Subject: News from Moon Times; Moon News, Wear It Pink Day, New Products and web links….

Please forward this newsletter to any friends, family or colleagues who may be interested!

www.moontimes.co.uk 

Hello Ladies,
Autumn Equinox and full moon blessings! Yesterday was full moon in Aries; during the Aries full moon we can tap into the child within - the part of us that lives from a place of love and innocence, that part of us that has unquestioning faith and belief that everything is, and will be, ok.
The determination of the moon in Aries encourages us to tap into a powerful source of courage and stamina to rise again from any setbacks we may face. During the harvest of this full moon we can release our ego, sift through the elements of self, both long-standing and newly acquired and retain that which serves purpose while leaving the rest behind. These is a good time to spiritually and physically cleanse ourselves of all those elements in our life which no longer work for us and to use the pioneering, and ambitious energies of Aries to take those leaps of faith and re-create our lives in a way which is more beneficial for us. To read more see

And while we are on the topic of the moon…I was shocked this week to read the moon is being bombed with a rocket on the 9th October in search of evidence of water! The official site says it will be 66ft wide, and other sites say up to 5 miles wide, so lets pray for the former. How our Grandmother Moon will feel about this who really knows, I am calling for people everywhere to get together and send the moon love in all the wonderful and whacky ways we all do it.......
the story on line
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/17/MNJ41887O2.DTL

31 Oct is wear it pink day!
Our Pink Pads raise money for the Penny Brohn Cancer Care Centre- support their good work by wearing a pink pad on Wear it Pink Day!
pink pads http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/pads-for-charity/moon-times-pink-pads/

So what’s new at Moon Times?
Small Moon Sponges These sponges are a smaller size for light flow days, young women or pre birth, pack includes 4 sponges.
small sponges http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/new/moon-sponge-small-sizemoon-sponge-small-size

I’ve got some lovely Lakota Sage smudge sticks…which are on an Oct special of £6.00 instead of £10! These are the biggest smudge sticks I’ve ever seen (12 inches!) and may come in handy for any Samhain gatherings you might be planning at the end of the month!
sage http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/accessories/magic/lakota-sage/

We have many more poppered pads and panty liners now in stock- feed back has been great press stud pads http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/cloth-pads/patterned-pads/patterned-cloth-pads-press-stud/

And a quick plug….Look out for Juno Magazine- a lovely natural parenting magazine who is featuring some of my articles in the next few issues. I love it! Juno http://www.junomagazine.com/

Also …a couple of great websites to share with you ….
Some very creative cloth pad art:
pad art http://www.lathoriel.com/html/fashion5.html
There is an amazing new Menstrual Health DVD out- The Moon Inside You- thoroughly recommended!! The website for the movie is see trailer  www.themooninsideyou.com and keep an eye for the UK version on release soon.

Take care, and have a great Samhain,
much love
Rachael and the Moon Times Team xxx

A couple of articles to finish....

Can Breast Cancer be Prevented?

Excerpt from: Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way
by Susun S. Weed

Sometimes it seems that every magazine, newspaper, radio show, and piece of mail has a headline declaring that every woman’s risk of developing breast cancer is increasing. There is a numbing feeling of inevitability in these pronouncements. More and more women think about breast cancer as a when rather than an if.

It’s true that there’s more breast cancer now than ever before, that between 1979 and 1986 the incidence of invasive breast cancer in the United States increased 29 percent among white women and 41 percent among black women, and incidence of all breast cancers doubled.

It’s true that the percentage of women dying from breast cancer has remained virtually unchanged over the past 50 years, and that every 12 minutes throughout the last half of the twentieth century another woman died of breast cancer.

And it’s true that breast cancer is the disease that women fear more than any other, that breast cancer is the biggest killer of all women aged 35 to 54, and that of the 2.5 million women currently diagnosed with breast cancer, half will be dead within ten years.

These facts frighten me, and they also make me angry. My studies spanning 25 years and many disciplines have convinced me that the majority of breast cancers are causally related to the high levels of radiation and chemicals released into our air, water, soil, and food over the past 50 years. United States government researchers estimate that 80 percent of all cancers are environmentally linked.

What can be done? The answer isn’t as simple as a yearly mammogram. That may help detect breast cancer, but it won’t prevent it. To prevent breast cancer we need to take individual and collective action.

Effective action requires understanding the causes of breast cancer and what decreases breast cancer risk. But there are few conclusive answers to these queries, partly because most research focuses on eliminating breast cancer after—not before—it occurs. Science has validated so few risk factors for breast cancer that 70 percent of the women diagnosed with breast cancer have “no identifiable risk factors.”

Scientifically accepted risk factors for breast cancer

1. Sex (Women get a lot more breast cancer than men.)
2. Age (Seventy-five percent occurs in women over 50.)
3. Lifetime exposure to estrogen (Early menarche, no pregnancies, late menopause, hormone pills increase risk.)
4. Family history (Two close relatives with premenopausal breast cancer increases risk.)
5. Lifetime exposure to radiation (The greater the exposure, up to a threshold, the greater the risk.)
6. Race and culture (White, European-extraction women are at greater risk than other women.)
7. Height and weight (Larger women are at greater risk.)

Unfortunately, our sex, age, reproductive history, family history, exposure to radiation (such as fallout from above-ground atomic bomb tests), race, culture, and height are beyond our control. When we’re told these are the only risk factors, we can be left with feelings of hopelessness and panic.

But when we include risk factors that are considered “not well substantiated”—but which are clearly contributing to breast cancer incidence—including ingestion of and exposure to prescription hormones, hormone mimicking organochlorines, prescription drugs, petrochemicals, and electromagnetic fields, as well as unwise lifestyle choices such as smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol immoderately, wearing a bra, or not exercising, then we can find many ways to lower breast cancer risk. No need to panic.

 Not accepted, but likely, risk factors for breast cancer

8. Organochlorines (Exposure increases risk.)
9. Electromagnetic fields (Exposure increases risk.)
10. Tobacco smoke (Exposure increases risk.)
11. Alcohol (Greater use increases risk.)

Excerpt from: Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way
by Susun S. Weed

www.moontimes.co.uk

Hello, I’m back from a wonderful Sacred Arts Camp- the sun shone and we sang and danced! I do hope you had a wonderful bank holiday!

Since I got home I’ve been reading Alexandra Pope and Jane Bennett’s book The Pill- wow, what a shocker! I have some for sale and I really recommend it to women who are on it, thinking about going on it or your friends who are on it! (under the term The Pill they include all hormonal contraceptives)

The statistics of women on the Pill who are suffering from depression as a side effect are scary- and its made me realise many women I know who suffer from this are on the Pill- I’ve never made the connection! And a lot of doctors don’t either. There are many stories of women who have suffered extreme side effects apart from depression, and amazing survival stories- it well worth a read. I have posted a review of the book below and its available here on our books page http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/books-new-secondhand/the-pill-are-you-sure-its-for-you-new  

Anyway- on a happier note- I have a new page where I am donating 10% of the price of our PINK PADS to the Penny Brohn Cancer Care Centre, so if you fancy going pink… click here 

http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/category/pink-pads-to-support-cancer-care/

Moon Times Pink Pads are to raise money for Penny Brohn Cancer Care Centre

10% of the cost of your pad will go direct to 

I’ve finally finished and published my new book; The Moon Times Cycle Charting Journal (including Moon Cycle Malas)

For women who want to chart their cycle naturally: includes information on your cycle, your hormonal changes throughout the month, natural methods to chart your fertility and has a 400 page journal to guide you through your cycle! Set includes a moon chart and moon mala beads Moon Times Cycle Charting Set is avalaible in our Books section http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/category/books-new-secondhand/

“Tuning in and listening to your body is the key to self empowerment and well being!

This set including journal, cycle malas and moon chart provide an interactive tool to enable you to understand how your cycle and body are influenced by your hormones and the ebb and flow of the moons cycles.

“Give yourself time to tune in and reclaim your cyclic nature. Write a short journal entry everyday. The rewards for doing this are beyond measure. You’ll feel connected to life in a whole new way, with increase respect for yourself and your magnificent hormones.” Dr Christiane Northrup”

What else is new?
See Shop for featured products and new stock! http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/

A selection of Women’s Teas are on sale here

We have some Healing Herbs Wall Charts (these have very useful information and make a great gift)
Wall Charts  http://www.moontimes.co.uk/shop/accessories-gifts-teas/womans-healing-herbs-wall-chart/

And you can visit us next weekend at :

The Garden Festival, Hellens Manor, Herefordshire 13 & 14 June
A wonderful festival celebrating all that’s green: from plants, to hand carved wooden objects, woven baskets, clothes, brick a brac and much more…well worth a visit!
Garden Festival

Or in July at:

Quest Natural Health Show, Newton Abbott Race Course, 2-5 July
A wonderful weekend of workshops and stalls and music
Moon Times will be there with a stall and Moon Lodge and Joanna who created the Daughters In Flower Cards will be offering readings!
Quest

and to finish...

Book Review by Anita Bennett

The Pill: Are you sure it’s for you?

By Jane Bennett and Alexandra Pope
Published by Allen and Unwin 2008

“The best news is that the female body is designed for ecstasy.” (p. 198)

From two writers who have devoted much time to women’s fertility health, comes a book which should be making the same headlines in the mainstream media as does the anti-smoking lobby. Why? Well, for one, how many of us knew that the authoritative WHO (World Health Organisation), upped the warning on the Pill in July 2005 by reclassifying it from “possibly carcinogenic to humans” to unreservedly “carcinogenic for humans”? That’s right, the Pill is proven to increase your chances of getting cancer—use of it before age 20, when most women take it, doubles the risk of breast cancer (The Lancet). And the injectable contraceptive that many of us feminists succeeded in banning in the 70s, Depo-Provera, because it caused such dreadful bleeding and weight gain is experiencing a big revival in the UK, even though experimentally Depo causes the most rapid proliferation of breast cancer cells. As the book asks so clearly “Will we soon see packets of the Pill carrying warnings like those on cigarette packs?”

Don’t hold your breath, but do take a look at how the Pill affects our everyday enjoyment of sexuality. Exactly thirty-three years ago, when in my twenties, I nearly died from a Dalkon Shield IUD-related ectopic pregnancy. After the British National Health Service saved my life, because warning signals had not been picked up while I was living in America, the consultant gynecologist, flanked by a group of medical students, came into my room to discuss my case. “What are the side effects of the patient taking the Pill now?” They went through the usual ones, thrombosis, etc., but still the consultant was not satisfied. I spoke up. “It’s puts you off sex.” “Right,” he beamed at me. “It decreases the libido.” I returned to the diaphragm for the rest of my reproductive life, following in my mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps and used it to overcome the
same consultant’s prediction that with only one tube I would be unlikely to ever have children. I’ve had three, on one tube.

So how wonderful it is to read on from the author’s line about ecstasy that “when we are given drugs such as the Pill, this ecstatic potential is interrupted the more it’s interrupted the more we may find ourselves relying on outer sources for our "high" and not trusting the wisdom and power of our bodies.” They drawn attention to Professor Lorraine Dennerstein who noted on television “that it’s strange that we have pharmaceutical companies spending millions of dollars trying to develop a pill that improves women’s sexual interest or arousal, while at the same time we liberally distribute the oral contraceptive Pill, which suppresses women’s sexual function. The Pill flattens out the natural oestradiol highs and suppresses testosterone, delivering a double libido blow.”

The book is easy to read, with punchy chapter titles, such as “Period power and how to get more of it”, “Dying not to get pregnant”, as well as clearly headlined sections. I would like summarise in quotes key points from several chapters, starting with “Taking the Pill for skin and period problems.”:

“If you are taking the Pill to handle PMS, period pain, cysts and acne, it’s important to realise that the cause of your symptoms hasn’t actually gone away, it’s been repressed. You can create further difficulties for yourself. These can be poor overall health, feeling unconnected to yourself, moodiness and depression—and YOU MIGHT ALSO HAVE MORE DIFFICULTIES WITH YOUR PERIOD AND FERTILITY WHEN YOU DO COME OFF THE DRUG. …”
Chinese Medicine practitioner Jane Lyttleton says that the Pill causes symptoms of liver qi which can lead to premenstrual symptoms, headaches and mood changes, and eventually risk fibroids.
The authors go on to explain that, “The Pill makes it harder to heal health problems in general and it could be exacerbating your menstrual woes rather than aiding them… It drains your body of essential nutrients, and disturbs absorption of key nutrients.”

One of the most refreshing insights, a real improvement from earlier feminism, is the emphasis on menstrual wellbeing. “This is
based on respect for the real intelligence for of your cycle. The old way which viewed the cycle as the problem is very last century and counterproductive.” A box has the following health tip, “Doing what you love. If you did not have to worry about the rest of the world when you bleed, what would you most love to be doing? Find a way to do at least 10 per cent of that.”

The beauty of the book it is more advocating how to get it right than it is simply knocking the Pill. My favourite section contains suggestions on how to combine barrier and natural fertility methods. “By combining natural and barrier methods ‘user fatigue’ can be avoided, as a condom or diaphragm may only be needed for a few days a month…When barrier methods are relied on solely for contraception, effectiveness may be compromised when a couple becomes tired of using them and may guess at or hope for a safe time. By learning fertility awareness you add to you options and deepen your understand of when you’re fertile. It’s easier then to enjoy safe, contraception-free sex and save the rubber for when you really need it.” To compliment my diaphragm soapbox, I recommend their excellent advice on natural spermicides, including, from Russian research, a fizzing Vitamin C inserted into the vagina ten minutes before sex. Or lemon juice on a sea sponge. This is important because some spermicides are not easily tolerated and it puts women off diaphragms.

As a teacher of the Alexander Technique, best known for back pain and performance anxiety, I like the section on the beauty of natural methods because it compliments my work to encourage dropping bad habits and to adopt new ones: “Gaining an understanding of their cyclic changes is not only healthier but also far sexier and more positive for relationships. The great secret of these methods is that once learnt, they then become automatic and then there’s very little to do…

“Paul’s partner Genevieve had tried the Pill and an IUD and then learned that Natural Fertility Management methods. He thinks,
”It’s great living with a natural woman and being part of her sexual and fertility cycles.” They happily share their contraceptive responsibilities and enjoy using fertility awareness to decide about when, or if, they want to have children.”

If there is one critical suggestion I would make it would be to make the Epilogue into the book’s subtitle—“Contraception for Great Sex”. This is the culmination of all the book’s hard work and it should be pasted on every bedroom wall. They write: “In the same way that relationships and sexuality are journeys of discovery, learning about your fertility and cycles can equally be an adventure that reveal new horizons.

Sex is a potent, grown-up activity, with powerful grown-up consequences—emotionally physically, socially and psychologically. In order to experience all that sex offers—the fun and the passion as well as the fulfillment and healing—requires embracing the whole sexual package. By giving care to your decision about contraception, as well as all the other implication of a sexual relationship, you may be very pleasantly surprised about what experiences unfold for you.”