About the Center for the Sacred Feminine
Through lectures, workshops, research, scholarships and ritual, the Center for the Sacred Feminine offers you the opportunity to explore and celebrate all aspects of the Sacred Feminine in your life.
Philosophy
A revolution in archeological methods and outlook has revealed that cultural history did not begin with Abraham. The Goddess-centered cultures of old, 6000 years ago, present a picture of high culture committed to partnership between men and women rather than the competitive warrior cultures which replaced them 2000 years later. New scholarly research is delving into the evolution and significance of these ancient Goddess cultures.
Who We Are
Co-Directors
Dianne E. Jenett, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Women's Spirituality M.A. program at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology which opens this Fall 2008, as well as Adjunct and Research Faculty at California Institute of Integral Studies and Sonoma State University. She is the founder of Serpentina, a collaboration in support of 'woman-centered research for everybody.' She is also one of four co-authors of the groundbreaking qualitative research methodology, Organic Inquiry, first published in Organic Inquiry: If Research Were Sacred.
She holds a Ph.D. in Integral Studies with a concentration in Women's Spirituality and an M.A. in Transpersonal Psychology. Her passionate love for Kerala, India takes her there almost every year where she researches and participates in community rituals to Bhadrakali. Her research interests are women's rituals and community rituals to the Goddess in South India, women's psycho-spiritual development, and qualitative research methods. Her research has been published in the U.S., Europe and India.
e-mail: djenett@itp.edu
D’vorah J. Grenn, Ph. D., Ph.D. is founder and director of The Lilith Institute (1997) and Voice of the Spirit (1998), a San Francisco Bay Area women's spirituality/study circle and lecture series. She is co-director and core faculty in the Women's Spirituality MA Program at Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California, and founding kohenet/priestess of Mishkan Shekhinah (2007), a movable sanctuary honoring the Sacred Feminine in all spiritual traditions. Dr. Grenn’s dissertation, “For She Is A Tree of Life: Shared Roots Connecting Women to Deity” was an inquiry into Jewish women’s religious/cultural identities, beliefs and ritual practices among the South African Lemba and United States women. Her other writings include Lilith’s Fire: Reclaiming our Sacred Lifeforce (Universal Publishers, 2000); “Claiming The Title Kohenet: Examining Goddess Judaism and the Role of the Priestess” – A paper presented at “Women and the Divine” Conference, Liverpool and later published in the Women in Judaism Multidisciplinary Journal, 2008.
Her most recent book is an anthology of the sacred writings of 72 women from 25 different spiritual traditions: Talking To Goddess, a collection of blessings, prayer-poems, chants, meditations and invocations (available through www.lulu.com.) Her ongoing work explores the role of the ancient and contemporary priestess, women’s contemporary ritual practices and social, spiritual and political change being created by the women of South Africa.
e-mail: dgrenn@itp.edu
Advisory Council
Christine Brooks is a core faculty member of ITP's Residential PhD program where she serves as Assistant Professor and is also Chair of the Transpersonal Psychology Ph.D. program. Christine was awarded her Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology at ITP in 2007. She recieved her MA in Psychology at ITP in 2006. She also has a BFA in Acting from the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University, awarded in 1992.
She brings more than 15 years of experience in the corporate world to her current work including expertise as a book editor at Bantam Books and project manager of an online personal growth website. These past work experiences inform Dr. Brooks’ current interest in transformational education and leadership.
Dr. Brooks’ research is focused in three areas: intentional childlessness as a life path; archetypal expressions of gendered identities; and the reconciliation of long-term discord via social networking websites. She has presented at major national and international conferences in the social and human sciences on intentional childlessness and her own original qualitative research technique, Embodied Transcription. Additional areas of scholarly interest include the intersections of transpersonal psychology with feminist and queer theories and psychologies, postmodern and poststructural theories such as social constructionism and advocacy/participatory worldviews, diversity issues in psychology, queer spirituality, qualitative research methods including grounded theory and intuitive inquiry, and adult identity development.
email: cbrooks@itp.edu
Ana Perez-Chisti is a core Faculty member of ITP’s Global Ph.D. Program where she serves as Associate Professor. She also is a Professor at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, teaching in the Distant Learning Program in the Department of Religion and Philosophy. She specializes in subjects such as Comparative World Religions, the Mystical Traditions, Ethics, Eastern and Western Philosophy, Women Saints and Prophets-East and West, Jungian Psychology, Psycho-spiritual Synthesis, Culture and Consciousness and Contemporary and Wisdom Psychologies.
Ana has worked as a counselor in the field of homeless shelter support, hospice care, prison reform and emergency food distribution in areas of the world where extreme conditions of natural disaster, war, and political upheaval have occurred. She is an ordained minister, lineage teacher (Murshida), and National Representative of the Sufi Movement International of the USA, which displays a website at the address of www.sufimovement.net.
Ana has directed a World Religions program for ministerial ordination for over thirty years preparing hundreds of students in spiritual ethics and counseling procedures that permit them to move into Chaplaincy and Directorial positions around the globe. She is an international lecturer, writer and a phenomenological/hermeneutic researcher with interests in French, Pali, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese languages. She has maintained a private counseling practice in the East Bay for 15 years and has studied Dance,Yoga, Kendo (Martial Art of the Sword) and holds a black belt in Shorin-Ryu Karate.
Her latest academic interest is to publish her two major texts this year which are: Foundations of the Buddha’s Teachings-Abhidhamma and its Causation, Correlation and Liberation and Sufi Akbar-The First Mogul Interfaith King.
e-mail: aperez-chisti@itp.edu
Judy Schavrien is Associate Professor and Chair of the Global Ph.D. Program. Prior to joining the Institute, Judy helped found two programs in Women's Spirituality at California Institute of Integral Studies. She is a feminist activist and a former board member of GAYLESTA. In her capacity as a clinician, she served as an audience consultant to the Oprah Winfrey show; she also appeared in the Winfrey show "Lesbian Couples." She served on the Executive Committee of the Association for Humanistic Psychology Board.
She served as Senior Staff at the Carl Rogers clinic in Chicago. With Eugene Gendlin she taught focusing in international workshops. Judy, who had been treating post-trauma stress in others, contracted it after a mugging in which she was shot in the face. Her healing journey led to residence in India and the Far East, including pursuant years of practice with Sogyal Rinpoche, who is known as the laughing lama.
Judy's research includes two articles for publication in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology: parts I and II of "On being shot awake: A transpersonal self psychology view of PTSD recovery." JTP first published and then anthologized "The rage, healing, and daemonic death of Oedipus: A self-in-relation theory." With New Rivers Press, she translated from Dutch and wrote a cultural history introduction to What Rhymes with Cancer? As a published painter and critic, and an anthologized poet, she received 14 national and international prizes. Most recently she was nominated Oakland Artist of the Year.
e-mail: jschavrien@itp.edu
Kate Wolf-Pizor is the faculty Chair of the Residential Master's Program, a Senior Clinical Instructor, and is an Associate Professor. She has taught at the Institute since 1997 and began as the chair of the Residential Master's program in January 2001. She has also taught at Santa Clara University and National University.
Kate has been a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California for thirteen years and has worked with families in California for the past twenty-five years. She is currently the president of the California State Division of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Kate maintains a private practice in Mountain View and works with individuals, couples, families and groups. She is also a certified hypnotherapist. Kate has a strong interest in ritual and works with the labyrinth as a healing practice. She has a background in Western mystical traditions.
e-mail: kwolfpizor@itp.edu
