News

Jennifer Smith

Jennifer Smith, MA, has worked for over 20 years in the US and Europe in the area of work psychology. She has conducted post-graduate research into women and work-life balance, consulted with organizations to develop their employees and cultures, and taught Leadership and Organizational Behavior to MBA students.

She has dedicated her career to helping individuals and organizations to transform and achieve their potential, in particular, helping women to find their purpose and follow their calling.

Jennifer is passionate about working with organizations and institutions that seek pioneering ways to retain and develop their women. Despite well-intentioned organizational and governmental policies, the gender and wage gaps are still unacceptable. The difficulty is that many of these policies are designed from the same patriarchal perspective that created the problem in the first place, thus a paradigm shift in the understanding of women and work is required.

Jennifer is current pursuing an MA/PhD in Depth Psychology: Jungian and Archetypal Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute to unearth ancient feminine wisdom to help to heal these problems. She is doing this through researching archetypes and the Greek myths including the Eleusinian mysteries, as well as, engaging in active imagination with the wisdom of the soul of place, Terrapsychology.

Jennifer is the mother of two, a painter, poet, Reiki Master, and writer.

Jennifer’s conference presentation is :“Finding the Feminine at MIT: The Great Mother Goddess under the Dome.”

Heather Kohser

  I am a Pediatric Nurse by night, and a nature nerd writer by day. My presentation, for the 2016  ASWM conference, Heroic Hummingbirds, is based on the book I am currently writing, A Passion for Pollinators. (working title) I am co-founder of The Women With Weeds Project, educating, and promoting “weed-roots” actions to increase habitat for the pollinators that feed us.  As a Goddess woman, and mystic poet, I seek to connect humans with the Divine, through the wonders of all Her creation. I choose to live close to nature, listening to the messages of even the tiniest creatures, trees, plants, rocks and water. I serve as their devoted scribe. I am called to share my passions through written and spoken word, illuminating the stories of our ancestors, and the great diversity of life.  I seek to inspire women today to become environmental heroines, in the epic story of our declining planet.   

Heather’s presentation is Heroic Hummingbirds

“These revered pollinators, native only to the Americas, illumined ancient stories of creation, rebirth, hero’s quests, and communication with the Divine. . .  Hummingbirds have the smallest bodies, but also the largest brains of any bird. It is their incredible ability to hover, that has allowed them to fill a special niche, co-evolving with 8000 species of plants. We will dip our beaks in the nectar of sacred ecology, and discover quick actions we can all take to save the world’s pollinators. Perhaps we are being called, by the perseverance of these fiercely intelligent creatures, to be environmental heroines in the epic story of a declining planet.”

Toni Truesdale

Artist, muralist and illustrator Toni Truesdale celebrates women, the natural environment, and the diversity of the world’s cultures. She is currently working on a series called the “Culture of Women” that depicts commonalities and everyday life of women. She has exhibited in over 30 exhibits, painted many murals and is widely published; she is also an educator of many years working with Native American and African-American populations. She has over 300 images of women many in cards and prints.

History and mythology need to include the unrestricted stories of all women “I develop imagery that shows the natural beauty, spirituality and intelligence in all aspects of the life of sisters, mothers, daughters, aunts, grandmothers in a multicultural world by honoring our commonality through time.

Toni’s conference presentation is Sanctuary: Feminine Centered Dwellings as Areas of Sacred Protection:  “Historically, the homes of women are spiritual places of prayer, safety and sustenance. The female centered house, with the kitchen as the apex of feminine activity, has always held sacred symbology. The hearth, fire, food, and alters are metaphoric examples of the importance of that women have put into their daily life sustaining routines.”

“Poetic rhythm is our birthright, a simple, complex, magical transformative tool as close to each of us as our own blood, breath, and skin.  It is a path to the Goddess in ourselves, a pulsing web that weaves us into the rhythms of the Goddess in nature, and a moving dance of words that unites us in together in community. It is a tool that is needed now as we reclaim our connections with the Divine Feminine, with our own inner powers, and with each other.”

Speaking of our 2010 conference, Annie said: The ASWM conference was truly a life-weaving web–and a life-changing one for me. I have rarely (never?!!) read for an audience that “got” my goddess poems so profoundly–it was humbling. Overall, the quality of so many presentations was so high–and the content so amazing, so rich, so nourishing.

We are very glad to have her back this year to lead another of her popular workshops.  Poetry Witch Healing Wheel: an Interactive Ritual of Poetic Transformation will explore “poetic charms, chants, spells, and incantations are magic keys that embody, incarnate, and drive poetry’s power to enchant and transform.”

Annie Finch (Poetry Witch) is a poet, author, playwright, ritualist, and performer. She has published eighteen books, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems (2013) and A Poet’s Craft: A Comprehensive Guide to Making and Sharing Your Poetry (2013). Her writings on spirituality appear regularly in The Huffington Post and her epic about abortion, Among the Goddesses, was awarded the 2010 Sarasvati Award from ASWM. Annie is founder of Poetry Witch Magazine & Poetry Witches Community, including workshops, webinars, and online training in poetry and spirituality.  She is currently completing her book The New American Witch.  More at anniefinch.com.

Starr Goode

Starr Goode, MA, teaches writing and literature at Santa Monica College. An award winning writer, she has been profiled in the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The New Yorker. She was the producer and moderator for the cable TV series The Goddess in Art, the episodes of which are now housed in the permanent collection of the Getty Museum as well as available on YouTube. She lives in Santa Monica, California.

Starr is author of Sheela na Gig: The Dark Goddess of Sacred Power (forthcoming, Inner Traditions)., which explores the archetype of the sacred display. Explaining the role of the “hag” Sheela na gig in restoring the Divine Feminine, the author shows the Sheela to be an icon that makes visible the cycles of birth, death, and renewal all humans experience. The Sheela “a necessary antidote to centuries of suppression of the primal power of women, of nature, and of the imagination.”

Whether there are still-living Sheela na gigs today practicing their art in the countryside of Ireland, one cannot say, but the display of the stone Sheelas persists as does a faith in the healing powers of the image.

Starr will participate in the Friday evening authors panel for Foremothers of Women’s Spirituality: Elders and Visionaries.

By the Light (and Dark) of the Moon

By the Light (and Dark) of the Moon — Lunar Knowing: The Cyclic, Dark, and Regenerative Moon Nurturing Wisdom, Culture, Inspiration, and Research

Women have been conducting research and generating culture and knowing through relationship with the moon for tens of thousands of years. Part of the work of reclaiming ancient ways of knowing involves cultivating a resurgence of the luminous and dark regenerative cycles and dimensions of lunar knowing. This panel highlights several lunar ways of knowing, and provides both theory and praxis for research by the light (and the dark) of the moon.

Vicki Noble will describe a qualitative research design method that guides the positioning of the researcher with natal lunar phase astrological placements inside a cross-cultural mandala of ritual and seasonal significations. She researches the significance of this transcultural cyclic lunar template as an informing deep schema.

Researcher Demetra George’s scholarship will explore the cycles of birth, growth, death, and renewal via lunar cycle progressions, illustrated by the descent and illumination of Teresa of Avila. This case study demonstrates the powerful way that lunar cycles enable us to identify our unique timing and then offers guidance to pass through these periods utilizing the regenerative healing powers inherent in the dark of the moon.

Extending application of lunar knowing to focus on research systems, Marna Hauk’s paper will propose thirteen dimensions of research that can be informed or guided by lunar phenomena, framing a set of practices and methods as the methodology of lunar inquiry. It will consider the reflective, tidal, cyclic, and waxing-waning-regenerating aspects of the moon applied to qualitative research methodologies and methods.

Finally, We’Moon and We’Mooniversity founder Musawa Moore will share imagery and herstory to examine the moon’s transformative role as muse in contemporary women’s spiritualities and arts. Particularly, this last paper dives into how lunar knowing inspires an embodied, cross-cultural experience of cyclic diversity, oneness, and change-making.  To learn more about We’Moon in all its incarnations check out this post:  More About We’Moon.

 

Throughout, the panel turns attention to the multiple themes, approaches, and methods for emancipating women’s vibrant lunar knowing.