My monthly flow started again yesterday. I find my thoughts are disjointed, my emotions abruptly changeable. Physically I feel 'wrung out'. When I was a young woman I would have cramps so bad that I would feel as if I was going to pass out. I don't have cramps nearly so badly now. But when my menses begin to flow I feel as if energy is literally flowing from me. I feel weak and tired, especially in my lower torso, upper thigh and pelvic region; drained.
Yesterday should have been delightful. It was delightful but I was too tired and scattered to be in the moment and enjoy it. We went to a friend's brand-new, in-the-process-of-becoming farm in the afternoon and then to the Mothers Acting Up (https://protected.fatcow.com/mother5/) potluck in the evening but I was just cranky and tired.
This is when the idea of a "red tent" is so appealing; a time to separate from the day-to-day noise and responsibility to center down and focus on my needs; a time to create. During these 5 days each month I feel overwhelmed by the maleness of my household. I feel like a stranger in my own house. I'm mystified by the aggression and chaos that comes with boys (and men) playing with one another. Carmac described it well a couple of weeks ago when he said, "Wrestling is how dad shows us love". My guys play with their whole bodies; they wrestle, tussle, and throw themselves around. They're rarely still, even in sleep. They're all drummers so there is constant tap, tap, tapping in my house.
I feel like a volcanic island, alone, simmering. Sometimes I don't know how my life got to this point. Is this the life I created? At this moment it is not the life I want. I want the life that my lesbian, childless friends all seem to have or my friends who are single mothers with single girl daughters. I want the quiet stillness. I want my home to smell like fresh herbs, not like sweaty socks and the piss of whatever animal is living in the crawlspace under the house. I want to be able to display beautiful pottery and not cringe every time a ball enters the room. I want to be able to set something down and have it be there the next time I look for it. I want to be able to read a whole paragraph without hearing "Mom...". I need a room of my own.
I think immediately of my post from before Creating Room for God about making space in ourselves for God. I'd been thinking that I've made some progress (whatever that means in this context) at centering down and being able to step into the "stream" but the last couple of days I've been anything but centered. My thoughts jump around; I can't seem to maintain a linear thought. Right now I'm not even sure I have a center in this crazy jumble of thoughts and emotions. I try to pray and don't get beyond the initial impulse before my mind distracts itself and I forget what I'm doing.
I wonder if I lived in a way that would allow me to remove myself to a more nurturing space at this phase in my womancycle if I would be able to use this crazy energy in a different way to know and honor God rather than to feel so distant from God. This is the time when I could feel closest to God as Goddess (or, as Joan Borysenko in her book A Woman's Journey to God called the Divine, "Goddessence"). I need a community of calm, nurturing, creative women around me. I need good food, art, gentle-soulful music. I need to find the Holy Spirit in each of those things.
I must take a shower now to begin yet another day full of action and noise but I will carry this idea of honoring the Shekina, the feminine Divine in myself and in the world. I'm going to a peace rally to commemorate the 4th anniversary of the beginning of the war this afternoon. I will bring my peace, my awareness of Shekina, with me.
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