How do we fix this thread? Or do only I see a lack of word wrap here? ack!
Fixed it.
Oh mi god. What a relief. Thanks.
Tell, Nick, I said “sounds good to me”.
New subject.
It is has been said that:
All shamanic powers are the powers of women's blood mysteries. Shamanic powers are the natural powers of menstruating, menopausal, and post-menopausal women: * Oneness with the earth, with Gaia, as a responsive nuturing 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
Have any women on here experienced anything like this? If not, do you believe it? (I have no experience with any such things and they seem like rather lofty claims though it certainly would be fun if it were true.)
I come from a christian family,with a Dad who was controlling,and felt the Man was the head of the woman.
He made most of the decisions,and felt that my Mom should be obedient to him and not fight his athourity.
I cant stand that belieif, and since my parents are going through a divorce,
I think my Dad has learned differently somewhat.
His girlfriend will stand up to him,and isnt as passive as my Mom was,
(toward the end she wasnt so much).
I have been thinking lately more and more how much our society is fucked up.!
I try to be respectful of women,but I have fucked up socialy at times either with remarks or actions that I totally regret.
I am never violent or abusive with women.
When it comes to manners I just dont know how to act sometimes.
I think this society has a lot of changing to do,and I hope I can be part of that change. ofthewood
All shamanic powers are the powers of women's blood mysteries.
Penny, can you tell us where you got your reference from? I’d like to look into it more.
My friend Luke is really into reading Carlos Castaneda. We were talking the other day about menstruation, and he mentioned that don Juan (Castaneda’s native mentor) said that women usually make better sorcerers due to the powers of their blood mystery.
I have always been attuned to the menstrual cycles of the women around me. I don’t bleed, obviously, but I experience many of the same emotional swings–and not just as a reaction to their emotions. Often, I know when my wife is about to start before she does because of the moods I’m experiencing–along with dropping things. I was that way with my mother and sister (it really sucked at home because they cycled together) and with female friends in college if I was around them a lot when they were cycling. Even with girls that did not have extreme emotional aspects to their cycles, I would still feel about the same level of moodiness in myself.
I think my son may be the same way. I know babies are pretty in tune with the moods of people around them anyway, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions yet, but he definitely gets more emotional around my wife’s period time, too.
I’ve often wondered if I don’t have a smidge at least of a second spirit in me. Maybe it will help me be an excellent sorcerer.
I’m sorry but… I can’t read the words “womens blood mysteries” without laughing a little under my breath.
WildeRix
Congratulations on observing your own mood swings. Are you sure you were responding to the cycling women’s emotionality? Why don’t you think they were responding to yours?
I’m not trying to deny that women can be very emotional, or imply that “moodiness” is bad. However, I think that we tend far to often to attrubute moodiness or emotionality to women as some innate aspect of femininity, perhaps related to hormonal levels. Too often we overlook the emotionality of men, or assume that emotionality in women is a natural part of her cycle.
In my experience, the female cycle represents a shift and change from a more yang aspect in the begininning half (when she is on the hunt for sex, a mate, or a potential fertilization as ovulation nears) followed by a more yin phase of moving inwards as she nears menstruation after the potential of fertilization has ended for that cycle. I think that emotionality in women is due not in fact to a natural hormonal cycle, but rather is a stress response to living in an environment that inherently denies the sacredness of womanhood by forcing people to live in a frenetic, constantly yang way without recharging their batteries.
Many women in this modern culture ruin their hormonal balance by eating poorly and not exercising. They are encouraged to hide their cycling at all costs, seeking to appear from the ouside as the same despite the changes going on within them.
We are not given any special time to go inwards during this time of physical release as some women are in other cultures (while ironically, we look down on “primitive” cultures that give women time off, assuming from our own mysoginistic standpoint that women in theise cultures are hidden away by men during this time, when really they are probably relishing their time in the company of other women).
PMS, emotional outbursts and moodiness are not inherent biological aspects of womanhood - they are protests from bodies that have been polluted by overly yang foods in the American SAD diet composed mostly of animal products. When a woman eliminates an excess of animal products from her diet (I say an excess - I myself am not a vegan), exercises, gets quality, open and loving sex from her man or herself, and allows herself the time to go inwards and collect her energies, she will have little or no cramps, moodiness, outbursts, etc.
I might propose as well that your own moodiness might be the result of you not being able to go into your menstrual hut now and again and retreat into an internal yin state from time to time.
I’ve frequently heard that, in the absence of artificial lighting, women’s cycles will align with the phases of the moon; also that, in a communal setting, our cycles will align. I don’t know how true any of this is, but if it is it’s way cool.
Since I got my mooncup, one of the things I’m thinking of doing is diluting the blood and using it on my houseplants.
Congratulations on observing your own mood swings. Are you sure you were responding to the cycling women's emotionality? Why don't you think they were responding to yours?
I don’t think I’m responding to their emotionality. I think I’m responding emotionally to their cycle. As I mentioned,
Even with girls that did not have extreme emotional aspects to their cycles, I would still feel about the same level of moodiness in myself.
I feel like the emotional swings I go through are totally my own, but when I’m not around women who are cycling or when I’m not around women at all, I don’t experience these swings.
As for diet, I feel certain that it affects things in me. I have often wondered what aspects of my heath (including mental health) would improve if I ate differently. Perhaps if I improved my diet, I would not feel the emotional swings or wouldn’t experience them as extremely regardless of how the women around me were feeling.
I might propose as well that your own moodiness might be the result of you not being able to go into your menstrual hut now and again and retreat into an internal yin state from time to time.
I would like to have a hut to retreat into.
Rix- that quote was actually from susun weed, who I was just complaining about, from her book Healing Wise. You can find some interesting excerpts from other books on the subject here :http://www.susunweed.com/moonlodge.htm
I believe it is true about the cycles and the moon. I wrote about it once in an essay about my hatred of electricity:
"I read once (and many times since then) that if we were exposed to the moonlight all women’s periods would regulate into natural cycles and we would ovulate when the moon was full and bleed when it was new. Around this same time I decided to learn more about the moon and to do an experiment where I would look at the moon every day, just taking a moment to notice it, if that was possible. Sometimes it is only up during the daytime, but if it isn’t cloudy you can still see it. The results were interesting because in fact my cycle did regulate as promised despite the fact that I made no effort not to expose myself to artificial light. I didn’t spend any more time outside than usual. I stayed up late and used electricity like always. I went to bed under the glare of streetlamps just like everyone else. All I did was think about the moon and it worked.
Perhaps it helped that I slept in a room with a skylight and large windows. Another funny thing is that on the nights when the moon wasn’t up until the middle of the night I would, for no reason, awaken out of my sleep when it was directly overhead framed in the skylight. I would observe it for just a moment before falling peacefully back asleep. This isn’t an argument that we should all go around thinking about the moon and everything will be okay. I still hate artificial lights. "
That was years ago and since then my cycle has gotten screwed up and has been exactly backwards for the last year or so, but I’ve been camping more often recently and paying more attention to the moon phases and I think it is slowly switching, I’m losing a few days each month so I will ovulate when it is full again. Or maybe it’s just switching because I am aware and I kind of want it to switch.
Rix- that quote was actually from susun weed, who I was just complaining about, from her book Healing Wise.
Thanks, Penny. I think I actually have a copy of Healing Wise that a friend loaned me. I listened to one of her talks on some mp3 that I got for buying a foraging board game once. I’ll see if I can dig up the link to the mp3. She wasn’t crazy in her talk (with Jon Young, iirc), but she was pretty overbearing. Regardless of Weed’s personality, I do find this stuff very interesting.
I don’t know much about astrology, but I have always felt very closely aligned to the moon. My departure from Christianity (my family would probably call it a “descent into paganism”, but like Urban Scout in reference to leaving high school, I prefer to think of it as “rising out”) was definitely fostered by my love for the moon as a guiding and nurturing force in my life–that and some things Daniel Quinn put in my head.
As for regulating flow, my wife has had a lot of luck using raspberry leaf tea as a uterine tonic. It helps her flow come along when she has gone for an extended amount of time between periods, and it also helps her flow be less overwhelming.
Penny Scout:
Maca root powder is excellent for returning the cycle back to a consistent flow (beware, it will also make you very fertile and horny).
a couple things.
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last time some dude grabbed my ass i threw him off a porch and kicked his ribs in. i like to think i’m really intolerant of shitty behaviour and this has been developped over years of being verbally and physically assaulted by asshole dudes, shithead cops, and violent girls. i really do not appreciate it when other people ‘step in’ to a situtation like that on my behalf. if i feel i can handle a situation… i want to handle that situation. if i feel i can’t i will ask for help. i dont want someone stepping up to ‘protect me’ from a situation i feel capable of handling. it’s happened to me a lot and i find it extremely frustrating and disempowering. general rule of thumb for helping survivors - support what they want to do. if they don’t want revenge then revenge is not yours to dish out on their ‘behalf’. period. end of story. even if you think they’re being ‘weak’ or ‘misguided’.
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as a herbalist i find the idea that women are inherently better healers than men very offensive. i get that a lot from susun weed/wise woman types. i respect their work as herbalists, but i think it is a very sexist and discriminatory paradigm. i also find it offensive when people with first nations ancestry are thought to be ‘more in touch with the earth’ and just ‘naturally better healers’ b/c of ancestry.
Hey Nettles,
I totally agree with you. Thanks for your comments!
What if evolutionarily (I don’t know. Does that sound right?) female humans evolved more successful at healing. What if they, you, must first have to figure out how to tap into that evolutionary instinct and how to use it, then you can muster up a better chance.
Perhaps we all have an equal opportunity. Sexist or evolution? Personally, IDC, either way or anyway I don’t know, as long as I get healed without chronic or permanent negative side-effect. That would suck.
I’d also like to share this that I don’t really feel any more or less different than women except for (and this depends) during the Time Of The Month, then things can change. Things always change though, no?
Good blessings, ladies! Sounds real awesome and fun!
_
Mod. adds:
I am reading a book called Indian Women of the Western Morning, Their Life in Early America and one of the passages says: “Not only the government but American society in general can take credit for forcing Indian women to sell themselves in a final desperate effort to survive, and under no moral standard whatsoever may their actions be defined as professional prostitution.”
It struck me that if you remove the word Indian the statement is just as applicable.
It struck me that if you remove the word Indian the statement is just as applicable.
amen.
airique - i think of gender as being something that is pretty fluid. i dont really think in terms of “male” and “female”.
i don’t get pms. mood swings/cramps/digestive upsets are common complaints that come along with menstruation, but they are not “normal”. it is pathological and it means our bodies are out of whack. sometimes that cn be really easy to remedy and sometimes it isn’t. i can tell my period is coming several days before it starts but that’s b/c i can feel a few things change in my UT/cervix. some women feel more creative and become more internalized when they bleed. i dont really get that right now, but i think it probably has to do with my schedule which is not based on my menstrual cycle. people who do not menstruate often have hormonal cycles as well.