Red Earth
The 10th Annual Red Earth: The Mountain West Women's Herbal Gathering July 31st - August 2nd, 2026* at 13 Moons Ranch in Carbondale, CO
Be a Part of the 2026 Gathering!
Tickets are on sale for our 2026 gathering! We have full weekend adult and children's tickets on sale. Tickets include classes*, workshops, meals and overnight tent camping on Friday and Saturday, on site. A limited number of day tickets and accommodation upgrades will be available closer to the gathering. We will announce when these go on sale in our newsletter (sign up below).
This amazing annual event takes a village to put on and there are many ways you can support us and keep us thriving. Besides buying event tickets, you can also sponsor our event, vend at the event, join the work exchange sisterhood or make a donation.
Talent Show: There will be a talent show on Saturday night! We would love for you to share your talents. Please consider poetry, song, playing music or dancing/movement acts. We ask that you limit your act to 3 minutes and any recorded music played has female voices only.
Scholarships: We have 3 scholarships available this year. Thanks to generous donations and our raffle proceeds, we are able to offer an adult ticket scholarship to a woman in each of these three categories: a mother, an elder, and a woman of color. We will be accepting scholarship applications until June 1st, 2026.
Note that tickets are transferrable but not refundable.
Online Pre-Conference
Amazing Artemesias
with Susun Weed
On Zoom: May 7th from 7-8 PM MST
Artemis, the Virgin, joins hands with the crone. Let her take you over the moon. Let her aroma transport you. Make space for her delightful wisdom. She’s grand, a little bitter, but full of surprises, dreams, and healing. With story, song, and sixty years of experience, Susun will share her love of this worldwide weedy survivor.
We hope you will join us for this 1-hour pre-gathering online class on this year's plant ally, led by Susun Weed. This event will be informative, helping you connect to this year's plant ally as well as supporting us in offering our main gathering.
Announcing Our 2026 Teachers
We are thrilled to welcome a beautiful lineup of 13 teachers from across the country to teach at this year's gathering. In the coming month we will be sharing details of their offerings, including class description for classes, workshops and pre-conference workshops that will be held on the Thursday before the gathering, July 30th.
Our Mission
Red Earth is a sacred ceremonial container created by and for women to honor and activate our inherent life-nurturing power. We gather together to learn from and inspire each other through ceremony, workshops, deep healing and community building. By recognizing the beauty and power of what it is to be women doing our sacred work, our life’s calling, we step into our collective potential to support the great turning of our planet at this time.
*Red Earth Herbal Gathering welcomes boys from newborn through the end of their 7th year.
2026 Red Earth Intention
This year our plant ally is Artemisia vulgaris, lovingly known by most as mugwort and by many as cronewort. Artemisia vulgaris gently assists in opening the portal, which is our word of intention for 2026.
A portal is a doorway or entrance, either physical or metaphorical. When we open a metaphorical portal, we create access to wisdom and teachings that we would not otherwise receive. When we step through a metaphysical portal we are often making choices about what to leave behind, what to carry forward, and what new ideas to build.
Cronewort is the wise old crone, with long silvery hair. She guides us, teaches us, and leads us gently to access other realms in the waking and in the dreamtime. She assists in opening the portals of consciousness. I love to hang cronewort over my bed, burn as a smudge, use as an ointment on my third eye, and also to smoke.
There are many other plants that assist in opening the portal to expanded awareness. Some people refer to these plants as power plants. Power plants are often thought of as the plants that either interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system or that have psychoactive effects. Some other plants I would consider to be in this category are cannabis, kava, peyote, cacao, san pedro, and ayahuasca.
This year is a portal year. As we enter our 10th year we feel a sense of stability and familiarity and the sacred circle is strong. Because of this, we can begin to move more easily between the realms. Our ceremonies and initiations this year will be stronger, the teachings will be more potent, and our connection to the land will be ever so sweet.
Are you ready to open the portal assisted by the gentle guidance of cronewort? If so, we call you to join us in our circle of sisterhood at Red Earth 2026!
Blessed be,
Astrid Grove, Founder, Lead Organizer and Ceremonial Director
Announcing the 2026
Pre-Conference Workshops
Pre-Conference workshops take place on Thursday, July 30th, the day before the main gathering starts, from 11am until 6pm. You must have a ticket to the main gathering in order to attend a Pre-Conference Workshop. Read on to learn about the wisdom and plant-filled opportunities we have for you this year!
Rebecca Rozelle Pressnall
Pre-Conference: Hands-On Medicine Making - Fresh Plant Tallow Balms
Thursday July 30th, 11am-6pm*, All Levels
Investment: $300**
In this immersive, hands-on workshop we return to one of the oldest forms of topical plant medicine: freshly harvested botanicals slowly infused into rendered animal fats. Together we will render high-quality pasture-raised tallow, work with fresh seasonal plants, and create nourishing bone deep medicinal balms suitable for nerve regeneration, skin repair, inflammation, wound care, muscular tension, daily anointing and much much more.
Students will learn how to infuse fresh plants into tallow, prepare them for fat-based extraction, and create layered infusions using both tallow and complementary herbal oils. This is a rare opportunity to experience the full process from raw ingredients to finished balm — including sensory evaluation, ratios, shelf-stability, and fresh plants aromatic elements.
Topics covered include:
• indications for topical herbalism
• rendering and clarifying tallow for medicine making
• fresh plant infusion techniques
• formulating balms with infused oils for texture + medicinal action
• storage, shelf-life, labeling, and home apothecary best practices
Each participant will take home the knowledge to continue making tallow medicines in their own kitchens and community.
* Class time is 6 hours + a 1 hour lunch break
** Your Workshop ticket also includes tent camping at 13 Moons on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Lunch and Dinner Thursday and Breakfast and Lunch on Friday. Supply fee of $25 is included to cover the cost for the tallow, containers and supplies used.
EagleSong Gardener
Pre-Conference: Coming Home - A Ritual Celebration
Thursday July 30th, 11am-6pm*, All Levels
Investment: $290**
Our Earth is calling maiden, mother & crone to gather, to ground, to enliven and celebrate our connection with her, ourselves and one another. Enter the doorway to the mother’s heart, receive her powerful energies that align us with our dreams and potential. Our day will be filled with reflection, ceremony and ritual with the earth. The day consists of building the ritual grounds for an imminent birth. Yours! You will be born of earth and will return to a sisterhood that recognizes and awaits your gifts.
* Class time is 6 hours + a 1 hour lunch break
** Your Workshop ticket also includes tent camping on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Lunch and Dinner Thursday and Breakfast and Lunch on Friday. Investment includes a $15 supply fee.
Ginger Janssen
Pre-Conference: Artemisia Mountain Portal: Homestead, Greenhouse & Gardens Tour & Mugwort Distillation
Thursday July 30th, 11am-6pm*, All Levels
Investment: $275**
Step through the 2026 Artemisia Portal by spending a full day immersed in Mugwort, steam, land, and ancestral craft. We travel to Basalt Mountain Homestead, Greenhouse and Gardens (35 minutes from 13 Moons - you are responsible for your transportation to/from this location and the gathering), Ginger’s homestead sanctuary, where Artemisia species grow among food forests, and medicinal beds.
You will:
• Tour homestead and tropical greenhouse, and regenerative garden systems
• Harvest mountain-grown Mugwort & Artemisia kin
• Distill a fresh hydrosol in a copper alembic still
• Learn energetic & meridian pathways with Annie (L.Ac.)
• Explore Artemisia’s role in dreamwork, and intuitive seeing
• Craft an Artemisia smudge bundle
• Drink Mugwort tea while opening the inner portal of the Wise Woman tradition
This pre-conference is rooted in hands-on practice, ancestral remembering, and deep connection to the land. Participants leave with a Mugwort hydrosol, smudge stick, and a lived sense of Artemisia as guide, ally, and threshold walker.
Accommodations are available at Basalt Mountain Gardens homestead: (Juniper Yurt, Aspen Yurt, Tiny House, and camping) for Wednesday the 29th and / or Thursday the 30th Nights. Contact basaltmtngardens@gmail.com for details and booking.
* Class time is 6 hours + a 1 hour lunch break
** Your Workshop ticket also includes tent camping at 13 Moons on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Lunch and Dinner Thursday and Breakfast and Lunch on Friday.
Ellen Evert Hopman
Pre-Conference: A Celtic Shamanism Intensive, Adults, All Levels
Thursday July 30th, 11am-6pm*, All Levels
Investment: $275**
I have been a Druid for 41 years. I am also an author and when I wrote my first novel, “Priestess of the Forest – a Druid Journey”, I was basically in a trance. The characters showed me things and said things I could not have known. One thing they showed me was a funeral featuring Artemisia.
The novel came out in February 2008. AFTER the book was published, British archaeologists announced the discovery of a likely Druid grave in April of that year, the first one ever identified. In it they found traces of Artemisia.
In this six hour intensive I will teach Celtic cosmology and basic Druid ritual form. I will also teach “scrying”; divination by looking into water, fire, etc. We will burn Artemisia in the fire and drink a strong Artemisia brew and then scry together. We will share the things we “see” in the flames, water, etc.
* Class time is 6 hours + a 1 hour lunch break
** Your Workshop ticket also includes tent camping on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Lunch and Dinner Thursday and Breakfast and Lunch on Friday.
Get Your 2026 Red Earth Shirts
Get ready for the 2026 Red Earth gathering, and show your support, with one of our shirts featuring the gathering's beautiful artwork on a variety of shirt styles and colors, including two youth styles. Find the perfect one for you!
Looking for 2025 Merch? Find it here.
What an amazing community of women! Red Earth 2025 was our 9th year and we continued deepening into relationship with each other, the land and community at 13 Moons Ranch, and of course so many cherished wise women traditions! Thank you to each and every woman and child who circled together on this sacred land in prayer and celebration!!!
