Women's New Moon Circle
The women of the White
Buffalo Society meet once a month during the time of the new moon, to come
together in harmony and trust and healing.We hold Women's Circle to nurture
ourselves and each other, to heal the mistrust that stems from too much
compromise in a world overcome with greed and violence and addictions.
We gather in a circle, where none is more important than the other, and
we drum and rattle and sing songs. We talk about what it means to be a
woman in these times of uncertainty and very fast living, how hard it is
to trust each other, and how vulnerable we feel about sharing our deepest
concerns. Sometimes we cry together, and sometimes we laugh; we comb each
other's hair and massage each other's feet. Through Women's Circle, we
learn to support each other and empower ourselves.
Create a Women's Circle
in your area. Take an active part in setting new patterns that will assist
your immediate family and then resonate out into the world to create the
changes that will bring peace, beauty and harmony.
THE GRACE OF MENOPAUSE
| When we as women
hear the word Menopause, most often we are not thrilled or excited. In
fact, we often allow ourselves to plunge into depression. We permit ourselves
to be shattered by the mere mention of the word. As women, and as sisters,
we rarely even mention this delicate subject to each other, let alone sit
down and discuss this very special initiation time in our lives. It is
considered, in most cases, something to remain unspoken. As women, we often
feel a loss of femininity, that somehow we are no longer attractive to
ourselves or to the men in our lives.
Where did these beliefs
and values begin? In our society today we fail to acknowledge the beautiful
cycles of life, and all the new gifts and initiations each new cycle brings
to us. As women, the mass media teaches us that we only have value between
the ages of 16 and 35. In indigenous cultures this glorious time in a woman's life is called "SWAN TIME", when a woman is considered to be at the height of her beauty and grace, and moving into a place of great wisdom. In native cultures all transitions in life are celebrated and acknowledged. This allows us as people to move into our next cycle appreciating its many gifts and blessings. Today people are obsessed with being young forever and are living in a state of denial. This prevents us from welcoming the ever-changing cycles in our lives. With our mothers and grandmothers, we as women were raised to be in service to our husbands and children. This in itself is not the problem. It was when we began to believe that this was our only purpose and value in life that women experienced what is called the "empty nest syndrome." This empty feeling comes when children leave home and when we as women don't experience and appreciate the totality of ourselves. We are so much more than Mothers and Wives. We are the creative, intuitive, daughters of the One, and as such menopause is not the end of life as we know it, but the mysterious and exciting beginning of a new era in the ever changing circle of life. For many women it
is when they seek to re-educate themselves, or move into a new career.
It is a time to re-evaluate relationships in our lives. In our swan time
we have come to acknowledge our strengths and rely on them. We also are
familiar with our weaknesses and are more willing to work with and change
them into new resources in our lives. Transitions are as
natural as breathing or walking from one room to the next. Each one brings
us to a new place in our evolution and growth. Therefore menopause brings
a woman into the most powerful time in her life, free from worries of pregnancy
and all the responsibilities which bringing a new life into being entails.
She begins to experience new freedoms in her sexuality. Some women may
experience hot flashes, lack of vaginal secretions and menopausal discomfort,
but then again many other sisters do not and move smoothly into the next
cycle of their lives with ease. With herbs and lubricants, most of these
problems can be easily solved. In all transitions
and changes in life there are adjustments to be made. Menopause is no different.
So instead of viewing this time as the end, let us as women view it as
a pregnancy, full of potential and mystery. Stik A Yi |
Woman’s Moontime
| Woman, or “Womb of
Man,” is an extraordinary creature, in that her body provides the space
where a new life develops and grows into a complete human being. During
a natural cycle of twenty-eight days, which parallels the actual cycle
of the moon, her womb (uterus) becomes lined with a rich menstrual blood
intended to nurture and feed the developing child. In a cycle where the
egg (ova) produced by the woman is not fertilized by a man’s seed (sperm),
the woman’s uterus sheds its menstrual blood with the unfertilized egg.
We call this time in a woman’s cycle her “Moontime” and she at this time
is called a “Moon Sister”!
A Moon sister reaches an exceptionally powerful peak when she is in this phase of her cycle. In patriarchal societies a Moon Sister has been, and still is considered a threat to male authorities, and so is considered “taboo” during her Moontime and may be ostracized by the community on her “moon”. She is often labeled with derogatory names and insults. Woman has relinquished her power and has become submissive. It is time for her to re-establish what she has given up of herself. The fact is, a Moon sister does indeed pose a threat to the men in her community, in the sense that she is so completely immersed in her “Woman’sMedicines,” she overpowers all men in her environment who do not have “real” medicine. In communities where whole understanding of a woman’s cycle exists, women on their “moons” stay in a place especially prepared for them called a “Moon Lodge.”
To ease the physical cramping which may occur, the Moon sisters wear pouches of lavender flowers, which are soothing to the reproductive organs. She may also cuddle up with a warm stone, about the size of a melon, wrapped in a towel, and allow the heat and the stone to relieve her pain. A Moon Sister also experiences a physical purification as her body releases toxins and waste material through her menstruation. It is an ideal time for her to commune with the Earth Mother by sitting directly on the soft earth,and allowing her menstrual blood to flow directly onto the “Mother”. Soft moss is especially wonderful when used to absorb the menstrual flow. A woman’s body is intelligent - it knows its natural path is to flow to the earth. Menstrual pain and cramping can happen simply because modern sanitary napkins are made from unnatural fibers that the body does not understand. It will attempt to choke itself painfully, rather than flow onto unnatural fibers. Tampons may also induce pain, since they completely block the natural connection between the womb and the earth Mother. The woman’s Moontime is also a time when relationships between men and women can be nurtured and healed. It is exceptionally caring for the husbands, lovers and suitors of the Moon Sisters to sit at a distance from the Moon Lodge and support the women they love by drumming and singing beautiful songs. It is also appropriate for the men to leave gifts to demonstrate their appreciation of the women and all it involves to be the ones through which all things are birthed. |
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In
the Moon Lodge, the Moon sisters support and nurture each other with story-telling
and loving practices of brushing each other’s hair, and giving soothing
massages. A woman on her moon is extremely sensitive - it is as though
every part of her is plugged into the universe and she is attuned to all
of Creation. She is highly perceptive at this time, moving on the same
frequency as the water-beings, the dolphins. At times she may also feel
some sense of grief as the unfertilized egg leaves her body and she experiences
the loss of a potential child.