Our first (and we hope of many!) Moontime/puberty workshop was amazing! It was such a powerful gathering, I’m still sitting with the feelings and reflecting on the shared time we spent together. It was such an honor to hold and share space with warrior women, girls and kiddos and celebrate such a special community. Through yoga, storytelling, real talk about puberty and starting your mooontime/period we connected, normalized, laughed, cried, opened discussions within our circle and after with mother’s/daughters/kiddos. When we create safe spaces we can be courageous and vulnerable and tell our stories that can break down taboos and shame to pave a better way for our children.
As a social worker and mother of a daughter who is at the beginning stages of puberty, creating a workshop around Coming of Age was deep in my soul. I wanted to offer a scared space for mothers and daughters/kiddos to be able to come together and hear stories of women starting their period, to feel the wisdom and powerful energy that’s created when women come together. We come from a society that doesn’t speak, celebrate or honor this momentous time in a girls/kiddos life. I want that to be different for my daughter and others.
In reading some really wonderful books like Moon Mother and Moon Daughter Myths and Rituals that Celebrate a Girl’s Coming-of-Age gave me a foundation for which to create such a workshop. Reading excellent articles like this one which also included some humorous ads to a sometimes uncomfortable and even taboo topic with a girl faking her period just so she can have a party. I also collaborated with an amazing nurse, Stephanie, and Mama of two daughters who is incredibly talented and creative in her approach about talking all things puberty.
As Stephanie and I collaborated our hopes for this preteen yoga workshop blossomed into these cornerstones:
*To begin to shift the cultural paradigm of shame-pain-fear-embarrassment-nuisance regarding our menstrual cycle to one of an empowering experience and shift the way mothers/daughters relate to one another.
*Ideas for celebrating a girls/kiddos Coming-of-Age.
*Knowledge is power- and when we give our girls/kiddos valuable information they can be the change agents to break our culture paradigm and support and celebrate others.
*Raise Awareness- As Oprah says, when we know better we do better. Like seasons of Mother Earth and phases of the Moon we too have cycles/seasons/phases that if we know and understand our bodies we can embrace each phase.
*Support our daughters in claiming their own Goddess power
Our workshop began with creating a safe gathering through agreeing to
*Speak and listen from the heart
*Letting other support us when we open ourselves to to confide and be vulnerable
*Confidentiality
*Respect
*Love
We opened our circle with introductions introducing ourselves, our pronoun, and sharing the name of a woman we wanted their energy to be in the gathering as well.
__________
Partner Yoga was next, because yoga offers the opportunity for mother and daughter/kiddo to have eye-contact, build trust, and work together as a team. It allowed for a moment for everyone to feel the energy of beauty, strength, love, openness for what was ahead for the afternoon. Our partner poses involved heart openers so that our hearts could receive and send love into the gathering. We had trust poses to remind each other of the importance of trust during challenging poses and challenging phases in life. A warrior series to promote courage as well all need courage in times of transition. Part of the fun in partner yoga is figuring it out, like in life, working together with those that love us to figure life out. We had to end our yoga session with a fun Hersey Kiss pose because when we are having our moontime/period we often need chocolate and some extra love!
We transitioned into storytelling next which was so very powerful. Mother’s were asked to share their story of when they started their period/moontime. Many of the girls/kiddos and mothers approached me afterwards telling me this was one of their favorite parts. Telling our stories has a multitude of benefits. When we share our stories it helps us find common themes and patterns. It can break down barriers so that we can really change the way for ourselves and others. Stories can make us feel less alone and can help reclaim something that has long been considered negative or left to figure it out on your own. Storytelling is powerful, empowering, and builds empathy.
Girls and kiddos were then given an opportunity to decorate their own moontime pouch while mothers wrote a letter to their child to be put into the pouch for reading later or maybe even on the day she/they start their period.
We then transitioned into the 101 of puberty and periods with Stephanie who used visuals, hands-on, and excellent art and hand outs to talk about a girls/kiddos changing body and what they can expect during the transition. She showed how tampons work (there was more than one mother in the room that had to learn the hard way about how to use a tampon because NO ONE talked about it!). The girls/kiddos were totally engaged and asked brilliant questions!
We ended our gathering with a beautiful ceremony that we will keep scared by just sharing that it was powerful!
It was an absolute honor to be a part of this gathering and hold space for all the mothers and daughters/kiddos that attended. I’m already looking forward to our next Coming of Age Workshop!
