Yoga and Honouring our Moon Cycle
During my one year of chemotherapy, I completely lost my period, and when it came back, I was relieved and terrified because it came back with a violent vengeance. I couldn’t believe how painful it was, and so I spent a decade trying to manage this pain, always hoping my period would arrive on the weekend, knowing that I would have to take at least a couple days off. It took me a long time to realise that my body was crying out to me, and that I had to take drastic measures. It wasn’t until I quit my job, moved countries, started working with a therapist and nutritionist, and did daily yoga and meditation, that I began to heal and experience change in my body and mind.
In recent years I’ve been diagnosed with endometriosis, and although I’ve managed to significantly reduce the pain through lifestyle changes, I still get pretty terrible cramps from time to time. As I dove deeper into my yoga practice, I discovered that being upset because I might have to take a break during my period was the wrong approach. In her book, The Woman’s Yoga Book: Asana And Pranayama For All Phases Of The Menstrual Cycle, author Bobby Clennell brings together a wealth of history and scientific research regarding women’s cycles. She writes about how in cultures across the world, women are given days of seclusion every month when they begin to menstruate. This seclusion comes with positive and negative connotations depending on the particular cultural context. In India, there is the belief that a menstruating woman will contaminate the food, and is thus kept away from the kitchen and her other household responsibilities.
While we might see this as a patriarchal tradition that seeks to control and exclude women, the truth is that our bodies could really use a break during the days we bleed. Spain is the first European country that has made it possible for women with debilitating period pain to take paid leave during their periods. How this is enforced, and how often women take these days is up for debate. Still, there is a sense, a realisation, that we are not machines, that we are cyclical beings whose bodies and energy levels go through shifts throughout the month.
Clennel writes about how studies done in the 1900s observed that most women’s cycles mirrored that of the moon’s, 29.5 days. Our bodies are naturally connected, in fact, governed by the Moon, and yet the idea that we might align ourselves with its phases still feels like an unconventional concept.
As someone who teaches Vinyasa yoga, I am guilty of going hard more often than I need to, and I suffer as a result. But there is more than one way of doing yoga. It doesn’t always have to be something dynamic like Vinyasa. Clennel builds off the work of Gita Iyengar, who wrote Yoga: A Gem for Women, who also explains how women should approach yoga differently to men. Clennel prescribes that during menstruation, women should avoid inversions, any kind of hard abdominal work like crunches and standing poses, and instead opt for sitting poses, twists, seated forward bends and gentle reclining poses (18-19). As someone who is always doing yoga and pilates, this has been quite a challenge for me.
While I do not believe we need to religiously stick to any prescribed way of moving throughout our cycle, it is worth knowing that these resources exist, and are great for anyone who might be interested in beginning to move in harmony with their cycles. In the end, we look to our teachers not for prescriptions, but for understanding so that we can make up our own minds.
I don’t believe that doing yoga alone can radically change your body overnight, but it can radically alter your relationship with it. Simply being able to observe yourself without judgement is a skill that dramatically help you. Slowly but surely, you might find yourself making other changes that when combined, have the capacity to help you heal and become a more empowered version of you.