Community Offerings

PROGRAMS     WRITINGS    VIDEO    ART

Creations: Writings

From poet and cultural theorist Dr. Judy Grahn:

Wrens Runes - Bats image

Judy Grahn is an internationally-recognized poet, writer, and social theorist. She is the author of fourteen books including the groundbreaking Another Mother Tongue, Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World, and most recently, A Simple Revolution. Eruptions of Inanna, and Hanging on Our Own Bones. Her website is www.commonalityinstitute.org

Revised and updated edition of Judy Grahn’s groundbreaking book on the lesbian poetic tradition.

“Poetry was important to the women’s movement and especially so to Lesbians. More than one Lesbian has been kept from floundering on the rocks of alienation from her own culture, her own center, by having access, at least, to Lesbian poetry… Through the centuries, our poetry has held that position in the branches of its lines, in fragments, and in the code of imagery. It is time, now, to begin to reveal that tradition.”

—From Judy Grahn’s Introduction to The Highest Apple

Lesbian Poetic Traditions: Judy Grahn, Julie R. Enszer, JP Howard & Alicia Mountain | LIVE from NYPL
The iconic feminist poet Judy Grahn re-explores the traditions of lesbian poetry from Sappho to Pat Parker and beyond.

Launch of The Highest Apple by Judy Grahn

Eruptions of Inanna 

2022 Sarasvati Award Winner from ASWM

“Path-breaking lesbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn returns to the stories of Inanna, the Mesopotamian goddess of erotic love and justice, to reimagine the contemporary world” –Nightboat Books

Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit 

Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit illustrates with true stories that we live in an interactive, aware world in which the creatures around us in our neighborhoods know us and sometimes reach across to us, empathically and helpfully. Implications are that all beings live in a possible “common mind” from which our mass culture has disconnected, but which is only a heartbeat and some concentrated attention away. This mind encompasses microbial life and insects as well as creatures and extends to nonmaterial intelligence as well—that is to say, spirit.” –Red Hen Press

Descent to the Roses

Descent to the Roses of a Family: A Poet’s Journey into Anti-Racism and Personal Social Healing is for those courageous enough to explore how family dynamics create and imprint the structures of white supremacy in each of us. Judy Grahn has used her masterful poem to expose and closely examine her own family’s roses (and thorns) of toxic racism and white supremacy. Grahn uses rich back-stories and mythology to guide us in the process of understanding and healing the split psyche that white supremacy causes and requires.” –Commonality Press

For more information about Judy’s work please visit: commonalityinstitute.org

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS!

Amidah in the Pandemic: Received Blessings

by Leiah Bowden

A soul’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic, a waterfall of channeled messages assuring us of our divine strengths.

This book is a revelation. Or perhaps more like 72 revelations. Each one is unique; each one is a poem, a prayer, and a prophecy. Mystical and visceral. Divine and human. They lift the soul and crack the heart open. My prescription would be to start each morning with one of Leiah’s Amidah Gifts, and let it reverberate through the day. I can’t imagine a richer practice or better medicine. ~Rabbi Irwin Keller, Spiritual Leader, Ner Shalom

In the midst of our collective despair, Leiah Bowden opened the channels to the inflowing of Divine Wisdom from the highest realms. Her words are not only a balm that heals the deepest recesses of our troubled souls, but also invites us to experience ourselves and our world as overflowing with love and possibility beyond our imagining. What a gift! ~Shoshana Fershtman, JD, PhD, Jungian analyst and psychologist, and author of The Mystical Exodus in Jungian Perspective: Transforming Trauma and the Wellsprings of Renewal.

House of Four Doors

by Lauren Coodley ~ laurencoodley.com

May the Loveforce Be With You

by Joni Dittrich, Ph.D (Rajashree Maa)

From WomanSpirit Reclamation:

Patricia Lynn Reilly’s powerful work,
Eve: Our Mythic Mother

It’s Time for Eve’s Story To Be Told

Patriarchy crafted a version of Eve that discredits women’s intuition and erodes our credibility.

Sophia Rising by Monette Chilson 

Sophia Rising reveals how people from any faith can use yoga to create a sacred space inside themselves. Author and yogini Monette Chilson demystifies yoga and explains Sophia– Greek for Wisdom– the iconic face of the feminine divine found in Western religious traditions. Through information and example, she invites readers to listen for the inner voice of Sophia and meld their own spiritual beliefs with their yoga.

SACRED CONVERSATONS

Please visit our NEW blog: SACRED CONVERSATIONS for more writings from our community!

An Excerpt from: Revisioning the Erotic

By D’vorah Grenn

A look at how contemporary thinkers are redefining the religious notion of ‘sin’, and at the attitudes and behaviors considered erotic from a woman’s point of view – an excerpt from Lilith’s Fire: Reclaiming Our Sacred Lifeforce by this site’s creator.

Liturgy for Lilith

Cosi Fabian

A fresh example of the ways we can re-vision icons and mythical-religious symbols, from mythologist, writer and sex activist Cosi Fabian (1991).

Lost Book of Lilith

By Rachel Havrelock

A look at how contemporary thinkers are redefining the religious notion of ‘sin’, and at the attitudes and behaviors considered erotic from a woman’s point of view – an excerpt from Lilith’s Fire: Reclaiming Our Sacred Lifeforce by this site’s creator.

With gratitude to Leiah Bowden https://www.lightspeak.com/ for her beautiful poetry and imagery in this piece, “The Gift of the Drum” — and for including my drum: https://www.lightspeak.com/post/the-gift-of-the-drum?fbclid=IwAR2Rf_cb2c8CxKEPtIwFNH2Xy17-rztBvPatqBLuCpx0HJm__XKQ_1XellY

Flowers of Torah: Prayers of a Priestess by D’vorah K’lilah (Volumes 1 & 2 available from the author)

Groundbreaking, earth-loving, woman-honoring, historically-inclusive Jewish siddur for personal prayer practice and home use. This book of prayers for the Queen of Heaven composed by a Kohenet, a Jewish Priestess, is based on millennia of Ancient Near East cultural wisdom. Author email: dvrkllh@gmail.com

Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100 by Max Dashu

Swa wiccan taeca∂ ::: “as the witches teach.”

So, explained an Old English translator, witches counseled the people to “bring their offerings to earth-fast stone, and also to trees and to wellsprings—as the witches teach.”

These women were carrying out ceremonies of reverence for Nature—something very different than what we have been taught about witches…

New from Veleda Press. Downloadable Contents, Preface, and chapter excerpts.

SEE PRAISE!

Works from The Girl God Press

…created by Trista Hendren and sustained by her, together with her amazing crew who produce many treasures for girls and women every year, including:

Original Resistance: Reclaiming Lilith,
Reclaiming Ourselves

“There is, perhaps, no more powerful archetype of female resistance than Lilith. As women across the globe rise up against the patriarchy, Lilith stands beside them, misogyny’s original challenger. This anthology—a chorus of voices hitting chords of defiance, liberation, anger and joy—reclaims the goodness of women bold enough to hold tight to their essence. Through poetry, prose, incantation, prayer and imagery, women from all walks of life invite you to join them in the revolutionary act of claiming their place—of reclaiming themselves.” –Girl God Books

“Women (and the people who love us) must dig deep into our souls to liberate the questions that have been locked away in our time capsules. We must traverse the annals of history to unearth the sacred sites that have been violently gentrified by white patriarchy. We must find the Divine Truth that cannot be claimed, contained or tamed. What better place to start than at the beginning with Lilith, the world’s first woman.” –Christena Cleveland, Ph.D., in her Preface

Re-membering with Goddess

“Understanding trauma is liberating. Healing trauma is revolutionary. Speaking about trauma is political. Women and their bodies are no longer willing to be silent to or be the secret store of patriarchal abuse, control, and power. Goddess is showing the way, cell-by-cell, emotion-by-emotion, sensation-by-sensation. Healing trauma is a portal for freedom and a gateway to societal and collective change.

Re-Membering with Goddess is an anthology of women’s experiences of trauma—trauma as a result of patriarchy; trauma perpetuated by patriarchy; and how through personal healing of trauma the Goddess is re-membered, re-embodied and resurrected.” –Girl God Books

My Name is Medusa by Glenys Livingstone Illustrated by Arna Baartz

A new children’s book , the story of the greatly misunderstood Goddess, including why she likes snakes.

‘My name is Medusa’ explores the “scary” dark side, the potency of nature and the importance of dreams.

Arna Baartz gorgeously illustrates this tale by Glenys Livingstone, teaching children (big and small) that our power often lies in what we have been taught to fear and revile.

Authors Site  |  Amazon Link

Creations: Videos & Podcasts

See Judy Grahn read her beautiful (and visually breathtaking!) poem “Bowls”, and meet other wonderful poets in Poetry Witch Community’s “An Exaltation of Goddesses”  HERE.
Grahn starts speaking at nine minutes in.

www.commonalityinstitute.org
www.poetrywitch.com

Creations: Art

Check out powerful works by Marni Rothman, Jewess Dept. of Magic, at:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGIQHMpF4GK and https://www.instagram.com/jewess_dept_of_magic

Also, see her page at: https://linktr.ee/jewessdeptofmagic

Wrens Runes - Bats image