WiseWomanhood School

Supporting Women - Body, Mind, & Soul

Blog Posts

Deepening and Finding Your Teacher

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How important is relationship with your teacher? You might be learning spiritual, health, or other kinds of lessons. A good fit with a teacher’s way of presenting information as well as the information itself serves your learning.

This interview with Terra Rafael is offered as a way to get to know her flavor, to understand her history, and to see if she is a teacher you would like to learn from.

Enjoy!

Terra Rafael, interviewed by Christine Eck, Director of Sacred Window Studies

Interact in person with Terra: WiseWomanhood Classes – Live on Zoom

Dive Deeper- Seminar on Ayurveda for Women’s Health, 10 Saturday sessions,beg Feb 18 , More Info

Dive Deep into the Spirit – The Wisdom Goddesses and Women’s Powers – 10 sessions, Feb-Apr, Fridays – Teachings, discussion & shamanic journey, More Info

Personal or Group Mentoring Sessions – scheduled with individual or group participants
Monthly Shamanic Study Group – 4th Sunday 10 am Mountain Time – email wisewomanhood@gmail to register

NEW: Monthly Free Q & A with Terra – 2nd Friday, 10 am Mountain Time – Register here

For more info on any of these, email Terra at wisewomanhood@gmail

Rest and Renew

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Rest and Renew is a great theme for now, the time of Winter (here in the Northern Hemisphere). Mother Nature has gone into this mode in the trees and plants. The perennial plants send their life energy down into their roots, insulated in the earth, protected from harsher coldness. They look a bit dead, but are really resting. It’s a natural way to survive when things get rough.

This time of year we often celebrate together. Yet it can sometimes become a whirlwind of activity, just when Nature tells us, “It’s dark more now – rest more now.” Do you look for the balance between activity and renewal? If the plants didn’t go deep now, they likely wouldn’t survive. When we don’t sleep deeply, rest enough, our health and lifespan suffers too – although it may not show up immediately.

What do you do to rest and renew? I meditate daily; I do breath work daily; I limit activities, leaving space to be a bit slower; I nap if I haven’t slept well; I take nice warm baths; I go out in the sunshine when it’s available; I walk outside in the clean,crisp air; I spend peaceful time with friends and family who are loving and supportive; I daydream, looking at the sky or the Solstice Tree; I laugh, sing, and dance; I read or watch inspiring stories. What do you do to rest and renew?

This balance of activity and rest alternate daily with the sun and yearly with the seasons. Being in touch with it suits being a healthy human.

(If you are interested in a shamanic journey about rest and renewal, Dec. Shamanic Study Group will have this theme. Join us if you are a journeyer. Contact Terra to register for the link.)

Rattles – Tools of the Soul

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I have three rattles that have been with me for decades.  They have many layers of meaning for me, reminding me. Two represent the feminine and masculine duality of creation and in each of us. One connects to the Animal People. I’m still learning new things from them.

I use them in various different ways – to invoke the 6 Directions; to clear or close the energy body; to give rhythm to singing; to be the sound beacon for those on shamanic journey.

My Blood Rattle is a natural gourd with an expanded bottom and smaller top bulb which acts as a handle. I found it at a farmer’s market. The surface is mottled in various tans, browns and muted orange. Its dried seeds are what makes it a natural rattle.  When I was a midwife I asked some clients if I could anoint my rattle with their birth blood, which I did. I also anointed it with my moon blood.  Thus I named it my Blood Rattle. I put a red cord tied loosely around its neck. The sound of this rattle is deep and with various tones in it.

Today I realized that the Blood Rattle represents the Lower World – Mother Earth powers.  It awakens and invokes the Soul helps from the yin or feminine realm which hold the potentials of all creation. That is the feminine power to be the potential for all to happen.

My Moon Rattle is created of natural materials put together in a very Yang/Masculine form. The head of the rattle is very hard and coasted with tiny crystals on a light background. This is why I called it my Moon Rattle- it reminds me of a Full Moon. The handle is a brown branch with two little angels carved into it and on the bottom a larger quartz crystal is attached. Between the head and handle, purple yarn is wrapped with two feathers attached to beads at the ends of the yarn. The sound of this rattle is a bit softer yet sharper.  It was a gift from one of my midwifery clients.

Today I realized that the Moon Rattle represents the Upper World – the Sky powers. It calls the forces of the Upper World, the Spirit helpers from the yang or masculine realm. The masculine carries out the intentions of the feminine through its consciousness.

My Animal Toenail Rattle is from a native market years ago.  I was fascinated by this unique rattle, that is made of some kind of toenails, sewn to cloth in a circle like a bracelet or anklet. I love to use it as a rattle, great when dancing. It has a brittle, high pitched rattle sound. I can’t help but think of the animal who gave it to me.

Seeing the sacred in everything around us is a way to connect deeply with life.

My Three Rattles- a poem

Your voices call me into new adventures,

Into Plant, Animal, or Stone-

Each of you, an Emissary of one of them.

My Blood Rattle, anointed with woman blood

Is a simple dried gourd, rattling inside itself,

My Plant Emissary sings rooted wisdom,

Reaching to the Sun.

My Moon Rattle, glowing like the Moon

With tiny crystals coating the head

And a sizeable quartz at the handle’s end

Shares a softer sound, the quieter voice of ancient Stone.

My Toe Nail Rattle, made of sheep’s toenails they said,

Is my Animal Emissary,

Sewn loosely on a woven cloth circlet that fits my wrist.

Its voice rings like a clatter of animal chatter, calling me.

Thank you Rattles for connecting me to my relations,

And to the worlds of shamanic journeying

And the deep source of Mother Nature.

Is This Perimenopause? Four Things to Remember

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Perimenopause is marked by changes in the menstrual cycle – more irregularity; heavier OR lighter; ovulation may skip a month or two. Typical menopausal symptoms may creep in – hot flashes, sleep problems, unpredictable PMS. It is the boundary land between the Fertile years and the Menopausal years. It can be very symptomatic or easy. The length of perimenopause varies, as well as the time of onset – but on average begins in later 40s and ends in early 50s.

Four Things to Remember

  1. If you or your client suspect it’s beginning, it pays to track your cycles to know where you are in the process. This can inform you about how to surf the changes using natural techniques.
  2. You are entering an unknown territory. You will never be the same. Just as you don’t know what the process will look like for you, you also don’t know what you’ll end up like. Did you really know what it would be like for you after adolescence when you were 13 years old?  It’s a similar process, in reverse.
  3. It is a time to evaluate and make changes in your life. How do you want to live the second half of your time on Earth?  An important time to call on your spiritual forces.
  4. Having support and information from a guide is invaluable at this time.

Learn more about it in my upcoming class:  Perimenopause – Facing and Surfing the Unknown

Or consider a private consultation with me.

Perimenopause- the Autumn Season of Women’s Lives

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The Autumn season has much in common with perimenopause. It’s a transitional season between the fertile summer and the winter when energies go more inward. Some days may be more summer-like, then some are cooler and windier. Dryness increases. It is unpredictable so one must prepare for any weather, with layers and perhaps an umbrella.

Just as Autumn is different in different climates, so does perimenopause vary according to the doshic condition of the woman. And it isn’t always easy to tell, at first, whether Autumn is truly here or it’s a cooler spell of late summer. Same with perimenopause – much must be taken into account.

One view of the menopausal transition, along with all the seasons of a woman’s life, is as a physical opportunity for initiation. Through conscious work with challenges presented a woman may increase her wisdom and power. So beyond the purely physical, mental and emotional must be addressed. A calm clear mind, sattwa, is open to the novelty of a new phase and can navigate more easily.

The Wisdom Goddess who associates with the unknown of the perimenopause is Bagalamukhi. She is know as the paralyser, just as the unknown of perimenopause can sometimes paralyze a woman. Bagalamukhi’s power is to stop us, so we can evaluate our past, and clearly see how we want to live in the future. We are forced inward, stopping outward activities temporarily to be still and contemplate. Embracing this initiation can help is along.

Comparing typical hormone changes
pre-menopause v perimenopause

As this illustration shows – perimenopause is highly changeable. Therefore, a remedy that helps symptoms for one month may not work the next! Confusion can reign in this unknown territory.

However there are many physical and emotional helps through this, especially when keyed to an individual woman’s body. When she is conscious of how to observe her body, she can learn to suit supports to her needs more skillfully.

If you are interested in learning more about Perimenopause, consider the new live zoom class this fall I’m teaching through WiseWomanhood – Perimenopause with Ayurveda. Gain more skill for yourself &/or your clients for helping smooth the path of perimenopause.

Loving Kindness Meditation

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At the recent NAMA conference I loved the workshop, Role of Ojas in Building A Healthy Family from Birth to Old Age. It reminded me of the importance of ojas. And one speaker suggested a good way to increase ojas is through Loving Kindness Meditation.

This form of the Loving Kindness Meditation is what I use: I sit for meditation, focusing on the love I feel towards a person or deity. When this feeling is firmly established, I let go of the object and allow the love to be inward, filling my whole body and aura as I inhale and radiating outward from my heart like moonlight, as I exhale. This inborn love never is depleted.

Try it! You may find it renewing and also ojas increasing.