Episode 11: Dreams, the Female Cycle, and Navigational Corrections
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You’re about to meet another teacher dear to my heart, Geraldine Matus. She is founder and academic director of Justisse College International. Like Bob Quinn (Episode 5), she’s a holistic healthcare provider who is passionate about dreams and the symbolic realm. You’ll hear her share insights from decades of work in reproductive health and with dreams.
I met Geraldine in 2006, when I began studying Fertility Awareness to become certified as a Justisse Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner. Ever since I had started using Fertility Awareness for natural birth control a few years earlier, I’d wanted to learn it well enough to teach others.
I’ve loved teaching the Justisse Method. My favorite thing about it has been witnessing a sense of empowerment and possibility open up for people who had never thought they could have a knowledgable, intimate relationship with their own fertility. As my work has moved more fully into dreamwork and practicing Chinese Medicine for people with illness and injury, I do much less with Fertility Awareness.
When I talked to Geraldine about this shift in my work, I was excited to hear more about her own deep love of dreams and the realm of symbolism, and I’m excited to share that with you now.
Click Play on the player above now to listen in. Or, read on for more about Geraldine and what you’ll hear in the episode.
Since 1977, Geraldine has practiced as a Fertility Awareness Educator and been active in the reproductive health freedoms movement. In 1987, she founded the Justisse Method of Fertility Awareness.
Geraldine has been a Depth Psychologist since 2003. At Pacifica Graduate Institute, she completed her doctoral work, titled The World’s Geography of Love (2014). In it she describes the transformation mysteries through the “feminine incorporatio.” She writes about women’s beauty and blood
mysteries, and their connection to love as the glutinum mundi (glue of
the world), as healing factors.
One of her early “big dreams,” which she had around the time that she became a mother, helped Geraldine find her way onto this path of integrating Fertility Awareness, functional medicine and depth psychology. She shares that dream in this episode.
We also talk about:
- her tenacious respect for the symbolic life, even though she experienced profound rejection because of that
- our “daemon,” or soulful purpose, and how we can override it when we’re busy whipping our bodies into shape to get things done
- dreams that give a “navigational correction” vs. dreams that say “you’re on the wrong ship, on the wrong ocean”
- dreaming and the female reproductive cycle (I ask her, Is the “veil thinner” during menstruation?)
- and one of my own dreams during pregnancy.
At the beginning of the episode, I give a few brief definitions related to the female cycle. To prepare you for what we get into in the second half of the episode, let me give you quick overview:
- The “period,” or menstruation, is the beginning of a new cycle.
- After that, eggs start maturing, and eventually, one is released in the event we call “ovulation.”
- The days from menstruation until ovulation are called the “pre-ovulation phase.” Geraldine talks about the types of dreams she’s seen during the “pre-ovulation phase.”
- Ovulation is a turning point. If a pregnancy is going to happen, it begins at the time of ovulation. If it doesn’t happen, then about two weeks later, the next period comes.
- The week or so before the period starts we call the “pre-menstrual” phase, which is when “PMS” can happen. You’ll hear us talk about how these days could also be a time of early pregnancy, but the person wouldn’t know for sure that they’re pregnant until their period doesn’t come.
- Geraldine discusses how dreams have a different quality in the pre-menstrual phase as compared to early in a new pregnancy
Okay, that should help our conversation make more sense!
Learn more about Geraldine here: https://www.worldsgeographyoflove.com/
Find the PDF of her dissertation here: The World’s Geography of Love
Learn more about Fertility Awareness here: http://www.fertilityawarenessprofessionals.com/what-is-fertility-awareness/
To listen, scroll on up and hit Play. After you listen, leave a comment below with any thoughts you want to share, dreams of your own that come to mind, or questions. Enjoy!
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