Divina et Femina IV

Call for Submissions

May 27-30, 2011, Ottawa, Ontario

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This is the fourth in a series of international conferences dedicated to the exploration of the female divine. Sponsored by the Canadian Centre for the Study of Women and Religion at the University of Ottawa (Canada), it is under the direction of Dr. Lucie Marie-Mai DuFresne. Divina et Femina IV seeks to bring together researchers, artists, and practitioners exploring the themes of the female divine, priestesshood, women’s creation, experience and expression of the divine.

The special focus of this year’s conference is the influence of Z Budapest’s work and thought on the development of contemporary women’s spirituality, feminist witchcraft, goddess worship, thealogy, and gynocentric art.

Submissions may include though are not limited to scholarly presentations, performances, rituals, poetry, visual and other art, and audio and multimedia presentations. Divina et Femina IV seeks to broaden common conceptions of women’s spirituality through the presentation and publication of material that honours multiple ways of knowing. In this spirit, we embrace diversity in both subject matter and methodology. We seek submissions that add to the rich and complex wisdom of women’s spirituality, providing a necessary forum for important discourse in this growing field.

Submissions may address a wide range of submissions related to women’s spirituality, including such such topics as:

• feminista / womanist / feminist interpretations of spiritual traditions, literature and / or art;
• personal experiences within spiritual traditions;
• the impact of women’s spirituality on one’s relationship to self / body / Earth;
• creative expression of one’s spirituality;
• spiritual activism;
• interdisciplinary work with a spiritual or woman-centered emphasis;
• philosophical explorations

Submissions may be made in either French or English.
Deadline for submissions: September 15, 2010
Submissions should be sent to:

Dr. Lucie Marie-Mai DuFresne
Canadian Centre for Research on Women and Religion
Dept. of Classics and Religious Studies
Arts 102
University of Ottawa
70 Laurier Avenue East
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
K1N 6N5

tel 613 562-5714 /613 562-5714
fax 613 562-5991

For more information, contact: Dr. Lucie Marie-Mai DuFresne

http://www.divinaetfemina.ca

Z’s House Oakland , CA
Aug. 21, 2010 1-4pm
Price: $65
(limited to 15 women)
Enjoy tea and sweets at Z’s house!

Location details given after you’re registered.
Fund raiser for the Women’s Spirituality Forum

Go to www.TarotSocial.com to register.

What is a TAROT SOCIAL?

It is a joyful coming-together of the Women’s Tarot community … a Revival of
the 70’s TRAVELING MAGIC SHOW by a FOREMOTHER of GODDESS SPIRITUALITY, The QUEEN
of TAROT READINGS, and the woman responsible for LEGALIZING TAROT in California
… Z BUDAPEST.

What will it be like?

The Women’s Tarot community comes together… experienced and newbies alike.

Practice and deepen your own tarot skills… witness others’ readings in an
intimate setting helping you to hone your own skills rapidly.
Query the Fates together in Circle of Community… learn from The Queen of Tarot
Readings!

You arrive as beautiful Goddesses and all is in readiness for your amazing Tarot
experience ….

Entering into CIRCLE with (or without) YOUR TAROT DECK, you become ONE with YOUR
SISTERS through breathing, humming and chanting …
Together we invoke BINAH, the Goddess of Wisdom – as the tarot is based on the
kabbalah.

Lighting our candle on the altar to the FATES, we sit in circle with our
personal decks before us as … we receive a WONDERFUL and ENLIGHTENING TEACHING
on the TAROT from Z – the tarot’s origination and evolution through the ages to
now.

Dropping deeper, Z takes us to the CAVE of the FATES, where fortunes are created
and measured … The PSYCHIC SELF OPENS …
Now the READINGS BEGIN … feel one with the group, feel the community as ONE BODY
seeking answers together, often sharing the same fate … witnessing each other
… as loving, caring and supportive sisters in Goddess … QUERY The FATES for
each other ….

We, the QUERENTS, ask our questions as Z allows the ANSWERS to COME THROUGH from
the UNSEEN WORLD … YOU, the witnessing souls of The Tarot Circle, have MANY
INSIGHTS from which we can all benefit and learn … Along the way, Z TEACHES More
about each card as it comes up … keeping us sharp and feeling alive.

And we ENJOY and share lovely refreshments together.

Z GIVES A YEAR’s PROPHECY, with SONGS and SPIRAL DANCES to The FATES and more ….

FOR the EXPERIENCED and the INTERESTED BEGINNER alike!

You need have no experience in the Tarot to attend … even if you do not own a
Tarot deck, … be part of the circle, learn and experience! Welcome the Fates!

Blessings Sisters in Goddess!

We are pleased to announce our Goddess Festival Special for the the month of August 2010.

In the month of August only!
We are offering women who register for the Goddess Festival a FREE one year membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 … the world’s most famous coven!

Membership into the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 is $50. So you’re getting a savings of $50! Plus, once a member of the SBA, you will find savings on classes worth more than the cost of your membership!

It’s a WIN-WIN!!! You get to come to the Goddess Festival and become a Susan B. Anthony Coven #1 Sister in Goddess … and you help raise funds for the Women’s Spirituality Forum.

The Women’s Spirituality Forum is an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit. Your registration fees and your membership are tax deductible.

* SBA Special pricing ends Sept. 1, 2010

Back in the seventies when I was teaching out of my candle shop bookstore called the Feminist Wicca, we used to have Tarot Socials as a way to teach women how to read the cards. I discovered those leaflets with my typed Bio on the other side. Thirty-five years later I have decided to revive the event.

Now I have done quite a few. Started in my house; we have taken it to the Goddess Temple in Irvine, to Susun Weed’s place in Woodstock,  Karens beautiful Mountain View home with the rose garden and swimming pool, and now just recently to Nevada, JoAnna’s circle of women.

What is it? How are the Tarot Socials different from regular Tarot Readings?

First rule is whatever you hear in the Tarot Social stays confidential.

There is a special kind of relief that comes from being witnessed by your sisters. You belong into the fabric of womanhood. You are not alone with your problems, but you keep your mouth shut about what you heard once the event is over.

Second rule is don’t hold back. When I see that you are very, very upset about something, and I call you on it; feel free to vent. Feel free to cry and sob. We are accustomed to cry in therapy sessions, group or private. Tarot readings are a poor woman’s therapy. It’s faster than normal therapy; it doesn’t take weekly visits to keep you on the healing path. Instead you get folk customs, folk magic homework to do in order to sort through your options, pluck up your self-confidence, and stop the denial of your pleasures.

Third rule is to allow the support and friendships that come from such communal experiences to reach your heart. Life is to short, these sessions with your sisters are rare. As a planetary co-traveler, we need each other, we need the family of women.

So what actually happens?

We begin with holding a circle. We hold each other’s hands. We hum to unify ourselves, to open our psychic eye to the incoming wisdom. The hum opens up our door between the subconscious and conscious minds. We connect our feeling centers with our thinking centers, we become one unit.

A light smudging with white sage elevates our minds and creates a path for our guiding spirits to come through.

I hand you the sacred oil to anoint your hands with before handling the cards, I favor Amber oil. We both inhale this scent, an instant transportation into the temple.

Next I give you the deck to shuffle. The best way to mix the cards is up to you. But a good mix is needed, not just a little changing of the cards positions in the deck. There are 78 images, and ten positions which nuances them, the possibility of variations is infinite.

A good reader is synthesizing the meanings of the cards; filter it through wise woman’s wisdoms. This part is where the person who is the reader plays a major role. How intelligent is she? How well read? Do you know more then the prescribed meanings? How much experience does she have? Is she good at stepping aside and allow the spiritual take center stage? Can she leave her own attitudes aside, and see purely the divine advice? These are the most difficult tasks.

Most people when they meet you, either have a sympathetic vibration form in their brains or not. When I read cards to women, I don’t know them yet, just met them. I ask only three questions.

How old are you? What sign are you? What is your name?

Based on these answers the Tarot is able to pinpoint your planetary being like a GPS guide. This same information is enough for me to satisfy my “attitude” towards the new querrent, and not search for anything personal from me, like do I like this person or not.

Next I take the deck of cards that you have already shuffled, “cooked” and with my left hand towards the left away from me I break it into two piles. While I say, “Wisdom from the Nymph, Wisdom from the Queen, Wisdom from the Crone.” Each time repeating the breaking of the deck, into two piles, with my left hand towards the left away from me then placing the left over pile on top of the new pile. What I have at the end of this is the deck I use to read you.

From the very top of the already created pile is your Significator. I don’t make a Significator by selecting a card based on you being female or male, young or old, as it is often subscribed in Tarot books.

The card I get is far more then that. It already has information about you. The most significant feeling you carry, or situation you are in will show up here right away.

The rest of the lay out is up to the reader. I use the old Celtic Cross, but often I do a single card and pull more as needed. I watch what you hide from yourself, in the root of the cross, and discuss it. I examine the Soul position, how does your sprit feel? Your house. Your hopes and fears.

I often look at the correspondences, the Aces and the Queens, those count an extra card. I look at the numbers coming up, does anything repeat itself, like 3s, or 7s; numerology has things to say about that too.

Readings last as long as they last. I lose track of time when I stepped between the worlds.

In the Tarot Socials, I explain why I have chosen to say what I did, based on what cards, very informative for somebody who wishes to learn this kind of divination.

October is coming, the years end, when we are all between the worlds. Watch for my schedule where I will be doing this kind of community building teaching/counseling. (TarotSocial.com)

If you think you can call together at least 15 women for a Tarot Social, and you would like to host it for me, please let us know.

The Goddess work needs all of us to do our part.

Blessed be,
Z Budapest
www.ZBudapest.com

Festival or not. What we take from each other and what we keep.

Some women say I have no money to treat myself and my soul for an uplifting spiritual experience. True. There is tighter money now. But you woke up this morning, and you are well and you have something to eat, you have roof over your head and have something to wear.

You are successful.

Somebody tells you they need your resources. You think to yourself, he needs me. He needs my money. He comes first. I have something; I’ll support him because I love him or because he is my husband, or son.

Your daughter needs you too, and you give to her as well. And all these resources you have given away so generously without thinking will never come back to you.

When is it your turn?

You are not too young anymore. You are mature. Your needs are mature. When is it your turn?

Who feeds your hunger? Do you support them? Do you give back to yourself at all?

Yet you are lonely and exhausted. You work so hard, and you give it all away. You are a good person. Is that really enough?

At the end what we take with us is experiences, the memories of the divine. Do you have enough? Did the Great Spirit fill up your hunger? Did you smell the redwoods? Did you hear the ocean?  Did you just love yourself?

If you died tomorrow, are you a rich soul on your journey? Or just a suffering deprived worker, who was never number one? Was your life a donation? Does this feel good enough to you? You have been given away everything keeping nothing, not even a biannual women’s gathering is not possible for you while you are alive?

I say stop!

Your life is NOT a donation. You deserve to have a weekend every two years when you are a Holy Woman, not somebody who is a resource for everybody else.

We have kept our path strong. WE endure poverty gladly, because our soul is promoting the future. Join us. Take your life seriously! Take your spiritual needs seriously!

Get yourself registered now. Ride your own passion. WE only live once.

Gather the pleasure of your company. Share your joy with sisters. Look deep into the mirror of womanhood.

We have 200 beds to offer.  One of those is yours.

Blessed be,
Z Budapest

www.Goddess-Festival.com

Somebody shot the Ocean through the heart
She didn’t mean to but now
She is bleeding crude through the pipes
Everything is covered
Pelicans, fish smothered
Our seafood tastes horrid
Paradise is ruined.
Again.

Some men shot the ocean through the heart
Didn’t think it through
Didn’t care enough
Drilled baby drilled
Down into the deep.
Now the red states are painted brown .

Whose fault was it?
It was ignorance.
Overconfidence.
There was no plan B.
Wrong tools in the box.

Women didn’t plan this.
Women didn’t even try.
The oil was men’s business.
Now the Gulf coast has to die.

Somebody shot the ocean through the heart
Its just a taste of the bitters
Just a taste of the next fall
Many  species wiped out
Now men want to use the bomb.

Most women still  to meek
Most women hardly speak
Most women still don’t lead
In the meantime
Some men shot our Ocean through the heart.

I have written many books, ten of them got published, some are still waiting. But at my age, I am very aware of the fact that I have to write my autobiography (AB) as soon as possible.

As I was looking at my 80⁺ diaries, I realized that I used my diaries to work out my emotional problems, record lovers quarrels, shyly describe love making. I also put there my media appearances, topics of my researches, parties and addresses I had to find.

Sometimes very important things get just a single line as it was with my Tarot arrest. I simply wrote “busted.” Behind that of course was a storm of activity, meetings that followed, friends came forward, money was raised, and given to attorneys, plans were hatched.

Along the way my personal life was changing. My short three weeks vacation had turned into a lifelong residence in California. And every so often I went back to Budapest to refuel.

Even back then I was already writing my AB, in little snippets. I wrote about my parents to purge them, to understand them better and me in relationship with them. The distance has helped me a lot. I was not an abused child, but I was an ignored child. Since I was also the only child for the first 13 years of my life, you would have thought that would afford me more attention from my parents. Not so. I felt that I was always a burden.

During the war when I was a toddler, during the bombings, I caught every childhood disease there was. I remember the whooping cough as the worst. I used to say between fits of coughing, “Oh my god, this sickness is going to kill me.”  It didn’t.

After the war, my parents just farmed me out to peasant families in the countryside where there was food. Here my life got better. I had for the first time seen a goat and her kid, drank warm goat milk, and picked chamomile flowers for teas all day. I felt productive.

These are pictures that do come independently, imprinted deep in my soul.

A lot of important things just fall away if not asked about it.

But now as I am sitting at my computer, Lady Mac, I wonder how can I recall all of it?

I have already decided that the first five years included everything already that was important for the rest of my life.

And feminism that gave birth and gave me my wings, was really churning between ‘65 and ‘75.  Afterwards it was all backlash, which lasted 40 years now. My 1975 included most of my sowing the seeds of my victories. Not harvesting, no, but 1972/73/74/75 are my essential story; if I want to track my life on feminism.

But is that all that gave meaning to my life? How about the magical evenings on top of the Big Rock Mountain in Malibu?

I am excited about writing my AB when I flash on another episode.

But I am alone. No body is stimulating my mind to recall.

I need you to become my muse. This writing is very much harder than the normal magic books I have written. This is all personal. This I have lived. This I like to tell.

Think… ask me questions you would like to read about in my autobiography. Please. I will take those questions and contemplate them and write them.

Otherwise I don’t know how I’ll get through this highly personal job.

Help!

Blog response written by Z Budapest in response to the question of being a women-born-women’s Dianic coven or if being Dianic is hostile to males because it’s an all women’s tradition. I included the start of their blog post with a link to read more, and my full response to it. By the way, these women decided to follow the Dianic tradition and we published this article in Goddess Magazine for all to enjoy and learn from. We need more healthy discussions about the Dianic tradition like this one.

What’s in a Name? Sometimes Everything
February 24, 2010 — narajane84

While our coven, Daughters of the Sacred Torch, was still in its planning phase, one of the other coven council members and I were discussing what kind of coven we would be, what—if any—tradition we would follow. I suggested that we just go ahead and call ourselves a Dianic coven. After all, we are following all of the basic tenants of Dianism, and the major works of Dianic tradition founder Z. Budapest figure prominently not only on our reading list but also on our practices. The other coven council member present for this discussion agreed. But her husband—who, by the way, is a nice guy and by no means hostile to Dianism—thought we should reconsider using such a “loaded word” as “Dianic.” read more….

Z Budapest’s response…
Blessed be the women with brave hearts! The brave hearts with skills of language, insights and leadership!.

The Dianic Tradition had been maligned because its for and by WOMEN. Who loves women? Why is that a bad baggage? Don’t you love your mothers and sisters? Shame on you if you hate us.

Women in the Dianic Tradition are hetero, bi and lesbians. We don’t ask if they are or not, in spirituality its besides the point. When women gather to worship the Goddess they worship their own ancestors, their own mothers and sisters. Why can’t males do the same?

And as to why males insist to be in the circle with females and malign the female only circles, is because males don’t really bother to develop Men’s Mysteries. And why not Men’s Mysteries? Because its WORK. It’s study, it’s reading, digging deep, and spending the time like I have. The it’s creativity, it’s taking a lot of flack, it’s being called names.

We have pointed the way in the Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries, under Sacred Sons, but in 35 years NONE have gone there to develop a male specific non-sexist spiritual tradition based on ancient heritage. All the old fraternities still lay dormant, the Salii, the Bacchos, Dionysus, Iacchos ,Bassareus, Euios, Zagreus, Theyoneus, Braites, Lenaios, Eleutherus, Bromios, Pan, The Horned One. Where is the studious male mind who wants to reclaim the true magic of males?

Stop harping on your fear induced “baggage” (all yours). The women are WAY ahead of you. Care enough to have your own. You will not know the true meaning of being a fully male human until you get together with your brothers and fathers, and practice.

Mixed groups twice a year (Midsummer and Halloween) is also part of the Traditions. But, the men have NOTHING to bring to the table. Men … women are no longer doing your jobs! Do your own research and develop the male mysteries. Wake up and create yourselves.

To the women, wear your womanhood proudly, we paid for it in blood during the Burning Times. Be well and bless your loved ones as you bless each other.

The Goddess IS alive, and magic IS afoot!
Blessed be,
Z Budapest

Books reviewed by Z Budapest

“Make Merry in Step and Songs” by Bronwen Forbes (Llewellyn )

Spring is warm enough to take a book out and read it while you inhale the fresh new air with flower scents. Reading about pagan rituals and enhancing your vocabulary in songs and folk dances, for circle leaders what a gift.

This is a great book! I love old England and loved learning about these many dances. The music is written down, and one can actually learn it. The dances are explained with meticulous precision, and the gentle prodding towards more practice makes the book a delight.

The author is a great lover of folk art, it shows in every selection, but those who think this is all about sugar and a little spice don’t know the English. Some of the heritage is gruesome, the character of the players murderous and unpredictable.

Yes there are the well behaved May Dance participants, wooing the fair Elinor, but there is also a story of a mother who hexed the young wife of her son with infertility. She can never have a child, until the son learns what she has done to hex her and undo the spell.

Then there is the humor.  In the John Barleycorn Play, Old Woman questions Doctor Brown .

“What diseases canst you cure?”  Doctor Brown: “The hips –pipsy, the palsy, the gout, a man having twenty-two senses in his head. I can cast twenty one out. Why I cured a snag tail last week nearly twenty-five feet long! Surely I can cure thy son who is not quite gone.”  And then proceeds to raise her dead son from the dead. Not your everyday pabulum culture here.

I find it exciting that so much has remained still in practice, which the rebirth of the pagan traditions I am sure will contribute with more longevity.

This kind of culture requires costumes and props, a bit of pageantry peasant style. I think this is the kind of book you can consult at each turn of the seasons plus to make more merry at pagan parties. The information in here creates community, cohesiveness and entertainments. Well done Bronwen!

“Echoes of the Goddess” by Simon Brighton and Terry Welbourn (Ian Allan Publishing)

This is a book that should be made mandatory for all Women’s Studies students, and of the Craft and Goddess studies. Beautifully laid out with splendid color photographs just the object of the book itself is classy.

The English do not usually come out with this “in your face we got the Goddess all over our country” narrative. I recall when I was in England looking for the pagan heritage, the locals didn’t brag a lot about it. The London National Museum put the goddesses in room 22, a side show. It was all well known near the temples and stone, yet hush, hush at the same time. With this book, England at last owns her pagan heritage.

I have never seen goddess book this thorough, a well produced overview of the Goddess Culture. Starting with the Lost Goddess, prehistory goddesses, subterranean goddesses, holy wells, freshwater sirens, saltwater sirens, the Celtic and dark goddesses, the rude goddess, the Christianized goddess, the goddess in myths, legends, and in the labyrinth.

Rich chapters lead you through the countryside of England showing you what even tourist guides cannot see. And the Goddess is here bold and beautiful. Indeed, this book has a Holy book quality to it in content and presentation.

It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I am partial to stones. Looking at the breathtaking spiral paths, on a slab from Malta boggles the mind. Four to six thousand years old, these were people who knew about the spirals in the sky, understood the world to be part of the great whole. Another favorite of mine is the image on the Picardy Stone Aberdeen shire, from the 6/7^th century AD; it was a tombstone once on an ancient grave.  It has a curvy snake, a symbol of reincarnation; several images which could be maps of the stars said that it had a relationship to the hill of Dunnideer. Mysterious, yet riveting.

When you absorb all this good information take it easy, do a chapter at a time. Its like a rich meal for your mind you want to savor.  The book takes you through history and accurately documents where the goddess was worshiped, by whom, for example the Pictish people, who gave women equal rights even back then. Then the great goddess was taken down with misinformation, destruction of her legacy and values.  The Synod of Whitby in 664 AD finally crushed the Goddess Culture; all her physical representations were destroyed.

But not the She na gig, the vagina Goddess, she survived decorating the Christian churches, inside and outside. Good luck was her value and sexuality. The same folk also had many Green Man images to keep her company.

Make this book a success. Give them to friends for high occasions. Share it with your book clubs, keep it where you can see it and reach for it.