Moon Time
Do you think of menstruation as a time of shame and embarrassment or a time of sacred joy and celebration
Vicki Noble writes in Shakti Woman: - “that Western Women have forgotten the spiritual significance of the menstrual cycle and need to reconnect in order to empower themselves”.
I think the time has come to honour ourselves and our daughters.
Improve our own, and our daughters self-esteem, and to prepare them well, for the onset of menstruation.
Get My e-book - Celebrating the onset of Menstruation- A Mother and Daughter Guide.
www.qualitytime4u.com/products.php.
Women’s blood, hormonal and sexual cycle are closely connected to the cycles of the moon. An average menstrual cycle lasts 29 and half days which is exactly the length of the moon’s cycle.
The full moon phase corresponding to ovulation and the dark moon is analogous to menstruation.
In societies where women work outside and live together, they all tend to ovulate and bleed at the same time. Women’s emotions and sexual desires also fluctuate in a rhythmic pattern similar to the Moon’s Phases. At the full moon a women can feel receptive and drawn to others, often feeling more nurturing towards family. The dark Moon phase is when a woman prefers to withdraw and spend more time nurturing her self, pulling away from the demands and expectations of other people. These are natural reactions.
In Demetra George’s book;, She describes these archetypes of the feminine as being the White Goddess (white ovulatory pole) and the Dark Goddess (The red menstrual pole); The patriarchal mentality equating light and increase with good and the black and decrease with bad.
In Mysteries of the dark Moon, page 207; “At the white pole we find love goddesses such as Aphrodite and Ishtar, who stimulate sexual desires; mother goddesses such as Demeter and Isis, the fecund wombs of the race, who hold and suckle the child. These Goddesses represent one aspect of a woman’s femininity that is open, willing and values relatedness. She seeks to please her partner, nurture her children, create a nest of comfort and pleasure for her family, and foster the growth of all living things in her environment. The White ovulatory Goddess in women who use her sexuality for attraction, impregnation, birth and nurturance is most acceptable in Western culture.
The Dark Goddess is depicted in Goddesses such as Kali who is fanged, wrathful, with protruding tongues or Lilith with a flaming revolving sword.
To the Patriarchal mind these goddesses are not even seen as feminine, their flow of blood marking their failure to conceive.”
The Patriarchal mentality also feared a woman’s sexual desires which peaked just before menstruation. She was seen as fiery, and assertive, self directed and impersonal rather than fostering procreation. She became feared and any sign of power, be it midwifery, or healing was discouraged. As in the Middle Ages when millions of women, believed to be witches, were murdered.
As a result women were segregated, ostracized called unclean, seen as a threat to man, his laws and his gods.
This has meant that in western societies we regard the ovulating woman as desirable and correspondingly the menstruating woman as being self – orientated, impersonal, often bitchy and hysterical.
We have forgotten that The Dark Goddess has magical powers that we can use for transformation, renewal, healing and spiritual illumination.
The Early Goddess – worshipping societies understood that the dark of the moon was the Goddess’s menstrual peak and that woman, at this time were the most magical, mysterious and powerful.
In Demetra George’s; Mysteries of the dark Moon, page209; “During the menstrual time a woman is turned inward and she can most easily access the workings of her inner life and the powers of the psyche. The heavy, sleep like qualities of the menstrual time help a woman to reach deep meditative states. Through her dreams she can gain information about the workings of her body and mind. A woman’s capacity for prophecy and vision is most enhanced when she is menstruating”.
In early cultures people honoured menstruation it meant creativity, things that were sacred. It was awe – provoking and thought to be miraculous that a woman could bleed regularly without being wounded and without dying.
In Karen Walker; The Woman’s Encyclopaedia pg 636
Menstrual blood was honoured and valued, used in sacred ceremonies. The blood at the earliest altars was menstrual blood. The blood of a girl’s first menstruation was considered a potent healing elixir and was claimed to heal incurable diseases such as leprosy. Cloths stained with the Goddess’s menstrual blood were highly valued as healing charms.
In early Goddess cultures woman would retire into menstrual huts to fast, and practice their magical rites. It would be a time of sharing the secret knowledge which pasted amongst the woman of the community.
Esther Harding In Women’s Mysteries pg 60, suggests that one of the reasons for woman’s menstrual disabilities and PNS today is that modern culture does not provide any kind of menstrual rituals. Menstruation is just each woman’s affliction, where she suffers alone; it has no positive meaning or value.
Demetra George writes;”In order to reclaim their menstrual power and liberate their bodies from menstrual pain, women must follow the cycle of the disappearing dark moon and enter a voluntary retreat during their sacred time of the month. Irritability, discomfort and pain are the ways in which women’s bodies continues to protest the menstrual injustices inflicted by society. Women’s instinctual bodies demand that they pay attention to honouring the menstrual mysteries. The instinctual pull of the dark moon phase is to deliberately withdraw from the demands of others and worldly expectations. This step takes awareness and effort in a society that is constructed in such a way as to deny and invalidate women’s special needs during their moon times.”
However if a woman can find a way to take some time to be alone, in the bath, meditating, take a walk in Nature, Have a Goddess Day,
( visit www.qualitytime4u.com and sign up for my e-zine) she can reconnect with her deeper sacred self, accessing her creative energy.
We need to change our attitudes and re – educate ourselves and our daughters.
Download my e-book 'First Moon' at www.qualitytime4u.com/products.php
Vicki Noble writes in Shakti Woman: - “that Western Women have forgotten the spiritual significance of the menstrual cycle and need to reconnect in order to empower themselves”.
I think the time has come to honour ourselves and our daughters.
Improve our own, and our daughters self-esteem, and to prepare them well, for the onset of menstruation.
Get My e-book - Celebrating the onset of Menstruation- A Mother and Daughter Guide.
www.qualitytime4u.com/products.php.
Women’s blood, hormonal and sexual cycle are closely connected to the cycles of the moon. An average menstrual cycle lasts 29 and half days which is exactly the length of the moon’s cycle.
The full moon phase corresponding to ovulation and the dark moon is analogous to menstruation.
In societies where women work outside and live together, they all tend to ovulate and bleed at the same time. Women’s emotions and sexual desires also fluctuate in a rhythmic pattern similar to the Moon’s Phases. At the full moon a women can feel receptive and drawn to others, often feeling more nurturing towards family. The dark Moon phase is when a woman prefers to withdraw and spend more time nurturing her self, pulling away from the demands and expectations of other people. These are natural reactions.
In Demetra George’s book;, She describes these archetypes of the feminine as being the White Goddess (white ovulatory pole) and the Dark Goddess (The red menstrual pole); The patriarchal mentality equating light and increase with good and the black and decrease with bad.
In Mysteries of the dark Moon, page 207; “At the white pole we find love goddesses such as Aphrodite and Ishtar, who stimulate sexual desires; mother goddesses such as Demeter and Isis, the fecund wombs of the race, who hold and suckle the child. These Goddesses represent one aspect of a woman’s femininity that is open, willing and values relatedness. She seeks to please her partner, nurture her children, create a nest of comfort and pleasure for her family, and foster the growth of all living things in her environment. The White ovulatory Goddess in women who use her sexuality for attraction, impregnation, birth and nurturance is most acceptable in Western culture.
The Dark Goddess is depicted in Goddesses such as Kali who is fanged, wrathful, with protruding tongues or Lilith with a flaming revolving sword.
To the Patriarchal mind these goddesses are not even seen as feminine, their flow of blood marking their failure to conceive.”
The Patriarchal mentality also feared a woman’s sexual desires which peaked just before menstruation. She was seen as fiery, and assertive, self directed and impersonal rather than fostering procreation. She became feared and any sign of power, be it midwifery, or healing was discouraged. As in the Middle Ages when millions of women, believed to be witches, were murdered.
As a result women were segregated, ostracized called unclean, seen as a threat to man, his laws and his gods.
This has meant that in western societies we regard the ovulating woman as desirable and correspondingly the menstruating woman as being self – orientated, impersonal, often bitchy and hysterical.
We have forgotten that The Dark Goddess has magical powers that we can use for transformation, renewal, healing and spiritual illumination.
The Early Goddess – worshipping societies understood that the dark of the moon was the Goddess’s menstrual peak and that woman, at this time were the most magical, mysterious and powerful.
In Demetra George’s; Mysteries of the dark Moon, page209; “During the menstrual time a woman is turned inward and she can most easily access the workings of her inner life and the powers of the psyche. The heavy, sleep like qualities of the menstrual time help a woman to reach deep meditative states. Through her dreams she can gain information about the workings of her body and mind. A woman’s capacity for prophecy and vision is most enhanced when she is menstruating”.
In early cultures people honoured menstruation it meant creativity, things that were sacred. It was awe – provoking and thought to be miraculous that a woman could bleed regularly without being wounded and without dying.
In Karen Walker; The Woman’s Encyclopaedia pg 636
Menstrual blood was honoured and valued, used in sacred ceremonies. The blood at the earliest altars was menstrual blood. The blood of a girl’s first menstruation was considered a potent healing elixir and was claimed to heal incurable diseases such as leprosy. Cloths stained with the Goddess’s menstrual blood were highly valued as healing charms.
In early Goddess cultures woman would retire into menstrual huts to fast, and practice their magical rites. It would be a time of sharing the secret knowledge which pasted amongst the woman of the community.
Esther Harding In Women’s Mysteries pg 60, suggests that one of the reasons for woman’s menstrual disabilities and PNS today is that modern culture does not provide any kind of menstrual rituals. Menstruation is just each woman’s affliction, where she suffers alone; it has no positive meaning or value.
Demetra George writes;”In order to reclaim their menstrual power and liberate their bodies from menstrual pain, women must follow the cycle of the disappearing dark moon and enter a voluntary retreat during their sacred time of the month. Irritability, discomfort and pain are the ways in which women’s bodies continues to protest the menstrual injustices inflicted by society. Women’s instinctual bodies demand that they pay attention to honouring the menstrual mysteries. The instinctual pull of the dark moon phase is to deliberately withdraw from the demands of others and worldly expectations. This step takes awareness and effort in a society that is constructed in such a way as to deny and invalidate women’s special needs during their moon times.”
However if a woman can find a way to take some time to be alone, in the bath, meditating, take a walk in Nature, Have a Goddess Day,
( visit www.qualitytime4u.com and sign up for my e-zine) she can reconnect with her deeper sacred self, accessing her creative energy.
We need to change our attitudes and re – educate ourselves and our daughters.
Download my e-book 'First Moon' at www.qualitytime4u.com/products.php
Labels: Menstruation, Mother and Daughter Guide, Woman's issues, Woman's Spirituality
