Women's Health: Surrendering to the Waning Moon

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The waning moon appeared before daybreak this week. It was exquisitely beautiful, a thin crescent hanging low in the eastern sky. There she is, always reflecting back to us the ebb and flow of our bodies and the tides. And as the moon wanes, perhaps our bodies as women are letting go too. Our cycles reflect to us as women, the phases of the moon. And just as the moon waxes and wanes so do we.

Ever notice how things seem to have a natural cycle to them? We get and idea, start a project, bring that project to fruition and then kind of peter out for a few days or a few weeks to regroup. I have found that so much in my experience of life reflects this natural cyclical framework. Sure there is the overarching seasonal cycle of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. But many things in our lives work on cycles that reflect a smaller scale than the one of the earth transiting through its yearly dance with the sun. We are cyclical beings, and as women, this is particularly evident. Not just in our menstrual cycle, or moontime as I prefer to call it, but in the way we experience reality and our lives.

And our outer world and social structures are not geared towards this monthly ebb and flow of energy and focus, production and rest. We are expected to show up every day, in the same way, with the same measure of accomplishment as every other day. The 40 hour work week is not conducive to our way of being in the world. And I’d like to add, as someone recently reminded me of, is based on the presumption that you’ve got someone at home holding down the fort, so to speak, in order to make the 40 hour work week even plausible. It was never meant to function in a way that drove all adults out of the home to be enslaved to a system that served that needs of production and growth versus tending the home and soul of life itself. But hey, that’s another post. Actually, probably a whole book.

Some might call me old school, but I’m just speaking to the deep soul’s longing that I see arise in the people that I work with. What’s life really about after all. When everything is said and done, it has nothing to do with how many toys you have or how much money you’ve got in the bank. It’s about relationship and connection. I don’t care how much money some has. If at the end of the day, they don’t have a hearth to come home to, and table to gather round, life is meaningless.

And these soul qualities for which we long, are tended by the nurturing principle that is deeply intwined with the ebb and flow of life itself. Which understands and respects that there is a time for activity and a time for rest. And our bodies as women reflect this back to us. There is no way that we can extricate ourselves from this dance that is tied to nature herself.

I like the term moontime better than period or menses. It feels more true and real and affirming of our experience as women. The word menses and menstruation derive from the Greek word “mene” meaning moon - the origins of the English words month and moon. So our hormones move through a great ebb and flow every month during our reproductive years. And during menopause, I believe the influence of the moon continues to be significant to us, even when we no longer bleed. Just as the moon moves through her phases, so do our bodies. As women, living our lives in a way that honours this cycle is important. Knowing the time to act and the time to rest.

While many women’s cycles do not align exactly with the moon, we often think of the phases of the moon representing the different phases of a woman’s monthly cycle. The full moon symbolically representing ovulation and our most fertile and outward time. The waning moon by contrast, representing the days leading up to our next bleed. And the dark moon, representing our moontime itself. A stillpoint before we head forth into the next moon cycle once again. And just as our cycles reflect these phases of the moon, so does the natural ebb and flow of our being. The dark moon, a time for inner reflection and intuition. The new moon, having listened deeply, we consider what new projects or ideas to manifest. The first quarter, a time to work diligently towards the fruition of that project, which comes to manifestation at the full moon. The ten days before our next period, our energy no longer outward, we ease up on the demands we put on ourselves. We get cozy, drink tea and stop the superwoman patterns of overdoing. Well, at least that’s how it would be in the ideal world.

But our world does not operate according to the cycles of the moon, and so we expect ourselves to be able to show up every day in the same way, regardless of how we are feeling and how the energy is naturally moving through our bodies. It takes a great deal of wherewithal to carve out a way of being in the world that allows us to live our lives in a way that honours these natural cycles.

I want to encourage you to begin to cultivate awareness around your own natural cycle of activity and rest. To trust that it is OK to surrender to it. And by doing so, that we will then have the renewed energy to pick up once again, after having rested, nourished and drank deeply from the well. Can we move with this natural flow of activity and rest instead of push against it, resist or try to overcome it? Can we trust that is it safe enough to do so?

So here we are, in the last days of the moon as she wanes into the darkness of another new beginning. Find the reflections of this ebb and flow in your own life and your own body’s rhythms. Let us remember that each moment offers surrender and letting go. May we be deeply nourished and drink from the well of source to be renewed once again.