Moon Time

Don’t know who painted this but it sure is pretty!

I was a teen when I came across the phrase “moon time”.  To my newly minted Wiccan self, it felt like a much better name to call “that time of the month”.  I remember reading that it was considered extra special to go through your moon time when the moon was full.  It’s been so long I don’t remember what book this was nor who wrote it.

Still, it left an impression on my young mind.  As young girls we are taught to be ashamed of our bodily functions. That severe pain is normal and just part of “the curse”.  The power of that supposed curse gave me two healthy babies, but it also leaves me anemic and frail.

During this time I have a regimen.  I consume red meat, usually the only day or two out of the month I do, I increase probiotics, drink a ton of red raspberry leaf tea and allow myself a bit more dark chocolate at least 60 percent cacao, below that and it’s not even worth calling chocolate really.  

Between all this, I relax.

More often then not, while I do feel more womanly, feminine and perhaps a bit more powerful, I also feel exhausted.  Sometimes the pain is so intense it travels down to my knees. I don’t want to deal with anyone or any thing on those days.  I just want to be curled up under my covers with my heating pad and make it all go away.

I am allowed to feel those things, it does not make me weak, it makes me human.  The mere mortal that I am.  In a way the pain is grounding.  I am reminded that there is worse pain than my daily and forever joint pain.  That my body is capable of feeling even more.

It’s absolutely maddening.

This is the second day of my moon time.  I began this cycle on the new moon.  I don’t know what that means astrologically or what it entails in Wiccan lore.  There are entire books written on the subject, I haven’t read any of them.  I have at least another ten years of these cycles.  Perhaps I’ll go through menopause early since I began my cycle so young.  Will I call myself a crone at that point?  In ten years I will certainly be wiser and greyer.

Before that time comes, I will be explaining these mysteries of womanhood to my daughter.  She will not be ashamed, she will not be scared, and hopefully she will have better birth control to deal with it if she chooses and it better be completely free.  Sadly this country is going to shit.  Woman’s rights are being completely outlawed.  Where will it be safe to be female?  I worry about my daughter’s future of course, so much can change by the time she is an adult.

Our bodies are sacred, this shedding process is life affirming and yet draining.  I will get through it as I always have for the past 25 years.

Take care ladies.  These are turbulent times.

🌚