THE RED TENT
In the new story we are holy women. We sit in the temple.
Any man who sees we are holy may sit with us.
We daven, we pray. Our menstrual blood is sacred, we save it in jars to mark the holy days, to feed the earth, We water our plants with it.
Our Yonis drip honey. We smell like sushi. We are wet with desire. We are hot and dry with rage.
We are consulted, we are honored. We initiate our young into their first blood. We are soothsayers, we track dreams and omens, we read the wind.
In the old story we are unclean, our cunts are rotten, smelly, dangerous, our blood a curse. Our children do not belong to us – They don’t carry our name. We are carried off to our husband’s houses. Our Motherline is erased.
“I love the way you taste,” my lover says.
We are holy woman licking our fingers, secretly enjoying the taste of our whole self, our delicious body. We sit in the temple all day and pray. We bake bread, a prayer. We sweat, a prayer. We sing a prayer.
In the old story, I am a holy woman, And no one sees a holy woman.
What holy woman? What Temple? What Goddess? She is hiding behind a rock; Waiting to take God down, pour blood on his clean white shirt.
We are beaten, we are sold, we are rented by the hour, we offer ourselves to the highest bidder.
I was never breast-fed. “Formula is healthier”, they told her. And anyway breast-feeding is so inconvenient, pregnancy is so inconvenient birthing is so inconvenient; bleeding is so inconvenient and so DIRTY.
Touch is dirty, sex is dirty, cunts are dirty, blood is dirty. Slut, whore, temptress, Delilah, Beat her, kick her, stone her to death, cut out her clit, sew up her slit.
Only the blessed Virgin is clean.
I am/ Mary is gentle. I am/Mary is kind. I am/ Mary is long suffering. I am/ Mary is chaste.
No I’m not. I did it before I was married. I can’t be a holy woman in this myth.
In the old story, there’s a garbage can in my cunt. My sacred Yoni has engine oil poured into it. WD40 watch her go. Ride that bitch at 100 miles per hour.
Cut her, drug her, Smart bomb her house. She’s a Palestinian terrorist, an Iraqi terrorist, an Afghani terrorist. Eve the original terrorist.
Imagine my terror when I discovered I was a woman.
At first I didn’t notice. Then my Brother was born and I lost my innocence. He was the first-born male child; heir to the family business, the family name. I was to inherit the shame.
In a radical break with my family, I’m telling a new story.
In a radical break with my religion, I’m telling a new story.
In a radical break with my country, I’m telling a new story.
I am a holy woman. I am a river woman. I am a song woman.
Sanctified in the name of the Goddess.
My body is the temple.
The search for the holy grail always leads to the chalice, my womb.
Sister, Sing with me:
We are holy women. We are river woman, song women.
We are named– Divine Creatrix, Holy Mother.
We are washed clean in our own sweet Mother blood.
We gather in the moon lodge and we pray.
We gather in the red tent and we dream.
We gather in the temple and we dance.
We gather in the sacred grove and we sing.
We are Goddess in body.
Blessed Mother we praise your holy name.
