
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):
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.
In traditional contexts, women’s circle dances provide an embodied experience of community-oriented values including solidarity, shared leadership, mutual support, and a culture of peace. Archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutas associated these values with the egalitarian Neolithic civilisations she explored, and these are precisely the values which humanity needs to activate to ensure a viable future for our planet.
Women’s ritual dances of the Balkans belong to an oral tradition which has been handed down through female generations through thousands of years, as Elizabeth Wayland Barber has shown. Laura Shannon has spent over thirty years learning these dances from grandmothers in villages in Greece and the Balkans, with a focus on the symbolic ‘language’ of dance and textile patterns reflecting the image of the Old European Goddess.
This illustrated talk suggests that the open circle of the ritual dance may represent a symbolic womb through which dancers experience a metaphorical journey of life, death, and rebirth, particularly through spiral dances associated with springtime. The sacred centre of the circle may be understood as a symbolic omphalós or navel, with the danced path as an umbilicus connecting dancers to the life-giving Mother Earth. Bread ovens in these cultures are often also shaped like an omphalós: the community is nourished with vitality both through the women’s dance, and by the bread the women bake.
Traditional women’s ritual circle dances have relevance not only as living descendants of Old European Goddess cultures, but because of the insights and wisdom they offer participants today.
Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:
January 13 2022 at NOON Eastern Standard Time
“Dreaming the Presence: Exploring the Sacred Feminine in Dreams”
Rabbi Jill Hammer
January 27 2022 at 3 pm Eastern Standard Time
“Onsite research: Listening to the Land“
Elizabeth Cunningham
February 10 2022 TIME TO BE DETERMINED
“Recent Thinking on the Maternal Gift Economy“
Genevieve Vaughan
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
Drawing from ancestral knowledge, as well as her experience as an attorney and activist, Sherri Mitchell addresses some of the most crucial issues of our day, such as environ-mental protection and human rights. For those seeking change, she offers a set of cultural values that will preserve our collective survival for future generations. As she says, “Women are the water-bearers of the universe,” and a non-patriarchal view of culture is necessary for the survival of all people. Embracing traditional core cultural values teaches us that “the Earth Mother, and all life that lives upon her, has the same right to live as we do. There is a place within creation for all things, and all life holds equal value.”
Sacred Instructions is “a roadmap for those who may be lost—and not even realize it. Sherri Mitchell’s hauntingly beautiful prose truly honors the traditional Native American wisdom that she shares with us as readers. She deftly makes the timeless suddenly modern again, and more relevant than ever, by using ancient perspectives to address the disconnect and disengagement that so many people feel in the world today.” –D.J. Vanas (Odawa Nation), Author of The Tiny Warrior: A Path to Personal Discovery & Achievement
Sherri Mitchell -Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, (She Who Brings the Light) is a Native American attorney, teacher, activist and change maker who grew up on the Penobscot Indian Reservation. She is the author of Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, and convener of the global healing ceremony Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island. She is the founding director of the Land Peace Foundation, an organization dedicated to the protection of Indigenous land, water and religious rights, and the preservation of the Indigenous way of life.
Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:
November 11 at NOON Eastern Standard Time
“The Old European Roots of Women’s Circle Dance”
Laura Shannon
January 13 2022 at NOON Eastern StandardTime
“Dreaming the Presence: Exploring the Sacred Feminine in Dreams”
Jill Hammer
January 27 2022 at 3pm Eastern Standard Time
“Onsite research: Listening to the Land”
Elizabeth Cunningham
The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.
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