2017 Fall Retreat
October 13-15 Fall Retreat at DeKoven Center in Racine Wisconsin
The amazing Shelley Graff returned to DeKoven!
A feminist singer, songwriter, guitarist, and Singing In Sacred Circle facilitator, Shelley has been sharing her songs with audiences during the past twenty-plus years. Her folksy, personable approach to performing and facilitating Singing In Sacred Circle workshops, draw her audiences down a path of political inquiry, peace, healing, and transformation. Whether she is sharing her music at political events, women’s conferences, coffeehouses, or music festivals, Shelley charms her way into her listeners’ hearts!
Shelley's third CD is Coming Home. It includes many new songs and chants as well as songs that Shelley has written over the past twenty years. The Coming Home CD starts with a spoken word piece called "Hope" and continues with songs/chants rich with women’s voices as well as, on some pieces, accompaniment of guitar, piano, flute, and cello. As one might expect, there are many women’s voices on this CD. The following women, who Shelley calls her Amazing Spirit Sisters, lovingly added their soulsounds to this recording: Ruth Barrett, Amy Carol Webb, Kathy Crocco, dorrie andermills, Lee Hoffman, Leslie Bevans, Cherie Ackerson, Rachel Alexander, Elizabeth Bolen, Jennifer Powers, Linda Smith Koehler and Women With Wings, the Columbus Singing In Sacred Circle, and the Cincinnati Singing In Sacred Circle. The amazing and inspiring Mary Southard shared her beautiful artwork on the CD cover as well on the back of the Coming Home CD.
2017 Spring Retreat
2017 Spring Conference in Pilgrim Park Illinois
As Above, So Below
Our Presenter was Molly Remer!
Molly has been “gathering the women” to circle, sing, celebrate, and share since 2008. She plans and facilitates women’s circles, seasonal retreats and rituals, mother-daughter circles, family ceremonies, and red tent circles in central Missouri.
She is an ordained priestess who holds MSW, M.Div, and D.Min degrees. She has worked with groups of women since 1996 and teaches college courses in group dynamics and human services. She began creating birth art during her first pregnancy in 2003 and has never stopped, though the medium in which she works has evolved with time, as well as its expression.
Molly is fiery, intense, and driven. Molly is the author of Womanrunes, Earthprayer, and The Red Tent Resource Kit, as well as three social service oriented booklets and a miscarriage memoir. She maintained her popular Talk Birth blog from 2007-2016 and writes about thealogy, nature, practical priestessing, and the goddess at Brigid’s Grove, her Woodspriestess blog, and SageWoman Magazine. She also writes for Feminism and Religion. Read more about Molly at www.brigidsgrove.com
2016 Fall Retreat
Fall Retreat
October 14-16, 2016
DeKoven Retreat Center, Racine, WI
Keynote: Dr. Kayta (Kathleen) Curzie Gajdos, author of Quiet Wisdom in Loud Times: The Rise of the Wounded Feminine.
In the fall of 2015, Kayta took a trip with Carol Christ, to Crete, where she visited many ancient Minoan goddess sites on mountaintops and in deep caves, and reclaimed them for the goddess through song and ritual. She met Karin Janowski and Pat Hyams, also on the trip. Karin and Kayta are intrepid hikers. Kayta and Pat formed "the choir" on the trip and taught chants to the other participants. The trip to Crete is an indelible memory for all of them.
Kayta is a psychologist who works with individuals, couples, and families. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, meditation and mindfulness, grief and trauma, EMDR, ETT, sandplay therapy, and dreamwork. Dr. Gajdos developed a practice in the Pittsburgh area, where she also wrote for the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic's Family Therapy Newsletter.