Dancing with the Goddess on the shores of Lake Michigan

I just got back from a weekend retreat/workshop with Gaia's Womb, which is a Midwestern women's group that reminds me of my own coven: lots of smart, creative, self-actualizing, compassionate and very fun women.

The retreat was at the motherhouse of the Racine Dominicans, on the shore of Lake Michigan, just south of Milwaukee. As the number of vocations has declined, the community has turned to other ministries, one of which is making a large part of their home available for retreat groups. 

The center is still home to about 100 Dominicans, many of whom are elderly. We all spent a fair amount of time dodging nuns on wheels, i.e. elderly sisters whipping around the halls on their motorized scooters.  I'm sure there must be a comparable situation over in Spokane  at the retirement center for the Sisters of the Holy Names who taught me.

When I say the edge of Lake Michigan, I mean just that. We were right on the shore, and could look out the window to see the piled-high ice shoals. I didn't venture down to the ice because the only shoes I brought were my Dansko clogs, and they were not safe for walking on slippery surfaces. One bad fall and I would have been riding around with the nuns.

It was so cold! It was 15 degrees without factoring in the wind-chill effect when I arrived on a Friday afternoon, and the wind was blowing hard. It bit right through my clothes.  The sky was mainly clear, although there were occasional flurries of light snow.

The theme of the weekend was inspiration, and I was brought there to do an art-making and inspiration workshop. The other presenter was Angi Sullins, founder of the Duirwaigh Gallery.  Usually I am the wordsmith in the crowd, so it was unusual and interesting for me to be in the presence of another skilled spinner of tales, and it was clear that the women at the workshop loved everything Angi had to say and do.

I guess we were a good contrast: she was ethereal and arty and colorful, and I showed up, my stolid Nordic self with an exercise for the women that did not call on their verbal skills. ( I am of the opinion that in groups, we women so often talk a subject to death instead of experiencing it. So increasingly, the workshops I teach place a premium on other means of communication).

I love the women who've been called together to make up Gaia's Womb. They are from a number of states in the Midwest, some of them traveling a great distance to reach the event.  I had asked each woman to bring a symbol of her creativity for the altar and was utterly blown away at what showed up. I saw exquisite knitting, weaving, spinning, beadwork, leatherwork, jewelry, and books and notebooks that promised vast amounts of literary creativity. There were a number of vendors drawn from the Gaia's Womb membership, and I have to say that their work easily exceeded nine-tenths of what I see for sale every year at Pantheacon.

The Dominicans could not have been more hospitable, even when we did a ritual with loud drumming, chanted our way through the hallways and even some of us showed up at meals wearing the crowns created in my workshop. I didn't wear mine to meals, mainly because it had a big cut-out Sheela-na-Gig on the front and I thought that might be a little much to shove into the face of non-Pagan women at breakfast. ( I did bring about eight of my own Sheela-na-Gig pieces to show the workshop attendees).

It's clear that feminism and the raising up of women is one of the core values of the Racine Dominicans. We all commented on the abundance of art and posters celebrating women's work and creativity. And all the nuns with whom I spoke talked about loving the energy we brought to the motherhouse.

I have a deep heart connection to the women of Gaia's Womb. So many of them are the kinds of women we all want to be at our very best.  And of course I love spending time with so many women who arrayed themselves in their gorgeous goddessy finery that itself manifested their creativity.

I did not take my camera, even though I would have loved to have brought home photos of the lake, the motherhouse, and the women at work and play. I made a choice to be in the moment as much as I could -- something very difficult for one who has been a trained journalistic  observer rather than a participant -- and knew that if I started shooting photos, I'd be back there in observer mode.

But I did bring back images locked in my memory. The most powerful one is of all the women dancing to powerful drumming while balancing peacock feathers on the ends of their fingers. They looked both primal and elegant, like a sea of reeds dancing in the wind.

The drummers, led by Helen Bond, were some of the best I've heard at any women's event. Helen is clearly mistress of the drums, but some of the other drummers were so skilled that they were able to converse back and forth with Helen's drum.  I sat on the edge of the stage listening happily to that conversation once my creaky crone knees said it was time to stop dancing.

The trip home to the Bay Area was uneventful except that the rain we've been asking for has now come in abundance, and it was raining so heavily that I didn't get home until 1:30 a.m. because  the traffic just crawled on the freeway and bridges. I haven't seen my coven sisters for a while other than at the Mardi Gras ritual (about which I will write more later), so now I'm eager to connect and tell them all about this other group of fabulous women with whom they'd be right at home.

Midwest Wisconsin Racine Dominican Nuns Community Women feminist feminism art art-making workshop retreat Pagan Paganism Sheela-na-Gig inspiration creativity drum drumming  Goddess dance dancing sisterhood  Gaia Gaia's+Womb

Comments

[~Angie]

It is always such a gift to have you with us. I can only imagine what we could do with the world if we only lived closer together...your Tribe and mine.

[Hollyheartfree]

It WAS a wonderful weekend. Longer would have been better, but even a few short hours of having you back amongst us was very very good. We need to do this again and again. I love your phrase 'a sea of reeds'. That's how it felt.

[Tessa]

How I wish that I could have been there with you! It sounded like a wonderful event and I'm sure the Gaia women loved having you there again. Hope you are well! :)

[Kim Gilligan]

It was an honor to meet you and the crown made in your workshop has a place of honor in my studio right next to the peacock feather. Blessings,Corbae

[Rowan]

It was great having you back with your Gaia's Womb sisters. The only problem with the weekend was there wasn't nearly enough minutes! I guess that means you must come back. The next time we send you home with mighty Isis, we'll ask for a short trip as well as a safe one.