As I sit here and bleed I am relieved, I am releasing, I am relaxing, I am cleansed.
My relationship to my moon time has evolved over the years, when I began my Priestess path I had little to no relationship to it, other than the typical mild irritation at a monthly inconvenience. I was grateful to have a light and short flow and quickly plugged through my three to four day cycles. For the most part I was quite unaware of my moon time.
As the path of the Goddess called me to Her I began to have an inner awareness that came to the surface of my consciousness, it began with a desire to stop using tampons and evolved from there. One night as I was surfing the net, without any intention to at all, I fell upon a cloth pad website. The website was beautiful and the cloth pads called to me immediately. Purchasing the pads was a radical step for me, at that time I didn't know anybody that used reusable pads and being the eccentric member of my circle I was sure that if anybody found out I was reusing my pads I would be labelled even wackier than I already was.
However, I had begun to gather with women on the new moon and I found that I was much more main stream than many of the sisters I was gathering with. Using reusable pads was nothing to women who were free bleeding on red sheets and collecting their moon blood to return to the earth. I learnt that we were gathering to honour the lowest energy portal of the month for women, the new moon, a time when women used to shed their blood together in the red tents, this was another step towards a relationship with my moon time, gathering with women who were reenacting gatherings of our ancestors that revolved around women bleeding. I met a Priestess in my Goddess Gathering circles and she took two of my girlfriends and I through a four week moon course.
I journeyed through the phases of the moon, guided by a truly magical Priestess, I became aware of the four major phases of the moon and how they corresponded with my body. I contemplated how the moon phases affected me in comparison to the personal phase that my cycle was in. I was surprised to find that the Enchantress phase ( the phase prior to the new moon, also known as the Crone moon, when women shed their blood) of the moon had an even stronger affect on me than my personal pre menstrual phase. I began to notice that I entered my Crone time when the moon entered her fertile phase, the Mother phase of the moon. Each new discovery, every bit of awareness and each truth that was brought back into my awareness during this time sparked a sense of magic, mystery and power within me.
One night, as we took a tea break I stood discussing the inspiration that was rising up within me and the topic of chemical birth control came up, I simply couldn't imagine not being on birth control. My Priestess gently encouraged me to be open to following where my body led. I thought that she had become far too far out to suggest that I simply follow the moon and my body and trust that an unwanted pregnancy wouldn't occur. It wasn't too soon after that conversation that I woke up and knew without a shadow of a doubt that I would never ingest another birth control pill. I told my at the time uneasy boyfriend and that was that.
Those early days of becoming reacquainted with the power of my womb cycles are fond ones of mine, it was the first time in my adult life that I began to believe in myself as a magical being again, simply because magic was being awoken within me.
Today, my moon cycle is a welcomed time, it is a time that I look forward to. I am a very energetically sensitive person and I am very emotional and I am very intense, as the month moves on I can feel the accumulation of excess energy that is stirring within my womb, I am aware of old patterns that are coming up for the last time and I feel the weight of all that I can let go of, all that can be released through the power of my blood flowing out of me.
The week leading up to this particular moon time was such a tough one for me, I was wired for sound and just ornery the entire week. When my moon blood first came I knew that I could rest and relax. I began to contemplate, what had me wound up so tightly leading up to my moon time, what repeat patterns, old idea's, relationship entanglements had been driving me wild? What was I willing to consciously return to the Mother? I am one of those women who return her blood to the earth now, honouring my blood and utilizing the power of my moon cycle has become a regular part of life for me. While this practice and these truths are now 'normal' for me, they have not lost their potency, to the contrary each month the potency of the magic that lives within my womb space, my inner cauldron increases.
Returning my blood to the earth, using focused intention to release vibrational patterns and beliefs with my blood are two of the ways that I work with the potency of my moon time, I also commit to resting during my moon time. As a stay at home mother and a writer, resting doesn't always come as easily as it once did. However, in every phase of life and in every chosen vocation there are reasons not to rest, I have carved out ways to remind myself and my body that I am committed to resting. I don't exercise on the days that my moon flow is here, I don't commit to projects or anything that takes extra time or energy in the evenings. I take an hour to myself and do anything that feels fun and mindless. I watch netflix, I eat some treats, I wear comfy clothes. I also abstain from sex during my moon time, there is nothing wrong with sex during a woman's moon time and some women create strong magic from combining the two. I however have found that my body feels honoured when it can just release and flow at this time without anything entering it and without other energies coming in. This abstaining has strengthened my bond to myself and my energy as I have a definite time every month where I just sit and be with my body. My husband has learnt about the phases of the moon and my body from me, he honours me at this time and helps to create the physical space that I need to be on my own, having a man in my life that holds down the masculine energy in my life and honours my Goddess expression is another way that I honour my moon time, it is honoured through including him and taking space from him simultaneously.
Those are my personal practices that I connect to monthly. Each month I have new idea's, rituals or ways to celebrate my moon time and each woman will find that her body has it's own recipe for feeling supported and for connecting to the magic and the gifts of her moon time.
How we honour our body, how we celebrate our moon time is not important, that we do is. I was raised in a patriarchal society that taught me to be embarrassed by my moon flow, to hide it and to dread it. When I had my first moon flow, I walked home from school with a big plastic pad squishing between my thighs and I was overcome by the heaviness of the situation, I thought to myself "this is going to happen every month for another 60 years! And I'm going to just get 'used' to it?" If only I had had women in my life that were excited when they had their moon time, if only I had been invited to Goddess Gatherings, if only I had witnessed my mother returning her blood to the earth, giving prayers of thanks, luxuriating in red pants and purring with the release of all that she had accumulated over the past month. If only I had known about the magic that I held within me! But the patriarchy didn't want me to know, they didn't want my mother to know or my grandmother and they had killed my great great great great grandmothers to ensure that I never would know. Yet somehow I do know, somehow Goddess awakened me and brought me home, somehow the magic within me has risen up and erased the attempts at the patriarchy to sever my connection to my magic, and because the Goddess has blessed me with this awareness and has reconnected me to my magic, my daughter will have a much different introduction to the power that lies within her. Already she is mesmerized by mama's "moon pads".
When we celebrate and honour our moon time we celebrate and honour our magic and our power as women, we tear down the walls of the patriarchy and we give permission to all of our sisters to revel in their magic, we also lay new winding roads for our daughters and nieces to walk as they grow, we create a new world.
Tonight I release all attempts to impede my connection to personal magic and power, I let go of all barriers to my inner power and I open up to a new world, a new order and a collective celebration of the moon, our blood and our feminine power, I hope that you will join me too.
Grace Be With You
Priestess of Grace
Candise Soaring Butterfly
image taken from: http://www.yogatrail.com/sites/default/files/event/577576/red-tent-retreat-for-women.jpg
