This week I received my moon for the first time since becoming pregnant with Aurora. It was such a joyous moment. The whole family was dancing together. I was able to introduce the idea of the menstrual cycle to my two year-old daughter. She can’t possibly understand what it means yet, but this is the first association with this sacred cycle and it was a positive one. I even showed her my blood with great pride.
Many of us, including myself, have been raised to believe that bleeding was a shameful event, and shrouded with secrecy. Not the type of secrecy that was held with honorable sacred things, but instead with those that were deemed unsightly. It makes me tear up thinking that in this society we’ve been led to believe that being a woman was inferior, or that we bring “poison” to the Earth, as fed to us through the biblical story of Eve eating the poisonous apple that sent us out of the Garden of Eden.
What if the apple she ate was filled with lies and deception about our own holiness, and really, we were born holy? In this case, we are the divine incarnate. We carry all of life forward, and instead of rejecting our own way of being, we move into it—into our cycle, and into those things in life that bring joy to our souls. We understand that by being a woman, we are born with a living portal within us that opens and closes every month.
This is partly why I was so happy to receive my cycle again.
Holding this cycle means that I am healthy and that I can tap into my body’s own natural rhythm. Many moments throughout this past year, I’ve wondered what I could do to nourish my body and and bring back my cycle. It has been almost three years since menstruating. My last cycle began with the Moon at 8 degrees of Leo in November of 2020.
On that first day of my last cycle, I began to cry seeing that my blood had come. I had no idea that I was ready to bring a baby into this world until I realized how emotional I became when I saw that blood. We weren’t trying to have a baby, since our house was so far from ready, but still somehow my inner being was indicating to me that it was time. My next moon cycle didn’t come until this week.
This cycle or portal that I opened to create Aurora has now closed. This past week before my blood arrived, pieces of her birth story were coming into my consciousness. Saying the birth challenged me feels as though it diminishes the intensity of this journey. The day before I bled again, I was faced with a piece of her birth story that made my whole body shake. I realized I still held a lot within me and took an inward look at what was happening.
Forgiveness is what came up. I forgave everyone involved with her birth story.
It felt fairly easy to forgive all of these people. Then I came to forgive myself, and this was when I wept. Releasing myself from all of this pain I still held onto may or may not have led to my flow returning the next morning, with the Moon at 7 degrees of Leo.
On the second day of my returned cycle, I shared this closing blood over the Earth where I had buried the placenta that tied Aurora and I together. I laid flowers in front of the Yoni Tree and for the rest of the day the only place I felt at peace was in our low lit, cave-like bedroom, lying down and resting or cuddling with Aurora. Being outside drained me and I became extremely irritable any moment I was going against my own body’s rhythms.
But accepting that I needed to rest also felt like a workout within my own mind, which has been programmed to associate rest with being lazy or worthless. I was able to fight through these thoughts by noticing how all of our animals also take naps during the day, and I relaxed. After receiving the rest I needed, I was active and lively and able to be more present with my family.
This reminds me of the Hickory Tree we have been visiting every day. Last year when the Hickory Tree dropped her nuts, we were scrounging to come home with any. It felt as though we or the tree weren’t enough to deserve or provide an abundance of nuts. This year, however, this same Hickory Tree that we visited last year has given thousands. Every time we go to her she is surrounded with nuts and giving so much.
She reminds me that there are times in our life when we are full of abundance and ready to give, and times when we are in need to receive. She teaches me the importance of understanding where we are within our own flow, which helps us master our own sense of well-being and the well-being we offer out into the world.
Perhaps it is this pushing ourselves out of our own rhythms that has fed a culture that is unsettled in some form or another, with people feeling anxious, angry, depressed, or just simply feeling off.
I heard a podcast discussion the other day in which they were speaking about the difference between what it means to fit in versus to belong. In their words, to belong is to be exactly who one is and thrive within the community by being so. Fitting in is changing to be someone you are not, and that doesn’t feel so good. The Hickory Tree will never try to produce a pear.
If one can master fitting in, I may have succeeded at this in the past. Yet as I’ve gotten older I continue to strive for exploring those deeper parts within. And in doing so, I’ve learned a lot about myself. and I continue to learn.
A couple days ago, still on my moon, I hit a wall of guilt, shame, and unpleasantness as I strived so hard to create a healthy lunch for my family and I kept hitting bumps in my ability to get there. Right as the food was finally finishing, Aurora pinched her fingers in a door, had a meltdown, and just needed to sleep. I was feeling like a failure under the intensity of stress from all of the things I needed to accomplish that day. Thankfully my husband was so gracious with me. He offered his compassion, and stepped up to be with Aurora.
One of the “to-dos” was harvesting and processing the herbs to prepare the garden for winter. As I worked with the Lavender, in my extra sensitive moontime state, I received the strongest sensation of what it felt like to be Lavender. That Lavender simply exists because she enjoys existing. She finds complete joy in living out her vibration of being here on the Earth. She doesn’t live to try and become something or get things done. Her simply being and expressing herself is what offers her the utmost delight.
As I felt this message move through my body, my entire being shifted. I could move through the day with joy instead of with my “to-dos.” I laughed and played with our daughter in a way I’ve witnessed her Auntie play with her—a way that is wholly present, alive, and joyful.
The next day as this more embodied vibration continued to move through me, I found myself holding Aurora next to the pair of trees that offered me a similar message last year around this time.
At that time I asked the land, “How do I be a good mother?”
As I was sitting in our oat spiral, I witnessed two trees. It looked as though they were dancing together.
I received the answer, “You don’t. You be in love with life. Playful as a kitten. Gentle as a cow. It is but a brief time in history. The real question is how much were you in love with life? Offering her permission to also be in love with life. It’s a dance!”
This quest with the land happened within a women’s circle. After I shared my experience with the group another woman shared with me a quote she received from someone while she was a young mother, “Connection over correction.”
As I let go this week and found my own rhythm of joy, everything I needed to “do” flowed through seamlessly. And Aurora had more fun too.
As the spiral of fall cycles to find us again, so too does this reminder that we are here to live out our own joy of being here. It feels like a divine time when we begin to feel inside our wombs, our bodies, and our inner nudges to remind us how to find our own sacred flow. Our menstruating cycle can be joyous if only we are connecting to what we truly need instead of what we think we need to be. It is my prayer that we give ourselves permission to synchronize with our natural rhythms to live out our own dazzling expressions.
With love,
Sacha Louise
What a gift you have received and what a gift you are. I miss your faces ❤️