The Fall of Red Tent – Reflection, and Possibilities.

The Red Tent Temple Movement has gone sour over the last three years or so. I don’t doubt that there’s still isolated little pockets of Red Tents, far away from central MA, or ones that only meet once in a blue moon who haven’t yet felt this atrophy.

For the ones still going strong, I issue words of warning. The problems that I have seen here in central MA that kill Tents dead will eventually come for your Tents too.

I have been trying to warn people for some time about the problems I’ve seen. Like I said, people either seem confused or openly hostile when I bring these things up. It’s no surprise. If you had told me these things four years ago when I first started attending Red Tent, I would have given you a blank stare.

“What? No! Never OUR Red Tent!!!”

It’s fair to say that we were all fresh and naive when we were first starting out in this movement.  That naievete is why we never saw it coming. Many of the problems that to me are as plain as day now would never have even occured to me when I first stepped foot in a Red Tent. Even if you had presented them directly to my face in plain words, I would never have thought them even possible.

I think that this innocence is where the confusion and hostility come from when I now try to warn people that Red Tent desperately needs certain things to survive. Even after I have collected plentiful examples of all these crude shortcomings in action, people react like I’m talking about floating catpeople from outer space when I say that there’s reasons we need rules. Actually, I redact that statement. I daresay the general populus of Red Tent today would be totally onboard with the idea of floating catpeople from outer space. I’ve seen loonier stuff make its rounds in this group. But you will still get pelted with rotten tomatoes if you even mention the need for rules.

I won’t turn myself blue in the face iterating again why we need rules, expectations, and consequences in Red Tent. I will just say, ladies, you’ve been warned, your Tent is vulnerable, and these situations will absolutely tear it to bits unless you address it now in your times of prosperity.

For those who have wisely abandoned ship, let’s relfect. What did we accomplish? What part of our experiences (if any) still live inside us? What are we trying to save?

For me, there was two years or so where I felt more connected with a comminity of women than I ever have in my life. I felt immense amounts of support. People really cared. I shared a common purpose and intent with people who were just as willing to work hard for it as I was. I aquired positive female role models. Being around women was healing for that time. It fortified my resolve when I could feel my heart beating as one with a community so to speak.

For the Red Tent I went to initially, the women there accomplished something remarkable. Despite all the flaws in Red Tent from the get-go, we made that shit not only work, but thrive for two years. We put in the work with our hands, and reaped the rewards with our hearts. The fact that we accomplished such splendor with such a crappy premise was incredible.

And it holds promise for the future.

Maybe this won’t happen for a long time, but suppose someone out there somewhere decided to take what they learned from Red Tent and boot up something new.

This group would be a community and act like one. There would be a minimum contribution from each participant in some way, shape or form. With everyone contributing even bare minimum, this group would have its basic needs met. People would still be free to contribute extra.

There would be rules and consequences for people who behave in a way that threatens the safety of group participants. These rules would also be in place so people don’t unwittingly break them because they know what is expected of them. It would also help to have these on paper for newcomers. There would be stated mission purposes so that if the group was getting too far off center, there’s something to center back to. In addition, there would be set statements about what the group can and connot provide for its participants, so that people know what to expect and don’t feel jipped, blindsided or confused later on.

This group would be crystal clear on how leadership, rule enforcement, and overall direction of the group are manged. It would be clear to all participants who manages consequences of breaches of safety, conflect resolution, confrontation around minor things, and organization of the actual event. There would also be ways for fresh perspectives to enter the group without losing focus of the overall substance of the group.

This type of group would still have the bonding of Red Tent, but without the cataclysmic lack of structure. It would be a sustainable model for keeping the group replenished, safe, and moving forward. It would take a lot of effort, even more than Red Tent possibly, but that’s what community is for.

Like I said though, this likely won’t happen for a long time. Given the apathy and allergies to rules that have come to pass in Red Tent, it will likely be a while before we’re ready for a system purge and reboot.

Examination – Beware The Red Tent.

So first off, it really does hurt to have to section off the Red Tent with red tape, and spray paint a big red X on it to mark it for demolition. I will remember the glory days for the rest of my life. It’s all in the mind.

But anyway, I can examine what led to the decline of the Red Tent in succint list form. Many, many things contributed the fall of Red Tent and the embarassing debacle it is today. Most of these things were present from day 1. There were huge flaws and gaps in the very foundation. It’s a wonder that the women who contributed early on managed to make it work as well as it did for as long as it did (and not to mention the few who have managed to keep it going true even today). Let’s begin.

1. “Safe Space” (PSYYYYCHE!!!) – A huge problem in Red Tent from the beginning was the notion of “Safe Space.” From what nebulous definitions can be gathered, its supposed to be a space where people’s autonomy is respected and people are allowed to make their own decisions for themselves without judgement or reproach. While it was a great idea in theory, no one followed up on it. We would just declare “Safe Space” and expect that everyone would fall into line and know exactly what was meant. There was a refusal through inaction to really define what Safe Space was. As such, Safe Space could not be defended, as it had no real boundaries or definitions.  Who or what would we be safe from? What does “unsafe” look like? What do we DO if Safe Space is broken? This lack of boundaries and rules was a humongous problem. A common way that it was exploited was that someone would do something to upset safe space, and then when people called them out on it, the offender would declare that their safe space was being infringed upon.  For instance, you could totally dish out information pertaining to someone else during circle, and then when someone told you that’s not okay, you could declare that your safe space was being interrupted because people are trying to censor you. Really, the offending party can’t be blamed here, because no rules were set up in the first place! I have since tried to warn Red Tents that they desperately need rules and regulations. They need to be able to call out unsafe behavior for what it is. Most of what I have put out there has been reacted to with indifference if not outright hostility. Because Red Tents are supposed to be accepting environments, it seems people think that we must be endlessly accomodating of everything, no matter how vile and disruptive. Unfortunately, if you’re not willing to define “unsafe,” and actually DO something about unsafe behavior when you see it, you simply cannot have “Safe Space.”

1. Cissexism and Heterosexism. From day 1, there was an emphasis on celebrating the cycles and transitions of a female’s life – Maidenhood, menstruation, menopause, and possible motherhood. Much of this was positive. For instance, we would teach young women that their periods are nothing to be ashamed of. We would especially invite young women just starting their periods to come talk about how puberty is treating them, and to hear what other women have to say about that time of the month.

Women going through menopause shared advice to pre-meopausal women. That was pretty awesome too.

Where this went sour was that there was also a HUGE emphasis on the symbolic and spiritual importance of the uterus. Even the red fabric was supposed to symbolize a womb and the monthly flow. Unfortunately, people who have no uterus, no menses, don’t want children, can’t have children, or are gay or are transgendered were a mere footnote given this model. In some cases, these people ended up being “schooled” in circle or were pushed to the sidelines to the point that they were only welcome at face value. That was messed up and needless to say caused some friction.

4. Touch. Related to the problem of safe space was how touch was dealt with. This was not a group where there was any sexual or romantic touching, mind you. Most Red Tents seemed to be environments where we wanted to introduce platonic, nurturing touch. Back rubs, hand holding, shoulder pats, hugs, that sort of thing. Even with this in mind, not everyone wanted to be touched. And while *technically* they had the right to say no, many people felt pressured into accepting touch even though they really weren’t okay with it. Especially since touch wouldn’t be addressed until an individual approached you and either asked if you were okay with whatever touch they wanted to give to you, or just touched you without asking. Saying no to an individual is much harder than saying no in an abstract sense. So it probably would have been better to have an opportunity for those who didn’t want touch in their Tent experience to have identified themselves to no one in particular at the start of each gathering. It would also be nice to not have anyone postulating about why certain people don’t want to be touched, and to respect their wishes rather than figuring out how to help-force these people into being okay with touch. I can’t say for sure how many cases of this we had, but some people did seem palpably forceful around the touching aspect. On the flipside, many were also palpably awkward around the touching aspect. There were delayed or through-the-grapevine confessions of people who had accepted touch but later felt like their personal space had been invaded. While yes, ultimately its up the individual to assert their personal bubble, it shouldn’t be made into a stigmatizing, awkward, or difficult thing to do.

5. Conflict Resolution, Goddamit. Another sad result of the “This is safe because we said so” mindset was that there was absolutely no process for conflict resolution in the group. If women were having friction, there was no way to mediate either individually, jointly, or any way for them to go through their feelings in a way that doesn’t endanger Safe Space. Usually petty gossip was the only outlet, as any real confrontation or addressing of the issues was considered “too judgmental.” There was also an unspoken expectation that people were supposed to unconditionally kiss and make up. This did not work. There was a refusal to let two conflicting parties have their space when they needed it. Taking space apart from each other was seen as “uneccessary division.” In truth, getting away from the heat of conflict in order to cool down is often very, very necessary. Its important that two conflicting parties can still have their Safe Space, even if that means physically allowing the Safe Space to split in two.

5. Division of Labor/Costs. Running a Red Tent was a huge burden. There was procuring a date, time, and venue for each gathering. There was collecting and managing fabric and decorations, transporting the fabric and decorations, setting them up, taking them down, occasionally washing them, serving up food and drink, dealing with leftover food and dishes, cleaning the space, and bringing the fabric and decorations home. Not to mention the costs of gas, food, fabric, decorations, possible fees for a venue, and many other small stressors that make a Red Tent a huge sink of time, energy, and money. There absolutely must be a network of women helping out if this is to happen. It can’t all fall on one person. But that’s exactly what happened to me for well over a year. I won’t say I had no help or contributions, but the lion’s share of these contributions were things my Red Tent did not actually need. I got plenty of offers from people wanting to host the event at their house or facilitate circle, which really didn’t ultimately matter. What was missing the whole time was for people to physically help with setup. No matter how many times I requested very specific forms of help, help never came. It was exhausting, disheartening, and frankly crippling to my Tent, because the event depended entirely on me to make it happen. That sucked royally. Women would show up, receive, and then go home. In groups that require so much labor, everyone NEEDS to contribute something. It’s rather unfair that all the work and costs fall solely on some womens’ shoulders, and then other women are expected to do absolutely nothing other than show up. If pitching some food, some labor, or a couple bucks is really THAT much of a drain on someone’s resources, I daresay they have more pressing concerns on their hands than coming to Red Tent.

6. Divisions of Power/Illusions of Glory. In general, if a group has roles, people WILL start making things up about the power and glory of certain roles unless these roles are explained. In my case, many people in my Tent seemed to greatly covet the role of facilitator. I have no idea why. My role as facilitator was basically pure servitude and thankless labor. After setting up by myself, I would hold a stick and talk for a minute and a half about Red Tent, and then pass the stick off around the circle. There was no power. There was no glory. I knew from the start that forming a Red Tent was not for my benefit. If I had ANY of my best interests in mind (time, energy, finances, stress, career), I would never have brutalized myself with that level of responsibility.

But for some reason, there was a crap-ton of baggage among certain people about how my supposed ego and power tripping were absolutely ruining the group. This happened among the Red Tent I had attended previously as well, and is one of the reasons it exploded. My brain cannot comprehend this to this day. If I were to guess at what was going through these people’s heads, I would guess that they basically missed the point of Red Tent entirely.  Whereas we were gathering to ultimately relax and take a load off, these women thought that this was something glorious to put on their resumes, or impress people or… something. There were also huge one-sided power struggles. I say one-sided because well, there was no contest, and no prize to be had, but some women behaved as though they were in a race competing for some reward. It was all in their minds. A lot of this type of conflict could be resolved by explaining any roles that are present, and what these roles actually do. Likewise, explain what these roles do not do. It would also be wise to have a stated purpose for the group, and what the group is not there for. Of equal importance is having ground rules everyone knows about so that it doesn’t seem like one person is personally targeting another person when conflict arises.

7. New Age.  Red Tent had things in it that made it really appealing to New Age and hippy-dippie type folks. Goddess worship, meditation, smudge sticks, copy-pasted Native American customs, and a huge emphasis on things like “Divine Feminine,” “Intuition,” and “Sacred Wombspace” were among the bait put out for this crowd. Now, maybe I sound like I’m being really judgmental and discriminating here. What’s wrong with a few New Agers and people who enjoy the more spiritual side of life? Well, nothing – as long as New Age isn’t running the show. Unfortunately, this is exactly what was happening. It made the circle extremely uncomfortable and hard to relate to for people who didn’t want anything to do with Goddess worship, Divine Feminine, energy work, and all that other floofy stuff. As a result, the more secular people, who were valuable to the overall group experience, dropped from the roster like flies. It slowly started becoming a nest of New Agers with wackier and wackier ideas until anyone who wasn’t spiritual would flee for their lives.

8. Limitations of the Container. Red Tent needs to admit that it is not a substitute for psychiatric help, despite its emotional aspect. It needs a way to allow in participants without letting in dysfunctional behavior. It needs to admit that it cannot be a soup kitchen, despite its nurturing aspect. It needs to admit that it cannot be a fountain of endless giving, because that giving must come from somewhere. It must confess that people can’t just do whatever they want when they are in circle. It must let people know of rules and consequences during neutral times so that we’re not busting them out of our asses at the last minute when someone is tearing through safe space like a bat out of hell. I’m sure there’s others I’m not thinking of, but basically, Red Tent cannot be everything at once. It cannot exceed the value of what people put into it. It is a real, physical space that is subject to all laws of reality. Act accordingly.

That is all for now.