Friday  March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Encounters with the Wisdom of Iona’s Beach

with Carol Geisler and Janet Marinelli

An ancient beach called us to her pink volcanic rock shoreline on the shores of Lake Superior. We trust that long before this was named Iona’s beach, indigenous people felt the sentient nature of this place; its rocks, water and waves, sun and wind and fog, plants, and animals. A Finnish immigrant family ran a resort on the land where Iona Lind saw and felt the magic/mythic nature of the “singing” beach. Sixty years later, instead of selling the land, Iona wanted all people to be able to access the 11 acres; it is now a Scientific and Natural area free to all through the State of Minnesota. Iona’s beach communicates to those who listen and offers many lessons: historic, scientific, spiritual, archetypal, psychological, ecological and the presence of the divine feminine.

Iona’s beach presents paradoxes: Indigenous roots/colonization, science/spirituality, seriousness/playfulness, taking/giving, and harming/restoring. As guests on the beach, we experienced much beauty and joy, and we witnessed transgressions against the balance of nature and struggled with how to respond.

We’ll explore what it’s like to be called to a soul place, go on pilgrimage, enter a portal, and open to the awesome and unsettling messages that arrive. We will describe our own sacred, painful, and funny journeys with Iona’s beach, show whimsical photos of the magical stones, and invite you to reflect on your experiences with animal, plant, and earth intelligence and to remember the power of place and interconnectedness in our journeys.

Carol Geisler, Ph.D., Professor in the Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies at St. Catherine University. Carol’s life journey is one of integrating mind, body, spirit. She uses her experiences as a psychologist, nurse, researcher, holistic healer, ritualist, mother, and collaborator to inform her work in the world.

Janet Marinelli, M.S.,Assistant Professor in the Master of Arts in Holistic Health Studies at St. Catherine University. Janet enjoys working with students at the graduate level and in community workshops. Topics that form a foundation for her work include the creative arts, energy healing, spirituality, transformative learning, and circle process. An overarching theme of Janet’s work is transformation, and she deeply appreciates exploring with others on the journey.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

Friday  March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Getting It Off the Back Burner with Donna Giancola

This workshop is an open forum for participants to come together and discuss projects that have not yet come to fruition. Projects get stalled for many reasons and sometimes a new perspective can help an idea take form. By bringing together like minded individuals from a multiplicity of backgrounds participants can provide interdisciplinary approaches, insights and feedback, and enable each other to reconnect with their projects through a broadening of perspectives. Because of the free-flowing nature of this panel participants will not be required to submit presentations in advance. Participants will be expected to explain the what, why and how of their projects and to seek collaboration from the group in developing a vision for moving forward. Questions and comments can center around refining a thesis, changing mediums, doing outreach, re-defining parameters and utilizing alternative methods, etc. Topics can range from anything under the sun related to our shared endeavors and will cover a wide variety of genres including papers, poetry, art, multimedia, and spiritual activist projects, etc.

The purpose of this panel is to empower each other in our approaches to our creative work. The benefit of an open forum is that it does not rely on work that is already done, but rather engages all of us in what we can do in the future. While each of our individual work is unique, by sharing our ideas and experiences we can work and support each other as a community and validate the interconnections that brought us together.

Women and Magick is the title of a paper I have delivered at several conferences and would like to expand on it into a book proposal. My problem is that there is so much glamour surrounding this topic. I believe a fresh approach to an ancient practice is necessary. Discussing it with a group of engaged like minded women could spark a creative perspective for teasing out the substance and presenting material in a fresh way. As moderator for this panel I hope this discussion could set the tone for others to contribute their work and where they would like to go with it.

There are no formal presenters for this panel.It is my intention that participants will join as part of an on-going dialogue during the conference without the need for preparation. My goal is to promote spontaneous discussions of our work in an informal setting (perhaps while having tea). Conferences can be overwhelmingly structured and this informal format can provide an opportunity to anyone wishing to simply share their ideas.

Dr. Donna M. Giancola is an associate professor of Philosophy and director of Religious Studies at Suffolk University in Boston. Her latest book, In the Name of the Goddess: A Biophilic Ethic, is an ecofeminist call for conscious action and revolutionary thinking. She has written numerous articles on comparative religion and philosophy, feminism and eco-feminism, and has lectured extensively in national and international forums from Boston and Hawaii to Oxford, England New Delhi, India, and Bangkok, Thailand. She has also co-authored, a philosophy textbook, World Ethics,(Wadsworth) and an eco-feminist novel, Her Underground, (Solstice Publishers). Currently, she divides her time between teaching Philosophy in Boston and conjuring and writing in St. Augustine Beach FL.
In spite of her sunny disposition and attempts at being inspirational, she has been known to have an irreverent word or two to say. Lately, she has gotten her days and nights confused, insists that there is no path to hell, and that the Earth is already in Heaven. Her old English sheepdog is strangely happy. Other projects she is crafting include in a Goddess Ritual book, and a new novel.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

Friday  March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Goddess Creativity in Action:  Ritual Theater Creation & Performance

with Annie Finch

This collaborative group will interweave our Goddess Creativity into an interactive ritual theater performance to share with the full conference on Saturday evening. All who are ready to contribute your gifts of music, song, poetry, art, masks, dance, acting, theater production, puppetry, stagecraft, ritual, etc.—or who are simply drawn somehow to help manifest this magical event—are warmly invited to join us.

Please come ready to create; after a very brief introduction to the principles and practices that distinguish Goddess Creativity from patriarchal notions of creativity, we will dive right in to embody them together.

Special notes:  1. Full participation in this gathering means a commitment to support and/or participate in Saturday night’s performance. We may also decide by consensus to rehearse in between. You don’t need to commit to this before our meeting, but please be aware!  2. If you do intend to participate, please bring with you to this meeting any and all musical instruments, recordings, decorations, props, costumes, sacred items, etc. that you feel inspired to bring (if you need to choose colors, please choose RED things). 3. Finally: Annie has an exciting idea for an overall theme but doesn’t want to spoil it for our Saturday night audience by publishing it here:)  So, if you want to be invited to a zoom to discuss this idea in advance, making it easier to plan what to bring along, please email Annie asap through her website anniefinch.com/contact.

Annie Finch is poet, writer, speaker, teacher, and ritual performer. Her books include seven poetry collections, poetry translation, verse drama, prosody, the poetry-writing textbook A Poet’s Craft, and the anthology Choice Words: Writers on Abortion.  She earned a Ph.D from Stanford University and her work has been recognized with the Sarasvati and Robert Fitzgerald Awards. Founder of Poetry Witch Ritual Theater, she collaborates frequently with music, theater, and dance. 

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.

Friday  March 28, 2025, Westward Look Inn, Tucson AZ

Shipibo Plant Dietas – Learning through Internal Relations with Plant Spirits

This presentation will share mythical and practical ecopsychological fieldwork of plant dietas and the liminal space where spiritual connections manifest. The Shipibo sacred plant dieta is an agreement with a plant spirit to develop a spiritual connection. As the dieta progresses, this connection strengthens, transforming into a profound bond, an alliance between the dieter and the plant spirit. Through this sentient friendship of the dieta process, practitioners gain insight, healing, and knowledge, building a relationship with the plant spirit that enhances their path in traditional plant medicine. Participants will have a preliminary understanding of the transcendental overlap of human and plant species in this ancient tradition.

Dawn Johnson Harvey is a PhD student in East-West Ecopsychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She also holds a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy and provides trauma-informed narrative therapy. Her dissertation explores the decolonization of the self in community groups through ethnoautobiography, a process of reawakening ancestral values and reconnection to the integral earth community.

Read all about the ASWM Conference and register  here.