Who’s Presenting in 2016? Cristina Eisenberg & Cristina Biaggi

Cristina Eisenberg
Cristina Eisenberg

Cristina Eisenberg

“Wilderness is one of our best defenses against climate change.”

Cristina Eisenberg is Chief Scientist for Earthwatch Institute, a Smithsonian Research Associate, and science consultant for many prestigious organizations in the US and Canada. Her research has investigated trophic cascades and the effects of predators on landscape health and biodiversity. She has emerged as a leading voice for wilderness and large predator conservation in North America.

Cristina is the author of The Wolf’s Tooth and The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving America’s Predators. Matt Miller, reviewing The Carnivore Way for Cool Green Science, (June 12, 2014) says

“Eisenberg is the perfect scientist to write this book. She lives in a Montana cabin where she encounters the predators of which she writes: wolves, mountain lions, grizzly bears, lynx. . . .Her research and review of the literature leave her convinced that large predators are essential for landscape health, and vital for our own values of wildness and wonder.”

“In order to create change, you have to engage people, and you have to not just engage their minds. You have to engage their hearts, and that means telling our stories. . . . In terms of carnivore conservation, we need to build community. We need to have that solid science, and we need to find a way to share our story.”

Cristina Eisenberg’s special conference presentation is entitled “The Role of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an Era of Global Change.”   She will discuss the changes taking place from ecological, ethical, and feminine mythological perspectives, and how the values embodied by Traditional Ecological Knowledge across world cultures contain the elements essential for human survival and for the wellbeing of all life on Earth.

“Traditional Ecological Knowledge that taps into the divine feminine can teach us much in terms of how to live more rightly on this Earth, how to heal the damage we have done, and how to mitigate, adapt to, and slow the processes that threaten every living being today. ” 

Cristina Biaggi

Sculptor/scholar Cristina Biaggi
Sculptor/scholar Cristina Biaggi

The Great Goddess,  in whatever manifestation she was depicted,  was the supreme deity in the Paleolithic and Neolithic period throughout the world.  She has re-emerged in the 20th and 21st century as an apt symbol of woman’s growing consciousness and importance.  The need to make the Goddess accessible through art as an embodiment of “feminine sensibility” is becoming extremely important in this world of growing militarism.

Cristina Biaggi, artist, activist and scholar, has achieved international recognition as a sculptor of bronze and wood pieces. Using the theme of interconnection, she has also created large outdoor installations, and has explored collage in the two and three dimensional form. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. She is a respected authority on the Great Goddess, Neolithic and Paleolithic prehistory, and the origin and impact of patriarchy on contemporary life.

“I create my sculptures inspired by these ideas.  Sculpture in the Western world has lost the mystical magical presence that it had during the Neolithic period when a temple or a sculpture was considered to be the body of the deity.  In creating my sculpture, I wish to bring back some of this magic and mystery.  I want to create a space that inspires mystery; that evokes the dark caves of the Goddess – places of rebirth and revitalized consciousness.”

“Cristina Biaggi’s work –seminal, gorgeous, provocative. No one like her!” Olympia Dukakis, Film and Stage Actor

 Cristina’s presentation “Matriarchy as Inspiration for Art”  is included in the Panel: Matriarchal Studies: Past Debates and Present Practices

Mythica: Photography Exhibit by Lisa Levart at the ASWM Conference

We are delighted to be able to present  Mythica, an exhibition of new work by award winning photographer Lisa Levart, at our conference in April.

Since 2001, Lisa Levart has joined the rapidly growing Earth-centered, spirituality movement by traveling across America creating unique portraits of women. Her Goddess on Earth project draws deeply on ancient mythology to depict fiercely independent women and their personal experience of the divine feminine.

Lisa says,  “ I see the Divine in all the women I photograph, and I want to reflect that vision back to them.”

Brooke by Lisa Levart
White Buffalo Woman, embodied by Brooke Medicine Eagle. photo by Lisa Levart

Ancient Techniques Reveal Goddesses on Earth.  In her new series, Mythica, Lisa connects the past and present in subject matter, style and technique, while furthering the themes of Goddess on Earth. Referencing vintage 19th Century photographic processes and utilizing the 2000 year-old encaustic medium, the finished pieces illuminate feminist spiritualty and link old pre-patriarchal religions with women’s search for empowerment. Her subjects collaborate with the photographer, choosing what myth to portray and how to actualize its visual representation. Their evocative photographs are both an invitation to witness and engage with what is timeless and archetypal.

For over a decade Lisa has presented Goddesses on Earth, a community specific photographic project, at many venues including art galleries, shopping malls, schools, theaters and community centers. She is currently a finalist in the International Julia Margaret Cameron Awards For Women Photographers and was awarded The Rockland County Executive Award in the Visual Arts. Since 2011, Levart has been a featured blogger for the Huffington Post, where her blogs explore the intersection between art, the divine feminine, women’s empowerment and current events. Lisa lives and works in Nyack, New York.

“Foremothers” Anthology Receives Award

Foremothers Cover

Foremothers Receives Award from Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association

We are delighted to announce this recent news about the recently released anthology, Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement: Elders and Visionaries, edited by Miriam Dexter and Vicki Noble. The book has been selected as a co-winner to receive the Susan Koppleman Award for the Best Anthology, Multi-Authored, or Edited Book in Feminist Studies in Popular and American Culture. This prestigious award from the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association will be formally presented at the organization’s annual conference in Seattle in March.

The award is also being presented to Cari M. Carpenter and Carolyn Sorisio (editors) for The Newspaper Warrior: Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins’s Campaign for American Indian Rights, 1864-1891.

 Congratulations, Miriam and Vicki!

We in ASWM are particularly proud of this anthology because it was born in part as a result of ASWM’s award programs. In 2012 our Sarasvati Award for Best Nonfiction Book went to Cambria Press for Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia, edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Victor H. Mair. Miriam says that her editor was inspired by that award to suggest that she follow it with another publication, and that support led to the creation of Foremothers.

 A stellar plenary panel with ten of the authors of the Foremothers anthology will be featured at our 2016 ASWM conference. Speakers bringing their wisdom to share include Max Dashu, Starr Goode, Mama Donna Henes, Donna Read, Genevieve Vaughan, Cristina Biaggi, Miranda Shaw, Elinor Gadon, and Susun Weed.  Miriam and Vcki will moderate this historic session.

Women and men seeking to restore balance to society can learn much from these remarkable stories of personal transformation of consciousness and culture.

Post-conference workshop with Vicki Noble & Julie Felix

WOMEN’S EVENING OF SACRED PRACTICES 

with Vicki Noble & Julie Felix on the Cape
Monday, April 4th6 – 10 pm Brewster, MA  Fee: $20  


These times we are in are very challenging, especially for those of us who have worked a lifetime for peace, justice, feminism, and environmental values. It often seems as if global capitalism is simply rolling over us, erasing all our hard work and good will. But that can’t actually be true and gathering together to do sacred, magical practices (as in ancient times) is an antidote for the ruthless and toxic adversary we face. Please, if you are in the area, join us for this women’s sacred evening in Brewster at Oestara house and come together with us in powerful, nourishing practices to rejuvenate our confidence and restore our world. Tell your friends!
Vicki Noble is a feminist healer, teacher, scholar and writer. She is the author of 8 books (translated into several languages), and co-creator of the Motherpeace Tarot. Her work over the past 30 years is unique and experiential. She teaches internationally and has adapted Tibetan Buddhist Dakini practices for women.
Julie Felix, California-born and British-based, has enjoyed a long and varied career as a t.v. host, popular folk-protest singer, and international performer. Discovering the Goddess and earth-based religion integrated her politics with her spirituality; she led Goddess tours for more than a decade.

Contact: Lorah Yaccarino
845-532-1539
www.lorahyaccarino.com
www.OestaraHouse.com

Note:  This is not an ASWM event but a post-conference workshop by two of our featured speakers.

Jelka Vince Pallua To Present “The Slavic ‘Baba’ as an Aquatic Deity”

 Jelka Vince Pallua, autorica knjige o fenomenu virdjina. Foto: Neja Markicevic / CROPIX
Jelka Vince Pallua. Foto: Neja Markicevic

Jelka Vince Pallua, Ph.D., senior scientific advisor, is an ethnologist and cultural anthropologist who for twenty years taught at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Philosophical faculty, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She continues to teach at the same Department on the Ph.D. level after having moved to the Institute of Social Sciences in Zagreb. She has published around fifty papers in Croatian and international journals and publications and delivered presentations at twenty two international and thirteen Croatian scientific conferences

Last year her book The Enigma of Sworn Virgins – An Ethnological and Cultural Anthropological Study was published addressing questions connected with mythological issues as well. The dedication of the book  “To all the ‘invisible women’ in history” sums up the motivation for her continuing work on women’s issues, more precisely on the topic of women in traditional culture. Guided by the same interest, she has started to publish articles about women figures in Slavic mythology.

Dr. Vince Pallua’s presentation for the ASWM Conference is The Slavic Baba as an Aquatic Deity

This contribution builds upon my previous research on monolithic Babas (baba in some Slavic languages meaning ugly old woman) published in 1996, 2004 and 2013. During fieldwork in Croatia, I discovered that water/humidity is the most important element, omnipresent with all the snotty and slimy rocks Babas (which are always situated by the wells, streams, lakes etc.). The Baba is the female cultic substrate of fertility and well-being. . . Both Mokoš and the Baba stand close to water, an element so much needed for fruitfulness of the agrarian cosmic cycle. By the sacral interpretation of the landscape, as well as by etymological interpretation of the word baba, I place it as a “mythologem” within the pre-indoeuropean mythical structure.