Learning from the “Wild”

with Dr. Susan Moulton

Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time 

REGISTER HERE

There is a far-reaching integrity, authenticity and intelligence in things that are free to self-organize, adapting to change in Nature, a phenomenon that we call being “wild.” The complexity and immeasurable quality of “wildness” is perceived by most Eurocentric people as a mystery, uncontrollable and beyond our ability to comprehend. Typically, wild animals have been considered by Europeans as “beasts” to be feared, hunted, conquered, or tamed solely for the purpose of human utility.

This talk proposes that the earliest humans learned their social organization from the animals and other sentient life they observed in Nature, in a process that considers all parts of the whole as sacred, organized around what Marija Gimbutas described as a cyclical, Mother-centered principle of life-death-regeneration. The oldest visual messages left by some of the first humans are found in Palaeolithic caves in Southern Europe, dating to as far back as 38,000 B.C.E. Using what we might consider current Indigenous understanding and animal behavior, we can decode these vibrant ancient messages through a “language of animacy” which requires that we focus on deeper levels of sensory perception and knowing that is universal.

Susan Moulton Currently retired from teaching at Sonoma State University in California,  Susan now devotes her time to managing her small farm in rural Sonoma County where she has worked for 50 years with rescued animals, particularly American mustangs, and conducting research and writing on human-animal communication and relationships. She developed and taught courses ranging from the Palaeolithic to Post Modern and In the 1970s she developed the first inclusive American Art Course in the California State University system, where she included contributions of First Nation Peoples before the arrival of European colonizers, with artistic and cultural contributions from African American, Asian American and Hispanic American artists through the present time. In collaboration with Joan Marler, she helped develop the International Institute of Archaeomythology, which focuses on the fields of study created and advanced by Marija Gimbutas. For over a half century she has functioned as “caretaker” of the farm she views as a sanctuary, not just for wild and abused animals, but also for rare conifers, many of which were started by internationally known agronomist Luther Burbank. A tireless organizer, educator, and working artist, Susan is currently working on a book that explores the impact of animal behavior on the earliest human communities.

Save these dates for upcoming ASWM Events:

May 19 at 3pm Eastern Time
Encounters with Marija: Wisdom from Women’s Lodge and The Women’s Well
Apara Borrowes & Anne Yeomans

July 16-18 2021
ASWM Symposium Wisdom across the Ages: A Celebration of the Centennial of Marija Gimbutas 
Registration to open May 1, 2021

Note: Because of our work on the July Symposium, we will not offer Salons again until September.

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event. 

“Bringing The Civilization of the Goddess to Life in The Four Novels of The Earthsong Series”

with Mary Mackey

Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time 

REGISTER HERE

Over thirty years ago, novelist Mary Mackey received an unpublished manuscript from the Editor-in-Chief of HarperSanFrancisco who suggested she might like to base an historical novel on the author’s research. The author was Marija Gimbutas, and the manuscript was The Civilization of the Goddess. 

In this salon, Mary will discuss how she met personally with Professor Gimbutas, and how, with her blessing, she used that research into the Neolithic cultures of Old Europe to create four bestselling novels–The Year The Horses Came, The Horses at The Gate, The Fires of Spring, and The Village of Bones. These novels evoke the moment in prehistory when marauding nomads brought horses, male deities, and war to a Goddess-worshipping Europe that had known peace for thousands of years.

Travel back to Old Europe with Mary, learn how fiction springs out of nonfiction, and watch the Mother People tend their crops, cook their dinners, make love, and raise their children; and, perhaps best of all, meet Marrah, the brave young priestess who becomes the savior of her people.

Mary Mackey became a writer by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, dodging machine gun fire, being swarmed by army ants, and reading. Her published works consist of fourteen novels including The Village of Bones, which won a 2018 CIIS Women’s Spirituality Book Award from the Department of Diversity and Inclusion; The Year the Horses Came, the first novel in her Earthsong Series; and A Grand Passion, which made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best seller lists. Her collections of poetry include Sugar Zone, which won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award; and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, which won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for the Best Book Published by a Small Press. Professor Emeritus and Former Writer in Residence at California State University, Sacramento, Mary received her B.A. from Harvard and her PhD from the University of Michigan. In the 1970’s she founded the Feminist Writers Guild with poets Adrienne Rich and Susan Griffin, novelist Valerie Miner, and author Charlene Spretnak. See Mary’s work on her website and subscribe to her quarterly newsletter.

Save these dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:

May 5at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time
Learning from the “Wild”
Susan Moulton

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event. 

“Sacred Stones and the Immanence of Life in the Alpine Folk Traditions”

with Mary Beth Moser

Wednesday, March 24, 2021 at 3 pm Eastern Daylight Time 

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The importance of rocks in the traditional culture of the Italian Alps is evident in the archaeology, folk stories and everyday practices. Rock surfaces scraped smooth by receding glaciers in Valle Camonica, a UNESCO world heritage site in northern Italy, bear hundreds of thousands of engravings dating from across the millennia. Direct contact with certain rocks by sliding or rubbing was believed to promote fertility, a practice still remembered in the popular culture. The location of shrines, chapels, and churches in and on rocks acknowledges a continuity of sacred sites. In Piedmont, the chapel that holds the highly venerated statue of the Black Madonna of Oropa is built directly upon a rock.

In the folk stories once told in villages throughout the mountains, rocks are associated with power in the spiritual realm. Imprints on erratics, large boulders left from the ice age, are said to be of saints and the Virgin Mary – or the devil and witches. So-called witches once danced around rocks before the Council of Trent banished them and turned them into stone. A folk remedy for epilepsy, considered a spiritual sickness, utilizes the powder of a certain rock as medicinal. Spring water coming from the rock characterizes sites of fertility rituals. Water held within indentations in the rocks was considered blessed.

Drawing from my on–site research, folk literature, and interviews, I will present specific examples and visual images of rocks in northern Italy that have been regarded as sacred and even life-giving in the folk practices.

Mary Beth Moser is passionate about her ancestral homeland of Northern Italy. She holds a Ph.D. in Women’s Spirituality from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she has taught and lectured. Her dissertation, “The Everyday Spirituality of Women in the Italian Alps,” received ASWM’s 2014 Kore Award. Her publications in ASWM proceedings include: “Wild Women of the Waters” (2016) and “Submerged Spirituality in the Italian Alps” (2020). Mary Beth lives on an island in the Salish Sea in the Northwest US where she serves as president of the Seattle Trentino Club.  See her work on Trentino ancestry and culture at Ancestral Connections  and on the Black Madonnas Resource Center at DeaMadre.

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Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:

April 7  at NOON Eastern Daylight Time
“Daughter of the Goddess, Sister of Man: Matriarchal Patterns in the International Fairy Tales”
Heide Goettner-Abendroth

April 21 at 3pm Eastern Standard Time
“Bringing The Civilization of the Goddess to Life in The Four Novels of The Earthsong Series”
Mary Mackey

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event. 

“Daughter of the Goddess, Sister of Man: Matriarchal Patterns in the International Fairy Tales”

with Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 at 12 Noon Eastern Daylight Time 

REGISTER HERE

The general matriarchal patterns of the goddess and her partner, the holy king or “heros”, which abound in mythology, are also to be found in the international fairy tales. This reveals these folklore traditions as hidden matriarchal myths, made anonymous and passed on through millennia. The matriarchal structures in the fairy tales are demonstrated using some examples, which refer to the relations of the goddess to the woman and of the woman to the man. At the end, it will be shown, how the matriarchal patterns in fairy tales have been systematically transformed into patriarchal patterns. Heide says, “This way of analyzing fairy tales is based on a new method and may guide to a new understanding of this important folk tradition.”

See  Heide’s book: “The Goddess and her Heros”, Part II, available for free on her website. 

Dr Heide Goettner-Abendroth  is a mother and a grandmother. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy of science at the University of Munich where she lectured for ten years (1973-1983). She has published on philosophy of science, and extensively on matriarchal society and culture, and through her lifelong research on matriarchal societies has become a founder of Modern Matriarchal Studies. Her magnum opus: Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Cultures across the Globe, (New York 2013, Peter Lang) defines scientifically this new field of knowledge and provides a world tour of examples of contemporary matriarchal cultures. She has been visiting professor at the University of Montreal in Canada, and the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She lectured extensively at home and abroad. In 1986, she founded the “International ACADEMY HAGIA for Matriarchal Studies” in Germany, and since then has been its director. She guided three World Congresses on Matriarchal Studies: 2003 in Luxembourg, 2005 in Texas, U.S., and 2011 in Switzerland. In 2012, she received ASWM’s Saga Award for Contributions to Women’s History and Culture. She was twice a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 2005 by a Swiss initiative, 2007 by a Finnish initiative.

(The Sterrett illustration is from Art Passions, an encyclopedic website of works by 19th and 20th century illustrators.)

Save these dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:

April 21 at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time
“Bringing The Civilization of the Goddess to Life in The Four Novels of The Earthsong Series”
Mary Mackey

May 5at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time
Title TBA: Paleolithic Animal Mysteries
Susan Moulton

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event. 

“Women’s Mythologies: Is mythology relevant today?”

with Tova Beck-Friedman

Wednesday, March 10, 2021 at 3 pm Eastern Standard Time

REGISTER HERE 

“Over the last decade, I have been gleaning legends from vast archives of ancient Biblical stories to Greek and Roman mythologies, recounting them as cine-poems. This presentation combines, art, poetry and video to illustrate the relevance of mythic stories of antiquity in present day society, in particular as it pertains to women’s social status. These cinepoetic videos are put in context of women’s selfhood, authority and strength.”

View Tova’s videos through the links below:

Medusa’s Head depicts a universal cultural narrative of blaming the victim, an ancient #metoo story.

Gaia Regards Her Children  laments the most pressing issue of our time, climate change.

Lot’s Wife & Jephthah’s Daughter draw from ancient Biblical myths to tell of women’s historical invisibility and insignificance.

Ashera, one of the most ancient of mother goddess symbols, laments the fate of the earth.

the Pythia – the powerful oracle of Delphi, the arbiter of wisdom.

Wisdom – “Hochma” the Hebrew goddess of wisdom gives account of women’s strength and power.

Tova Beck-Friedman is a mythological artist, filmmaker and a writer.  Presenting in festivals, museums, galleries and television, including the International Artists’ Museum; 50th Venice Biennale; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC; FIVAC, Cuba and Jerusalem Cinematheque.   Her documentary, “ At the Altar of Her Memories” was broadcast on Israeli Television, and “A  Portrait of the Artist as an Old(er) Woman” aired on PBS. She presented her works at the Women and Mythology East Coast Symposium in 2011.  See all of her work on her website.

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Save the dates for upcoming ASWM Salons:

March 24 at 3pm Eastern Daylight Time
“Sacred Stones and the Immanence of Life in the Alpine Folk Traditions”
Mary Beth Moser

April 7  at NOON Eastern Daylight Time
“Daughter of the Goddess, Sister of Man: Matriarchal Patterns in the International Fairy Tales”
Heide Goettner-Abendroth

April 21 at 3pm Eastern Standard Time
“Bringing The Civilization of the Goddess to Life in The Four Novels of The Earthsong Series”
Mary Mackey

The Salon recording will also be available to members after the event.