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“The Matrixial Foundation of Maternal Cultural Meanings in Myth and Ritual”

Keynote Presentation, ASWM 2017 Symposium

 

“In my long term study of and stay with the matrilineal Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia—off and on between the years l981 and 2007—I found that women have a social value and structural importance in the historical continuity of  their culture that is observable today in their individual autonomy and collective identity. The same is true of adult men, who reside with their wives while carrying out life-long social responsibilities to their maternal family.  This matrilineal society tends toward gender equality rather than gender (including male) dominance.

“The question I raise in this presentation is: What encourages the relative stability of this and other matrilineal egalitarian socio-cultural systems?  

“I address this question by reference to the symbolic similarities in the origin stories of selected matrilineal societies including the Minangkabau and the matrilineal Mosuo of China, whom I visited briefly at the end of 2016. In doing so I introduce a new term–“Matrixial”–that was coined by the Israeli scholar/artist Bracha Ettinger.

“This term challenges Freud’s concept of ” the “phallic” as a universal phase in psycho-social development.  (If this were the case, all societies should be male dominant, but as I have shown elsewhere they are not.) Ettinger’s concept helps us to appreciate the tremendous variation in human socio-cultural systems along with environment, history, food source and other factors, which have a profound impact on the organization of societies and on cross-cultural understandings.”

My own creative activism stands on shoulders of the feminist artists of the 1970’s.  Even after more than a decade of creating art that celebrates the divine feminine, it is my unshakable conviction that without imagery and words that reflect our female experience of the Divine, contemporary women will never see themselves for all their diversity, complexity and most powerful selves.

Lisa Levart is an award winning photographer and contributor to the Huffington Post, where she explores art, the divine feminine, women’s empowerment, and justice. Since 2001, Lisa has traveled across America creating portraits of women who are part of the rapidly growing Earth-centered spirituality movement, casting real women leaders as goddesses and heroines.

Her book “Goddess on Earth, Portraits of the Divine Feminine” won the GOLD Nautilus Book Award in 2012. Goddess on Earth is also a traveling, multi-media installation that has been seen in a variety of venues across America. Lisa’s photographs have appeared in Fast Company, New York Magazine, Oprah Magazine, Time Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Her passion includes photographing and supporting Maloto; a non- profit organization in Africa that helps feed and educate the women and children in northern Malawi.

Lisa’s special presentation for ASWM’s 2017 Symposium is “Art, Activism and the Goddess Movement.” Lisa will discuss and show the work of several feminist artists who have used Goddess imagery as an affirmation of female power and independence.

We are a tribal species, meant to live in tribes.  At this point, anything that reminds us of our connection with each other is healing, and poetry can do that, through the meter and through the language and through the imagery. The combination of those three things is literally magical, I think.  It can change energy, it can change reality.

Annie Finch is an award-winning poet, performer, editor, critic, teacher, nonfiction writer, and verse playwright. She is the author of more than twenty books and chapbooks of poetry, plays, translation, literary essays, textbooks and anthologies.  The most recent of her six books of poetry is Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2013).

Annie’s poems have appeared in journals including Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, Paris Review, Partisan Review, Poetry, Agni, Jacket, Fulcrum, Prairie Schooner, and Yale Review, and in anthologies such as The Norton Anthology of World Poetry, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, and The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century American Poetry.

Her collection Calendars (2003) was shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year Award, and Eve reissued in the Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries series in 2010. Other honors include the Robert Fitzgerald Award and the Sarasvati Award for Poetry.

Among the Goddesses:

Interactive Writing Ritual for Healing and Justice

This interactive writing ritual is designed “to provide participants with closure and catharsis as we synthesize the gifts of the 2017 ASWM program through imaginative transformation. We will open by invoking goddesses of chaos, loss, mourning, justice, transformation, and peace.”  After the invocation, participants will be guided in a three part writing ritual of naming, releasing, and healing, designed to shift our stories into narratives of power. Our final group ritual will weave sacred dance, circling, drumming, and chanting with the words we have written, offering a focused and inspiring doorway out of the symposium into the rest of the world.  Please bring writing implements and any ceremonial attire you desire.

Annie Finch is a an award-winning poet, writer, and performer. Her many books of poetry and poetics include Spells: New and Selected Poems; Eve; and Among the Goddesses, awarded the 2010 Sarasvati Award in Poetry from ASWM.  Her column on woman-centered spirituality appears regularly in The Huffington Post, and she is currently completing her next book, A Witch’s Way.  Subscriptions to Annie’s Spells and Poetry Witch Musings are available at anniefinch.com.

 

Pendle Hill is a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center located in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, just outside Philadelphia.

Pendle Hill was established in 1930 as a Quaker study center designed to prepare its adult students for service both in the Religious Society of Friends and in the world. The founders envisioned the new school as “a vital center of spiritual culture” and “a place for training leaders.”

Today, Pendle Hill continues to be a vibrant experiment in adult religious education, through its conferences, publications, and online resources. At the heart of its programs are the foundational principles of “equality of opportunity and respect for individuals, simplicity of the educational and material environment, harmony of inward and outward actions, community in daily life and in the seeking of the Spirit.”

 

Our 2017 symposium sessions will take place in the historic Brinton House, overlooking the woods and pond, and located a short walk from the Main House where our meals will take place. Pendle Hill is located on 23 beautiful acres of grounds. We encourage you to come early to enjoy walking the mile long woodchip trail, through “miniature ecosystems” with140 species of trees and flowering shrubs.

Pendle Hill is located just outside Philadelphia, easy to reach by car, train, or plane. It’s a Five-minute drive from Media and Swarthmore College and 20 minutes from Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges.