Images of Divinity
20 Sunnyside Ave, Suite A
Mill Valley, CA 
94941

Free Spirits Project

The Patron of Brazil, the Black Madonna of Aparecida, is also known as the "Mother of the Excluded."  Few are more excluded in our society than incarcerated women and girls. Too often they are simply thrown away.

Women are being arrested at nearly four times the rate of men.  Over 75% of incarcerated women are women of color and nearly 80% of incarcerated women are mothers.  Physical and sexual abuse of women prisoners runs rampant in many prison settings.  The families of incarcerated women and their children are also disadvantaged, ostracized and ignored. We have created and continue to create a largely race-based intergenerational disaster.

Artist: Robert Lentz

Following the call of Aparecida, Images of Divinity founder, China Galland first proposed taking the Project’s collection of cross-cultural female images of the divine into women and girls' jails, prisons and juvenile halls in the early 1990's. In 2001, she went into her local county jail and began to explore the possibilities she sensed were there to support women's empowerment, healing and recovery. China’s experience there and teaching at Bedford Hills (New York state’s maximum security prison for women) and in Texas convinced her that women in prison need non-denominational support for their spiritual healing.    Unfortunately in this day of cutbacks, the initial program didn’t get beyond the early stages.

Elizabeth is also a member of the Threshold Choir, founded by Kate Munger.  Threshold is a choir that sings to comfort the ill and dying.  In turn, Elizabeth introduced Kate Munger to the head of the women’s program in our local county jail and on November 5, 2004, a women’s choir began to meet and sing with the women inmates.  The program will go on for 8-12 weeks, after which time an evaluation will be done as to whether or not it’s working.  (How could it not!).  I’m thrilled that through the generosity and talents of Elizabeth and Kate, our impulse to work with incarcerated women is still manifesting in the world.  Hopefully a women’s choir in the women’s County Jail will promote enough healing and cooperation to inspire the authorities to let Kate and Elizabeth’s work continue!

These creative women have followed in the footsteps of the Black Madonna to reach out to one of the most excluded groups of women in American society. You may support their efforts by contacting Kate and the Threshold Choir at Box 173, Inverness, CA, 94937, or at kmunger"at"svn.net.