Mystery School on Mondays

It took me about a month to process the unexpected shift in students at The Warthog School.  It was a whirlwind that lifted our son, on excited yet anxious wings, to his new school this past January.  Never have I seen someone so rise to the question we pose every blue moon, "What would you do just once in a blue moon?"  A boy who vowed never to step foot into a classroom again suddenly dreamed up a dream that left us breathless.  Like everything about him the transition was intense.  Yet he declared and delivered on his dream.  He is now a proud and happy member of our local village school.  Winter's quickening has passed and in its place I quite literally see spring in his step.  He is alight with inspiration, readiness, passion, and joyousness.

After he flew our nest I spent about two weeks working on "what comes next" for me.  My first action item was to begin this Raising The Red Tent blog.  It is a project that I have patiently waited for the opportunity to embrace.  Our son opened a door out into the world so I dashed out behind him.  It was a glorious and indulgent two weeks of engagement.  I wrote, I created intentions, I sent invitations, I met with other moms to talk about the vision... I felt aligned with authentic self and purpose in this new (yet familiar) direction.  It was a late January flurry of excitement so enchanting that I forgot to close the door behind me.  And, as winter's wind will do, she gusted an unexpected guest seeking shelter back through the threshold of The Warthog School.  Before I could blink, and taking me by complete surprise, my next student had arrived.  Our daughter was standing in front of me with her heels dug in.

"It's my turn." She said with eyes that expected compliance.

Although I felt the tug of everything else I was just beginning there was no way to deny or ignore it.  Yes. Absolutely.  It's her turn.

It's her turn in our family.  It's Her turn in our culture.

Growing up alongside a sibling with behavioral special needs I've tracked the signs of what I know she's at high risk for: second fiddle.  I've been on the look out for the tell tale signs of self-diagnosed less-importance.  Accommodation.  Stuffing of needs.  Over-compliance.  The "It's OK, it doesn't matter" approach to conflict resolution.  She's got a blush of them all already which made her defiant stand a breath of fresh air.  I'm relieved that she is ready to be first chair. 

And with that, The Warthog School was called back into session for spring quarter.  We are already off and running and you can follow all of our adventures in holistic, nature-based learning here.  If you do, you will hit a weekly intersection of our two blogs.  We're calling it Mystery School Mondays and it's where The Warthog School overlaps Raising The Red Tent.

Homeschool is giving us an unexpected chance to once weekly go deep for the day (rather than just an hour) into a subject that we all need to understand now more than ever - the mystery and wonders of the feminine.

There is a nesting nature* to this pairing that will long keep me inspired.  The Warthog School was originally born under The Red Tent. When my children were small and I was still working full-time at The Red Tent I began The Warthog School as a curriculum that would supplement my children's lives with the ecoliteracy and biophilia.  I couldn't find what they needed so I started creating it.  Like my children, The Warthog School was quite literally born under The Red Tent.

When E.P.'s learning needs demanded that The Warthog School become a full-time homeschool this nesting flipped.  My passion for all things red tent had to be downsized and put in storage in my heart while we allowed The Warthog School to unfurl into a full-fledged homeschool adventure.  I had to retire from what I knew, recovery, and jump into something new - prevention.  While homeschooling our son I jotted notes about my old passion, "How will I raise a red tent for my daughter?" And, as the years ticked on, "When?" 

Mystery School Mondays are answering those questions for me.  I am raising a red tent for my daughter, now, by putting it right on her campus.  Once weekly the Warthog School will be something that I believe our culture has sorely missed  - a women's mystery school.  A time to marvel together about "girl power" and all the positive ways we can direct our future as women.

*"Nesting Nature" became the first mystery to explore on our new Monday studies...

WHEN: Once in a blue moon of course. (Which is NOW.)

On New Year's Eve of 2010 I sat under a full blue moon circled up with a handful of the founding heroine's of The Red Tent on Rose Avenue.  We were at El Capitan Beach in Santa Barbara County, California celebrating our inaugural wild woman retreat.  After using our senses, our bodies, and our voices to enjoy the last day of the year we sat around the campfire to use our imaginations to envision what was next.  We took turns looking beyond just the coming year and dared one another to dream big by asking, "What would you do only once in a blue moon?"

I was at a more dramatic point of transition in my own personal life than I knew at the time.  It turns out that was to be the last retreat for The Red Tent on Rose Avenue.  With a nine month old child in tow and a deep desire for another even the radiant full moon couldn't illuminate just how much would change for me.  I scryed into the fire in silence that night and walked into the new year holding a once in a blue moon vision for change.  I wanted to transition my red tent work from recovery to prevention, from therapy to education, from just women to girls, and most importantly from aligning with a patriarchal tradition to pursuing partnership with institutions driven by scientific research and a well established code of ethics.  It was going to be a giant course correction taking me places physically and psychologically that I could never have imagined.

Eight years later the vision is sparked. 

Circled under another full blue moon* with my seven year old daughter we're kicking off that campfire-scryed vision.  We've got a blog raisingtheredtent and the beginning panels of a patchwork red tent.  We're following Marge Piercy's prompting from her poem "The Low Road" and trusting that from us two our community will grow:

Two people can keep each other sane, can give support, conviction, love... Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge. With four you can play bridge and start an organization. With six you can rent a whole house, eat pie for dinner with no seconds, and hold a fund raising party. A dozen make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter; ten thousand, power and your own paper; a hundred thousand, your own media; ten million, your own country. It goes on one at a time, it starts when you care to act, it starts when you do it again after they said no, it starts when you say We and know who you mean, and each day you mean one more.

 *a super blue full blood moon eclipse at that!


 

HOW: Good Old Fashioned Stitch and Pitch

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...

WHO: "...We began balancing our efforts in recovery with plans for prevention."

While I was on Orcas Island sorting out my life I eagerly accepted an offer to contribute to a project that would force me to reflect and make sense of the career that I had loved and abruptly left.  The process was successful in ferrying me from who I was to where I've long dreamed of going - right here and now.  The book containing my contribution in its entirety is available on Amazon.  The excerpt below sums up "who" is behind this "Raising The Red Tent" project.  

"I was plagued by the feedback and questions from graduating clients about what happens when women leave treatment and re-enter the mainstream culture.  Fresh from the micro-culture of treatment, women often immediately felt the toxic common culture chipping away at them.  Many described the urge to lose weight, felt guilty enjoying food, or were enticed to join "calorie burning" yoga classes.
     Something became very clear: the sixth sheath, a female-only safe space, is not just important for a woman's recovery but can be essential for any female wanting to thrive amidst the current culture.
    Women have instinctually practiced self-care in community for millennia.  Historically, women came together in the red tent to attend the major transitions in their lives, birth, menarche, childbearing, menopause, and death, as well as tend to the monthly cycle of their fertility years.  In addition to preventative self-care, the red tent has long staked its ground in interdependence.  It has helped women find the power and reward of taking one's place in a greater community.
     Now more than ever women need such a counter-cultural safe house to heal their culturally inflicted traumas.  My work with women in recovery convinced me that it was time to resurrect the red tent for all girls and women.  I believed that by bringing the red tent back into the social fabric of daily life, not just for recovery but for continued well-being, girls and women would have an on-going opportunity to heal the toxic culture as well as themselves.
     Based on this belief I created The Red Tent in Venice, California in 2005.  It served in the ways that I had hoped, as a continued supportive space for women after eating disorder treatment as well as an entry point for women who were just beginning to identify their profound dis-ease within common culture.  It served in ways that surprised me as I saw women emerging from their own recovery to begin dreaming of a different future for the next generation of girls.  We began balancing our efforts in recovery with plans for prevention." 

Keating, Caroline.  "The Red Tent: Yoga Community in Treatment and Beyond."  Yoga and Eating Disorders Ancient Healing for Modern Illness.  Ed. Carolyn Costin.  Ed. Joe Kelly.  New York: Routledge, 2016. 195-200. Print.

Mother-Daughter Menarche Tea at The Red Tent,
Venice, California 2007

The Red Tent in Venice was an experience.  A phenomenon.  An unfurling of many women's authentic expressions into a communal creation.  We left off where I want to begin again today - with the plans we had for prevention.

"I'm so excited - I'm pitching a tent!"

Several years ago I rolled up The Red Tent in Venice to focus on sorting out my new life with children.  Once I took off the HEAVY mantle of "teacher" and its even more daunting badge of "healer" - I found that I had a much more to sort out than just how to handle my new role as a mother.  For years I had been on the front lines of a cultural war against women and in the midst of the carnage I hadn't noticed that I, myself, was bleeding out.  By the time I left our particular theatre - in-patient eating disorder and chemical dependency recovery for women - I was in need of my own rehabilitation.

 
My time off allowed me to figure out how to help my children stay whole while coming to my own senses about how I might be of service in the world with them under wing.  I am excited to say that I've got the beginning of a plan even though it's nothing new.  (It never has been. )  Yep, it looks like I'm raising a red tent again.

This time around I'm changing a few things.  I'm redirecting my energy from recovery to prevention.  I'm focusing on writing and I'm making this tent a traveling one.  Most importantly I'm not offering to teach or heal anyone.  I'm simply offering an opportunity.  I'm raising a red tent because I am raising a girl child and she needs one.  (As does the whole world if you ask me.)  I believe, that now more than ever before, we need girls who will be the living answer to Judith Duerk's long standing question, "How would your life have been different....".   I'm planning on staking the main pole and bringing the old fabrics but I need other women to pull (and reclaim!) the "guy lines" with me.

Which gets me to the subject line of this post; "I'm so excited - I'm pitching a tent!"  Yes, the pun is intended.  With me, the pun is ALWAYS intended.

What I am decidedly NOT changing this time around is what I've learned to be one of my most valuable strengths - I'm punny.   And, as it turns out, that is pretty important.  It might actually be the most important thing about my work. I'm punny, and occasionally funny, while trudging alongside other women through our common depths.  As any woman who has worked in recovery will tell you "our common depths" is a place often paved with tough crap.  The feedback I received most when I was acting as a sherpa through such shadowlands was that my candor, my willingness to "step in it" and not just admit it but laugh whole-heartedly about it was...refreshing and hopeful to other women.  There is a profound power to lightening up that I think we need to access NOW more than ever.  I believe it is a renewable energy source that will fuel us to rise and keep rising.

So, I am ready to strong arm the "locker room talk" into submission by not giving it (nor those who so casually use it) my power.
I'm reclaiming it all.
For all our daughters.

How will their lives be different?

Excerpt from Circle of Stones by Judith Duerk

 
   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.

     A place where, after the fires were lighted, and

the drumming, and the silence, there would be a hush 

of expectancy filling the entire chamber...a knowing

that each woman there was leaving old conformity to

find her self...a sense that all of womanhood stood on 

a threshold.

     And, if, during the hush, the other women, 

slightly older, had helped you to trust your own 

becoming...to trust it and quietly and prayerfully to nurture

it...

     How might your life be different?

What follows is a true story answer.