a women's space in your community?
Ruby Moon Red Tents and Moon Lodges are women's sacred spaces to honor women's cycles and life changes, her body, fertility and eggs, pregnancy and blood of birth and menstruation from the first to the last one, beyond the blood and before her arrival. All of it framed in Red.

To build the tent we need:

Next to the entrance a Program Schedule of Activities depending on
the tent's specific purpose and a Privacy Notice.

Purpose:
The tent can have several purposes within its sacred space framework.

1. It can be Open Time set up and left available for women to use
anytime.

2.- it can be Event Times requiring a posted schedule, for example
Circles: mother lines, womb stories, cycle celebration
Healing: one to one or group focused activity
Quiet time: for just feeling the space, meditate, write, draw

3.-A combination of open time and event time work well, facilitates
coordination and enhances experiential learning

Time:
it is best to block time in 3 hour intervals.....

Tent entrance:
Entrance red rug and veils for at least 2 sides with extra rug area
for shoes

Floor:
Red rugs and mats to cover a 10x10 floor space.
Plenty of red cushions, including a larger one for laying down, and pillows.
At least one small table, table cover, lamp (if we have electricity)
About ten chairs available, it is best to use all the floor space and not to wear shoes inside the space, however some women need chairs.

Sides:
Clean red material to cover a 10x10 wall space, sheets, sarongs are good
Large diaper pins to hang the materials with, ribbons and rope

Structure:
We use a ten by ten art tent or we can construct a beehive like structure out of willows, bamboo or other flexible natural materials.
The space can also be set up in a private room or building.

Roof:
It is nice to cover the ceiling in red too

Light:
Natural light is best at night candles are great but a mellow electric light can be also used.

Other supplies:
Registry book for interested participants wanting more info or follow up.
Tissue, at least one box, small trash can.
A diary for women to write notes on and color markers.
Sacred objects, healing oils, a rattle.... etc.... from the healer/ women community

Extra colors:
To build the women's peace cycle mandala inside the space we need long and narrow strips of materials in every color of the rainbow.

Tending the tent space:
A woman (we call her Ruby) has to be responsible for going inside the space every few hours to check on healing clarity and to restore/refresh the space.

Please let us know what kind of red energy is available in your community, and if you would like us to help you set up your first one if so we need a community contact person's name and phone number। We have over 20 years of sharing with women about their bodies and facilitating how to connect spiritually, emotionally and mentally to the cycles of female lives. Together we have developed sacred spaces for women to heal and share with each other women's medicine ways and wisdom. We volunteer our time and expertise in creating Ruby Moon Tents at many events however we do need the mutual collaboration of the women's community who wants the experience to provide support for supplies like draping, pillows and other items and energy to set up the space. In addition the women community involved then keeps the supplies on hand and becomes ready to set up their own RUBY space any time.

Send please any questions you have, with a little imagination your community can do this even without our help, just gather your supplies, get together to build it, share your wisdom and your kindness towards each other and have fun.

Marina Alzugaray MS, CNM
Director Comadres Institute, MyMoonCards cycle education,
Ella@mymooncards.com
305 744-3370

I for one did not know how mother's day was started and I am so moved by Julia's proclamation on peace and motherhood, if you have not read this once at least in your life and have celebrated mother's day well it is your own best gift to learn how and why it was started in the USA, May Mothers unite in Peace and may our blood be not of war but that of life,
Marina

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870, .... after the Civil War
......................................

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.

Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby
the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity,
I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality
may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of
peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870

***********

We are off to set up a big RED TENT at a 3 day camp, a Wise Woman Festival in Gainsville Florida. We are hoping for women to bring red materials. I think that the easy way to do this is for any community that ones to get a RED tent going would be to gather the materials, we can come and help set it up and run the tent so that the community gets how to do it and then keep it there. Hey that will make traveling light and the community will have a red tent for themselves.
North Florida here we go... Ella

Ella y su luna

A todas ustedes que pueden leer estas palabras, bienvenidas.
Este blog es de todas nosotras las mujeres para compartir sobre nuestros cuerpos.
La protagonista se llama Ella. Es tu y yo, somos nosotras.

Esto es un projecto para disfundir informacion sobre el ciclo de la mujer.
Desde la primera sangre, sobre nuestras expereincias, y hasta la ultima.
Hay tanto que contar.

META 2012
Ella quiere que sepan cuando ovulan, por que no.
La meta es el disfundir esta sabiduria a todas las mujeres,
y ya para el 2012 estar todas informadas.

Que les parecio la forma en que se presento el ciclo de mujer y luna en ICM les quiero dar las gracias a todas ustedes que participaron y hasta a los hombres, espero que haya sido divertido e instructivo. Que les parece esa clase de teatro en un festival de salud comunitario?

Que otras ideas tienen, necesitamos traductores en todos los ideamas.
Besos, Marina, por ela

Getting the word out to every woman

Hello I had to give this blog some time before I wrote in here again. Yes I am the same one who thought she was pregnant at 9. Many years have gone by but I will never forget how little I knew and how innocent I was back then. I have focused my life on helping women gain wisdom about their bodies. Now way past my cycles, my passion is to get CYCLE know-how to women. No more misinformation or lack of it, no more fear of the mystery within, it is possible to understand the cycle and even to use it, yes. You can work with your own cycle, for your benefit, for success.

2006 What a year!
MyMoonCards cycle education for women, was born early in 2006 and then my moon cards and I went traveling around the planet. The circles began to happen in the US in the Midwifery Today conference in Philly, Midwife Alliance of North America congress in Baltimore, Fl Schools health educators conference in Orlando, Childbirth educator’s training in the FL Keys; in California in Santa Barbara, Topanga and Pasadena for circles with women and doula groups, and also with midwifery and medical students at the University of Concepcion in Chile, SA; to midwifery students and village ‘oportunidades’ women in Oaxaca Mexico and to midwives, doulas and women in Budapest and Pecs Hungary, Graz Austria, and Bad Wildbad in Germany. . I have never done so many miles in one year, and it looks like 2007 promises many more journeys.

Why
The goal is to place cycle information in every woman’s hands so that by the year 2012 the menstrual cycle becomes women’s ‘common knowledge’. With that goal in mind I wanted to lend an orgasmic powerful and empowering feel to my sharing for women to ‘get it’. In the process of teaching the cycle circles and body talk role-play came to be.

Cycle Circle, a Peace Mandala.
This is a colorful circle to explain the Cycle and how to use the cards, and CLICK, it makes the menstrual/ovulation cycle easy to learn. The Cycle Mandala is made from veils-sarongs to illustrate the phases of the cycle and the color code of the cards. Women love it, they are learning and their response has been extraordinary.

Body-Talk a play
In the body-talk play we enact the cycle according to the cards, it is a blast and informative too. The Body-Talk show was performed first by doulas and midwives at the conference in Philly, and it was an all out success. I wish you could hear the ovaries talk to each other and make comments to the uterus about the woman…like they did in California and well, you should hear what the vulva has to say….

Other projects
One of the participants Karen an FSTM student midwife in Florida that went to the Oaxaca gathering has worked on a script and another group the one in Santa Barbara has put together a DVD for us. Check out MyMoonCards movie on the home page.

Red Tent
Women are very open to the red tent and many of the groups are building their own. In the conference in Graz Austria, Angelica the organizer had a room with a red tent for the participants to use. This red ‘tent’ is a community tent that women can set up anywhere for honoring and healing women. We have been asked to set up tents the Wise Women gathering in Gainesville Florida this April, and for the US social forum in Atlanta in July.

Cycle Sharing
You can share in your circles or between you and your daughter the cycle wisdom contained in the cards. Keep in touch we are here to help you get going. We are traveling, teaching and setting up Red Tents. Let us know if you like to set up a tent in your community.

Team up
We need to study the cycle and the moon. Is any one interested out there?. We need writers, public relations women who can connect this project to other women. We need translators for every language. We need to go everywhere specially to villages and out posts, we need you to get involved, if you are moved, please let us hear from you soon.

I look forward to women's health sharing by way of artistic expression. I am very much enjoying the process. We have spoken in many tongues and with the universal language of the body. Past our cultures we are all very similar in our physiology, we are, women. Marina

Cycle for Success

I have been tracking my cycle with MyMoonCards for 3 years. I have been utterly amazed at the knowledge I have revealed about my own body. I love to learn and I read all these books about the woman's body, cycles, charting, etc. Yet still,it seemed crazy to have to read a book to learn about my own body. Sure, the information was helpful, yet not truly accurate for me. I didn't have the perfect 21 or 28 day cycle. There were so many things in these books that made me feel worse about myself. So, when I started charting with this "new" color coded moon cycle cards, I was at the same time excited and skeptical~ would I again find out how abnormal or irregular I am.
Well, thank goodness, this was not the case. MyMoonCards is letting me see that I am normal ~ whatever that really means! Through tracking, I have been able to see my own cycle patterns. I have been empowered through my own body. I love learning all my little crazies... like that I get the hiccups near ovulation and near menstruation. I now know that when my egg "pops" at ovulation I feel a twinge in my lower abdomen.(no, it's not my appendix!) I also know that a 25-day cycle, followed by a 30-day cycle pattern is totally NORMAL for me! I am normal, my own way of being normal. I am so much more accepting of my body, my self...and it is showing in my confidence, my interactions with others...
You don't have to believe me...just try MyMoonCards for yourself. I'd love to hear what you learn!
Just heard the new deck is in...gotta get mine before they run out!

When IT came ~ age 14

I'm 14 years old and it seems like everyone has already started. My friends and I are on a youth group trip to the beach. We've been having a blast playing in the water, sunning on the beach, chasing boys and just hanging out.
Yesterday, the last day of the trip, "it" came. All of a sudden I had spotting in my panties. I felt embarrased. I wasn't really sure who to tell or what exactly to do. I mean, I know about periods, I read the book my mom left lying around. I've listened to my girlfriends talking about their periods. Yet, now it's me. I'm not sure if I am ready for this. I am not sure I really know what it all means. I don't really understand my body at all.
Well, I 'fessed up to a friend and borrowed a pad. We're headed back home today.

That night....

I didn't tell my mom and then, doing the laundry, she found my panties with the stain. When she brought it up, I felt worse. I think she might have been embarrased or maybe just real matter of fact. She told me where my older sister kept the pads. I feel like I've done something wrong. Like "it" is a bad thing. Do the other girls feel this way? Is this normal? Why do I feel this way? I don't understand.

Pregnant at 9

When I was nine years old I thought for sure I was pregnant.
That day I had a feeling of sickness during the train ride to the hot springs and while my grandparents went on to soak in the pools, I took a walk by myself to consider my situation.
My period had not arrived for a long time, the nausea thing was not going away, there was something different, off. Like what women said they felt when they were like I was.
Pregnant for sure, I knew it. I figured I would be a great mom,
I loved playing with dolls and babies. No, I was not going to tell anyone that day, I concluded.
My belly would show and then they would know.

Good thing too because off course I was not even close to being pregnant, now I know.
My first period was one little spot of blood about 3 months earlier and then nothing.
I was having my first premenstrual experience, a shift in hormones, not a pregnancy, and since I sure did not know what was going on, I assumed that no period was a pregnancy, never mind that I was a virgin. I was nine and my periods had began light and infrequent. But before they got going regular I experienced nausea, headaches and confusing feelings before menstruation.

What was your first year of periods like? what happen?
Were you ready or did you think you were pregnant like me?
I can not possibly be the only girl that this happened to.
Best stupid than real because a pregnancy at nine is nothing to be glad about. That's that, Ella