Siegrun Claaßen
Photo Exhibition: The New Matriarchal Mystery Festivals at the International Academy HAGIA, Germany (2003)
Born l943. She studied education, art, and textile working. For many years, she was a teacher and equal rights representative in Schleswig Holstein, responsible for cultural events in rural areas. There, she took part in establishing an adult education center. Ecological studies and the study of building with mudpacks; she built her own house out of wood and mudpacks. Since ten years she creates objects of art and takes photos of them at places which she transformed in a spiritual way. She finds images of the Goddess in nature and takes photos of them.
Gudrun Frank-Wissmann
Film: A Life Dedicated to Matriarchal Studies: Heide Goettner-Abendroth (2011)
Film: Celebrating the Year of the Earth. Matriarchal Mystery Festivals at the Academy HAGIA (2006)
Gudrun Frank-Wissmann holds a diploma in design and filmmaking. In l994, she began her research work and filming with the matriarchal Kunama in Eritrea, East Africa. She made films about the Kunama, about the Garo in Meghalaya/Northeast India, and about the people of the Pacific Island of Palau. Her stays with these people added to her understanding of matriarchal societies.
Her contacts lasting for years with the Kunama women made it possible for Gudrun Frank-Wissmann to take part in and make a film about a secret women’s ritual: Andina Koyake – When the Ancestors Speak through their Daughters. It shall be published in 2011.
Uschi Madeisky
Film: Celebrating the Year of the Earth. Matriarchal Mystery Festivals at the Academy HAGIA (2006)
Uschi Madeisky is a filmmaker. Since the nineteen nineties, she is producing documentaries about matriarchal societies and their way of life, and she received the “Tony Sender Award” of the City of Frankfurt for it. She has learned and now teaches at the Academy ALMA MATER and is member of the Board of MatriaVal (“Association for Strengthening Matriarchal Societies and Conveying Matriarchal Values”). Furthermore she is doing networking and is committed to projects dedicated to spreading matriarchal wisdom and ways.
www.matriaVal.de
Isabella Verbruggen
Isabella Verbruggen is a Tympanistria* from Holland, a priestess who interweaves Mediterrean Framedrum traditions in the Wheel of the Year. During the last thirteen years she developed in her workshops, courses and rituals an unique blend of qualities of varied rhythms. As a passionated teacher and performer she likes to pass on the spiritual heritage of framedrumming, like many other women. Isabella is mother, grandmother and co-teacher of a Priestess-training.
*Tympanistria is the original word for a woman who played the tambourine.
www.rhythmandrituals.nl
Loes Moezelaar
Loes is Priestess in the ancient way; she is herbal medicine woman, spiritual healer, frame drummer, co-teacher of a Priestess training, she is mother & grandmother. In cultivating, caring and preparing the herbs she makes use of their medical and magical qualities continuing the tradition of the priestesses and magicians of antiquity. She gives workshops in which you learn all about herbs and the ancient religion and how to make your own products.
loesmoezelaar@hotmail.com
The women of the Labyrinth Zurich, Switzerland
The Labyrinth, a path of life, a heritage of matriarchal cultures.
During the International Conference in St Gallen we set up a trace on the land, a sign of our mother earth, a path for all beings living on her. In the park opposite to the Tonhalle (Concert Hall) we create a gathering space, a place under the open sky for mutual exchange, for contemplation and joy. We invite everyone to enter this picture of life and walk the labyrinth.