I'm honestly not sure it's such a great idea, dearest Moonica Monica. if you are trying to delay menstruation, you're either surpressing or delaying ovulation, since once you ovulate, there;s only so many days (maximum of maybe 16 or 17 the corpus luteum that remains and acts as a small endocrine gland after the folicle releases its egg can last. once it disintegrates, it's indeed scarlet moon time.

so women with long cycles usually have estrogen predominating instead of being taken over by progesterone.now some women, especailly those with low fertility,ay have a SHORTENED luteal phase,like five or six days instead of the ten to 15 or 16 that are usual.

now I suppose you COULD try taking wild carrot seeds or their extract seeral times a day throughout your cycle, then withdraw them (that is, stop taking them) when yo ARE ready to get your period. I don;t personally have much experience with this herbal medicine, but ROnin Rose Bennett has been doing experiments with women who use it to regulate their fertliiity (and who use it as sort of a natural form of Plan B contraception)..ou can read and listen to more about that by going to her website, www.robinrosebennett.com

high level of vitex (Chaste tree) berry might also affect our cycles in the way you'd prefer, though honestly I can't say which way it might go. I take vitex in freeze-dried capsule form twice a day, along with some other herbs, to help ease the rockeir parts of my cycle (I am oer 50 and ovulate pretty regularly, actually more regualrly than I did as a young woman)

you say "without the use of birth control" and I'mnot sure whetehr you mean without using pharmacetical birh control pills or other synthetic hormones. are you interested in postponing your moon time fo convenience (e.g. swimming, atending a sweat lodge, some kind opf special event at which i wold be a bother) or as a form of birh control? or are you interstied in timing yor cycle to either get pregnant or avoid it?

you know the birh control pill was developed from a botanical medicine - wild yam root. this is also used as a hormone regualtor by many women and appears in many commercial herbal formlas. again, I have little direct xperience with this btanical, and m intuitive sense is that it is ratehr too powerful a medicine for man - an herbalist friend who was formulating withwild yam and enar menopause found she had cnsiderabl menstrual flooding, to the point of making herself a bit anemic, when she as handling it and breathign the dust all the time. it;s a progesterone agonist, as I understand it - and I have some real questions about the progesterone creams, even the "io-identical ones" made with wild yam, that are applied to the skin.

something about an herbal medicine that is strong enough to cause not onl menstrual changes but tender and enlarged breasts, significant changes n bodily secretions of man types, and alter the menstrual cycle just by running an ointment into the skin of your arm deserves to be treated wth respect and deference. sometimes the spirit of a plant is something older, wiser, and stronger than our egos...


you could also work with light exposure at night (sleep in a fully darkened room very night until you are sure it;s a good time to ovultae, then expose yourself to bright light shining on you after you have slept for several hours for a good three nights, to simulate the full moon. ths one has been PROVEN to alter many circadian rhythms, and the menstrual cycle, even by "straight" biomedical researchers. massage, meditation, and many types of body wrk can also affect ovualtion, as can, in another sense, worry and stress, travel (travel ahs coused bth lengthened pre-ovulatory phases and shortened luteal phases, leading respectively to later or earlier menstruation, in me) as can a change in diet.

anyway, if ou are more speccific about what you hope to accomplish by "postponing" it might be helpful in finding an approach that works.

in the long run though, nature as expressed through the pull of the moon as well as by her plant allies, is indeed older and wiser than any of us, and trying to get around her generally catches up with us.

been there, lived that.

warmly, Judith