Women’s Spirituality Graduate Studies 25th Anniversary Celebration
Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits Drumming Circle
The Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit (BAAITS) Drum was created on June 2010 by a need for local Native Two-Spirit (LGBTQ) people to re-connect with the culture and spirituality of our ancestors. Due to religious colonization of our tribes for 500 years, previous generations had adopted intolerance towards Two-Spirit folk, thus going against the original traditions of hundreds of native nations. As Two-Sprit people seeking to re-claim our identities within modern Native America, the drum is a source of pride, learning, inspiration, connection and especially healing.
BAAITS Two Spirit singers are descended from several nations: Apache, Osage, Yaqui, Oneida, Paiute, and Cherokee to name just a few. In the spirit of inclusiveness, our group also consists of non-native allies and straight allies. As we have come together for more events, learning more songs and traditions, we have grown as an extended family and welcomed a new baby to our drum. Aho!
We have sung for events both small and large throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including every BAAITS Two Spirit powwow. Each year we sponsor a pre-Two Spirit powwow social to welcome our out of town guests. We hold monthly drum circles and welcome Two Spirits and their families to come sing and learn the songs. We sing for the ancestors and for the next 7 generations.
Annette Williams
Annette Williams is chair and core faculty in the Women’s Spirituality program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She holds a doctorate in Philosophy and Religion with specialization in Women’s Spirituality. Research interests have centered on soul healing from sexual trauma, and the theme of women’s spiritual power and agency within the Yorùbá Ifá tradition, with specific reference to the primordial feminine authority of àjẹ́. She collaborated with Lucia Birnbaum and Karen Villanueva on the compilation of She is Everywhere! An Anthology of Writing in Womanist/Feminist Spirituality Vol. 2 and has authored “The Divine Feminine in Yoruba Cosmology” found in Goddesses in Myth, History, and Culture. Her entry, “Drumming,” appears in the forthcoming Women in World Religions: Faith and Culture Across History.
Judie Wexler
Dr. Judie Wexler has been at CIIS since 2002. Her focus in higher education is on creating and enhancing academic programs that combine cognitive and personal growth and community service. A professor of sociology, Dr. Wexler has been teaching for more than 25 years and served as chair for both the Department of Sociology and the Division of Business Administration and Social Sciences at Holy Names College.
Between 1992 and 1997, Dr. Wexler held the positions of vice president for academic affairs and dean of faculty at Holy Names College in Oakland, where she focused her energies on creating a faculty development program to incorporate multicultural materials into the curriculum, among other projects. Before coming to CIIS, she was associate executive director at the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
Kanyon Sayers-Roods
Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Mutsun Ohlone and Chumash) also goes by her given Native name, "Coyote Woman." She is an artist, poet, author, activist, student and teacher. The daughter of Ann-Marie Sayers, she was raised in Indian Canyon, trust land of her family. Her art has been featured at the De Young Museum, SOMArts Gallery, and in numerous Native gatherings and publications.
Tricia Grame ~ co-curator of The Once and Future Goddess Art Exhibition, in honor of Elinor Gadon
Tricia Grame, PhD, creates two- and three-dimensional art that is inspired by prehistoric female symbols. Her research combines archaeology, religion, history, social issues, and contemporary art.
"By weaving together the evidence that the female image in any form has always been alive in artist's consciousness, we can then search to comprehend the origin of our being and the position of women throughout history. From this we create symbolic meaning. My content is about the effects of these symbols on the transformation of life into art and art into life. Thus I am attempting to reveal a relationship of time history and memory."
In Memorium, Elinor Gadon
Elinor Gadon died on May 8 at the age of 92. A feminist cultural historian and scholar, she was also an extraordinary teacher and the founder of the first academic program in Women’s Spirituality, at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in San Francisco. Her 1989 book The Once and Future Goddess: A Symbol for Our Times remains an important feminist work in the field of women and religion. With stamina and passionate intellectual curiosity which inspired many of us, in her seventies and eighties Elinor returned to the India she loved in order to do research on the village goddesses of Orissa. Her son John said after he read letters sent to her from women all over the world, “I had no idea she changed so many lives.” She will be sorely missed. ~ Dianne Jennet
It is with sadness that we share this information about the passing of Dr. Elinor Gadon, the founder of the Women's Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies, 25 years ago. Her book, The Once and Future Goddess, continues to be a beautiful resource of sacred feminine art and cultural history, and an inspiration to so many in the contemporary women's spirituality movement today. We are very grateful for her contributions to the Women's Spirituality Program at CIIS and for her dedication to the re-sacralization of women's lives around the world. ~ Annette Williams, Mara Lynn Keller, and Arisika Razak.
Rose Wognum Frances
Rose Wognum Frances’ artwork has been shown internationally since 1970 in numerous museums and galleries, including the American Craft Museum, NYC, New York, and the Corcoran Gallery and Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. She has been a professor at Florida International University (1975-1985), New College of California (1988-2001), and California Institute of Integral Studies (1993-2010), where from 1994-1998 she served as head of the Womens Spirituality Program. Rose has been a studio artist in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1985. During that time, she has presented lectures and seminars at Antioch University West, San Francisco City College, Stanford University, the Graduate Theological Union, and various international conferences.
Mara Lynn Keller
Mara Lynn Keller, PhD, is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Women’s Spirituality at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she directed Women’s Spirituality graduate studies, 1998-2008. Her research centers on Goddess cultures of Crete and Greece; and Women’s Visionary Culture (poetry,fiction, and film). Articles include: “The Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone,” “Ancient Crete of the Earth Mother Goddess,” “Archaeomythology as Academic Field and Methodology,” and “Women’s Spirituality and Higher Education.” Previously she taught Philosophy and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Riverside and San Francisco State University, where she co-founded Global Peace Studies.
Arisika Razak
Arisika Razak, CNM, MPH (Health Care Administration, UC Berkeley 1978, Certified Nurse Midwife, UC San Francisco 1980), is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Women's Spirituality, and past Director of the Women's Spirituality MA and PhD program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. She is also Director of Diversity at CIIS. Arisika is an African-American healer, ritualist, spiritual dancer, and educator who practices an eclectic mix of Earth-based spiritual traditions. She has worked with indigent women as an inner-city nurse-midwife for more than 20 years, focusing on the lives and cultures of women of color, which has led to her research interest in feminist, womanist, mujerista, and postcolonial epistemologies and worldviews, and in women's health. Arisika is a diversity trainer and spiritual dancer who leads spiritual and healing workshops. She has performed nationally and internationally; she was the 2008 American Association of Religion-Western Region's conference chair and vice president, and she is the organization's 2009 president.
Alka Arora
Alka Arora, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Women's Spirituality program at CIIS. Her primary area of scholarship is feminist spiritual activism, and she brings this perspective to all her teaching, research, and service. Her courses bring an intersectional feminist analysis to an array of topics, including liberatory pedagogy, women’s leadership, and vegan ecofeminism. Dr. Arora also facilitates transformative workshops with Gender Equity and Reconciliation International (GERI), a nonprofit organization headquartered in the Seattle area. She is passionate about people of all genders coming together to create a post-patriarchal, ecologically just world.