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Goddess-Makers in an Age of Autocrats

By August 29, 2024August 11th, 2025No Comments

Goddess-makers in an Age of Autocrats

The Power of the Creative Feminine to Re-Shape the World

An Arts-based Research Conference

August 29-31, 2025

Hosted at Pacifica’s Beautiful Ladera Lane Campus
801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93108

 Registration links now live!

Goddess-Makers in an Age of Autocrats:
The Power of the Creative Feminine to Re-shape the World

August 29-31, 2025

 

This hybrid event, held both on campus and online, will feature keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and performances that illuminate the many faces of the creative feminine—from ancient goddesses to contemporary changemakers.

In an era marked by the resurgence of authoritarianism, the creative feminine emerges as a force of transformation, resistance, and renewal. Goddess-Makers in an Age of Autocrats explores the depth psychological dimensions of the archetypal feminine—its capacity to shape culture, inspire justice, and reimagine collective futures in the face of oppressive systems.

History offers us a powerful example of this transformative potential in the figure of Enheduanna, the first known author of the written word. A high priestess and poet of ancient Sumer, Enheduanna used her storytelling genius to craft a vision of the goddess Inanna, the fierce and radiant deity of love, war, and justice. Through her hymns, she wove a narrative that not only deified Inanna but also unified two warring kingdoms under a shared mythic and spiritual identity. In doing so, Enheduanna demonstrated the profound ability of the creative feminine to shape consciousness, reconcile opposites, and forge new worlds.

Hosted by Pacifica Extension, this conference invites scholars, artists, activists, and visionaries to engage in a rich dialogue on how the feminine, in its many mythic and embodied forms, catalyzes personal and collective transformation. Drawing upon Jungian and archetypal psychology, feminist theory, mythology, and the arts, we will explore how figures like Enheduanna—and the goddesses, muses, and creators who followed—continue to inspire movements for justice, healing, and rebalancing power.

This hybrid event, held both on campus and online, will feature keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and performances that illuminate the many faces of the creative feminine—from ancient goddesses to contemporary changemakers. Like Enheduanna, we will explore how storytelling, myth, and the imagination can serve as tools for resistance and renewal in the face of oppressive systems.

Join us this August to reclaim the radical, world-making power of the feminine and cultivate pathways for deep, lasting change.

Reclaim the radical, world-making power of the feminine and cultivate pathways for deep, lasting change.

Diverse Learning Pathways Rooted in Soul, Scholarship, and Embodiment

The Goddess-Makers conference has been designed with great intentionality to offer a rich tapestry of learning experiences that honor the many ways we come to know, create, and transform. Recognizing that the sacred feminine speaks through intellect, imagination, and the body, we have curated a program that blends academic rigor, creative exploration, and experiential engagement.

In each of the four Goddess-Makers Learning Sessions, participants can choose from the following types of learning modalities:

Multi-Panel Presentations

These sessions bring together three presenters each offering 20-minute scholarly papers focused on myth, depth psychology, social critique, and archetypal studies. Each panel is followed by a facilitated group discussion and Q&A, creating a space for dialogue between panelists and attendees. This format supports intellectual inquiry and communal meaning-making.

Workshops

Workshops offer 60–90 minute experiential engagements that incorporate movement, art-making, ritual, storytelling, or somatic practices. These sessions are designed to bridge body and psyche, allowing participants to not only think about the feminine, but to feel and embody her presence through creative and healing modalities.

Film Screenings

These sessions use film and media as central teaching tools, inviting attendees into visual and emotional storytelling that often reaches where words cannot. Screenings are paired with live, facilitated conversations exploring the depth psychological and mythic themes present in the work.

 

Together, these three learning pathways offer a holistic conference experience—one that values the academic, the artistic, and the embodied as equally vital modes of awakening the Goddess within and around us.

Keynotes:

Susan Rowland
The Goddess in JABR and Swan Lake

As well as giving an overview of Jungian Arts-Based Research, Susan will show how her mystery novels invoke goddesses of protection for the wild feminine.

Published in 2025, The Swan Lake Murders is not so much about a ballet as the archetype behind it: the urge to fly, to be magically free of the bonds of earth and trauma. Evoking the

indigenous fairytale behind Swan Lake, the story chronicles a community plus ballet dancer who are marooned by a climate crisis disaster. This novel therefore concludes the elemental quartet begun with water in The Sacred Well Murders (2022), fire in The Alchemy Fire Murder (2023) and earth in Murder on Family Grounds (2024). Contributing air and spirit, The Swan Lake Murders also pays tribute to Shakespeare’s great play about human climate intervention.

Sharon Blackie
Voices of the Wells: the Power of Celtic Women

The earliest mythology of Britain and Ireland is highly goddess-centred. The creative essence of the universe was female; women represented the spiritual and moral authority of the Otherworld and mediated its lifegiving gifts. The Celtic goddess in her various incarnations was indivisible from her distinctive, haunting landscapes, representing not just the fertility but the creativity of the land. Our native traditions, then, are focused around divine women who are wise, powerful and strong, making women today the inheritors of a powerful spiritual lineage. This opens up a space for us to be taken seriously, to have our voices heard. What if we could reclaim those stories, and become those women again?

Elizabeth Nelson

Warrior Allies and Bawdy Crones

As homo faber, human beings are makers of many things—including the stories, poetry, songs, and images that comprise the great goddess tradition. We have a material record of Her presence for millennia, despite toxic patriarchy. We are also homo faber in our embodied actions that leave no material trace yet influence critical moments in someone’s story. Two fascinating goddesses—Inanna and Demeter—owe their being to the actions of a supposedly small or minor character, which only goes to show: there are no small parts, only small actors. This presentation explores two goddess makers: the warrior ally Ninshuber, who performed a pivotal role in Inanna’s release from the Sumerian underworld, and the crone/midwife/trickster Baubo, whose lascivious dance punctured Demeter’s paralyzing despair.

 

Monica Mody
(Re)creating River Practices: A Liberation Sutra

What can we learn from a river—a goddess—about keeping our knowing of inner/outer transformations alive in the face of colonial coercion, patriarchy, capitalism and techno-political authoritarianism? For almost fifty years, the banks, jungles, and valleys of the Narmada were the site of a series of peoples’ movements resisting the damming of their river, ecological fragmentation, their own displacement, and the erasure of their sacred and cultural links to the land. Although the natural flow of the water is now impeded, is it possible that the river/goddess can still teach us—that she still houses living knowledges—that she is willing, still, to share her stories and willfulness? This keynote, drawing on Narmada’s mythologies and geo-ecology as well as indigenous oral histories of the movements—enacts an arts-based approach to re-surface and theorize the spirit patterns of radical relationality, resilience, and restoration of balance.

Safron Rossi
Reviving Athena: Cultural and Artistic Restraints for Unchecked Power

In this collaborative presentation Safron Rossi and Glen Slater will draw out essential principles and values personified by the goddess Athena and explore their role in the weaving of social responsibility and communal wellbeing. Athena’s association with craft and cultural flowering will be shown to offer ways of bridging nature and civilization. Her essential Kore character inspires a restoration of psychological integrity at a time of informational and political dissembling.

Glen Slater
Reviving Athena: Cultural and Artistic Restraints for Unchecked Power

In this collaborative presentation Safron Rossi and Glen Slater will draw out essential principles and values personified by the goddess Athena and explore their role in the weaving of social responsibility and communal wellbeing. Athena’s association with craft and cultural flowering will be shown to offer ways of bridging nature and civilization. Her essential Kore character inspires a restoration of psychological integrity at a time of informational and political dissembling.

Dylan Francisco
The Creative Difference Between Killing and Death: Coyolxauhqui, Art, and Autocracy

The Aztec myth of the goddess Coyolxauhqui embodies the creative difference between killing and death. Killing is a rejection of change—a resistance to new expressions of life—and death is a necessity for the creative transformation of life. This difference is embodied in how the arts threaten autocracy and how historically autocracies have always attempted to eliminate art and artists. Creativity requires death—of control and dominance in surrender to the regeneration of life and the birth of new images and ideas—while autocracy depends on killing whatever threatens control and dominance.

Angie Bennett
Invoking Golden Aphrodite in my romance novel, Love’s Turbulent Sea

The archetype of Golden Aphrodite as a partner in JABR demonstrates how civilized sexuality, intimacy, and beauty are their own unique forms of knowledge and empowerment, weaving together the objective wisdom and spiritual power of the archetypal perspective of the Eternal Feminine, however repressed or culturally denigrated.

Kerry Manley
Sovereignty Melts Us Into Wisdom

As we grapple collectively to resist authoritarianism, genocide, and institutional discrimination, this presentation offers insight from the Irish story of Odras and the Mórrígan, a complex goddess relating to sovereignty and conflict. In this story Odras, a wealthy, flashy woman, attempts to stop the Mórrígan from mating Odras’ cow to the Mórrígan’s bull. With a vengeful curse, the Mórrígan turns Odras into a puddle which eventually becomes a river. Inviting Jungian Arts-Based Research into creative conversation with this story, this research explores themes of resistance to, and confrontation with, an uncomfortable face of sovereignty.

Multi-Panel Presentations

These sessions bring together three presenters each offering 20-minute scholarly papers focused on myth, depth psychology, social critique, and archetypal studies. Each panel is followed by a facilitated group discussion and Q&A, creating a space for dialogue between panelists and attendees. This format supports intellectual inquiry and communal meaning-making.

Workshops

Workshops offer 60–90 minute experiential engagements that incorporate movement, art-making, ritual, storytelling, or somatic practices. These sessions are designed to bridge body and psyche, allowing participants to not only think about the feminine, but to feel and embody her presence through creative and healing modalities.

Film Screenings

These sessions use film and media as central teaching tools, inviting attendees into visual and emotional storytelling that often reaches where words cannot. Screenings are paired with live, facilitated conversations exploring the depth psychological and mythic themes present in the work.

Performances

At Pacifica, we recognize how important it is that the choices you make for your personal and professional development align with the journey your soul is leading you on. Don’t miss out on some of the exciting events we have planned if you are considering furthering your education and career at Pacifica.

 

Conference Schedule

Friday, August 29th, 2025 

3:00 – 6:00 pm                        Registration Opens | Check-Ins – Lobby

4:00 – 6:00 pm                        Faculty & Alumni Authors Reception – Breezeway between the lobby and Barrett Center

6:00 – 8:30 pm                        Boxed dinner, Concert & Poetry on the Lawn – Side Lawn

Welcome – Dr. Colin Marlaire
Introduction – Loralee M. Scott
Goddess Fire Ceremony Blessing – Art Cisneros
Music as Medicine: Timeless Frequencies to Unify Humanity, Amplify Empathy and Remember our Divine Nature – Priya Deepika

Saturday, August 30th, 2025 

6:45 – 7:30 am                       Mythic Movement with Helen Slater

7:00 – 8:15 am                       Breakfast

8:30 – 10:30 am                    Morning Keynotes: Sharon Blackie & Elizabeth Nelson – Barrett Center (Livestreamed)

            • Voices of the Wells: the Power of Celtic Women – Sharon Blackie (virtual from London)
            • Warrior Allies and Bawdy Crones – Elizabeth Éowyn Nelson, Ph.D.

10:45 – 12:15 pm                   Goddess-Makers Learning Sessions I

Academic Multi-Panels

      • The Muse, Creativity & Sacred Inspiration – Barrett Center (livestreamed)
        • Imagining Inspiration: The Muses Would Like a Word – Joanna Gardner
        • The Muse, Dialogue and Collaboration – Kevin Collins
      • Individuation, Gender & Relational Wounding
        • Gathering with Hestia: Lesbian Individuation and Her Challenge to Dark Patriarchy – Charlie Keller
        • Babygirl Submission as Redemption – Joanna Dovalis
        • Looking Back at Eurydice: “Taking” the Feminine in the Movement Toward Destiny – Erika Nelson Mukherjee, Ph.D.

Workshops

      • Embodying the Goddess – Soul and Soma Integration Using Multi-Sensory Pathways – Sara Rector
      • Beyond the Heroes Journey: Her Side of the Story – Dara Marks (*Part 1 of 2)

12:15 – 1:30 pm                    Lunch and Live Art Installation with Sia Alexander – Dining Hall and South Lawn

1:30 – 2:30 pm                    Goddess-Makers Learning Sessions II

Workshops

      • Engaging the Feminine: Transforming Patriarchal Culture through Deep Inner Work – Barbara Joy Laffey
      • Mislaid Disorder – Joan of Arc and Her Disruption of Ordered Liberty in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (597 U.S. 215 (2022) – Elizabeth Martin JD

Film Screening

      • The Grotesque Mirror: Exploring the Politics of Aesthetics and the Grotesque Feminine – Anna M. Engel
      • Part 2: Panel Discussion – The Rise of the Feminine in Media – Re-Story the World – Corinne Bourdeau, Dara Marks (*Part 2 of 2) (Livestreamed)

2:45 – 4:15 pm                      Afternoon Keynotes: Safron Rossi & Glen Slater – Barrett Center (Livestreamed)

Reviving Athena: Cultural and Artistic Restraints for Unchecked Power

4:30 – 6:00 pm                       Goddess-Makers Learning Sessions III

Academic Multi-Panels

      • Reimagining Mythic Heroines & Goddesses
        • A Divine Feminine Myth and Heroine Paradigm Shift – Genevieve Siegel
        • The Wandering Heroine: Leaving Home, Changing the World – Jody Gentian Bower
      • Archetypal Feminine & Embodied Creativity (Livestreamed)
        • Waking the Cosmic Womb: Archetypal Creativity and the Rebirth of the Feminine – Jody Berger
        • Re-Imagining Psychological Type through the Creative Feminine – Vicky Jo Varner (Virtual)
        • When She Destroys: The Generative Power of the Goddess – Stephanie Zajchowski

Workshops

      • Reclaiming Totemism: A Deeply Feminine Way of Being – Pamela Hancock
      • Re-Membering the Feminine: A Collage Ritual for Collective Renewal – Holly Tamsen-Trent

6:00 – 7:30 pm                       Dinner

7:30 – 9:30 pm                       Anima Theater of the Feminine Underground presents: Sleeping Seeds Awaken – Barrett Center (**Not Livestreamed)

Sunday, August 31st, 2025 

Sunday, August 31st

7:00 – 7:45 am                        Morning Labyrinth Meditation with Helen Slater

7:00 – 8:30 am                       Breakfast

8:45 – 10:15 am                      Morning Keynotes: Susan Rowland, Angie Bennett, and Kerry Manley – Barrett Center (Livestreamed)

            • Goddesses in the Making: three practitioners panel in Jungian Arts-Based Research – Angie Bennett, Kerry Manley, and Susan Rowland
            • Invoking Golden Aphrodite in my romance novel, Love’s Turbulent Sea – Angela Gia Bennett (D. Th)
            • Sovereignty Melts Us Into Wisdom – Kerry Manley (PhD)
            • The Goddess in JABR and Swan Lake – Susan Rowland (PhD)

10:30 am – 12:00 pm                    Goddess-Makers Learning Sessions IV

Academic Multi-Panels

      • Feminine Power, Myth & the Subversive Divine (Livestreamed)
        • Not Your Mother’s Medusa – Deborah Maroulis, Ph.D.
        • The Sacred “No”: Feminine Boundaries as Acts of Resistance and Renewal – Alanna Kaivalya
        • TBD Title – Maryam Sayyad
      • Animating the World Soul & Imagination
        • Participatory Imagination as a Meeting Space to Repatriate Self and Nature – Narandja Milanovich Eagleson
        • The Trickster’s Weave: Embodying Imagination – Bradley McDevitt

Workshops

    • Inanna’s Return: Re-Embodying Menstrual Sacrality – Annalisa Derr

Film Screening

      • Introducing Luchita Hurtado (Mullican) 1990-2020: An Archetypal Force of Nature – Dolores Aguanno

12:00 – 1:30                              Lunch & Red Tent Time – Meet with the Admissions Team and PGI Faculty – Dining Hall

1:30 – 3:00                               Afternoon Keynotes: Monica Moody & Dylan Francisco – Barrett Center (Livestreamed)

(Re)creating River Practices: A Liberation Sutra –  Monica Mody

The Creative Difference Between Killing and Death: Coyolxauhqui, Art, and Autocracy – Dylan Francisco

3:15 – 3:45                               Closing Fire & Water Ritual & Farewells (Livestreamed)

      • God is a Black Woman Writer – Raïna Manuel-Paris
      • Loralee Scott

Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning writer, psychologist and mythologist. Her highly acclaimed books, courses, lectures and workshops are focused on reimagining women’s stories, and on the relevance of myth, fairy tales and folk traditions to the personal, cultural and environmental problems we face today.

As well as writing five books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted, her writing has appeared in anthologies, collections and in several international media outlets – among them the Guardian, the Irish Times, the i and the Scotsman. Her books have been translated into several languages, and she has been interviewed by the BBC, US public radio and other broadcasters on her areas of expertise.

Her awards include the UK Society of Authors’ Roger Deakin Award and a Creative Scotland Writer’s Award. Her next book, Wise Women: A New Mythology of Older Women will be published by Virago in 2024. Her publication ‘The Art of Enchantment’ is among Substack’s ‘Top Ten Literature Substacks’.

Sharon is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and has taught and lectured at several academic institutions, Jungian organizations, retreat centers and cultural festivals around the world. She has trained clinical psychologist and other mental health professionals in the practice of narrative psychology.

Susan Rowland (PhD) teaches at Pacifica Graduate Institute and is the author of ten books on Jung, the feminine and the arts. For decades Susan’s project is to explore feminine heroism as a way to cultural renewal. To that end her novels depict a triple goddess detective whose marginalized women are involved in epoch-defining events that entail literal and symbolic violence. Susan expects Mary Wandwalker to call on her for further adventures as this tumultuous century plays out. She lives in Oregon with poet, Joel Weishaus.

Safron Rossi, PhD, has spent her life steeped in literature, religion and mythology, fields in which she holds her degrees. She is Core Faculty in the Jungian and Archetypal Studies MA/PhD program, teaching courses on mythology, archetypal symbolism, and scholarly praxis. For many years she was Curator of the Joseph Campbell, James Hillman and Marija Gimbutas manuscript collections at Opus Archives. Her work focuses on Greek mythology, archetypal psychology, astrology, and goddess traditions. Safron is coeditor, with Keiron Le Grice, of Jung on Astrology (2017). She edited and introduced a volume in Joseph Campbell’s Collected Works based on his Goddess mythology lectures titled Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine (2013).Safron has published articles in Jungian, Archetypal, and astrological journals and lectures across the US and internationally in Europe, Brazil and Australia. Safron is also a consulting astrologer. Her website is www.thearchetypaleye.com.

Elizabeth Nelson has been a member of the faculty since 2003, and has served as Dissertation Office Director, Dissertation Policy Director, and currently chairs the Graduate Research Council. She specializes in scholarly writing, research process and strategy, methodology, and dissertation development and also teaches courses in dream, imagery, technology, and cultural studies. Her own research interests include personal and cultural expressions of the shadow, gender, and power, with a particular devotion to dangerous women in text, film, and life. Elizabeth is the author of two books, The Art of Inquiry coauthored with Joseph Coppin, which is now in its third edition (Spring Publications, 2017). Her second book is Psyche’s Knife: Archetypal Explorations of Love and Power (Chiron, 2012). She has also published several papers and book chapters. As a professional writer and editor for over 30 years, Elizabeth continues to coach aspiring authors across a variety of genres and styles.

 

Dr. Monica Mody is Assistant Professor and Chair of the Mythological Studies MA/PhD Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her areas of specialization include decolonial, indigenous, and women of color paradigms and epistemologies; Anzaldúan frameworks; earth-sourced and feminist spirituality and ritual; poetry, divination, oracular speech, and arts-based research; and nondual embodiment, in conversation with ancestral lineages from South Asia. Her books include Wild Fin (Weavers Press, 2024), Bright Parallel (Copper Coin, 2023), and Kala Pani (1913 Press, 2013). Other creative and academic work have been widely published and presented in journals and edited books, at international and US-based conferences, and through invited talks. Her doctoral dissertation, on decolonial feminist consciousness in South Asian borderlands, was awarded the Kore Award for Best Dissertation in Women and Mythology conferred by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. She has further been a recipient of Cultural Integration Fellowship’s Integral Scholarship, the Sparks Prize Fellowship (Notre Dame), the Zora Neale Hurston Award (Naropa), and a TOTO Funds the Arts award. Dr. Mody is affiliated with the Doctoral Program in Visionary Practice and Regenerative Leadership at Southwestern College Santa Fe and with the Women’s Spirituality Program at California Institute of Integral Studies, and offers public classes at Morbid Anatomy. More at www.drmonicamody.com.

 

Glen Slater studied psychology and comparative religion at The University of Sydney before coming to the United States in 1992 for doctoral work in clinical psychology. He has been teaching at Pacifica for over twenty years and is currently the Associate Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization. He also teaches in the Mythological Studies program. His publications have appeared in a number of Jungian journals and essay collections, and he edited and introduced the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, as well as a collection of faculty writings, Varieties of Mythic Experience: Essays on Religion, Psyche and Culture. Beyond his work in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology, he writes on psyche and film as well as the psychology of technology. He lectures internationally in these areas of interest.

 

Dylan Francisco, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and co-chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies M.A./Ph.D. program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Dylan grounds his teaching in the depth psychology of C. G. Jung, decolonialism, and the Toltec/Mexican/Indigenous/Shamanic traditions of his lineage that provide a primordial, holistic, and sacred worldview within which to understand the psyche, to embody its wholeness individually, and to live it relationally through honoring Spirit, the ancestors, and the land.

Featured Artists

Priya Deepika is a mother, wife and daughter of South Indian lineage. Priya has paved a unique path of service, devotion and creativity. From Immigration Law to Sound Healing, Priya now serves as a Vocal Embodiment Coach, Yoga Teacher and Mediator. She is trained and certified as a Yoga of the Voice instructor for 10 years, Sound Healer for 17 years and is a registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance. Priya blends the ancient with modern as found in her debut album “Hear in My Heart” ( 2019) of which “I Am Divine” has defined her sound of devotional healing music.

 

Sia Alexander is the founder/curator of Pure Lagos Gallery, Heal Love Now Farm, & the author of several spiritual psychology books. Her newest, an Automythography, written as a novel portrayal of her many lives, embodiments, and DNA memories, has garnered rave reviews. Sia and her team recently shared in an Emmy win for her art curation in a Disney+ series.

 

 

Raina Manuel-Paris, Ph.D. has a multi-cultural and multiethnic background. She holds an MFA from Columbia University in Film and a Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Mythological studies with an emphasis in depth psychology. Raïna is a published author of plays, poetry, books, and articles, a professor of Myth and Symbol, Magic and Ritual for the past twenty years, a meditation guide and mentor. She has lectured and taught online courses for PRS.  Her work can be found on Youtube.com, through PRS.org, the Myth Salon, the Mythologium Conference, the Joseph Campbell Roundtable, on the Joseph Campbell foundation website (jcf.org) and on her website www.rainamparis.com. Her poetry can be heard on NPR, All Things considered and in the commemorative edition of Solo Novo, Psalms of Cinder & Silt. She currently completed her second novel, Ragnell, the Woman Who was a Beast, a reimagining of an Arthurian Folktale.

Registration Details

Registration Fees and Deadlines

On-Campus Registration:

  • $225 – Early Bird Registration Rate, Regularly $325
  • Register before June 30th to save $100!

 

Lifelong Learner Members are eligible for an additional 20% off of the early bird discounted Conference Registration Rate for this event and current Pacifica Graduate Students enrolled in a full-time degree program are eligible for an additional 40% off of the early bird discounted Conference Registration Rate for this event! (Lodging, Meals, CEC fee excluded from these discounts)

 

Live-Stream Registration:

  • $125

 

Lifelong Learner Members are eligible for 20% off of the Livestream Conference Registration Rate for this event and current Pacifica Graduate Students enrolled in a full-time degree program are eligible for 40% off of the Livestream Conference Registration Rate for this event!

To Learn more about our membership programs, please visit our Membership webpage: https://extension.pacifica.edu/become-a-member/

For Current Members, please enter your Certificate Program Discount Code in the Discount Code box to get your special member pricing for both the on-campus registration form and the Livestream Registration form.

 

For those attending via the livestream, the Zoom link will be sent out on Friday, August 29. For those unable to attend live, the presentations will be recorded, and the links will be shared after the event.

 

Participants requesting Continuing Education Credits (CECs) must attend the entire conference weekend in person, and sign in on the attendance sheet provided on each day of the conference in order to receive CECs.

 

**On-campus meals for Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday are not included in the Conference Registration price, and need to be purchased separately.**

 

Meal Registration:

  • Meal Package includes:
    • Friday boxed dinner + glass of wine
    • Saturday Breakfast
    • Saturday Lunch
    • Saturday Dinner
    • Sunday Breakfast
    • Sunday Lunch
  • Cost: $150

Upon check-in on campus, you will receive your name badge with a sticker on it to indicate that you purchased meals. You will need to bring this name badge with you to the Friday Evening Concert as well as the Dining Hall for every meal. The dining hall will be staffed with personnel to check for your name badge sticker at each meal.

**Please note that no partial meal plans will be offered. If you wish to add a meal plan to your existing reservation, you may do so until August 15.**

 

On-Campus Lodging Registration

We invite you to stay on our beautiful Ladera Lane campus for the conference weekend. The lodging options and prices are listed below. On-campus lodging is available for Friday, August 29 and Saturday, August 30. We are also offering the option of staying Sunday, August 31 as well.

*Please note that lodging does not include meals, and if you are interested in dining on campus, the meal package must be purchased with your registration.*

Couple Room – Includes one standard full-size bed with a shared bath and shower, bed linens and towels are provided. $200/night.

Single Room (Second Floor, stairs only) – Includes one twin bed with a shared bath and shower, bed linens and towels are provided. No elevator access. $151/night

Double Room – Includes two twin beds and vanity with sink. Shared bath and shower, bed linens and towels are provided. $200/night

Semiprivate Suite Room – Includes one queen bed with a shared bath and shower, bed linens and towels are provided. $220/night

**Please note that if you are staying on campus, you can check-in any time after 3 PM on Friday, August 29th. If you arrive before 3 PM, there is a luggage storage room where you can keep your belongings until you can check into your room. We kindly ask that you check out of your room by 3 PM on Sunday, August 31. If you are staying until Monday, September 1, check-out time is 11 AM.**

Best Western Lodging

We also have rooms are available at the Best Western in Carpinteria located at 4558 Carpinteria Avenue, Carpinteria, CA 93013 for the nights of August 29 and August 30.  Please note that the booking link below will expire on July 28, 2025.

Book here: https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotel-rooms.05425.html?groupId=M96HN7F1

Shuttle service will be available between the Best Western and the Ladera Lane campus throughout the conference weekend.

Continuing Education Credits

12 Hours of Continuing Education Credits (CECs) are only being offered for in-person conference attendees. For those of you who are requesting CECs, you will need to sign-in and sign-out on the provided sign-in sheets at the back of the Barrett Center for each day of the conference. Your attendance to the entire conference weekend is mandatory to qualify for CECs. It is your responsibility to sign-in and sign-out on the provided sheets for each day of the conference, and partial CEC Certificates will not be issued.

You will also need to complete an Evaluation Form after the Sunday closing session which will be emailed to you on Tuesday, September 2. This Evaluation Form is also a requirement to be eligible for CECs. For those who meet the CEC requirements, certificates will be sent out in late September.

Attendance to the following sessions is required to earn CECs for this conference:

– Saturday, August 30:

     – 8:30 – 10:00 AM – Morning Keynotes: Sharon Blackie & Elizabeth Nelson – Barrett Center

     – 10:00 – 11:30 AM – Goddess-Makers Learning Session I – Barrett Center

     – 11:30 – 12:30 PM – Goddess-Makers Learning Session II – Barrett Center

     – 2:00 – 3:30 PM – Afternoon Keynotes: Safron Rossi & Glen Slater – Barrett Center

     – 3:45 – 5:30 PM – Goddess-Makers Learning Session III – Barrett Center

– Sunday, August 31:

     – 8:45 – 10:15 AM – Morning Keynotes: Susan Rowland & Panel – Barrett Center

     – 10:30 – 12:00 PM – Goddess-Makers Learning Session IV – Barrett Center

     – 1:30 – 3:00 PM – Afternoon Keynotes: Monica Moody & TBD – Barrett Center

Details coming soon.

Call for Papers

Goddess-Makers in an Age of Autocrats: The Power of the Creative Feminine to Re-shape the World
An Arts-based Research Conference Hosted by Pacifica Graduate Institute | August 29-31, 2025

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2025

**Please note that we are only accepting submissions from Pacifica Graduate Institute Alumni and Faculty for this conference.  

In a time of rising authoritarianism and cultural polarization, the creative feminine emerges as a force of transformation, resistance, and renewal. This conference invites scholars, artists, film-makers, activists, depth psychologists, and cultural creatives to explore the power of the archetypal feminine to reimagine, reconcile, and reshape the world.

We welcome proposals that engage with themes including, but not limited to:

  • The legacy of Enheduanna, the first known author, and the mythopoetic power of storytelling to unify and transform.
  • Archetypal and depth psychological perspectives on goddesses, muses, and feminine mythic figures as forces for cultural renewal.
  • The power and necessity of archetypal Feminine creativity for re-storying the world through art, literature, and activism.
  • The shadow of the feminine: destruction, chaos, and the role of the Dark Goddess in collective transformation.
  • The power of the creative Feminine in leadership and activism in contemporary resistance movements.
  • Embodied, somatic, and ritual approaches to awakening the feminine principle in self and society.
  • Intersections of the sacred feminine, eco-justice, and social healing in an era of crisis.
  • The role of depth psychology, mythology, and the emerging archetypal feminine in fostering new paradigms of power and relationality.

Presentation Format Options

We encourage a diversity of formats to engage attendees in intellectual, creative, and experiential ways:

  • Academic Papers & Lectures – 20-minute individual presentations or 60-minute panel discussions on relevant themes.
  • Workshops – Interactive sessions integrating creative, somatic, or ritual-based approaches (60–90 minutes).
  • Experiential Sessions – Guided movement, dreamwork, active imagination, storytelling, or artistic practices exploring the conference themes (60–90 minutes).
  • Roundtable Discussions – Informal, facilitated conversations that encourage deep dialogue and exchange among participants (60 minutes).
  • Film Screenings & Media Presentations – Short films, digital storytelling, or multimedia works that engage the creative feminine.
  • Performances & Creative Readings – Poetry, music, theater, or spoken-word performances that embody the power of feminine creativity.

Submission Guidelines

Please submit a 300-word proposal outlining your presentation, including:

  • Title of your presentation
  • Presentation format (from the list above)
  • Abstract detailing the focus and relevance to the conference theme
  • A brief biography (100 words) including your professional background and affiliations

Submit proposals by May 31, 2025 to Extension@pacifica.edu. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by June 22, 2025.

This conference will be held both on-campus and online, allowing for a global gathering of voices committed to exploring and embodying the transformative power of the creative feminine.

We look forward to your contributions in reclaiming the archetypal feminine as a world-making force.

General Information

Location

Hosted at our Beautiful Ladera Lane Campus. Click here for directions to: 801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Cancellations

Cancellations 14 days or more prior to the program start date receive a 100% refund of program registrations. After 14 days, up to 7 days prior to the program start date, a 50% refund is available. For cancellations made less than 7 days of program start date, no refund is available.

For additional information, including travel, cancellation policy, and disability services please visit our general information section.

Travel and Transportation Information

Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Ladera Lane Campus

801 Ladera Lane

Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Directions to the Ladera Lane Campus

Driving Directions From South

Hwy 101 North: Northbound through Carpinteria. Exit Evans Ave, Turn left onto Ortega Hill Rd, Turn Right onto Ortega Ridge Rd, Turn Right onto East Valley Rd, Turn Left onto Ladera Lane, Arrive 801 Ladera Lane.

Driving Directions From North

Hwy 101 South: Southbound, through Santa Barbara and Montecito. Exit 92 on the left –Sheffield Drive, Turn left towards Sheffield Drive, Turn Right ono North Jamison Lane, Turn Left onto Ortega Ridge Road, Turn Right onto East Valley Road, Turn Left onto Ladera Lane, Arrive 801 Ladera Lane.

Travel

Major airlines provide service into the Los Angeles International Airport located 90 miles south of Santa Barbara and into the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, approximately 18 miles from the Campus. Additionally, there is an Amtrak Train Station located in downtown Santa Barbara, approximately 15 miles from the Best Western Carpinteria Inn and/or the Ladera Lane Campus. Uber/Lyft and taxi service is available from train station.

Transportation from Los Angeles Airport

The Los Angeles International Airport is approximately 90 miles from the Santa Barbara. Various car rental options available at LAX. Additionally, the Santa Barbara Airbus provides bus transfer service to both a Carpinteria drop-off location (Between Chase Bank & Union Bank at the Casitas Plaza Shopping Center – 1000 Casitas Pass Rd) as well as a Santa Barbara location (3845 State St., Santa Barbara 93105). A taxi service or Uber/Lyft can be taken from the Airbus drop-off locations to the Ladera Lane Campus or the Best Western Carpinteria. Reservations for the Airbus are strongly recommended, and rates will be discounted if reservations are made at least 48 hours in advance. For schedules and reservations, call the Santa Barbara Airbus at 805.964.7759 or 800.423.1618 or online at www.santabarbaraairbus.com.

Transportation from Santa Barbara Airport

The Santa Barbara Airport is approximately 20 miles from the Best Western Carpinteria Inn and/or the Ladera Lane Campus. Car rental services are available. Additionally, Lyft/Ubers are available as well as taxi service.­ The following cab companies often offer special rates if reservations are made well in advance and Pacifica is mentioned as your destination (via the Best Western or directly to the Ladera Lane campus):

      • Blue Dolphin (805.962.6886)
      • Rose Cab (805.564.2600)
      • Checker Cab Company (805.964.6666)
      • Fly by Night Taxi (805.745.8294)

Transportation from the Santa Barbara Train Station

There is an Amtrak Train Station located in downtown Santa Barbara, approximately 15 miles from the Best Western Carpinteria Inn and/or the Ladera Lane Campus. Uber/Lyft and taxi service is available from the companies listed above, again, often with special rates if reservations are made well in advance and Pacifica is mentioned as your destination.

Accommodations

Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus
801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara, CA 93108.

Housing accommodations can be reserved at the time of registration, or by contacting retreat@pacifica.edu

A 16% Santa Barbara County Occupancy Tax is additionally added

Accommodations in the Residence Hall at Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus consist of standard, single rooms. These rooms include a full or twin-sized bed, sink, mirror, desk, chair, small desk fan, and alarm clock, as well as shelves and hangers for clothing.  All linens and towels are included. Our Residence Hall has shared men’s and women’s bathroom and shower facilities.  All shower stalls include bath mat and soap. We recommend that guests bring all of their own toiletries. Our recently renovated Semi-Suite rooms, located on the second floor of the Main Building, include a queen-sized bed with a shared bath and shower per every two rooms.

The Residence Hall has a Guest Lounge on the First Floor, complete with couches and a large screen TV. There is also a small kitchenette with refrigerator, water dispenser, and microwave.

Best Western Carpinteria Inn
4558 Carpinteria Avenue, Carpinteria, CA 93013
(800) 528-1234

Book here.

Shuttle service is provided between the Best Western in Carpinteria and the Ladera Lane campus.

Driving Directions From South to Best Western Carpinteria

Hwy 101 North:. When you reach Carpinteria, take the Santa Monica Rd exit and turn right at the stop sign. Turn right again at the corner of Santa Ynez and Via Real, go over the freeway bridge, and continue to the signal lights. The Inn will be on your left at the corner of Santa Ynez and Carpinteria Ave.

Driving Directions From North To Best Western Carpinteria

Hwy 101 South: Approximately 10 miles past Santa Barbara to the Reynolds Ave exit and continue to the stop sign. The Inn will be on your right at the corner of Carpinteria Ave and Santa Ynez Ave.

Pacifica Graduate Institute Transportation – Shuttles

Pacifica Shuttle 805-896-1887 or 805-896-1888

Pacifica Graduate Institute provides courtesy shuttles to campus visitors. The shuttle is available any time during business hours by calling and requesting a pick-up. The shuttle will be running the entirety of the conference weekend.

  • Pacifica Shuttle stops:
    1. Ladera Campus (801 Ladera Lane, Santa Barbara)
    1. Lambert Campus (249 Lambert Road, Carpinteria)
    1. Best Western Plus Carpinteria Inn (4558 Carpinteria Ave, Carpinteria)
    1. SB Airbus Carpinteria (5400 Carpinteria Ave, Carpinteria)
    1. Carpinteria Amtrak Station (475 Linden Ave, Carpinteria)
  • Service is not available from the SB Airport in Goleta.