Rituals that Honor the Sacred Transitions of Womanhood

Align your own season of life with Mother Nature's natural cycles

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

A couple weekends ago I was sitting in a church basement unscrambling “mom” words on a light blue sheet of paper for a baby shower game. I won a candle. Word games are my jam.

My cousin and his wife have fostered children for years hoping to adopt. Their dreams unexpectedly came true when they were chosen as the adoptive parents of a newborn. They went from being a cute one-year-old boy’s foster parents to also being the proud parents of a newborn. Two under one. Their lives literally changed overnight.

They brought the new baby home from the hospital the night before the shower. The last-minute celebration was an opportunity to acknowledge their blessings and assemble the necessary baby items they’d need. While the books, onesies, diapers, wipes, and swaddle blankets are useful, I couldn’t help feeling that the last thing my cousin’s wife needed to be doing at 2:00 in the afternoon on this particular Sunday was sitting in a church basement eating sugar cookies, playing baby trivia, and worrying about keeping a list of who gifted what in order to send thank-you cards. She needed to be sleeping. We needed to be in our kitchens cooking her nourishing meals. She needed a moment to herself. I was happy to celebrate with her, but the modern baby shower is not a particularly helpful ritual to usher in the transition to motherhood. Unfortunately, being good at unscrambling words doesn’t help you when your baby screams all hours of the day and night.

Rethinking natural transitions in a woman’s life

After my son’s birth, I tried to practice zuo yezi, the Chinese postpartum healing practice that encourages the mother to rest for a month. My sister-in-law had recommended the book The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother by Heng Ou, Amely Greeven, and Marisa Belger. I asked my family to cook me extra nourishing meals while I stayed in bed for at least a week bonding with my new baby.

With my second child, despite my best intentions to honor zuo yezi, I lasted less than three days. Our culture expects mothers to be back at work within weeks. The proverbial “village” that is supposed to help mothers raise their children is often non-existent, scattered across the country, or too busy to come through in times of real need¹. Since space for “healing” isn’t a culturally-condoned practice in the United States, I instead spent the first two months of my daughter’s life packing up our house and moving four states away from all family support like a good, independent American mother. 🙄

Absent meaningful care rituals, the natural transitions of a woman’s life are often ignored, downplayed, or feared. These times of uncertainty, joy, grief, and anxiety are inevitable in our lives; they deserve to be acknowledged, honored, supported, and celebrated.

Aligning with Mother Nature’s natural cycles

Women naturally cycle. The menstrual cycle guides the body through a process building uterine lining, releasing an egg, and either implanting that egg to create new life or shedding the lining through a monthly period before starting anew. A female experiences an average of 450 menstrual cycles throughout her lifetime. When the menstrual cycle pattern ends, a new cycle pattern emerges.

Mother Nature also cycles. As the Earth spins each day on its axis, the Sun and Moon rise and set, providing sustenance and an invitation to rest. As the moon orbits the Earth, waxing and waning each month, its gravitational pull affects the swelling and shrinking of the ocean tides. As Earth follows its yearly journey around the Sun, the changing seasons provide opportunities for growth, abundance, harvest, and rest.

As the sun rises and sets each day, as the moon waxes and wanes each night, as each season emerges and diminishes into the next, a woman’s personal energy surges and dwindles through its own unique cycle each day, week, month, season, year, and phase of life. Unacknowledged, these cycles operate in the background, their wisdom untapped. The transition points from one cycle to the next serve as natural checkpoints for pause, reflection, and intentional action. These pause points bring that cycle’s inner wisdom to light and guide a woman forward.

Ritual practices for sacred transitions

Many ancient cultures used ritual to mark transitions. Today, we’ve disconnected from most ceremonial rites of passage. Reconnecting with our own cycles, honoring our natural transitions, and aligning with Mother Nature are all ways to reclaim our inner wisdom.

Rituals don’t need to be complicated, long, or extravagant. They can be simple, quiet moments—opportunities to acknowledge where you are in a cycle and to clarify your intentions and actions.

Below is a list of natural transition points (seasons) in a woman’s life that can be honored and acknowledged through ritual. Yoga offers many practices to include in a ritual integrating body, mind, energy, and spirit. Not all women will move through all transitions, and every woman will move through each transition on her own timeline. Throughout the year I’ll continue to share more specific ritual practices and ideas for each transition.

Menarche

Transitioning into menarche with positive support and open communication sets the foundation for young women to recognize the importance of honoring and aligning with her own cycles throughout her life. You don’t have to throw a party or make a big deal but try not to ignore or create shame around this part of a young woman’s life.

Each month offers opportunity for reflection. Some women may prefer to use their own cycle; ovulation is a time to honor energy and action and menstruation a time to honor rest and reflection. Others may wish to use the lunar cycle for such monthly acknowledgement with the Full Moon being a time for energy and action and the New Moon being a time for rest and reflection.

Pregnancy

Much can be done physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually to honor the transition into the pregnancy cycle. Whether or not a pregnancy is intended, learning about what you can do to take care of yourself while pregnant can help ease the transition. Instead of checking in monthly, check in weekly or daily. Adding in yoga practices, meditation, rest and journaling can provide comfort through the uncertainty of these nine months².

Birth

Just as pregnancy can be prepared for, the actual birth can also be prepared for physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Practices honoring rest, relaxation, breathing, affirmation, visualization, and meditation can be powerful in building up confidence and a positive mindset as a woman heads into the last weeks of her pregnancy. This is a time for daily check-in.

Postpartum

Transitioning out of the pregnancy cycle back into the menstrual cycle requires deep support. This is a time of letting go and re-emerging anew. Time is scarce, making larger rituals harder to complete. In this time of loneliness, connection, gentle movement, breath work, and sound can be useful in small daily doses.

Motherhood

Becoming a mother ushers in a new life season and a massive identity shift. There isn’t a single time when this transition happens, making it hard to celebrate, but as a mother re-emerges into the world, affirming her new identity can be cathartic. Journaling, connection, movement, meditation, and rest are all wonderful ways to celebrate motherhood.

Perimenopause

Transitioning into a cycle of transition with intention can help women feel empowered rather than dejected. Because perimenopause can last for such a long time (around 10 years) and involve so much uncertainty, it’s important to stay connected to monthly cycles through the lunar cycle. Journaling, movement (especially strength training), breath work, rest, and meditation are all useful tools during this transition.

Menopause

This is the ending of an era and the beginning of new life opportunities. Because menopause doesn’t officially begin until a woman has been period-free for a whole year, celebrating an “official” menopause can be a fun way to usher in a new season of life. Movement, sound, breath work, meditation, rest, connection, and journaling are all great tools to incorporate.

Grandmother

While not every woman will become a grandmother, sharing earned wisdom with younger generations is a way to ensure women’s wisdom lives on. Writing, meditation, gentle movement, and rest are all wonderful ways to celebrate this phase of life.

End of life

Though you won’t know when your time will come, honoring and acknowledging the complete cycle of life is a fitting way to embrace death. Meditation, contemplation, rest, and journaling are great options for “end-of-life” ritual practices.

What’s next at Yoga for Women’s Wellbeing

This year I will offer opportunities to connect, reflect, and acknowledge your own transitions alongside Mother Nature’s with yoga practices, rituals, and support to uncover your own inner wisdom. Expect monthly Full Moon gatherings, New Moon reflection prompts, seasonal rituals, plus posts to inspire your own ritual creation in celebration of the larger transitions between a woman’s seasons of life.

Here’s what’s coming up the next couple months.

January

• Monday, January 13 - Full Moon gathering and yoga practice (sign up coming soon)

• Wednesday, January 29 - Special Lunar New Year ritual + New Moon Reflection Guide (post for paid subscribers)

February

• Wednesday, February 12 - Full Moon gathering and yoga practice (sign up coming soon)

• Sunday, February 23 - Ritual for birth preparation (post)

• Thursday, February 27 - New Moon Reflection Guide (post for paid subscribers)

March

• Friday, March 14 - Full Moon ritual (post for paid subscribers)

• Thursday, March 20 - DIY Spring Equinox ritual (post for paid subscribers)

• Saturday, March 29 - New Moon Reflection Guide (post for paid subscribers)

Don’t Miss Out

Become a paid subscriber for access to all of the rituals, practices, and prompts. Stay aligned and live with intention amidst the constant chaos and uncertainty life’s natural transitions and cycles inevitably bring.

1. Then there are the attempts to profit off of others’ cultural healing practices, American-style (see postpartum retreats).

2. Within the pregnancy cycle, grief rituals to honor pregnancy loss as well as other complex emotions that arise, such as fear and anxiety, are often necessary.