moontime

Wisdom from Moon Time for Red Tents

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Molly

“At her first bleeding a woman meets her power.
During her bleeding years she practices it.
At menopause she becomes it.”

(Traditional Native American saying)

One of my favorite books to have available on the resource table of our local Red Tent Circle is Moon Time, by Lucy Pearce. I reviewed it in this post, but didn’t have room for all the juicy quotes I wanted to share! One of the ideas I include in my own Red Tent Resource Kit book is to use womanspirit wisdom quotes to stimulate a discussion in the circle. Here are some quotes from Moon Time that would make great launching points for a sharing circle at the Red Tent:

“It is my guess that no one ever initiated you into the path of womanhood. Instead, just like me, you were left to find out by yourself. Little by little you pieced a working understanding of your body and soul together. But still you have gaps.”

Questions for circle: Were you initiated into the “path of womanhood”? What gaps do you feel?

“You yearn for a greater knowledge of your woman’s body, a comprehensive understanding of who you are, why you are that way. Perhaps you have searched long and hard, seeking advice from your mother, sister, aunts and friends, tired of suffering and struggling alone. You may have visited doctors, healers or therapists, but still you feel at sea and your woman’s body is a mystery to you. Or maybe you have never given your cycles a second thought … until now.”

Questions for circle: What do you feel like you need to know about your body? What mysteries are you uncovering?

“Through knowledge we gain power over our lives. With options we have possibility. With acceptance we find a new freedom.

Menstruation matters.”

Question for circle: How does menstruation matter?

Additional information about why menstruation matters on a physical, emotional, and relational level:

We start bleeding earlier today than ever before, with girls’ first periods occurring at 12.8 years old now, compared with 14.5 years at the beginning of the last century. Coupled with lower breastfeeding rates, better nutrition and fewer pregnancies, women now menstruate more in their adult lives than at any time in our history.

From the age of 12 to 51, unless you are pregnant or on the pill, every single day of your life as a woman is situated somewhere on the menstrual cycle. Whether ovulating or bleeding, struggling with PMS or conception, our bodies, our energy levels, our sense of self, even our abilities are constantly shifting each and every day. And yet nobody talks about it…

via Moon Time: Harness the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle

As I noted in my review, one of the things this book was helpful for to me personally, was in acknowledging myself as a cyclical being and that these influences are physical and real:

Each month our bodies go through a series of changes, many of which we may be unconscious of. These include: shifts in levels of hormones, vitamins and minerals, vaginal temperature and secretions, the structure of the womb lining and cervix, body weight, water retention, heart rate, breast size and texture, attention span, pain
threshold . . .

The changes are biological. Measurable. They are most definitely not ‘all in your head’ as many would have us believe. This is why it is so crucial to honour these changes by adapting our lives to them as much as possible.

We cannot just will these changes not to happen as they are an integral part of our fertility.

From there, another relevant quote:

“There is little understanding and allowance for the realities of being a cycling woman—let alone celebration.”

Questions for circle: What allowances do you make for yourself as a cycling woman? Are you able to celebrate the experience?

In my own life, I’ve had to reframe my understanding of the impact of the monthly moontime experience by looking at it through the lens of healthy postpartum care following birth—it is crucial that we care for our bodies with love, attention, respect, and time. Our local Red Tent Circle definitely doesn’t focus exclusively on menstruation or on currently menstruating women (all phases of a woman’s lifecycle and her many diverse experiences and feelings are “held” in that circle)–in fact menstruation sometimes barely comes up as a topic—however, one of the core purposes of our circling is in celebration. We gather together each month to celebrate being women in this time and in this place, together. I started out my work with women focused on birth, breastfeeding, and postpartum. While those are formative and central and important life experiences, it became very important to me to broaden my scope to include the totality of women’s lives, not just pregnant women. I want to honor and celebrate our whole lives, not just pregnancy and birth. Having a mother blessing ceremony during pregnancy is beautiful and important and special, but I feel like that care, attention, value, and ceremony can be brought into the rest of our non-pregnant lives through gathering together in a Red Tent Circle. This is one reason why I’m so excited to offer an online Red Tent Initiation Program this summer. This program is designed to be both a powerful, personal experience AND a training in facilitating transformative women’s circles.

Back to Moon Time quotes!

“There is no shame in tears. There is a need for anger. Blood will flow. Speak your truth. Follow your intuition. Nurture your body. But above all … Let yourself rest.”

Questions for circle: Do you allow yourself anger and tears? Do you feel shame? How do you speak your truth? How do you give yourself time to rest?

To be clear, I wouldn’t use all these quotes at one Red Tent Circle! I would use them individually at different gatherings. This one blog post has enough potential circle discussion prompts to last for more than six months of Circles! 🙂 This month I also bought a bundle of copies of Moon Time to have available for women at our local Red Tent.

More good discussion quotes here: Talk Books: Cycle to the Moon | Talk Birth.

And, there are others in my Red Tent Resource Kit.

Please consider joining us this summer for the Red Tent Initiation Program!

Categories: books, community, friends, moontime, priestess, quotes, readings, red tent, resources, retreat, ritual, self-care, womanspirit, women, women's circle | Leave a comment

Red Tent Wisdom

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Molly

“Moontime opens up our intuition.
By allowing ourselves to honour this time,
we can eliminate premenstrual tendencies…
Moontime is a sacred passage leading
to a greater awareness of self.”

–Veronika Robinson, Cycle to the Moon (p. 142)

In April, on the evening of our local Red Tent Circle, a package arrived for me from the UK. In it was the beautiful book by Veronika Robinson, Cycle to the Moon, that I won in the Red Tent fundraising auction for Moontimes.

Cycle to the Moon is a quick read and an inspiring one. The line illustrations are beautiful and the combination of journal pages/prompts and text is nice. I marked some good quotes to share. The first, was about womancraft, something I touched on in my new Red Tent Resource Kit book. In that book, I shared the story of how, at a meeting for breastfeeding women, I suggested having a women’s circle and calling it “Mothercraft.” Another woman at the meeting said it sounded interesting, but, “if it was called that, I’d never go.” All I could surmise is that it was because the word sounded too much like “witchcraft.”

“The early Christian Church considered the blood of menstruation to be ‘wasted babies,’ hence the mass killing of witches for ‘killing babies…women were burnt for knowing their woman-craft. That is to say, they understood their dreams, used herbs, and celebrated the process of menstruation. Witch means woman. Their craft, woman-craft, was, quite simply, understanding the mysteries of life” (p. 19).

Cycle to the Moon also suggests a neat idea of creating a “Red Box” for a pre-teen daughter. Either together with your daughter or on your own for a surprise, collect special items in a box to be given to her upon menarche. It can have jewelry, garnet gemstones, books, cloth pads, tea, and so forth. She makes the potent observations that how we welcome young girls into womanhood, sets the stage for how they will view themselves and their life cycles and transitions for a lifetime:

“As we hold the hands of our young sisters when they cross the menstrual threshold, we would be wise to remember that their experience of this cycle will affect them throughout their childbearing years and into menopause. There’s a red thread which weaves through these major themes of our life. Every moment is connected. Whatever we have learned and integrated benefits not only us, but the culture” (p. 41).

Robinson also writes about the idea how you treat yourself during menstruation as a “mirror of your life”:

“The simple truth is that menstruation is a mirror of your life. If you’re not honouring your body through healthy food choices; ample hydration; rest; playtime; calmly managing stressful events; positive thoughts; creativity and sleep; then it will show up in your menstrual cycle…your hormones will come to call; and they will demand that you rest. You might try and quiet them down with headache tablets or something pharmaceutical for cramps, but they will keep talking to you (even if it takes twenty years), until you get the message. If you don’t honour your body during the menstrual years, you are highly likely to suffer when you reach menopause…

What we do in our own local Red Tent Circle varies each month, but we start with introductions using our maternal line and a red thread to represent our connection to the women who came before us and who will go after us, we sing, we have a sharing circle where we “pass the rattle” and talk about our lives and have what we say witnessed and held in safe space. We do a guided meditation and journaling and then a project. In April we had a salt bowl ceremony and then did footbaths and in May we made moon necklaces. We close with a poetry reading and a song. There is tea and a “reflection” table with guidance cards, art supplies, and books to look at. At our May Circle, I shared these two quotes:

“The revolution must have dancing; women know this. The music will light our hearts with fire,
The stories will bathe our dreams in honey and fill our bellies with stars…”

–Nina Simons in We’Moon 2012

“A woman’s best medicine is quite simply herself, the powerful resources of her own deep consciousness, giving her deep awareness of her own physiology as it changes from day to day.”

–Veronica Butler and Melanie Brown

I asked the women to share their revolutions and their medicine. As they spoke, I realized that my “revolution” and my “medicine” were in the planning and facilitation of these Circles, as well as in the online Red Tent Initiation Program I will be offering this summer. I’m so glad I decided to go this direction this year.

Categories: books, community, moontime, resources, reviews, ritual, womanspirit, women, women's circle | Leave a comment

Restoring Women to Ceremony: The Red Tent Resource Kit

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Molly

“… Every day, we witness the positive, transformative effects of, ‘restoring women to ceremony’…another reason it is vital that we continue our work…”

–D’vorah Grenn (Stepping into Ourselves, p. 56)

We’ve been hard at work over the last three months giving birth to a new project!

Introducing…The Red Tent Resource Kit…

I actually ended up sort of accidentally writing a whole new book to go with this kit. It was originally going to be a collection of handouts as a pdf. However, as I put the handouts together, I realized I was actually writing a short book or manual instead. I also reflected on how I am tired of only getting pdf manuals and ebooks when I sign up for different programs, rather than an actual, printed book. One of my mottoes this year is to follow the inspiration, so I went with it, and at the end of last month our new books arrived and they’re beautiful and I’m so excited about them!

Our unique, signature Red Tent Kit includes ALL of the following resources:

Womanrunes Book and Card set: ideal for personal guidance and self-development, or for the inspiration and renewal corner at your Red Tent Circle.
Red Tent Goddess Sculpture: symbolic of self-care and of both receiving and giving.
Carnelian Pendulum (kit exclusive!)
Brand new 58 page book: Restoring Women to Ceremony, The Red Tent Resource Kit, written exclusively for this kit. In this collection of essays and ritual resources, you will find a complete Red Tent “recipe,” circle leadership basics, moontime musings, and readings, quotes, and poems to help you facilitate a rich, inviting, welcoming, creative space for the women of your community.
Moontime pendant with silver-tone, solid crescent moon charm
Red altar cloth
Red organza bag to store your resources
Coupon for $100 off the companion Red Tent Initiation online training to be held in July-August
Extra surprise bonus goodies intuitively chosen for you!

The contents of this Kit are valued at $100 when sold separately!

When I was taking pictures for the Kit, I randomly drew three Womanrunes cards to include in the pictures. The ones I drew were absolutely perfect for sharing the message of what this collection has to offer to others and what we hope to create in restoring women to ceremony:

Categories: blessings, books, moontime, priestess, resources, retreat, ritual, womanspirit, women, women's circle, writing | Tags: red tent, ritual, womanrunes, women's circle | 2 Comments

Gratitude’s Song

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Molly

Thank you sacred one
thank you sacred ground
thank you Ancient Mother
thank you sacred womb

Thank you loving family
thank you sacred ground
thank you sacred body
thank you healing sound

Thank you sacred one
thank you sacred ground
thank you Ancient Mother
thank you sacred womb

Thank you loving family
thank you solid ground
thank you sacred body
thank you shining moon

Thank you solid stone
thank you sacred oak
thank you ancient wisdom
thank you sacred hope

Thank you ancient rhythm
thank you song of blood
thank you holy hour
thank you holy wood

Thank you sacred one
thank you sacred ground
thank you Ancient Mother
thank you the world around…

The day after Christmas I took some of the books I’d received as gifts down to the woods. I laid them out the rocks and felt so appreciative of having a family who cares about me and what I’m interested in. I got a selection of priestess books, other books from my Amazon wishlist, and the Amazing Year workbook from my friend. I felt so grateful to have a mom who looked at the picture of the pottery elemental altar I showed her in a magazine at some point this year and then worked and worked to make one for me as a surprise. I felt grateful that she comes to my rituals and reads my blog. I felt grateful for other family members and friends who read my blogs and cheer me on when I make new things and try new avenues. I felt grateful for parents who will hold candles in the darkness on solstice night with me, for a husband who will make a drum and cast pewter with me, for friends who support and encourage me and are able to accept when I need to make changes or let go of things. I felt grateful that I live in a beautiful place and that I have woods to go to and rocks to sit on. I felt grateful for the small adventures of the past year and even for the losses and the lessons of grief and change. Then, I picked up my drum and I sang a song. I feel like acknowledging that yes, I can see there are flaws in my lyrics in that they are perhaps roughly patterned and could be reworked into something smoother, but when I listened to the recording of it again I heard something authentic and something that worked for what it was, when it was. And, I decided I like it just the way it is.

And, then, just now as I type…I felt grateful for myself-–that I will sit in the woods with a drum and sing spontaneous things and write blog posts about it even though maybe I could be embarrassed or self-conscious instead and hide my song away instead of posting it for people to read and possibly feel critical and judgmental of, but I do it anyway and I own it and I keep trying…

(and that is a run-on sentence and I’m not going to edit it either)

Today, I hung up the new goddess-ful Good Karma flags that my mom gave me for Christmas. They’re gorgeous and I loves ’em!

I’m working on making a “Temple” workspace for myself instead of just huddling in a corner with my computer…

(my new little altar goes in front of the Cretan priestess figure here, but it is still on the living room floor waiting for me to finish my life-and-biz-planning session)

BOOKS! Oh my first love, I will never forsake you!

Categories: blessings, chants, family, friends, holidays, moontime, music, nature, poems, prayers, readings, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Practice

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Molly

“My writing is a practice. It requires that sort of daily repetition and solitude—being with oneself—awareness—awareness of one’s body, awareness of one’s thoughts, awareness of one’s own process. And meditation makes me more aware of everything I do, so it makes the movements within my writing process clearer to me.”

–Susan Griffin (in Open Mind, 10/16)

It is interesting to see that I’ve decided to begin this new daily writing practice at a time in which I don’t feel much like writing any blog posts! Hmm. Today, my time in the woods was abbreviated slightly by the return of my small children, but before their voices came floating over to me, I was sitting with the sound of woodpeckers. There were at least three different ones near me of at least two types and it sounded like there were more that I didn’t see. As winter steadily approaches, I’ve noticed that there is much less bird song in the forest lately, but today (warmer) the woods were alive with the sounds of birds and squirrels. Woodschorus.

Sunset

Got obsessed with collecting acorn caps to make hats for Christmas ornament elves

A mysterious hole in the ground that wasn’t there yesterday.

Can you see the little woodpecker?

I’ve also noticed that while I enjoy being alone, I’m feeling a little cooped up and isolated lately–the Thanksgiving holiday meant that our usual weekly activities were different from what they usually are and I’ve gone nearly a week without seeing anyone other than my immediate family and my parents. My nerves feel a little shot by the voices of my darling children, I’m really feeling extremely done co-sleeping with my toddler daughter, and all three of them seem out of sorts and extra messy, wild, loud, disagreeable and irritable too. I think they also miss seeing their friends and going places.

With winter’s approach and the turn of the wind to cold, it has also come to my attention that I want to create some more sacred spaces inside my home. Before I began my woodspractice, I used to sit at my living room altar every morning and spend some time in prayer/reflection. Now, I’ve let it get a bit dusty and so over the weekend I spent some time cleaning it up and rearranging the items a little bit. Today when I sat down at my desk to work on my classes, I lit a candle and then designed to squeeze a little altar space in front of my textbooks 🙂

I’m having trouble allowing myself the moontime downtime my body calls for as well. Though I very nearly talked myself out of it AND very nearly apologizing for wanting to do it, I did carve out a small niche of time in which to participate in Paola’s New Moon Intention call this evening. I laid down with a heat pack with a candle and a pocket goddess sculpture as a tiny altar space and listening with my eyes closed to her voice and to the intentions of the other women in the virtual sacred circle. I’m glad I gave this to myself, even though it meant people were waiting for dinner.

Yesterday, I decided that I’m no longer willing to expect myself to be perfect. I’m done with that. I’m cleaning it out. Unraveling it from around my heart and brain. Done.

“Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.” –May Sarton (in Open Mind, 10/25)

“It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched.” –Tillie Olsen (in Open Mind, 11/8)

In keeping with the swirling change of the seasons, I fell in love with this amazing picture of Shekinah Shaking Out the Seasons by Caron McCloud (Shiloh Sophia McCloud‘s mother). For some reason it came to me today and I felt absolutely transfixed by it:

I hope there is a print of this available someday because it must go on my wishlist! And, I signed up for her free “7 day aliveness challenge” too.

Categories: art, family, introversion, moontime, nature, quotes, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Moonpriestess

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Molly

Moonmaiden
Moonmother
Moonpriestess

She tilts her face to the sky
she opens her arms wide
she draws it down
clean
healing
holy moonlight
enlivening her being
lightening her footsteps
and guiding her path

Moon guide
moon guardian
shining one
sacred spirit
we call upon you
for healing
for wisdom
for inspiration
for guidance

You connect us
in sacred rhythm
to the heartbeat
of the planet
the pull
of the tides
the pulse
of our blood.

We hope
we laugh
we sing
we pray
we dance
by your light
in your rhythm
we drum
in your sacred power

Keeper of ancient wisdom
witness to unfathomable eons
may we be forever
inspired by our connection to you
enlivened by your wisdom
and guided by your truth

Moonpriestess
Moonmama
Moon maiden

Thank you
blessed be.

This was the second of two poems/prayers that I wrote before leaving for the Gaea Goddess Gathering. During the festival the moon was full and beautiful and as it crested over the trees at the top of the ridge where the main rituals and drum circles were held, it literally felt like it was energizing the circle. We also noticed a cool morning effect during which the full moon and sunrise could be witnessed at the same time.

And, the following morning I took a misty morning, sunrise stroll around the lake with my sister-in-law. During last year’s GGG, I was too focused on recovering from my hornet sting to really connect to the land. This year, I didn’t expect to connect with the land, since I’m already so connected to my own land, but I connected anyway. The lake is beautiful in the morning sunrise and so was Venus Sanctuary (a little meadow near the lake).

Categories: blessings, GGG, Goddess, invocations, liturgy, moontime, nature, poems, prayers, priestess, spirituality, theapoetics | 1 Comment

Woodspriestess: Blood Ties

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Molly

The blood of many species
swirls around me
The blood of many mothers
runs through me
The blood of many generations
comes from me

The blood of earth
feeds me
The blood of the Goddess
holds me

We dance together
in an ancient ecstasy
blood deep
bone rich
holy, potent, and pure.

The blood of creation
The blood of inspiration
The blood of sacrifice
and renewal…

Categories: Goddess, moontime, nature, poems, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Group Blessing for Full Moon

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Molly

Tonight is the night of the full moon
The night of Selene–wise and knowing
Tonight we connect with her power and it is ours
Tonight we vibrate with the pulse of the moon
Knowing, sensing, and feeling our connections
We flow in many dimensions.
Our eyes are opened and we see with clarity in our visions
Our ears are opened and we hear the voices of our souls
Our mouths are opened and we are filled with love
Our wombs are opened and we are in touch with the source of our creativity
Our feet are opened and we walk on our own true path
Our hands are opened and our power is manifest.

–Diane Mariechild (MotherWit, page 30)

—
Taking a photo of the gorgeous full moon last night, yet again demonstrated to me the truth in this Facebook meme…

Categories: invocations, liturgy, moontime, prayers, quotes, ritual | 2 Comments

Woodspriestess: Bloodtime

Posted on June 26, 2013 by Molly

Bloodtime
moontime
dreamtime
womb time
rest time.

Pause
stop
celebrate
consecrate
honor
breathe
feel…

touch
with potential and promise
sing with the planet
dance with desire
hold your wishes close to your heart
incubate them lovingly

gather up your resources
gather in yourself
cocooning
safe, held and loved

building power
holding power
collecting body wisdom
listening deeply

draw it to you
hold it close

emerge with strength
clarity
purpose
energy
and renewal.

This is a time of powerful medicine if you remember to listen.

Soft belly
no longer bearing children
I am pregnant with myself
ripe with potential,
possibility, power
I incubate my dreams
and give birth to my vision.

It is so hot and humid lately that I’m finding it challenging to fully enjoy my time in the woods. I feel slow, dull, draggy, like my brain is foggy and hot. I’m tired. Today I sat on the rocks listening to bugs and birds, watching ants and a little winged creature sit on my foot. I closed my eyes. I took some deep, thick-aired, humid breaths and I thought:

I cradle my own body here on sacred ground.
Celebrating all that she has brought forward into this world.
Pausing to honor the patient creativity of my womb,
the pulse of my blood,
and the rhythms of my life.

Thank you
holy one
thank you
sacred space within
thank you
hopeful spirit
thank you
embracing Goddess
of my heart and planet…

Categories: blessings, embodiment, moontime, nature, poems, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess | 4 Comments

Sunday Sabbath: Rest

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Molly

Surprise milkweed bloomed and looks gorgeous! (and yes, is almost never without a butterfly atop)

Clear your mind
rest your body
still your chatter
become fluid…

Opening to breeze
birdsong
to the richness
of solitude

the messages
from butterfly wings

shadows making patterns
across rock.

Hold your place
hold steady
and watch the swirling change
around you
unfold
in hopeful majesty
and exuberant life.

Be still
let everything else fall away
let your body melt into rock
held by the arms of the earth
and spin through distant galaxies
with invisible
silent
magical
grace.

I’ve been out of town this weekend and with no opportunities to blog, though the thoughts of things to blog about continue to arise and I have a backlog of both pictures and recordings to get to, “someday.” Rest has been on my mind though as I gave a presentation about Moontime and honoring our menstrual cycles at the conference today, even though I’m actually at the most energetic and productive point in my own cycle. The “rest” poem above arrived as I was preparing for my presentation and packing for this trip, so it feels appropriate to post today.

As I shared during my presentation:

“…Could it be that women who get wild with rage do so because they are deeply deprived of quiet and alone time, in which to recharge and renew themselves?

Isn’t PMS a wise mechanism designed to remind us of the deep need to withdraw from everyday demands to the serenity of our inner wilderness? Wouldn’t it follow, then, that in the absence of quiet, sacred spaces to withdraw to while we bleed — women express their deprivation with wild or raging behaviors?…” –DeAnna L’am via Occupy Menstruation

The essay I finished writing while at Pismo Beach was up on Feminism and Religion earlier in the week. I struggled in the writing of it because I was in a different head space, not to mention literally in a different space, while trying to work on it. I felt distant, distracted, scattered, and unfocused while I was writing it and worried that that was what would come through. Instead, it became a cohesive piece that “flows really well,” according to the editor. Reading it now, it feels like someone else wrote it—I guess I did manage to get into the writing-zone after all, even with my mind being preoccupied with a different place, different subjects and different people…

In the aftermath of giving birth, particularly without medication, many women describe a sense of expansive oneness—with other women, with the earth, with the cycles and rhythms of life. People who become shamans, usually do so after events involving challenge and stress in which the shaman must navigate tough obstacles and confront fears. What is a laboring woman, but the original shaman—a “shemama” as Leslene della Madre would say —as she works through her fears and passes through them, emerging with strength.

[Monica Sjoo describes] the homebirth of her second son was her, “first initiation into the Goddess…even though at that time I didn’t consciously know of Her…”

via Birth as a Shamanic Experience by Molly Remer | Feminism and Religion.

This week I also put up a post on Pagan Families that was modified from my introductory post on this blog and I’m pleased to welcome new subscribers who found me in this way:

In late December 2012, I decided to begin a year-long spiritual practice of “checking in” every day at the priestess rocks in my woods. I committed to spending at least a few minutes there every day, rain or sleet or shine, with children or without, and whether day or night throughout 2013. I also decided to take a daily picture. My idea was to really, really get to know this space deeply. To notice that which changes and evolves on a daily basis, to see what shares the space with me, to watch and listen and learn from and interact with the same patch of ground every day and see what I learn about it and about myself. I want to really come into a relationship with the land I live on, rather than remain caught up in my head and my ideas and also the sometimes-frantic feeling hum of every day life as a parent and teacher. When I went down to the woods to “listen” to this idea, I spoke a poem that included the word “woodspriestess,” and I thought…hmm. Maybe this is what I’m doing. As I planned, I started this practice on January first and have not yet missed a day, except while traveling (and, then I bring a small rock from the woods with me so that I can still “check in” with them). In March 2013, I decided to do a thirty-day experiment in which I made a daily post/picture about my “woodspriestess” experiences. It was a rich experience in many ways. (The daily practice will continue through 2013, even though I have not continued writing on a daily basis after the March experiment)…

via Small Sacred Places.

This daily time in the woods provides a regular, daily opportunity for me to rest, if only for a few moments, and it is so nourishing and feels vital to my very being. I’m not sure how I was getting along without it before!

At the river on Thursday.

Eyes open
ears open
heart open
mind open
spirit open

to miraculous possibilities
of being…

Categories: blessings, introversion, moontime, nature, poems, sabbath, spirituality, theapoetics, woodspriestess, writing | 2 Comments

Bloodrich

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Molly

We who bleed
we who pour libation to the earth each moon,
weave toward the sea.
These are the priestesses who carry me.
Each moon, each woman
nourishes this soil that suckles us.
We the bloodrich, we the generous.

–Sue Silvermarie in Open Mind

This quote is from a thought-a-day, women’s inspiration book by Diane Mariechild. In the section opened by this quote, Mariechild goes on to talk about the power of a monthly women’s circle as well as suggesting that each woman find, “some gesture that reminds us of the power of the bleeding time and begin to incorporate it into our lives.” She gives the example of placing a red flower on your desk or altar during this time. For myself, I like to wear something red. I also have two pendants that I wear during moontime (sometimes together, sometimes one or the other).