The lost science of Cyclical Arts will save humanity
WHAT ARE CYCLICAL ARTS?
Cyclical Arts empower those suffering from mental, physical and spiritual distress or disease to find relief using tools and practices based in the Cyclical Seasons of the Universe on the macro level, such as the four seasons, the lunar and planetary cycles and the Cyclical patterns of the body on the micro level with an emphasis on the womb cycle — as a key component to finding the wellness they seek.
When they step into this empowered state with the ability to take their wellness into their own hands, many other things begin to fall into alignment for them — including what I call an Un-taming of the Soul and the Freedom to Step into their True Purpose and Alignment.
The only constant in life is change. But change doesn’t always have to be scary, chaotic and disruptive in our lives if we understand it happens in a predictable pattern. Learning cyclical patterns will not save us from all difficulty and hardship, but it can reduce their damage significantly. When we allow our bodies, minds and spirits to surrender to the flow of the forces of nature instead of resisting them, we can live a life with much more ease, connection and joy.
Cyclical Arts is an umbrella term I use that refers to all arts and sciences that centralize the importance of cycles of any kind: Seasonal, Lunar, Astrological, Menstrual, Circadian, Infradian, Cellular, etc. This includes practices ranging from folk medicine, witchcraft, somatic practices, midwifery, ritual dance, herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Yoga and Meditation. Most Cyclical Arts practices emphasize the importance of working with these macro and micro cycles through a three dimensional lens of the human experience — through Mind, Body and Spirit.
My role as a Cyclical Living Coach is to awaken others to their own truth. When struck with chronic mental and physical ailments, I stumbled, not by choice, into 15 years of research for answers to trauma, mental illness and horrible periods. Dance and somatics were always my outlet, but it wasn’t enough to heal. I tried medication, psychiatry psychotherapy, CBT, EMDR, Witchcraft, Pranayama, Kundalini, Holistic Nutrition, Menstruality practices, Dance + Somatic techniques, Ayurveda, TCM, Acupuncture, Folk medicine and Yoga.
Completing teacher training in Yoga from mentors who emphasized healing and mindfulness over the western athleticism approach, helped me understand of how all these practices were connected through this 3D Mind, Body, Spirit model of healing.
Here, I explore the tools and theories of Yoga + Ayurveda that influence Cyclical Arts Academy theory + practice.
Yoga and Ayurveda fall under the umbrella of Cyclical Arts alongside many other ancient healing modalities such as Celtic Witchcraft and Astrology. Yoga, being one of the most well preserved of ancient cyclical practices, gives us a clear window to these nature-cycle based healing modalities and the opportunity to practically incorporate them into our lives.
Here are yoga-influenced tenants we use in Cyclical Arts Academy.
CYCLICAL ARTS HEALING MODALITY MAIN TENANTS + YOGIC INFLUENCE
TENANT 1: BODY, MIND + SPIRIT LITERACY
UNDERSTAND HEALTH THROUGH A FOCUS ON WELLNESS NOT DISEASE
We view healing, not as a treatment that focuses on disease as a problem, but on wellness as a proactive solution by optimizing our body’s natural processes in flow with nature. We do not pathologize pain in the body by calling traits and experiences a ‘disorder’ with the implication that something needs to be ‘fixed.’ This type of wellness exists in a paradigm where one has to be ‘sick’ to participate. Rather, we see the body as a self-regulating organism that when properly supported and aligned with nature is optimized for healing and fighting or preventing disease. Medicines or invasive methods are seen as necessary only when faced with emergency injuries or acute infections. And even then, the use of natural methods is prioritized when possible.
In Western capitalist medicine, in order for a profit to be made, someone has to be sick and unwell. There is no Western Wellness practice- only Medicine. Aside from vaccinations, even insurance will only pay for treatments after the disease has already manifested in the body, mind or spirit. The latter is not covered at all and only recently are mental illnesses being taken seriously.
In Western medicine, the very experience of having a menstrual cycle is pathologized as a problem to be tamed. On one hand, the Mama bear protective energy of a womb holder that arises when they are in the Luteal Phase of their cycle, a naturally occurring phenomenon to protect the potential fertilized egg, is labeled as PMS and written off as ‘disordered.’ On the other hand, things such as cramps, mood swings and acne are labeled as a ‘normal’ part of having a womb and we are told the only way to cope is with medication. While these traits are common, they are not normal. They are indicators of a hormonal imbalance in the body that will only get worse if not addressed. Medication can actually make the problem worse by silencing the body’s signs that there is a problem without addressing the underlying cause.
Many natural processes of the menstrual and birthing cycles are treated as illnesses that need invasive treatments to regulate; such as long-term synthetic hormone treatment to stop the process of ovulation all together, high levels of C-sections to address the body’s unpreparedness for birth and high induction rates due to babies arriving ‘late’. High levels of maternal mortality in the US are highly influenced by these invasive practices meant to ‘tame and control’ the cycles of nature and years of menstrual cycles being over-medicated and mistreated.
The point of view of Yoga and Ayurveda is that the body is a self-regulating organism. That we have hundreds of thousands of years of wisdom within our DNA that can be maximized and tapped into if we allow our bodies to do what they were designed to do.
On a physiological level, if we are alive, our bodies are in a state of homeostasis, aka the tendency for the body and mind to find an equilibrium. The body has the ability to shift like a pendulum when impacted by stimuli from the environment such as a bug bite or pathogen present in our food.
This environmental stress on the body will cause the chemicals, body temperature, fluid balance and living systems within us to adjust to maintain an optimal physical function. When we experience pain or discomfort, such as an itchy bug bite or nausea from infected foods, it is a sign, not that something has gone wrong in the body itself — but that our bodies are demonstratong a proper response to an environmental stimuli. The body is doing its job in finding a state of homeostasis so as to maintain the integrity of the physical being.
It is not the itch or nausea that needs treatment as the source of this disease, but rather our resistance to feeling and allowing our body to do the work. Many can relate to resisting vomiting when catching the flu, only to find immediate relief when we surrender.
Wellness in Yoga and Ayurveda views the body as always aligned. Rather than mask the painful symptoms or invade the body, it provides tools and practices to gently enhance our ability to get out of the body’s way so it can HEAL ITSELF.
When we take a medication that suppresses or inhibits symptoms with single molecule medications, the invasive method can send the message to the brain that the reaction was not strong enough, making it worse the next time. For example if we experience cramps and take Mydol, it sends the message to the brain that it needs to increase the pain messages during the next cycle to override the pain suppressant.
Often we are the ones standing in the way of our own body and mind’s ability to heal itself because we resist healing. Healing is painful, so it’s normal for us to want to resist it. This is where the use of Meditation, Pranayama and Yoga Asanas are helpful tools for reducing that resistance to pain.
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF THROUGH MINDFULNESS USING YOGA ASANAS, PRANAYAMA + MEDITATION
We view mindfulness of the mind, body and spirit, as the first and most essential step to developing an effective Cyclical Living practice. When we are mindful and fully conscious in the present moment, we have the power to transform our bodies at a cellular level. We have the potential to calm the nervous system long enough to safely process pain. We have the capacity to see ourselves from outside of ourselves and consciously cultivate a state of wellbeing.
When we are mindful of the cycles, we can adjust behavior to optimize our bodies already existing processes. For example, in the winter our body will shiver to create heat. A natural way to further help the body is to wear a winter coat. This may seem obvious to most of us. However our disconnection to cycles and seasons make other things less obvious. Such as eating apples in autumn season, help to detox the liver before winter, or minimizing stimuli during our menstrual phase.
When we accept, surrender and allow the reality of our cyclical situation, with practice, we can create cyclical habits that leads us to a state of serenity. For example, if we allow the body to sleep much longer in the dark of winter instead of resisting with artificial light, we naturally support our bodies ability to combat inflammation, pain, disease and cultivate a healthier stress response overall.
Being mindful of these cycles can be a game-changer for preventing maladjustment, but it doesn’t stop there. When we fail to prevent an illness, we can use mindfulness to cure it by simply bringing aware to our internal landscape and consciously allowing the mind to believe it can heal itself. Even Western medicine, while hesitant to test the efficacy of mindfulness practices, can not deny the power of the mind to heal the body. Commonly known as the placebo effect — western scientists are familiar with the phenomenon that belief alone can cure illness. Estimates of the placebo cure rate range from a low of 15 percent to a high of 72 percent. And these are not just mental shifts, but physical and measurable changes in the body where people are curing themselves by allowing their brain to expect a certain outcome, focusing on that outcome, and thus allowing the brain to make physiological changes in the body from belief alone.
The point of view of Yogic Meditation is similar to the power of the placebo effect. Our brain has inhibitors to prevent over-stimulation and allow for essential biological processes to occur such as breathing, digestion and our heart beat even if our focus is on something else entirely. But by taking time to consciously observe the brain and bodily activity such as our thoughts, energies and physical sensations, we pause the brain’s inhibitors that keep these sensations out of our present awareness.
When we consciously decide to tune in to the sensations within us, a subtle yoga practice where we can see our internal landscape through the third eye chakra, we can bring present awareness to the entire self, thoughts, nervous system, organs, lymphatic system, etc. For many of us, this awareness takes practice. But if we practice it, eventually we allow the brain to see where we are holding resistance to healing in the body and give it permission to finally release.
Meditation gives us permission to surrender to the reality of our existence without denial or a filter so that we can release the resistance that has turned our pain into prolonged suffering. To deepen the effects of meditation, we can embody this philosophy with additional tools.
We believe that embodiment is essential to Cyclical Living. Some of the physical, mental and spiritual activities we practice to achieve this are Pranayama and Yoga Asanas.
Meditation would not be possible without the breath, which is considered in Yoga to be the Life Force energy. At a physiological level, all pain comes from the same source — the deprivation of oxygen at the cellular level. We resist breathing as a survival technique, triggered by things like stress, or the sight of a lion in order to turn on the sympathetic nervous system. This sets off our survival response also known as Fight, Flight or Freeze mode.
We practice Pranayama, which essentially means breathing exercises, in order to re-oxygenate the body, calm the sympathetic nervous system and allow for healing. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, all physical processes that are not essential for running away, fighting or freezing, such as digestion and healing, slow down or stop entirely.
Some of us experience chronic stress which prevents the body from having biological resources available to heal or properly digest, leading to chronic conditions, inflammation, pain, gut issues and auto-immune conditions.
There are numerous Pranayamic breathing exercises that can be used — all to target different functions in the body, mind or spirit. For example, if you are experiencing hot flashes during the Luteal phase of your Menstrual Cycle- a cooling pranayama, such as a Sitali breath, can be used to reduce overheating in the body, also known as Pitta.
PRANA Life Force, or the breath, is arguably more central to our well-being than food, water or sleep. Considering we can go 40 days without food, 4–5 days without water and 5–7 days without sleep, but only 5 minutes without oxygen… it seems that breathing exercises should be the first on our list for overall wellness.
However, currently, there is not a system in place for charging people money to breathe. And since there is no monetary gain, the obsession in the west over losing weight as the only important component of wellness is based in a capitalist fatphobic system that misinterprets skinny as synonymous with healthy. This can lead to malnourishment and disturb the menstrual cycle.
In a scarcity based culture, where we are taught that we never have enough and we can never do enough or be enough — it is very hard for many of us to believe that by sitting still, allowing ourselves to BE and just breathe — could have such life-changing impacts in our lives. But I challenge you to try it!
Next, the Yoga Asanas are a fantastic tool that we use daily in Cyclical Living to combine the benefits of Meditation, Pranayama — and awareness of our full being. When people in the West think of yoga, they usually are thinking of Yoga Asanas, which are the poses most often advertised as ‘Yoga.’
Yoga Asanas, or postures are essentially ways in which we position the body to practice meditation and pranayama, or breathing awareness, from a different perspective. We can access a deeper awareness of where we are holding resistance in the body, blockages in the Chakras, or tension in the mind when we practice various asanas.
For example, downward dog can bring our meditative awareness to the resistance we have been holding in our caves all day. It is not the act of the downward dog that creates this resistance, but rather it allows the brain to become conscious of it. Through this consciousness, accompanied by pranayama activating the parasympathetic nervous system, we calm our nerves enough to allow space for ourselves to process the pain of this resistance so that we can eventually let it go.
The more we practice these asanas, the more we are able to release resistance or blockages not just in our physical, but also our energetic channels.
We believe that our being has energy centers that are not visible to the naked eye. Like the air we breathe, these energies are essential to our vitality, but can’t be seen.
In Yoga practice, there are 7 main energy centers, known as the Chakras around which the Nadis, or life energy channels, spiral. They start at the base of the spine at the Root Chakra and go all the way up to just above the head in the Crown Chakra. In religions, witchcraft and mythology around the world, these energy centers are referred to in different ways. Enlightened people or prophets are often seen with a Crown chakra illuminated forming a halo around their head. The gospel of Mary Magdalene speaks of the ‘7 demons’ that Jesus cleared for her to reach divine consciousness and love. In Traditional Chinese medicine, a similar science of energy channels throughout the body that maintain the flow of Chi, or life force, is the basis of Acupuncture.
This concept in the West has remained confined to the spiritual realm for many years. However with the advancements in technology, we can see that energy is not only emitted from the body, but it is also measurable. Today, we are familiar with things like X-rays, gamma rays and electromagnetic waves etc. We understand that the frequency of the electromagnetic waves we emit from our bodies can directly impact the energy of other beings around us. The wave strength within us and around us can have a very large impact in our wellbeing that is just now being understood by science, but has been practiced by shamans, Yogis and witches for centuries.
Yoga Asanas, Meditation and Pranayama can all be a great way to clear the energetic blockages we may have. Many womb holders I work with hold a lot of energetic and mentally induced tension in their pelvic floor and womb center from years of trauma or abuse. While the physical body may have visibly healed, there can be an energetic block in that area which leads to ongoing and sometime unexplainable yeast infections, BV, UTIs, painful sex or mysterious pain in the entire area, also known as the Root and Sacral Chakras. They also may experience unexplained disruptions to their menstrual cycle or infertility.
For those who have made nutritional and physical adjustments but still experience these disturbances, they may be holding energetic and emotional blockages or traumas in this area. I often use a Moon Salutation Vinyasa accompanied by Yoga Asanas such as Malasana and Goddess Pose to help womb holders soothe and release blockages they may have in the Root or Sacral Chakras.
For any womb holder- a blockage like this can be detrimental to their ability to be able to tune into their Cyclical nature and menstrual cycles.
UNDERSTANDING THE BODY + ENVIRONMENT THROUGH THE DOSHAS
Cyclical Arts view all physical matter as being made up of five essential elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether. This is the meaning behind the five pointed star, or pentagram, in witchcraft, placed inside the interconnected and infinite circle of life. We believe that everything in the universe is composed of these five elements- everything from star dust, to our skin cells. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the theory is similar, but includes Wood as its fifth element.
From a Yogic perspective, Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether, make up all existing matter — and the three most common combinations of these elements make up our internal physical composition unique to us.
These three compositions are known as the Doshas. The Doshas include; Pitta, made up of Fire and Water; Vata, made up of Air and Ether; and Kapha, made up of Earth and Water. Each of us are a combination of the three Doshas, however, we often have one or two doshas that tend to overpower the others.
During our menstrual cycle, we also have a fluctuation in the presence of the Doshas in our bodies. For example, Vata Dosha becomes more prominent in our Follicular phase, and Pitta Dosha becomes more prominent in our Luteal phase. The body’s basal temperature literally rises an average of one whole degree when we transition out of our Follicular and Ovulatory phases (Vata) into our Luteal phase (Pitta).
Knowing your individual constitution and how it fluctuates can give you a lot of information about how your body needs support through nutrition and other yoga practices to help soothe any Doshas who have overpowered the body too much.
UNDERSTANDING THE BODY THROUGH WASTE: AMA + DETOXIFICATION
Cyclical Arts Academy focuses so much on the Lunar and womb cycle — not just because it is the core rhythm of fertility and life process for all living things, but also because it is a built-in detoxification process for the body, mind and soul on an inevitable monthly schedule.
It reflects the life and death cycle, enhancing our ability to receive, digest, cleanse and let go of energy within our bodies to make way for a new cycle the following month. The release of menstrual blood, is our body’s way of detoxifying both our womb center from the egg’s death, and also our spirit of the ego’s death every month.
The more we resist this natural process within us- the harder this part of our cycle becomes. This time of energetic detox or channel clearing, labeled judgementally as PMS, is a natural time for us to mourn the death within so that we may birth anew… start again in the cycle of life.
Seen through this lens, we can see how menstruation is actually an essential detoxification process that begins at Menarche, when we set out on our vision quests as girls. We experience this physical and spiritual cycle through roughly 450+ cycles until we reach Menopause. If we properly invited 450 ego detoxifications into our life, by the time we are Post-menopause, we will be extremely illuminated, clear channels to divine consciousness. This is where the Wise Womban, the Crone or the priestess archetype is personified.
When we don’t honor our bleed, and choose instead to stuff and stifle our flow with tampons or resist the loving detoxifying contractions with mydol and hate, the resistance leads to a build up of undigested waste in the womb. When waste material is not able to fully leave the womb, accumulation can lead to blood clots, irregular periods, painful cramping and heavy bleeds.
In Yoga and Ayurveda, this undigested waste that gets stuck in the body is known as AMA. Ama can come in many forms and causes blockages and stagnation in the body. It can show up as undigested food, unprocessed thoughts and traumas, or fluid retention and more.
In yoga and ayurveda, disease is seen as beginning with with the build up of Ama in the body. Its presence within the body slowly clogs your energetic channels, progressing into disease. For example, years of gut issues can lead to undigested waste, that attracts pathogens in the digestive tract such as candida. If this is not detoxed from the body, overtime, the ama can travel to other parts of the body, leading to leaky gut and inflammation. Once the body is experiencing chronic inflammation, it can eventually lead to life threatening illnesses such as autoimmune disorders or cancer.
You can immediately get an accurate reading on your state of wellness by observing your body’s natural ability to detox. The biomarkers of a healthy detoxification system include regular and healthy bowel movements, urination, sweat and menses.
This means incorporating a habit of regularly observing your bowel movements, urine, sweat, and menstrual blood can give you key indicators of your state of wellness.
When ama builds up in our womb center, it can cause blood clots in our menses, cramps, anovulation, PCOS, Endometriosis and more. Because we are not properly shedding, we are unable to fully process those life tissues and release them from the body.
Ayurveda has a large set of tools to be able to detox and release Ama from the body. In my program we learn about different Ayurvedic detoxification methods and their benefits such as Pranayama, Enemas, Neti pots and Oil pulling.
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF THROUGH THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE
Most modern practices, even Yoga and TCM, won’t cite the menstrual cycle as the number one most important biomarker or cycle of overall wellbeing for humans with wombs, but I’d argue it’s the most important of them all. Even more than seasonal or lunar living. The omission is due mainly to these practices being impacted and by colonization by patriarchal white supremacist cultures for the past ~6,500 years.
One of the largest components of Cyclical Arts Academy is Radical Body, Mind + Spirit Literacy by understanding the menstrual cycle’s four internal seasons, the body’s biomarkers to enhance fertility awarenessand learning the appropriate tools and practices to use during each phase.
The main practices I use for this portion of Cyclical Arts Academy come from Witchcraft, folk medicine, herbalism and those passed down from Doulas, Birthworkers and Midwives. Since this article is focusing how I incorporate Yoga’s influence into Cyclical Arts I won’t go into detail of womb sovereignty tools and practices.
With that said, while the literal connection to the menstrual cycle is not central to yogic texts that I know of (maybe I’m wrong!), all of the cyclical aspects of menstrual understanding still align and benefit enormously from Yogic influence. We can easily apply the next tenant, as above, so below, a yogic theory, to developing a literacy and understanding of the menstrual cycle through its environmental parallels.
TENANT 2: AS ABOVE, SO BELOW — SURRENDER TO THE FLOW
So now you know how Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga Asanas and Ayurveda are all used to allow us to cultivate a deeper understanding and awareness of how our bodies, minds and spirits function in the universe through matter, energy and spirit. Education that comes from internal observation, paired with wellness sovereignty gives us the basic tools and principles to be able to apply these methods in a way that is in tune with the Cycles of our bodies and of the Universe.
In Cyclical Arts, we believe that everything is connected and our suffering comes from our disconnection with the Universe. A large portion of our suffering comes from our resistance or ignorance to the natural cycles around us and within us — with womb holders being most negatively impacted.
We have been born into an age of not just individualism and humanism where we are separate and unaffected by the universe, but also one of modern science that was founded on the concept that mind, body and spirit are separate, by a ruling of the Roman Catholic Church. The church forbade the forefathers of Western Science to incorporate mind or spirit into any of their work under the threat of persecution.
Yoga literally means ‘to yoke’ or ‘to join’ as one, connecting the mind, body and spirit so we can connect ourselves to the Universe. Ayurveda, or Yogic Life Science, believes the micro-universe, our individual experience, is a consistent reflection of the macro-universe.
This can be seen in numerous examples. The Universe is made up of the five elements, as are our bodies. The lunar cycle runs on a 28 day cycle that ebbs and flows, as do the tides of the ocean, the fertility cycle of the earth and the menstrual cycle of our wombs. The seasons of the earth go through a four season (or 6-season according to Ayurveda) process every single year. This begins with rest, hibernation, silence, death and darkness of Winter; evolves into the explosion of planted seeds and fertility in the Spring; moves on to action, heat and activity in the Summer; and ends in harvest season, dying and fading into the increasing darkness of Autumn. This same process is reflected energetically every month in the four phases of the moon- New, Waxing, Full and Waning; and within the four phases of the menstrual cycle- Menstrual, Follicular, Ovulatory and Luteal.
All that happens above, is reflected cyclically within us. The cycles of astrology affects the energies of the year. The cycles of the planets shift our generations from one paradigm to the next. The seasons of the year are reflected within our bodies. The circadian rhythm of the sun is reflected in our testosterone and melatonin. The infradian rhythm of the moon is reflected in our estrogen, FSH, LH and progesterone hormonal patterns.
At Cyclical Arts Academy, we teach students to live their best and most fulfilled lives by cultivating body, mind and spiritual literacy (micro-universe awareness), followed by nature cycles literacy (macro-universe awareness). When we practice long enough to get to the point where we can intuitively surrender to the force of mother nature and the force of nature within us — then and only then, are we able to truly be free and step into our power.
When we surrender our fruitless attempts to tame and control our cycles and shift to living in surrendered flow instead, we optimize our wellbeing through authentic connection to the Universe. This opens up the channels of our being to fulfill our soul’s purpose, known in Yoga as our Dharma.
Go ahead and Untame your wild soul by tuning into your inner and outer force of nature so you can step into your power, take healing into your own hands, live your life in a state of optimal wellness and fulfill your purpose.
So mote it be!!
