ALUNA TEMPLE MAGAZINE Edition No2 'HONOURING LIFE' | Page 25

DREAM LODGE AND SWEAT LODGES from the perspective of the Dreamseed Traditions with ABRIL MONDRAGON [email protected] http://bearsmuses.blogspot.com Part 2 Photo © Shavanne Fourmile 'The sweat lodge utilizes all powers of the universe: earth, and things that grow from the earth; water; fire; and air.' - Black Elk, Lakota elder While I have been blessed to have many Grandmothers mentor me during my life, I would like to acknowledge the male ones I have had at this time. My primary male mentors became Water Pourers through various types of rites of passage for them to learn womyn's mysteries and be masculine and femininely balanced within themselves. They also did not pour water, even all men's lodges, without the support and collaborative participation in the ceremony by adept womyn, because for these men, the feminine is the dreaming/vision half of creation, the lodge is a womb and the man needs "permission" to be inside the womb of creation - this is a rarity and almost a nonexistent practice today. These male Water Pourer's recognize-know-experience the Source of All Life as genderless, yet know they are made as men, and are not made like womyn (their behavior is often embodied by humility, respect and gentleness). There are People who are naturally born as both mas/fem or very balanced and have had or seek to have mentorship in their lives to be ceremonially taught both the womyn's rites and men's rites. Dreamseed-visions and the Moon cycles: In the Dreamseed Traditions the 'masculine' or energizing life source of the Sun-wise energies brings the creative Life Source into form and the feminine is the magnetizing of the Dreamvision state of being, that is the inner and interconnection with the Sentience of All Life or Life Source. Mayan daykeeping or astrology are beneficial to the honing of awareness and intention for participation in the New Moon or Full Moon ceremonies. Cosmologically the New moon is for the deep and vast nourishment, and honing of awareness and intention of the Dreamseed-visions, and gifts within the Medicine Bundle of who you are, personally and collectively. The Full Moon Lodge is for gratitude and thanks-giving for what has been activated, come into realization, and/or embodied from the intensions with, and visions received from the Womb of Creationing during the New Moon. Because the womyn's body is made like Mother Earth and the Cosmos, and has the "portal of creation", she is able to access the creative life source naturally, she was and still is first Shamaness.