Presentation To Center on the Belief of Slavic Lands

Previously posted on: swvatoday.com

Local interfaith minister, artist and scholar Patricia Robin Woodruff has been accepted to speak at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, Illinois, in mid-August 2023.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is a nonprofit consisting of “the world’s largest, most diverse and inclusive interfaith Covening of people of faith, spirituality and goodwill,” its website states.

It is headquartered in Chicago because it is the site of the first Covening of the World Parliament of Religions took place in 1893 as a part of the World’s Fair.

Woodruff’s talk is titled “The Land is Our Mother: The Indigenous Beliefs of the Slavic Lands,” which initially started as a look into her own heritage.

She knew that her maternal line lived in the Carpathian Mountains on the edge of Slovakia and Poland.

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“I knew they were Slavic and I began to wonder, ‘What did the ancient Slavs believe?’” Woodruff said.

In the course of her studies she obtained her master’s degree in Divinity and a doctoral degree in Metaphysical Theology. Woodruff has been working on a series of books documenting all of her research of which the August presentation is just a small bit of.

“My presentation gets into the concept of “Mother Nature” and “Mother Earth” that is woven throughout the belief systems of the lands that we now know as Slavic,” Woodruff said.

Woodruff’s goal is to show that our ancestors — by perceiving the earth as a mother figure — took a respectful and caring approach to farming, herding and forestry, she said.

“If you think of the earth as a mother generously providing food and shelter for us as her children, this also generates a reciprocity where one takes care of the earth and her resources.”

Woodruff’s research follows the evolution of spiritual practices, leading her to a number of stories, some close to her current home.

“I recently came across a really fascinating connection between Slavic-Germanic lore to the Quesinberry family of Floyd,” Woodruff said. “In the Polabian lands, which was an overlap of Slavic and Germanic culture, there is the town of Questenberg.”

She came across the fact that Quesinberry and other variations of this name such as “Questenberg,” “Questenbury,” etc originated from this town. Their ancestor Count von Questenberg built a castle there.

Woodruff said, “All Quesinberrys are descended from the Count’s son, Tielmann von Questenberg born around 1380, who helped keep [a spiritual] ancient tradition going.”

By presenting at the Parliament of the World’s Religions Woodruff’s goal is to bring awareness to the deep roots of these ancient beliefs.

“I can trace this “Mother Earth” concept back at least 30,000 years. The Slavic beliefs really only lost this a couple hundred years ago,” Woodruff said. “I want to show that when we go back to thinking about the earth as our mother this will cause us to take better care of the Earth and each other.”

Woodruff’s books can be found on her Amazon author page and at www.PatriciaRobinWoodruff.com.

She is also known locally for her book, Strange Tales of Floyd County, VA carried at Sacred Star and Stone on north Locust Street.