Author Archives

Laura Shannon has been researching and teaching traditional women’s ritual dances since 1987. She is considered one of the ‘grandmothers’ of the worldwide Sacred / Circle Dance movement and gives workshops in over twenty countries worldwide. Laura holds an honours degree in Intercultural Studies (1986) and a diploma in Dance Movement Therapy (1990). She has also dedicated much time to primary research in Balkan and Greek villages, learning songs, dances, rituals and textile patterns which have been passed down for many generations, and which embody an age-old worldview of sustainability, community, and reverence for the earth. Laura’s essay ‘Women’s Ritual Dances: An Ancient Source of Healing in Our Times’, was published in Dancing on the Earth. Also a musician, Laura performs throughout Europe and in the USA with her partner Kostantis Kourmadias.

• Opening Our Hearts Through Armenian Dance by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on February 3, 2018 • ( 23 )

  

  In these challenging times, one of the hardest things to do is to keep our hearts open. Grief and despair tend to shut them down. And even among close friends, colleagues, family members, and people with whom we share worship,… Read More ›

• Rest and Renewal: Gifts of Women’s Ritual Dance by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on November 4, 2017 • ( 11 )

  

   Samhain is past, and we in the northern hemisphere are once again entering the final outbreath of the solar year. At the winter solstice, light will be reborn. Until then, it is important to embrace the time of rest and… Read More ›

• Kafemanteia: Women Reading the Coffee Cup by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on August 5, 2017 • ( 13 )

  

  In my lifetime of researching women’s ritual dances in Greece and the Balkans, I have often come across related practices of divination or healing. One of these is the custom of coffee divination, the art of interpreting patterns in the… Read More ›

• Medusa and Athena: Ancient Allies in Healing Women’s Trauma by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on June 24, 2017 • ( 5 )

  

  ‘Rather than being a bleeding image of female disempowerment, Medusa may be read as…one of the most ancient European symbols of women’s spiritual abilities… [and] an empowering image of feminine potential.’ –Patricia Monaghan, O Mother Sun! (1994:244) The name Medusa… Read More ›

• The Tree of Life and the Forest of Friendship: Circle Dance to Restore our Hope by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on May 6, 2017 • ( 15 )

  

  Yes, times are tough. But a better understanding of our interconnectedness can help us move beyond the cynicism, frustration, and despair we may be feeling in the modern world. A closer look at trees, and at women’s traditional circle dances,… Read More ›

• Feminists of Faith, It Is Time to Light Our Lamps by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on February 4, 2017 • ( 17 )

  

  Last Saturday morning I boarded a plane at London’s Heathrow Airport. During the ten-hour flight to Miami, I got up several times to ease my back and stretch my legs, observing my fellow passengers with interest and curiosity. I chatted… Read More ›

• Shared Leadership: The Hidden Treasure of Women’s Ritual Dance by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on November 1, 2016 • ( 14 )

  

  Traditional women’s dances of Greece, the Balkans and the Near East come from cultures which have survived countless periods of upheaval, and teach skills which can help us through difficult times. I see their gifts as a precious inheritance from the ancestors,… Read More ›

• Women’s Ritual Dances: Secret Language of the Goddess by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on August 6, 2016 • ( 25 )

  

  My life’s work with traditional women’s circle dances of Eastern Europe and the Near East has been a natural interweaving of feminism, activism and Goddess spirituality. I would like to share how I came to discover these dances and their… Read More ›

• Dance of Persephone: The Trata of Megara by Laura Shannon 

  By Laura Shannon on May 7, 2016 • ( 18 )

  

  In a previous post on FAR I explored Greek Easter customs which interweave Christian and pre-Christian beliefs.  Today I would like to take a closer look at one of these customs, the women’s ritual dance known as Tráta, ceremonially performed on ‘Bright Tuesday,’… Read More ›

• Easter, West and East by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on April 2, 2016 • ( 18 )

  

  Western Easter has come and gone, and I missed it this year, by design. I went to Athens for the weekend, where Easter this year won’t come until May 1. In the Greek Orthodox Church, Easter is reckoned differently, so that… Read More ›

• The Goddess Mokosh by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on February 6, 2016 • ( 17 )

  

  Candlemas / Imbolc, the midway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox brings with it (in the northern hemisphere) the first signs of awakening spring. Here in Canterbury, southeast England, where I am living this year, the birds are… Read More ›

• Lighting Our Candles, We Dance into the Dark by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on November 7, 2015 • ( 8 )

  

  Here in the northern hemisphere, these weeks between Samhain and the winter solstice bring us into the darkest time of the year.  In my dance circles, this is my favourite time for candle dances, whose gentle light guides us when… Read More ›

• The Unelected and Unaccountable Men Who Decide Our Fate by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on August 1, 2015 • ( 9 )

  

  In Greek myth, the Fates, the Moirai, are three sisters – Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos –  who spin, measure and cut the thread of life for every person born. Their rule is law; even the gods, so the legend has it, have… Read More ›

• The Greek Crisis: Grandparents on the Table? by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on June 30, 2015 • ( 12 )

  

  In a previous article, I have described the devastating consequences of five years of austerity in Greece: soaring poverty, hunger, unemployment, infant mortality, pensioner deaths, malnourishment, sickness, and suicide. Unemployment has exploded to over 25%, nearly 60% for young people…. Read More ›

• The Dance of Memory, Part 2: The Wishing Tree Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on May 2, 2015 • ( 6 )

  

  Now is the time of Beltane, the great festival celebrating life and fertility. Last week, on April 24th, in my post The Dance of Memory I wrote about the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, and invited everyone to join in this worldwide… Read More ›

• The Dance of Memory: Commemorating the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide

  By Laura Shannon on April 24, 2015 • ( 15 )

  

  Friday, April 24, 2015 marks one hundred years since the start of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. In my dance workshop last Sunday in Somerset, England, we lit candles to the exquisite voice of the great Armenian soprano Lusine Zakarian,… Read More ›

• All We Are Saying Is Give Greece a Chance by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on February 15, 2015 • ( 12 )

  

  Ten years ago, I went to live in Greece. I knew I would love living in a culture where everyone dances, and so it turned out. I also loved the generosity, hospitality, connection, mutual support, and positivity embodied by the… Read More ›

• Twelfth Night: Men’s Dance Rituals in Northern Greece by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on January 8, 2015 • ( 12 )

  

  The twelve days between Christmas and the New Year are still held to be holy days in Greece, a mystical and dangerous time when mischievous spirits emerge from the underworld, seeking to wreak havoc in the human realm. On the 6th… Read More ›

• Dancing Daughters of the Living Goddess by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on December 22, 2014 • ( 13 )

  

  A lifetime of research has convinced me that the women’s ritual dances and costumes of Greece are living remnants of ancient Old European Goddess traditions.  In previous posts on FAR I have written about these dances and embroideries, as well… Read More ›

• Serpent Healing by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on October 28, 2014 • ( 26 )

  

  Snakes have been considered sacred in Greece and the Balkans, as well as other cultures, since at least 7000 BCE. They are symbols of rebirth and regeneration, as they travel between our world and the world below, disappear and re-emerge… Read More ›

• Tis Babos: The Dance of the One Who Gives Life by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on June 2, 2014 • ( 22 )

  

  The one who gives life, the one who gives birth: this was the original image of the Creator. Not God but the Goddess, both mother and midwife to the world. Throughout Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and beyond, Goddess… Read More ›

• Women’s Ritual Dances: The Dancing Priestess of the Living Goddess by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on March 25, 2014 • ( 18 )

  

  Kyria Loulouda calls to her sister to help her wind the yards of woven girdle around and around my waist. Kyria Stella’s aged fingers, still strong, tuck the sash ends in tightly, smoothing down the fabric she and Loulouda wove… Read More ›

• Women’s Ritual Dances and My Journey to Healing by Laura Shannon

  By Laura Shannon on January 31, 2014 • ( 42 )

  

  Since 1985, I have been researching Balkan folk dances and teaching them in women’s circles all over the world. Common symbols in dance patterns, textile motifs and archaeological artifacts from southeastern Europe have remained the same from ancient times to… Read More ›