Karva Chauth festival falls on the 4th day after full
moon , in the Hindu month of Kartik.
According to Indian tradition, marriage introduces
accountability, responsibility, privileges and rights of a husband and wife
towards each other. In a traditional
Hindu family, husband is the earner and the protector of the family whereas the
various duties of a wife involve care, nurturing, education and continuity of
cultural heritage of the family for future generations. Karva Chauth is a
festival that every Indian Hindu woman looks forward to, despite the fact that
she is put to severe inconvenience of fasting without even a sip of water from
sunrise to moon rise.
Karva Chauth is the day that symbolizes this love and
devotion of an Indian woman towards her husband. Indian woman have always considered their
husbands as God (Pati Parmeshwar) and it is her mindset that she must serve and
care for him. The Hindu husband tries to be home on the day of Karva Chaut, as
this is a day of emotional and spiritual bonding with his spouse.
On the day of the Karva Chaut, a married woman will get up early prior to
sunrise. She will take bath, perform puja and take a simple “pre-fasting”
meal. This meal will ensure that she is
NOT dehydrated for at least 16 hours.
For the rest of the day she will abstain from food including even water.
In the evening, a few hours before moonrise, she will dress up like a bride,
with mehandi on her hands and feet, sindoor in her hair parting, decked in gold
jewellery. All the women will then get
together at a temple under the peepal tree for a collective puja. Typically the ladies will sit in a circle
around the peepal tree and perform a Gauri puja accompanied by a traditional
story that describes the origins and benefits of following this fast. During the puja each lady holds a tray that
is passed around the circle at different times making a total of seven rounds.
These seven rounds match the seven circles that a bride and groom take around
the sacred fire during their wedding ceremony. Once the puja is completed the
ladies will wait for the moon to rise.
Once the moon is visible, it is customary for a fasting
woman, with her husband standing by, to view its reflection in a flat vessel
filled with water, through a flour sieve, or through the fine cloth of her
dupatta. Then she looks at her husband's face in the same manner, with
gratitude in her heart. This is a
spiritual moment. She says a silent
prayer for the welfare and long life of her husband. Water is now offered to the moon to secure
its blessings. The husband now takes the water from the same flat vessel and gives
his wife her first sip and feeds her with the first morsel of the day (usually
something sweet).
Quite often Karva Chauth is also a family reunion, for
Diwali is around the corner—after 9 days.
Now let’s understand the menstrual cycle
What is menstruation?
Menstruation is the technical term for getting your period. About once a month, females who have gone through puberty will experience menstrual bleeding. This happens because the lining of the uterus has prepared itself for a possible pregnancy by becoming thicker and richer in blood vessels. If pregnancy does not occur, this thickened lining is shed, accompanied by bleeding. Bleeding usually lasts for 3-8 days. For most women, menstruation happens in a fairly regular, predictable pattern. The length of time from the first day of one period to the first day of the next period normally ranges from 21-35 days.
How does the menstrual cycle work?
The menstrual cycle is controlled by a complex orchestra of hormones, produced by two structures in the brain, the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus along with the ovaries.
A synchronous relationship between the menstrual cycle and lunar rhythm was confirmed by investigative data, laboratory findings, and clinical experience by the US National library of Medicine. Among the 826 female volunteers with a normal menstrual cycle (ages 16-25), a large proportion of menstruations occurred around the new moon (28.3%), while at other times during the lunar month, the proportion of menstruations occurring ranged between 8.5-12.6%; the difference was significant.
Ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3716780 (it’s a trusted government site)
An interesting 1990
study in the journal Psychiatry Research found that bright light at night can
help regulate the menstrual cycle. In the study, women with abnormally long
cycles of about 45 days who slept with a 100-watt bulb turned on at night in
their bedroom from Day 13 to Day 17 of their cycle successfully shortened their
cycles to about 33 days from 45 days
Ref: Follow the link
for the actual report by the Biological
research for Nursing for the above study.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6235443_Light_Exposure_Melatonin_Secretion_and_Menstrual_Cycle_Parameters_An_Integrative_Review
This hints that before electricity and the light bulb, shifts in the amount of light at night during the moon’s various phases could possibly have played a significant role in our menstrual cycle–maybe by affecting certain body processes impacted by light exposure, such as the production of the hormone melatonin, prompting all that folklore tying our menstrual cycle to the moon cycle.
Maybe before the invention of electricity melatonin production would have increased at the full moon, when more light would have reached the pineal gland at night. Lower production of the hormone would coincide with the darkness surrounding the phase of the new moon. The changes in melatonin production, with the help of other hormones tell the ovaries when to release an egg. When living in the lap of nature without electricity, the full moon gave more light at night, and menses would have occurred near the darker part of the month, around the new moon when there was less light.
However, in modern times with so much electric light pollution, there is little variance in how much night time light reaches our eyes over the course of a month. Because of this women now ovulate and give birth at varying times during the lunar cycle. The pineal gland in her brain sends messages to her ovary, by hormones, to release an egg based on the amount of light her brain senses in the night when she is asleep.
At the point of most light in the night, the full moon, she is programmed to ovulate. Moonlight makes women feel horny and receptive to sex. During the waning Moon, higher progesterone prepares the womb for the possibility of new life.
What do you think? Have you noticed any link between your menstrual cycle and the phases of the moon?
