This explanation of what the energy of the womb and womb chakra
are doing in the menstrual cycle helps us to understand what basic
practices of the womb are necessary for the blood masteries. First,
women need to keep their menses sacred. The first three days (or
days of heaviest bleeding) are times when eminence amounts of
divine and attachment energy are leaving the woman. She must replenish
that space through sacred connection and practices (prayer, meditation,
connection to source). Second, she must be separate from the daily
negativity or demands of life so that the womb does not fill with
mundane and negative influences. Third, she must remain emotionally
even and stable and non-attached to worldly experiences.
During menses women need to seek a separate (or menstruating women
only) place for an additional reason as well. Some cultures and
religious practices prohibit women from communal sacred palaces
(like temples etc.) during their menses. Current thought explains
this either as women being unclean during their menses or as further
evidence of the debasement of the feminine. However a little knowledge
of the energy shows us other possibilities.
Recall that even in ancient cultures which revered the feminine,
women were separated off during menses in their blood/ moon huts.
Thus, this is our first hint that this is not debasement of women
at work here but some recognition of the energy and timing of
menses that is sacred and important. From the energetic explanation
we know that women are exiting divine and attachment energy in
the menses. In ancient times, when the menstrual cycle was held
sacred, that intense energy for the menstrual blood was used for
special ceremonial rites of creation/ manifestation. Thus, sacred
menstrual blood could also have a huge potential for changing
the energy of a ceremony not specifically designed to incorporate
it.
Further, if the menstrual cycle is not held sacred there is the
possibility of huge amounts of negative attachment energy present
within the blood. This may be the source of the "unclean"
notion. Huge amounts of attachment to the illusion of life would
not serve most divine rituals designed to aid transcendence of
the illusion.
In addition, women are sponges for energy during their menses.
They can draw down huge amount of divine energy into the vacuum/
void within them. In communal ceremony not intended for this purpose
this could leave little or no divine energy for others. Also women
can draw in the ambient energy present during this time. To be
in a big crowd with mixed energies might prove deleterious to
the woman herself.
Thus women need to seek solitude or the company of other menstruating
women for special ceremonies of pulling divine energy into the
womb. Further women in their menses should not be in big crowds
of people since there is too much negativity they could absorb
from others. Womb energy and the blood of the menses are powerful
sacred materials and deserve special place and ceremony.
Modern Sacred Menses. In modern times it is not so easy not to work and to separate yourself off for the first three days of your menses. Even if your job is flexible enough for this, often your family is not so willing to allow for this private time. In a modern scheduled life, to take these days as sacred you must be able to predict the menses. For some this is easy, but many modern women have irregular cycles. Further, in modern society we don't know other women who are cycling at the same time as we are (or there simply are not other women around that are in synchronous cycle), so the moon hut or gathering place of support and ceremony is missing. Still, as difficult as it may be, sacred menses is a basic practice of enlightenment for women.
Taking the menses as sacred means: no work, separation from the
daily negativity and responsibilities, spending time in inner
refection, prayer and divine connection, and staying emotionally
even and non-attached to worldly experience. What does that really
mean? Does it mean no job, housework, kids, partner, civic responsibilities,
shopping, meetings etc? Yes. Ideally it does.
However in modern times this may be an impossible standard. Therefore,
do the best you can to rest and stay in contemplation and divine
connection. Reduce to the minimum the number of contacts and responsibilities
you have. In addition, take care of yourself physically. Eat nutritional
food, drink water that you have blessed, avoid alcohol, avoid
any sex with casual or negative partners, and maintain emotional
non-attachment. The most important practices of these are drinking
blessed water, avoiding casual and negative sexual contact, and
emotional non-attachment.
Blessing Water. The element of the womb is water. To some extent this makes intuitive sense. The womb fills with blood (water) during the menstrual cycle. As well, water is a carrier element that conforms to the nature of that carried. This intuitively seems similar to the function of the womb itself. During the menses the womb is exiting water (blood). Thus water that you drink is going to replenish the womb energy of water. Blessing the water you drink during your menses provides divine/ pure water to the womb's restoration of its energy.
The easiest way to bless water is to keep it in a glass container
sitting on a divine word before you drink it. This method is inspired
by the book "Messages from Water" (Emoto, 2004). Keep
a glass container of water filled and siting on a divine word.
Drink during the day by using water from that container. Divine
words in English (like love or enlightenment) are good but less
effective than words from languages like Sanskrit, Aramaic and
Aymara that contain the vibration of the thing addressed. Try
using words like Om, Muni (love) or Abwoon (cosmic birthing, divine
parent) (Douglas Klotz, 1990).
You also can bless water by connecting to divine source, opening
your heart to be filled with love, and praying with your hands
around or over the water container. You can add to this the internal
imagery of concentric circles (divine water) spreading out within
the water.
If you want to be even more intense in the blessing you can connect
to the earth or divine source through the central axis of your
luminous structure. Use the fire breathing (fast snorting breath)
to fill your central axis and three main body centers (womb/cusqo,
heart and 3rd eye) with divine energy. Then when you are very
full and hot within you blow that energy into the water. If you
want you can test the water before and after blessing by tasting
and feeling it. You will likely be able to detect the difference.
Sexual Taboos. It does not take much knowledge of sexual conduct to realize that women are receivers of sexual energy while men expel sexual energy. That men expel essential life force in their sexual ejaculations has been the source of many spiritual taboos from "not spilling seed" to total abstinence for certain spiritual men. However, women receive energy in sexual conduct (especially with men). Thus the taboos for women are different than from men.
First, because women receive sexual energy they must be very careful
about the spiritual nature of their partners. If the partner is
off then the energy received is off. If the partner is negative
then the energy is negative that comes into the woman. You are
what you eat and what you ingest in other ways. The womb is the
woman's major power spot and it must be protected from ingesting
negative and off energy.
Second, too many partners spoil the soup. That is, it is not to
your benefit to mix diverse energies from different partners.
This is because it is hard enough for your body and spirit to
adjust to the energy of just one other. The energy of many others
over taxes the system.
Third, sexual connection that holds unconditional love is ideal.
Sexual energy feeds the womb chakra. If the energy ingested is
of a beneficial nature (loving) it nurtures and feeds the divine
nature of the womb and womb chakra. If the energy is not loving,
then it feeds attachment to the illusion.
These things are true even when a woman is not on the menses.
The womb always absorbs energy from the partner during sexual
conduct. However, when the womb is in the void /vacuum state it
is in a highly absorbent mode. Thus these taboos are even more
important during menses.
Some ancient cultures forbade sex during the menses. Again modern
interpretation often sees this as anti-feminine. However, from
understanding the energy we can see that it would be a beneficial
thing for a woman to not engage in sexual relations on the menses
if the partners were not loving or were unclear in their energies.
Perhaps these ancient taboos were more of a comment on the state
of clarity of the partners than on the women themselves.
Emotional Non-Attachment. If you can not be separate from the routines of daily life during the menses you must remain emotionally non-attached to the experiences of daily life. Recall that emotional attachments can fill the womb void and invest new negative energies as well as reinvest old negative energy. This is reason enough to remain non-attached emotionally during the menses-- to stay clear of these negative energies.
However, the womb also needs to be used as a place of creation
of your divine self. It needs to be, not just clear of negatives,
but filled with divinely inspired manifestation. The womb is a
place in which manifestation occurs. Therefore it is attuned to
the energy of attachment to the illusion. Attachment is necessary
for manifestation into the creation. Thus the womb is a primary
center of worldly attachment and manifestation. Sacred practices
of the womb require managing those connections to the illusion
for highest possible manifestation to occur.
A primary way to manage this energy is to manage attachments.
In this case you need to learn to manage emotional attachments
to worldly issues and concerns during the menses. What you ingest
in the womb to fill its void state is what you will manifest during
the next cycle. You give birth each cycle to what you fill the
womb with during your menses void state. Prayer, meditation, and
emotional non-attachment to the world beget birth of the divine
nature of self.
However, emotional interpretation of fire and water cycles in
the body leads to increased attachment to the illusion and loss
of the use of the divine nature of these energies. Most difficult
to avoid is attachment to those energies of the body that have
been historically deemed "bad, negative and evil." Void,
death times of the cycle (like during the menses) are too often
interpreted as depression, loneliness, and lacking. Similarly
postpartum depression can also be related to negative emotional
interpretations of the womb void state after birth.
Long term effects of this can been seen in the research of Candace
Pert. Her research shows that emotions are related to chemical
traces in the body especially to hormones (Pert, 2003). From this
research we can see that low progesterone (often associated with
PMS, cystic ovaries, and hot flashes at peri menopause) is a chemical
response of the body to lack of nurturing and calm in childhood
(and later). High testosterone in the body of women and its associated
androgenation (causing adult female acne) is the body's chemical
response to increased need for mind, intellect and masculine modes
of protection or action in the world. Thus what you experience
emotionally invests itself in the womb's system and eventually
alters the hormones of your whole body.
Therefore, the degree of difficulty in staying emotionally non-attached
is often related to the degree of sexual and emotional wounding
a woman has experienced and not yet cleared from the womb, water
element and kidney fire. The practices of fighting fire with fire
and imprinting water with special attention to the womb triangles
is very beneficial. To do this complete the fighting fire with
fire and imprinting water exercises and add to the end filling
with divine energy exercise detailed below.
Filling With Divine Energy During The Menses. Though simply filling the womb space with energy from sacred connection is the basic approach, you can use the luminous structure to aid you in importing divine energy into the void womb and connecting that to the rest of the luminous structure.
Discharge. If you can not keep totally sacred menses you should also discharge and cleanse your energies after being with people, negative contacts or heavy responsibilities. To discharge you can use elements of water, fire, or earth. To discharge in water take a bath with one cup of Epsom salts or sea salts and a half cup of baking soda. In the bath offer a prayer that anything that does not serve you be released. Then focus your mind on a point of joy (something that gives you an all over joy feeling). If places in your body are still reactive or painful then you can focus on each one, one at a time. Fill your central axis with unconditional love and then fill the spots of discomfort or pain with unconditional love.
You may also use sitting on the earth with the same prayers and
approach. Alternatively, you could stare into a fire until your
heart opens. Then use the same prayers and approach. You will
know when the discharge is done because you will feel light and
renewed.
You can also use Sun and/or Moon to discharge. To discharge to
the Sun look into the sun as it is just over the horizon in the
morning. Let the sunlight hit you on our third eye and heart and
do the same prayers and approaches as above. If there are no mountains
in the way of your observation of the rising sun it is safe to
stare at it for a few minutes. Do not attempt to stare at the
sun when it is past its first break over the low horizon. Quit
staring if you have to squint or glare.
To discharge to the moon it must be a full moon at midnight. There
are three days to a full moon: the day before, day of, and day
after totally full. Let the moonlight hit you on your third eye,
heart, and (if you can) navel. Then follow the same practices
as above.
Since emotional and mental attachments should be avoided during
high and stagnate water times as well (such as the week before
the menses) you may also wish to use these exercises during the
week before the period. You may recall that water is a carrier
element. In order to carry and imprint, it conforms its very structure
to the imprints it finds. Thus if you are filled with water it
will conform to whatever are your thoughts or emotional state.
You will be filled with those thoughts and emotions not just mentally
but physically and spiritually increasing your attachment to the
things of the illusion. Thus using these exercises to decrease
your attachment can keep this part of the cycle more emotionally
even and prepare you for cleansing.