Starting in junior high school, the mean girls would sit at the lunch table discussing their periods, on and on with the period stories.  One of them would stop the conversation and lean over the table, pointing at me.

“Twiggy (their fond nickname for me, a nickname I hated), what do you use?  Tampax?  Mattress Pads?”   Snickers and laughter filled the air as my face turned a shade of red any menstruating woman would be proud of.  If you saw me then, you would know what an awkward question this was for me.

I would stutter and stammer out the Lie when I would quietly say, “Tampax of course”.  I could tell they never believed me.

I had the good fortune of being a tomboy.  We lived on 7 acres…6 acres of which were wild woods filled with dark mysterious forests, caves, rock boulders, a cliff, and a swamp. 

I would spend hours in those woods playing and exploring, well into my teenage years.  I watched my three older sisters as they were highlighting their hair and more than kiss the boys.  None of it had any appeal for me.  I figured I had plenty of time for all the complications that seemed to arrive with the onslaught of boys.

I was also a good Catholic girl.  I had been well brainwashed, so pleasing God was an daily practice.

But something happened the summer before my 15^th birthday.  I forged a powerful dalliance with the fires of rebellion and revolt.  This was a rare period of time, a glorious time of innocent rebellion…a secret group I started.  I was the leader of the other girls, girls my age, and girls a little younger…the girls who also liked to play in the woods.  And I had a name for this new secret club.

The Red God Vine Club.

I had seen a picture in an old art book that fascinated me.  I can’t find the image, but use your imagination for a moment.  It was a picture of a Big Red God…a powerful God, an active God, a demanding God…and in my mind, it was a BIG RED GOD WOMAN.

You don’t have to study Freud to know that perhaps unconsciously feeling my body was betraying me when month after month there was no sign of the red flow…the flow that would assure me that I was now a Woman, there was a feeling of lack and shame, despite the fact that I had no control over the timing of my cycle.

The taunts of the girls who didn’t believe me when I would quietly lie didn’t help either.

So, I tore out that picture in the old art book, and I gathered my new followers in a meeting deep in the words.  I told them that they were now part of the RED GOD VINE CLUB and that we would no longer be adhering to the repressive male dominated mandates from our local priests, fathers and brothers.  We would swear allegiance to this new God…this powerful woman God, all dressed in red.  This Feminine Divine who only wanted good things for us.

From that point on, we would only wear red.  We would cut out any pictures that had red in it and bring them to the meetings.  I pounded my chest at the end of the meeting pronouncing that we were now free and wild young women and we would do as we pleased.

We would then run out, deeper into the woods, and find the vines hanging from the waiting trees.  We would swing on the vines, screaming at the top of our lungs, ‘WE WORSHIP HER, THE RED GOD, THE GOD OF ALL POWER, AND THE GOD OF OUR FREEDOM!”

We would shout it as we were falling from the swinging vines, the vines that couldn’t support the weight of our bodies and our words.

It was a time of freedom and feelings uninhibited.  I felt empowered.  I felt full of life.  I felt an energy I had never enjoyed before.

The secret Red God Vine Club was to be short lived.  It lasted only a few months that hot and untamed summer.  One of the girl’s older sister caught wind of our rebellious meetings, and she showed up one day in the woods with her hands on her hips and her voice full of strong words and condemnations.

“YOU ARE ALL COMMITTING A MORTAL SIN!  YOU ARE WORSHIPPING FALSE GODS!  YOU ARE BREAKING ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.  YOU WILL ALL GO TO HELL FOR THIS!  I’M TELLING YOUR PARENTS AND I’M TELLING THE PRIEST.  THIS IS OVER!  RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW!”

We sat in quiet desperation, suddenly remorseful children who had gotten their hands caught in the cookie jar.  Except it was much much worse.

And I was the most mortified of all.  I had been responsible for taking these young minds and leading them down dangerous and unexplored paths.

The Red God Vine Club was officially dead.

I went to confession, I said my three Our Father’s and one Hail Mary and I was forgiven.

It would be years and years before a time came in my life where enough was enough, and I came back home to myself, home to my wild and unexplored heart, and started right where I had left off, back to the beautiful interior woods that were calling me to be my own Warrior Woman and never again allow anyone to tell me how to harness and restrain a Spirit that had the inner wisdom and knowledge to know what was absolutely best for Me.

My avatar is a picture of me in my treehouse with my red top on and a knowing smile on my face.  

And now you know the rest of the story.