Here is some feedback from women that have taken the journey to a life lived in harmony with their menstrual cycle:
The starfire workshop helps women face deep issues of self; these touch on include and encompass, the emotional physical intellectual and spiritual aspects of being a female human being.
It helped me understand the shame i felt about being born female; it helped me to accept and realize the feminine power that i sensed in other women but always lacked in myself. It educated me on the sacredness of my menstruation, new ways of honoring my cycle and my menstrual process and finding a new respect for the mood changes that follow the moon and my cycle throughout the month. As well as teaching me new physical and environmental ways of taking care of my blood, and bleeding well.
The starfire workshop also helped me deal with the more intense feelings of pain, and taught me a different way to think about the pain of being female. As well as teaching me methods of dealing with conflict of evil / bad Vs good / saintly of male Vs feminine, by using meditation dance and music.
I feel fortunate to have stumbled onto the starfire workshop and i believe it should be taught to girls and women everywhere. I think the knowledge is relevant, priceless, necessary and imperative to a woman's growth.
Pixie, Owner of Tender and Raw, personal training.
My cycles have long been a mystery. Irregular periods, overwhelming Dark Moon phases and a lack of fertility education led me to enquire more about what it is my body tries to communicate through its physical, emotional and psychological expressions. And I wanted evidence - authentic, tangible experiences of re-aquainting myself with my body wisdom, with Mother Earth and with the Collective Feminine Consciousness. Katherine Cunningham is clearly passionate about sharing this enquiry with Womban. Her StarFire program is designed to demystify conditioned misunderstandings about what it means to be a fertile, creative, sensual, sexual, wild, intelligent Womban. For too long had I struggled on my own through horrific, depressing Dark Moons and irregular bleeds. Taking the pill, skipping my period and wearing the stamp of Irrational PMS was far from the natural way to be riding my cycles. My womb felt stressed and I felt ashamed about my emotions. Bleeding became a space of self-destruction.
Through the sharing of ancient wisdom, Katherine gently invited me into her own Red Tent, telling me stories, sharing amulets, guiding me through meditation and yoga, encouraging creativity, never judging and always pausing to listen to my fears, questions and secrets. Her extensive knowledge of Womban's Mysteries continues to inspire me. In gaining her trust, I commenced the Natural Fertility Course with my partner and through charting my cycles can see my body's intelligence as a guide for natural contraception.
Katherine plays a huge role in supporting me as I re-learn how to trust myself.
Due to the emotional nature of a Womban's cycle, it is helpful to have tangible anchors as we navigate the sensory waters. While Katherine is always on call, I know I am equipped after every session with more ways to support myself and self-lovingly give myself the permission to be vulnerable with my partner and my sisters. As a result, my intuition about my needs has heightened. I can see the gifts of creativity, psychic awareness and healing that my cycle brings. I bond with the moon on a more primal level and I can identify my body's phases on a daily basis.
A Womban's body is her temple and her blood is a source of transformation. As I continue to learn from Katherine I grow excited about the prospects of sharing this wisdom with my own daughters, for it is sacred knowledge, forgotten and denied, and as Womban it is our responsibility to keep our Wombanly arts alive.
Charlotte, Artist.
Starfire! To imagine whole generations of women with such a depth of appreciation for their cycle and equipped with such tools as Starfire bestows, is for me to picture an awakened, embodied world of women! Since my Starfire experience, my cycle has been more regular than I have ever known. Having been diagnosed with PCOS 10yrs ago, regularity has rarely been a word I associate with my cycle. I have really given myself permission to take time when bleeding to listen to my body and fulfill it's needs- resting, learning, creating, releasing.... The experience of meeting weekly with a group of women was so nurturing, helping me to connect to a very raw, essential part of my feminine self. The tools I gained continue to enable me to connect every day to my womb, teaching me to live from this space with honour and wonder. Essentially, I am more than ever aware of my blood and cycle as being a profound personal teacher, an endless well of wisdom and a great friend!
Grace Natakhan, Dr of Chinese medicine.
