West Michigan Dianic Grove

06/01/2026

05/26/2026

Tacitus wrote of FEMALE DRUIDS while describing the brutal slaughter of the Druids by the Romans on the island of Mona in Wales. In his account, he speaks of women known as Banduri, female Druids, who defended the sacred island and cast curses upon the black-clad invaders.
Tacitus also observed that among the Celts there was no true distinction between male and female rulers, noting the formidable power and authority Celtic women possessed.

According to Plutarch, Celtic women were nothing like the women of Greece or Rome. They took part in the negotiation of treaties and wars, stood within assemblies, and acted as mediators in disputes and quarrels.
The geographer Pomponius Mela wrote of virgin priestesses living upon the island of Sena in Brittany, women gifted with the power of prophecy and foresight.

Famous Druidesses

Irish tradition preserves two principal names for Druid women: baduri and banfilid,
the female poets and seers. Yet the names of most Druidesses have long vanished into the mists of memory. One name that survives is Fedelma, recorded in ancient texts as a woman of the court of Queen Medb of Connacht, described as a banfili. She is said to have lived in Ireland during the 10th century BC.

Perhaps the most renowned descendant of a Druid woman was Boudicca, whose mother was believed to have been a banduri. Boudicca, queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe of Britain, rose in fierce rebellion against Rome during the 1st century AD, becoming an enduring symbol of resistance and sovereign feminine power.

The Worship of Goddesses

The Druidesses honored the goddesses through seasonal feasts and sacred celebrations woven into the rhythm of the year. Among the deities they revered was Brigid, whose presence endured long after the coming of Christianity, later transformed and adopted by Christian nuns as Saint Brigid.

She stands at the threshold of the sacred grove, sickle in hand, invoking the old powers beneath the shadow of the trees - one of the Banduri, feared even by Rome.

Art: Virginie Demont-Breton
Virginie Élodie Marie Thérèse Demont-Breton (26 July 1859, Courrières – 10 January 1935, Paris) was a French painter whose artistic path began remarkably early. By the age of twenty she was already exhibiting at the Salon, and only four years later she received a Gold Medal at the Amsterdam Exposition.

05/02/2026

'The Holy Act Of Refusing To Be Only One Thing' ✨😻

Acrylic, Gouache, Colored Pencil, and Gold Ink on Panel
11 × 14 in / 27.9 × 35.6 cm (Framed: 14.5 × 17.5 in)
2026

Artwork for Our Fantabulously Furry Feline Friends at Thinkspace Projects opening Saturday, May 2, 2026

We are often placed inside a box with four sides, a tight top, and a flat and uninteresting bottom. Overall, as human beings we are not box-able. We are very complex, nuanced creatures. However, over time we might gravitate toward one thing or another and start to fear moving outside the walls and borders of that box. But the truth is that we only grow, we only move forward, we only find what we are looking for when we are willing to tear the walls down and feel vulnerable. Don't let anyone ask you to choose between the various pieces of yourself, to simplify, to leave the stranger and wilder parts of yourself at the door. Remember, you were always exactly the right amount of everything.

04/05/2026

Starting in 1609, owning this drum was a crime punishable by death in the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway. In 1767, while hundreds of them were being thrown into the fire, a Norwegian priest sketched and documented one.

When the Norwegian priest and linguist Knud Leem (1697-1774) arrived in Finnmark (Northern Norway) as a missionary in 1725, he formed a deep bond with the Sámi people.He wore their clothes and learned their language.For years,he observed shamanic sessions and personally drew what he saw.

The engraver O.H.von Lode transferred these drawings onto copper plates. Published in Copenhagen in 1767, the book contained over 600 pages of parallel Danish-Latin text and 100 copperplate engravings. It's the most comprehensive Sámi ethnography published in Northern Europe in the 18th century.

The symbols on the drum's membrane were drawn with a red dye made from alder bark. This color symbolized blood. A single drum could hold up to 150 symbols. The noaidi (shaman) would place a brass ring called a 'vuorbi' on the membrane and beat the drum.The symbol where the ring stopped was the answer to the question asked: the location of a lost reindeer, the luck of a hunt, or which sacrifice to offer...

On Northern Sámi drums, the membrane was divided into three tiers by horizontal lines: the upper tier was the realm of the gods, the middle tier was the human world, and the lower tier was the realm of the dead. In 1692, an almost 100-year-old Sámi shaman named Anders Poulsen had his drum confiscated and stood trial for witchcraft in Vadsø (Northern Norway).

Poulsen played his drum in court. He called out to his gods, asking them not to be afraid of the Norwegians in the courtroom. In his 16-page testimony, he explained every single symbol on the membrane one by one. Before he was convicted, he was murdered in his cell with an axe by a mentally ill person named Villum Gundersen. He became the last victim of the Finnmark witch trials.

Missionary Thomas von Westen had about 100 drums collected all by himself. He sent them all to Copenhagen. In the Great Fire of Copenhagen in 1728, 70 of them burned to ashes. Today, only 71 original Sámi drums are preserved worldwide.

04/01/2026

Today marks 38 years since the legendary Dulcie September’s assassination. Her family, who have lived through unimaginable pain, are still seeking justice.

Dulcie September was an ANC representative gunned down outside the ANC’s Paris office in March 1988. She was shot five times in the head with a .22 silenced rifle. Her murderer, still unknown, has not been held to account.

With the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of interference in the investigation and prosecution of TRC cases (the Khampepe Commission) currently underway, we hope the story of Dulcie September will finally be told.

Through their lawyers, the Legal Resources Centre, the September family has requested to make a submission to the Commission and to “call Dr Torie Pretorius to give evidence on his knowledge of the investigation into Dulcie September’s death, and why, despite this knowledge, the investigation was delayed until 2022”. Dr Pretorius was a senior NPA prosecutor.

Thirty-eight years later, questions remain: who killed Dulcie September, and who ensured the truth stayed buried?