By: Taylor Saison
Several years ago while attending a shamanic storytelling course, we were deep in the writing practices when one word stood out on the page. As if a beacon to the deeper work that was calling to me, “fractal” shone brightly.
Fractals are complex, self-repeating patterns that look similar at various levels of magnification. Meaning, you can zoom in, or out, and the image remains the same. We see this pattern repeated in snowflakes.
Their intricate patterns repeat themselves throughout their shape. Another example is found in trees. The branches split into smaller branches, and smaller branches yet. When examined closely, or far away, we still see the shape resembling the whole tree.
The female body and the earth body mirror this very process.
Just as the earth body moves through four seasons, so does our womb.
When we learn how to recognize and harness the power of these cycles, we live with more ease and pleasure. We no longer are pushing for our desires to manifest but rather allowing them to come to us.
Living cyclically with the rhythms of the Earth’s seasons and those of your womb will allow your drop your roots deeply within the Great Mother. Through this connected source of balance you are then able to achieve desires with unbelievable quickness and greater ease.
By understanding how the four phases of the womb cycle and speak to you is the key to your wellbeing and health.
While many will teach about the four phases of the seasons and womb, here in the far northern hemisphere our experience can be quite different. Here we experience six marked seasons and can experience them through the womb.
If you are looking to connect more intimately with your very own feminine energetic signature, this is where to place your focus during each phase:
Menstruation
Menstruation occurs at the end of one cycle. Which may be contradictory to how we’re taught to “count” our cycle days. Because it is a very marked sign of physical change, (hello, blood!) it’s often where we start our count with “Day One”.
I’m not suggesting you don’t count that way, it certainly makes it easy. But I do think it’s important we remember that menstruation is the culmination of the prior cycle. It’s the end point.
Menstruation occurs very much in the liminal space. In one sense we are experiencing death, through our bleed, but also the rebirth of a new cycle. This is why it is so important to protect ourselves during this phase.
Energetically, we are asked to slow down. To disconnect. We are often more susceptible to energetic attachments that our not our own and to influence that isn’t aligned with our soul purpose.
Because of this, I recommend you avoid social media during this time. Allow your spirit to rest. Avoid overextension of yourself during this phase by limiting scheduled plans or commitments. Remove anything on your schedule that you are able to.
The focus is on filling your own cup and copious amounts of self care.
If you, like me, tend to be more in your masculine energetics, this phase can be difficult. Rest can feel counter intuitive.
After nearly ten years of living in a correlationship with my womb cycle, I promise you it’s for your benefit. In the cycles I am able to accomplish the most, are the cycles I rested well. I have found that when we short ourselves on the rest our physical and subtle bodies need, it catches up with us later in the cycle with burnout or illness.
Rest is your friend here.
If this is helpful, think of menstruation as inner winter. A time for cozy, warm foods and hibernation. Just as nature rests in winter, and all is accomplished, the same will be true for you.
Early Follicular
Early follicular is experienced differently than full on follicular phase.
This phase follows menstruation and is about 1-3 days long. In this phase our hormones begin to rise and our ovaries are working hard to prepare fertile eggs.
In this early time of rebirth we come out of our womb caves ready for a new cycle ahead. Think of this as early spring. If you’re in the far northern hemisphere, you’ll know how back and forth earth spring can be for the earth. We experience snow, warmth, ice, snow, and warmth again.
Early follicular phase can be similar. We may feel highly motivated for the cycle ahead only to be met with exhaustion later in the day.
Allow yourself grace to fully emerge from your winter rest.
The biggest energetic experience of this phase is a rush of anxiety and overwhelm. After spending several days in a cocoon we come out of the liminal space with clarity but also to witness the “work” we’ve set aside. Fear not, little bear your hibernation was still valid and well deserved.
This rush of anxiety comes not from your to-do list but from your rising hormone levels.
Use this rush of energy to your advantage by getting clear on your focus points for the coming cycle.
What themes are alive for you now? What tasks do you want to complete? Which do you need to complete? Write them all down. No need for pruning quite yet, just allowing ourselves to get all our thoughts down on paper.
If you’re still feeling the energy pulsating through our physical body after this process, use grounding methods or nature walks to disperse the energy and create more ease in your experience.
Follicular
Here in the follicular phase, we see the energies of spring in full bloom. We’ve fully emerged from our womb cave. We feel motivated and grounded to take action in the weeks ahead.
Energetically, this phase can feel really stable. We shake off the liminality of the previous phases and are fully grounded in present reality.
Now is the time to take the list you made a few days prior and hash out which is of most importance (whether by necessity or desire). Break up these tasks, if needed, to create a clear structure for the weeks ahead.
The energetics of this phase are all about planning. We break up large tasks into their smaller units (hello again, fractals) to achieve the end goal. One thing to keep in mind while you do this, is to use the energetics of each phase to your advantage.
In this phase, you may not be super detail oriented, and that’s okay. Right now is about planning, gathering your supplies and setting yourself up for the work ahead.
Ovulation
Oh, the peak of our cycle. We correlate this phase to summer. Everything is blooming and ripe. Our wombs are open and fertile. We feel our most energetic and magnetic version of ourselves.
Ovulation occurs typically near the middle of the cycle, or about 12-13 days prior to menstruation. It’s the shortest phase of our inner seasons, only lasting a few days.
Now is the time to accomplish any tasks that require collaboration or outward expression. Record your content, meet with others, go out with friends… schedule a date night.
Sexual energy is the star of the show here. We can use this energy to become magnetic to our desires. Give voice to your dreams and share them openly. You’re not only seen as more attractive during this phase, but you’re also more likely to be persuasive.
In my undergraduate studies of evolutionary psychology, we studied sex workers and how their womb cycle impacted their level of income. Those that were near or in ovulation received the most income, or tips, during the shifts they worked in this phase.
This was a fascinating study proving that ovulation is not only a felt experience for women, but that externally there were subtle differences observed.
Use the magnetic energy of this phase to actively move towards your desires. Speak your mind. Put yourself out there. Ask that man on a date. Use the energy of ovulation to help boost your desires into reality.
Luteal
When pregnancy does not occur in ovulation, we begin to see a decline of all hormone levels. Luteal phase gets a bad reputation as being the “PMS” part of our inner nature. The time when storms rise up and whip across our inner landscape leaving those close to us with whiplash.
If this phase of the cycle is particularly difficult for you, know this is not normal. While PMS is a common experience. It is not a normal one.
By tending to your inner nature in living cyclically, we can overcome PMS and find a lot of fulfillment during this phase.
Often associated with the earthly season of autumn. We put the final effort into our task list. Our brains are working overtime and are primed for detail oriented work.
Now is the time to energetically wrap things up. Finish the project. Write the paper. Tidy that corner you’ve been meaning to get to.
While many view PMS as a hindrance to our daily rhythm, I’d like to introduce a gentle perspective shift. It’s during this phase that both hemispheres of the brain are working together.
Therefore, we are actually able to think and process information more efficiently. So it’s not that we are “crazy” or “losing our mind”. It’s actually the opposite. We are thinking more clearly than any other phase of the womb cycle.
Many often feel like their world needs to be destroyed and completely rebuilt. Again, that’s not crazy talk, but wisdom coming through. Allow yourself to sit with rage and explore its true medicine.
What is it asking you to change?
Remember, we are thinking more logically. The increase in rage comes from the mismatch between our current reality and the one of our soul purpose.
Use this phase as a divination tool. Take the clarity gathered from your rage and pocket it for menstruation. Come back to your “rage list” during inner winter and ask your liminal self what actions, or inactions, are needed to redirect your path.
Late luteal
Finally, late luteal. We’re at the threshold of menstruation. Hormone levels have plummeted and we wait.
There’s a marked difference that comes between early luteal and late luteal. In early luteal we are still riding the waves of inner summer’s high. That ovulation level of energy carries on into the early part of the luteal phase.
Late luteal is met with a rush of motivation for completion. Very similar to the nesting phenomenon experienced by pregnant women, we feel called to complete tasks, to-dos, projects, and cleaning.
It can be the most difficult phase for many who are living out of alignment with their inner nature. For those who have surrendered to a rhythm of synchronicity with the underlying energetic signatures, you’ll find this phase to be the most rewarding.
It is in this phase that we harvest the rewards of our labor. We feel the accomplishment of the weeks past. There’s a subtle energy of celebration for our efforts.
Closing out this cycle, we begin to feel that inward pull. As the threshold of menstruation comes near we begin to feel its call for retraction from the outside world. Our energy level becomes lower, and slower, in nature.
As you see, the cycles of the womb greatly mirror the cycles of our Great Mother, the earth. We too move through marked seasons of change and mirror her own.
We are the earth embodied and when we connect with our own energies in this way we heal not only ourselves but the Earth as a whole.
This level of perspective, of care, is needed in this time of ecological crises. It is in the fractal of our self that we can create the greatest level of change.
My path of specializing in women’s hormones and womb tending began, as many others do, by healing my own body from abuse, fragmented connection to the divine feminine, miscarriage, and rounds of postpartum experiences.
I was able to marry my deep devotion to the Great Mother through my work as a fertility specialist, birth and death doula and folk herbalist.
The foundation of all of my work is rooted deeply in creating change from not only the physical realm, but full integration and healing of the unseen.
I now support women locally in Central WIsconsin, and virtually online, in connecting to their own inner nature for crafting lives that feel full of fulfillment and joy by allowing them to bring their desired state into the present reality with ease.
You can connect more with my work via Instagram and Facebook @midgardmother
