The Power and History of Red Tent Circles
The Red Tent: A Cross-Cultural Tradition of Honoring Women’s Cycles
All over the world, long before the modern idea of “self-care,” women created spaces to retreat, rest and renew during their cycles. These sacred spaces are now often called Red Tents, but the practice goes back thousands of years and crosses continents, religions and languages.
Ancient Practices on Every Continent
Anthropologists have documented these practices on every continent. Among many Indigenous peoples of North America, “moon lodges” were places where women could gather during their bleeding time to rest, pray, and pass on knowledge to younger members of the community. In parts of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, menstrual huts or women’s houses served a similar purpose, offering privacy, respite from physical labor, and a chance to share stories and rituals. Some Pacific Island societies built separate houses for women’s ceremonies, and in ancient Europe and the Mediterranean, temple-based rites around goddesses of fertility and the moon often coincided with women’s cycles.
Although each tradition looked different, a common theme emerges. These spaces were rarely meant as punishment or exclusion. Instead they marked a threshold, a time when a woman’s energy turned inward, intuition heightened, and community wisdom was exchanged. Food might be brought to those inside. Prayers, songs, and blessings were offered. Young girls entering menarche learned directly from mothers, aunties, and grandmothers, not from pamphlets but through lived experience and ritual.
Sacred Time and Communal Wisdom
Inside these spaces, stories were told, daughters were taught, and medicine was shared. Girls learned about their bodies not from pamphlets but from their mothers, aunties and grandmothers sitting beside them. These gatherings helped weave resilience and belonging, connecting each generation to the next.
The Modern Red Tent Movement
The term “Red Tent” gained new life with Anita Diamant’s 1997 novel The Red Tent, which imagined the lives of biblical women gathering during their cycles. Since then, women around the world have been recreating this kind of supportive space in their living rooms, community centers and online circles. Modern Red Tent Circles may feature meditation, journaling, gentle movement or simply sitting together, but the heartbeat is the same: honoring our cycles as sacred.
Linking the Past to the Present
Today’s Welcome to Womanhood ceremonies, like those offered by The Mother Thread, draw inspiration from this deep history. Based in Connecticut and traveling throughout New England and beyond, The Mother Thread creates gatherings where girls and their families can experience the same sense of community and reverence that has existed in women’s spaces for millennia. By weaving art, storytelling and ritual into each celebration, these ceremonies echo the cross-cultural tradition of the Red Tent while giving it a form that speaks to today’s families.
Why It Matters Now
Reclaiming the Red Tent tradition reminds us that menstruation is not a private burden but part of a larger, sacred rhythm. When we create spaces to rest and share wisdom, we not only honor our bodies but also revive a practice that has sustained women across cultures and centuries.
