RECLAIMING MENSTRUATION:
FROM SHAMEFUL TO SACRED SERIES
3: Ritualize Your Space
Ritual: Offering Your Life Blood Back to the Earth
This is the one ritual I share with every client because it has the capacity to heal our relationship with our blood and all that is symbolizes for us. I first learned it from my dear teacher Dr. Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, author of Yoni Shakti: A Women’s Guide to Power and Freedom Through Yoga and Tantra.
So often we shy away from, turn away from and tuck away the presence of our menstrual blood. It’s as if we are afraid to look at it, to actually see our Feminine power, to look her in the dark and proverbial face.
It’s important to recognize that, if we have shame or feel fearful of being with our blood, this is a learned behaviour and perception. You were not born ashamed and afraid, you were taught to be, either directly or indirectly, and this disconnect is the root of so many of our collective ailments.
But we can release this programming now and alchemize our entire experience of our cycle with this simple ritual.
How?
This ritual does something really radical to us: it indirectly (and often mysteriously) reforms our perception of our womb blood.
Our menstrual blood is the yoni pushpam, the flower of the womb; it is a symbol of fertility and the creative force of life itself. Its presence is worth celebrating just by the sheer power it represents.
And if we were hoping to have conceived and are met instead with the presence of our blood, we can soothe our hearts in the flow by offering it back to the earth and reaffirming our intentions to conceive life when the time is ripe.
This simple ritual is a way to recognize our creative Feminine power by honouring its presence through our womb blood, and offering that lifeblood back to the earth. In this way, we complete the cycle of receiving and offering, and our lifeblood does not go to waste but is esteemed, enjoyed and returned to its source.
CAUTION: this ritual is not for you if you’re not interested in spiritual evolution…
How to do it
Collect a bit of your menstrual blood.
You can do this fairly easily by using a menstrual cup, and pouring the blood from the cup into a beautiful glass vessel or bowl. When the time is right for you, mix your blood with some water and feed it to your houseplants or to a tree or bush that you feel connected with.
You can learn more about menstrual cups here (I do not get paid to tell you about these cups).
If you have re-usable cotton pads, you could rinse them out in a pail of water and keep the water to feed houseplants or the earth herself. (I also do not get paid to tell you about these cotton pads. So many options for all resuable menstrual products!)
You could also collect a few drops of blood by simply bringing your fingers into the opening of your womb root, allowing them to be covered in your blood and then dipping your fingers into a bowl of water.
You only need a few drops to perform the ritual.
Once you have your ritual offering, you might feel called to offer it immediately. You may also feel called to wait until the next new or full moon to offer your yoni pushpam, or perhaps when you have a little more time and energy. As you offer it, you could reflect on the cycle that has just past and the new one that is now beginning, and give thanks or have a sigh of relief.
Plants L O V E receiving the abundant nutrients in the blood! Your blood is one of the best natural fertilizers for plant beings, and they will certainly thank you for it! I recommend offering it to the same plant(s) so that you can form an intimate relationship and connection with them through the cycles.
The Bhava (Inner Mood)
Your menstrual blood is a gift to you from the earth.
Offering our blood back to the earth is a signal of deep gratitude and reverence for life and the cycles we are all held within.
It is a celebration that we get to be co-creative with the earth and the power of life itself. It’s a celebration of your Feminine power.
It’s an offering with respect for the cycle that has just died, and the one that is now beginning. It’s a ritual of renewal, imbued with wisdom from the journey.
It’s an offering in gratitude for the earth and earthly energies, which sustain and support us in unconditional Love, and whom we can look to and trust in as an embodiment of cyclical wisdom.
It’s an offering to the inner waters and our holy selves.
We offer our blood so that we may be transmuted + alchemized.
It’s a beautiful way to ground your being and your visions into the earthly plane, so that you may be fully supported in consciousness and co-creation with the earth.
Your menstrual blood holds your very essence; it is your DNA, your inner water, the wisdom of Life that runs through you.
This is a wisdom that knows how to live because it knows how to die.
The more we recognize and respect this inner wisdom, the greater our connection with it becomes. Grounding ourselves in this earthly plane means that we are choosing not to escape anymore; we are choosing to be right here in this body, our skin, these bones + this force of Nature that is you.
It means we are going to LIVE what we came here to experience and EMBODY who we came here to be. Not all at once, but when the time is ripe…
In divine cyclical timing
Naked + unashamed
Ready + willing.
May this simple ritual nourish you and the spirit of the earth.
All my Love,
Jaylyn