Holistic Alliance in St. Joseph, Michigan presents

Damaged Voice:
Healing the Silencing
of the Feminine

with Kathleen Jenks, Ph.D.
[Please click  for biographical data]

Saturday, 20 December 2003,
1-5 pm

Cost: $50 (prepaid by 13 December or $60 after that)

A powerful Gorgon Goddess, Medusa,
holding her son Pegasus under her right arm --
notice their matching wings.
There's no "hero" who slays her at this point in history.
(Terracotta relief: circa 625-600 B.C.
Museo Archeologico Regionale di Siracusa )

This workshop, with two slide presentations, will look at "Damaged Voice" in both genders as well as in myth and folklore.  The moon will be waning on December 20th -- it's the time of Chanukah, winter solstice, Christmas.  A season of such sacred energies is a special time in which to look at the Gorgon Moon-goddess, Medusa.  This Gorgon was the mother of the winged horse, Pegasus, who inspired the Muses of ancient Greece.

We will begin with a slide presentation on Medusa and ask what it says about Western attitudes to female creativity that the mother of the Muse-horse was brutally slain?  It was her voice, or throat-chakra, that was the target.  It's time to unravel the myths and regain her power in our lives.

© SigitasMickevicius
Courtesy of Kukas Gallery,Vilnius, Lithuania.

Then we will move beyond the destructiveness evidenced in the Greek myth and look at ways of restoring and healing those voices by considering the myth of India's Vak.  This second slide presentation forms a wonderful contrast to the first.  The ancient Voice-goddess, Vak, is the goddess of dance, drama, and speech ("voice" comes from the Sanskrit root of her name).  When she is chrned up from the bottom of the ocean, she also bears the cup of the elixir of life.  Through her story, and a re-mythologized Medusa, the damaged feminine in both genders may find a way to wholeness.

The workshop will include time for discussions of "damaged voice" in our own lives as well as whatever reactions are stirred by the contents of this presentation.

Limited space available, so please register early with:

Holistic Alliance
100 Church Street
St. Joseph, MI 49085
(approximately a 90 minute drive from O'Hare Airport in Chicago)

Phone: (269) 982-0900
Email: Community@HolisticAlliance.com
Website: HolisticAlliance.com