News – Page 78

April 21, 2016January 9, 2024

Dr. Annette L. Williams Receives 2016 Kore Dissertation Award

Dr. Annette L. Williams received the 2016 Kore Award for Best Dissertation, for Our Mysterious Mothers: The Primordial Feminine Power of Àjẹ́ in the Cosmology, Mythology, and Historical Reality of the West African Yoruba written for the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Established in 2010 by ASWM co-founder Patricia Monaghan, the Kore Award recognizes excellence and relevance in dissertation research. The award was conferred at the 2016 ASWM Conference, via Skype due to schedule conflicts.

The text of Dr. William’s award letter reads,

You write that among the Yoruba, àjẹ́ is the primordial force of causation and creation. It is the power of the feminine, of female divinity and women, and the women themselves who wield this power. Unfortunately, it has been translated as “witch” or “witchcraft” with attendant malevolent connotations. Though the fearsome nature of àjẹ́ cannot be denied, it is actually a richly nuanced term. Examination of Yoruba sacred text, Odu Ifa, reveals a spiritual and temporal power exercised in religious, judicial, political, and economic domains throughout Yoruba history.

Your dissertation explores the many factors contributing to the duality in attitude towards àjẹ́, forcing an intense representation of their fearsome aspects to the virtual disavowal of their positive dimensions. You were able to interview people with knowledge of àjẹ́ both in Yorubaland in Africa, and in the United States. You employed transdisciplinary methodologies and multiple lenses, including hermeneutics, historiography and critical theory to tease out the place of àjẹ́ within Yoruba cosmology and historical reality. You critically read the influence both of sexist patriarchy and colonialist British imperialism in the culture and in the reading of the Odu Ifa.

You write, “In our out-of-balance world, there might be wisdom to be gleaned from beings that were given the charge of maintaining cosmic balance. Giving proper respect and honor to “our mothers” (awon iya wa) who own and control àjẹ́, individuals are called to exercise their àjẹ́ in the world in the cause of social justice, to be the guardians of a just society.”

April 21, 2016January 9, 2024

Directory for Starr Goode’s “Goddess in Art” Interviews

“Goddess in Art” TV Series

Social change inspires art and is also inspired by it. The work of contemporary visual artists, activists, poets and performers has paralleled the resurgence of interest in ancient symbols and cultures of the goddess. These artists, who intuitively seek to articulate long-obscured concepts of women and divinity, are able to interpret the ancient past to inspire new generations.

Mayumi Oda in “Goddess in Art” TV Series

Produced and moderated by author and educator Starr Goode, The Goddess in Art TV Series includes deep and thoughtful conversations with a number of influential artists and scholars. These valuable and historic interviews are now available at youtube.com. (Thank you, Starr!)

We are happy to offer you this alphabetical list of links to make them easy to find. (Or, you may enter in the You Tube search box: Starr Goode The Goddess in Art TV Series.)

The Goddess In Art is a cable TV series that began in 1986 and ran until 1991. Dedicated to the Return of the Goddess, the series explored the legacy of this oldest tradition in art as well as feminist spirituality in contemporary art. The moderator, Starr Goode, interviewed scholars to uncover Her suppressed history and artists who were inspired by a radical re-imagining of the feminine.

tara_oda — Compassionate Goddess Tara, by Mayumi Oda

Each interview is approximately 30 minutes in length. See Starr’s description of the content of each interview (The Goddess in Art.desc) and enjoy them as supplements to research or to inspire your own artworks.

Bio: Starr Goode is a writer and teaches literature at Santa Monica College. Her book, Sheela na gig, The Dark Goddess of Sacred Power is being published by Inner Traditions in the fall of 2016. Contact: starrgoode @ mindspring. com

Highlights from The Goddess in Art Series

Andersen, Ruth Ann

Austen, Hallie Iglehart

Gimbutas, Marija (Part 1)

Gimbutas, Marija (Part 2)

Gimbutas, Marija in Voices of the Goddess (documentary)

Murdock, Maureen

Noble, Vicki (Part 1)

Noble, Vicki (Part 2)

Sutherland, Joan Goddess in the Natural World

Sutherland, Joan The Triple Goddess in Art

Teubal, Savina

April 14, 2016January 9, 2024

Donna Read Wins 2016 Saga Award

Donna Read and ASWM Vice President Dawn Work-Makinne

At our Boston conference, Donna Read, innovator, filmmaker, producer and activist, received ASWM’s2016 Saga Award for Special Contributions to Women’s History and Culture. The award honors Donna’s role in making feminist scholarship and the history of spirituality visible and accessible to a wide audience,

The ASWM Board of Directors recognizes Donna as “one of the premier visionary artists of our time” for films that include the Women’s Spirituality Series (Goddess Remembered, Burning Times, and Full Circle), Signs Out of Time, Permaculture: The Growing Edge, and (with producer/directorDonna Roberts) Yemanjá: Wisdom from the African Heart of Brazil.

In particular, Donna’s visual chronicles in both the “Women & Spirituality trilogy” and “Signs Out of Time” document the history of the sacred feminine and its re-emergence in the cultural mythology and activism of our time. Her films introduced scholars, feminists, artists and interested women to new interpretations of the myriad array of images of the female divine. As her award letter states, this work “has enlightened and continues to inspire viewers to re-examine their assumptions about women, about men, about spirituality and about culture.”

We were privileged to have Donna present Yemanjá: Wisdom from the African Heart of Brazil to our 2016 conference, and moderate an important discussion about the film and the remarkable women upon whose work it is based.

Hearing of her award, Donna’s good friend and collaborator Starhawk had this to say:

Donna Read Cooper has made great contributions to women’s culture and history. She created key resources through her work as a filmmaker, first with the National Film Board of Canada and later with her own independent company, Belili Productions. She began as an editor, worked for many years at Studio D, the Film Board’s special studio for women, and progressed on to direct and produce documentaries concerned with women and the earth, including the Women’s Spirituality Trilogy: Goddess Remembered, Burning Times and Full Circle. Together, we made Signs Out of Time, on the life of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, and Permaculture: The Growing Edge.

As her long-time friend, and sometime film making companion, I know some of the obstacles she faced. From the early days, when women in film faced prejudice and dismissal, to challenges persuading the more hard-nosed political feminists that women’s spirituality was a valid subject, to the difficulty raising funds for independent documentaries, to the health challenges that come with aging.

But she always persevered. Donna made films about key issues, but she also took action. We’ve marched together in the streets, stood together in front of tanks on the West Bank supporting the nonviolent resistance in Palestine, attended endless meetings, and most recently, Donna has opened her home to Syrian refugees. Through it all managed to raise five children, and remain a mentor, teacher, and a good friend to me and to many younger women.

I am thrilled that Donna is receiving this well-deserved award that honors a lifetime of devotion to women and social justice.

Congratulations to Donna, along with deep gratitude for her work which has both chronicled and transformed generations of scholarship.

April 9, 2016January 9, 2024

Her banner over me is Love: Remembering Lydia Ruyle

Her banner over me is Love: Remembering Lydia Ruyle

By Gayatri Devi for the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, March 27, 2016

Her banner over me is Love.

–adapted from the Song of Songs for Lydia

It is with great love and sadness that the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) shares the the sorrow of the community of Lydia Ruyle’s family and friends at Lydia’s passing from our world to the world of ancestors. Lydia’s presence, personality, passion and painting enriched our association’s dedicated and evolving work on goddess scholarship and the mythology of the divine feminine for many years in a variety of ways.

When most of us visualize the goddess in our mind, in her many incarnations and aspects, we might actually see her in the forms and figures through which Lydia showed the goddess to us. Lydia often referred to the goddesses as her “girls,” a tender apostrophe that illuminated not only Lydia’s motherly care towards her banners, but also the eternal and imperishable purity and power of the timeless goddess herself. Lydia’s banners of the incarnate goddesses, from the many living traditions of goddess cultures from across the world, showed us how to see the energy, playfulness, joy, seriousness, intelligence and beauty of the sacred feminine through paintings that were both abstract and powerfully expressive at the same time.

Lydia’s banners of the goddesses literally enveloped our association’s conferences and symposia. Since their first exhibition at Ephesus in Turkey in 1995, Lydia’s goddess banners–paintings of goddesses on nylon flag banners– have traveled all over the world bringing joy, wisdom, and light to all who come across them. Lydia’s goddess banners were always one of the high points of our association’s conferences. Hanging Lydia’s banners at our conference site was a ritual that several of us have been fortunate to take part in. The meeting rooms, board rooms and other mundane spaces would be transformed in a matter of minutes to sacred structures as we hung up the “girls” in all their rich and golden yellows, bright burning oranges, shimmering earthy greens, dark eyed blacks and blues, and colors of all hues and infinite richness. We spoke and did our work enveloped in the presence of Lydia’s girls.

For the 2010 ASWM conference at the Kirkridge Retreat Center in the Poconos, Lydia taught us how to paint our own scarves. Lydia gave us plain silk scarves and paint and showed us what the paint does on the material, and how to manage the paint correctly. From idea to its imprint, the great teacher in Lydia patiently walked us through what it takes to paint what you see with your inner and outer eyes. Lydia liked to tell the story of how the girls went “missing” in 2014 for a brief period of time when all forty of the goddess banners were shipped for display to a conference in Seattle. Upon hearing that the goddesses were missing, Lydia tried to find the box of her paintings in the big city of Seattle where they were lost to no avail. Back in Colorado, Lydia and her husband Bob created a despacho to dispel the negative energies surrounding the loss of the goddesses. Lydia heard the good news a week later when the conference organizer called to tell her that the goddesses were returned when a kind old woman saw some teenagers throwing the banners out in the streets and picked them up and returned the box to the conference organizers. The goddesses were once again able to come to all of us who need to see them.

Lydia is listed in our 2016 Boston conference program for both a panel on Matriarchal Studies and a solo workshop on Goddess Images from around the world. In place of Lydia’s banners, we are bringing our personal collections of Lydia’s prayer flags–smaller versions of the goddess banners–that we had gathered over the years. We will string them in our conference space in place of the banners. Lydia’s girls will still grace our conference space this Friday and Saturday. Our altar will be graced by the beautiful 2015 Portland Oregon conference poster that Lydia made for us. Our hearts will be full to the brim with the love and loving kindness that embody all that Lydia means to us.

April 9, 2016January 9, 2024

For Lydia with Love

Lydia's unforgettable smile — Lydia’s unforgettable smile

Here is a wonderful affirmation that Amejo Amyot wrote for Lydia, which was read at the gathering to celebrate her life. Thank you, Amejo, for finding the words to say what so many people were feeling.

Lydia, in Celebration of your Life

And so the Great Goddess said unto Lydia, as she entered the wise woman time of her life, “what dear one will you do with your one wild and precious life?” 1

And Lydia looking up to the Great Mystery, straightening her spine and opening her crown chakra, she breathes:

Oh Blessed one: I will travel all over the world. I will visit all the sacred sites, the caves and temples and ruins. I will feel what the women felt who honored the Goddess of their lands. I will come to know in my bones what was being honored here. I will bring this back to the women of my world so that they too will remember. And then I will lead tours so that hundreds of women can see and feel for themselves the wonders of ancient ruins like Gobekli Tepe.

And so she did!

And oh Blessed One: I will lead women in ceremony and create sacred space before all our meetings, assemblies, classes and conferences. I will call in the goddesses of the East, the South, the West, and the North, the Above and the Below and all the goddess energies of the Middle World. I will call in Kali, Guadalupe, Pele, Sedna, Skywoman and Pachamama. And the women will remember to bring spirit back into the mind.

And so she did!

And oh Blessed one: I will create great large banners to honor hundreds of Goddesses from all over the world. I will help women to know and remember their ancestors and the deities that were honored thousands of years ago when the world was a matriarchy and all things essential to women were honored. And these banners will fly all over the world, wherever people are gathered to celebrate Goddess. And so the banners have graced many a conference and the women remember.

And oh Blessed One, as I transform to the world of spirit, I will teach the women how to celebrate life as I call us all together to celebrate my one wild and precious life. I give thanks and gratitude for allowing the divine feminine force to flow through me and I’m grateful that you Oh Great Goddess have trusted me to be your messenger on Earth.

And so it was!

Blessed be

Amejo Amyot, Ph.D.

1. Mary Oliver, The Summer Day