Wild Power: Alexandra Pope on The Menstrual Cycle as the Original Spiritual Practice

In this episode, I sit down with Alexandra Pope, co-author of Wild Power — a book that makes a bold and clear claim: the menstrual cycle process, when consciously engaged with, is a spiritual practice. The original spiritual practice.

Alexandra has spent decades working with the menstrual cycle as a psychological and spiritual force, and in this conversation, she shares the heart of what Wild Power is actually about — not as a concept, but as a living reality in the body.

We cover:

— What wild power actually is: the deep holy self, unencumbered by conditioning and society's expectations. Not something built or achieved — something uncovered. The menstrual cycle, consciously engaged, strips away what isn't true and returns us to what is. The work isn't to become something. It's to come home to what was always already there.

— The inner temple: Alexandra describes the premenstrual phase as a preparation for what opens at moontime, and the moment just before bleeding — what she calls the announcement — as the call to the temple. I share my own experience of this: hearing a trumpet on the ethers, feeling like a spaceship being pulled toward the void. The choice every cycle: surrender into it, or try to steer away. Steering away costs energy. It also creates pain.

— The void and the bleed: what menstruation actually opens into. Alexandra describes it as the most extraordinary place of love, bliss, union, and visioning — all of it given to us freely, simply through following the rhythm of the cycle. The spiritual practice most people spend a lifetime seeking is already encoded in the body. The only requirement is surrender.

— The collective dimension: what happens when women wake up to this — not just for themselves, but for the world. The menstrual cycle, consciously lived, is a restoration of something collective. A channel for love. A political act. When a woman becomes conscious of her cycle, it doesn't stop at her — it ripples outward through her relationships, her family, her entire life.

— Where to begin: Alexandra's answer is simple and complete. What day of your cycle are you on? What do you notice? That's enough. The act of paying attention to your cycle is an act of love, and it's where everything begins.

This is a conversation about the extraordinary intelligence already living inside every woman's body — and what becomes possible when we stop fighting it and start listening.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Hello, and a very warm welcome to the Sacred Womb podcast, where we talk about all things to do with befriending our menstrual cycle, deeply healing both our feminine and masculine aspects, and how we can indeed utilize our cyclical nature as a natural spiritual pathway that's encoded within our bodies. I'm your host, Melanie Swann, and you can also go to thesacredwomb.com for more information and loads of fantastic free resources. Hello everyone, and a very warm welcome back to the Sacred Room podcast. This is episode 24, accessing our temple of wild power with Alexandra Pope. This is an awesome podcast. It's the best, the best podcast so far in the Sacred Womb, and I'm sure you're gonna get so so much out of it. Alexandra was very generous with her information, and we went to some very unusual deep places of exploration during the interview. So I'm sure you'll know what I mean when you listen to it. So you're probably very familiar with Alexandra already, but if not, I'm just going to introduce her for you. So Alexandra Pope works as a women's leadership coach and facilitator with a background in education and psychotherapy. She's the author of a number of books, and for over 30 years, she's been developing and pioneering a groundbreaking approach to women's physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being based on the power of the menstrual cycle and the journey from menarch to menopause. Ladies, this is an absolute treat, and without further ado, I give you accessing our temple of wild power with Alexandra Pope. Welcome Alexandra to the Sacred Room Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Thank you very much, Melanie. I feel a lovely bubbling excitement in me at the thought of talking to you about my favourite topic. Your favourite topic? What is that, Alexandra? Oh no, let me think. What was it? It was on the tip of my tongue there. Something about periods or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Awesome. So as you've got your new book coming out, Wild Power, which I absolutely love the title of, I wanted to ask you about the main message of this book first. So if you could tell the listener, like, what's what's the main essence of it? Why why did you write this book with Shawnee?

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Ah, wow, okay. Well, I think I'll begin with the essence, because the essence of the book emerged. I mean, we had to write the book because we have so much information. In fact, we have more than enough inform we have information for two or three books, in fact. And this is kind of the first layer of it. And so we set off thinking we were doing something, you know how you do when you start a creative project, and then it sort of morphed, not morphs, but you you feel then the essence of it coming through, and um and it was there all along, but suddenly it's in black and white for you. And the thing that was in black and white, the essence that emerged for us was um this very clear statement that the menstrual cycle process, when consciously engaged with, is a spiritual practice, and we call it the original spirit, we dare to call it the original spiritual practice. It's kind of the template, you know, you could see um that template mirrored in other religious traditions. This is very, a very powerful statement I made, and I feel slightly nervous saying it. But I really want women to get that there is a very powerful spiritual dynamic going on in their bodies. Um not just because for for millennia, you know, women, some women have known about menstruation, you know, menarchy, menstruation, giving birth, and menopause were these kind of sacred events. But no one has really said that actually the whole cycle processes and the process from menarchy to menopause, that is a great initiatory journey that we go on. So there are two messages there. One that we have this spiritual process or practice encoded into our bodies that is living us, it's doing us, and that this practice, this initiatory journey is awoken at Menarchia, our first bleed, and comes to a fulfillment at menopause. It's like we talk about menopause as graduation day, except it's more than a day, it goes on for a little longer than that. Right. Um so, yes, that is the message, the heart of our book. That's what we're wanting to get across. And this idea of wild power. Wild power is the home that we're going towards in our spiritual practice. The wild power is our deep holy self, the self that is unencumbered, unadulterated by society's shoulds and oughts. You know, it's our original imprint, our calling. And our spiritual process is in service of the awakening of this calling in us that we are calling your wild power.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Oh wow. Alexandra, I have to say, as you're as you're talking, my my womb begins to pulse, my yoni begins to open like a flower, and my body is really responding to this. It's it's like um a whole-body uh response, if I can explain this for the listener, of one's ears pricking up, but my my womb's pricking up, if you get what I mean, but I don't think that's quite the right term.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

That is so lovely to hear, and it is such a lovely thing to have the space to just name it in such a clear way, because you know, we're still growing into these statements, you know. I mean, of course I can intellectually say all that, but it's like as an as a woman growing into that, even though I'm a post-menopausal woman, this is still living material for me.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

Yeah, and as it is for all of us, I think I I completely resonate with what you say about um you feel slightly feel slightly nervous about saying it, but it's the original spiritual practice, and and again, my I've got goosebumps all over me. I part of me wants to just burst into tears and go, yes, yes, yes. So I really hope that's coming through for the listener as well. Um okay, so thank thank you for really naming that and making it really clear. Um so that's that's the main message, the main essence of the book, and you talked about it, it you had you had the idea and then it emerged, it it sort of emerged as itself. Could you talk about the the creation process of this book?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Oh yes, I would so love to. I just love the creative process. And you know, I'd been a few rounds now with the creative process, so I kind of really I really know it. Although every time I set off on a new project, I always feel mildly terrified, and that is possibly an understatement, and that's as it should be, because it's like for me, it's like being in the presence of something holy, you know, you're coming into relationship with something. So um Shawnee and I were, you know, Shawnee and I weren't intending to write a book right at this moment, by the way. We sort of had a particular trajectory we thought we were on, and then we were approached by Hay House. And initially I thought, no, no, no, I certainly want to write a book right now, and oh and then Hay House, blessed Hay House, did not let us go. You see, the the creative impulse of the book was pushing them, I think. And um, they came back, and uh it was lovely Amy Kimmett of of Hay House, and and we said, oh, okay, because it's we just knew the time pressure too. We know what it takes, and and there's quite a time pressure when you know when you sign up for a book. And and and then I thought, oh, just well I was going to say something a little stronger, blow it, let's just do it, let's go for it. So I just suddenly felt there's one part of me quivering, going, Oh no, no, no, I can't take this on, and then suddenly uh woke in me this force that went, God damn it, let's just let's just go for it. It must be the right timing now, you know. They they haven't let go with us, I have and so we said yes, and we talked, we wrote up this proposal. We had to write a proposal, and of course the proposal had to be accepted, it wasn't a done deal, so there was a little nerve-wracking moment there, and we we produced this proposal, and then that was you know, we accepted, and all that was done in October of um uh 2015, I think it was, and then but we actually couldn't start writing till January just because of all the other commitments we had, and and um so in January we sat down with the empty page, and that's always the most scary moment, and the first thing we did was we just knew we had to do this, was we did this whole big um tuning in to the book, and we created this beautiful affirmation for the book and a prayer for the book, and we wrote all this down, it's quite lengthy, and we literally were like tuning in and sort of channeling something. It wasn't to do so much with the content of the book, but more the spirit of the book. We wrote this big kind of prayer and affirmation out, and we every time we worked together or when we worked on our own, we would read this to begin our day, to start our day. So our days were always framed by you know by this prayer at the beginning. So, in terms of the nuts and bolts of writing, Shawnee and I would would divide up the chapters between us, and and we just we would riff together on each chapter, then each of us would just go off into our own corners, metaphorically speaking, and and write away. And I always have a rule with the creative process. I j my words to myself are just write, Pope, just write, just write crap, just write though. I love that, I love that. And you just don't know where to begin, and I just go, just write, just honestly, I write cliches, I write boring old stuff, and then suddenly something starts to break through. It's just miraculous, and I know that now about the creative process. I really trust it, and I trust my material, and because of all that trust, there is a momentum that takes off. And I mean it's not neat and tidy, and there were ups and downs for us, but on um, you know, there were moments where we were in the flow, and there were moments where we were not in the flow. But because there were two of us, it was fabulous because we would together, you know, sit with a difficulty we were having, and we'd just mess around, and then suddenly, bingo, one of us would almost get the lightning blow, go, Oh, you know, it's coming, it's coming. You know, then they would blurb away. We'd be working on Google Docs, so we got one would be talking, we'd be on Skype. You see, one would be talking, the other would be typing away what the other one was saying. And so it sort of unfolded from that. And we have a very robust relationship, um, a partnership, Shawnee and I. It's very, there's utter trust there with each other. We come from different positions because Shawnee's just, you know, she's in her, well, she's just turned 40, and I'm in my 60s now. And um, so we have very different positions we hold, and but we are an amazing team. Coming from these different positions, we have this trust of each other. We're both smart, we can both wrestle well. I really like that about us, and we can both receive criticism. We both wince, you know, no one likes criticism, of course. You know, you know, you write something, I would write something, and then Charlie would start sort of talking about it, going, no, no, that doesn't work. And you go, oh, ouch, ouch, you know. But we, you know, you know that, yeah, you understand the creative process and you live with that. And and we were very kind with each other, obviously. Um, but we could take feedback, and um, and it was just a really good creative tension, because you need creative tension for something to spark. And it was in this work, it was just in the process of all this dynamic uh energy, this tension, this uh beavering away on our own, coming together, that something started to emerge through the writing, you know, a clarification. And then, you know, we then had a first draft, but then we got a whole new layer of clarification when we offered the manuscript to four women who were they were all apprentices that have done our training, and we chose them deliberately because we knew they had critical eyes, and they they gave us good critical feedback. Fantastic, fantastic it's great to have allies like that, huh? Oh, you you have to have that. I mean, you just you do you're too close, you can't see it. I mean, it wasn't so much the the writing itself, but the structure of the book, and that they really you know, the book got restructured really at that phase. Um, so the book goes through a huge um thing of um um re you know, it gets sort of reworked and reworked and reworked, and there was a really amusing moment. Just we were like a week away from delivering the manuscript, so essentially it was all in place. And um and we were just reading through it, endlessly reading through it and sorting things up, blah blah blah. And then Shani, about it was literally five days before I get this bizarre text message going, Oh, the blah blah chapter at the beginning doesn't work and you have to do this. And I thought, what is she on about? Oh god. It's perfectly fine to me. There's no way I am exhausted now. I'm at that point in the creative process where you just want to walk away and never see your baby again. You want to just abandon it. And um, but blow me, she was right. And she was the fun bit here is that we because we worked with Shawnee's um menstrual rhythm, we really kind of used the energy of that, and when she bled, of course, she would really rest as much as it was possible because she's also a mother and so on. Um, but she always had a little bit of downtime then. But her pre-menstrual time, her critic was amazing. It just really was wow, actually. And she was in the pre-menstrum at that moment when she sent me this message, and she was seeing something that I just couldn't see. It was it, you know, that critical energy we have pre-menstrually is so insightful. And it happened every month. I could see it, you know. I knew when Shani had crossed into her pre-menstruum, I could feel the shift in energy in her, and I would have to hold myself differently because I knew a critical energy would be coming through more, and if I was feeling all sensitive and precious about my work, you know, it would not, I'd get all defensive, you know. And um, but it was a very insightful energy that I learned to we learnt to use. And I'm of course I've got a huge critical energy too. I'm not as a post-metaporal woman, let me tell you, it's fierce. But it was so distinctive that shift in Shawnee, and uh it was so useful. So, yes, we called on Shawnee's cycle to support the creative process, and of course, the creative process is built into the menstrual cycle, and that of course is going to be the subject of our next book, Melanie.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Excellent, excellent. And um what I wanted to ask you as well, so Shawnee's Shawnee's pre-menstrual critic kind of came through and revealed stuff that you couldn't see. How did your how did your post-menopausal energy wisdom feed into that as well?

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Oh, that's a lovely question. Um I think in many ways, just because I'm older than Shawnee, and also because the work sort of started with me. I don't, you know, this book is us. It's absolutely us, but the kind of original concepts came from what had come through me. And I think, and also I've written more books than Shawnee has written a book, and we've done a lot of creative projects together, but I had done other books as well. And I think I probably just had more experience in the whole creative process. But I actually always I'm very, very good on timing. And a post-menopausal woman, I well, as I've always been good at it, but as a post-menopausal woman, I felt I feel very acutely held now by deep time, by timing, by the universe's timing on something. And I it's almost as though I could feel the timing of the book, and I was holding the whole kind of energetic shape of the book. I mean, I'm really sort of thinking out loud here at the moment, because I've I've never kind of answered that question directly before. So but if I tune into it now, it it I and I had very specific things that I was bringing to this book that I was what what for in doing this menstruality work, I am serving something very particular. Uh that and it's very important for me that that that was held within the book, and so in a way I was tracking that thing I serve most through this work. We all sort of serve something different. I've got I've got a very particular thing that I want to hold on to with this work, and I and I felt I was holding that, and um and also uh I just I I'm very, very disciplined, and it's not that Shani is not disciplined, on the contrary, she's fiercely disciplined, but she has two children. I don't know how she does it, I just don't know how she does it. Um, and so I felt that you know she was just very busy, and so I it's almost like I had to hold the whole kind of structure of it energetically, I'm talking energetically, yeah. But having said all that, of course, I mean Shawnee was holding the whole structure, so it's really hard to answer that question.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

But there is a sense of depth and spaciousness that I feel that I hold as a post-menopause woman in general.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Yeah, and and when you were when you were talking at the beginning, when I asked you that question, I I felt my body relax. And when you you talked about a deep hold-in, a deep time, I I felt like I wanted to take a big, big, deep breath of relief of ah, she she's got it. She's got this in a different way than I could I I could get it.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

You know, I'm so lovely to hear you say that back. And I think, yes, I think that's what going through and crossing menopause gives you a very particular perspective. It's like Shawnee's right inside the wood, you know, and I'm outside the wood, and I can see, you know, she can see all the trees in the wood, which I can't see in the same way because I'm not a Mediterranean woman anymore, but I can see the whole wood. So, yeah, that's actually a brilliant. Thank you for that. I suddenly sort of get it now.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Yeah, yeah, it's like a it's like a lovely balance and a mix to to create this book from different perspectives and make it really deep and held.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I couldn't have done it on my own. It just I know I now get it, I so couldn't. And I mean there was one chapter that Shawnee just had to write as well, which was the chapter on what we call the inner seasons, because she's living it every day. She she had to write that chapter, I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah, yeah. Get that great, great, thank you. Thank thanks for that insight. I feel like I really feel like I've learned something and got a sense of the post-menopausal wisdom there. So thank you for that. Oh, lovely. Um, so now I thought we could move to um like some maybe two or three aspects of of the book of wild power that you'd really like to convey to the listener, maybe the main points or you know, whatever comes that um I know you're going to give a practice as well for ladies who are listening to implement. So, what what would be the first point you'd like to cover?

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Well, the having said that grand thing at the beginning about we have this spiritual practice and process encoded in our bodies, um, the the most important thing I want to say is to awaken that, you have to practice what we call menstrual cycle awareness.

unknown 21:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

And we actually devote a whole chapter in the book to that. It's just the the the it's crucial because without that awareness, and it's an ongoing practice and process, and this it's a journey that you go on, that you evolve through. So it's not just something you do. Well, I mean, you can do it for as long or as little as you like, of course. There's no rules here, by the way. And I should add that we have our big red rule at Red School, which we write of in the book. And the big red rule is that your experience trumps everything that we might say. So we're sharing from the perspective of the archetypal cycle, but each woman is going to have her own unique take on it. And menstrual, and that's our big red rule, you follow trusting your own take on the process. But the practice that is going to awaken you to your unique rhythm of power, as we call it, the menstrual cycle, is menstrual cycle awareness. And very simply, this is the act of noting, um, being aware of your cycle on a daily basis and noticing the energy and feeling the emotional tone, the emotional atmosphere of each day of your cycle, and writing that down. That is the really important thing because you're going to start to see a pattern here month after month. And it's this pattern, it's both the experience of charting your cycle, the process of doing it, being aware of it, has a kind of magic, which I'll come to. But the information that you access through cycle awareness gives you extraordinary insight into your own character, your nature, where your strengths lie and where your vulnerabilities lie. And by the way, when I say vulnerability, I do not mean weakness. Because often where we're vulnerable in the cycle, that's an opening to something huge. So vulnerability is a permeability, and it's how you negotiate that that awakens you more and more to the what we call the power of the cycle, the powers, all the different powers that you hold. So menstrual cycle awareness, having some kind of means of recording, just a simple chart you can print off. I mean, many women use apps today, um obviously. But we actually think it's really, really valuable to have a month at a view, you know, something where you can see the whole month on one page, if you like.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

In one image. So you can see the pattern played out. And then perhaps to have an accompanying journal where you can go into more detail, where you can note dreams, um, you know, any kind of phenomena. You know, noticing where you have arguments in the cycle. Always chart that's so fascinating. Noticing where, you know, if you if something very lucky happens, synchronistic, or uh times where you feel just really very intuitive or very light, or times where you feel really embodied, times where you have tons of energy, times where you just feel really low in energy, and noticing all that, and then you'll start to see that there is a pattern and a meaning to it all. There's a whole kind of unfolding story that's happening here, an initiatory process that's being worked through. And our book, of course, is then the unpacking of this initiatory process. And we talk about three inner maps. Um, that without going into detail, I'll just say there are three inner maps to the process, and your menstrual cycle awareness practice is your key to sort of um working these maps, if you like.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah, yeah, that's all clear. So if if someone's listening and they're not that they're quite new to this, it's start get a journal, note down your daily emotional tone, your atmosphere, your strengths, your vulnerabilities, your um happenings.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. And um they can actually come to our red our um website, redschool.net, and that can just download for free a very basic um map on you know on an A4, but although if they can print it off larger, that's even better. Um so they can do that right away.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Great, and uh I will put those links, I will put the link for that in the show notes as well. If you're listening to this, go to thesacredwomb.com forward slash wildpower, and the link to redschool.net will be in that page. Oh, that's awesome! I feel this slice it's so juicy. I feel it's so juicy.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yes. So you you you asked me, you know, about one, two or two or three particular things, and I've mentioned menstrual cycle awareness. Yes. Uh, shall I go on to the to another key thing from the book?

SPEAKER_02 26:48

I would love you to. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

Well, I want to say this spiritual practice, you know, as I said earlier, is leading us to something, our deep holy self, our wild power. You know, I said that at the beginning. Well, our wild power has a home in the cycle. I mean, it our wild power is an intelligence that's seeded throughout the whole menstrual cycle, but there is a place where it is really amplified, and you can probably guess where that place is. Menstruation. Yay! Yay! Menstruation we call the inner temple of women. Could you say that again for me? Yes, I will, I will. I just love it so much. We call menstruation the inner temple of women. This we have we have a sacred space, but ours is inside our bodies. It's not outside us. And here's the extraordinary thing, Melanie. We actually get, each woman will have her own particular thing. We actually get a call just before bleeding. We get a call to the temple, just as uh a Muslim has, you know, the call to prayer, or in the Jewish tradition, they down tools at sundown on a Friday to go to the synagogue. There is a distinct moment in our psyches where we will suddenly realize, holy bajoli, I've got to down tools now and go. I just gotta go. And if I don't go, there'll be trouble. And and you just know that moment, you feel it in yourself, and that's our call to the temple. The thing is, of course, we women complicate things a little because, of course, this can happen any old time. It doesn't happen on a Friday at sundown, it doesn't happen on a Sunday, you know, when Christians go to the church, it doesn't happen at specific times of the day, as in the um Islamic faith. No, ours happens to our own unique timing. Each woman's different. Although, of course, when we all lived simpler lives without electricity, we probably all bled together, and then we probably all did go to the menstrual hut or the menstrual the red tent together.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Yeah, yeah, I know I know that day, Alexandria. I call it I have my own little names for these things, my own little personal names. And I call it oh, the announcement days here.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Seriously, that's a beautiful word, Melanie. It is it's an announcement, isn't it? It is and what is your signal? I'd love to hear it.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

It's uh I feel I feel like first thing I hear I hear on the ethers a trumpet, and I'm quite playful with my cycle, so I hear and what happens is I also feel like I'm in a spaceship flying through space and I see the void and I'm coming towards it, and I feel on this announcement day or window or hour, I have a choice. Like, do I let the ship myself be pulled in or do I try and steer away from it? And it actually takes quite a lot of energy for me to try and steer away from it. Uh, now I mean that used to be a default to steer away from it and carry on and get on with it. Now, and that creates pain for me. But when I when I do feel this da-da-da-da-da announcement and let myself go into this deep, open, unknown space, oh, it's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

I get no pain. I am just ah, it's just beautiful, beautiful to hear you, and it's such a graphic image for women who are listening. It is just such a clear description of what is happening and that negotiation you have to make. Um, because that moment, the announcement moment is actually the death of the ego moment, what you're stepping into in the void. Is this the initiation happening that happens to us each menstrual month?

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

This is our initiation moment where we die to the self we thought we were.

SPEAKER_01 31:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

And for a while we are in the void. And then that moment when the bleed starts to come, that's like the door opening to the temple. So you're you're you're in a kind of um no woman's land. You have abandoned normal life at the announcement, yeah. And you are in the great, and actually, the void for me is the most divine, holiest of spaces. When I say, you know, you open the temple door when you bleed, I mean you're in you're totally in the great cosmic temple in the void. And then when you open that door when you bleed, it's like your own personal temple that's holding you within the great cosmic temple. Absolutely, absolutely, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

Just the most awesome thing that we simply have to experience to go through.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

It's just phenomenal, and it's in our bodies, phenomenal, and you know, I now what comes to me is the utter outrage that women do not know this, and this is where I want to cry. Yeah, me too. Because that void and the temple itself are the most extraordinary places of love, bliss, ecstasy, union, union with the beloved, and visioning. And all that is given to us, Melanie. We do not have to sweat, do endless whatevers, prayers, all we have to do is to follow the rhythm of our menstrual cycle because we are prepared for the announcement, we are prepared for the void, all through our pre-menstrual, we are prepared. And um it is given to us as we surrender to it.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

Do you know what? I'm just gonna sit here and feel that with you and give a bit of silence to the listener as well to let that just sink in. Wow, I've never done a podcast like this, Alexandra.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

I don't think I've ever done a conversation you know, where I've been interviewed like this, Melanie. And I think I think it's possible because you have worked with your cycle very deeply. And also because I have digested something enormous through the writing of the book. You know, Shani and I have really digested something. Uh and so it's put both of us in this new position to be able to speak these very clear statements with you. And and it but I think but uh it's but it's also because you meet me in this moment because you yourself have been there.

SPEAKER_02 34:51

Yeah. And I just I just want to imagine for a minute if women all over the world start to, as as they are doing, as we are doing, wake up to this and say no to our constraints and take note and actually implement this stuff that we're doing. What what would happen? What would happen? I mean, that potential is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Oh gosh, I just have to pause when you ask that question. I mean it's a rhetorical question. We are both answering this question. Yes, yes, yes. I mean, all the women listening are gonna answer this question. Yesh, you know, I I what I will say really is that this is my political work. This is my politics, this is my activism teaching this work. It is about for me the restoration of the feminine. That if women really dared to love their cycle, respect love and work with the rhythm of the cycle, they would open up this extraordinary channel. Each individual woman would open up this extraordinary channel for restoring the the feminine to the world. It's like uh a great inflowing of something that's like a whole energetic field would expand immeasurably. And then this energetic field would then organize, you know, would start to organize the other energy fields that are out there, the energy fields that are somewhat more hostile to the feminine, or the energy fields that are hostile to the environment, energy fields that are full of hate for other people, you know, all that. I feel it it's like a channel for love in a way, and it's not that women are special, on the contrary, we're all special. It's just this is a particular talent or particular gift. The menstrual cycle is a particular talent that we have, the resources within it, not just for our individual selves, but for the planet itself. Um, that we can serve something through through caring for our cycle, we can serve something bigger that serves the world. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

I think that's put so so clearly, Alexandra, and for the listener, like we all have our part. We we all have this and we can all do this. I want to really encourage every woman that we we all have our part to play in this and we can all do something today.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

It can absolutely begin right this moment, you know. The moment women stop listening to this, they they just go, what day of my cycle am I on? What am I noticing? And then the act of love begins because this act of paying attention to your cycle is an act of love and it builds an extraordinary inner kindness. And I don't know a woman who doesn't struggle with me too, with loving myself, you know?

SPEAKER_02 38:25

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Um, and this caring for the cycle is a way of caring for ourselves. It I honestly will tell you now, if you start practicing cycle awareness, all dear women who are listening right now, if you're not doing it yet, start, and you are going to notice a lovely inner kindness just organically growing within you. And then, yes, then it grows from there. And then I just think I wanted to just pick up from what you were saying there, Anthony, is the collective power that the importance of sharing this with other women. Because when I was first starting out with this work, you know, I was having these experiences, but I would actually, you know, at menstruation I'd have these amazing experiences. Then I get up to ovulation, I'd go, oh, maybe I'm making it up. There was no conversation, there was no conversation, but then I'd come around to menstruation again, oh my god, no, no, no, it's real. Oh wow. It was like being orgasmic almost. Oh whoa. Incredible. And then I would get, you know, I'd come out, go up to ovulation again, it would become distant. And it was in my sharing with friends, because you know, I was in the dark ages when I, you know, in the 70s and 80s, yeah, it's you know, menstruations used to be everywhere now, but it wasn't then. But I had good loyal friends and who also loved this, you know, and were into it. So it was our conversations together, and then it grew from that. But it's grown from women's stories, and so the more we share, the more we realise one, we're not mad because we were always made to feel mad, and on the contrary, we're imminently sane, and there's extraordinary things going on, and we only feel mad because we're not able to follow what our bodies are organically wanting to do, and it's that tension that creates the feeling of going mad, the menstrual problems, and so on and so on.

SPEAKER_02 40:12

Yeah, absolutely. The the shame and the taboo, and which just shuts it down. Shuts it down. Yeah. Okay, well, I I can't remember if we've covered three points, and frankly, I don't care anymore. So I'm trying to summarize this. Uh so it's uh cycle awareness. Um I've I've comp my mind's gone and my womb is more active, and all I want to do is is is sit with this feeling now that I can't quite remember what the bots were. But anyway, for the listener, play this podcast back.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

It's all there.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

Yeah, so what I do what I do want to wrap up with Alexandra is, and I think we may have covered this, is what are your what are your hopes for the future of menstruation?

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Yeah. Right. Well, we do actually have an amazing vision that we've written out in our book, um, uh in quite a lot of detail, but let me see if I can dream into the essence of it. Is that I would just love every, I would love all women to be living in a menstrual or s or a cycle literate society. Not just menstrual cycles, but just a real sense of honouring the organic rhythms of life, you know, the seasons of um of the year, uh, the the organic rhythms in our bodies, uh like you know, the circadian rhythm, the uh as well as the menstrual cycle, this sense that cycles are eminently wise systems that help us to live sustainable, wholesome lives. So we are just living in a cycle literate world, and that there's a real honouring and respect for the particularity of what the menstrual cycle offers, both women but also uh men, that men can benefit, and that's another conversation, of course, that this isn't just about us, it's about the world. That um, as you know, uh a woman can see this in in her family life, actually. You know, a woman becomes conscious of her menstrual cycle and she just brings that into her family life, and there is um and that it begins to organize family life, and then life becomes has a family life has this lovely presence of cyclical energy and the recognition that we we're not the same all the time and that we're not permanently on all the time. It's a thing of activity and rest. Um just that sense of psycho literacy and and that women feel safe. And not only that, not only do we feel safe, but that we feel respected and that we feel honored in our menstrual cycle process, and actually that the menstrual cycle is fully recognized, fully named, fully recognized as a spiritual process and as an as our initiatory way. I want above anything else, I want that front and center stage, I want that named, honored, recognized, and just you know, and that call to the temple, that's recognized. Wouldn't it be wild if that was really named and recognized in our society?

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Absolutely awesome beyond measure. Awesome beyond measure, that would be fantastic. And thank you so much for naming that already, Alexandria, and saying, like, when you said you want women to feel safe and respected and honored and feel. fully recognised as you know in in the menstrual cycle that it's a powerful, powerful tool in a benefit. I just oh yes I feel like I want to it's it's actually helped me get some more inspiration and I'm in the background kind of thinking like right I've got some more work to do here and I feel I actually feel supported in my work because you're doing your work. Well we do that for each other you know yeah we do it for each the more yeah we do it for each other Melanie absolutely isn't it fantastic that the the brighter we shine individually in our power that just inspires other women yeah it floats all our boats yeah I love that phrase and on that note yes on that note yeah fantastic thank you so so much for your time and for an awesome deep expansive podcast thank you oh Melody uh just from the bottom of my heart I have loved every second of this conversation with you I feel really moved and thank you so much it's a pleasure thanks and hopefully we can have you on another time I think you can meet us again anytime I'll talk to you Melanie awesome all right we'll we'll hang up and we'll book another time in all right thank you so much again thanks Alexandra Wow what a what a fantastic juicy deep awesome podcast uh when I hung up on the call I I just had to sit with myself and gather myself together actually um super grateful to Alexandra for that podcast and to her co-author on wild power as well Shawnee for working very hard on that book to bring it to us as well so I just wanted to go through the links that we talked about uh in the podcast and the first one is wildpowerbook.com so if you go there you can sign up to their uh Alexandra and Shawnee's webinar series on wild power and you can also access past recordings as well and if you go to redschool.net and on their homepage you can sign up for a menstrual dreaming chart which is what Alexandra was talking about in like a chart to help you track track your cycle and also I've put a link below this blog post and the blog post is if you're listening on a podcatcher by the way is the sacred womb.com forward slash wildpower and I've put a link to um pre-order the book this podcast comes out on the 7th of March and at the moment it's it's available for pre-order it actually comes out on April the 4th but we really encourage you to pre-order um that really helps the bookstores know that it's a popular book and to stock it so we can all do our bit to help get this book out there and help women in general to access this information and uh to restore our sovereignty around menstruation. So I've put links to Amazon.com and amazon.co.uk to pre-order this book. If you're listening after April the 4th you can order it and it'll come straight away so I've pre-ordered mine and I hope you enjoyed the podcast and I hope you enjoy the book. That's all for this time and I will see you for episode 25. I really hope you enjoyed the podcast and that you got some useful tips out of it that can make a genuine difference in your daily life. And if you'd love to work deeper with this stuff then do head on over to thesacredwoom.com where you can sign up to receive the weekly newsletter and an invite to our private Facebook group where you can share, learn and grow with like minded women in a safe supported space. Thank you so much for tuning in. Do leave us a rating and your comments are very very welcome and I'll see you next time.