Women

"With royal Ruma by his side, Or Tara yet a dearer bride, He spent each joyous day and night In revelry and wild delight, Like Indra whom the nymphs entice To taste the joys of Paradise."

"About thee stands in mournful mood; A sore-afflicted multitude, And Tara and thy lords of state Around their monarch weep and wait. Arise my lord, with gentle speech, As was thy wont, dismissing each, Then in the forest will, we play. And love shall make our spirits gay, The Vanar dames raised Tara, drowned In floods of sorrow, from the ground;"

"When Tara' heard the words he said Within the town he quickly sped, And brought, on stalwart shoulders laid, The litter for the rites arrayed, Framed like a car for Gods, complete With painted sides and royal seat, With latticed windows deftly made."

"Prepare with Tara and her son That Bali's rites be duly done. A store of funeral wood provide Which wind and sun and time have dried, And richest sandal fit to grace The pyre of one of royal race. With words of comfort soft and kind Console poor Angad’s troubled mind, Nor let thy heart be thus cast down, For thine is now Vanara’s town."

"Lover of wail beloved by me, Why hast thou fled away and left Thy Tara of all hope bereft? Unwise the father who allows His child to be a warrior's spouse, For, hero, see thy consort's fate, A widow now most desolate. For ever broken is my pride"

"And hapless Tara sank below The whelming waters of her woe, Looked upon Bali's face and fell Beside him whom she loved so well, Like a young creeper clinging round - A tall tree prostrate on the ground."

"Again the hapless Tara wept As to her husband's side she crept, And wild with sorrow and dismay Sat on the ground where Bali lay."

"Though stayed by Tara's fond recall, By thy dear hand I longed to fall. Against my brother rushed and fought, And gained the death I long have sought. Then Ruma thus the prince console'd From whose clear eyes the mists were rolled."

"In vain my Tara reasoned well, On dull deaf ears her counsel fell. I scorned her words though sooth and sweet, And hither rushed my fate to meet. Ah for the land thou rulest! she Finds no protection, lord, from thee, Neglected like some' noble dame By a vile husband dead to shame."

"I thought of all these gifts of thine, And glories of an ancient line, I set my Tara's tears at naught, I met Sugriva and we fought. O Rama, till this fatal morn I held that thou wouldst surely scorn To strike me as I fought my foe And thought not of a stranger’s blow."

"They praise thy valour, patience, ruth, Thy firmness, self-restraint, and truth: Thy hand prepared for sin's control, All virtues of a princely soul. I thought of all these gifts of thine, And glories of an ancient line, I set my Tara's tears at naught, I met Sugriva and we fought."

"Nala and Nila came behind With Hanuman of lofty mind, And valiant Tara, last in place, A leader of the Vénar race. They gazed on many a tree that showed The glory of its pendent load, And brook and limpid rill that made Sweet murmurs as they seaward strayed."

"Then BaIi's soul with rage was fired, Queen Tara and the dames retired; And slowly, with a laugh of pride, The king of Vénars thus replied 'Me, fiend, thou deemest drunk with wine: Unless thy fear the fight decline, Come, meet me in the fray, and test The spirit of my valiant breast"

"The five ideal women are role models for all Hindus. They are not perfect but they fulfill their dharma as mothers, sisters, wives, and occasionally leaders in their own right. They are most often listed as Ahalya, Draupadi, Mandodari, Sita and Tara."

"...refers to some real event amongst the aboriginal tribes; namely, the quarrel between an elder and younger brother for the possession of a Raj; and the subsequent alliance of Rama with the younger brother. It is somewhat remarkable that Rama appears to have formed an alliance with the wrong party, for the right of Vali was evidently superior to that of Sugriva; and is especially worthy of note that Rama compassed the death of Vali by an act contrary to all the laws of fair fighting. Again, Rama seems to have tacitly sanctioned the transfer of Tara from Bali to Sugriva, which was directly opposed to modern rule, although in conformity with the rude customs of a barbarous age; and it is remarkable that to this day the marriage of both widows and divorced women is practiced by the Marwars or the aborigines of southern Caranatic, contrary to the deep-rooted prejudice which exists against such unions amongst the Hindus at large."

"And the worthy daughters of those far-famed ladies [Ahalyâ, Târâ, Mandodari, Kunti, and [Draupadi] of the Paurânika age, whose names we are to repeat every morning—they can no longer marry more than one husband at a time, even if they want to, and so they turn unchaste."

"Thus by the mighty Sire addressed They all obeyed his high behest, And thus begot in countless swarms Brave sons disguised in sylvan forms. Each God, each sage became a sire, Each minstrel of the heavenly quire, Each faun, of children strong and good Whose feet should roam the hill and wood. Snakes, bards, and spirits, serpents bold Had sons too numerous to be told. Báli, the woodland hosts who led, High as Mahendra's lofty head, Was Indra's child. That noblest fire, The Sun, was great Sugríva's sire, Tára, the mighty monkey, he Was offspring of Vrihaspati: Tára the matchless chieftain, boast For wisdom of the Vánar host. Of Gandhamádan brave and bold The father was the Lord of Gold."

"Ahalya “for her forbearance is likened to the freshness and active nature of the wind Tara (all the three women of that name, that is, Harishchandra’s queen, Vali’s wife and Brihaspati’s wife who is Chandra’s beloved) is associated “with space and has the quality of intelligence, compassion and large-heartedness; Mandodari with the element of water, turbulent on the surface yet deep and silent in her spiritual quest."

"Contrarily, epic characters like Draupadi and Tara, whose devotion to their husbands and affinal families was duly noted, participated in activities outside the confines of their homes. On this additional merit, therefore, they should have superseded Sita, Savithri or Parvati as ideal women."

"In spite of several plus points to their credit – like the wisdom, courage, and sagacity of Draupadi, Tara and Damayanti, the keen and lively interest they evinced in their surroundings and also the part played by the former two in the management of their respective realms, the strong sense of duty, love and loyalty to their respective husbands as shown by Kunti, Mandodari and Shakuntala, the carving for knowledge as expressed by Maitreyi – none of them is a model for Hindu women."

"The profiles of eleven women who have been clearly referred to as ideals or given enough importance are Ahalya, Draupadi, Tara, Kunti, Mandodari, Sita, Savitri, Parvati, Damayanti, Maitreyi and Shakuntala. Evidently, all of them were not held in the same degree of esteem and reverence. The first five women, known as pancakanya, may be recommended for daily prayers but none of them is regarded as an ideal woman, at least not recommended by anyone for emulation by others. The only exception is Draupadi who was praised by Gandhi for her wisdom and courage."

"Valin assured Tara that he would only overthrow Sugriva and not hurt him in any other way. In course of the fight, Valin was mortally wounded by Rama - unjustly though - and, finding his death imminent, made peace with Sugriva. Along with other last minute instructions on how to administer the kingdom, Valin explained to Sugriva that since Tara’s judgment was always sound, he should follow her advice."

"Five elements, earth, water, fire, wind, [[ether are in essence the five satis. This the wise know as Ahalya, Draupadi, Kunti, Tara and Mandodari Five virgins...Ahalya personifies water, Draupadi represents fire, Kunti symbolises mother earth, Tara personifies wind and Mandodari ether. Draupadi’s personality personifies fire, while Sita (whom she incongruously includes in the group instead of Kunti) is the daughter of the earth."

"Mahari dance tradition in which the Oriya verse goes: Pancha bhuta khiti op tejo maruta Byomo Pancha sati nirjyasa gyani bodho Gomyo Ahalya Draupadi Kunti Tara Mandodari totha Pancha kanya..."

"English translation: Ahalya, Draupadi, Sita, Tara and Mandodari One should forever remember the Panchakanya who are the destroyers of great sins."

"Sanskrit transliteration IAST: ahalyā draupadī sītā tārā mandodarī tathā । pañcakanyāḥ smarennityaṃ mahāpātakanāśinī॥"

"Reclaiming the female body retrieving it piece by piece from the grip of patriarchal culture and medical practice, has been a central feminist goal for each of the last two decades. Menstruation-represented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the American white middle and upper classes as a woman’s shame, her “curse,” as an agency of weakness and disability-is now front and center of the feminist agenda as topic that needs to be rethought."

"First, let’s keep in mind that commercially produced femcare-pads, belts, tampons-has been around for only a hundred years or so. Since their launch, there have been noticeable improvements that we, for the most part, applaud madly. Who doesn’t prefer that today’s superabsorbent pads are wafer-thin, meaning that one no longer had to waddle around with the Manhattan Yellow Pages stuffed between her legs? Or that there’s such a variety of tampon styles sizes, and applicators, even a first-timer twelve-year old can generally find something she can insert without the need for heavy sedatives? And yet, even the most sanguine of businessmen realized long ago that there’s ultimately a limit to what kinds of products can actually be made and sold to women when it comes to sopping up a few spoonfuls of blood every month. How many improvements can one make to a pad, anyway? If there’s anything you can figure out about making a pad, say, even more absorbent, with even better wings, or perhaps an even prettier tampon with a glideier applicator, you can rest assured there are many teams of scientists feverishly working on it this very second. Yet dealing with the actual effluent of menstruation is just the tip of the revenue iceberg. Sure, there’s money to be made from pads and tampons; but there’s potentially huge money, monster dollars, to be harvested from tinkering with the actual process itself-something the medical community and pharmaceutical giants figured out years ago."

"It’s downright bizarre that what’s called “discussion” about this most complex yet universal of processes has become one almost completely moderated by business and medicine. We’ve been taught our talking points by people who are frankly far more concerned with their bottom line than with any of those pesky questions we might have. Hey, look-we’re not saying that the pharmaceutical companies and femcare manufacturers are evil per se, or that their decisions are necessarily driven by some deep-seated misogyny or sexism. But business is business, and as of 2001, the so-called feminine hygiene business was a cool $2 billion industry-and that’s just for the products themselves, not including related drugs or advertising. Whether we’re aware of it or not, our relationship to menstruation is one that has been brokered not in our own homes, but at the supermarket, the pharmacy, and the doctor’s office. The conversation about menstruation (if you can call it that) is strictly one-sided and has been smoothly co-opted by big business, with a little help from religion, history, and society…and boy oh boy, do they have a lot to say."

"Not to sound paranoid or anything, but we can’t help but note that very few, if any, science foundations, universities, and places of higher learning frankly give a rat’s ass about healthy menstruation. The U.S. government itself created the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Women’s Health in 1990, and for a while, their single most burning question about menstruation was “Does it make women unfit for combat?”"

"In terms of language, there were no separate words for female genitalia for thousands of years. That was mostly because women were considered pretty much the same as men, only of course flimsier, more poorly designed, and incapable of writing in the snow. As a result, people used the same words to describe male and female organs; the ovaries were considered the female testicles, the vagina a penis, and so on. So how did anyone talk about menstruation, you might wonder? The answer: rarely, and in the vaguest possible terms. Even today, advertisers and manufacturers tiptoe around the actual words, which are presumably too scary and horrible for our ladylike ears. Commercial menstrual products are commonly referred to as feminine “protection”; but this begs the question, protection against what? Against our big, mean uteruses and those psychokiller ovaries? Not to put too fine a point on it, but would you ever call a tissue “nose protection”? Even the expression “ feminine hygiene” implies that menstruation is fundamentally dirty, techy, bad, ad does the expression “sanitary pad.” Depending on your taste, menstrual flow may not be the most aesthetically bewitching substance you’ll hold in your hand, but it’s certainly not inherently unsanitary, either. Yet advertising, by continuing to refer to menstruation in such unrelentingly negative terms, reinforces the same message, over and over: that our monthly flow is a disgusting problem, a hygienic Three Mile Island, something so scary and awful that it definitely needs a solution. And don’t worry, little lad: like a fortune 500 knight in shining armor, guess who’s volunteering to come rescue us from all that blood, that mess, our bodies?"

"In her book The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation, Karen Houppert makes the point that even in these supposedly modern times, menstruation is always referred to with depressing, loser-ish verbs (“decay,” “shred,” “shrink,” “disintegrate,” “dribble” discharge”), whereas ejaculation gets all the sexy, empowered, action-hero verbs (like “spurt,” “spray,” “pump,” “shoot”). Be honest-with verbs like those if you had to be a biological process, which would you rather choose?"

"Even in the most up-to-date print ad or TV commercial, you will never once see a menstrual product being unwrapped, applied, inserted, tugged at, tanked out, pulled off, wadded up, wrapped in toilet paper, flushed, or thrown away-God forbid showing a before-and-after shot of a tampon (now that’s a memorable visual!) or what it looks like when you accidentally spring a leak. The ads don’t even show the inside of a bathroom, which is weird, considering that’s where most tampons and pads are inserted or applied in the first place."

"The sad fact is that menstruation-the process, the images, the word itself- is as unspeakable and undercover as it ever was. Think about it-even in movies, TV shows, and commercials that actually mention menstruation by name, you never, ever see any sign of it. In fact, although you can watch buckets of fake blood merrily sploodging out of heads and torsos because of fists, bullets, knives, car accidents, grenades, bombs, breaking glass, garrotes, machetes, falling buildings, swords, laser beams, airline crashes, or hungry mutant zombies, rarely will you ever see a single drop as a result of menstruation."

"The newly defined mesenchymal-like stem cells from MB called MenSCs are a new source of stem cells with good proliferation rate and capability in differentiation into various cell types similar to many other kinds of adult stem cells. Kazemnejad et al. investigated hepatic differentiation capacity of MenSCs compared to mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow. The derivation of adipogenic lineage, glial cells, and cardiogenic lineage were also demonstrated in other studies. In addition, these easily accessible adult stem cells have the capacity to trans-differentiate into neuronal cells, pancreatic cells, and osteocytes. These investigations suggest this new source as a safe alternative to other adult stem cells for cell therapies in different diseases. So we concluded the MenSCs could provide a suitable cell sources in repair and regenerate of skin diseases and naturally photoaging of skin. We are on the line to develop and suggest the standard inducing media and protocols to derive epidermal lineage from MenSCs. By achieving this goal, novel cell-based therapies will be proposed to use in many experimental and clinical studies."

"Here, we designed a novel study to assess the differentiation potential of MenSCs into epidermal lineage for future repair of skin and dermatological lesions caused by ultraviolet rays, burn and chemicals damaging the integrity of skin tissue. MSCs were shown to be an effective and attractive cell population in cell therapy to induce dermal repair and regeneration following acquired lesions and wounds. They can provide essential trophic support to regenerate the injured tissue."

"The newly defined adult stem cells are menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs), giving rise to hopes in clinical application of these cells. They are mesenchymal-like stem cells that can be harvested from human menstrual blood shedding of endometrium monthly. MenSCs have a highly proliferation and differentiation capability under specific differentiation conditions. The easy and simple way to get MenSCs without any invasive surgical intervention or hospitalization and absence of any ethical issues to isolate them are advantages of these MSCs."

"Menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) are a novel source of stem cells that can be easily isolated non-invasively from female volunteered donor without ethical consideration. These mesenchymal-like stem cells have high rate of proliferation and possess multi lineage differentiation potency."

"Other women had a less political reason for wanting to keep their monthly withdrawal bleeding: Many use it as a way to ascertain whether or not they're pregnant, a method that gynecologists confirm is reliable. (Though, they warn, bleeding is not uncommon during the first trimester of pregnancy.) Those in favor of menstrual suppression—including many feminists—argued that allowing women to choose whether or not they wanted to endure their periods or withdrawal bleeding was a long-awaited step in the right direction, especially since the side effects hardly differ from those of regular oral contraceptives. This group also disliked the idea of equating menstruation with womanhood, which they saw as reductive gender essentialism. A majority of menstruating people seem sympathetic to this side: A 2006 survey on menstrual suppression by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals found that "few women have an emotional connection to their period," and that only eight percent of women "enjoy their period in some way.""

"On a philosophical level, Seasonale and other extended cycle pills ignited a conversation about what it means to have a period, and whether our eagerness to suppress our menses is reflective of internalized patriarchal forces. In 2006, a filmmaker named Giovanna Chesler tackled the surprisingly controversial subject in an hourlong documentary, Period: The End of Menstruation? "Women are not sick," she told the New York Times in an interview the following year. "They don't need to control their periods for 30 or 40 years." A vocal group of feminist activists agreed with this assessment, arguing that skipping your periods is unnatural and that marketing menstrual suppression products sends the wrong message to girls: that there is something wrong with menstruating. "These messages underscore that women's natural functions are defective, dysfunctional, and in need of medical intervention," Chris Bobel, a women's studies professor and author, told Ms. magazine in 2010, neatly summing up this line of criticism. "How is this feminist?""

"The normalization of placebo pills and subsequent withdrawal bleeding means that even in 2017, many women do not know that extended cycle pills exist, let alone that menstrual suppression is a safe option. Combined with the fact that the percentage of schools teaching students about contraception has declined drastically since 2000, this means that many women are likely to stay in the dark about their options when it comes to choosing whether or not they want to bleed once a month."

"Many women are unaware that consistently skipping withdrawal bleeding is an option, let alone that extended cycle pills exist, or that menstrual suppression can also be accomplished with hormonal IUDs, NuvaRing, birth control injections, and contraceptive patches."

"In order to achieve the end goal of the use of MenSCs in clinical implementation, the standard criterion of sample collections is needed to produce high quality and high consistency of MenSCs; more importantly, fundamental pre-clinical research is demanded for establishing more treatment strategies and exploring precise signaling pathways. Finally, the long-term safety of MenSCs should be assessed before they are used in clinical medicine. In summary, although more work needs to be done, MenSCs have been proved to play multi-functional roles in treating a variety of diseases through diversely therapeutic strategies in preclinical research, which will be contributed to the development of MenSC-based treatment in regenerative medicine and clinical applications."

"Because MenSCs possess good immunosuppressive properties, they are able to intravenously inject large amounts of cells to injured body. From short-term studies, they are safe and reliable after cell transplantation, and they migrate into the inflammatory or injured sites, which has a regenerative inhibitory effect on inflammation. Currently, no evidence of tumor or toxicity following administration of MenSC has been found in nude mice. Moreover, we assessed that MenSCs had significant inhibitory effects on tumor growth in a mouse glioma model. No obvious physiological or serological abnormalities were observed in four patients with multiple sclerosis for the use of MenSCs. Although researches indicate that MenSCs are rapidly evolving, it is not yet determined how long MenSCs can survive in foreign bodies and there are no data guaranteeing their long-term safety owing to lack of specific markers to monitor these cells in vivo."

"At present, more and more registrations for a variety of diseases support the therapeutic benefits of MSC transplantation in clinical trials (www.clinicaltrials.gov). In contrast, the registrations of MenSCs are still few, and no more than 10 clinical trials are presented by searching “menstrual blood stem cells”. Actually, the therapeutic potential of MenSCs has already been recognized in several kinds of diseases in pre-clinical research, which is fundamental for future clinical applications in tissue repair and regenerative medicine. Similar to BM-MSCs, MenSCs also have several merits, including the ability to migrate into injury sites, differentiation into different cell lineages, secretion of soluble factors, and regulation of immune responses. Therefore, more researches need to be explored before MenSC becomes a common use in clinical application and treatment."

"Studies by Meng et al. and our group have reported that MenSCs from young and healthy women could increase to one doubling every 20 h supplied with sufficient culture conditions, which was twice as fast as BM-MSCs (estimated 40–45 h). MenSCs have similar phenotypes and properties compared with BM-MSCs, including spindles, classical three-line differentiation, and surface marker expression. A high rate of proliferation was contributed to the high expression of embryonic trophic factors and extracellular matrix (ECM) in MenSCs. A high proliferative capacity is critical for future clinical research because cell-based treatment is usually dose-dependent along with cells from the lower passages; therefore, increasing the yield of the preliminary cells is necessary and considerable in clinical research. In addition, MenSCs have been extensively expanded in vitro and hardly showed obvious chromosomal abnormalities by our group and others. Such a highly proliferating rate and stably genetic characteristic, as well as the apparent pluripotency, suggest that the novel stem cells may exhibit unexpected therapeutic properties. MenSCs are also remarkable for their broad differentiation capacity. Currently, MenSCs can be induced as endothelial, cardiomyocytic, neurocytic, cartilaginous, myocytic, respiratory epithelial, pancreatic, hepatic, adipocytic, and osteogenic parts using appropriate differentiation techniques. Hida et al. found that MenSCs exhibited cardiogenic differentiation in a scaffold culture system. Lai’s team has confirmed that the differentiation of MenSCs into germ cells was induced in the appropriate medium. Similarly, Liu et.al also proved that MenSCs had the capacity to differentiate into ovarian tissue-like cells. Furthermore, our group and Khanjani et al. have shown that MenSCs could differentiate into functional hepatocyte-like cells by checking mature hepatocyte functions. In addition, MenSCs had a potential for differentiation into glial lineages (neurosphere-like cells) by examining the expression of glial fibrillary acidic protein, oligosaccharide-2, and myelin basic protein."

"Approximately a decade ago, Meng et al. and Cui et al. discovered a novel source of MSCs from human menstrual fluid, named menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs). Throughout these years, more and more studies are focusing on MenSCs, a representative comparison was presented in six sources of MSCs, suggesting that MenSCs possessed higher proliferation rates and painless procedures, and almost no ethical issues."

"Menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) are a novel source of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MenSCs are attracting more and more attention since their discovery in 2007. MenSCs also have no moral dilemma and show some unique features of known adult-derived stem cells, which provide an alternative source for the research and application in regenerative medicine. Currently, people are increasingly interested in their clinical potential due to their high proliferation, remarkable versatility, and periodic acquisition in a non-invasive manner with no other sources of MSCs that are comparable in adult tissue. In this review, the plasticity of pluripotent biological characteristics, immunophenotype and function, differentiative potential, and immunomodulatory properties are assessed. Furthermore, we also summarize their therapeutic effects and functional characteristics in various diseases, including liver disease, diabetes, stroke, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, ovarian-related disease, myocardial infarction, Asherman syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, acute lung injury, cutaneous wound, endometriosis, and neurodegenerative diseases. Subsequently, the clinical potential of MenSCs is investigated. There is a need for a deeper understanding of its immunomodulatory and diagnostic properties with safety concern on a variety of environmental conditions (such as epidemiological backgrounds, age, hormonal status, and pre-contraceptive). In summary, MenSC has a great potential for reducing mortality and improving the quality of life of severe patients. As a kind of adult stem cells, MenSCs have multiple properties in treating a variety of diseases in regenerative medicine for future clinical applications."

"Knowing that a woman is fertile (generally speaking) only for about three to five days out of the month and that her fertility is naturally obstructed (e.g. by the sticky mucous produced by progesterone around the cervix) the other days of the month, I do not want to say that the mere fact of a woman's fertility being obstructed is intrinsically wrong. Otherwise God would be immoral for creating a cycle which includes infertile periods! What I want to say is that a woman's cycle, on a biological level, is ordered toward fertility, toward the procreation of life. For example, the purpose the follicle stimulating hormone is to cause the maturation of an inchoate egg which is to be released into the fallopian tubes after ovulation. As the egg is maturing, the follicle which contains it releases estrogen which builds up the endometrium to prepare a home for the possible child that is conceived when the egg is fertilized. Furthermore, about day fourteen in a normal cycle, the luteinizing hormone causes ovulation, the egg is released into the fallopian tubes, the follicle where the egg had been is transformed (also by the luteinizing hormone) into the corpus luteum which then secretes progesterone which further prepares the endometrium to receive the child and also causes a change in the mucous around the cervix . . . . . . the mucous becomes thick, sticky, infertile; it will not allow sperm to pass through the uterus into the fallopian tubes where fertilization of the egg occurs. If fertilization does not occur the corpus luteum dies and therefore no longer secretes progesterone, the endometrium is no longer sustained by the progesterone; it is sloughed off, menstruation occurs, and a new, fresh release of the follicle stimulating hormone begins the cycle all over again. However, if fertilization did occur then the zygote floats down the fallopian tube, implants itself in the blood-rich endometrium with hair like roots; these roots (villi) just so happen to produce human chorionic gonadotropin which just so happens to keep the corpus luteum alive which just so happens to continue to secrete progesterone for the three months necessary before the placenta develops to the state where it can secrete a hormone to keep the endometrium intact so that they baby can grow and flourish. My point is that a woman's biological cycle is ordered marvelously, wondrously toward life. Yet, this cycle is not merely a biological phenomena; it is part of who the woman is. The human person does not ‘have' a body. The human person "is an incarnate spirit: a soul which expresses itself in a body and a body informed by an immortal spirit""

"Apart from her personal pain-body, every woman has her share in what could be described as the collective female pain-body - unless she is fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suffered by women partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery, exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of years. The emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered at other times too. It restricts the free flow of life energy through the body, of which menstruation is a physical expression... Often a woman is "taken over" by the pain-body at that time. It has an extremely powerful energetic charge that can easily pull you into unconscious identification with it. You are then actively possessed by an energy field that occupies your inner space and pretends to be you - but, of course, is not you at all. It speaks through you, acts through you, thinks through you. It will create negative situations in your life so that it can feed on the energy. It wants more pain, in whatever form... It is pure pain, past pain - and it is not you... The number of women who are now approaching the fully conscious state already exceeds that of men and will be growing even faster in the years to come. p. 106"