Category Archives: Hearth, Home and Heart

Everything starts as a Thought!

A dissertation, a dress, an airplane, this article, or a national holiday such as Thanksgiving…

The thoughts of Sarah Josepha Hale translated into action: she wrote letters to American politicians for 40 years(!) until Abraham Lincoln eventually proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November in the U.S.A. What does this have to do with us? Everything!

It took one woman only 40 years to change the tide of a nation, to create a legacy that is now an established tradition. We can do the same with Menstrual Monday!

Menstrual Monday is the Monday BEFORE Mother’s Day, since menstruation comes BEFORE motherhood (and typically long after…)

Menstrual Monday was conceived and birthed by Geneva Catchman in the 1990′s. Since then, grass root celebrations sprang up spontaneously anywhere a woman heard of the idea and was inspired to action. As one of these women I have been celebrating Menstrual Monday privately and publicly ever since I first heard of it

Popular culture, in most places on Earth, goes beyond devaluing menstruation. It is considered a taboo and the attitudes about it are fraught with stereotypes, distortions, prejudice, and misinformation. This has been the case for a few generations, and the legacy of such distorted negativity has been passed on from mothers to daughters since the times of our Great-Grandmothers (if not earlier), as well as through literature, media, billboards and corporations trying to sell feminine hygiene products to women.

It’s time for us to reclaim Menstruation from the “medical condition” and cultural nuisance status in which it was fossilized, to the empowering, renewing, and intuitive condition it truly is. And what better way to do this than to celebrate it in an international holiday?!?

In 2008, in celebration of Menstrual Monday, I built a temporary Red Tent Downtown Sebastopol (the Northern California town where my family and I live) with the help of a handful of women. The response was surprise, curiosity and awe, as women stepped into the Red Tent to find out what it was all about. Not one negative comment was made! Drivers passing by the plaza playfully beeped in response to our sign that read: “Honk If You Are On Your Period!” More than anything, this was an opportunity to educate women, as well as a few brave men, about the power of Menstruation.

What is the power of Menstruation?

Menstruation is the process by which our body sheds the inner lining of our womb, a highly nutritious life-sustaining tissue, which grows monthly in anticipation for new life, and is shed monthly in the absence of pregnancy. This life-giving substance nourishes any and all life, and will give your garden, or house plants, a shot of life that no commercial fertilizer can ever provide.

Menstruation is also our body’s monthly call for rest, renewal, and regeneration.

Menstrual Monday is one way to acknowledge the power of menstruation, to honor and celebrate it, to remember our unique and magical ability to bring forth life, as well as our amazing creative forces that can be otherwise channeled. It is a reminder that our body speaks to us, monthly, and that we need to listen… Menstrual Monday is also a call for unification in celebrating womanhood around the world.

This is an invitation for you to do just this! In the privacy of your home, in an intimate circle of women, or in a joyous public gathering – celebrate!

If it took Sarah Josepha Hale 40 years to change the tides in a non-electronic era, think what we can do in the age of internet and social media… We can change the world!

On May 7, in celebration of Menstrual Monday

DeAnna is inviting you to a Red Tent Activation - 

A Free online global event

Re-membering, Re-claiming, and Re-activating

our cellular memories of the RED TENT,

and birthing a new paradigm

for our current and future culture!

Women are birthing a new world -Join us for the quickening!

Click below to Freely sign up:

http://www.deannalam.com/red-tent-activation/

DeAnna L’am, (B.A.) speaker, coach, and trainer, is author of Becoming Peers – Mentoring Girls Into Womanhood and A Diva’s guide to Getting Your Period. She is founder of Red Moon School of Empowerment for Women & Girls™. Her pioneering work has been transforming women’s & girls’ lives around the world, for over 20 years.

DeAnna helps women & girls love themselves unconditionally! She specializes in helping women make peace with their cycle, instructs Moms in the art of welcoming girls to empowered womanhood, and trains women to hold RED TENTS in their communities. Visit her at: www.deannalam.com

Waldorf schools and families celebrate May Day today.  Children and parents will weave flowers into crowns in the morning.  In the afternoon, the children will dance and sing around the May Pole.  Strawberry shortcake may even be served!

We’ll all be singing:

“Here’s a branch of frosty May, a branch the fairies gave me!
Would you like to dance today with the branch the fairies gave me?
Dance away! Dance away! Holding high the branch of May!”

Here are a few pictures of the Waldorf Kindergarten classrooms at our school during the wee hours of the morning before the festivities begin:

Summerfield Waldorf School and Farm invites our you to join in the celebration today, Friday, May 4th, from 12:45-5:30pm, at 655 Willowside Road in Santa Rosa.

“Flowers will be springing up, and so will our feet! The May Faire is Summerfield’s special tribute to spring in all its glory. It’s a day when we gather to enjoy music, dance, good food, and the glory of just being together out-of-doors on our lovely campus.

Faire entry is free. Each child’s unlimited activities will cost $10, two siblings will cost $15, three siblings = $20. Food & drinks available for additional cost.” (via Summerfield’s website.)

Happy May Day!

Are your moods predictable? How about your sleepless nights? Fearless moments? Bashful bouts? “I don’t know what came over me!” we often exclaim, and usually we really don’t have a clue.

Enters the Moon…
Waxing and waning, the moon’s absolute predictable rhythm is change: two weeks of waxing followed by two weeks of waning, and round again… the moon’s movement is constant. Imperceptible at times, the moon’s expansion or contraction takes place continually, moment to moment.

Like the oceans, we are susceptible to the ebbs and flows of the moon, being physically comprised of 75% water, and having a menstrual cycle identical in length to the moon’s cycle around the Earth (both average 29.5 days).

We can live our lives oblivious to the tag of the moon, or in harmony with it. Given the predominant collective feeling of lack of order in an unpredictable world, what would it mean to live in harmony with the moon?

Start by observing.

Watch the sky tonight and see where the moon is. If you can cup it with your right hand it is waxing. With your left – waning. Start observing your mood today; Your ability to sleep; Your level of energy; Your needs; The phase of your menstrual cycle (premenstrual, menstruation, post menstruation, ovulation). You may want to keep a journal in which you track your observations over a few full moon-cycles. Pay attention and journal about the varying impressions, dreams, tempers, and frames of mind, as you and the moon cycle around. Don’t try to interpret anything yet. Rather, observe the phases of your inner landscape, those of the moon, and the correlation between them.

You are ready to play detective when you have observed yourself for a few cycles! Read your notes and start putting your inner jigsaw puzzle together: Do you see a pattern emerging? What were your moods, dreams, and needs during the expansion of the moon? Around the full moon? Through the waning phase? During the dark of the moon? What menstrual phase corresponded to each? I generally find that I am much more inclined to hibernate during the waning phase (typically before and during my menstrual flow) and feel expansive and social during the waxing one (typically post menstrual and ovulation phases).

Having mapped out the terrain – you can start dancing with it! Take into account the phases of the moon, and of your menstrual cycle, when you plan your activities. Where would you put your stuff meetings? Your vacation? A party? A meeting with your boss? An intimate conversation with your mate about where your relationship is heading? A retreat? Creative time? There are endless possibilities of weaving your activities to match your moods and needs during different phases of your cycle. You can take this a step further and match the color and feel of clothing or jewelery with your moods and needs in each of your cyclical phases.

Plan as you may, the unpredictability of life tend to pop up, regardless… There is no need to panic. If life throws you a curve ball, start by breathing, grounding, and asking yourself which phase are you and the moon going through right now? I find that an unpleasant surprise throws me into a downward spiral if I am in an inward phase (waning moon or menstruation) whereas I can easily take the same incident with a sense of humor and poise if I’m in an expanding time of my cycle.

Though life’s curved balls are unpredictable, it helps to know why we are reacting the way we do. We can give ourselves some slack, and be more compassionate with ourselves and others, when we have a deeper understanding of our inner workings as cyclical beings.

When you know yourself deeply, and honor your undulating monthly needs, you start dancing your own rhythms to your own drum!

DeAnna L’am, (B.A.) speaker, coach, and trainer, is author of Becoming Peers – Mentoring Girls Into Womanhood and A Diva’s guide to Getting Your Period. She is founder of Red Moon School of Empowerment for Women & Girls™. Her pioneering work has been transforming women’s & girls’ lives around the world, for over 20 years.

DeAnna helps women & girls love themselves unconditionally! She specializes in helping women make peace with their cycle, instructs Moms in the art of welcoming girls to empowered womanhood, and trains women to hold RED TENTS in their communities. Visit her at: www.deannalam.com