Tag: 2023 Conference

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

2023 ASWM Schedule

Ethereal Reservoirs: Ceremonies of Body and Spirit

with Sarah Chandler and Bonnie Schwartz

Breathing in ocean breezes, plunging into a freshwater river, dancing in the rain. The power of water to cleanse and renew is too often reserved for unique vacations and summer trips. How can we access, physically and spiritually, the true power of water as a sacred source, on a daily basis? As we move through springtime and notice the trees bloom with flowers and green, we may miss out on the life force of water all around us. While the industrial world has reduced water to a commodity, we explore ways to reinstate water to its true value. The flow of water through earth, air, sky, our bodies, and the diversity of organisms around us, is essential to life as we know it, and yet this sacred element often goes unnoticed. Combining functional movement with Jewish and secular mystical teachings, this session will give you access to ethereal reservoirs of fluid ceremonies of body and spirit. Participants will leave this workshop with practical tools for developing a unique daily water ritual.

Sarah Chandler aka Kohenet (Hebrew Priestess) Shamirah teaches, writes and consults on a national level on issues related to Judaism, earth-based spiritual practice, the environment, mindfulness, and farming. Sarah is the founder and lead trainer of “Soft as a Rock: Public Speaking for Sensitive Souls.”

Bonnie Schwartz has been involved with USA Swimming for over 30 years as both a highly accomplished swimmer and a widely sought-after coach. As the founder and CEO of Schwartz Consulting Services, Bonnie supports entrepreneurs, artists, and spiritual leaders on their financial fitness.

Lily~Rakia Chandler (Katsi’tsianoron Konienka Okwari)- Lily-Rakia Chandler’s life’s work has been navigating the many ways oppression affects people and Our Mother the Earth. As a student and mentor of the SOPHIA wisdom school she studies and helps clients with herbal consults and shamanic clearings. Rakia often leads as a Ceremonial drummer and organizes plant medicine classes making herbal medicine accessible by teaching at a local farm that serves low income folks.

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

Shelley Graff is a longtime feminist singer, songwriter, guitarist, and Singing In Sacred Circle facilitator who has been sharing her songs since 1989. She believes her sacred journey is guiding her to share the ancient tradition of Singing In Sacred Circle to as many women as possible. Shelley travels around the country performing and sharing that experience at women’s retreats, festivals, conferences, marches, churches and private homes. Her albums were inspired by and are a tribute to the healing/sounding work of the late Kay Gardner.

WORKSHOP: Honoring Our Family Her-Stories & Songs! Tillie and Louise: Old Maid Aunts or Suffragists?

Explore four generations of strong women activists while viewing two original music videos that illustrate the generational threads connecting one family’s stories. The common threads between aunts, mother, daughter and niece weave a story of similar passions and inspiring values clearly reflected in the images of women challenging stereotypical roles prescribed across the generations. Participants will be encouraged to analyze and discuss the values passed from generation to generation that created a family of strong activists and artists who worked for women’s rights and social justice throughout the 20th and into the 21st Century.

The hope is that the workshop participants consider diving deeply into the personal her-stories about the women in their families to find the patterns and power of their ancestors. Who knows…like me, the workshop participants might discover that the two women frequently referred to as the “Old Maid Aunts” in my family were so much more! In fact, Tillie and Louise were actually influential businesswomen in Cincinnati and dedicated suffragists who, like their suffragist sisters in Seneca Falls, helped pave the way so that their niece, great nieces and great, great nieces could finally be treated as citizens and exercise their right to vote!

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

2023 ASWM Schedule

Registration Links and Conference information here

The Creation of “The Women of the Ramapough Lenape Nation”

“The Women of the Ramapough Lenape Nation,” is a creative collaboration between artist Lisa Levart and women from the Ramapough Lenape Nation – the indigenous people who live in the Highlands around Mahwah, N.J., 30 miles outside of NYC.  Under the guidance of Grandmother Clara Soaring Hawk, this on-going series is an artistic investigation into the sacred mythology of the Lenape Nation. Recreated as panoramic tableaus, Levart’s photographic portraits are made on ancestral land, and express the indigenous belief of  living life in connection with nature.

Filmmaker Myles Aronowitz will screen his 22 minute documentary film that has poetically captured this multi-year collaborative process. The screening will be followed by a spirited conversation among the project creators about the power of collaborative art making, community building between cultures, personal agency, and reclaiming ancestral stories.

A trailer for the film can be seen here.

Lisa Levart is a visual artist/photographer whose interest lies at the intersection between fine arts and social engagement. Her subjects are women and how our stories connect us to one another. A monograph of her work “Goddess on Earth; Portraits of the Divine Feminine” won a Gold Nautilus Book Award, and was named one of the 100 Best New Women’s Spirituality Books by the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Grandmother Clara Soaring Hawk is Ambassador of the Ramapough Lenape Nation. She  considers herself a “Spiritual Ecologist” as she prays for the balance of Spirit and the natural  world. Grandmother Clara has been facilitating ceremony, both nationally and internationally since 2013.

A well known photographer, Myles Aronowitz’ portraits of celebrities, artists, poets, musicians  and writers have been published world wide in magazines and newspapers including Time  Magazine, People Magazine, Forbes Magazine and the New York Times, to name only a few. This is his first documentary. www.MylesAronowitz.com

ASWM Conference May 5-6, Syracuse NY

Registration Links and Conference information here

Born on the Connecticut River in Holyoke, Massachusetts, Rev. Areeya Marie Sharpe was gifted a unique relationship to the whispers of water. Listening to the rivers and lakes amidst the pines nourished her deep abiding love and trust in the pulse of nature, while growing up in a world seemingly unfriendly to interracial, multicultural children.  Areeya was inspired while singing with a lake to seek out the connections of the heart waters of many traditions and peoples who honored the land and waters. Remembering her parents intricate abilities and traumas, and navigating the violences of intolerance and bigotry, she heard a call from the river on which she was born to seek out waters of different lands as an offering and for guidance. After serving 8 yrs in the military, a common choice to escape the ghettos, she came to the conclusion the waters knew best… As a form of healing and honoring her family with African American, Mediterranean, Blackfoot, Cherokee and military roots of the deep south, she chose the path of carrying water. For 20yrs, she has journeyed carrying the waters between several spiritual communities. Priestess, Multicultural Ceremonialist, Interfaith Minister and Medical Qigong Practitioner, Areeya is a co-caretender and Priestess in Residence, at the Temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to Sekhmet in Cactus Springs, NV, founded by Genevieve Vaughan.

“Water Whispers of the Desert”

Rev. Areeya will share insights on the relationship of water and prayer from the vantage point of the Mojave Desert, around the Sekhmet Temple in Cactus Springs, NV.  This sacred location is in a unique dance between the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, a Drone-laden Air Force Base, and 2 maximum security prisons. And this desert is the homeland of the Western Bands of the Shoshone Nation and the Paiute. Where water is precious, the desert cultures speak and sing to the waters, and focus on the pivotal communion with a tiny spring. “In the daily honoring of this blessed outpost of peace, we explore our species’ deep relationship with the sacred waters of life through the vibrations of sound, thought and emotion.” This presentation honors the teachings of the belated and beloved Spiritual Leader of the Western Shoshone Nation, who lives on in the hearts of his people and the memories of water.