We Have Gathered Here Before
The book I'm not waiting for permission to publish
There is a movement building right now around female gatherings. From women’s circles to red tents to witches’ covens, a new generation is rediscovering traditional ways of coming together that were suppressed for years by patriarchal powers. This project explores the real history of women’s gatherings, why they went away, and why we need them now. We’ll also look at how women today connect to our female ancestors, and what it even means to be a woman in our society.
Giving myself permission to write
For a while now, I’ve been working on a new book. I drafted a proposal, and got interest from two agents. One agent then rejected it, the other wanted three sample chapters before she’d even consider it. There were other agents and publishers I wanted to pitch because I felt they’d be better fits, but they also wanted detailed proposals (all slightly different) and sample chapters.
Time dragged on while I tried to get this work done, but meanwhile I have also been trying to produce Substack posts, run a business, look after two small children, home educate one of them, and generally manage life as it happens. All of which is to say, I wasn’t getting very far.
Then I sat back and thought. How attached was I, really, to being traditionally published?
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to hold an actual copy of this book in my hands, and I’d love a traditional publisher to help me get it out into the world in a way that they could probably do more effectively than I could. But there are also a fair few plus sides to taking matters into my own hands.
For one, I can let go of struggling to balance writing on Substack with trying to write the book, and just write the book on Substack. No more competing demands on my writing time.
Another element that I’m excited about is that Substack offers more opportunities for varied types of media. This is a project that will include a lot of interviews and inputs from different people - using Substack as a platform means that I can include video recordings of those interviews, I can embed artwork, photography, music and all sorts of other elements that wouldn’t be possible (or wouldn’t reproduce well) in a traditional book.
Often, as writers, we feel like we have to wait for someone to give us permission. A gatekeeper - an agent, a publisher - has to say, “Yes, your idea is good enough; you are good enough”, before you can begin writing. But that’s getting harder and harder to achieve. Traditional publishing has largely failed to adapt to the digital age, and books are struggling to make money in a landscape dominated by online discount retailers like Amazon and saturated in free content. As a result, publishers are increasingly hesitant to take a chance on unknown writers - they prefer celebrity authors, or social media influencers with huge followings, people they know will bring a massive audience and guarantee decent sales.
You also don’t make that much money on traditionally published books anymore. I’m publishing a book the old school way this year, and I’ll be lucky to make a couple of thousand pounds from it. A few hundred seems more likely. Not a lot of reward for so much investment in time and energy. And marketing spend (yes, most of the marketing spend is still coming out of our own pockets, or the pockets of our business, anyway).
Traditional publishing feels like validation. It feels like you have been approved by the gatekeepers, and that you are worthy. It feels like prestige and excitement and a childhood dream come true. But it’s not, necessarily, a better choice for any practical reasons.
So, for this book, I’ve decided to skip past the gatekeepers and go my own way. Isn’t that what this Substack, what The Gathering, is all about, anyway? Forging our own paths, off the track beaten by societal expectations. I’d love to traditionally publish a book again. I’d love to traditionally publish this book in future. But, for now, I’m going to try something different.
We Have Gathered Here Before
So what’s this all about?
It’s about how female connection is making a comeback that might just reshape the world.
It’s about women’s gatherings. It’s about how we, as people who identify as female or connect to feminine energy, come together to support, nurture and care for each other. It’s about the ways we’ve been doing that for centuries, and about how the patriarchy all but quashed our ability to do so. It’s about how we’re rediscovering and reclaiming gathering. It’s about our connection to our female ancestors, to one another, and to our own femininity. It’s a project about what it means to be a woman.
It’s also about my personal search for female friendship, lost ancestral lines, possible past lives, and a sense of self.
Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have to confine a topic like this to within the covers of a book.
The inspiration
This is how it happened.
I was sitting in circle with some women I gather with regularly. The lady who facilitates this circle (an incredible human that I’m sure you’ll meet as this project unfolds) was leading us in meditation. She said:
“Women have been gathering like this for thousands of years, and when we gather we connect with those women who have gone before us. And the women we choose to gather with now are likely women that we gathered with in previous lives - we may, ourselves, have gathered like this before.”
I had my eyes closed, but I saw a flash of lightning, and I felt a jolt of electricity burst along my spine. Suddenly I saw a whole book in my mind, as though it had downloaded directly into my brain. I wanted to understand more about this history of women’s gatherings, about where they went, and why they’re coming back. And also what this complex history means for me.
I’ve been told, by several different people, that I’m a new soul. So if I haven’t been here before, if I’ve not made these soul connections, what does that mean for my relationships now? I’ve always felt like an outsider, a little disconnected from others. Is that why?
As the granddaughter of immigrants, I’m also disconnected from the history of my ancestors. To keep themselves safe, my family left behind most of their stories, even their names. My understanding of where I came from is shaky, to say the least. I want to regain some sense of connection to the past, and to my female ancestors - if not from my direct line, then from the wider human family that I’m a part of.
The story
This is the story of womanhood - how women have always gathered, and how the patriarchy has always tried to stop us. But also the story of one woman - my search for belonging, for history, for myself. And it’s the story of so many other women, and I am fortunate to be connected to a wide range of incredible people that will contribute their experiences and expertise - I will interview women’s circle facilitators, witches, women’s coaches, ancestry specialists, women who investigate past lives, and people whose relationship to their gender identity has been complex (including trans women and assigned female at birth non-binary people). If you have a story to contribute, feel free to get in touch! By understanding our past, I believe we can create a future that makes space for and empowers everyone.
But first, a confession: I haven’t always been a big fan of female spaces. I went to a girls’ school as a child, where I was badly bullied. I was also bullied and even sexually harassed by women at university. I didn’t see female spaces as safe and nurturing - I saw them as threatening. I also bought in heavily to patriarchal ideals about what a woman should be, and I took pride in being told that I wasn’t “like other girls”. I longed for male approval, and most of my friends were men. It was only after enduring toxic and abusive relationships, sexual assault, maternity discrimination, birth trauma, and a stalker, whilst discovering that most of my male friends just wanted to sleep with me, that I realised how much the patriarchy had screwed me over. It was women’s spaces that put me back together after the system broke me apart.
As a mother, I now recognise how important those villages are that have been taken away from us in the push towards individualisation over community. We are taking on increasingly difficult challenges and immense pressures in increasing isolation - we were never meant to do all this alone. And I’m not the only one looking to regain the connection we have lost.
Women’s gatherings are making a comeback, and attracting a great deal of attention. Women’s circles, Red Tents, wilderness retreats, even witches’ covens and screaming circles. But these things aren’t new. They’re part of a long-standing tradition that has existed for centuries and across many cultures. Yet, for a long time, in the west at least, they disappeared. Women are now rediscovering forms of connection that were driven underground by patriarchal forces and almost destroyed completely.
At a time when the world seems drastically polarised, where communities are diminishing and women, in particular, are being forced to cope with greater demands than ever before with less support than ever before, these kinds of gatherings could be potentially transformative for our society. For people like me, who have felt like outsiders our whole lives, the opportunity to belong to a group that truly sees and holds us could be life-changing. Even life-saving. A sense of belonging, of community, is central to why human beings have survived as long as we have - we were weaker and less intelligent than Neanderthals and other early human species, but we thrived because we lived and worked together. As we’re turning against one another, our personal health and wellbeing, and the wellbeing of the very planet we live on, are suffering. Rediscovering the art of gathering could, quite literally, be key to saving the world.
But do we really understand what we’re getting into?
In our rush to embrace these forms of connection, how much are we seeking to understand what these gatherings truly represent? Does the Instagram Witch trivialise a label that saw thousands of women murdered? Are we making use of elements of other cultures without recognition of the people we’re taking from and the history of such appropriation? Are we glamorising a mythical “good old day” when our ancestors lived a different type of life?
We Have Gathered Here Before seeks to uncover the real history of women’s gatherings, and to inspire women (and others) to connect more deeply with one another. We will also be exploring the very nature of femininity and what it means to be a woman. If gender is a made up construct, why does it mean so much to us to gather with other women? How do we create spaces that are inclusive for people of all different genders?
I’m looking for a greater sense of my place in the wider human family, in the history of our planet, and in the future of our society. Maybe it will help you find yours too. I hope that you will be inspired to champion and lift other women, and yourself, so that we all rise together.
We Have Gathered Here Before is a call for deeper human connection, and the healing of the divides that threaten to rip our society apart.
How this is going to work
We Have Gathered Here Before is going to exist as a section within The Gathering. If you’re subscribed, you’ll be getting a chapter each month in your inbox. If you’re not subscribed yet, you can do so now (and you can choose whether to subscribe to all of The Gathering or just the We Have Gathered Here Before posts).
Most of the chapters will be for paid subscribers.
But I will offer some for free subscribers - including the introduction, which will land in May. So you can see if you fancy signing up for the whole thing. If you do, you’ll get to read a chapter every month, and you’ll also get the video interviews, artworks, music and other elements that go into exploring this topic.
You can subscribe for just £5 per month, or £50 for the whole year, which gets you access to creative wellbeing workshops, extra posts from The Gathering, and bonus resources as well as We Have Gathered Here Before.
Want to join me?
You have a fantastic story to explore and share! I have also experienced some really toxic female spaces, some really exploitative male spaces, and think it's so valuable to intentionally create healthy gatherings.
"For one, I can let go of struggling to balance writing on Substack with trying to write the book, and just write the book on Substack." This is such a great venture, Allegra, and I really hope it works well for you! I think it will, it seems like the perfect fit and the right path forward 💕
Yes!!! Can't wait for the book, it's going to be beautiful ❤️