REGION — On the overcast Friday afternoon of a full moon, I was making my way to a retreat center in South Paris. I was filled with doubts the whole way there. Every half a mile or so, I would ponder the idea to make a sharp U-turn and return to my comfortable bed. However, I kept going.

I was on my way to a full moon women’s circle hosted by Nomad Retreat Center’s Lynsey Tamposi in South Paris. The drive there filled me with many ideas of what I was heading in to. I was expecting to find 50 or so women pitching tents on the grounds, perhaps partying that reverted me to my wallflower tendencies. And I was nervous. It was the first time I’d be socializing with entirely new people since the beginning of the pandemic. I wasn’t sure that my social skills were quite up to snuff.

After a mile down a long dirt road that pulled strange noises out of my rickety car, I arrived and all was quiet. Eerily quiet. I wasn’t sure where to go and nervous to call and inform the host of my arrival. I saw a sign that I thought was pointing me in the direction of the retreat center, though a large house sat to the left. I followed the sign and found myself walking a grassy pathway for some 10 minutes, walking through brush and fearing for ticks. However, as I walked, my nerves began to dissipate.

I embraced the quiet and took deep breaths. I finally worked up the courage and gave the host, Tamposi a call. It turned out I was headed in the wrong direction. I turned back for the house. When I got there, I was welcomed by six women gathered in the kitchen enjoying fresh bread baked by Tamposi. Any residual anxiety quickly dissipated as I made myself comfortable and prepared for the evening.

We seven women ranged from our mid-20s to mid-30s; artists, writers, yoga teachers, school teachers, farmers and travelers; hard-of-hearing individuals and those who deal with mental illness; members of the LGBTQ community and straight people. It was not difficult to find one’s place in the circle, either as a listener, a discusser, or facilitator.

Tampsoi said, in a later interview, that she hosts these circles (for free or on a sliding scale) as a means of answering the eternal question of “how can I help?” She sees these circles as a space where we can become “mirrors of ourselves” and “gather in the feminine” to understand “what does it mean to be a woman, what does it mean to be feminine, what does it mean to be masculine.”

Soon after, we all made our way outside to begin the evening formally. It kicked off with a toasting of cacao and thanking the space we were in for bringing us all together, which Tamposi tries to do every women’s circle.

After sipping on (and singing to) our cacao, we moved on to a floral foot soak and foot rubs. Tamposi set up three bins with hot water and filled them with flowers and herbs. The herbs, which we suspected were nettle, stung in a way that eased all the tension of the past week, month, perhaps pandemic year.

Then, we partnered off and gave and received foot rubs. I was hesitant about such intimate physical contact with near-strangers. It felt selfish to simply sit and let someone else do the work. But I gave in and tried my best to let go of fear of judgment or notions of selfishness and allow myself to be pampered. And then, returning the favor felt satisfying and fair.

During our foot soaks, Tamposi told us about the history of women’s circles, which we also discussed over the phone. She was intrigued by the storied history of ancient women taking care of each other in times of pain: “They’d rub your hands and feet and give you foot baths and rub oils in your hair and give you sweet wine and try to help ease the pain in any way that they could.”

NPR has reported on just this: native tribes across the world gathering for a series of rituals, some during their menstrual cycle, to embrace a “heightened spiritual experience” and share their life experiences. These traditions have continued and evolved through to the present day.

Tamposi described the energy and “power” of a woman’s circle “immeasurable and palpable.”

After our soaks, Tamposi took some more homemade bread out of the oven and started a bonfire. While the fire got going, I made my way to a yoga studio next to the kitchen and free-form danced to tranquillizing music with some of the women, letting the music move my body in the way it craved.

While the foot baths were lovely, the dancing, fun and the fire mesmerizing, the evening was really defined by the discussions we had. During the foot baths, we discussed the pressures of womanhood and wombs. Sitting next to the fire later on in the evening (after s’mores making, of course), I felt called to discuss an inner-conflict I’d been battling.

I’m not always one for vulnerability. I find it much too easy to keep quiet, for my conversations to remain shallow. But staring into the flames and surrounded by powerful women, the vulnerability felt natural and easy to access.

We discussed what I’d been dealing with and heard from the other women on what battles they’d been fighting themselves over the past month and year. We found a way to weave the various concerns together, going from one topic to the next with ease. A conversation about friendship turned into one about family, to age, to motherhood, to addiction and mental health and gender and societal pressures and finding contentment.

The evening ended with singing and delicate discussions into the wee hours of the night. There was full cloud coverage, so the moon was never actually seen. However, her energy could be felt by all in attendance. I left the circle the next day feeling energized, healed, satisfied and even more excited for the next full moon.

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