Harvest Moon Festival of Great Mother
2008
Contributors to our first ever Goddess Conference in South Africa!
Lives in Durbanville, Cape, South Africa. She has been exploring feminist spirituality and Goddess consciousness, since she had her first vision of the Sacred Feminine at the age of fourteen. Being a natural psychic and medium, her life journey has been to understand and live out that which she senses and perceives on other levels of existence. Her search has taken her on many spiritual pilgrimages to ancient countries and shrines; exploring the ritual and liturgy of different religions and cultures. Finally, standing in Rome, looking at the Temple of the Vestal Virgins, did she understand the words of the call and answered. Her understanding and teaching of Goddess is based on her personal relationship with the Feminine Within. Having attended the Goddess Conference in Glastonbury, organized by Kathy Jones, for a number of years, the vision of having an International Goddess Conference in South Africa, was born during an ecstatic dance. She returned home and established Her Temple - a sacred space serving as a chalice for the energies of the Great Mother. She leads a group of women in Sacred Dance, where communion with the Divine becomes an everyday event. Her message is that a return of the Mother is happening and that we, both as men and women, need Her in our psyche and hearts.
Lives in Glastonbury, United Kingdom and is a Priestess of Avalon. She runs a priestess house in Glastonbury, the Isle of Avalon. Spending time with Koko is a real magical experience: you may cry to release, you will laugh, you will be touched deeply in your heart.
Koko is a true gift of the Goddess to this world : a great teacher and initiator of the Lady's mysteries.
She has done extensive training in the shamanic arts and many healing modalities with a thriving practice for many years. She works as a Spiritual Guide in the magical land of the ancients and holds a safe space for pilgrims to visit. She is a world traveller and a traveller of worlds.
SHERI PARKS
Sheri Parks, Ph.D. is honoured to have inherited her family and community traditions of wise and strong black women, which she has traced back to the time of slavery in the American South. She is an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, USA, where she follows manifestations of cultural myth in popular culture and ordinary life. She is a longtime media host and public intellectual and interviews with her have appeared in national and international forums, including the BBC, CNN, Newsweek Magazine, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Currently, she is writing a book, Fierce Angels: The Mythology of the Strong Black Woman in American Life, to be published in early 2009 by the One World imprint of Random House Publishers.
JANIETZCHE MEGUN
Janietzche Megun
(B.comm, Hons. B.comm, M.B.A) Including her formal studies, Janietzche
has
also been studying the teachings of the Ascended Masters and has been trained in
many modalities of healing and counseling while pursuing a wide range of
esoteric studies through which many of the great thinkers have been schooled.
Janietzche is a Goddess with a passion for authenticity, balance, divinity,
wholeness and expression in its most pristine form. She is an extremely
passionate person and invests herself fully into every endeavor she undertakes –
physically, emotionally and most importantly spiritually. Her journey with the
Goddess is something that has been a part of who she is and this has been so all
of her lives. Her journey with the Quantum Goddess “seemingly” just happened and
when it did, she dove head first into it, finding it so natural, so second
nature, as if it was “in her blood”. So one of the principle energies Janietzche
channels and works with is the Quantum Goddess Consciousness and the energies
she brings forth permanently re-awakens the Unity Consciousness and power within
the S-elf. It is her greatest pleasure to share this energy with all, women, men
and children. In awakening Unity Consciousness, one transcends duality through
the first the balancing and then the sacred marriage of the inner masculine and
feminine, which in turn leads to the birthing of the child/creative energy,
manifesting the sacred trinity. The inner Goddess, God and Star Child, thus,
brings forth balance, corporation and divine union within the S-elf.
Dr Makgathi Mokwena
Makgathi Mokwena is a
qualified dance/movement therapist with an honours in Speech and Drama from
Rhodes; a masters in Dance Movement Therapy from Antioch University (USA) and a
doctorate in Psychology from the Randse Afrikaanse University (RAU). She is a
registered therapist with the Health Professional Board of South Africa.
Her passion lies in facilitating healing and transformational processes with individuals and groups. Her interests include issues related to gender, spirituality, race and the arts. She has been involved in conducting workshops in change management, equity and transformation, conflict resolution, teambuilding, expressive arts therapies and vegetable gardening.
Makgathi has been involved in teaching many aspects of psychology to a variety of groups, including running change management workshops, Assertiveness Training And Healing From Abuse Through The Use Of The Expressive Arts for young girls and women’s groups, conflict resolution workshops for NGO’s, Ethics In The Mental Health Sector for hospital groups, and training in the expressive arts therapies for mental health practitioners.
Sara Matchett
As co-founder and
Artistic Director of Mothertongue, Sara has experience in the field of theatre
in South
Africa,
Singapore, India and Kenya as a facilitator, theatre-maker, director and
performer.
Mothertongue
is a collective of women performing artists, who
explore keys to the empowerment of women and practical processes of healing and
transformation through the arts. She has been responsible for co-creating and
directing all of Mothertongue’s productions to date. Sara holds an MA in Theatre
and Performance from the University of Cape Town. In addition to her work with
Mothertongue, she lectures in the Division of Dramatic Art at the Wits School of
Arts (University of Witwatersrand). Her teaching profile centres around acting,
voice, theatre making and applied drama/theatre. She is especially interested in
interdisciplinary theatre making with her area of research focusing on women's
theatre in Africa with reference to cross-community professional theatre as a
means of facilitating conversations across differences. She also has a keen
interest in comparative ritual performance traditions of Bali, Kerala (India)
and South Africa.
Shakti, the Sanskrit name for the Goddess who embodies the
power of female sexual/creative energy.
It also means blessing. Many moons ago, on a vision quest in the Little Karoo, Shakti came to visit me, gave me
Her name and told me my work is about
'what it means to be a woman'. This has led me on to an awesome journey of
awareness and into Tantra, the ancient art of Sacred Sexuality. Shakti is
a Tantra teacher and Tantrika and member of the SA Advait School of Tantra Yoga. It is
her passion and devotion to share the sexual wisdom of the Goddess - the
feminine in her totality - with men and women. Through the power of
dancing, story telling, acting and listening, Shakti guides others through their
journey to claiming their sacred sexuality. Her workshop at the conference
will be Shakti - the Goddess in all Her sexual
Power.
MARGUERITE VAN DER MERWE
is an internationally-accredited teacher of the Alexander Technique with 20 years experience, widely studied in the fields of body, mind and spirit - bringing to her teaching a gentle, open, practical, holistic approach. Aware of the negative influences of our Age on personal serenity, health, wellbeing and poise, she has focused on integrating scientific, psychological and spiritual understanding into the realms of the Body to build overall health in a natural, intelligent, gentle but effective way. She has delivered many talks on her field of experience, conducted workshops in America, many workshops locally as well as retreat/workshops combining Alexander Technique with T-ai Chi, Meditation, Walking, yoga and writing. She is the author of 'EVE-OLUTION - Enrichment of Feminine Consciousness and Body Awareness', being particularly interested in work with Women. Join her talks and workshops entitled, The Goddess Speaks... and Grace and Power - restoring Presence and Body Awareness.
is a well-known and well-loved international teacher of meditation, visualisation and self-development courses. She regularly contributes to national magazines, writing articles as well as book reviews. Her professional, academic and drama career is extensive and impressive. She has been a metaphysics teacher since 1989 and has developed many workshops, lectures and courses, based on the principles of universality, mysticism, balance and heart-centered consciousness, developed through meditation and other practices. She offers her teachings and wisdom with tolerance, humour and love and she brings clarity and discernment to all her workshops and talks. Sacred Sexuality has become a major focus of her work and she offers talks on Healing Sexuality, Sacred Sexuality and Balancing your Inner Male and Female.
Music that sounds like the breath of mystical mountains, feels like the heat of a middle earth fire and affects you like an ancient ritual. It would definitely taste like chili chocolate if you could taste it! The hypnotic drones are filled with soul shaping passion. Her music has the ability to initiate you into the unknown ... Lindie Lila is a singer/songwriter/middle eastern dancer and acoustic performer, with a soulful and intimate style of music. She is accompanied by her band called Bayembi Spirit, which means 'Spirit of the Musician'. She has a background of studying jazz and becoming a professional middle eastern dancer. She owned her own dance school and in this time she started writing her own music. Her band members include a gifted musician from the Congo, Jason Tamba and Ronan Skillen, a gifted Indian Table and Didgeridoo percussionist. Since 2005 she has performed professionally and shared the stage with people like DNA Strings, Jan Blom, Karin Zoid, Malaika and Arno Carstens. She has performed at many music festivals, like Innibos in Mpulalanga, Aardklop and she took a production to KKNK in 2007 with great success. With the production of her cd MOONDANCE, she entered into a personal journey and dance with the Great Goddess. She is bringing the Goddess of the Moon, Sacred Dance and Song Workshop to the Conference.
Shirley Watchow is facilitator of the Woman of the Land™ workshops which focus on the empowerment of women. She is passionate about teaching women the importance of living their lives fully. She has been facilitating these workshops for the past two years. Shirley has been involved in transformation and personal development for the past 17 years, facilitating on workshops of up to 100 people with male and female participants of all ages. After leaving a 13 year relationship Shirley considered her options and what direction her new life would take her. After visiting the Eastern Cape she was moved by the plight of the women she saw and the idea of the Woman of the Land™ was born. Parts of the workshop were drawn from her own personal experiences and her learning's from them.
SOPHIA SUZETTE
SHUTTLEWORTH
Sophia leads the Sophian Gnostic Circle in Somerset West. The Sophian Tradition represents a long line of Spiritual adepts and masters who have taught a secret Gospel and Christian Kabbalah to their students, mouth to ear, from one generation to another. Today initiates of the Tradition have begun to openly share the teachings, believing an extension of truth of light essential in our times.
The Sophian way of imparting teachings and initiation is the Way of Wild Gnosis or Crazy Wisdom, which traditionally relies on the sacred friendship between and Elder or Tau and their spiritual companions, as well as involvement in the Sacred Circle or Spiritual Community – it is a natural and spontaneous transmission of teachings and helpful spiritual energy through a play of the Holy Shekinah in sacred discourse, prayer and mediation, and sacred ritual. It is an interactive and dynamic method that seeks to create the conditions necessary for the movement of Divine Grace through which True Initiation occurs and Divine Gnosis is acquired. Tau Malachi is the current Sophian lineage holder.
Sophia is also an Awareness Consultant, and produces Sacred Oils, as well as Sacred Crafts.
RAHASYA
Rahasya
is Director of the SA School of Advait Tantra (see
www.tantraschool.co.za). He says about this task: "I work with the most
magnificent women. It's turned out that my path is about supporting these few
special ones to their full flowering and participation in existence as agents of
the Goddess in all her aspects. The price I've always demanded is that they "pay
it forward" .. that some day they'll be in a position and of a capacity to pass
what they've learned on. The extent to which they do this keeps me awed and
humbled."
CHRIS TOKALON
Christopher
Tokalon is a musician, composer, performer,
sound therapist and recording artist. He has played sax and flute since 1979 in
a wide variety of jazz ensembles, musicals and cabarets, as well as being
constantly involved in and performing local original music with bands and
artists such as Peto, the Jazz Hounds, Steve Newman, Tony Cox, Drum Cafe and his
own world music project, Soulbird. He is also known for his astonishing ability
to mimic musical instruments, birds, animals and people in performance and has
developed a natural ability for overtone singing and creating evocations of
natural sounds as part of a Sound therapy process.
About ten years ago Christopher started specializing in Sound Journeys, a
process where “passengers” lie down and receive a wonderfully calming,
energizing sound bath. The effect of this cellular massage is to shake loose
stress and trauma and create a balance between body, mind and spirit. Journeys
can be done for groups or individuals and Chris has taken literally thousands of
people on transformational Sound Journeys.
Christopher is also an expert in facilitating interactive and inspirational
music and comedy for teambuilding in corporations, on holistic retreats,
children's playshops and as a supplement to other workshops. He has produced
two CDs of specially composed music for relaxation and upliftment. His work has
received acclaim from therapists, health journals and basically everyone who has
been on a magical sound experience with him.
KALI VAN DER MERWE
one-in-herself
Kali van der Merwe in collaboration with Valentina Leo
Women and snakes have been associated for a long time. Their intimacy is well documented in ancient cultures and became demonised by Christian myths. The snake is a primordial and powerful symbol for cosmic creativity and sexual energy, which women were worshipped for possessing. Here a woman learns to dance with a snake again. She struggles at first, fighting to control and pacify the writhing power of this primeval reptile. Later, she manages to find the synergy between her movements of her body and that of the snake. She unites male and female energies within and without into oneness of being. Her dance with the snake echoes the cycle of endless becoming of cosmic creation.
This will be a sacred installation for the duration of the Conference.
Artist's
statement
The body, often my own, is one of my greatest sources of inspiration, it holds
mystery upon mystery. I use video, sound and photography to explore its surface
and depths. My explorations are focused from a female perspective.
In the creative process, I instinctively search for the space where the familiar
becomes unfamiliar. This can happen through the slightest shifts in perspective,
viewpoint or distance. The subject becomes known and unknown at the same time. I
work within that ambiguity; where the act of seeing is either clarified – freed
from ideas, or bizarre interpretations are acquired because viewers are imposing
their concepts onto what they think they are seeing. I often find myself in
places shunned by society, areas you are not supposed enter into. Even in our
over-exposed world there is always something that is unacceptable. I scratch
under the surface of these taboos, to pull out their secrets. Through my
creations I am developing erotic expression that moves away from the heavy
reliance on the typical body parts or objects associated with erotica. In this
liberated space desire and disgust can and do flow into each other. I am an
artist, photographer and award-winning documentary filmmaker with formal
training in sculpture.
Dean
Liprini is an independent researcher and geomancer who has spent the last 17
years researching sacred sites at the southern tip of Africa. In his work,
he brings together many fields of inquiry - archeology, astronomy, sacred
geometry, geology and history - and links these academic studies to the
metaphysical and to the mythology and legends of the Khoi and San peoples of
southern Africa. He has mapped out the many sacre
d sites, burial caves and
rock art of the ancient peoples of Southern Africa. With spectacular
photography, he will unveil such mysterious phenomena as the 'sacred light grid'
that surrounds Table Mountain Goddess - a network of sacred springs, caves and stone
giants, geometrically-aligned to interact with the major solar and lunar events.
He works intimately with the chakra system of the Table Mountain Goddess.
Dean has compiled a thesis and his recently published book
'Pathways of the Sun'
brings together these fields of enquiry and he has researched the healing
potential of these sacred sites. Dean runs the company
Sacred Tours and leads spiritual tours and ceremony for those who
are involved with individual/collective process work, light grid work, planetary
healing and all round raising of human consciousness.
Andrea Desmond-Smith is a mytho-poetic artist combining
elements of myth and fantasy with a deeply felt concern with the destruction of
our planet. The themes that permeate her work are metamorphosis, resurrection
and the four elements of Western alchemy: water, earth, fire and air. Her work
is in public and private collections in South Africa and in Europe. Andrea
and her partner Kobus, are the creator and creatrix and keeper of the sacred
piece of land called Artemis - ancient
Greek goddess of the moon and untamed places, guardian of our imagination and
wild natures.
Kobus and Andrea are the keepers of the sacred piece of land called Artemis. Kobus is a blacksmith and woodwright. Apart from their own work, they often find their talents overlapping, and combined works will be born. These are displayed in the barn, or are made specifically to order. In 2000 a labyrinth was constructed to give thanks for Kobus returning to good health once more. It was decided to orientate the axis of this labyrinth on a special mountain which Andrea calls “Mother Mountain” and the lowest point of the Franschhoek pass as it went over the mountains to Villiersdorp. Later, when Kobus checked the orientation using a G.P.S. it was found to be on an axis that was EXACTLY East/West! The barn has also been found to have a special relationship to the labyrinth. Andrea and Kobus walk the labyrinth with a group every year at the summer solstice 21st to 23rd December. Everyone is welcome, and they always have something extra as well, to enlarge appreciation of life and the living of it. In fact the whole of Artemis is a celebration of the abundance of living with nature and the imagination.
GRAEME QUINN
A sculptor who has been working with Goddess energies, will be exhibiting two of his bronze masterpieces at the Conference. The one is a bronze sculpture of Primal Venus (also known as the Venus of Willendorf) and Shakti Devi.
LINDA CAMERON-DOW
Linda is the creatrix of Ikonz, Iconographic Jewellery. She draws her inspiration from Indian deities, Mexican folk art, wallpapers, famous personalities, textiles, symbols and other colourful and elaborate references. Her work makes reference to the Sacred Feminine as expressed in the Sacred Heart Madonna, Frida Kahlo, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Krishna, Buddha, etc. She has designed a jewellery collection (which will be available to purchase at the Conference) containing all the traditional feminist symbols of Africa, such as the cauldron, the cow, African Queens and Royal Wives, the calabash, woven together with the ancient symbol of the Moon Goddess.
BIANCA'
Bianca has been involved in the arts of motherhood, healing, teaching and counseling during the last 10 years. She is a body and soul practitioner, offering therapeutic body treatments and soul guidance sessions (with training in Psychophonetics).
She has gained experience as a Martial Art teacher, a teacher in the Waldorf Movement and Belly Dance instructor. Currently she lives and practises from her home outside Stellenbosch.
VALENTINA LEO
Valentina Leo (aka
mrslove) is a performer, teacher, dancer, director and traveler extraordinaire!
Italian by
birth,
she has made Cape Town her base since 1998.
She regularly travels to India where she collaborates with
Japanese dancer and choreographer Masako ONO on projects of fusion between
video/photography, yoga, movement, Indian classical and contemporary dance.
The dance that she presents at the conference is an exquisite
outcome of such collaborations.
Called “Kundalini Stavah” this dance draws inspiration from a tantrik Hymn to the Goddess Kundalini, found in an ancient Sanskrit text - the Rudra Yamala Tantra. The Hymn is chanted in Sanskrit by Gurumay Chidvilasananda -from the Siddha Yoga lineage- and it describes the many attribute, aspects and manifestations of the Kundalini Energy. (It is said that to hear Gurumay chant it is a spiritual awakening in itself!)
The dance will then develop into an English interpretation of the Sanskrit text. You will be deeply touched and seduced by the beauty and elegance of this dance. It is Poetry of the Spirit manifested in Movements.
GODDESS EATERIE
Enjoy all your meals at the
Conference at the Goddess Eaterie under the star spangled sky, in the light of
the full
moon. This
exclusive temporary restaurant will be created by Robert Rittel, Chef and Vedic
Astrologer. Robert is known for his delectable 'fire' foods and he and his
staff will create a beautiful experience for delegates, offering all meals,
including breakfasts and teas and coffees. Robert specialises in using
fresh and organic local fare. His experience as Chef ranges from 'Il
Giardino' at the Lago Maggiore to 'Escargot' in London, traveling on a Norwegian
Cruise Liner from San Francisco to Hong Kong and later running his own
restaurant in Germany. Robert and his family run a small family restaurant
in Franschhoek.
GODDESS
ICON SPIRIT BANNERS BY
LYDIA RUYLE
Lydia Ruyle is an artist/scholar in the United States who has been pursuing Goddess research for several decades. As an artist, she creates icons, sacred images of the divine feminine from the many cultures of the world. Since 1995, the icons have become spirit banners which fly around the globe weaving the sacred energies of the divine feminine. She has published a beautiful book on her work, entitled Goddess Icons, Spirit Banners of the Divine Feminine. These beautifully crafted spirit banners will be joining our temple and festival for the duration of the Conference
HER TEMPLE HOME INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE PROGRAM CONFERENCE BOOKING FORM
