Let yourself die in order to fully live pt. 2
An ode to initiations, rites of passage, and menstruality as a spiritual development practice
Before we dive in…
This is the last week to register for Cycle Devotion, which happens on June 11 at 3pm in Midtown Sacramento! You can register through the link below.
Last week we got into initiations, rites of passage and the mythic descent to the underworld as a cultural necessity in order to become psychologically mature adults and generative leaders.
This week we are going to talk a bit about how the menstrual cycle can be the container for this process for people who have them.
The Menstrual Cycle as an In-Bodied Initiation Process
I learned everything I know about the menstrual cycles as an initiatory process from Red School, and I highly recommend you check out their resources (linked at the bottom of this post) if you feel called to take this work as deep as I have.
What I’ve discovered is that my inner cycle is a powerful container for my initiation into psychologically mature adulthood and generative leadership, and perhaps it can be that way for you too.
Here’s how:
If you need a refresher on the Inner Seasons and their archetypal energy, feel free to refer back to my previous post about it.
Today I want to focus on the cycle that holds the menstrual cycle itself: the two vias.
You can see this represented by the outer arrows in the above diagram.
According to Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer (the creators of Red School), the two vias are “your connection to the two forces of creation: the masculine and the feminine.”
They are the same timeless rhythmic energetic patterns of expansion and contraction that changes the oceanic tides, shifts with the moon, and moves with the seasons.
You can think of it this way: menstruation and ovulation are the two poles of your cycle, like peak moments in your monthly energetic process. In between these two vital moments, your entire being is in a shifting state, represented by the two vias.
Via Positiva
Beginning after menstruation, the general feeling of this phase is one of agency, growing power, and assertion of your will.
This is when you feel most inspired to use your power to shape your reality, to take charge and make things happen. It supports you in initiating, asserting, imposing and manifesting your ideas in very concrete ways. It comes with a wave of urgency, which is why Inner Spring is characterized as a great time to start new projects or new phases of a project.
This wave is very mental, analytical, egoic, purposeful and goal-oriented and it helps you make your ideas a reality.
Many of us love and are praised for this phase. I know personally that my whole identity used to be formed around who I was while in my via positiva.
And then, this energetic wave culminates at ovulation, and we begin the downward shift.
Via Negativa
This path invites us to slow down and come into deeper relationship with life. Rather than stepping forward and asserting ourselves, we are invited to draw back, down and inward.
It unleashes a power of restraint (which I used to confuse with constraint) that can awaken a powerful truth-speaking authority.
Rather than pushing our own agenda, we hold back. We drop into something deep. We court something visceral and imaginative. We listen, allow, follow and test our intuitive pings, dancing with the Mystery.
Whereas the via positiva develops the power of agency, the via negativa develops the power of encounter.
It’s no longer about the needs of your own ego, but that of something much greater than you. It’s no longer about you creating your life, but about Life creating more life through you. You surrender to being worked by a process that is deep and ancient, and somehow the timing of it all doesn’t matter. Urgency falls away. Everything unfolds in it’s own time, which always seems to feel perfect.
You encounter a deep, hidden and whole intelligence. The meaning of your life - your purpose - and your responsibility in embodying it - your leadership - are top of mind.
And rather than entering a feverish, left-brained search, you rest in the questions. You wonder and you wander, knowing that the questions themselves will work you until you are forged into who you are meant to be.
As you can tell, I am clearly in my via negativa as I type this. This energy restores the poetry of life. Its awe-inspiring and wonder-full. It helps us honor the sacredness in all of life. It’s vulnerable, intimate, and tender. I now identify more with this phase of my cycle because it has helped me receive the sacred beauty of life.
The Two Vias and our Initiatory Process
Initiatory processes are fundamentally about building up and breaking down repeatedly, which is essentially the energetic framework of the two vias and therefore our menstrual cycles.
It is a developmental process of becoming and unbecoming as we chip away at our conditioned sense of self to reveal the truest essence of our soul and step into our most authentic form of leadership.
In the via positiva, we build our sense of self and claim our place in the world. In our via negativa, our sense of self is undone, which is very destabilizing to our ego, and we become permeable to Life’s purpose through us.
Both patterns are necessary. We need to experience vulnerability and check our sense of invincibility. We need to feel our belonging to the greater picture and our longing to be a meaningful part of a meaningful whole.
In our Western culture and society, we honor only the via positiva. And our deep self feels this loss. From the psycho-spiritual perspective, this is why we grieve and rage at pre-menstruation. We are deeply abandoning a necessary part of life when we honor only the power of agency, and our pre-menstrual agony is begging us to develop our power of encounter.
Restoring value to the via negativa and the Inner Autumn
The old paradigm of power values only the power of agency and the assertion of will. As we have seen, when this energy operates alone and is untempered, the egoic force of it can be destructive. Open up any news source these days and you will see this in effect.
On every statistic that matters, our systems are collapsing because they were built unsustainably using only the energy of the via positiva. The psyche of the world is having its own experience of PMS because we have devalued and ignored a vital element of our initiation: the ego death, which allows us to encounter the divine and be restored in harmony with life’s unfolding.
One way to restore the value of the via negativa is to track it within your own lived experience. Regardless of your menstruation status, see if you can sense when you are in via positiva mode or via negativa mode. As an added bonus, see if you can sense the crossover days from one mode of being to the other.
Reflect: how do you experience your life and the world when you are in the via positiva vs. the via negativa?
Notice which via is more comfortable to you, and challenge yourself to embrace the more challenging via.
In my experience, I feel more at home now in my via negativa, which is a total shift from two years ago when I thought that my life was over during this phase.
I’ve come to see that Inner Autumn and the beginning of Inner Winter are powerful teachers in humility, surrender, receptivity, vulnerability, discernment and integrity.
They are my most trusted ally in my initiatory path to power and authentic leadership, and maybe they could be yours too.
I would love to hear how this lands for you. What questions do you have? Where are you most comfortable/uncomfortable in your cycle? Let me know in the comments below.
Resources for Menstruality as an Initiation Process
Red School
Red School has resources and programs to support you through the entire menstruation journey, from re-claiming your menarche and healing your first experience of your own period, to journeying with your child through their first period, through the menstruating years and into and beyond menopause.
Jane Hardwicke Collings
Jane is a postmenopausal revolutionary, Agent of the Goddess, Grandmother and founder of The School of Shamanic Womancraft.
Jane has a deep lineage of midwifery and provides resources and programs for people spanning the entire life-span, from young girls to post menopausal wise womanhood.
I recommend Snake Medicine: Shedding Menstrual Shame.
That’s it for now, my friends. My intention for next week is to share more about how to work with your Inner Autumn, but we will see how my cyclical creative energy feels about that when the time comes.
I’ll see you next week!
May this work benefit all beings, everywhere.
Soulful blessings,
Emily
P.S. Registration for Cycle Devotion is now live! You can register through the link below. The base rate is $88 and paid subscribers get a 22% discount to all of my offerings, so consider upgrading to a paid tier to save over $19.
If the base rate is inaccessible to you, send me an email at wildeyescoaching@gmail.com to register with a “pay what you choose” option. Accessibility to resources is a virtue that I believe must be woven into the fabric of our society and I am committed to it.
P.P.S. If you aren’t located in Sacramento or you prefer 1:1 support, consider scheduling a complementary consultation call. It’s a no-pressure connection call where we can explore your current aspirations and longings and you can experience my coaching style first hand. It’s completely risk-free and you will definitely walk away with clarity and next steps.