The first of a 7 part series Woman, reWilded on reclaiming cycle wisdom, woman wisdom.
-poiesis
1. n. meaning “making, formation,” esp haematopoiesis the formation of blood
[< Greek -poiēsis]
Whether we feel it or not, we are in constant flow with wild nature through daily, lunar, seasonal and life cycles. Our inner nature, felt through the ebb and flow of blood tides and hormones, affecting our mood and energy, can mirror outer nature. This is “poiesis”, the poetry of our deep connection with Nature; our native intelligence embedded in the menstrual cycle.
When the bleeding stops – finally, once and for all – we can still find poiesis looking into the night sky to follow the moon. The waxing and waning of the moon, the tides and change of seasons speak to our own inner autumn (1) of perimenopause and inner wintering of menopause. It’s here maga medicine and woman wisdom finally come to meet us.
In this series, I look forward to sharing with you the power and poetry of cycle wisdom.
Falling into cycle rhythm sounds the most simple thing and it can be. But we have to first imagine a life that is in sync with nature. Times of wintering through darkness when we withdraw from the world. Our mind feels frozen, our bodies need to hibernate, to thaw out, rest, repair and replenish (2). Times of autumnal letting go, shedding old skins, old ways of being. Times of spring and summer expansion, creativity, activity and in between times of peace, stillness and dreaming.
Yet, strangely we have to practice and acclimate to our own cycles when our culture has told us differently, overriding natural flow. We feel guilty when we rest, we stay up late, we push through PMS and bleeding, we take medication to control hormones, and deny the existence of menopause, blah blah blah. In doing so we create an unnatural “mono-cultural internal state” (3) and by the time menopause arrives we get a crushing feeling that this is not how life is meant to be lived.
It has taken me 10 years from my last bleed until now to reclaim cycle wisdom. I no longer have blood to guide me but instead draw on the wisdom of the moon and all that is available to me through mother earth below, father sky above. Now at age 57, in my second saturn return, I slow down to sync with moon phases and turn inward to self-reflect, meet the inner critic, grow up and see life for what it is, not what I want it to be.
I give thanks to my ancestors, my own life experience, and the intelligence that surrounds me through nature saturated indigenous cultures. The Rainbow Serpent of The Dreaming, weaves her way through me bringing life, creation, power, healing and the fertile feminine of a different kind to the forefront.
“All the things that we are, feel and be, all our familial ties and relationships, all our crafts of the hands come through the wild, the natural, nature. We are the proof of creation. We sleep underneath the hand and protection of Divine Mother. We belong to her and she belongs to us.” (4).
In the spirit of homecoming I make space and time to cultivate a deeper relationship with my own wild, sensitive, untamed, raw, porous nature through the landscape in which I live. All of me is included; learning to befriend the messy parts I have abandoned, that I’ve deemed shameful and unworthy that meet me daily in waking and in my dreams at dark moon as well as my luminous, vibrant and engaged summer self in full moon.
Any forays into wild nature gives me an opportunity to reconnect with the natural cycles of mother earth and feel her holding me – womb to womb – when the going gets tough. I see the bark peel away, the leaves fall.. I hear her boughs sigh in the wind and my own breath and sap tingling toes and fingers up to my head. All are clues to what’s inside me. We are cyclical beings, constantly being renewed, remade and rewilded,; transfigured and transformed moment by moment, day by day, month by month, just like plants and animals.
As I learn to live by the cycles of seasons, my life has more joy, purpose and meaning, more reference points, more anchoring in a world that’s gone mad. To live and feel whole in this chaotic, dismembered, and unknowable state I re.member myself in nature daily. It’s up to me, to us all to bring this wisdom forward to inform my life into conscious aging for the next generation. As my friend says, the menopause journey goes backward, inward and downward through the core of the mountain built from our ego.
Get to know your own daily, monthly, seasonal cycles. Journal, track your physical and emotional states that ebb and flow with the day, the month and and season. When it all goes awry, look at it with stunning curiosity, the capacity to hold a space of love, swell your container to care for the whole hot mess and know this is all part of honouring your cycle self.
All things cycle from the banality of financial markets to the great cycles of earth and human evolution. From the macrocosm of the universe, down to the microcosmic cells of our body, we are part of the timeless Big Flow. Embedding ourselves in all the layered cycles of life, we see how we fit together like pieces of a great comic cosmic jigsaw puzzle that is already complete but still missing a crucial piece. It’s here we “find a human story that is inclusive of the stars” (5).
Image credit: An original by Cassia Carnell, 2021, “Serpent Tree Woman”
References
1. The concept of Inner Seasons as a way to understand the stages of the menstrual cycle was originally identified by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer in their book Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power,
2. Katherine, May, Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times,; 2020, London, Penguin.
3. Alexandra Pope, Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power: 2017, London, Hay House.
4. Clarissa. Pinkola Estes, Untie the Strong Woman: Blessed Mother’s Immaculate Love for the Wild Soul,: 2011, USA, Sounds True recording.
5. Bebe, Munay-Ki Teacher, Earthenergymedicine.net