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Relating to Animals, Plants, and the Divine (Symposium 2022)

“Other Ways of Knowing and Relating: Animal-Plant-Divine” 

2022 ASWM Symposium Panel

Sunday, April 10th, 2022 at 3:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time 

This panel explores relationships at various levels: the non-dual relationship between animals and divinity, the interconnections between humans and the landscape, the fluid relationship (that is possible) between humans, the divine, and the animal and plant worlds when the natural world is not objectified, and ancient relationships between the human and plant world, and how they can be re-established in the present day.

Yogini Vrishanana, 10th century, National Museum Delhi

Monica Mody “When Yoginis Appear with Animals: Animistic Relational Elements and the Non-dual Matrix,” weaves together scholarly commentary and original poetry to wonder at some of the likely dimensions of the relationship between animal and Yogini.

Emma Dymock, “The Living Cauldron: Transformative Landscapes in Celtic Mythology” explores the interconnected relationship between humans and the living landscape through the lens of Celtic mythology, with specific focus on the story of the Goddess Cerridwen.

Nereides, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Barbara Crescimanno, “Siciliian Nymphs. Animal, Human, Divine Creatures”  traces the survival of Nymphs–Goddesses who can appear as sacred trees, medicinal gardens, caves and sacred waters as well as herbalists, beekeepers, and midwives in the still living cultural traditions of Sicily.

photo by Julien McRoberts, 2020

Reagan Wytsalucy, “The Land Still Bears Fruit: Restoring the Navajo Peach through Strengthened Community Traditions” recounts her journey to return an important traditional food source, and its cultural story, to her people’s land in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

See 2022 Symposium page for registration and event information.

REGISTER HERE:

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Dancing with Celestial Cycles and Earthly Rhythms (Symposium 2022)

“Celestial Cycles and Earthly Rhythms”

2022 Symposium Panel 

Sunday April 10th 1PM Eastern Daylight Time

How do the rhythms of the seasons inform our earthly activities? How do celestial cycles expand our sense of belonging to one another and life on earth? This panel, which explores deep connections with celestial and planetary ecologies, features the work of these four scholars who are also poets and dancers.

Dancing Women, Greek Bronze, 800 BCE

Laura Shannon: “Basil, apple, and rose: women, plants, and protection in Greek folk songs” explores the wisdom of old European dance songs that highlight the healing power of herbs, and of the dances themselves.

Moon among the Clouds

Ann Filemyr:“Celestial Ecologies: Living Within the Solar & Lunar Wheels Rhythmic Cycles of Change”examines conscious relationships to our nearest cosmic companions, the Sun and Moon–long believed to bring blessing, healing, inspiration and balance to our lives.

Hygieia, Roman copy of Greek statue, 360 BCE

Marna Hauk: “Hygeia, Green and Shealing: Cultivating and Embodying Green Healing Energy with Asteroid, Dream, and Myth” investigates mythos and practice around Hygeia: asteroid; healer & animating energy of nature retreats, alternative medicine, and dream healing; as well as the origin of our word,“hygiene”.

Roman copy of portrait of Sappho

Annie Finch: “Riding Meter’s Magic Language Home: How an Ancient Poetic Technology Can Help Reunite Us with The Earth, the Divine Feminine, and Each Other” explains how meter bridges body and mind, secular and divine, individual and collective, drawing on ancient prayers and sacred literature that use meter to induce a liminal state and bridge the gap between ourselves, nature, and the divine by healing our language.

See the 2022 Symposium page for registration and event information.

REGISTER HERE:

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Listening to Bears, Horses, and Seal Folk (Symposium 2022)

“Listening to and Speaking with–Animals and Other Sentient Beings”

2022 Symposium Panel

Sunday April 10th, 1PM Eastern Daylight Time

Current threats to an eco-socially sustainable future require that we re-introduce myths and rituals that reflect an understanding of humans’ interdependence with the community of sentient beings. Drawing on ancestral traditions and understandings, these four authors provide excellent examples of such relationships.

Seal Woman Stamp, Faroe Islands, 2007

Rebecca Vincent “Why We Need Selkies” addresses our need for more than just technological fixes and cerebral solutions to the environmental crises as she examines the role selkies and mythic water spirits could play in helping catalyze a shift into a new dream. As the Achuar People of South America say we need to truly solve our environmental crises

Kaarina Kailo “The Woman who Married the Bear and Original Instructions” explains through the story of the Woman Who Married a Bear the importance of Finno-Ugric cultures’ rebirth rituals such as Spring festivals with bear goddess Brigit, celebrating, gifting, feasting as life returned and further, allows us to see how the attitude towards mother and bear worship changed in the shift to patriarchal cultures.

Grizzly Bear, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 2012

Barbara Mann “Thinking Yours Doesn’t Stink: Dis/Respect for Others”    explores tales of women who marry bears in Native North American tradition, which typically begins with violations of protocol, from working alone in the woods and being disrespectful of bears to two-timing their human husband with the bears. The powerful bears can shape-shift, read thoughts, put thoughts and images into human heads, foretell the future and will sacrifice themselves to hunters, but resuscitate from their bones.

Wild horses, US Bureau of Land Management, 2014

Susan Moulton “WILD vs DOMESTIC” focuses on equus caballus, to explore communication and mutual reliance among species along with the wisdom embodied by the central “lead” female. This mare functioned as a repository of information at the heart of complex interactive plant and animal communities, starting with the earliest visual records of feral horses on cave walls in the Palaeolithic, and distinct from later cultures with animal “domestication” in the Bronze Age.

See the 2022 Symposium page for event information.

REGISTER HERE:

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Scholar Salon 33

Recording of Scholar Salon with Laura Shannon, "The Old European Roots of Women's Circle Dance" Scholar Salon Recordings are a member benefit of Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.

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Scholar Salon 32

"Sacred Instructions" with Sherri Mitchell Thursday,  October 21, 2021 Moderated by Letecia Layson 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 …

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