Women's Cultural Program
in the Goodenough Community
The women’s cultural program encourages and supports self-development; helps us, as female-identified people of all ages, reach a greater connection with our inner source of feminine strength; celebrates who we are as women; and improves our relationships with our partners, family members, friends, and self. Come join us for one or all of our activities!
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Women’s Program
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The women’s program of the Goodenough Community is a long-established and ever-growing way for women to enjoy each other’s company, learn about themselves as women, and even perhaps to experience the Divine Feminine.
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Our curriculum is designed to open up a way for us to look inside ourselves and to share whatever we want our companions to know. We develop the curriculum in response to the lives of the women who participate in the program, and draw on the wisdom of the ages as well as modern psychological and spiritual understandings.
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Our gatherings throughout the year include a time of introspection, a time of gathering and joining with others, and plenty of time to listen to others and to share our hearts. We often sing, chant, and dance. We find that opening ourselves to other women is indescribably satisfying and uplifting. Each woman is free to participate to the extent that is right for her.
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About Our Leadership
Our curriculum draws on a body of teaching developed by John and Colette Hoff over a period of more than 50 years on such topics as the Living Arts, right relationship, human development, mental health, and the Perennial Wisdom.
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Founder of the program in 1983, Colette was in the Crone phase of life. She had a special vocation in working with women’s issues as she supported and encouraged women through their life-stage transitions and on their spiritual journeys.
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Now, Laura Sweany is the focal person for the women’s culture leadership team, with team members Elizabeth Jarrett-Jefferson, Sue-Marie Casagrande, Rosemary Buchmeier, Maryann Schumacher, and, as Emeritus, Hollis Guill Ryan.
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For more information about the Women's Program
email Laura Sweany
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What are we doing?
Oh that's what we're doing!
Testimonials
Women’s Weekend
wisdom, mystery, laughter…
Kirsten Rohde
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I feel so fortunate to have been part of such a good weekend for women. Led by Hollis Ryan, Colette Hoff and their team: Elizabeth Jarrett-Jefferson, Rose Buchmeier, Evelyn Cilley, Joan Valles, and Margenta Gray, we had a truly enjoyable time together at Sahale. When I try to describe this weekend, I find that superlatives don’t really work. So here is a sentence from Elizabeth Davis and Carol Leonard, from The Women’s Wheel of Life that captures it: “Mystery is defined as that which is beyond understanding, that which baffles or perplexes, that which is profound and known only by revelation.” [more]
Unpacking the Anti-Treasure
Drai Bearwomyn
I had no idea what I was ‘getting myself into’ when I signed up for the Goodenough Community’s Women’s Weekend. I had kernels of trust and a great deal of hope based on my experiences with the Hoff’s and several of the GEC people in past years. However, I had not experienced “their way” before, and was both curious and nervous.
It proved critically invaluable to the future of my vitality and development. No small thing that.
I have been on a long journey with many, many stones, shards of glass and boulders along my path. [more]
Articles
Our library offers articles on topics of interest
to the Goodenough community.
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Why We Have a Women's Culture Hollis Guill Ryan
The Crone Archetype
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Valuing a Culture of Women Colette Hoff
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How to Form a Women's Culture Colette Hoff