I have been meaning to research the topic of menstruation and how it relates to the Pagan religion for quite some time now. I will not be giving any disclaimers to men about this topic. Bottom line, it is immature for any man on this planet not to be comfortable with the fact that women have periods. A woman's body is quite possibly the most beautiful thing on this Earth. Love your woman, her body, and her bodies cycles. After all, she is the one who will carry your child for 9 months and give birth to your precious miracles.
To be honest, I hate society and this disgusting media soaked epidemic. Men are looked upon as hero's, the strong ones, and the alpha gender. I call bullshit on that one. Are you kidding me? I go through hell with my period every month. I have awful cramps, headaches, bloating, hot flashes/chills, I am pissy, and I need chocolate...NOW! I go through all of this now just so one day my belly will be so huge that I won't even be able to see my own feet, let alone get off the couch by myself. I go through all of this now so that I can sit in a hospital bed screaming for dear life as I endure excruciating pain to give birth to an amazing new life. Trust me, I think having my period is totally worth it. My point is men have it easy! All they contribute in this process is one lone sperm. So let's just be honest, we kind of are the alpha gender. We are the "life givers" ladies, without us men would be extinct!
I am lucky enough to have a husband who cherishes all of me. "I can't tonight, I am on my period" is never a sentence heard in our home. Ladies, if your man does not want to get it on during this time....I am afraid he has a lot of growing up to do. A little blood never hurt anyone, in fact it is pure magic! To quote Estelle R. Ramey, "In man, the shedding of blood is always associated with injury, disease, or death. Only the female half of humanity was seen to have the magical ability to bleed profusely and still rise phoenix-like each month from the gore."
As most of you know by now, I practice solitary. I am not linked to a Coven with rules like "no one can enter the circle while bleeding". Oh dear Goddess, what is this, the dark ages all over again? Give me a damn break! In my personal practice, my spiritual awareness,my intuition, my ability to see the "truth" is extremely heightened during my menstrual cycle. This is my favorite time to do ritual and celebration as I feel the Goddess has blessed me with the gift, the gift to give life to another. I will not step out of the circle and watch from the side lines...I simply refuse. In my Maiden phase, I want to celebrate the possibility of some day entering my Mother phase. I refuse to call the blood of life a curse (no matter how bloody painful it can be!).
I have pretty much always had the opinions listed above, but I wanted to dig deeper and discover the ancient lore. I discovered that menstruation is much like the Dark Moon. It is a time of psychic and magic openness, and a time of extreme power for women. It is said that at the end of bleeding a woman is said to be energetically reborn.
Menstrual blood has been linked to the phases of the moon for many centuries. As most of you know, menstrual blood is said to be a powerful ingredient in love potions and charms. Indians of South America said all humans were made of "Moon Blood" in the beginning. In Mesopotamia, the Great Goddess created people out of clay dolls and smeared them with menstrual blood. Adam translates as bloody clay. The Greeks believed the wisdom of man or god was centered in his blood which came from his mother. Egyptian pharaohs became divine by ingesting the blood of Isis called sa. It's hieroglyphic sign was the same as the sign of the vulva, a yonic loop like the one on the ankh. In ancient societies, menstrual blood carried authority, transmitting lineage of the clan or tribe. Among the Ashanti, girl children are more prized than boys because a girl is the carrier of the blood. Chinese sages called menstrual blood the essence of Mother Earth, the yin principle giving life to all things. A born-again ceremony from Australia showed the Aborigines linked rebirth with blood of the womb. Post-menopausal women were often the wisest because they retained their "wise blood". In the 17th century these old women were constantly persecuted for witch craft because their menstrual blood remained in their veins.
It has been shown that calendar consciousness developed first in women because their natural body rhythms corresponded to observations of the moon. Chinese women established a lunar calendar 3000 years ago. Mayan women understood the great Maya calendar was based on menstrual cycles. Romans called the calculation of time menstruation, meaning knowledge of the menses. In Gaelic, menstruation and calendar are the same word.
The lunar calendar's thirteen 28-day months had four 7-day weeks, marking the new, waxing, full, and waning moons. Thirteen months is 364 days. Pagan traditions describe an annual cycle as a 13 months and a day. Even today, Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. The 13 month calendar also led to pagan reverence for the number 13 and the Christian attempts to demolish it. Generally, the ancient symbols of matriarchy were the night, moon and 13. Patriarchy (under Christianity) honored the day, the sun and 12.
I leave you with this quote by Camille Paglia " It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination — unstanchable as that red flood may be — but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself."
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