34 Circe Salon -- Make Matriarchy Great Again -- Disrupting History

We're back!The 2026 - 2027 season is here and we start off with paeans to the goddesses from returning guest and Make Matriarchy Great Again friend, Mary Mackey.Mary Mackey, a graduate of Harvard, who also received a Ph.D from the University of Michigan, was an Emeritus Professor of English, taught Creative Writing and Film at the graduate and undergraduate levels at California State University, Sacramento. She is a bestselling author and award-winning poet who has written fourteen novels, some of which have appeared on the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller Lists. She is also the author of ten volumes of poetry.  Her work has always touched upon subjects such as the feminine divine, ecology and, of course, matriarchy. Her novels such as The Last Warrior Queen and The Year The Horses Came, use matriarchal history specifically, as their backdrop. Her latest work, The Goddess of Burning Hair, is the first complete collection of Ms. Mackey's goddess poems and it spans more than fifty years. Written from 1972 to 2025, the thirty-seven poems in this book emerge from a lifetime spent studying, listing to, respecting, and giving voice to the spirit of Gaia the Great Mother in all her forms.  In this wonderful work you will find poems about goddesses from Europe, like Medusa and Aphrodite, Afro-Brazilian goddesses like Iemanjá, and Yansã, and goddesses Ms. Mackey has invented, like The Goddess of Burning Hair.  We talk with Ms. Mackey about these amazing poems, her fabulous career and the matriarchal and goddess inspirations that have shaped both.We think it's a beautiful way to start a new season dedicated to making matriarchy great again!Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden co-host.

It's been a long, hot summer... and the autumn has started pretty heated too!  But we wanted to pop in and tell you that we're out here doing our matriarchal best, working on episodes for the new season.  In the meantime, Dawn "Sam" Alden has a few recommendations for your listening pleasure until we return later this month.  We can't wait to get things going again!  See you all in a bit!

We've waited a long time for this one!  In today's episode, we talk with Dr. Marianne Moen.  Dr. Moen is an archaeologist best known for her work on gender, identity, and power in the Viking Age.  Her scholarship utilizes archaeology, feminist theory and mortuary studies, offering a reinterpretation of Norse societies and the role of women within them.  We discuss how earlier generations of archaeologists, influenced by gender norms in their own eras, often interpreted evidence in ways that minimized women’s authority and agency, distorting or erasing the reality of the accomplishments of women of the past.That's ground zero for the issues that we champion on this podcast. Make Matriarchy Great Again listeners will truly enjoy this!Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden co-host.

The inimitable Max Dashu talks with Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden about  evidence for women-led societies in indigenous peoples around the globe, as well as the evolution of the term Matriarchy.  We all know what we mean when we say "patriarchy" but what does "matriarchy" mean and what else do we call it? How does it change shape in different places and times?Check out Max's archives at https://www.suppressedhistories.net/ 

Earlier this month, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) was renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) as a result of an international effort to help physicians better understand the condition. Indeed, sufferers may not have any ovarian cysts, and PMOS affects the entire body. Physicians stress that the “metabolic” is the most central portion of the condition, and the new name better reflects this. In celebration of this, we are resharing a BABM episode recorded in 2021.

Award-winning author, Shelly Puhak, joins us to discuss her wonderful book, The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World, about two of the most powerful rulers in European history: Queen Fredegund and Queen Brunhilde.These two powerful queens commanded armies and fought each other over several decades. Brilliant and tough, they battled not only for supremacy, but survival, using the tools of diplomacy and warfare as needed.  Alliances with popes, queens and kings stabilized their realms.  Combined, their empires extended through Germany, Belgium, France and Spain, and laid the foundations for the the development of European nation-states to come. After their deaths, they suffered a familiar fate as other great women of history: their stories were erased or rewritten, and their names were sullied.Dawn "Sam" Alden and Sean Marlon Newcombe co-host.

Kimberly Rockwell, Dawn "Sam" Alden, and Lauren Torres talk about what it feels to walk through life as a woman in a large body, what feedback women receive about their bodies, and how the current emphasis on thin bodies to the exclusion of everything else can destroy us both from within and without. What messages did we absorb from our parents about what size was optimum for women? Why do we still believe the "calories in, calories out" message, despite it being just plain bad science? Why don't we understand more about what really affects our body size? And why does it freaking matter anyway???

Hello listeners! I hope you have had a chance to check out our interview with Chelsea Gardner and Melissa Funke of Peopling the Past, which aired earlier this season.  As a follow up, they have generously allowed us to do a Podcast Takeover of one of their episodes!  We here at 34 Circe are big fans of Wonder Woman, so although it’s not a typical episode for them, we are sharing the one in which they discuss Wonder Woman and other classics in comics with Dr. Natalie Swain.  We hope you enjoy, and check out the rest of their episodes at peoplingthepast.com

In modern times divination is often seen as superstitious tools used primarily to predict the future. However, since ancient times our ancestors used divination as essential meaning making tools, allowing us to connect with core archetypes in order to see our personal and cultural lives in deeper ways.  Join Lauren Torres and Anu Dudley author of The Goddess Casts the Runes, as we discuss the evidence for the matriarchal origins of the Elder Futhark Runes, their meaning when a patriarchal overlay is removed, and why connecting with them can offer a powerful recovery of ancient ways of knowing.Support the podcast: lovemmga.com

While researching Robert Graves, Sean Marlon Newcombe reached out to Dr. Anett K. Jessop, who introduced us to Laura Riding Jackson, a poet, linguist, revolutionary thinker and sometime lover of Robert Graves. It could be argued she was the inspiration for a lot of Graves work, including the idea of reclaiming myth from the patriarchal lens. A fascinating, uncompromising and multi-talented woman, we just scratch the surface of her legacy in this interview! With Sean Marlon Newcombe and Dawn "Sam" Alden.