PAST PRESENTATIONS

May 5th/98
Judy Grahn, Author of Another Mother Tongue and Blood, Bread, and Roses will illustrate her metaformic theory that women's menstrual celebrations created goddess ritual. She will be showing a recently filmed video of a gorgeous menarche ritual from Kerala, India. Video, discussion, movement.

May 12th/98
Lucia Birnbaum — "Rock art, the dark mother, and African origins of world religions" Author of Black Madonnas, Lucia traces the signs, icons and images of the dark mother out of Africa to the Sinai and into Europe and Asia. Focusing on the case of Har Karkom in the Sinai, Lucia will explore the origins of world religions in the dark ochre of cave paintings of Africa 900,000 years ago, to the incised megaliths leading to the Mountain of God 40,000 B.C. E. in the Sinai (west Asia) where Africans migrated, to figurines of the dark mother found all along paths of African migrations into Spain, France, Italy, central and eastern Europe, icons dated ca. 26,000 B.C.E. to the triangular pubic shaped ochre red divinities painted on the walls of Cava dei Genovesi in the Egani Islands dated 15,000 B.C.E., veneration of Isis at Philae in Africa, to black madonnas and other dark women divinities of the common era. Slides, lecture and movement.

May 19th/98
Betty Meador — "The Temple Hymns of Enheduanna" The Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna wrote a series of 42 hymns to various temples throughout Mesopotamia. The hymns are a precious repository of the ancient female religion from the hand of the first author of record. Recently translated by Betty Meador, Jungian psychologist and author of Uncursing the Dark, through the hymns we will explore the religion's most sacred place, the dark interior of the holy of holies, where "even the light of the moon does not penetrate."

May 26th/98
Joan Marler — "The Temples of Malta and the Megalithic Traditions of Western Europe" The temples of Malta, dating from the fourth millennium, B.C. are the oldest freestanding megalithic monuments in the world. Since their discovery, there has been a great deal of bizarre speculation as well as reputable research concerning their origin, construction and ritual function within prehistoric Maltese society. The lavishly illustrated slide lecture will introduce the most important Maltese temples and trace their development from the earliest prototypes of rock-cut tombs to the full flowering of Maltese culture. Joan Marler teaches and lectures locally and internationally on the art and culture of Neolithic Europe and Anatolia and is editor of In the Realm of the Ancestors: an Anthology in Honor of Marija Gimbutas. Slides, lecture, discussion.

June 2nd/98
Peggy Grove — "Rock Art and Religion as Women's Body" The origins of religion in Australia which are found in the forms and functions of the female body, will be explored through the Song Cycles of the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land. Researcher on Rock Art around the world, Peggy is presenting slides of caves and cliffs in Australia and South Africa, including newly discovered sites depicting women. Slides, lecture, movement.

June 9th/98
Vicki Noble — "Amazons"- The Amazons that Herodotus wrote about in the late 5th century B.C. were not a myth, but a living part of the remnants of ancient Goddess cultures still in active existence during the classical period, and whose Goddess—Artemis of the Thousand Breasts, worshipped at Ephesus, one of many towns in Anatolia founded by the Amazon Queens in the Bronze Age-was the center of a mystery religion that involved thousands of people making offerings at the famous temple that was one of the seven wonders of the world. Recently Vicki Noble, co-creator of Motherpeace Tarot with Karen Vogel and author of many books including Shakti Woman, traveled with archeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball to visit museums and view archival collections in southern Russia where the ancient Amazons are buried. These female graves included both warriors and priestesses and provide an illuminating look into the phenomenon of females ruling in "dual queenship" and women fighting back at the end of the first millenium BCE. Slides of Amazon burial sites in Russia, lecture.

June 16th/98
"Women's Lives in Ancient Santorini" — Peggy Lynn will present material from her doctoral research on the roles of women in the religious life of Bronze Age Akrotiri, as depicted in the recently discovered beautiful wall-paintings from the Greek island of Santorini. The breath taking Mistress of Animals and The Young Priestess are just two of the murals that celebrate the Goddess-centered religion of this peaceful, egalitarian civilization. Slides/lecture/movement.

June 23rd/98
Dianne Jenett — "Serpents and the Sacred Groves of Kerala, India" - an ancient but living tradition. Nagas, as serpents are called in Kerala, are worshipped in every temple as well as in the sacred groves that until recently were part of every family home. This cultural and spiritual tradition connects people to the land and women to their oracular power. Dianne Jenett has done field work for the past five years in Kerala visiting snake temples, interviewing women, and filming rituals.   Video, stories and movement.

June 30th/98
Tonight our series will close with a ritual of homecoming guided by Jalaja Bonheim, therapist and ritualist, and author of  Aphrodite's Daughters: Women's Sexual Stories and the Journey of the Soul and Goddess: A Celebration in Art and Literature. "Home," she explains, "is both an external and internal place. Externally, home is the space within which our being unfolds. Internally, home is a state of consciousness in which we realize our identity with the goddess. By invoking the goddess as home we can heal our sense of geographic and spiritual rootlessness.

September 8th/98
“A story: some women at the Goddess Exchange...” Willow LaMonte, founder and editor of “Goddessing Regenerated” an international, multicultural, feminist newspaper of goddess expression. Willow will perform a piece on international goddesses in time and space. And, “Moving With the Goddess” embodied group movement and sounding to slides of Goddess figures to experience being goddessed! Discussion of the international women's spirituality movement.

September 15th/98
“Art, the Sacred Feminine and Social Activism” Elinor Gadon-art historian, founder of the Women's Spirituality program at CIIS and author of “Once and Future Goddess”. Lecture, slides.

September 22nd/98
"Cooking up Equality" Values of a living goddess culture seen through a Kerala, India ritual of cooking porridge-Dianne Jenett and Judy Grahn. Lecture and discussion, video, cooking metaforms.

September 29th/98
"Moving Between the Worlds: Movement practice as social justice work" Louise Pare teaches movement as a spiritual practice and will present her work with women in the Ukraine. Lecture, gentle movement, slides.

October 6th/98
"Women-honoring Tapestry" Author of "Rise up and Call Her Name", Elizabeth Fisher intertwines evidence of goddesses from ancient Anatolia, stories from contemporary multi-cultural spiritual practices honoring the divine female, and examples of women's international activism into an on-going vision of global social justice. Lecture, slides, reflective discussion.

October 13th/98
"Claiming the Dark Mother: the Re-emergence of the Black
Madonna"- Author of "The Bond Between Women: a Journey of Fierce Compassion" China Galland presents an evening of altar building, meditation, movement, slides, discussion, and song.

October 20th/98
"Wise Hands: Artmaking as a Source of Mythic Understanding"-
Rose Frances, visual artist and founder of the Women's Spirituality Master's Program at New College. Hands on art, slides.

October 27th/98
"The Goddess and Women's Global Issues"- Photojournalist and artist/photographer Catherine Allport speaks of her relationship to the Goddess as she documented international women's issues, including the Fourth Conference in Beijing.  Stories, slides.

November 10th/98
"Spiritual Approachs to Social Action" Members of spirituality programs share their experiences of working with disenfranchised women and girls. Lecture, video, experiential.

November 17th/98
"The Fates" Z. Budapest, author and Wicca priestess explores the three Wyrd Sisters and sets Fate dates from her best work yet, "Summoning the Fates". Lecture, ritual, dessert pot luck.