Women’s Red New Moon — 2017
The New Moon in Aquarius, the New Moon halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox that determines the Chinese New Year. My honor to host a group of power women at my house, women I’ve known for decades and women I’ve just met, ranging from 30s to 70s. For a few hours we embody the world we want to see, we dream a new way of being. And we do it decked out in red and letting our inner wild woman fly free.
Photos by Jessica B-H, Martha H, Amy M, and Valley R.
The altars were set, a micro version of the home temple draped in red.
The dancing cat woman sculpture by Stu Craft proudly wore her pink pussy hat, a veteran of the Austin women’s march.
The women began arriving. The table full of red food quickly filled. Unseen are many bottles of red wine!
Let the socializing and noshing begin!
Until the living room and kitchen filled with female energy.
We circled up and rallied for our ceremony.
And down the magnificent Vagina Hall — draped in red and strewn with silk red rose petals — we went, ready to be birthed.
Once in the backyard, the cauldron hibachi of hot charcoal awaited. As the hostess, I was thrilled to be in my ceremonial smudging happy place.
Let the smudging begin! First with a sage-yerba santa-rosemary purification and protection blend from my Holy Smokes book. We smudged deeply — including “the goods” — immersing ourselves in an herbal cloud that lifted negativity.
We followed it with a resin and spice blend that we held tightly and manifested into it all our hopes and wishes for the world and ourselves, invoking all the causes and concerns now under siege. We opened our hearts and energy to a create a humane and forward-thinking world and sent our smokey prayers into the infinite beneath the blazing New Moon.
We joined together and formed a ceremonial birthing canal. Woman by woman, we passed through the canal, showered by verbal blessings and spritzed by water from sacred goddess wells of Britain — birthing new visions beneath the brilliant New Moon.
