The Cry of Dying Nature and Women

Nature encompasses femininity, and femininity encompasses nature. Flowers, fruits, and seeds mimic the reproductive biology of the female form. Lunar and menstrual cycles are deeply intertwined, with the Moon taking place as the highest symbol of the divine feminine. Indigenous tribes of North America called her Grandmother Moon, and menstrual cycles were a sacred period of cleansing of all physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental ailments. The 28-day lunar cycle matching with two categories of menstrual cycles: the white moon cycle, bleeding with the new moon, and the red moon cycle, bleeding with the full moon. We are creatures of rhythmic cycles, our four phases of the menstrual cycle coinciding with the four seasons of nature. Women across the world have been exploring their femininity through different mediums of art for thousands of years. By allowing the bridge between femininity and nature to collide into one physical form, female artists give us the gift of viewing such a beautiful existence that few are unable to even recognize. Ana Mendieta is one of many female artists who have asserted the feminine form as sacred and powerful through her art. She defines her earth/body works as carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and female body. In her Earth Art Manifesto, Ana Mendieta stated, “My art is grounded on the belief in one universal energy which runs through all being and matter, all space and time. My works are the irrigation veins of this universal fluid. Through them ascend the ancestral sap, the original beliefs, the primordial accumulations, the unconscious urges that animate the world. There is no past to redeem: there is the void, the orphanhood, the unbaptized earth of the beginning, the time that from within the earth looks upon us. There is above all the search for origin”. In her Silueta series, Mendieta physically embedded her own body into the ground. She pressed her body’s form into beaches, fields, and archaeological sites to leave imprints that acted as spiritual connections to the earth. She often utilized natural materials like mud, flowers, fire, and blood for these sculptures to emphasize the universal feminine force within nature. The human body and nature are simply extensions of each other; the artist becomes one with the earth, and the earth merges with the body. 

Concrete and steel become a suffocating environment for creatures that are indissoluble with nature. How can we reconnect with our femininity if nature is being destroyed? Our menstrual cycles have fallen out of synch with the moon. Our internal biology is being manipulated by the overwhelming infestation of LED lights and glowing screens. Fed with artificial light, our stems grow, but the branches are weak. An ancient linkage to the lunar cycles, broken by the hands of industrialization. In the face of ecological destruction, we can see a clear parallel between the systems of oppression against women and the environment. As powerful men continue to gain control over our ecosystems, waters, and land, they continue to gain control over our bodies, autonomy, and reproductive rights. The degradation of the environment and women will continue to starkly rise; there’s no productivity in sugar coating the hard truth. Alongside that, women will continue making art and will do so loudly. There is power in femininity within art spaces because it forces people to face the violence that they chose to ignore.