Some Goddesses Conferences in 1998

Published in Winter 1998/1999
"From the Flames - radical feminism with spirit", Issue 21
We have added two paintings Monica did in 1998

The Glastonbury Goddess Conference, organised by Kathy Jones and Tyna Redpath, took place between 30th July and 2nd August 1998. This is the time in Britain of the ancient Celtic festival of Lammas, the Goddess as Harvest or Corn Mother.

I exhibited 14 paintings in  Glastonbury Assembly Rooms, along with other Goddess artists. such as Freddie Foosiya and Jill Smith, but I didn't give a talk or slide-show of my paintings this time, because I was still having radio-therapy treatments after an operation for breast cancer in April and my energies were very low. 

Others who did give talks and workshops were Tyna Redpath, Julie Felix, Olivia Durdin-Robertson, Caitlin Matthews and others. I personally found Tyna's and Julie's talks the most interesting and moving. Tyna, who runs The Goddess And  The Green Man shop in Glastonbury, spoke of her early life as the daughter of Polish refugees as well as of her vision of, and devotion to, the Black Madonna. Julie told us of  her struggle growing up as a young  Mexican American girl in the racist USA and her struggle to become a singer-musician.

At the first Goddess Conference in Glastonbury in 1996 I had spoken about my life and so did Kathy Jones, Asphodel Long and Janet McCloud, the Native American activist and respected Elder from the USA. Things had gone badly wrong that time...around issues of money, class, race. Questions of what do we mean by the Goddess, what colour is She, and, if She is the living Earth should we not be out there protecting her from the onslaught by transnational corporations and the so-called "Free market". It is our dark sisters in the "Third World" who are paying the price for Western wealth and freedom. Now in 1998 I was excited to at last meet and listen to Olivia Durdin-Robertson, a priestess of Isis now in her 70's, who presides over the fellowship of Isis which is based in Southern Ireland/Eire but has members in most continents and countries. I was present at a workshop she led where a play was cooked up and improvised on the spot with lots of energy and fun. Olivia is a great and eccentric Lady and it is her tolerance and refusal to take sides with all those bickering Pagans out there which makes the Fellowship of Isis thrive and survive.

I was very sorry to have missed Chesca Potter's and Ruth Barrett's workshops, which were both fully booked up. Chesca, who is an inspired artist, did a slideshow presentation called "Shamanic journey to the primal Goddess of this land". She has done a beautiful Greenwood Tarot deck of Celtic Fain (see note 1) lore, and exquisite images of the Deer Goddess. Ruth Barrett, who leads the Los Angeles Circle of Aradia, did a workshop on "Women's Rites: Creating personal and group rituals". Ruth is a singer and musician inspired by the magical Celtic folksong tradition. Together with Kay Gardner she had this summer been on a US women's tour to Ireland's sacred sites and were therefore able to contribute their energy and music to the Glastonbury conference. I was delighted to meet Kay after so many years of knowing her flute "Moon music" which was groundbreaking for the Women's movement in the 70's and after.

As I was tired and not well I missed many events.... I was however present at the Lammas fire celebration that took place near the Tor on the slopes of Chalice Hill on the eve of 31st July. I had woken the night before and had the vision that I must be there to cleanse my breasts and to exorcise the Radiation given me in the radiotherapy treatments with the regenerative and healing fire of the Lammas Mother. So... after the bonfire had been lit, the directions had been called in by torch wielding women and a circle dance had taken place ... I saw my opportunity and bared my breasts to the fire, almost scorching myself, while I spoke to the fire and to those present. I warned that the Harvest Mother is not only benevolent but She also takes life... She took my young son (he died at the age of 15 on a Lammas Full Moon in 1985) ...that there is also fear. The Goddess however took over and spoke through me and the last words I spoke were "But there is hope, there is hope!"

A strange follow-up to this is that Genevieve Vaughan, radical feminist philosopher and philanthropist from Texas, came to see me on 6th August, Hiroshima Day, and bought my painting "Lionheaded Sekhmet of Egypt" for the Temple to Sekhmet near the nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. The Goddess works in strange ways.

Kathy Jones who organises the Goddess conferences together with Tyna Redpath has like me had breast-cancer. She wrote a book called "Breast Cancer - Hanging on by a red thread" (Ariadne Publications, 45 Whiting Road, Glastonbury, Somerset, UK, 1998) in which she movingly discusses her journey through the illness and through the chemo- and radio-therapy treatments. Her book was of great help to me as I was going through my own ordeal and I want to thank her for that.

At the end of August I was in California to take part between 27th and 30th in the Biannual International Goddess Festival organised by Zsuzsanna Budapest and this is the third time I have done so. It was again held in the camp amongst the Redwoods at La Honda north of Santa Cruz. The theme of this year's festival was "The Fates" - the Nordic Norns: Udh, Verdandi and Skuld: She who was, is and will be. The inspiration for this was Z. Budapest's new book "Summoning the Fates: a Woman's Guide to Destiny" (Harmony, 1998, New York). 

The Norns, giant sisters or ancient Disir of the matriarchal Old European Vanir people, who lived in the Northlands before the aggressive Aryan or Indo-European warrior tribes led by Odin's priests arrived on the scene, were called in the very first morning in a guided meditation led by Z. We were asked to journey to Urdh's well at the roots of Yggdrasil, the Nordic World Tree, there to meet the ancient ones who were there from the beginning and who also brought about the end of the world at Ragnarok as told in the great epic the Voluspa, "the sayings of the prophetess or Vala", in the elder Edda in Icelandic sagas. Edda means "great grand mother", by the way! The Morns create time itself and weave our lives in their great cosmic radiant electromagnetic web.

There are always large nightly rituals at these festivals that involve most of the participants, and are a source of joy and magic to many. Zsuzsanna, who is a born ritualist and inherited magic understandings from her childhood in Hungary and her beloved Witch/artist mother, was "Croned" at such a ceremony during the last conference in 1996. This time Leilani, a beautiful Hawaiian priestess, was honoured and celebrated. She officiated at a Purification ritual (and others) and taught women the sacred and sensuous Hawaiian Hula dance. Hawaii has long been exploited by the USA but there is now a liberation movement led by radicals on those volcanic islands of Pele.

Bleeding Yew Lady 1998

I was too tired and jet-lagged to be able to stay up much at night however, so I missed most of the rituals. I also did not have the energies this time to do any serious Goddess-political workshops (I had discussed the New Age movement and its racist and right-wing agenda as well as Sinister New Age Channelings at the other conferences) and since Native American activist Janet McCloud had not been able to come due to illness I felt there was a lack this time of any real discussion of what is going on out there as scientists and global US-led corporations plan the death of Nature and of dark peoples, wanting to turn Earth into a techno-sphere instead of a Biosphere and genetically engineering how we eat, live and die. This, as far as I am concerned, is Patriarchy's ultimate onslaught on Mother Earth and on indigenous dark peoples everywhere.

Beverley Little Thunder of the Lakota Nation did a workshop called "Art as smoke". Beverley is a Lesbian and a mother and she does Sacred Pipe ceremonies with women. I was glad to hear her question the way women are excluded from mixed indigenous ceremonies when they are on their Moon or menstruating. She told us how she had seen women blamed and intimidated if there was a suspicion that they might be bleeding. Women are told that they bring bad luck and that they disempower men in ritual when menstruating. But considering that this is the very time when we women are the most psychically and sexually powerful and that ancient shamanism was based in women's menstrual-lunar mysteries ... all of this is very suspect to me. Obviously decisions to exclude Moon women from rituals were made yet again by men and not by women.

I also took part in Diana Paxson's workshop on the Runes. Diana is the author of many books and she helped Z. to edit the book on the Fates. Diana is attempting to revive the ancient Nordic tradition of Sejdr, women's shamanism as practiced by the priestesses of the Vanir Great Goddess Freya. In the North Shamanism was most definitely a women's tradition which was later ripped off by Odin and his male priests. I felt a bit peeved, however, considering that I come from the North of Sweden and the only one at the festival to speak a Nordic language, to find the Runes used as yet another kind of therapy-tool to empower Californian women. The runes, which were to be found in Nature and on the nails of the Norns, were considered extremely powerful, sometimes downright dangerous if misused. Runes used for magic purposes were kept very secret indeed. The runes relate to the Nordic nature, of snow, ice, hail and she-oxen, and I feel a lot like Janet McCloud when she asked "Whose tradition is it anyway?" I don't however doubt Diana Paxson's intent and sincerity in her teachings and I have not seen her in prophetic action yet.

I also want to give an accolade to "Dearest Zsusanna" (I love the Latvian women's poems that Z. uses to head each chapter of her book as they speak or sing of the "Dearest Goddess") for a book which is full of wisdom and humour and helpful to me as I've also reached Cronehood and my life has been turbulent to say the least.

I myself did two slideshows of my paintings and the sacred sites in the Celtic, Scandinavian, Maltese realms that inspire my art. I was delighted that Willow La Monte, the editor of "Goddessing" journal & who lives in Malta, was also doing slideshows at the festival as she spoke of the "Fat Goddesses" of Malta and Black Madonnas etc. I later saw her doing an inspired slideshow/talk about "the Crone" at Mama Bear's bookstore in Oakland in the San Franscisco Bay Area. I did one there myself a few days later on 12th September called "Walking between the realms". To my delight two of my paintings were also included in an exhibition shown in Oakland at the Quan Yin gallery called "Malta and Beyond". The third slideshow presenter at the Goddess festival was Max Dashu who is an artist, Goddess scholar and linguist. She has some brilliant images of the Goddess, almost unknown and from many lands. She is still waiting for a publisher for her book.

There were of course other presenters such as Miri Hunter, who spoke of "Re-visioning Sheba" and taught Israeli circle dances, Ffiona Morgan on "Elements of Ritual", Jennifer Berezan who gave a concert. .. and much more besides.

Blessed Be,

Monica Sjöö, October 1998.