What is a Medicine Circle?
Also known as a Menstruality Medicine Circle, the Medicine Circles are a somatic, guided visualisation that support sensitive people through challenging times and give access to often elusive levels of intuition.
The circles are facilitated 1-2-1 in-person in Watford or on Zoom and last 1 hour and 15 minutes and require a comprehensive client questionnaire form to be completed beforehand. The form helps you to think through your experience of menstruation and is part of the process as well as making the sessions as safe as possible for you. In the session, once you’ve decided on a clear intention or question, you are invited to imagine the seasonal cycle in front of you and to and step into it. Using visual, somatic and associative cues you then navigate through the four seasons observing the challenges and gifts available to you in the light of your current situation. Some people choose to use mindful movement as a powerful way to access information.
Care is taken to make it safe and manageable at all times, as a facilitator, I stay in verbal contact and am with you every step of the way to guide, offer options and possibilities. The objective is to gain a deeper awareness of the dynamics and to do this, the nervous system needs to be settled.
Depending on your situation you may visit all the seasons or journey through a smaller part of the circle, we co-create this together to get the maximum benefit from the session. Clients experience each Medicine Circle differently, with different landscapes, support and challenges depending on the question or intention that is brought for attention. Just like in the world of dreams, the intuition often speaks in symbols that have personal resonance and support is brought from real, fictional or spiritual allies.
After the journey is complete, you are invited to step out of the experience, return to everyday awareness. At this point we re-engage with cognitive awareness and reflect on the experience, identifying what was powerful and useful for you. We can then think about how this can be integrated to make a bridge between the world of the Circle and daily life. Clients are invited to come up with a simple practice, an image to cue them into their support, or some self-care that they can regularly commit to.
Having an audio recording of the session can be useful, listening back can deepen and embed the Circle for you. I also take comprehensive notes throughout the session and I am happy to share them with you, if you would like that.
As it’s an energetic practice, just experiencing a Medicine Circle helps to bring balance to the seasonal cycle without any effort. Red School talks about it ‘restoring your inner ecology’, as it dissolves blocks and allows a smoother flow. Ultimately they elicit a deep quality of self-compassion to even the gnarliest of challenges and a sense that the cycle can be trusted to ‘have your back’.
I’ve experienced many different modalities as a client and as a therapist and I have never experienced anything as respectful, accessible and powerful as the Medicine Circle.
“Experiencing the menstrual medicine circle with Kate has been life-changing & profoundly healing. It has allowed me to connect to my Womb’s wisdom, deepening understanding of my truth and connection to the feminine with potent, ethereal & visceral insights that often take me by surprise.”
Chloe
Who are Medicine Circles for?
The circles are for sensitive people who are interested in personal growth and want to engage with the transformative possibilities of cycles of life. It helps if you have some seasonal awareness from tracking your moon or menstrual cycles, but if you haven’t, a little coaching in a seasonal approach to life will soon get you started.
You don’t have to be menstruating to benefit from this approach. Here’s how Menstrual Medicine Circles help with menopause.
I also use Medicine Circles to access work and career guidance in mentoring sessions and in groups at corporate workshops both in-person and online.
The seasons can represent the different phases of the menstrual cycle, the phases of our lives, or phases of the creative process depending on what you bring. We take care when setting up the session to be explicit about what territory we’re dealing with so that everything is clear for you to let go and sink into the experience.
Medicine Circles and Menopause
Our culture doesn’t support menopause transformation, preferring us to shut up and behave. But if we ignore the call for change, we are missing a great opportunity for healing. The key to making this change is self-awareness.
Menopause is a time when we can feel particularly at sea, but there is a psychological map for menopause that can help us to see what is needed to help us through to Second Spring. Very often the key to moving forward can lie in earlier life seasons, or, if you prefer, you can choose to deep-dive into the particular phase of menopause you are experiencing to gather the information you need to heal.
Whether you have a cycle or not the Medicine Circle can give you access to your inner wisdom, helping you find your way through menopause and menstrual challenges.
If you’re curious you can book a free discovery session so we can talk through your current challenges.
“I would recommend this to any woman who feels the need to create a fresher outlook on the changes she is experiencing within body, mind and emotions due to peri / menopause. It’s a challenging phase and support like this is precious.”
– Claire
What is menstrual medicine?
Menstrual medicine is the awareness that arises from observing and attending to the cycles in your life:
- The menstrual cycle
- The creative cycle
- The menopause process
Both as physical and psychological events.
Attending to your energetic, emotional and psycho-spiritual changes and building relationships with the phenomena emerging from your system (also known as pain and problems) will help you heal and grow. Here are some of the ways menstruality can change your life.
The medicine equates with the healing and awareness of your cycles:
- Understanding your unique gifts in each season
- Putting you in the driving seat of your life
- Building your self-esteem
- Building more self-kindness
All of which naturally reduces tensions and heals. You can read about menstruality in more depth
Medicine also refers to your calling or self-actualisation, big words I know, but healing the archetypal cycle will naturally bring you into your calling, be that a big dream or pleasure in small things. Red School also describes how Medicine Circles are gentle magic.
The origins of Medicine Circles
Medicine Circles were developed by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer, the founders of Red School. This interview with Alexandra will show you how it all came about. The training is the first of its kind and for more information about Red School you can go to their site. You can also find a list of Medicine Circle facilitators.
If you are interested in booking a session, you can do that here.
