I have something special to share…my beloved step daughter Katie started her Moon time. I have been so honored and touched to be here for her. It has shown up as an unexpected gift and has brought our close and loving relationship that much closer and deeper. She has really sought me out during her time here, enjoying many “girl talks” in the bathroom, outside, in the car or where ever we have some time just the two of us. We’ve been sharing so much and I feel enriched and blessed by beautiful, funny, deeply insightful and aware, loving, super caring, highly intelligent (and that’s an understatement!!) and magnificently playful, Katie Rose.
I asked her if she’d like to have a gathering and simple ceremony to honor her now coming through this doorway into her monthly menstruation bleeds, into becoming a woman and this sacred connection she shares with all women, Grandmother Moon and our beloved Earth Mother. She was very happy about the idea so she brainstormed who to invite and I organized and prepared it.
We held the gathering and ceremony earlier this month at Hawthorn Farm. It was amazing!! One of Katie’s beloved “Aunties”, Natalie came, as well as Bobbe Branch , a wonderful elder at Wilderness Awareness School who has known Katie her whole life and who married me and Nate. Katie also invited 3 of her close friends here who have also started their Moon time.
We had the ceremony in the beautiful new garden yurt at Hawthorn and I decorated it simply and colorfully with goddess prayer flags made by my dear friend, Sheya , and we made an altar in the middle of the yurt with one of my scarves from Lugu Lake (one of the last matriarchal societies in China), candles, sage, a wooden turtle, goddess statue, sweet grass and a bowl of fresh ,wild water from the creek in the nearby forest.
We sat in a circle with Katie’s place adorned with a golden scarf from Yunnan Province, said our gratitudes led by Bobbe, sang an opening song and dove into such a sweet, loving, and deeply meaningful ceremony. I had all the women bring a small gift/ treasure to present to Katie to put in a special “Moon time pouch” I had (a leather pouch lined with rabbit fur and a red letter draw string — Nate had given it to me made by one of his students and I thought this was the perfect use for it :)). We all took turns sharing our: 1) appreciations of Katie; 2) some words of wisdom/blessings that went with our gift; and 3) some of our own story about our Moon time — as Katie LOVES hearing other people’s stories, as well as telling her own.
Katie was just beaming through the whole thing!! So radiant!! She then had made some of her own little gifts for everyone present. They were little clay wild animals she sculpted and painted — amazing and so cute!! She did her own round of appreciations for each person — and I felt I could see myself as a young girl/woman through Katie.
She also shared some of her own story and everyone felt so so deeply nourished and connected in this sacred and timeless lineage of women extending long in the past, in the present and into the future. The magic of Moon
time was honored and came alive in us all. It was so so beautiful!!
We then took the bowl of wild water, as Katie’s Moon time arrived in her homeland of Cascadia, the Land of Water — and we are a family who honors water, performs water ceremonies, and Katie has also been asked to hold the Water Alter at our Night Turtle Dance Ceremony — so I thought it perfect to honor the wild waters that sustain us, that make up our own blood, and use it to honor Katie and her beginning of her Moon time cycles. I gave her a couple choices on how to do it, and she chose the option of us all dipping our fingers into the bowl at the same time, her counting to 3, and then having us all bless her with sprinkled water from our finger tips as we exclaimed a joyous, “YAY!!!”
We sang one more beautiful song and were complete.
And we went outside to enjoy our potluck feast among the garden, wandering ducks, sniffing rabbits, chewing goats and happy crows. 🙂
I feel as if we all received a ceremony that night…and not only all of us present, but all women on our Planet. I am very grateful to be a woman. And I now understand the power and importance of creating and holding Moon time ceremonies for our young girls as they journey on their path to Womanhood. It’s not only important for them but for all of us who never had a ceremony when our own monthly Moon time bleeds began. After supporting, loving and upholding Katie in all her radiance through her ceremony, I too have received my own.
(This pic is of JOYOUS snuggling with baby rabbits after the completion of the ceremony—I didn’t get one of all of us)
