For one half of the month the world is a dark and evil place. I see and feel suffering all around me. I see the destruction of the earth and its inhabitants. I see the ways we hurt each other. We are lost and my soul grieves. I am a poor, wayfaring stranger and can't wait for this wandering to end, for I am not of this earth.
For the other half of the month the world holds so much beauty, I feel like I might explode with wonder. I feel connected to my friends and family for whom I feel boundless love. I feel connected even to people I don't know and everyone is so beautiful. Gratitude for the chance to exist here and experience this wild and wonderful life flows readily from my heart. I am at home on the earth. I know my place in creation.
I am thankful for the ability to see and feel and experience the beauty and light as well as the darkness of the world. I don't want to turn a blind eye to suffering or become complacent. I want to care and try to bring about change. But I couldn't do it, couldn't go on without glimpses of the glory of our earth, our selves, our God.
I am thankful that I am a woman who moves rhythmically and predictably through these two states, back and forth, month by month, cycle by cycle. My hormones connect me to that which moves me - to grief and despair, to joy and gratitude. They prevent me from having a lopsided view of the world; I can see from two different vantage points. They enable me to feel deeply, for which I give thanks because there is nothing worse than a state of bland, unfeeling, shallow existence.
What will become of me when this phase of my life winds down and my cycles stop? I have no idea. But I pray that I will always have a healthy balance in perspective which allows me to see the world in all its wildness and wonder and also in its sin-drenched gloom. For this earth is both things. We all are both things. There is no good or bad. There is only good and bad.
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3 comments:
simul justus et peccator :D
perhaps the best post ever on appreciating our cycles of each month. beautifully written. a great reminder.
thanks Rach.
I really enjoyed this post and have often thought about what happen will happen in my life after my period is no more. Susan Rako, in her book, No More Periods, shares about a time during menopause when she had her cycle and the feeling of familiarity and peace that it brought. For a short time, she was reminded about what it meant to be a "woman" and the importance of menstruation to her life.
I think what many women don't realize is that our cycles share in all we do - they are the centre of our memories and are forever with us through the joys and pains. The great thing about our cycle is that although we may no longer experience it after a certain age, we can share in the joys and pains of younger women, their challenges, body awareness and reproductive health.
I remind myself each time I share in a woman's pregnancy experience, that I in some way become a memory in her reproductive cycle and am thankful that as women we can have such a bond.
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