I have been going through a lot of my books and things to give away. This has always been a challenging task for me, emotional and kinda wierd. I found my old "We'Moons" from as far back as 1993. I had them all on my shelf.
I decided to recycle the black and white ones and keep the colored ones for collage.
There was one "We'Moon" that I remember writing in like a journal several times and I was hoping to find that. I did.
Here are some of the entries:
January 2. 1999...feeling extremely creative, juices flowing, inspiration about writing about anger.
March 10, 1999...bled 2 drops of blood this morning, first sign of blood since end of October-Mid-November, when I bled 1 drop of blood.
August 11, 1999...bled, flowing blood from my beautiful wild womb.
This time that I bled...was the end of my moon.
I had begun menopause around the age of 37 or 38. I didn't know it at the time
but looking back I am sure of it.
I had spent six weeks at the Wise Woman Center in Woodstock, NY at Susun Weed's farm.
I had returned to live in the quiet of the woods in Southwest Washington, where the wild violet grew around me, for a short time and then moved to Arlington, WA to an old farmhouse next to 2600 acres of forest.
These entries were written at that farmhouse.
The year Tadd and I lived there, I spent most of my time walking in the woods and gardening, gathering herbs and listening. It was a difficult time for me emotionally, I was changing and I didn't know what the hell I was changing into. It seemed that I was falling apart, I just wanted to be alone with the forest, the trees, the nettle, the flowing creek.
At the Wise Woman Center, Susun Weed insisted that all women take a moon day, when they were bleeding. I wasn't bleeding but she insisted I take one anyway. She said, when a woman stops bleeding, she is holding her wise blood within her.
I grew to accept that this was so for me.
I hadn't given birth to a child like I wanted.
What was being created within me? Who was I? What was I?
Another bit of wisdom that Susun Weed offered was to retreat to the menopausal cave for one year.
I certainly did that in this old farmstead in Arlington.
Tadd worked in Seattle and I was alone. I had wild dreams.
More entries:
October 22, 1999...dreamed last night of ritual, dancing and my school dreams of old were transformed into wild dancing, "She changes everything she touches" was sung.
November 2, 1999...soul retrieval returned my 18 year old and 4 year old parts, the dancer and the magic moon writer.
I began my shamanic herbal teaching at this time, after studying with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies and meeting my shamanic herbal spirit teacher. I began to write about the plants. Last night when I found this book, I felt a sadness looking back at this time in my life. I also felt a type of quiet celebration that though it was a difficult time for me, I was led to do the work that is passionate for me. "I dreamed I bled snakes. Silver gray and slippery, hissing and with tongues darting, they fell from me and touched the earth. Some went underground. Others became trees heavy with fruit. They were my children. They became the world. "There is a vulnerability in claiming our wild old selves, in being present for all of life as we grow old. Our wise blood held within, we circulate energy, we contain it, so that we may be the wise woman teachers of our world. May it be in Beauty.
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