Cycles

I went out dowsing last night, an utterly magical experience, with the sun setting one side and the moon rising the other, and the magic of the night revealing a couple of menhirs to me that I hadn’t noticed previously. It’s stunning in the lanes at dusk too, the smell of the honeysuckle and the elderflowers.

It pains me a little that we have to cut back hedgerows here on Guernsey, they were abundant previously with the pink campion and cornflower. Fortunately some sensitive hedge cutters have avoided the honey suckle, at least in the lanes by us. The elderflowers are in abundance this year, I’ve mangled to make some elderflower cordial with more to be made soon, anything to capture their fullness, Petit Bot hill is full of them.

What I love most though, is getting out in the moonlight and enjoying her energy on my own. My cycle is currently aligned with the moon, which means I’m in the dark stage, sort of back to front, in so much as I’ll likely be menstruating on the full moon, and ovulating on the new, while the moon is in the reverse, her full is like ovulation, and new like menstruation…the beginning of the cycle.

Some will say there’s a reason that we menstruate when we do, and especially if we are in alignment with the moon. I touch on this in my online Menstruation and Moon course, in so much as the white moon cycle and the red moon cycle. The white moon cycle is said to be the most common cycle and is linked to the new moon so when you’re on a white moon cycle, you bleed around the new moon and ovulate around the full moon.

Because this cycle mirrors the traditional cycle of the moon and Mother Earth, a woman with a white moon cycle is said to be in the mother phase of her life - either she wishes to conceives and start a family or she is focusing on nurturing and raising her children. This is due to the fact that the full moon is considered to be the Earth’s most fertile time - which is where we are at now. So when a woman goes through the most fertile stage of her cycle in alignment with the moon cycle, then both energies are aligned and enhanced.

This was my experience when trying to conceive through IVF. I write about it in my book Dancing with the Moon (you can buy from Amazon) about my excitement that even though I was taking all these various IVF drugs, egg collection happened on the full moon, so I was effectively ovulating then. It was from those eggs that Elijah and Eben came to be, albeit Eben frozen as a blastocyst for 3 years, which still blows my mind even now! Eben is completely aligned with the moon, in so much as my waters broke on a super full moon 6 weeks early and he has gone totally crazy on full moons ever since!

It’s said that women on a white moon cycle pull energy inwards towards themselves and use this to replenish themselves on all levels of being including physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. However, finding yourself on a white cycle doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the mother phase of your life. A white moon cycle could also indicate that you need to give more energy and nurturing to yourself and this may be an intuitive nudge reminding you that you need more love and care for yourself and your resources need to be directed inward instead of outward for a while.

White moon women were often favoured by the patriarchy (and still are today) because all their energy was solely focused on the men and children in their life…

The red moon cycle is less common than the white moon cycle and is linked to the full moon. If you have a red moon cycle, you will menstruate during the full moon and ovulate during the new moon, which is the cycle I’ve been on the last few months. In ancient times, these women were the known as 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.

These women may also be mothers and raising children but they are focused on, and passionate about, being in union with their community, teaching and leading others. Further, women with a red moon cycle have a deep desire for spiritual growth and self-actualisation, creativity, business, leadership, mentorship and personal development. Everything they learn and experience helps empower them from within, enabling them to empower other women around them.

The red moon cycle is also said to offer a deep connection to a woman’s sexual energy. This is the powerful and potent energy that patriarchy has tried (and continues) to disconnect women from. In theory, a woman on a red moon cycle is a woman of great power. Needless to say that it was these same women, labelled as witches, that were punished, vilified and ostracised from society for being in their power and therefore threatening patriarchy. This theme has certainly been coming up in my life and shared in recent blog posts, the trauma of this that threads its way through our wombs and genetic line from olden times.

It’s worth noting though that we can easily shift between a red and white moon cycle when life has been particularly imbalanced, challenging and/or frenetic. I have noticed this in my own life, that my cycle can swing between the full and new moons when there are big transitions in my life, and my body is shifting stagnant energy and seeking to move past some heavy emotional blocks.

For example, after my friend died last September my cycle did a turn, as I was asked to go deeper in and see what I hadn’t wanted to previously see, about various aspects of my life that weren’t working, nurturing, nourishing and/or supporting me. Menstrual awareness was extremely helpful to me, as the changes in my cycle encouraged me inwards to listen and understand more of what I was previously ignoring. When the changes had been made my cycle settled into a new alignment with the moon cycle and life has taken on a different rhythm.

Not to say that there aren’t still triggers. It was pre-menstrual symptoms, depression especially, that brought me to yoga and Reiki and holistic therapies back in my late twenties. I write about this in new book From Darkness Comes Light, how these symptoms were actually a blessing in disguise, not something to banish, turn away from or somehow numb from, but an opportunity to go within and see where my life was out of balance with my innate nature and indeed cycle. The anger and frustration I felt before my period was a result of me living in a way that didn’t feel in anyway aligned to heart. Once I made changes in my life and in my relationship to myself, and came more from the heart, the anger and frustration gradually dropped away.

Further, the not feeling comfortable in my own skin reflected the fact I had a very poor relationship with my body at that time, living with an eating disorder I didn’t want to accept, and giving myself a very hard time on a daily basis. The more I accepted myself and came to terms with the disorder, and took steps to heal from it, the less I felt squeezed prior to menstruation. The weepiness eased too, with the healing, because I was no longer holding on to repressed tears, and living in a constant state of overwhelm and stress. The sore breasts too, which turned up in my life when I was forgetting to nourish myself with love and kindness…

Not to say life isn’t without its stresses and now I use menstrual awareness as a form of spiritual practice, to notice when my stress levels have become a touch too elevated and I am entering the pattern of overwhelm and exhaustion. We each have our patterns and those of us pitta-orientated (from an Ayurvedic perspective) will tend to veer towards the overwhelm/frustrated, if we are out of balance, and to over extent ourselves …it’a constant awareness and I’m grateful to my menstrual cycle for being a guide.

Going back to the white/red moon cycles, of course it’s not a constant. Not every woman has a cycle that is 29.5 days long. From an Ayurvedic perspective certainly we are all different depending on our natural constitution and dosha (fault) and as I mentioned earlier, if life is throwing us challenges and stresses, and if we are going through life changes, then this will affect the length of our cycle too.

For example, pitta people tend to have a regular cycle that is between 28-30 days with heavy blood flow often lasting 5 days, and they are likely to feel angry ad aggressive prior to menstruation. Vata people will tend to have an irregular cycle, anywhere from 21 to 35 days, sometimes longer, with lighter/shorter periods and be weepy and emotional prior to menstruation. Kapha individuals will have a regular and longer cycle, maybe 28 to 33 days, with heavy blood flow lasting 5-7 days, and be lethargic and sleepy prior to menstruation. This just shows how different we can all be and how our cycle might not always align with the moon.

It’s helpful to know though that there is a tendency towards certain pre-menstrual emotions and that rather than denying them we can work with them. There is a reason for them! I know some women find their symptoms so extreme that they feel they have no choice but to medicate them and that is their right to do so. But I am also aware that working with my own cycle, they can be a messenger to help us better know ourselves and let go of whatever we are holding onto from our past or genetic line that needs to be cleared to help us feel whole.

They say that the more we do this work on ourselves in our menstrual age then the easier the transition to menopause. Menopause is a huge transition for women in their lives and some have a really hard time navigating it, for many this is the first time, during the peri-menopause, that they’ve even noticed they might have had a cycle as it starts to go astray, disorientating them, much like the post-natal period. In fact the two are often likened, so if you were conscious of navigating the post-natal phase of change then it might well make it easier to navigate peri-menopausal…maybe…

Furthermore, i have been told that the more you work with your menstrual cycle and do the healing required by the insight you gain through it, so the transition to menopause is easier - menopause will throw up all the unresolved stuff, and hence the excess pitta that many experience, the hot flushes, anger outbursts, overwhelm, disorientation and general loss of vitality, simply because it’s all coming up in one big go, asking women to go deeper still…or perhaps deeper for the first time, and to really feel into what they want to do with the later stages of their life. My Ayuvedic doctor says post-menopause is an incredible time in a woman’s life, no longer hijacked by her emotions on a monthly basis and thus there is nothing to fear…

For me, trying to be conscious of my cycle and working with it, has been a source of much insight and wisdom, and I’m grateful to the moon and the goddess for their holding and the deeper connection that this creates. No doubt when the time comes there will be support to navigate the peri-menopausal and menopausal states too, and

So enjoy the approaching full moon energy and all she is trying to reveal to you. I did have some clarity out in the lanes last night, her light no doubt helping to bring light to the previous shadow of awareness. This is a super full moon so her energy will be felt even stronger than usual! Connect with her as best you can, and be open to all that she reveals, however uncomfortable!

Love Emma x