About the Moderator

“More than a writer, I am an educator working in a variety of mass media by articulating complex, provocative and sometimes highly technical issues. Always coherent and comprehensive, but also eloquent and lightheartedly wry, I strive to relate the topic to a wider picture, a conceptual premise. As a producer, publisher, editor, teacher and list-serve manager, I initiate discussions, organize projects and serve as a conduit to bring people and ideas together. All this is done out of a deep sense of service to mankind and belief in the power of individual action and positive change through communication.”

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My name is Amy Martin and I’ve lived in Dallas almost all my life, though I was born in Houston. I went to Hillcrest High School until the principal tossed me out for political activism and ended up at Walden Preparatory, where eccentricity was cherished and students were treated like adults. I skipped out of town to escape the drug-addled last gasps of the Sixties and spent a few years as a back-to-the-land cucumber farmer. It was lovely, but brain atrophying -- that was pre-internet -- and I returned to Dallas.

Working as a bartender at night and taking classes in the afternoon, in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s I managed to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Southern Methodist University. I started as a film major, but ended up in broadcast journalism/communications, with an emphasis on documentary writing/production and a physical sciences minor. It took about 10 years. I’d go for a semester or two until the Muffy and Biff students drove me crazy and take a break. Nice thing about SMU, if you’re there to learn, and not just get a degree so you can work at daddy’s firm, the professors shower you with attention. I was blessed to study with G. William Jones and David McHam.

Musical Chairs

While hanging out at the SMU radio station -- I’d realized after a few years that I really didn’t care that much for movies -- I picked up the ringing phone and there was jazz guitarist Pat Metheny on the other end. An impromptu interview led to a story in the SMU newspaper, which led to more interviews with and articles about Metheny, which then broadened out to other musicians and topics. If Metheny had not been so nice and such an articulate pleasure to interview I might never have gotten started in journalism. At out first in-person interview, I nervously dropped all my color-coded, cross-referenced, intricately organized question cards. He sweetly picked them up – and kept them! In the process, teaching me that an interview should be a conversation, not an inquisition, a style that’s served me well.

One day in the late ‘70s, in a moment of sheer chutzpa, I walked into the bi-weekly newspaper Dallas Observer and said I wanted to write about local music. Amazingly I was hired and the Street Beat column was born. I loved being a beat reporter. It was the first coverage of local music in a mainstream Dallas publication. From there I expanded into features. Out of that anchor the paper built their now-thriving music section. That lasted a few years, but was real bad for my health. Late nights and too many vices.

I organized a few live events while in the music scene, including a well-received reunion of the ‘50s Big D Jamboree radio show in Dallas. The multi-part series was held at the Fair Park Bandshell during the State Fair. A non-nukes concert in Fort Worth, scheduled at the same time as the famed Stock Show, was less successful -- such a flop it earned a Bum Steer Award from Texas Monthly!

A Life in Print

I wandered over to the late, lamented Dallas Times Herald daily newspaper. It was wonderful there! I had the off-beat beat. If it was weird or alternative, I covered it. As a floater, I wrote for every section except business and sports. Once I had a front-page article on Bruce Springsteen. I carved out a lovely niche as a comedy critic, the first and only one in Dallas, and found a home at the Sunday magazine, Westward, where I did cover stories on eclectic topics, including ghosts.

It was sad when the Times Herald closed, swallowed up by The Dallas Morning News. I wandered over to work at D magazine where I did mostly frivolous pieces on dating and entertainment for editor Chris Tucker, whom I just adored, and freelanced at Dallas Downtown News, Haute (really!), and too many tabloids to mention. I sunk my newly liberated time into neighborhood activism, helping start one of the first neighborhood recycling centers in Dallas at Tietze Park.

Talking Trash

I was chatting one day with Bob Bersano, an editor at the Dallas Morning News, trying to convince him to do a story on the recycling project, and somehow ended up writing the article for the paper. (After being with the Times Herald, I feared I was going over to the dark side.) That led to more recycling articles and eventually a column, Talking Trash.

At a recycling conference, I chanced up Bill Breen, editor for the national environmental magazine Garbage (now RIP). A few months later he suggested I come on board. I became a contributing editor and developed a popular column, Ask Garbage, making me the Dear Abby of trash.

At Garbage, I did a number of features and cover stories, including a ground-breaking two-part series on petrochemicals and alternatives. In that period, no one wanted to be around me because I would tell them exactly what was in those convoluted words in their food and beauty-product ingredients. You really don’t want to know. I was an original registrar in Citation’s Who’s Who Environmental Registry and a founding member of Society of Environmental Journalists.

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Yakety Yak, Bang Bang

I spent a few glorious years freelancing at KERA 90.1 FM, doing a four-year stint as a commentator for the local Morning Edition and as substitute host for Karen Denard’s Evening Talk Show, which was a real trip! Adult-education teacher was another trade I plied for several years, mostly at Fun Ed during the ‘80s where I taught dating, travel and brain fun, and a short bit at SMU’s continuing education.

For a while I was deeply involved in hand drumming, even trying to put out a local publication on it (which was insane, really insane) and helped manage classes for a local drum hero, Jamal Mohamed. I hosted a popular Tuesday night circle for small drums at the Cosmic Café and taught a few classes. Now I just drum for fun.

Make it Live

One day in early ‘90s I was reading in the New York Times about cofradillas, Mayan lay priests who organize seasonal celebrations, and decided I wanted be a cofradilla. So I started organizing events, starting with a Summer Solstice celebration in Deep Ellum’s Club Dada, an outgrowth of a weekly poets meeting I was in. That led to a Winter Solstice celebration with writer John McMurphy.

Within a couple of years, I’d codified my efforts into an informal group, Celestial Rhythm Celebrations, and gave the main events the unique trademark name SolstiCelebrations. At one point I was producing or co-producing events for all four seasons and a couple of Full Moons each year, plus spiritual events for women.

What really did me in was producing two mega Summer SolstiCelebrations at White Rock Lake, both focused on hand drums from around the world. Big tents, guest stars, vendors, food, huge street dances, giant drum circles, the works. The first attracted almost two thousand people and the second topped that by several hundred. Just blew me out, physically and emotionally.

Now my focus is on Winter SolstiCelebrations, which outgrew its long-term home at First Unitarian of Dallas and is now at Cathedral of Hope. About 700 people attend the whole-bodied and experiential event, in which singing, dancing, chanting, yoga and participatory rituals alternate with fine performances. Afterwards is a social hour of groove music and great food prepared with love. I’m quite proud of it.

In Print Again, Or Trying

The late ‘90s into the ‘00s has been a difficult time for writers like me, though I did manage to be one of four writers, including Jeff Davis, in John McMurphy's book, "Speaking of Mother Earth." Most newspapers and magazines are cutting back and print media’s been overrun by the internet. Books have not being doing all that hot either, at least not for non-mainstream topics like mine.

Developing my own book has been hard. Captivated by a Mayan goddess on a Cozumel vacation, I spent several years researching New World goddesses and making pilgrimages to divine feminine sacred sites across North America. Book proposals on the top were shopped about by the very excellent agent Natasha Kern, and one or two large publishers were a bit interested. But it came at the end of many years of goddess books and the market was just played out.

I still plan on doing a book or two on the North American divine feminine. Right now it’s divided up into a personal story of my healing through the divine mothers of Mexico, and the other is about the pre-Native American earthwork builders and the animist spiritual philosophy that is the heritage of this continent. Someday I must learn to do less and write more.

In the meantime, I’ve formed Moonlady Media to publish a series of downloadable PDF booklets for printing or saving on your own computer. The topics cover an array as diverse as, well, my life, from practical booklets on herbs and smudges to a just-for-enjoyment collection of essays.

I also write regularly for women’s magazines, including SageWoman and The Beltane Papers, and the ezines Matrifocus, Awakened Woman and Global Goddess Oracle. I pen occasional travel articles for the Morning News and others, and write for Ancient American on earthworks.

Personally

I now reside in the eastern part near White Rock Lake with my husband, artist Scooter Smith, and a number of critter companions. My passions usually involve the out of doors: hiking, gardening, stargazing, scenic drives, more hiking, romping with dogs. I enjoy traveling to sacred sites and wildly geologic areas, with a particular yen for soaking in hot springs. A few years ago we took on a set of abandoned farms northeast of Dallas and are rehabilitating them into wildlife habitat, the topic of a future book I’m sure. I still find time to do outreach work in peace, environment, women’s issues, and death, dying, funerals and cemeteries, though I don’t know how and really must give up the habit.

Spiritually, I have been a Taoist since I was a youngster -- animist R us -- and have a special fondness for Zen Buddhism. However, in the last few years I’ve found a more personal connection to the divine facilitated by working with goddess energies, particularly those of this continent. Underlying it all, however, is a fairly healthy agnosticism. Politically, I am an independent, with about as much trust in organized political parties as I have in organized religion.

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