“Women’s mysteries, the blood mysteries of the body, are not the same as the physical realities of menstruation, lactation, pregnancy, and menopause; for physiology to become mystery, a mystical affiliation must be made between a woman and the archetypal feminine. A woman must sense, know or imagine herself as Woman, as Goddess, as an embodiment of the feminine principle…Under patriarchy this connection has been suppressed; there are no words or rituals that celebrate the connection between a woman’s physiological initiations and spiritual meaning.”
–Jean Shinoda Bolen
Our local Red Tent Circle is meeting this Friday and here is quick outline of our plans for this month, so that you might borrow some 
of them for your own circle! Our central activity is to make a collaborative 3-D mandala. I am also bringing small pouches so the women can bring home parts of the mandala for their own personal blessing bundle. Suggested items include shells, seeds, flowers, stones, bark, leaves, herbs,or fruit. I am also bringing some of my own little “scrap goddesses” for women to take home. Items that are perishable and biodegradable we will leave on the earth outside the building where we meet, but for shells, stones, dried herbs, and so forth we will make blessing bundles.
- After casting our circle with our group hum, we begin by sharing our maternal lineage as we pass the red thread and then sing Welcome Sacred Ones.
- Sing (and maybe dance!) to a new song for our Circle: Rise Up.
- As we pass the rattle, we consider the following summer-themed questions:
- What warms and brightens me right now?
- What has withered in the heat or am I weeding out of my life?
- I am at the height of my power when____?
- Follow her responses by drawing one or more Womanrunes cards from the central altar for guidance or to reflect upon her summer.
- One of my circle members wrote a song for our circle and we are going to sing it (she shared it on her own page here).
- Experiment with practicing some mudras (meditative hand yoga).
- Do a guided meditation for a healing symbol from the CD that comes from the book Mandala by Judith Cornell and we will draw mandalas with these symbols and whatever else we want. I learned how to draw these black and white mandalas when I was pregnant with my daughter and they were an incredibly healing practice for me after my journey through pregnancy loss.
Optional: color, write on, decorate, or take home copies of the Brigid’s Grove goddess mandalas that Mark draws for me. A blooming and blessing mandala is included in our summer ritual kit and the moon goddess mandala that is also our Practical Priestessing course logo is included in our winter download package.)
- Sing Woman Am I and thank everyone for coming!
If you’d like to explore more of the messy, beautiful real-life work of practical priestessing with me, I invite you to join me in our seven week Practical Priestessing or Red Tent Initiation courses.
Join the Creative Spirit Circle 
Membership in our Creative Spirit Circle is FREE and packed with beautiful, bountiful resources, including a free Womanrunes e-course, Womanspirit Wisdom mini-course, weekly virtual circles in our Facebook group, Red Tent resources, blessing posters and mandalas, access to Divine Imperfections sculptures at 50% off, and your monthly Creative Spirit Circle Journal filled with resources such as ceremony outlines, book recommendations, articles, sneak peeks, and special freebies.