The curse, period, our time of the month, these are some of the names we’ve been given to call a rather sacred and highly creative time in our lives. In fact I will often drop everything I can from my schedule and curl up to write when my moontime arrives (with a heating pad and hot liquid to help with the pain of cramps because I'm not willing to give up some of the things in my diet to stop them…not my chocolate!) . Too long we have found reasons to hate this time rather than recognizing that it reminds us of our connection as women to the lunar cycle, and the power that connection brings to us as women.

Here’s a great excerpt from a book by Susan Weed called “Healing Wise”



Illustration from Healing Wise by Durga Bernhard

In the beginning, according to the Wise Woman tradition, everything began, as everything does, at birth. The Great Mother of All gave birth and the earth appeared out of the void. Then the Great Mother of All gave birth again, and again, and again, and people, and animals, and plants appeared on the earth. They were all very hungry. "What shall we eat?" they asked the Great Mother. "Now you eat me," she said, smiling. Soon there were a very great many lives, but the Great Mother of All was enjoying creating and giving birth so much that she didn't want to stop. "Ah," she said smiling, "now I eat you." And so she still does.

We all come from the same mother. She is the wise woman. We all return to her embrace, her bloody-rich womb place, when we die. Every woman is a whole/holy form of her, able to be whole/holy mother of all life, able to be whole/holy destroyer of life. Her power is her blood that flows and flows, her blood which is life and gives life. Every woman's menstrual blood and birth-time blood is a holy mystery.

What are the blood mysteries? Why are they central to the understanding of the Wise Woman tradition.

Blood mysteries teach that menstrual blood and birthing blood are holy blood, power blood, healing blood. The blood mysteries teach us to remember that life and healing come from and return to woman, to the wise woman, to the woman who bleeds and bleeds. And does not die.

Blood mysteries reveal that menstrual (moontime) blood and birth blood are so holy, so full of potential, so full of the void, that they are to be used only to heal, to heal by nourishing. Holy woman-blood is nourishing blood, blood of love, blood of abundance, blood that heals the earth.

Blood mysteries recall the immense power of the bleeding woman. Power enough to share in great nourishing give-away from mother to matrix, give-away of nourisher to nourisher. When we bleed into the ground (in reality or fantasy) our power regrounds as our blood flows through the personal root chakra and into the earth.

Bleeding into the ground, bleeding freely, we know ourselves as women, as nourishers of life, as givers of nourishment to the plants, givers of holy nourishment: our moontime blood.

I am woman giving away nourishment to ensure this planet's life. With my moontime power, my blood, with my birthing power, my blood, I feed the earth who feeds us all. Every month I remember: I am woman. I am earth. I am life. I am nourishment. I am change.

I am woman, blatantly and repeatedly confronted with my changes: hormonal harmonics stirring moon time visions, ovulatory oracles, pre-menstrual crazies, orgasmic knowings, birth ecstasies, breast-feeding bliss, menopausal moods.

I am wholeness. I am woman. I know life, death, pain, and health in my marrow, in my womb. I know the bloody places: the narrow space between life and death, the bloody place of birth, the bloody mess of nourishing life, the bloody flow of letting life go. I am woman. My blood is power. Peaceful power. Peaceful blood.

My blood is holy nourishment. My blood nourishes the growing fetus. My blood becomes milk to nourish the young child. My blood flows into the ground as holy nourishment for the Great Mother, Gaia, Mother Earth.

Gaia, whose ways are bloody. Woman, whose ways are bloody. Blood of nourishment. But bloody. Bloody menstrual blood, bloody birth blood. Blood of peace, nourishing blood. Blood of health/wholeness/holiness, not of sacrifice. The Wise Woman tradition is a bloody-handed woman, a bloody-thighed woman, a woman who gives birth, a woman who sees to the other side of things.

Health/wholeness/holiness is always changing. Life is mysterious, moving in spirals of change. Spirals moving to, through, from the void. Change making the hole so we can see the holy healthy gift of our wholeness.

"Sit, sister, here on the soft green moss, and give your sacred moon blood to the earth, back again to the spiral of life. Let flow your womb's blood red to the green and brown of earth. Sit here. Relax and close your eyes and let the visions come. Rest now and give your moon blood to nourish the mother who nourishes us. Relax and let the visions come."

The time of menstrual bleeding, according to the Wise Woman tradition, is a time of visions. Any woman who pays attention to these visions will find the power of shamans, witch doctors, medicine wo/men.

"Add a bit of red leaf to your herbal mixtures, any red leaf except poison ivy. That will make the medicine strong," says a friend, apprentice to a Native American shaman. And the wise woman inside me whispers: "They do this to evoke the power of menstrual blood."

These are the natural powers of menstruating, menopausal, and post-menopausal women:

* Oneness with the earth as a responsive nurturing presence
* Communication with plants, animals, rocks
* Weather making
* Shape shifting
* Invisibility
* Communication with fairies, devas, elves, dragons, unicorns
* Foreknowledge
* Acutely sensitive senses of smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch
* Healing

The Wise Woman tradition understands healing/wholing as blood mysteries. The blood of birth and death, and the blood of nourishment, these are the natural knowledge of women, these are the things that make us wise.


Healing Wise
A Wise Woman Herbal



by Susun Weed
Paperback - 312 pages (1989)
Published by Ash Tree Publishing

Perhaps that’s one of the things that resonates so deeply with me about the Dianic Tradition. The idea that all women are bound together by a maternal bloodline that goes all the way back to creation. There no place for racism, or classism, or any other kind of bigotry between women, because we are all one. Hence, as all men come from a woman, which make them part of us, part of the One, then to me that is proof that bigotry itself must be nothing more than a learned aberration, something never meant to be part of our makeup as humans.

It all leads back to blood. Not blood taken in force like in war, but blood given freely in life, to cleanse ourselves and the land around us. This has got me thinking quite a bit about the things I do during this time, not just creatively, but daily needs, from nutrition to my…feminine products :) Especially on what I can do (within by budget) to be more earth friendly during my moontime.

It seems, doing the research, I have a few options….

Moontime Pads

I made a few of these a long time ago when I was doing the sewing of the cloth diapers thing and I actually like wearing them okay. Trouble is I only had a couple. My choices are wither to by them (expensive) or get off my butt and make them myself (time consuming, and need decent pattern). Here are some links for those of you who might have wondered about these sorts of products for yourselves or women you know.



Party In My Pants is a sister-owned and operated mini business. All our pads are handmade with love in Ashland, Wisconsin. We are a multi-talented bunch: product, graphic & web design, marketing, and sewing, we do it all. Take a minute to get to know us better! Then Click here to tour Wilmarth and read Elka Karl's interview with Luci & Lydia.

Lunapads International is a women-owned small business based in Vancouver, Canada. Our mission is to help women have healthier and more positive experiences of their menstrual cycles, and by extension, their bodies overall. Our team is made up of a passionate group of gals who believe that using natural menstrual products is a creative and empowering way to honor and care for ourselves and the planet. 

Moon Pads are washable menstrual pads, a soft, natural solution, answering both health and environmental concerns. So that other women can share the advantages of a washable, reusable pad Moon Pads are now produced commercially, as a one-woman, home-based business. Sewn by me, for you, with love :) Enjoy using them!

Moontime Cups



I’ve given the option of a menstrual cup a bit of though too. I might even get one as a mommy day present for me. I often wonder how well they stay in place, since a shift in movement could be very messy. Also how easy they are to insert? I’m willing to try them, but at an average cost of $35+, they are hard on some of us on a tight budget. Good thing you only have to buy one (unless you lose it).

Brands 

Mooncup
Diva Cup
Keeper 
Ladycup
Lunette
Femmecup 

Final thoughts

In the end, either way allows me to return the blood that gave me life to the earth, which to me seem a much better use for such a sacred gift. Whether by soaking by pads and using the waters in the garden (no heath issue with this that I’ve been able to find from my research) or the direct gathering of the cup, both seem better to me that the disposable option of the tampons and pads I’ve been doing (cardboard applicators or not). I’m not sure how far this search will continue to take me, but as soon as finances allow I’m going to find out.

Other useful links to this topic.

It's So East Being Green

Thinking difference

Back to Basics by Living Green...

Passages Into Womanhood