Women are cyclic, but we are expected to be constant and linear.
The menstrual cycle is a permanent manifestation of our circular pulse, however women do not appropriate it because we continue to ignore its potency beyond the physical manifestation. In fact, many women are so conditioned that we are unable to guide our own daughters, allowing their education to fall into the hands of young friends as inexperienced as they are. Possibly we mothers have so little knowledge about our own cycles and we have been so traumatized by the first menstrual experiences lived in solitude and under threats, that we lack female models on which to base our guidance instruction.
To get in touch with the cyclic pulse that constitutes us, girls need a close and loving accompaniment. In all civilizations , transitional rituals have been used to record that an individual left behind a phase of his life and began a new stage of knowledge and perception. These rituals used to mark a change of rank within the community such as puberty, marriage or the consecration of a priest. These modifications included new responsibilities and sometimes certain social restrictions.
In our time we have been losing the concept of ritual . Especially for puberty in which there is none to identify it. Only some idea remains about becoming an adult accompanied by certain social rights and obligations, such as drinking alcohol or voting; but we do not have a specific event to mark the passage of the child to the young, which leads them to oscillate between one stage and the other without being clear about what is expected of them.
A girl's transition ritual would have to signal the beginning of her life as a woman. The physical act of the first menstruation is a natural ritual that relatively recently has begun to be ignored as such. The life of the young woman changes because she stops being linear and begins to adopt the cyclical behavior of women. You will have to recognize, perceive and accept change by learning from your own experiences to mature. It is not an intellectual change, but you need to feel that you are becoming a young adult, and for this you will need to get in touch with your own feminine nature.
The first menstruation is indeed an awakening that deserves the accompaniment of mature women who already know what it is like to live life within the perfect rhythm of the cycle. In fact, women need to ritualize the totality of our cyclical life since it is not the same to bleed as ovulate when we wake up, walk, cook, make love, study, work or think. They are totally different internal moments that guide and subtly organize our being in the world, with a specific cadence and rhythm. It doesn't matter that others don't recognize it. It is essential that women register and respect our rhythm taking into account our cyclical, changing and circular essence of our feminine being.
Women carry the rhythm in our bodies and men can live it through us. It is the vital force brought.
Laura Gutman
Source: http://www.lauragutman.com.ar/los-rituales-de-la-mujer-ciclica/The rituals of the cyclic woman
