When a man knows about your Moon

Welcome to the 9th edition of MADTHOUGHTS and greetings from Ubud! I report healing anecdotes to inspire and encourage the emergence of your truth. Here at the yoga barn, every morning starts with nearly 3 hours of yoga, pranayama (breathwork), and meditation. I am embarking on a serious return to myself through these intensive practices. Yesterday, something significant happened (besides waking up of course). While I was upside down in a shoulder stand inversion, my very masculine, very awakened instructor approached me, gripped my ankles before bending down to match me at my eye-level. He whispered “are you on your moon?” Moon = period. In fact, the word menstruation derives from the Latin and Greek words for moon, mene. In antiquity, physicians believed that the moon and menstrual cycle were linked. I believe this now. In fact, I received my moon on the full moon — a healthy synchronicity which I celebrate. Bleeding in concert with the lunar cycle is called a red moon cycle. Some say this is a lucky alignment as it features a potency of creativity, mentorship, and healing. I can corroborate this finding with my own experience during this time. Anyway, after yoga man asked if I was on my period, I froze and turned this color as I felt blood flushing my cheeks. When he crouched down towards me, I thought he was going to adjust my pose, correcting me in some significant way, not ask if I was on my moon. I nodded in the affirmative, speechless, breathless, and stiff. He whispered, “best to do not do this inversion now.” And then he laid down my legs gingerly. After arranging my legs into a soothing butterfly position, he placed a pillow on my hips and moved onto the next student. The rest of the day I processed my reaction. I was stunned that a man, even among the most awakened, knew about my cycle without me telling him. I am not used to this heightened level of intuition and understanding by the opposite sex and was simply WOW’d. Women discuss menstruation with other menstruaters, but for a man to understand this marker of femininity, usually hidden from view, was something entirely unprecedented. And, not only did this man simply know what was going on, he offered me relief! It felt like he was saying, I see you, you don’t have to push so hard to my overachieving inner teenager. Cued by my flushed faced, I found myself also embarrassed by the question. After writing a master’s thesis on women using their bodies unconventionally and “rebelliously” to protest a censoring of their feminine wholeness, I wondered why I wasn’t simply content but also embarrassed. Shouldn’t I feel at ease that our world is waking up? Of course I know that inherent shame of a woman’s body exists writ large. What I didn’t realize, however, was how embedded my shame still is! Having worked through my body loathing earlier in life I thought by now I was a free woman. But alas… I obviously still felt some discomfort around the topic of my menstruation cycle, despite being so open about the topic in general. The shame, I discovered, emerged when someone of the opposite sex called me out on my body, rather than another woman or myself doing so.

I thought back to my thesis, Women Acting Out, and the many forms of Venus examined ranging from antiquity to the high Renaissance. Although the goddess stands as the ideal of beauty throughout history, underlying shame runs through her. This shame has permeated many women today, myself included. One famous rendering is Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (ca. 1485) a masterpiece hanging in the Uffizi Gallery. In the painting above, Venus’ red hair flows voluminously from her head but the rest of her body remains porcelain, airbrushed. In a perfect paradox, both the hair on her head and the lack of hair on her body are considered sexy. What we can glean from the archetypal image is that sexually mature female bodies must be stripped of any evidence of hormonal readiness to reproduce, besides a perfectly perky chest. This was the aha! moment of my discomfort IRL— women are conditioned to be sexually open yet also suppress our biologically mature bodies, such as hiding hair on certain parts of our body and also hiding the cyclical nature of our bleed. Despite my minor embarrassment, I am grateful for my teacher’s compassion and knowledge of my moon. The anecdote brought me back to why I decided to write my thesis in the first place and why I decided to remove my IUD in January. Since ceding hormonal birth control (after 7.5 years on it!), I feel when I need to take more rest — in my luteal phase, the inner autumn and winter of my cycle. As a result, I feel more myself because I am feeling myself more. I also listen to myself more. I have increased my intuitive abilities, excavating and knowing truth. I speak up when something doesn’t feel good and run toward what does (right now it’s LOTS of cacao and other chocolatey delights)! I am grateful for the opportunity to tune into myself more acutely. I am grateful that I am healthy, marked by my moon. I am grateful to be living in accordance with nature. I am grateful to be in the presence of awakened beings who lean into the truth. What is more truthful than the status of our physical vessels? These are the structures we house to experience evolutionary and spiritual work. What are you grateful for? Are you stepping into a more authentic and vulnerable arena? How are you receiving and sharing more light? More Truth? How are you feeling your ebbs and flows?

From Kabbalistic Astrology by Rav Berg: Both spiritual and scientific disciplines seek to uncover basic truths about the world and our place in it. Scientific disciplines such as physics, astronomy, and medicine examine the world we can see, hear, and touch. Spiritual disciplines such as meditation and astrology study the world that lies beyond the physical realm. . . . Kabbalah considers the spiritual and the physical worlds to be equally worthy of investigation and analysis. Kabbalah recognizes that these two worlds are not isolated from each other, and that there are necessary and solid links between them. . . . humanity is a bridge between the spiritual and physical realms.

Gratitude Practice: List Five Things You’re Grateful For 1) Waking up. And waking up in beautiful Bali! We forget how special it is to wake up every morning with another chance to begin again. How will you write your story? 2) Breathing deeply. Today my instructor said “how we breathe is how we receive life… think of how deeply a baby breathes.” I know I have breathed shallow for most of my life, like I’m clenching something. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever breathed properly. This past year+ I am consciously unlearning and relearning how to breathe. 3) Coffee cleanse. Replacing coffee with ginger tea, cacao, and matcha. Imagine a world off coffee. In my yoga training, every morning begins with 2+ hours of yoga, pranayama, and meditation. By the time savansa hits my mind is in a state of blurred consciousness… I feel I am dreaming but awake! Has this ever happened to you? Eliminating stimulants and distractions that allow our body to receive downloads in our subconscious feels really important now. My dreams are more vivid and my pace is slower. Why have we sped up so much? What’s the rush? I am grateful for this time and ability to consciously slow down. 4) Phone break. It’s amazing how much more present I am when removed from this device even for just a few days. In our anatomy classes we speak about “tech neck” and how phones cause us to slouch, closing our hearts. Did you ever get booty called from an Instagram DM? Delete Instagram and establish a genuine connection instead. It’s interesting how loveless our world seems to be when we cave into ourselves, typing on our devices, covering our love center. 5) Meeting new and interesting people. Feeling blessed to be in the presence of likeminded beings. People from all over the world are in my yoga teacher training: Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Malaysia, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Brazil, Venezuela, France, England, Mexico and India! Many of us are undergoing a metamorphosis and rebirth of sorts. We are not alone in this never-ending alchemical process of transmutation!