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. In more than thirty years of experience, my students and I have gained valuable… Read More ›
Swan glides gracefully across the mirror-like surface of the lake, stirring sensibilities of purity, loyalty and love in our hearts. Her long, curved, delicate neck reflects in the water as gentle ripples spread out behind her. Swan evokes feelings of… Read More ›
Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. When the Amazons land in the capital city, they find themselves standing on the wide lawn in front of the Golden Tower in which El Presidente lives and rules. And look—El Presidente… Read More ›
Fox, as a member of the Canidae family, is related to wolves, jackals and dogs. But unlike these animals who hunt in packs, fox hunts alone. Fox is intelligent, clever and cunning. While it is persistent, fox is gentler and… Read More ›
Continued from Part 2 The magical school bus, carrying twenty-seven young women, drives across two or three states almost as quickly as the magic carpet flew a few days ago. The bus seems to fly, guided by Bunbury and Icarus… Read More ›
Continued from Part 1. “Mirror, mirror, on the table, Show us all that you are able…” The witch and her ad hoc coven and the ravens are leaning forward to see and hear more clearly what the mirror is showing… Read More ›
…and Ella can’t remember the last real meal she had. After supper with the refugees in the witch’s house, she and the witch put their heads together to begin making significant plans. She’s also been meeting all the refugees who… Read More ›
The horse was first depicted in art about 32,000 years ago on the cave walls of southern France and northern Spain. Though archeologists disagree as to whether the paintings are realistic depictions or symbolic markings, many concur that they are both…. Read More ›
The handsome but uncharming prince having been magicked, the witch and her coconspirators know it’s time to focus on finding Ella. The witch looks around the table. “Mrs. Janedoe and Mrs. Worthington,” she says, “you are two of our most… Read More ›
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 ›
I spent the winter holidays in Rio de Janeiro with my sister. It was wonderful to experience the warmth of both the Brazilian people and summer in the Southern Hemisphere but a little odd to miss the quiet, dark time… Read More ›
A year, now. It has been a full year since the phony election that put El Presidente in the Golden Office. A year since people began leaving the capital and the nation’s other large cities. While some of the refugees… Read More ›
On a trip to Ireland several years ago, I was fortunate to have been able to see the Sheela-na-gigs in the National Museum of Dublin. Two of these Sheelas including the one removed from the Seir Kieran Church of County… Read More ›
Today I am finishing the last bit of the honey I hand-carried home from my most recent trip to Trentino. Sun yellow in color, it is made from the nectar of mountain flowers. Its label tells its origin—di montagna, of… Read More ›
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 ›
This year the summer solstice occurs on Tuesday, June 20 in the Northern Hemisphere. (In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the winter solstice and it occurs on June 21.) For us in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice is the longest… Read More ›
Magic, divine intervention, shapeshifting – what do these things offer the modern mind, concerned with time clocks, definitive proofs and skeptical disbelief? Yet to the ancients, shapeshifting was a well known tale, found in stories and mythologies across the world.
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is the day of the least daylight and the longest night. Long before Christmas our Northern European ancestors celebrated the Winter Solstice, the moment that heralds the return of the sun and with it… Read More ›
Pendle Hill, seen from the back of my house, in May. The Soul of Gaia is the numinous earth beneath my feet, her soil cradling the bones and the stories of the ancestors who have died into the land… Read More ›
What is the preserving shrine? Níansa (not hard). The preserving shrine is memory and what is preserved in it. What is the preserving shrine? Níansa. The preserving shrine is Nature and what is preserved in it. —Senchas Mór, Ireland In… Read More ›
Hey, diddle, diddle The cat and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon. The little dog laughed to see such sport And the dish ran away with the spoon! From her lips to our ears. What is this? Maybe… Read More ›
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again. From her mouth to our ears. You see that kid sitting over there on… Read More ›
Arduinna, Gaulish Goddess of Forests and Hunting is one of the many Celtic Goddesses who is associated with a particular region or body of water. She was worshipped in the heavily forested regions of the Ardennes, located in what is… Read More ›
Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard To get her poor dog a bone; But when she came there The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none. From her lips to our ears. Ya wanna know why… Read More ›
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston In my previous two posts, I’ve discussed the wisdom that can be found in black women’s literature. Continuing this series,… Read More ›
Perdita was in a panic. She looked this way and that, but all she saw was a towering pile of straw. She sat down to breathe deeply and think deeply. While she was breathing and thinking, the little man held… Read More ›
In a land not too far away there once lived a widow who was so poor and who worked so hard day and night to make a bare living that she had almost no time to teach her daughter the… Read More ›
In today’s blog, I offer an excerpt from A Serpentine Path: Mysteries of the Goddess. The setting is Zaros, Crete, the time of year is mid-October. We had a scrumptious dinner of fresh fish, salad, fried potatoes, local amber-colored wine,… Read More ›
(Note: this story was inspired by a blog written by Carol P. Christ. But she’s not responsible for the nonsense I write.) Once upon a time there was a woman named Carol who lived in the largest house on the… Read More ›
I was trying not to fidget as I sat on the hard, unforgiving walnut pew. It was a gorgeous summer day out, and I was locked inside breathing stale air and with nothing to look at but the dreary speaker,… Read More ›
