Raise Up a Red Tent Temple! Raise a Woman!

Together we are building with our collaborative support a woman-honoring culture for our daughters, grandmothers, mothers, sisters, selves in every village, city and town.

The Red Tent Temple Movement has the potential to impact and change the culture which we live in if we join together and bring this into our world. If there is a Red Tent Temple near you that you know is there for you, our daughters, mothers, nieces, sisters, friends…. it will act as support. For women, support can change the very core of what we think of one another, choices we make and understanding that we are not alone in what we experience.

The intention is that we honor our many differences and also first and foremost learn to create and cultivate a healthy woman-honoring culture. One that recognizes that we as women cycle together in our blood cycles. We struggle and rise together alone or together in our many stories of fertility, infertility, sexual identities, choices, struggles, dreams and friendships. It is an opportunity to tell our stories, share our wisdom, cry and laugh and rest inside a place that we collectively create to honor our place in society. Women are known to enter a Red Tent Temple having never been in one and simply weep that it exists for them. Women who never come to one also share that they are deeply moved even from afar that there is a place in the world held by women for women just for them.

Within the Red Tent Temple we care for one another and are cared for ourselves with healing, song, meditation, story telling, council, quiet rest, herbs and sharing together. We care for ourselves in learning more about our bodies, our blood cycles, our ways of dealing with overcoming stress and learning to be more gentle with ourselves.

It is important that women remember that this is not a party but a social event where our intention is to bring in organically both the quiet spaces and the spontaneous moments where anything can happen such as storytelling, poetry, dancing and something as simple as laying a head in your mother’s lap while she strokes it. Many times the women who are organizing the Red Tent Temple in their local area offer a simple form of a circle in the duration of our time together. The circle however is a part of what happens. We have learned over time that the most important thing however is to enter it for our own exhale of our breaths and finding ourselves on the next inhalation.

What is a circle?

Circles can mean many things to different people but here in the Red Tent Temple our circles respect that we enter here with many diverse beliefs and lifestyles. A circle is time for women to share what is in their hearts. We pass something that represents to us that this woman is taking her turn and we listen deeply to what she has to say whatever it is. Since we began the Red Tent Temples we have noticed that women are coming who have never been in a circle. If you are facilitating one it is important to know that our circle time can go very deep and also very uproariously high as we laugh, sing, share and revel in one another’s company. And that circle is not therapy. It is a short increment of time to be able to check in with how you are feeling, share one story, an insight, a poem. We hope to make a safe place for women to share with confidentiality and compassion in case a woman cries. We listen rather than giving her lots of advice or wanting her to stop crying. We make room for our feelings. And again, it is not therapy. So women are not encouraged to go deeper than they come back from in a short increment of time. And to be aware of other women who have not had an opportunity to speak or be heard. We share the time among us depending on who is there. No one is expected to participate or to speak. You can still be in the Red Tent and not be in the circle if you choose but this seldom happens.

Who comes to a Red Tent Temple?

Women of all ages come. Women who are in menopause time of life are needed here to make our circles whole. Women who no longer have wombs are welcome. Young women are welcome if they have begun their moon cycles.

We have discovered that since we don’t know what kind of things women might bring up in the circle it is best for minors to have consent by a guardian in order to be there so that we can speak freely among ourselves as women.

Women of all beliefs are welcome. This means we honor and respect the right of individuals to choose their own paths and follow what is right for them while honoring the diversity present. If we are going to grow this movement we must make room for all kinds of diversity to be in the tent with us. Our collective journey of being a woman and honoring those journies is our common ground. No one particular spiritual belief is assumed but rather we assume many beliefs will be present. We do however honor our many choices that we make including our diverse politics and our right to choose life or not. Each woman needs the capacity to not put what she thinks is right onto another person but rather have our focus be on the commonground that we do share in wanting women to be seen and respected in all our many complex lives and choices. The invitation to share our multitude of perspectives is welcomed when it is shared with respect for self and all.

Our sisters, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, friends are all welcome. Our common ground is honoring the sacredness of our own womanhood journey.

Where are the Red Tent Temples?

They are in our own homes, yoga studios, basements of churches, and healing centers. They are in dance studios, offices, barns, and backyards. They have even been in our town commons, cities, and festivals that take place. Red Tents are being seen more and more everywhere. And at the same time, the Red Tent Temples are part of a movement among us to do this collectively and in collaboration, unity and support. If there is no Red Tent Temple near you we encourage you to get on a teleconference that happens monthly to find out how to do this. It is a commitment but one that is worth making in our lives not only for ourselves but for our communities. It is service. We are making it up as we go and learning along the way. Then we share what we are learning all over the country and in various other countries as well.

The Red Tent is not only a place but a metaphor of who we are as women. We are women who cycle and bleed with the moon and whether you think much about that or not, all women have shared this in common. We are women who are wanting our young women to have a positive experience of their womanhood with our support. And older women surely need that too.

Why do we cook for the Red Tent?

Somewhere a woman is cooking for you. She knows that you may not want to make food or that you don’t have time after work. We recognize our need to nourish and be nourished. Food is simple but it is available in most Red Tent Temples. You are welcome to bring food to share too. You are also welcome to cook for us when you are ready! It is good to support this giving with voluntary donations that renew costs for women giving so that women do not feel burdened or burnt out but rather supported and sustained.

What is the Story Chair in the Red Tent Temple?

Anyone is welcome at any time in the Red Tent Temple to sit in the chair and tell a story of their womanhood journey. Sometimes the stories are sad and sometimes they make us all laugh. You can read a poem or share something in that moment. It is always available for you. I look forward to the day when we gather around our elders and young ones as they share with us their wisdom in a way that makes room for their unique ages.

We want many things for our world.

Our continued leadership is needed for the things that we most care about.

The Red Tent Temple Movement promotes women’s empowerment.

The Red Tent Temple

is a gift to ourselves so that we remember our greatest strengths and also are kind to where we have limitations. By attending or giving yourself this time, which in the beginning is the hardest thing of all, we then make a time and place in our life to check in with ourselves and each other so that we can reenergize for the rest of the month. We will also make connections and friendships that will deepen our sense of community. When things get tough, women can brainstorm together in the Red Tent Temples. We will undoubtedly be stronger together.

Where did the Red Tent idea come from?

Anita Diamant wrote the fiction novel, The Red Tent in 1997.

The Red Tent

She wrote about a time when tribal women in the desert bled together on the New Moon and during this time they would all gather in the women’s Red Tent. Her book struck a deep resonance with many women who yearned for such a place among us to go and to be. We began to build and bring Red Tents to large gatherings of women and people so that we got a sense of what it would feel like. Women have found many different ways of doing this and it is still organically growing in every which way as many of us have chosen collectively to not pine any longer for this experience but to build it into our culture. Anita is not involved in this movement but she is well aware of all that she inspired among us. http://www.anitadiamant.com/ We are very grateful for what she gave us in her vision. Now we are the visionaries to see what it will become among women of the world. And there are many other women moving forward with their unique visions of this as well who are not part of this particular movement. Even so, there is sisterhood in our unity among all the various Red Tents everywhere. This I am sure of. Even since we began the movement in 2006 we see great waves of this movement’s influence in how other women are hearing about it word of mouth and beginning organically. And also we hear about many Red Tents that were begun sometime ago that are coming forward to be recognized in various geographies. In a movement we can unite in multitude of ways so that we can feel together that we are a part of the whole moving among us.

Where did the Red Tent Temple Movement begin?

I am a visionary by nature and after assisting and encouraging many Red Tents to happen in gatherings and also bringing them into conferences myself, I had one of those moments of what we sometimes call the little voice inside. Only you know as well as I do that this voice actually speaks with a good deal of authority once it knows you are listening. I hear, “a Red Tent needs to be in every village,city and town.” Well women, I was about to take a very long needed break and I am very dutiful about bringing the visions into form so I wasn’t quite happy with this and thought it a rather incredulous statement. Though blogging about it and asking if women were ready I laid it down again until I began to work actively in April of 2007 to bring this vision into form because it came back to haunt me.  I continued to write long emails and ask who is ready for this and still nothing much happened. Then in August 2007, a woman that I didn’t know called me from Houston, Texas, Kendra, and she said she absolutely must make a Red Tent but she wasn’t quite sure yet how as she hadn’t done this before. She went on the internet and found me. A couple of days later, I heard from another woman in Texas and her vision was to have a permanent Red Tent temple house with gardens, birthing rooms, healing rooms. This began to get me thinking. A week later I was teaching a class at the 20th Women’s Herbal Conference in NH and to a fairly good crowd said, “We need a Red Tent in every village, city and town.” A cheer went up. And suddenly we had women from all over the country ready to begin from one coast to the other. I announced it again to 550 women and the reaction was the same.

Priestess Path is full of the most committed women I have ever met in my life. There are well over 300 graduates now and many women from this community stepped up and took this on as a mission. Along with them, other bright spirits came forward and said yes too. Some women were pairing up and some women were alone but together we began. Beki, in Portland, Oregon was just so excited to get started so she just began and after that we simply moved forward into the learning that we would discover by not knowing and following our intuition and instinct anyhow.

Leah Jeannesdaughter and Astrid Grove assisted by Yonette Fleming and myself raised up the first Red Tent that would be at Womongathering in 2007 (not the first Red Tent in the world by far because they were also going up everywhere). Leah had long been working at Womongathering too as well as Astrid on the blood mysteries and the importance for women to honor our wombs. Astrid, now a midwife and powerful wisewoman also apprenticed with Susun Weed and it was her practice for years to offer her sisters of her communities Moon Lodges. We all knew and loved one another well from the many places we were involved together and so it was a natural flow between us. Leah and Astrid have been the main women there to priestess and develop what they named the Red Temple. When Leah and I in 2007 began to talk about this as a movement I told her that I wanted to name it the Red Tent Temple Movement.

Does it cost money to come to the Red Tent Temple?

Certainly you know that everything such as this does cost money. And this movement began with an idea that it needed to be grassroots, able to be duplicated yet original to the women who are tending them, that we needed NOT to own our Red Tent Temples unless we all owned them by owning them as ours. Ownership here means to cook soup, make tea, welcome women, bring cloth, get the word out, offer up a place. It also means that if you find what is here valuable that you support it in ways that you can so that it is sustainable. The majority of the Red Tent Temples are free of charge with donations that are freely given that support the experience. There are often rental, heat and food costs. Women have given hours of their time voluntarily to build what is here so far and our vision is that with time, we will do this all together and easily. If there are costs it is because funds must be raised for space, heat and food in order for it to exist. It is not possible for the organizers alone to carry the costs so there will be at times suggested donations or a way for women at each gathering to contribute to pay for the costs that are needed.

We will need to raise funds for the kind of interactive website that will serve this movement. Together however we can make it happen if we work together.

I want to start one. How do I do it and what do I do?

How wonderful. I am asking women who want to begin one in their area to consider a few things so we can stay cohesive.

1. Please consider committing for at least a year or twelve Red Tent Temples in your area over the months. Why? Because consistency in our communities is key. Let’s start it and do this for a year and see where it takes us. Let the women around us whether they come or not, know that every month it is taking place. This is the grand experiment. See what we learn in a year.

2. If you begin, please let us know so that we can add you onto the website and be able to track how our movement is growing. Once we have the website you can download your photos, messages, etc with your own password (still hoping for this). For now, I’ve volunteered to do that here on my website. Include your zipcode and any pertinent information. Note: Over the years it has become too difficult to track the enormous activity of the growing Red Tents. Many times women start their own Facebook page and join our two places there too which is our page; http://www.facebook.com/RedTentMovement and our group which you can put under the search place Red Tent Temple Movement. This is a place where we can presently connect. Isadora Leidenfrost has also been keeping a database at http://www.redtentmovie.com

3. Please send in the dates that you will be meeting and if possible the place so that things can stay updated. And if you decide to stop then tell us that too.

4. Please do your best to abide by the principles of allowing all women to come regardless of money, to find a way through perhaps volunteer energy to provide food, to hold a circle if you are able. Most importantly that we create a safe, shame free and sacred space to honor our collective journey of womanhood together. Please let us hold respect, honor and acceptance of many different diverse belief systems and not assume that we are the same in that. Let us make room for our diversity in inviting all women to be a part of this movement together. Let us honor our blood, our cycles, our children, ourselves and life around us.

5. Review these questions and answers so we can be on the same page. If you can join us on a teleconference that would be wonderful.

6. Pollinate, spread the word and keep our movement growing and healthy.

7. The Red Tent Temple Movement is not owned by any woman or organization. It is US. We hope to share leadership and practice giving and receiving. We also hope to maintain good relationships with one another where power with versus power over is our way of decision making.

8. Get support. If you need mentoring, support or help, please ask us.

9. It is ideal for us to keep this a free event that is sustained through loving donations. However we also understand that this may not always be possible due to the risks of incurring debt. If you are collecting monies please be sure that it is for the purpose of paying for your expenses and not for personal gain.

10. Once women understand the basics we will probably be creative and the Red Tent Temples will become unique to the women who are facilitating them. The most important thing however is keeping it open to many women versus women with similar beliefs. If you want a Goddess circle then begin that for yourselves outside of RTTM. The Red Tent Temple’s doors are open to all women of class, race, age or sexual identity because all women need what we can build here together. By narrowing our circles to those with specific belief systems we then close the door to our common gate of womanhood. For me what we can do together is far more powerful than building a movement from a specific population of women. RTTM is a practice of diversity and honoring diverse beliefs while taking the time to honor and respect ourselves.

11. So that we can be cohesive we have been holding them on or near the New Moon.

12. We are asking to document our learnings and our experiences so that we eventually may publish this movement.

13. This is a non alcoholic and drug free event. We understand and respect that everyone has different ideas of what it means to come together socially. Women who enter the Red Tent Temple are coming to honor themselves as women and some of these women are in recovery or abstain from alcohol. To honor the sacred space that we are making and the fact that there may be minors among us as well as town laws prohibiting alcohol for public events, we ask organizers to understand that the RTT is not a place for the use of drugs or alchohol. Thank you.

Why do the women sometimes wear red?

We invite women to wear red to remember the blood actually is for life and whether we talk about it or not, women are connected to their cycles, the moon and to one another. It is a way to begin to honor the deep feminine in every woman. Red also is a pretty energetic color. For those of you not wearing red, kick it up sisters. You are beautiful. Besides, you are the Red Tent don’t you know?

What is the Women’s Word of Mouth Board?

The most powerful information that travels is by word of mouth. In the Red Tent Temples sometimes there are boards where women can put down information for one another. It can be anything that we need to pay attention to. This ranges from personal networking, to good books and music, petitions, local recommendations, resources for our health and wellbeing. It is our hope that once the movement gets going and our interactive website takes place, we can then put this information out there on a local, state, national and global level depending on where it is needed. It acts then as a word of mouth board between us all collectively where information can get out there.

What is the Interactive Website?

So far we only have the domain name and some really good ideas. Leah Jeannesdaughter also began a template in Druple, a very amazing program that will help us be able to be interactive. I have $1300 that I will donate towards a site. It occurred to me one day that it would require more like $5000 or more to really have the site that can hold the movement once it gains momentum. We will need broadband for one thing. And it will be the kind of website where each organizer will receive a password and she can then easily (ha!) put in her local info, photos, word of mouth resources, and anything else for the community that she lives in. We also will be able to see that and find Red Tent Temples should we travel or move. We can also blog and share our learnings. This is our future hope. For now, this website is hosting the seeds of the movement.

How do I begin one in my area? (This was the short version written first. Above is the longer version.)

The first thing is to connect here. If you start one but you don’t connect here we don’t know what you are doing and it is hard to stay together. So let’s stay together as we move on out in our inspiration. Plan on coming on a teleconference and send me your information so I can track what is happening. Please identify your Red Tent as a Red Tent Temple so that we know that you are part of this movement or a sister ally. We are meeting mostly on or near the new moons so many of the Red Tent Temples happen at the same timing. Sometimes they need to be a different time however for the convenience of the organizers. If you can report to us on your learnings, your questions and your inspirations this would help us learn together. We are doing our best to document. If you have photos that can be shared with permission send them this way.

Why are we documenting?

In the first week we received a possibility of publishing about the movement. Right now we are in the grassroots learning mode. We are actually documenting when we have permission with photos, filming, stories, learnings, etc so with time we can publish something that women can find accessible to begin in their areas. This writing here is the beginning of getting some of it into words.

I see alot of red cloth in the photos. Do I need to decorate my Red Tent like that?

No. You don’t. It is a Red Tent Temple by our intentions. In Arlington, Virginia, Tiffany hangs a sign on her front door. You are not entering Tiffany’s home. You are entering the Red Tent Temple. And when women come in they pass under a red cloth into her living room. Thus, they are now in the Red Tent Temple. Our intentions create the space to be what they are. It is our experience and intentions of what we want there that actually create what will be.

And some women LOVE to adorn their spaces with red sheets, pillows, tapestries because the color alone speaks to us of the sacred space we are in together. It is not mandatory or necessary.

Women are excited but they have never done anything like this. Since they have no reference for such a social event sometimes it becomes rowdy like a cocktail party. How do I help the women come into a more sacred energy, especially if they don’t know what I mean?

It is very important that we don’t shame or hurt one another in the Red Tent Temples by our judgments about what we think “should” happen. With time, with focus, with learning, with dialogue in our circles, with experience, trust that we are going to find our way. At the same time we help the situation with an orientation sheet about what this is. It helps to invite them into a quiet space. Soft music, a place to close one’s eyes and center, a welcoming that invites each woman to let go of her nervousness, her work, her need to belong and be accepted, and simply come home to herself wherever she is. It is okay to ask women as they enter to have some quiet time first before getting involved with talking. Talking happens. In the RTT in my home, there is quiet talking, nap taking, sometimes tears and often laughter. If you have a crystal bowl or gentle bells that can be struck every once in a while as a way for the room to go within, quiet for a few moments, you can interrupt the pattern in a gentle way of it becoming louder and louder. Women are not going to be comfortable at first with the idea of doing nothing. I have had very powerful women friends who are very active come into the RTT and look like a cat in water. The look says, “what am I doing just sitting here? I should be home DOING something.” But that is the point. We are learning the undoing and for that we look like drowned cats momentarily. Soon those same women are stretched out on the pads or receiving energy work or are journaling, sipping tea, and breathing more deeply. It is really a learning experience here.

Why do the Red Tent Temples take place on or near the New Moons?

In the novel, women were bleeding or giving birth in the Red Tent at the new moon. This movement is not focused on the bleeding as much as it focused on honoring our womanhood journeys in all our many stages. Still, it is good to have one time that we meet and where our cycle a long, long time ago, by the dark of the moon brought us into our mooncycles. It is great when we are in our Red Tent Temples to know that all around us other Red Tent Temples are happening too. The new moon is often a time for sowing the seeds of intentions for what we want to manifest later as the moon waxes. The moon cycles are an ancient way for women to connect and we use this as our connection time each month.

I would like to honor Susun Weed here. She began moon lodges that are open and available to women many, many years ago. Some of her students following the WiseWoman ways have also carried on this tradition. There are women all around us who have honored the moon and our cycles and we are following the long trail of our forgotten history. http://www.susunweed.com/moonlodge.htm

Here is a video that Ananda shared this week from her Red Tent blog www.spiraltraditions.blogspot.com about a woman, DeAnna L’am’s, who brought a Red Tent into her area in California. She is not connected to our movement and yet of course she is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ39pZC6DRs

You mention energy work or body work. How does this happen?

Women are healers, storytellers, dancers, leaders, poets, writers, mothers, scientists, bosses, massage therapists, professionals, lawyers, …….the list goes on. Many women come into the Red Tent Temple. Some women would like to share with others Reiki, energy work, bodywork or even massage. In my Red Tent Temple, Kate gave massages by donations. I have a table set up in the Red Tent Temple and whether there is someone doing this or not, it is available for both giving and receiving. Sometimes a woman lies down and we put our hands on her for a few moments. It really is up to us.

I keep waiting for the bellydancers to come into the tent, dance for us and to share a bowl of soup before they leave. I am dreaming this to be so.

I am sure there are more questions and more to write but this is it for now. Ask me and I will do my best to answer. Soon you will be answering them because in our collective learning we know more. Please join us. The way to do this is to follow your inclination and learn as you go.

What if we only have a few people coming to our Red Tent Temple?

By talking in our teleconferences together we have discovered that every Red Tent Temple is different each time we meet. Every one is unique and changes each time. Sometimes we may have only the organizers or a few women and sometimes a large crowd of up to forty women. Our success is not about numbers and how many women come. Instead it is our commitment to enter the Red Tent and see what it has to teach us each new moon. It is really learning a new way. We are in a culture that is really quite engaged with numbers, productivity, profit. The Red Tent Temple is creating a new paradigm where we each matter and we don’t need more to have it make sense.

Red Tent Temple for ONE, you can give this to yourself in every town, village and city. Simply build it for you and we will sustain our movement.

I will share a story with you. One day in the winter we were having a very bad icestorm during a Red Tent Temple day. I thought I better cancel it. Then I thought what if a woman comes all this way during this and it is not here for her? I decided that I would go ahead and raise it up. Raising it up for me is like hanging up the clothes from the laundry as I actually attach the red cloth to a clothes line with clothespins. I cooked the soup, made the tea and thought, well I am here and this is the day. Who am I doing this for actually? Will I walk my talk of why we need this? Suddenly I was delighted to have the entire Red Tent Temple to myself. I had everything I needed for a day long retreat. I drank tea, ate my yummy soup, wrote in my journal and took a good long nap. I danced to the music, massaged my own feet and laid my hands on my womb. I looked around and cried in gratitude to be in such beauty that I had given myself. As soon as I remembered all this in my own being, the door opened and women began coming in. We had an incredible day and night together although this time there were never more than six of us at one time. This night I watched a woman enter for the first time as some of us were involved in laying on of hands. She sat down, took it in and like me earlier in the day cried. At best, the Red Tent Temple times are like homecomings for us.

Won’t you join our movement. It is not only time but it is us that change for our world will come from. The Red Tent Temple Movement gives us a place to work together where we can rest and renew. From here, our connections forged and selves taken care of can then take the next steps in bringing more new paradigms of which to heal our societies, our children, our selves, our world. When we finally give in to giving ourselves a day a month together it simply makes sense. Right now we are on the learning curve.

Teleconferences once a month to track our learning and to know we are not alone:

Presently we are offering a once a month teleconference that you can see on menu of this website. Women who want to know more or perhaps start their own Red Tent Temple in their area are invited to the call on February 22nd at 6:30 EST and women who are organizers join us later to share what is going on in other areas. Organizers can offer to be mentors for women just beginning. We also share what we are learning together and offer any colletive wisdom along the way. It is amazing to get on the phone with many women from all over and hear the results of our commitment. Anyone is free to reserve a place on a call.

What is in this for me?

Good question. I get to meet a lot of amazing like-minded women like you. Through our culture and the time in which I’ve lived in looks for angles, benefits and certainly profits. Yet here I am instigating a world wide movement and I am not a nonprofit or organization. I didn’t know what I was in for really in terms of how many hours I would work each day, week, month and entire year without pay to bring forward what we are doing. I might have rethought launching this. In truth with time, I fully expect to be forgotten in the scope of what is possible once the fire catches and this red flower of our womanhood is open and available to all women in our communities as something we count on.

I did not begin this endeavor because I needed another women’s group, another project, or a way to promote something. I was already busy, full with women’s circles and work and needing to take time off actually. But my heart like yours probably, has been aching when I look into my local area, my world, and see such a great need for the sacred. I see an unmet need in our young to have a place they can count on for mentoring, initiation, and coming into their womanhood with other women. I see an unmet need in our lives to connect deeply, rest and take time to simply be. I see an unmet need for our elders where they can gather to be honored and share their wisdom. In my life do have these things in abundance with the communities that I have been a part of but I wondered about the youth who are lost, alone, poor, unsupported with televisions, Ipods, gaming, and drinking as their only form of interactions. I wondered about women who would be more of themselves with support. And I wondered what would happen in our societies of local places if women were to have a place we could count on where we are respected, supported and held.

I understood from the work that I do that to empower women of any age means to bring health back into a community. And the Red Tent Temple Movement is a means to support us.

A few days before I began the launching of this movement I wrote this to a close group of women friends. This is what burns in my heart and I know that I am not alone. We are movements upon movements now asking our world to come home to what is most important. The RTTM is a way we can begin together to sew a seed into our culture of a sacred place for us to connect with ourselves and each other, a place to remember.

August 21st, 2007 written by ALisa Starkweather three days before the rise of this movement.

I am ready
you know that kind of ready when it feels like the time is now?
and you don’t know what but you know ….
you know the way things are just aren’t the way things could be
and the potential of what could be …. not the hopeless, despair filled, horrible ongoing facts of just how incredibly up against the wall we humans are and some don’t even know it stage,
and not the denial, everything is great, all new possibilities exist, I’m riding on all positively “secret” thoughts,
~ but the place where I want to get to work side by side together with you on bringing some visions, some movements, some new paradigms alive, the roll up our sleeves and get down in it together, the what is it going to take, cost, risk for us to get to it. The incredible alive place that is not a dream. It is the place I’ve lived in and know with you and I. It is real. It is visceral. It is us. It is time for us to bring our neighbors into the rhythm of alive, alive, heart, alive, breath, alive, grief, alive, fear alive, love alive place. We know it. We’ve dreamed this into being. We know it. We do. Let’s grow it. Now. Let’s crack this seed of potential wide open.
The it?
Whatever we know is life – giving.
Life giving to the children, life giving to the teens, life giving to the women, the men, the elders, life on earth …..
And what is IT?
I don’t know.
But I can see something in the gray places. We are gathering in circles, we who know the fire, are bringing the people to the fire, we who know the way of councils are bringing the people to the council, we who know the dance are taking the hands of the children to dance, we who know the circle are keeping the circle whole, we who know the how to grow the food are feeding the hungry, we who know the ceremonies are holding fast remembering the ancient ones, the ancient ways, we who know the rituals are healing the deep wounds, we who remember the song of life are singing loudly even in the face of judgment, we who know the love that sustains our hope are courageously loving with no hope at all. Sometimes they say a woman before birthing is a bit crazed as she begins her nesting instincts. I think we need to rethink crazed. Is crazed our instincts coming alive with pure inner knowing of when there is right timing to act?

I am ready. Are you ready? When is it time I want to know for a change that is unstoppable because it will move through consciousness like the rising sun? Are we the rays? Is it time to push up now over the dark horizon? Do you feel it too?

This photo reveals my most favorite home that I ever lived within during my lifetime. I lived here for six years and raised my children Shawn and Chenoa. This is where my 21 beds of earth garden was sown and tilled and where the owls came to my window and the flying squirrels flew. I loved this home with all my heart as it is where I became one with the woods and the wild. The reason it is burning down is because long after and many years since I moved out to other homes, a new home, would be built in its place. But first the old home was burned down. This photo was just shown to me this weekend and it felt like a kind of completion to see my most favorite home on earth destroyed while also entering the newly rebuilt home.

As I prepare my life for large changes, it is something to see a photo of “burn down the house” ~ my goddess this was once my old house with attachments and all. I am ready for new beginnings in our lives. I am ready to rebuild something new here on earth with humans. We need a new culture. We need new values. We need us at our core level of whatever we were born to be. And the women are invited to lead now with our hearts, our knowing, our felt sense of how to birth anew. Even with loss, even with loss, because of loss, I am ready to begin the building of another kind of culture, another house, where we care, where we create, where we work together, where we love, where we honor life, where we work for peace especially with our differences …. the children are waiting for us to begin this work even if it means again and again. There will come a time where the children will not wait. They will be the ones. They will lead with their hearts, their knowing and their sense of how to birth anew. Don’t give up. We are just beginning. Stay strong. Move towards our visions. Live them. Let us continue to work together. What we do is so beautiful and very, very precious here. Take heart in this. Are you ready for the next steps as the women rise up? Will they simply reveal themselves? Are we listening? What is speaking to your heart? I so want to know. I feel ever connected to you dear women. In sisterhood with you, ALisa