Do you have a teen or tween daughter (ages 7-14), who is blooming into Womanhood before your very eyes?
Do you want to offer her a new way of living and working with her menstrual cycle that is empowering and helpful?
I am a mother of a young daughter and when I learnt about cyclical awareness in my late thirties, after the births of two of my children, I was amazed. And then saddened. Why hadn’t anyone told me this before? That working with your cycle can really bring a deeper connection and enhancement to your life. Rather than it just being something to put up with.
I was certain that I wanted something different for my own daughter. So she knew from the beginning about the super power she holds in her body. Something that is a blessing not a curse, and when honoured as such, can become a force of nature rather than something to be ashamed of, or a pain.
Learning more about Cyclical Awareness
I was desperate to learn as much as I could about Menstrual Cycle Awareness, I read all the books I could get my hands on, including Wild Power by The Red School and Period Power by Maisie Hill.
And most importantly trained for nine months with my teacher Uma Dinsmore Tulli, on her Yoni Shakti Well Woman Therapy Course. Here we looked at the key rites of passage/ life stages in a women’s life and how they can be supported through therapeutic yoga techniques.
The foundational element was Menstruation and the Cycle, which is the heart of all the other life stages such as Menarche, Sexuality/ Creativity, Pregnancy, Post Natal, PeriMenopause, Menopause. I learnt beautiful breath, mudra, ritual and Womb Yoga practices that honoured this creative power that lives within a woman.
Marina, Sam and Jo at our 2024 Bloom: Becoming a Woman Retreat. Photo by Liz Evans.
Creating Bloom
I came together with two other good friends, a Moon Circle Host, Ceremonialist and Women’s Health Coach Samantha, and a Family Psychologist and Sacred Sexologist Marina, to create a beautiful offering for Mothers and Daughters who wanted to celebrate the coming of age of their daughters. We called it Bloom and created a Retreat weekend, which we have now run for the last 4 years, which is an combination of all our unique skillsets.
It provides
time for connection between Mums and Daughters, which is so important at this age when girls are stepping into their own being
Ancient wisdom of the cycles and empowering education around menstruation
Sharing circles and rituals to shift our beliefs and the stories we may be carrying around intergenerational stories we may be carrying around menstruation and a beautiful
Feminine Embodied Movement
Time in nature
Connection to a community of other Mums and Daughters of the same age
Celebration and ritual in community of this important coming of age moment
If you are interested in learning more about the retreat Bloom we offer or the online programme that we will be offering later this year, please find more details here or get in touch via email or instagram.
For now, I will leave you with some excellent resources and books to read to support your daughter in her journey towards becoming a woman.
Image from our 2024 Bloom: Becoming a Woman Retreat. At the Menarche Ceremony at Mas de Mingall. Photo by Liz Evans.
Excellent Resources to read if your Daughter is approaching Menarche
In her sensitive book for parents, Jane Bennett dispels the notion of the curse, replacing it with a positive and enlightened view of menarche and menstruation. With practical advice on how to explain menstruation to your daughter, help her cope with mood swings and pain, as well as handle such issues as contraception, you can feel confident that your daughter will have an affirming experience of menstruation.
Reaching for the Moon: a girl's guide to her cycles ~ Lucy H Pearce
A holistic guide for girls as they approach puberty – a celebration of our menstrual bodies and initiation to womanhood.
Reaching for the Moon is the girls' version of Lucy H. Pearce's bestselling Moon Time for girls aged 9-14 as they anticipate and experience their body's changes.
A message of wonder, empowerment, magic and beauty in the shared secrets of our femininity...written to encourage girls to embrace their transition to womanhood in a knowledgeable, supported, loving way.
Waking the Witches Comic Series – Book 1 – Ruby’s First Blood – Book and eBook ~ Jane Hardwicke Collings
Ruby is a regular 11-year-old, until she learns the power of her blood magick!
Journey with Ruby as she meets her spirit animal, Zasha, and wise woman, Hekate and learns the truth about her Menarche, her first blood and the mission to wake up the witches.
The Shadow lurks within all of us and we’re asleep with the ‘cloak of forget’.
What is this ‘cloak of forget’ and how will Ruby wake up the witches?
A magickal adventure exploring girls’ rites of passage. Be surprised, delighted and transformed!!
Beautiful Girl: Celebrating the Wonders of Your Body ~ Dr. Christiane Northrup and Kristina Tracy
Beautiful Girl presents this simple but important message: that to be born a girl is a very special thing and carries with it magical gifts and powers that must be recognized and nurtured.
Through these empowering words and illustrations, little girls will learn how their bodies are perfect just the way they are, the importance of treating themselves with gentle care and how changes are just a part of growing up.
It's every little girl's birthright to have the deep and unshakable belief that her body is beautiful and contains powerful creative magic. Knowing this will set the stage for her physical and mental health throughout her life.
Moon Mother, Moon Daughter ~ Janet Lucy and Terry Allison
How would it be different if mothers looked forward to their daughters’ first steps into womanhood with the same anticipation and excitement as they had for her very first steps toward walking? What if there was a whole community of women waiting to receive her into womanhood? What if there was a way for mothers and daughters to walk together? With the moon as a guide and a symbol, Moon Mother, Moon Daughter introduces a whole new approach to the coming of age years, a time to strengthen the mother-daughter connection with the support of community, and celebrate female gifts and wisdom. Moon Mother, Moon Daughter is a practical and concrete guide rooted in ancient traditions and timeless wisdom. Each of the 12 chapters uses a goddess myth as its basis. The myth is followed by an exploration of the key coming of age concepts and divine feminine qualities (ie. intuition, creativity, dreaming) found within the myth, activities and suggestions for mothers and daughters, and a list of further reading and resources.
Puberty Girl ~ Susann Movsessian
Psst, want a whole new approach to puberty? Puberty Girl is here to help!Whether or not you've started seeing the signs of your body changing, this fab book will bring new meaning and understanding to a young girl's tween years. Yes, it can be a confusing and emotional time - but with Puberty Girl by your side, you won't need to go through puberty alone.Puberty Girl is smart, intelligent, fun, colourful and factual and TELLS IT LIKE IT IS. It talks about the big M, the V word (yep - Vagina!), the period costume, PMS, puberty power and even the B word - breasts! This beautifully illustrated book lets you know what to expect, physically and emotionally, as you tread the path to becoming a woman.
Her Blood is Gold ~ Lara Owen
In the past few years there have been some gradual but perceptible changes in our collective attitude to menstruation, perhaps shown most obviously in television commercials and magazine advertising, which are less coy and more realistic and explicit in their portrayal of the menstruating woman. People seem less affronted by the subject matter than they were when the research for this book began. They are more willing to examine the possibility that in Western materialist culture our commonly held notions about the menstrual cycle have been infected by centuries of misogyny. The taboo about discussing menstruation still exists, but it appears to be gradually dissolving, along with other prejudices about the body and sexuality and gender. I hope that these subtle changes in attitudes to menstruation presage a greater shift in how we collectively value, affirm, and accept female experience. The relationship between menstruation and power is still held very much under the surface of mainstream awareness, and most cultural references to menstruation continue to be couched in the terminology of pathology. Reintegrating a truly feminist, woman-honoring perspective on menstruation means turning a whole system of thought upside down. It means saying that a cyclical change in feelings and body sensations is valuable and interesting; it means saying that the emotions women experience premenstrually carry useful information and should be paid attention to; it means acknowledging that a menstruating woman has access to sacred energy, and that if she wishes, she should have space and time to explore this dimension of experience. The ramifications of such a shift would be truly radical. For many reasons, including ecological and cultural survival, I believe the system of thought which has caused women to adapt to a non-cyclical reality needs to be turned upside down, for the good of us all. We menstruate more now than at any time in human history. Girls are starting to menstruate earlier due to protein-rich diets and hormones in food; women are less likely to die young; we have fewer children and therefore spend less time not menstruating. Increased work and family stresses, in addition to more periods, mean that women are more physically and psychologically vulnerable to negative attitudes to menstruation. So it is more important than ever that we investigate ways to make our periods physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy.
I hope that this list of resources and books to read if you have a tween or teen daughter approaching her first menstruation/ period is useful. It really is just a starting point as there are thankfully so many more now that you can read.
Until next time in Circle,
Jo x