Dread. Monthly dread.
That’s all I can ever remember feeling as my period approached each cycle. I was eleven when I first moved through this transition. I had what the doctor called a “bad period” — ten days long, heavy, exhausting. I had to agree, though I couldn’t imagine what a “good period” could possibly look like…
At thirteen, I had had enough. I wasn’t yet able to name what was going on, but I knew something was wrong, wasn’t working. I remember dragging myself out of bed, heading upstairs to my mother’s room and telling her I needed help. “I’m either depressed or I have cancer,” I told her. She was struck by this and called the doctor immediately.
The first thing the doctor did was check my iron levels. With a period as long and heavy as mine, she was almost certain they would be low. When my bloodwork came back it was clear that I needed to supplement. Low iron has a host of symptoms, exhaustion and depressive tendencies are at the top of the list. So, when I was 13, I was put on the birth control pill and iron pills. The hope was that the iron would boost my energy and the pill would lessen my period in flow and length of time. This was a common “solution” to long, arduous periods at that time. It shortened my period from ten days to eight, a small victory.
It wasn’t until I turned twenty-three that I reached my boiling point. I was moody, stressed and out of control of my mind and emotions. I remember telling my then boyfriend, now husband, “I lose myself totally when I’m on my period. I don’t know who I am.”
So I got off the pill after ten years of major lows. A few months passed and being off the pill allowed me to see more clearly when it was my moon time. I stopped picking fights, and began to feel more in control of my emotions. I was still a heavy bleeder, but I was learning to live with the hand I had been dealt. Slowly, I started to feel better, less agitated, more sane.
Years later I moved to the woods and everything changed.
I had been practicing yoga for a few years at this point and had learned to flow with what was with more ease. Each season I found more love for the woods, the lake, this out-of-the-city lifestyle we had chosen. I found a deep connection to the rythyms of the moon, the seasons, the everchanging flow of nature.
I read about cycle tracking in a blog and I had a beautiful lightbulb moment. I was nature. I was cyclical. It was as if I had been given permission to accept my moon time with grace. I didn’t have the urge to hate it or fight with it anymore. I wasn’t getting out of it anytime soon, so I dreamed of finding the beauty in my bleed. I wondered if I would ever be able to live in harmony with my inner seasons. Could I find appreciation for the lessons of my ebbs and flows as I had with Mother Nature?
I set an intention to find the blessings of my cycle. I wrote a little each day about the tone of the day, the qualities of my energy, and where I was in my cycle. And I did it again the next month. And the next. By the third month I could see patterns and I was elated. Without much effort, my perspective changed. All of a sudden I was able to ride the waves which much less resistance, more ease.
Period Art Piece: Day 2 by Nina Paris
I began to give my family a heads up, “the next two days are low energy for me.” This was a gamechanger. I felt free to ask for what I needed, to be vulnerable about where I was at. I even began using my blood in making art! I realized I could be free to bleed without shame.
I now believe we can all find peace and even inspiration in our deeply cyclical feminine nature if we create space to flow with what is.
Join me in this revolution. Let’s love our periods together. I created Befriending Your Moon Cycle to share my story and to hear your stories, to come together in celebration and in resistance to the mainstream narrative of the period.
Let’s embrace our ebbs, our flows, our blood – together.
Your Turn
In the comments below, or in the privacy of your own heart, please answer:
How do you relate to your inner ebb and flows?
(Whether you bleed or not.)
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Born and raised on Canada’s east coast, Nina has always loved what this beautiful Earth has to offer. Time spent in the woods and by the ocean always brings her home.
Nina began teaching yoga and meditation in 2012 and continues to broaden her studies. She joined the TWWP in 2019 and has finally found her people. Nina hosts free women’s circles around the campfire in her backyard and teaches yoga locally.
Living in the woods of Nova Scotia, Nina spends her days in the garden, hiking, foraging, and playing with her son, and enjoying what each season has to offer.
Nina believes she is on this Earth to share, teach, grow, and love.
Yes!!!! I can so relate to this but I got mine at 13 and was put on birth control at 15 because I had so much pain I couldn’t go to school. Anyways I have become very connected to my tracking this year and I incorporate a tarot spread on the first day of my cycle and have a ritual practice I do. I also use my blood as Fertilizer for my plants which they love! I schedule crying baths generally around day 23-26 and am able to plan accordingly based on where I am and what I actually need.
What a beautiful offering to your plants, Chelsey! Thank you for sharing. I will certainly ly offer to my gardens going forward .
Thanks so much for sharing, Chelsea!
I can most certainly relate. I got mine when i was 14 and it was horrible. Fast forward now that i am 40 i have learned to embrace it. I always thank God when i am on my cycle each month. I also make sure to tell my husband that i am not as energetic as usual because of it and thankfully he understands. I am grateful that i no longer bleed as heavy or have cramps as bad. I look at this as being a part of womanhood!! I also track my cycle which helps me prepare for what’s to come.
It is so nice to be able to share freely with our partners! Thank you, LaKrysta.
Amazing, LaKrysta!
I call my menstruating cycles my Crimson Moon Tide, writing about our week together with a breath of fondness. It wasn’t always like this.
I received my first crimson tide when I was nine years old and I hated it. I wasn’t connected to the moon at all growing up. I remember I bled all over the chair at school and was shamed by the other girls.
I experienced really bad anemia and so I was told to have an IUD. That changed everything – not having my sacred flow I felt empty somehow. There is so much more to the womb cycle then menstruating there are the tides in between.
Now well my relationship with my cycles is this poem…
Crimson Moon Tide
by Isabelle Desmarais
When Moon rises red
I bleed
A crimson tide flows
Inspiring my inner scope of dreams
Careening, ravening, pulsing
All the way to Earth
All ways back to Earth
Great mother
Ancient flow
Celebrating life
Celebrating all
An ancient dance twists inside of me
Cramping, throbbing, swelling
A wave of pain upon my inner shores
I breathe
Grateful
Knowing this is a Life Flow
Blood Deity
An old friend greeting me
And I fall into a sacred dream
Surrounded by my flowing tide
When Moon sets red
Seven Suns from now
My crimson tide ebbs
Birthing, creating, inspiring
A new life cycle of truth, beauty, freedom, and love
Isabelle, thank you. This poem moved me to tears. Thank you for sharing. What a blessing to move through this transformation. ❤
Thank you for sharing your Crimson Moon Tide with us, Isabelle!
This was so inspiring, Nina! I always hated my period. It was super heavy, very crampy and 2-3 weeks a month of total misery. When I was 35, I had precancerous cells and had to endure a partial hysterectomy. I will tell you…I felt as if I had been freed from the prison of my own body. I felt I could finally know how the “other half” lived. No small victory, I went out and bought a pair of white pants. (I had never had been able to wear white due to the “SURPRISE” visit/nature of my period. Never consistent or predictable…which was maddening.)
Now, I have come to love and appreciate the cycles of Sister Moon, and I have learned to hear my body when she wants to pull in during the New Moon and when she wants to flow with ease during the Full Moon.
I am grateful for those of you who are younger learning how to cooperate with your bodies and your flow…as a Crone I am well on the other side of menopause and feel I am truly living my best life living cyclically in the Wild Divine Feminine and tune with our beautiful Sister Moon.
You and inspiring, Paula! I am still in my Mother phase, but I hope to move into my cronedome with as much grace as you. Thank you for sharing ❤
Thank you so much for sharing your story, Paula. Much love to you.