| Wednesday, April 9, 2008 |  |
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9 Apr 2008 @ 00:35
The newly forming Association for the Study of Women and Mythology is conducting a symposium for goddess scholars on Thursday, May 15, 2008, in Madison WI. We welcome presentations from independent as well as academic scholars, artists, and writers. We will share presentations about current work and identify resources of all types. There will be a nominal fee for the symposium, with proceeds going toward the development of our web site. For more information or to sign up, contact Sid Reger, Ed. D: goldcrow47@comcast.net
The symposium will be held from 9 AM to 5 PM at the Alicia Ashman Library, 733 N High Point Rd, Madison, WI (608) 824-1780
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| Thursday, February 21, 2008 | |
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 21 Feb 2008 @ 01:20
Thanks to Genevieve Vaughan and Heide Goettner-Abendroth for drafting and circulating this pledge:
Here is a pledge against racism in the Goddess Community. If you want to add your name please click below or e mail me genvau@aol.com. Please also send the pledge on to others.
If you prefer you can also just print it out and sign it personally, as an agreement with your own spirit.
We will send the pledge with signatures to Goddess publications and events.
Please let me know your comments or suggestions.
Blessed Be
Gen
Pledge of the Goddess Community on Racism
As a member of the group of human beings who honor the present and past images of female divinity, I pledge to include in Goddess conferences the indigenous people of the locality or territory where conferences are held, and to reference and honor their deities. That is, I myself will make every effort to invite speakers and participants of the people indigenous to the area and of other ethnic groups. If I am not an organizer of the event myself I will work to ensure that the organizers invite them. Given the economic injustice in our society, I will promote special stipends for speakers of color and sliding scale or free access to conferences for any participants of color or other participants who may be economically oppressed.
The multiplicity of the Goddess is expressed in the variety of humanity and in the many kinds of ritual and worship. Racism dishonors the Goddess(es).
Signed in good faith
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| Monday, January 28, 2008 | |
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| Tuesday, December 4, 2007 | |
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4 Dec 2007 @ 22:40
Free Range's biggest movie release of the year, will take you on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture — from resource extraction to iPod incinerationn — exposing the real costs of our use-it and lose-it approach to stuff.
Check it out here The movie is just the beginning of the story. Watch it, send it to friends, learn more on the interactive website, get involved in an organization and follow along on Annie Leonard's inspiring blog.
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| Monday, November 26, 2007 | |
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26 Nov 2007 @ 19:53
TBP will be on hiatus until the corporation status and financial problems have been resolved. I am currently not accepting any new subscriptions or submissions until this is straightened out. If you would really like to help TBP, BUY BACK ISSUES!! I have two storage spaces full of them! Even if you have a set, buy some for someone else for Christmas! Buy some to donate to your local library (could be tax deductable). Buy something from our [link]!If you don't see an item or cover you would like - let me know and I will make it.
Current Subscribers: You have three choices. I can issue you a pro-rated refund. You can donate what's left of your subscription so I don't have to issue refunds out of my own pocket, or you can wait it out and your subscription can start back up if the magazine does. You can contact me at editor@thebeltanepapers.net to let me know what you want to do.
OTHER KINDS OF HELP
Corporation Officers: TBP needs at least three corporation officers to continue the corporation that exists or to create a new corporation. This time the corporation officers need to be involved in TBP, not just a name on a paper. I would prefer people with non-profit corporation experience, but any corporation experience would be good.
Money: TBP is out of money. I have paid out of my own pocket close to $3,500.00 just this year alone. I hope to collect at least $1,000.00 from distributors for issues 40 and 41 but they are slow to pay and I will be shelling out another $900.00 to the printer in order to keep TBP's credit ( and my own good name) clean. I would love to see someone else, anyone else show this kind of support. Marione and I have put in well over $10,000.00 over the years, without even being able to deduct it from our taxes. I challenge everyone to provide some financial support to TBP as a demonstration of just how much TBP means to you - this is a "put your money where your mouth is" kind of challenge!
SAVE TBP!!! Donate
NOTE: You cannot deduct these donations from your taxes as TBP has not obtained it's Federal non-profit status yet.
Business Manager: I would prefer this person to be a corporation officer, but they don't have to be. This person would take care of the financial books, accounts receivable and payable.
Advertising/Marketing Manager: This person would aggressively pursue paid advertising and new distributors. Without paid ads TBP will not survive.
Editors/Proofers: There are no more volunteers to do this work. Without editors pursuing content and proofers proofing content, there will be no TBP.
Production Personnel: The actual production of TBP is an arduous task. When it is done by the same person over and over it can be overwhelming. It would be wiser to have two production people or teams that can alternate production responsibilities. Your should be familiar with Photoshop, PageMaker and Adobe Acrobat Professional for creating PS and PDF files for press. TBP can supply these programs for the Windows platform.
Subscription and Back Issue Fulfillment: This person will send out back issues as ordered and subscriptions that are requested in between issues. Currently back issues are stored in Bellingham and Kirkland, Washington at $100.00 per month. They could be moved, but it could be expensive to do so.
NOTE: None of these are paid positions. TBP is an all volunteer organization.
Thank you for your support, Lisé (editor@thebeltanepapers.net )
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| Wednesday, September 19, 2007 | |
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 19 Sep 2007 @ 15:21
This writing I did after the Women in Power initiation in England this year. I woke up at 5am and it poured out of me. It is about when women first begin to enter transformational work and how extremely frightening that can be especially to be vulnerable.
ALisa Starkweather
When you are filled with a terror that you have not felt in a long while
In the presence of multitudes now laughing
in the circle that was formed for our transformation
I say that it is all coming up to be healed.
When your mind begins to shout obscenities at you
and your body panics and tells you to run for your life
And yet the invitation looms to dive deeper still,
to lift the manifold of the hellhole open,
I say in this paradoxical split ever widening
the moment has arrived that could bear the weight of your birth
from this pain you have long held
without retaliation.
When you are longing to hide
so that no one can even conceive of your broken fragility
that was carefully masked by your ironclad will
over the seed of your potent and vulnerable love,
I say this holy moment of now with those who care is like the scarifying of a seed,
the hard prison of your shell of protection
that could not risk again
until there was a way
for the water of your own tears
to soften the fortitude of your resolve.
Now amidst the chaos of feelings, the frozen tundra threatens to melt revealing what lies beneath.
Let your river run sister.
It is not what you think.
There is still life waiting for the miracle of grace and the touch of springtime long buried but never vanquished.
We are rubbing up next to what is most raw, yes,
because we have tied ourselves in knots
with our nervous systems wired to the perpetrator and victim circuitry.
Like a rodent being chased on the ever turning wheel of believing it's your fault, it's my fault, you're good, I'm bad, you're bad, I'm good, philosophy
we want to get the hell off this well worn highway
and find another way.
Your psyche takes you here now because like me, she knows that you are safer with us
in this illumination of stark truth
than you have been in a long while,
even though you sense extreme danger
in the crests of emotions that threaten to take you under.
Safe amidst the terror, the sadness, the rage. Safe to feel what has been numb and lost and submerged. The wild in you hears the call and forces the past like tendrils up through the dark memories to reach the light of love that you secretly hungered for even in total despair.
And all of this is coming up now to be healed.
Get out of your own way as old defenses will not work here any longer. The skin is being shed, the bud opened by a deeper consent that your spirit is guiding.
It is time perhaps to tear, sweat, push what hope has remained out into this world to be lived, seen and met. The midwives present are ready to receive you into loving arms even if you cannot visually see us. We are here. We stand ready for every woman now laboring her birth.
Move past the clutches of the nightmares that have held you captive far longer then you can remember.
You can choose to continue to believe that there is something so wrong, so flawed, so bad, so weak, so pitiful, so utterly wounded that you will never be among the living loved remembering now. Or you can do as they are doing. And choose to perceive your core essence with a penetrating gaze that sees through your past and distorted beliefs to retrieve your soul from the ashes and the chards of darkness that have enveloped your good, kind and precious little one that has endured all in spite of everything.
We have the power to love what we once believed was not loveable.
The ugly within us ~ the mean, the cruel, the weak, the broken, the madness that wants to annihilate and strike out. We have the power to feel all of these things and throw the switch on, like a light in the darkness and not use this energy as it was used against us. We ask what does this energy really want and need? It is time my sisters to rise up in our power and become the roar of this very change of how we own our true power to live and to love.
I say all of this and more is coming up to be healed for it knows we are throwing open the long closed gates and it is a day of our own reckoning and judgment where we must decide if we can find peace within ourselves and that it is worth all of the costs.
My friend, we all need a place for that within us that is tender
Even among the war zones, the frontlines and our living struggles. It is our right to choose not to be like them. Not to beat her down once more into submission. We now know the true violence of these acts even as it shores up our façade of strength that we came to believe for a time was real. Here in this place, vulnerability is our only true strength. Surrender to love.
Can you not hear her? That is the searing pain. She does not yet believe that she is worthy of your love and that you will let her cry, hear her stories, or meet her needs. Yet with this work, you are now the mother of an orphaned crying daughter child left by your psyche at the doorway of your growing consciousness. Open the door and bring her in. Welcome her, cradle her, feed her hungers. Accept her and what she brings now as a gift of healing to you both. Together and only together are you truly whole.
Face the winds of change and fill up your sails with gales of weeping for life, for what has been lost, for all that is to come. Head straight into what is all coming up to be healed and set your course to home. Come home. Come home. Come home at last. Your heart was made to endure all of this and more. Trust your tears, Trust your belly. Trust your ever beating heart.
And as my words sink deep and create ripples that touch where you cannot yet see your own tears, I know that you know that it is all coming up now for healing. You are safe here to cry out. And in this one simple action, you will find what you believed you had once lost forever.
Written on June 23, 2007 after coming home from the UK and reflecting on women's transformational healing work that we do.
ALisa Starkweather
Founder of Priestess Path Apprenticeship, a women's mystery school in New England that is an spiritual earthbased journey assisting women to bring their deepest gifts into the world. For nearly 23 years, ALisa facilitates women's empowerment and encourages leadership for new visions and paradigms. She is also the founder of the Women's Belly and Womb Conferences, Daughters of the Earth Gathering, the Red Tent Temple Movement and co-founder of Women in Power; Initiating Ourselves to the Predator Within. She has three recordings of her chants for circles and women's empowerment, Daughter of the Earth, Calling Us Home and Women Rise Up.
Please do not forward this writing unless this information is intact to honor the author. Please do not add on to the writing as it is sent. Many thanks and feel free to be in touch if you are so inspired to connect. alisastar@aol.com
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19 Sep 2007 @ 11:45
Feminist Magazine is proud to welcome:
Feminist Algerian artist, Houria Niati will discuss her background as a young girl in her colonized country by the French. Today, she tries to debunk the Orientalist stereotypes about middle-Eastern women that still continue to linger in Western societies.
We will also talk to the first Persian woman pilot in Iran, Akram Monfared Arriya. Ms. Arriya will discuss her latest developments to help Persian women in humanitarian projects in the Islamic republic of Iran.
Also Featured on this show is one of the most powerful women in the scholarly arena. Swati Chattopadhyay is an architect and architectural historian who specializes in the ties between colonialism and spatial aspects of race, gender, and ethnicity in modern cities. She is the author of Representing Calcutta: Modernity, Nationalism, and the Colonial Uncanny (Routledge, 2005), and co-editor of a special issue of the PostColonial Studies (Nov 2005) focusing on “the subaltern and the popular. Dr. Chattopadhyay is an associate professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
If you miss the show or want to download it as our all our shows you can go to audio archives.
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 19 Sep 2007 @ 11:24
Feel free to forward to women who would be interested.
Celebrating 35 Years
Saturday, September 22 7:00PM (doors open at 6:30, lock at 7PM) Celebrate your personal Harvest with your sisters in the Dianic tradition as we honor the Earth Mother and prepare ourselves for the journey inward that is the upcoming season of the Crone. Included in this ritual will be an honoring of post menopausal women. This ritual is for women and maidens 11 years and older, and is not created or appropriate for children.
Place: Topanga Canyon (Indoors) Donation Requested: $13.00-$9.00 (sliding scale) No woman is turned away for lack of funds. *All proceeds help fund COA's community rituals and special events.
WHAT TO BRING: *Healthy vegetarian food and/or drink to share (absolutely no alcohol please) *Plate, cup, utensils for the feast (In honor of our Earth Mother COA will not provide paper goods) *Wear comfortable festive clothing and supportive shoes (the floor at the community house is terrible for bare feet) Optional: Crones wear/bring your silver pouch For the Altar - items that celebrate the Fall/Harvest theme
RSVP: COARSVP@gmail.com Please leave a message including your name, phone number and the number of women you plan to bring. Let us know if you or your guests are newcomers,and if you or your guests will be bringing girls under 17. Note: Women born women only.
FOR NEWCOMERS: Newcomers are warmly welcomed! We want your experience to be optimal so we have created these guidelines in your interest. Women new to Goddess spirituality must be advised that the ritual is a participatory religious service and is not structured to be an introduction to the Goddess of to Feminist Witchcraft. The following books are suggested reading before attending a public ritual: The Spiral Dance by Starhawk, The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries by Z Budapest, Ariandne's Thread by Shekhinah Mountainwater, Women's Rites Women's Mysteries by Ruth Rhiannon Barrett,'Invocation to Free Women' (audiocassette) by Barrett and Flowers. These are available at your local book store. If you are planning on bringing newcomers to the ritual, please be responsible to them and COA by preparing your guests in advance. Give your guests a general idea of what to expect so that they can participate in benefit of themselves and all women present.
RITUAL LOCATION: (Los Angeles, CA) The Topanga Community House, 1449 North Topanga Canyon Blvd., in Topanga Canyon. This is a participatory ritual is for serious seekers only. Once the circle is cast we cannot admit latecomers, so please arrive on time, Doors open at 6:30pm and will be locked at 7 pm. Carpool if possible.
DIRECTIONS: From Pacific Coast Highway (Hwy .1): Turn onto Topanga Cyn. Blvd. and drive into the canyon. 2 miles past the town you'll see the Community House sign on your right. Drive up the hill to the hall and park. From the 101 Freeway -Exit Topanga Cyn. Blvd. South and continue into the canyon for 5.9 miles. When you see the "Pat's Topanga Grill" on your right you have about half a mile to go. You'll see the sign for the Community House on your left. Drive up the hill to the hall and park.
**Other Dates of interest:
RITUALS: Crone Encounter Oct 28th Sunday 5:30PM****Date and time changed Winter Solstice - 36th Anniversary Dec 22 Saturday
CLASSES forming for Magic and Spellcraft 6 week Series Feminist Witchcraft in the Dianic Tradition 6 week Series
Please contact COAinfo@gmail.com if you are interested in these or other classes.
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19 Sep 2007 @ 10:40
By Sheryl Eisenberg NRDC September 2007
Could this be ebb tide for the bottled water craze?
For years, NRDC has been crying in the wilderness that bottled water is not any safer than tap -- and in many cases actually is tap. Though frequently cited, these findings, based on a four-year study published in 1999, never seeped into the public consciousness until now.
What's in the water? Suddenly, everyone seems to have discovered that tap water can be perfectly drinkable --and that bottled water has problems of its own. In a bit of reverse chic, the stuff you can get virtually for free is now in. Big city mayors are pushing it, high-profile restaurateurs are offering nothing but, and even the New York Times editorial board has seen fit to recommend it.
For many of the new converts, tap water's chief advantage is that it doesn't leave a flood of non-biodegradable and rarely recycled containers in its wake -- nor require the manufacture of said containers from non-renewable petroleum in the first place. For others, it's the fact that tap water usually flows to us through energy-efficient infrastructure. No trucks or ships required.
Who could argue with either point? Major population centers are already drained of landfill space. They don't need the additional strain placed by millions of plastic water bottles. Nor can any of us tolerate the unnecessary contribution to global warming that transporting the water to market makes -- whether all the way from Fiji or just across the state.
But the main reason to prefer tap water, in the end, may, ironically, be safety -- not because tap water is inherently purer (it's not), but because it is better regulated.
Now, don't go to sleep on me just because I used the "R" word. Regulations are the teeth of the law -- and tap water's teeth are stronger than bottled water's, translating to higher safety standardsand better monitoring. That doesn't mean they are tough enough , and they do leave a wide range of contaminants uncovered (from rocket fuel to the gasoline additive MTBE), but they are nevertheless the tougher of the two, and better enforced besides.
Tap water is also regulated more consistently. Environmental Protection Agency rules apply to every public water system in the nation. In contrast, bottled water is governed by Food and Drug Administration rules when transported across state lines and otherwise by individual states.
One particular strength of tap water regulations is that they guarantee the consumer's "right to know" what's in his or her water. Utilities must issue annual "Water Quality Reports" -- also called "Consumer Confidence Reports" -- identifying the source of the water and contaminants found in it. FDA regulations for bottled water offer nothing comparable. False claims on labels are barred, but there is no requirement that contaminants within so-called safe limits be listed. You can ask bottled water companies for the information -- and by all means do if you drink it -- but recognize that they are under no obligation to tell.
A guaranteed "right to know" means more than you might think. Say there was arsenic in your tap or bottled water, but it was "only" 9 parts per billion (ppb). Arsenic is considered unsafe at any level, having been linked to cancer and other health problems. Yet both the EPA and FDA, in a bow to industry, which wants to keep water treatment costs down, allow up to 10 ppb. The bottled water label would not have to mention the arsenic (and might even call the water pure!). But the Water Quality Report from the utility would have to list it. Armed with that information, a savvy consumer could then get a filter to screen out the poison.
Whoa, did I say there could be arsenic in your tap water? Yes, I did. In your bottled water, too? Yes. And arsenic isn't the only scary thing -- in either.
So, if that's true, why am I pushing tap? Because the tap water in most places is still pretty good (amazing in some places), bottled water is no better and abandoning the public system will only serve to make tap water worse. Should that happen, the poor will be left with undrinkable water, while the well-off pay a premium for purity. Whether the rich will be able to find it is another matter.
If you are concerned about the quality of your tap water, here's what to do:
1) Ask your utility for a Water Quality Reportand see if your fears are founded.
2) Consider filtering your water to address any problems you may have uncovered. Filters can help with water that tastes bad, too.
3) If your water fails to meet safety standards and you or a member of your household is very young, old, pregnant or living with chronic illness or a weakened immune system, consult your doctor about what to do. In some cases, bottled water may be the best alternative if it is from a source that is known to be good.
And please support local measures to protect your watershed, modernize infrastructure and upgrade drinking water treatment. They are the keys to clean, affordable drinking water for all.
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| Friday, August 31, 2007 | |
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 31 Aug 2007 @ 23:31
AlterNet featured an interview with Kevin Rozario about his recent book "The Culture of Calamity"
"Capitalism itself is a system of destruction and creation. You have to keep destroying the old in order to clear space for the new. Otherwise, it achieves stasis, and if it achieves stasis, it dies. It depends on constant expansion just to keep going. But again, to be very clear about this, not all Americans think this is a blessing. This is a process that can be extremely lucrative for businesses, but it's a process that can be extremely destructive for laborers. The benefits of disaster are very unevenly portioned and they go to those with power and influence rather than ordinary Americans."
View the full interview online at: [link]
Note: Kevin Rozario teaches courses in American popular culture and cultural theory. After receiving his Ph.D. from Yale in 1997, he taught at Oberlin and Wellesley before coming to Smith. Although trained as a historian, his interdisciplinary interests keep pulling him into such other fields as literary criticism, media studies, philosophy, economics, environmental history, gender studies, and cultural theory. From Smith College
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"In chaos theory, the edge is the meeting point between order and chaos, between the known and the unknown. In nature it is where creativity and self-organizing happen. It is where new information is created."
Dana Zohar & Ian Marshall
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"Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery."
Martha Graham, Blood Memory |
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Morphogenesis - Priestessing on the edge of chaos
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