This weekend I hosted a Red Tent here in my yurt in Herefordshire.

These always feel like extra special events where women gather to share time and space with women who ‘get them’.

It’s a time and space where you can let your guard down and relax into the truth of who you are.

In preparation for the events I always have an outline of my intentions for the day, but it often unfolds into its own perfect form.

I hold the sacred space and it’s important to me that women leave feeling nurtured and nourished, (I often do this with food too…although I tell people to bring some food with them, inevitably I make some food too – sometimes it’s raw vegan lemon cheesecake, this time it was hearty vegetable soup…)

I love to hold space for women.

To create a space where you can feel held, witnessed and heard.

If you’re into astrology I have my moon in Cancer – so I am The nurturer, you will always be safe and looked after with me…

A couple of weeks ago I held two virtual Re-Enchant Your Life retreats for my group The Sacred Grove where we reviewed the year, reconnected to what was important to us and then re-envisioned our future.

I’ve always found it important to make a conscious check-in with ourselves.

Too often we can find ourselves going through the motions, and then feeling frustrated and cranky, and not really understanding that the frustration comes from living a life that’s out of alignment with your energy and values.

I truly wish this was taught schools, it certainly wasn’t when I was at school… we learnt how to be ‘good girls’, to not make a fuss, and to focus on our grades.

We were taught nothing about connecting with our own emotional or spiritual well-being.

Nothing about focusing on and developing our individual skills, especially our non-academic skills.

Nothing on finding our own answers within and learning how to be a Sovereign woman – We were taught that answers always came from an authority outside of ourselves.

And we were certainly not taught anything on the value of pausing and reflecting. It was all strive, strive, strive.

In fact if this was mentioned, it would probably have been considered ‘indulgent’ and not at all important. It was much more important (or maybe that should be easier…) if we were compliant and followed the ‘rules’.

This ‘education’ not only comes from schools, but from our families, and society in general, which makes it even more important than ever to stop and pause, and to notice those areas of frustration.

Those areas of frustration are your soul and spirit telling you that you are ready to expand into something bigger, but as yet you aren’t aware of the new rules or framework on how to do this, as you are still operating on the ‘good girl’ software.

So I chose to hold the Re-Enchant Your Life retreats at this time of year, as it’s the perfect energy to take that moment to consciously reflect on what’s worked for you and what hasn’t. What’s actually yours and what are the expectations of others.

It’s a chance to honestly notice what you’re doing and why, so that you can decide what you’re carrying forward and what you’re letting go of.

We then took the time to connect with what was actually important to us, so that we could set intentions for the year ahead that were in alignment with who we were becoming.

Some of these intentions looked like goals for people, others looked like values and feelings that they wanted front and centre of their life, often it was a combination of the two.

Importantly, there was no right or wrong way to do this, only the way that felt expansive.

It’s simple, but very powerful work.

To build on this, I thought it would be great to then quite literally weave these intentions into being.

So during the Red Tent we created Witches Ladders, or as I renamed them ‘SHEro Intention Ladders’ – these are simply braided ribbons, that with each knot and weave of the ribbons, you activate with your clear intentions (you can see mine below on the right).

We picked out ribbon, cords, and threads in colours that activated our intentions.

Then we chose objects to weave into our ribbons and threads that were symbolic of our intentions. We used crystals, feathers, ogham sticks, dried fruit, charms, feathers and beads.

We then braided everything together, focusing completely on our intentions, so that we could weave them into being.

We did this in silence, held in the sacred space of the Red Tent.

The energy of the tent was completely different.

Usually it’s filled with conversation and laughter.

This was reverence, sacred, intentional.

You could feel the magic weaving it’s way round the tent.

These ladders once completed are hung up, placed on your altar, on your desk, in your bag, as something tangible to remind you of and reconnect you to your intentions.

They can be used for meditation, much like a rosary.

These are working tools, not just something pretty to be forgotten about.

This is practical magic!

Fun, intentional, sacred and joyful.

Then after we completed our ladders, we drew oracle cards for the year.

We asked the cards for what action we needed to take for each month to bring our intentions into being.

We then asked the herb, plant and tree cards, what herb/plant/tree we need to work with that month to support us and our intentions.

I usually draw cards to give overall guidance for the month, but it felt more relevant to ask what action we needed to take.

And I always trust my feelings and intuition! After all that is what I hold space for women to do too – to completely trust and believe in themselves!

As early evening drew in and it became darker, we snuggled under blankets, and by the light of just the candles and fairylights we listened to stories told and sang by Carolyn Hillyer, and ate mince pies…

I think it’s fair to say that I create events that I want to attend lol…

There is something so magical about giving yourself the time and the space to create sacred tools that I suggested to the members of The Sacred Grove, that we start to make these tools with each of the Sabbats, the earth celebrations, in our virtual Red Tent.

Members of The Sacred Grove are all around the world, just because they couldn’t come to my home, I didn’t want to miss out on such a beautiful event.

And guess what? They loved the idea, so that’s what we’ll be doing too!

If you’d love to join us and learn more about this amazing community, you can do so here: Join us in the sacred sisterhood

And if you’re wondering how people from all round the world join together to make sacred tools….

It’s really very easy! Before the event I would give you everything that you need to know and of course including a list of what you need to bring with you. Then at the time of the event, I will be in my red tent and use a video conferencing system called Zoom, so that you can join me in this sacred space.

From there everything is the same as if we were all together, except at the end you won’t get to try any of my delicious soup (but I would of course share the recipe!)

Here’s your invite again to join us weave magic in The Sacred Grove