Embracing My Period at a Woodstock Moon Lodge
By Roxanna Asgarian
We sit silently, the 12 of us women, in a wooded clearing on the 55-acre property of the Wise Woman Center. After a series of chants, dances, and songs, we settled in this circle from oldest to youngest, here on a farm outside of Woodstock, New York.
We’re at a moon lodge, and we’re here to celebrate our periods.
Susun Weed is leading the group. She’s an intimidating woman in her late 60s, wild gray hair tamped down with a handkerchief worn Willie Nelson–style. She emanates strength and a kind of hard dignity.
She starts telling us a story, in her booming, witchy voice, about how she was part of a group of women in the '70s who decided they needed to save the Earth. A wise woman teacher told them, “That’s ripe ego, to say you can save the Earth. The Earth will outlast all of us.” But her teacher did have one piece of advice about what the women could do for the Earth: They could give their menstrual blood to it.
To learn about how to attend a Moonlodge visit: www.susunweed.com/moonlodge.htm
Comments