The full moon lunar eclipse this Friday: the mother

It’s the Sagittarius full moon lunar eclipse on Friday and I am certainly feeling the heat. Phew. Not only am I literally burning hot from having spent a little bit too much time in the sun today, but the fire within me has been ignited a little bit more with news of what a return to pre-school will likely entail for my three year old, Eben.

We have already made the decision to home school Elijah, our six year old, for the rest of this term and then take a view on this in September, but I had intended to settle Eben back into pre-school, as he is a very different child to Elijah, much more sociable and in need of constant entertainment, he is a vortex of energy, this having kicked his way out of me six weeks early on the supermoon back in October 2016! He hasn’t stopped kicking and running and moving and generally challenging me, and yet delighting me with his zest and passion for living and life, ever since.

The eldest is super sensitive and has never truly been conformable with school, there was constant tears and I have been picking up for lunch for the last two years because he hates the noise of the playground and gets anxious with all the other children. Returning to school now, after a three month absence, with all the changes and the social distancing and the constant hand washing, just wouldn’t be healthy for him, it takes him a good while to adjust to new situations and he’s gotten used to being at home, and to be honest his learning has improved with the one to one attention.

Pre-school though, I thought I’d be OK with that, until we received the communication today about the changes to procedures. After being assured back in September that parents were able to stay and help settle their children, now we have to drop and leave as quickly as we can. I know only too well how traumatic this can be to a child if they are not ready for it, I’ve blogged about it before, but we foolishly did this with Elijah back in the day, as everyone told us this was the way, only to return three hours later to find a shaking and sobbing two and three quarter year old.

We did it again, twice, because we kept being told you had to do it, until we realised this wasn’t right. He started getting anxious at night, his behaviour changed, he clung to me, he cried as we drove to pre-school, he virtually begged me. It wasn’t until the last full moon last month that i finally forgave myself for that, almost four years on. It was almost unforgivable as a mother to just leave your crying child with a total stranger, and dash off, when that child has never been left with anyone other than family and does not know a single person in the rooms and can’t stand noise! He was traumatised.

So I won’t be repeating that mistake with Eben. Not that he will get the opportunity as he has a persistent cough, has done for about three weeks now. Apparently there is a persistent cough on Guernsey, I think people have been fretting they have Covid and contacting the health care professionals accordingly, so it’s become more well known that it’s not Covid, that there is another virus with similar symptoms circulating. So until Eben no longer coughs, and no longer has a snotty nose, which might also be some time as he is three years old and many children have snotty noses, it’s the Kapha, part of the period of their life that they are in, then he won’t be returning to pre-school.

If he does go, they’ll be taking the children’ temperature on arrival, which is not part of the public health advice and does seem to go a little far for me, but is part of their risk management strategy. I do wonder what kind of world we are wanting our children to grow up in and I’ll be honest, the way things are going currently, this is absolutely not the way I would like the world to become, with us being totally paranoid about germs, to the extent that children will become anxious at the slightest hint of them, and also won’t be exposed to them impacting on their immune systems when they are exposed to them and what of OCD around cleanliness and cleaning the hands.

Today we also found out that the States are trying to get children off the bus and on the road, with walking or cycling the norm. I don’t have a problem with that per se, but isn’t that going to result in more cars on the road? Those who take the bus often living farther away from school, and so it might not be practical to cycle or walk. Certainly from where we live to school it would take me twenty minutes to walk, and as Eben comes with us and as he won’t walk, I’d have to carry him. That’s there and back. And he would be too small to cycle, and even Elijah is too small to cycle to school. I just don’t think people are thinking these things through properly. We’ll just end up with even more cars on the roads.

I also find it hilarious (in a sad way) that months ago we were making progress in getting rid of single use plastic, and now we can’t get enough of it. I was told that at one of the private schools, children have been told they must bring their lunch box into school in a plastic bag. And then there’s all that single use plastic gloves, and with everything being cleaned within an inch of its life, we’ll be going through a number of those as a society.

Of course i care desperately about Mother Earth and how she is tended, but I also care deeply about the children, the next generation. I can’t help thinking that in the quest to protect the vulnerable, children are the ones to suffer. Their desks are spread apart, no group work, or small team work, none of the play activity that was in place, at pre-school, plastic toys are back in, out goes the sand and the water, and presumably free play goes too as everything has to be controlled and managed and risk assessed. Argh.

Don’t get me wrong, of course I don’t want people to die, but I also don’t want children growing up anxious, depressed and having to grow up before their time. They are children and children play. Children have snotty noses. Children touch as they try to make sense of the world, they explore, they hug, they leap and they jump. Children need to be allowed to be children, not controlled within an inch of their lives for a virus that they may or may not get. There is always a bigger picture and every action will have a consequence, and I hope those making the decisions are really comfortable with the choices they are making and what this means for our children’s wellbeing long term, let alone this planet we live on.

I was blown away, just couldn’t get my head around events on Saturday. Not least the appalling and public murder of George Floyd and the rioting that ensued, not so much that I was surprised about this, because the voice needed to be heard, black lives do matter, and it is time, it has been time for an awfully long time now, and I am embarrassed to be part of a humanity which continues to discriminate and separate and silence, and to live amongst those who have such a blatant disregard for the lives of others. Then we have a space shuttle going up in the air!

E and I actually stood outside and watched the space station pass over Guernsey and then about six minutes later the shuttle passed too, it was really faint and I couldn’t see it properly, but E managed to follow it’s path, this with the moon out too. This the dream of Elon Musk, a tech billionaire, who wants to see life established on Mars so that the human species can continue, because he expects us to become extinct here on Mother Earth. He might be right, but I can’t help thing, wouldn’t the money not be better spent on improving the way we live on Mother Earth, so that we might continue as a specie and so that we don’t destroy Gaia in the process?

It just seems so arrogant to me. We’ll exploit this planet through greed, with the focus on money and accumulation of wealth at the expense of everything else, we’ll develop tech, which is meant to solve all our problems, yet from my experience during lock down this just added to my stress levels, and the stress levels of others, yes I might have been able to teach yoga through Zoom, but many of my regular students couldn’t join me because their internet kept dropping out or they had spent so long on the computer already that day with work and online learning that they’d had quite enough!

He’s involved in all sorts of others stuff too, including gentle artificial intelligence whatever that is, and he does some good stuff, helping make fresh water available to communities in the US, supporting companies developing renewable energy. But you know, do we really need to go to Mars? Aren’t we doing a bad enough job looking after this planet? if we all just lived a little more simply. I don’t know about this whole space thing. Why do we have to keep messing with things? We’ll never know, it doesn’t matter how much money is thrown at it, how many scientists are involved, it’s the great is mystery. That is the sacred.

I’ve been watching this series of lectures on the Goddess recently and it has been mind blowing actually, to see how much she was revered all those years ago and the artefacts that have been found and the cave paintings and all this amazing imagery of the big breasts, the big tummy, the big thighs and the public triangle. Often she had no face and no feet, they weren’t viewed as important, not in the grand scheme of things. For she was the provider of life, without her, the woman, the goddess, there will be no life.

Then patriarchy arrived and all of a sudden her image changes, she is sexualised. To see it in artefacts and imagery, really did impact on me. How the manner in which she was visually presented changed. Her breasts became smaller and pert and often now clothed, her pubic triangle, big thighs and big tummy also disappeared, she was masculine physically, with tight stomach muscles in one image, like a six pack, and she was made to be physically attractive to the other sex and demoted too, as less than a man, no longer revered for her ability to give life, but now as the sexual conquest, owned.

Now she rises again, and yet she still has to find her way, because even women reject what she means. Still there is the pressure for the masculine in the physicality, women who have big breast, big tummies and big thighs are always trying to lose them, to change themselves, to become less of what they are, to reject the goddess and her power of life. In Ayurveda this is the classical Kapha, the mother, the nurturer. It saddens me that women naturally designed this way, should give themselves such a blinking hard time for it. You can’t beat a big breasted hug, my mum’s best friend has the biggest boobs I know and I love her the more for it, because it’s comforting somehow, to be hugged by someone that has such power within them, the goddess embodied.

Not to say that those of us scant breasted women should give themselves a hard time either. I’ve still managed to breastfeed both my boys and I’m still breastfeeding Eben at three and three quarters, and I don’t know where the milk comes from, but it comes! I suppose I just mean that we need to embrace all we have , and our children and the lives that we are creating for them, that we allow to be created for them.

I went to visit the Gran’Mere, the goddess at St Martin’s church today. She still wears the necklaces I hung on her at Beltain, I am surprised that no one has removed them, but perhaps people wouldn’t feel touching her. She too has been changed, an attempt has been made to masculine her, give her a male face. She has been damaged and yet someone was kind enough to try to mend her. I thought as I stood there touching her, that at least her breasts have stood the test of time, that they didn’t take those from her, that something stopped them doing that, that even that was a step too far perhaps, and they sliced her in two instead and tried to hide her somewhere in the church when patriarchy arrived and took over, fearful of the mother and her power.

Yet her power has never gone, not really. It cannot be taken from her. Men cannot carry or birth children. It is women that are afforded the opportunity for the transformation that this brings, for the surrendering that comes from the journey to motherhood and of motherhood itself, because there is a power and there is a connection and there is, without doubt, the sacred. I don’t mean that men don’t necessarily feel it, only that women get to touch it, to grow something within them that is part of the great mystery too.

Recently I have heard of a number of ladies who have miscarried or who are preparing for yet more IVF when they are able to access the clinics again and I am reminded how cruel this world can be, on this journey of fertility and conception, and yet how much light we can find if we surrender even to those most cruelest of moments of shattered dreams and yet more heart ache. This prepares us somehow, some of us, who have had to take that journey, for what lies ahead the faced with the choices we need to make with the children we may have brought into this world, who have chosen us because of the choices we might make for them, because we desperately wanted them and were conscious about inviting them in (others were conscious too, you don’t have to have had IVF or to have miscarried to be conscious about pregnancy and motherhood).

The choices are sometimes challenging, because often you have to go against the flow, your truth tells you so. Your anger and frustration reminds you so. It takes courage to follow a different path that has not been walked before, to trust that the unknown will hold you in its gentle bosom, and reveal a little more of its mystery to you, as you surrender to your own truth, come what may, and recognise that you do not have to be beholden to what others have decided is the way, who may not feel the same about life as you do, not really, to deep inside, not yet. It can be hard. But I find that worshipping the goddess gives strength, and the moon, well she, the beautiful moon, is supporting the process. It’s a fiery one; give voice to your truth, and allow a new path to reveal itself to you.

I hope you get to enjoy her energy and can sit with your emotions as they come up. This is the first of the eclipses in the eclipse season and I am told that this relates to what was happening in your life between 2010 and 2013. Funnily enough this was when we were finally settling with the idea of having children, and went one our journey through IVF to finally birth Elijah into this world. So I suppose it is interesting how much this is on my mind and I am reminded by others sharing their pains on their own journey to motherhood with me recently. The moon never lies, she always brings in that to which we need to give our attention. So I’ll go sit with that and see you on the other side!

Love Emma x

Power and the deep feminine

That was most definitely a potent full moon and I am only now clearer about what it was ushering in. There was most definitely a play on power, and you might have felt that in your own lives too.

I definitely felt a sense of powerlessness with the way that life is currently unfolding and it is only now I recognise the reason for the kidney and liver pain that has accompanied this. The kidneys because of deep rooted fear of not being able to touch or to use holistic therapies to heal (as these rely so heavily on human touch). I feel as if ancestral and past life wounds were touched, around Wicca and the deep memory of the persecution of healers (the witch hysteria during the mid 1400s ).

There was anger in this too, then, for this Wiccan history, and also for the collateral damage of trying to protect the vulnerable from Covid-19 and yet creating so much more suffering and vulnerability in the process. There is a thin line and I don’t envy anyone having to manage this, but I do feel as if a perspective shift is required. The state has done such a good job in conditioning (and controlling) everyone to (through) fear, that now it has a huge job on its hands to condition everyone that life is again safe to be lived.

There is a fear that for those of us who teach yoga or in some way offer our hand to heal, will not be able to do so, in the flesh, for a long time to come. Yet I know that in every ending is a new beginning and I take comfort in this. I am grateful that yoga and Reiki can be shared distantly, albeit it is not the same as physical touch, but at least there is the option. Plus I know that healing can come in so many ways, and I recognise in my own life how this pause, and this space, has revealed other things to me.

I keep returning to Rebecca Campbell’s marvellous quote about all this, well about letting go really, which is what this is all about, and how the power comes into it too, because I have a feeling that this is where it’s at really, coming to understand the nature of power, beyond labels and this idea of being someone. There has been so much emphasis these last few years for women, especially within yoga, to step into their power, and yet I can’t help thinking that we have been attempting to do so while still ignoring the deep feminine.

“In order for the new to arrive, we must first allow the old to shatter. Sometimes this happens on its own. And sometimes it requires that we do the smashing. To tear apart what we’ve built because things have changed, including you. To admit that while it once was aligned, now it no longer is. This shattering requires both courage and faith. Courage to let go and faith that the pieces will come back together again in a way that was more aligned than it was before” Rebecca Campbell

I’m not sure that the deep feminine, the inner witch, the healer, the carer, the mother, the grandmother, the wisdom keeper, I don’t know that she needed to be any more than what she was. She didn’t need to be on a pedestal, or splashed across social media, nor rushing around the world sharing her wisdom. She was contented to live it and share it with those who sought her, not because she was ‘someone’, but because she was her-self. There was a sacredness to her life and to her offerings too. There was the power, in the sacredness of it all.

I have found the break form social media thus far extremely liberating, empowering. I don’t miss it. It’s refreshing not knowing how others are living, and not concerning myself with it. There is less external noise and more time to be with those who matter the most. It has also freed me in my teaching, to offer what I love and what I have learned over all these years of studying the self, with those who most value it, there is (for me at least and I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant as that is not as it is intended) a deeper sense of the sacred. This too came through with the moon.

There is a re-alignment of power at play and for us women this means that yet more ideas of what this might mean need to drop away. We are entering a new paradigm and the idea of what it means to ‘step into our power’ also needs to change. The joy is that life will create this shift, the universe, the moon, the stars and the planets, they will all play their role to ensure that we have the opportunity to listen.

We might not heed the call, we might not make the space, we might grip on so tightly to how we think it should be, that we don’t hear the whisperings of another way. But the signs will be there anyway, the illness, aches, pains, tensions, the dodgy skin, the irregular period, the people, birds, animals and insects that cross our path, they are all message keepers, if we pay attention.

It’s not easy to pay attention though. Sometimes when working with my teacher, she is asking me to be so attentive that I find it difficult because I have to be very still and very present, and very much inside myself. Yet I know that if I can stay with it, then I will touch something that I cannot touch when life is lived externally, or busy, or noisy. The practice comes in being present and attentive, and this is tricky beyond the yoga mat when there is so much distraction.

Yet I have feeling that this is the power of the deep feminine. It is not about what we might create or produce in the external world (that’s the illusion, the trap), but how life is lived in relation to the self. That’s not so easy to teach, and not so easy to explain, because we all have that wisdom, and it is for us to reveal it to ourselves, given the right conditions.

As I am writing this, and as I searched for the above quote to share with you, I came across this other one, and feel like leaping with joy because while I have read it many times before, I feel as if it is only now I have an embodied sense of it being my truth too. Which means it is possibly yours too. This is where the moon has been taking us. This is the power of the deep feminine and it is not at all what others might have us believe, those making the noise and yet still living from a masculine perspective of results and external adoration.

“The deep Feminine, the mystery of consciousness, She who is life, is longing for our transformation as much as we are. She holds back, allowing us free reign to choose, nudging us occasionally with synchronicities, illness, births and deaths… But when we make space for Her, she rushes into all the gaps, engulfing us with her desire for life and expression. This is what She longs for, this is what we are for: experiencing the Feminine through ourselves. We simply need to slow down, and find where to put our conscious attention. And it is this, this willingness to look again, this willingness to put consciousness onto our places of unconscious, to express what we have always avoided, which starts the process of unblocking, so that She may flow through.” Lucy Pearce

All is well. That we must remember. Power is power is power. Knowing the self is power. Healing the self is power. Retreating into the self is power. Finding courage, that is power. Being still is also power. There are so many ways that we can embrace our power without losing ourselves in the power of it, of trying to be anything other than what we already are, and this, this is the key to true power - and it is found in love, and it is found in surrender, and it is found in vulnerability and it is found in being deeply attentive.

Love Emma x

Mothering

It was a new moon in Gemini yesterday, and it wasn’t until a few days prior to that, when I had already started writing this blog posting, that I became aware this new moon is encouraging us to look honestly at what we want from our life and to speak our truth. On the back of this new moon energy, I share with you now my truth, but appreciate that it might not be anyone else’s truth. 

I’ve experienced a few Ayurvedic Pancha Karma in my time, but the one I had last week was probably the most intense in its release thus far. It could just have been the timing however, taking place a few days after that rather powerful Scorpio full moon and after a weekend in Glastonbury, the home of the Goddess. 

For those who don’t know, a Pancha Karma is basically a three-hour oil-based massage, which deeply penetrates the skin, loosening impurities and stimulating circulation. Hot poultices of Ayurvedic herbs are also applied, the herbs being absorbed through the pores in the skin.  

Shirodhara (my favourite) is then employed, where warm oil is poured in a gentle stream over the forehead, calming and pacifying the central nervous system, stilling the mind and senses, and allowing stress to be released (my main focus at the moment, releasing stress!). This is followed by a head and face massage, before steam treatment to help expel toxins.

 I’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ever since, experiencing a healing crisis, where everything feels worse before it feels better. There have been many tears and my heart has been making itself known to me, clearly needing some healing. As painful as this has been at times, it has brought with it a pause for reflection, and finally some clarity, which has been a relief.

 I have felt that something has been amiss for a while now and yet I couldn’t quite put it into words, but now I feel able to do so, rightly or wrongly. My realisation will not necessarily resonate with you all, it’s just what’s relevant to me in my life right now.

Simply put, it seems to me that we women have been fed a lie, that we’re part of some big social experiment to see what happens in the name of empowerment. It is what women are pressured (in whatever way) to think they want, but has anyone actually thought about the wider cost.

Not only are women now fulfilling the role of provider (and main provider in many cases), and perching themselves on the ladder with the men, but they are also continuing, on the whole, with the role of householder and mother. There is a whole generation of women exhausted and depleted, living a life that is totally out of balance with their natural rhythm, because society deems that this is ‘the way’. 

“We’re empowered”, they shout out, “we can do everything that men do, and better too. We can run businesses, we can keep a house and raise a family. We can do it all”. 

However, no one really talks about the reality of what this truly means. No one talks about the fact that many women spend their day existing on a diet of coffee, chocolate and salad, eating on the go, never having time to properly refuel. Or the fact that women are so busy trying to hold it all together that as a society we now just accept this as a fact of modern living, “she’s just busy”, we say, “she’s got a demanding job and children”, we simply explain, and everyone knows what we mean. 

Many women are rushing through their life, from one appointment and meeting to the next, juggling all their various responsibilities and roles and trying to manage their time with their children as best they can. Some choose to do this because they want to have a career, other because they are not naturally gifted at motherhood (and don’t usually mind admitting it) and there are those who do it out of necessity as they need an income (and therefore don’t have a choice).

I suppose it is the lack of choice for many that saddens me the most, because while they might rather be at home with their children, society offers them little support to achieve this. In Sweden, for example, both parents receive 480 days’ parental allowance per child, and in the case of multiple births, an additional 180 days are granted for each additional child.

When I birthed Elijah back in 2013, I was only eligible for 3 month’s maternity leave, thankfully by 2016 and the arrival of Eben, this had increased to 6 months. However, by then I didn’t want to be dictated to by the workplace about when I should return post-baby, so I quit my job while pregnant and gave up the opportunity for maternity pay in favour of keeping my freedom to stay with my baby until I chose to return to the workplace. 

But even then, I felt a pressure to return after 6 months, because it just felt that I should be working and earning a proper income. It hadn’t crossed my mind that I might just stay at home with the boys. I had a well-paid professional role in the finance industry, wouldn’t I be mad to just give that up? The truth is, and I didn’t recognise this until recently, that so much of my identity was tied up in my job, I didn’t know how to be any other way. 

In many respects, this is the reason that many women are leaving it later and later to begin a family, because they have invested a lot of time and energy into their careers, and their whole identity is tied into it. Many don’t want to jeopardise this by falling pregnant, and hold out until they can no longer ignore their biological clock ticking. By then many need fertility treatments to help them, if not because of age, then because of increased stress levels.

It is these women, and other women too, who have their children and return to the workplace, because it is expected of them (because they expect it of themselves as much as anything else), who are then constantly torn in two. Like me, they might not have appreciated the demands of motherhood and by then it’s too late, they have to keep working because they need the income/have become used to the income/their whole identity is tied into the income, and yet they miss their children, and are trying to manage both the demands of motherhood with the demands of the workplace. 

We just keep going though don’t we, us women, whether we enjoy it or not, whether we chose it or not, whether we want it or not. We’re empowered and we can do it all. We can run businesses, have top careers and still raise a family. Look how much we admire female entrepreneurs and look up to them as role models – giving birth to children and running their businesses the next day!   

But the question is, are we women thriving? Are our young people thriving? Is society thriving? Are we all better off for it? If the rising depression, anxiety and stress rates are anything to go by, then I think not.

All I ever wanted to be since I was little, was a mother one day. Yet society was never particularly encouraging of this, the focus was always on academic success and a career. There was a sense that to be a successful woman living in this 21stcentury, I needed to be so much more than ‘just’ a mother to fulfil my potential. Instead, I need to be up there fighting for a perch with the men, or out there with all the other women attempting to change the world by running their own businesses. 

I am slowly coming to recognise that this does not need to be the case. For me now, fulfilling my potential means being a good mum to my two boys. It’s not about earning lots of money in finance or running my own business, it’s not even about publishing books or having my own healing space. Admittedly, the latter two are dreams, but they should not be confused with what it means to fulfil my potential, because then they become distractions from the truth.

Furthermore, when we talk about purpose and dharma particularly – what are we here on this earth to do - I might talk about teaching yoga and sharing Reiki with others, writing perhaps too, but truth be told, it’s being a mum. Everything else becomes irrelevant, really, when I consider the most sacred of duties that I could ever have been gifted in this lifetime is the one of mothering my own children.

Sure, when I die, it might be nice to be remembered for teaching a couple of inspiring yoga classes, or helping someone in their life, but I’d really like to be remembered more so for being a good mum to my children.  That’s my life work. My children couldn’t care less about what I do either and regularly groan because I’m off to teach another yoga class. All they care about is spending time with me. 

It’s a relief to finally recognise this after feeling adrift for a while now, wondering what’s next. It was almost as if the children arrived (and not without some challenge and heart ache may I add) and I ticked a box, OK that’s the children done, now what? And on I went with the next challenge, publishing books, as if time was somehow running out and all those dreams needed to be achieved overnight, and because I’m an empowered woman and that’s what we do.

But it was bothering me. Something didn’t feel right. My increasing stress levels were an indication that all was not well but I just couldn’t see any other way. This was how I had been trained to live since as long as I can remember – the focus on working and results and achieving. Furthermore, society supported this and the quest for it.

As I mentioned earlier, I returned to work three months after Elijah was born, expressing breastmilk in the toilets so that he could be fed by my Mum (fortunately) while I was in the office. None of it felt right but I did it because it was what was expected of me. Not once did I sit down and seriously think about whether I might stay at home with my son, especially during those early months.

In the workplace, there was little allowance for the impact that the transition to motherhood may have had on me and my life. I was expected to show up just the same as I had done pre-baby and yet absolutely everything had changed. There were the endless sleepless nights to navigate, let alone the breastfeeding and the hormonal changes of the post-natal period (which goes on for a good two years’ post-baby). There was this relentless and constant rushing and an overwhelming sense of guilt that I wasn’t with my son at home.  

Admittedly there were bills and the mortgage to pay, but when I think back, we could have found a way. We could have made other sacrifices, gone on less trips, cut back on other expenses. Ayurveda focuses on causative factors rather than symptoms and I now know with absolute certainty that this is when the stress, with which I have been working this last year, set-in. 

 I’ve been slowly trying to unravel from this and find my balance after five years of living a life out of balance, doing too much and not being as present to my children as I might have once intended. Furthermore, I have been seeking my truth, trying to navigate my way through my societal and academic conditioning, to recognise and hear what I feel deep down in my heart.

My body has been nudging me with its physical expression of stress, and the overwhelming tiredness. And I started to make changes, to re-prioritise my life bit by bit, to spend more time with the children. But there has still been this restlessness, this panic at times, “but what if I miss an opportunity to fulfil my potential, what if I don’t make my dreams come true because I’m spending all my time with my children”.

Now I have clarity I can laugh at the irony of it. It’s like the red herring. The answer has been staring at me in the face, as if the ‘child’ angel card I’ve repeatedly received over the last few months hasn’t been enough, and the photos of my children on my altar in front of which I practice yoga every day, let alone the words of my Ayurvedic doctor and Reiki friend, trying to signpost the path ahead in their gentle ways if only I would listen (and get beyond my conditioning that makes changing my mind so difficult).

It’s very easy to get super busy, to work and work and work, to make things happen, to run a business, to fulfil superficial dreams, to fulfil our potential according to society, when all the while the greatest dream, the greatest miracle, the greatest potential, well they’re growing up, and if I’m not careful – if we’re not careful – I’ll miss it, we’ll miss it. 

There is a whole generation of women torn and a whole generation of children being cared for by nursery workers and child minders, grandparents too if they’re lucky. Where did it all go so wrong? Why did we feel such a great drive to get out of the home? Isn’t the home where the heart is? Isn’t this what gives stability and love to our children? Isn’t this the very root of society?

I know that I am not alone. I take my hat off to those women who make the decision from the outset to stay at home with their children. It can’t be an easy decision to make and I have noticed that there is often some reluctance in admitting that “I’m just a stay at home mum” as if that is not enough somehow. It is sad to think that in our quest for empowerment, of the modern need to be someone, that there is now a stigma attached to being at home with our children, as if that is shameful. 

 I have a friend who is a full-time mum to her children and arranges child-care so that she can have a break and attend a yoga class once a week. She sadly feels that she has to justify this to people, and I think, good on you, being at home with young children is really challenging. I used to find going to work in the office easy in comparison. 

A few days ago I was feeling really peeved about all this, for buying into the whole women’s empowerment movement, without really being conscious of what I was giving up in the process. It’s been depressing in many respects too, to recognise that I am a cliché of what it means to be a woman in the twenty first century. 

I was raised to be different, not to follow others like a sheep, to question and think for myself. Yet I never did enough questioning. Perhaps this is what saddens me the most, now realising that I’ve bought into the illusion that this is what us women want and this is the life we must lead if we are to be empowered. This being a life lived on empty and always so busy.

It’s not surprising that increasing numbers of women are turning to yoga and meditation as they seek a time out from the craziness of the life lived in their heads and look for meaning in their lives. 

It’s also not surprising that the divine feminine has appeared into our lives, infusing mainstream spiritualism, encouraging us to connect with our inner goddess. I’m all up for this, I love nothing more than yoni yoga and the more feminine approach to yoga, but I have become completely turned off with the ‘rise, sister, rise’ theme.

Where do we women think we need to rise to? Have we not risen enough? Are we not empowered enough? What more do we want? 

There is a whole genre of books written around this theme and I can’t help noticing that many of the women writing them have not yet birthed children. Because let’s face it, the divine feminine can’t get any more manifest than as the mother. She is the mother! She has been revered for centuries for her power. 

Even here in Guernsey, there are two statues in her honour from pre-Christian times, one outside St Martin’s church and the other at Castel church, known as La Gran’mère du Chimquière. When I visited this Pagan earth mother at St Martin’s church this morning, I noticed that someone has placed a  chain of sweet peas around her neck because we are still celebrating her, even today (maybe even more so today). 

She is not asking us to compete with the men, nor run our own businesses, or become female entrepreneurs. She is not asking us to work harder and spend even more time in our heads and away from our children (although sadly this is what I see, even amongst yoga teachers who are spreading ‘her’ wisdom).

She is here to ask us to get back into our bodies, to come home to ourselves, to our families and to Mother Earth. She is asking us to get back in touch with our natural rhythms, to connect to the moon and our own inner cycles. She is asking us to step up as mothers, to reclaim that which we have lost in the name of empowerment. 

Yesterday I randomly chose the Green Tara goddess card. She rescues us by empowering us to save ourselves. I couldn’t help thinking that this card was rather appropriate timing – yes, Green Tara, we need you in our lives, helping to empower us to save ourselves, our femininity, and our opportunity for motherhood. I certainly need you.

This is what the world needs, this is what society is crying out for: mothering. We need to honour the mother again.

Anyone who has lost a mother will know what a loss it is. 

Like Mother Earth, women have been exploited for too long now. 

We need to re-build the home. 

This doesn’t mean we need to stop working. I can honestly say that if I didn’t share my passion for teaching yoga and Reiki, and have a break from the children in the process, for example, then I would go slowly mad. It just means that we need to feel that we have a genuine choice again.

We need to respect the mother and all that she brings, not only to the family but to society and to the planet. 

Society needs to wake up and re-prioritise, recognise what is most important. We need to honour and respect the mother again. 

I’m really proud to be a mum. It is not only my greatest achievement, but also the most difficult job I suspect I shall ever have in this lifetime. 

It has brought me fully into myself, and I have learned more about myself since becoming a mother than I ever learned on my yoga mat in the years previous to this. Motherhood is the practice! Children help us to engage completely - and consciously – with life: it’s Tantra!

Every day my boys provide me the opportunity to try to be a gentler, kinder and more compassionate human being. I’ve become increasingly aware of the times when I am not this, when they trigger me and I react before catching myself and taking a breath – when I become unconscious. There is a certain humility that accompanies this awareness. I am constantly given the opportunity to learn how to be a better human being and a better mum.  

My boys have brought me back to earth. They have helped me to turn a house into a home. They have helped me to recognise the need to take better care of myself. They have taught me what it means to love unconditionally. They have helped me to recognise that being a mother is enough. 

I shall end this post with a poem from Hafiz:

And still, after all this time,

The sun never says to the earth

“You owe Me”.

Look what happens with 

A love like that,

It lights the whole sky”. 

The menstrual cycle, fertility and yoga

The menstrual cycle

The menstrual cycle happens ‘on average’ ever 28 days from menarche (first day of first menstrual cycle) to menopause (gradual end of reproductive life).

Day 1 of the cycle, marks the first day of vaginal ‘blood’. 

 The majority of women begin their period at night or within the first four hours of waking. How long women bleed varies from woman to woman, but is generally between five to seven days, with the heaviest bleeding on the first day. The flow should be not too heavy, nor too light – around 50-80ml is optimum, although of course this is difficult to tell unless you are collecting blood in a moon cup (which I wouldn’t do personally, but you might). Blood should be bright red in colour. Dark or brown blood is old blood. Pink blood is thin and poor quality, while clots indicate stagnation in flow.

Bleeding arises because falling oestrogen and progesterone levels signal to the hypothalamus to release GnRH (gonadotrophin-releasing hormone), which triggers bleeding. This in turn prompts the pituitary to release FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone), which will start the growth of follicles and the development of the egg inside them. During menstruation, two thirds of the lining of the endometrium lining is shed gradually. The endometrium starts to regenerate within two days of the start of menstruation and by day five is already 2mm thick – isn’t the body amazing!

 Day 1 also marks the start of the follicular stage of the cycle. This is when the egg (ovum) grows and develops. Every female is born with approximately 2 million eggs, although only 300-400 will mature and be released during her lifetime. The nucleus of the ovum contains half the genetic material (chromosomes) needed to produce a new individual – the other half comes from the sperm.

 At the start of the follicular phase, the hypothalamus in the brain (which regulates the pituitary gland) releases GnRH (see above). This signals to the pituitary gland to release follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which stimulates the eggs inside the ovary to grow. About 20 immature eggs responds and being to develop within sacs known as follicles that provide the nourishment the eggs need to grow. If you’re trying to conceive then anything you can do to nourish the eggs through diet and lifestyle is essential.

As the eggs develop, the ovaries release oestrogen. This hormone signals to the pituitary gland to reduce FSH production so that only enough is released to stimulate one egg to continue developing. The rest shrivel away. Oestrogen also stimulates the lining of the uterus (womb), known as the endometrium, to begin to thicken, preparing it for implantation of the fertilised egg. 

The body’s oestrogen level continues to rise until it triggers a surge of luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary gland. This stimulates ovulation, whereby the follicle ruptures and the egg is gently released along with its follicular fluid on to the surface of the ovary. Follicle rupture can cause one-sided lower abdominal pain and this pinpoints ovulation time. If you’re trying to conceive then please take note! You may experience feelings of heightened sexuality and you might notice a change in secretion.  Your cervix will also change so you could become increasingly familiar with this too.

Having released the egg, the ruptured follicle continues to receive pulses of LH. This enables it to turn into a small cyst known as the corpus luteum, whose job is to produce progesterone.

Progesterone has three important functions – it builds and thickens the endometrium, developing glandular structures and blood vessels that supply nutrients to the developing embryo, and it switches off production of FSH and LH. It also raises the basal body temperature (BBT) by half a degree, warming the uterus ready for a fertilised egg.

 A fallopian tube is approximately the diameter of a pencil, with a narrow channel within it leading to the uterus. The channel is lined with microscopic hairs which, together with muscular contractions, help to move the egg along the tube to the uterus. The journey from the ovary to the uterus takes approximately 6 days. The egg never completes the journey if it is not fertilised, instead it disintegrates and is absorbed. 

Fertilisation needs to occurs within 24 hours of ovulation. Most healthy sperm live in the female reproductive tract for several days, which means that intercourse can take place up to three days before ovulation and fertilisation will still be possible. Cervical mucus acts as a barrier to abnormal sperm, which are unable to swim up the channels in the mucus. This ensures that only strong, well-formed sperm make it through the cervix and uterus to the fallopian tube.

The distance from ejaculation to Fallopian tube is approximately 10cm and takes about 30-60 minutes, with many barriers along the way. An egg is about 550 times wider than the tiny sperm head so provides a large target. The sperm has to make it to, and attach to the egg. Most sperm fail to attach and bounce off. 

The fertilised egg, known as a zygote, divides into two after an average of 36 hours. The embryo develops rapidly and travels along the fallopian tube for the next few days until it reaches the uterus, nourished by mucus which is secreted by cells in the lining of the tube.  

If fertilisation does not take place, then the egg is absorbed by the body, progesterone levels fall and the endometrium begins to dissolve, the uterus sheds the broken blood tissue through the vagina (menstruation) and the cycle begins again.

Fertile times

If you are trying to conceive then it is really helpful to get intimate with your cycle so that you can notice the signs that indicate that ovulation may be taking place. You might also notice an imbalance or a problem that might be affecting your body’s ability to ovulate. There are several ways to read your body:

Cervical secretions – noticing how these change throughout the cycle. The start of the fertile time is signalled by secretions so it is important you learn to recognise these.

Your cervix – oestrogen and progesterone create subtle changes in the muscles and connective tissue of the cervix. At ovulation the cervix feels high, soft and open. You can feel your own cervix and notice these changes for yourself.

Body temperature - progesterone causes a rise in basal body temperature of at least 0.2 Celsius immediately after ovulation. This lasts until the level of progesterone falls at the start of menstruation. However, a raised body temperature can also indicate an imbalance and could be the effect of viral infections, too much alcohol, medication, stress, late nights etc. 

Recording your cycle - there are various Apps that encourage you to connect with, and record changes during your cycle.  You could just use the journaling method. Journal each day changes that you are noticing in how you feel and what is going on down there. 

Yoga and the menstrual cycle

Bleeding – a time to truly go within.  Yoga Nidra is always very nourishing, so too some very gentle movement into the pelvis, listening to womb and blood wisdom. Absolutely no strenuous or hot yoga and no inverting (reverses the flow of blood in an unnatural direction) or strong backbends. You might find that any pose that puts pressure on your tummy feels horrible. Sometimes twisting feels horrible too, and other times it might be welcomed.

Post bleeding to ovulation – you may feel to be more active on your mat and fancy something a little more strenuous and dynamic. However, if you are trying to conceive then remember that you are trying to create healthy and nourished eggs, so make sure that your yoga practice is not exhausting you and perhaps adopt a restorative and womb-centred approach, nourishing from inside out. Yoga Nidra is invaluable too, as is staying positive and taking a well balanced diet. 

Ovulation – if you’re trying to conceive then really feel into your body, a slow and gentle approach to yoga is recommended, some womb based yoga like Yoni Yoga may help (there’s a free video on the website). Avoid hot yoga and anything strenuous or exhausting. Take time to rest with a guided relaxation and/or Yoga Nidra, especially the one for menstrual health. Don’t push yourself.

From ovulation to menstruation – a slower and gentler practice is absolutely recommended to reflect your waning energy and the retreat inwards again, supported by good diet. 

Resources

There is a mixture of guided relaxations and free yoga videos to support fertility, healthy menstrual cycle and menstruation on the website for you to use.  But also, perhaps invest in Uma’s book Yoni Shakti, as this is a wonderful resource, also her website www.wombyoga.orgor www.yonishakti.co.uk.  Dr Christiane Northrup’s Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdomis also a marvellous book. Alexandra Pope also has a fab book called Wild Power, and she offers lots of valuable support through her website www.redschool.net.   

If you are experiencing menstrual or fertility issues, then I highly recommend connecting with the Ayurvedic Clinic in Purley Oaks, with whom I am currently studying. They are experts in fertility with amazing results in helping women to conceive. They offer skype appointments,  but they are also only about 30 minutes from Gatwick via East Croydon. Have a look at their website at www.theayurvedicclinic.com

For sanitary products, I just love the gorgeous organic cotton reusable cloth menstrual pads from www.honouryourflow.co.uk. The night time ones are the only pads I have ever found that absolutely don’t leak. They’re really comfortable too. And no, I don’t get a commission or freebies from them for promoting them, I just like their products and ethos. 

Periods and the menstrual cycle!

Once seen as a shameful curse, periods are very much in the ‘field’ at the moment, with women openly talking about them. I recently recorded a podcast with Michelle Johansen of Female Potential entitled Positive Periods, and with good reason – it is my experience that the menstrual cycle should be embraced for all it reveals to us and the manner in which it supports us in living fulfilled and balanced lives. 

My first period arrived on 26 April 1988, when I was 13 years old and at school -  I can still picture the moment, because it was both exciting and a huge relief - my cousin and I had spoken at length about our impending (or so we hoped) first period and as she was older than me, hers had already started.  I was delighted to share with her that I too had now started getting my periods!

 There followed the drama at home of trying to insert tampons, because I found it painful and I still clearly remember my Mum trying to help me; it’s a tricky transition that one of being a child, to one who takes responsibility, and I was keen for her assistance. Once that was sorted, life carried on fairly much as it had done previously; I wasn’t aware that anything had shifted other than the fact I now bled once a month and my breasts were getting a teeny tiny bit bigger.

Fast forward to age 17 and the beginning of an eating disorder, which found me starving myself, and in the process my periods stopped altogether.  This was the sign my Mum needed to know that something really was out of kilter and with that I was marched to the doctor for help.  The help came in the form of a psychologist, but I was not in the slightest bit interested in talking about my diet issues and promptly refused to attend any further sessions. I slowly started eating again and in the process my periods returned. 

 However, the eating disorder didn’t go away, they rarely do, at least not without many years of hard work to get to the root of the problem and learning to eat properly again. The eating disorder at that time was one of starvation and binge, and while this inevitably stressed my body, my periods continued in their monthly order, albeit I gave them very little awareness, other than the need to insert tampons so that I could continue playing competitive netball and all the other competitive sport I played back then.

 Fast forward again to my mid twenties when I was unconsciously working my way up the corporate ladder, living a life that didn’t quite fit who I was on the inside, but I didn’t know that there was any other way. At that time, I was spending two weeks of every month feeling fairly horrible - depressed, emotional and with fluctuating mood swings, which found me moody, angry and irritable. 

In the last week pre-period, I’d crave carbohydrates and binge on them given the chance, which meant that I was often bloated and constipated. The waistbands of my work suits would cut into my tummy making me feel really uncomfortable in my own skin. I was also full of self-loathing, which was compounded by the demands of an office job, which meant I had to show up every day even though all I wanted to do was retreat from the world. 

There were times when I took a sickie because I felt so rotten – tearful and vulnerable - and I just couldn’t face going into the office. I doubt very much my bosses at the time would have been sympathetic if they’d have known, and I’m sure holiday would have been deducted instead. I was lucky really though, as I rarely suffered with physical pain, and I have no idea how women manage this in the work place, it’s bad enough having to manage menstruation itself (always fear of leaking and others finding out as you sneak sanitary products into the toilet). 

I knew that my life couldn’t continue like this. While the arrival of my period would ease the tension and pre-menstrual symptoms, this was only for two weeks, before my moods shifted all over again. I was stressed and depressed and would smoke cigarettes, chain drink black coffee and consume wine to supposedly ease this – I now recognise that this was compounding matters, but at the time I felt trapped by my life, paying a mortgage as I was, and trying to fit in.

 Finally, it got to the point where I couldn’t ignore the fact that life had lost all joy – it had become too painful and I wasn’t sure that there was any point. Events led me back to the doctorsand a prescription for Prozac was written. I had been prescribed Prozac previously but had stopped taking it on account of the fact it made me feel woolly. This time, I recall holding the prescription in my hand and deciding that I would not be beaten, I would find another way to ease my depression, I just didn’t know how.

I started running, as if to run my life forward, and this certainly shifted something in me, even though I still suffered with depression and monthly tensions. I ended up running the London marathon and it was this that led me to yoga, because my body was a mess and because everything I read suggested depression could be helped by yoga. There was something about yoga that made me feel better immediately, and I was hooked from that first class.

Not long after discovering yoga, I met the nutritionist, Carol Champion, who introduced me to the concept of healthy eating.  At that point, I was still suffering with an eating disorder and tried my best to avoid eating, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes instead, only to then lose control and binge eat on all the foods I had denied myself previously; it was exhausting. The idea of eating for health rather than for one’s weight was a huge perspective shift for me.  

It was Carol who helped me to realise that my symptoms were cyclical and linked to my menstrual cycle. I had PMS! This was a revelation and empowering too, because I had something to work with.  I started following the ‘diet’ plan that she gave to me, and religiously took vitamin B supplements as well as those to support the liver and ease PMS. As a result, my weight stabilised for the first time in a long time and I felt so much better, I couldn’t believe it; we really are what we eat.

This realisation and increased body-mind awareness, coincided with me meeting Alyssa Burns-Hill, who was advertising her new meditation classes at one of the yoga classes we both attended. I had been told that meditation would also ease depression and PMS, so I went along to her first meditation class. It was at this class that I first met Michelle Johansen, who was the only other person in the class! I remember Michelle and Ally talking about Reiki, crystals and angels and wondering what they were on about; little did I know it at that time how much these things would become an integral part of my life and my healing of PMS. 

I started seeing Ally for intuitive life coaching sessions using Reiki, which were life changing. I was 28 years old by then and I hadn’t realised that I had a choice in how I might live my life and that I was allowed to have dreams that I might one day fulfil. This was another revelation! The sessions helped me to connect with my heart and soul and, for the first time in a long time, I started to listen to what my heart was trying to tell me. 

 I had always been passionate about writing, but had never believed that it might be possible to pursue this. But the sessions helped me to recognise that this deep inner yearning needed to be given expression. By then I had become passionate about yoga too. So with the insight, strength and courage gained from the sessions, I sold the house I co-owned with my brother, left my permanent finance job and went off travelling to immerse myself in yoga and write about it. 

Interestingly, albeit unsurprisingly, as I aligned my life more closely with my heart, and as I tapped into my creativity with the writing, and ate healthily (letting go of coffee and excessive wine drinking) my PMS dropped away. This was supported by the yoga and Reiki, both of which shifted stagnant energy and helped me to recognise the depth of my imbalance and in this recognition, do something about it. 

It became clear to me that PMS had showed up every month as my body’s way of trying to get me to listen, to tell me that something was very much out of balance in my life. After this, my relationship with my menstrual cycle improved considerably, I was no longer fearful of it, and slowly came to recognise the blessing in the curse. In having PMS, I had been encouraged to acknowledge my heart and soul and learn to heal myself. As a result, my whole life and perspective on life changed.

Fast forward 18 months, and a few months after my 30thbirthday, I embarked on an intensive 7-week yoga teacher training course in Byron Bay, Australia with a dynamic male yoga teacher, followed by an unofficial apprenticeship for 3 months with another dynamic male yoga teacher. During both the teacher training course and the apprenticeship, I was practicing between 2-6 hours of dynamic yoga asana every single day. I was also following a restrictive raw vegan diet in an effort to increase my sense of lightness both on and off my mat, and also try to be the perfect skinny yogini – ha, how funny is that!

 It is perhaps not surprising that during this time my periods stopped. My approach to my dynamic yoga practice and my relationship to my body, was one of yang energy – masculine. I was actually relieved when my periods stopped because it meant I had absolutely no signs that my period was coming (that slightly clumsy, vulnerable and irritable feeling pre-period) and didn’t have to concern myself with tampons during my monthly bleed so I could carry on my yoga practice throughout - isn’t that crazy!

Up until that point, and for years afterwards, I made little allowance in my yoga practice for my monthly cycle and made little reference to the menstrual cycle during the classes I taught.  I would continue to practice in a strong and yang manner at all times.  I didn’t know what it meant to be yin and gentle. If I wasn’t practicing a handstand or headstand and a strong backbend, let alone numerous planks during my daily practice, then I didn’t feel like I’d practiced properly. It wasn’t necessarily the poses either, but my mental approach. It was all about pushing and pulling. 

Ally had by then become a hormone specialist so I undertook a saliva based hormone test with her, and funnily enough this showed that my hormones were all out of balance and I had excess testosterone, at least in comparison to my diminished progesterone and oestrogen levels. It turned out I also had ovarian cysts, which I wrote about in my book Dancing with the Moon, and which I now recognise from an Ayurvedic perspective as a vata imbalance (so too the loss of my period). There began a quest to heal myself again through healthy eating (no more of the raw and vegan diet, which was making me sick), Ayurvedic herbs, and a gentler approach to yoga (no more hard-core stuff!).

Soon, the combination of living back at home in Guernsey, where I was treated to my Mum’s amazing cooking each day, the lack of dynamic yoga classes, plus the fact I was now working, meant that my periods finally returned. I was grateful for this, because I had come to recognise that having absent periods (amenorrhea) was a sign of a significant imbalance in my body and my life generally. Fortunately, I was able to heal the ovarian cysts (I document this in my book), which was a relief as I was keen to have children one day. 

 That day finally arrived, or at least the day when my partner, E, and I decided that we might try for children. Then my period and my menstrual cycle became my primary focus. I grew increasingly intimate with my cycle, noticing the changes in discharge, energy levels and mood during the month, so that I would recognise when I might be ovulating.  I became increasingly aware of the link between my cycle and the moon cycle too, and it was about this time that I invited the Goddess of the Moon more fully into my life (or maybe she invited herself, I can’t be sure).

Sadly, it turned out that despite my best efforts at connecting with my cycle and trying to enhance my fertility naturally, we were destined for IVF.  You can read about this journey in, Dancing with the Moon too. This book documents the joy I felt at having my eggs collected on the day of the full moon, an omen for me.  There I was at my most fertile, with lovely ripe eggs to prove it on the day that the moon was also at her fullest, juiciest and most fertile too. 

It seemed that all the healing work I had done, through yoga (embracing a more yin approach with lots of restorative yoga and Yoga Nidra) and other healing modalities such as Reiki, had paid off. I prayed a lot to the Goddess of the Moon too and had managed to align my menstrual cycle directly with the moon cycle. I encourage any lady on a quest to conceive, to work as much as she can with her menstrual cycle and the moon cycle too.

After the birth of my son, Elijah, it took 9 months for my period to return.  I was so joyous when it did because it felt so strange being without a cycle to connect with the moon as I had done previously before pregnancy. I certainly agree with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli when she wrote that the post-natal period (and the peri-menopausal period - although I don’t yet have the experience of this to validate) can be a very disorientating time for women. 

It wasn’t long after this, that I came across Code Red, written by Lisa Lister, and Uma’s book Yoni Shakti.  Both books were life changing in their own ways.  In Code Red, Lisa writes about the four main phases of the menstrual cycle and the manner in which we can opportune each of these phases if we are aware of the wisdom contained within them. By this I mean that each phase brings with it a way of being and here I share with you myexperience.

Bleeding on the new moon potentially presents a time to retreat into our inner cave, like the Red Tent, taking ourselves away from the world and tapping into our blood wisdom. This is day one of the menstrual cycle when we are at our most intuitive so we might gain clarity on stuff that has been bothering us during the rest of the cycle. Things might slot into place with the letting go that accompanies the letting go flow of the menstrual blood, essentially shedding what is old to make way for the new to come in, with the new beginning of both the menstrual cycle and the moon cycle.

The follicular stage comes next, post bleed, when our energy levels return and we feel like we’re ready to come out of our cave and re-enter the light of the world again. Oestrogen levels are rising and we’ve potentially gained more clarity and now with our increased energy levels and sense of wellbeing, well there’s nothing much to complain about. It’s time to put into action and manifest all that has become clearer to us during our bleed. There’s a movement from connection to inner self, to refocusing on outer work and others. The moon may be waxing.

Day 14 (approximately) and we start ovulating, which may align with the full moon. We feel more attractive and confident than we might do at any other part of the cycle and we’re more sociable than we’ve been all cycle. We’re also trying to create and shape our life according to our vision now that we have a clearer sense of clarity and increased energy levels to support this. Our vaginal discharge may be heavier than at any other part of the cycle.  We might also experience pain, often one sided, an indication that we are ovulating. We might experience feelings of heightened sexuality. 

Post ovulation, the luteal phase, and as the moon wanes so too we may feel a waning in our energy and general interest in life as we are drawn back deeply into ourselves again. We are more sensitive as progesterone levels are rising and we might start to feel increasingly sensitive and vulnerable.  We might also feel confused and lacking in clarity. We may also feel angry and full of rage.

We become increasingly picky, so while this is a good time to edit, for example, this might be the time when we give our partner and family a hard time for doing everything wrong – at least wrong according to our higher standards.  We might be especially hard on ourselves too. Nothing feels quite right. Our clothes might feel a little tighter. Our job might not flow so easily. Stuff that doesn’t usually bother us, bothers us. 

It’s a potentially enlightening part of the cycle to sit with, because it might highlight all the things that are out of balance in our lives. There is much more tension and therefore creative potential, if only we get the opportunity to connect with this. During this time there may be changes in our vaginal discharge. Sometimes we may get a watery discharge that might have us thinking that our period has started, but then this will ease, and we may get nothing, perhaps, if anything, a slight burning sensation and dryness the day or so before our bleed.  

We might also experience cramps, anxiety, interrupted sleep, insomnia, nervous tension, mood swings, forgetfulness, irritability, anger, headaches, water retention, swollen breasts, bloating, lethargy and/or drowsiness. Our temperature may rise and sometimes, we may feel sexual, as if the body’s way of easing the tension created by the increasing progesterone levels and the ‘on edge’, ‘holding on tightly’ feeling this can give. This may last up until approximately day 28 and the end of the cycle. 

Many women experience pain around the time of their bleed. This is hardly surprising when you consider that the lining of the endometrium is literally shedding away. That’s a big deal! But the pain is also a messenger, literally drawing our attention into the body and away from the outer world. It encourages us to rest and retreat, perhaps taking a short break from our other responsibilities.

Sadly, we have been conditioned to overlook this pain, seeing it more as the curse of being a woman than a nudge of wisdom. So rather than rest, we may be more inclined to takeparacetamol, and carry on life as normal, battling our way through the day, drinking wine to comfort us, or binging on carbohydrates, rather than taking ourselves to a quiet space, nurturing ourselves with blankets and pillows, lighting candles, playing gentle music and listening to what with our womb is trying to say to us.

Alexandra Pope writes, “At menstruation itself a woman can potentially enter a more expanded consciousness, experiencing highly charged altered states that can be ecstatic and visionary”. The key to this, is both respect for, and awareness of, the changes that take place during our cycle. It is in this way that we come to recognise that our changing moods each have a role to play in helping us to live a more fulfilled and creative life. 

After years of yoga practice, I have come to recognise the importance of adjusting our yoga practice to support whichever stage we are at in our menstrual cycle, especially menstruation.  During menstruation the womb is influenced by apana-vayu, which is a downward and outward moving energy. Situated in the pelvic floor, apana-vayu’s energy pervades the lower abdomen and nourishes the organs of digestion, elimination and reproduction.

This is the reason that we shouldn’t invert our bodies during menstruation, as this will prevent the blood from flowing downwards towards the earth with gravity and apana-vayu. I’m not a fan of tampons or mooncups for the very same reason either – they do not allow the downward movement of the blood out of the vagina, collecting the blood inside. I prefer organic and reusable cotton pads instead (www.honouryourflow.com). The wild yogini might take a few minutes to actually bleed directly onto the Earth on the evening of her heaviest flow, to deepen her connection with the Earth, but that’s a whole other story!

Practising yoga to honour and support the menstrual cycle is what prompted me to teach yoni yoga, inspired from the womb yoga practise from Uma’s book Yoni Shakti, and from attending a couple of her training courses, including one on menstruation and fertility.  In my own life, I have found this softer and more feminine approach to yoga deeply nourishing and it has also enhanced my connection to my womb space and to my womb wisdom. This has helped me to notice when I am out of balance and need to make changes…not that it’s always easy to make the changes, or recognise the changes that need to be made!

For example, when my life was crazy busy last year with publishing books and trying to hold down an office job as well as teaching yoga and Reiki and trying to spend time with my boys, my cycle went out of kilter. Hardly surprising really. I started seeing my Ayurvedic doctor to help me address the imbalance and while this centred primarily on the solar plexus, it was addressing imbalance generally. The result was that I recognised that I needed to make significant changes to my life to de-stress (ironic as a yoga teacher!) and create better balance and more space in my life for the things that nourish me, like my boys.

While it took some time to step beyond the fear of the letting go that these changes required, I knew that they had to be made because my menstrual cycle was making me very aware of this; womb and blood wisdom do not lie. The fact my cycle wasn’t aligned with the moon bothered me too. Pre-children my period had been aligned with the new moon, post-children this had shifted to the full moon. And now my period had shifted to the waning half moon.

I could make sense of this though. I knew that I was going through a transition from one way of being to another. Changes were being made but could not happen over night, and for a while I felt stuck, lacking in clarity about how life would unfold, but comfortable there too, because I had a sense that things would become clearer in time. Sometimes we need to sit in the ambiguity, because everything has a timing and there is a lot to learn from the transition itself (think of yoga and how the transition from one pose to another is as important, if not more important and revealing than the pose itself).

This is probably the time to highlight that not every cycle will align with the moon. From an Ayurvedic perspective, for example, a typical vata cycle will be irregular and while pitta and kapha tend to have regular cycles these may not be 28 or 29 days in length. Furthermore, while you may read that, for example, high priestesses and healers are more likely to bleed on the full moon, I don’t think we should let our ego get too carried away with this. If women live together their cycles tend to align, but we each have a cycle depending upon what is going on in our lives, and our connection to the Earth (and moon) at any given time. 

I finally quit the office job, putting in place better boundaries, re-prioritising my time (still an ongoing process), re-connecting with the Goddess who I had overlooked in my quest to achieve all things, and quietening my home practice to embrace womb-based yoga again.

Changes made, it took a while for the effects to be felt and for me to see more clearly the root to the initial imbalance – we can make changes in our outer lives but for real change to occur, we need to make the inner shift. 

For me this meant a letting go of my ‘old’ approach to life with all its behaviour patterns and perceptions. I fought this for a while, as we do, through uncertainty, lack of clarity and fear as much as anything else. But then something finally clicked during some Scaraveli-inspired one-to-one yoga training, and I could no longer remain in denial (always finding excuses) and with that recognition, came a much needed and rather emotional deep acceptance.

Life had to change. It was time to rest into myself, and stop all the pushing and pulling and achieving and rather masculine approach to life in trying to be all things - isn’t this the irony of life for us ‘empowered’ women these days, that in our quest to be all things, we’re still denying the deep feminine and have forgotten what is important in our lives, and the need to rest. It is not surprising that so many women, mothers especially, are tired and exhausted, and so many currently questioning their role in life.   

When we reach that point of acceptance, it’s like we let go of all that we have been holding on to, and in the letting go, we experience an awakening.  Life can never be the same again, because we have awakened to it. There is no going back to sleep. It’s as if a rush of support and energy comes flooding in, and we find the courage to take the step that moves us from fear into a new territory where life is full of new potential and experiences that we hadn’t known possible previously.   

Funnily enough, once the acceptance was reached, and the shift had taken place not only physically, but mentally and emotionally, then my period aligned perfectly with the new moon and new beginnings. I was both relieved and delighted. This was proof that by working with our menstrual cycle we truly can align our lives to a more authentic and harmonious way of living, which is always changing, because we are at heart creative beings, creating and re-creating our lives over and over again. The menstrual cycle will highlight where we are stuck, or have grown stagnant, or are not listening. 

As Uma Dinsmore-Tuli writes, “Menstrual cycle awareness matters: it is the inner yoga of women (and the men who live with them), the ultimate self-care tool. As a stress-sensitive system, the menstrual cycle gives feedback physically and emotionally. By respecting and cooperating with its rhythm, we can experience greater levels of energy and wellbeing, creativity and productivity.”

I encourage all women who are menstruating to become increasingly familiar and intimate with their cycles, especially those who are seeking to conceive.  It can be deeply empowering to know ourselves on such a deep level and to be able to navigate our lives in accordance with our deepest truth and insight. There is a blessing in what was once thought of to be a curse and I am delighted that ‘periods’ are being talked about so openly.

More next time on the ‘science’ of the menstrual cycle and of yoga to support the cycle.