In the Belly of the Earth: Rhythm & Ritual at Imbolc
In the Belly of the Earth: Rhythm & Ritual at Imbolc with Megan Driving Hawk
Join us via Zoom on Wednesday, February 4th, at 7 pm EST
On the Celtic Wheel of the year, Imbolc is a cross-quarter celebration honoring pre-dawn and is associated with symbols such as Brigid, new life, pregnancy, fertility, first milk, awakening, quickening, the return of the sun, and family. Collectively, Imbolc means “in the belly,” referring to the fertility of the earth and an invitation to slowly shift our attention toward the coming Spring. For Megan Driving Hawk, Imbolc marks a sacred, intimate transition into motherhood.
In this dynamic conversation, Megan will share a body of work in progress through the lens of Imbolc, alongside a field guide she’s been making in Kinship’s practice group, An Elemental Year. Through her beautifully layered work, Megan will generously unearth her equally layered process, which uses photography, data, timing, and seasonal observations to mark rituals along the Celtic Wheel of the Year and the Lakota Medicine Wheel, thereby creating and documenting a modern family culture of both traditions.
Together, we will explore the following questions. Can the act of making a photograph be sacred? If we make physical photographic objects in ritual and ceremony and intend for them to be left in legacy, does that change how we photograph and the meaning we give to the act of making? How can ritual and ceremony help you develop an ongoing practice of noticing and honoring the Earth’s elements and seasons? As multicultural people, how do we make honorable relationships with ancestral paths? Ours, and others?
Megan Driving Hawk is an artist/mother/educator using habits of the heart to facilitate connection, healing, and learning through photography, poetry, & traditional needlework. Creatively, she researches collective healing, trauma, memory, and time. Academically, she researches culturally responsive fine arts education. She earned a BFA in Fine Art Photography from Arizona State University, an MEd in Secondary Education with K-12 Art certification from ASU, and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Hartford.
As a National Board-Certified Teacher, she has spent over 10 years in the classroom creating and teaching a culturally responsive art education curriculum. She has served as Indigenous Student Advisor, Teacher Equity Lead, Visual Arts Lead, National Arts Honor Society Advisor among others. Currently she is the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Rep for the Arizona Art Education Association, a Running with Purpose Artist/Athlete Advocate, and a member of Kinship Photography Collective.
Her artwork has been reviewed, collected, and exhibited numerous times throughout the present-day U.S. and internationally, including the ASU Art Museum and the Tempe Public Works Collection. She has been invited as a guest lecturer, workshop facilitator, and panelist for various events at the national, state, & local levels. Driving Hawk has received numerous honors and awards, including honorable mention in the 2020 Women Photographing Women category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, 2023 artist-in-residence at the Tempe Center for the Arts, 2023 Arizona Art Educator of the Year, and 2025 Agent of Change in Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion.
Driving Hawk currently lives in the Sonoran Desert on O’odham, Yavapai, Akimel O’odham (Upper Pima) and Hohokam lands (present-day Phoenix, Arizona). She is a white wife & mother of two in a Lakȟóta Thiwáhe. Her life is a residency in Matrescence & outdoor learning through Indigenous ways of knowing.
