LUCY PEACH IS A PERIOD QUEEN
SUBJECT Lucy Peach
OCCUPATION Folk singer and writer
INTERVIEWER Berry Liberman
PHOTOGRAPHER Liz Looker
LOCATION Fremantle, Australia
DATE July, 2020
I’m embarrassed. I’ll say it up front. I didn’t know that I needed to have a conversation about my period at age 41. I’ve been having my period for 30 years and the framing around it has always been: “there is a dreaded zone when I bleed, and then three weeks around it when I don’t.” Just before the Great Bleed, everything starts to hurt and there’s usually a few days when The End of the World is Nigh. Without a proper cultural framing around the menstrual cycle, women are alone in a permanent rhythm of confusion, anticipation, shame, awkwardness and isolation. What we are missing is a modern discourse that empowers all of us – men and women – around the potential and genius of the menstrual cycle. A conversation about how it carries us through very specific emotional and physical phases, so that if viewed as seasons, with particular qualities, it’s possible to show up to our own creativity, relationships and personal power with patience and honouring.
My conversation with Lucy Peach spoke to so much of this need. It came about because I was having one of my power-through-itget-shit-done-drowning-in-fatigue moments, and my friend Danielle Caruana said I should structure my month around my cycle – be more compassionate with myself and track my schedule with my body’s truth. It didn’t sound self-indulgent, no crystals were involved. It was about honouring the cycle as a guide, as a way of deepening my work and befriending myself more. Here was an opportunity to work through the deep shame – indeed, the anger – I still felt around having my capacity reduced once a month: the fact that I can’t be performing to capacity ALL THE TIME. This tender and excellent framing came from Lucy, a musician based in Fremantle who has been researching, writing and talking about the power of the women’s cycle for some years. She taught me so much in our chat that I immediately went out and bought her book, Period Queen, and began talking to my daughter about how our periods contain amazing hidden superpowers.
LUCY PEACH: What day are you Berry?
BERRY LIBERMAN: I knew you were going to ask me! Day four. Okay. I haven’t worked out a way of asking people what day they’re on that doesn’t feel like it’s a test. People are often surprised. They’re like, “Oh!” But it’s a way of understanding what that person might need and where they’re at.
Yeah, I took it as a compassionate question. What day are you? Twenty-five. So I’ve definitely tipped over into the final countdown.
Which is what season? So it’s the last phase of your cycle when you’re premenstrual. It’s what I call the “take” phase because your hormones are dropping, you’re getting ready to let go and it’s time to take what you need before you do it all again. The seasonal equivalent is autumn. Leaves are falling, there’s fruit all over the ground. It’s time to gather before you go to ground and to collect whatever’s worth saving and chuck away the rest.
Mm. That is beautiful. You know, I’m 42 years old. Mother of three. Had my period since I was 11. And honestly when my friend Danielle said, “Oh you’ve got to listen
