The Menstrual Cycle as a Breathing Process

Sometimes the most beautiful and important part of our physiology is flexibility. Can we shift and change ourselves? We do, of course, carry this out all the time—for when we take in a breath we open ourselves to the world around us (Rudolf Steiner actually pointed out that we are much more intimately related to our environment through respiration than through digestion or touch). Then when we breathe out, we cut ourselves off from outside world, and release what we do not need any more (carbon dioxide, nitrogen, etc.) This is a very regular, and familiar cycle, one which we generally carry out 16–24 times a minute. But there are other ways that we breathe too. The menstrual cycle can be understood as one such kind of respiration, one that brings aspects not just of inside and outside, but also life and death, generosity and loss.