I wanted to address the concerns some people may have about coming downtown where our new space is. There’s been a lot of negative talk about our beautiful city in the past few months. While our city may be hurting like a few other big cities, it’s not as bad as some people make it out to be. I’ve had my store, The Fossil Cartel downtown for 33 years. I’ve seen a lot of changes. In all of those 33 years, I have never been harassed or had any bad thing happen to me. I want to assure you it is safe, but at the same time encourage you to have your wits about you as you would in any big city. 



There is street parking often right in front of the space or at least on the same block. There is also a Smart Park Garage right next door. The cost of street parking is $2/hr., but only from 8am-7pm Mon.-Sat. and 1pm-7pm on Sunday. Our circles start at 7:00pm normally, so street parking will be free.


I always pictured a Moondays Red Tent space in more of an old residential area. Perhaps some day it will be. For now, we are taking advantage of the free space that has been offered to us. It’s a great opportunity to experiment with our model and work things out. There are advantages to being downtown: it’s a central location, there are great restaurants, shops, cafes, clubs, shows, markets, etc. nearby. You can make a whole day out of coming downtown for a Red Tent! Downtown needs our love. The more people come back downtown, the faster things will improve.


I welcome your comments or concerns before, during, and after this upcoming Red Tent on May 27th about this subject. I want everyone to feel safe and free to let go into a nourishing evening of sisterhood and community, so please always keep us informed about how we can best support that. We look forward to seeing your beautiful faces soon! 


Photo credit: Laura Ramirez

Greetings, Moondays Community,


I wanted to send an update on what’s going on with our new space for Moondays
I’d like to transition away from using my house so that I may fulfill my original vision of having a dedicated space for Red Tents and all sorts of other events for women. The space we will be using is next to my store, The Fossil Cartel, in downtown Portland. The landlord is allowing me to use it for free until they find a new renter. Originally, the space was planned for a couple of psychic salons a month for the customers in my store. I then had the idea of hosting Moondays events in the space. The landlord agreed to one circle per month and he asked that no alcohol be consumed on the property. Our first circle there will be May 27th, so please save the date!


I’ve had a deep yearning for several years now to gather women, form a community and have healing, nourishing, and inspiring events with Moondays. The events we’ve had over the past 8 years have fulfilled that need to some degree, but I want more. I pine for a space we can call our own and have as many events as we want. Do you have the same desire? From my experience in leading circles and other events over all these years, it seems the answer is “yes!”
If we were to actually rent a space so that we can have as many events as we would like, the questions then become:

• Would you be willing to pay for a monthly membership to be a part of this amazing community?
  
• Will the community be willing to volunteer a little bit of their time in lieu of having employees? 
  
  
  

These days, it’s very difficult to find employees and the cost of having staff has become so high. It seems the only viable way a Moondays brick and mortar would work, would be to have its members contribute a little of their time. Imagine we are creating a new paradigm, or “disrupting” the market. You know how we “vote with our dollars?” How about we vote for things that bring meaning into our lives? 


Here are some options for what you might expect in the near future: 


Option #1: Monthly membership

• We’d keep the cost low, $20/mo
  
• Includes:
  
  • one circle per month plus two other types of events for free
    
  • an online forum where members can interact with each other
    
  • events and opportunities to promote yourself and your business
    
  • The option to rent the space for your own event at a 50% discount
    
  • Low-cost trainings on how to lead circles
    

• Members would be asked to volunteer 1 hour every month. Volunteer jobs could include:
  
  • Door check-in
    
  • Event set up, take down/clean up
    
  • Facilitate or lead events
    
  • Marketing or social media assistance
    
  • Other skills you might have that we have not listed here. Let us know! 
    
    
    

Option #2: pay as you go 

• A la carte for the events you’d like to attend
  
• Events cost more because they would include the cost of a month’s membership plus a fee for the event.
  
  
  

We’re enthusiastic about trying, if you’re also enthusiastic about helping us make this happen. Please let us know your thoughts! We wouldn’t be able to start this model out right away since the landlord only agreed to one circle per month. We’re hoping we can encourage them to allow us to have more events in the space.
Meanwhile, until we get the okay from the landlord to have more events, we’re going to start with one circle per month at the normal rate of $22 that you pay on the website. 
Please save the date for our first Red Tent in the new space, Saturday, May 27th!

Hanging out with my best friend in her pool on hot days growing up in Long Island are some of my favorite summer memories. We relaxed on floaties in the sun, cooled by the sparkling blue water, jabbering and giggling away while listening to great 70s music. I’m fortunate as an adult to have my own pool and invite girlfriends over, re-creating those good times. The combination of a body of water and feminine energy is the best! They go hand in hand. The Divine Feminine is all about flow after all, and as women, that’s what we do.

The Goddess Swim always falls close to Women’s Equality day. I like to bring it up in discussion at the event so we can reflect on how we and women in general are doing in our quest to attain equality. If I look back to the decade I was a kid hanging out at my BFF’s pool, we have come a considerable way on some levels and on others, we still have a ways to go.

In the early 70s, talented singer Betty Davis exuded a raw, uninhibited sexual energy that shocked and turned people off, preventing her from attaining more notoriety. These days, that kind of energy is celebrated, as exhibited by women performers like Cardi B.
In the 1970s sexual harassment in the workplace was just part of the job. Today, harassers are being being fired, prosecuted and publicly shamed thanks to the #MeToo movement.  

Although traditional gender roles have been reversed in my own home, with my husband the homemaker and me the breadwinner, the majority of women in this country still carry the burden of taking care of the home on top of working and having careers. Although there are more women in government than ever before, we still fall way short of our 51% of the population. Here are some of the numbers from the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University:
“Women are 51% of the population in the U.S. but make up only:

• 24% of the U.S. Senate
• 27% of the U.S. House of Representatives
• 30% of statewide elected executives
• 31% of state legislative seats
• 23% of mayors in cities with populations over 30,000
• 0% of presidents of the United States

For certain demographics, the numbers are even worse:Women of color, Republican women, young women, and low-income women are especially underrepresented.”
Come to the Goddess Swim to be with some sisters and have fun, celebrate how far we’ve come and fortify ourselves for the future! It’s better together. More info about this year's Goddess Swim here. Come join us!​

I remember being really angry at humanity when I was a kid. People were polluting the earth and I was worried about the future. Then one day, in elementary school on my way to the lunch cafeteria, I saw these huge signs plastered on all of the windows that read, “RECYCLE!” Big chills went up and down my spine. I was overjoyed. There were people that cared about the planet, after all! 

Learning about traditional Native American cultures in school also opened my eyes. They seemed to not only care about the planet, but they worshiped Mother Earth in all of her divine feminine glory. I yearned to be connected to others who cared about our Great Mother.

In my early 20s, I had the great fortune of spending time with a Navajo family in their home on their remote reservation in Canyon DeChelly, Arizona. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience where they gave me and two girlfriends a tour of the canyon and initiated us into their family during a powwow they put on just for us. They even let us sleep in a hogan! We had such an incredible experience there. I felt intensely connected to nature and spirit unlike ever before, a high I never wanted to come out of. I vowed to take that feeling with me and do whatever I could to keep the sacred earth/spirit connection alive in my life.

Recently I came across this message from the Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers I wanted to share with you, addressing these trying times as we deal with this global pandemic:

http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/
"As you move through these changing times... be easy on yourself and be easy on one another. You are at the beginning of something new. You are learning a new way of being. You will find that you are working less in the yang modes that you are used to.
You will stop working so hard at getting from point A to point B the way you have in the past, but instead, will spend more time experiencing yourself in the whole, and your place in it.
Instead of traveling to a goal out there, you will voyage deeper into yourself. Your mother's grandmother knew how to do this. Your ancestors from long ago knew how to do this. They knew the power of the feminine principle... and because you carry their DNA in your body, this wisdom and this way of being is within you.
Call on it. Call it up. Invite your ancestors in. As the yang based habits and the decaying institutions on our planet begin to crumble, look up. A breeze is stirring. Feel the sun on your wings."

Five years ago, I attended this phenomenal online Red Tent summit hosted by DeAnna Lam. It helped fuel my desire and gave me the courage to facilitate my own Red Tents. I am honored to be one of the speakers this year! Please join us. Sign up HERE.

I celebrated my 30th anniversary this year with my store! Here are some reflections on the journey and our year.

A common response from a customer hearing we’re celebrating our 30th anniversary at The Fossil Cartel: “30 years?! What were you, 12 when you started?” Of course it makes me feel good that at 58, I don’t look quite as old as the fossils in my store...yet. :-) When I first started at 28, people would incredulously ask, “You’re the OWNER?!” I suppose 28 is a little on the young side for being a business owner, but I always wondered if it also had to do with the fact that I was a woman. Fast forward 30 years, if my husband happens to be in the store helping me out, people -- especially men -- often approach him assuming he’s the owner, even though I am standing right there. It doesn’t really bother my ego, but it does show me that misogyny is still a thing, and that’s a problem. I see it as a symptom of the greater malady of dishonoring the feminine principle, from raping women to violating Mother Earth, causing her to become uninhabitable. 

In order to reverse course, bring balance and heal this world, women need to take responsibility and take action. The powers that be in our patriarchal society will not do it for us. One of the best ways to empower women and amplify the feminine is to bring women together for that purpose. Besides running The Fossil Cartel, for the past 5 years I’ve been gathering women by hosting Red Tent women’s circles and other events through my Moondays project.

Another way we can honor the divine feminine is to appreciate all of her beauty and mystery. I have always appreciated crystals and fossils as some of the most amazing treasures, gifts from the Great Mother. I hope others honor them the same way. I still delight in seeing faces light up in the store as people marvel about what they are seeing, holding and hearing about. Being able to actually see, touch and hear about something you’re considering purchasing has got to be better in so many ways than shopping online. Plus you’re supporting a local small business! 

It’s been a really great 30th anniversary year for us. With all of our celebrations, contests, special promotions, having Nicolas Cage shop in the store, and being on TV, we’ve had a lot of fun and got to connect more with all of you. I am so grateful to all our customers for appreciating the mineral and fossil kingdom as much as we do. Thank you for continuing to keep us in business all these years! May we all tread softly and treat Mother Earth kindly, so she may continue to provide a wondrous, bountiful, beautiful home for us all.
Here are the links for the two segments we were in, on the show More Good Day Oregon:
https://www.kptv.com/good_day_oregon/more/rare-and-unique-finds-at-the-fossil-cartel/video_59c9b05c-c0c1-5147-8814-afff14c55224.html
https://www.kptv.com/good_day_oregon/more/holiday-gift-ideas-that-will-rock-your-world/video_3848a274-b38a-574e-9567-73f0a345374a.html