Who We Are
Cloud Women's Dream Society represents the interests of women in Indigenous spiritual traditions around the globe. We are concerned with the rights and rites of women, and the sacredness of sisterhood. Of chief concern is the health of our planet and spiritual activism.
Our Council consists of women from various spirit traditions of the earth. Spirit Traditions of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia, and others. We represent our Divine Birthright connections to the ancestors, nature, the divinities, and the Creator/Creatrix.
We believe that by coming together as women we can accomplish more than we can as individuals. We believe that by highlighting the efforts of women in our communities we can put forth a positive image and uplift the members of our traditions.
We believe that in order to increase our blessings it is essential to spread goodwill and to help each other as much as possible. To that end, we partner with other organizations that help women and children in need. Our mission is to provide women of Indigenous Spiritual Traditions access to education in the form of knowledge sharing, by sponsoring gatherings as our foremothers did, providing spiritual support, and exploring ways to address the physical and spiritual needs and concerns of our communities at no, or little, cost.
Our current projects include:
Cloud Women’s Quarterly Journal
Cloud Women’s Dream Society Annual Gathering
and our national fundraising effort ~ Red Tent
Our Members
Jolaoso Pretty Thunder
Jolaoso Pretty Thunder is a common earth-woman. She lives in the woods of Northern California with her family and two dogs Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holy Dog. She is a farmer, practitioner and student of herbal medicine (Western, Vedic, TCM and Lukumi medicine). She is also an ordained minister of the First Nations Church and the founder of The Cloud Women's Dream Society, as well as a contributor, and publisher of Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal. She is a well-traveled poet who loves southern rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, campfires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine and singing with friends and family.
Odília Galván Rodríguez
Odilia Galván Rodríguez, poet, writer, editor, and social justice activist, is the author of six volumes of poetry. She has worked as an editor for Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba and most recently, the Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal (QWQJ). She facilitates creative writing workshops nationally and is a moderator of Poets Responding, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima and the World, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives well-being of many people. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline. She is a practitioner of Indigenous Spiritual and healing traditions and strives to live a simple life based on the indigenous worldview of her ancestors.
Darasia Selby-Adebisi
Iya Darasia Selby-Adebisi (Ifatoyin Alaade Ojekemi) is an initiate of Ifa, Oshun, and Egungun in the Lukumi and Nigerian Yoruba traditions. A native of Philadelphia, she received a BA in African-American Studies and a Masters of Liberal Arts focusing on African Diasporic Religion, both from Temple University. Darasia has worked more than ten years in the education field and the non-profit sector, currently working as an administrator of an education program at a homelessness advocacy organization in North Philadelphia. She is also the founder of River of Honey, a company dedicated to the holistic wellness of Black women, and is currently receiving training to become certified as a holistic health practitioner and doula. Darasia is an activist and community organizer, a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Malcolm X Movement, a board member of the Orisa Community Development Corporation, and also a contributor to CWQJ.
Vikki Glover
Vikki Glover is an experienced educator, she comes from a long line of environmental and social activists. Vikki is passionate about the rights of women and girls, researching the esoteric and studying indigenous culture. She enjoys communing with nature, stimulating conversations, writing poetry and short stories, sun gazing, full moons and cats. Vikki has contributed her writing to CWQJ and organized one of our gatherings which was held in the Greater Smoky Mountains of Georgia.
Brittany Jade
Brittany Jade moved her life down to the Andes of Peru at the age of eighteen after having completed her training in holistic herbalism and Midwifery in the Southern United States where she is originally from. For the past eight years, she has been living in Peru where she is raising up her son in a way that makes her Grandmother proud, learning from the Plant Nations of South America, performing dance-theater and day by becoming a useful person in this World. Brittany Jade has contributed several useful articles and some of her poetry to CWQJ.
Sarah Kolker
Sarah Kolker is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, was born and raised in Philadelphia and has studied health and wellness practices in Philadelphia, Jamaica, SF Bay Area and New York City. Sarah is an Artist, Educator, Chef and Certified Yoga Instructor. She contributes mostly art and food column to CWQJ titled Kolks Food for Folks but writes about self-care and yoga.
Sharon Elliott
Sharon Elliott is a woman of indigenous ancestry (Scot and Saami), a poet-activist in national and international social justice concerns, especially the rights of women and girls. This activism has taken her to a life in Nicaragua and Ecuador for 4 years, and world travels to Central America, Cuba, Scotland and Canada. She is a moderator of Poets Responding on Facebook, is author of one book, Jaguar Unfinished, Prickly Pear Publishing 2012, with another one on the way; and her poetry has been published in several anthologies, online and in print. Initiated in the Ifa, Lukumi and Congo traditions as Omo Ifa and Apetebi, priest of Yemaya and child of Kalunga, she also studies the traditions of root doctoring that was gifted to her maternal grandmother, traditions of indigenous Norway and Scotland including reading cards in the Ogham (Celtic tree oracle). She loves to mentor young poets and assist them in spreading their creative wings. She lives in rural Washington State near salt water (Puget Sound) and fresh (Skagit River), loves cats, blueberries and stormy days.
Marisa Lindsey
Marisa Lindsey was born in the Philippines, and grew up outside of Hartford, Connecticut, where she currently resides. She spent over a decade working as a community and union organizer, but has recently returned to school to pursue her Masters in Social Work. Marisa is deeply committed to collective healing and liberation, and is currently working on deepening her connection to her ancestral heritage. She is in awe of the many teachers with whom she has crossed paths with, including her son, who daily gifts her with the practice of vulnerability and presence. Marisa finds joy in dancing, yoga, cooking, listening to science fiction during long drives, and fighting zombies with her son in the post-apocalyptic landscape of her backyard.
Jejelaiye
Jejela is a a birth and postpartum doula, healing justice activist, model, and student of clinical teaching assisting. She was born in Connecticut and raised part time in Jamaica. She loves to sing, write poetry, and make mixed media art. Jeje is an enthusiast of astrology, divination, DIY, yoga and body modification. She is in love with the color pink. She has three lovely cats (Kova, Henry and Cosmo).You can find her off the trail deep in the woods or bathing her feet in the river.
Cloud Women's Quarterly Journal Contributors
Rachael Spatula
Rachael (Spatula) Henrichsen, Chinese Medicine Practitioner, Herbalist, and Daoist 'Zi Wei' Astrologer, has been formally studying the healing arts, music, writing, and photography since 2000. As early in life as she can remember, she has shared a deep connection with nature, animal guides, and internally inspired ritual practice. Currently living the the San Francisco bay area and apprenticing with wonderful wise teachers, has further inspired her to step into a role of sharing wisdom and humility. She enjoys sharing quiet and peace through bowls of tea, singing gospel music, hearing the sound of a fire, and discovering ways to observe the movement of the wind.
Tina Tedesco
Tina Tedesco, an Herbalist and Shamanic Healing Practitioner and Ceremonialist. Having studied under her teacher Don Oscar Miro-Quesada, a kamasqa curandero from Peru, she has been initiated into the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition. Herbal medicine has been a passion of hers for years. Growing her own medicinal herbs, she makes a variety of herbal products and teas. Tina is also a certified Reiki Master and incorporates shamanic energy healing into her work. Creativity has always been a key component of her life which shows in her 30 years as an artist. Her art focus' on abstract painting as a representation of her life experiences.
Akanno Sinzofin Gedeji
Akanno Sinzofin Gedeji (aka Joeanne Mitchell) was born in the urban outposts of Hoodoo culture in a suburb of New York City in the early 1950’s. Her Baptist upbringing prompted a quest for information on her mystical experiences that was to take her to Cuba, Mexico, Haiti, and Africa. Writing as Mama Whodun, she pens the Neohoodoo blog, is a published author and poet. She is an initiate in Las Reglas Congo and La Regla Lucumi crowned to Orisa Oya, and a Manbo in the Rada rite of Haiti. Akanno is a card reader, a lifelong student of occult science, and lover of all craftwork. In her spare time, she decodes conspiracy theories, reads Fortean texts and watches lots of science fiction.
Tamara Hart
Tamara Hart is a boho, artist, psychonault, root worker, writer, daughter of the dust, hierophant ( and a pretty good fortune teller too ) she lives on the southernmost coast of north carolina with her carolina dogs fallon and fey in a hundred-year-old tumbledown shotgun shack. surrounded by water, she loves to fish and cook regional cuisine. a returning college student pursuing an advanced degree, in her spare time she likes exploring the history and culture of her home ( the cape fear ) taking pictures and making stuff. she plans to take up shag dancing soon-
Meg Withers
Meg Withers grew up in a small town in Northern California with mostly relatives and friends of her recently emigrated Italian family. She has been writing to save her sanity since she was about 9 years old, and has often been accused of “making things up.” She has been published in many literary journals and creative projects – The Tule Review, The Sacramento Literary Review, Zyzzyva, The Bohemian, Nimrod. She has been anthologized several times, and has three published books. Her first book, Must Be Present to Win, is a project involving her perception of Buddhism, as a person who does not follow the rules very well. Her second book of poems is a book of experimental prose poems, A Communion of Saints, (TinFish Press, 2008), and was written 23 years after the AIDS epidemic decimated the gay population of Honolulu, Hawai’i, and where she witnessed the unconscionable neglect and poor treatment of people who were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Her latest book, Shadowed: Unheard Voices, (The Press at Fresno State, 2014), was written in collaboration with Joell Hallowell, a videographer and photographer. The book focuses on the many voices of women which have been either silenced or ignored. The basis for all Meg’s work is concerned with the attempt to silence voices, to deny dialect, to flatten the English language into an uninteresting grayness. Language is culture, and when language is lost or stolen, cultures die, and whether we acknowledge it or not, we are bereft.
Okomfo Adwoa Tacheampong
Okomfo Adwoa Tacheampong is a vocalist, drummer, dancer, and actor who has been performing since the age of 10. Adwoa is also a Mental Health Counselor and specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as serving those who practice indigenous spirituality. She currently works as a program manager in a non-profit agency serving homeless women and children and also works as a counselor for a youth advocacy program. She has been playing Afro-Cuban Batá and studying Afro-Cuban Orisha Dance since for over 11 years and has been dancing sacred Ghanaian Akom dance for over 15 years. Adwoa has taught workshops all over the United States and abroad, yet considers herself a perpetual student and continually seeks to expand her spirituality and creativity through various teachings and endeavors.