Who Are You?

“Lady of all the essences, full of light, good woman clothed in radiance whom heaven and earth love… You are a flood descending from a mountain, O primary one, moon goddess Inanna of heaven and earth!” — Poem by the Priestess Enheduanna, C. 2300 BCE. Excerpted from The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine. All images on www.heartgoddess.net

Imagine traveling to a hauntingly dark and mysterious place, alone.  Forced to surrender everything you know along the way - everything you think you are – you arrive at your destination sans armor, comforts, or totems of identity, cold and naked.  Truly alone.  Who are you? 

Inanna is the ancient Sumerian Goddess – the Queen of Heaven – whose story of descent and return from the underworld can inspire us to surrender the stories of who we think we are; the masks we’ve adorned ourselves with to construct our identity, conform to expectations, and “earn” prestige or status.  What does it mean to strip ourselves bare and meet the world with our truest essence?  What does it mean for us?  How does it transform the world?

Join us as we re-tell the story of Inanna’s journey and imagine the opportunity for our own shedding – programming, defenses, stories, woundedness – to find ourselves anew; transformed, and more truthful, awake, and fierce than we imagined we could be.

Join us in the Red Tent this Friday for meditation and sharing.  Bring your journal. 

Logistics:

Date: Friday, July 9, 2021

Time: 7-10 p.m., CET

Location: Eindhoven City Center

Cost: Free/donations accepted

RSVP/Register: Email Jennifer

What to Bring: A journal and writing instrument

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

Birth Stories

This month of Mother’s Day, we will have a conversation in the Red Tent about our Birth Stories.  Each of us has traveled this portal to arrive here.  Many of us have birthed offspring; some of us have yet to; and we all experience the exhilaration and angst of birthing through our innate well of creative resource in myriad ways throughout our lifetime.  We each possess within us the divine instinct and impetus to conceive and cultivate, tend, nest, nourish and nurture.  Our experience of this process is wrought with great hope and joy, and often equal amounts pain and loss; even devastation. 

There are stories, lore, artifact and extensive bodies of work that have explored the history and anthropology of women’s roles in modern and ancient societies.  Many apparently quite sophisticated ancient civilizations crafted images and statues of women and goddesses giving birth, nurturing children, and shamelessly and sensuously displaying scenes of pleasure, confidence, and love.  Many academics and historians have suggested that this is evidence that women in ancient civilizations held high status, and were honored and revered as the embodiment and source of life for the community.  Women, Priestesses, and Goddesses were also depicted in ancient art as protectors, and the embodiment of Mother Nature, an association that suggests profound respect, relationship with, and care for the source of all of life. 

Birthing and all that goes with it is not a small or cavalier topic that we can “cover” in a few hours together.  We would need many months to fully and properly appreciate and honor each woman’s experience of birthing, and perhaps many years and deep anthropological, sociological and psychological inquiry to begin to understand how and why culture and practices around birthing have changed so dramatically. 

It is possible and in fact likely that some of us have suffered traumas in our birthing experiences.  In the modern age of hospitals, social and economic inequities, clinical procedures, pharmaceuticals, and technological oversight of the birthing process, women look to doctors and other professionals to guide them through the process.  A compelling question that lingers for me is how birthing and all that goes with it was transferred from the realm and authority of midwives and wise women, to the auspices of clinicians and, for a long time, male-dominated, professions of science and medicine. 

In the spirit of inquiry, great care, and reverence for women’s holistic experiences, past and present, we will bring attention to our felt experiences, as well as our dreams, challenges, unspeakable joys, and even regrets.  The significance and breadth of the birthing experience for women, children, families and societies cannot be underestimated.  In this most tender, vulnerable and potently transformative – universal - portal for women and children, we will begin to investigate together how the process of giving birth imprints our psyches, our physiology and neurology, and our social and societal fabric. 

We will hold each woman with tenderness and care, offer space and sincere attention to hear what wants to be shared and acknowledged, and share opportunities for healing where that may be necessary or desired. 

Wherever you are in your journey as a woman, please join us for this most essential inquiry. 

Logistics:   

Date:  Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Time:  7 - 10 p.m. CET

Location:  Zoom/TBA

Cost:  Free/donations only

RSVP/Register:  Email Jennifer

What to Bring:  A photo, trinket, poem, or other small item that represents the portal of birth for you

References and further reading:

The Heart of the Goddess; Art, Myth and Meditations of the World’s Sacred Feminine, By Hallie Iglehart Austen

The Chalice and the Blade; Our History, Our Future, By Riane Eisler

The Business of Being Born Trailer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo

The Goddess in Art TV series:  The Triple Goddess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqy4H8ABFiE

The Minoan Snake Goddess

I loved our gathering last night.  Menstruation and all of the tenderness, vulnerability and watery emotion of womanhood is so fascinating to me - most essentially I think, for its value as our infinite source of holistic, benevolent, healing power.  

I've been studying a bit about ancient Minoan culture and it's deity, who graced our altar last night;  The Minoan Snake Goddess.  Minoan culture (the ruins of which are still present on the Greek Island of Crete) is known for being an ancient society of true partnership with nature and among men and women.  In Rhian Eisler's book, The Chalice and The Blade, Minoan Crete is identified as a civilization characterized by robust health and vitality, sophisticated art and social life, and overall conditions of peacefulness and ease for all of its citizens - which, from the archeological evidence, seems not to have had a hierarchical ruler or ruling class, or weapons of war.  I find it profoundly interesting that such a culture would be represented with an image of a bare-breasted Goddess and snakes (belly to the earth!).  Soft belly to the earth.....

Gratitude and appreciation to all who attended and shared!  

Conversations in the Red Tent: The Divine Art and Ritual of Menstruation

“In the Tantric tradition, a menstruating woman is considered to be at the height of her power, ‘a true transmitter of the life force, able to act and respond with true wisdom’.  It is the loss of contact with this innate wisdom that has led to the distortion of menstrual power into menstrual symptoms.”   – Lara Owen, Her Blood is Gold; Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation

There are historical and anthropological accounts from all over the world that demonstrate regard for menstruation as a crucially important, sophisticated and sacred experience in a woman’s life, from menarche through menopause.  Contrary to modern attitudes about menstruation that implore girls and women to be discrete, medicate, and tolerate discomfort at “that time of the month,” traditional wisdom guides us to rest deeply, turn inward and experience the wisdom and magnificence of our bodies.  When we recognize that physical and emotional symptoms that accompany menstruation bring us crucial information and insights meant to be tended and pondered deeply, we engage in a natural and powerful process of developing true health, resilience, maturity, and earned wisdom – a practice that may be well characterized as feminine spirituality. 

The Red Tent – or Moon Lodge – is a place dedicated to rest and deep listening; it is here where we offer undivided attention to our bodies, the wounds and lessons of our past – even our lineage – and our dreams.  It is here where we develop the ability to be sensitive, compassionate, confident friends, daughters, lovers and creators of the world we live in.   

In our modern re-imaginings of traditional Red Tents, we are making time and space to appreciate the sacredness of all of life once again – and honoring our blood as a vessel of life’s essence.  Taking a wider view, re-installing the delightful spirit and teachings of menstrual rhythms into our psyches and therefore the fabric of our communities, we are rebuilding the conscious physical and social infrastructure necessary for embracing habits and lifestyles that holistically honor Mother Nature and her cycles.  This is how ecological regeneration will, over time, manifest as intuitive, embodied habits, and how healthy, confident women will once again become an anchor of love and true sustainability in the world. 

Our meditations and conversation under the New Moon this month will be dedicated to cultivating our relationship with menstruation as a ritual for renewal, connection to the divine, and a celebration of life’s essence.   It is here where we develop healthy respect and relationship with all elements of a life well lived.

Recommended (not required) reading: Her Blood is Gold; Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation, by Lara Owen

Logistics:

Date: Saturday, March 13, 2021 (New Moon)

Time: 7 - 9 p.m. CET

Location: Zoom

Cost: Free/Donations Welcome

Register: Email to RSVP

Looking Ahead:

Monday, April 12, 2020 (New Moon) : Birth Stories

Tuesday, May 11, 2021 (New Moon): Goddess Archetypes in a Woman’s Soul Journey

Rituals and Intentions: Building an Altar

I spent yesterday afternoon conceiving and creating the altar for last night's gathering.  Being in deep Winter, and feeling much of the world's anxiety, I wanted to design something that would nourish and harmonize the Water and Fire elements; what I like to think of as the Heart-Womb axis.  In Chinese medicine we seek to balance the elements of Water and Fire in the body.... the very essences of Yin and Yang.  To represent the Fire element I placed a deep red, heart-shaped candle in the center.  I surrounded it with pieces of Dan Gui - an herb that nourishes the blood (which is related to the Fire element) and is commonly used to treat women for menstrual imbalances and general states of deficiency and depletion.  I placed a circle of seashells around the perimeter to represent the Water element - the deep, dark salty waters that rise and fall across a majority of our planet and drive its rhythms; and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds in the inner circle - a natural food source that nourishes our "Yin" essence.  The candles were lit in honor of each woman present, and to invoke the presence of other women whom we named in our circle with the intention of sending each one blessings and healing energies generated during our gathering.  

It is the intention of the Red Tent that we ourselves will benefit from our ritual practice of self-care and self-awareness, and also that our families and communities will benefit from our devotional engagement with the nuance and complexity of our life experiences.  

The Opposite of Addiction is Connection

I've been thinking a lot about this Ted Talk that made such an impression on me when I first heard it years ago. I've never forgotten this sound bite: "The opposite of addiction is connection." Johann Hari's compelling story and research on the essential - in fact critical - nature of social connection offers a context for conversation about our individual and social well-being, after a year of "locked-down" conditions, with no end in sight.

• How are we coping? How are we adapting? Are our adaptations "healthy?"

• How will this affect our social fabric in the long-term? Our Elders? Our children?

• What role can women play in the healing necessary in this moment?

• How do we move forward from here?

Your experiences, feelings, and unique insights on this matter are invited to be voiced in our sacred circle.

Logistics:
Date: Wednesday February 10, 2021
Time: 7-9 p.m. CET
Where: Zoom – please RSVP to register
Cost: Free/donations welcome

Register/RSVP: redtent@heartwombandsoul.com
If you've already registered, you will receive a zoom meeting link one day prior.

Looking Ahead/Spring Gatherings:
(Dates TBA, on or around New Moon)

March: Menstrual Rhythms: Menarche through Menopause
April: Birth Stories

Conversations in the Red Tent: The Art of Seasonal Harvesting for Wisdom and Renewal

Harvesting lessons for wisdom cultivation, giving myself to darkness that fertilizes dreams, and sowing seeds of renewal is what the fall season implores for me.  

This annual phenomenon of late life glory role models what it means to gracefully let go, how to allow and bear witness to the natural process of decay and death, and how nature deeply appreciates the wisdom and well-earned beauty of life that has aged.  As the nights have become darker and farmers have been delivering ripe fruits and nourishing roots, the tenets of the ‘Honorable Harvest’ that I learned from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writings during this past year (see below) are deeply inhabiting my dreams, and my yearnings for a renewed way of life.  I am gently releasing parts of my emotional landscape that have served me, taught me - in some cases tore through me - to embark on more wholesome ways of relating to the earth, an organic sense of “home” and belonging, and ever more intelligent and authentic ways of relating to other humans as well as the other inhabitants of the planet. 

According to Robin Wall Kimmerer, a renowned professor of environmental and forest biology and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, as written in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, if the guidelines for an Honorable harvest were to be “made official” (generally they are not in traditionally oral cultures, but they are well understood and faithfully practiced), they might look something like this:  

“Know the ways of the ones who take care of you so that you may take care of them. 

Introduce yourself.  Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.

Ask permission before taking.  Never take the last.

Take only what you need.

Take only that which is given.

Never take more than half.  Leave some for others.

Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.

Use it respectfully.  Never waste what you have taken.

Share.

Give thanks for what you have been given.

Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken. 

Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”

Upon deep introspection, for me, living according to principles of the Honorable Harvest would begin with manners of self care, community and living with purpose that vigorously question and challenge the norms and currencies of civilized societies.  In short, in a digital, chemicalized and commercially driven society, it is my experience that what feels like the honorable choice is usually not convenient, quick, or widely celebrated.  Holistic choices are – perhaps necessarily - cumbersome, expensive, and made where no one is looking.  

Trees majestically demonstrate the graceful art of letting go of what’s old, allowing its once lush flora to tumble on the cool, crisp breeze back to the earth; creating a thick, nourishing carpet for the forest floor and compost that will nourish and protect many roots and life forms in the immediate environment. 

Our human processes of letting go according to seasons and cycles can and do turn up in fits of grief or other strong emotional discharge; the menstrual cycle; seasonal allergies or illnesses; or intuitively knowing that a change is imminent or necessary.  The natural urge to let go can show up as personal, relational, community, or ecologic turmoil.  The process of change and releasing what is old and stale can disrupt our equilibrium and therefore feel profoundly uncomfortable, so it is exactly at these moments when the deep nourishment of well-prepared, organic seasonal foods, meditation, gentle movement practices, and deep rest will be supportive and very likely transformative.  

“I think we are called to go beyond cultures of gratitude, to once again become cultures of reciprocity.”  - RWK

I would like to invite our community into a conversation about what the notion of ‘The Honorable Harvest’ means for us city dwellers, and how we can be proactive stewards for earth and a wholesome humanity.  How would the principles of The Honorable Harvest urge us to change our way of relating with food?  Earth?  Loved ones?  Strangers? Community?  Commerce?  Our self care?

“It is an animate earth that we hear calling to us to feed the martens and kiss the rice.  Wild leeks and wild ideas are in jeopardy.  We have to transplant them both and nurture their return to the lands of their birth.  We have to carry them across the wall, restoring the Honorable Harvest, bringing back the medicine.”  - RWK

The winds of change are upon us.  Let us breathe slowly and deeply and make the choices necessary to cultivate health, wisdom, and resilience. 

Join our Red Tent Community for a forest walk and conversation this week:

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Time: 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Place: Eindhoven, contact host for location

Plan for rain or shine!

Please email to RSVP

Read more about the Red Tent here

Conversations in the Red Tent: Staying Wild in the City

“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

 How do you keep that seed of WILD alive in you?  

What happens when we lose our wild?  Become too domesticated?  When our feet forget the texture and sensation of soil, and our skin becomes sallow from the too-bright shine of fluorescent; our body stiff and tired, from hours upon hours molded into the shape of a chair?

Underneath the light of September’s Full Moon we will coax and illuminate the creative yearnings and instincts that keep our cells, tissues, organs, spirit and enthusiasm for this human experience alive and thriving.

Join us in a city park for an evening of Full Moon gazing.  Space is limited. Registration is required. Please RSVP redtent@heartwombandsoul.com for details and location. 

Logistics:

Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Time: 8 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.

Location: Outdoors, at an Eindhoven City Center park, location will be sent to confirmed participants.

Read more about the Red Tent here.

Red Tent: Fire Ceremony and a Conversation About Beauty

The most divine essence of each woman is her unique beauty.  It is not for the world to judge, control, repress, or mandate how it’s going to be expressed or not expressed.  One can try; the inevitable consequence will be that she will rebel or implode.  Cultivating, cherishing, and properly adoring the beauty of each woman in a society, on the other hand, will have inexhaustibly favorable and life-affirming implications for everyone and everything She touches. 
 
Please join us in the Red Tent for a conversation about Beauty – Why the World Needs it Now – and why we are the ones to bring it. 
 
Please bring:

• A poem, song, or essay (one you love, or one you wrote); instrument; painting; drawing; something from nature; or something else that represents infinite beauty for you.

• A page from your journal (words, thoughts, a drawing) representing that which you are ready to transform and transcend. 

What to wear:  Something that makes you feel beautiful. 
 
Food:  There will be a vegetarian soup on the stove, and other light refreshments. 
If you would like to contribute a loaf of fresh bread, salad, dates, nuts or dark chocolate, please notify the host.   

Please RSVP to confirm your attendance.  Space is limited as the ceremony will be held at a private residence.  

Date:  Tuesday, August 4, 2020
Time:  19.00 – 22.00 p.m.
Location:  Near Eindhoven City Center - RSVP for location details
Cost:  Free/donations only