Women's Moon Centers 101

We have moon centers! This was news to me.

And it arrived at a workshop in Espanola, New Mexico at the Sadhana Solstice Retreat. The revelation: just how attuned our female bodies are to the rhythms of the moon.

I had always known our general sensitivity to the tides in terms of our menstrual cycles, but I didn’t have a full understanding of the beautiful pattern we move through physically and energetically every 27.5 days.

We have 11 Moon Centers in our body, and we dwell in each one for 2 1/2 days. Every woman’s rotation pattern is unique, and stays the same her entire life. This seems to be fairly basic and essential info about our Being. Yet what do we learn in school? Hardly anything about our own essence, it seems.

The wonderful woman teaching the workshop was Jivan Joti Kaur and she’s written 2 books: The Art of Making Sex Sacred and Dying Into Life: The Yoga of Death, Loss, and Transformation.

According to Jivan Joti Kaur, moon centers are: “Sensitive physical areas located on the woman’s body that are responsive to lunar energies and affect how we deal with our everyday life. ”

I will admit that I haven’t yet charted out my moon centers on my calendar but I have every intention of doing so! However, I don’t think I will check the calendar in the mornings and then have that moon center become part of the reality I create, but I can perhaps check in the evenings for a while to see what matches up — use it as a tool as I get used to it. Use this knowledge as you will and let me know what you think!

After a bit of research, I also learned that Moon Centers are used in tantric sexual interactions, but I know little of this and will instead refer you to this article.

To chart your moon center, we use a pendulum. The premise of a pendulum is that we have an energy field/aura that lies within our physical form, but also extends beyond the perimeter of our personal perimeter. The pendulum is sensitive to our higher truths within that energy field. We can ask it anything we like!

Steps to finding your personal moon center pattern:

1. Find a pendulum of sorts (a necklace does fine as long as it has a heavier than all the others bead/object), and hold it in front of you with one hand, over the other hand’s palm. Focus and center yourself, big deep breaths to bring you present.

2. Say the word, “yes” over and over, outloud or silently — and focus. Watch the pendulum react with either swinging forward or back, in clockwise or counter-clockwise circle. Make a note of how it reacts to “yes.”

3. Do the same for “no.” Everyone’s “no” and “yes” is different so pay attention!

4. You can now ask the pendulum whatever you like, and it willl answer with your “no” or “yes.”

5. Figure out what moon center you’re in right now by going down the list (below) and asking: “Am I in my . . . moon center?” and letting the pendulum answer for you.

6. Go through the list again and ask: “is ….. my next moon center?”

7. “is ……my third moon center?” And so forth!

8. Take out your calendar, and ask “Am I in the first day of my …..”? (whichever you’re in now). Followed by: “Am I in the first-half of the day of my …….” Then you can plot it out on the calendar, following your personal pattern and switching every 2.5 days.

The most important piece to understand with the different “aspects” of your centers, is that if you take care of yourself (your physical, mental, emotional, and energetic well-being) — the positive aspects of each center will be present. The more balanced we are, the more choice we have in being affected and it can become a beautiful subtle wave each month of various strengths. Here is a meditation to help balance your moon centers!

Our 11 moon centers:

1. Clitoris: very social, likes to network and connect
2. Vagina: also social, but deep cavity — tendency to be inward and pensive.
3. Thighs (inner organs also): most organized, to the point of obsession, you make your lists, clean, organize. Best time to do the things on your lists.
4. Navel: most insecure, which creates a lot of pain. Do: breath of fire, navel power sets, meditate, silence, go inward, write, be creative, dance. Don’t: chocolate fest.
5. Breasts/Nipples: most compassionate and heart-centered. Dangerous: might have a hard time setting your boundaries. Most likely to be sensual/sexual - affects whether you want to be touched.
6. Back of the neck - very romantic and erotic. flirtatious, takes risks and not very logical. Not a good time to make a decision but a good time to brainstorm. Not good for planning, meetings, or detailed work.
7. Lips: speech, communication. Words can be uplifting/effective. But if you’re not balanced, words can be harsh and alienating. Be careful or be still! May be most into kissing and erotic expression.
8. Cheeks: most dangerous! We’re crazy. Most emotional, illogical, and delusional. Emotions run away with themselves, say things we don’t mean, pick fights.
9. Earlobes: Self-righteous, connected to our values, more prone to activism and judgmental.
10. Eyebrows: most subtle part of our parasympathetic nervous system. illusionary/imaginary. Be creative or brainstorm and play! Don’t make decisions or go shopping, but dream.
11. Hairline (archline): Our halo. Wisdom, focused. Time you’re most connected to your essence. Great for decisions!

Face to face with my inner pain

My decision-making mechanism wasn’t cooperating when I was weighing whether or not to go on this retreat. It was a constant back and forth — I need to buckle down and work, but I’m depressed and not productive, but I’ll feel better if I’m productive, but I can’t even get up before noon because I don’t care, but I need the money, but this trip will be good for me, but maybe I’m just escaping, but the retreat is me facing myself rather than just a distraction.

Eventually, I packed, even as I oscillated between worrying that I was running from my problems and loving the spontaneity of it all. I used to travel constantly — crazy and wild spontaneous trips — and living in Austin I had settled down with all its benefits and drawbacks. I even wrote a poem, senior year of college, called “My trips, my drugs” – a seasoned vet at life highs/experiences. It was invigorating to get back to that part of me, I told myself, so long as I do it in such a way that I’m processing my experiences and taking care of myself.

I had gone to the extreme during my senior year – left every weekend, never even unpacked my boxes, up till 4 a.m. every night working or on the phone or biking around or dancing; slept on the couch, didn’t buy books for school, left for the last month of school for my 4th United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and speaking at the Asia Pacific Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production in Vietnam before going to Brazil to visit my sister volunteering in the favelas (slums) and do a research project on the Clean Development Mechanism’s affect on the pig farmers.

My body started saying no more – I lost my sense of time and my stomach wasn’t literally physically digesting well – a reflection of myself not digesting/processing my experience of the world.

I digress, however, so I’ll return to the roadtrip – and how wary (and worried) I was that I’d regress into an old pattern instead of embracing a spontaneous trip in a healthy, balanced way. In the end, the adrenaline rush of the getting back to wild trips – the reason why friends call and ask, “Where in the world are you right now?” – plus the intense need for healing won over.

With my confusion about my depression I wasn’t sure what I was facing – or least wasn’t yet aware. The roadtrip was healing in many ways in itself, a lovely precursor. There were 5 beautiful beings, Josh, Sophia, Andrew, Victor and myself. I was reminded of my passion for environmental-sustainability through discussions with Victor (a couchsurfing belgian friend who spontaneously joined us), of my interest and background in Waldorf/alternative education with Andrew (a fellow yogic Austinite), and came face to face with my inner darkness.

I loved traveling with others as spontaneous as myself – three of us had decided that day for the trip. We stopped at sunset to take photos and explore an abandoned ranch – dancing on the side of the road without our egos.

Next we ventured to Balmorhea Springs – cold springs off the highway and jumped in the water with the fish. Someone decided to photograph us doing yoga poses on the diving board and rocks in the water, so that it looked like we were walking on water. After having watched the others confidently and peacefully do their yoga during lunch, I felt really self-conscious. I’m pretty sure they’ve all done yoga teacher training. I knew most of the poses that they were practicing, just lacked the confidence to just be present and listen to my body and let go of my ego. I tried to be comfortable and would do a couple poses, then would just lay down to sunbath instead and try not to show my jealously. I wasn’t able to just be okay with my level. I hoped that at the retreat I could be proud of where I’m at and be supportive of others.

I ended up taking almost all of the photos as I lacked yoga-pose-confidence to want to be in the spotlight. Finally, towards the end I stepped up and asked to be in one of the photos – doing Tree Pose on the diving board, something I knew I could handle. The other Texan travelers lounging there were intrigued and friendly about the hippie-yoga group.

Next stop was Albuquerque, sleeping in the living room of Josh’s friend, where after getting in quite late I felt like venturing for food. Victor offered to make me food instead. I felt somewhat hungry, but more felt like I should be eating based on having lost so much weight in the past 6 months. The weight loss wasn’t on purpose, I just started to listen to my body more and thus eat less sugar, breads and dairy. It felt so healthy but my family was alarmed when they saw me so I started to wonder about it. I had a strange response of feeling like maybe I should be eating more but knowing I should just listen to my body- head versus spirit. I felt weird around all these health-nuts eating pasta and sauce late at night before going to bed. I know it’s not good to eat right before sleeping. I do believe that being more spiritual and energetically aware and nurturing myself beyond through the means of physical food, I need less energy from that source. I’ve found that if I meditate and do yoga in the morning I have less need for food to get my energy for example and have less cravings.

The following morning we found our way to Spence hotsprings, on a beautiful mountainside, with 2 pools and the place to ourselves which truly allowed for us to connect with each other. On they way we found white clothes at thrift stores to prepare for White Tantric Yoga at the retreat. It was exhilirating going to the retreat with practically no knowledge of what to expect, with such strange things as White Tantric Yoga i’d never heard of.

The top pool has a small cave, the source of the spring - just enough room for one or two people, with colorful leftover wax from other beings’ delightful nights. The water is quite hot in there and if you’re clausterphobic you’ll surely not enjoy it. I went in the first time and just relaxed, the first thoughts being how wonderful it is to be on the road and how I want to keep exploring in this way. Andrew experienced the cave as going to the source, to nature, and had a wonderful spiritual encounter. So I decided to see the cave in that light - I re-entered the cave meditating on reconnecting with Gaia, our mother earth, and moved towards the underwater stone, the source. I was stopped harshly in my gentle movements by seeing a skull on the stone - I persisted, with positive momentum, desires and focus of reconnecting - and the skull turned to a face of utter agony and each second demonstrated more extreme writhing pain. I couldn’t stand my ground - I turned around and quickly went back to the comfort of my fellow companions, bluntly telling them about the skull but not offering much explanation but a white face.

I was scared – really scared. I had so strongly believed that I was going to reconnect with Gaia, ultimately with myself, that the energetic/physical world in front of me illustrated what I was up against inside. The pain and fear that I would have to move through to reconnect with my light and the light of the universe. I thought about venturing back in, to try and understand and overcome what I was up against – perhaps get different visuals and prove my strength. It had jolted me too much, and I won’t be hard on myself for having just let it alone. I suppose I knew I wasn’t strong enough to face it yet and would wait for some guidance at the retreat.

I still didn’t have a name for the pain, but now I had a second extreme visual of it.
I knew it was inside, thus of course at any time I could have access to understanding what it was that was bringing in such heaviness, but I think I needed the retreat to create the gently prodding open space for that exploration. I knew barely anything about the retreat but it probably wouldn’t have mattered too much as I was so ready to feel better.

As it was time to move on - we got out of the pools to jump in the cool river below and moments later multiple groups of people started arriving - wonderful timing.

We soon found ourselves in Espanola looking for the retreat, with no map, no internet, and no directions. But nowadays it’s rare you’re that disconnected… we called Andrew’s mom and directed her to the website. The directions still didn’t make sense, so we followed a Sikh woman in a turban to the dollar store and I asked her, after explaining why I was inappropriately in a bathing suit in the middle of town, how to find it. She calmly explained the few turns, and off we went up the 8 miles of dirt road until we saw the large circus-like tents.

The point of the virtual world....

should only be to enhance our real world experience!

Yet instead, we spend hours and hours as if staring at screen is living, interacting, being in the moment - and end in itself.

It should only be a means to make connections, conduct research, plans, organize, for real world experience. There's nothing human about

I can feel my hands drained of energy through electronic contact - feel them hurting, static, burning, my head getting fuzzy, my energy gone.

The point should be to spend the LEAST amount of time interacting with electronics, and the MOST time interacting with yourself, other humans and animals, nature!

One of my new New Years Resolutions will be WAY more efficient on the computer, so as the spend a high percentage of my time NOT using it. Use it soley and efficiently for work, some organizing, tracking, writing.

It's a modern addiction - just like a drug addiction, emotional addictions, food addictions.... and might be MORE harmful than any of them - an addiction to living a lifeless life.

The right path... the right moment....

Blessed are the moments when you are gently reminded that you are on the right path, whether for that moment, or that second when you are yet again made aware of a recurrent theme - something that gently pops up in various situations over time. When you are ready to listen, you are ready and will pursue with some energy to find out what is lurking behind your feelings and intuitions - new paths, doors, and opportunities.

What a joy.

This evening I went to the Austin Energy Healer meetup group, where we learned about Eric Pearl's Reconnective healing. From my understanding - the energy work reconnects your own energetic body's meridians and grids with that of the earths. Yummm

We also spoke about people who have "problems" with electronics.... lights going off around them, or watches stopping, etc. Scientists have found that those people have been in contact with gamma rays which are only naturally found in outer space.

A recurrent them, coming up briefly mentioned over the past couple of years is the lost Keys of Enoch - a book from the bible that was taken out when, whoever it was, took out anything related to mysticism or quantum physics.

I shall get my hands on it!

An energy healer, able to feel that the growths I was talking about were on the inside of my feet near the ball of my feet, explained how it makes sense they would be there based on my explanation of a lack of ability to release my energy downwards to Gaia - reconnect and ground and center. Sometimes my feet are 4 times their size energetically - and the other day it was moving up my leg more than ever. This seems to be one of the most important things for me to work on right now - releasing back into Gaia, so that the growths on my feet - fibrotic that is - don't become permanent.

He attributed this to a mistrust that I have with Gaia - whether from this life or a past life - and I am ready to explore that and reconnect.

I was relieved to be surrounded by a community of people who, as myself i know is true, aren't interested in pharmaceuticals or surgery - but know that as everything is connected physically and energetically and emotionally - that there are always alternatives to try first. Especially regarding medication! It's the classic problem.... solving a symptom of a problem without addressing the problem itself.

The answer is always within - and within is no different than without, we just choose to differentiate with a "self." Thus if you are truly looking within and trusting yourself, the universe will reply when you are ready to recognize its response.

If we don't trust ourselves - what can we trust?

The profit flaw

inherently within the idea of profit is inequality... that one person can give their energy.... and receive less back in exchange for it... thus the surplus is given to someone else - they are thus receiving more energy than they are giving.... thus perpetuating their power to do so.

I am not saying that those with great ideas or specials skills shouldn't be compensated....hmmm I'll have to think more on this one.

My energetic over-sensitivity

I was a bit bemused and intrigued yesterday by my own sensitivities..

I grew up without television and can't ever remember living somewhere with one (besides New Orleans) that was ever turned on except for movies.
I am already an intensely sensitive person, emotionally and energetically, and combining that with a lack of experience with visual TV stimulation, has the result that I have a whole-body reaction to whatever I am receiving.

I turned on a show yesterday on Indigo Children on A & E - interesting show, with some new information, but mostly old. Regardless, it's definitely worth looking up. The focused a bit on the extreme examples, and could have put in more information regarding the over-diagnosis of indigo children with ADD and bipolar and behavioral issues - thus leading to medication which numbs them of their abilities.

After, I tried to find ABC to watch parts of the political debate.
Flipping through the channels, I would stop when I would see an actor/actress i like (Sandra bullock), or parts of a movie I like....

Each time, something would come up to which my reaction was crying - tears streaming down my face. Not crying from sadness - but a release of emotional energy.
I cried during Mrs. Doubtfire.... I cried during Stuart Little and during What Women Want.

I think I will conduct an experiment - watch bits of movies on TV like I did - and write down what emotions or situations make me cry.
Perhaps it will then help me understand myself a bit better - where my sensitivities are!

Better to have loved....

and lost than to never have loved at all.

I would like to revise that:
Better to have loved and learned than never to have loved at all.

Or maybe just better to have loved! How can loving be losing?

If you lose that love in the present, you have not lost it in the past, it is forever yours. If you love yourself, then you never lose love in the present. If you are open, and unexpecting, you will find external love again. Take the moment to breathe and love yourself - focus inwards.
You will never "lose" love - it is within you.

My stomach talks to me....

About 2 years ago I started having stomach problems - just a sort of discomfort.. sometimes more extreme.
I stopped eating dairy for a month... no change.... I stopped eating wheat, nuts, corn, soy, dairy, eggs, and less sugar and no change.

When I went to see my chiropractor, she said "read The Power Of Now - if your stomach still hurts, then call me."

My stomach now rarely hurts... and when it does, I can recognize that it is a physical manifestation of my lack of emotional and intellectual processing. If I write, meditate, massage my feet, it will go away.

Certain foods do aggravate it - but for the most part it has to do with literally not digesting things happening in my life.

Market Value for Conservation....

Despite the fact that the cheapest energy available at any given time is conservation - in other words, reducing your demand, which after the initial investment means that energy is FREE, energy conservation isn't talked about.

It's not SEXY.

There's hardly a good market for it - because the only thing you can sell is green technologies which, require people to have a budget, and a little bit of initial investment.

How do you create the market for conservation? Get people to start thinking in the right mid-term or long-term framework rather than the immediate.
In the immediate, cents per kilowat hour looks better than $1000 window upgrade - it's the PAYBACK period which people don't understand.

You don't hear people saying "Today I want to go and buy some Conservation of Energy.... so how do we frame it and create the right simple incentives?

1. Perhaps if the investment was over time - a payment plan which was only slightly higher than their normal payment plan. And told them that FOR THE SAME COMFORTS... pay THE SAME COST for 3 years - then the comfort is FREE.

2. Perhaps a very easy to fill-in sheet, which calculates for them based on their situation, what their energy savings will be each year. The first year they will have the initial investment.... The second year they save X.. the third year they save X.. and it can mark when they have saved what they invested...

3. The point needs to be SAVING MONEY - not BEING GREEN. They can feel good about using less energy if they want.... for the environment, their children, national security, their personal security.

4. low-interest loans for energy-saving technology or incentives are most likely the most effective.

So what are the companies who make energy-saving products doing?

we create self-fulfilling phrophecies..

It is my understanding that the process works thus:

1. We predict what our "demand" will be
2. We build power plants, roads, schools, etc to MEET that demand
3. We thus fulfill the demand - by creating the demand

It seems quite backwards...

for example - on Cape Cod - they have a 10-year projected energy demand... so they are talking about what power plants, wind farms and such, will be needed to MEET that demand.

INSTEAD.....

How about decided what demand you WANT there to be?
Then you can figure out a strategy of how to reduce your energy demand over time.... through conservation measures, which will reduce the cost of the energy because new power plants and new development's WON'T be needed.

So decide that in 5 years, you want Cape Cod to be using X amount of energy....
which means you don't need more powerplants...
which means the energy costs will go up -
which will make conservation more affordable
which will spur energy conservation innovation....

If we keep predicting Unsustainable growth and consumption patterns - we will keep creating them... with a FALSE idea that we are REACTING to society.... though in fact, we are CREATING the demands in the first place through the market.

We could instead, realize we are in the decision-making position, and be PROACTIVE!