I’ve been writing this article for months now and today feels like the perfect day to share it as a celebration of All the Women around the World.

May all little girls feel protected and loved, may all teenage girls feel excited about becoming women and open to explore womanhood, may all adult women feel proud and joyful to be women and may all elder women know that they are living examples for other women to follow.

Why women’s gatherings?

This is a question I often get, from men and women alike.

As ever, I don’t claim to share an absolute truth, but rather my point of view, based on my experiences and I am open to talk and exchange.

My journey

I attended my first women’s circle 7 years ago.

Curious and excited, I arrived a little early and remember the reverence with which our hosts set the space and decorated the altar with candles, crystals and rose petals.

I’m not sure if it was Chloe‘s sweet voice, the gentle music in the background or the smell of roses but I felt calm and at home.

I often gathered with my girlfriends and I loved it, but this was different. We often came together before going out, we drank alcohol and spoke over loud music and over one another about trivial things.

In the women’s circle, we all had the opportunity to speak while everyone else listened. We chanted, made flower crowns and took it in turns to share our deepest longing in the centre of the group. I felt safe and seen.

Before I had even left, I kew that I wanted to create such spaces for women to come together in sacred sisterhood.

Just 6 months later I was hosting my first Women’s circle with a dear sister, Twanine.

Since then, I have participated in many other gatherings and have learnt in every circle. I have also hosted countless Women’s Gatherings myself and with sisters, from 3 hour workshops to 7 day retreats and most recently a 9 week online program. They have all been unique, heart opening and healing, thanks to the women who were part of them.

How does it work?

People also often ask what happens at these gatherings.

In my experience there isn’t one clear answer to this question. There tends to be a theme, it can a celebration of the Moon and other cosmic energies present in that moment, it can be an opportunity to connect to our voice, our womb, our bleed, our cyclical nature, to make art, to dance and sing or anything else really.

What makes these gatherings so special is the intention of coming together authentically. The willingness to peel off layers and to be seen and to witness others in their process.

In these sacred spaces many women (myself included) have shared that they find themselves sharing things they may not have shared with their close friends.

Sometimes verbal sharing is minimal but the medicine is the compassionate gaze of other women and so regardless of what happens or doesn’t happen, these gatherings are always healing in my experience.

Here I share with you photos of the many women’s gatherings I have been a part of as a tribute to all the women in the pictures and all the women who have guided me, taught me, held me and all the women who have let me do the same for them.

I’d also like to thank my mama and her mama and my grandmother on my dad’s side and all their mothers and grandmothers to the very first mother of All and of course our Mother Earth.

Thank you for reading,

Love and blessings,

Melissa