Author: Laura Shannon

Laura Shannon has been researching and teaching traditional women’s ritual dances since 1987, and is considered one of the ‘grandmothers’ of the worldwide Sacred / Circle Dance movement. She holds a BA in Intercultural Studies (1986), a postgraduate Diploma in Dance Movement Therapy (1990), an MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred (2020), and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Gloucestershire. Since 1998 she has been on the faculty of the Sacred Dance Department at the Findhorn ecological community in Scotland. Laura has carried out pioneering primary research in many Balkan and Greek villages, learning traditional women's songs, dances, rituals and textile patterns which embody an age-old worldview of sustainability, community, and reverence for the earth. She is Founding Director of the German-based nonprofit Athena Institute for Women’s Dance and Culture; Director since 2021 of the Ariadne Institute for the Study of Myth and Ritual, to preserve Carol P. Christ's literary legacy and continue the Goddess Pilgrimage on Crete; and in 2018 was made an Honorary Lifetime Member of the Sacred Dance Guild in recognition of her 'significant and lasting contribution to dance as a sacred art'. Many of Laura's essays, articles and book chapters can be found at https://uniog.academia.edu/LauraShannon. Also a musician, Laura performs and records internationally with her husband Kostantis Kourmadias and others. She lives in Greece and the UK.

Serpent Healing by Laura Shannon

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 from the earth in spring, and shed their skins in seasonal renewal.

The Cretan Snake Goddess from Knossos (ca 1600 BCE) stands serenely with serpents wrapped around her body, showing how snakes were considered benevolent and were revered, not feared. Snakes are also powerful symbols of healing. Recently, I had an extraordinary experience of ‘serpent healing’ after a serious injury.

Friends of mine run a yoga retreat centre in Mani, Greece, called The Spirit of Life, where their son keeps a number of snakes including a beautiful Royal Python named Monty. Monty and I have met on several occasions over the years, and whenever I have spent time holding him, I have felt a sense of great peace and calm. More than that, Monty has shown an uncanny ability to move directly to places of tension in my shoulders, and to gently yet firmly massage sore muscles in a soothing way.

Therefore, on a recent visit, I decided to let Monty go wherever he wanted, just to see where he might choose to move. I had had quite a bad fall from my bicycle several weeks before, resulting in multiple injuries, to my back and to my right elbow, hand, rib, shoulder, calf and foot. Continue reading “Serpent Healing by Laura Shannon”

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

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 worship laid the foundation for European culture. Thousands of years later, a deep reverence for the woman who gives life – the midwife – survives in Greek and Balkan dance rituals which still echo from the distant past.1

The mamí (from mámmo, grandmother) or bábo (old woman) was a respected woman, usually older, with the wisdom and experience of age. The midwife is publicly honoured on Midwivesʼ Day, January 8th. Known as Babinden in Bulgaria, Tis Babos in Greece, this women-only celebration is an important holiday in Bulgaria and in numerous villages of displaced Thracians now relocated in Greek Macedonia. One such village is Kitros, whose inhabitants originally came from Bana, on the Black Sea coast of northern Thrace (today Bulgaria). A hundred years have passed since they left, but the womenʼs festive costumes still indicate their old Bana neighbourhoods; traditional foods, songs, dance, and other customs are kept alive despite decades of brutal loss and change. Continue reading “Tis Babos: The Dance of the One Who Gives Life by Laura Shannon”

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

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 themselves. The snug embrace of the sash supports my back and encourages me to stand proudly upright. As they help me with the intricate tucks and pleats of the festival dress, and the careful tying of the flowered headscarf, I see their tired, careworn faces come alight with joy and expectation. When they are satisfied, they turn me towards the mirror, smiling.

We gaze at ourselves, a row of three women, dressed alike. Like the butterflies embroidered in bright silks on the dark cloth of the bodice, we too are transformed. The food is prepared, the housework is done, the animals taken care of for the night; the other women await us in the square where, by tradition, they will open the dance with their own singing as they have done countless times throughout their lives. We are in the village of Pentalofos in Greek Thrace in the early twenty-first century, living a timeless scene which has been repeated through the generations for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Continue reading “Women’s Ritual Dances: The Dancing Priestess of the Living Goddess by Laura Shannon”

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

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 the present, which leads me to suggest that the dances may be descended from ritual practices dating back to Neolithic times. In my view, these patterns serve as a symbolic language, expressing reverence for the cycle of life. Emphasizing connectedness and continuity, homecoming and support, women’s ritual dances can rekindle ancient values of sustainability, empathy and equality, and provide an antidote to the alienation of self which is epidemic in the western world. In nearly thirty years of teaching, I have found that women all over the world respond to these dances as valuable tools for healing and self-discovery. Continue reading “Women’s Ritual Dances and My Journey to Healing by Laura Shannon”