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Little Red Riding Hood and The Danger of Charm

🧜🏽‍♀️ Once Upon A Self: A Series Inspired by Fairy Tales
Starting Aug 14, 2026 1AM UTC

About this Session

He was charming. He was curious. He was interested in her... Of course she never saw it coming.

Red Riding Hood Tarot

Little Red Riding Hood makes a choice we recognize. She meets a stranger in the woods and she is kind to him. She answers his questions. She tells him where she's going, where her grandmother lives, how to get there. She's not malicious. She's not reckless. She is simply open — the way people are when they have not yet learned that openness has a cost.

Last Session we sat with Cinderella, with what it takes to stay soft when the world is hard. This week, Little Red Riding Hood asks: what do we do when our softness is the very thing that gets used against us?

Most of us have met a wolf. This is a space to look honestly at what charm can cost us and what we know now that we didn't know then.

No preparation needed. Come as you are.

Who is this Space for?

This Space is held for women, those who identify as women, and queer folks.

Just in case...

Want a Little Red Riding Hood refresher?

📖 Read.
🎧 Listen.

About this Space

Please note

This is a six-week Series, not a single drop-in Space. When you sign up for the first Session, you are registering for the full six weeks.

We ask that participants attend the first Session and commit to at least three weeks of the Series. This helps create continuity, trust, and care within the group.

Life happens, and perfection is not expected. But showing up together over time allows for deeper reflection and more meaningful connection.


More about this series

Fairy tales are not as innocent as we remember.

A girl is left in the ashes. A child walks alone through the woods. A woman returns to the beast. Two children outsmart the thing that wanted to consume them.

These stories are told because they know things.

They know about longing. Danger. Hunger. Beauty. Survival. Desire. Timing. The strange bargains we make to be loved, safe, chosen, or free.

In this six-week Series, we will use six classic fairy tales as mirrors for our own lives. Each Session begins with one story and opens into the questions underneath it:

Where have we learned to be good?
Where have we learned not to trust?
What have we returned to?
What have we outgrown?
What are we still aching toward?
What is beginning to wake up?

This is not a lecture or a literature class. It is a place to sit with story, memory, and meaning — and to hear what these old tales still have to say to the lives we are living now.


Schedule

Week One: Cinderella and The Burden of Grace
Week Two: Little Red Riding Hood and The Danger of Charm
Week Three: Beauty & the Beast and The Choice to Return
Week Four: Hansel and Gretel and The Tricks That Save Us
Week Five: The Little Mermaid and The Desire for Another World
Week Six: Sleeping Beauty and The Door That Opens in Time

Meet the Keeper

Vanessa is a Los Angeles-based artist and recovering hot mess. She's battled many challenges, from undiagnosed depression to struggling with alcohol abuse, and knows first hand how hard it is to face complex emotions alone.

Through her personal evolution, she's learned how to take action in her life, transforming negative …

Reach out to the Keeper: vanessa@totem.org
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