It’s all about the Bloody Journeying

Ooh, so far, this has been a defining year.

 

Once I was accepted on to Alexandra Pope’s Women’s Quest Apprenticeship, it was clear that, life would never quite be the same.

 

The training, (although seriously, “training” doesn’t even begin to describe the experience!) was a series of beautifully crafted processes, transformations and wisdom sharing, such is the like I’ve never encountered.

 

Essentially over two separate residential weeks we were invited to truly meet ourselves.

 

And not just a polite shaking of hands kind of meeting. No, this was getting down and sometimes oh so messy with our psyches. Delving in to the different stages of our lives, from menarche (first period) to menopause and beyond.

 

All under the immensely skilful and watchful eyes and guidance of Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer, who run Red School Online, with the huge hearted Laura Tonello and Laila Torsheim to support. I must acknowledge how the teaching team of women working together was so inspirational; the celebration of each others skills, only lifting each other. All utterly powerful to witness. And how each of our teachers shared their authenticity was deeply moving.

 

By the end of the two residentials, each of us had relived our experience of menarche, traversed our menstrual cycles in several different forms, gone toe to toe with our inner critic, dreamt in to how we can serve the world, met the future wise woman within us, culminating in a pure celebration of ourselves.

 

And how we celebrated!

 

Every exercise was searching and challenging, as was the immensely courageous opening of hearts within the circle of sisters I’m sharing the apprenticeship journey with. We listened to one another’s moments of self-awareness, witnessed each others pain, celebrated the emerging joy coming from the healing wisdom, all with such love and compassion. We sang, we danced, we lovingly held space for each other.

 

My own journey was often painful, but deeply transformational, and allowed me to ease out of the comfiest of comfortable life sofas. In fact, not long after the first residential, with some acknowledgment to where I was standing in my menstrual cycle (my inner summer of ovulation), I found myself calling in to a national radio station to voice my feelings on medication to reverse the menopause. Never done that before! You’ll see why this was such a big deal…

 

…All my life I’ve had issue with my voice, with projection, with allowing myself to be heard. But even more transformation was to occur. Nearly two years after being gifted a recording studio session by my children, I broke through a whole heap of resistance, started seeing a vocal coach and stepped with confidence in to that recording studio and rocked my way to recording the perfect song choice. It was dedicated to my husband for his daily acceptance of every part of me. I also realised that it was unknowingly a 90s head tip to menstruality!

 

Please do enjoy the recording of “Bitch”, which would not have materialised were it not for sitting in circle with my Women’s Quest sisters and teachers.

 

Well, some real gifts have been borne out of the apprenticeship, so grab these while you’re hanging out in this blog post:

 

1) First is the ever so simple act of introducing cycle awareness in to your life. That’s menstrual cycle awareneness in your menstruating years, or with the lunar cycle, if you’re post menopause, breast feeding, not having menstrual cycles, or post hysterectomy.

Keeping a track of your feelings along with your cycle can be a treasure trove. To help you get started, download your chart here.

 

2) If you are following a menstrual cycle, really listen to what your body, emotions and psyche are telling you in the different inner seasons (more info on these in number 5). And for women journeying the menopause, the listening is paramount. What is your body asking you to do in this moment? What are your emotions saying to you? What is your intuition nudging you to do (listen ever so carefully to your intuition in your inner winter, especially when you are bleeding, the potential for insight can be staggering).

 

3) Once you’ve listened, then HEAR, I mean really hear what your needs are, this is as a means to truly support yourself. How can those needs be met? What do you need to do or perhaps more importantly, NOT do.

 

4) Self-care is key. Establish practices that feed you. This could be: self-care massage, yoga, meditation, your favourite exercise class, receiving a massage, meeting friends, spending time in mama nature, bringing health giving foods in to your life…the list is personal and endless. And if these practices are moved through with awareness as to how they nourish you, your self-care box is firmly ticked.

 

5) Intertwined with 2-4 is introducing the concept of the 1% in to your life. As Alexandra Pope also calls it, the homeopathic dose. Devoting time to self-care is deeply important, but when the time and frankly the inclination is just not there, what to do then? The 1% is a balm to your needs. What little kindnesses can you show yourself?

 

Here are a few ideas, working around the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle:

 

*That moment of slowing your step, if you can’t fully stop, while you’re bleeding in your inner winter.

*That moment of taking a breath when your inner critic speaks up in your inner autumnal pre-menstruum; maybe texting a friend who always lifts you when you’re down.

*That social event you duck out of at the last minute while you’re in your super sexy, inner summer, ovulation phase. Because actually its the 4th night on the trot you’ve gone out and suddenly you no longer feel super sexy and if you go there’s the very real chance of an energy slump that might really floor you – and…take a breath!

*That moment you bite your tongue, even though you want to tell everyone about your latest, greatest innovative idea in exciting, but still quite vulnerable, pre-ovulatory, inner spring. Knowing actually, its too early to share and any criticism might squash your precious idea shoots.

 

Find your own 1%s, your own small kindnesses that will ease unease.

 

I adore the simplicity, that the answers lie within you. All in your cycle guiding you to when and how to engage in the self-care, when to reach for a choco endorphin release, shift your exercise from Insanity to pleasurable yoga, make that presentation, write that blog post…yes my loves, it’s all there in cycle awareness.

 

If you would like to explore these gifts and possibilities of your menstrual cycle or menopause journey, you have options:

 

*Check our our latest Woman Kind offering here

*Opportunities for embodying these gifts with Womb & Fertility Massage,

*Simply having a consultation to explore how you can introduce menstrual cycle or menopause awareness as a support to your life. You can reach me at Leora@auraholistictherapies.com

*Red School, I can’t recommend enough, leads you on your own menstruality journey with Alexandra and Sjanie.

 

With heartfelt thanks and love to Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer and fellow sisters who sat in circle at the Apprenticeship.

 

Blessings x

Restoring the Soul – The Power Held Within a Mexican Shawl

“A rebozo is a long flat garment used by women mostly in Mexico” This is part of a description that comes from Wikipedia. It is a sentence holding such simplicity.

I thank Wikipedia for this, as I am always in awe of the rebozo’s simplicity when I use them in treatments. In reality they are beautiful, intricately woven shawls, steeped in mystery yet imbued with Mexican history; a garment which allows for release and effortless give, but is also a vessel for a deep sense of containment and security.
It’s history? “There is evidence that the rebozo was worn in Mexico in the early years of the Spanish colony, but its mysterious origin is unknown as well as how it became part of Mexican identity.” – Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Magenta Rebozo by Simon Grimberg

Despite its mysterious conception, it is filled with Mexican tradition; the weave, the order in which the rebozo is created, the pattern, even the honour of being the empuntadora who makes and attaches the fringe at the end.
It is a garment which is integrated in to so many areas of life, “Women wear it casually or formally as an accessory, and use it in practical ways: to cover their heads when entering church, as a shield from the sun, to keep warm, to carry a bundle, to hold a suckling infant, or in any number of creative ways.” – Frida Kahlo: Beyond the Magenta Rebozo by Simon Grimberg

Image: From Made in Mexico: Rebozo in Art, Culture and Fashion

Conversely, the rebozo was used as a scented death shroud, “Aroma se luto…has a particular herbal and floral infusion that is prepared over a length of time in the dry season. The infusion consists of dried tarragon, sage, cloves, rosemary, Spanish moss, apple mint, star anise, cinnamon, rose petals and calla lillies. Traditionally, this very special rebozo was used to wrap the deceased for their journey to the after life.” – El Viaje/ The Journey – Birth to Death (Information from the Made in Mexico: Rebozo in Art, Culture and Fashion Exhibition held at The Fashion & Textile Museum 2014)
It was revolutionary artist Frida Kahlo who made the rebozo most visible to the world, rarely being pictured not wearing one.

Image: From Made in Mexico: The Rebozo in Art, Culture and Fashion, Toni Frissell 1937

Having chosen to work with these exquisite vessels of love in my massage practice, I asked a client how she felt after experiencing an abdominal massage, followed by being wrapped in the rebozos. Her response was:
“I have always felt supported and empowered…as well as humbled, it makes you feel ok in your own body…it makes you feel you own your body, it makes you feel you have no body, you just are, you’re pure love, all that’s necessary, nothing else needed”

Oh, the beautiful power held within the Mexican shawl.
Fertility Massage Therapy Teacher and expert, Clare Spink runs Rebozo Workshops for birth workers and body workers. I was lucky enough to help out at one she held recently. Being witness and part of what unfolded, will be a day in my professional life I will never forget.

We were in a room of women and one beautiful-hearted Dad, who spent the day there with his 6 week old son, so that Mum could learn how to use the Rebozo and breastfeed when necessary.
For the birth workers they were eager to learn the techniques to help ease mamas in labour, help encourage a baby who is not lying in the optimum position for birth to turn, and give a different kind of support to their birthing women. For the body workers they were there to learn techniques that would leave their clients with a sense of weightless freedom; loosening stiff arms, legs and necks, so that they could now be swung, shimmied and unconsciously released. It’s hard to keep up resistance once the rebozo flow.

The learning had been fun in the workshop and there was a buzz in the room, then something extraordinary happened.
The atmosphere shifted from practice to sacred ceremony.

We were going to experience part of the Closing the Bones ceremony, which has Latin American and Asian origins. Traditionally it is a postnatal ceremony for bringing a woman back together after the physical, emotional, energetic and spiritual displacement of childbirth. But, for anyone who has been involved in a shattering experience; a break up, a loss, or even simply at the end of a massage when you want to feel your whole body come back together and reconnect, being wrapped in the rebozo is beautifully containing.
Back in the workshop, the women divided in to small groups. Time and respect was given to each woman, as the others slowly and consciously performed the wrapping and unwrapping. It was highly emotional for some, releasing for others, but the majority felt a deep peace in the experience.

Most beautiful was Closing the Bones with Mum and her baby who had just reached 6 weeks. I was moved to tears as baby peacefully fed, had a little cough, an extra cuddle from Mum and then snoozed peacefully on her breast. We wrapped them, with care, all gazing lovingly at baby Solomon, held safely in his mother’s arms. Once the wrapping was complete, we stepped away so that the two of them could just be together; be contained and held by the rebozos. Mum and baby lay together peacefully connected.

We invited Dad to step in and help with the unwrapping, which he did with such nurture and respect. After he unwrapped her head, and she opened her eyes, he placed a tender kiss on the forehead of his wife as she realised that her man had been part of what had just passed.

It was mesmeric, so moving, and it consolidated how this simple but intricate garment coupled with the act of ceremony, could have such a profound effect on the recipient.
When I ask a client at the end of her treatment, “are you OK for me to unwrap you?” The answer is always a sleepy “Nooo”!

If you would like to experience the exquisite rebozo as part of a massage treatment have a look here.
You can find more information on the rebozo here

Blessings
***Special thanks to the ladies who kindly allowed the photographs of the Rebozo workshop to included.