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Speakers |
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Indigenous
Grandmothers Council
ARCTIC CIRCLE |
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Rita Pitka Bleumentstein
— Yupik mother, grandmother, great grandmother, wife, aunt,
sister, friend, tribal elder. Born on a fishing boat and raised in
Tununak, Alaska, Rita attended a Montessori school in Seattle for
four years. She raised two children and worked at many hospitals delivering
babies as a doctor’s aide in Bethel and Nome. She has traveled
and taught basket weaving, song, dance and cultural issue classes
world-wide, earning money for Native American Colleges |
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Mona Polacca — Hopi/Havasupai
/Tewa Elder. Working on her PhD at the Interdisciplinary Justice Studies
department of Arizona State University. Mona has worked on issues
of Native American alcoholism, domestic violence and mental health
for the elderly native peoples. |
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Agnes Baker-Pilgrim —
Oldest living female member of the Rogue River Indians, Takelma
Bamd, originally from Southern Oregon, Agnes was chosen by her tribe
as a “Living Legend. Agnes is an ambassador for our Mother
Earth. She is a spiritual elder of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz
and granddaughter of Chief George Harney, the first elected chief
of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz. She is a world-renowned spiritual
leader, elder mentor to the Native American Student Union of Southern
Oregon University, and keeper of the Sacred Salmon Ceremony. |
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Beatrice Long-Visitor Holy-Dance
— Lakota keeper of the traditional ways, great grandmother,
Native American Church elder, sundancer, health worker. |
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Rita Long-Visitor Holy-Dance
— Lakota keeper of the traditional ways, great grandmother,
Native American Church elder, bead worker. |
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Margaret Behan - Red
Spider Woman — Arapahoe Cheyenne #003300, fifth generation
of the Sand Creek Massacre. As a child, Magaret attended the Catholic
Mission and Government Boarding Schools. Margaret is a Cheyenne traditional
war dancer. She has served as a dance leader in Oklahoma and in powwows
across the U.S. As a sculptress of clay figurines of twenty-four years,
she creates dolls that have taken her to many honors including shows
at Eastern New Mexico University, University of Wisconsin, Santa Fe
Indian Market and the Gallup Inter-Tribal Ceremonial. |
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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Flordemayo —
Mayan elder born in a small village on the Nicaragua/ Honduras. Flordemayo’s
father was a local Shaman and Flordemayo’s mother was a midwife
and a healer. As her children grew, Flordemayo began to work as a
healer/ curandera. Flordemayo is a sundancer who considers her Mayan
heritage a keystone of her work. |
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Juilietta Casimiro
— Mazatec elder, from Huautla de Jimenez, carries the tradition
of healing and ceremonies with the use of sacred plants, the pre-hispanic
Teonanactl, “Ninos Santos” way from which her cousin Maria
Sabina came. |
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SOUTH AMERICA |
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Marie Alice Campos Freire
— Madrinha of the Santo Daime Church, Mapia. Healer with Amazonian
Plant Medicine. Founder of Centro Medicina da Floresta. Madrinha of
the Umbanda Ceremonies. Principal advocate for the preservation of
the indigenous rain forest heritage. |
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Clara Shinobu Iura
— Born in Mirandópolis, Brazil. At 28, Clara had a sudden
spiritual breakthrough while attending a workshop with Osho’s
disciples. An inner voice guided her to many teachings, including
Umbanda, to contact with extra-terrestrial beings. She was initiated
by a caboclo and began work as a shamanic, bioenergetic healer. |
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AUSTRALIA |
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Ruth Walker —
Australian Gumbangir elder, Ruth teaches the young. She is involved
in the Gumbangirr language center to preserve the traditional language
and pass it on to the children. |
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AFRICA |
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Bernadette Rebienot
— Born in Libreville, Gabon of the Omyene linguistic community,
widow and mother of ten, grandmother of twenty-three. Before retiring,
Bernadette worked as an educator and school administrator. Bernadette
has participated in numerous national and international conferences
on Traditional Medicine. She is a healer, master of the Iboga Bwiti
Rite and master of Women's Initiations. |
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ASIA |
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Kusali Devi —
Spontaneously realized Nepalese yogini who can heal and remove obstacles.
Her roots are in the Newari culture, one of the four indigenous cultures
of the Kathmandu Valley. The Newars revere the Devi as deomeju, ”Divine
Mother.” |
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Tsering Dolma Gyalthong
— Tsering Dolma was born in Tibet in 1929. Because of
the Communist invasion of Tibet, she escaped along with her family
from Tibet in 1958 to India. In 1972, she and her family (four children)
came to Canada as refugees. She returned to India and became one of
the founding members who revived the Tibetan Women’s Association
(TWA). During the next ten years, she served as an executive member
of TWA and established over 30 branch offices worldwide. |
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WESTERN WOMEN |
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Carol Moseley Braun — Ms.
Moseley Braun has served her country as a United States Senator (1992-98),
U.S. Ambassador (1999-2001), as well as County Executive Officer,
State Representative, and Assistant United States Attorney. Since
her return in 2001 from her ambassadorial posting to New Zealand,
she has taught law and political science at Morris Brown College and
DePaul University, along with a business law practice and business
consultancy in Chicago.
Carol Moseley Braun was narrowly defeated in her race for re-election,
President Clinton named her special consultant to the Department of
Education on school construction - one of her longtime special concerns.
She was then nominated to be U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, and confirmed
by a vote of the full Senate, 98-2.
As United States Ambassador, her portfolio included New Zealand, Samoa,
the Cook Islands and even Antarctica. She is fond of calling this
time in her public service "Ambassador to Paradise." In
New Zealand, she was made an honorary member of the Te Atiawa Maori
people.
When her ambassadorial assignment ended, Ms. Moseley Braun returned
to Alabama to rehabilitate and rescue her family farm. During that
time, she started her business consultancy and began to teach political
science. Carol Moseley Braun returns today to the national forum animated
by a sense of duty to the nation and a patriotic desire to serve. |
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Teresa Hale — is regarded
as one of the World's leading "Health visionaries". She
has played a major role in the growth of Complementary Medicine over
the last 15 years. She founded the Hale Clinic, London in 1987. The
Prince of Wales opened the Clinic officially in 1988 and Teresa has
been at the helm as Managing Director ever since. Over 40 different
treatments are available from the 100 practitioners who are based
at the Clinic. Chiropractors, healers, reflexologists, masseurs work
side by side treating a whole range of conditions. Many of the therapists
are multi-disciplinary and a number are qualified medical doctors.
She is also a proponent of alternative globalization. She has travelled
to indigenous communities around the world to study their medical
knowledge, which she sees as intimately associated with sacred
knowledge. She is actively studying ways that their natural medicines
can be brought to the West and still retain their sense of the sacred
because she believes they can make an immense contribution to healing
the body, mind and spirit. |
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Helena Norberg-Hodge — a
linguist fluent in six languages, is a leading analyst of the impact
of the global economy on cultures around the world. She is founder
and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture
(ISEC) renowned for its groundbreaking work promoting sustainable
alternatives to conventional development on 4 continents. She is the
author of numerous works, including the inspirational classic, Ancient
Futures: Learning from Ladakh, which together with the video based
on the book has been translated into 42 languages. She is on the editorial
board of the Ecologist magazine, a co-founder of the International
Forum on Globalisation and the Global Eco-village Network, and is
a recipient of the Alternative Nobel Prize. |
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Bhikshuni Tenzin Palmo —
was born in England in 1943 and at the age of 20 travelled to India
where she met her guru H.E. Khamtrul Rinpoche. After some years serving
as his secretary she was directed to practise in an Himalayan region
called Lahaul where she stayed for the next 18 years, 12 of which
she spent in a remote cave.
Until recently Tibetan nuns had little opportunity to study the Dharma
or become educated. Within her own Drukpa Kargyu tradition which many
of the Himalayan Buddhist areas follow, there is still nothing layed
down for the instruction of nuns in philosophy, hence they often remain
ignorant and unable to realise their full potential. In northern India
in recent times Tenzin Palmo has been involved in the founding of
a nunnery known as Dongyu Gatsal Ling for the training of young nuns
from the Himalayan regions in philosophy, meditation and ritual. The
hope is that eventually some of these nuns will be the teachers of
others and some will become realised meditators (togdenma) and uphold
the practice lineage. |
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Gloria Steinem — Gloria
has won numerous awards for her impact on feminism, human
justice, and politicis. As both a writer and an activist,
she remains particularly interested in the shared origins of sex
and race caste systems; gender roles and child abuse as the roots
of violence; non-violent conflict resolution; the cultures of indigenous
people; and in organizing across national boundaries for peace and
justice.
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Luisah Teish — bio to come |
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Alice Walker — winner of
the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award for The Color Purple,
is internationally honored as an essential writer of our time. She
is the author of six novels, and she has also written short stories,
essays, poetry, and children's books. Ms. Walker's books have been
critically acclaimed best sellers. The Color Purple was also made
into an internationally popular film by Steven Spielberg.
Alice was the Executive Director of the independent film Warrior Marks,
a documentary on the subject of female genital mutilation. She and
the film's director, Pratibha Paanar, also collaborated on a companion
volume entitled "Warrior Marks, Female Genital Mutilation and
the Sexual Blinding of Women," published in 1993.
Alice Walker has received numerous honors and awards. She is an activist
and social visionary. Ms. Walker has been a participant in major movements
for planetary change, among them: the human and civil rights movement
in the South, the hands off Cuba movement, the Native American rights
movement, the indigenous rights movement, the free South Africa movement,
the environmental rights movement, the animal rights movement, and
the peace movement. |
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Opening Keynote |
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Wilma Mankiller — former Principal
Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, lives on the land which
was allotted to her paternal grandfather, John Mankiller, just after
Oklahoma became a state in 1907. Her family name "Mankiller"
as far as they can determine, is an old military title that was given
to the person in charge of protecting the village. As the leader of
the Cherokee people she represented the second largest tribe in the
United States, the largest being the Dine (Navajo) Tribe. Mankiller
was the first female in modern history to lead a major Native American
tribe. With an enrolled population of over 140,000, and an annual
budget of more than $75 million, and more than 1,200 employees spread
over 7,000 square miles, her task may have been equaled to that of
a chief executive officer of a major corporation. |
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Moderator |
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Jyoti — Spiritual Director
of Center for Sacred Studies and Kayumari, is internationally known
as a spiritual and psychological consultant working with spiritual
emergence as it manifests through the individual and community. Her
extensive study of indigenous healing and spiritual practices combined
with her training in Jungian and psychological approaches to mental
health have inspired a variety of projects. Her spiritual and psychological
insights provide a balanced approach to integrating one's life. Her
consistent focus is to actively affirm our role as creators of sustainable
communities, through business and social reform. She resides at Kayumari
in Sonora, California, and travels lecturing across the United States,
Europe, South America and Africa. |
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Closing Prayer and
Dedication |
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Chalanda Sai Ma — is passionate
in her efforts to end human suffering. She inspired the creation
of Humanity in Unity, a non-profit organization that sponsors service
projects throughout the world aimed at uplifting those in need through
financial, educational and spiritual programs. In her teaching,
Sai Ma inspires all to activate the divine blueprint and “divinize”
their personality. Essential to her work is the message: “As
I serve you, so shall you serve others.” |
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Performers |
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Jennifer Berezan —
an internationally acclaimed singer/songwriter/recording artist
and teacher. She is a unique blend of poet, musician, music healer
and political activist. Her love of women and the earth is reflected
both in her music and a long history of activism in women's health
and violence against women movements and many other feminist, ecological,
and progressive causes. Her original writing also reflects a long
interest in Buddhism and earth based spirituality and the search
for place and meaning in an increasingly technological and alientated
culture. She recorded her CD "Returning" in one of the
word's oldest temples devoted to the Mother Goddess in Malta. And
recently she produced the CD "Praises for the World" and
the live ritual concert events featuring a collaboration of over
50 artists from a wide variety of cultural and sacred musical traditions.
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Kristine Robin —
an independent recording artist, has recently released her debut
album, Everchanging Tides, which moved scientist of mass
behavior, philosopher, and popular culture-maker Howard Bloom to
coin the term Novo-Folk. Robin, influenced by early teen years spent
in a Scottish fishing village, the Appalachian Mountains, and later
in Native American ceremonies conducted by her adopted Arapaho dad,
has skillfully blended her Celtic, Appalachian, and Native American
experiences to create an evocative landscape of soothing but progressive
sound laced with folkish overtones. "For me, it's about connecting
people to a place of reverence in their everyday lives," a
vision which distinguishes her artistic style. Through her thought
provoking, melodic tunes and lyrics, and in all she does, she communicates
a magical sense of nature and spirit. With her music, Robin is helping
various organizations raise funds for their work.
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Sacred
Dancers |
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Women’s Moon Council
— First Nations of the Region: Mid-Hudson Valley Association
of Native Americans
Marie Meade — Traditional Yupik dancer, master teacher
of Alaskan native studies |
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