I have so much to be grateful for, this year! I honestly did not know at times if I’d make it, due to the brain aneurysm… but here I am, still me and still here. Trust me: I am very very happy about that! One of my cousins is a retired doctor, and has known me (both as a dear friend and relative, as well as medically) for all my life. As she put it, this is the second time I lived through something impossible, which can only mean I’m here for some higher purpose… so I need to get cracking on it! :-D That made me laugh — and try hard to get things going just like she said.
I’m so glad I can still do all these things, and I want to share them all with you… and with good fortune, we’ll all be here next year at the same time to do this again! So with no further ado and in no particular order, here are some of the scholastic things I’m grateful that I was able to accomplish in the past year.
I’m published again — yay!
Considering how slow print publishing can be, I’m excited to actually have a published article and book chapter by the end of 2025 — and several more works to be published in the near future of 2026! Here’s what got printed in 2025:
- An online journal article: “Do Women Really Need the Goddess?” in Feminism and Religion, 16 May 2025. This was kind of an homage to Carol P. Christ’s famous article, as well as a (very quick) review of how well some of my dissertation data followed her article statements.
- Sent to the printers: Revolutionizing Motherlines, edited by Fiona Joy Green, Victoria Bailey, and Andrea O’Reilly, Demeter Press, 2025. My chapter is titled “Matrifocal Families: Motherlines Without Misogyny.” I read Lowinsky’s book The Motherline: Every Woman’s Journey to Find Her Female Roots for one of my fabulous Women’s Spirituality Master’s program classes. I found the book very helpful — but I could also clearly see it was written from her white, middle-class, and heteronormative perspective. The various chapter authors (including myself) of the newly published Revolutionizing Motherlines reflect upon and, I feel, update Lowinsky’s conceptualization of the motherline that connects mothers to their female ancestors.
In 2026 I’ll have several more articles and book chapters published, and I hope to have my book proposal (based on rewriting my dissertation for a lay audience) accepted by a publishing company too. Here’s what I have out and accepted to date:
Book chapters
- “Becoming Whole: A Feminist Spiritual Quest” in Mothers, Myth, and Mythos: Maternal Narrative Knowing, edited by Alys Enion and Rachael Williams. From Demeter Press, 2026.
- “‘Making the Other, the Self’: Matrifocal Families to Enhance People’s Lives and Reduce Systemic Patriarchal Oppressions.” “I Am, Only Because We Are”: The Gifts of Radical Kinship, edited by Michelann Parr. From Demeter Press, 2026.
- “Matrifocal Families: Enhancing Lives and Reducing Systemic Patriarchal Oppressions” in the Routledge Companion to Motherhood, 2nd ed., edited by Lynn O’Brien Hallstein, Andrea O’Reilly, and Melinda Vandenbeld Giles. From Routledge, 2026 – or possibly 2027? Not sure yet.
If any of these interest you — especially the Demeter Press titles – then may I encourage you to please preorder them? You can get 20% off on preorders with Demeter Press with the code MOTHERS – and enjoy, I hope! I very much prefer supporting small presses, as opposed to the soulless giants like Amazon.
Online article
“Goddess Spirituality and Matrifocal Families: Empowering Women and Reducing Systemic Patriarchal Oppressions.” S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies. It should be out in mid to late 2026, if I understand correctly how online, peer-reviewed journal publishing works.
Conferences
I was also thrilled to be able to present at a number of conferences in 2025, and I hope to do more in 2026 — I’ve even gotten one confirmation already! I was also delighted to squeeze in a 2025 conference that was just for fun. Here’s the conferences I attended… and if you’re interested in my presentations, you can find them on my youtube channel. Enjoy!
- For my birthday present, on October 24-26 I got to attend Clockwork Alchemy 2025 — woot! I followed their theme of Gaslight Fantasy in my moderation of two panels: “Steampunk Poetical Philosophy” and “Unleash Your Gaslight Fantasy!” Not only did I get some marvelous (and patient) friends to be panelists with me, but we also had a wonderful time — both on the panels, and at the conference itself. Best of all, both I and one of my panelist friends were later individually cornered in the hallways by an audience member, with the request to talk more — because they’d found the panel so interesting! That’s definitely a win in my book. Thanks so much, Clockwork Alchemy folks! Though… maybe a better hotel next year, please? :)
- “Goddess Spirituality and Matrifocal Families: Empowering Women and Reducing Systemic Patriarchal Oppressions,” at the S/He Divine Studies Conference with the theme Motherhood, Matriarchy, & Matriverse Re-Deemed in the Cosmic Mother, June 12-15. I was a moderator, paper presentation, and technical support for this on-line symposium. In fact, the journal article for 2026 (mentioned above) was based on this presentation, as requested by the symposium sponsors.
- “Inanna and Ebih: Garden of Eden or Arrested Childhood?” at the Hands of Change-sponsored IshtarFest: Building on Herstory on-line symposium on June 6-8. This presentation was a great deal of fun, and allowed me to pleasantly branch out my research a little.
- “‘Everyone Gets Lifted Up’: How Spiritual Matrifocal Families Can Enhance Lives and Reduce Systemic Patriarchal Oppressions.” I very much enjoyed this on-line symposium, as I received multiple very nice compliments! This was themed as: Wisdom of the Mothers: Celebrating Matriarchal and Matrilineal Spiritual Traditions, and was presented by The Lilith Institute and Yerusha Academy Wisdom School, on April 28-29. I’m really hoping they want me back in 2026 too, in fact.
- “‘Everyone Gets Lifted Up’: How Matrifocal Family Precepts Can Enhance and Empower People in Treacherous Times.” An on-line symposium by the Commons of Modern Pagans and Spiritual Seekers Virtual Conference of Pagan Thought and Practice, with the theme of Perilous Passage: Creating Culture & Connection in Treacherous Times. March 29.
That’s it for now. I hope you too have many things for which you are grateful, and I hope we all have an excellent, productive, and successful new year. Cheers!