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

Birth and Death; Creation and Destruction: Emerging Renewed

Once again we meet the pivot of the dark moon.  What in you, in your life, is dying?  What is emerging new?  What in the world as we know it is dying?  What is emerging renewed? What is scaring you?  What is inspiring you?  What is naturally being shed like an old skin, and what is spiraling in you that will animate this next phase in your mission as a human?

Paying attention to cycles and seasons can anchor us into the reliability and inevitability of birth and death, creation and destruction.  One cannot exist without the other.  In a way, being part of this wildly alive and oscillating matrix of living and dying can be reassuring, even exciting; on the other hand, it can be – and often is – terrifying.  And painful.  Being alive inherently implores a ritual process of letting go, as in the bleeding phase of the menstrual cycle, a snake shedding its skin, a tree releasing its leaves to ground-covering compost in the fall, or the death of a beloved elder.  Coming to terms with the impermanence of everything and everyone around us can be painful; coming to terms with the impermanence of who we are (or, perhaps more accurately, who we think we are) can also be disorienting.  Yet such transitions are inevitable. 

Thus, the reassuring cliché “this too shall pass.”

While dark moons offer us a cyclical encounter with the process of death, new moons and the springtime usher in divinely inspired opportunities for re-birth and growth.  Yes, divinely inspired. 

When spring is in the air, the forces of nature are more easily harnessed and available for our growing momentum; for the growth of our gardens, our psyches, our life’s work – our healing.  For our part, the wisdom and discipline is to notice, to drop in; to be keen listeners and observers, to feel it and to go for it – whatever “it” means for you.  Each of us a tiny cell in the intricate web of everything, there are gazillions of other cells counting on us to do our unique and creative thing – to keep our shine on and to connect with the shine in all the other little cells; to do our part, keep our temple clean and healthy, and hold hands with the others in solidarity. 

This body that we inhabit, this vessel – this temple - is ours to steward, heal, and experience life – and death – with and through.  This body, sovereign and whole in its own right, infused with the mystery as well as the capacity for logic and free will, is beckoning for our love and attention on this day of the dark moon. 

Dark moons are for letting go – even if for just an hour – into quietude and deep listening.  Springtime is an invitation to embody the creatrix – with our imaginations, our hands, our inner knowing. 

Kali, Hindu Goddess of Destruction and Rebirth

By you this universe is born, by you this world is created.

By you it is protected, O Devi.  By you it is consumed at the end.

You who are eternally the form of the whole world,

at the time of creation you are the form of the creative force,

at the time of preservation you are the form of the protective power,

and at the time of dissolution of the world you are the form of the destructive power. 

-Devi-Mahatmaya

What in you is dying?  Is there something in you, in your life, that needs to be destroyed, or cast out?

Relieved now of decaying tissue, the weight of past experiences and thought patterns, what in you is shining forth, renewed and refortified? 

Embody courage.  The world is ready. 

 References:

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

Kali Rising; Foundational Principles of Tantra for a Transforming Planet, by Rudolph Ballentine

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 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

Water is life

“Fluid movement holds the power to dissolve the familiar and dilute social conditioning.  No dismantling required:  we simply allow fluid waves to spread through tissue and soften our old thought forms and outmoded patterns of behavior.  By utilizing embryological and biomorphic motifs, the power inherent in water can be received as a pulse of renewal.” 

- Liz Koch, Stalking Wild Psoas

The freshest, most vital and clear waters flow with ease and freedom.  

Stagnant waters quickly turn cloudy and putrid. 

“Stuckness” is painful.  It prevents communication, allows sludge to accumulate, and inhibits healing.  It dampens joy and confidence.  Putrid accumulation, cloudiness, dullness, and dis-ease will result.   

Our dance is like the impetus of a bubbling spring; the “Qi,” or life force energy, that ebulliently motivates the sinuous fluidity of crystal clear waters gracefully, purposefully, through the forest, over and between stones, twigs, and plant life, without hesitation.  The entire forest benefits from its aliveness.

The rhythm of our breath, our presence, and meditative movement are amazing tools for getting profoundly honest with ourselves, and for shifting from “stuckness” into a realm where renewal is inevitable.  A divine practice of gently coaxing, motivating, and invigorating vital fluids to penetrate our tissues, infusing our entire being with “aliveness;” keeping warm and bright the glow from within that feeds beauty and nourishment back to the world…

Water is life. 

Dance is the motive force of our bubbling spring. 

The best medicine is innate medicine – it is alive within us. 

Join me for a sacred dance practice Friday evenings at 7 p.m.

Registration:  Email redtent@heartwombandsoul.com
Location:  Dansstudio Laetana, Hoogstraat 105A Unit 7 5615 PB Eindhoven
View details and share on facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/events/427389718222627/
Cost:  15 Euro per session

Payment:  Cash or bank transfer
     Make payments here:  NL50 ABNA 0467 4196 71
     Account name:  BD MOILES CJ

*Email me to inquire about scholarships, sliding-scale pricing and barters for goods or services - no one will be turned away for concerns about payment.  

A Circle of Darkness and Light

The Dark Moon is nearly upon us once again.
 
What’s stirring in you? 
 
     What’s inspiring you? 
 
          What do you need and desire for yourself?  For our world?
 
Our body is our temple, the Earth is our Mother, and the world is ours to steward, celebrate and nurture back to wholeness.  Join us in a virtual Red Tent gathering to relish and honor our cyclical journey through darkness; into the realms of mystery, transformative possibility, and conception.  Traveling this sacred path together in the spirit of Shakti – the feminine way – is an honor and divine responsibility.  Coming together in community – especially in this deeply troubled time of engineered “distancing” – is more essential to our health, well-being, and feminine power than ever. 

Each woman will have the opportunity to share what’s on our minds and in our hearts.  As is our ongoing mission, we will practice deep listening, compassion, and Sisterhood.   Each woman’s unique journey to Herself will be held with reverence, in a warm embrace of loving support and compassion. 

Please bring a little piece of your personal inspiration to share with us – a poem, song, meditation, piece of art, story, personal lesson or inspired reading.  It can be something you wrote; or from a favorite author; or a personal experience you want to tell us about. 

What is helping you successfully navigate this unprecedented, universally challenging time? 
 
No fussing - Let it come to you naturally.
Our format will be fluid and easy.
We’ll start with a meditation or movement sequence to fully “arrive.”  
Our first share will be a free-flowing “how are you?” share…
Then we’ll go around the circle inviting each woman to share her inspiration.

Wear something beautiful and/or comfortable and cozy.  Light a candle, and create an altar.  Prepare a cup of tea and nourishing snack for yourself.  Let the preparation be a joyous part of the ritual, and a celebration of feminine beauty.

We will be most grateful and honored for you to join us and support our community by contributing your heart’s song and your brilliance. 

This circle will be held online on Zoom.  Number of participants will be limited to ensure ample time and space for a juicy conversation.  We usually meet in Eindhoven, Netherlands, but current circumstances allow us to include anyone in our worldwide community who would like to take part.  Additional gatherings will be added as needed/desired. 

Please email to register:  redtent@heartwombandsoul.com

Date:  Friday, April 24, 2020

Eindhoven time:  20.00 – 22.30

Pacific time:  11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

The Red Tent is always free.  Donations and/or community contributions are welcome.  Contact the host to donate or discuss ways you can contribute to help our community continue to thrive. 

Conversations in the Red Tent: Embracing Our Inner Critic

Join us in the Red Tent Tuesday, February 25, 2020, 7:30 - 10:30 p.m.

Yogayuj Yoga Studio, Geldropseweg 84c Eindhoven

This month our community member, Marieke Meischke, will facilitate a conversation intended to catalyze self-discovery, emotional self-awareness and empowerment.  As always, we come together with the intention to cultivate self-awareness and inner wisdom, and to explore the nuances and vulnerability of our human experience in community. 

“I was first hesitating to join the Red Tent since I haven’t been feeling comfortable being a woman and being among groups of women. But it came to me at the right time in my life and now, also due to Jennifer’s wonderful guidance, I enjoy it immensely. Surrendering in a safe situation with the kindness and protection of other women; it is relaxing and healing for me, especially since I recently divorced after a very unexpected and complex turn in my marriage.”

“I read the book Embracing Your Inner Critic; Turning Self Criticism into a Creative Asset during a short trip to Tel Aviv in which I forgot my phone at home. It gave me the focus (no distraction) to get into it very deeply, and I realized how powerful this topic is, and how powerful it can be in transforming our suffering - embracing the obstacles we face again and again. I use what I learned also with my music students and they are really interested in it. They write about it with great inspiration. It is so recognizable for everyone, at every age.”

Marieke realized that she had been sabotaging many dreams and desires in her life, ending up frustrated, and making the ‘wrong’ decisions when it came to important choices, like connecting to a life partner. “I chose relationships that undermined me rather than supported me.” 

On the evening of the dark moon in February, Marieke will share about her journey with Voice Dialogue, and how she began a conversation with her inner critic – creating an ally instead of an enemy.  She will facilitate an experience in our circle to demonstrate how, with this method, Voice Dialogue, we can support ourselves to become more independent and free.

‘On the journey of self-discovery, let’s stop looking for what is wrong with us. Let us discover, instead, who we are and how we work!  Let us separate from our judgments as we explore the amazing system of selves within us, and learn to live our lives with ever-increasing honesty, choice, and freedom.’

- Hal and Sidra Stone, authors of Embracing Your Inner Critic; Turning Criticism Into A Creative Asset

You are cordially invited to join us in our meditations, conversations, and self-care rituals in the Red Tent. Our community is warm, welcoming and diverse; we love to dance, sing, and laugh together; and our conversations are always inspiring and deeply touching. ❤️    

Meet Marieke:

She turned 56 years vibrant, gorgeous and wise on Valentines day!

She was raised with a lot of music (classical, jazz, pop), and this has always been the guideline and lifeline for her. Inspired by Joni Mitchell, she became a lyricist, although she has been writing journals, letters and poetry since she learned to write. Communicating on paper felt more safe than talking with people. She does freelance work as a festival organizer and as a coach/teacher at a music conservatory. With her students she explores the art of the spoken word, lyrics, and coping with life as a creative person. 

Marieke has also been caretaking for 12 years. She recently wrote a novel based on a true story with an ALS patient she works with since 5 years.  Together they are currently doing readings about the topic of surviving the world of medicine and caretaking when being chronically or lethally ill. 

Though all of this is challenging and quite fulfilling for Marieke, it can also be quite stressful, especially running the festivals. Yoga and meditation keep her in balance; running or walking in the woods keep her strong and connected to nature.

Co-leading with Marieke will be another pillar of our community, Katy Hart. Originally from Iran, she has lived almost 20 years in Holland. 

“As women, although we have our differences, we also share many similar experiences, like our menstrual cycle. In this fast modern world we have all been pushed to favor our masculine aspects, and that has caused a lot of stress for many of us. I was drawn to study and explore feminine energy and have done so in depth for the last two years, and I am now living more consciously in my femininity. I have experienced many transformations and a whole new life taking shape around me. Through this I discovered the precious Red Tent! I needed a circle of women around me to find out more about me – amazingly, something shifts within me every single time we gather in our sacred Red Tent and share our ❤s while feeling safe, thanks to lovely Jennifer. I have stepped up to take the lead while she is not in Holland and to be part of a team of co-leaders among our lovely sisters to keep the lights of our Red Tent on. We all love it. I am so grateful to Jennifer and you, ladies, for your trust and faith in me and that gives me more courage to step into the unknown and host the Red Tent for the first time together with lovely Marieke ...  I am excited about it and so thankful for the support of Jennifer who has dedicated her heart to the Red Tent.  Love, Katy”

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Read more about the Red Tent here

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The Problem With Emotional Stability

This piece was recently published by Rebelle Society

Thou shalt conform, perform, and be happy.  
What if circumstances and relationships are deplorable and ridiculous?
Well then something is wrong with you.  Do you understand?
 
Aye, it must be hormonal then.  
Shall we medicate or smother?  

The war we see from afar – it’s not ours; not worth our angst.  We can’t do anything about it anyway.

The starving children and forsaken mothers – they’re not our problem either.  Born of stupid mistakes.  Not worth the price of our tears.  Their breasts hold the ills of the world; bear more than most.  

The sick, lonely, addicted, unemployed.  Consequences for one’s own actions are a brutal reality, we believe.  

The troubled child that doesn’t fit in will learn to suck it up. 

The broken adult who spun a glorious heartfelt web, and we spit on it; he’ll work in fast food and still the bills will go unpaid.   

The violent criminal:  Sick, not like us.  Too bad he didn’t have better parents.

The glamorous celebrity and the politician who once believed in their extraordinary visions and infinite possibility are routinely eviscerated in tabloids; in “Real News” and fake.  We ogle, laugh, and condemn, and deplore children who taunt and bully.  

We know, too, the worker bee who works, believes, holds it in, holds it up, shows up and turns it out because “good” people can, and do.   Whose heart implodes.    

There is nothing to anger, suffocate or depress a soul here.  

We tell ourselves to live by the truth of positive memes; emotional stability is a virtue.  

Emotionally stable.  
Emotionally stagnant.  
What is the difference?

Stable = unwavering; same all the time, predictable; positive.  
Stagnant = unwavering; same all the time, predictable; negative.
True?

Do it this way, do it everyday.  
It’s the way we’ve always done; the way you are expected to do.  
Complaining is not advisable; dreaming - imagining - is not efficient.  

Brilliantly radiant and complex beings turn… beige.  
Become heavy, stuck, lethargic, dull.  Flattened, like a sticky pancake.  
Congealed in turbidity.  
A swamp. 
Eventually grow to love and become protectresses of the swamp; dare not travel outside its boundaries.  

Beware!
An emotional swamp is a dark and treacherous landscape.

Like standing water, emotional energy turns brackish and infectious if it sits stagnant for too long, harnessing its capacity to cause dis-ease; virulent and contagious.  

When our visceral responses to our world are denied outward expression -  stopped at the door - choking us; not allowed to dance in the daylight of existence, our cells will idle, suffocate, eventually collapse.  The dead tissue, and dead dreams, will accumulate and implode within us, causing certain sickness.  This sickness grows large and dark and haunting.  With each denial it naturally expands in girth, velocity, and its propensity to explode.  The damage it will do may be of storm-wind proportions.  Or it will simply, silently, maliciously erode…  

For some, this will be catastrophic. 

Medication is not the antidote for this sickness.  It arrives far too late to the party, and smooths only the very surface of the lake.  

This thing you are holding, that every woman has held before.  
A thing in her Heart – Agony.  Sadness.  Hers, and the world’s.  
A dis-ease that could take down a nation.  
Love that could eradicate Winter.  

These are among the things that cannot be measured or controlled by science; for their magnificence cannot be contained.  

Be sad and know that it is good!  Appropriate, and necessary.

Be angry and rage!!  Sans guilt.  Holler.  Stomp.  Cry.  Say out loud the words that represent what feels True!  Refuse to be erased.  

LOVE with the fierceness of your entire being:  Gaia’s indignation.  

WE ARE BY NATURE, BIPOLAR.  Yin and Yang.  Masculine and Feminine.  Active and Restful.  Of Sun and Moon; Tides, Storms, Trees, Water, and Earth.  

In light of our place among the wildness of Nature, the delusion of emotional stability is inhumane!  Impossible.    

We can be assured that sadness – and everything else - will arrive at our door.  

What can we do?

Invite the Sun to warm our faces; the Moon to soothe our eyes.  
Stretch out on the floor, close our eyes, and feel.  Simply feel.    
Have a brave and candid conversation with a confidant, or a stranger.  

Conceive:  
How do I move forward?  
This is where it gets exciting!!  
This is where life becomes an adventure rather than a repetitive obligation of daily doldrum.  

Let it be your Art.  
Art that arises from the depth of human experience; a unique projection of perspective and Vision. 
Our humanness a finely tuned instrument in the orchestra of space, time, matter, and relationship.  
Personal Truth.
Unmitigated genius. 
Humanly channeled Wisdom; direction, momentum.
A Divine mentor.
Unscientific intelligence.  
Is there such a thing?
What do you think?  What do you feel?  What do you sense?
 
Let it be so.  

I say,
Let that Fire of fury invigorate you to speak; ROAR if you must!  Insist on being heard.  Fear not the sound of your own Voice!  

It is your precious gift to the world to transform your vital storm into color, form, story, rhythm, flow.  

Vision.  
Justice.  
Compassion. 
Vitality.  
Peace.