Dahlia

Latin Name Dahlia Variabilis
Gender Feminine
Parts Used Flower, leaves
Dieties Aztec goddess Serpent Woman, Utzilopochtli, Coatlicue

Herbs For Women

There are a many kinds of imbalances and metabolic disruptions which can affect the natural biological functions or the life rhythms within the body of women, many of these factors are responsible for strictly female sexual attributes such as the menstruation cycle, the fertility of a woman, the ability for conception and the ability to give birth to a child-there are many reasons for these processes to be disrupted and they are naturally prone to external and internal stimulus which can throw them out of whack.

Bean-Nighe

This variation on the Banshee could be found in the legends of Ireland, Scotland and Brittany. The name ‘Bean-Nighe’ means washer woman. She was called this as she was usually seen washing bloody garments at the water’s edge. her feet were webbed like those of a duck or goose. If a traveler saw her before she spied him, he would survive, however, if she spied him first, he would die. In the Scottish Highlands, it was thought that only those about to die could see her.

Banshee

The banshee in Irish Gælic, is called ‘bean sidhe’, which means ‘supernatural woman’. She is envisioned with a sunken nose, scraggy hair and huge hollow eye sockets. Her eyes are fiery red from continuous weeping. She wears a tattered white sheet flapping around her. She wails outside the door of someone who is about to die, but only for old families. All the best clans have their own private banshee. They are very closely related to the bean-nighe and cointeach.

Ayizan Velekete

Where Loko Atissou is the father of all kanzo initiates, Ayizan is the Mother of all Initiates. Ayizan Velekete is her full name, and she is often seen as a very old woman, with an apron that has deep pockets. Ayizan is a root lwa, bringing the mysteries of the Kanzo and of life and death to us here int he Marketplace. The Yoruba tradition refers to the earthy plane as the Marketplace, so it is fitting that Ayizan is the one who brings them down to us.  She is the lwa that tears into the djevo during the Chire Ayizan, purifying it for the hunyos (the spirit children), who will birth into Mambos and Houngans.

Estsanatlehi (woman that changes)

Fertility goddess. Navaho [USA]. Probably regarded as the most powerful deity in the Navaho pantheon, she has powers of endless self-rejuvenation. According to tradition, she was created from a small turquoise image into which life was infused through a ritual of the great gods and she is the sister of the goddess YOLKAI ESTAN. She is also the consort of the sun god TSOHANOAI and the mother of the war god NAYENEZGANI. She is said to live in the west and is benevolent in nature, sending the gentle rains of summer and the warm thawing winds of spring.

Alk’unta’m

Sun god. Bella Coola Indian [British Columbia, Canada]. Linked closely with SENX, both are of equal significance. His mother is a cannibal woman, Nunuso’ mikeeqone’im, who can turn into a mosquito.

 

Bear Medicine Woman

by Gerald Musinsky

 
She was born with the spirit of a bear, after her father killed a bear while she was still in her mother’s womb. She is the origin of the Bear Medicine Ceremony invoking healing powers by actions of a bear based on her narrative myth.
[Plains, Pawnee]

Cryptoxanthin

Every time you bite into a peach, papaya, tangerine, or orange, you are getting a healthy serving of cryptoxanthin, one of a select group of carotenoids that can be converted to vitamin A in the body. Two groups of people need to be concerned about getting enough cryptoxanthin: people who smoke or use tobacco products, and women. A 1993 study comparing blood carotenoid levels of women with cervical cancer with cancer-free women found that cancer-free women had significantly higher blood levels of cryptoxanthin, which suggest that cryptoxanthin may offer some protection against this form of cancer. If cryptoxanthin proves to protect against cancer, it would not be the first time that a carotenoid has been shown to have strong anticancer activity. Other studies have revealed that alpha carotene, beta carotene, and lycopene, among others, are potent free radical scavengers and cancer fighters.

Estanatlehi

by Dr Anthony E. Smart

 
The sky goddess, wife of the sun. The twin sister of Yolkai Estsan, wife of the moon. The most respected goddess of the Navaho Indians, she is seen as the goddess of change, and it is said that she progresses through age to become an old woman, then becomes a young woman again. She passes through an endless stream of lives, always changing but never dying. Estanatlehi created the primeval pair of humans from maize.