Cyclical bodies in a linear world

What bleeding taught me about capitalism

There’s something deeply radical about a woman who listens to her body in a world built on silencing it.

Lately, I’ve been sitting with the ways menstruation refuses to conform to the demands of late-stage capitalism. It asks us to slow down in a system that demands we speed up. It pulls us inward when everything else is trying to pull us out. It’s our built-in monthly retreat as women - yet for most women, the revelations and deep restoration this period is meant to bring often elude us, as we override our bodies to keep up with grind culture.

And yet, I believe we can only keep up for so long before the body says no. Those no’s will grow louder and louder until we stop and listen, honoring their message.

When I say that the menstruating body is inherently anti-capitalist, what I mean is that it cannot function within the machine without going against its own nature. Our current system is built on the premise of linearity, outward achievement, and perpetual expansion. Growth for the sake of growth.

The blood of the menstruating body carries an entirely different message: one of slowness, introspection, and rest.

When I’m bleeding, I have no interest in the outside world. I have no interest in work or tasks. I don’t want to be social or attend to the needs of others. I simply don’t have the capacity. All I want is to lie down in a meadow and feel the pulse of Mother Earth. Or spend hours in bed creating, writing, daydreaming, visioning.

Imagine how disruptive it would be if every woman, during her bleed, refused to go to work or do any domestic or emotional labor? If she instead let her tired body sink onto a patch of grass or a bed full of pillows and told the world it would have to wait.

Retreated into her cave for a few days to sleep, rest, reflect and came back into the world sharing her insights and revelations.

How deeply nourished would women begin to feel, no longer overriding their bodies, trying to prove they can do it all? How quickly would the systems built on the backs of tired and exhausted women collapse?

Menstruation reminds us of our cyclical nature. Not linear, cyclical. Nothing blooms forever in nature, and neither do we.

Just like summer gives way to autumn, we too need seasons of rest and being. Menstruation teaches us that these cycles of death and rebirth are natural - that we are human beings, not human doings.

If we look to nature, we’ll notice how every plant or tree grows at its own pace. Trees aren’t stressed or anxious, burning themselves out trying to grow taller. Flowers don’t compare their blossoms to their neighbors and feel less beautiful, less worthy.

Everything in nature is process-oriented. It moves at its own rhythm, without rushing, and yet every cycle completes itself in its own time.

Our current system is anti-human, anti-Earth, and requires violence to sustain itself.

The greed, the hoarding, the scarcity, the fighting over land - it’s never enough, is it? And that is the poison at its core. That poison has seeped into our very cellular memory over generations, teaching us that we need to work harder in order to accumulate more.

When you couple that with our social conditioning, you begin to understand why so many of us carry internalized shame and guilt for slowing down and allowing ourselves rest.

As women, these beliefs carry added weight from thousands of years of oppression within patriarchal systems and the belief that we must prove our worth in work environments made by and for men. Environments that have historically excluded us and ridiculed or shamed us for having periods.

Menstrual blood has been made taboo because of the power it holds as a reminder of our inherent connection to our primal, wild animal nature.

Menstrual blood reconnects a woman to her power and divine insight - if she is open to it.

Indigenous tribes all over the world knew this truth intimately, and a woman’s blood was celebrated each month through rites and ceremonies. In certain Native American traditions, women would gather in a red tent during their moon days and bleed together directly onto the moss.

While they were away, the rest of the community would take over all domestic labor and tasks so the women could fully dedicate themselves to this time of communion with spirit. When they returned and reentered the community, they would share with others the messages they received from their bleed.

Can you imagine how different our world would look if women were connected to their power and honored their blood as sacred? If our culture acknowledged our need to rest, to slow down, to simply be? And even honored the spiritual gifts of menstruation?

While this may feel far from our current reality, remember that our current paradigm was imagined by a group of people.

It hasn’t always been this way. In fact, capitalism and patriarchy have only existed for a couple of thousand years. For most of humanity’s time on Earth, we lived in nature-based, egalitarian, and matriarchal societies where rest and the honoring of cycles were a way of life.

Our current paradigm is not the only possible way.

We must dream another world into being and what better way than using your monthly bleed to tend to that vision, and slowly begin to embody it in your own life?

Surely it will create ripple effects in your environment and in the lives of women around you.

Here’s my invitation:

Can you practice slowing down, allowing yourself intentional rest - especially before and during your bleed?

Can you experiment with saying no, clearing space in your calendar, and taking time away from the world each month to simply be with yourself?

Would it feel okay to begin questioning the guilt or shame that may arise when you put boundaries in place and let people know you are going into your moon cave?

How would it feel to live in tune with your body and not in a war against it?

Let me know how you go, and remember, it’s a lifelong process, decolonizing our minds and nervous systems from capitalism and patriarchy.