My Red Ladies
Last night I had the “red ladies” meet in my apartment to celebrate an upcoming wedding. As usual with this, uh, “spiritual group,” topics ranged from ayuasca and peyote journeys taken down in Peru - where my friend met her true self in one vision and gave birth to her self in another - to a doctoral dissertation about women who have a history of sexual abuse giving birth at home, to a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and the choice to treat it through alternative methods and deep spiritual/emotional work, to a hugely archetypal dream where the name “Pele Leo” was offered, to MBT shoes, ionic foot baths, and anal sex. I think a redlight of the evening is when we passed around my bottle of Pink lubricant for comparisons with Astroglide and my parrot suddenly cawed “Nice Ass!”
Because it was a pre-wedding red ladies meeting, we decided to bring the bride something old (a nice bottle of red wine), something new (a red candle), something red (a red garter to wear under her wedding dress) and something true (a beautiful red journal). I lit the red candle and asked each red lady to hold it and infuse it with love and blessings and prayers for the bride’s new life so our dear friend can light it in the future whenever she wants to feel the love and support from her red ladies. The bride then asked each of us to wear a red ribbon around our wrist during her wedding ceremony.
I love these red gatherings. I adore them. My body-mind-soul soaks them up like red wine spilled onto a mattress. Over the years we’ve performed numerous rituals and healings, shared laughter and tears, massage therapists and how we got out of a speeding ticket through supplicating the Universe. But most of all we just spill it. Whatever the hell is going on with us, we lay it out, naked and raw and squirming like a slug under sea salt. When you share, someone might challenge you, someone might offer a healing touch, someone might comment on the blue energy they see radiating off your body, and without a doubt, everyone will offer insights that will slice through your reality and cause your eyebrows to rub your hair line. In other words, this isn’t Oprah’s Book Club. In fact, this group transgresses all labels I place on it whenever I try and explain what we do.
Over the years we’ve watched each other shift and heal and grow deeper into our truth. We know each other in a way that our families and lovers and future husbands and even close friends, might not ever. And we’re proud of our fluidity. Of our dedication to authentic personal growth and belly laughs and chocolate and personal lubricant choices. We’re proud to be a part of an age-old phenomenon, where women gather and magic happens sans any masculine interference. Not that we don’t love ze men, oh we do, we just happen to love our selves more.
So what special groups are you a part of? Ever thought of creating your own? If the red resonates, we’re more than willing to share the red lady vibe. After all, it’s older and wiser and naughtier than any of us.
August 16th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Hi Sera,
I love your book. I’ve already shared it’s beauty with two other funky women and they’re loving it too. Your wahoo is rare and I admire it so much.
I am a HAG. The term Hag used to mean healer/witch and the ladies of my family took it back. We also later gave it the meaning Healing All Generations. This group of women is all related by blood or marriage and consists of about 40 of us total. We gather annually on the campus of St. John’s University in MN for a weekend of ritual and learning. I co-chair the group with my stepsister, and we all take a piece of the planning.
We are mostly from Christian/Catholic families, but these weekends bring us back to our roots, no dogma or religous affiliations. We sing songs by Libana, rounds/chants taught to us by amazing poet/singer Barbara McAfee, and we do prayer/earth/water rituals and also sweat lodges some years. We’ve had workshops on feng shui, past life regression, the MMPI, and other topics. We spent one afternoon watching Iron-Jawed Angels together (a MUST see). Last Hag Reunion we took part in a Peace Rally in downtown St. Cloud, MN.
This amazing circle of women grounds me. We only gather once a year, but their amazing energy and power is with me at all times. I feel very privileged to be a Hag. It was all started because of one common ancestor, Francis Ohmann Schultenover. She’s the sister to my grandfather (a very rigid, abusive man who amazingly had this kick-ass sister I didn’t know about til just a few short years ago). We have a quilt she made that we use in the Grandmother Quilt ritual near the end of each weekend. We wrap one of the Hags in the quilt as she sits in a chair at the center of the room, and we all lay hands on her and sing and cry and pray for her to help her through a rough time in her life.
Thanks for asking about my special group. You know, you and I have had very similar experiences around spirituality. I just didn’t have the resources to travel the world to learn what you have. I sort of did it close to home via books and soul searching. Raised Catholic, I identify myself most closely with Paganism or Native American spirituality. I own Animal Speak and just bought the book Animal Spirit Guides. My husband and I were married by a Pagan Priestess named Bellezza Squillace (”Ordained Minister” to my dad), and I’m very liberated by the spiritual framework I’ve embraced after casting off the chains of patriarchal religions worldwide, Catholicism in particular.
From one Child of the Goddess to another- I bless you and your redness
Peace and righteousness, Anne
August 16th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Fabulous! My girlfriends and I don’t have any particular rituals per se, but I’ve noticed lately with a couple in the same age bracket (late 30s-early 40s) that our get-togethers wind up having this revelatory quality. Someone might a secret (a previous abortion, a polyamorous relationship, etc.), but more often, it just feels like we are marvelling at how much we’ve embraced uncertainty and unconventionality. The few of us have brought serious healing to each other, laughed our asses off, but most important (IMHO) have had these great revelations about ways to live in the universe free of restrictions and fear and old, reflexive standards that don’t do us any good. Now I see it’s the subversive Red Vibe infiltrating our souls. Yay!