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Kathy Jones Receives 2018 Demeter Award

Kathy Jones Receives 2018 Demeter Award from ASWM Board

At the 2018 Conference, the ASWM Board of Directors was pleased to present the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality to Kathy Jones, author, teacher, and creatrix of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference and the Goddess Temple of Glastonbury.  The award letter reads, in part,

“As a writer, healer, teacher, Priestess of Avalon, visionary, and scholar, we recognize the important roles that you have played in restoring the divine feminine to modern culture. Your tireless work for thirty-plus years, bringing the awareness of Goddess back to the U.K., Europe, the U.S., and the world, has provided not only important original scholarship but also the creation of a vital energetic container for explorations of Goddess archetypes and practices.

“Your considerable body of written work explores the mysteries of sacred land, mythology, and healing: Soul and Shadow: Birthing Motherworld, 2017; Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, 2006; In the Nature of Avalon: Goddess Pilgrimages in Glastonbury’s Sacred Landscape, 2007; The Ancient British Goddess: Goddess Myths, Legends, Sacred Sites, Present Revelation, 2001; Chiron in Labys: An Introduction to Esoteric Soul Healing, 1997; Breast Cancer: Hanging on by a Red Thread, 1998; On Finding Treasure: Mystery Plays of the Goddess, 1999; Spinning the Wheel of Ana: a Spiritual Quest to Find the Primal British Ancestors, 1994; and The Goddess in Glastonbury, 1990.  

“We thank you for all of your work to restore Goddess Spirituality to a modern world much in need.”

In accepting the award, Kathy joins a select group of prior winners and foremothers: Margot Adler, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Charlene Spretnak, Elinor Gadon and Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum.

 

 

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These Books Available at Las Vegas Conference

On Saturday afternoon we will have a Marketplace with book signings available from 4 to 8 pm.  Many of our presenters will have books on hand to inspire you–such as:

 

Sherri L. Mitchell is the author of Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.  She was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian Reservation, at Indian Island in Maine. A civil rights attorney, educator and advocate for women and children, Sherri is the Executive Director of the Land Peace Foundation, which provides assistance to Indigenous populations and groups. Sherri is also a published poet, scholar and philosopher.

Beverly Little Thunder is a Two-Spirit mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and lifelong activist. Beverly is also a published author of the memoir, One Bead at a Time and a chapter in Two Spirit People (1995).

Annie Finch is an award-winning poet, writer, speaker, performer, and witch. Her eighteen books include Eve, Calendars, A Poet’s Craft, Spells, and Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams, which received ASWM’s 2010 Sarasvati Award.

 

Named a “Wisdom Keeper of the Goddess Spirituality Movement” in 2013, Nancy Vedder-Shults, Ph.D, is the author of The World is Your Oracle: Divinatory Practices for Tapping Your Inner Wisdom (Fair Winds Press: 2017).

Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba’s cross-cultural, women-centered interests are reflected in her two recent books, The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (UNMP) and Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kali, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte  (Palgrave).

       

And of course ASWM’s own Vibrant Voices:  Women, Myth and the Arts and Myths Shattered and Restored.

 

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Sherri L. Mitchell Keynote: “Women are the Water Bearers of the Universe”

Sherri L. Mitchell was born and raised on the Penobscot Indian Reservation, at Indian Island in Maine. A civil rights attorney, educator and advocate for women and children, Sherri serves as a legal analyst/advisor to Indigenous and Aboriginal groups across the United States and Canada. In 2009, Sherri’s work on nation-state complicity with Indigenous human rights violations won her the Maloney-Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award.  She has also received the Maine Governor’s Community Service Award (1996, 1997 and 1998) and the Spirit of Maine Award (2015).

Sherri is the Executive Director of the Land Peace Foundation, which provides legal assistance, dispute resolution and training programs to Indigenous populations and groups, in order to protect their human rights, homelands, sacred sites, resources and cultural way of life. The staff page reads,

We are accomplished advocates, negotiators and litigators who are committed to promoting a historically proven culture of sustainability that ensures the protection of the land, the people, environment and a way-of-life that is in harmony with the natural world. Through our work to protect indigenous lands, natural resources, sacred sites and fundamental human rights and freedoms we are ensuring the continuation of all life.

An alumni member of two prestigious American Indian Leadership Programs, Sherri is also a published poet, scholar and philosopher. She is most recently the author of Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change.

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Presentation Grant Winner at Conference: María Veronica Iglesias

María Veronica Iglesias: The Mesoamerican Goddesses: Ancient Archetypes supporting women who experienced violence of gender

María Veronica Iglesias

This presentation aims to talk about ten Mesoamerican female deities, their symbolism and meaning as well as the way they were venerated in ancient Mexico and exploring a way in which the archetypes they represent support women who have experienced gender and sexual violence. This idea has been used in several workshops and the results have been positive; every woman who has participated in them has been renewed, with a different perception of her life and what could have happened to her.

This proposal also aims to re-evaluate indigenous knowledge and spirituality, specifically the Nahua tradition. This work represents also an alternative for many women who have ancestors of Mexican indigenous blood and who now live in the United States, it is an option to reconnect with their spirituality and ancient healing forms, which is a mechanism of female empowerment that embraces practices and the traditional knowledge of their native cultures. No doubt these ancient deities have many gifts for women today as they represent different facets of women’s lives within the patriarchal system and can help us live in harmony and heal the wounds of the soul and the feminine energy.

María Veronica Iglesias was born in Mexico City, has a Master’s Degree in Mesoamerican Studies. She was initiated in the sacred knowledge of Mesoamerican shamanism and became a bearer of the Sacred Word. A Priestess of Ix´Cheel, the Mayan Goddess of Medicine, Veronica researches Pre-Hispanic medicine, rites of passage and Goddesses from Mesoamerica.

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What’s the Buzz about “Vibrant Voices”?

Vibrant Voices: Women, Myth, and the Arts

Volume II of Proceedings of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, edited by Sid Reger and Marna Hauk

“Vibrant Voices is an essential guide and touchstone for all future work on women and mythology.”
–Miranda Shaw, author of Passionate Enlightenment

 

We proudly launch this beautiful proceedings volume on March 17, 2018 at our ASWM Conference.  At least 15 of our contributors will be on hand, and book signings will be happening at the Marketplace from4 to 8pm. There is a special introductory price for those attending the conference.

With over 30 contributors, this full-color book explores the many facets of women’s arts as they illuminate sacred stories from many traditions. In her Foreword, Judy Grahn says,

These essays add to our sensual experiences as well as to our ever-expanding knowledge base. The invitational qualities and broad diversity of origin and expression of the selections in this volume are balanced by histories of the colonization that the foremothers and preservers of indigenous religions and community have had to endure.

 Our goals in creating this book were to honor artist-scholars’ work and to inspire further explorations of women and the arts. We include visual arts, poetry, and scholarship from over 30 contributors who have presented at ASWM events. In her Afterword, Cristina Biaggi speaks to this intention:

This amazing small gem of an anthology – full of wisdom and new ways of seeing and inspiration – is a welcome addition to our growing Goddess library that serves to nourish and inspire us and beckons us toward a new world filled with hope and light.

Here what other goddess scholars are saying about Vibrant Voices:

 

“A stunning testimony to the importance of the path-breaking, boundary-crossing work of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.”

–Carol P. Christ, author of Goddess and God in the World and A Serpentine Path  

 

“So many forces in our hypermodern culture have denied the ancient triad of women, art, and the sacred that we can barely grasp all that has been lost to us. Vibrant Voices makes an insightful and deeply beautiful contribution to the recovery, as well as inspiration for creative new directions.”

— Charlene Spretnak, author of The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art, 1800 to the Present

 

 “This stunning volume reveals and celebrates the female divine through artistry, poesy, and superb scholarship.  The thorough integration of historical, experiential, and visionary voices is a pivotal achievement. Vibrant Voices is an essential guide and touchstone for all future work on women and mythology.”

~Miranda Shaw, author of Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism and Buddhist Goddesses of India

 

“This collection of wisdom of women’s spirituality scholarship is indispensable for understanding the possibilities today in the midst of converging environmental, political, gender, and spiritual crises – – and to birthing a new civilization where nobody is  ‘othered;’  everybody creates a society of love and justice.”  

-Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum, author of Dark Mother: African Origins and Godmothers

Vibrant Voices will be for sale for a special introductory price at our conference in Las Vegas. It will also be available at Goddess Ink and on Amazon.