AfraShe Asungi, HHHAS, MFA, LCSW is a Social Justice & Gender Activist, Visionary Image Maker, Visual Artist, ordained Wimmin's™; Spiritual Teacher & Inner-SheMystae™; for over four decades. She is also a private practice clinical psychotherapist in Los Angeles, CA. AfraShe graduated in 1976 with an MFA from the University of Chicago. Her exhibited paintings and writings entitled "Amazons" and "The Goddess Series . . .™;" are significant for honoring and affirming of Black Wimmin™; and the positive mythic restructuring, delineation & depiction of "Strong, Self-Contained" & Self-governing Afrikan Goddesses during the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. FULL BIO and LINKS

Hallie Iglehart Austen began teaching her synthesis of spirituality and feminism in 1974. She has led workshops, rituals and conferences at the University of California, United Nations International Women’s Conference, and Graduate Theological Union among others. She is the author of Womanspirit: A Guide to Women’s Wisdom (1983) and The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine (1990 and 2018).

In 2001 she co-founded Seaflow: Protect Our Living Oceans and in 2010, she initiated All One Ocean, Cleaning Up the Oceans, One Beach at a Time.FULL BIO and LINKS

Nancy Azara is known for her artwork that encompasses feminism, healing and individual connection to the divine. She co-founded The New York Feminist Art Institute, 1979-1990. Azara's work is in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the MoMA, Yale Museum, Cincinnati Art Museum, and Milwaukee Art Museum, among others and has been reviewed in such publications as the New York Times, Art In America, Artforum, and Sculpture Magazine.. She is the author of the book Spirit Taking Form: Making a Spiritual Practice of Making Art FULL BIO and LINKS

Ruth is an ordained Dianic high priestess, a seasoned ritualist, teacher, and author, dedicated to the propagation of Women’s Mysteries and female sovereign spaces. She is the author the critically acclaimed Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation and editor of the 2016 anthology, Female Erasure – What You Need To Know About Gender Politics’ War on Women, the Female Sex and Human Right. She is co-founder of Temple of Diana, Inc., with groves in California, Michigan, Sicily, and Wales, and co-facilitator for The Spiral Door Women’s Mystery School of Magick and Ritual Arts. Ruth Barrett is also an internationally known mountain dulcimer recording artist and singer.FULL BIO and LINKS

Cristina Biaggi, Ph.D.is an artist, author, lecturer and activist who has achieved significant recognition for her varied contributions to the field of Goddess-centered art and scholarly studies. Her works are a reflection and an extension of her lifelong interest in art, archaeology, women studies, literature and classics, acquired at Vassar, Harvard and New York University. Dr. Biaggi authored Habitations of the Great Goddess and edited and contributed to In the Footsteps of the Goddess: Personal Stories and The Rule of Mars: Readings on the Origins, History, and Impact of Patriarchy. Her fourth book, Art and Activism is a reflection on her life and activism, and the art it inspired.FULL BIO and LINKS

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M. D, psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, activist and "Episco-Pagan" is the author of thirteen influential books in close to one-hundred foreign editions. Her books include Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self, Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women’s Lives, and The Millionth Circle which led to her going to the UN to become a persevering advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women in 2022.

She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, was a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, and a past board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women.FULL BIO and LINKS

Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest was born in Budapest Hungary and emigrated to the U.S. in 1959 at age nineteen. She studied at the University of Chicago, married, and gave birth to two sons. While active in the women's liberation movement in Los Angeles she recognized the need for a spiritual dimension in the movement and founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number l. She is the author of fourteen books including The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries (1989), originally published as The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows (1975). She is founder and director of the Women's Spirituality Forum, featuring lectures, retreats and other events.FULL BIO and LINKS

Jane Hardwicke Collings is a midwife, teacher, writer and menstrual educator. She gives workshops internationally on mother and daughter preparation for menstruation, the spiritual practice of menstruation, and the sacred dimensions of pregnancy, birth and menopause.

Jane founded and runs The School of Shamanic Womancraft (formerly The School of Shamanic Midwifery), an international Women’s Mysteries School. She is the author of Thirteen Moons: How To Chart Your Menstrual Cycle; Spinning Wheels (a guide to the cycles); Becoming a Woman (for girls approaching menstruation) and Ten Moons: The Inner Journey of Pregnancy.FULL BIO and LINKS

Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history. Her collection of 15,000 slides, 30,000 digital images and 150 slideshows present female cultural heritages across human history. Dashu's work bridges the gap between academia and grassroots education. It foregrounds indigenous women passed over by standard histories and highlights female spheres of power retained even in some patriarchal societies. Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1000, the first of her 15-volume series Secret History of the Witches, was published in 2016 and is acclaimed as an invaluable resource for reconstructing ancestral European heritages. She is also a visual artist.FULL BIO and LINKS

Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth earned her Ph.D. in philosophy and theory of science at the University of Munich where she taught philosophy for ten years (1973-1983). She has published extensively on matriarchal society and culture. Her main work Matriarchal Societies. Studies on Indigenous Culturtes across the Globe has been published in German, English, Italian, and Spanish. In 1986, she founded the International Academy HAGIA for Matriarchal Studies and Matriarchal Spirituality in Germany, and since then has been its director. In 2005, she was elected by the international initiative "1000 Peace Women Across the Globe" as a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.FULL BIO and LINKS

Starr Goode, MA, teaches literature at Santa Monica College. Producer and moderator for the cable TV series, The Goddess in Art, the programs are now housed in the permanent collection of the Getty Museum and are currently available on YouTube. 

She has been profiled for her work as a cultural commentator in the LA Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. 

Her latest book, Sheela na gig: the Dark Goddess of Sacred Power, won the 2018 Sarasvati Award for Best Non-Fiction Book presented by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology.FULL BIO and LINKS

Judy Grahn, Ph.D., is internationally known as a poet, writer, and cultural theorist. Her writings helped fuel, globally, second wave feminist, gay, and lesbian activism, as well as women’s and queer spirituality. Grahn has published fourteen books with several more in process; publications include two book-length poems and several poetry collections. Some of the awards she has received include the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature and Community Service; two American Book Awards and two Lambda literature awards. Triangle Publishers established the Judy Grahn Nonfiction Award in 1996.In 2014 she was Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade.FULL BIO and LINKS

Paula Gunn Allen was an American poet, novelist, scholar and critic whose work combines the influences of feminism and her Native American heritage. Her own essays described most Native American pre-colonial peoples as primarily matrilineal; she also wrote biography of the lives of Native women, including Pocahontas. Her poetry and scholarly work pulled on Native American mythology, especially stories of Spider Grandmother and Thought Woman. She was a professor, and taught at several different schools including SF State, UC Berkeley, and UCLA.FULL BIO and LINKS

Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, contemporary ceremonialist, spiritual teacher, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader. Her joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published five books, including The Queen of My Self: Stepping Into Sovereignty in Midlife (2005) and Bless This House: Creating Sacred Space Where You Live, Work & Travel (2018).a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post, Beliefnet and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. A noted ritual expert, she serves as a ritual consultant for the television and film industry. FULL BIO and LINKS

Kathy Jones is a Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of Goddess, Founder of Glastonbury Goddess Conference, Founder, Creative Director & Temple Weaver of Glastonbury Goddess Temple, Goddess Hall & Goddess House & Motherworld Initiator. She has lived on the Isle of Avalon in Glastonbury for 40+ years and loves this sacred land of Goddess. She is a ceremonialist, teacher, writer, wounded healer, initiator, Temple Melissa and sacred dramatist. She is the author of several acclaimed Goddess books, including Soul & Shadow - Birthing Motherworld, Priestess of Avalon, Priestess of the Goddess, The Ancient British Goddess and In the Nature of Avalon. FULL BIO and LINKS

Mara Lynn Keller, PhD Philosophy, Yale University, is Professor of Philosophy, Religion and Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she served as director of the Women’s Spirituality graduate program for ten years, producing dozens of special events on women’s sacred arts and scholarship. Her research and writing center on the ancient Goddess cultures of Crete and Greece; and on Women’s Visionary Culture, with a focus on women’s visionary poetry, fiction, and film. Her plenary speech for the Parliament of World’s Religion in 2015 voiced the theme: "The Freedom of Religion to Worship Goddess is a Social Justice Issue!" FULL BIO and LINKS

Glenys Livingstone is the author of PaGaian Cosmology: Re-inventing Earth-based Goddess Religion, which is an outcome of her doctoral work in Social Ecology at the Western Sydney University. Her practice of PaGaian Cosmology fuses seasonal ceremony with contemporary Western science, feminism and a poetic relationship with place. For over three decades she has facilitated Seasonal ceremony, taught classes, and mentored apprentices. Glenys is a contributor to Goddesses in World Culture edited by Patricia Monaghan (2011), and to Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement edited by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Vicki Noble (2015), and several other publications. FULL BIO and LINKS

Audre Lorde, American poet, biomythographer, and essayist, Audre did factory work, then became a librarian and ultimately a professor. Audre wrote about civil rights and feminist issues, and defined living at the conjunctions of being female, lesbian, and Black. She is an original model of intersectionality, and wrote much about difference, especially about one’s differences as an opportunity for developing strength. In addition to essays, she published several poetry books including, after a trip to Africa in the mid-1970s, The Black Unicorn followed by Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. a biomythography. Both of these books used Yoruba traditional stories. She considered herself a "warrior poet." FULL BIO and LINKS

Vajra Ma is the leading exponent of women’s womb awakening in Feminist Spirituality. Inspired by her work with women’s subtle bodyknowing since the mid-1980’s, she originated the devotional moving meditation The Tantric Dance of Feminine Power^®. This is the womb-sourced moving meditation practice of her mystery school and Priestess lineage Woman Mysteries of the Ancient Future Sisterhood^®. She is author of From a Hidden Stream: The Natural Spiritual Authority of Woman (2010) and co-author of The Women’s Collective (2017) and a contributor to several anthologies. Rev Vajra Ma is an ordained Dianic Priestess of Women’s Mysteries since 1992, with ministerial credentials through The Temple of Diana, Inc.FULL BIO and LINKS

Mary Mackey, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus of English at California State University Sacramento and the bestselling author of fourteen novels, including The Earthsong Series—four novels which describe how the peaceful Goddess-worshiping people of Prehistoric Europe fought off patriarchal nomad invaders (The Village of Bones, The Year The Horses Came, The Horses at the Gate, and The Fires of Spring). Mary’s novels have been praised for their historical accuracy, inventiveness, literary grace, vividness, and storytelling magic. They have made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists, been translated into twelve foreign languages and sold over a million and a half copies.

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Brooke Medicine Eagle is an Earthkeeper, healer, visionary, singer/songwriter, shamanic practitioner, and ceremonial leader. She is the author of the Native American literary classic,Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, and The Last Ghost Dance. Over the last 40 years, her music recordings, teachings, writings, conference appearances, and spiritual wilderness retreats have touched the hearts and minds of people all over the world. Her current focus is on health and empowerment for women. Decades ago, she brought forward ancient, native traditional ways ofmoontimeand women’s mysteries for women’s health, spirit, leadership and service to the world.FULL BIO and LINKS

Musawa. earned a BA from Harvard in 1966 and an MA in Human Development from the University of Chicago in 1969. But her activist education grew from the liberation movements of the1960’s. She was active in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi , taught in a school for African revolutionaries in exile in Tanzania , engaged in Anti-Vietnam War protests and attended the first national Chicago Women’s Liberation Union conference in1969. In the ‘70’s, Musawa came out as a lesbian. She helped start and taught Women’s Studies at Portland Community College , and co-founded one of the first women’s land communities in Oregon (1973), now known as We’Moon Land. FULL BIO and LINKS

Mayumi graduated in 1966 from the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and from 1966 to 1968 studied at the Pratt Graphic Center in New York. She has always painted authentically, from the heart, never for commercial appeal. She has numerous collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the U.S. Library of Congress and more. By age 50, Mayumi reached unparalleled artistic success for a Japanese woman of her time. She is known as the "Matisse of Japan". In 1992, Mayumi co-founded Inochi.us (Life Force) under which she established the organization Plutonium Free Future chartered to educate Japan's nuclear policy makers.FULL BIO and LINKS

Arisika Razak, RN, MPH is Professor Emerita and the former Chair of the Women’s Spirituality Program, at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). where she also served as CIIS Director of Diversity. She is a former President of the American Academy of Religion -Western Region, and is a regular contributor to academic texts and journals. Arisika is a dancer who has performed nationally and internationally. She has led embodied healing circles for women for over 30 years, and currently teaches at East Bay Meditation Center in inner city Oakland.
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Spider Redgold is a Caucasian woman of spirit descended through her motherlines to the Travellers. Her fatherlines trace her blood to the Viking invasions of Yorkshire around 900CE. Born on Choctaw land, in USA, she was taken to Yorkshire when her parents returned there and then brought to Australia in her teens. Her life experiences have provided her with a global perspective on ceremonial work. She has been given spirit teachings in Cherokee, Choctaw, Luo (Kenya) and three Aboriginal Nations. She created and wrote The Shemoon Cycle of Days – A Global Witches Almanac; published from 1987 -1993 and now in the collection at National Library of Australia. FULL BIO and LINKS

Miriam Robbins Dexter holds a Ph.D. in ancient Indo-European languages, archaeology, and comparative mythology, from UCLA. For thirteen years, she taught courses in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit languages in the department of Classics at USC. Her first book, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book (1990), in which she translated texts from thirteen languages, was used for courses she taught at UCLA for a decade and a half. She completed and supplemented the final book of Marija Gimbutas, The Living Goddesses. (1999). With Vicki Noble, Miriam edited the anthology, Foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality Movement: Elders and Visionaries (2015).FULL BIO and LINKS

Charlene Spretnak is the author of one of the first books of the Women’s Spirituality movement, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece (1978), and is editor of the anthology The Politics of Women’s Spirituality (1982). She also wrote about Goddess spirituality in States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age (1991) and about preChristian elements in the spiritual presence of the Virgin Mary in traditional Catholicism in Missing Mary (2004). In 2012 she received the Demeter Award as "one of the premier visionary feminist thinkers of our time" from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. She is a cofounder of the U.S. Green Party.FULL BIO and LINKS

Yeye Luisah Teish is a teacher, dancer, storyteller, and a respected elder in te Ifa/Orisha tradition of the African diaspora. She is the author of several books on Africana spirituality and culture, most notably Jambalaya: The Natural Woman’s Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals, a women’s spirituality classic and On Holy Ground: Commitment and Devotion to Sacred Land (co-authored with Leilani Bireley).

Teish designs and directs ritual theater performances. She is the Founding Mother of Ile Orunmila Oshun (the House of Destiny and Love), a community of multi-racial, multi-cultural artists, ritualists and activists who are committed to addressing eco-spiritual issues.FULL BIO and LINKS

Kay Turner's interest in women's spirituality began at a Presbyterian church summer camp in Michigan when she realized she would rather worship trees. In 1974 she went on a year long journey through Mexico and Guatemala to trace the her-story of Ix Chel, the great moon goddess of the Mayan people. In 1975 she founded Sowing Circle Press collective for the publication of Lady-Unique-Inclination-of-the-Night, a Journal of the Goddess in Image, Poetry, Art and Essay, published between 1976 and 1983. Turner received her PhD in Folklore at the University of Texas and published her dissertation as Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women's Home Altars (1999). FULL BIO and LINKS

Genevieve Vaughan (b. Texas 1939) is an independent researcher who lives between Italy and the USA. She has studied and attempted to practice the gift economy for many decades. She created the international feminist activist Foundation for a Compassionate Society (1987-2005) based in Austin, Texas, which offered many woman-led projects for social change according to women's values. In 1992, she founded the ongoing Temple of Goddess Spirituality dedicated to Sekhmet, near the nuclear test site in the Nevada desert. In 2001,she initiated a network: International Feminists for a Gift Economy. Her many books include For-Giving, a Feminist Criticism of Exchange (1997) and The Maternal Roots of the Gift Economy (2018).FULL BIO and LINKS

Susun S. Weed is the voice of the Wise Woman tradition, where healing is nourishing. She is known internationally as an extraordinary teacher with a joyous spirit, a powerful presence, and an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs and health. Susun is founder of the Wise Woman Center, editor-in-chief of Ash Tree Publishing, a high priestess of Dianic Wicca, a member of the Sisterhood of the Shields, a Peace Elder, and happy herder of her dairy goats. Among her five books are: Healing Wise; New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way and Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year. FULL BIO and LINKS