The Moon Lodge and the Red Tent
Nuit was a special guest twice on SistahGoddess Camara's BlogTalk radio series, Wombyn Studies- where she spoke about menstrual activism, eco-friendly menstruation, and Sacred Menstruation. Below are links to both hour long shows from 2010:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sistahgoddess/2010/07/14/wombyn-studies-night-moore-author-the-ruby-in-the-lotus-and-ragtime-revolution http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sistahgoddess/2010/08/12/wombyn-studies-night-moore-greeneco-bleeding-menst |
Moon Lodges, Moon Huts, Scarlet Temples and Red Tents... These are the phrases that are associated with sacred spaces where women gather together to honor the womb mysteries and other female rites. The idea of the Moon Lodge originated with indigenous cultures and was adopted as a sacred space for women's rites of passage about 40 years ago as a result of feminist consciousness raising and the birth of the modern Goddess Spirituality movement. Menstrual sacred space has been created by women since the 1970's, and I began creating my own in the early 1990's. Two of my early published writings from that time period are about how to create this sacred space- 'The Moontime Altar' published in Of A Like Mind, and 'How to Create a Sacred Moon Lodge' in Circle Network News. And there were many other women teaching and celebrating the womb-moon mysteries. But the current flame of this movement as we know it was sparked by the novel 'The Red Tent' by Anita Diamant, where the Biblical Dinah receives her matrilineal mysteries within the circle of women of her tribe's Red Tent. The Red Tent Temple Movement founded by Alisa Starkweather and Red Tents in Every Neighborhood founded by De'Anna Lam were both inspired by Ms. Diamant's novel. What is the purpose of creating this sacred space? For women to be able to gather together, as we know they once did, in sacred space to share and commune about our precious female bodies and spirits and experiences. Traditionally my womb-moon spaces have been very red, as definitely are the Red Tents, and certainly red is an element of many Moon Lodges. The focus is to celebrate our life-giving bloods, to come together in the blood bonds of sisterhood. Sacred blood sisters! In my many moons of sharing this sacred knowledge, I quickly learned that women LOVE the idea of coming together monthly to reflect and honor our natural rhythms. In fact, we hunger for it. It can fill a deep longing and need we may not have consciously known we had. I love the fact that this menstrual movement which began so many decades ago collectively by so many awesome foremothers (that are now crones!) is really starting to finally bloom the blossoms of all those seeds planted in revolutionary soil back in the 60’s and 70’s. Since then, menstruation has not only been reclaimed by many women as they empower their bodies and spirits, it has been employed in art, in dance, in magick, in healing, in garden-feeding, in protests and in protection! Our cycles hold most sacred medicine. Our blood is sacred beautiful lunar ancient holy female power! 
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