Contributors 

Alessandra Belloni

Alessandra Belloni is a singer, percussionist, dancer and actress who stands as one of the most important voices of traditional southern Italian music and dance today. She is artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Alessandra is Artistic Director and Founder of I Giullari di Piazza (the Players of the Square). For her mastery of musical styles - both at home and abroad - she has been acclaimed as one of the greatest living percussionists in the world, and has her own signature series of Italian tambourines designed with the largest percussion industry in the world, Remo Inc.

Anique Radiant Heart 

Crone Priestess of the Goddess, Singer of the Sacred Songs Of the Temple

At age 60, for almost 30 years, Anique Radiant Heart has dedicated her life and her talents to assisting women and girls to awaken the great Feminine Divine within them.  Gifted with a miraculous voice and the ability to open people’s hearts with her singing, she has facilitated Goddess mystery workshops/events, celebrating the Goddess through ritual and song in the United Sates, England, France, Athens, Singapore, Taipei, Australia and New Zealand. A keen scholar, author, singer/songwriter, artist and political activist, Anique’s love for the Earth, women and the feminine principle she lovingly calls the Goddess, has been the motivating force behind her extraordinary music and the work she does in the world. “I believe that women are at the vanguard of the awakening taking place on this planet. An awakening to a different level of existence, which allows us to be in this world and yet not part of it.  The struggle against patriarchy and the journey to the Goddess are synonymous in my view.  When we discover the great ancient heritage of Goddess loving  cultures which existed for millennium after millennium before patriarchy, we find a profound woman focused body of evidence, which strengthens our inner core and provides the tool for self empowerment, self determination and enlightenment.  We can then go out into the world and do what must be done so that as many people as possible can be free to celebrate that discovery.” At the 2007 Australian Goddess Conference, Anique was honoured as a Foremother and Elder of the Goddess Community in Australia.  Her work as a spiritual teacher,  ceremonialist and sacred singer has grounded many in the love and reverence of the Goddess.  She has received standing ovations at the Glastonbury Goddess Conference, and other Goddess focused conferences and Temples in the US. This year – 2008 – Anique is presenting her work and her music at the Goddess Festival in Budapest for the first time,  and will launch her new CD “LIVING THE GODDESS” which completes the trilogy with “INVOKING” and “EMBRACING THE GODDESS”. Anique lives in the country in Australia with her life partner and three feline familiars and one canine.  Her art and her garden complement her music and teaching and provide the serenity of a balanced and grounded heart.

Bella Bagdi

How can we live a life that can meet our expectations?How shall we use our abilities and possibilities in order to realise our dreams? With such topics do I work as a trainer and a life coach, with the aid of creative eliciting and manifesting methods such as improvisation, drama techniques, singing, dancing and writing soul-plays.

Bori Hoppal

I am a Bod-Mind Centering practitioner, a doula and I prepare women for giving birth. I believe feminine existence is closely connected to the processes of the body (such as menstruation, pregnancy, childbearing, menopause) and there are a lot of taboos, false beliefs, as well as deliberately distorted facts characterising these topics. Which makes it difficult for lots of women to experience their womanliness and its miraculous processes fully. I give lectures with the title of "The Wonders of the Feminine Body” about menstruation, the breasts, the yoni, pregnancy and delivery. I also lead workshops refining body awareness about the topics of menstruation, the breasts and the hormone-system. I help, support and prepare mothers-to-be for the trying miracle of birth, I work as a doula, that is I accompany expectant mothers who invite me to be their companion on their wonderful journey through pregnancy, labour and childbirth. 

Bran

The Bran has been one of the most important participants of the Irish musical life in Hungary, as well as an always-present performer of noted folk music events and festivals since 1993. Besides Irish music and tales their repertoire includes more and more Breton and Flowearth tunes together with their stories and tales. (Bretons live in Brittany in the North-West corner of France. Their culture – as well as that of the Irish – is partly of Celtic origin. The Flowearth material is from the pictures of a 14 century Transylvanian codex. The enigmatic illustrations of the codex hide vast treasures of as yet unknown tales and melodies. The contents of the book and Breton and Irish traditions bear an astonishing, still unclarified relationship.)

Brian Charles

Brian trained in Glastonbury with Kathy Jones, as a priest of Avalon. He then went on to work for three years as a teacher on the Priest/ess of Avalon training course. He is a co-founder of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple and for the first few years of its life was closely involved in its development. He is currently involved in the Priest/ess of Danu training course, associated with the Budapest Goddess Temple. Since coming to Budapest, however, he has been hearing, with ever-increasing strength and clarity, the call of Inanna and has been writing about the relevance of her stories to the current situation of the world – in particular with regard to personal integrity and responsibility, sexuality, and the crippling legacy of shame.

Jeannine Davis-Kimball

Jeannine Davis-Kimball is an archaeologist and author specializing in ancient (and modern) cultures of Central Asia. She established the American Eurasian Research Institute (AERI), of which she is currently Executive Director, and its subsidiary, the Center for the Study of Eurasian Nomads (CSEN). She received her Ph.D. in Art History and Archaeology from the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1985 she has conducted collaborative research in southern Kazakhstan, the Russian steppes (where she excavated women warriors), and in western Mongolia. Ethnographic research on contemporary nomads and the multiple ethnicities in the former USSR has taken her to southern Kazakhstan and through Mongolia as a member of UNESCO’s “Dialogue of the Silk Road” expeditions. Dr. Davis-Kimball is author and editor of several volumes on Eurasian archaeology, and has published more than fifty scholarly articles in this field. Her book, Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines, traces her many travels, travails, and discoveries throughout work in Central Asia. As an educational tool for the general public, she maintains the CSEN website (http://www.csen.org). She has lectured internationally on Eurasian peoples, combining their art, archaeology, and ethnography to create a composite picture of their cultures.

Katalin Bagyon

Who am I? One supported by drawing, dance and touch on her way. For the time being. Drawing is meditation. I remember physically missing the pictures of the Goddess Cards being born whenever I did not touch or see them for a day. Dance seems to have always been with me from the drums of rock music, from the bodhran to our sacred dramas and the Polinesian dances. And touch? It is the way of MA-URI... "May Love touch and we heal.” I feel deeply grateful for it.

Kathy Jones 

Writer, healer, ceremonialist, teacher and Priestess of Avalon. Kathy is the author of many well loved Goddess books, including The Ancient British Goddess. She is the creator and teacher of 3 and 5 year trainings to become a Priestess of Avalon in Glastonbury, England and is the co-founder of the internationally famous Glastonbury Goddess Conference. She also teaches Esoteric Soul Healing, based in the teachings of Alice A. Bailey. She is a co-founder of the Isle of Avalon Foundation, an esoteric teaching centre, and of the Glastonbury Goddess Temple, the first Goddess Temple in Europe for a thousand years or more.

Mike Jones

Mike has journeyed on the Goddess path for 25 years. He is an assistant instructor on the Priestess/Priest of Avalon training course in Glastonbury and is developing a new training for men who love the Goddess. He has particular experience in sacred landscape and chi energy work..

Kriszta Veres

I have been searching... I have returned home in Glastonbury, in Avalon, to the Goddess. Inspired by Kathy Jones I went on seeking and I found the Goddess in the rich earth of the Carpatian Basin and in my own memories. I took a deep breath and as its main organiser I gave birth to the Goddess Festival in Budapest. With the help of the ceremonial group of the Festival as well as the financial support of my beloved I founded the Goddess Temple of Budapest . And I took another deep breath and started the Priest/ess of Danu Training, where I am one of the teachers.

Krisztina Gal

The way I feel it, the world has opened and I, the rambler live in a world now where reality and wonder go hand in hand. Many faces are emerging slowly from the mists of the past and we remember together. We recall a time when everything around is brother , sister and kin, a life where everything you touch is life, and we hear the very same song: „Ancient Mother, I hear you calling, Ancient Mother, I hear your voice...”  I have been given freedom by the Goddess, and presented with the wonder of my own existance. And friends who we are dreaming the sacredness of human life back to this world with. Thank you!

Krisztina Sarkadi

When I enrolled for the Priestess Training of Danu in autumn 2006 I felt the calling only, I however, had no idea what to expect. I suspected that the process would trigger inner change and I knew it would probably be unpleasant sometimes but I was certain that I would not be swayed. What I did not expect at all was the amount of joy I have been receiving! The source of this joy is partly the group itself consisting of  others also commited to the Goddess Temple and its events in one way or another. We regularly come together to create a new ceremony, or a drama performance and it feels good to know that while doing so we create value and also become refined.

The other source of joy is the ceremony or performance itself, or the healing process which takes places at last after all those long preparations. Then the energy appearing and working in the space held by the priestesses can almost be touched and felt.

The organisation and completion os the Goddess Festival means the most excitement every year. My heart beats faster even now that I  am thinking of all the wonderful events of this year’s festival. It makes me happy to know I can be there till the very end and be a co-crerator of this exceptional event as an organiser, singer and dancer. Come and let’s meet there!

Lorant Csiki 

I was given the title of The Young Master of Folk Arts in 1996. Since then I have been teaching preparation of traditional toys in the House of Traditions and in the Pottery Center. I lead museum-pedagogy workshops in the Museum of Aquincum and in the Open-Air Museum of Ethnography in Szentendre. I have been a teacher of craftmanship in the János Wesley Theological College for a couple of years. Here I also run a course called „Craftmanship in Development and Rehabilitation.” My favourite material is wood, however I also like working with other kinds of natural materials eg. leather, bone, wool, bulrush, etc.

Lydia Ruyle  

Lydia Ruyle is an artist scholar on the Visual Arts faculty of the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a Master of Arts from UNC and has studied with Syracuse University in Italy, France, Spain, and with the Art Institute of Chicago in Indonesia. She works regularly at Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy and Columbia College Center for Book and Paper in Chicago. Her research into sacred images of women has taken her around the globe. For seven years, Ruyle led women's pilgrimage journeys to sacred places. Ruyle creates and exhibits her art and does workshops throughout the U.S. and internationally. Her Goddess Icon Spirit Banners have flown in Australia, Canada, Britain, France, Luxembourg, Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, Ghana, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Japan, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China and the U.S. spreading their divine feminine energies. A book about her work, Goddess Icons Spirit Banners of the Divine Feminine, was published in 2002.

Lynne Orchard

Lynne, a priestess of Brigit, wishes to share with you her love and her knowledge of Brigit’s healing energy.  She is an aroma ~ soul therapist, masseuse, healer, ceremonialist, teacher and earth pilgrim who loves, walks and honours the connection between nature and ourselves.

Mária Feher-Deak

I was born in 1952. I know and feel for sure the unseen behind our reality. I open my heart to the unseen and ask help to fulfill my life-task. I am ready to live Her mysteries, Her teachings and Her wisdom. I am proud and grateful of being the mother of three sons.

Maria Tasi

...and the Wheel of the Year has turned on. We are here again, enthusiastic and busy with organising the Goddess Festival. I have had deep experiences in the year past. I have got much closer to the Goddess and by now She has become an organic part of my everyday life. These experiences were not always easy and pleasant. Some were painful times making, forcing me to face my faults. But they brought change and brought me closer to Her, together with the certainty: She has always been, She is and will always be here. In this year’s Festival I am participating as a priestess, which fills me with warm thanks towards Her and those who have helped me to hear the calling. I am proud of being and serving as one of Her priestesses. I have chosen healing for my duty. I have been working as a kinesiologist for eight years now. This is going to be reshaped in March as I am going to do Anahita-healings with the energy of the Maiden Goddess. I am also planning group healings of the hidden, burried pain, fear and wounds of present and past lives.

Natasha Wardle 

Natasha currently works at the Chalice Well in Glastonbury and has much experience in working deeply with groups on unity and the divine feminine. On her 30^th Birthday, she found herself in Chartres Cathedral in front of the Black Madonna and offered herself as a vessel for peace. Her own practice does not come from any one tradition but from a deep inner enquiry into the nature of existence.

Rita Gati

My name is Rita Emese Gáti. I am a temple priestess, and in the second year of the Priestess of Danu Training, which we could also call the Goddess’ rollercoaster for change has been constantly present in my life ever since I started it. The Goddess wants her followers to manage to prove their best and it means that She acts like a spiritual plastic surgeon. She tailors, stitches, sews and cuts away so that all of us would become a brilliant and shining, empathic person, one of deep feelings, one who is realistic and down to earth as well as high-flying and spiritual. I am to keep the energy of Water during the Festival, which is an exciting duty, as Water can be gentle, nourishing and raging and distructive at the same time.  Taking any form She does not care about the boundaries of time just proceeds gently reaching Her goal wherever She aims to go, even if She has to get through rocks in order to do so. I am trying to live my life in a similar way because I know, what one desires very much, one can eventually achieve if one is patient and insistent enough.

Soma Mamaghesa 

I feel I have managed to avoid the traps of prudery and create a very complex feminine fate for myself. It is rich in beauty, strength and motherhood as well. That is why I consciously chose the name „Soma Mamageisha” as I have been trying to develop all the three archetypal qualities of feminine existance in me. While setting an example for others. Because, even being a mother in her 40s, we do not have to live as tired run down women but we still can be exciting, spiritually open, thoughtful people. I lead my life so that I can experience the three ancient feminine principles within – the accepting, nourishing, caring Mother carrying the powers of the Moon; Venus who is able and ready to enjoy womanhood as well as to give pleasure to men; and the spiritually open Priestess having the sensitivity and intuition of Neptune.

Szilvia Simon

I am a shamanka, looking for my path. The voice of the ancient ones, the sound of the rattle and the spirit world vibrates in me. It is of importance for me to feel the ground beneath my feet. The blessed presence of the Goddess is such power that is always with and around  me. My steps are leading to Her... I have self-awareness groups and I do individual therapy in the Goddess Temple. I also lead one-day weekend courses for women.

Szilvia Szentesi 

I graduated from the Faculity of Arts of ELTE (Lóránt Eötvös University) with a degree in atr history in 1998. I took a special exam in kinesiology in 1999. I got a degree as a general dancer in 2005. I work with the means of these three fields in the exciting world of arts, healing and movement. At present I am undergoing the priestess training of the Goddess Temple of Danu in Budapest.  As a result of  this I experiencemy wor deeper and deeper, more inspired and powerful. I constantly build the things I learn in the therapies I give. An example of this is the Aand the Magadalene-heart and soul harmonisation. I lead active movement-meditation workshops for both choldren and adults.

Timea Horvath

Imagine a vast forest, huge and healthy,  rich with plants and flowers, full of animals and wonders. This is my inner world. The outer one is creation, activity and friends. What connects all these is the love of dance and movements.

Zita Mudra

It has been two years since the Goddess called me. It happened on a retreat. Looking back at it I find it great how She has brought all the people and friends in my way who helped me to finally reach the Priestess of Danu Training, where I am in the second year now. My connection to the Goddess has become deeper and deeper. The fact that I was able to get to Glastonbury last year also helped it a lot. The week spent there was a miracle, an initiation for me by the Goddess.  My teachers, Kriszta and Brian as well as my fellow priestess trainees (Being my friends and my teachers at the same time) have been helping me very much. For the time being as a member of the ceremonial group I represent the Lady of Fire. Dance, Irish, Celtic and world music are my passion. I believe that it is we who control our own fate and there are circumstances which we are able to change. Sometimes we cannot see out of our problems and then it is good to have somebody who brings light and shows the way. That is why I started to deal with Tarot reading. There I convey suggestions to the people turning to me, with the help of the cards and of the Goddess. At the beginning of the second year a strong connection was built with Mary Magdalene, who had sent me an inspiring dream. Now I would like to make this dream come true in the form of the „Isis Partner-Finding Circle”. In my life and in my surroundings I have experienced how we repeat our cycles, the same things again and again in our relationships, or on other fields of life. That is why I am planning to help those who intend to change it. It would begin first of all with getting to know ourselves. If we are able to love and accept ourselves then wonderful changes can occur in our lives. Certainly not only those are welcome who are looking for a partner, but anyone intending to get to know him/herself and change his/her life. This is supported with various techniques by my group, such as Tarot reading, astrology, kinesiology, spiritual answer-therapy, group workshops of creating and manifesting.