I wrote this prayer in 2015. I was pouring my menstrual blood into the earth – a practice I had come to regularly use as a way of honouring my moontime, the earth, and the greater cycles of creation.
There’s so much taboo and disgust about our menstrual blood. And it’s completely natural. It’s a natural detox each cycle for women, and honouring this can significantly expand our consciousness, giving a genuine feeling of being part of the all and everything.
Our blood is not waste. Our babies grow in it, our blood takes out toxins, clearing the womb for us to bring life through. It’s medicine, it is life itself.
And most of us were taught to contain it, clean it, hide it and get on with it, in a way that disconnected us from the whole process of releasing this sacred elixir.
When we touch our blood, shame dissolves, taboo expires and a remembering begins.
Suggested Practice
Gather your blood, touch it, feel it, anoint yourself with it – and then give it back to the earth.
Over 3 cycles, this can have a profound effect. This isn’t an exaggeration, rather, an ancient practice that can help us come back home to ourselves.
From one Mother to Another
From my body to yours
From one Womb to Creation
I give of my blood.
By MELANIE SWAN
This prayer and photograph were displayed as part of an exhibition on Saturday 7th March 2015 for International Womens’ Day, at the Birley, Preston, by Claire Doyle, conceptual and visual artist.
