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| The Moon is a symbol of Nature's cycle of
birth, life, and rebirth. It represents the feminine principle, which is
personified by the Triple Goddess (Maiden/Mother/Crone). It is important to consider the appropriate lunar phases (Waxing, Waning, or Full Moon) when planning your magick. It is also extremely useful to align your spellwork to coincide with the appropriate astrological influences, to further aid your magickal goals. For example: Spells and rituals involving the element of earth should be performed during a time when the Moon is positioned in one of the three astrological earth signs: Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorn. Spells involving the element of fire during Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius. Spells involving the element of air during Gemini, Libra, or Aquarius. Spells involving the element of Water during Cancer, Scorpio, or Pisces.
Tea for Working Moon Magick
From
Willow's Cupboard |
Below are listed astrological signs and their
correspondences to magickal applications: MOON IN ARIES is the best time to work magick involving leadership, authority, rebirth, spiritual conversion, or willpower. Healing rituals for ailments of the face, head, or brain are also done during this period of time. MOON IN TAURUS is the best time to work magick for love, real estate, material acquisitions, and money. Healing rituals for ailments of the throat, neck, and ears are also done during this period of time. MOON IN GEMINI is the best time to work magick for good communication, change of residence, writing, public relations, and travel. Healing rituals for ailments of the shoulders, arms, hands, or lungs are also done during this period of time. MOON IN CANCER is the best time to work maick for home and domestic life. Healing rituals for ailments of the chest or stomach are also done during this period of time. MOON IN LEO is the best time to work magick involving authority, power over others, courage, fertility, or childbirth. Healing rituals for ailments of the upper back, spine, or heart are also done during this period of time. MOON IN VIRGO is the best time to work magick involving employment, intellectual matters, health, and dietary concerns. Healing rituals for ailments of the intestines or nervous system are also done during this period of time. MOON IN LIBRA is the best time to work magick involving artistic work, justice, court cases, partnerships and unions, mental stimulation, and karmic, spiritual, or emotional balance. Healing rituals for ailments of the lower back or kidneys are also done during this period of time. MOON IN SCORPIO is the best time to work magick involving sexual matters, power, psychic growth, secrets, and fundamental transformations. Healing rituals for ailments of the reproductive organs are also done during this period of time. MOON IN SAGITTARIUS is the best time to work magick for publications, legal matters, travel, and truth. Healing rituals for ailments of the liver, thighs, or hips are also done at this time. MOON IN CAPRICORN is the best time to work magick for organization, ambition, recognition, career, and political matters. Healing rituals for the knees, bones, teeth, and skin are also done at this time. MOON IN AQUARIUS is the best time to work magick involving science, freedom, creative expression, problem-solving, extrasensory abilities, friendship, and the breaking of bad habits or unhealthy addictions. Healing rituals for ailments of the calves, ankles, or blood are also done at this time. MOON IN PISCES is the best time to work magick involving dreamwork, clairvoyance, telepathy, music, and the creative arts. Healing rituals for ailments of the feet or lymph glands are also done at this time. |
WORKING WITH THE MOON
| Women, The Goddess, Moon and Blood Magick -- (c) By Gaia Women have been associated with the moon for longer than the human being has been human. Unlike early man, woman could bleed in harmony with the cycles of the moon, and not be harmed. When women live together in close proximity, their cycles become coordinated; in natural light they tend to ovulate on or around the full moon, and bleed on or around the waning or dark moon. Furthermore, menstrual blood has very magickal qualities: it attracts some animals and repels others; and it is an excellent fertilizer. Imagine the effect this had upon early man, who bled only with great danger or harm; and who survived on hunting and agriculture. "Menstruation is the most regular thing to happen to human beings. Herein lies the genuine power of menstruation, and what it has meant to human history. Menstruation and its connection to the regular movements of the moon, gave us time in large exact measurements and proportion. Without menstruation and the sciences of measurement women developed from watching first the moon and then the stars, there would be no clocks or watches, no astronomers, no mathematicians or physicists, no astronauts, none of the architecture and engineering which have been born from exact measurement and proportion. We could build a nest, like a bird; but not a pyramid or rectangle or any other regular, geometric shape. Geometry was a gift of menstruation." (from "Sacred Blood", see references below) THE BELT OF THE SHAMANESS: As women learned to control the products of our bodies, another result was the art of magick, which developed from such physical properties -- blood power and its effect upon animals and plants. Knowledge of how to use menstrual blood as a powerful positive/ negative force, gave women a special magick for hunting and tracking and trapping, and for playing tricks on the animal family; as well as the plant kingdom. Shamanism, and its sister sorcery, grew from such arts. (from "Sacred Blood", see references below) It may be that the first clothing was a menstrual belt and fiber pad, not for modesty or cleanliness, but worn to catch the valuable substance of the monthly flow in order to use it in applied sciences and magick. If you look at images of early Goddesses called the "Venus figures", you will see that most of them are wearing only "belts" slung low around the hips. (NOTE FOR MALES: It is equally important for you to understand these truths about your sisters and the Goddess. Also, modern male biochemistry has proven that males have a (perhaps more subtle) monthly cycle as well, so this information is also for you!) THE WOMAN"S FRIEND, SABBATS, and WORTH-SHIP: The oldest word for menstruation means "woman's friend". In some cultures, menstruation was orginally called "tupua", a Polynesian word meaning valuable, sacred, wonderful, magickal; the word/concept "taboo" developed from it. The days of menstruation were set apart from other days. In Babylonia, they were called "sabbatu" from which we get "Sabbat/ Sabbath". Repeated practices that women developed in order to teach, confirm, and make social the powers of menstruation were called by words derived from "ritu" -- at base, rituals and rites mean public menstrual practices. (from "Sacred Blood", see below) "The female genital, source of blood for the magick of hunting and agriculture, source of keeping track of time, source of counting and measuring, source of geometry and babies and umbilical cords and the knowledge of tying, of connections; of flowering and fruiting and desiring -- the female genital was worth-shipped, the female body was held valuable as a source and as a force; held valuable because of the sciences its mind produced and the wealth of culture that followed after." (From "Sacred Blood", see below) So HOW did we get from "worthshipping" and "the woman's friend" to "icky curse"? The answer is a long story of power, authority, their abuse, and public relations. One of the most important and astonishing stories on earth concerns the jealousy many men feel toward women -- their magickal menstrual and birthing powers, and the solutions they have developed to deal with this. In cultures throughout the world, there are male practices that involve some kind of genital cuts to imitate a bleeding vagina. For example, even when a male Jew is born circumcised, he must endure a cut because it is necessary that blood actually flow from the genitals. In many aboriginal tribes this involves more severe practices -- even the cutting of the underside of the penis -- called "subcision". In some tribes, the older women tell the young girls, "Don't laugh at the menstruating men." They know what is going on -- and now, so do we. In Greek myth, the Greek hero (origninally one who was dedicated to the service of the Goddess, "Hera") Herakles (later Hercules) goes on a journey to steal the Shamaness belt of the Amazon Queen, Hippolyta -- is this perhaps an important symbolic story, with an important message for us? The envy that many men felt or feel for the powers produced from women's bodies underlies much of their collective behavior. Men in general began imitating menstruation with their own bodies and pretending to give birth (for example, the story of Zeus giving birth to the Goddess Athena from his brow; the middle-Eastern god Marduk who slew the Goddess Tiamat and from the pieces of her body grew the world; or the Christian God "speaking" the universe into existence) As the male imitation of menstruation in a society is acted out more blatantly and as men come into more control of the powers women created and formerly controlled, authentic menstruation itself is driven underground. The blood that women produce monthly is hidden, forbidden, declared "unclean" and even shameful. Women are excluded from the very offices we developed, especially during menstruation and pregnancy. Menstrual taboos began as a way to protect ceremonial objects from the numinous, magickal power of menstruation - it was feared that menstruation was so powerful that it would "short out" other magickal or ritual objects. Only later, as patriarchal religions took over, did the taboos become negative. Now, women have been forbidden from so much as touching the altars of some religions, or even entering certain areas of churches and temples. Male blood-letting is considered "cleansing", while at the same time natural female blood is considered "dirty". The concept of ritual uncleanliness was used by men to suppress women's sphere of influence. The patriarchal label "unclean" was used to demean matriarchal/ Goddess customs. For example, the pig was sacred to Demeter and many Goddesses; so early Jewish and Muslim patriarchs declared it unclean; and it began to be used as a symbol to denigrate all women. In many myths, the cauldron was symbolic of the womb of the Goddess, from which all things come and to which they return to be recyled --and the cauldron was demonized by patriarchal religion. The Spider was symbolic of the "weaver" aspect of the Goddess, who weaves the destinies of all. There are dozens of such examples. The sacred pentagram of the Goddess, hidden within the core of the apple, her sacred fruit of immmortality -- was turned by patriarchal religion into a "satanic" symbol and the fruit itself into a negative symbol of rebellion. From the splendid history of menstruation as a great public socializing force, characterized by dazzling temples, special clothing and bodily decorations, feasts, festivals, etc. -- from a position central to human culture and the door through which females entered into the full status of adulthood with political and scientific clout -- menstruation has been violently reversed over the centuries into a private, shameful act, equated with being slightly ill or weak. The status and social control women once had has fallen with the fall of menstruation. Because the male sex can acquire the blood for blood-power and magick only by the use of pricking instruments like briars, thorns, knives, swords, etc, a reverse analogy developed whereby there is a cult of pain and disability associated with menstruation and childbirth. Menstruation, the original, natural source of blood flow, became falsely called "the wound." The story is one of the great contortions societies have suffered and are suffering, as men (in general) consolidate their newborn authority by imitating, replacing, and violently overthrowing the former authority of women, which derived from the powers of women's own bodies. RECLAIMING THE SHAMANESS' BELT& MOON-MAGICK: The priestessses of ancient times would be enraged if they could see what has happened to their sacred breads and meals (we get the word "cereal" from the Goddess "Ceres"; the Catholic "host" of the Eucarist was originally the sacred bread rituals that celebrated the bounty of Mother Earth's Harvests); if they could see how stripping the life elements out of flour to give it "shelf life" (and inserting various chemicals into it and the rest of our food has produced ill effects on our health) such that so many women believe that their sacred, powerful menstruation is a curse. It does not have to be! With wise nutrition and health practices, we don not have to suffer the physical problems many do with menstruation. Then we can begin to reclaim the magickal powers of the blood. We can see the moon with new eyes, hear the word "power" with new understanding. Women are again celebrating their sacred blood with menarche (beginning menstruation) and other menstrual rituals. They are learning to work *with* thier natural cycles rather than against them. Menstruation is supposed to signal a time of "inward turning", releasing of the old things to make way for the new. Women are once more using the menstrual time as one to turn inward and work on "lunar" skills like meditation, journaling, divination, getting to understand themselves better; releasing and banishing any "old business", to make way for the growth and outward-turning, productive energy of the next cycle. THIS is what it truly means to work with the Moon, with our own cycles. It is when we attempt to fight this natural cycle that we have problems with it. A wise woman is one who KNOWS, understands, values herself and works *with* rather than against, her natural cycles -- and who reclaims her sacred powers -- menstruation included. For more on this, see: "From Sacred Blood to the Curse, And Back Again," in _The Politics of Women's Spirituality_ Charlene Spretnak, ed. (Much of this article was taken from this source) _The Wise Wound_ _Moon Time_ by J Paungger and T Poppe _Dark Moon Mysteries_ by T. Roderick _Mysteries of the Dark Moon_ by Demetra George MENSTRUAL RITUALS: I have personally designed, presented and been to several menstrual rituals, including Menarche rituals. Suggestions: 1. Invite several women/ girls to a Menstrual ritual. Have them each bring the girl to be honored, two "gifts": one a physical, tangible gift (doesn't have to be expensive or fancy); the other a symbolic gift like "I gift you with strength and courage to follow your Bliss" or "I gift you with pleasure in being a woman, and enjoying your body"....) 2. Decorate with RED everywhere! 3. Sit in a circle and have each woman/girl share something about being a woman, or stories about their menarche, or whatever... 4. Sing some fun songs or chants, or read a funny poem 5. Be sure to emphasize the opportunity to reclaim femaleness, in all its joys and delights and sorrows and wisdom. 6. Dance, sing, have fun! 7. End with feasting, be sure to include something chocolate! |
