Casa de la Luna en Mexico (Red Tent Temple)

El Templo de la Tienda Roja o la Casa de la Luna es una celebración de lo femenino, de la mujer, de la menstruación. Diferentes tradiciones hablan de una tienda roja o casa de la luna donde las mujeres de las tribus o aldeas se reunían por el período de la menstruación. En ese tiempo, las mujeres se dedicaban a sí mismas: a conversar, comer, apoyarse mutuamente y descansar. También era el tiempo de aprender sobre el ser mujer, los ciclos de fertilidad, salud femenina y otros temas más.

Además, en la tienda roja las mujeres aprendían artes curativas y místicas. Era el santuario de los secretos compartidos y la sabiduría adquirida mediante la tradición oral.

En la actualidad, las reuniones de la Tienda Roja o de la Casa de la Luna nos permiten estrechar los vínculos de hermandad con otras mujeres, recuperar nuestro espacio sagrado y tener un lugar donde sentirnos seguras y disfrutar de la compañía de nuestras hermanas. Tradicionalmente se hace cerca de la luna nueva, y está abierto a todas las mujeres que han tenido ya su menstruación. Aunque no hay una agenda fija, una reunión así puedes esperar plática, compañerismo, danzas, tés, comida, reflexiones y en general, lo que el grupo de mujeres necesite para sentirse a gusto.

Para saber más, puedes leer la novela histórica la Tienda Roja de Anita Diamant: http://www.hislibris.com/la-tienda-roja-anita-diamant/

Vé también la película Red Tent Temple (redtentmovie.com)

Consulta los siguientes sitios:

Alisa Starkweather

Star of Ishtar

Red tent temple in Montreal

Please, join us for the first Red Tent Temple reunion I'm organizing. Here is our group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324046704281321/

Take a look to more RTT info: http://www.starofishtar.com/red-tent/


Participa en la primera reunión del Red Tent Temple que estoy organizando. Este es nuestro grupo en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324046704281321/

Revisa más informacion sobre el RTT: http://www.starofishtar.com/red-tent/

We are all one - another post

Please call me by my real names

Thich Nhat Hahn
_________________________________

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

We are all one

A short story:
"The Egg" by Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?” “Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. “You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread617475/pg1

The art of worshiping women - by Arjuna Ardagh

Modern Man's Response to the Emergence of the Goddess
Back in July, I published a piece here on The Huffington Post called "Why It is Wise to Worship a Woman?" That article emerged in a very personal and spontaneous way. I'd been out for a walk with Chameli, my wife, one evening. Overwhelmed with the feeling that it just couldn't get any better than this, I popped a little update on Facebook in celebration of the goddess I'm married to. Surprisingly, by the morning there were dozens of comments. A lot were appreciative comments from women, but many were also from men, either wondering where they could also have the good fortune to find a goddess similar to mine or, perhaps more important, wondering how they could discover the same spirit of deep appreciation of the feminine.
That article was my answer to that question. It reflected on the wisdom of being in worship of the feminine. Not just get along with, or tolerate, or befriend, or cooperate with. Yes, I said what I meant: to worship the feminine.
That article generated almost 1000 comments on my blog as well as here on The Huffington Post, with a variety of flavors. There were women who said, "Finally, you see me." There were women who said, "I don't want to be worshipped. Leave me alone." There were men who said, "Yes, I've discovered the same thing in my own life," and there were men who said, "You must be kidding. Women are all witches in disguise." There were men who said, "This sounds amazing. Show me how."
One of the people who read that post was my old friend Gay Hendricks, who, together with his wife Kathlyn, wrote the book "Conscious Loving" back in the '80s. It was my bible back then and taught me a great deal about the practices that create healthy relationship.
Every Meeting Is Happening in the Collective
Gay and I have been in continuous dialogue over the last several months about this topic. We recognize that whenever a man and a woman meet in any way, the meeting is happening within a context of a relationship between the genders that has a history of thousands of years. I'm sure you remember the play "Romeo and Juliet." The young lovers were smitten by Cupid. But this was not just boy-meets-girl in a bubble, because each was a member of a family that had been in a feud with each other for generations. This was not just Romeo meets Juliet; it was Montague meets Capulet. Whether they liked it or not, they were carrying the inheritance of a conflict that they had each done nothing personally to create.
The same thing would be true today if an Israeli fell in love with a Palestinian, or if a Tea Party member fell in love with a Muslim, or if a Roman Catholic from Dublin fell in love with a Protestant from Belfast.
None of these meetings happen in a bubble. They all sit within the context of conflicts that have been generated in the collective. This same is true whenever a man enters into relationship with a woman. Of course, the man himself has likely never raped anybody, or burned any woman as a witch, or denied anyone the right to vote, or forced a woman to hide her face, or barred her from religious or political office, or forced her to perform subservient chores. "No, no," such a man might say, "I'm a conscious man. I'm respectful of the feminine. I'm fully supportive that you do your thing." Whether he likes it or not, that man still carries within himself the echoes of the collective masculine and, like it or not, every woman is an incarnation of the collective feminine.
What Is the Conscious Man's Response?
The elephant is in the room. Now comes the question of what to do with it. One response to this situation, becoming less popular everyday but still prevalent nonetheless, is to carry on with business as usual, the same business of the last 5,000 years. The post from the summer evoked many such responses here on The Huffington Post. The man carries on cleaning his gun and watching football, waiting for his woman to bring his dinner and his beer. The woman, still locked into millennia of enforced subservience, acquiesces, but bitter all the time, and holding back the treasures of her real love.
The second possibility, which began to be popular in the '60s and '70s but still is in full force today, is dominated by shame and revenge. The man becomes meek and subservient. He may even grow his hair and his beard, play the guitar, and banish even the faintest whiff of his macho past far beyond the frontiers of consciousness. He distances himself as far as possible from the brutish behavior of his father and his ancestors and bows sheepishly to the newly emerged feminine power. The woman, now rebounding in resentment of how her mother and ancestors have been treated, becomes dominating. She becomes militant, unforgiving, and even castrating. The sad thing is, no one really enjoys this game either.
The third possibility started to emerge only in the last few years.
We discover that masculine and feminine are energies, not just biological genders. Every man has some masculine and some feminine energy and so does every woman. The balance we seek is not only between men and women but between the masculine and feminine energy, which are to be found everywhere in life. The feminine way is neither inferior (as we had deemed it for thousands of years) nor is it superior (as some have claimed in the last decades), but it is different. Through a synergy of masculine and feminine strengths, we find the emergence of a whole that is far, far, far greater and the sum of it to individual parts.
The restoration of dignity to the feminine has happened in three stages over the last century. The first took place less than 100 years ago with suffragettes demanding the right to vote. At that time men moved from denial and ridicule, to violent opposition, to acquiescence and finally to support.
The next wave came in the 1970s when women stepped forward to fully participate in the world man had created on his own terms. Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi became heads of state (both in a woman's body but doing things in a very masculine way). Women became judges and politicians and engineers and doctors and lawyers and ministers and construction workers, all roles that had previously been mainly reserved for men. Again, men's response began with ridicule in the '50s and shifted to acquiescence and then awkward support.
The third wave of the restoration of feminine dignity has really happened in the last few years. It is sometimes called "The Goddess Movement." We are, all of us, recognizing that there is a feminine way of doing things just as valid as the masculine. Women are realizing that they don't have to compete or even participate in the world that man has created on his terms. We realize that there is a feminine expression to spirituality, a feminine expression to ecology, a feminine expression to leadership, and each has a huge gift to offer.
And still most men stand awkwardly aside, like a shy teenager at the school dance, wanting to join in but not knowing how.
Three Shifts Men Can Make
As men in transition, Gay Hendricks and I recognize that there are several possible shifts that men are called upon to make today, in order to reboot and to enjoy a completely new adventure.
First, the elephant in the room must be recognized. Women have been disenfranchised for thousands of years. Feminine energy has been given very little respect, and we have all lost out as a result. Even if you've never disrespected the feminine yourself, the first step is still to say "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what we have done. I'm sorry for what my gender has done. And I come to you with a fresh start." This is not the stance of shame, but of honesty and self-respect. Please take our words for it, and that of thousands of our colleagues and students: women love to hear this being acknowledged.
The second shift that today's man can make is to fully experience and release the hurts that he has experienced in his relationship to women. It is those very hurts, both personally and collectively, that cause men to dishonor women, if they remain banished out of awareness.
The third shift is for man to recognize how much he really loves feminine energy: how much he loves her beauty, her capacity to love, her laughter, her freedom to feel and express emotion. In some senses, she brings vivid color to his world, which can easily become black and white.
Man can discover, and then learn to worship, the feminine face of the divine. People sometimes object when Gay and I use the word "worship." They hear the hierarchy of a subservient relationship. Worship has been like that in patriarchal religions because it was a one-way street. The devotee worships the deity, but the deity doesn't return the favor. We use the word "worship" in a completely different way, one we found in our dictionary as: "to pay extravagant respect and admiration." This kind of worship can easily be a two-way street. Gay and Kathlyn and Chameli and I endeavor to bring this quality of extreme respect and worship in both of our marriages, and it overflows into the rest of life.

Original post can be seen here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/1969/12/31/the-art-of-goddess-worshi_n_772726.html

Why is wise to worship a woman? by Arjuna Ardagh

A few days ago, after a particularly exquisite evening with my wife Chameli, I put this post up on Facebook before going to bed:
"I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through."
When I woke up the next morning, there were the usual offerings of people who liked the post as well as comments. One man had the vulnerability and courage to post this on facebook:
"Thank you Arjuna for this sharing, I feel like [I'm] in front of a choice which is between feeling envious of what you have and I don't, or instead to decide that 'I want that too,' and, as you show, it is possible..."
I was touched.
Over the next days, I got several more messages like this from men: vulnerable men, honest men, rare and courageous men. They came in as private messages on Facebook or through our website, and they all said basically the same thing:
"I read your Facebook post. I want what you have. Show me how to get it."
So, friends, here it is. The short guide on how to worship a woman, and why it's the wisest thing that a man can do. First of all, lets pop a few very understandable doubts that you might have. I'm familiar with all of them.
1. "I'm wounded and damaged in my relationships to the feminine."
So am I, dear brother, so am I. My parents divorced in a messy way when I was four. I grew up alone with my mother. She did her very best to provide for me, but she was unhappy and insecure. By the time I started to have relationships with women myself in my early teens, I discovered that I had a mountain of resentments, fears, and separation in my relation to the feminine. The conscious practice of worship can become a part of healing the wounds.
2. "Arjuna, you're lucky. You've got an incredible partner. I'm together with a woman who's not like Chameli."
I really don't have the ultimate answer to that doubt or question. It certainly could seem to be the case that I've been lucky in finding a great woman, but here's how it happened for me. I've had a lot of less lucky connections in my life. I've experienced my share of the manipulative side of the feminine: the victim, the rageful, the vengeful. And I have seen the ugly side of the masculine psyche in myself. A few weeks prior to meeting Chameli, my wife, something deep and profound shifted in me, which I believe can shift for anyone in the same way.
3. "I don't have a partner at all, and I sometimes doubt if I'll ever meet anybody."
Being with a partner where worship is not flowing, or not being with a partner at all, are basically two aspects of the same situation: you've had an intuition or a glimpse of the possibilities of a deeper love, and you want more of it. The solutions are the same.
4. "I feel my heart is closed down. I live in my head a lot, and I wouldn't even know what worship was if it broke into my house at 2 o'clock in the morning and held me at gunpoint."
That's where the whole thing starts for all of us, when we realize that we don't yet know how to love. And that's that the big question that you have to consider: "Is that okay with me?" Never mind how much money you make, or how many friends you have on Facebook, no matter how nice a house you live in, or no matter how big a car you drive, no matter how impressive your partner's bust size, or how much you meditate and become spiritual... have you loved for real, in a total and undefended way? If not, and here's where you have to be honest with yourself, is that OK with you? Is it OK to die one day without the heart's gift having been fully given?
Eight or nine years ago, I came to that question in myself, exactly that, and I discovered that the answer was, if I was was raw and vulnerable and uncomplicated, that it was actually not OK. If I died one day without having fully loved, it would not have truly been a life well lived.
Many many years ago, I went to Bali for a vacation, on my own. I met up with some other young travelers there and we hired a Jeep to take us on a tour of the island. We drove up right to the highest point of the island, where Tourists don't usually go. Our guide took us to one of the most sacred temples. It was surrounded by a big brick wall with an ornate entrance. After removing our shoes and wrapping scarves around our heads, we stepped together through this entrance. Inside, there was a short courtyard and then another brick wall with another entrance. After more preparations of lighting incense and giving offerings, we stepped through the second entrance. We were allowed to go through the opening in one more wall, but that was it. All together there were ten walls around the deity in the middle. Hindus could go beyond the fourth wall. Devotees of that particular deity could go beyond the fifth wall, and so it went on. The only people allowed to approach the deity directly were those who had given their lives completely and totally to its worship. Everyone else could come a little closer, a little closer, to the innermost beauty, but not all the way to the center.
I'm not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there's a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman's heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman's heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman's heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it's protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn't even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.
If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.
Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She'll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She'll answer your questions coyly. She'll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.
Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she'll open her heart to you more. She'll share with you her insecurities, the way that she's been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You've got the gist by now.
Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women's. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.
Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It's the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante's Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.
When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second.
So just a couple small questions remain. First, do you get what I'm talking about? Does it jive for you? Does it make sense? And second, if yes, how are you going to get from where you are now to being able to the full capacity of your heart to love for real? I'd be glad to share more about this if we get to know each other better, but here's how you get started.
First, do what I did, and create an altar in your room dedicated to Divine Feminine. Put only symbols of the feminine on it. I have a painting called "Beatrix" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I have a statue of Quan Kin. Populate your altar with anything that reminds you of the feminine, and spend a few minutes of the day in worship. Yes, worship. Adoration. Devotion. Offer up rose petals. Offer poems. Offer everything, and beg Her to reveal Her innermost essence to you. This will work miracles whether you're single and waiting to meet the right woman or whether you're already in relationship and long to meet your woman in a deeper way.
The second way to get started: make a practice, a discipline, of telling your woman, or any woman, ten times a day something which you adore about her. "I love the smell of your shampoo." "I love the way you laugh." "The color of your eyes is so beautiful." Of course, you need to keep it appropriate. You can go as far out on a limb as you like if you're in relationship with a woman, but with anyone else remember the gates. Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman's breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship.
So here's enough to get started. Of course, there's a lot more we can say about this. Feel free to post your comments below, and I'll use them as the foundation for future blogs.

See original post here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2010/07/29/goddess-worship_n_660896.html