Age 12. Remember those days? It all seems a blur. I enjoyed school. I loved basketball, volleyball, and swimming. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I loved Duran Duran and Boy George. My hair was spiked and jeans were torn. My best friend was Elaine. And I hadn’t got my period. I don’t think that happened until I was 14. I do remember being quiet about the whole “period”, “puberty”, “womanly” thing. I don;t remember being taught to be proud of this amazing gift. I simply had the “talk” with my mom and the school talk was more about the body and functionality of it- I went to a Catholic school. It’s only purpose- babies. Those talks lasted maybe 1 hour tops. That was the extent of it.
Today, it’s different. Maddie, my beautiful 12 year old niece, has many experiences already in life quite different than mine. She is inundated with information- it’s the age of information technology. Her school talk was on “products” and unfortunately not very well received despite the glorious “products” that can be now found for such youngsters. Luckily, she has a great mom who tells it like it is and is very open with Maddie about the female body. So beyond the TV and magazines, Maddie’s getting the real stuff from the support of family.
Based on my 41 years of experience with life, I wanted to celebrate rather than ignore. I often dreamed the “red tent” experience back in the BC days were true. When the mooncycle demanded that the women put down their dish towels and spatulas to sit in the tent on hay for 1 week straight with the other women of the family. This simultaneous “flow” of energy all encapsulated in one room...for a week. Now let us remember ladies, during the time of bleeding, our hormones return to baseline- we generally have feelings of joy and cleansing, not like the week before when we were ready to pull the knife on our sister for wearing my shirt! (Oops, a low-progesterone moment slip). There would have been love, laughter, and union. And best of all, the food consisting of breads, oils, olives, wine, and garden vegetables would be brought to us gently placed outside the door for indulgence by our 6-packed ab men in white hip-hugger wraps with sandals (high testosterone moment!) . Now all you would have to do is top that off with the countryside of Italy and I am there!
For Maddie, it was not Italy but the GrassHopper Restaurant in downtown West Bend. They have a great private back room. Jodie, our wonderful hostess (with 10 other siblings of her own) greeted us and shared in on some stories. We had a room filled with Maddie’s family- her grandmother, mother, aunts, pregnant sister-in-law (we will never tell Sully he went to a “red tent” party!) and cousins. We met over breakfast all fresh for the day. We tattooed ourselves with butterflies as we all reflected on our own metamorphosis. We shared stories, played a few games, and unwrapped many “products”. There were “who-ha’s”, “va-j-j’s” and “aunt flow” stories. There were words of wisdom such as “dance”, “believe”, and “inspire”. There was laughter and love in the realization that there is this cycle of life we all experience- let’s not silence it but rather have our voices be heard. And with that, Jodie brought in blue beaded necklaces- and we didn’t even need to “show her” anything to get them! The intuition of that moment- blue, the throat charka, a calling for voices be heard at an age where this chakra continues to evolve. It’s awesome knowing these female brains, that cycle each month, have adjustments in functioning by up to 25% throughout the month! It seemed we caught everyone on their “good” days!
If we are to be successful with our search for knowledge, this requires well structured information by well-informed agents...and why not add in some fun! This gathering brought that- knowledge to Maddie that she is surrounded by strong women who love her and wish for her to enjoy the beauty that is. Every woman in that restaurant wanted to be in that back room that day! Le donne sono belle! Grazie buona famiglia!
