Adriana Forte is a Brazilian-born writer, facilitator, and developmental thinker currently based in a rural intentional community in Bellingen, New South Wales, Australia. Originally trained as a journalist, Adriana has spent years investigating the intersection of women’s cyclical biology, embodied knowing, and the structures of modern life. She runs retreats and workshops through her Substack platform C-Lab (A Lab for a Cyclically Informed Society), and is currently completing a book on the spell of modernity and the role of the matriarch as a force for cultural repair.
In this conversation, I sit down with Adriana to explore one of the most under-examined questions in contemporary culture: what happens when society is built around a linear, continuous model of productivity — and half the population runs on a fundamentally cyclical one? Drawing on her own journey from Brazil through Hong Kong and India to off-grid life in rural Australia, Adriana maps the hormonal landscape of the female cycle and argues that the oscillation between estrogen and progesterone doesn’t just produce moods — it produces a distinct mode of subjectivity, perception, and thought. We explore the cultural erasure of rites of passage, the psychological costs of the contraceptive pill, the wisdom encoded in perimenopause and menopause, and why Adriana believes the matriarch — the post-menopausal woman — may be the missing counter-energy to the relentless forward drive of modernity. The conversation moves through evolutionary biology, embodied philosophy, grassroots community-building, and genuine hope for a more rhythmically intelligent future.
Check out Adriana’s work:
⏳ Timestamps:
0:00 Intro - Our Bellingen Connection
5:41 How Adriana ended up on this journey
12:56 Critique of Modernity and Birth Interventions
15:23 Rhythms and female psychology
24:38 A map of the menstrual cycle
39:11 The Influence of Modernity on Women’s Psyche
45:59 Transgender and phenomenology of hormones
52:01 The oscillating nature of female psychology
59:25 The spell of the System on modern psychology
1:09:15 The challenge of organising around cyclical society
1:15:03 Adriana’s Matriarch Book
1:18:43 Where to get more from Adriana
1:19:39 Adriana’s Guest Recommendation
