Are you looking for a Red Tent?

“We invite you to hold the paradox that whilst we strive to create spaces that liberate, we will make mistakes, we will be imperfect, we will need to apologise, learn, repair and try again. This is because liberatory spaces are not the norm in our culture. We are disrupting the status quo, we are challenging through our practice and we are also, learning and challenging ourselves and each other. We believe that Red Tents can provide a space to explore this paradox.”

Mary Ann Clements and Aisha Hannibal

At the Red Tent Directory, we see Red Tents as liberatory spaces which make room for us all to receive collective care and so we, therefore, urge women to be as inclusive as possible when creating their Tents. This means thinking about how to make them inclusive by design considering gender expression, age, sexuality, race, (dis)ability, class and access to resources when you establish, run and promote your Red Tent. Please read this guidance about making Red Tents inclusive, accessible and sustainable.

Our book covers these topics in depth including creating liberatory space, conflict and challenge and creating a model of shared leadership. You can contact us for support or if you’d want to talk something through.

Our commitment is to support liberatory practice in the way that Red Tents are held and run. And so our goal and intention is to focus on that going forward. All that said, it has led us to take down all of the 300 plus Red Tent listings from around the world which were held on the website. We no longer list Red Tents.

Here is the story to explain why….

Did you know it has been 9 years since we first launched the Red Tent Directory? That is quite a long time we think you’ll agree. We have loved it. And many of you have all been a part of that sharing and we want you to know we are grateful.

Thank you for your commitment to and curiosity about Red Tents- attending them, creating them, hosting them, sustaining them and in some cases closing them. Coming together in these spaces and being with the rough edges and smooth curves of our lives in community is important.

It took us three intense and incredible years and at the end of it we had written a book about Red Tents which was published in 2021 called Red Tents: Unravelling Our Past and Weaving a Shared Future. In the book, we describe Red Tents as liberatory and anti-oppressive spaces. This isn’t just a beginners guide to Red Tents, it’s an invitation to create brave, transformative circles.

In the book, we really set out a vision for Red Tents, as spaces that can help change and transform culture. We take you, the reader, through steps that can help to centre justice, inclusion and collective care in this work.

Since we published the book we’ve been working with our team of volunteers at the Red Tent Directory to try and work out how to make the listings on the Red Tent Directory website reflect the vision that we highlight in the book. But after many long hours of discussion and thought and reflection. We’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not possible for us to manage the Directory listings website, in a way that feels fully resonant and congruent with our vision set out in the book.

To do so would need much more significant resources than we’ve ever had for this project. It would require people to be able to support Tents individually and for us to understand a lot more about their practice before we would be willing to list them. It would also require us to ask Tents to make commitments to liberation-centred and anti-oppressive practice, and it just doesn’t feel possible for us as a small team of volunteers working a few hours a month each to engage in that deeper work of understanding and supporting your practice in this way.

And so, after many hours of reflection, we’ve made a difficult decision to end the listing service that we’ve been providing at the Red Tent Directory.

We feel that this decision, though it may well be disappointing for some of you, is the best way to really embody our commitment to creating safer space for everyone.

This will, we hope, make sense to those of you who have read our book. If you haven’t yet, we invite you to consider reading it. We hope that when you do, you will find inspiration for your Red Tent and feel inspired to share the ideas that are in it. We really believe that Red Tents can be a way of creating radical spaces for collective care and healing.

And so whilst we have ended our listing service, as of October 2021, the website is a place to share resources to support people running Red Tents. Check out our resources here.

Although we no longer share listings for specific tents we want to honour all of you that have been a part of this journey so far, and hope that you’ll continue to benefit from resources we will offer in the future and that your Red Tent spaces continue to thrive.