Moontime: To Honor or Banish?  

by Brooke Medicine Eagle

Too many people-both women and men-have forgotten to honor the time of women's blood. Much is suffered from incomplete knowledge of this blood and its meaning. The time has come for us to awaken and again find the depth of meaning that Mother Earth and Father Spirit gave to us through it. In the article, "Sacred Time, Sacred Way," I give a call for powerful use of the energy and spiritual changes of the moon cycle. Now I shall explore further how to honor this sacred time.

Missing Medicine Women

Through adoption of European puritanical ethics and through our human forgetfulness, we have ceased acknowledging the deep significance of women's wombs and their blood-which make possible creation of the human race. Many see women's blood as bad, negative or unclean, and feel that women should hide themselves and be ashamed during this special time. Even some who understand differently can create this feeling in the way they handle women on their moon time around ceremonies and special functions; women are quite often asked to leave the circle without adequate explanation of the reasons. Thus the women feel banished and unclean.

 

This has come about as male medicine teachers and sweat lodge leaders have come out among the people without their female counterparts. In the tribes with which I am familiar, the medicine man did not formerly act alone or have to handle everything; with him was his wife or female helper, always there to help him and handle any issues relating to women. Many who lead ceremonies today either do not have the knowledge or take the time to instruct women who come on their moon time. Yet this is something that must be done so learning can take place and the dishonoring can end.

 

Responsibility to Honor

 

The time has come for anyone who does ceremony and excludes women to take the responsibility of honoring those on their moon time before they leave the group, by giving them adequate (even if brief) guidelines of how their energy can best be used, reminding them of the great power of this experience they are having. (See "Women's Moontime, A Call to Power" in the article section,) Since moon time is the most receptive time of the whole two-legged experience, women can be instructed simply to find a peaceful place nearby, go into quiet meditation, look through the now transparent veil into the Great Mystery, and call forth vision for themselves and their people. A special time can be set aside after the ceremony for these women to bring back to the community whatever thoughts, intuitions, visions or dreams have come to them as they sat apart. In this way, even as they sit apart, the women sit in an honored place. Something this simple would completely change the complexion of moon-time women's experience around ceremonial functions, and would benefit everyone.

Intensity of Power

It can also be explained to all present that because the feminine comes first in all things and thus holds great power, much energy is whirling about each woman in her most feminine time, whether or not she can perceive it and guide it. (Most who are responsible for talking with women about it either do not perceive it or cannot find adequate words to express and explain.) Just as with all our energy, this whirling, de-structuring, flowing energy affects everything and everyone around, and in a more profound way because of its great power. Thus it can indeed change the direction or movement of a ceremony. As we all become more sensitive to subtler energies, we will have a deeper understanding within ourselves of how this energy affects events and people, and how best to use it and ourselves during this time. If we perceive it ourselves, then no one has to tell us what is happening-we will know very deeply ourselves.

Sweat Lodge

The connection between moon-time women and the sweat lodge also needs attention. My sister, Norma Cordell, Nez Perce-trained teacher, reminds us that the first sweat is within the mother's womb as we are being birthed. The sweat lodge thus comes from a woman's body, in a sense. Should purification lodges for women be held in this time of personal purification? Are they necessary or useful? How do they affect women's health? All these questions and more are still to be answered satisfactorily. My sense at this point is that we are already cleansing and that our energy can best be directed into quietly looking through the veil of Mystery as visionary activists for our people. This means stepping aside at this time.

Menarche

There is a sacred rite among the Lakota people given them in vision to Slow Buffalo by White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman a long, long time ago. In his vision, Slow Buffalo saw a great people bringing a girl child to a sacred center place, a buffalo wallow. These people all turned into buffalo, and the girl into a buffalo calf; a large bull came and purified this buffalo calf with red powder, then all came and licked her. He understood this to mean that this young one would then "go forth and bear fruit in a sacred manner, traveling to the end of the four ages. She would teach her children, too, to walk the path of life in a sacred manner." [Vern Louise Drysdale and Joseph Eppes Brown, The Gift of Sacred Pipe, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, p. 88.]

This rite is performed when a young girl becomes a woman, when her first moon-time blood appears. The purpose of the rite is to purify her, honor her and help her realize that "the change taking place in her is a sacred thing...for now she will be as Mother Earth and will be able to bear children." [Drysdale & Brown, p. 84] Among the Lakota people, after the rite is performed, all the people come and touch the young woman, for now she has much holy power. (See the cassette Maiden or the video Moontime)

White Buffalo Calf

Several years ago, a vision came to me which I am just beginning to understand. It seems connected to this honoring that is awakening again in our young women. I looked into the future and saw a buffalo cow standing facing me, her head near an oblong white object several feet long that she began to lick. At first, the object seemed to be a natural salt rock; it became a newborn white calf which the cow licked into aliveness. the baby eventually came to her feet and suckled, full of life. For me what I saw represents the rebirth of something sacred, of reawakening to the specialness of the feminine and of women's moon-time blood, and can serve to remind us of our responsibility as adults for bringing these ways to life once more.

Her Alone They Sing Over

It is important that we begin to honor the first blood and visions of our young women. The Lakota rite, called Her Alone They Sing Over, is very beautiful and contains the important elements of purification, honor and realization of the sacred. Certainly not all our readers are Lakota or red people, yet other cultures from all over the world practice similar ceremonies. All of us must awaken to the urgency of these kind of rites for the honoring and instruction of our young women. More spiritual education and honoring of this special gift of creation might help young women cherish this gift and not squander their capacity for creation unwisely and prematurely.

Now I ask you to reawaken your own traditions in some way, to create the basic elements of such a rite of passage for your daughters.