Saturday, November 18th, 2006

8:30am until 10pm
Sirius Conference Center, Shutesbury, Ma

$150 includes vegetarian lunch and dinner

SPECIAL REGISTRATION until October 30th

See Registration Page for details

Workshops, Healing, Celebration

8th Annual Women's Belly and Womb Conference

In ancient times women were considered Divine because we were known to bleed without dying and gave birth to new life. There is power in our bellies and wombs that deserves our honoring in 2006. All life will benefit when women come to love their bodies and live from their truth.

In this century women have turned against their own bellies and wombs where there is immense power for transformation, knowingness, instinct and courage. Science is now discovering that more neurons fire in our bellies than our actual brains. It is a secondary brain. In Chinese medicine, the small intestine is the place that stores the deeper emotional issues from out hearts. In this conference, we spend time freeing ourselves from cultural shame and diminishment. The other goal of the day is to connect in celebration of our beauty, wisdom and ancient knowledge that comes through teachings of our lives, belly dance, hands on healing and our need to communicate authentically. Here is a place where a woman is going to be fully supported to be in love with who she truly is. There is power in that belly of yours and the time to fire it up is now.

What is a Belly and Womb Conference
and why do I need to go to one?

Do any of these things apply to you?  If you are a woman, than you have a belly and womb story.  It is a radical idea to pay tribute to our journey concerning our lives.  There is not another Belly and Womb Day on the entire planet like this one!  Let's stay healthy and honor ourselves.  Note: Women without wombs are so welcome here.  Your story is important.

• Are you able to love your body, your belly, your self, your womanhood with unequivocal acceptance? Do you carry shame about your body? Do you have a cultural base that honors your beauty and your size? Have you ever suffered from an eating disorder? Can you allow yourself to age?
  

• Are you disease free in your colon, liver, pancreas, small intestine, spleen, stomach, sexual organs (including sexual diseases and viruses)? Do you still have a uterus? Have you had any major surgery for childbirth or for your health that involves your belly and or womb? What is your mother's herstory with her body? Do you suffer from PMS or hormonal imbalances?
  

• What is your herstory with fertility? Are you able to bear children? Are you resolved with your birth stories (i.e. C-sections, stillbirths, traumatic births, adoptions)? Are you resolved in your decisions to terminate a pregnancy? Did you ever have an opportunity to grieve your loss or release your guilt? Did you have support for the choices, the losses, and the destiny of your path as a woman? How do you feel about yourself as a mother? How do you feel about yourself as being childless?
  

• Have you suffered sexual, emotional or physical abuse in your life? Are you able to deal with how you may abuse yourself by your internal dialogue or your actions? Do you feel empowered to thrive and shed another layer of pain? Are you depressed in your gut?
  

• Do you honor your gut feelings and intuition? Do you get indigestion, stomach upsets or sluggish digestion? Where does fear live in your body? Where does power live in your body? If you got in touch with the power you hold deep in your belly how could it be used as a catalyst for truth, action and empowerment for good in your life?
  

• What happened when you first began to bleed as a young woman? Was your period or moontime celebrated? How do you honor your rites of passage now with your daughters, your Menopause years, and your monthly cycles? Do you participate in women's circles, rituals or ceremonies intentionally honoring the Goddess in every woman? Do you want to?
  

• Do you maintain any spiritual practices that cultivate energy in your belly for longevity and well being? Our chi, or life force, generates from our hara below the belly button. Do you know how to gather universal energy, store it and renew it? Do you breathe well? How much ecstasy do you allow yourself? 
  

• How are your relationships with other women? Do you trust them or compete with them? Do you feel superior, inferior or equal to them? Do you want healing that happens in the context of what we have endured together in this culture? Have you done any Shadow Work to find out where you might be projecting parts of your self onto others? Do you want find meaningful ways to connect right now? 
  

• Do you have a yes or a no inside your belly that aches to be spoken? Do you have a love for life on earth that demands you to know what you know and to voice your opinions? Do you need more energy to act from? Have you let sound out of the silent places inside? Is it time for you to come out, to come up, to be seen? 

These are some of the many complex issues and questions that the Women’s Belly and Womb Conference seeks to address.  Any woman can find something of importance for her own healing and growth.

As you can see the Belly and Womb Conference has a wide “birth” of reasons why it is important for us as women to gather and as women we have a distinct journey with our belly and womb. When we detest, reject, or disown it we cut ourselves off from the very source that could feed us, nourish us and empower us to live more meaningful lives. It is a time for all women of all ages to meet one another eye to eye, heart to heart and belly to belly. It has been said that this mere day, this precious time together, has permanently changed lives for the better in meaningful ways that matter to us on a day to day basis. Please consider joining us for this eventful community day. If you are unable to come, please hold us in prayer. We are showing up in our power as women in multitude of ways, especially now. Blessed Be.

The Women’s Belly and Womb Conference presents
special pre-conference event:

Many of you travel a great distance to come to this day long event. We are offering an evening prior to the conference that you will want to come early to as it is sure to empower you in wonderful ways. There is lodging at Sirius if you call ahead or hotels in Amherst, MA within driving distance from Shutesbury.

Maps of the Clitoris; The Truth About Female Anatomy
Awaken the power in the belly Heal cultural shame of body Sheri Winston

This is the most radical and essential information that Sheri has to offer.  Find out what no one has ever told you.  In this intensive, she reveals the truth of female anatomy.  Unfortunately, most experts, books and authorities have left out vital components of the female genital structures.  Many of the parts that are responsible for female pleasure, arousal and orgasm have been overlooked.  So come see for yourself what has been missing from the pictures in books and consequently from your understanding of your own body.  This radically empowering information will change the way you relate to your body and your sexuality forever.

The Return of the Red Tent

In celebration of our eighth Women’s Belly and Womb Conference and our connection through our blood, we rebuild and open the Red Tent here again for women to connect deeply in sacred space. Classes will be taught here. You are welcome to share this space with women even if you are not bleeding or no longer bleeding. It is for all women to share stories together. It will be open during the conference as a retreat place if you need some quiet reflective time as well. If you have materials to bring and share for the day and are arriving on Friday night please bring them. 

8th Annual Women’s Belly and Womb Conference
Schedule
for Saturday, November 18th, 2006

1A Your Beginnings - Journey to the Womb Trish Casimira
How much consciousness did you have before birth? You had feelings, senses, memories that all play a part in who you are. Many of us took on our mother's emotional state, fears, and feelings. Some of the feelings you are carrying may be a result of your pre-birth experience. Using hypnotic regression, this workshop is designed to help you remember your prebirth
experience, identify and release any imprint that may be negatively influencing your life. You will remember when you actually settled into the fetus, what it felt like when your spirit assumed a mortal body again, and remember the relationship you had with your mother. By remembering what you understood in the womb you may experience healing between you and your mother, healing of birth fears, and a greater knowing of your life patterns.

1B Flowing the Inner Serpent: Meditation and Creativity Through Belly Dance Heléna Melone
This is an opportunity to go within and connect with the power coiled in our root chakras, bring that flowing energy up through our bodies and into our lives, sending it out with the tensile integrity of water. This is an invitation to manifest both our sensuality and strength through dance and movement, and to celebrate our beauty as creative women.  Come to dance, meditate and feel free to bring drawing or writing materials.  All levels of experience welcome and addressed.

1C Exploring “the Heart and Soul of Sex”: A Ritual of Re-Membering Opeyemi Parham
In a participatory circle of women, explore the four aspects of your sexuality with the elemental wheel:
Air—Our beliefs about our sexuality
Fire—What our bodies feel, in sexual space
Water—What our emotions tell us, about our sexuality
Earth—How our spirituality informs our sexuality
Gina Ogden's wonderful new book "The Heart and Soul of Sex" will be available for sale at the conference, and we will premiere the ISIS model of Integrated Sexuality in Spirituality.

1D Writing from the Belly Morning Star Chenven
In this workshop we hold an inner dialogue with our bellies, listening to the stories that have lived and are living within us. We will write these stories and read them to our sisters in an atmosphere of open offering and reception, not judgment. We will end with a meditation/ visualization of comfort and healing.

1E Food Matters Penelope Olson
Learn healing, food-oriented techniques and the reason why Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine.” Healthy eating used to mean simply getting the right balance of nutrients from your food. Today it also means avoiding harmful chemicals that have been placed in foods under a variety of harmless-sounding names. In Food Matters, we’ll explore information about the “hidden in plain sight” ingredients that are causing modern women to gain weight and are the causes of many degenerative diseases and forms of depression.

2A Release and Rebirth through the Belly of the Serpent Serpentessa
In Paleolithic and Neolithic times, serpents and women were recognized and honored as transformative creatures, each in synchronicity with the moon and cyclic change.  Today we are culturally programmed to disbelieve our intuitive wisdom, to create false expectations for ourselves, resulting in rejection, fear and hatred of the amazing transformative capacities within our bodies. Fortunately, snakes which live only in the power of the mysterious moment, can reconnect us to the truth and power of cyclic change as guided by the moon and experienced within the menstrual cycle and our lifelong cycle as women.  Together, belly to belly with live gentle snakes, utilizing breath, chants, shimmies, snake skins we will shed and release our old skins, opening space for rebirth and renewal, reclaiming our ability for transformation in accordance with the waning moon. Limited enrollment due to time frame of workshop.  No prior snake experience needed.  Short snake orientation included.

2B Active Womb Passes- Increasing Intuitive Awareness in the Belly Jaia
Movements developed by Sorceresses in the Toltec (Don Juan) lineage help clear away the collected fog of self-doubt and misery from our willing and perceptive womb centers. As women, we all have access to the power of this place whether we have a physical womb or not. Practice tuning in to your womb to allow what you've got to help you on your journey. T'ai Chi and Chi Gong- chi building excercises- will also be employed for warm-up. Question and answer time, too. Also talk to Jaia about Belly Medicine painting during the conference.

2C Mumblings and Rumblings from a Womb Full of Stars: Exploring the Omniverse’s Messages of Empowerment in Our Bellies Julie Woods
It is said that each woman carries the entire sacred omniverse in her belly. This ZoNeChAnTing playshop is focused on exploring our individual messages of power and empowerment that spring from our centers. ZoNeChAnTing is primal chanting that uses soundscapes to express that which may seem unexpressable, to connect with what may seem elusive. In our experiential time together, we’ll use universal, primal rhythms and sounds to unveil wisdoms we may not have allowed ourselves to know for various reasons. Out of those unveilings, we’ll then reveal sound techniques that can facilitate understanding the pragmatic knowledge, in those wisdoms, that can inform, heal, and empower our daily lives.

2D Awakening The Pelvis & Discovering The Pelvic Floor Sheri Winston
 Revitalize your sexual and vital energies in this unique program of specially designed movements and exercises. I start with a short and simple explanation of the muscles and structures of the pelvis, with an emphasis on the pelvic floor. It is followed by a session of movements and exercises that integrate visualization, breathing and energy work to improve flexibility in the pelvic region, increase awareness of the wonderful potential of the pubococcygeus and associated muscles, and awaken pelvic energy.

2E Vulva Dialogues Elizabeth Webster and Margo Killoran
The Vulva Dialogues creates a sacred and safe space for women to explore their creative powers and strengths associated with the “gate of power,” the vulva. Through meaningful ritual, creative arts, and bawdy, belly-laughing discussion, women can reclaim their regenerative selves and connect with other women in a healthy, fun, uplifting way. Teens over 16 may participate with parental permission. This workshop gives a whole new energy to the saying; “You go girl!”

2F Dancing with Fire: Awaken the Power Within Lita
Connect with your inner power and passion through the sacred fire element.  This workshop will lead us to the center of our bellies where our own eternal flame lives -- through movement and ritual we will empower and celebrate ourselves by literally dancing with fire!  The morning workshop session is a preparation and co-creation of a ritualized fire dance that will be possibly shared during the conference. No experience is necessary. Safety material and information will be provided. If you are willing to dance with fire, yours and live fire, join us.  Pre-register. Space is limited.

Celebration of Our Bellies and Wombs Heléna Melone, Morning Star, Jaia
We have done the hard work and it is time to play, unwind and celebrate. Let’s begin with some stretching. Morning Star will lead us in chorus. Break out the veils, the bare bellies, the belly painters and the belly laughter as we move our bodies. Liberation will resound in the Octagon as the women raise up some energy together.

5:00pm -6:30pm

Women’s Council ALisa Starkweather
Bringing our energy gently down from a very full and wonderful day we strike the crystal singing bowl and come into silence and rest. From this place we share what women need to speak at this time living on the Earth. We speak from our bellies and our deep knowing. We speak from our stories, our visions and our wisdom. We appreciate one another and take the time so we can each hear how the other is feeling by this time of our day. With hand on hand on wombs we impart wisdom to one another.

6:30pm Dinner

A blessing with the Sirius community begins on time in the dining hall. Please be on time.

8pm Power to Our Bellies! Women’s Dance with DJ music and drumming Begins with special surprise again! Different than last year!

CLOSING at 10:00 pm Goodbye until next year

The Women's Belly and Womb Conference is dedicated to three women whom I loved and whose lives were taken from cancer that grew in their beautiful bellies. Each of these women I knew to be strong, vibrant and dynamic women who inspired many. I marveled at their courage to meet life on life's terms and I miss them in body. Gail Ulrich (July 23, 2000), Linda Stuart ( December 29, 2000 ) and Susan Motherway (January 2000). And this year, my beloved Russian sister and long time participant of this conference, Marina Kukuliyeva (August 19, 2004). The grief and loss I feel with their deaths only further fuels my passion for women to have a place to gather and heal together.