her moon

I have always been fascinated by the coincidence of the female cyle with that of the moon. I haven’t researched it thoroughly, but I have found, as always, skeptics who say that the similarity between the length of time of a woman’s menstrual cycle and the lunar cycle is just a big coincidence and doesn’t mean anything. But I choose to believe differently. I don’t have any scientific basis. I just think so.

As my body has been changing to accomodate the life within, I have become more conscious of the animal body that I have. How my body is tied to the earth. To the cycles of nature. To the tides. It’s easy to forget. It sounds inane even to talk about. But in our neat house boxes with lightbulbs and flushing toilets…life seems too clean for us to be tied to the earth. But we are. My breasts are getting heavier in preparation. My belly rounder. I see myself in the Willendorf Venus. That ancient mother.

her moon, mixed media, 16×20 inches

“The Earth’s moon has been personified as female and has been perceived as a symbol of the feminine principle since time memorial…
The obvious similarity between the phases of the waxing moon, from the thin white crescent that is seen in the evening sky following the new moon to the full white circle which graces the sky fourteen nights later, and the gradually expanding belly of an impregnated woman was most certainly taken note by many anciet fertility cults…” -Robin Edgar

“People are 80% water. And the changes in barometric pressure changes tides…does that change how we act or react? Some say yes, others no. Those that say no site the power of folklore/tradition/urban legends, misconceptions and cognitive biases…Talk to nurses who work labor and delivery on a regular basis, midwives, busy doulas or experienced childbirth educators and they will all tell you that they believe in the power of the full moon plus changes in barometric pressure from cold/warm fronts”

“Robert Briffault’s seminal work ‘The Mothers,’ published in 1927, informs us that:
‘The correspondance between the cycle of sexual function in women, and of the menstruation cycle in particular, with the cycle of lunar changes has forced upon the notice of even the rudest and most primitive peoples. The periodicity of those functions is naturally reckoned by women, in every part of the world, by the changes of the moon, and their whole life is thus regulated by that body. Menstruation, that is ‘moon-change’, is commonly spoken of by all peoples as ‘the moon’. The peasants in Germany usually refer to women’s period simply as ‘the moon’, and in France it is called ‘le moment de la lune.’ The Mandingo call menstruation ‘carro’, that is, the moon; the Susus call it ‘kaikai,’ wich also means ‘moon’. In the Congo menstruation is spoken of as’ngode’, that is ‘the moon’. In Torres Straits the same word means both ‘moon’ and ‘menstrual blood’.'” -Robin Edgar

http://redmoonrising.homestead.com
http://www.birthsource.com