Skip to main content

Gravitational Pull: From Period Products to Our New North Star

Every once in a while, the universe gives you a tug. Not a gentle tap on the shoulder—a full-on gravitational yank that pulls you out of whatever orbit you thought you were in.

That’s what happened with the newest episode of Bubble & Squeak.

I started out thinking I was doing a simple story about menstrual cups. You know, the kind of lighthearted “Peterson learns about a very normal thing embarrassingly late in life” tale. But once you follow a thread like that, it drags you into bigger questions:

  • Who gets access to the products they need?

  • How many girls are missing school because they can’t afford pads?

  • Why is period poverty still a global crisis in 2025?

So I followed the thread. It pulled me through Connecticut food pantries, a refugee camp in Kakuma, and across conversations with women who are out there doing the real work: Christine Garde Denning, Mary Maker, Fran Stoffer, and my cousin Mona—each in her own way shaping the world for women and girls in need.

And then, because this is Bubble & Squeak, things take a cosmic turn.


Suddenly I’m in Richmond, Virginia, under a wobbling sky, volunteering as Dark Matter (yes, really) in an interplanetary ritual welcoming Earth’s next North Star. Artist George Ferrandi’s long-brewing project Jump!Star cracks open something ancient, playful, and wildly hopeful. It’s not every day you help carry a glowing sculpture in a ceremony meant for people who won’t be born for another thousand years.

Also in this episode: a gorgeous, unsettling reading of Catherine Pierce’s climate poem Anthropocene Pastoral. You can find more of her work at CatherinePiercePoet.com and her creative community at Studio & Craft.

So yes, this one stretches—from bathrooms to galaxies, from period products to Polaris’s successor.
But that’s the thing about a gravitational pull: once it hooks you, you’re going wherever it leads.

🎧 Listen to  Bubble and Squeak “Gravitational Pull” now on Spotify or wherever you get podcasts

Location: Sunbury, PA 17801, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Gay Husband--A Spouse Speaks Out

The other day I received the following e-mail from Susanne, a woman who found out her some years ago that her husband has same-sex attractions. I felt so moved by her words that I asked her permission to share them with you on the blog. I (recently) saw your Doin Time... and I was the one who asked about your wife during the discussion period that followed. I just read your thoughts on What About the Spouse ....and I can say, most women who find out their husbands are gay feel ALL of those things you wondered about....some in more degrees than others... When my husband was dragged out of the closet because of his irreverent, immoral, and amoral behavior that our, then, 14 and 16 year old sons had to find on our home computer, I went into the closet. I didn't know what to pray for.... Do I pray that this will go away? Do I pray that he could go back to the way things were in our family before we knew about him,? Do I pray that I could go back to the way things were? After all ,...
122 comments
Read more

The False Image of LIA

John Smid and me-Graduation 1998 (above) & John Smid today (left) By now many have heard that Tennessee's Department of Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities determined that the "ex-gay" program, Love in Action, is operating two “unlicensed mental health supportive living facilities”. LIA has until Friday, September 23 to respond. If LIA statements in Eartha Jane Melzer's article are indicative to how the "change" program might respond, we may see LIA change right before our eyes from a clinical mental health compound into a house of praise and worship. Gerard Wellman, business administrator for Love in Action, and a former Love in Action client, said Sept. 13 that the organization has been in contact with the state but would not comment further. “As a church, we operate under a different set of rules,” Wellman said. Curious, and what rules might these be? What is even more curious is that according to LIA's site only one staff member ...
158 comments
Read more

Puzzled

Last night I performed Transfigurations-Transgressing Gender in the Bible at Imago Dei Metropolitan Community Church in Glen Mills, PA (about 15 miles outside of Philly). I had a diverse audience of about 45 people -- college students, Quakers, straight, bi, trans and lesbian, young and old. I took my time with the piece maintaining a gentle meditative pace. For the ending when I reveal the identity of the narrator, I had instructed the light tech to dim the lights. Then as the closing music swelled, I asked her to raise the lights to their brigthest intensity. With the music playing, I exited. Always (up until last night) at this point the audience applauds, I wait 5 seconds then come out to take a bow. Last night I exited and then nothing. No one clapped. They sat quietly as the music played. I stood back stage puzzled, baffled. Now what do I do? Wait? Go out anyway? And I wondered for a moment, Did they hate it? Did I confuse them? Offend them? Bore them into a coma? After what ...
18 comments
Read more