9/8 - Singing in the Body of the Mother, Praises of Devotion for her World: A Musical Journey with Jennifer Berezan to Malta and Beyond
Jennifer Berezan offers an evening of words and music detailing her 20 years of involvement in the women’s Spirituality World. She will share stories of her trips to Malta and the recording of “Returning” in one of the world’s oldest Goddess temples there. Jennifer will play some of the raw recordings from the sessions in the Hypogeum in Malta.
The evening will include songs and chants and a discussion of her other works that feature devotional pieces to the world and recurring expressions of the Asian Goddesses Quan Yin and Tara.
Bio: Jennifer Berezan is a unique blend of singer/songwriter, teacher, and activist. Over the course of eight albums, she has developed and explored recurring themes with a rare wisdom. Her lifelong involvement in environmental, women’s, and other justice movements as well as an interest in Buddhism and earth based spirituality are at the heart of her writing. Her ground breaking work as a recording artist and teacher has established her as a leading voice in the field of music and healing and she is an acclaimed producer of large scale multi-cultural ecstatic musical events. She teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the department of Philosophy and Religion. Her on-going class (since 1997) is entitled “the Healing Ecstasy of Sound” and explores music as a spiritual practice from a wide range of cross cultural, traditional and contemporary perspectives.
9/22 - Wiccan Harvest Festival of Mabon: A Celebration of the Fruits of this Year's Harvest with Kate and Jim Wolf-Pizor
10/6 - Exploring Trans-patriarchal Reality through the Study of Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, and Magoism with Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D.
Mago is a yet-to-be-known Goddess of East Asia. Intrigued by the overt female principle embodied in the Budoji (Epic of the Emblem City), the principal text of Magoism, I sought out a larger corpus of Mago literature. Soon I was able to document a plethora of primary sources including in myths, folklore, toponyms, poems, sagas, paintings, and religious and historical records as well as the Handan Gogi (Archaic Histories of Han and Dan) from Korea, China, and Japan. In analyzing and interpreting them, I have encountered an organic structure that holds together these otherwise seemingly isolated data and named it Magoism. Magoism refers to an archaically originated gynocentric tradition of East Asia that venerates Mago as supreme divine and political authority. Central themes of Magoism to be presented include: My Korean/East Asian Identity and Gynocentrism; Exposition of Transnational Primary Data, Exploring untold Cultural and Conceptual Underpinnings; Cosmic Music as Creative Power; Realizing Cross-cultural Gynocentric Unity in Magoism, and/or others.
Bio: Helen Hye-Sook Hwang, Ph.D. is originally from Korea and has rich boundary-crossing experiences. She is now fiercely en route to her Final Cause by way of her research of Magoism, which she defines a trans-patriarchal gynocentric tradition of East Asia that venerates Mago as cosmogonist, progenitor, and ultimate sovereign. For her Ph.D. dissertation, she documented and interpreted a rich corpus of yet-to-be-known transnational primary sources pertaining to Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia, from Korea, China, and Japan.
Since then, she has sought to deepen and apply her Magoist research in a larger context. Her articles include: “Issues in Studying Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia: Primary Sources, Gynocentric History, and Nationalism” in The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia, “Female Principle in the Magoist Cosmogony” in Ochre Journal of Women’s Spirituality, “Returning Home with Mago, the Great Goddess of East Asia” in Trivia: Voices of Feminism. Hwang earned MA and Ph.D. degrees in Women’s Studies in Religion from Claremont Graduate University (2005). She is currently enrolled in UCLA’s East Asian Studies program for her second MA, while teaching online courses for Religious Studies and Women’s Studies in University of Central Missouri as well as writing further on Magoism.
10/20 - Circling San Francisco Bay: Exploring the Body of the Mother with Virginia Anderson, Ph.D.
On the bluffs above the Golden Gate, feel the breath of the Mother as the wind blows from the ocean and touches your skin. Walking on paths through steep ravines and into the forests, feel the contours of Her body beneath your footsteps. Dipping your feet into the Pacific, into streams on the shoulders of the mountains, feel the blood of Mother Earth. Watching the flight of birds, dancing with your Sisters, let the fire of her Divine Spirit impassion your life.
Join Ginny Anderson to see photographs and hear stories of exploration through journeys around San Francisco Bay. Learn how to explore the Body of the Mother, how to open to the Spirit of the uniquely beautiful world that surrounds us, how to be in dialogue with Nature.
Bio: Ginny Anderson, Ph.D., has been a shamanic practitioner for over 25 years. She has worked in the high mountains of the Andes with Q’ero shamans, with Americo Yabar, Juan Nunez del Prado, and Alberto Villoldo. Her women’s group pursues personal and community issues through myth and ritual, and has introduced numerous others to the practices of feminist spirituality. Her recent book, Circling San Francisco Bay: A Pilgrimage to Wild and Sacred Places, provides a guide to sacred sites surrounding San Francisco Bay, where she weaves threads of indigenous knowledge with contemporary California life. She helps people deepen their relationships with nature and explores the interface between spirituality, nature, and belonging to community. A licensed psychologist, Ginny received her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She's worked at U.C. Davis, Stanford, and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She's taught and led groups in shamanism, feminist spirituality, and women's issues, and works with people at sacred sites for individual transformation.
9/8 - Singing in the Body of the Mother, Praises of Devotion for her World: A Musical Journey with Jennifer Berezan to Malta and Beyond
10/6 - 
