Rhythm of Life

Rhythm, cycle, flow, moon phases: we women cannot escape the fact that our lives are run by energies and cycles flowing through us of which we are mostly unaware.

It's taken me almost forty years to understand my cycle, and now I don't have one. Or do I?

I think that even menopausal women are affected by their monthly energies, and even daily energy changing, shifting. Nothing stays up, or down, for long.

A recent article about the connection between bright city lights and breast cancer pointed to a little known fact: that our pineal glands, deep in the middle of our brains (and called the Third Eye by some eastern cultures) secrete melatonin:

"Both human and animal circadian rhythms are driven by the day/night cycle and are synchronized with natural geomagnetic electromagnetic fields. The major control gland over this natural cycle is the pineal gland which secretes the neurohormone melatonin. During the day, light falling on the eye's retina produces signals which are biochemically amplified to stimulate the pineal gland to reduce its melatonin output. At night the absence of light with sleep stimulates the pineal gland to produce melatonin."

Apparently even a light as dim as a nightlight in your bathroom can shut down melatonin production, and some researchers are looking for a connection between this lack and the rise in breast cancers in urban areas.

Just one little cycle that is disturbed by our modern lifestyle. Think of all the other ways we are not in touch with our women's bodies and their monthly flow. Look at the moon tonight, for instance, and see where it is (we just had a full moon on the weekend, so after the waning of the moon is done, we'll have a new moon again).

Our cycles wax and wane just like the moon. If we are quiet and give ourselves time to reflect on our emotional and physical state just before our periods, we may notice that there is a pull to withdraw, to have more alone time. If we give ourselves what our inner self needs, who knows, maybe the symptoms of PMS would ease up a bit....

just one more way we can attune ourselves to the natural rhythms, cycles, phases, flow....

jenn