When women reassert their relationship with the wildish nature, they are gifted with a permanent and internal watcher, a knower, a visionary, an oracle, an inspiratrice, an intuitive, a maker, a creator, an inventor, and a listener who guides, suggests, and urges vibrant life in her inner and outer worlds. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes
The Navajo people have a ritual called Kinaalda for their daughters, who run towards the sunrise after their menarche. This practice is a celebration of her own inner rising sun, strength and self-determination. The girl becomes an embodiment of Changing Woman; the deity of the Earth, of seasonal change and creative ingenuity.
This is mirrored in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where menarche is considered the first gateway of tremendous energetic and spiritual transformation.
The idea of the uterus being a gateway to something mystical is echoed across Himalayan and Indian Buddhist traditions.
This gateway to mysticism, spiritual realms or something larger and with more depth isn’t just available on our first period, but every time we bleed.
I speak about menarche because that is where disassociation with our body can begin. The women that I’ve had the privilege to work with, and the many more that I’ve spoken to, have all experienced a profound disconnect, disgust or resentment with their body when they first bled.
Menstruators, and especially young girls have borne the brunt of this compartmentalisation of physical bodies versus our deep-feeling bodies, or rather, the complete dismissal of our deep-feeling bodies by the Western worldview.
There is, in fact, no separation between our body, our feelings and our connection to something greater than us. There is only inextricable interconnectedness. Once we understand this, we can witness portals opening and thresholds becoming clear.
The disdain for the mystery of women’s bodies is evident in the lack of women-centred research and studies, as well as a general tone of dismissiveness regarding their health, pain and opinions when going through the medical system.
Menstruation is not just the uterus shedding its lining. On a collective level, it is an Earth-making phenomenon. On a personal level, it is a descent into the arms of our wildness. A union with our unfettered knowing.
A shift in perspective is needed. What if we foster this mystery, rather than trying to control it? Rather than solely using a lab to dissect and systemise, why not be a witness to the oceanic intensity of menstruation? The feelings, thoughts, pain and non-ordinary states.
I am disillusioned by the word intuition. We have all heard it too many times from fake, woke spiritualists who are appropriating ancient traditions. And no one seems to know what it really means.
I choose to define intuition as wildness. It is the rawest, clearest and most untouched part of us. Deconditioned and re-Indigenised.
The first of the two hard truths I’ve learned about wildness is it’s not something that can be studied or learned. It can only be revealed by gently coaxing it out of its dormancy. The second is that no one can tell you how to do this.
The compass is now directed towards you.
In the face of the pathologisation of women’s bodies, menstruation is a harbinger of wildness. For some women, it is a portal of vivid dreams, intense imagination or a surge in creative ideas. For other menstruators, it is a threshold that opens into non-ordinary states and a closeness towards otherworldly realms.
What parts of these experiences can be contained or explained in scientific language and systems? They can’t be. There is no explanation for mystery, only an ability to sense and feel.
When thinking along these lines, it becomes clear why women have been subject to subjugation throughout history, because what is uncontainable becomes feared, and control is a reaction. It also illuminates the absence of these undefinable experiences in scientific research.
For how long will we continue to do ourselves, and most important, humanity and our more-than-human kin, a disservice by ignoring the keening howl of the wild within us?
I invite you to sink your teeth into the sumptuousness of your clearest truth, to open yourself to the otherworldly magic of menstruation and to bathe in the joy of living in your sovereignty as a worthy teacher. To laugh and play with the uncertainty, the trial and error, of charting your own course to wildness.
hi, i’m jumana — offline’s resident essayist & menstrual guide.
The way forward is downward. Earthward. Wombward. I’m reclaiming the forgotten tools of menstrual cycles and earth weaving so we can remember what was once intuitive to us. If you want to join me on this journey to discover wild wholeness, you can find me @bijaruh.
