For millennia, women gathered.
For thousands of years, women bled in unison. They tracked the passage of the moon within their bodies, lulled themselves through the cycles, and honored the blood that spilled from between their legs.
Their bodies were wisdom keepers that released their wise blood.
Their holy blood.
This passage was honored. Women were initiated in sacred communion within the menstrual huts and the first blood was buried in the ground to honor the Great Mother and the fertility of the female form. Crops were grown from it, sustenance was derived from it.
The monthly gathering was a reverent experience and it united each woman with the goddess who also menstruated when she pulled back and went into her own seclusion during the dark of the moon.
To be in the tent, was to celebrate the immense power that each woman possessed and to utilize that power to dream, heal, prophesize and astral travel.
These women worked their magic as shamanesses, medicine women who worked with Gaia and the Great Mother to live in harmony with one another, their families, the earth.
The power of the blood to either shed or create life was a testament to the power that women held within their bodies.
And the shedding of the blood was of great ritual importance. In fact, as likely the first ritual experienced by the human woman, the word “ritual” itself comes from the Sanskrit word “rtu,” which means “menstrual blood.”
During the dark moon, as they honored their blood ritual, women withdrew from the broader clan to rest, to shed, to restore. But during this time together, they tapped into their greatest powers: their capacity to commune with Her, to heal with Her, to honor themselves as Her.
And the women were deeply nourished in this capacity. Together, they connected with the Divine Mother, who was the mother of all.
The womb energy was sacred and holy. It was represented in cave art and artifacts that have survived in the forms of spirals and thrones and the caves themselves were perceived to be within the womb of the goddess.
The Divine Mother Womb was safe, nourishing, and sacred. Through the Mother, they were cared for and loved; they were held.
A woman’s oracular powers were known to be at their height during this time. In Greece, even as the patriarchy began to become entrenched, no matters of State were decided without first consulting the Pythia – High Priestess of Delphi, the head oracle – while she was bleeding.
Together, they practiced ancient healing arts, they engaged in shamanic dream traveling, and even used early forms of hypnosis that was brought on through ecstatic connection to the goddess.
Because women held this power that was inaccessible to men, the potency of a woman and her blood became a target for the rising patriarchy, especially after the rise of the monotheistic religions based on one father god, who became {somehow – nonsensically} the bearer of all life.
What used to be a monthly retreat for women became a punishment.
What was revered as wise, life-giving, and ecstasy-inducing, became dirty, repugnant, defiled.
Over the course of many centuries, this life-giving force became “the curse” and through Eve, the downfall of all mankind.
The wounds of the persecutions – millions of deaths as “witches” burned because they bled, they honored earth, the honored Source and the Mother – are still with us.
They are with you. You carry the scars of them within your blood. They course through your veins and show up as shame, “dirtiness,” feelings of lesser-than, depression, PMS symptoms, body-hatred and more.
The time to heal these wounds is now.
The time to reclaim the power of your wise blood is now.
We are at a convergent point of energies, in which timelines are coming together to effect great change. We are accessing multidimensional healing, stitching the energies of healers across time and space, from other timelines, histories and realms to weave a web of consciousness so powerful that the timelines of toxic patriarchal rule will tremble.
Your powers as a healer, prophet, oracle, witch are being activated.
Gathering with women during moon time (whether you’re bleeding or not), is an extremely potent form of magic making.
Setting intentions with the new moon and coming together in community with other women who share your desire for healing, growth, magic, shedding and rebirth activates deep and hidden potential within you and it unlocks your ancestral connections to Red Tent practices.
It restores immense power to you. The power of who you have always been, but who has been brushed aside and locked away.
During the dark moon is a time of great activation for women and so a potent time for you to gather with your sisters. Create a Circle or a Red Tent to catalyze the re-membrance of this ancient wisdom and power that resides deep within your DNA and your bones.
Much gratitude to Anita Diamant for coining the term “Red Tent” and for her part in raising the consciousness of the power of the women who gathered during their moon times.
“In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month’s death, preparing the body to receive the new month’s life, women give thanks — for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood.” – Anita Diamant
Includes a free subconscious audio clearing and Guide to the Cycles