Blood Mysteries, Pt. II - Introduction

Blood Mysteries - the subject that is most dear to my heart. What are Blood Mysteries I hear you ask? They are what make woman sacred and special and they have been ignored and maligned over the past few centuries to the degree of women hating their bodies at "that time of the month". Not me - I adore my body at that time of the month (sort of hehe), I try take time out of my hectic pace of this life to totally honour and acknowledge my body.
What so many of us have forgotten is that the blood of our bodies - in specific our wombs - is the blood of life and without this blood there would be not creation of new life. If our bodies did not generate this magnificent elixir then no egg would be produced and no seed could be planted to take root and grow into a new entity.

So why then is this life force treated as if it is dirty and evil? That is the question that has haunted women for so many years but which I hope, as we enter the new millenium, can be answered and women can once more be allowed and encouraged to honour the very source of life.

But how does one do this in the world as we know it. It isn't easy but it needs to be done for women to connect on a deeper level with who they are.

Mystery is defined as that which is beyond understanding, that which baffles or perplexes, that which is profound and known only by revelation. When we speak of women's Blood Mysteries, we are referring to the biological events of Menarche, Childbirth, and Menopause that are accompanied by changed perspective and the influx of knowledge beyond reason. We don't know why we change and grow and acquire knowledge so dramatically at these times, but we do--this is the Mystery. And as we share this knowledge, the revelations linked to changes in our bodies, we reclaim the power and wisdom inherent in being women.

Menarche is a prime example of how mystery has accorded women power and respect. Before the advent of science, menstruation was biologically confounding -- how could women bleed thus, and not be injured? This must be magic, the ability of women to bleed and yet be well! Long before conception was understood to require fertilization, women were thought to generate life simply by withholding their menstrual blood in an autonomous feminine process. The sexual act was not linked to conception. Women were apparently stirred by spirit, then retained their blood, gestated and brought forth new life. Thus menopause was viewed not as a loss, but as an increase of power--older women permanently retained their blood and so transcended the cycle of death and rebirth; they became as the source of creation.

But when Christianity recast women's bodies as evil, the source of original sin, the womb ceased to be a sacred temple and the Blood Mysteries were no longer acknowledged. And as science deconstructed human beings to a set of physiological functions, medical technology developed to further separate body and spirit. Now we have tools to "aid" the birth process, medications to "ease" menstruation or override the effects of menopause, surgery to extirpate women of their wombs. We seek to tame and dominate the forces of nature: we plant crops that deplete the soil, we raze our forests and pollute our waters. This would be unthinkable in a world that reveres the feminine.

This is not to deny that technology has its benefits -- contraception has been a boon, and women's lives have been saved in complicated childbirth or pathological gynecological situations.

But we have lost the Mystery. Reclaiming women's blood rites as profound psychological turning points is the foundation of revealing new, empowering archetypes for women, and rediscovering our most ancient ones.

~Source Unknown~