The Women's Spirituality Forum is proud to sponsor the first ever Gathering the Goddess, a festival and celebration of Women's Spirituality honoring the life's work of Z Budapest and celebrating the 30+ years of publication of the Holy Book of Women's Mysteries.
This festival is a fund raiser for the Women's Spirituality Forum, and as such, all presenters are donating their time and energies for this event as thier continued gift and support of women and their spirituality.
Gathering the Goddess is a herstorical coming together of many women spirits. The Women's Spirituality Forum will be documenting this event through film and audio mediums. If you also take photos, video or audio we ask that you donate copies to help us create an archive for this event. We will credit you for your work.
We thought we would share a little herstory with you, as an attendee of the Gathering the Goddess Festival and share a little background on what and who it is we are coming together to celebrate beneath the most ancient of redwood trees in California.
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It all began in Southern California near Venice Beach. Z Budapest moved to Southern California, began working for women's crisis center, found her femist roots and then later, opened a small candle shop called the Feminist Wicca.
Here she taught classes about Women's Spirituality and the need for women to unite together in sisterhood. Radical feminism was taking foothold and Z Budapest was on the forefront, bringing with her a radical group of liberated Amazon women.
It's also here that Z was arrested for reading tarot cards.
This tiny doorway was the passage for many women to move into self-discovery, and it was through this tiny passageway that an entire Women's Studies phenomena was birthed. This is were it all started. |
Had you ventured through this doorway, this is the smiling face you would have been greeted by, and your journey would have already begun.
Soon Z formed the Susan B. Anthoney Coven Number 1 and found a covenstead space high on top of a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For 10 years, the members of the Susan B. meet on this spot in worship of the Goddess in all her many forms. Herstorically, the Susan B. Anthoney Coven Number 1 has become the world's most famous coven recognized by name everywhere.
When Z left Southern California, she handed the Susan B. over to Ruth Barrett, who changed the name to Moon Birch Grove, and later changed it again to Circle of Aradia.
In 2008, Z announced that she was reclaiming and rebirthing the Susan B. Anthoney Coven Number 1 as both a physical and virtual coven. The Susan B. had come full circle.
As we are Gathering the Goddess, we are celebrating the new life breathed into the Susan B. Anthoney Coven Number 1. We stand on the shoulders of these women who came before us.
Z is pictured below in the center, pointing and directing the flow of energies as the women begin to prepare for their ritual.
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A simple candle shop and a woman of great passion made all the difference in the world. The Susan B. Anthoney Coven Number 1 has become a global coven reaching Internationally to all parts of the world.
It was the members of the Susan B. that urged Z to document her understanding of Women's Spirituality. Specifically, it was Janet Roslund (pictured below) who point-blank told Z to write it down. So, she did.
The literary works of Z Budapest have been translated into many different languages. Even today as we celebrate the 30+ years of life of the Holy Book of Women's Mysteries, it is being translated into several more languages.
Throughout the world, women hunger to reclaim their spirituality. Indeed, the Goddess is Alive! |
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Janet Roslund and a young Z
The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries actually started as The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows.
It was Helen Hancken (pictured to Z's right) who printed the first copies of The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows and then put Z into her truck and together they toured the United States reaching out to women everywhere. The Women's Spirituality Movement was on the move!
They were meet with great zeal by women across the United States, but not by the Christian church. |
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Throughout the years, thousands of women all over the country have gathered with Z to celebrate the goddess. Do you have any photos of gatherings you've attended with Z? We are gathering our images for the Goddess herstories. We'd welcome you to email us your photos or mail us copies. We will credit you when using. Below is a photo of a previous Goddess Festival with Z seated in the middle. Are you here?
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At age 68, Z has overcome great physical obsticles with her health and then meet head-on the new changes in the publishing industry. She has breathed new life into the Women's Spirituality Movement and is now working to bring our Women's Rituals back out from the obscurity of the clinical mental health industry.
Women have forgotten what it was to have powerful ritual experiences, those experiences that they had in the early days of the feminist movement. Today's rituals operate more like a clinical therapy session, and less like the beauty and expression of the arts.
Through Gathering the Goddess, Z is going to bring us back to the real focus of Women's Rituals and show us again how to raise energies. She and all the presenters will be conducting their teachings from the basis of the Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. It's pure, it's powerful and it's real! |
It's Time to spread the word about this Goddess Festival! Tell your friends!
We are Gathering the Goddess in the ancient redwoods of the California coast. Where the tree spirits are very alive, remember great amounts of the Earth's histories and are communicating it. Can you see the faces in the trees talking with Z?
Invite ALL women to join us at this Goddess Gathing!
Send emails to your friends. Post to your e-lists and forums.
The Goddess is Alive and it's time to celebrate her together!
<< Gathering the Goddess Festival Information >>
The Women's Spirituality Forum is the nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization founded by Z Budapest to help promote the Goddess' sacred work. Past and present endeavors include the Dianic University Online, the Goddess 2K Festivals, other events and retreats, books, videos, lectures, and CDs, a cable television program, and more.
All proceeds from items or services available for sale or subscription via this site benefit the Women's Spirituality Forum.
