We have an amazing lineup of presenters for this year’s ASWM conference.   We want to introduce some of them to you in this blog–so you will know what you can expect when you join us at the Boston Burlington Marriott!

Here are profiles on two of these remarkable women, along with the titles of their presentations:

Rabbi Jill Hammer ( “The Priestess and the King in Biblical Text”)

Jill is the Director of Spiritual Education at the Academy for Jewish Religion, where she teaches rabbinical and cantorial students ancient and modern tools for spiritual experience, creativity, and growth. She is also the co-founder of the Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute, which trains Jewish women in spiritual leadership in an earth-based, embodied, and feminist mode.  She says, “At Kohenet retreats, we reclaim Jewish women’s traditions of the past, and explore ritual as a transformative force in our lives. ” 

Her recent book with Kohenet co-founder Taya Shere, is The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership.  

Of the inspiration for her work, Jill says,

I do what I do in order to awaken awareness of the interconnected nature of Being.   I do what I do to honor my ancestors, who gifted me their treasures of wisdom and consciousness.  I do what I do to rebirth spirit work as an art that can heal and inspire.  Some of my favorite tools are poetry, dreamwork, guided visualization, midrash (creative interpretation of sacred text), chant and dance, gathering and making sacred objects, and ritualcraft.  Another of my favorite tools is academic research, which can aid in the reclamation of ancient knowledge.

I was raised in the woods, and raised to love the earth and the sea and the sky.  I still love the earth and the sea and the sky, and, I now live in Manhattan with my wife and daughter.  We’re urban priestesses.

Nancy Vedder-Shults (“Science and Divination: The Blurring Lines between the Secular and the Sacred”)

Nancy is a long-time ASWM member, storyteller, and goddess scholar who uses music, myth and sacred play in her work. Nancy’s recordings include Chants for the Queen of Heaven and Singing the Promise. She is currently awaiting the publication of her book, The World Is Your Oracle (Fair Winds Press), a compendium of 52 different divination techniques from ancient and indigenous sources, as well as ones she has created based on the needs of contemporary women.

Of her work she says, “Recent brain imaging research has shown what seers and sages have known for millennia, namely that a certain state of mind facilitates new ideas. Empowerment has been the major reason for my work — especially empowerment of women within our patriarchal society. Divination allows us to be the experts in our own lives, tapping into our own inner wisdom.”

Learn more at Mama’s Minstrel

We are pleased that Dr. Elinor W. Gadon will present the conference keynote entitled History or Mystery:  Fact of Fiction?   

Dr. Gadon is a cultural historian who has taught at Harvard Divinity School and the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is presently a Resident Scholar at Brandeis University’s Women’s Studies Resource Center.

Her major publication, The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Time, is a visual chronicle of the history of the sacred female and her re-emergence in the cultural mythology of our time.

Her research has focused on the analysis of myth and imagery within their particular cultural contexts, especially with reference to issues of gender and spirituality. In particular she has focused on India and the contributions of women artists. With Shulamit Reinharz, she has written Tiger by the Tail: Women Artists of India Transforming Culture (2007).

Dr. Gadon has recently completed From Blood to Fire: The Changing Culture of the Village Goddesses of Orissa in collaboration with sociologist Rita Ray and has submitted it for publication. She is presently working on a monograph The Village Goddesses of Orissa.  Her next project will be her memoirs.

 In 2006 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art, an international organization that recognizes the lasting contributions of women artists and art historians.

In her article “The Secular Israeli Woman” for The Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice (Fall 2009), Dr. Gadon wrote,

“The highest level of a woman’s spirituality is the integration of internal and external voices, the integration between subjective and objective knowledge and the integration between intuitive, personal knowledge and the knowledge received from others. This stage includes waiving belief in a black and white world and developing an ability to live with conflicts, knowing how to maintain connections and responsibilities within the environment, and listening and respecting the body and feelings without shame.”

Open Registration for 2016 Conference!

(You will also be able to renew or join for 2016 at this link.)
Visit: aswm.conferencetime.com