From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: a nice experience last night
Date: 22 Sep 92 03:39:52 GMT

[For more on menstruation magick, check out Shakti Woman by Vicki]
[Noble. There's a review of the book in the /Books dir. --Ceci   ]

I'm pretty close to starting my period, and I was very worried about
it last night.  Why?  I did somethong VERY stupid: I ate a bowl full
of rice.  Starch.  The Death Food that just about INSURES that I'll be
sticking my head in the john the next morning if I get my period.
(For some reason, if I have ANY starch at all in my stomach when I
start bleeding, it doesn't stay there for long.)

I spent too long blaming myself and feeling angry for making such a
stupid mistake, and wailing about it to poor TMM over the plates.  I
was such an idiot, I was going to be paying tomorrow, etc. etc. etc.
I was DREADING falling asleep for fear that I'd wake up doubled over
in pain, miserable and agonized, and still having to haul my sorry ass
out of bed to stick my head in the john when my body shouts, "Three
exits!  No waiting!" to everything inside it.

In short, I was scared.  And I was blaming myself, convinced that even
if I wasn't SUPPOSED to get my period tomorrow, my blunder and
subsequent grousing would cause it to come upon me anyway.  (No, I
still haven't managed to get over period anxiety.  The cramp bark
helps, but there fear is still there.  I do NOT look forward to my
period, not because of the negative connotations, but because of the
pain.  They may be related, but I'm sorry -- sometimes your body just
screws you over and gives you pain, even if you're in the most
stress-frdee environment and in the best mood ever.)  ANYway, after
TMM left for the lab, I was faced with a choice.  Go to bed scared
rigid about what state I'd be in when waking up the next day, or try
to allay my fears SOMEHOW.

As luck would have it, I was rereading a copy of "that book" that I
finally checked out of the library despite my earlier belief that I
would probably never read it -- The Spiral Dance.  (Yes, I like it.  I'm
not freaky about it, but I like it.)  The vision in it, while I find it
flawed in some ways, is nonetheless beautiful, and I finally decided I
had had it with being so scared and it was time to do something about
it.  

Magic is the art of "changing consciousness at will?"  Okay, let's put
it to the test.  Haul out the tools (Tarot, chalice, salt, pentacle,
stones, bark, water, cloth, etc.  I don't usually use water, but this
time, an idea from TSD seemed to demand use.  I also don't use tools
as laid out in any book; I just read about what's used and grab what I
like.).  Turn off the lights, light the candle, spread my pentacle (a
cloth bag embroidered with a pentacle that holds the stones, and place
the stones.

I use five things: tiger's-eye, hematite, clear quartz, rose quartz,
and a tine spiral shell.  I held the stones in my right hand and
transferred them one by one to my left, meditating on what the stones
mean to me as I did so.  I spoke out loud (quietly so as not to
disturb my roommate) to myself, as I held the stones.  The tiger's-eye
is there to call to mind farsightedness, not to get caught up in the
moment but to remember that things pass and to try to see ALL the path
instead of just the rocks at my feet.  The quartz is there for
honesty, not to blow things out of all proportion, to retain not only
farsightedness but CLARITY of vision, and ethical honesty.  The rose
quartz is there to remind me of the good that can come of all
experiences, the beneficial hidden motivations of the mother (Diktynna
for me).  The shell is there to remind me, as the Desiderata says,
that the universe will unfold as it should, that my path is there --
all I need do is walk it.  (To digress for a moment, this reminds me
of how I think when I write backwards.  People don't believe me when I
say I can cursive write backwards as quickly as I do forwards; all you
need to do is see the words written in the air in front of you,
already accomplished.  All you need to do then is trace them out --
mindless and simple. Just see what you need to do as already having
been done, already existing in some timeless and immense way, and it
makes it easier.  You just walk the path.  Now as to how the path GETS
there . . . )

I place the articles on the pentacle points as I wish, and then take
out of one deck (I had two decks last night) the ace of pentacles and
the Universe (the cards were removed from The Witches Tarot by Ellen
Cannon Reed.  GORGEOUS artwork!) for the initiation of a feeling and
fertile cycle -- the bleeding, and the visual reminder that my mother
Diktynna just does things this way.  It's just the way the Universe
works to make women sometimes cramp and it's nothing personal.  No
punishement, no guilt, just the way things work sometimes.  It passes,
and is done with great love.

I laid a four seasons spread with Barbara Walker's Tarot, that I wove
into a story of feeling beset from all sides with burdens and
hardships, and Death (the King of Swords), feeling as if I had to tame
something attractive and yet dangerous (The King of Wands), reaching
an impasse (5 of wands) -- meaning I'm just gonna bleed and have to
get used to dealing with it, finding a defense (9 of wands), and
having realization of beauty and (self)love waiting for me at the end
(2 and ace of cups).  I sat and thought until the story could be seen
as a coherent accomplished whole in my head, and then started with the
salt water.

Four pinches of salt (maiden, mother, crone, and the one goddess who
is all of them) went into the cup of water (Irvine tap water, the only
blot on an other wise great ritual :-P), and I swirled it around,
watching the reflections of me dancing on the surface of the water and
on the bottom of the cup.  I closed my eyes and allowed myself to
descend into the blob of guilt and certainty that I would somehow
bring the cramps and barfing on myself by my stupidity and subsequent
worrying.  It wasn't exactly wonderful, but had to be done.  As I did
so, I just bubbled it into a thick disgusting and unwanted mud in
myself and retched it into the cup.  I swirled the salt water,
allowing it to dissolve the filth and become clear again.  I retched
again, swirled again.  Retch, swirl.  Retch, swirl.  Over and over
until I no longer felt the need to barf my guilt and self-hate into
the cup and purify it.

Into the toilet it went.  *flush* No more guilt.  And damn, did I feel
clean!  A clean, empty shining silver vessel.

I took a BIG cowrie shell and rubbed it, trying to be friends with my
vulva, trying to see it as part of me and NOT an enemy out to fuck me
over.

I consecrated my cramp bark, and told myself that the path was there,
it wasn't deliberately paved in such a way to screw me over, and all I
had to do was walk it.

Very deliberatedly, I cleaned up and put the things away.

Imagine my surprise when I turned out the kitchen light (the only
light I left on) and saw a nebulous, undefined swirl of blue gray out
of my front room window.  While I was off somewhere else, barfing
guilt out of my system, the mother's cool night breath had descended
on me and surrounded me.  I went into my bedroom, cocooned and safe in
Diktynna's breath, and fell asleep with a smile on my face.

This is one is special to me.  I think I may have found my first
personal Book of Shadows entry.

Blessings,
Janis