International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-018-0052-7

The Feminization of Red Path: a Neo-pagan Network

of Female Sacralization

Renée de la Torre 1

Received: 4 June 2018 / Accepted: 7 September 2018 / Published online: 27 September 2018
# Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

Abstract
Celtic traditions were the guiding forces of a mystical rescue of neo-pagan femininity,
which for a few years has influenced the feminization of the neo-Indian and neo-
Mexican movement known as Red Path (Camino Rojo). This is a neo-pagan and pan-
Indianist movement in the Americas. Red Path currently represents an important circuit
for women spiritual initiation and a meeting place in the global network among those
seeking alternative, holistic spiritualities. The main features of the movement include its
emphasis on indigenous knowledge for a spiritual reconnection with Mother Earth, the
ancestors, and sacred femininity. Red Path is also a school of Bgrandmothers^ and is a
certification for neoshaman initiation. This article describes how Red Path, a neo-pagan
movement that sought to root New Age spirituality in indigenous traditions in Mexico, is
experiencing a new resignification that appropriates its rituals as ceremonies of a gender
spirituality. What new interpretations does the sacred feminine provide to hybridize and
reinvent indigenous ceremonies? How is the new interaction between ethnic identity,
spiritual identity, and gender identity in female sacred circles negotiated and trans-
formed? The analysis of the network of the feminine circle of Red Path movement draws
on the methodology of social network theory as proposed by Manuel Castells, focusing
on his study of nodes as observable units that help reveal the points of articulation of a
polycentric network that involves node agents, node sites, and key events.

Keywords Red Path . Gender spirituality . New Age . Sacred feminism . Neo-paganism .
Pan-Indianism

Down Red Path: A Pan-Indian Circuit of Holistic Spirituality

Many people today are turning away from dogmas and from exclusive relationships
with religious communities and churches. The searches of spiritual believers without

* Renée de la Torre
[email protected]

1
CIESAS Occidente, España #1359, Col. Moderna, 44190 Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 235

belonging (Davie 1996) are generally aimed at personal growth (Heelas 1994). These
believers do not only look towards the East; more recently, they have also been drawn
towards the exoticized traditions of the Pre-Columbian and indigenous Americas.
While in the 1970s, the gurus and ashrams of Tibet were a popular destination for
those seeking a spiritual awakening; nowadays, these seekers have turned towards
Mexico, Peru, and Guatemala, destinations which offer paths towards an Indian
spirituality that promises a reconnection with Mother Earth (Pachamama or Tonatzin).
This rekindling can be attained through the recovery of indigenous knowledge and
cosmology. Like Orientalism (Buddhism and Hinduism), indigenism has now been
resignified as pan-Indianism and is tied to ethnicity, territory, and to customs passed
down from generation to generation.1
In the same way, celtic traditions, as Wicca spiritual movement, were the guiding
forces of a mystical rescue of neo-pagan femininity, which for a few years has
influenced the feminization of the neo-Indian and neo-Mexicanity movement known
as Red Path. As Mac Guire point out: BLike ethnic identity and religious identity,
gender identity involves a sense of who I am^ (Mc Guire 2008: 166). Our interest is to
see how the traits of the ethnic identity of neo-Mexicanity, the spiritual identity of the
New Age, and the conception of the feminine of sacred femininity are interconnected
and redefined in a constant negotiation. The gender reinterpretation of Neo-Mexican
spirituality can be understood as: BGendered spirituality involves an ongoing process of
mind-body-spirit practice by which the individual’s gender self-identify can be
expressed, produced, and transformed^ (Mc Guire 2008: 147).
Red Path recovers indigenous knowledge and rituals that configure—and have been
configured by—the cosmopolitan New Age spiritual network. The widespread belief of
witnessing a change in our era (the New Age, or Age of Aquarius) generated a hybrid
version of New Mexicanity (or neo-Mexicanity2) in the 1980s, fostering an openness
towards a set of sacred traditions across the planet and the practice of myriad forms of
cultural hybridism, despite the xenophobic reaction of numerous Mexicanists. The
intermingling of native indigenous symbolism with Christianity, esoteric doctrines
(alchemy, spiritual astrology), and Orientalism (Buddhism, Hinduism, Islamism) jus-
tifies the creation of syncretic rituals (the solar Kumbha Mela), transcultural dances
(Citlalmina), and synthetic methods (Mayan yoga or geomancy based on the I Ching
and the Mayan calendar) (De la Peña 2002: 213).
Neo-Mexicanity (neo-Mexicanidad) or New Mexicanity (Nueva mexicanidad)
(studied by De la Peña 2002; González Torres 2006) described a syncretic spiritual
circuit where they converge Mexicanity, New Age networks, indigenous communities,
and Conchero or aztec dancers (Gutiérrez Zúñiga 2008). Neo-Mexicanity is based on
the recovery of Pre-Hispanic cultures which are resignified and reappropriated in terms

1
Pan-Indianism consists in a broad vision of all things Indian, without being bound to tradition, to the
indigenous community’s traditional territorial organization, or to the land these groups once inhabited. Pan-
Indianism resignifies the cultural heritage of native people, shaping it into a universal spiritual heritage of all
the world’s indigenous groups. It freely interchanges the ritual ceremonies and cosmologies of the aboriginal
peoples in a narrative of holistic meaning that draws on New Age spirituality.
2
The term Neo-Mexicanity (Neomexicanidad) here is used to refer to a hybrid movement that has recovered
Pre-Hispanic worldviews and rituals of Mexico, reinterpreted them through a New Age matrix, and practices
them as part of a holistic spiritual movement. For more information about the historical roots and the hybrid
aspects of this movement, see De la Peña (2002), González Torres (2006), De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga
(2011, 2017).
236 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

of the New Age cultural frame. This frame is based on a holistic vision according to
which Whole (universe or God) is in the Part and manifests in the same unity (Amaral
1999). Neo-Mexicanity followers oppose instrumental rationality by replacing it with
sensitive and intuitive knowledge. They criticize the ideas that lead to the productivist
functionalism and in their place; they bet on the arts as ways of creativity and
imagination. It is a spirituality that rejects the dogma and the authority of religions,
and chooses a spirituality based on the self (Carozzi 1999). They also promote the
awakening of the feminine side of the universe and nature (De la Torre 2013).
The followers of neo-Mexicanity are not indigenous, but they identify themselves as
the heirs of the pre-Hispanic worldviews and traditions. They live in cities and belong
to a middle class. They are what Galinier and Molinié (2012) have called neo-Indians,
because they take up an idealized Indian spirituality but do not live under the norms and
socioeconomic conditions of an indigenous community and interpret different pre-
Hispanic events as signs that confirm the prophecy of the awakening of the new era of
Acquario, influenced by the New Age mentality.
Shaman apprentices from different cities across the planet travel to different places
in Mexico in search of the medicine men and women who can initiate them as
neoshaman. One of the paths for experimentation, learning, and training of specialists
in neo-pagan spirituality3 is that of Red Path, where New Agers and neo-pagans
discover a selection of rituals and knowledge rooted in the native cosmologies of the
Americas. These cosmologies allow them to reconnect with nature, Mother Earth,
magic, sacred femininity, the ancestors, corporeality, and sacred medicine.
The following paragraph offers a good explanation of this search dynamic of roots
that establish new traditions recognized as ancestral:
Belief that their practices derived from an ancient tradition was important to both
those who consciously engaged in hybrid practices and those who adhered to what they
considered pure, church-authorized traditional practices. Diverse received traditions both
inspire and constrain further developments, changes, and inventions, some of which may
later come to be viewed as continuations of an ancient traditions (Mc Guire 2008: 204).
This essay will provide an overview of the sacred femininity circles, one of the main
features of the spiritual movement Red Path, a movement treated here as a global
network comprised of nodes. The methodology employed in this article is adapted from
the study of networks proposed by Manuel Castells, establishing observables that help
address the nodes or points of articulation within this polycentric network (York 1995).
The nodes are the points where the different circuits converge, points where relation-
ships, exchanges, and meetings take place. We propose studying the nodes—which
include node agents, node sites, and key events (De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga
2016; De la Torre R 2018)—as hubs where the network is activated and put into
motion.

3
Neo-Paganism is a spiritual movement marked by the worship of nature (Harrington 2007). Some features of
Neo-Paganism include sacred femininity, the reconnection with cosmic energies, the consecration of
entheogens or medicinal plants, witchery (one branch is the Wicca movement), Neoshamanism (one branch
is Red Path), and the reconnection with the ancestors. As defined by York, Neo-Paganism functions through a
BSegmented Polycentric Integrated Network^ (1995), or SPIN, and as such, it combines different phenomena
and forges alliances with various spiritual trends and movements, including Neo-Mexicanity and the New
Age.
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 237

I am particularly interested in emphasizing the key trends within this movement,

which has yet to be studied in a comprehensive way. This analysis will cover the
connections and alliances between node agents (Bgrandmothers^ and Bmoon
mothers^), the role of circular rituals in the configuration and workings of the spiritual
network, and the node scenarios where meetings take place and alliances are forged.
Other topics addressed include the functional circuits—spiritual, therapeutic,
psychonautical, environmental, and circuits of female technologies—where such rituals
are offered. Finally, the focus turns to the femininity transformation of Red Path rituals
as the result of their association with this dense, vast network of spirituality.

Red Path: Between Mexicanity, New Age, and Neo-paganism

Red Path is a global network of neo-pagan spiritualists that weaves a cultural exchange
between indigenous cosmologies of the American continent and cosmopolitan actors
seeking holistic and alternative spiritualities. It links men with medicine to
neochamanes, recreates ancestral ceremonies with alternative therapeutic techniques,
and spreads the use of medicinal and sacred plants with experiences of broadening
consciousness. As I defined it earlier:

BRed Path spreads the traditional rituals of the American Native Church
Hernández-Avila 2000) to promote a neopaganism and Pan-Indianism practised
through ceremonies of the sun dance (Wi Wayang Wachipi), the inipi (temazcal,
or sweat lodge), the search for a vision of the Great Spirit (known as vision quest),
the half moon (consecration of the peyote), and the sacred pipe or chanupa
(prayers of the tobacco ceremony) (De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga 2016).

Once of the initial branches of Red Path is derived from a hybrid spiritual movement
known as neo-Mexicanity. Its components include a strong component of New Age
spirituality combined with touches of pan-Indianism and neo-Paganism. The Red Path
ceremonials are rituals of training and initiation of neo-Indians and neoshamans in
America. It represents a vector for interethnic encounters between Medicine men and
Shamans of indigenous communities of the American continent and the New Age and
neo-Indians cosmopolitan networks.
According to Melton 2004, it characterizes a recent version of an ancient pagan
rituality that renews and reinterprets the Native American tradition. Although it took
shape in Mexico, reclaiming indigenous and Native American rituals and knowledge, it
is the result of cultural exchanges within a dense global network of holistic spirituality
(De la Torre 2015). To understand Red Path, it is essential to think of it as a
transnational network. To do this, we return to the model proposed by Castells, who
defines the network as a set of nodes, that is, distant but interconnected points (Castells
1999). Unlike traditional groups, institutions, or communities, these networks do not
have their own centers; instead, they are polycentric and articulated through different
nodes, which will be identified and described in this article.
Node agents are important because they represent a trend within the network in
which narratives of meaning are configured to reinterpret ritual activities; another facet
of these agents is that schools or identifiable movements can be associated with them.
Node agents operate as centers, and around them, relationships form with disciples or
238 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

apprentices who become what could be referred to as a lineage within the movement.
The node agents within neo-Mexicanity are tireless travelers who spent a great part of
their lives looking for knowledge and spiritual techniques from different cultures and
traditions. These agents draw on elements from different cultures to design ritual
offerings sand hybrid narratives that often get disconnected from their roots and are
presented as part of universal ancestral knowledge. In this way, they gradually incor-
porate symbols and rituals that will be practiced in new scenarios, with cultural uses
and functional meanings that differ from those associated with their indigenous practice
in traditional contexts. The practices and symbols are thus reassembled in new narra-
tives that are continually imparted to new users in courses, workshops, therapy
sessions, conferences, and new ceremonies. During these journeys, spiritual seeking
is combined with the teaching of these imparted lessons. Connections are made, and
lasting exchanges take place between different practitioners and suppliers, who often
form specialized circuits within a vast New Age network of networks (Barker 1992;
Gutiérrez Zúñiga 1996). This network exceeds traditional religious, sect, or denomina-
tional models, as it does not fit within the institutional hierarchies or respect any defined
doctrinal or normative guidelines.
Node actors are viewed as masters, leader, or gurus of spiritual movements with
particular Red Path features, and the movement’s teachings circulate across the net-
work, inspiring identities, specific forms of acting out rituals, and cosmological
frameworks of interpretation. A node actor is also involved in the interactions, ex-
changes, nexuses, and alliances with other nodes. This actor’s teachings and relations
strengthen ties and constantly activate exchanges between different communities,
groups, and cultures at transnational levels.
Node actors have created node sites that their followers treat as schools, spiritual
centers, ashrams, or calpollis (Aztecs schools), where the apprentices of the alternative
or holistic spiritualities go to train, learn, or become an initiate. The node sides
constitute utopian communities around the leaders. They are also headquarters or
spaces attributed with an origin myth. Frequently considered sacred places, they can
also evoke a prophetic destination (a sort of promised land) or important sites for ritual
encounters within the tradition. These promoters of hybrid, eclectic spiritualities
cultivate social relations and cultural exchanges on global, cosmopolitan networks of
spiritual seekers and shamans, medicine men and grandmothers, healers, and other
ritual specialists hailing from traditional communities.
Their knowledge spreads globally through different specialized fields (healthcare,
science, religion, art, social movements), sketching transnational vectors in which
techniques and rituals are used and proffered. The circuits formed in this process
exceed the spiritual realm and extend into sustainable ecology and environmentalism,
gender movements, alternative health therapies, psychotherapy, and neoshamanism
schools.
Actors are also capable of organizing key network events that constitute a ritual
cycle. These multinational, multi-religious, multi-circuit, ecumenic, and multicultural
ceremonies include rituals, celebrations, council meetings, marches, fairs, workshops,
conferences, and gatherings. Spiritual practitioners of different ethnic and national
origins converge at these encounters, individuals with different ideological and esthetic
orientations and a range of credos or identities. At these key events, different actors
from the network come together in one place in time and by practicing the same
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 239

ceremony, are able to imagine themselves as part of a broader community or transna-

tional network. Many of these key events are held only once, but by forging alliance
between different groups or group leaders—or by undertaking transnational projects or
reaching agreements that outline a joint global agenda—they mark the beginning of a
multinational or multi-ethnic project. In other cases, a key event becomes a key
celebration date that establishes a cycle and brings different transnational groups
together. Key events can also include ritual celebrations that occur simultaneously in
a dispersed, discontinued space.
Red Path is a movement that promotes a pan-Indianist spirituality on a global scale.
One of the trunks of this movement is that of the neo-Mexicanity, a spiritual movement
that Bcombines two frames of meaning (Mexicanity and New Age) on the basis of
which it reinterprets expressions of popular religion and of indigenous cosmologies and
practices. It is a Hybrid expression of a holistic spirituality in which the neo-Mexican
ideology mystifies and idealizes the prehispanic culture and certain exotic indigenous
expressions that are appreciated by the seekers of the new holistic spiritualties as access
to ancestral wisdom (De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga 2015). Neo-Mexicanity has
diverged in five main trends that will be developed below:

1. Among the principle spreaders of neo-Mexicanity stand out: José Argüelles author
of The Mayan Factor theory (Argüelles 1987), who revealed the Mayan Calendar
based in 13-moon/28-day Calendar system as a key to change the world. He has
followers in 90 countries around the world who have joined forces in consciously
aligning their lives, every day, with the universal rhythms of nature. He propagated
the legendary proclamation of a Mayan prophecy of a change to the New Age
dated December 2012 (Campechano 2013; De la Torre and Campechano 2014).
2. Domingo Días Porta, the founder of MAIS (Mancomunidad de la América Iniciática
Solar) in the late 1970s, promoted initiation teachings among living indigenous
peoples of the American continent (García 2010; García and Gutiérrez Zúñiga
2012).
3. Antonio Velasco Piña, author of the novel Regina. 68 no se olvida, whose narrative
keeps up a mythical and prophetic discourse on the awakening of Mexicanity in the
light of a spiritual alliance with Tibet, reinterpreting the history of Mexico as a code
for the spiritual awakening of the New Mexicanity (Velasco Piña 1987).
4. Alberto Ruz Buenfil, leader of the Rainbow Tribes a New Age hippy-ism and of eco-
environmental spiritual movement. He is also the founder of Huehuecóyotl (in
Tepoztlán in the State of Morelos, Mexico), the first eco-village in Mexico (Ruz
Buenfil 2012). Alberto Ruz Buenfil has been the promoter of eco-villages and eco-
neighborhoods, but most of all has been a connector of networks and circuits to weave
common projects where neo-Mexicanity mingles with other currents, summoning
alternative leaders and traditional chieftains to the Visions Councils since 1994.
5. Aurelio Días Tepankali is the Chief of Sacred fire of BItzachilatlan^ from the
traditional Red Path. He is a disciple of Tlakaelel, the artifice of the cultural
exchange between the movement of Mexicanness (called Bmexicayotl^) and the
Native American Church of United States. From this alliance, permission was
obtained to import the Sioux-Lakotas rites such as Sun Dance, Vision Quest, inipi
steam baths, or temazcal, appropriate in Mexico for the rescue of the Bauthentic^
pre-Hispanic tradition (Arias Yerenas 2011). Díaz Tepankalli was the organizer in
240 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

1992 of the Peace and Dignity Journeys: a continental Relay Race where medicine
men and neoshamans from all over the Americas participated. Aurelio has been the
main disseminator of a universal pan-Indianism that recognizes as an Indian any
inhabitant of the planet: Bit is the spiritual path of every son from mother earth^ (as
Díaz Tepankali said). Their Vision Quest is an initiation rite of mestizo neoshamans
(Scuro 2016), and their Half Moon ceremonies (rituals with sacred power medi-
cines such as peyote, yajé, or ayahuasca) have become psycho-experiences to
experiment with sacred plants looking for psychedelic experiences to reach to
expand states of consciousness or as medicines against stress and to deal with
addictions to synthetic drugs (De la Torre 2015).

In this article, I will focus exclusively on the circuit of the communities of sacred
femininity that express a gender component that renames, metaphorizes, and sacralizes
the feminine pole of the relationship of women, with the cosmos and with nature.

1. The Sacred Femininity of neo-Mexicanity

Neo-Mexicanity has become increasingly female, making the spirituality networks an

alternative to the women’s movement, though it stands out from other similar groups
that preceded it. The spirituality of sacred femininity has been resignifying and
resymbolizing the rituals of neo-Mexicanity. There are women’s circles in the Reginas
movement, part of Red Path, but also in the neo-pagan or purely New Age movements.
The circles seek to create new representations of femininity through spiritual rituals that
foster the physical experience of Bgendered spiritualities.^ The goal is:

Creating a space for women to get to know themselves by sharing with other
women but also a space for individual awareness in which a woman understands
her place in the social, spiritual and biological realm—where the biological is
particularly related to a woman’s hormonal cycles (...) (Ramírez 2015: 8).

The leaders of women’s circles in Mexico are known as grandmothers. In the city of
Guadalajara (the Mexican second largest city), it is no coincidence that the most
recognized women are fire women (authorized to run the Temazcal) and that they have
been initiated and trained as shamans in neo-Mexicanity movements such as the regina
circles, in the Red Path of Aurelio Díaz Tepankali, or in the kalpullis (Calpulli or
Kalpulli for the Aztecs was a community school where they learned so many crafts, as
well as trained warriors. The neo-Mexicanity followers made an indigenous adaptation
of ashrams) founded by Domingo Días the promoter of MAIS. It is interesting to see
that until the end of the twentieth century, the nodal agents were men; nowadays, there
is an awakening of female leadership. The grandmothers promote circles and collec-
tives that summon women to raise awareness of the sacred aspect of femininity. The
circle becomes an archetype of femininity that resymbolizes ritual experiences. The
central elements of the ceremonies are circular: dance, temazcal bath, altar of conse-
cration to the center of the circle, lunar cycle, menstrual cycle, round of sacred chanupa
(tabacco pipe), mandalas, circular space, and collectives called circles. Circularity is the
main hallmark of sorority (sisterhood of women) that seeks a new way to strengthen
relationships of solidarity between women by removing hierarchical and pyramidal
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 241

forms of relationship. Through the circles of women, it is encouraged that every woman
can become a medicine woman or a shaman by rediscovering her energy and inner
sacredness.
The sacred femininity groups in Mexico are small communities of women who come
together to reconnect with their sacred femininity. Recently, they have been influenced
by the theories of Miranda Gray, and frequently, their rituals of the full moon are linked
with the ritual of the world blessing of the uterus that have as finality the feminine
energetic healing. This ritual can be considered as a node global scenario. Beginning in
2012, and from 2017 onwards, it became a global and multisite ceremony that inter-
connected around 150,000 women from 150 countries (Gray 2016). Unlike in England,
where female energy rituals known as moon mothers are performed related to Celtic
traditions (such as Wicca spirituality); in Mexico, they are headed by grandmothers,
many of whom were formed in the circles of neo-Mexicanity and reinterpret the
cosmologies and indigenous traditions under the keys of reconnection of the cycles
and the feminine nature. In the circles of Mexicanness, pre-Hispanic rituals are practiced
to bless the uterus. Among them is the circular sacred dance, in whose center menstrual
offerings or relative to the femininity are taken, and which transforms the pre-Hispanic
dance based on turns of warriors, in a dance where the women make a chain of hands
touching their bellies. Chanting is another touch of Mexicanness. Indigenous traditions
are also retaken as the circulation of the baton of command, but unlike patriarchal
practices, this is not the possession of a leader, but circulates in the group.
The circles are comprised exclusively of mostly urban, middle-class women. Among
other activities, the circles host meetings where women can discuss their day-to-day
problems and learn tasks traditionally associated with women, like embroidery, knit-
ting, folk medicine, flower arrangements, and permaculture. All of these activities are
part of emphasizing the traditionally female. This is not a traditionalist or atavistic
recovery of women’s roles, however, but the forging of new meaning through activities
that foster the acknowledgment of the sacred feminine though an acceptance of
women’s nature, the consecration of women’s cycles, and the acceptance of their traits.
Although the nature of the female cycle is linked to fertility and it is considered a
value among the participants in the circles, in its meetings, it is more relevant to
reconnect with a sacred sexuality. Many women, due to the Catholic taboo on sexuality,
do not know and do not have a positive relationship with their body, or with their sexual
organs, and therefore with their sexual energy. The circles generate a pedagogy of
knowledge and acceptance of their sexuality and especially reconnection with their
menstrual cycles. Ceremonies are retaken for the first and last moon (offerings of
bleeding). Some circles also have a therapeutic function, as mentioned by a member of
the Ixchel circle,4 and there is a lot of pain in the womb of women (collective interview
with members of the Ixchel women’s circle, Guadalajara, June 25, 2018). Se retoman
ceremonias para la primera y la última luna (ofrendas de sangrado). Algunos círculos
tienen también un función terapéutica, pues como mencionó una integrante del círculo

4
The circle is called Ixchel to pay homage to a Mayan goddess who was revered as the goddess of the moon,
for her feminine nature. It represented fertility closely linked to the earth, since it is the cycles of the moon that
govern the time of sowing and harvesting. It is also associated with rain and with the god Chaac for this same
concept.
242 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

Ixchel, hay mucho dolor en el útero de las mujeres (Entrevista colectiva con integrantes
del Círculo femenino Ixchel, Guadalajara 25 de junio 2018).
The aim is to foster solidarity among women, freeing them from patriarchal culture.
The reestablishing of women’s traditional roles is not seen as a conservative step
backwards, but as a way to rework women’s identity in today’s society. From this
utopian perspective, empowering women will generate a new harmony with the cosmos
and fairer, more sister-like relations (Pike 2001; Salomonsen 2002; Fedele and Knibbe
2013).
The values they inspire include sorority among women and the building of equal
(circular, not pyramidal) relations. Paths to knowledge based on intuition, emotion, and
a predisposition towards the spiritual nature of human expressions (as a female
attribute) are also encouraged. By enhancing and even celebrating features like spiri-
tuality and the essence of a woman’s character, women in the circle seek recognition
and acceptance that leads them to reconnect with the core of their female being.
During the circles, different ceremonies take place, many of which are borrowed
from the neo-Mexicanity movement. New meanings are given to these ceremonies to
contribute to the awakening of nature’s feminine spirituality. The unique feature of
these corporeal rituals is their focus on nature’s female essence or energy, especially
fertility as an attribute of female nature. These rituals activate somatic modes of
attention in order to foster acceptance of women’s biological functions, their hormonal
cycles, and their corporeality. In this process, the sacred nature of female reproductive
organs (uterus, vagina, ovaries, womb) is emphasized and incorporated in narratives
that address women’s daily issues, concerns, emotions, and their particular way of
thinking and interacting with society.
Women’s circles represent a spiritual movement that is experienced and interlinked
at the individual and collective level (in the circles), and also at the level of the spiritual
movements (through literature, initiation rites, teachers, workshops, ceremonies, and
key meeting places). This spiritual movement also holds exchanges and forges alliances
that make it part of a global or transnational network and through this network, goods
circulate along with the individuals involved in these diverse practices. Different
vectors converge in this network: (1) holistic-spiritual searches; (2) psychotherapy;
(3) alternative medicines; (4) personal betterment; (5) menstrual technologies; (6)
cultural industries (with broad self-help literature directed to a cosmopolitan, middle-
class female public, in addition to songs, music, film, theater, etc.); (7) ecofeminism or
sacred femininity where new alternatives are sought out to empower women; (8)
ecology and environment; and (9) sexual therapy. One of the utopias shared by women
in the circle is that of Bdecolonizing^ areas that have been professionalized as part of
rational, instrumental thought, and Bdepatriarchizing^ social spheres, which involves
alternative, intuitive approaches proposed within the circles.
Women’s circles use the Indian ceremonies and body technologies to transform their
conception of the self (Heelas 1984). Temazcal is one of the most common rituals in
women’s circles with a neo-pagan, New Age, or neo-Mexicanity orientation:

Alternative spiritual movements inspired by the holistic approach of the New Age
have incorporated the temazcal bath as a way to rediscover nature’s magic and
render traditional practices spiritual. It is one of many body-mind techniques
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 243

offered as part of a quest for the authentic and the sacrosanct through BIndian^
spirituality and the sacred feminine (De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga 2018: 38).

In fact, it is viewed as a way to reconnect with sacred femininity, emphasizing certain

characteristics typical of this tradition: the uterus of the earth and its similarity to the
woman’s womb, the circle as a model for women’s relationships, and feminine
attributes like fertility, creation, and pregnancy (De la Torre and Gutiérrez Zúñiga
2018).5 Some of the temazcal rituals practiced by women’s circles destigmatize
sexuality and depathologize menstrual bleeding. One example is blood burials, Ba
feminine ritual in which menstrual blood is placed inside a container and later buried
while saying a prayer,^ (Ramírez 2016: 110). There is also a feminized twist on the
prayers and offerings Bto all the relations^ where special emphasis is placed on
relationship with grandmothers, mothers, sisters, or with women who are part of the
participants’ everyday lives. In some circles, called female tribes, ritual compadrazgo
bonds known as Bmenthuric blood sisters^ are established.
Sensory and emotional aspects play a key role in the gatherings of women’s circles
and rituals which include sweating together in the temazcal, generating uterus vibra-
tions through the use of jade eggs, constantly breaking down the barriers of intimacy
through group experiences among women, experiencing the free flow of menstrual
blood, and visualizing and delving into the body of the ancestors through regression
techniques. The techniques draw heavily on metaphors (circle, cycle, energy, fluid,
nature, goddesses, blood, mother, earth, moon).
Women’s body parts are also resymbolized through New Age narratives heavily
influenced by the literature of Miranda Gray. The vagina, for example, can be compared
to a mudra, and the reconnection with one’s ovaries is interpreted as the Taoist yang. Yet,
there are also feminine reinterpretations within Mexicanity. An example of these are the
traditional bowls (as recipients of fertility, their relationship with water (the fluids) that in
contact with fire generate Bsacred and medicinal fumes.^ They perform rituals with the
seeds for their symbolization of fertility. They also resimbolize hair braids and looms as
ways to generate social fabric and opposites articles.
Here, Red Path is translated as Ruby Path, and the sweat tents are referred to as red
tents (in a reference to menstrual blood). The word Bmoon^ is used as a branding for
alternative feminine products, but also as a way of self-identifying as a Moon Mother
(the priestesses or grandmothers). BMoon tents^ is the term used for the temazcal
exclusively for women; menstruation can be referred to as moon, and the full moon can
be called the Bred moon^ in reference to menstruation (Valdés 2017).
Women’s identity is consecrated through the acknowledgment of Mexican and
Aztec goddesses (like Our Lady of Guadalupe, Tonatzin, Xochiquetzal, Coyolxauhqui,
Xilonen, Ixchel, Coatlicue, etc.) as archetypes of female features. The objective of these
techniques is to carnalize and somatize (Csordas 2002) alternative female values which
are resymbolized in a feminine spirituality associated with an awareness of the uterus.
Additionally, these techniques transform women’s vision and self-perception in their

5
The feminine temazcals are held at each full moon. For women Bthe temazcal symbolizes the uterus of the
mother and represents the origin of life on Earth because it contains the four elements, the four stages of life
and the four cardinal directions; when leaving the temazcal, it is said that one is reborn, because one leaves the
uterus,^ (Valdés 2017: 138). In some cases, it is reinterpreted as Bgiving birth to oneself.^
244 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

reconnection with nature, their surroundings, their relations, and the cosmos. Circles
also seek an individual transformation that allows them to modify relationships with
family members, their partner, and their professional and work relationships; many of
these women abandon their professional careers and formal jobs to become workshop
organizers or to sell alternative menstrual technology.
The gender dimension, especially femininity, is at the core of these women’s
identity. The circles offer different ceremonies that connect members with nature’s
feminine spirituality, especially moon cycle rituals based on the recovery of the 13
moons (with 28-day cycles) that help align women’s hormonal cycles with cosmic
time. Embodied rituals focused on nature’s feminine essence or energy, and are somatic
experiences that allow women to accept their biological functions, hormonal cycles,
and their associated emotions, embodiment, concerns, everyday problems and feelings,
and their own particular ways of thinking and acting in society.
There are different node scenarios where different groups converge in a single event.
In Mexico, the grandmothers formed the BMother Earth Connection^ council with the
intention and will to unify the women and together to collaborate in the work of the
feminine consciousness. Since 2010, the Casa Lahak collective has been organizing the
event BFor a thousand women awakened,^ to commemorate the International Day of
Women; in the event, grandmothers have a leading role in conferences and ceremonies.
The grandmothers have also been present at the event BThousand Drums,^ a ceremo-
nial that converge different men and women medicine from different ethnicities of
America with urban practitioners. In this key event, different sacred ceremonies are
celebrated: music, songs, dance, temazcal, prayers, and healing. The feminine circles
that converge with groups of Mexicanity are present in this archeological zone of
Guachimontones (close from Guadalajara City), and in it, the female sacralization
acquires roots and sieves neo-Indian. Some of the grandmothers of the tradition are
integrated into world groups, such as the cases of grandmother Margarita in the World
Conscious Pact movement or that of Doña Julieta Casimiro Bthe Mazatec
grandmother^ who participates at the Council of the Thirteen Grandmothers (see
Rodríguez 2016).

Conclusions

The feminine circles in Mexico can be understood as the result of a process of

feminization of the Red Path. On the one hand, the female Red Path circles constitute
a gendered spirituality. But and the other hand, we could say that these are the result of
the Indianization of the global spiritual movement of the awakening of sacred femi-
ninity. In this sense, the hybrid traditions of global spiritualities require legitimization in
ancestral traditions, and indigenous traditions find in their connections with the global
network a springboard to obtain recognition and world circulation, and thereby ensure
its continuity.
The feminine face of Red Path is a branch of a global alternative spirituality
network. It is closely tied to neo-paganism and like other ancestral traditions, offers
methods for consecrating the female pole of the nature and the cosmos. Though it is
sought out as an authentic form of spirituality based on ancestral knowledge and in tune
with nature, it currently takes a hybrid form that borrows from many New Age agendas
International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247 245

and narratives, though with Native American nuances. It is also a movement that has
created a hybrid of indigenous cosmologies—or perhaps even procreated its own.
These cosmologies are then translated and reinterpreted from a holistic and eclectic
matrix corresponding to New Age spiritualities.
The study of node agents, ceremonies, and node sites has allowed us to understand
the sacred feminine collective of Red Path as a network of networks. In other words, it
is a path of a global spiritual network that translocalizes knowledge and tradition
confined for centuries to the cultural repertoires of indigenous communities and groups.
Elements valued as the cultural and spiritual patrimony of these peoples—such as
alternative medicine, psycho-emotional therapies, neo-esoteric practices,
psychonautical experiences, cultural industries like literature, shows and tourism, and
environmentalism—thus circulate via this network. These mediations contribute to an
indigenous exoticization as a source of universal feminine spirituality while also
generating new tensions and conflicts within indigenous communities, some of which
are more conservative and others more open to forging cultural alliances.
While in the 1960s and 1970s, gurus and meditation from the East were a magnet for
alternative spirituality seekers, and in the 1990s, the Celtic traditions were initiatory of
rescue movements of sacred femininity in Europe (as an example the Wicca Move-
ment), in the twenty-first century, cosmopolitan spiritual hopefuls have now turned to
the indigenous as a source of initiation and gone on to become global and cosmic
neoshamans. In recent decades, women have conquered a place of leadership that was
previously exclusively masculine (see the first nodal agents of neo-Mexicanity) for
grandmothers, recognized as ritual specialists in ceremonies that were traditionally only
led by men (man fire, man medicine, the dancers). For that reason, Red Path is a
shortcut to a reuniting with sacred femininity sense of nature, Mother Earth, shaman-
ism, medicinal plants, native ceremonies, and the ancestors. The interaction with the
narratives of reconnection with sacred femininity has contributed to imprinting a
feminine face on neoshamanism. The rituals and ceremonies with indigenous roots
have been resemantized. With the metaphor of the circle, they have generated equiv-
alencies of meaning that place indigenous root traditions in the holistic narratives of the
New Age sensibility. The menstrual ritual and the sacrality of the uterus have modified
the rituals to experiences of somatization of spirituality. Finally, the exchange of
symbolic goods between the networks of New Age practitioners and consumers, and
the collectives of neo-Mexicanity have triggered a global circulation of neo-
Mexicanness and a rooting of the New Era movement of female sacredness. Red Path
encompasses alternative healthcare services, shamanic schools, psychonautical cere-
monies, and the medicinal plants consumed during these ceremonies, women’s circles
to reconnect with one’s menstrual cycles and moon cycles in order to find a new
appreciation for the female body. When taken together, these resignifications of
indigenous rituals aim to provide transcendental meanings for those aspects of life
which Western modernity cannot explain. It is thus a spiritual movement that can be
positioned within contemporary movements of decolonization.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest The author declares that she has no conflict of interest.
246 International Journal of Latin American Religions (2018) 2:234–247

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