Grace, Grit, and Gratitude  

Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest was born in Budapest, Hungary, She finished high school in Innsbruck, graduated from a bilingual gymnasium, and won a scholarship to the University of Vienna where she studied languages. Z emigrated to the United States in 1959, became a student at the University of Chicago, married, and gave birth to two sons. In Chicago she studied with Second City, an improvisational theatrical school, the only one in the country at that time. Z recognized a need for a spiritual dimension so far lacking in the feminist movement and started the Women's Spirituality Movement. She founded the Susan B. Anthony Coven Number l, the first feminist witches' coven, which became the role model for thousands of other spiritual groups being born and spreading across the nation. She wrote The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries (Weiser Publishers, 1989) which was originally published in 1975 as The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows. This book served as the first hands-on book to lead women into their own spiritual/Goddess heritage. Z was arrested in 1975 for reading Tarot cards to an undercover policewoman. She lost the trial but won the issue, and the law against psychics was struck down nine years later. (See WitchTrial.net). Z now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and is the star of her own cable TV show called 13th Heaven and acts as the director of the Women's Spirituality Forum, a nonprofit organization sponsoring a monthly lecture series in the Bay Area about the Goddess, spirituality retreats, and annual spiral dances on Halloween. Z founded and sponsors the Dianic University Online, a vagina-friendly online school for Dianic Wicca and Goddess studies for women. theatrical school, the only one in the country at that time. California Institute for Integral Studies recognized recently Z's contribution to Women's Spirituality Movement. To find out more about ZZ Budapest check out her website http://www.zbudapest.com