Blood Language

Menstruation ties us to the land in ways we've all but forgotten

- LAAKKULUK WILLIAMSON BATHORY

IN PRE-CHRISTIAN TIMES, the markers of the passage of time for Inuit included:

The tides (every six hours)

The sunrise and the moonrise (every twelve hours, outside of the extremes of each in the summer and winter)

The moon himself (evolving every week)

Piturniq, when tides are highest and lowest at the new and full moons (every two weeks)

The seasons (cycling every two months)

Winters, which are so prominent and long in the Arctic

Uteruses (cycling every month in times of plenty).

I HAVE TWO tattooed lines across the tops of my hand to thank sila, the universe, for giving me the moment when all time stopped as a polar bear's eyes directly engaged with mine.

She had stood up to look through the upper-floor window of our cabin, and I had unwittingly stuck my head out. Her glistening black nose was just a few centimetres from mine. My tiny hands and her giant paws gripped the same piece of wood.

I was filled with admiration; she was so different from most animals I know. Her ears were perked forward, and I felt no animosity from this massive being.

Underneath her translucent white hairs, I could see her black skin. Her nose flared with huge flexibility as she breathed my essence in. Her eyes filled with curiosity-So this is human, I could feel her think. I saw her recognizing my smell from other places she had explored. She had never had to fear a thing in her life, and she studied me with a type of intelligence I could only grasp at.

In the midst of this moment, I felt my humanness, the nanoq felt her nanoqness, and each of us recognized that even though our worlds were now touching, we were completely separate beings. This forever moment broke as my husband's feet caused the bottom rungs of the ladder that leads up to our bed to creak. I snapped my head back inside.