Jo Carson- Keynote Speaker
Dancing with the Goddess: Feraferia on Cultivating Positive Future Visions
Feraferia means “wild festival,” or the “union of wilderness and dream to yield a life of eternal celebration.” Feraferia is a Pagan religion founded in 1956 by artist Frederick Adams, after he experienced a vision of the Goddess. The vision caused in him a sudden gnosis that the Goddess, specifically the Maiden Goddess called Kore, Kardia ton Kosmos, or Heart of the Earth, is central to all being.
Fred Adams dedicated the rest of his life to promoting worship of the Goddess, and celebration of Nature Magic by connecting with the Faery spirits of Earth and Sky. The Fay become our role models for living in harmony with Earth without doing harm. With help from his partner Svetlana Butyrin, Fred developed the key ideas of Feraferia. Feraferia’s poetic creation myth evolved from research by Robert Graves, Fred Adams, and myself. It is supported by the star constellations themselves.
Feraferia harnesses eros to the goals of wildness. We teach about Chrysokyma, or 'The Golden Wave,' which reveals how one can experience a physical and soul-level ecstasy using visualization and tiny muscular movements.
Our Whole Earth Initiation is a rite which dedicates and transforms parts of the body to parts of Earth at the transition called ‘death;’ but for us the unique soul remains unique, even as it expands into universal and cosmic consciousness.
We encourage you to seek your own visions and to mythologize your surrounding landscape. Grounding and centering in your stone circle or “henge,” orients you as you go outward to make relationships with the landforms in every direction. Noting the Moon’s phase daily generates inspirations for direction of soul energy.
Learn to experience “The timeless initiatic code of Planet Earth” with help from Feraferia’s psycho-cosmic tuning system, the Enneasphere. On the Enneasphere, the Moon dances opposite, but equal to the Sun, in an eternally spiraling balance of Yin and Yang.
Joyfully caring for the land, doing things like erosion control, creek clean-up, and native tree planting, move us toward a more balanced and paradisal future. The harm-less sustenance of the future is the bounty of fruit, nuts and vegetables.
Now let us undertake the great work of reclaiming the Planet for life; as a sacred and joyful act, plant trees, for it is grove or grave!
I hope these positive future visions will inspire you to go forth and become one with wild nature.
Fred Adams dedicated the rest of his life to promoting worship of the Goddess, and celebration of Nature Magic by connecting with the Faery spirits of Earth and Sky. The Fay become our role models for living in harmony with Earth without doing harm. With help from his partner Svetlana Butyrin, Fred developed the key ideas of Feraferia. Feraferia’s poetic creation myth evolved from research by Robert Graves, Fred Adams, and myself. It is supported by the star constellations themselves.
Feraferia harnesses eros to the goals of wildness. We teach about Chrysokyma, or 'The Golden Wave,' which reveals how one can experience a physical and soul-level ecstasy using visualization and tiny muscular movements.
Our Whole Earth Initiation is a rite which dedicates and transforms parts of the body to parts of Earth at the transition called ‘death;’ but for us the unique soul remains unique, even as it expands into universal and cosmic consciousness.
We encourage you to seek your own visions and to mythologize your surrounding landscape. Grounding and centering in your stone circle or “henge,” orients you as you go outward to make relationships with the landforms in every direction. Noting the Moon’s phase daily generates inspirations for direction of soul energy.
Learn to experience “The timeless initiatic code of Planet Earth” with help from Feraferia’s psycho-cosmic tuning system, the Enneasphere. On the Enneasphere, the Moon dances opposite, but equal to the Sun, in an eternally spiraling balance of Yin and Yang.
Joyfully caring for the land, doing things like erosion control, creek clean-up, and native tree planting, move us toward a more balanced and paradisal future. The harm-less sustenance of the future is the bounty of fruit, nuts and vegetables.
Now let us undertake the great work of reclaiming the Planet for life; as a sacred and joyful act, plant trees, for it is grove or grave!
I hope these positive future visions will inspire you to go forth and become one with wild nature.
Bio
Jo Carson is passionate about Feraferia, A Love Culture for Wilderness, trees, magic, and creating positive visions of the future. She is the High Priestess of Feraferia. Jo holds a Masters’ Degree from UCLA in film production, and serves as Chair of the Board of Feraferia, which she joined in 1972. She also holds the rank of 7th Degree in the Order of the Temple of Astarte, which she joined in 1970, and she was active in a Reclaiming-inspired Wiccan circle called Eye of the Crescent for 17 years. Her professional life has included camera work on many feature films, and she is the creator of the documentary feature Dancing With Gaia: Earth Energy, Sacred Sexuality and the Return of the Goddess, as well as the documentary shorts A Dance for the Goddess, about Feraferian rites, and Himalayan Pilgrimage: A Visionary Journey. She authored Celebrate Wildness: Magic, Mirth and Love on the Feraferian Path, a profusely illustrated introduction to Feraferia. She is currently working on a Tarot deck and book tentatively entitled The Feraferia Tarot: A Planetary Oracle. Jo lives in Northern California with her family, where she celebrates wildness through seasonal rites, trance, and communing with nature. Jo can be reached at feraferia@earthlink.net and Feraferia’s website is feraferia.org