A few years ago when I was talking to author, editor, parent-coach, Dads-and-Daughters founder,
New Moon Magazine co-creator, all around amazing
Joe Kelly about "Raising The Red Tent" he caught an essential snag in my pitch. One that I spot all around us now. Like so many well meaning adults I was framing up a project that would "empower our daughters" not realizing that I was implying from the start, through my language, that power was something we needed to give them. His caution humbled me.
I stayed quiet for a while after that conversation. That seemingly subtle glitch in my diction highlighted so much for me about what is most toxic in girlhood. While overt advertising messages pollute girlhood with sexualizing and unattainable feminine "ideals" they are a toxin that can be identified and fought against. I believe the more subtle subversions of reality, like the one Joe caught in my own well meaning pitch, are a much more dangerous poison. Since they come from a well-meaning, trusted source they slip into one's system without setting off any alarm bells. Unfiltered, the message is immediately metabolized and integrated without even a bitter taste left on one's tongue.
It happened to me. As a girl I imbibed many messages about power being something outside of myself that another person or experience could give to me. I understood myself as lacking from the start which filled me with anxiety and a determination to get "empowered". Empowerment was a quest, that for me, was fraught with peril and much struggle including spiritual and sexual abuses. To this day, subtle glitches in diction raise the hair on my neck faster than any infamous Carl's Jr.. ad ever could. A woman's entire life story can begin, "Once upon a subtle and subversive misrepresentation of my innate power..."
Mine did.
But enough about me. This tent isn't about me and my past.
This tent is for our daughters and their futures.
So, "HOW do we raise a red tent for them?"
First, I think we need to winnow the wisdom from our personal pasts without getting chaffed and stuck in our old stories. "Enough is enough." "Time's Up". Women everywhere are uttering these phrases in unison now. Our focus must be on prevention and our collective future. Whatever state we've recovered ourselves to is and must be good enough to start. There is simply no time left. Never before has a new story about
women,
power, and our connection to the
earth been so imperative. It is up to us to
craft it NOW.
Women, power, earth, craft. This string of words should have acted as a trail of breadcrumbs delivering me to the obvious "how" we must begin our story.
But, some stories are too important I guess. So I missed my cues and stayed stumped on this starter question, "How do we make a tent that is accessible, relatable, and inviting to a seven year old girl?"
It was while I was busy over-intellectualizing that my daughter quite literally began raising the red tent for herself.
It started a few weeks ago. She began by making it real through language, "Mom when are we going to make our red tent?!" It was real. She was eager. It was a "place" to her. It belonged in her cultural landscape along with the library or the park. Where was it already? She was getting impatient.
Next, she fleshed it out with wonder. "What will we do there?" "I'm so excited." "Can I bring my baby doll?" "No papas, no brothers allowed? Really?" It was unfurling through her imagination and excitement.
Finally, with impatience peaking, she took matters into her own hands regarding making our dream tangible. Enticed by a mutual love of spending crafternoons together, she convinced me to turn away from my keyboard and toward the sewing machine. She had a beautiful plan. She was the director.
And, by days end we had the beginning pieces, quite literally, of our red tent.
It was four pm by the time she said, "Now we have to stitch our two patches together!" She didn't look disappointed when I told her that we would need to first get fabric for a binding which imposed a stopping point for the day. Instead, she sat quietly for a few moments. She was both satisfied by the hours of our co-creativity as well as absorbed by her own dream of completion. "Oh, I cannot WAIT until we sew it all together and get in it!!!" She actually squealed from her excitement.
And with that she answered my question of "HOW?" I laughed at the simplicity of the solution to the giant problem I had created for myself. I didn't have to worry about inviting seven year olds into a tent! Tents, forts, hide-outs are the natural habitat of the still wild and whole girl child. And, what is a red tent if not a mystery school. A magical, clandestine, wonderland. Thanks to our impromptu mother-daughter stitch and pitch my question is no longer "How do we make the red tent inviting to our girls?" My question now is, "Why don't we invite our girls to make this red tent." And, not just the flesh and blood girl children we call our daughters and nieces in daily life. But, also the girl children who, against decades of patriarchal pitfalls, managed to become the amazing women that we now call our friends, sisters, peers.
Our daugthers and nieces are ready. As Joe Kelly so aptly pointed out to me, they don't need to be empowered. Our girls were born, whole, complete, perfect, and with their power in tact. They just need the safe space in which to enact, create, question, express, lead... I gave my daughter the supplies she called out for and by days end she had raised her red tent. It was simple for her and powerful for me.
Light on years and baggage my daughter pulled her patchwork panel unfettered from her heart. As if there were only one blueprint inside, with no hesitation, she polished off a picture of the two of us holding hands and smiling under a red tent. She was onto embroidery while my canvas was still blank.
I was editing my ideas, "How do I envision HER future red tent without making it all about me and my personal past?"
By putting all of my energy into making it different for her than it was for us.
I asked myself the question that I've asked women in recovery so
many times:
"How would your life have been different?" This tent, if crafted well, will be a sturdy patchwork of living answers to Judith Duerk's long standing inquiry:
How might your life have been different if
there had been a place for you...a place of women,
where you were received and affirmed? A place where
other women, perhaps somewhat older, had been affirmed
before you, each in her time, affirmed, as she
struggled to become more truly herself.
How might your life be different?
Excerpt from Circle of Stones by Judith Duerk
As soon as I asked myself this question my patchwork panel was decided and created with the same confidence as my daughter's. It was a vision focused not on "what should have been" but rather on "what there is still time to create". My patch reclaimed words, ideas, and energy that have historically linked me to the pain of domination and stitched them into a vision of sustainable personal power.
I believe that this simple prompt, encouraging us to envision how our lives would be different, can show us HOW to enact the change that our girls need and deserve. So, I’ve got our start. I’m canvassing my contact list from the Red Tent on Rose - quite literally. I’ve sent out blank canvas panels to those heroines so that there past contributions can support our future. I’ve also hemmed blank canvas panels for our girls to dream unfettered. Stitched together they will tell the new story about women and power that we all so desperately want to hear.
Here we go...
