I can’t remember exactly what sparked it, but at some point on my numinous journey, synching my menstrual cycle with the Moon became one of my witchier lifestyle goals. One that developed out of an ongoing crusade to regulate things “down there,” period.
My cycle had been patchy for as long as I could remember—or at least going back to when it disappeared completely during my teenage anorexic phase. Matters had been further complicated by the impact of various methods of birth control I’d tried over the years, the hormones having either given me “fake” periods (the pill) or wiped them out completely (an IUD).
Decades healed of my eating disorder and several years “clean” of hormonal intervention, however, and my cycle had still never settled down. And as well as the inconvenience of my bleeding being wildly different from month to month, the more invested I became in the concept of mind, body, and soul operating as one, the more it had begun to feel as if this was symptomatic of a deeper imbalance in my cosmic operating system.
I mean, think about it. The fact that a twenty-eight/twenty-nine-day cycle exactly mirrors the waxing and waning of the Moon, from New to Full and back again, is the most tangible evidence I can come up with that human life is directly and intimately connected to the planets in our wider solar system.
Throw in the not insignificant detail that a woman’s cycle is a physical monthly reminder of THE MAGIC OF LIFE ITSELF, and the more deeply I began to ponder periods, the more intrigued by the mysteries of menstruation I became—fueled by the fact that my own “Moon time” seemed to be more elusive and mysterious than most.
Not that my doctor thought so. When I asked her opinion, as in, Is this something I should be concerned about?, she told me it was totally normal to have an irregular cycle. But just because something’s “normal” doesn’t make it right. After all, one in ten Americans is taking antidepressants, and it’s been estimated that by 2050, up to one-third of the U.S. population could have diabetes. These states of affairs could be considered normal—in that they are the “norm”—but they aren’t exactly indicative of a population thriving in optimal health.
So I started having acupuncture—commonly acknowledged to be awesome for anything to do with hormones—but several months in, there was no evidence that it was having any impact. I’d also been keeping a period “diary” to try to actually track my cycle, a frustratingly slow process since sometimes six or even eight weeks would go by with no real period, just some confusing “spotting.”
Disheartened, I felt my enthusiasm for my project begin to wane. Also, since I wasn’t planning on trying to get pregnant any time soon, I began to question why I was so concerned about it anyway. If anything, bleeding less frequently meant less stress and a whole lot less mess, right? Uh, wrong actually. One of the reasons I was so keen to get my flow on was that I actually enjoyed the feeling of physical and emotional release that accompanied my menstruation.
Uh-huh, you read that right: I LOVE getting my period! I actually think of it as sort of like an emotional orgasm. The tension builds and builds, and as soon as I bleed my heart sings, my head clears, and all is right in the world once more (thanks in part to the oxytocin that’s released, remember?). Without it, sometimes it felt like the PMS phase would last for weeks.
Then my friend Alexandra Derby, an artist and menstrual wellness expert, mentioned she was going to be leading a Red Tent activation at the natural birthing center in the basement of her Williamsburg brownstone, and a (red) lightbulb went on in my soul.
A daylong ritual designed by a woman named DeAnna L’am, widely regarded as a leading voice in “menstrual empowerment,” the basis of a Red Tent ceremony is for participants to share and reclaim the stories of their first period. “It’s all about letting go of the judgments and prejudices you took into your precious early teenage self that have kept you from fully accessing your power and creative potential as a goddess Creatrix today!” explained Aly.
The second part of the ritual would involve “enacting the ceremony we never receive in modern society—that of a girl being welcomed into womanhood,” she went on, with that wild, excited look she gets whenever we get talking about healing for the greater good. “Ruby, it is deeply moving to take your place as a woman on the planet with the capacity to birth LIFE—be that children, ideas, businesses, or even a new Earth. Yes, it is that big!”
DeAnna L’am began her journey as a healer in 1992, after she too embarked on a personal journey to better understand her PMS and attempt to “reverse the curse.” Her studies led her to discover the myth of the Red Tent, a place in biblical times where women would retreat while menstruating or giving birth. DeAnna has made it her life’s work to reinstate the Red Tent as a ritual to acknowledge the rite of passage of a girl’s first period, and she and her facilitators now host Red Tent ceremonies all over the world. There’s a full calendar of events as well as information about how to organize a Red Tent activation near you on her website: Womenoftheredtent.com.
Whoa. What if this was the missing piece of my period puzzle? There was no physical reason for my irregular cycle, after all, and yet I was harboring a whole lot of judgment about it. Not to mention frustration, doubt, and disappointment with my body. And what about all this stuff Aly had said about me being a “goddess Creatrix,” and women coming together to birth “a new Earth”? I signed up there and then, before left-brain logic had a chance to talk me out of it.
INTO THE RED TENT
The Red Tent activation itself took place on a Virgo New Moon, when my period was right about due. I woke with hard-core butterflies in my stomach. What the hell had I gotten myself into? We’d been instructed to wear something red, and I was dismayed to discover that I didn’t own a single scarlet item of clothing, not even a pair of red knickers—and so I made do with a slash of my trusty, confidence-boosting red lipstick (adding a mental note to invest in some red lingerie, stat. I mean, seriously).
When I arrived, Aly was dressed in a vintage red prom dress and amazingly had transformed the space into an actual red tent, using lengths of gauzy red material. I counted six other women in attendance, and one by one we were smudged down with palo santo as we entered the space, having been invited to repeat after Aly: “I enter this circle in perfect love and perfect trust.” Since we would be sharing some of our most intimate truths, she explained, setting this intention was essential.
And since I also feel like a proper introduction will further help set the scene here, Aly is terribly British and well-spoken and has a degree in archaeology from Cambridge University (the British equivalent to Harvard). But she also happens to be one of the most magical people I’ve ever met—think Hermione from Harry Potter meets full-fledged fairy queen. In other words, exactly the kind of woman you want as your guide on a journey to connect with your Divinely Feminine self.
Once seated inside, we were invited to place items on an altar strewn with red roses, and then the ritual began. With Aly, we called in the energies of the different elements, before acknowledging the women in our ancestral lineage. And over the following four hours, there would be layers and layers of similarly heady ritual—which Aly describes as the language of the soul, since “the only way the soul can speak to us is through symbols, metaphor, and ceremony.”
But most relevant to this story is what came up for me when we got to the part where we spoke about the first time we got our period. Mainly because I hadn’t been aware of this being awkward or problematic for me—hell, I’d even been looking forward to it! But turns out this in itself was deeply interwoven with feelings of inadequacy and shame. Looking back, I could see how the fact that I was so desperate to get my period was because I wanted so badly to be seen as more grown-up, sophisticated, and cool (the same motivations, at heart, for me pursuing a career in fashion). After all, the most popular girls were essentially the most “developed,” and I already hated my body for remaining stubbornly childlike. I’d bought a sports bra waaaay before there was anything to fill it, and even practiced inserting tampons (ouch!) long before my first period.
And sharing the truth of my story with the group, which I realized I hadn’t even shared with myself until that moment, I could suddenly see oh so clearly how this mirrored the battle I was still having with my body every month, willing my period to come on as physical proof that I was a “normal” functioning sexual woman. Also, how the conversation I began having with my body at age fourteen was essentially setting up all the insecurities that snowballed into me starving myself for six years—not to mention the feelings of not being “enough” that I know so SO many women struggle with in their lives.
Yes, I cried buckets speaking these truths, also deeply saddened by the fact that I’d been too emotionally distant from my mother to share any of this with her at the time. We finished that part of the ceremony by washing our hands with lavender water, to cleanse the negative feelings associated with our first blood, and by the end of the day, I felt vulnerable but curiously relieved. But would my participation make any difference to my cycle?
“The only way the soul can speak to us is through symbols, metaphor, and ceremony.”
—ALEXANDRA DERBY
I got my answer two weeks later. As I mentioned, my period was “due” (going by a twenty-eight-day cycle) the day after the Red Tent—but in this case it held out for another fourteen days, until the next Full Moon. An Aries Blood Moon Eclipse, no less, which I also happened to be able to watch up close, since I was on a delayed flight back to NYC from Montreal that night. A cosmic coincidence? Or evidence that my soul had been listening, and my body was ready to embrace my need to bleed.
MAIDEN, MOTHER, CRONE . . . AND THE SCARLET WOMAN
The Red Tent ceremony had ended with us going around the circle and welcoming each participant as “a new woman,” reenacting the ancient feminine rite of passage, from girl to woman, that Aly described as having been scratched from modern society. Without it, she believes the soul becomes confused about what life stage a woman is at, leading to all kinds of karmic confusion around everything from our relationships to our life purpose. Allow me to explain.
In pagan traditions, “womanhood” is defined by the triple Goddess archetype of “Maiden, Mother, and Crone”—referring to a woman’s role in society before, during, and following her menstruating years.
As a girl, or Maiden, she is completely in her own world, free to use her creative and spiritual energy purely for her own personal development, to discover and learn about herself and the world. During her menstruating years, she moves into the Mother phase, using these discoveries to nurture the life she now has the capacity to birth, be that actual children, creative projects, or business ventures, as Aly reminded us.
And what happens when we don’t properly acknowledge this transition? The Maiden gets pissed and begins acting out to get attention—fixating on her appearance by obsessively playing dress-up (hello, shopping addiction), choosing partying as her pastime of choice, and picking partners who are more interested in games of kiss-chase than a mature and mutually respectful relationship. Basically, your classic late teen-to-thirtysomething hot mess, and not at all unfamiliar to me.
Further down the line, the Crone, or Wise Woman phase, is when she takes her place as a tribal elder, menopause having relieved her of the responsibilities of motherhood, and she has amassed enough wisdom and experience by now to lead and mentor on a broader scale.
The Crone is the matriarch figure—think Arianna Huffington or Oprah Winfrey. The fact that neither of these powerful and inspiring women would likely be thrilled to be described as a “crone,” however, not to mention that the word itself is also negatively associated with witchcraft, speaks volumes to me about how our female cycles have been disenfranchised under the dominant patriarchy.
In fact, the more I learn about the history of women and menstruation, the more I am coming to see how this is a deeply feminist issue, steeped in centuries of gender equality bloodshed—and more on the wider ramifications of that later. But in relation to the triple Goddess archetype, Aly has pinpointed a missing “fourth player” in this saga, one who relates directly to your sex life, and with whom the dominant patriarchal society is far from comfortable.
“It’s almost like she’s been deliberately written out, but what about the Scarlet Woman?” Aly is talking about the phase between Maiden and Mother, “when a woman gets to bleed, and enjoy and use all the gifts that come with this, before she has to sacrifice part of herself to being a mother.”
To get just a little bit biblical on your ass, Aly identifies the Scarlet Woman as Mary Magdalene, a follower of Jesus who traveled with him and hung out with the other disciples, and who was also the first person to see him alive following the Resurrection. But during the Middle Ages, Western Christianity began to paint her as a prostitute or an “unpure” woman—the menstruating yet childless and freely sexual woman Aly believes is missing from the collective mythology of womankind.
Cue mass paranoia about women fully owning their sexuality, a.k.a. slut shaming, the perversion of female desire in pornography, and the sanitized, patriarchy-friendly “celebration” of female sexuality known as the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
THE BLOOD MYSTERIES
Aly also talked about “the Blood Mysteries,” ancient myths around women and menstruation that speak directly to the “gift” of our monthly cycle. Also, how this gift came to be rebranded as “the curse.”
So let’s go back, way back, to when humans are living in tribes. When the women bear children and the men, wombless and generally faster and more muscular, go hunt for food. And since women spend the majority of their time running the village (i.e., in government), they develop a “sixth sense” about what’s best for the community—an inner knowing it appears is heightened when they bleed.
Since they also all live in such close proximity to one another, the women get their periods at the same time (a phenomenon we’re all familiar with). And without the intervention of alarm clocks, electric lighting, international travel, and other inventions that have allowed humans to operate “as normal” outside the cycles of our natural habitat, this happens at the same time every month, in the dark of the New Moon.
Enter the original Red Tent. Relieved of their regular tribal duties, women went to this sacred space to bleed and dream together, all the better to receive cosmic downloads from the Universe in answer to the most pressing questions being faced by the tribe at the time. Like, y’know, what herbs are good for an outbreak of fever, and what days are best for hunting this month. Ha—I love the way we assume our ancient ancestors were only concerned with bare survival. They were probably asking stuff about who was having sex with whom, and what to wear for the Solstice celebrations, too.
Anyway, along with the fact that they got to do all the birthing of life, women’s mystical connection, through menstruation, to the oneness, God, the Universe, and so on, obviously gave the females of the tribe pretty much all the power. Coupled with the fact that they would bleed freely and copiously for days at a time, and not die, women must have seemed nothing short of superhuman to the menfolk.
So at some point in history, right around the time agriculture kicked in and organized religion began trying to put some logic around the messy and mystical story of human evolution, the more insecure among the males decided to use the brute force they were no longer using to hunt to redress the balance. And the rest, so they say, is the history of the patriarchy.
Which is certainly one theory as to why menstruating women came to be seen as impure, and periods in general a messy inconvenience to be medicated out of existence or shamefully hidden away. Also, as society began to revolve around more and more masculine ideologies—competitive, goal driven, and linear, versus collaborative, cyclical, and intuitively led—the wisdom we receive at our Moon time basically got labeled “crazy-ass PMS.”
I don’t know about you, but I generally go around apologizing for the fact that I get super super sensitive right before my period (like, I really don’t want to socialize and could cry over a burst tea bag). The fact that it’s so hard to contain my emotions at this time feels like a weakness of character, as if I’m being held hostage by my own body.
But what if that was the whole point? What if we’re supposed to retreat from society when we bleed, and use this time to feel deeply into the wisdom of our subconscious, or intuition? In astrology, our menstrual running buddy the Moon represents our most fundamental yet often deeply buried needs and desires, after all.
In which case, what if the “anger and frustration” part of PMS (anybody?) is actually a genuine response to all the subtle ways our needs are not being met, not to mention the injustice that says we (womankind) are being too demanding or needy or are just plain loopy if we kick up a fuss about it. And as for the chocolate cravings? Seen in this context, the overwhelming premenstrual urge to gorge on raw cacao fudge brownies looks to me like a case of self-medication at its finest.
KNOW YOUR CYCLE, KNOW YOURSELF
Embodying the cyclical nature of ALL LIFE, Now Age thinking is that women’s menstrual cycles are designed by nature to move us through the phases of “Maiden, Scarlet Woman, Mother, Crone,” each and every month, our hormonal fluctuations inviting in the energies of our most creative, sexual, nurturing, and knowing selves. And that when we actually bleed, this is symbolic of us being “reborn.”
For example, in Chinese medicine it’s believed that the spirit, or shen, lives in the heart and travels in the blood—and that when women bleed, our spirit is being “cleansed” of psychic gunk that builds up throughout the month. As an aside to this, I’ve even heard that the Native American sweat lodge—an intense outdoor sauna situation known to induce a trancelike state—was actually designed to help men purge in the same way and keep pace spiritually with women!
One of my favorite writers on the subject of women and cycles is another British witch, named Lisa Lister, who believes that some of our greatest spiritual work as women lies in realigning ourselves with the rhythm and rhyme of our Moon time. “Getting to know your cycle is like a master key to your monthly superpowers,” she told me recently. Even if I had to wait three days for her e-mail, since when I first reached out she was on Day 1 of her cycle and had just begun to bleed. “Retreating from the outside world on Day 1 is sacred and a total nonnegotiable for me. I have said no to TV appearances because I was on Day 1,” she explained.
According to Lisa’s research (which became her life’s work after she was diagnosed with endometriosis at age twenty-five and told she needed a hysterectomy), the four distinct phases of our cycles can be mapped, and therefore utilized, as outlined below.
The issue is that what Lisa terms the “dude-centric” systems we live by don’t allow for these fluctuations. Week in, week out, we’re expected to show up in the world and perform in the same way. Considering society celebrates confident, productive, sexy women, this makes phases 1 and 2 easier to navigate. But when the expectations of society go against where we’re at in our cycle (see phases 3 and 4), frustration—along with major chocolate cravings—sets in.
THE MOON CYCLE
This is a guideline based on a twenty-eight-day cycle and may be slightly different for you, if your cycle is longer or shorter.
Preovulation (days 7–13)
High energy, risk taking and expansive vision, getting shit done
Ovulation (days 14–21)
“The queen of freaking everything,” sexy, social, wanting to be seen
Premenstruation (days 22–28)
No time for BS, a shift from “doing” to “being,” letting it all hang out
Menstruation (days 1–6)
Deep intuition, retreat and forgiveness, a reconnection to our inner truth
“But if we actually listened to our bodies during the second two phases, we’d unlock some extremely powerful ways to access our inner wild woman—intuition, rage, truth, alchemy—and that’s where the real MAGIC happens,” Lisa goes on. Magic, just maybe, like listening to your highest Self and allowing it to guide you toward your most magnificent and significant life purpose.
All of which I got pretty darned excited about when I was first introduced to Lisa’s work—the idea being that once you come to know your cycle intimately, you can begin to plan your life around it—all the better to capitalize on the energy and gifts of each different phase. This is easier if you’re in a position to make your own schedule, granted. But if you do have the kind of job where you have to show up to a cubicle at the same time every day, you can at least go easy on yourself if you “underperform” because a big pitch happens to fall on Day 1 of your cycle.
But wait a minute: What if you have an irregular cycle like me? Which Lisa also thinks is very common BTW, if not exactly “normal.” Her theory? “It’s another symptom of working against our cyclic nature and trying to live in a linear, dude-centric way.” Considering my whole career has meant being creative on demand to hit weekly if not daily deadlines, phase 3 or no phase 3, it’s not exactly a huge leap to see how this alone could have affected my flow. Many, many of our flows.
Lisa’s advice to me as I continue to work on finding mine? Keep diligently mapping my cycle, like literally taking daily notes on everything from my mood and energy levels to how I’m feeling about my appearance, until I begin to understand where my unique phases begin and end. This is something I encourage you to try too, whether it means making daily notes in your diary or on your phone, or downloading an app (I’ve started using one called Luna) to keep track of where you’re at. “The more you chart, the more your cycle will start to find her groove, since generally she’ll be ‘irregular’ because you’re not paying attention and are working against her, opposed to with her natural rhythm,” she told me, adding that actually the length of each phase will be different for everyone.
In my case: “You may notice that your preovulation is superlong because your body needs it to be that way so that you CAN get more done. This is how freakin’ incredible it is!” And never mind my own cycle—when it comes to what I’ve been learning about periods in general, freakin’ incredible sounds about right.
PERIOD PRIDE AND THE MENSTRUAL REVOLUTION
At the time of writing this, there’s a T-shirt doing the rounds among the Now Age crowd, bearing the slogan the future is female. I think the reason it’s struck such a chord is not because we’re all “angry feminists” demanding “our turn” at running things, but rather that it speaks to a collective and mystical understanding around the next wave of feminism. Namely, that this goes beyond equality between biological men and women in the material world (granted, a campaign that’s far from won), and that actually it’s time to step into a whole new feminine paradigm.
The new feminine model includes collaboration over competition, nurturing versus oppression, building relationships not empires. In matters of business, politics, the environment . . . in the Now Age (the full-fledged Age of Aquarius, the astrological era we began shifting into in the 1960s and which is all about the toppling of hierarchical structures), it is increasingly evident that what the world needs is a whole lot more of the knowing feminine energy of our tribal ancestry injected into what now feel like dangerously outplayed modern human systems.
I’m hearing a lot of talk about a return to the Divine Feminine (which we’ll dive into in chapter 11), which essentially is about connecting to the idea of God(dess), the Universe, the cosmic oneness, and so on, as a feminine versus a masculine force. And I am most definitely not the only woman (or man!) waking up to our periods as secret Goddess code, and embracing menstruation as a magical symbol of each and every woman’s embodiment of Her.
I recently got to meet Miki Agrawal, the amazing entrepreneur behind Thinx—stylish panties with built-in period protection, designed to “eliminate shame” around periods (along with the need for panty liners and the majority of other disposable period products we use, which are one of the major contributors, along with disposable diapers, to landfill sites).
It speaks volumes to me that when I first heard about the brand, back in 2013, not one of the editors I pitched the Thinx story to would touch it—“too icky,” being the general response. Fast-forward to fall 2015, and Miki’s first chic and sexy ad campaign has gone viral, not least because the MTA (the governing body for New York’s public transport system) tried to ban the ads from the NYC subway for using the word period. #WTF
For part of the Thinx campaign, Miki reached out to her customers and asked them to complete the sentence: “Thinx is _______.” Here are a few of my favorite responses:
“Thinx is a connection to the Goddess within.”
“Thinx is the key to my fluid existence.”
“Thinx is strength, dignity, and freedom for all women.”
The last one in particular speaks to what Miki calls “period pride.” As she puts it, period pride is “the importance of experiencing our periods as a time of cleansing every month, as our connection to the moon, and to each other as women.” And for me the story of Thinx—from “too icky” for women’s magazines (!) to being named one of TIME magazine’s best inventions of 2015—proves that the time for period pride is now.