Within every woman, there is a wild and natural creature, a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity and ageless knowing. Her name is Wild Woman, and she is an endangered species. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés, “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”
Let’s talk about the superpowers that come with #premenstruation
During this time the influence of the left-hemisphere of your brain declines (which might be why I put my breakfast directly on the table instead of my plate this morning) and you sink into your right brain, potentially giving you greater access to your sensuous and intuitive powers.
If you a) feel safe and b) know how to listen to your body, then higher levels of sensitivity can be a good thing. But if you live in a society where women’s sensitivity is interpreted as women’s weakness then you question your own intuitive nudges, fall into self-doubt and get the typical symptoms we know as #pms #crazywoman
The shift from CRAZY WOMAN to WILD WOMAN
Hear me and hear me good woman: this is not about you being broken or crazy or over-emotional, this is about you being a channel for everything that is happening on this planet. Being more #empathic at this time, you can’t deny the suffering that exists all around you and, if you really look at what humans are doing to each other and to the planet, then the FUCKING LEGIT RESPONSE is grief and sadness. (And this month I had my fair share of that - see Days 24, 25 and 27 for some examples). But because crying on the subway makes you weird, you internalize the grief and it comes out instead as addiction, self criticism and/or deep rage at anyone who comes within ten feet of you #youfeelme? It also LITERALLY gets internalized in our cell and manifests as #periodpains #pcos #fibroids #endometriosis and more.
But there is another way.
As we get to know our cycle and find ways to honor our emotions, our body, our intuitive nudges and our sacred female rhythms, we discover that our sensitivities are the gateways to a whole new world and a kind of power that even Super Man didn’t have.
So as I shift from my #innerautumn into my #innerwinter I can feel myself slip into these superpowers. Ahhhhh. This has been the greatest discovery of my Cycle Tracking journey because it’s AN ENTIRE STATE OF BEING THAT I NEVER KNEW EXISTED.
Like FUUUUCK - I LIVED 35 YEARS WITHOUT THIS? WHHHAAAAAT??
Two days ago (on Day 31) I stepped through the veil and found myself in between “reality” and a magical place where linear time and the so-called “laws of physics” don’t seem to apply. 🧝🏾♀️🧞♀️🧚🏽♀️ As with all modern superheroes, I spent the day switching back and forth; one moment a normal woman going about a normal life, the next ripping off her glasses and shirt to reveal the red and yellow S beneath.
And while I’m thinking about it, maybe that’s what the final letter in PMS stands for...but that’s another story.
So what does this “other reality” consist of? It’s kind of like a dream; solid objects become less solid, shimmering as if hiding behind currents of hot air. Intuitive powers on hyperdrive, I also know things are going to happen before they do. Not in a way that I could tell you about beforehand; it’s just that when things go down there’s a part of me that knew they were going to...I dunno, it’s hard to explain this stuff so perhaps a story might be the best way to convey the kind of magic we’re talking about here.
Back when I was working as a birth doula, my doula partner Julia and I had a wonderful client who we will call Emma. Emma’s labour was long but she was surrounded by love and seemed to feel utterly safe - a crucial point when discussing these matters.
At transition Emma went into what was clearly a very deep state. Women who feel safe often enter a different level of consciousness during this time because transition is not only the most intense part of labour, it’s also a magical gateway. Biologically speaking, transition happens when the cervix has dilated almost completely and your body is preparing to push out a baby; it’s a moment in between one state and another. Emotionally speaking however, many women experience transition as an incredibly stressful point in their birthing process, full of intense pain and panic.
Whilst one can endlessly speculate on why, my take is that it’s because our culture has forgotten how to hold women through this sacred time and so they experience only the trauma and fear without the breakthroughs that moments of biological/spiritual initiation can bring. Thus, sadly, so many of them pass the magical gateway without even noticing it.
But for whatever reason, on that day Emma stepped through it. Holding her belly and waddling around that hospital room, her eyes rolled back in her head so that you could only see the whites, she nevertheless navigated the floor perfectly without bumping into a single thing. She had found her inner sight. When asked about her experience later, Emma said simply: “The entire Universe was my uterus and I just wanted to be with it.”
My Day 31 was kind of like the “transition” of this month’s cycle because it was a moment in between the tensions of premenstrum and the letting go that can come with bleeding. Like birthing women, many of us miss this magical menstrual gateway because we’ve been told only that PMS and bleeding SUCK. So we pound the Midol, yell at the kids and wish that we hadn’t been born with a uterus. It’s stressful, it’s disempowering but it’s life...right?
Well no, actually. It’s life for most women in a patriarchal world that has forgotten what an empowered feminine looks like but as women wake up to their womb-space and realise - like Emma did - that it contains THE ENTIRE FUCKING UNIVERSE so we transition through the gateway/ the Looking Glass/the Matrix/ the whatever you want to call it and find our collective superpowers. Most importantly, we find a kind of power that doesn’t need to repress others, doesn’t know anything about scarcity and has no time for hurrying or the word “productivity”. This mutherfucka is all about the power of deep, unfettered, boundless, bold and beautiful love, it knows not only how to feed it’s young and take care of its resources, it also knows bigger orgasms than you’ve ever had, deeper belly laughs than you could imagine and longer naps than you ever let yourself take.
Although your journey to your own gateway will be unique, today I’m letting you know that:
a) it exists and
b) if you step through it you will NEVER be the same again. You might wish - at moments - that you hadn’t taken the red pill but in the long run you won’t even be able to imagine going back.
And so, as I sit here in Day 2, still experiencing the trickling in of my superpowers, let me be very very clear: whilst I joke about it, in reality this magic is not about getting yourself some fun party tricks and it’s certainly not to be taken lightly. Because this is ultimately about power; how we recognise it, who wields it and for what purpose. Power as the world sees it today is the power to dismiss, to pressure, to rush, to exclude, to force and to punish. This kind of (pussy) power on the other hand is the power of Mother Earth herself and it’s nature is to embrace, to cultivate, to nurture, to nourish and to love. It’s not about being better and it’s definitely not about one person saving the world (sorry Wonder Woman) because this power only truly works when it’s collectively wielded.
Indeed, let me end by saying that I believe that finding our gateways and exploring the juiciness on the other side, is one way that we women are individually changing ourselves and collectively changing the world. It’s time to rise up and meet your magical gateway sister.
#notthematrix #somuchbetter #magicalpowers #superwoman #empoweredwoman #liminalspace #precientsight #thirdeye #trustyourgut #consciousbirthing #birthdoula #mindfulbirthing #juicywomen #changingtheworld #fuckthepatrirachy #risesisterrise #wakethewitches