Bleeding With the Moon - A Short Story

Come closer, children. Come closer still. Sit where the fire warms your faces and the night wind cools your backs. Feel the earth beneath you; steady, listening; for she too remembers what I will tell you. Lift your eyes to the heavens. Do you see her? Yes, the Moon. She is watching, as she has watched since the first dawn. She has watched your mothers, and your mothers’ mothers, and all the women who came before. She will watch you, and the daughters who come after you, and the daughters of their daughters, unbroken until the end of time.

Tonight, I will tell you the story of her covenant - the covenant between the Moon and her daughters.

In the first days, when the world was still raw and trembling, the Moon wandered alone. She rose and fell through endless nights, waxed and waned without witness. Sometimes she blazed so bright that she turned the oceans into mirrors. Sometimes she hid her face, veiled in shadow, unseen even by the stars. But no one shared her rhythm.

The Sun was too proud, unchanging in his golden blaze. The stars were scattered, cold, and distant, each burning its own course, caring nothing for her cycles. The Earth still slumbered, her forests unborn, her rivers unshaped, her mountains yet uncarved. And so the Moon drifted across the dark sky, yearning. She longed for kin. She longed for one who would turn with her, rise with her, fade with her. But none answered her call.

And so the Moon wept. Her tears fell as silver dew upon the sleeping Earth, and where each tear touched the soil, a spark stirred. The Moon gathered these sparks, wove them into threads of light, and from those threads she fashioned the first women. She shaped them with care, gave them voice, gave them breath, and into their wombs she poured her secret. Bending close, she whispered: 

“You will carry my tides. You will be my sisters. You will bleed with my shadow, blaze with my fullness, soften with my waning. You will rise and fall as I do. Through you, I will never be alone.”

And so it began.

And the children reply: “We are her kin. We carry her tides.”

The women awoke, their bodies warm with blood, their voices alive with song. They gathered in circles, their eyes lifted to the sky, their hearts beating in rhythm with the Moon. They felt her pull in their veins, her glow in their bones. They knew themselves to be chosen, and they built their first rituals in her honour.

When she was dark, they rested, holding silence and secrets.

When she waxed, they worked and created, their hands swift as rivers.

When she was full, they danced and sang, their power blazing like fire.

When she waned, they turned inward, speaking wisdom, preparing for renewal.

They lived as the Moon lived, turning as she turned, eternal in their cycles.

But, children, no gift of the heavens comes without trial.

The first challengers were the Sirens. Rising from the sea, their voices laced with sweetness and sorrow, they lured the women to the shore. The Sirens had watched with envy as the Moon gave her gift, for they longed to be bound to something eternal. But they had only hunger, and hunger knows no rhythm.

“Come to us,” they sang. “Cast off your cycles. They are chains. They bind you to blood, to pain, to waiting. Be free. Sing with us in endless songs. No shadow, no bleeding, no turning; only joy.”

The women listened, their hearts trembling. For who does not long, at times, to be free of burden? Who does not wish to cast off pain? Some women stepped forward, their feet sinking into the waves.

But that night, the Moon appeared in dreams. She spoke softly, yet her words carried the weight of the heavens.

“My rhythm is not chains but power. My turning is not a curse, but a covenant. If you abandon it, you abandon me. Remember who you are.”

And the women remembered. They resisted the Sirens’ call. They let their blood fall into the sea, red mingling with blue. The ocean drank their defiance, and the Sirens’ voices broke, silenced by salt.

That is why, children, the sea is forever salted by the courage of your foremothers.

And the children reply: “We remember. We resist. We endure.”

The next challengers were the Nymphs. They rose from hidden groves and secret springs, radiant and playful. They laughed with the crescents, danced beneath the full moons, adorned the women with garlands, sang songs of beauty without burden, joy without memory.

“Stay with us,” the Nymphs urged. “Why carry pain? Why carry change? Live only in delight. Dance with us, laugh with us, and let tomorrow vanish. Why do you need a shadow?”

The women were tempted, for the Nymphs offered sweetness without consequence, laughter without weight. And for a time, the women forgot themselves. They danced in the groves, crowned with flowers, drunk on music and moonlight.

But when the dark moon came, their blood returned. And with it, memory. They saw that the Nymphs vanished with the dawn, as fleeting as mist. The women remained, enduring as the Moon endured. They understood then that their cycles were not only tides of blood, but also seasons of the soul: birth and blossoming, blazing and fullness, release and harvest, rest and renewal.

And so they left the groves, carrying both laughter and grief, stronger for the lesson learned.

And the children reply: “We laugh, we grieve, we endure.”

Then came the Monsters. From deep caves and hollow mountains they crept, voices rumbling like stone, eyes dark as the void. They whispered in shadows, their words heavy as chains.

“Cast off your change,” they hissed. “Change is weakness. Bleeding is shameful. To rise and fall is to be broken. Become like us; stone, eternal, unmoving, safe. No turning, no pain, no loss.”

Weary women listened. They longed for rest, for stillness, for an end to the endless rising and falling. Some allowed the Monsters to touch them, to pour silence into their veins. Their blood ceased. Their bodies hardened. Their voices fell quiet.

But in the Monsters’ embrace, they crumbled into dust. For nothing living can survive without change.

The Moon wept for them, mourning their loss. Yet to the faithful she whispered: “Change is eternity. To fall and rise, to die and be reborn; that is my gift to you. You are not stone. You are a tide. You are a flame. You are me.”

And the children reply: “We change. We rise. We return.”

And so the women carried the Moon’s covenant forward. They built circles beneath the sky. They taught their daughters:

“When you bleed, you are the dark moon; hidden, unseen, yet powerful.

 When you grow strong, you are the waxing crescent; hope rising.

 When you blaze, you are the full moon; radiant, fierce, unstoppable.

 When you wane, you are the fading moon; gentle, wise, preparing for renewal.”

They marked their time not only by the Sun, but by the Moon. They kept her rhythm alive through blood, through story, through song.

When men asked, “What do you carry that we do not?” the women only smiled, for they knew. They bore the covenant, hidden in their very bodies, woven into their very souls.

But children, listen, there were ages of forgetting. Times when the world called it a curse. Times when blood was hidden, when women bowed their heads in shame. Times when men, fearful of what they could not understand, built walls of silence.

In those ages, the Moon hid her face in sorrow. Yet even then, her covenant lived on. In secret, women remembered. In whispers, they told the story. In circles hidden from the world, they lifted their eyes to her light and spoke: “We are her kin. We are never forgotten.”

And when the ages of forgetting passed, as all shadows must, the Moon returned in her fullness. She shone with pride upon her daughters, who had never truly abandoned her.

And so, children, remember this. The world may still call it a curse. The world may still call it a shame. But the Moon knows, and so do you: it is not a curse. It is a covenant. It is kinship. It is power.

Lift your eyes to her. See her face, whether hidden, half, or full, and hear her promise: “You are my kin. Through you, I am never alone. Through me, you are never forgotten.”

And the children reply: “We are her kin. We are never forgotten.”

And so the cycle turns, as it always has, as it always will.