Home to Her

Making Matriarchy Great Again with Dawn Alden and Vicki Noble

Episode Summary

What might it mean to embrace matriarchy? On the latest episode, I explore this topic and much more with two of the three co-hosts of one of my favorite podcasts, “Make Matriarchy Great Again.” Dawn Alden has spent almost 30 years in the non-profit arts space, both as a performer and as an administrator. She founded and ran her own non-profit theatre company for 10 years, worked in Development and Fundraising for various arts organizations, runs a film production company and is founding a church. She has a long history of feminist activism in the arts, and is dedicated to creating work by and about women, for everyone. 34 Circe Salon - Make Matriarchy Great Again podcast is her pandemic lockdown project. Also joining me in this episode is feminist artist, writer, healer and teacher Vicki Noble. Vicki is the co-creator of Motherpeace and the author of eight books, including Motherpeace: A Way to the Goddess; Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World; and The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power. Vicki co-created, with Karen Vogel, the round feminist Motherpeace tarot cards revisioning both divination and world history to include women and people of color. For decades she has traveled and taught internationally, and led pilgrimage groups to sacred Goddess sites around the world. On today’s episode, we explore: • Dawn and Vicki’s spiritual backgrounds, and how each found her way to Goddess spirituality • Vicki’s experiences exploring feminism and the women’s spiritual movement during the 1970s in Berkeley, California • The magic Vicki experienced during the creation of the Motherpeace Tarot deck • The vision behind the Make Matriarchy Great Again podcast • What Dawn and Vicki mean when they use the term “matriarchy” • Dawn’s creative vision for the Church of the Clitori • Whether Vicki and Dawn feel that a matriarchal vision is possible for our future

Episode Notes

• If you’d like to know whose ancestral tribal lands you currently reside on, you can look up your address here: https://native-land.ca/
• My new book, “Home to Her: Walking the Transformative Path of the Sacred Feminine,” will be available beginning October 14 from Womancraft Publishing! To learn more, read endorsements and purchase, please visit www.womancraftpublishing.com.   
• You can watch this and other podcast episodes at the Home to Her YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK6xtUV6K7ayV30iz1ECigw
• You can listen to all past episodes of the “Make Matriarchy Great Again” podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/34-circe-salon-make-matriarchy-great-again-disrupting/id1515852327
• You can also become a supporter of their work via Patreon: http://patreon.com/34Circe
• And, you can learn more about Vicki, including her upcoming online course exploring the work of Marija Gimbutas, here: https://www.vickinoble.com/.

We discussed a number of books and resources during this episode! Here are a few you can explore on your own:

• “The First Sex,” by Elizabeth Gould Davis, was brought up here, and has also been mentioned by other guests in the past
• Octavia Butler was a fantastic science fiction writer whose books were extremely prescient and relevant to the times we’re living in. You can learn more about her and work here: https://www.octaviabutler.com/
• Dawn also mentioned the books “Sexual Politics”, by Kate Millett, and “Drawing Down the Moon”, by Margot Adler
• We also discussed the classic book “When God Was a Woman”, by Merlin Stone
• Kaitlin Shetler is a fantastic ex-evangelical poet who shares her work on social media. You can read her poems here: https://www.facebook.com/kaitlinhardyshetler/
• https://www.hagia.de/home/ is the home of the Hagia, International Academy for Modern Matriarchal Studies, founded by Heide Goettner-Abendroth
• Dawn also discussed her experience with the teachings of Eagle Man (Ed McGaa), a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

The following prior podcast episodes are also relevant to this conversation:

• The Legacy of Marija Gimbutas with Joan Marler:   https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/the-legacy-of-marija-gimbutas-with-joan-marler
• Reclaiming Women’s Histories with Max Dashu: https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/reclaiming-womens-histories-with-max-dashu
• The Maternal Gift Economy with Genevieve Vaughan: https://hometoher.simplecast.com/episodes/the-maternal-gift-economy-with-genevieve-vaughan