In our Menstruality podcast conversation with the brilliant filmmaker, Chloé Zhao, she shared how discovering Red School and the practice of menstrual cycle awareness shaped her creative process as she directed her latest Oscar-award winning film, Hamnet.
We loved this conversation for a million reasons, but especially because we have been teaching about the menstrual cycle as a blueprint for wild creativity for several years, and how it all begins with getting to know the four inner seasons of your menstrual cycle.
So, whether you’re writing a book, creating art, growing a garden, building a business, creating a family or bringing your creativity to any other aspect of your life, here are some cycle-inspired creativity musings inspired by our conversation with Chloé…
The Otherworldly Space of Inner Winter (menstruation)
It begins with your bleed, your time to dream, receive, channel and vision your ideas and inspirations for your life and for what you want to create. In our chat with Chloé she shared how intuition is our greatest creative currency, and how becoming more aware of our menstrual cycles prepares the body to be a vessel to receive deep intuitive knowing.
This all rests on your ability to, well, rest when you menstruate. To slow down, take your hands off the wheel and to stop trying to make anything happen.
Easier said than done, especially amidst a full, creative life, so we were inspired when Chloé shared how she honours the power of wintering, and the - seemingly - non-productive work of rest even in the middle of a film set.
The Innocent Foolhardiness of Inner Spring (preovulation)
As you emerge from your bleed, it’s vital to cherish yourself as an act of devotion to your creative process.
The pre-ovulatory phase is an important time to play creatively, without commitment or the need to nail anything down. We loved how Chloé embodied this energy when she shared how her menstrual cycle awareness practice has helped her to map out the heroes journey of her stories in new, cyclical, spiralling ways, and how this allows life to happen through a script, rather than ‘choking the mystery’. Perhaps this is part of the reason why Hamnet is so full of moments of visceral, vital aliveness?
The Resilience of Inner Summer (ovulation)
One of the main things that can resource you in your inner summer is resilience; the buffering that can come from the ovulatory cycle phase where we are in the peak of our energy, which can help you to feel safer in your own skin.
Just as everything in nature blooms and expands in outer summer, your inner summer can be your time to creatively shine. Chloé shared how cycle awareness has helped her surrender to the truth that we are nature-based beings, and we love how this nature-connection was expressed in the lead character of Hamnet, Agnes, particularly in her birthing scene underneath the gigantic tree - talk about Wild Power!
The Critical Discernment of the Inner Autumn (the pre-menstruum)
And finally, we land in inner autumn, where our truth-telling capacity is strengthened. We loved hearing how Chloé channels her premenstrual knowing in her filmmaking process, by telling her team, “I’m premenstrual right now, so I’m extra discerning and you need to take me seriously, but we don’t need to necessarily act on it right away.” A skillful channelling of autumnal power.
She also spoke about what the composting energy of the inner autumn has taught her about how to embody creative dissolution and rejuvenation. We don’t want to give away any spoilers about the film, but it’s safe to say that death and rebirth serves as a profoundly moving theme in Hamnet.
Would you like support to get to know your inner seasons, to go to the next level?
The capacity to work with your cycle to support your creative process begins with becoming more intimate and connected to the inner seasons, exactly as they are alive in you.
You can find your copy of our book Wild Power here.
