Photo: Bryan Anton

Where it All began

My Journey to the Goddess began in 2012 on a beach in India after completing an intensive training in classical South Indian dance-theater. My time immersed in ancient Indian cultural religious traditions and rituals had a deeply visceral and life-changing impact on me. Though I appreciated learning about the Hindu goddesses (and also that Hindu culture revers the Goddess and Divine Feminine), I longed to discover if there was a Divine Feminine or Goddess tradition hidden within the Christian tradition that I was brought up in.

Shortly after returning to the United States, I encountered Mary Magdalene in meditation. Immediately, Mary Magdalene became a guide in my quest to search for and discover the world’s goddess traditions and figures. As a self-proclaimed Magdalene devotee, I made my first solo Mary Magdalene pilgrimage to Southern France in 2014. This pilgrimage taught me that the Journey to the Goddess is truly a journey where one can learn the depths of the feminine experience vis-a-vis the infinite manifestations of the goddess.

With a burning desire to understand the Goddess—and Mary Magdalene—at their fullest, I redirected my journey toward my own education. After five years of intensive study on Mary Magdalene and the Divine Feminine in mythic traditions at the graduate level, I am now ready to take the Journey to the Goddess out into the world.

Who We Are

Founding Creatrix - Annalisa Derr, MA

Re-Claiming and Re-Mythologizing the Goddess

~Inspired by the foremothers of the Women’s Spirituality movement, Annalisa combines ritual, ancient theater traditions, myths, and symbols to re-claim and re-vision the Divine Feminine, Mary Magdalene, women and female bodies as natural, powerful, and life-affirming.~

While training in South Indian classical dance in Bangalore, India in 2012, Annalisa had her first truly impactful experience of the divine feminine. Since then, Annalisa has been on a quest to rediscover the world’s ancient feminine wisdoms. A Mary Magdalene devotee, Annalisa Derr made her first solo Mary Magdalene pilgrimage to Southern France in 2014. In addition to being a seeker of the Divine Feminine, Annalisa is a ritual theater creatrix with specialized training in masked and physical theater from master teachers in Italy, India, and NYC. Inspired by events in early November 2016, Annalisa began work on a ritual performative series, “She Bleeds the World into Existence.” In this series, Annalisa fuses menstrual art with goddess mythologies to reclaim the female body as powerful, healing, and life-affirming. Annalisa has developed and produced monthly women’s events in New York City (Ladies Salon NYC) and Santa Barbara that merge women’s spirituality, creativity, networking, and entrepreneurship. Annalisa is a doctoral candidate in Mythological Studies with and Emphasis in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is also a contributing writer, interviewer, and online event organizer for She is Love.

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Collaborators and Contributers

Senior Researcher - Roz Carlos, MA

When she is not researching and writing her dissertation, Rosalyn makes esoterically-inspired jewelry and mixed media art, trains as a martial artist, cooking experimentally, and studies and practices the esoteric and the occult.

Consulting Goddess Researcher - April Heaslip, Phd

April C. Heaslip, PhD, is a mythologist and educator who earned her doctorate in Mythological Studies with emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and holds a master's in Social Ecology from Goddard College. Uniting interconnected levels of inquiry via Women's + Gender Studies, Literary + Film Studies, post-Jungian Psychology and sustainability, her work focuses on applied ecofeminist mythology and the curative powers of creativity and synchronicity. Her forthcoming book with University Press of Mississippi, Regenerating the Feminine: Chronicling the Radical Rise of the Feminine in Psyche, Culture & Nature, considers the impact of this monumental resurgence as healing agent across individual, collective, and environmental realms. https://www.aprilheaslip.com