Menarche as a Rite of Passage
In this conversation between PM host Tatiana Berindei and wild woman and green witch Jonah Ruh Roberts, we open a doorway into the sacred mysteries of the wombs of women. Many women today have a challenging relationship with their menstrual cycle. Yet this is a consistent part of our lives and, if we have daughters, will become a part of theirs. In this episode, you will learn how we can heal our relationship to our cycle so that we can pass on a legacy of embodied empowerment to our young women. What are some simple ways we can utilize the natural initiation of a woman’s body – menarche – to create powerful, positive impressions for our youth? Tune in as Jonah and Tatiana answer this question and explore the sometimes harrowing, sometimes ecstatic journey into the blood mysteries.
Tatiana Berindei:
Hello everyone. And welcome to the Superpower Mama’s show. I am your host Tatiana Berindei and I am so excited to have my friend, Jonah Ruh Roberts, with us today. We are going to be talking about menarche as a rite of passage. So for those of you who have young women in your lives, who are coming into that stage in their development, in their journey, this is a really important topic. And I’m so excited to have Jonah with me to bring it forward for you all today. I can’t even tell you how happy my heart is that she’s here with us.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Jonah before we dive in. Jonah Ruh Roberts is an herbalist and soul guide helping women become strong, resourced, resilient, and deep in conversation with a mystery to understand their soul niche in the world. She guides a year-long journey for women around the wheel of the year through the archetypes of Maid, Mother, Wild Woman, and Crone called, 13 Moons: Finding Your Medicine and Your Mettle. She’s both a fierce and gentle force for guiding women into the underworld for the earth and for modwifing humans back into deep and magical reciprocity within the web of life.
Her 10-acre herbal sanctuary in Unity, New Hampshire is rich with medicine, teaching gardens, and apothecary, and is the home of her five-month herbal program, Sojourner’s Well, which teaches women everything they need to begin a deep and personal interrelationship with the green nation. She also offers private mentoring and herbal apprenticeships, and I love her. And I’m so happy you’re here with us today, Jonah.
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
Hey, thank you.
Tatiana Berindei:
Yes, thank you for being you and for being here. So will you share with our listeners what your superpowers are in the realm of the wild woman?
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
Yes.
Tatiana Berindei:
Because I know what you’ve got.
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
I do. There’s a marriage between deep, deep listening to really feel the current of energy below the ground and below the verbal and below the scene is one of my superpowers. I hold a really deep space of listening to what wants to happen and to enable a field of co-creation with the circles that I am guiding. This feeling of bringing people’s gifts through and voices through. And yeah, so that is definitely one of them.
Another superpower is courage. Again and again, I’ve been called by the spirit and had to step to the edge of my comfort zone and say, “Yes.” And walk what I call, the cloud bridge. Walk into the unknown, following that guidance from spirit, not knowing what’s going to happen. Not knowing if I’ll fail. And I find that that courage has expanded my world and my capacities to lead and witness and guide tenfold every time I say, “Yes.” So that I consider it a superpower, for sure. And I know that there are others.
Tatiana Berindei:
Oh yeah. I feel like you’re like an elven druid warrior queen. That’s kind of when I think of Jonah, that’s what I think of. So you’re the perfect person to be having this conversation with. So, we just have to go to break and this is a deep topic, and we’re going to dive in deep because Jonah and I are who we are. And so we go deep right away. But before we go to break, I just want to sort of just give a little flavor and a little taste of why we felt it was important to have this conversation. If you want to share a little bit, Jonah?
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
Yeah, sure. I feel like adolescence, both for girls and boys and all genders in between, are failing. We are failing our young people. There’s such potency and power to this time of coming of age of moving from the innocence and wonder of childhood into finding our place in the world. Finding our natural gifts. Finding our connection to spirit. Understanding the body and being able to be sovereign, confident beings that are mature and able to take care of our own temples is like the entryway into true adulthood. And it’s just a melee maelstrom of leaving them to their own darknesses and peer pressures and all around sexuality, body shame, gender expression.
There are just so many things to navigate. And we are just kind of leaving them to their own devices or in a circle of just peers without true guidance. And it just breaks my heart. And I know I experienced a horrible coming of age. And so ever since that time, ever since I sort of grew out of that and kind of was able to turn around and look back, I’ve been wanting to serve this age, in a nutshell. Yeah.
Tatiana Berindei:
Yeah. I think it’s incredibly well said, and this is a powerful time. And I think there’s so much taboo around moon time, around menstruation, and we’ll go into that. And so many moms are uncomfortable with it in and of ourselves and we’re just kind of taught to just damn it up, stop it up. Like, put the tampon in. Make it go away. Pretend it’s not even there. Go on business, as usual, life as usual, take the pain pills. Like, I just don’t even like to keep going, right. Pretend it’s not there. And yet when it first happens, you know something special is occurring.
I don’t care who you are, you know that there’s like, “This is a big shift.” Whether it’s scary. I mean, there’s like so many feelings that come up around it. And I know you and I both feel just super passionate about supporting our young ones in that transition and being able to live like, “This is actually something really special and it is powerful and it is magical. And we get to reclaim the power of it for ourselves, for our own sovereignty.” And I love what you said about how to take care of our temples. This is something that so many women have just never been taught.
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
No.
Tatiana Berindei:
We’re going to dive deep today, guys into… Guys, ladies into how to do this, how to have these conversations, especially if you weren’t given that. But we do have to go on a quick break. Jonah before we go to break, can you tell our listeners sort of what you’re up to and where they can go to find out more about you?
Jonah Ruh Roberts:
Yeah. So I live in New Hampshire and so most of my programs are in person. Some things I do online, you can find me at jonahruhroberts.com. And again, my main passion is to really bring through beautiful earth-centric, soul-centric cultures back through by guiding, especially women into soul strength, clarity, engagement with the mystery, and confidence. So yeah, I’m a Weaver.
Tatiana Berindei:
That you are. And so for our listeners, please go check out Jonah, Jonah Ruh Roberts, that’s jonahruhroberts.com. And I am so excited to be offering a resource for you all in this capacity of what we’re talking about today even. It’s called the New Moon Virtual Circle, and I’m offering it now through our superpower membership. So if you have not come and sat in that space, it’s a way for those of you who maybe have not journeyed as deeply in the ceremonial ways or at whom this is like kind of new for you to come and really experience how to connect in more deeply with the dream work, with the rhythms and cycles of the moon and nature in your own subconscious and some elementals there.
So we’re bringing the ceremony into the virtual space there. So you can go to superpowermommas.com and sign up for that there. There is a seven-day free trial of our membership if you go that route and I would love to see you in that circle and bring your girls, bring your young women. It’s for all genders, but it’s a special thing to introduce them to that way. So that’s available to you like that. We are talking with Jonah Ruh Roberts about menarche as a right of passage. And like I said, we’re going to dive deep. So don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right back.
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