Goddess Archetypes and a Woman's Soul Journey

“Lilith is particularly important because her story tells us of the essential role that the suppression of female sexuality plays in the transition between egalitarian and hierarchical culture.  She cannot remain in the patriarchal order if she is to maintain her sexual freedom and equality, and the patriarchy must demonize her for her assertiveness.  In spite of adversity and exile, Lilith remains independent and wild.”  - Hallie Iglehart Austen in her book The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine. All images on  www.heartgoddess.net

How might our lives and our sense of purpose in this realm be different if every day we passed through a doorway that was carved in the shape of a Yoni?  If we were visually reminded, as part of our daily routine, of where we came from, how we arrived here, and that the preciousness of the source of life is embodied within us?  Imagine engaging in community rituals in which dance, story and adornment were regular reminders of the sacredness of relationship, self-love, and earned wisdom; or what it would be like to give birth on a lion throne, on a platform over the place where your ancestors were buried. 

Thousands of years ago Goddess-revering civilizations flourished all over our beautiful planet.  This fact has been well-documented, studied and written about by historians, archeologists, and authors.  Goddess images, principles and values have been and continue to be celebrated in art, ceremony, and women’s gatherings around the world.  Why, however, do images and stories of ancient Goddesses seem to exist so far outside of modern-day mainstream consciousness?  Is it possible that this exclusion is a root cause of ever-increasing global destruction, turmoil, dis-ease, and crisis? 

According to archeological data, Goddesses and Priestesses were held in high esteem in ancient cultures whose ruins turned up little-to-no evidence of weaponry and war culture, but instead revealed evidence of reverence for nature, beautiful and sophisticated art, refined architectural design, and egalitarian social structures.  Goddesses are associated with values that hold the source of life as sacred, and that honor Nature as the ultimate Mother.  Revering the story of a  Goddess was (and is) practiced in order to encourage life-giving human behaviors such as creativity, nurturance, sensuality, growth and transformation, healing, courage, earth stewardship, access to higher states of consciousness, and the earning of wisdom through experience.  Some Goddesses symbolized and celebrated the natural cycles of life, while others powerfully invoked the act of birthing and the mystery and wonderment of the creative force.  

Is it possible that a return to these stories and values could be the balm and guidance that we need to not only nurture and inform our own lives, but to restore a sense of priority and integrity in our decisions around business, commerce, politics, ecology, health care, and relationships? 

A relationship with the Goddess is a practice of remembering and embodying our lineage, the source of life, the sacredness of all beings, and our innate capability and responsibility to nurture, protect, and engage in life with well-informed courage and conviction.

Join us in the Red Tent this month as we explore how invoking the stories and lessons of ancient Goddesses and their civilizations can fortify us to take action in alignment with principles of ecology, diversity, and shared lineage.  Inspired by the wisdom of our ancestors, we will create a more vibrant and harmonious world with confidence and conviction.  

References:

The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine, by Hallie Iglehart Austen.  All images on  www.heartgoddess.net

The Chalice and The Blade; Our History, Our future, by Riane Eisler

Uncoiling the Snake; Ancient Patterns in Contemporary Women’s Lives, edited by Vicki Noble

As a primer for our conversation in the Red Tent, you may enjoy viewing this interview with author Hallie Iglehart Austen regarding her book The Heart of the Goddess on Starr Goode’s series The Goddess in Art, a cable series that originally aired in the 1980’s:    https://youtu.be/kpU3obqUrhw

Logistics:

Date: Friday, June 11, 2021

Time: 7-10 p.m., CET

Location: Eindhoven City Center

Cost: Free/donations accepted

RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer

What to Bring: A photo, special piece of jewelry, poem, or figurine that represents your relationship to the Goddess

Update, and another opportunity:

Our in-person gathering Friday evening was divine! As our extended community has grown significantly over the past year, and as this topic was an incredibly deep, divine, and potent one - I am offering a second gathering this week via zoom to accommodate our friends from afar, as well as anyone in the local community that wasn't able to join us on Friday.

Date: Thursday, June 17, 2021

Time: 7-9:30 p.m., CET

Location: Eindhoven City Center

Cost: Free/donations accepted

RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer

What to Bring: A photo, special piece of jewelry, poem, or figurine that represents your relationship to the Goddess

I look forward to gathering with you under the New Moon this week,

Jennifer

Open Invitation to a Conversation About Beauty

What if Beauty were not about a woman’s body shape, skin-tautness, or camera-ready display of pseudo-confidence, but a portal? 

What if the mundane – chores, random interactions, daily routines of “doing stuff” – were each a unique opportunity to activate a heightened state of awareness; wild aliveness; vivid, awe-inspiring Beauty. 

What could shift if, instead of expending our precious energy in perpetual busy-ness and a constant stream of “stuff to do,” we instead pro-actively cultivated Beauty in each seemingly bland opportunity to engage with the world; with the wholeness of our bodies, with other beings, and with the aliveness that inhabits literally everything in our surroundings. 

What if a true sense of Beauty is in our ability to see, hear, smell, touch, taste, and sense with profound sensitivity and clarity?   

During this free community conversation, we will explore where our perceptions and pursuits of beauty in modern times have been misguided and led us astray.  We are inviting you to embark on a journey to reclaim Beauty as our inherent, glorious nature – that which is born of, shared, and infinitely regenerative, as a function of our relationship with Mother Nature Herself. 

This free-of-charge gathering will be an introduction to our 8-session series that will train us to invoke the divine in every aspect of our lives.  On this extended journey, you can expect to get to know yourself more intimately through Ayurvedic assessment of your constitutional nature, guidance on gentle, personalized seasonal detoxing, holistic nourishment, and potent and luxurious self-care practices. 

Regardless of whether you decide to join us for the full 8-session experience of Beauty Rituals – you will not want to miss this eye-opening, celebratory invocation of infinite Beauty as our guiding principle for high-level wellness and deeply satisfying engagement with all that this human experience has to offer... 

Please contact Jennifer or Jasmijn to register.

Date:  Sunday, March 21, 2021.

Time:  5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. CET / 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EST / 8 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. PST

Place: Zoom

Cost:  Free

Read more about the intentions for the full 8-session experience, Reviving the Divine Feminine (and the World) in a Ritual of Beauty here. 

Reviving the Divine Feminine (and the World) in a Ritual of Beauty

Guided Meditations and Practices to cultivate the Art of Divine Beauty

 Beauty is the very essence of being alive. 

It exists and persists in cycles and spirals of birth, growth, glorious manifestations, and even in the predictable and essential processes of decline and death. 

The resonance of beauty can be felt and sensed in robust, authentic expression; it naturally captivates.  It can be witnessed in the process of being born; in fiery eruptions; a wholesome harvest; wind traveling through grass and blowing leaves off of trees, and clouds floating across the sky.  It causes our eyes to widen as we behold the fierceness of ocean waves; and it softens us when we experience the gentle waters of a clear-as-glass lake.  It touches us – activates us - from the inside.  It is experienced as recognition or familiarity, awe or yearning, and may evoke sensations of tingling, excitement, deep contentment, or even aching.  It is part of the universal order of things and is inherently regenerative. 

Our notions of beauty have been tweaked and engineered into ideas, images, products and actions that have confused the human psyche, and tragically dimmed our creative potential, and even our self-worth.  Efforts to “achieve” beauty, though usually well-intentioned, have been misinformed, splintered into alienated parts and rote mechanized protocols, and delivered via industry and airbrushed imagery, as have our notions of health and “health care.”  Where true beauty has been desecrated, perverted, commodified and faked, dullness, illness and devastation of all kinds have become widely accepted manifestations of “normal.”  Somehow the once-divine notion of beauty was corrupted and convoluted with false images, nebulous standards and unnatural and un-healthy efforting; and “health” was rendered a dissociated measure of linear scientific variables. 

  True beauty shines from behind the eyes.  It emanates from the heart’s divine pulsations, and each delightfully sensuous cycle of breathing in and breathing out.  Beauty is the luminescence of our complexion, the suppleness of our belly, the agility of our fingers, the grace of our movement, and the curvaceous resilience of our backbone.  Beauty is the sounds, shapes and words that invoke presence and send love into the world.  It is the mystery and effervescence of the sacred alchemies that animate our human bodies.  It has been named and theorized as “Essence,” “Ojas,” “Jing,” “fertility,” “creative potential,” and “divine spark.” 

True, wholesome, divine beauty will guide us home to ourselves and our beautiful planet. 

Drawing upon traditional arts and sciences, our own lived experiences and experimentations, and our insatiable desire to witness, share, and cultivate beauty, we invite you into a forum where together we will nourish, cherish and re-invigorate our innate capacities as daughters of our divine Mother Earth.   

This gathering will be an active engagement with the creative force and an inquiry into the myriad opportunities to imbue our bodies, our relationships, and our world with practical utterances of wild, wholesome, pleasurable aliveness.  We will engage and cultivate our senses and sensitivities to revive and reinforce our relationship with natural beauty, high-level physical, mental, spiritual and emotional wellness, and ultimately nurture and activate our divine creative potential. 

Meet the facilitators:

Jasmijn van de Loo is an Ayurvedic Practitioner, Herbalist, Mental Coach and Caretaker. Because of her background in Vedic studies and humanism, she has always been interested in the meaning of life and the idea of life as a piece of art and beauty. There are so many ways to approach beauty in philosophical, physical, emotional and practical ways. “I am looking forward to exploring this magical field of life with you and sharing some of my ideas and practical ayurvedic tips and recipes.”   www.ayurvedischcentrumeindhoven.nl

Jennifer Moiles is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner and holds a Master’s Degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine.  She considers healing an art, and a healer’s role to be that of a midwife, catalyst, disruptor, fellow journeyer, and community organizer.  “By nourishing our roots, cultivating our connection with our innate wisdom, and aligning with the Earth’s bounty in a relationship of reverence and reciprocity, mundane tasks of self-care become opportunities to engage with the divine and ignite the wildness of human vitality and wholesome creative potential.  Importantly, when individuals come together with the intention to hold space for healing and growth, infinite ripples of potential to shift in big ways will travel and gain momentum through relationships, family dynamics, local communities and nations.”  www.heartwombandsoul.com

 Logistics:

This holistic journey will be rich with luxurious beauty rituals, lifeforce-activating healing arts, and sacred inspirations.  It will be a wholesome experience for women of all ages who wish to engage meaningfully in with all of life, and cultivate radiance that shines from the inside out.  Our space will be well-suited for individuals, mothers and daughters, sisters, aunties and friends.

This 8-session bi-weekly course will begin in March.  

Sundays, 3-5 p.m. CET:  March 28, April 11 & 25, May 9 & 23, June 6 & 20, July 4

Fee Structure:

We are so passionate about what we do that we would do it for FREE; however, there are costs associated with our investment of time and effort, and practicalities of living that we must provide for.  Please choose the level of contribution that is comfortable for you.  A basic supply kit for creating beauty rituals is included with the “Friend” package.  A luxurious supply kit will be included with the “Supporter” and “Whole-Health Enthusiast” levels of contribution.   Scholarships are available.  Inquire directly with the facilitators. 

Friend:  100 Euro

Supporter:  250 Euro

Whole-Health Enthusiast:  500 Euro

Contact Jennifer or Jasmijn with questions or to reserve your spot.