Happy International Women's Day!

Today we have a double celebration, yeee!!! International Women’s Day and Full Moon in Virgo!!!

Congratulations to all of us, to the women who read this blog and the ones who don’t, the ones I know personally and the ones I don’t too.

What does this day mean to you? What does it mean to be a woman? How do you celebrate it? How do you value your feminine spirit? And what are your own relationships with women like?

Today I ask myself how we can expand this feeling of love, happiness and sisterhood to the remaining 364 days of the year. How can we bring this feeling to the sisters we don’t know? To the woman we find on the road, on the bus, in the supermarket, in the queue to the cash point, in the office?  

Living in a masculine world has created and unhealthy competition among women, plenty times we are full of prejudices, jealousy and envy towards our sisters. Today, I want us to reflect on the sister who makes us feel like this and think of her as you, see your own reflection in her. We are all mirrors, so take a good look at yourself! She has the same body, the same ideas, the same fears. Help her, hold her, understand her, have compassion towards her, she is your own feminine spirit that yearns and looks for validation.   

Today we can change this idea and celebrate us, dance together as one. Let’s carry this feeling of sisterhood to other circles and not isolate ourselves in a small circle where we feel safe and comfortable. Let’s get out there and explore, because I assure you, that in that place where you weren’t looking you will find another women yearning for the same things than you do.

In the book The Double Goddess, Vicky Noble talks about the feminine duality and how this imagery of the double Goddesses can represent the two opposite sides of our cycle. One represents menstruation and the other one ovulation. This is exactly what I would love us to notice when we meet another sister, another Goddess. We could very well be in opposite sides of the cycle, however we are part of the same cycle, we are one.   

Today we have a full moon in Virgo, an earth sign and a feminine sign! This moon asks us to take action, to reap what we have sown, to leave once and for all the things that no longer serve us and are not align with our true life purpose. In the old days Virgo was related to

Ishtar, Innana and Demeter so we can say that these three goddess represent the Trinity so what else can we ask for in this day!  

Today is time to take firmer steps towards our goals, steps that will require thinking and planning. Virgo makes things tangible and the full moon is always a time of celebration, of action, revelation and inspiration. Wait for that wonderful idea; reap your dreams y see the positive results that this day can bring into your life.

I wish love in your hearts today and every day and don't forget to smile to that strange woman as she walks past!

Much love x

Belinda

Womb Blessing training workshop in London

Today I am really excited as I can finally tell you what has been cooking for the last month :)

For those of you who participated in the Womb Blessing last February would probably know more about what I am about to tell you. For those of you who don’t know yet about the Womb Blessing, here it is Miranda’s explanation about what it is:

‘This Womb Blessing attunement is a simple gift - a gift to every woman of any age and experience who would like to receive it - of energy to bring healing to our femininity, to our womb and its cycle, to our creativity and fertility, to our sexuality and spirituality.

The attunement restores our natural purity and beauty, abundance and love, creativity and magic, and our wisdom and strength. It frees us from the past, from limiting expectations, and guilt and hurt, and releases the soul-felt joy and expression of women's power and beauty. It is a beautiful blessing and restoration of light for women's souls in a harsh and masculine world.’

The 1st Womb Blessing last February given by Miranda Gray had an amazing participation of over 6,000 women around the planet!

The day of the blessing was an amazing day, it was so beautiful and sunny during the day and we had the most amazing silver full moon that night. The attunement to the blessing caused many women to feel joy and positive changes in their lives which prompted them to ask more about this beautiful energy work. How they could learn it or how could they pass it into other women.

2012 is the year of the feminine; we are feeling the feminine more than ever and this energy is grounding us deeply into mamma earth. For those of you who have been doing this kind of work for quite some time, 2012 feels like a firmer step towards who you are. For women who are new to this work, this year feels like a true awakening, they feel a sudden urge to change the old patters and express their natural femininity.

Whatever you are in your life, we all need this energy, we all need to come back to our pure essence, we need to heal personal and collective pain and we need to share our awakening and love with other women so we can all heal. Miranda’s role in the Womb Blessing is to be a channel of the Divine Feminine energy and with this Womb Blessing Training workshop, she hopes to pass this onto other women so we can all spread this beautiful loving energy onto more and more women.

It's beacuse of this that Miranda feels it is important to pass this energy and spread the blessing by teaching other women how to be the channels themselves and spread this healing onto more wombs.

The training workshop is a two day workshop where you will learn:

·         give a Womb Healing

·         give the Womb Blessing

·         teach women a simple self-healing technique

·         share with women the Womb Blessing meditation

You will also receive a ‘Moon Mother’ initiation / attunement on the first day which is a gift of the Divine Feminine energies and will make you a channel for this energy and vibration, helping you to cleanse your own patterns. You will be taught how to give a hands-on Womb Blessing to help women gently heal their femininity and their womb energy centre or ‘Sacred Grail’.

After the two day training workshop you will be a registered Moon Mother which means you will be able to give Womb Healing and Womb Blessings.

‘Working with the Womb Blessing energies changes us and changes our lives. Being a ‘Moon Mother’ is a path for bringing the spiritual energies of the Divine Feminine into everyday life and connecting women in a single, loving, spiritual, and female family.’

The training workshop is open to all women of all ages, with a womb or without, with a cycle or without, with a medically managed cycle or a natural cycle. However, it is not recommended if you are pregnant.

I am pleased to announce Miranda's first Womb Blessing training workshop will be in London

When: 14 & 15th April

Where: Tara Yoga Centre, 25 - 31 Ironmonger Row, London, EC1V 3QW (10 mins. from Old Street)

Price: £200 or get the early bird price £180 before the 7th of April.

For bookings and checking availability please email miranda.gray@footmark.com

For enquiries you can contact me on belinda.garciareyes@gmail.com or on 07758 160191

Miranda is planning more Womb Blessing Training Workshops around the country and around Europe, so please check her website for more information.

I hope to see you there!
With love
Belinda

Inner light

Today is the last day of my juice detox and I am actually sad it has come to an end. I thought it would be more difficult since it was programmed during my premenstrual phase but instead it has been a real eye opening.

For the past months, I've had headaches during my premenstruum which made me be in bed most of the time, just retreating in the dark, not wanting to do anything but to rest. I knew this would be probably related to my diet and I tried to improve my water intake but that wasn’t enough. I am not a big drinker so cutting alcohol wasn't a problem. I also removed my morning cup of coffee last month, it wasn't part of my 2012 resolutions that I might not even keep, it just happened. All with the intention to keep my diet clean and see if my symptoms would improve.

For the past five days, I have been drinking 4 juices a day, 3 liters of water and two cups of hot water with a slice of lemon and ginger, one in the morning and one just before going to bed. I can’t say it hasn’t been difficult, it has! But not as difficult as I though. Yes, I feel hungry and I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to tomorrow’s breakfast, but a big part of me wants to keep it clean.

I have definitely seen a different side of me, especially now that I am on my premenstrual phase, where I would usually be more moody, have tender breast, bloated belly, lower back pain and most recently, headaches. Today, after five days of juices, I feel happy, alive and mentally strong. I know my energy is coming down and I won’t be running a marathon any time soon but I’m not dragging myself out of the floor and my body is not aching at all.

I have been going through massive changes, internally and externally, but I feel centered. My senses are so alert that I can actually feel a connection between my belly, my heart and my throat. It is as if everything that is coming out of me is coming from this centered power, inner voice, inner light and it feels amazing. I feel very in tune with who I am and very intuitive too.

Don’t get me wrong, I love food, cooking it and eating it, so it has been a real torture to smell food around me. Every time I do, my stomach rumbles but I have kept going, after all five days is not that much!

It has been amazing realizing how much food affects us in a positive or negative way and how it can certainly affect our cycle. During my juice detox, I kept receiving message from the company I did the detox from, on their messages they would say things like ‘well done, you’re nearly there; make sure you reward yourself today’. My first reaction was: How can I reward myself if I can’t eat?!... luckily, my partner overheard me thinking out loud and he wisely pointed out that there are other ways to reward yourself other than food!

I mean, I knew that, right? but probably I had not seen it so obvious and so clear. I thought I wasn’t the sort of person who eats for comfort but because I am actually hungry. Clearly my subconscious betrayed me and it seems I am. So even if five days is not a long time and I thought my previous diet wasn’t bad, after just five days without solid food, I feel more centered and in control of my emotions and my power. I feel my belly full of fire burning but not burning in a out of control kind of way but rather burning gently lighting my whole being. 

For most women, the premenstrual phase is the hardest to manage, it comes full of emotions, body aches, cravings and so on. But what percentage of theses are our true emotions and what comes from our food?

After these five days, it is clear to me food plays a major role, I mean, it’s kind of obvious and you're all probably thinking “I knew that already” but notice it properly, see exactly what you are eating, what are your cravings during this phase. Would it be that it is easier to reach for food rather than dealing with the emotions that are coming up? Be aware of your intake of coffee, sugar, salt, alcohol, drugs, etc.  

So, what was my treat to myself? I filled a warm bath with epsom salts, turned off the bathroom lights and lit a red candle instead. I spent more than an hour in the bath meditating in the dark, soaking in powerful emotions. I am on day 30th of my cycle on the board of bleeding and I have had no pre-menstrual symptoms other than wanting to retreat and I want to keep it this way. From this centered place of love and light, from my womb to your womb, I wish the same for you. 

Free Womb Blessing by Miranda Gray

Join women all over the world for this unique magical experience!

We are already over 1,800 women in 40 or so countries!

Help restore the Divine Feminine, the Goddess energy in the world by tuning to

Miranda Gray's  Free Womb Blessing attunement

Next Full Moon

7th Feb 2012 

A truly unique opportunity to receive attunement to the divine feminine energy to bring healing, blessing and the restoration of the beautiful and magical energies of the feminine.

With the current situation in the World, this energy is a gift.

Available at four times to suit all world time zones

6am, 12hrs, 18hrs, 24hrs GMT

Registration ends this Saturday 4th of February

http://www.mirandagray.co.uk/wombblessing.html

Daily updates on facebook

Alexandra Pope

When I meet Alexandra Pope for the first time, I felt in love with her energy, her self-assured posture and her ideas about menstruation. Every single word that came out of her mouth was pure wisdom. She’s one of those women who you could listen for hours and hours. 


I meet Alexandra during the first screening of The Moon inside You back in 2009; she appears in the documentary as one of the featured experts along celebrities in the menstrual world such as Penelope Shuttle and the social anthropologist Chris Knight.

Alexandra was born in England and lived in Australia for 25 years; it’s only been three to four years since she decided to go back to England. The decision wasn’t easy but there was a wonderful opportunity ahead.

She now runs The Women’s Quest program, a project that would had not been possible without the encouragement and unconditional love of another beautiful mamma Goddess, who I meet dancing the five rhythms, Sjanie Hugo. 


The Women’s Quest is a project dedicated to women’s self-empowerment by acknowledging the menstrual cycle as the most important tool in womanhood. So far, Alexandra has taken The Women’s Quest to Italy and Spain and travels around England along Sjanie teaching menstrual awareness.

The need of this type of work all over the world is so great that The Women’s Quest has become a very successful program. So great that in fact last year Alexandra decided to run an apprenticeship study program, the first of its kind, which will focus on deepening our knowledge on the cycle. The apprenticeship program is dedicated to women who are keen to transmit this work back to their communities, just like in another time it would've been done from mother to daughter.  

Alexandra’s idea about menstruation is that one day girls and women of all ages will think it's super cool to have a cycle! But before that happens, we all have a lot of work to do.

It has taken Alexandra 30 years to put together The Women’s Quest apprenticeship program in its actual form, all of her menstrual life, as she well says, but I am sure it has all been worth it!


It is beacause of this that Alexandra has earned the title of wise woman and I feel blessed and deeply honored to be able to take part on her first apprenticeship program. She is a beautiful wombman, a great speaker, a natural leader, a wise mentor, a kind spirit.

Her second apprenticeship program starts in September 2012, for more information, you can visit her website or join The Women’s Quest community.

Red Moon workshop

Red Moon is probably one of the most well know books on menstruation. It was written by Miranda Gray, an English teacher, writer, illustrator, Reiki master and healer.

I believe books come to you whenever we need them so Red Moon came to me a long time ago, I was looking to know more about the cycle and I found Miranda Gray, since that moment I have always wanted to meet her, she seemed my kind of woman!  

I have helped Miranda in the past with translations of her work into Spanish, work that is available for Spanish speakers on her website but I wanted to do more than that and so after years of exchanging emails and talking about doing something together we have finally decided it was the time!

I invite you to come to this wonderful two day workshop inspired on Miranda’s book RED MOON.

The workshop is open to all women of all ages, who are already into their cycles, women new to this work, mothers with daughters coming of age; grandmothers wanting to pass this beautiful knowledge to their family, ANY WOMAN is welcomed!  

For more information, check my details on the flyer and for bookings you can do so through Miranda Gray’s website

When: 17 & 18 December

Venue: The Hall at In-spire, The Crypt at St. Peter’s, Liverpool Grove, London, SE17 2HH

Cost: £50 (student concessions £35)

Come and celebrate being a woman!

Womens circle

I am a circle

I am healing you

You are a circle

You are healing me

U-oo-oo-nite us, be one

U-oo-oo-nite us, be as o-u-u-ne

spiritual song for women

unknown author 

click on the image to see the video