Retrospective Menarche First Bleed Ceremony
A ceremony designed to re-enact and celebrate your first blood – your Menarche Ceremony (menarche from the Greek word men meaning month and arkhe, beginning.)
“We have created this ceremony as a reclamation of the wisdom held in our cyclical nature. To heal the collective wounds and ways of being we indigested during our early relationship to our menstruation. A relationship informed by our care givers and cultures that have predominantly wrapped our periods in shame, guilt, stigma, disembodiment, residues of which live on in our bodies.
Ceremony is intentional, it’s a living prayer, a communication with our whole being and creation. Through that process something lands deep within us, a re-patterning that words cannot express. That landing is a healing, a returning to our messy wholeness not just for us, but for our ancestors past, present and unborn.
The experience of our first bleed shapes what culture expects from us and if it was not an empowered experience our power is not fully switched on. Take a pause and reflect on what your first bleed taught you about being a woman/person? how has that played out in your life? We reclaim our power by re-enacting our rite of passage through three distinct phases, Separation, Transition and Integration. The final phase requires community to be seen and witnessed therefore it cannot happen in isolation. This ceremony is an opportunity for integration.
I did not choose to facilitate ceremony, its a much deeper calling within me that I am passionately driven to create ceremony for our collective healing at this time. If your body hears/feels my words, may you trust your knowing and join us”
in love & service Rashpal Kaur X
“Shame is a toxic, paralysing emotion that impacts our self-worth. Menstrual shame alienates us from our body consciousness, undermining our confidence and trust in ourselves and our healthy female physiology”
“Menstrual shame leads to body shame, body shame leads to low self esteem, low self esteem leads to wounded behaviours”
This is a call to reimagine your story, honouring this important rite of passage, revisiting a path that has informed your relationship with your body and your monthly blood.
By the close of the Ceremony, it is our intention that you feel empowered, seen, known, embraced and healed with deeper insight and potency of your cyclical wisdom.
“The rites of passage of birth, menarche, childbirth and menopause serve the purpose of educating us of our value in our role and our society’s expectations of us, they give us information about how we are to behave. The way menarche and menstruation 🩸 are dealt with in our culture, our families and our communities, influences how a young woman understands what it means to be a woman, a cyclical, sexual, fertile female human being”
Ceremony Highlights
Guided meditation to bring home the parts of you that separated or did not integrate during your early bleeding
Well woman yoga and embodied movement to connect with your life force
Offering yourself and being held in deep compassion
Re-membering our cyclic wisdom
Crossing the threshold from childhood into adolescence
Experiencing the power of being witnessed, seen, honoured and celebrated
Who is the ceremony for?
This ceremony is for:
people who currently menstruate,
or wish to revisit their menstruation cycle as part of their healing journey. (each menstruation cycle is a process of death, rebirth, transformation, an embodiment practice in preparation for the death, rebirth, transformation that is menopause. All that remains unhealed throughout the menstruation cycle will be met at menopause.)
“The biggest thing I got from the menarche ceremony was a total sense of who I am without attachments to any stories – strong, courageous and confident. In the months that have followed, I have felt a complete sense of freedom. Freedom to be the woman I was meant to be. I am also able to love, respect and honour my mother fully. In the past, in many situations, I would silently think to myself ‘Oh there we go, just like your mother.’ My menarche ceremony brought the spiritual aspect of cutting the umbilical cord to life. It may have physically happened 39 years ago, but I felt connected still. Only now do I feel that I am my own person entirely.
”
Bring with you
a yoga mat
a blanket or two
water bottle
journal (optional)
any other item that will make you feel cosy and comfortable
an item(s) that evokes a fond childhood memory
Ceremony Price
£60
Participants
The Ceremony is small and intimate offered to a maximum of 10 participants.
Location
Hammersmith Quaker Meeting, 30-32 Bradmore Park Road, London W6 0DT
Hammersmith Quaker Meeting Hall
The circle room where we will create our sacred ceremony
Saturday free parking is available directly outside the venue and local streets
Getting there
By bicycle - lock-up facilities on site.
Buses to Hammersmith Town Hall (5 minutes walk away): 27, 190, 266, 267, 290, 391, H9.
Tube stations - Ravenscourt Park and Hammersmith are both 5-10 minutes walk away.
Parking free all weekend.
Your Facilitators
Rashpal Kaur seeded the ceremonies we are offering as a result of her own life journey towards deeper embodiment. Having facilitated women's yoga circles and retreats for a number of years, Ceremony is the next metamorphosis in reconnecting with ourselves and community. The intention of Ceremony is to be seen, witnessed and acknowledged through our life cycle transitions with dignity, support and celebration.
Diane Przybilla is a passionate advocate for women’s health through all her offerings. She brings a depth of experience as a menstrual awareness cycle coach, yoga teacher, fasting guide, fertility and lomi lomi massage therapist/teacher, and energy worker.
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“Consciously living the changing rhythm of your menstrual cycle, and the ensuing self-awareness and cyclical knowing that you accumulate, provides the groundswell, the momentum, to unfold you organically into and through menopause”