Events

May 20, 2018

Considering Matrilineality: an alternative to patriarchy
Author Discussion & Book Signing

Sunday, May 20, 2018, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Buffalo Street Books
215 N Cayuga Street, Ithaca NY 14850
Google Map

In New York State, we are privileged to live with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Nation as neighbors. They, and others like the Lenape, have been matrilineal for untold time; a way of life where men and women share power equally, sometimes in different spheres.

Now that the origin of the three sky god religions that brought the subjugation of women to our world (Judaism, Islam, Christianity), has been described and understood, it is time to reinstate an equal reverence for both male and female principles. The exploitation of Mother Earth is consistent with the exploitation of women and people of color. Enough is enough!

May 17, 2018

Destiny Kinal on Sex, Time and Prophecy

Thursday, May 17, 2018, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Community Arts of Elmira
413 Lake Street, Elmira, NY 14901
Google Map

Prophecy is the ability to learn from time.

Social scientists and anthropologists Leonard Shlain, Helen Fisher and Marija Gimbutas have reconstructed the importance of women in how the human species has evolved to this moment.

Men who have been raised by feminist mothers to be nurturing are sharing the work of living equally with their female partners.

Read more...

Part of the Original Work series at Community Arts of Elmira

Original Work is a series that celebrates original work of poetry, prose and songwriting through featured artist readings and performances. The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments are available.

The Rockwell Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate, presents Bare Bones Café – a community-sourced museum experience. 2018 marks the 125th birthday of the Museum’s home, Old City Hall in Corning. To celebrate, artists and performers from the greater Corning community have been invited to use an empty gallery as their laboratory and creative gathering place, April 27 – May 12, 2018. At the heart of this pop-up gallery is a challenge – how can an artist present their vision with only bare bones staging? The Rockwell provides the space and limited equipment – the artist brings the space to life.

May 6, 2018

Considering Matrilineality: an alternative to patriarchy

Sunday, May 6, 2018, 3:30 – 4:30 pm
The Rockwell Museum
111 Cedar Street, Corning NY 14830
Google Map

Presentation at The Rockwell Museum
Part of a two-week juried series called Bare Bones Café

A matrilineal way-of-life is one in which women and men are equal and share power equally, often in different spheres. Women pass on the lineage, name and clan to their children and are in charge of the all things having to do with the earth including agriculture and wildcrafting. Men represent the tribe to the external world. You can imagine how Europeans were confused by this when it came to land use and treaties with native American chiefs.

Three women who have been interacting with or living inside a matrilineal culture will be presenting the program for their audience’s consideration: Sally Roesch Wagner of Syracuse, Ronnie Reitter of Victor and Destiny Kinal of Waverly, NY.

Sally Roesch Wagner’s book, Sisters in Spirit, documents the influence Haudenosaunee way-of-life had on our early women’s rights foremothers—Gage, Anthony and Stanton. Roesch Wagner’s book is largely responsible for a growing awareness of the international women’s movement’s debt to the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois women. A professor at Syracuse University and Founder/Executive Director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Center in Fayetteville NY, Roesch Wagner will be introducing a new suffrage anthology to be published by Penguin Classics in February 2019, foreward by Gloria Steinem.

Sally will be joined by Ronnie Reitter, a Seneca seamstress, cornhusk doll maker and storyteller who recently retired from Ganondagan, the cultural center in Victor, NY that interprets the traditional way-of-life for young native people and for visitors from European, African and Asian lineages who consider themselves allies or are learning about this native American way-of-life. Reitter worked at Rochester Museum and Science Center for 4 years before being recruited to be Peter Jemison’s assistant at Ganondagan for the past 17 years. Reitter will comment on what matrilineality looks like from the inside and speak about the stresses the outside world puts on the tradition.

Read more...

November 16, 2017

Destiny Kinal Discussion & Dialog Series

Thursday, November 16, 2017, 6:00-8:00 pm
Spalding Memorial Library
724 S. Main Street, Athens PA 18810
Google Map

Historical garments from Tioga Point Museum

This textile is a national treasure, or if that is an exaggeration, it is certainly a treasure of the Susquehanna Watershed, being that it has all the attributions—where the flax was grown, where spun, and then returned to the flax grower’s wife to weave and embroider—and all this two years before the Sullivan Campaign, which burned the homes of the Queen Esther’s people and drove them north to Canada just in advance of winter, burned their crops and chopped down their mature orchards. These are people who were multilingual metis and who lived in peace and harmony with the white in the valley. (I’ve read the diaries and journals of the white.) Still remembered vividly. Both of the first two books in the Textile Trilogy are still dealing with this event. The native people in the valley are still dealing with the event….and certain whites continue to decry it.

August 20-21, 2016

Flax & Linen: Following the Thread from Past to Present

This symposium was organized by the New England Flax and Linen Study Group in collaboration with Historic Deerfield.

Flax is a textile fiber with a 30,000-year history of human use. Its versatility and utility earned the moniker Linum usitatissimum, the “most useful” fiber. The ancient history of this amazing fiber was brought into the present and followed into the future during this two-day symposium hosted at Historic Deerfield.

A presentation by Destiny Kinal, Flax to Linen: The state of the art from a sustainable perspective, can be viewed below.

April 2012

Watershed/Fibershed, presented by Rebecca Burgess and Destiny Kinal

In April, 2012, Fibershed and sitio tiempo press hosted a cooperative event and reading on the subject of bioregionalism, fibershed, and appropriate technology. The events were held partnership with two stores, Green Arcade Bookstore in San Francisco, on April 26th and at A Verb for Keeping Warm, the fiber center in Oakland, on April 15 at 3pm.

Rebecca Burgess spoke about Fibershed, the organization she founded in West Marin; Destiny Kinal talked about The Third Wave of bioregionalism and the unique approach to community organizing that occurs in each discreet watershed. Both women observed that creating local capacity for fiber production and dyeing creates community in turn. Burgess sees Fibershed as a key organizing principle in creating commerce inside and outside of the community, part of a sustainable way of life.

Past Events