Sisterhood. Let me paint you a picture. Girls at the start of their journey through womanhood, wise older women, young women, mothers & those in their middle years sitting around a crackling fire beneath trees and next to a stream on a summers day. The birds sing in the trees, smoke rises and the water bubbles in the brook. The air is soft and warm and the scent of roses wafts towards you.

All are listening as one of us talks about a famous woman who inspires her. The talking basket moves round as we take turns to open our hearts, minds and voices. We give one another space to speak and be heard so our confidence in one another and ourselves grows. The dreams we dare to dream burst into seed and then take root.

This gathering will give you (and your daughters) the opportunity to be inspired by others and be creative. We will be harnessing the ancient healing power of herbs by making herbal balm to soothe stings and skin irritation. We will also be creating with our hands – sewing dream pillows filled with mugwort, lavender and chamomile that can then help us work with the intuitive wisdom that comes through our dreams. Working with herbs in this way gives us the chance to keep our relationship with our ancient grandmothers alive – the women who once used and shared this wisdom on a daily basis.

We will be spending time in the Red Tent too – a beautiful space filled with shimmering saris, comfortable cushions and feminine art. We will walk the land nearby and share good food together.

The day will be very child-friendly, and perfect for girls age eight and above. It will draw on our connection with nature and those of all faiths and none are welcome. There will be balance between active, creative times and time to chat, relax and make new friends. You will come away with a strong and lasting impression of the bonding and solidarity that comes from celebrating our connection in a safely held circle.

Celebrating our Sacred Sisterhood – Saturday 15^th June 2017 near Skenfrith, Monmouthshire (easily accessible from Bristol, Cardiff, Hereford and Gloucester).

Please get in touch with me on karin@redwisdom.co.uk or ring 01600 750763 or via Facebook to book your places. £40 per woman, £5 per girl (early-bird, before 15th June); £55 and £10 thereafter.

We all crave a little stillness and peace in the heart of midwinter, but this can seem like an impossible quest! Pressure and busyness are heaped upon us in incremental daily doses until we are virtually on our knees by Winter Solstice. We expect ourselves to buy the perfect gifts for our family, decorate our homes and mail off thoughtful Christmas card messages to all those far away friends.

If we are parents, then the stresses pile up even higher. We are flat-out, shepherding our offspring to parties and nativities, ensuring that they don’t miss out on the joys of the festive season. What a tall-order at a time where we naturally crave more sleep and rest.

It can all result in us feeling decidedly frazzled and un-festive. It seems ironic that the essence of Winter Solstice is steeped in calm and tranquillity and yet this tends to be dwarfed by the huge expectations of Christmas. How can we centre ourselves and access this quality of stillness, like snow silently falling on the sleeping earth, wrapping the landscape in the softest, coldest and most beautiful of slow-motion blankets?

Winter Solstice is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Most Pagan celebrations focus on the return of the light, and I too have spent many a Solstice morn cheering as the first sunbeams break out in the East at daybreak, heralding the start of longer and warmer days.

However, this year I feel different. I don’t want to dismiss the energy of the dark, incubatory time of the underworld capriciously with the rise of the sun on the morn after Solstice. This to me feels like wishing away my bleeding days rather than savouring their gifts. In reality it takes at least three days for the days to begin to grow and many more before most of us notice a real difference. We remain shrouded in rich, velvet blackness for a good chunk of time at Solstice.

We can choose to embrace Solstice quietness, with early bedtimes and lie-ins, before rising to enjoy the noisy demands of Christmas and the return of the light. As the solar pendulum swings leisurely over a period of days, I plan to enjoy the long nights, by listening to my dreams, soul-searching and savouring those wakeful moments in the night, where I will lie silent under my duvet, listening to the elements howl at the pane.

Being in the dark, slowing down and opening ourselves with rawness and honesty exposes our cracks and vulnerabilities. This enables us to acknowledge our pain and grief and thus begin our healing process and the process of renewal. I welcome and honour this uncomfortable, but essential dialogue with myself. Once I’ve wrapped a few more presents I will be ready.

Accepting the importance of winter, preparing our hearths & homes to keep us snug and linking hands with our communities to appreciate our greater connection across the land, enables us to taste all that deepest Winter Solstice and Christmas have to offer us.

I discovered as a teenager that nothing eases a menstrual cramp like a spot of self-pleasuring. Practised skilfully, month after month, one learns to turn the volume of the pain down and switch the tempo of the pleasure on to cruise control mode ~ not too fast or too slow. This way you can maintain a steady state of suspended, hovering pleasure whilst your blood flow builds up to warp speed and the cramps run their course. Then when you finally allow yourself to reach the finish line of orgasm, you can drift off to sleep and wake up feeling a whole lot better.

My first piece of advice to anyone suffering from period pains would be to allow the blood to flow out of their vulva onto a washable pad, rather than using  a tampon or even cup or sponge.

My second would be to indulge in a self-pleasuring, ‘pampering your pussy’, ‘hitchhiking south’ or even ‘parting the red sea’. I love these witty self-pleasuring idioms! Please write in if you have any more to offer. We need to lap all the sex-positive language up that we can!

I am no scientist, but with a little Internet research, it seems clear that there are several physical and bio-chemical scientific reasons why orgasms relieve period pains:

1. We know that menstrual cramps are caused by the build-up of prostaglandins in the womb. When we orgasm, our vagina, cervix, uterus and anus all experience a series of muscular contractions, which can help to disperse the prostaglandins and relax a cramping womb on a bodily level.

2. The neurochemicals involved in the process also play a major role in switching on our ‘pleasure centre’ in our brains, which makes our emotions and thoughts temporarily suspend, hence making the period pains less of an issue. The key players here are prolactin, oxytocin and dopamine. We know that both oxytocin and prolactin are vital birthing hormones, which help us to birth, bond and breastfeed babies. They also flood our brains as we orgasm, filling us with a sense of well-being. Dopamine fills us with feelings of pleasure.

3. Post-orgasm, we release endorphins into the blood stream. These powerful substances are similar to morphine and relieve pain as well as stress, helping to dispel those cramps.

Anecdotally, bushwhacking doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s certainly worth a good crack before you reach for the painkillers. Discuss it with your friends and see what they say. Even if it doesn’t help you, it may help your friend, neighbour, sister or daughter. Another good reason to pop a vibrator in your daughter’s menarche box.

Photograph by Tsuacctnt