Miri has kindly consented to be the main stage's Goddess of Ceremonies this year. We are thrilled!!!
A powerful performer herself, we are very fortunate to have Miri taking the lead as the HPs of the stage for our Goddess Festival performers.
MIRI HUNTER HARUACH
Miri’s first CD, Harvest of the Heart was released in 1999 and was a Semi-finalist for CD of the Year by Independent Music Group (IMG). She was also awarded an Honorable Mention for song of the year for the sensuous and exotic “Southern Lullaby” by INDIESONGS. She is also a three time recipient of an ASCAP music grant for songwriters. Her second CD is entitled The Ways of Love.
Her poetry has been honored with several awards including a feature in the 2004 International Who’s Who in Poetry. Her poetry has been published in VISIONS, the ILIAD PRESS and she has received the President’s Award for Excellence from the National Authors Registry. The themes of her poetry include the search for love (Divine and Human), the dance as an expression of Divine and Human connection and the longing for this connection. She is working on her first collection of poetry.
She is a recognized authority on the Queen of Sheba and is the creator of the Queen of Sheba Wisdom Oracle.
Miri earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Tampa where she majored in Music and minored in Theatre. She received a Master’s Degree in Playwriting from the University of New Mexico .
As an actress, Miri has toured nationally with her one woman show “Grandmothers of the Universe. She has also performed with the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival for two consecutive years.
Miri currently lives in Hollywood where she writes, performs and lectures.
Goddess Festival Presentors!
Diana Paxson - I managed to pay attention in class enough to get in to Mills College, one of the best choices I ever made. After feeling like an alien throughout grade and high school, at last I had come to a place where books and ideas were valued. The friends I made here were for life, and the world to which professors like Dr. Elizabeth Pope (author of The Perilous Gard) introduced me became my own. I majored in English with a French and Art minor and had a wonderful time. I also took Creative Writing. Although I learned a lot about structure and style, unfortunately the fashion was for literary fiction and "social realism", or what I came to call the "ashcan school" of fiction. It bored me then as it still does now. As a result I came out convinced that I couldn't write anything that anyone, including me, would ever want to read. It was not until I got to know Marion Zimmer Bradley that I realized there was another kind of literature that real people both wrote and read.
Having decided that Northern California was my true native land, I continued on to graduate school at the University of California in Berkeley, where I got a Master's degree in Comparative Literature with an emphasis on the Middle Ages, and picked up a teaching credential. In my last semester there I got the bright idea of throwing a tournament in my backyard, an idea which unexpectedly took root and turned into the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Diana has written or collaborated on more than a score of books, including a number of historical fantasies set in Dark Age Europe and most of the Avalon books, and has founded or otherwise instigated, midwifed, or re-written several organizations religious or otherwise.
Ava Park - founder and director of The Goddess Temple of Orange County ... the only temple of its kind in the world Ava is Founder and Director of The Goddess Temple of Orange County, and the area's well-known ritual priestess and minister.
A businesswoman in the 80·s, she left the corporate world to focus on her life mission: to help return balance to the planet by bringing The Sacred Feminine back to modern day religion. Trained in Women·s Spirituality, metaphysics and Buddhism, Ava founded the Temple in 2002 - and, at this writing, it serves women's spirituality as the only Temple of its kind in the world. She currently leads the women's congregation in Sunday services, healing circles, seasonal rituals and special spiritual events.
Her counseling service for women uses personalized affirmations on tape, combined with a tailor-made graphic book, and is guaranteed to ·turn your life around in three to six months· or your money happily refunded. Few counselors will offer to refund fees, but Ava's program is so effective that in fifteen years of counseling, no client has yet taken her up on it. She also regularly counsels women of her congregation and their partners and children.
Rabbit Mathews - founder and High Priestess of the Come As You Are (CAYA) Coven.
CAYA is an eclectic, open, drop-in coven in the San Francisco’s Bay Area. Their mission is to create safe, loving, magickal space for all those who wish to participate in community rituals. They gather for ritual in the fashion of the ancient rural villages and tribes – all are invited and welcome as members of the community. The operations and mission of CAYA are overseen by their matriarchal Wildflower Priestess Council.
As the founding High Priestess of the Wildflower Tradition and the Amazon Priestess Tribe, ordained in the Dianic Tradition by Z Budapest, Rabbit serves the Divine as an Oracle, Ritualist, and Herbalist. She practices and studies tarot, plant medicine and lore, stones and crystals, ritual craft, mythology and storytelling, shamanic practices, singing, drumming, and alchemy. Visit her store, The Sacred Well.
Goddess Festival Musicians!
Percussionist and Ritualist, Larissa Montfort is a world-class percussionist and spiritual activist who has attended the Goddess Festival many, many times over the years and we're lucky to have her return with us this year too!
Larissa has been drumming since 1995 with a background in AfroCuban, West African, and Congolese rhythms. She performs locally with Mamayah, accompanies dance classes, and drums for women’s rituals and healing circles. She is currently in a three year drum masters program with Afia Walking Tree, teaching and performing with Spirit Drumz. She lives in Sebastopol, CA and promises to rock our Goddess Festival with her exciting rthymns that will have you on your feet dancing.
Bring your drums!
Bring your ritual instruments!
Bring your comfortable dancing shoes!!!
Larissa is rocking the Festival!
Diana Paxson has written or collaborated on more than a score of books, including a number of historical fantasies set in Dark Age Europe and most of the Avalon books, and has founded or otherwise instigated, midwifed, or re-written several organizations religious or otherwise.
She's also an amazing harpist and we asked her if she'd bring her harp to the Goddess Festival and share her little know musical talents wil us all. She agreed!
Anique Radiantheart - I focus my life on my workshops, spiritual music, and write songs and chants for women to use in daily spiritual life. In the last 13 years, my work has taken me overseas, where I have been honoured to present workshops, present papers at conferences about my work, and sing at women’s gatherings and also in many churches and temples. The women and men I have met and keep meeting, inspire me to continue.
Since the early eighties I have been working deeply to develop the closest possible connection with the Light on a daily basis. I have educated myself and worked with a number of inspiring Spiritual teachers who have guided me along a wondrous and transformational path. I have realised that my work in the world is to gather women and share my knowledge.
Mary Bichner is a 26-year-old composer and performer hailing from the bustling metropolis of Philadelphia, PA.
Combining Mozart-inspired chord progressions and bratty Brit-rock hooks into a musical succotash she likes to call classipop, the eccentric yet loveable redhead hopes to breathe new life into the calcified world of "radio-friendly" contemporary music through her memorable melodies and solid songwriting.
Mary also possesses perfect pitch (the ability to recognize notes and chords by name simply by hearing them played), and synesthesia (a bizzare neurological condition which causes Mary to "see" splashes of specific colors when she hears certain pitches sounded).
Journalists seem to be rather keen on calling Mary names, attested by the fact that she has been labeled a "perfectly quirky girl", a "musical prodigy", a "band nerd" (!!), a "biological curiosity to be studied by science", a "spunky redhead", and a "keyboard playing, songwriting, mighty-morphin teenage mutant polymodal synesthete" by various members of local and international press. We think she's a Z Generation Goddess!
Listen to some of Mary's music here:
This event is a fund raiser for the Women's Spirituality Forum an IRS 501(c)3 non-profit.
Your registration fees are tax deductible.
Stay updated!
Join the Goddess Magazine Email List and we'll keep you in the know.
About the Goddess Festival
On your sacred journey to the Goddess Festival, you’re struck by the beauty of the journey. The rolling hills dotted with oak trees gives way to majestic views of the California coastline as you pass over the northern part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The air smells of the ocean’s sweet salty kiss, and you know you are getting closer.
It’s exciting to take this journey. Knowing that your sisters await your arrival and loving women’s embraces will soon enfold you.
The coastline beckons you to follow the curve of her body just so she can show off her foamy white waves as she crests the rocks that provide you safety from Yamaya’s reach. Perhaps you’d like to stop along the way to outstretch your arms and receive her ancient female energies.
Then you see the marker that starts you on your inward journey. You travel inland for a short distance. The thick oak trees soon give way to the more ancient old growth redwoods; the ancient ones who welcome you home to yourself.
The air changes again and this time it is the raw elemental of Earth that imbibes you. She’s all around you, enfolding you deeply into her mamma Gaia arms. She is the primal forest and the sacred land of the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number One’s covenstead. You’ve come home sister.
Upon arrival there is the playful chaos of activities, of women nesting for their weekend’s stay. The women are already socializing and greeting each other. There are an abundance of hugs and warm smiles. Friendships begin forming from the first “hellos.”
You have arrived at the Goddess Festival, into the loving care of Z Budapest who is the original producer of the modern day Goddess Festival. You have come back to your original roots of sisterhood, to your Amazon women.
And now that you stand firmly upon this sacred land, you are glad that you took my advice to “save the date” and make the journey because it’s unlike any other experience you will have in life.
On this sacred land there are women from all over the world. International flavors of ideas, concepts and woman space show themselves in sacred play and self-expression. The women wear a variety of cultural clothing. Some dress in t-shirts and jeans, while others put on elaborate dresses that speak of the Goddess within. All are welcomed. All are beautiful.
And the Festival begins!
Love and praises sing out to the Goddess. Z brings all the sisters together. She tells them about the rituals to come. She tells them their parts in the sacred circle. And the spirituality of women fills the air with voices talking and singing, sharing life experiences and spiritual ideas.
On this weekend, the women will come together in ritual several times. They will enjoy a variety of workshops and musical performances. They will share a communal dining hall enjoying excellent meals prepared by our cooks. And we will also feast on several outdoor barbeques in the warm days of California. We all find the time to play and socialize as maidens, mothers, queens and crones. Good times!
Goddess art and beautiful altars line our dining hall as the vendors proudly display their wares. And a silent auction takes place as a fundraiser for the Women’s Spirituality Forum who sponsors this event to ensure that more Goddess Festivals grace women’s lives on into the future. In fact, the whole Festival is a fundraiser to help the Women’s Spirituality Forum raise awareness for the Dianic tradition and women’s lives. Your Festival fees are tax deductible.
The rituals are powerful! Moving! Intoxicating!
We dance, we sing, we chant, we scream, we drum and we play. Mostly, we empower each other as women as we share the sacred rites of passage of the divine feminine.
And no other place can top the Gaia Bowl. This is the sunken earthen well in which hundreds of women can stand or sit comfortably. Created by the Coastal Native Americans, this is sacred space completely surrounded by towering redwoods. To step onto this land is to know the energies of deeply ancient magic.
Splashes of vibrant colors fill the eye as the maidens, mothers, queens and crones form a processional and descend into the sacred well. The fabric of the women’s ceremonial clothing tells its own spiritual tale as their gowns, robes, capes and various other clothing catch the ancestor’s breeze. In Gaia’s bowl you can dress colorfully and express your inner-goddess, or go skyclad in the spirit of the Amazons.
All acts of love and kindness are Her expression, and it is a weekend filled with the loving spirit of all that women are capable of. Join us this year! Don’t put it off. Sisters need to rejuvenate themselves and each other; it’s vital to our life-force. We need to fill our souls with the magic of ritual and renew our spirit through new friendships.
Mothers bring your daughters! There is no better way to strengthen your bond as women, as family, than to experience a women’s rite of passage together. It’s a divine moment you both will cherish forever.
The Goddess Festival is open to all women-born-women.
Let our women’s prayers be uttered in unison from the sweet melodic voices of hundreds of women. Let the Earth be healed. Let women be healed. Let us all know pure joy in celebrating all that is female.
Come sisters! Come to the Goddess Festival! Come experience women’s rituals with Z Budapest the founding mother of the Women’s spirituality Movement. There is no other High Priestess who can do what Z does in circle. She is magic! And so are you! Join us!
Absolutely everything! Three huge meals every day plus snacks, and the food is awesomely good!
If you're a vegetarian, no problem we've got you covered.
You have access to drinks all day and we encourage you to drink lots of water as the weather tends to be warm in September.
Your fee also includes your lodging in our
all women's shared cabins, and you have your own bed.
We don't assign cabins, they are first come gets first choice ... so, arrive on time.
We have plenty of restroom facilities and hot water showers for you as well, complete with mirrors for looking your most Goddess self.
All rituals and workshops are included as well as all musical performances.
And this year we will have the facilities big blue
swimming pool open for a few hours a day as well. This pool is heated by the California sun, so it's great for afternoon dips to cool off and refresh yourself. Bring a swim suit!
The only additional charge will be for women who need transportation to the Festival from the San Francisco Airport. And, we'll have more information on the transportation soon, so check back.
What to bring with you?
Bring a pillow, sheets and blanket.
Bring clothes to dress in layers as this can be
hot in the day and cool at night.
