A call to action for
women who bleed (please pass on).
October 21, 2001
Dear Women of Power,
Those of us women who are in the menstrual phase of our lives may be
wasting one of the most precious resources we have for healing world
conflict: our menstrual blood.
On October 20, I attended a workshop led by Barbara Marciniak, one
of the high priestesses in the United States who serves in the ancient
fashion as oracle and sybil. She put out a call, which I am disseminating
for her, that every month at the time of their menstruation, women offer
some of their menstrual blood to the earth in a self-designed ritual.
Women should pour their blood onto the earth at this time, with the
stated intention of calling the energies of the goddesses and helpful
ancestors to the planet to end violence and effect the healing of all
the who would perpetrate violent acts and all who are suffering as a
result of violence.
The rationale behind doing so is this: menstrual blood is a very powerful
magical substance for attracting healing energies. In the United States,
Vicki Noble was the first scholar to bring this information to public
consciousness in her 1991 book, Shakti Woman. She stated that Tibetan
lamas, Native American peoples, and Gnostic worshipers, among many others,
understood this as common knowledge and regularly used menstrual blood
in their rituals as offerings to the earth, the community, and the goddess.
Judy Grahn in Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the
World (1993) and Lara Owen in Her Blood is Gold (1993), wrote similarly
about the ancient understanding of menstrual blood. And we have the
excellent anthropological work of Chris Knight in Blood Relations :
Menstruation and the Origins of Culture (1991), which provides a wealth
of information on the use of menstrual blood around the world in ritual.
While many contemporary women have already been using their menstrual
blood in ritual fashion, it is now time for more of us to come to an
awakening about the true power of our blood and to use it responsibly
for the strange and threatening times in which we are now finding ourselves.
The ritual could be very simple: place your pads, tampons, or sponges
in a container of water; go out to your yard or a spot in nature and
pour the water onto the earth, calling upon the power of the goddess
to be present and to activate her healing energies in the world. Then,
of course, dispose of your tampons and pads properly.
It is time for us to use menstrual blood, our most sacred resource,
in the ways that all of our ancestors did. It is time for those of us
who are not awakened to the reality of the otherworldly realms to awaken
and to communicate responsibly with those realms for the good of all
of existence. It is time for us to overcome our shame and squeamishness
around menstrual blood and claim the power that it and all of us as
women possess.
Do not underestimate the reality and power that performing such a ritual
will have! Remember the ancient ways! Remember!
At the very least, know that by pouring your menstrual blood onto the
earth, you will be fertilizing all of the plant life you touch.
Please pass this e-mail on to all women; let us send this e-mail around
the planet. Let us have it eventually reach the Afghani women, who are
so desperately in need of ways in which they could begin to reclaim
their power. If anyone has connections to Eve Ensler and the organization
she has formed around her play The Vagina Monologues, please pass this
call on to her, as well, and ask her to pass it on to other women through
her organization.
The time is now. Let us reclaim our blood
power. Let us no longer bleed in vain. Our very survival may depend
on it.
In sisterhood,
Marguerite Rigoglioso
Oakland, CA
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