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Max Dashu is one of women’s history’s unsung heroes and someone every woman, and man actually, should know about. For almost 40 years, Max has collected thousands of images that document the history of women and their achievements that rarely makes it into history books. She has created 100 slide presentations that show powerful women as shamans, civic leaders, priestesses, rebels, artists, and so much more. And these aren’t just extraordinary women, but also everyday women following in the footsteps of their mothers and grandmothers as their community’s healers, spiritual prophets, creators, lawgivers, and leaders in every way. Other of her programs show how women and men all over the world and throughout time have worshipped the Divine in the form of a woman. Finally, her work demonstrates how sexism, racism, and other injustices have robbed us of an important part of our legacy as human beings.
Max’s programs are unique, not only because much of the information is not available elsewhere, but also because of her courage and determination in following the story wherever it leads her in time and place. She shows that we, as women and people, have so much more in common with our ancestors and women on other continents than we knew. Iconography, practices, ideas, and stories flow from one culture and time to another in her programs, binding us together with women from the most ancient past and distant places.
As if this were not enough, Max is also an artist whose work breathes life into the history through her own vision. Her paintings include goddesses, spiritual leaders, spiritual concepts and more. They are vibrant and beautiful and powerful.
Now, even if you aren’t able to go to one of her presentations, you can see one of her most popular programs on DVD. “Woman’s Power in Global Perspective” is an 86-minute rendering on film of her slideshow that starts with the monuments of female dieties, ancestors, and other beings that ancient people raised all over the world; continues with both notable and everyday women who have been shamans and other spiritual leaders, warriors, queens, and liberators, healers, artists, musicians and poets, scholars and philosophers, athletes, and more; and ends with activists who have furthered and continue to promote a better future for us all. You can see clips from the video, read the transcript, find a study guide, and order the DVD from Max’s Suppressed History Archives . There you may also read articles she has written, find more about her other programs, and more. You can see and learn more about her art here. You’ll discover things about your heritage as a woman that you never knew.
Sometimes the spirit of women ancestors is as close as the songs our grandmothers taught us. Last night I went to a performance of traditional Balkan music, including a women’s a capella choral group. The group offered songs sung for centuries by Bulgarian women in the towns and villages as they worked, celebrated marriages, accompanied dances and went about their daily lives.
The music is both enlivening and haunting, evoking images of life from centuries ago through music that seems, at times, otherworldly because of its use of a “drone” (where some women sing a steady undertone, like a bagpipe), its sometimes dissonant harmonies, and its unusual rhythms and scales. Even the vocal technique is unusual to our ears, but perfectly suited for being heard miles away, across mountains or farms. Whatever the musical theory behind it, to hear twenty women singing loudly and joyfully in complex and magnificent harmony is a spiritual experience. To know that women are coming together again to bring this music of extraordinary ordinary women to us is empowering and hopeful.
This music has undergone somewhat of a renaissance in recent years and a number of performing groups have sprung up in the US and elsewhere. They can be seen at folk festivals and concerts like the one I attended and many have CDs available. One European group is called The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices. A US group whose website has some audio clips is Kitka. For a longer list of US groups, go the Mary Sherhart’s site.
The culture of that region is extremely ancient, with folk art echoing the symbols and stories of women from millennia ago. While the music has most likely evolved over the centuries, it is still is exciting to think that perhaps captured within those harmonies and lyrics are the voices of ancient women telling us about their lives.
If you would like to read a post I wrote for the Her Circle Ezine Inner Circle blog about the dancer Isadora Duncan and what she has to say to women of our own times, click on the link below!
Deep in our psyches is a cave, a place of shadows and warmth, nurturing and fertility, where we can go to reflect, revitalize, and reconnect with our souls, beliefs, and values. We may venture there alone, but sometimes a talisman appears to ignite the bonfire in the cave’s center that gives us enthusiasm and lights our way as we emerge onto the next steps of our path. Such a gift to all women are the films directed by Donna Read.
A series of Read’s films, The Goddess Trilogy, was released today by Alive Mind.
The three films are Goddess Remembered, a panoramic sweep of 35,000 years of global worship and reverence of the Sacred Feminine, from cave drawings to the present day; Burning Times, which gives the viewer a real sense of horror and tragedy, as well as the consequences that still continue today, of the witch hunts in Europe from the Middle Ages to the 18th century; and, finally, Full Circle, a very personal film about the meaning of Goddess spirituality to those who practice it as a western eco-feminist movement as well as those who are following their own culture’s traditions that are thousands of years old. The series is available from womenandspirituality.net.
A year or so ago I saw another of Read’s film, Signs Out of Time, about the archeologist Marija Gimbutas. Gumbutas uncovered tens of thousands of artifacts from the Goddess culture of Old Europe, giving back to us Europe’s peaceful, joyful ancient times. This is available from Belili Productions.
It is impossible for anyone to watch these films and not have her life changed in some way. I have studied women’s spirituality for 25 years, but I was still moved to tears by seeing the ancient temples where women and men peacefully worshipped a loving, abundant Mother, the village square where women were tortured and burned not so many centuries ago, and the commitment of those all over the world who revere the Earth and are determined that we shall not be the last generation. For anyone who is not familiar with women’s or Goddess spirituality, watching these films will give a background that it took me decades to gain from reading books.
The films are like sitting in a circle with women from our ancient past who tell us how their lives revolved around a diety who was a woman and women residing next door who talk about how their daily lives have been enriched and purpose found through women’s spirituality. They have a warmth and passion that will inspire, move, and teach. Go into your cave, invite these films in, and let your fire be lit.
Tomorrow is Yoko Ono’s 75th birthday. You have most likely heard of Yoko Ono, but you may not know that she has now spent almost 50 years creating art that is provocative, fun, spirited and meaningful. She records music, creates and gives performances, makes films, exhibits art, and much more. You may remember “cut piece,” performed a number of times over the years, in which she sits on a stage fully clothed and invites the audience to cut off her clothing with scissors. Somewhere I still have my copy of “Grapefruit,” a book on delightful, surprising “instruction pieces.” On the inside flap, for example, she writes “Burn this book after you read it.”
She continues to be a wise and global voice for peace and understanding that is more powerful for being constant over decades. Recently, she dedicated the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland that will beam a light into the air between October 9 and December 8 each year. This past January, her full-page ad in the New York Times said simply “Imagine Peace.”
Yoko was my first true inspiration as a creative woman. Like most other people, I first came to know about her because of John Lennon. I was about 12. I ate up stories of her wildly creative, philosophical, heart-filled art; they opened up within me unexpected realms of the possible. Every piece expressed a sense that the world is, or should be, a place of joy and fun and spontaneity while at the same time envisioning a world at peace with itself. I first learned from her that creating art is not for sissies, but worth dedicating your life to, that love truly does overcome all, and that one way to overcome unfair and harsh criticism is to outlast it.
You can see more art, find out what is going on in her world, and even wish her a happy birthday (if you do it fast!) at a webpage dedicated to her at http://www.a-i-u.net
I love that I will be celebrating my 50th birthday within two months of her 75th birthday in the city that I moved to in my 20s because she, John, and Patti Smith all lived there and loved it.
Happy Birthday, Yoko.
Mary Webb was a British writer in the early 20th century. She had a brief moment of fame in the 1920s when her novel, “Precious Bane,” became popular then another briefer moment more recently when it was made into a movie by the BBC.
Most of her life, though, Mary Webb spent in rural England writing about traditional life there and supporting herself by selling produce she grew and other similar pursuits. What is amazing about Mary Webb is her very deep connection to nature. When I read her work I feel as if nature is speaking through her directly to me. She expresses the transcendent beauty and profound meaningfulness of the nature that we take for granted everyday. She wrote a number of novels — Precious Bane is my favorite and is a delightful love story also — and a book of poetry and nature essays. You can probably find reprints of her work, especially the novel, here and there. Look her up!
Some months ago I was browsing in an art gallery featuring Tibetan art and I came across a CD titled “Dancing Dakinis” by Ani Choying Dolma. I bought it out of curiosity and was thus introduced to one of my favorite contemporary people and artists.
Anu Choying Dolma is a Buddhist nun who uses her powerful and beautiful voice to raise awareness of the need for the education of Buddhist nuns and to generate funds for a school. In just a few short years she has built her school where women can learn about Buddhism and other academic topics and become health care providers. She still continues to sing and record in order to raise money to improve the school and further her goals of education for Buddhist nuns and using voice as a force for healing.
Her songs include much traditional Tibetan music, but some are also styled in a way that includes western and other traditions. Her music is both mesmerizing and calming, inspiring and enlightening. Her CDs can be difficult to come by, though Amazon does carry some of them. If you come across this amazing artist through her CDs or in concert, I highly recommend her to you.
You may read more about her at her website.
