Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in her book “Women Who Run With the Wolves”, writes about the Medial Woman.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that the book, in its entirety, is instruction–no, reminder!–to me of how to be a medial woman.

Women, and this is medically studied stuff here, (see Dr. Christiane Northrup’s “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom”,) are biologically wired to have a time of the month that is outward, directed by right hemisphere action.  This is a logic-driven, linear, action-oriented way of being.  After ovulation, if there is not fertilization, our hormones slide us in to left-hemi.  This is dreamy, inner, reflective, emotional.  It’s not a PMS thing, its a hemisphere thing.  It becomes PMS only if that side of the brain, or experience, goes un-honored.

The two revolutionary next steps of practice, and understanding: women continue this rhythm even after menopause  AND studies confirm that men, too, have a rhythmic cycle of hemisphere orientation.

In soul work, we find the ego is crafted within the same field that creates the linear, right-brain way of being.  Ego is SO necessary,  it is the psychological construct that keeps us from drifting in to the boundlessness of the unconscious.  Psyche, on the other hand, is the vehicle that dips in and out of the unconscious.  It is of the whole region of the mind, its surface levels and deepest realms.  Unconscious is known also as the Soul realm, or the Self.

What the Medial Woman does is mediate between both these states.  She speaks for the soul, transmits little nuggets of deeper wisdom or knowing in a way that the ego can structure and make sense of.  She goes back and forth.  Between consciousness and the unconscious, between ego and soul.  She recognizes the value of how and when the Pysche is talking.  She weaves a tapestry with rich, bright threads between the lobes of left and right brain.

Monthly Rhythms

Today is day six in my monthly rhythm.  My period started Sunday.  Today I have the clear, driving energy of linear, logic-oriented thought.  It is a very practical get-stuff done energy, that is biological.  Hormonal.  This bio-rhythm can be clogged up by thought programs, or patterns.  That is because thought patterns become biological, too.

Here is the importance of meeting myself in the morning.  I have been turned UPSIDE DOWN by this retrograde.  But here today, right on time–is my day 6 clarity.  Always!  I practiced being with my inner-self today: I had a period of meditation this morning.  I cultivated a current between the hemisphere I am  biologically working from today, and my right-brain, my soul-oriented place, too.  That means I get to infuse my action, animus (or male) driven way of being today with lots of soul.

medial: 1. Relating to, situated in, or extending toward the middle; median. (the free dictionary)

That is the function of the Medial Woman.  Thanks, Clarissa, so, so, so much for the consistent reminder.