We go in circles.
We have been here before. It feels familiar, and yet something happened on the way.
The journey is not linear. The progress is not always evident.
The circle is a spiral; sometimes the curve is tighter while other times we spring ahead.
In a Western mindset, we want to cross the finish line. Cross it off our list.
But ancestral traditions, nature, and science teach us that there is no beginning and no end.
The circle is a cycle.
How about instead of seeing ourselves as caught in a loop, we see it as traversing a sacred cycle? What can we do to help ourselves learn from every repetition, note the similarites and differences, the growth and stagnation? What rituals can we put into place to honor each phase?
I recently perused two books from radically different fields that each touch on this theme: The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra and Food and women´s health (Alimentación y salud femenina) by Marta León.
While I will not attempt to summarize or analyze the contents of Capra´s classic, which is complex and very well researched, I will just reflect that what stays with me most is the confirmation through science of the patterns and principles found in nature and mysticism. This includes the inherent interdependence and unity of all things and the cyclical nature of dynamic systems.
This teaching is most clearly evident for me right now in regards to female systems. That is, the menstrual cycle.
Image found on the blog: Women and the Moon: Understanding the Female Cycle
The cultures of the Paleolithic era connected the phases of the moon to that of women´s monthly cycle. The moon also represented the cycle of life, from birth to death. Later, the moon anchored the agricultural cycle in the seasons. The moon was both sacred in and of itself and the symbol of the sacredness of The Great Mother and all women. (see The Sacred Goddess post for more on this.)
Nowadays, menstrual cycles do not necessarily follow the moon cycles, but some women still refer to having their period as "having my moon." And every month, we go through the same four phases, just as the moon goes through hers.
So when I was exploring Marta León´s book about food and women´s health, I was especially in tune to the idea of cycles. The author carefully goes through each phase of the menstrual cycle, talking about hormones and vitamins in each one. But she also goes through the whole spiral: starting with a girl´s first menstruation, walking through fertility and pregnancy, and then into menopause. Cycles within cycles.
While every month we may go through the same phases, each cycle is different. Each one is at a new place in our journey. It may seem familiar, but we are different.
And I want to make this journey sacred. Thanks to the wonderful tools in this book, I have a new perspective on the sacred menstrual cycle. One is in relation to food: we can balance, strengthen, fortify and flow with our system by prioritizing certain foods at certain times in our cycle. For example, the author proposes "seed cycling" -- increasing our intake of some seeds during the first half of our cycle, and then other seeds in the second half, to nourish and balance our hormonal fluctuations. Cycles within cycles within cycles.
A second practice I plan to integrate to make my cycles sacred is a menstrual diagram journal. Tracking physical sensations, thoughts, emotions, energy levels and other subtle details through each phase, we can start to see the differences of how we experience each phase, as well as the patterns that emerge in the same phases cycle after cycle. This way we can optimize our health in each phase, creating the space and rituals we need at different times of the month, and breaking unhealthy patterns that pursue us cycle after cycle.
We will start to see the spiral emerge, like the rings of a tree, closer together in seasons of scarcity and further apart in times of abundance. With scars and fissures from trauma, wavy circles and perfect circles representing all the diverse experiences we live through. Concentric circles.
Instead of feeling like we need to put all our energy into making the fruit ripen (and then holding on for dear life to the beloved fruit!) we can learn to love the cycle of emergence of buds, pollination of flowers, maturity of the fruit, it dropping to the ground and rotting, leaves falling, and dormancy.
Just as quantum physics has proved that energy moves in waves, and the Tao teaches that each night is the beginning of the next day, we are part of the cyclical flow of the universe. We go in circles, but not because we are lost. Because we are one in this sacred journey called life.
Comments
Post a Comment