Greta’s Story

We celebrate the full spectrum of womanhood —
our light, our shadow, our cycles, and our divine power.

“Sex.  It isn’t all that it’s cracked it up to be.”  That’s what my mother told me when I was 15, growing up in Virginia, in the Bible Belt.  That same year, I attended church camp, in a rural mining village of West Virginia.   The heavyweight evangelical keynote speaker, Josh McDowell, took the stage, and spoke with celestial authority: “Girls, if you let a guy take you to first base, it’s a slippery slope.  There is an invisible line and you don’t know the power of crossing it.  Soon you’ll be at second base … third base, and … if you have sex NOW, it’s as if you are already CHEATING on your future spouse.” 

Every message I learned was ripe with sexual shame.  You see, I cut my teeth on the story of Eve, the Temptress, who ate from the Tree of Knowledge and offered the fruit to Adam.  Because of Eve, Original Sin was blamed on women and carried down through the centuries.  I inherited deep shame and guilt.  Unconsciously, I was disconnected from my body, cut off at the waist, and living with an invisible chastity belt. 

Whenever my normal teenage urges stirred, my fear of sin created conflict within me.  Searching for an acceptable path,  I prayed: “Jesus, bring me Love.  Bring me a man who loves you with his whole heart and wants to serve You with his Life.”   

 See, I had a deep passion for meaning and a fierce devotion to the Divine.   So, I did what anyone following Jesus might do,  I prayed. Following my heart, I traveled across the country and enrolled at Fuller Seminary, with plans to become a pastor.  

But as I went deeper and deeper into my studies, I found that the vocabulary for God – and all people – was exclusively male.  I discovered that the roots of this rigid language lay in fear of women’s bodies and women’s power.  The more I studied theology, the more the politics of the church came into focus for me.  As I was exposed to the vilification of women’s sexuality, a crucible of fire erupted.  It birthed within me an inner knowing and I began to claim my own sovereignty. Like the Phoenix, the lost Divine Feminine emerged from the ashes of antiquity.

In my quest for answers  I read countless books, pivotal ones, such as When Women were Priests, and The Christology of Erotic Power.  I immersed myself in Rumi, Tantra and Kabbalah.   I traveled to Crete, where women have been Priestesses and Leaders for centuries.  I studied with shamans in Peru, encountering indigenous people who still believe they are living in the Garden of Eden.  

I came face to face with the ancient legacy of Sacred Sexuality.  I was transformed. Original Sin became Original Blessing.   

One of the paths that helped to heal the disconnection within my body was falling into a community of women;  a sisterhood that I found lively, playful, and connected with their body and voice.  Part of this path was encountering my first Red Tent in Santa Monica, Ca.  The women I met were deeply alive; they laughed easily and shared stories that revealed hidden maps and secrets of the feminine.  Some of the women were soft, some bold, some radiant, some weathered.  I felt deeply and playfully supported as I knit back into my body, and began to unfold the gifts that every woman carries.  The women I have encountered through this red thread have become some of my closest and treasured friends. 

I held my first Red Tent on the very next new moon.  It was February – Valentine’s weekend –  and I invited my sassy friend to teach us the art of lap dancing.  It was playful, liberating, and unexpectedly meaningful.  Something awakened in me.

Since then, we have gathered nearly every month in Red Tent Los Angeles around themes of embodiment, movement, voice, healing, sisterhood, rites of passage and what it means to fully inhabit our lives as women.

When the world went quiet during covid, gatherings paused, and I created a Rite of Passage for Menopause. It is called ‘Queenagers’, and is an invitation to reimagine aging not as a decline, but as an initiation and to honor this transition with wisdom, celebration, and ceremony.

Through it all, one truth became clear –- No woman should walk alone.  And every woman thrives in a community where she feels safe, seen, and that she belongs.   In these spaces, something essential comes alive.  

Witnessing the medicine of women gathering, inspired the birth of our Non-Profit, Red Tent Global.  We began asking: What becomes possible when women are supported and championed, and resources are allowed to flow? 

We imagine planting and connecting Red Tent as a living artery of the feminine – carrying encouragement, courage, practical support, stories, mentorship, and celebration across generations and communities. Through gathering, listening and witnessing one another, women become a living ecosystem of belonging and renewal — where power, true power, is a power that uplifts many. 

Step into the circle of sisterhood … Find a tent, Host a tent,  Support a tent.  Together, we are creating circles that change the world – by changing how women are held.