Cella students must create/manifest an Integrated Studies project at the end of each cycle. The Cycle I Integrated Studies Project must include three of the Activities (Core Curriculum and Path). The Cycle II project must include five of the Activities. The Cycle III project must include all one's Cella Activities. I completed Cycles I and II as a Creatrix and an Earthwalker. In Cycle III, I added Scholar/Teacher to my pathwork.

My Cycle III Integrated Studies Project

A Cross-Quarterly Web Zine for Goddess Women Near & Far

Administration, Organization & Leadership (AOL) -- I'm the Managing Editor and WebMagistra, enough said?
Environment -- This is an online zine; occasionally a 4-page digest is printed for promotional purposes, but very little paper is involved in creating this publication.
Feminism -- An objective of this Zine is to empower Goddess Women to write and make art and share those with the larger community. Women's empowerment is one of the core principles of feminism. Additionally, I feature a regular article on feminism and spirituality in the Zine. In Cycle II, I looked at what was called "power feminism," a concept that seems to bridge second wave and third wave feminism. Essentially, power feminism asks women to look at what power we have now, to focus on what we can do rather than on what oppresses us. Though some proponents of power feminism have, in some part, expressed some anti-feminism in their analyses (are women victims because we prefer victim identity to power identity, for example), the basic message is congruent with a principle embraced by many in the Goddess and Recovery movements: all power is in the present. I was exploring power feminism in Cycle II, when I was being overtly and covertly thwarted within the RCGI "motherhouse" culture. This was a devastating experience, yet as I sorted through what was mine and what was not and began thinking about "what next?", I came to understand that being rejected by RCGI was not equivalent to being rejected by the Goddess, and that if I made myself available to Her and believed that I was a worthy manifestation of the Divine, She would lead me to my priestess work if She had any for me to do. My readings in power feminism gave the cognitive support to this understanding, which came otherwise from my meditations and work with Goddesses. As a woman born in 1950s USA, I was full of the patriarchal messages: I'm not good enough; my contributions are not valuable; I won't succeed. Integrating feminism and spirituality into my beliefs and my actions gave me an alternative to the "go away and be quiet" response to thwarting and rejection: my power is in the present; there are venues other than RCGI for doing my priestessing; I believe that I have valuable contributions to make; I trust the Goddess to make what She will of this mess and meanwhile, I'll carry on. One of the outcomes of this change in belief and behavior is my work with MatriFocus.
Goddesses -- Goddesses are featured in each issue. Though others write the articles, I augment them with images and frequently with words or outside references. My relationship with Her and my meditation practice are integral to the entire activity, and the goddesses are an active part of the zine community itself..
Magic -- My decision to focus my career exclusively on publications work, and the magic I did in support of this decision, led me, in its own mysterious ways, to this editorial position. (See also Cosmology, below.) Also, other areas where I focused my Cycle III Magic have manifested in this work (See Magic section, elsewhere in this report [UNDER CONSTRUCTION]).
Personal Growth -- My Cycle III Personal Growth work centered on overcoming difficulties with something I didn't understand well, but intuitively identified as cognitive/emotional problems with how I organized my personal work. These problems didn't express themselves in my work life, so I didn't think they were an intrinsic part of my nature. Even so, they were a definite challenge to my moving forward in my priestessing work. In the early stages of working on this, I read an article in the Wisconsin State Journal reporting research that linked some kind of organizational dysfunction in adults with a childhood experience of emotional neglect. Voila! That was the key to understanding the root of my difficulties. It also provided a basic roadmap to working through these issues. I still face them on a daily basis, but they no longer stop me. I have found creative/meditative/intuitive ways to work with them (see more in the Personal Growth section).
Psychic Skills -- I use my "finder" skills to find my way to Zine contributors. I also "know" when a regular contributor is ready to quit before she tells me so and use my "finder" and "magnet" skills to find and/or attract her replacement. This Zine got its start when I "knew" that I needed to include the existence of an inactive "newsletter" committee in a post on Matrilocal Circle's elist. A young woman responded immediately to this seemingly incidental part of my post, saying "hey, I'd like to be involved in that." From this seed, MatriFocus eventually bloomed.
Comparative Religions -- By choosing to organize MatriFocus around the broadly defined "Goddess Religion" rather than Dianic Wicca or Feminist Spirituality or Neopaganism, I have created an inclusive venue and international nexus that has, at its core, the commonalities of women's experience and Goddess, expressed through a variety of spiritual traditions and experiences. At Pat Monaghan's Comparative Religions Intensive, I got my first visceral experience of a matricentric, matrifocal tribe. The things I learned and the connections I made at that Intensive are part of the basic fabric of the MatriFocus tapestry.
Counseling -- As an Editor, I use my counseling skills to work with some contributors in several ways, primary among them: (1) to help them work through their resistance to meeting submission deadlines and (2) to provide the kind of editorial feedback that facilitates their self-discovery of the (widely varied) things that can stop them from digging deep enough through their ideas, experiences, and emotions to present them, with clarity, to their readers.
Teaching -- Education is one of the goals of the Zine. I facilitate this by providing space for learning to happen through communication between author and reader. I also teach language and writing skills to some contributors, through the editorial process.
Cosmology -- My cosmology is based on intuitive and research-based understandings of how life works, of how energy comes into form. My efforts at attuning myself with the free flow of creative energy (versus harnessing that energy to my own specific goals) have put me in a place where the self-aware universe has found a node of expression, a point where a quantum (unit of energy and information) exchange exists in service of Goddess and the Life Force.
Divination -- This Zine exists because of my oneiromantic work (divination by dreams): in a Hallows dream, Goddess told me to create a (publications) forum where anyone could have access to information about Her (it took me awhile to connect this assignment to the web). I have also consulted several oracles (including Tarot cards) when I needed guidance about various parts of creating, maintaining and promoting the Zine.
Public Speaking -- I note that the Women's Thealogical Institute is changing this activity to "Communications," which more accurately describes an aspect of my work with MatriFocus. While I have, on more than one occasion, included MatriFocus in my public speaking, it is the Internet equivalent of this (emails -- to individuals and to elists -- and site promotion) that has spread the word so successfully that, by the end of our second year online, we have over 1000 readers per issue.
Matricentric Culture & Mythology -- MatriFocus is, by name and activity, matricentric. It provides a venue for sharing about matricentric cultures and mythologies with readers worldwide. It is also creating its own matricentric culture. At Sid Reger's Matricentric Culture & Mythology Intensive, I learned more about tribal life and about human and Goddess symbology, all of which are a part of the contents and the organizing energies of the MatriFocus community.
Creative Activities -- I occasionally write for MatriFocus, but as a staff artist my (graphic) art appears in every issue of the Zine. Like so many things, putting MatriFocus together is like making a patchwork quilt (focus of my Cycle II creative activities).
Body and Health -- It is only because I have been exquisitely attuned to my body and its needs that I find myself in a place of having the opportunity to do this work. I have woven into my MatriFocus activities a consciousness of body and health that have contributed positively to both the zine and my health. In fact, they are intricately connected.
Movement Awareness & Fitness -- Zine production is a sedentary activity and "functional sitting," both of which exacerbate my disabilities. Regular swimming and daily "hatha yoga around the house" (Cycle II) provide an antidote to the effects of sitting at the computer.