Red Tent
Part the veils and step over the threshold into sacred space. The Red Tent, also known as a moonlodge, is where women gather apart from the day-to-day chores of the community to share and receive wisdom. In offering this space, we do not necessarily seek to recreate the traditions of other times/cultures, rather we seek to create space within our present reality to honor the sanctity of womon’s experience of menarche, menstruation, and menopause. All women, no matter where on their menstrual or life cycle are welcome!
Red Tent 2023
My intention for the Red Tent this year is to bring the intention of the whole gathering deep into the hearts and wombs of the women: that is, to hold the potent experience of connection to ourselves, to the circle of sisters and to the greater eco-system of the earth.
When you enter the Red Tent, you are welcomed to step fully into yourself. From this place of connection with the wholeness of yourself, true connection with the other women is possible. As a circle of women our natural empathy and compassion and understanding of interconnection with all life is amplified.
Blessed Be
-Leela Parker, Wise Woman Keeper of the Red Tent
Come dear ones…
who dance the threshold of childhood and wombmoonhood
who are beholden unto themselves.
Come dear ones…
who bleed without dying,
who feed and nourish the earth with your blood.
Come dear ones…
who feed and nourish the next generation with your power and creativity,
who hold your wise blood inside and teach peace and truth.
Come dear ones…
Honor your cycles, honor wombspace,
Join us in the Red Tent!
Leela Parker
My connection with sacred ceremony began as a child. My mother, a home-birth midwife, re-membered the spirituality of our ancestors as she raised her children. We celebrated the Wheel of the Year in the Pagan tradition, the Solstices, Equinoxes and Cross-Quarter Days. We gathered with other families in ceremony often around a fire and/or in a tipi. In circle I formed my young self.
As I became a young adult, I found my way to Deep Ecology and loving plants. I gathered a sisterhood of other young women feeling the Earth and our eco-system deep in our beings and celebrating the Wheel of the Year. One Summer Solstice I called a ritual at the off-grid community I lived at and led a ceremony in the sacred stone circle for 100+ people. Mostly our ceremonies were 4-10 people gathering regularly.
At age 21, I was called to study with wise woman herbalist and witch Susun Weed, in her live-in 3-month Shamanic Herbal Apprenticeship. Here, I learned of Moon Lodge, which is a version of what many know as Red Tent.
Since that time, I have been celebrating the Wheel of the Year and Moon Lodge/Red Tent in the various places I have lived. When I moved to Colorado I re-connected with my pagan ceremony, Moon Lodge sister of nearly 20 years, Astrid Grove, and we together visioned and created the first Red Earth Herbal Gathering in 2016.
Now, at age 41, I am raising my daughter in the Pagan tradition, gathering with other families whenever we can for these celebrations. I also honor the Moon cycle and women's wisdom in ceremony each month. I am grateful to gather in ceremony with you, dear women, to ground our intentions, feel into our womb wisdom and enter into the Healing Ceremony that is Red
