Eftyhia Leontidou
Biography
Dr. Eftyhia Leontidou, MD, is a Greek Obstetrician- gynecologist, who has worked for over 40 years healing and empowering women, in villages, University clinics, the National Health system and the private sector. A lover of music, archaeology, travel, photography, and Tai chi, she is a member of the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights and has offered her medical services to the Medical Center for the Rehabilitation of Torture Survivors.
Eftyhia has written and translated many articles on women’s rights and health issues for medical and feminist magazines in Greece and abroad. She has also coedited and contributed as an author, translator and photographer in many collective women’s books. Her activities include lectures, seminars and workshops for doctors, medical students, women’s groups as well as battered, unemployed, immigrant and socially excluded women, in collaboration with women’s and cultural organizations, groups, schools, parents’ unions, local authorities, and the European Union; in addition she has taken part in training programs for the police on violence against women.
For more than 50 years she has been active in the autonomous women’s movement as a member of self-examination, feminist activist and feminist spirituality groups in Athens. Her latest project is called Feminist Gynecology and consists so far of three books: 1) Goddess in Action – Childbirth, 2) Female Sexuality – From Flesh to Spirit, and 3) Female body – A Mystical tour. She has a rich feminist archive for use by researchers. The last three years she has contributed to the Goddess Conference by on-line and in-person presentations.
PROGRAMME
GODDESS IN ACTION – CHLDBIRTH
Birthing is always a profound experience, a rite of passage and a pivotal point in a woman’s life, associated with her divine nature. A woman who gives birth embodies the Goddess in her sacred moment of creation. For the newborn, it is the big bang in their personal life. Yet, births occur every day, every moment, everywhere, and each one of us is connected with such an experience of initiation, which involves a spiral passage through the narrow birth canal, before emerging into the light.
Furthermore, we all give birth at some point in our lives, one way or another. We may give birth to physical children, but also to spiritual ones, for instance ideas, poems, musical pieces, works of art, scientific inventions,
gardens. The process is always the same. First there is conception and the stage of pregnancy. Later follow the labor pains, with feelings of agony, fear, longing and impatience. And finally, the moment of birthing, with full concentration, forceful pushing, emotional abandon, awe, delight, and even orgasm. Peace follows, as mother and neonate have entered a new stage in their lives.
Even the universe was created in a similar way. I will present these correspondences along with some of the ancient Goddesses of childbirth, as well as some physical, philosophical, spiritual, symbolic and mythological aspects of birthing.