The Menstruality Podcast - 124. The Five Chambers of Menstruation (Alexandra & Sjanie)

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

Happy New Year from all of us at Red School 🥳 May your entry into 2024 be full of everything you most long for.This conversation with Alexandra and Sjanie today is especially for you if you’re very much in inner winter mode, we’re exploring a topic which we’ve been wanting to since the podcast began, which is the deep spiritual power of menstruation, and how it unfolds in five distinct phases.Alexandra starts by sharing how she came to understand the five chambers of menstruation starting with a story with a lover in Stockholm, then together with Sjanie they map out the profound gifts of these chambers as a gateway to the 'inner temple' of menstruation.We explore:What to do if you want to explore the five chambers of menstruation, but are dealing with menstrual pain and symptoms - including Alexandra’s story of how the chambers were a key part of navigating her extreme menstrual pain. The one key practice that opens up the way for the five chambers, even if you can only carve out 10 minutes to be with your menstrual process. How to work with these five phases in other ways - such as the turn of the year that we’re all currently experiencing, as well as during the great inner winter of menopause.---Join us for our free, online, New Year retreat, "Your Menstrual Cycle, Your Oracle" on January 11th - https://www.redschool.net/oracle---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardy

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Happy New Year to you. May your entry into this new year, 2024, be full of everything that you most need right now. This conversation with Alexandra and Sharni today is especially for you if, as we enter this new year, you're still very much in

inner winter mode because we're exploring a topic that we've been wanting to talk about since the podcast began which is the deep spiritual power of menstruation and how it unfolds in five distinct phases. So we begin with Alexandra sharing how she came to understand the five chambers of menstruation starting with a fascinating story that she had with a lover in Stockholm. And then together with Sharni, they map out the profound gifts of these chambers. As they say in Wild Power, if you've kept faith with your cycle over the whole menstrual month and held to its practice by respecting and working with your changing seasonal energy, you're

psychologically readied for what we call the inner temple of menstruation. So let's get started with the five chambers of menstruation with Alexander and Sharni. Well I'm very cosy here because I've got my dog underneath the desk and I'm just tucking my feet underneath his warm belly. And it's lovely to be here in this conversation with you. And I just want to set the scene a little bit because for full transparency, we're recording this in December and you listening are listening to this in January. And there's a reason why this is happening and it's because and I'm so grateful to you two for this one of the ways that we embody cyclical intelligence at Red School is that we truly let go and drop over this winter break so for a good couple of weeks we don't work there's an out of office on and we don't work which means we needed to record this

like entrance into the year episode before we were entering into the year and in the context of what we're going to be talking about it's actually very interesting because we're going to be talking about the five chambers of menstruation and kind of looking at this ending one year and starting a new year as a kind of big menstruation for all of us and so here we are like entering into that deep inner winter and outer winter and then you listening to it on the other side of coming out the other side of that so that will make more sense when we get into actually walking through the five phases of menstruation if you haven't explored that with us before so that's the context and let's do a cycle check-in from where we are Shani you are in inal conversation I am so menstrual I just honestly there are some

bleeds where I just feel like I get taken down down down into the belly of the belly of the belly it's a combination of and and I love you know the whole layering of cycles within cycles and just how i experience that in my body and being so you know end of year new moon we are in the lead up to the winter solstice I have also spent last week in bed taken down by a virus so I've had this kind of been taken out of the game of life thing happening with that anyway and that was my entry into this bleed so I just feel so deep down inside something and honestly there's just like no fight left in my system like the stuff we have to do and things that are still going on. And honestly, I'm just letting it all fall down around me and I'm fucking loving it.

I'm just letting everything fall apart. It's just so good. It's so good. Honestly, my children are fending for themselves, you know, chaos, chaos, but in the most glorious letting go kind of way. Yeah, I'm just loving it. And we've got a few more days before we break for our Red School, what we call our Red School Winter Drop or our Red School Big Bleed.

And I'm not quite sure we're going to make it to the finish line i think we might like will there be anyone here on the final day will we all have already gone i wonder alexandre you i was just examining your attitude this morning which needs a seriously good looking at or you're like don't care can't care won't care it's day two of the moon it's so fascinating i i get echoes of my menstrual experience it cracks me up every time um so i get the yeah well we'll talk we'll talk about it when we come to talk about the chambers. But so in this moment now of, well, yesterday on the new moon, I just felt just something almost very subtle, almost up my spine. It's very interesting. And I just had to go outside when it was still dark and wet and walk on the wet grass.

It's cold, but it wasn't freezing, freezing. Barefoot. And I just had to go outside when it was still dark and wet and walk on the wet grass. It's cold, but it wasn't freezing, freezing. Barefoot. And the sky was just beautiful stars. This was early morning. I just felt so charged. So, you know, in prayerful mode. Thank you.

Thank you. I never do this first thing in the morning. I do sit and meditate and stuff, but I keep cozy and warm. But there I am in my nightiey barefoot on the wet lawn anyway this morning i had that quality a little bit of that quality of high but i am not stable i'm not stable no and in fact really uh i could um frankly and this is to do with the end of the year just walk off into the sunset and i had this wonderful abandoning everything i had this wonderful thought this morning i had i only had about 20 minutes to go out and walk and i thought i'm just gonna bloody do it i'm just gonna walk just for a little while and i i didn't take my phone I just I'm I sort of have an intuitive thing with time and you know roughly how far I could go and I set off on my walk and then I had this

suspicious thought I thought I could just keep walking I could just go for just a really lovely walk because it was so lovely just out in the fields I thought I could just keep walking and walking and and I can't phone in because I've got my phone I love going out just keep going and then I'm Sean you'll be wondering where I am and you know probably getting a bit pissed off because I haven't turned up meanwhile I'm happily snoozing away so I don't know why why did I keep why didn't I keep walking it was interesting I didn't keep walking but it was so very real but what I did well I did a compromise and did a sort of slightly longer shorter walk and um did not hurry myself nothing I'm not gonna hurry I'm just just gonna walk and I'll just get there when I get there.

I'll just bloody get there when I get there. It was so good. It's so good. And it's such a sign of this, of endings, this feeling of I'm just going to walk away from it all and not tell anyone. Yeah. walk away from it all and not tell anyone yeah yeah it's going to be interesting to look at that in the context of this first chamber of separation when we get to it for sure exactly I'm on day 18 I think and I'm definitely crossing over well one thing that's happening right now in this moment is the rats in our house that we've been in deep relationship with for the last two years, trying to find ways to get them to move and live somewhere else. a um physical manifestation of what I'm feeling inside which is kind of life just bugging me like life is just bugging me as I cross over into autumn and I caught her this morning my inner teenager

that I like I love I love her face and she was just effing and blinding and he did this and she said that and rah rah and I was like you you you tell it girl you go for it inside so I've got all of that yeah but messy bumpy transition from my inner summer which involved a stomach bug too so I didn't have that much summertime into autumn um but I'm so grateful for cycle awareness so I can know what that voice means. I can know that I'm not a bad person. I can know that I'm just negotiating something on the inner, that it all makes sense. It's all, there's a rightness to it all. Yes.

Yes. And more than that, I mean, all that. And in light of the conversation we're going to be having now, the place you're in, Sophie, is what we think of as the first breadcrumb trail to the inner temple of menstruation. It's our first signpost of preparation for the sanctuary and ceremony and spiritual access that's going to happen so you know whilst it all looks like irritation and swearing actually there is this deeper part of you that knows what's coming and this is the preparation yeah and I find that so beautiful to remember um could you walk us into this exploration of the five chambers of menstruation by telling us a little of where this came from,

where this teaching came from, or how it's emerged. Could you walk us into that for people who have never encountered the idea that there are different phases to menstruation well let's frame it first by saying that i think well shiny began actually sort of naming this as menstruation as this sort of sacred time it's i think of the phase of menstruation as a time out of time where you step out of what i like to say normal time-space reality, and the faculties that you usually operate by in the world sort of become redundant, have to be sort of taken down, if you like, if you are to be able to enter this space. And in fact, when we started calling menstruation an inner temple, you know, because there's this sense of crossing a threshold into a sacred space.

And within that sacred space, there are these different chambers that you move through. And these chambers are kind of, I I would say an orchestrated process, a sort of, let's say that for now, but each chamber is, they sort of all work together to take you into a very kind of deep inner sanctum of spiritual connection and then guide so it guides you into that deep docking into yourself that spiritual connection and then it guides you out again so these chambers hold that whole process now the idea of phases to menstruation and I received initially from the work of Lara Owen in her first edition of

Her Blood is Gold and it was this idea of surrender and visioning and the return I think it was I can't even I think it was those three Lara then did go on to add another and articulate it but i actually never saw that and then from that so i took that and then from that i uh really worked very deeply with my own experience of of surrendering so it was that i worked with what Lara had suggested, the surrender, and then the visioning space opening up and then the emergence out. We gave our own words to these. However, there was another phase that presented itself to me on an experience with a lover in Stockholm. It's an incredible story, which I won't go into now. We do share this story on the Men's Reality Leadership Program.

Yeah, we do share the story. You have to come to the Men's Reality Leadership Program to hear the full story. To hear about Alexandra's glancing with her lovers in stockholm yeah i mean it was his the quality of his presence that held me i was actually just coming into my bleed and well i'm going to give you a little bit of information about it but i was in this incredible space uh we we were just in a sort of slight a slight time out of time together you know there was no pressure of time this was really critical there was no pressure of time and there was a real it was just we were just very slow and paced together it was almost like we were moving at the pace of my being really as I think about it now but I entered this extraordinary place of depth and experienced union like I've never experienced before. And then when I returned to Australia, where I was actually living,

I was just visiting England, and that's when I nipped over to Stocker. So I'm back in Australia, and I started having these experiences just on my own, just before my bleed of going into these incredible spaces. And we call this space, now we call the space separation or the void, the first chamber of menstruation. But actually I was experiencing this before these experiences, but I hadn't clocked it as a sort of aspect of menstruation. But I used to find myself, I would always fall into a hole, into a blankness just before bleeding. I might be out with friends. I can always remember this. I was at this coffee shop in a bookshop in Sydney. I can still

visualize it. And I just had this feeling I had to go. I had to leave them. And I went home and I got home and I thought, what was that all about? I've got nothing to do. I was sort of a bit bored, twiddling my thumbs, but I just had to get out. And then my blood came just, I think, the next morning or something like that. And it's this need to separate, to get away that's so distinct and then what i experienced in stockholm and subsequently was what opens up when you know how to cross that divide and the other thing i used to experience there was just huge critic attacks and and so yes that all fits together so anyway so then this fourth chamber arrived.

So I've gone on a little story there. The fourth chamber was separate. Separate, surrender, vision, and then the sort of return, which we call now clarity. And then on the second training we were running, this was in 2012, wasn't it? Well, yeah, 2012. second training we were running this was in 2012 wasn't it well yeah i can i can i can picture the room and i can picture everyone was sitting and we were we were unpacking the uh chambers and then i am looking at them all and we're sort of in this lovely bubble together and we're sort of in this lovely bubble together and I'm listening to their experiences.

And it's like a sort of orchestration going on, some invisible thing. And then I suddenly say, I think there might be another chamber here. And it was about receiving, wasn't it, Shani? I can't even remember the names of the five chambers. It's renewal. It's renewal. But it had that quality of receiving. I remember the word receive.

And I can always remember looking up and the person in front of me, wonderful Amber, and I could see her face nodding at me. And there's like this sort of, yeah, that goes around the circle, doesn't it? It's like this collective recognition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember very, very clearly because there is a guided process that we take people on in the training to explore these phases. And that guided process really takes people very deeply inside their own experience beyond

their conscious knowing of what they are tapping into. So something gets revealed through that. And I remember you must have been guiding the exercise, Alexandra, because I actually participated in the exercise, Alexandra, because I actually participated in the exercise. And I remember very clearly what came to me when we visited that phase or that, I think we call them phases and perhaps we haven't even started calling them chambers, was this feeling of there were two movements so this was the surrender which was a bottoming out and a dropping down and then as part of that experience was that moment of something turning on its axis where the ending kind of inverted itself into this new beginning, this rise. It was that conception moment.

And I remember, I have still got the drawing of my experience of it, which was this like heart seed, this new kind of baby heart seed being birthed in me. So I remember when you named that you thought there was another phase going there, the illustration that I'd drawn of my experience completely represented that, the two halves of this experience, the dropping down and then the return, this kind of opening up of the trap door, what is coming once we've let go. I remember it so clearly.

It's so exciting when things emerge and then we all together recognize this experience, even as none of us have named it yet. And that's what's so powerful about these maps and the articulation of it. Once it's been named, suddenly it comes to life in people's experience in a much more vivid way. Like now there is no mistaking this chamber. It is clear as day, you know, all these years later, and many people who have read Wild power will write to us and say oh my god i remember that oxytocin wash that wave of love that mother hug that whole experience of

what we call renewal it's very exciting oh god to be on the kind of evolving edge of this work is just so pleasurable it's so beautiful to hear you speak about it and for anyone who's listening and has had a real felt sense of i know there is something mystical going on here i know there is a huge potential a spiritual potential and evolutionary potential to their bleed, then what we're saying is that this map of the five chambers is an invitation, a portal, a holding for you to understand, embody, fall into this mystical process. I mean, I've been with it for what like seven seven years when would I first learned about it from wild power actually no Sophie you came to that workshop up in Manchester where we did a whole weekend on the inner temple of menstruation I remember you there it was the first time I met you. Do you remember that? I remember things.

I can't remember. That was years ago. I remember being with you at maybe Birmingham and Sheffield. Birmingham. It might have been Birmingham. Yeah. Yeah. Like anywhere north of London just blurs it for you, doesn't it?

It was up north in that old Buddhist centre, that workshop. Yeah. Yeah. and that old buddhist center that workshop yeah yeah and i remember well yeah i can remember the feeling of childlike wonder and awe at the same time as almost like the the wisdom of an 80 year old finally you know being able to know the. So it was a very interesting combination of, yes, yes, yes, I knew there was something here. And so I've been, I've been with it since then, working with it. And every month, I experienced these very distinctly in different ways. I learned something each month, it's just endlessly illuminating. I want to say that it's magical because this is an invisible experience that only gets revealed to us when we honor it. So there's this beautiful awakening that happens when we pay attention to menstruation and the map that we share the five

chambers of menstruation gives our kind of psyches a guide for that it sort of orientates us within this spiritual architecture and then seemingly out of nowhere out of the, out of the mystery, out of the darkness, these experiences start to wake up in us. And it's so exciting. Like I remember the first time I discovered the void, you know, the thing that Alexandra experienced with her lover in Stockholm. I remember thinking, oh, this is what they're talking about it's like because I heard about it long before I felt it and I remember kind of wondering what what it is and then when suddenly it becomes real in my own experience it is like magic it's like magic suddenly I find myself in this expanded state of consciousness and I've suddenly

got access to a knowing that I didn't have before and it's like I'm in communion with something that I've never been able to reach before it's experiences of meditation of deep states of altered consciousness in meditation that have helped me here too because the place i can reach in menstruation just by yielding to it not by doing anything are akin to those and deeper than those yeah that's been helpful too i've got a question for alexandra because i'm thinking of people who negotiate a lot of pain in their bleed at what phase in your healing journey were you discovering this was the pain was your pain a part of your your coming to understand it so when i had the pain i uh i didn't have lara's book at that time that i don't think was published um but i had i knew i had read the wise

wound which is one of those seminal books that came out in the 70s. And it spoke there of, you know, menstruation as this time of visioning, expanded consciousness and so on. And I, as you know, I made that decision to believe in my body and follow my body. You know, that my body, the pain was my body's way of saying pay attention come and come and play with me and so i what i did was give space to menstruation and that act of giving space to menstruation as much as i possibly could because i wanted to avoid taking painkillers just you know trying to and survive in the world, but to take time away and to be able to drop and just be and travel with the pain.

That was like a door opening into something. I felt like something got unleashed in me. And the pain, of course, was horrendous and dominated everything but in the act of traveling with the pain and really feeling it and bless my beloved partner at the time Richard who used to just hold me and rock me as I cursed and cursed patriarchy by by the way, and all men and everything, you know. You know, this is one of those moments. And he would just let me go into it and go into it and go into it. Honestly, it was like the doors of perception cleansing, cleansing. It was like seeing into things.

I could just see into it, but not something I could articulate. But it was this raw realness that happened but the crucial thing was that in giving space to menstruation I was reducing stress and pressure and that helped reduce pain over time this is a very simplistic explanation of what I actually did it took a long time but as the pain eased, I well, even as I was in bad pain, I could feel the high happening. I could feel this altered state, I could call it just this profound altered state, which people would say the pain is an altered state, which it is. But I could feel myself in this really powerful force if you like and it just sort of transformed slowly with that with time um and but what you said that what

what's interesting is in having the pain i had to give space to menstruation and the moment you give space to menstruation menstruation does the rest it does it all for you that's what's so extraordinary and if you have very severe pain that dominates everything that act of um not only giving space to menstruation but really finding ways to deep to slow down before the bleed, because as Shani was indicating, there's this breadcrumb trail. Reducing pressure in the premenstrual phase eases the period pain. I've had people tell me that. But actually, really what I remember, and I remember a woman's story around this, too. She used to have insane pain and she sort of, she followed me, bless her. She tried, you know, she thought I'm going to go, I'm going to try this, you know.

She was actually a therapy client. And she had such revelation about her past, her story, you know, and insight about herself that was healing for her. And I think actually it's that thing of being stripped away and seeing into. Yeah. Yeah.

So it wasn't like I was experiencing union or love at this point, but I was, oh, my God, I was seeing into things, which is what happens at menstruation yes yeah when I was deep in my chronic pain experience I remember writing a poem about it and it was about how pain forces us to be like eye to eye nose to nose with with it and that forges a kind of intimacy unlike anything else I experienced. And it's an intimacy with self and with the more than, you know, with that which is bigger than us. Yes, yes. Just before we do a summary of these chambers, it also feels important to say that we get that we live in a world that makes it difficult for many of us to stop and retreat like this this information

is practical for people no matter what they're navigating what they're responsible for in their lives because of the one percent rule which we talk about all the time but I don't think we can talk about it too much because that's what makes this real for everybody like if you don't have if you have 10 minutes if you have half an hour if you have small pockets of time to follow the call of these chambers that is everything and take it take what you've got do the one percent and then let that become what it what it can become and let that grow into what it can grow into. But it starts with the 1%. I just don't want people to be thinking,

well, I can't stop and rest for a day, so this isn't for me. No, it is. And the 1% is what makes it possible. That is so important, what you said, Sophie. It's crucial. Okay, we're going to take a quick pause in the podcast to invite you to join us for our annual free online new year retreat on January the 11th it's called your menstrual cycle your oracle and it's designed to be a potent ritual where you can lean into the wisdom of menstruality as it lives within you, within your direct experience,

to receive personal, tailor-made guidance for your year ahead. You can save your seat at redschool.net forward slash oracle, and we'll send you a recording if you can't be there live. The menstruality medicine circle process that Alexandra and Sharni will guide you through works whether you currently have a menstrual cycle or not so please do join us if you're in menopause, if you're post-menopause, if you're pregnant, breastfeeding or are without a cycle for any other reason. So before we get back into the five chambers conversation I'd like to share another story from a menstruality leadership program graduate this time it's Ruby May. The doors for the 2024 program are now open we're starting in March and if you're hearing the call

we would absolutely love to have you with us. You can find out more about the program at menstrualityleadership.com. Okay, over to Ruby. I remember when I received the invitation to apply for the menstruality leadership training and like the full body, all cells tingling yes that I experienced. It was like so clear that this is something that I have to do. And I remember so clearly that that excitement was also about tuning into the place that the invitation came from because I could sense that it came from such a deep and wise and embodied place and that that was so refreshing in a world that just feels full of different courses and information and all these different things that you can do and I could

just sense that wow this is something really different and it has changed my life in such beautiful subtle yet deeply impactful ways you know this is no weekend workshop or short term fix really it's like a lifelong commitment now. It's like planting seeds that will then blossom for years and years and years to come. I am so grateful to feel like I get to be part of the puzzle and find my unique way to share this. And I'm ever in gratitude for the Red School for being such a catalyst and the start of my journey so we have these five chambers let's walk through them again so chamber one separation chamber two surrender chamber three renewal chamber four vision and chamber five clarity

and I'm wondering about looking at this in terms of the turn of the year but can we give give voice to this because it's a I was talking to Lauren our wonderful I don't know what to call Lauren in Red School she just does everything the Red School angel Lauren and um what was she saying I'm spacing now because I'm in my own period of the of separation at the end of the year and my brain stopped working um yeah she was saying how the turn of the year is a really great way for people to understand these chambers you know it sort of laid out in a different way through the change of the year so separation where that's where we are that's where we are right now everyone listening is in you know hopefully in some renewal and maybe vision and clarity starting to come but But we're in this separation, entering into the surrender at the still point around the solstice here in the northern hemisphere.

Do you want to say a word or two about this? Yes, because, of course, now I no longer menstruate. I live by this in all sorts of ways these phases so yes i am feeling this disinterest in what i have to do this is a clear sign of separation and that feeling of you know just wanting to go keep walking this morning um and just abandon all responsibilities classic separation stuff and and um and to just step into nothingness you know just it's an empty space separation is an empty space and it's it's really the crossing into uh into well it's the separation is the crossing into menstruation itself but in this moment in the year it's this stepping into it's actually

this time of year coming into the drop of the winter solstice uh it's it's a sort of recognition it's it's like i'm preparing myself to uh enter that that still point of the year and i have to be sort of taken away if you like from normal stuff to be able to experience that stillness, that inner drop of the solstice. And of course, of what the heart of what menstruation can give you. So I had this impulse to go away and then to do nothing. Surrender. That I have to actually just let go and just this profound need for rest.

And I can feel that actually. It's like, it's really, I'm just slightly, well, I wasn't envious of the fact that Shani was sick on the contrary. No, because it sounded hideous, but she was just in bed sleeping. She was sleeping. She was throwing up and, you know up now and then and feeling shit. It was this thing of just being in bed. Actually, I was lying there thinking, how lucky am I?

Because I was so happy to be in bed and to having gotten out of all of my responsibilities. Honestly, I was so happy. It was so great, even as I felt shit. Because as you're saying, Alexandra, that is all my being is wanting to do at this time of year is just to completely let go. Yeah, it's so interesting. And not have to sort of string a sentence together.

So it's quite interesting doing a podcast, you know, about the void and about, you know, surrendering when you're actually in it. And trying to be sort of coherent about it. Yeah. Actually, that reminds me of another piece of this sort of separation phase, chamber, is it is to do with endings, so things coming to completion and part of that process of ending is a an experience of closing down one's faculties like closing up shop one's thinking analytical brain really gets decommissioned. And that is in order that we can access a new mind or a different kind of intelligence, because what's happening is we're

being stepped into an altered state of consciousness. I mean, that's a real kind of key thing when we're talking about menstruation and also just generally about endings of big cycles, is that we go into an altered state of consciousness. We step out of our identities, our roles, our responsibilities. There's this whole kind of shedding, shedding, shedding thing happening so that we can move beyond ourselves. And so that thing of not being able to finish sentences, and I personally can only talk right now with my eyes closed,

like I can't actually have my eyes open in order to speak, is because of this altered state of consciousness that starts to come over us and I personally have been in this now for a couple of weeks like a heavily altered state of consciousness where you know the normal everyday tasks are very hard to do it feels so important just the way that you're honoring this naming it honoring it dignifying it gives us all permission to instead of go oh god i just don't know why i'm so ditzy right now yeah oh we do know why our thoughts aren't being formed right now there is a we're inside a big, and this is the decommissioning process. This is the decommissioning process.

Exactly. And there's nothing wrong with us, and there's nothing wrong with the state. In fact, this is a state of grace that's happening. Oh, that's it. That's it. That's beautiful. It's a state of grace that we're stepping into that's got me it's such a beautiful word there it's a state of grace we're stepping into and the the problem or the

challenge rather is that you know daily life goes on and of course we're talking christmas here for many millions trillions of people not everybody i'm aware trillions not quite there yet not quite there yet no sorry i've slightly overestimated the numbers on the planet you see it's all right you've got permission to your brain is being that's right yeah yeah yeah it's all sort of somewhere in the ballpark somewhere in there i probably hit something correct but i just really want to acknowledge the pressure of um the holiday season and christmas uh with families uh when you're feeling this and if you're also this uh christmas this transition of the year and the need for separating and dropping, but also if you're menstruating at the same time. Or can I also add, by the way, here that this is menopause

is a winter time of our souls. So if you're going through menopause at the moment and you know you're in the um northern hemisphere you'll be you know this this this inner calling this depth will be intensified even more and um it's so important to recognize all that that layering that's going on in our beings when we still have to sort of show up in normal life, in inverted commas, and be sort of, you know, delivering what we have to deliver. And that knowing of all that, even if we can't change it, we can't just step away. Knowing all that brings a softening and it brings a kindness and uh softening into our systems it really does understanding this even if you can't really follow your impulse or maybe you can do it a little bit like i did this morning and just walked a little bit longer than I should have done, but not totally disappeared off.

Well done. Good restraint. Yes. I'm just sort of feeling into all of this because there is so much momentum in our world and there really truly is no end to all the stuff that there is to do i mean that's a fact there is no end to the stuff to do but this particularly this chamber of separation it is the great interrupter i mean it does come with this seditious thought as Alexandra shared her version of it this morning, but I do believe we all feel the version of this like an inner tug

that says, Hey, what if I just dared to not do that thing? Or what if I just dared to let that go or to say no to that thing? That, and often, sometimes, for me anyway, this shows up as rage where I'm like, that's it, I've had enough. And other times it shows up more as like a quiet indignance. But we all have that impulse. We all feel that impulse to down tools. And I guess I want to say the more this space opens up for us and the more we are, I want to say, rectifying the state of the world, rectifying our nervous systems, rectifying the pace of life.

It's like bit by bit that daring is starting to interrupt the momentum and bit by bit is restoring cyclical consciousness. I mean, menstruation is really the medicine for restoring cyclical consciousness because of the pause that it brings to all the doing. Yes, the pause that it brings to all the doing. And it's leading somewhere. Yeah, I'm thinking of everyone listening to this on the other side. So it'll be the 4th of January. So hopefully there was some

separation there has been some surrender there has been some renewal whatever that's looked like for each of us and then now opening up into this start of a new cycle of a new year we're entering the fourth chamber and fifth chamber the vision and clarity is that where you were taking us Alexandra yes well I was wanting to acknowledge actually exactly what you've just said that it's you know it's opening up a space for the surrender the separation and the surrender opening up a space for something to happen and the first thing that happens is this remembering what we call renewal the reconnection so when you step away you kind of and this is what this is what's happening in menopause you know it's menopause is one big you know freaking separation from the world. So you can discover yourself again and go, holy shit, this is who I am. Why am I doing all that?

This is who I really am. I mean, it takes a year or two or three to get to that moment. But it's a long winter. Menopause is a long winter. But to really sort of feel oneself again, because all the doing, doing doing doing numbs us so we're sort of actually coming back to life menstruation brings us back to life rest brings us back to life and we feel the life of who within of ourselves we feel the life of who we are and um it's and we call it renewal and it renewal is just this remembering of

ourselves and we are and and menstruation gives us this incredible blessing this love this oxytocin chosen wash this sense of connection oh i'm okay i belong i have meaning you know it restores those beautiful spiritual forces within us and that renewal then gives birth to so what are what we call visioning the fourth chamber you know so yeah this oh wow this is this is what i want to do this is what i want um uh i'm actually thinking shani and i do uh a big bleed together as you well know sophie twice a year actually we do it where we get and we we are going we are scheduled to get together next week and we go through a version of this we get together and i think the first day or so we're rubbish aren't we yeah and we just think about food and we slop around and we manage a bit of yoga, I think,

and we might even, I don't know, maybe we don't even get outside, but we are rubbish. It's like time, you know, it's like, it's a blur. And then something starts to get to work in us. And we start to ask the big questions about, it's about Red School, you know, what we want, where we want, what we want. It's our check-in with Red School, you know, the spirit of Red School and ourselves.

And so out of sort of being rubbish and sort of slopping around and thinking like we'll never work again what if we never did you know um then something starts to kind of wake up and we start dreaming and we actually do do a lovely kind of dreaming ceremony for ourselves to dream into what wants to come through but it takes us a while to get to that, doesn't it, Shirley? It's so interesting. Like we can't force inspiration. We can't force vision.

It only comes when we've let go and rested and been replenished. And that's when Alexandra and I do this week kind of retreat together, that's exactly what happens. I often think, oh, we just probably won't land up being re-inspired this year or re-visioning, you know, we're just going to rest and hang out. And then suddenly things start talking to us and um it's magic it's like the the first buds of new life that pop up in a complete wasteland of winter you know and you think there's nothing here it's dead there's no life and then suddenly it's like oh there's been stuff under the ground all this time and here

here it's showing signs of life. Yeah, it's very much like that. And that inspiration only comes because we've rested. It was wonderfully clear for me on this last bleed where I was ill. I had a migraine, so that made me surrender. And one thing that I do, I notice as I'm in renewal is I let myself be surprised by life. And I look for the things that call me and surprise me. Because I guess I'm a kind of collaborative visioner. Like I need like something from the outside world to plant a seed in me to vision. and as I've talked about throughout the podcast it was Nick Cave this last month so just to bring him back in

to me knocked on my door Sophie I'm here with a bit but I discovered his interview and then latest book and music and it it was that that ushered in and opened up my vision and clarity this this bleed so it's just interesting how there's also a kind of mystical synchron synchronicities synchronous whatever that word is um relationship with going on with life there and and for us to follow our nudgings and our promptings that is exactly i actually always remember this when i actually i would experience it from the moment of separation i could feel the separation happening because my vision i can still remember where i was driving i thought oh gotta slow down here i was this was when i was in australia i can

even picture the place where i was driving and i can feel my whole consciousness expanding out and i feel myself dropping into magical timing synchronous and i have this feeling things are going to happen today i feel like magic's going to happen and i'm out and i just know i'm going to have synchronous meetings and think connections and it's it's fantastic registration like that it just it opens you up to magic time and magic things you know that's a big part of the belonging because then we know that we belong because there's a there's a great belonging that's orchestrating something and we can't understand yes so so for you listening at the beginning of January we have an invitation for you into an experience of this chamber of visioning and clarity which is in the form of our

what's becoming our annual new year retreat which is called your menstrual cycle your oracle and it's really drawing on this immense visionary mystical capacity that can open up in us through this practice of of conscious menstruation and it's coming up in a few days it's coming up on january the 11th so when we'd love to have you with us do you want to say a few words about it yeah just there is something um very beautiful about this event which was very well received there were so many people that gathered last year so we're all coming together into this nurturing space it's very nurturing it's very paced and gentle it's like a time out of time that we hold you in to really go within and to listen to the oracle that is your menstrual cycle. Because of course,

and this is something we haven't said in this episode, but a big part of what menstruation is doing is it's guiding you on your next steps. And the whole of your menstrual cycle experience is your map for how to unfold and how and finding the theme that is speaking through our cycle the theme or the thread that we are needing to tend to and track to really support us in the deepest and biggest way for this coming year so you might come out with a word or an image or a phrase for what it is you are tracking over the coming year and then you'll be part of our community and we can kind of travel alongside each other over the coming year and share how things are unfolding which I think

is always fun yeah okay so we've reached the end of our podcast Alexandra I'd love to ask you why is it so important for each of us who are still menstruating to honor these five chambers of separation surrender renewal vision clarity why why does it matter why do we need to be doing this oh gosh it just really stirs me that question i uh i just feel so passionate about everyone understanding what's possible at menstruation because it's it's this incredible opening to love to feeling love within our being to feel that we are loved but that you that also have like an outpouring of love for others. It's extraordinary. It's the most heart-opening, heart-expanding experience.

And that is that it plugs us into our sense of meaning and belonging in the world. But also at menstruation, you are bringing those qualities to the world. You are, it's like every time someone is able to bleed well, it's like an acupuncture point for society, you know, just someone coming into the love spot and feeling it and feeling their connection to the,

because you have this incredible connection of oneness with everything. I mean, that's freaking wild. And how wild that every woman, every person who menstruates, how that they could experience this every month and what that would mean to everyone around them, never mind to themselves and the implications of that for our planet. Yeah. What I'm thinking of as you say that, having said this is the end, now you've got me all excited. What I'm thinking of is in all of the major spiritual traditions in the world, there are always the people who are in deep practice holding a resonant field for everyone else. Beautifully. You know, I'm thinking of when I lived in Thailand, there were monks who were meditating

all day, every day. And it was a really important part of the culture that there were these monks holding space, holding presence. And if the menstrual cycle, menstrual cycle awareness is a spiritual practice, if this is a spiritual practice, then when we drop deeply into our bleed, we are offering something profound to the collective in terms of holding a resonance or allowing a resonance which changes things for everybody. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I want to add, Sophie, that postmenopause, you are permanently in that space, that resonant field that you spoke of. If you have been able to really, if you've been supported and resourced to go through menopause in a way that's allowed you

to really integrate things and stabilise in this expanded consciousness that menopause is, it delivers you to a place of kind of deep presence for something larger than yourself and this capacity to i talk about us being as sentinels for the world yeah holding the bigger picture holding the new story holding the deep story of connection. I love to hear you honoring that and I'm thinking of the post-menopausal women and people in our community who are doing that you know I'm seeing them they're bringing this medicine this richness this love this heart I'm so beautiful to hear you honoring that. Thank you. All right. See you on January the 11th. Thank you too. That was wonderful.

Thank you, Sophie. Hey, thank you for being with us all the way through to the end of this conversation today. I just want to close with a reminder about our new year free online retreat, Your Menstrual Cycle, Your Oracle, which is happening on January the 11th. You can join us at redschool.net forward slash oracle. That's it for this week then. We'll be with you again on Tuesday with our next Wild Power episode and as usual on Thursday with our regular episode.

And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.