Do You Want To Stop The Rain?

How do you like being called a “baby bearer”???

‘The Times Of India’ refers to you as just that, in an article by Saadia S. Dhailey published on May 18, 2011, saying: “Too much is involved as baby-bearers are reminded of their natural role every month…”

Not only are you a baby-bearer, but this is also your ‘natural role‘! The article goes on to say: “There’s no denying that many of us wish to get rid of the monthly trial forever. Maybe we can…”

Do you want to stop the phenomenon of rain just because it’s inconvenient to be outdoors while it’s wet?

We have become such a convenience-based culture, that we seek to eliminate anything slightly uncomfortable, regardless of the consequences. Lets imagine a world without rain: warm temperatures abide, the sun is shining year-round, we can enjoy the great outdoors 365 days a year, no need to stock up on warm cloths or boots, it’s just another day in paradise! Or is it?

Have you noticed how the great outdoors is slowly but surely drying out? The grasses have turned yellow, as did the trees. Creeks, rivulets, rivers, and lakes slowly shrink and dry out, having no rain to replenish them. It takes time for them to evaporate to nothing, but their disappearance is inevitable. Animals start to die as their water sources vanish, and wait, what about us? Where do we get to drink from? Our reservoirs are almost empty. Well, but no more bothersome rain is falling, isn’t that a good thing?!?

Devising a pill that wipes out menstruation is like creating a method for eradicating rain!

Both menstruation and rain are crucial to our life cycle. Either can be inconvenient, or enjoyed, depending on your attitude and willingness!

If you ever bundled up and took a toddler out in the rain, splashed in a paddle, or lifted your head up and tried to catch raindrops on your tongue, you know how joyful the “inconvenient” rain can be! And, yes, you must have also been terribly inconvenienced by rains on many occasions, as we all have. Is this a good enough reason to start working on methods for rain suppression?

Suppressing menstruation is as short sighted as rain suppression!

Starting with the fact that we don’t know what the long term hormonal repercussions might be, suppressing menstruation is tempering with the blueprint of womanhood! Women are cyclical beings. We ebb and flow with the moon, we dance a monthly rhythm of expansion and contraction, we move from outward- to inward-bound modes of being, from action to dreaminess, and back again… In the same way that we can not thrive in a no-rain world, we can’t thrive in a mono way of being. It is not how we are wired as women…

But what about PMS, cramps, mood swings?

Remember being miserable in the rain versus reveling in it? Rain is not there to inconvenience us. It’s there for a reason, and it calls us to be joyful in it if we so choose. Likewise, PMS and most physical or emotional symptoms related to menstruation are therefor a reason. They are our body’s wise way of calling our attention to the need to stop, rest, go inward, replenish… Suppressing menstruation is killing the messenger!

We can thank it instead…

We can thank our body for reminding us that we’ve been on the go and it’s time to stop for a while. We can appreciate the opportunity for taking stock, for renewing ourselves emotionally, just as our womb renews itself physically by shedding it’s inner lining monthly.

Fighting our body’s message will produce symptoms, or aggravate the mild ones which we ignore. Taking time off, on the 1^st day of your period, even if you can only spare a few moments in the morning before anyone else in the household gets up, will help you attune to your inner rhythm. Spend those moments (hours, or the entire day if you are able) reflecting on what you are letting go of from the ending cycle, and what you wish to welcome in the one beginning…

You may soon discover you are drawing strength and renewal from your body’s rhythm, rather than wanting to do away with it.

The manufacturers of the menstrual suppression pill would want to encourage you to not bother. To have every day be the same: sunny, dry, and linear. But who would you rather listen to: pharmaceutical companies or your own body?____________________________________