MENSTRUATION AND THE MOON
The word menstruation comes from the Latin and Greek words for month and moon. Mensis means moon in Latin, and many other languages have words for menstruation that correspond to their words for moon. Not surprisingly the average length of the menstrual cycle is the same as the lunar cycle at approximately 29.5 days. The moon is also a cycling body and our personal relationship to the lunar cycle is a form of biorhythm that starts at birth, becomes effective at puberty, and continues to influence our fertility throughout our fertile life (Naish 1993). As the moon cycles graciously around our planet it becomes a metaphor and our patroness — we too can learn to cycle graciously.
Throughout history and cultures women's cycles have been acknowledged as connected with the moon. Native American women traditionally prayed to the moon to help them with irregular cycles. Bahloo, an important Australian Aboriginal moon deity, helped to create girl babies. The Maori of New Zealand called menstruation mata marama, moon sickness, and believed a girl's first period to be caused by the moon seducing her while she slept. In parts of India and the Torres Strait Islands one word is used for both moon and menstrual blood.
In the 1940s and 50s there was growing evidence of the moon's influence upon the body rhythms and fertility of a wide range of animals and plants. The metabolic and sexual activity of many animals ranging from oysters and worms to monkeys and cows and plant life (including potatoes, carrots and seaweed) have been found to vary with specific phases of the moon even when removed from the influence of tides and moonlight (Naish, 1993). There is also evidence of changes in human psycho-sexual response relative to the phases of the moon.
Studies have shown that peak rates for conception are around the fall moon, indicating that this is the peak time for ovulation, ovulation and conception rates being significantly less at the new moon, when more women are menstruating (Northrup, 1994). Dr Eugine Jonas discovered (or perhaps more accurately, rediscovered) in the 1960s another powerful proof of our intimate connection with the moon. He found that along with her hormonal cycle a woman has a second cycle that relates to the lunar cycle. Dr Jonas found that every time the angle between the sun and moon, relative to the earth, is the same as at a woman's birth (which happens once every 29.5 days approximately) she has the capacity to spontaneously ovulate, irrespective of where she is in her hormonal cycle. This finding elaborated upon the work of researchers like Masters and Johnson who discovered that women do have the capacity to spontaneously ovulate at other times than their hormonal ovulation (Naish, 1993).
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