Different feminists and women’s health experts talk about the four 4 seasons of the menstrual cycle. My personal experience is that, thinking of my body like a garden that lives the natural seasonal changes, has opened interesting insights on myself and my cyclical essence. It has also incredibly supported my well-being.
Tracking my cycle with the four seasons in my mind, helps me to feel how the rhythm of my movements change, how my body changes, how my mind, my capacities and desires change during the month. That happens exactly like the nature changes across the 4 seasons.
As Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wulitzer, experts on menstrual cycle awareness, say in their illuminating book “The Wild Power”, during the menstrual cycle we move through an inner winter, spring, summer and autumn. In each season, like mother nature, we experience physical, emotional, psychological changes.
The inner winter starts approximately a couple of days before menstruation until the bleeding is completely finished. This is a period of rest, relax and deep introversion. This is the period when insights and intuition could reveal.
The inner spring is the time of awakening and growth, we slowly start to move and plan, and new ideas and projects might come to our mind.
The inner summer is when our energy goes up to accompany ovulation. This is the period of acting, creating, networking, emerging, shining.
The inner autumn is the time of drawing inwards, preparing for the winter to come again. This is the moment when we start to slow down, a period of self-reflection that might be hard sometimes because of questioning and doubting might be more present. The best thing to do here is to observe with compassion.
When we acknowledge that the 4 seasons of the menstrual cycle are part of a natural beautiful cyclical energy and they exist in harmony with the universal cycles, it will be easier to understand, observe and accept them.
Unfortunately, because of social obligations, structural conditions, patriarchal systems and widespread menstrual taboos, it’s not easy for women to experience these phases in liberty. For example, it is very difficult to withdraw from our responsibilities, roles and expectations when menstruating (even for just few hours), or it is very uncommon to organize our working agenda according to the season in which we are (although we would work in a more efficient way).
This can be explained by the fact that the dominant linear energy of our societies ignore what the cyclical body demands. One of the consequences is that it is psychologically very disorienting for women to look out at a world where their cyclical reality doesn’t exist and there is no other option than to repress it. This is what has been happening for centuries.
To connect with our energy and take care of ourselves means to respect our natural fluctuations. Following our own flow of energy across our 4 seasons, as nature does, would definitely support our health, allowing us to appreciate our beautiful menstrual cycle and making us happier.
My warmest advice is, my dear friends, to give it a try. You can begin by focusing just on one season, maybe the one that has always been the more difficult for you. Notice how you feel and think and organize your private, social, professional life according to what you would do in that particular season of the year. You will surly notice positive changes in your life after few cycles.
