In today's age of digitalisation, globalisation, and geographical separation, urban tribes and micro-communities function as social support networks, offering environments where participants, often subgroups connected by a common ground, meet, relate, and engage. In London, there is an increasing number of these micro-tribes. One particular mode of encounter has proliferated within the wellness industry. Women's circles, sometimes called "moon temples" or "women's temples," are non-institutionalised, often monthly gatherings where women come together to relax, meditate, share stories, partake in rituals, heal, nourish, and empower themselves.1
These creative gatherings are framed as sacred and gentle spaces, nourishing and intuitive, guided by an ethic of care, honesty, acceptance, and ease, offering an antidote to loneliness by cultivating genuine relationships free of pretence or pressure. Participants are invited to reconnect with their bodies and sensuality through rituals aimed at accessing the body's 'natural rhythms', sometimes held around the new moon, affirming a link between the lunar calendar and the female bodily cycle. Ritualised or somatic practices used are framed as ways to "descend" into the body and connect with feminine power or energy.
These ritualised feminine spaces offer not only alternative forms of enjoyment but specific conditions for encounter. Everything is oriented by care; everything is optional, nothing imposed. A physical release without remainder is promised through bodily rituals and the focus on 'gentleness' veils any rupture or asymmetry. Instead, the body is used as a site of a mystical gendered truth: not embodying what each woman wants or how she enjoys, but what she wants to release, as part of a fantasy of feminine wholeness.
Reconnecting to the female body is sought in the hope that, if women return to their bodies, connection will be restored. In addition, sisterhood would offer an alternative partner – a soft, safe Other that would see without judging or desiring and would respond without ambiguity. Femininity is thus presented as something whole, shared, and guaranteed through the bodies of other women.
[1] Longman, C., "Women's Circles and the Rise of the New Feminine: Reclaiming Sisterhood, Spirituality, and Wellbeing." Religions, vol. 9, no. 1, art. 9, 1 Jan. 2018. Available online: mdpi.com
