B.A., M.A., University of Dallas; Ph.D.,Candidate, University of Denver. Featured in BBC/Opus Arte’s DVD, Stabat Mater as one of the world’s leading authorities on the Black Madonna, she has done extensive research and field work on the European Catholic tradition of Black Madonnas, taught at Chartres Cathedral in France for Veriditas, the World-Wide Labyrinth program, as well as researched and led Buddhist studies treks and pilgrimages in Nepal and India. The fruit of her cross-cultural work was published in Longing for Darkness, Tara and the Black Madonna: a Ten Year Journey (1990).Her newest work of non-fiction, on race, religion, and reconciliation, The Keepers of Love will be published in June 2007. Her previous book, The Bond Between Women, A Journey to Fierce Compassion, was selected as one of the five national finalists for the annual publishing industry’s award for “Best Spiritual Book.” Her original recordings, “The Power of the Dark Feminine,” will be re-released on CDs in June 2007.
Galland has lectured at Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Prescott College, and the GTU in Berkeley. She is a recipient of a Hedgebrook Institute Fellowship. She has taken her traditional religious imagery of dark, female divinities into women in New York’s maximum security prison at Bedford Hills, a prison in Texas, and Marin County’s women’s jail and helped the Threshold Choir start their chorus for the Marin County Women’s jail. On the advisory circle for women’s spirituality at Marin Women’s Services, she also wrote the script on the Black Madonnas for the California Revels 2000 production in Oakland. Galland has keynoted several national conferences. She is on the steering committee for S.T.A.R., Southern Truth and Reconciliation, and A.T.T.R., Alliance for Truth and Reconciliation.