Bursting

What happens when one woman’s body flat-out refuses to perform anymore and takes the whole HOA down with her.

In her landmark work The Chalice and the Blade, Riane Eisler argued that civilizations organize themselves around one of two impulses: the blade — rank, control, surveillance, order performed in place of connection — or the chalice — partnership, mutual dignity, and a devotion to something larger than status. Bursting is what happens when a fifty-year-old woman, without meaning to, chooses the chalice — and a manicured California suburb has no idea what’s about to hit it.