Revolutionary Thoughts: Doing it Together

I am a lone wolf by nature. Who loves community.

In truth I find trust hard. And know I can rely on myself to get shit done. I prefer to motor on ahead than spend hours in meetings where no decisions are reached, or pandering to egos that want the power but not the work that comes with it.

For my 20s independence and self sufficiency was my intention in every area of my life. I wanted to live a self-sufficient life - growing and making all our own food, clothes, education... everything... but in a perfect intentional community. A strange combination.

I get a lot done, and done my way. But somewhere along the line realised my energy was not as infinite as my vision. I got burnt out a lot. And felt isolated.

Last night I was going through in my head the various work I've done. The things I started or helped make happen - arts festivals, play group, a school, a women's group, a magazine, a chocolate business, classes of all kinds...

Last night though I led, and did a lot of behind the scenes leg work for, our new red tent, it wasn't just me - we are all in it together - co creating... Just like I realised like a bolt between the eyes, as I wa freaking out about metaphorical tables and chairs with this big secret growth that's going on here in Dreaming Aloud world...  it's not just me... I am supported. There are lots of us, invested in it together. Collaboration. Shared responsibility. Shared visioning.. shared work.

And again this morning, whilst I have put in a lot of time and energy in to the continued unfurling of our red tent... I feel the co-creative energy there -  it's as though its unfolding by magic, as each woman weaves in her ideas and quilts and needs....

I cannot tell you how beautiful the space looked last night. The floor covered in red cloths and handmade quilts, soft pillows every where, a beautifully co created centre piece and twinkling nightlights. We each did our bit to create this magic, and set up and clear up were easy, stress free... a collaborative loving joy.

And I recognise that was there before... collaboration... but I didn't trust it to take my weight... for people to do what they said... part me, part them... but it usually ended in tears and burn out...

But now I'm really seeing and feeling, online and offline the beauty of collaboration in all areas of my work... now I have a wide circle of dreamers, conspirators and collaborators who are on the same page. We are standing in our authentic power. We value honest, clear communication. And it is pure magic. Weaving different people's energies together to co-create things much bigger than any of us can do alone. We hold each other, and each others visions, with clear agreements as to what we can do or give. And we are all blessed by the creations that unfold.

Here's to doing it together!

Tell me how are you with collaboration? Does it come naturally? Are you inclined to go it alone? Do you burn out? Have you got a strong circle of collaborators or are you still looking? 

Red Tent Rising - A Resource-Full Post

I am just getting the supplies ready for our very first red tent gathering... a box of womancraft books for the red tent library, a piece of embroidery for the centre piece, a welcome sign, some futons for resting and reading.... It will be the first I know of in the south of Ireland... I am very excited.

Held on the dark moon, a red tent is a women's circle which is open to all women in the community and offers a place to rest during menstruation, to connect with other women, share wisdom and be held in every stage of our female unfolding.

(Want to know more about what a red tent is? Watch my short video which I made for the red tent summit or grab a copy of my free red tent booklet - Password= love.)


I planted the seed of this red tent when I wrote Moon Time.  I had never been to a red tent, and there was little information out there about them. I was hungry for knowledge... so I reached out to some of the movement's leaders, gathered all the information I could lay my hands on, and shared it in the book. That's how I roll! Mine was the first print book to explore the phenomenon and support women in setting up their own. I have been told that it has inspired and supported the creation of red tents in the UK, Canada and Australia as well as an online one which I am a member of.

And now we will have our own real one, in our community.

My stomach is churning and I am being a little short with my family as my brain goes into tables and chairs mode. But the excitement is overriding it... the fact that this long held dream is being born, that so many women are curious about it, that this work, and a dedicated women's space is opening up for our community... I just think of the growth, love, support, magic, empowerment, connection and healing that will emerge from the very existence of this space and shivers run down my spine...

More women sitting in circle together than ever have before in our community. Learning to speak their truth openly and be heard. From learning to listen with an open heart and without judgement. In having a place to come and be held, to rest and recharge. A place where new ideas can take seed, new books found, new friendships formed. Where women can learn to understand and trust and even celebrate their bodies.

How it came about...

I set myself a challenge out loud - which meant I couldn't go back on it, by promising the proceeds of the e-versions of Moon Time would go towards establishing a local red tent! And since then I have researched and reflected and waited. I knew I couldn't do it on my own, I was waiting for conspirators... and when I met them I knew right away... I did not say anything to them at all about it -  I was in the midst of launching The Rainbow Way and I had only just met them... I just held the vision consistently affirming it, and gently released the women's group I had run for 5 1/2 years which had run its course. Numbers were dwindling and we couldn't find any more new participants...

And then two months later, the time was right for us all.  One of the women asked on Facebook if anyone knew of a women's group or red tent in the area... and the flame was lit. Within an hour we had a FB group. And the other woman jumped right in as an admin, unbidden. Within a week we had a date and venue. In a month we have gotten over 100 women to our group, organically. We only invited 35 between us... the rest were just drawn to us. 

We have had minor bumps in the road naturally, including our first venue cancelling only days before. But we have a new, better space now.

And our first meeting tonight and are expecting about 25 women.... many of whom I know personally, some I have only met online, one I taught blogging to, and others are completely new to me. For some it will be their first time doing women's work with me... others have done much before having been part of our long running women's group ... there is an excitement tinged with deep nervousness, as no one knows quite what to expect. What is a red tent any way, they wonder... will it be for me? Will I be expected to sit around talking about their periods, will I know anyone else?

I try to allay the nervousness with information - links to the red tent summit which I have just spoken at, my booklet on starting a red tent, with reassurance and love...  but this is new, uncharted territory... of course there is apprehension.

Some are travelling nearly an hour to join us... others are following by Facebook - we hope to inspire them to start their own in their own community.

Are you ready for a red tent in YOUR neighbourhood? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have one in your city, town, village, or community?
Imagine not having to wait any longer...
Imagine knowing exactly how to create a Red Tent, monthly, where you, and your women friends, can simply BE, rather than DO...

DeAnna L’am who created the Red Tent Summit has created an Online Class designed to inspire, motivate, support and equip you, to start your own Red Tent.

The Global Tele-Tent Class starts on March 12, but you can register today.

I believe that the vision of a red tent in every neighbourhood - is possible in our life time!
And I want to help you make it a reality in YOUR neighbourhood!
Please join me, and women from all over the world, to make it so!

If you are looking for more resources I would recommend:

• My free red tent booklet - Password= love
• If you are local, our Red Tent group is here on Facebook. For resources, connections and listings UK red tents and here, Red tent Temple movement, Red Tents in Every Neighbourhood
• DeAnna L'Am's upcoming teleclass
• The Red Tent Movie - buy it, rent it, read the blog, watch a video from the maker on how to create your own red tent.
• And ALisa Starkweather's monthly teleconference and Facebook support page.

Call yourself a feminist? (2)...Well, no!

Despite being grateful to feminists, and having read many of their key works, I do not consider myself a feminist (despite yesterday's evidence) because....
I find them loud and shouty and deliberately reactionary
I find that they alienate a lot of women and most men who aren't as radical as them
I feel that they have no answer, no response to the issue of motherhood, except avoid it, or ignore their children. BUT this does not throw me in with the Catholic New Feminists either...

But before you get too cross with me, I don't call myself a suffragette either, and nor do you! And I am deeply grateful to both sets of women. Deeply. But times move on. Needs change. Issues change. Ways of communicating change...

Mothers meeting - women's sacred circles

Welcome to the circle. Come in with your chatter, take off your coat. Find a place, slip off your shoes, wriggle your toes and tuck them under you. The candle on the centre table is lit. Its golden light softens the tired faces grouped around it. The brass singing bowl is sounded, its rich resonance dissipating into silence, leading us into the realm of stillness. We join hands and breathe together. In and out. This invisible trace leads us into ourselves. Conscious breath fills the room, sanctifying this simple lounge. Our separateness diminishes as a new energy enters the room tangibly changing the atmosphere: it is richer, heavier, more sombre. We settle deeper into stillness.

This is where we meet, on the first Sunday of every month. Although many of us meet at playgroup or for tea during the month, this is different. This is our space. Our sacred space in which we find ourselves once more. We start, like always, by speaking to the very simple question: “how are you really now?” In the stillness a small voice, which has been swamped by the busyness of daily mothering begins to emerge, haltingly, but with strength. How am I? How wonderful to be asked. Terrifying but wonderful. Can I speak to it, bring myself to this question with honesty? This is not a place for being “fine”. No one here is interested in “fine”. Here I can be confused, elated, barely scraping through. Here it is OK to inhabit a place of paradox or of not knowing. I start to speak, uncertain of where my words are headed. I surrender myself to them. Then, as I grab the thread more clearly I open my eyes and sweep them slowly around the room. Women who have become dear friends sit, their eyes focused and loving on me, as I unfold my soul before them. Not for approval, just to be witnessed, this tapestry of my life. The floor is mine, I cannot be interrupted. And it is such a wonderful feeling. Not to stop mid-sentence again and again to answer a child’s question or grab a cup of juice from being spilt or pre-empt a sibling slap. Just space to be me. Wonderful.

And though mothering takes up so much of me, teaches me so much, satisfies me, there is also so much of me that is nothing to do with my kids, which has no expression in play dough or picture books or cooking dinner. The part of me from pre-kids, which inhabits dreams and books and philosophy. The part of me which even my husband does not really know and which I only get glimpses of. This gets a chance to creep out from under the stone of daily life and emerge blinking into the sunlight of awareness, to be witnessed by this circle of women. And then when another stands to speak I get to practice what I am so weak at in daily life, yet need for my parenting: deep, non-judgemental, open-hearted listening. This is where I learn skills which I take back home to my family.

Women’s circles are as old as women themselves. At many times in history they have been outlawed, suspicious. At times they have held the names of quilting bees or sewing groups. We are not a great group of stitchers. Instead each month a different leader chooses a topic which stimulates our minds and titillates us: Creativity, Home, Books, Community, Spirituality… But this is not a discussion group either, though the final discussions can be juicy. Instead we speak from our deepest selves in the spirit of council sharing, a custom borrowed from Native American elders, and familiar to me from Quaker meetings. Waiting for the spirit to move us, then allowing it to meander us through the topic. As we hear our voices speaking we discover what we truly feel and believe. Often it surprises the speaker herself. The listeners’ heads nod in agreement, eyes well with tears of compassion. We sit in a circle and, as women, often we talk in circles. Women’s circles seem to be coming back, spreading like ripples through communities, sustaining the women who belong to them, their goodness spilling out into the families beyond.

We drift out into the hallway, asking after our children’s playmates, organising to meet up for coffee and playtime. We swap forgotten socks and disappear off into the night in time to fix supper for the family, or maybe, just perhaps, a little too late and so to be fed! I float into the house, transformed from the empty husk of a woman who left just a few hours before. I scoop up my children, delighting in their faces. “Mummy’s back” I announce, and I am. I really am.

The women’s group that I started in East Cork began in February 2008 and meets once a month, with a different leader, venue and topic each time.


This was the first of my Dreaming aloud columns, published in JUNO magazine, Spring 2009. An adapted version is also in the 2011 Earth Pathways Diary)

A Women's Circle of Deep Compassion

What can I do?

That was my first question. A good friend approached me almost immediately she heard the news - you're tapped into a large mother's network in the area, what can we do?

I felt blank. Empty. In complete shock. Helpless in the face of a tragedy so large, so local, so raw. We all did.

Yesterday my blog page had 240 visitors. Writing it was scary - would people find it tasteless, me writing about such a raw subject? But it seemed to touch a chord with many. And it moved me on in my own process of grief.

I have been asking local mums who are church goers "what are the arrangements". I attend church things in support of the local community here, at sad times, but I am not a church attendee.

But I do lead womens circles. And it is women who are needing to share their feelings of sadness, shock, and deep compassion. Both women in the local community, and those who live further afield but have connections to the area, either geographical, familial or simply soul connections.

So a plan has developed (thanks to a night of not much sleep due to a hot, cross, teething baby).

Tomorrow morning will be a Women's Time of Deep Compassion. 

At 11 am, tomorrow, Friday 19th November, I would like to invite you to add your focused awareness, love and compassion. Take a moment to remember Una, her beautiful daughters, her family and friends, and her husband, and his family and friends. Widening your circle of love and deep compassion for them all.

Please attend my house if you can and would like to (RSVP please). Or gather a circle of women together at your own. Or take a moment whilst sitting with friends having a coffee.  Or at your Jamie Oliver Party (I don't want to steal your attendees Bree!) or just by yourself. Spread the word to as many other women friends as you think would be interested.

1) Light a candle if you can
2) Take a moment to breathe deeply and mindfully
3) Sit in awareness/ prayer/meditation for a few minutes
4) Perhaps take time to make the gifts (see below) together, or share those you have made already and brought
5) On extinguishing the candles, each person sends a wish/ hope/prayer for Una, if possible speaking it aloud.
6) It is always nice to open and close a women's circle by holding hands and closing eyes, perhaps singing together, but only if you feel comfortable doing this!


And a gift...

A friend at her motherblessing was given a beautiful handmade book, where each of us contributed a page. I would like to do a variation partly on this, and partly on a conventional communally signed card. A pack of mother-blessed, "angel"/ "inspiration" cards for her to keep with her journal, or on her mantle piece, or handbag.

If each person who wishes could make a "postcard": 6" x 4" (standard photo size), just single (not a folded card). On one side might be a photograph, drawing, collage, piece of mounted sewing, a quotation, message, symbol, a word, a prayer, a poem - a gift of hope/love/peace from your heart to hers. Something to light her darkness and add a new, brighter thought or image into her days.

On the other side please put your name at least, and perhaps your contact details or where you live, so that if ever she feels herself alone in this world she can phone, text, call in, drive past your house, look at a map and know that someone out there cares and that she is not alone.

Please mail me these cards (to arrive for the end of next week - email me for address), or scan them in and email them and I will print them off and put them onto card.

I will compile the cards in a beautiful folder/ envelope and get them to her next week.

So 11 am PROMPT tomorrow, Friday 19th November. Start arriving from 10.45, we will be finished by 11.30. I am not intending for it to last more than half an hour, as I know people will have to disappear to collect children and do nap time.

Please do bring any prayers/ poems/ reflections etc that you might want to share at this time.

And do bring cake etc if wanted. We will of course have tea and cake afterwards for those who do not need to race off.

I look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to the Pink House tomorrow - please do RSVP by text/email.

Practical note:  I am planning it for a Friday as then a lot of mothers have children in school or playschool. I feel it is appropriate for babies to be there. Toddlers too (if they can have a favourite toy/ book/ food to keep them quiet for a little that would be great.) I would be concerned about older children asking questions that mothers may be wanting to avoid, but they are welcome to play upstairs.

BOOKS, BOOKS BOOKS!

We had a book swap night last night here at the Pink House. A great way to recycle no longer wanted books, and pick up great new reads for free, and talk books with friends - what more can a girl want? The heady smell of cardamom, cinnamon and cloves from the mulled apple juice warmed our bodies as we shared stories of our lives and the books that made us who we are. It was really nourishing to spend time talking about the power of stories, words and ideas with good friends.

What eight books have been most influential or treasured in your life? Which books built you? Which author's complete works would you take with you to a desert island if you could only choose one? And what would be your "bible"?

OUR COMMUNITY SOCIAL GROUP IS BORN

Today I made a snap decision. And I rather like it. It has been ages since I have organised anything. And so, me being me,  went from "why not see if anyone else wants to try bellydancing?", to setting up a women's community activity group on Facebook: "Do what you can..." And in the flash of a few keys, by a very tired mama, a new dream is born... Not a bricks and mortar learning centre, but an online network. Very twenty-first century! And also much easier than finding a permanent, dedicated space and worry about making it pay. Why, oh why, didn't I think of this before? 

We already have a women's group here, a member's only group which meets once a month for self-reflection and support. I started it over two years ago and it plays a key part in all nine members' lives, creating a web of support through good times and bad. (See my Dreaming Aloud column: Welcome to the Circle on the articles page). But many of the women were voicing a need for a social network too. We regularly meet with each other outside of womens' group meeting and have other friendships outside of the group too. We wanted to have a way of organising bigger things as/ for a group: forest school activities, clothes swaps, drumming and patchwork to name but a few. We have experimented with doing social stuff as part of women's group, but it doesn't really work, diluting the "serious" nature of the group's aim. We also want to reach beyond the necessary confines of our group. We have experimented with making the group larger, which almost led to its destruction. So this is a case of NOT killing two birds with one stone, but having two distinct groups for two distinct purposes.

It is funny how ideas just seem to emerge as obvious, having been elusive, inconceivable for months or even years! 

So...

"I hereby declare the establishment of the East Cork Women's Social Network for Advanced Learning and Cultural Pursuits! (Intentionally named in a Borat way)(Which will at times welcome men and children.) Current activities: Bellydancing, Steiner Crafts, Clothes Swap and an Avon Evening

Organise an event, a class, a party in the East Cork area and spread the word here. Have you discovered something you want to shout out about? Consider this the electronic bulletin board for the East Cork campus of the University of Life. Let everyone know what's on, here...

You might want to:
find jogging mates,
squash partners,
yoga mates,
people to swap childcare,
start a book club,
a film club,
diet together,
do an evening class together,
spread the word about a great cafe,
or an interesting sounding concert,
organise a coffee morning,
a clothes swap,
a magazine swap,
learn Irish together,
make a patchwork together...

Make friends, share skills and spread the word. Let's make East Cork buzz with friendship, fun and creativity."

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