The blessing of womanhood

This is a long post courtesy of my wisewoman Facebook friend, Pj Samuels.  Her posts are always amazingly deep and insightful and I look forward to them every day, for they typically cause a shift, a validation or simply a lovely feeling.  This one, received a few days ago really honored my womanhood, affirmed my goddess energy and validated my ascension to sage woman.  I got so much from it that I asked Pj if I could share it on my blog.  She responded:

“That article is complied form various articles that I read when researching the subject. While I did put it together, I do not consider it mine as a lot of it was lifted verbatim from source. I would have included my sources but didn’t want it to read like a bibliography, as I didn’t think that flows well on the FB platform. Use as you wish. I really think it should be out ‘there’. Even if just to provoke thought, it’s worth it”.

I agree Pj – it’s worth it.  So here is the article: – (please note that I am happy to ascribe ownership if your words have been used in this blog)

TAP INTO YOUR MENSTRUAL POWER

“The Moon Lodge is the place of women, where women gather during their menstrual time to be at-one with each other and the changes occurring in their bodies. Long ago, during this special time of moon cycles, women were removed from duties of family and allowed to retreat to the Moon Lodge to enjoy the company of their Sisters.

Traditionally, the Moontime is the sacred time of woman when she is honoured as a Mother of the Creative Force. During this time she is allowed to release the old energy her body has carried and prepare for reconnection to the Earth Mother’s fertility that she will carry in the next Moon or month. Our Ancestors understood the importance of allowing each woman to have her Sacred Space during this time of reconnection, because women were the carriers of abundance and fertility.

As Grandmother Moon is the weaver of tides (the water or blood of our Earth Mother) so a woman’s cycles follow the rhythm of that weaving. When women live together in a common space, their bodies begin to regulate their menses and all will eventually have their Moontime concurrently. This natural rhythm is one of the bonds of Sisterhood.

Women honour their sacred path when they acknowledge the intuitive knowing inherent in their receptive nature. In trusting the cycles of their bodies and allowing the feelings to emerge within them, women have been Seers and Oracles for their tribes for centuries.”

All women carry the cycle of life and death within us. It’s centre spirals in and out of our wombs and it manifests in our monthly bleeding cycle. In ancient times, women carried this knowledge and knew how to use and flow with the energies of their moon cycles. There was no shame or taboo around women’s blood. In fact, it was the source of women’s power, and the monthly rituals they practised around their bleeding time were the first rituals in human history.

Like many sources of authentic power, this knowledge has been denied and twisted throughout patriarchal times, bringing women to the point where we stand at a precipice. And the view down is frightening and ugly: a world in which our power is cut out unnecessarily, enslaved by medication, regulated by hormones, even rendered obsolete by science. Sadly, recent articles in mainstream magazines are celebrating a new drug that will halt menstruation permanently, declaring it a “victory” for women who want to succeed in a man’s world: a way for us to “take back our power” and not have our monthly “curse” anymore.

This is a critical time for women. A time when we must lift the so-called “curse,” and proclaim the truth: Our bleeding cycles are a sacred blessing. The word “blessing” is an old English word for “bleeding”. It is time we remember that our moon cycles are not a hindrance to, but rather the source of, our power. Therefore, I believe the most important and powerful path for women in this age lies in reclaiming the fruits of our Birth Rite: the wisdom and knowledge available through our ability to bleed in cycle with the earth and the cosmos, our ability to create and sustain life in our wombs, and our ability to hold our blood as we become older. These “Blood Mysteries” are the last of the women’s rights/rites we have yet to demand. Perhaps because they are the most fundamental, evolutionary and revolutionary for our society. Or perhaps because they are something we must first and foremost demand from and for ourselves.

Ester Harding suggests in Women’s Mysteries, Ancient and Modern that the prime cause of neurosis, illness and pain suffered by women today is that we have no menstrual ceremony of any kind. Caroline Myss, in Anatomy of the Spirit, agrees: “Problems with menstruation, cramps and PMS are classic indications that she is in some kind of conflict about being a woman, with her role in the tribe, and with tribal expectations of her.”

On an emotional level, our cycles are a gift, a built-in way each month to let go of what needs to be released and to plant the seed for the next month. This practice transforms “PMS” into “PMP” (Pre-Menstrual Power)- a highly creative, truth telling time when we have complete access to the issues that keep us from being our highest selves. And on a spiritual level, our cycles connect us directly to the divine within ourselves. Our bleeding time brings about heightened vision and sensitivity, a time when we have direct knowledge of spirit. Historically, Native American women would go into their moon lodges during their cycles and receive visions they would bring back to their tribe. In fact, many important prophecies throughout time have come from bleeding women. The oldest Greek Oracle in history, at Delphi, was ruled by the Moon Goddess. “Delphi” means “womb.”

In these crucially changing times, it is of the utmost importance that we ground ourselves in authentic power, sink our roots deep into the earth and do our personal transformative work. We can accomplish this through the amazing gift that is our bleeding cycle. This gift is the source of our spiritual power that will catalyse our personal transformation, and it is the source that will allow us to stay rooted firmly in the earth when all the rootless, unsustainable structures of patriarchy crumble around us in the years to come. Going forward, we must hold firmly the thread of blood that connects us with each other, with the planet and with the universe. It is our greatest gift. It is our blessing. It is our Birth Rite.

In the Native American tradition it is said that a women redreams the world when she bleeds. The revitalizing of all her senses allows her to ‘see’ the world again with fresh eyes. She is privileged in that moment with an extraordinary intimacy, with the particularity of things, as though she were feeling with her whole being. A moment of epiphany, spaciousness and vision are hers.

The intensity of menstruation is going to vary from woman to woman depending upon our individual temperaments and willingness to court the life of our bodies. We will all have are own personal take. Whilst the qualities I describe are to some extent a given, that is they arise unbidden, your task is to give space to them. Don’t imagine you can continue on the same as before…doing, doing, doing. Stillness, silence and solitude as well as your care and love for yourself are the allies in this process. For some of you it may be more of a quiet, subtle process for others it may be incredibly intense. Many of our menstrual symptoms are the shadow side of not understanding the forces we are wrestling with at this time. Those who suffer menstrually carry the dispossessed ‘voices’ of menstruation for all of us.

Through the monthly cycling of her body, a woman has the opportunity to cultivate internal authority. A Native American saying states that at menarche a woman enters her power, through her menstruating years she practices it and at menopause she becomes it. True power comes from our capacity to travel in both inner and outer worlds, to experience emotional and spiritual depths along with our intellectual rigour. This is true for both women and men. Women are blessed with an inner process, the menstrual cycle that reminds us of and supports these capacities. This is a wonderful gift. A blessing.