An introduction to fertility cycle arts.

An Introduction to Fertility Cycle Arts.

Fertility is life.

The innate capacity of living organisms to reproduce has been evolving since life began. What is left in our bodies now as women is the fertility cycle embedded within circadian rhythms and cyclical existence innate to our very nature. It is something to know the biology of the follicular phase, ovulation, luteal phase and menstruation, of molecular cell biology and cell reproduction but how is that integrated into the many aspects of a healthy and vibrant life. There are so many challenges to face on the earth today and by embodying the wisdom of our bodies at least we can face the truth with integrity and authenticity. We cannot run in fear dressing up behaviours, actions and deeds in words that placate the burgeoning cognitive disonance bound up by society and human civilisation.

The continuum of life has been broken and it needs to be fixed. This becomes exponentially apparent when new life is introduced into the cycle and for me at least, becoming a mother, diurnal art practises are not just play but reschooling myself into a new rhythm and only just fast enough. It is a self tailored way to introduce and continually invite a new continuum into life through art and movement practises.

How can we provide a safe continuum of environment to a baby if we cannot find this sense of peace and harmony in my own life?

Finding a way in.

It can be art, it can be dance, spoken word, exercise, any activity really. Anything that helps you go deep into your body and listen to the inherent wisdom and intelligence emanating from within. You’ve got to start somewhere and art seems a good entry point with an adaptive attitude ready for change for nothing is ever really static. Fooled into a false sense of homeostasis being a middle point or line by the education system masks the ever shifting waves and frequencies of energy and movement, the dynamic equilibrium foundational to life. From the cell to the body, continents, seas, planets and galaxies, life is continuation of movement. There is no static central point of total peace and harmony. It does not exist.

Just peaks and troughs and deviations with a returning to the middle axis, only to rise and fall again with the intrinsic undulations of energetic life.

So, how to find some tiny piece of harmony with the inevitable peaks and troughs in the confines of a bipedal mammalian body in the midst of an inhabited, overly populated section of earth. The wild and

undomesticated life calls but it is impossible to come to it in the natural sense, even in the wildest forest, the lonliest cave, the most peaceful community for this humanity is born into a disconnected state of arrest thinking that somehow they are separate from nature. The natural order has been broken yet it can be restored. Not with a guru, a veda, a book, a thing, a person, a thought, a religion or anything outside the self. All that is needed is inside the body, written into vast oceans of cell communities encapsulated by the surfaces of the skin with trillions of other life forms.

So thats why I turn to art, to retrain, relearn, to reschool and remember. Art can bring insight that science takes years to prove in the labs. Art can bring self knowledge and a self tailored map for the individual. Art can encourage introspection and great learning. Yet together with science, art can do things no one has even imagined yet.

Inviting a new continuum – the arts way.

In May 2017 I committed to making a piece of art every day, no matter how brief, small or simplistic.

The key is to come into an embodied state before beginning, then maintain it throughout the process.

It came about through tracking my fertility cycle with the fertility awareness method (FAM) as a way to encourage deep embodiment by tuning into the cycles of the body every day, at the same time and allowing creativity to arise opening into body wisdom and insight. After one year I will analyse all my work and share the results and conclusions. The insights it brings to body awareness are already way better than reading any book of science and they come in bursts and waves, unexpected, seemingly unrelated. There is remarkable freedom within a given set of boundaries and it encourages an exploration within combinations of medium and detail, colour and form. This is an invaluable lesson for parenting, setting boundaries is the beginning of a testing, challenging and exhilarating journey.

The science connection.

Experimenting with diurnal art practices is in part a scientific experiment except it is impossible to keep all variables constant apart from the one you are changing! A reminder of how absurd science can be that it tries to contain and compartmentalise nature testing it one thing at a time. The great advances are indeed great but what really is it telling us other than what the human in observation reads from his or her book of the past, present and future? Not that I turn my back on science, but instead begin to explore and amalgamate findings of the body and of nature in new and inspiring ways with the added bonus of finding science to back up my conclusions!

Nature as teacher.

Another big lesson is discipline. To never give up even if you miss a few days. Many things are being learnt in sporadic, unsymmetrical and often unaesthetic ways and sometimes its easy to get off track.

Then of course, great growth requires great death which can be painful to deal with. Yet this is also perfectly in tune with the fertility cycle and the larger cycles of nature, be they circadian, seasonal, annual or of a life time, it is all connected. It is so beautiful that all that is left to do most of the time is watch in awe at the magnificence of nature but there is much work to be done.

Writing helps to actualise the experience and enhance the process of integration and embodiment while art teaches you to let go of the rigidity installed by years of scientific education, to be adaptable and to trust in the guiding force of the body which is informed by it’s very nature. An artistic outlook and dedication could help any scientific project no end but then again, once your turn to art it is hard to imagine turning back.