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It is time to honor the goddess Gaia:
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The Priestess
Hallie Iglehart Austen
Hallie Iglehart Austen is a priestess. One of the early leaders of the women's spirituality movement, she has dedicated her life to the return of the sacred feminine to modern life. She teaches the techniques of earth-centered ritual to groups of women and leads celebrations at equinoxes and solstices and other holy days for women, men, and children. Her first book, Womanspirit, came out in 1983 and influenced a generation of feminists hungry for a sense of woman -- as divine, whose spiritual yearnings could find only male gods and leaders in the established religions. Her latest book is The Heart of the Goddess: Art, Myth and Medications of the World's Sacred Feminine. Hallie lives in the hills above Point Reyes in northern California, in a round house that sits in a hollow in the land, surrounded by tall fir trees. She migrated here from Berkeley in 1986 to write and teach and live close to the earth. She writes in a small, cozy room at the top of a spiral staircase, with windows on three sides that look out at the swaying treetops and the blue blur of the ocean in the distance. It seems fitting that she live and work here, in this beautiful, still wild part of the planet, surrounded by earth and water, trees and sky.
After graduating from Brown University in the late sixties, Hallie traveled to Asia and was very attracted to the Tibetan Buddhists she met in Dharamsala in the northern Indian Himalaya. She studied with them, wintering in the high mountains and learning their ritual and meditation practices. In between visits to India she returned to the [United] States where she became involved with the growing feminist movement.
It was a split time for me. On the one hand I was very involved with the feminist movement, and then I would spend time in India studying what was in many ways a male-dominated spiritual tradition. Eventually the split became overwhelming, and she moved back to the United States to see if she could discover a sense of the spiritual that enhanced rather than contradicted feminism.
I decided to move to San Francisco, where so many exciting things were happening, and I continued my work with the Feminist Health Center. There the relationship between the patriarchy and women's health became very clear to me. I didn't have my period for a year and a half after taking birth control pills. Now it is something that I really guard and treasure because of having lived without it, and I felt that it was really something that the patriarchy robbed me of.
It was quite a revelation to start working at the Feminist Health Center and to see what these pills had done to my body. When I was taking them in the mid to late sixties, it was just considered wonderful if you could get them -- huge doses of hormones and no one was questioning it at all.
The first time I bled after that year and a half was very dramatic. I was cross-country skiing up in Yosemite. I was off by myself and I squatted to pee in the snow and this red fell on the snow. It was the first time I'd seen my menstrual blood in a year and a half. It was very beautiful. I remember that moment, even though it was seventeen years ago -- it was so visual. I was very happy because I'd been doing several things to try to get my period back. At the same time I had cervical dysplasia, so it was even more of a sign that my health was better, because I got rid of the dysplasia and got my period back. Because of that experience I've really treasured my period.
I remember in 1969 being furious with a lover, a man. We'd been lovers for quite a while, and he wouldn't make love with me when I had my period. I felt good about my menstrual blood but I don't remember thinking of it as sacred until I started getting into women's spirituality and the Goddess.
In 1975 Hallie and several [priestesses] created a menstruation ritual in Oregon for two hundred women. We did the blood ritual in a big meadow under a full moon. The main point was painting ourselves with menstrual blood and saying really affirmative things about menstruation. When we created the ritual, the idea was to counteract the negative ideas about menstruation. Doing that ritual was wonderful and celebratory -- I'm sure in retrospect that it really grounded me in my body in a way that I wouldn't have been otherwise -- that's always an ongoing process of course. [See appendix 2 for recommendations regarding HIV and the Use of menstrual blood in ceremony]
I've been through various stages in my relationship with my bleeding. I tried using sponges but they didn't hold enough for me. I can't remember when the shift of not using tampons came -- probably when toxic shock syndrome first appeared.
I don't always know enough to be able to plan around my bleeding --
sometimes I have a workshop scheduled months in advance.
I feel like I've gone through many phases with my bleeding.
Certainly there was a phase of really loving it and honoring it
and opening up with wonder to something that had been denied for so long.
After it became regular, I had severe cramps,
so that was a whole other teaching and journey --
learning to deal with the pain that demanded that I pay attention to it.
I honor my period as best I can.
[ my psychic teacher would communicate with her body when it was best to bleed,
altering her periodicity minimally to accomodate her schedule
-- celeste ]
I try to bleed on the ground at some point. It was a way for me to connect with the earth even when I lived in Berkeley. If I could go out and bleed onto a little plot of earth it was a way to ground myself even when I was living in concrete. That felt like a very important link, and it's something I recommend to women who live in cities. If you can, just take a moment to bleed onto the ground. Your cells are blending with the earth; you are connected to the earth by your blood being there. Here I'm surrounded by the earth so it's not so much of an issue. For me bleeding on the earth is an opportunity to experience it in a natural way. Sanitary pads aren't too natural but they are convenient -- whereas bleeding on the earth, that's real. It's important for me to tap back into how people lived in another time. That may sound romanticized but when you live outdoors you don't have to worry about bleeding on things -- Native Americans bled on moss.
What's changed for me more recently is allowing myself to do whatever I want to do on the first day of my period -- whether it's going off on a big hike, hanging around, or working. I'm allowing myself to be spontaneous, and if I don't do that I get cramps. I know why so many women in offices get menstrual cramps -- it's because they are sitting at desks. If you can [lay] down or walk or whatever it really helps a lot.
I think of the first day as the strongest time, I think of it as a transitional time, the time between bleeding and not bleeding. I feel something beginning the day before, a lot of things are going on in my body at a cellular level. Sometimes the second day is also very powerful. I feel most respectful whenever the flow is heaviest. When you're sitting there bleeding, bleeding, bleeding, it's hard to keep a normal schedule because this thing is happening that is quite miraculous and also requires attention.
A friend of mine told me of a woman she knew who, when she was menstruating, could always tell when blood was about to come. I was very struck by that. It made me want to be more aware, and now, when I start to feel the blood come, I go outside. It's partly environmental -- I use fewer pads -- but it's also paying attention to the fact that blood is coming out of my body. 1 stop what I am doing and let it happen. I see menstruation as a Zen practice, as a monthly practice. Again, because I didn't have my period for so long, I learned to watch it more because it was important -- watching it, asking myself what it was doing, watching it do its dance like the birds or the sky. This watching may have begun as a way to check in with my health, but now it's almost like this being enters my body, and I watch it do its dance for those five days. Attention can be a key thing for women reclaiming their cycles.
The last few years I have noticed extreme sexual energy around ovulation and menstruation. I feel myself particularly a priestess when I'm bleeding -- it reminds me of my connection with all my sisters and all our mothers. It is something so basic and yet so big, so dramatic. It's puberty rituals, we stay adolescents in some way. There has to be a reason why cultures have puberty rites. I see rituals and cycles as opportunities for letting go, for renewal and purification. Rituals are all about letting go of the old and making space for the new because we live on a planet of cycles. That's why menstruation is so important as we reclaim the true cyclical nature of life on this planet.
In ancient times starfire was replaced with the "mana" of
white powder of gold ORMES / ORMUS.
In modern times the atheist religion of western science has sought to
replace sacred starfire menstrual blood's hormones of spiritual awakening
with highly profitable patented pharmaceutical analogues,
and to replace beloved's stem cells youthing energies with horrendous
replacements e.g. from the biological material of aborted fetuses,
i.e. another form of murder/sacrifice.
The pagan goddess tradition cannot be replaced by death worshipping
reptilian's
misogynyst technologies,
no matter how angrily
Lucifer wishes to eradicate his own mother,
Queen Nin of the Orion constellation.
-- celeste
Faery blessings -- celeste
The Return of the Feminine and the Healing of the Planet
(from Her Blood is Gold)
We live at a time of increasing awareness of the female, when feminine values are being returned to the world. The world needs the creativity and compassion of women as it may never have needed it before. It needs women's particular and peculiar abilities in drawing down of the energy of the universe and manifesting it on the planet. Women, by virtue of their biology, have an automatic link to the Great Mother. If they choose to tune in to her through their wombs, they can access knowledge for the good of all.
This increased capacity for self-reflection and insight is not only of significance in the life of the individual woman but also for her Partner and family and the larger community around her. Society as a whole unconsciously benefits (and could benefit a lot more) from the wisdom garnered by women experiencing their bleeding with awareness. By becoming aware of this power and potential, we could stabilize our social fabric to a far greater degree. Who knows how much disharmony in family life is caused by women not paying attention to their natural rhythms? The Cherokee recognize that the menstruating woman is performing a function of cleansing and centering not only for herself but also for her family and, therefore, for the whole tribe.
The changing status of women in society offers great hope for the reintegration of female perspectives into mainstream thinking. The influence of women is already being felt politically in the ecology and peace movements. Menstruation is an integral part of the development of women's spirituality, both at the individual and collective levels. For women as individuals, the acceptance of the value and power of menstruation is a key to our ability to access the Goddess within. Collectively, all aspects of womanhood need now to be acknowledged for their highest potential. The denial of female wisdom has contributed to our present state of hanging on the cliff of potential annihilation through nuclear warfare, and the threat of destruction not only of our own species through nothing short of self-poisoning, but also the death of many other species living on the planet.
It is only a short hypothetical leap to come to the conclusion that the
denigration of menstruation and the denial of its power arose out of
fear and
envy of that power by male priests and rulers who wanted all the power
to themselves.
Where the battle between the sexes originated is [
open to speculation
intentionally hidden because
it is inimicable to the interests of patriarchy -- celeste ]
and
I don't want to go into [that] discussion here.
I prefer to assume that there has been a long-term purpose for the
evolution of the planet,
that it and its inhabitants experience patriarchy and the optimal
development of culture from a male perspective.
[
The planetary priorities are that
the entire physical world is in service to
extremely service-to-self non-resident interests. -- celeste
]
And it appears likely that before this patriarchal period there
flowered a matrifocal culture,
which died just as this present culture will die.
Rather than look back with longing at an imagined golden age of Goddess worship,
we can look forward to a future where
the whole of the Feminine and
the whole of the Masculine are given the opportunity to flourish.
This is a utopian dream,
but that doesn't mean it isn't a good place to aim our sights as a culture.
Sometimes we get caught in the nightmare of the collective,
swept up in horrendous news reports of atrocities perpetrated all over the globe,
made anxious by the knowledge of nuclear weapons testing,
the destruction of the rain forests,
the heartless mutilation of our fellow creatures in the name of science.
It pays to have a strong positive dream to counter-balance this horror,
and to be ceaselessly pouring one's energy toward that dream of hope in the future,
borne out of the knowledge of the essential magnificence of the dance of life and death.
The return of the feminine and the healing of the planet are intricately intertwined. We cannot have the change in the macrocosm that we know is essential for survival of life on the earth without a parallel shift in the microcosm. This has been well understood in the issue of recycling, and much of the focus of the environmental movement has been toward the individual. There is a strong relationship between our attitudes to our bodies, and our attitude to the larger body -- the planet [Gaia]. It is not simply our behavior toward literal waste that needs to change, but also our attitude toward our bodies and their waste. When menstruation is called a curse and suppressed or ignored as much as possible, then we are wasting a precious aspect of life. We are missing the point that the experiences inherent in the female have a value, a value that goes beyond the limits that twentieth century Euro-Western society has allowed.
Menstruation and the Wisdom Not to Fight War
The political and social impact of our collective denial of the power of the menstrual cycle should not be underestimated. Discovering the levels of our disgust at our bodies and at the nature of femaleness is unpleasant, but this is vital to unraveling the threads that the patriarchal culture and belief system have wound around our freedom as Women, as [sentient] beings. Our throats have been strangled by these cords of self-disgust, as we stand by in horror and watch unnecessary wars fought; watch our sons killed and our daughters left without husbands; watch innocent people killed by bombing and by other horrendous means.
Behind this madness is the fact that women don't believe in themselves, and don't trust their own instincts enough to stand up and say, "No. My children will not die in this carnage. You will not destroy my family, my home, my town, my city, my country."
The essential nature of the female is not valued in this culture, and so we lack the confidence to stand up and exercise our power because we have largely forgotten what female power truly is. It has been debased into manipulation and acting behind the scenes, usually to aggrandize the husband (for example, Nancy Reagan) or acting more like men than men do (Margaret Thatcher).
What Is Female Power and How Could It Manifest in the World?
One of the ways that female power develops is by the careful gathering of self-knowledge and awareness through monthly meditation and retreat at the time of the bleeding. Female power is patience borne out of the experiences of gestation and child-rearing: nurturing an un-seen embryo for nine months, sitting for hours nursing, rocking a restless baby in the middle of the night. Female power is female wisdom, and female wisdom resides in the body and is manifested as a result of the experiences of the female body.
In a society that does not respect such qualities as awareness, sensitivity, patience, and ability to nurture, women don't respect these qualities either. They tend to skate with resentment over those times in their lives when those qualities could be ingrained into them, if they were available to receive them. If all women honored their bleeding and went into retreat every month, practicing rituals designed to increase self-awareness and self-love, the world would be a better place.
Men would discover their nurturing side as they took over the responsibility of child care and the home for those few days a month; children would be relieved the burden of an irritable and tired mother who really would much rather be putting her feet up with a good book, and they would also benefit from relating with other adults. Above all, the processes of the woman would once again be recognized as having an intrinsic value. Just as the body miraculously produces milk to feed the baby after it is born, so the body somehow produces wisdom in the psyche during menstruation -- if it is given the space. Women don't have to do anything. In fact the less they do the better. It seems to be a case of sitting reasonably still for a while, and letting it happen.
If women meditated every month, think how clear their minds would be when they emerged from their retreats. The leaders of the community should then go to them and ask, What should we do about this or that problem? and listen to the clear-minded and heartful response that they would receive.
Imagine for a moment, that there is a group of women who are nationally, perhaps internationally, recognized for their wisdom and for their ability to channel the wisdom of the collective. Perhaps some of them are crones who are past the age of menstruation, some of them are still menstruating. When there is a crisis, such as an impending war, these women would be consulted by the political leaders (perhaps they would also be the political leaders) and they would go into meditation (for those still menstruating, during their moontime). The knowledge of what action should or should not be taken would naturally emerge from them and would then be given to the larger community as a recommendation from the wise women of the land.
At the moment many of our wise women are working in the background, exerting what influence they can on a world driven mad by materialism and lack of spiritual connection. It is time these women came out to the foreground and changed the world. As Changing-woman herself spun the web of the beginning of time, so now she must emerge to shift the balance of power so that the children of our children's children will have a world in which to live and love.