Heroines and mentoresses

When this was the topic for our Women's Spirituality Group at our church this month, I started making a list of all the great women I've learned from and been influenced by.  It kept getting longer and longer.

Here are a few of them.  I just mainly wanted to archive the list for today, and will be happy to look at it again in a year and see if I've got some new mentoresses, (too bad that spell check doesn't think that's a word.  Of course it is!)

Deep dish casserole

These are not in any particular order, and their relationships to me, and reality, jump all over the place!

Mary Carolyn Richards (teacher, author, potter from Black Mountain College & "Centering in Pottery Poetry and the Person")
Akelanda (Never not-broken, rolling on the floor crying saint)
Mary Cassatt
Georgia O'Keeffe
Gertrude Stein
Amma, Spiritual leader (the Hugging Saint)
Mary Oliver, poet
Hecatedemeter blog
Mary Beth Rogers Miller, sister
Willow LaMonte, friend
Anita Spring (Dean, UF boss)
Antiga, friend
Dawn Wilson, friend
Miss Kessler (freshman English)
Martha Curie, friend
Mary Magdalene
H. Byron Ballard, friend
Adelaide Robineau, early ceramic artist
Judy Garland
Emily Dickenson
Shirley Temple
Susan B. Anthony
Ginger Rogers
Nancy Drew
Elizabeth Cunningham, author
Pollyanna
Audrey Hepburn
May Sarton
Frieda Kalo
Merlin Stone
Elizabeth Caddy Stanton
Michelle Naglieri Heym, daughter in law
Linda Metzner, friend
Starhawk
Cinnamon Heym, daughter in law
Ramya Ruth Gleeson, friend
Deb Vingle, Yoga teacher, friend
Rosemary Beddingfield, friend
Jinni Beck Stahl, friend
Rosemary Stout, friend
Teresa Ballinger, friend
Elizabeth Jessie, friend
Mary Heym, mother in law
Margaret Mitchell
Carol Christ
Mary Baker Eddy, Religious leader
Laura Ingles Wilder
Susan Sarandon
The Bronte sisters
Vicki Lane
Pearl Buck
Linda Arkwright, in-law mother in law of son
Agatha Christi
Edith Wharton
Judy Lynch (7th grade best friend who died)
Katherine Hepburn
Bette Davis
Mrs. Edwards, 7th grade teacher
Goldie Hawn
Sojorner Truth
Snow White
Julie Andrews
Jackie Kennedy
Heidi (the book)
Julia Roberts
Mary Daly
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Cinderella
Judy Chicago
Martha Stewart
Louise Nevelson
Grace Kelley
Meryl Strep
Princess Diana
Jo in Little Women
Sacajawea
Dr. Christianne Northrup
Brigit
Quan Yin
Gretel (in Hansel and Gretel)
Patricia Monaghan
Marija Gimbutus
Fanny Farmer
Bette Crocker
Hecate
Innana
Aphrodite
Persephone
Demeter
Athena
Indira Ghandi
Beatrix Potter
Grace O'Malley (real Irish pirate who saw Queen Elizabeth I)
Julia Ward Howe
Dorthea Dix
Margaret Mead
Rachel Carlson


many other women who influenced me by their words and deeds.  (I've not included the mothers and grandmothers which I've already honored this week)