"The Medusa Imaginal" was published in Revisioning Medusa: from Monster
to Divine Wisdom - A Girl God Anthology 2017  >link<

Fertility Woman: Power of the Blue Stone by Pegi Eyers >link<
Ninhursaga by Pegi Eyers >link<
Labrys by Pegi Eyers >link<
Dryad, Tree Nymph by Pegi Eyers >link<
Inanna by Pegi Eyers >link<
Earth Mother Motorcycle by Pegi Eyers >link<
Gather the Women I by Pegi Eyers >link<
Gather the Women II by Pegi Eyers >link<

>(Meet Mago Contributor) Pegi Eyers<

"Come embark on a visual exploration of self-growth. Sound like a call to an inner/spiritual adventure? Could be. In The Link's inaugural art exhibition, Soulful Rhythms 7, four artist journey the soul, and by extension, invite the viewer to join them.  This quartet of visual artists who approach their art intuitively and spiritually are showing at the Lawless Gallery of Fine Art in Grafton.  Through various media, Rick Beaver, Pegi Eyers, Veronica Derry and Janita Wiersma explore their inner worlds and their connection to our outer world. Symbolism and spiritual inspiration hum through rhythms of the soul, seen and felt."  Michele Fairfield

Pegi Eyers's mixed media collage, neo-primitive assemblage and vibrantly-coloured oil and acrylic painting reflect her joy and original symbolism. She writes, "In my work facets of the spiritual life are revealed; ancient symbols, mysterious beings, and earth spirits flow through the images to recall our connections to all life......Through life experience, travel, reading, and dreams I have developed a vocabulary of personal imagery. This imagery and my creative process is an exploration of existing mythologies and those of my own making."   Curator Sharon Hamilton

The mixed-media paperclay artwork "Crimson Flight" by Pegi Eyers was published in Somerset Studio Gallery magazine in 2006!  The panel was created with woodblock prints, layered hand-decorated papers, paperclay, acrylic, wire and silver brads. 

FEMME is a group exhibition at Impresario Artisan Gallery in Cobourg showcasing 8 local and regional artists and artisans, who explore how their creativity can heal self, others, community and the Earth. The diversity of themes and media in this exhibition emphasize the healing powers of art-making on the body, mind and soul, and how the expressive arts can become a daily transformative or spiritual tool. Women have always been the wisdom keepers and healers, and we continue to “empower our dreams”  to communicate and connect, and to envision new directions and new worlds through our art practice and healing modalities. Join us as we celebrate the provocative, revelatory and transcendent aspects of Women and the Healing Arts.

"At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer ~ a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity." Rachel Naomi Remen

"Women and the Healing Arts" features FEMME, an exhibition in the main gallery, a Holistic Marketplace featuring the work of artists, artisans and other makers, and a schedule of workshops with modalities in the healing arts.  All welcome!

"Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing."
Julia Cameron

"I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever."  Susan Griffin

"Creativity healed me. I don’t know that I could think of any word that I get more inspired by than the word healing."  SARK

"It is your ability as a creative person to envision positive change that will make a difference."  Patricia Johanson

"Making art is like giving a gift: evidence of your spirit and that you are here."  Patty Mitchell

"The portal of healing and creativity always takes us into the realm of the spirit."  Angeles Arrien

My womancentric artwork (mixed-media and embroidery) has been featured on the covers of the feminist journal CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES!

"CWS is a feminist quarterly featuring current writing and research on a wide variety of feminist topics accessible to the largest possible community of women. During 28 years of publication, a forum has been created for women to  exchange ideas, personal experiences, expertise and creativity. By demystifying our communications with one another, we are actively working towards serving as a middle ground between the scholarly and the popular, between theory and activism."

Canadian Woman Studies is an indispensable resource for the feminist reader! Learn about CWS and order your copy >HERE<

From 2010 - 2013 Pegi Eyers organized and curated "The Art of the Turtle," an annual gala and art auction fundraising event for the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. Raising close to $20,000 overall for the Centre, she initiated the submission process, juried work from over 200 local and regional artists, designed the publicity program, created the exhibition catalogues and labels, and set up the shows with the installation team. "The Art of the Turtle" featured incredible support from artists, collectors, animal lovers and the general public, and offered a diversity of turtle-themed works from artists and artisans including painting, mixed-media, sculpture, carving, paper crafts, assemblage, stained glass, fabric design, metalwork, ceramics, jewellery and home decor.  With love and thanks to the many artists who contributed to "The Art of the Turtle!"

As an alternative to the patriarchal worldview that excluded, alienated and persecuted women for centuries, these new versions of history are incredibly empowering, and women everywhere continue to rediscover and develop the language that speaks to our own experience.  New versions of woman-centric mythologies and history have been unearthed, with more coming to light all the time!  Building on 40 years of scholarship, there is now a plethora of academic conferences and books being published each year, and Matriarchal Studies is considered an official university curriculum. The interest in the Divine Feminine has also been steadily growing among Jungian psychoanalysts, historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, theologians, community leaders, environmentalists, holistic practitioners, artists, writers, visionaries and cultural creatives everywhere. 

The Goddess movement is not uniform, however, there are common beliefs and values:

1) The basic tenet of Goddess Spirituality is a reverence and respect for all     life.  This is the basic principle for all forms of indigenous knowledge.

2) To hold a reverence for the Goddess, and an awareness that the Divine         Feminine is the ultimate creative power in the Universe.

3) To hold that the Earth is the Sacred Mother of All, the source of all life         and joy. To honor Our Blessed Gaia and support the interconnected web     of life that sustains us all.

4) To know that the Goddess manifests in diverse forms worldwide, and to         focus on the matriarchal values of respect and nurture in self, culture         and the natural world.

5) To realize that the animals, plants, elements and humanity are all kindred     spirits, and that our common destinies are linked together.

6) To emphasize a personal relationship with the Sacred through prayer,         intuition or creative ritual, without intermediaries or dogma. 

7) To uphold freedom of belief and respect for each individual’s experience of     the Sacred.

8) To work for basic human rights and empowerment for women worldwide,     and to contribute to the work of freeing all beings and the Earth from the     dominance of a patriarchal system.

RESOURCES
[1] Jean Houston, Women of Wisdom: Empowering the Dreams and Spirit of Women, edited by Kris Steinnes, Wise Woman Publishing, 2008
[2] Elizabeth Gould Davis, The First Sex, Penguin Books, 1971
[3] Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman, Mariner Books, 1976
[4] Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, HarperCollins, 1991
[5] Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess: 20th Anniversary Edition, HarperOne, 2011
[6] Lucy Lippard, Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory, The New Press, 1995

In 2012 a collective of woman came together in Peterborough Ontario to express our relationship to the divine feminine, and our moontime cycle. The vision statement of BLOOD was to strengthen the feminine energies in our collective, and to remember the embrace our sacred feminine flow once again. Engaging with our moontime experiences in text, image, poetry, performance and dance empowered the artists, collectors and exhibition attendees to embody a healthier, more conscious moontime flow.

                       Moontime Altar - installation by Pegi Eyers
To our Indigenous ancestors, it was obvious that women, with their mysterious cycles, performed the same functions as the earth, which was the source of all nourishment, protection and procreative power. A menstruating woman was considered sacred, and powerful with increased psychic and healing abilities. The sacred moonblood, a source of feminine strength, was considered to be a magical substance and had the power to ensure good harvests and protect the people from harm.

The exhibition BLOOD supports all humans, whether they bleed or not, to embrace moon blood as something sacred, graceful and beautiful. We warmly invited all non-bleeding humans to let themselves soak up this feminine-oriented exhibition, and to benefit from understanding and nourishing a new respect and admiration for moonblood, and the essence of all life. 

The energies of the Moon rule the skies, and yet also shine within us. We are Children of the Earth – and our menstrual period has an average duration that echoes the cycles of the Moon. This is no coincidence, but rather an obvious manifestation of the connections between our inner waters, our fertility, and the Moon.

Indigenous calendars and those in Old Europe had 13 months, and  therefore corresponded to the cycles of the Moon. They were kept by women to record their bleeding cycles, which were of central importance to fertility. In a matrifocal, matriarchal or Indigenous society, the well-being of the women and children were a central aspect of the collective. 

The egalitarian worldview of harmonious gender roles, peace, wholeness and abundance is natural and organic to human life, and yet this balance has been lost over the centuries due to patriarchal oppression. BLOOD holds the vision of restoring the balance again.

The challenge in our time is to create  images and stories of the Sacred more in sync with a partnership model than that of a dominator model.  This book truly has the ability to transform us and initiate fundamental change in the world, and as a powerful treatise on  matriarchal values, proves that the dream of peace is not an impossible utopia.

Female ~ The Chalice ~ Matriarchy

Partnership Model of Social Organization. 
Gynocentric.
Gylany (Eisler’s Terminology).

Dominator Model of Social Organization.
Phallocentric.
Androcracy (Eisler’s Terminology).

Actualization Instead of Power.
Peaceful and Egalitarian Society.
Identification with the Mother.

Focus on Hierarchy and Rank.
Power is Equated with "Dominance Over".
Dictatorial, Autocratic, Rule by Warlord.

Focus on the Sacredness and Unity of All Life.
Values of Compassion, Non-Violence.
Sexually Equalitarian.

High Degree of Male Violence and Warfare.
Values of Brutality, Oppression.
Sexually Repressive.

No Separation between Sacred and Secular.
Lands Held and Worked Communally.
Both Men & Women are Children of the Goddess.

Separation of Sacred and Secular.
Social Stratification Based on Private Property with Dominance Over Women.

Focus on Nurturing and Sharing.
Gift Economy not Conquest or Hoarding.

Acquire Material Wealth by using more effective Technologies of Destruction.

Worship the Sacred Chalice or Grail ~ Symbol
of the Womb & Feminine Generative Powers of the Universe in Birth, Nurture, Death and Rebirth.

Worship the Power of the Blade ~ Symbol of Masculine Power, Competition, Dominance, Control and Destruction.

“The whole of life is pervaded by an ardent faith in the Goddess Nature, the source of all creation and harmony.”  Riane Eisler

Rigid roles for Men in Patriarchal Society.
Man the Warrior ~ Man the Hunter.
Maladaptive, Massive Regression.

“A Celtic worldview expresses the enchanted quality of the world via a complex of beliefs concerning spirits and other beings that haunt the wild woods and fields of life. Ancient Celts lived in a world that was alive with numinous presence.”  Montague Whitsel, Wellsprings of the Deer: A Contemporary Celtic Spirituality, 1stBooks