The Moon and You…
For so much of the collective, a discussion of the blood mysteries is such a taboo. In 2017 my guest, Damascena, had the opportunity to participate in a Blood Mystery Initiation, called Priestesses of the Moon. Working as a certified childbirth and postpartum doula, she now uses this feminine alchemy to help her clients address challenges to conception and restoring menstrual health. She believes that in meeting themselves deeply in the bosom of The Great Mother, they are able to heal and transmute blocks, traumas and toxic imprints, priming the womb for conscious conception.
Check out this interview with Damascena,
The benefits of cyclical living allow us the ability to step out of linear time and onto the spiral path, walking the edge of eternal now. Every cycle is a process of transformation with a beginning, middle, and end. It helps us map our evolution. Living in attunement to the rhythms and cycles of nature helps us build resilience, embrace paradox and polarity, entrains spiritual discipline, and sanctifies inner wisdom. As a Priestess, Astrologer, and Storyteller, my ministry is around helping people connect to the music of the heavenly spheres in order “to know thyself” as an ever evolving being. To be able to find coherence in the midst of incoherence.
The moon’s mystery is also woman’s mystery. In the ancient past, before the domination of patriarchal culture attempted to abolish the power and symbolism of the feminine, people lived close to the land and followed the natural cycles of the luminaries and seasons. The luminaries guided when their ritual and ceremony took place, when plants were seeded and harvested, and even when to create a family or avoid it. This allowed them to have an intimate relationship not just to their spiritual life and ecology, but for women, also to their bodies. The moon has deep and undeniable connection to the feminine mysteries.
Astrologically speaking the moon represents the the soul. The entire field that we carry from lifetime to lifetime meeting the body in the here and now. A pattern generating machine the moon holds a mirror to our unconscious actions, conditionings, and self-imposed limitations. In essence, she is a portal that makes our evolution and awakening possible by illuminating the areas in which we grasp for control, and move through the world on auto-pilot. She helps us move beyond the mundane world, into the world of the mystic.
The word menses, the Latin word for menstruation, means month, which relates to the Greek word mene, or moon. A favorite astrologer and amateur etymologist, of mine never misses an opportunity to replace the word month with the word moonth. Historians believe that the first calendars were actually the attempt at woman tracking their menstrual cycles. Archeologists have found ceremonial artifacts that are “notched precisely with lunar timekeeping markers that noted the menstrual cycle and periods of gestation”. (Noble, 1991 :19) Tracking the passage of gestation is even more sophisticated as it illustrates the ancient people’s awareness of the Venus cycle as well. Both the cycles of the Moon and Venus are inextricably linked to what it is to be a woman today, as much as it was a millennia ago.
In ancient times the moon was thought to be female, with a menstrual cycle of her own, Her phases mirroring the ebb and flow of our own hormones. This is what is known as “The blood mysteries”. With the advent of the agrarian calendar which followed the solar cycle, a masculine archetype, women have drifted further and further out of touch with the regenerative, life-giving power of her womb.
My son recently noted “ Mom, you love your period, you talk about it all the time. My friends at school all think it’s gross. The girls can’t believe you like it so much.” Bless him, he’s 13. I remember back in middle school how ashamed, tired, and bloated, I felt each month when my cycle came. I wanted to hide, to disappear. Thankfully I know better now and I was able to explain just one of the gifts of menstruation. “Son, one of the things I love about my moon time is, because I am adopted, I have no medical history which often leaves me in the dark about the changes my body is making. My cycle allows me to know that my body is balanced and in harmony. If my rhythm is off, if something stands out in the chart, it’s a clue that I need to investigate what is happening.” And that is just what I did. Many years ago, after the birth of my daughter my cycles and my emotions were highly erratic. I did everything the Doctors said I should to get my cycle back on track. When that didn’t work, my colleague, a fellow birth doula, introduced me to the work of a womb priestess. While, at the time I wasn’t looking to become a priestess, and even had trouble with the word, I was desperate. I decided that I would sign up for one of her offerings. I soon discovered the gifts of befriending the moon go far beyond the physical. I even learned that when my blood cycle ends, and menopause begins, my feminine connection to the moon will only become more clear and coherent. In drawing the moon down to kiss my womb, I had given myself the gift of honoring my inner feminine archetype, my connection to the goddess herself. I was able to worship my own inner divinity, reclaim my sovereignty and heal intense trauma.
Here on this page, I’ve attempted to offer some of the wisdom I’ve gleaned over the years, and provide resources to powerful teachings of other priestesses and leaders.
Inner Maps
Why should you map your cycle? Your menstrual cycle is way more than just a biological process; it’s a cycle of ever-changing spiritual, emotional, creative energy, a road map that leads right back to the very essence of you. This chart, just like your astrology chart, becomes a living oracle. While you may not consciously relate to your cycle as a shamanic death and rebirth each month, our bodies know it as such. Just as a snake sheds it’s skin, every time the uterus sheds it’s lining, we are released from the past, from what might have been, and a new future is possible.
You can download a link to our free moon cycle map here. Charting our moon cycle makes sense if we want to get in touch with our natural rhythms. This next section discusses how to fill in fill in moon cycle chart. Then we will briefly discuss the phases of our cycle. And finally, putting it all together, we will touch on womb wisdom, how to maximize the information you glean from the chart.
I did not create moon cycle charting, it’s an art that was handed down to me from an elder, just as I am now handing it to you. So instead of re-inventing the wheel, I’ve taken these instructions from the gorgeously illustrated book “Moon Mysteries” by Nao Sims & Nikiah Seeds.
HOW TO USE THE MOON CYCLE CHART
1. There are 30 moons on each chart; they have been colored in black ink to show the different phases of the moon over the course of one lunar cycle, or one menstrual cycle. The black moon indicates the new moon and the white moon indicates the full moon. The moons that appear in between the new and the full moons show the moon either waxing to full, or waning back to new.
2. To begin using this chart you will need to find out which phase the moon is in on Day 1 of your cycle. Day 1 of your cycle is the first day that you begin bleeding. To find out which phase the moon is in on Day 1, you simply look up the date you begin bleeding in a lunar calendar. For example: If you get your period on January 12th you look to your lunar calendar to find out the phase that the moon on January 12th. Once you know this, you can write the days and corresponding dates of your cycle into your chart according to the images of the moon provided in the Moon Chart. We recommend We-Moon’s Lunar calendar, although there are plenty of lunar calendars on the internet to.
3. The days of your cycle are recorded in the section of the chart entitled day.
4. The corresponding dates of your cycle are recorded in the section of the chart entitled date.
5. The section entitled “physical being” is where you record the changes occurring in your body.
6. The section entitled “emotional being” is where your record the changes occurring your emotional being.
7. You have also been provided with space for a legend, should you decide to create symbols to represent the physical and emotional changes your experiencing throughout your cycle. Some women find that drawing the symbols on the chart takes up less space than actual words. However, if words speak to you more than symbols, then don’t hesitate to go that route.
8. The blank space beside each moon has been provided for those women who are interested in recording the astrological sign of each moon.
10. Good Luck! And Welcome to a whole new way of knowing yourself
Instructions from “Moon Mysteries”. Their website offers an alternative style chart. You can access it here.
Phases, Feeling, and Flow
If we were mapping our perfect, metaphorical menstrual cycle directly onto the cycle of the moon, the waxing moon would take place just as we finished bleeding. We’d ovulate on the full moon, be pre-menstrual at the waning moon. The dark/new moon is the blood moon. But our cycles seldom always line up with exactly with the New Moon, unless we are are fully on the other side of Menopause. In which case I am a clear vessel. A perfect mirror for the moon to live through me.
White Moon / Red Moon
The terms white moon and red moon symbolize the different ways a woman’s cycle is currently flowing with the moon. And this will often change throughout a woman’s life as she enters different phases.
The White Moon Cycle
The white moon cycle is the most common and is linked to the new moon. If you’re on a white moon cycle, you bleed around the new moon and ovulate around the full moon.
It is said that a women who bleeds in sync with the new moon is an a seeding phase of her life. She is dreaming, planting and tending a particular path, be it in her personal life or in her professional life.
This is because the full moon is considered to be the earth’s most fertile time. So when a woman goes through the most fertile stage of her cycle simultaneously, both energies align and are magnified.
Women on a white moon cycle pull energy inward towards them and harness this to replenish and deepen their emotional, mental, and spiritual energies.
The Red Moon Cycle
The red moon cycle is less common than the white moon cycle and is linked to the full moon. If you’re a woman with a red moon cycle, you bleed during the full moon, ovulating during the new moon.
In ancient times these women were the priestesses, the healers, the witches, and the medicine women. In contrast to the white moon, these women are focused on channeling their creative energy outward.
Women with a red moon cycle have a deep desire for self-actualization, self-growth, creativity, business, mentorship, and development. Everything they learn and experience helps empower them from within, enabling them to empower the women around them.
The red moon cycle is also said to offer a deep connection to a women’s sexual energy. Powerfully potent energy that the Patriarchy has tried (and continues) to disconnect us from.
A woman on a red moon cycle is a woman of great power. So it was these women who were labeled witches; and punished, vilified, and ostracized from society.
The Biological Piece
Pre-ovulation
Moon Phase: Waxing Moon
Feminine Archetype: Maiden
Season: Spring
Element: Air
Pre-ovulation begins around day seven through day thirteen. Your estrogen levels are climbing as you inwardly begin to awaken from you winter like cocoon. Estrogen increases and your brain receives a boost of serotonin, which leads to an increase in energy and enthusiasm. You feel upbeat, and outward oriented. This is a fantastic time to plan business meetings or meet with your creative team. You crave athletic activity or movement. Pre-ovulation is like the maiden. Fresh, new, young, and full of hope, possibility, and potential.
Ovulation
Feminine Archetype:
The Great Mother Goddess
Moon Phase: Full Moon
Season: Summer
Element: Fire
At ovulation, an egg has been released from one of your two ovaries. It travels down your fallopian tubes into your uterus where it will wait to either be fertilized, or composted. Ovulation begins around day 13 of your cycle and lasts through roughly day 21. These are your fertile days of the month. Here estrogen and testosterone have reached their highest peak causing you to feel upbeat, sexy, flirtatious, and turned on. It’s the “kick your heals up and dance” time of the month. In the biological background your body is producing pheromones to attract a partner for pro-creation.
Pre-mensuration
Feminine Archetype: Mystic, Wild Woman
Moon Phase: Waning
Season: Fal
l
Element: Water
If an egg hasn’t been fertilized, estrogen and progesterone begin to plummet as we move closer to our center. Energy begins to wane. Emotionally we become less able to hold all of the noise vying for our attention. Therefore, if we don’t make a practice of setting things down and changing our pace, we are more apt then usual become frustrated and irritable. Withdrawing testosterone ushers in feelings of insecurity. In this phase we need a wide berth. Cravings change from sweet, to salty and savory.
Menstruation
Feminine Archetype: Queen of Death, Crone
Moon Phase: Dark/New Moon
Season: Winter
Element: Earth
Usually begins around day 28, however, ironically, the day you begin bleeding, then becomes day 1 of your cycle. It is the point of the death, (shedding of the lining) and rebirth, as a young maiden. Estrogen begins at the lowest part of the cycle, and slowly begins to climb. Emotionally we are at the most inward point of the month. We gather around our own inner hearth. We are able to peer beyond the veils, experiencing psychic intuitions, and a feeling of being attuned to nature. Often we desire aloneness, while physically we may feel depleted and uncomfortable with interrupted sleep patterns. It is a time to be receptive, and renew our inner resources.
Putting it all together…
One of the most useful things, aside from those already listed, is how this cycle acts as an oracle and a planning tool.
For instance, If I am going to pitch an new idea for a business to a room full of potential investors, I know to schedule it on a day I’m ovulating. My hormone’s are naturally attracting on a subtle level. I am feeling juicy, playful, and have an open line of circuitry.
Likewise, I wouldn’t plan this same meeting during the new moon, or my bleed time. At that point I am feeling way more internal, with my internal circuitry shut down to outside input.
Take another example… I’d like to begin to implement some structure around an idea I’ve had. The waxing moon is the ideal energy to harness in this case. It’s outward, action oriented, and has a desire to “build”.
*To learn more about Planetary Priestessing, and The Feminine Mysteries, stay in touch, as we offer workshops and special containers throughout the year.
