We Gather & We Shed
thoughts on menstruation, gardening & change
Like most folks who menstruate, I have a bit of a tumultuous relationship with my hormones.
It really started in my late 20s after both my kids were born, around the time that I also began to understand how trauma has shown up in my body for years. I wrote about this in my book Native, and even more in Living Resistance, this dance of connecting to my child self as I pay attention to my trauma and how it’s shown up in my body over the years:
Learning to trust my body and my soul’s strength again, learn- ing to lean into the work of healing, requires that I let my child self know that she is amazing and worthy of love. She had to deal with so much more than she should have had to deal with, and she did everything she could to survive it. She is brave and strong and beautiful, and she has gotten me here today. The work of re-parenting myself has given me the courage to pay attention to the way I parent and care for the voices and stories of my own children.
It’s still pretty difficult to practice kindness and care with my shifting, tender, strong, exhausted body. It still pisses me off that as a young girl I didn’t learn anything more than you have a period once a month, use a pad or tampon and get ready for the awful hormones that come with it, good luck.
This month was one of the rough months, keeping me feeling pretty awful for about a week, days where I am working on being patient with myself while asking what my limits are, what mind over matter really is, and what might have caused the disruption to my life.
What I’ve learned and I can’t let go of is that my body lives four seasons every single month, which is a damn miracle as much as it can be frustrating. So, like I often share about here, I am literally practicing trusting the seasons of my own body alongside the moon.
I have to read my own levels of stress, track what I eat, pay attention to movement, and be honest about the relationships that feed me and don’t feed me.
My therapist reminded me of the beauty of this monthly shedding, and that’s exactly what it is. Every month can I ask myself what’s to be shed right now, what can I let go of a little?
This morning, I harvested a few of our beautiful radishes. I learned that I planted them too shallow, so instead of their beautiful bulbous form, they’re little fingers that grew up in the shallow bed of my wooden planter. Still edible, still spicy and perfect.
When I harvest from my own garden—our cilantro in a dish, our kale chips on a plate, our tomatoes and basil in a bruschetta—I am overcome with this feeling of reciprocity and care.
I greet the seedlings in the mornings and ask them to keep growing. I’m full of gratitude and I cannot deny the way we are connected to one another, one container at a time, one harvest at a time.
This work of harvest, of gathering in, is so sacred. It teaches us what it means to be human.
Summer is flying by, and if I’m honest, I crave the crisp autumn air every single year. I think about the afterlife, whatever that is, and realize that what I’d miss most about my life on this earth is the changing of the seasons, the constant push and pull that leads us onward and onward always.
What would we do without the shedding and the harvest and the change?
It’s all connected, of course, in ways I can fathom and in more ways that I can’t.
The pull of the tide, the transitions of the moon, the seasons within us, the shedding and the harvesting, the changing and changing again—don’t let go, don’t forget the beauty and the magic of this life.
When I wrote Living Resistance, I was thinking about my readers, about people who have those things they talk about and those things they don’t. Perhaps one of the best lessons I’ve continued to learn from the novels I’ve read is that whole don’t judge a book by its cover or everyone is carrying something and social media has definitely taught us that for better or for worse.
It’s why we need stories so much, to remember what we carry, to remember that we are always shedding and harvesting, shedding and harvesting, letting go and gathering in, sometimes with support, sometimes without it.
One day I might write more about my own health journey and what it’s meant to let go and trust myself. It’s a journey I’m still on, still learning, still asking a lot of questions.
I want to tell you parts of my story to feel less alone, and to remind you that you’re not alone.
And as the moon’s phases pull us toward Mother Earth and one another, we remember all of this, and on our difficult days (or weeks), we take a deep breath and remember the power of reciprocity.
We whisper to ourselves keep growing, and we don’t forget the beauty and power of being human.
Onward, friends.
Four seasons in a month-- yes!
Beautiful reminder. I, too, feel the tenderness of planting and harvest and how this process mirrors my own body’s seasons. Going to the nursery now to get some winter veggie starts in the ground!