This month I am honored to share a guest post by Lucy Pearce. Lucy is the author of Moon Time: A Guide to Celebrating Your Menstrual Cycle.
To celebrate the launch of my first book, Moon Time: A Guide to Celebrating Your Menstrual Cycle, a friend gave me a card expressing her appreciation of my book, including the soul-searing words: “you are the bravest woman I know.”
I was deeply honoured. The taboo about discussing our cycles, about exploring our sexuality, our innermost thoughts still seems very strong. In writing this book I faced my own demons, and chose to discuss a topic which I would in reality share with few women face-to-face.
But I am so glad I have. To have the opportunity to touch women’s lives in such an integral and intimate way has been an unanticipated gift.
Time and again women say that they don’t know much about their cycles, or they are really struggling with PMS and don’t know what to do. Our menstrual cycles are our weather, and yet so many of us know so little about them, we are battered by their storms, living as victims of our own bodies in wide-eyed incomprehension.
I strongly believe that in a more civilized world we would each be initiated into the meaning and rhythm of our cycles on the cusp of womanhood. But instead it is a taboo – ignored, voiceless, invisible – and therefore by implication, unimportant. We learn by trial and error throughout our menstrual lives, most women coming to the end of their bleeding with little more insight into their own bodies and natural rhythms than when they started.
How much needless suffering could be averted if we learned more about our cycles – their biological and archetypal impact on our lives, the weaving of our fertility and creativity, the influence of the moon and other women on us? How then might we find our power in our lives? How then might we learn to celebrate what is uniquely ours?
I have been studying the menstrual cycle and many aspects of what I call woman-craft for many years now. But in giving voice to it in the public sphere, I realized just how much the silence holds us all in its thrall. Whilst I have always been outspoken in my personal life, I was challenged to my very core in bringing these words out into the world.
It is a process of unfolding courage. When asked what my book is about, I still balk and take a deep breath before divulging the topic. But then, rather than the horror or embarrassment that I anticipate, the magic happens, without fail. With women aged 20, 40, 60, or 84 the silence is broken. They share stories and feelings about their own cycles. Both women who only five minutes before were strangers, and women who have known me since before I was born. In their responses to my book, I see just how much women are longing to have frank conversations about their bodies, their emotions, and the shockingly forbidden topic of their deepest selves.
I wrote the book as a conversation – sharing my journey and communicating with the reader on her journey. I have found without exception that every woman who reads it continues this conversation in real life with me with a distinct lack of self-consciousness. I would love to extend this conversation to you, dear woman.
Lucy’s book is available as a signed paperback or as an e-book from www.thehappywomb.com. It is also available from Amazon, The Book Depository, www.moontimes.co.uk and Susun Weed’s Wise Woman Bookstore.
Lucy Pearce is a facilitator of creativity and woman-craft. She has led women’s yoga, holistic birth preparation, women’s circles, drama and creativity classes for over ten years. As a free-spirited freelance writer, she focuses on women’s health, mindfulness, birth and mothering. She has a passion for women’s work and has recently published her first book: ‘Moon Time: A Guide to Celebrating Your Menstrual Cycle’. She is a regular contributor to Modern Mum and Juno magazines, and The Irish Examiner and online to Rhythm of the Home, The Anti-Room and Wild Sister magazine. She blogs at www.dreamingaloud.net. Her website www.thehappywomb.com is a wonderful resource for Woman-craft and you can find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/thehappywomb.
“Let the slowest part of you set the pace.”
Saida Desilets
Early last year this quote landed in my email inbox. Allowing the slowest part of me to set the pace sounded good but truthfully my thoughts were more wistful. But I haven’t been able to let go of Saida’s quote, it keeps resurfacing in my awareness.
When I first read, When The Drummers Were Women by Layne Redmond, I found my thoughts returning to a comment she made about pace. Layne, who had studied and performed with master percussionist Glen Velez said, “The most striking difference between Glen’s music and mine was the tempo. Over the years, his compositions had become very complex, with extraordinarily fast tempos. My own work was much slower, at about the rate of a relaxed heartbeat. The slower pace gave the music ceremonial character.”
I began thinking about the need for women and men to approach life differently, in a manner that worked for each of them. Growing up in a culture where a left brain mentality dominates has instilled in us the idea that more and faster is better. But this same culture has basically stripped women of their sense of self. So I found myself wondering what role slowness, or the lack if it, has played.
On my journey of opening up to the wisdom of the divine feminine, I am understanding that the rhythm of the feminine is the slower, grounded, embodied energy of Mother Earth. Layne Redmond says, “As I entrained with the beat of the drum—as I became the pulse itself—I felt that I was letting the force of gravity draw my essence down, down through the layers of the earth to the fire at her center. As I connected to the fire of the earth, I could feel that energy radiating up through my body and out through the sound of my drum—as if I were a radio transmitter.”
So I have been pondering slowness for a while now. I have observed how I allow all the things that I am needing to do trump my natural need for slowness. I have noticed that I lose touch with any childlike wonder and joy in my life when I am not able to rest into a natural, slower pace. And I lose any sense of presence in simple, everyday moments when I feel hurried.
I have come to believe that slower is not less effective. Instead, I feel I show up with more clarity and focus. I am leaving behind the days of being “the project queen” and needing my sense of purpose and satisfaction to come from the work completed. I am working on letting go of comparisons that take me out of communication with myself. And I am moving into sensing the resonance of the divine feminine in my work and play and trusting in its deeper wisdom.
I am inviting you to also begin playing with the idea of slowing down to that point where you feel grounded into your essence as a woman and are allowing the nourishing energies of the earth to radiate through you. Afterall, as a woman, embodying the divine feminine is your birthright and your gift to humanity.
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
We’re living the end of time. Not the end of the world, but the end of a world age—a 5,125 year cycle of time—and the way we’ve known the world throughout that time. The present world age began in 3114 B.C. and will end in A.D. 2012. Because the end of anything also marks the beginning of what comes next, we’re also living the start of what follows the end of time: the next world age, which ancient traditions called the great cycle.
Fractal Time, Gregg Braden
As this is 2012, I decided to begin the year by sharing how I have come to think about this point in time. On December 21, 2012 we will be completing not only a 5,125 year cycle but also a larger 26,000 year cycle. That is what makes 2012 so significant.
A 26,000 year cycle is a journey through all 12 signs of the zodiac. The five smaller 5,125 year cycles nested within the larger 26,000 year cycle are called world ages. Within these macro cycles are the smaller annual, seasonal, monthly and daily cycles that inform our lives.
Marija Gimbutas is credited with giving us the rosetta stone for understanding the goddess cultures. In her book, The Civilization of the Goddess, she describes the high level of civilization the goddess communities attained before coming under assault by a series of invasions. These invasions, which began around 4400 B.C., created massive dislocation of ancient settlements and introduced a culture that included violence, a religious system that revolved around a sun god, and a hierarchical organization. In time, the value system and lifestyle of the goddess cultures became dominated by the new invaders.
Out of the last 26,000 year cycle, only the 5,125 year cycle that is coming to a close seems to have been defined by a detour into patriarchy. Understanding this gives me some perspective in a world where patriarchy seems endless and unchangeable.
Patriarchy is a fundamental abuse of power and a distortion of the divine masculine. We know this in our bodies. We are socialized to participate in a system that we know is a lie. This is system that does not place value on all of life and our connectedness. It is a system that has lost its spiritual grounding into the feminine.
In Dorothy Atalla’s book, Conversations with the Goddess, the presence she communicates with says, “The feminine is rising to restore balance, but this is not merely a recurring cycle. This time a new reality will emerge, completely transcending the old yin/yang cycle. This new cycle will span 26,000 years.”
This year, not only are we beginning a new 5,125 year cycle, we are beginning a new 26,000 year cycle. Just as old cycles do not end abruptly, new cycles do not begin abruptly. The rise of the feminine has been occurring for a while. The counterculture movement of the 1960’s was an aspect of this. The environmental movement, feminism, and racial equality, are all aspects of the inclusive nature of the divine feminine.
For me, embracing this unique time on our planet means continuing to open myself to the work of unearthing the divine feminine in my life; to deepen my understanding of the gifts of the feminine that are grounded into the elemental energies of Mother Earth; and to learn to own the power of the sacred feminine in my experience. I hope you will join me.
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
At this point in history, the masculine needs to learn that its trajectory away from earth is not its sole function. The masculine does transcend limitations to acquire vision. But it must then “come back” to earth with its vision, and re-seed earth with it.
Conversations with the Goddess, Dorothy Atalla
This is the season of darkness in the Northern Hemisphere. The time before the celebration of the return of the light. Colors are denser. The bright red and greens of summer have become the deep, rich, berry and spruce of winter. Here in central California you can hear the honking of geese overhead, passing winter in the valley. The air is crisp and damp.
It is the annual time of turning inward. Slowing down. Taking stock. And asking ourselves how we want to move forward in the next cycle of growth. How do we want to transcend last years manifestations? What is the next step in our personal evolving? This is the masculine energy. The energy of vision. Our vision brings the seeds of change, of moving forward, and embeds these seeds into the dark ground of the fertile feminine. It is the feminine that nurtures and sustains these seeds of change.
In my awareness of the simmering compost of possibilities deep within, I am thinking of Abraham’s distinction between inspiration and motivation. Inspiration is the energy of moving toward something, being inspired. Motivation is the energy of moving away from something. I am asking myself to plant seeds that are grounded in inspiration. This keeps me connected to my heart.
Any new growth cycle needs the right environment to sustain momentum. This is the feminine aspect. I am noting if I have the support I need in place to nurture the changes I am desiring. It is a process of discovery. Sitting quietly, allowing my needs to surface. Learning what I need to move forward. Not expecting myself to get it right the first time or every time.
Sometimes embracing change is as simple as giving myself enough time to introduce familiarity into something that feels too foreign. So I move slowly, in small doses, until I have a sense of familiarity. I have learned that too much newness will overwhelm me, sabotage my momentum.
Also, I am finding that in order to move forward, I have to deepen my relationship with myself. Every step involves releasing fears and limiting thoughts. The more expansion I envision, the more I need to ground my energy into the feminine matrix. Grounding into the feminine asks me to be present, engage fully, and trust myself.
So I am trusting in the abundance of the fertile feminine and in my ability to attract the resources, the people, the practices I need to sustain the coming cycle of growth. And as I prepare to welcome in the new annual cycle I am still celebrating the fullness of last years growth. I am appreciating everyone who I was able to play with this past year, and the unknowing role you played in my evolving. And I am looking forward to more. From my heart, peace, love and joy to all of you. . .
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
We rely on the left brain, with its close attunement to the outer world and to logic, to order most of our action and control our responses to events in our lives. Meanwhile we neglect and discount the other half of the brain, a half that’s more inwardly oriented and gives us our greatest capacity for intuition. Awakening Intuition, Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz
The brain has two hemispheres. The left brain, considered the masculine brain, is experienced as the rational mind, just the facts, focusing on the external life. The right brain, or feminine brain, is the source of our knowing, our intuition, our instincts, focusing on the inner life.
The divine feminine can be said to be the inspiration (right brain) while the divine masculine is the energy that takes that inspiration and focuses on manifesting it, making it an actuality (left brain).
In this way, Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz (neuropsychiatrist, neuroscientist as well as a medical intuitive), says “the two hemispheres compliment each other.” So how come we have such a difficult time honoring our right brain, the source of our knowing, our intuition.
While it is true that we live in a culture that is left brain dominant, Dr. Mona Lisa says, “The left brain tends to lord it over the right. . .What’s more it will actively deny the perception of the right brain. . .”
THAT might make you laugh or cry.
The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, so the left side of the body embodies the feminine. The left half of the brain controls the right side of the body, the right side of the body embodying the masculine.
In ancient Greece, participants in the processionals would dress in women’s clothing on their left side, and in male clothing on their right side. (Portrait of a Priestess, Joan Breton Connelly) In ancient Greece there was no separation between the secular (left brain) and the sacred (right brain). Even though by this time women had lost many basic rights, the divine feminine still had a voice.
“Although both hemispheres have connections to the body, the right hemisphere is more connected to the body overall, and especially to body pain and organ function, an important part of the intuition network.” (Awakening Intuition, Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz)
An auto mechanic once told me that women take better care of their cars because they listen to the sounds that their car is making and will bring it in for service. A man will not even hear the problem. That is the feminine brain working for us.
I have noticed that when I am experiencing mental stress, it is usually the right side of my body that actually feels the stress. My feminine side will be quiet and knowing, waiting for me to come back to my senses. The left brain (masculine) can ravage the feminine in its drive for facts and results and perfection.
There is tremendous value in learning to listen to and honor the messages from the feminine brain. For direction in our lives, in creating health, to help with everyday choices. Ask yourself, “How can I begin to honor the wisdom of the feminine (right brain) in my life today?”
I would love to hear from you. Please share your comments here and then join in the conversation on Facebook.
FREE Teleseminar – The Path of the Divine Feminine
