Why you don’t need ceremonial plant medicine
In a world where we are addicted to speed, intensity, adrenaline and stress, we mistakenly look toward healing practices that mirror those states of intensity and catharsis. Hot yoga, intense breathwork, sweat lodges, Ayhuasca, psylosibin or cacao ceremony. Its like looking for the next hit but calling it a spiritual practice. The intensity of preparing for the experience, the out of body experience itself, and then coming back down to reality are part of a familiar cycle of addiction to intensity. Have you come back from your spiritual mountain only to see you crave it over an over again. You need more and more healing?
I am not condemning these practices. They are ancient. And they were developed in a different place, in a different time, within a different culture. They don’t belong to the modern Western world and ultimately they don’t help us in deep healing. Not because they don’t work, but because they literally were not made for us modern humans.
In so many beautiful ways we ARE returning to earth medicine and ancient universal healing practices. And it is possible to find those practices without cultural appropriation, pilgrimages or expensive trainings.
I know of a Feminine, earth-based spiritual practice that is accessible in our daily lives, moment by moment. It does not require special equipment or tools or setting. It does not require special plants or finding a facilitator who is in alignment with themselves and the plant medicine.
This medicine is anti-capitalist, deeply Feminine, ecological and potentially community-oriented (we’re still getting to that part). It is the deepest level of self care you can practice.
Your menstrual cycle is your medicine. You are the medicine!
Your menstrual cycle holds the same power as any plant medicine ceremony or sweat lodge. You menstrual cycle holds the keys to your healing and your power. When fully embodied, embraced and understood within the context of nature, the cycle and in particular menstruation is an initiation.
Every single cycle is an initiation into ourselves. And it doesn’t require fasting to prepare for vomiting or losing contact with our physical bodies. It simply requires presence, acknowledgment, awareness.
How do I start this spiritual practice?
Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA) is about paying attention. Not just to your body, your physical signs, but also to your spirit/psyche. MCA helps us place the monthly ebb and flow of hormones, cravings, desires, challenges and vulnerabilities within a framework for knowing ourselves. And as a tool of guidance for the big questions in our lives.
Your first and next steps are to observe and record your physical and emotional landscapes, daily. Over time, over months you will sense patterns. And here is the beautiful part: you task is not to judge or change any of it! Your task is to use the information you gather to love yourself more compassionately and by extension be a beacon of compassion and love for the world. That is my wish for you, and the world.
