Red Tent Highland
Red Tents – a safe space to be, free from the challenges of everyday life as a woman.
As women we are rarely encouraged to share our experiences of womanhood, but when we do, it can act as a powerful catalyst for new learning and wisdom about ourselves, as well as a sense of spiritual growth. While it can be uncomfortable to recognise the damage inflicted on us by the many acts of silencing (or worse), it is also true that when we come together and share our experiences as women, something powerful happens to us as individuals and to each other.
Whether we acknowledge it outside of ourselves or not, many women’s lives are impacted by living in a patriarchal society. It is my belief that when we notice this, we can no longer live without it having some impact on our sense of self. Alone, we cannot challenge the unobtainable capitalist and patriarchal standards of what constitutes female beauty. Nor can we make a wholesale change to the norms and expectations we have all grown up with surrounding motherhood, or being a wife/partner or a daughter. Add to this regular critiques of what we learn, how we earn, what we wear and it’s an exhausting concoction. Its symptoms keep us silent, disconnected, and then some. We need to curate new spaces in which being a woman is celebrated and that starts with us.
One way for us to regain our voice and support one another comes through sharing our collective wisdom. Leaders in the Red Tent space such as Molly Remer, Lucy H Pearce, Isadora Leidenfrost, DeAnna L’am, Aisha Hannibal, Mary Ann Clements are doing exceptional work to create safe spaces for women, to share their teachings with other women and are inspiring us to tap into our inner resources to help ourselves and the next generation.
I offer my own version of the antidote in Red Tent Highland in a space where I imagine a world where women are free to express themselves without fear of harassment because of how we look, sound or speak, without fear of violence or abuse because of our female sex. Where we can share thoughts and feelings without fear of being cut down to size, where our words have value and meaning.
But not only do I imagine a world in which women are free from these very real fears and threats, but, so too, do I imagine a world where women take a seat at the table, where we are not fearful of speaking up from our own point of view, where we are in charge of the sex we want, and don’t want, where we are encouraged to be our wildest, most potent and beautiful selves. A world where bringing a daughter into the world doesn’t make you feel like you need to teach her how to protect herself, keep her safe, keep her small, but instead makes you want to link arms with all the other feminist mothers and fathers raising daughters to bring their own sweet music into the world. A future where raising sons outwith a culture of enthusiastic and ongoing consent is considered unacceptable, where boys and young men are encouraged to express their feelings and where the toxic masculinity that abounds in 2022 is consigned shamefully to the annals of history.
If that all feels quite bold and radical, it’s because in some ways it is, yet in others it’s our second nature. If you are looking for ways to (re-)connect to yourself or with other women, or simply wish to experience a few hours of soulful peace, come and sit in circle with us and be held in a safe and supportive space. You’ll find a warm welcome of like-minded souls to share and delight throughout the ups and downs of womanhood.
We meet monthly via Zoom and quarterly, face-to-face. Each session we cover a different aspect of female spirituality or womanhood based on the patterns of the menstrual cycle and menopause, and spend time grounding ourselves deeply in our bodies, sharing our experiences as women and being compassionately witnessed.