The Essence of Woman
Sacred Women's Business
Initiations of the Female Body
”In the realm of magic, blood is the most powerful product of the human body. It is a potent symbol of both life and death, healing and pain. When people bleed, they let things go, but blood is also a binding substance, a pledge as well as a purge. It seals oaths and cements connections between people”….
Women’s Sacred Blood Mysteries
Female shamans of today carry a powerful body of knowledge that was once practiced by our ancient sisters. It is a body of knowledge that is important for women to reconnect with and reclaim for their feminine illumination and empowerment. This body of knowledge is the root system from which we can seed, grow and awaken ’woman consciousness’ on the planet today.
Female shamans of today carry a powerful body of knowledge that was once practiced by our ancient sisters. It is a body of knowledge that is important for women to reconnect with and reclaim for their feminine illumination and empowerment. This body of knowledge is the root system from which we can seed, grow and awaken ’woman consciousness’ on the planet today.
What our ancient sisters recognised is that a woman’s body is a living temple and that women carry powerful and sacred medicine – they carry the mysteries of creation. A woman’s body was known as a spiritual teacher because it initiated women into the blessing and the power their womanhood through a passage of mysteries known as women’s blood mysteries. These blood mysteries are the biological events and physiologic milestones that herald major life changes within women. The passages into these mysteries are Menarche (first moon/blood), Pregnancy/Childbirth and Menopause. In times on the earth when both women and these feminine passages were held as sacred, deeply intimate rituals celebrated and honoured these passages. These mysteries birthed, nourished and sustained human communities, brought forth fertile riches from the lush soil of mother earth and the blood of women sustained humanities connection to the rhythms and cycles of the earth’s seasons and the cycles of grandmother moon.
As each woman journeyed upon the sacred path of the feminine experience, this body of feminine wisdom was passed on from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter and priestess to initiate. This spirituality connected women to each other, to their intuition and to the creative centre of power within their bellies. It allowed them to honour their emotions, hear their own voice, develop the art of sacred dreaming and claim the fullness of their womanhood. Their men deeply understood and respected their wise blood and the whole community would take part in numerous rituals, ceremonies and earth offerings that honoured this sacred essence of woman. These blood mysteries also gave women an innate sense of inner spiritual authority and they powerfully established a woman’s sacred role as a priestess who held guardianship of the threshold between the forces of life and death.
The first of these transitions into feminine power is the Menarche Initiation Rite
This is held at the time of a young woman's first moon to honor her crossing from girlhood to womanhood. There is a psychic and spiritual power available to women whist they are in their moontime and special ceremonies were created to honor a young woman at this time. During their moon/menstrual time women would often come together in a moon lodge. Here the young women would learn from their sisters, mother, aunties and grandmothers about the changes occurring in their bodies and within their psyche. During the days and nights of their moontime women were excused from domestic and communal duties and retreat time within the Moon Lodge was a sanctuary where women enjoyed the company and the sisterhood of other women. It was also believed that a woman’s moontime brought her great power to prophecise and dream in the future, which allowed her to powerful inform the community of important decisions that needed to be made. Indigenous men of today’s earth based cultures still honour these practices of sacred women’s business and they recognize the holy relationship that is sustained and nourished when the sacred blood of women is used in ceremony and is offered into the earth.
This is held at the time of a young woman's first moon to honor her crossing from girlhood to womanhood. There is a psychic and spiritual power available to women whist they are in their moontime and special ceremonies were created to honor a young woman at this time. During their moon/menstrual time women would often come together in a moon lodge. Here the young women would learn from their sisters, mother, aunties and grandmothers about the changes occurring in their bodies and within their psyche. During the days and nights of their moontime women were excused from domestic and communal duties and retreat time within the Moon Lodge was a sanctuary where women enjoyed the company and the sisterhood of other women. It was also believed that a woman’s moontime brought her great power to prophecise and dream in the future, which allowed her to powerful inform the community of important decisions that needed to be made. Indigenous men of today’s earth based cultures still honour these practices of sacred women’s business and they recognize the holy relationship that is sustained and nourished when the sacred blood of women is used in ceremony and is offered into the earth.
The second of these transitions into feminine power is Pregnancy and Birthing
”If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing”….Agnes Sallet Von Tanneneberg
It was recognised in ancient societies as it is in today’s earth based cultures that throughout pregnancy every cell within a woman’s body is bathed in vital life giving energies that magnify her connection with the creative forces of the universe. She becomes intrinsically connected to the life growing inside of her sacred mammas belly and her feminine essence is deeply evoked as her psychic connection to other energetic realms awakens powerful responses within her spirit. Her womb is the primordial doorway of creation, an ancient and holy vessel that holds the power of life and death and she will open physically, emotionally, spiritually and energetically as she prepares to become the great gateway through which the divine forces of love and light enter the earth plane in the form of her baby. And as she births her baby into the world she stands upon the ancient threshold between life and death. The veils between the two worlds are thinner at birthing time and she holds a very sacred space between the two realms whilst her baby moves from one world into the other. It was also known in priestess times that women could decide whether or not a soul would enter the world of flesh and matter. It was her decision whether to internally choose to terminate a pregnancy or not. I have personally experienced the power of this sacred act of intention when I chose to not go ahead with a pregnancy and it heightened my sense of stewardship of this ancient primordial energy.
”If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing”….Agnes Sallet Von Tanneneberg
It was recognised in ancient societies as it is in today’s earth based cultures that throughout pregnancy every cell within a woman’s body is bathed in vital life giving energies that magnify her connection with the creative forces of the universe. She becomes intrinsically connected to the life growing inside of her sacred mammas belly and her feminine essence is deeply evoked as her psychic connection to other energetic realms awakens powerful responses within her spirit. Her womb is the primordial doorway of creation, an ancient and holy vessel that holds the power of life and death and she will open physically, emotionally, spiritually and energetically as she prepares to become the great gateway through which the divine forces of love and light enter the earth plane in the form of her baby. And as she births her baby into the world she stands upon the ancient threshold between life and death. The veils between the two worlds are thinner at birthing time and she holds a very sacred space between the two realms whilst her baby moves from one world into the other. It was also known in priestess times that women could decide whether or not a soul would enter the world of flesh and matter. It was her decision whether to internally choose to terminate a pregnancy or not. I have personally experienced the power of this sacred act of intention when I chose to not go ahead with a pregnancy and it heightened my sense of stewardship of this ancient primordial energy.
The third of these transitions into feminine power is Menopause
Menopause is the final initiation that a woman’s body will give her passage through. This transition was once considered to be a great passage for women - a final initiation of the body when a woman comes into her deepest and fullest wisdom and power. The emotionally and spiritually rich landscape of menopause is a time when a woman’s wise blood and her creative lunar forces are drawn powerfully within herself to potently inform her intuition and her dreaming. This was the time when a woman enters her Crone years and it is a time when a woman enters into the deep underbelly of the dark mother and incarnates her greatest feminine power. She also enters a deeper experience of her sexuality and explores realms of pleasure that are not available to her during her earlier years. The awakening of serpent power within women was a core development of sexual yoga and in ancient times it was cultivated from a young girl’s first moon. Kundalini is her body's "psycho-sexual" energy and it powerfully awakens her connection to the realms of spirit in her dreamtime, during trance in ceremony and sacred dance, in her day to day living and it is powerfully circulated through out her entire body during lovemaking. Her capacity to love, bare all of her pleasure and allow her body to open to the flow of life’s energies surging through her veins reveals her most attractive quality – she has fully embodied, magnified and deeply vesselled the feminine beauty and grace of the great goddess.
Menopause is the final initiation that a woman’s body will give her passage through. This transition was once considered to be a great passage for women - a final initiation of the body when a woman comes into her deepest and fullest wisdom and power. The emotionally and spiritually rich landscape of menopause is a time when a woman’s wise blood and her creative lunar forces are drawn powerfully within herself to potently inform her intuition and her dreaming. This was the time when a woman enters her Crone years and it is a time when a woman enters into the deep underbelly of the dark mother and incarnates her greatest feminine power. She also enters a deeper experience of her sexuality and explores realms of pleasure that are not available to her during her earlier years. The awakening of serpent power within women was a core development of sexual yoga and in ancient times it was cultivated from a young girl’s first moon. Kundalini is her body's "psycho-sexual" energy and it powerfully awakens her connection to the realms of spirit in her dreamtime, during trance in ceremony and sacred dance, in her day to day living and it is powerfully circulated through out her entire body during lovemaking. Her capacity to love, bare all of her pleasure and allow her body to open to the flow of life’s energies surging through her veins reveals her most attractive quality – she has fully embodied, magnified and deeply vesselled the feminine beauty and grace of the great goddess.
For more information on Women’s Mysteries see Upcoming Ebook!