Grandmother's Secrets

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Posted by Michelle on March 05, 2000 at 15:18:01:

I have just been reading this fabulous book called-
"Grandmother's Secrets,
The Ancient Rituals and
Healing Power of Belly Dancing."
by Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi.
INTERLINK BOOKS

There is a piece on The Menstruation Dance (Rahil),
which tells of the initiation dance, where female relatives and
friends, of a young girl who when "visited" with her first period,
form a circle holding hands, and the girl steps into the centre, with
her hands and soles dipped in henna, for the first time.
A passage from the book;

"The red color symbolizes the first menstrual blood,
and therefore the young woman's ability to concieve and bear new life.
Red stands for all that is alive,
birth as well as sacrifice,
in the sense that something is sacrificed to make way for the new.
The blood flows into the fertile, ever-pregnant earth,
back to it's origins just as through maturing,
the young girl enters this state and finds her connection to the
earth. Such is the meaning of the red color on her feet."

Then the women dance and sing and laugh, give gifts and eat and drink
together, then they all help to tidy up, and each returns to their
own lives........
What a wonderful way to enter womanhood...........

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