By Charo R. Walker
BlackFood News Reporter
THE recently held Reawaken the Inner Goddess Women’s Conference brought women of all ages together to hear and learn from local and international speakers who spoke on a range of topics including finances, psychology, education and health.
Conference Director, Tesha Fritz, felt the conference was necessary “to bring awareness to women about their minds, bodies and spirit and to get that awareness out into the public”.
She added: “Mothers and women … are the cornerstones of the home. When a woman is out of order, I feel the home is out of order … get women in order so children, homes and families can be in order.”
Fritz also wanted to reach out to young girls, in particular, because she recognizes that the youth are going to take us to “the next level”.
When asked to explain what is meant by “Reawakening the Inner Goddess” she stated that it is about bringing out our inner divinity so that we can stop looking outside of ourselves for peace and love.
She went on to say that we were all made in the image and likeness of the Most High, which means that we are divine and sacred and that our inner goddess has been there from birth; it only has to be reawakened because of the many distractions that life brings our way.
Despite modest numbers Fritz feels that the conference was successful in fulfilling its objectives since those who attended left with “cups … brimming over with inspiration and motivation to reawaken that inner goddess,” she said.
Several nights before the Conference, BlackFood was able to interview the event’s international speakers and found out what they hoped to share with attendees.
Dr. Joy Scott, a Nutritionist, who has been in the wellness industry for 36 years stated: “I hope to help bring some realization around what, why, we eat. What we’re eating, for what reasons, and why we’re eating it and what it’s actually doing to the body.”
Disease, she said, is caused by the body’s inability to remove waste. The waste, in turn, is due to eating the wrong combinations of food and eating more cooked food than raw food.
Scott, therefore, stressed that when we see food it doesn’t mean that we should eat. Instead, she said we should ask: “Is this good for me? Will this give me quality of life?”
She sees this as crucial if we are to have quality of life; if we are to rid our bodies of disease and live longer lives.
According to Scott, because of poor diets, “we’re burying people alive.”
She also spoke to the mental aspect of healthy eating and stated that our minds must also be nourished and fed so that we can be the creative spirits that we truly are. “If you don’t have the right food, you can’t have the right thoughts,” she shared.
She added that women played a vital role in the global health movement as those who birth the world and who, subsequently, pass eating habits on to their children.
Most of all, she expected the sisters to pass on what they learned at the conference and make healthy eating a way of life.
Dr. Linzi Morris, an International Woman’s Motivational Speaker, opined: “You’ll hear many times, we used to be goddesses, we were the mothers of the planet but we’ve come so far from that.”
Recognizing that we are rarely given concrete steps to get us back to what we used to be she said she would use the conference as an opportunity to share “how” to get back to the goddesses we once were.
She emphasized that by getting back to our culture and way of life we would draw strength and power. “When we’re acting outside of ourselves … that’s when a lot of the problems come in,” she said.
When asked about her views on “Reawakening the Inner Goddess”, she said that the “goddess gene is still there” and all that is required is for us to tap back into that gene and listen to all those people in our DNA.
In other words, as we move forward, we must look back to our ancestors and get back to our way of life.
Morris pointed out, however, that just revisiting the past alone is not going to take us back to our way of life and suggested that we also begin the hard work of looking within to change ourselves.
Nurse Sherrice Ruddick planned to share her knowledge of naturalistic herbology. She also said that it was important to teach women how to discern when things are “not going correct with our bodies” so that we would be able to stop the onslaught of illnesses.
Ruddick further stated that she wanted to play a part in helping women gain knowledge of self and get out of the unfavourable situations that they’ve put themselves in such as choosing the wrong foods, men, or lifestyles.
Local speakers included Michelle Bethel, Mrs. Klass and Sen. The Hon. Jacinta Higgs. Bethel, a representative from Fidelity, spoke about finances. Klass spoke about motherhood, the importance of breast feeding and a child’s early influences. While Higgs talked about the challenges one faces once that inner goddess is embraced.
Three health workshops – raw food chef certification, eating vegetarian/eating vegan, and nutritional eating for children – led by Dr. Joy Scott, were held the week following the conference.
A Men’s Conference is being planned to coincide with Father’s Day 2010.♦bf