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.  

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.

In the Spirit of the Red Tent, Let's Dance

Heart, Womb and Soul Dance - Free Trial Sessions
Friday, August 21, 7-9 p.m
Wednesday, August 26, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location:  Studio Laetana, Hoogstraat 105A, Unit 7, 5615 PB Eindhoven, Netherlands

“All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.”
- Martha Graham
 
“The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am.”
- Isadora Duncan

Heart, Womb, and Soul Dance sessions will be designed in the spirit of the Red Tent;  an embodied devotion to earth, spirit, and our beautiful feminine bodies.  Through healing movement, meditation, and dance, and based on the healing and performance arts of Odissi dance, Yoga, and Qi Gong, we will explore, breathe and dance to enliven our cells, organs, tissues, overall vitality, and spirit.
 
What to bring:  A water bottle
 
What to wear:  Something that makes you feel beautiful, easy to move in, with no loose edges near the feet and ankles.  A bindi, if it pleases you to do so. 
 
Registration:  Email redtent@heartwombandsoul.com. 
 
Read more about Odissi and Heart, Womb and Soul dance here:  http://www.heartwombandsoul.com/news/2020/7/25/heart-womb-and-soul-dance-starting-this-fall
 
View the event on facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/events/231758048033862

Watch videos by my teacher, Revital Carroll, that introduce foundational principles of Odissi Dance: 
https://youtu.be/IdAnLklusfc
https://youtu.be/PW10ycvUnIg
 
It will be my absolute joy and pleasure to share this dance and this time with you!

With love and admiration for your infinite beauty,
Jennifer

Magnetic Universe

Beauty is a potent and magnetic force in the universe that shamelessly beckons and delights our “irrational” sensibilities.  

It’s a rush of aliveness.  A universal truth.  An indescribable sensation of wonder that lures our cellular awareness, titillating and imploring us to take notice.  It implies both urgency and the deepest calm. 

In response, our eyes widen, the heart swells, our breath penetrates us more fully.  We immediately, thoughtlessly and wordlessly, recognize our own place along a mystical continuum of something unspeakably majestic – a sublime expansion of our minutely human perception and understanding of otherwise dull reality.        

This often-fleeting sensation of transcendent spaciousness is pregnant with seeds of innate intelligence; clarity, vitality, harmony, integrity, and wholesome possibility. 

Beauty is angels whispering poetically, a divine hint:  “Psssst, over here…”

Heart, Womb and Soul Dance - Starting This Fall

Beginning in September I will be offering a weekly movement class based on the exquisite ancient devotional art of Odissi dance.

Odissi is derived from the ancient yogini temples of Orissa, India. Devadasi’s – temple dancers - devoted their lives to dancing in ritual to celebrate deities, nature’s majesty, and raw, sensual humanity. When women were forbidden to dance in India by Western invaders, the Odissi art form was held and continued, though differently, by young boys, known as Godipuas. Though stylistically the art remained recognizable, it took on an acrobatic quality. To date, Godipuas continue to captivate and amaze audiences in India.

The traditional art of Odissi was re-invented in the 1940s and continues in present day to remind dancers and audiences around the world of the divine within each of us. Our most precious and genuine essence is made manifest in the practice and performance of Odissi dance through playful expressions of masculine and feminine energies. This ancient and re-birthed dance form exquisitely crafts an intricate and harmonious relationship among spiraling, sinuous, and sensual gestures, and rhythmic stomping, distinct angles and postures, and creative story-telling, evoking images of deities and common women and men alike reveling in the glory of the human experience.

Dance has forever been a defining aspect of world cultures; a mark of humanity, community, and relationship with the divine. Invoking this now – aligning with the life-affirming potency of inner beauty – as humanity traverses pivotal milestones in consciousness and evolution, is, in my mind, an exquisite opportunity to engage in the conscientious re-patterning of our individual and collective future.

All levels of fitness and experience are welcome to participate. Drawing from my education and experience in a variety of healing arts including Yoga, Qi Gong, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Craniosacral Therapy, and Ayurveda, I will create a transformative dance fusion experience that will empower your feminine essence. Each dance session will begin with meditation and gentle inner healing practices crafted to invoke a sense of groundedness and calm, as well as deep appreciation for our beautiful, powerful bodies and minds. We will practice exercises and dance sequences specifically intended to gently stimulate inner radiance and rejuvenation, while training our bodies to move in a manner that awakens and harnesses our innate intelligence, natural confidence, and grace.

Classes will be an hour and fifteen minutes in duration, with time and space to enjoy tea, light refreshments and conversation together afterwards. Price, to be determined, will be on a sliding-scale basis, and scholarships will be available. No one who truly has the innate desire to dance will be turned away. Classes will be held at Dansstudio Laetana in Eindhoven. The Fall schedule and details for registration will be posted soon.

In the meantime, I will be offering 2 free trial classes during the month of August, one morning session and one evening session. If you would like to join me for a free trial class email me now! I will schedule these sessions based on responses to this inquiry, and will post confirmed dates next week.

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
 

A Song to Beauty - why the world needs it now

Beauty is the opposite of control.
 
It is wild.  Hairy.  Unpredictable, like the trajectory of a storm.  It can’t be adequately captured with words.  It defies constructs of law and order by its chaotic nature and is at the same time compassionate, merciful, and just.  It is the Sister and impassioned lover of logic.  It is the birthright and innocence of all creation. 
 
Beauty is the illogical, unexpected, at times “inappropriate,” alchemical heat of attraction.  It is where love is ignited, children are born, and nature flourishes with color and bounty.  It can be felt in the roar of changing tides, envisioned in a sliver of moon, activated in a spark of genius, heard in the song of a thousand voices.  It is curvaceous, irregular, serpentine; green, ripe, and wilted.  It is a glorious scent, and the taste of deep, rich nourishment. 
 
When our natural appetite for beauty is forlorn, our spirit becomes restless, voracious, addicted, and numb.
 
The power of beauty is that it is exquisitely simple, yet speaks volumes without words or the slightest effort.  In our modern state of constantly efforting, achieving, documenting and analyzing, beauty largely eludes us.  Black and white typeset characters, calculations, values, virtues and judgements fly in the face of beauty, with catastrophic consequences.
 
Is it possible there is more to our human existence than we’ve agreed upon and taken as “truth” in our current predicament? 
 
You are invited to join me in an adventure that will recapture, re-vision, and renew our human relationship with the divine through an exploration and extraordinary expression of beauty.  Artists, writers, dancers, healers, lovers and hopeless romantics are encouraged to email me for details and to “opt in”…
 

Love, health, and free in body and spirit,
Jennifer

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. 

Tending Our Community In Times of Crisis

In a powerful expression of solidarity and Sisterhood, a beautiful circle of international women met in a virtual Red Tent today, via Zoom. I couldn’t help but feel part of a “Brady Bunch” (https://youtu.be/AzODEdkypdg). Admittedly, this is not the preferred MO of this circle of women healers, artists, activists, seekers, huggers and deeply compassionate and sensual beings. Still, I believe that tending to our splintered modern communities - practicing solidarity, heartfelt connection, and a deep appreciation for our shared humanity – now more than ever, will help us gracefully traverse our current state of affairs.

There is no doubt we will have to be intentional, proactive, and creative about the ways that we choose to hold our community close. While the invitation to stay home and “do” less can be a delightful gift, feelings of isolation can become toxic, overwhelming, and deeply painful for many, many people. We will continue to share funny and absurd memes, express outrage about politics and horror over statistics. Meanwhile, grief, loss, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, fear, uncertainty and (for some) hunger, will simmer beneath the surface, behind closed doors and beyond the public media feeds. Let’s, please, all set the intention to reach out – to someone, somehow. May we all continue to deploy our treasure chest of skills and healing practices to stay connected with our innate wisdom, our ever-present and ever-wise Earth Mother, as well as our global human family as we navigate the days and weeks ahead.

Social Cohesion and Seeds of Spring

Join us for a Conversation in the Red Tent, Friday, March 27, 2020, via Zoom

Each month, the darkness of the New Moon urges us into a dreamworld - to let go of “doing” for a few sacred moments - in order to allow physical metabolic debris and stale emotional energy to shed like dead skin from our cells and psyches.  In these sacred and deeply tender moments (post-harvest phase of the previous cycle), our lessons are fresh, if often painful.  If we actively and conscientiously engage in the process of clearing the debris, we come away lighter, wiser, and with fresh, true, and necessary insights naturally emerging to inform our journey forward.  It is in these moments, in a healing space, where a gently-guided, compassionately held, honest and freewheeling conversation can give birth to necessary course corrections and extraordinary possibilities.  It’s spring folks – what seeds and opportunities will we devote our energy to this season? 

In this moment when everything feels uncertain and the world is practicing physical distancing, the women of the Red Tent are coming together this week of the New Moon to share what’s on our hearts, and to cultivate social cohesion, emotional resilience and holistic vitality.  Our gathering will include healing and rejuvenating meditative practices. 

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, March 27, 2020

Eindhoven time:  20.00 – 22.00

Pacific time:  12:00 – 2:00 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.