Blood Mysteries


In the beginning, according to the Wise Woman tradition, everything
began, as everything does, at birth. The Great Mother of All gave birth
and the earth appeared out of the void. Then the Great Mother of All
gave birth again, and again, and again, and people, and animals, and
plants appeared on the earth. They were all very hungry. “What
shall we eat?” they asked the Great Mother. “Now you eat me,”
she said, smiling. Soon there were a very great many lives, but the
Great Mother of All was enjoying creating and giving birth so much that
she didn’t want to stop. “Ah,” she said smiling, “now
I eat you.” And so she still does.

We all come from the same mother. She is the wise woman. We all return
to her embrace, her bloody-rich womb place, when we die. Every woman
is a whole/holy form of her, able to be whole/holy mother of all life,
able to be whole/holy destroyer of life. Her power is her blood that
flows and flows, her blood which is life and gives life. Every woman’s
menstrual blood and birth-time blood is a holy mystery.

What are the blood mysteries? Why are they central to the understanding
of the Wise Woman tradition.

Blood mysteries teach that menstrual blood and birthing blood are holy
blood, power blood, healing blood. The blood mysteries teach us to remember
that life and healing come from and return to woman, to the wise woman,
to the woman who bleeds and bleeds. And does not die.

Blood mysteries reveal that menstrual (moontime) blood and birth blood
are so holy, so full of potential, so full of the void, that they are
to be used only to heal, to heal by nourishing. Holy woman-blood is
nourishing blood, blood of love, blood of abundance, blood that heals
the earth.

Blood mysteries recall the immense power of the bleeding woman. Power
enough to share in great nourishing give-away from mother to matrix,
give-away of nourisher to nourisher. When we bleed into the ground (in
reality or fantasy) our power regrounds as our blood flows through the
personal root chakra and into the earth.

Bleeding into the ground, bleeding freely, we know ourselves as women,
as nourishers of life, as givers of nourishment to the plants, givers
of holy nourishment: our moontime blood.

I am woman giving away nourishment to ensure this planet’s life. With
my moontime power, my blood, with my birthing power, my blood, I feed
the earth who feeds us all. Every month I remember: I am woman. I am
earth. I am life. I am nourishment. I am change.

I am woman, blatantly and repeatedly confronted with my changes: hormonal
harmonics stirring moon time visions, ovulatory oracles, pre-menstrual
crazies, orgasmic knowings, birth ecstasies, breast-feeding bliss, menopausal
moods.

I am wholeness. I am woman. I know life, death, pain, and health in
my marrow, in my womb. I know the bloody places: the narrow space between
life and death, the bloody place of birth, the bloody mess of nourishing
life, the bloody flow of letting life go. I am woman. My blood is power.
Peaceful power. Peaceful blood.

My blood is holy nourishment. My blood nourishes the growing fetus.
My blood becomes milk to nourish the young child. My blood flows into
the ground as holy nourishment for the Great Mother, Gaia, Mother Earth.

Gaia, whose ways are bloody. Woman, whose ways are bloody. Blood of
nourishment. But bloody. Bloody menstrual blood, bloody birth blood.
Blood of peace, nourishing blood. Blood of health/wholeness/holiness,
not of sacrifice. The Wise Woman tradition is a bloody-handed woman,
a bloody-thighed woman, a woman who gives birth, a woman who sees to
the other side of things.

Health/wholeness/holiness is always changing. Life is mysterious, moving
in spirals of change. Spirals moving to, through, from the void. Change
making the hole so we can see the holy healthy gift of our wholeness.

“Sit, sister, here on the soft green moss, and give your sacred
moon blood to the earth, back again to the spiral of life. Let flow
your womb’s blood red to the green and brown of earth. Sit here. Relax
and close your eyes and let the visions come. Rest now and give your
moon blood to nourish the mother who nourishes us. Relax and let the
visions come.”

The time of menstrual bleeding, according to the Wise Woman tradition,
is a time of visions. Any woman who pays attention to these visions
will find the power of shamans, witch doctors, medicine wo/men.

“Add a bit of red leaf to your herbal mixtures, any red leaf except
poison ivy. That will make the medicine strong,” says a friend,
apprentice to a Native American shaman. And the wise woman inside me
whispers: “They do this to evoke the power of menstrual blood.”

These are the natural powers of menstruating, menopausal, and post-menopausal
women:

* Oneness with the earth as a responsive nurturing presence
* Communication with plants, animals, rocks
* Weather making
* Shape shifting
* Invisibility
* Communication with fairies, devas, elves, dragons, unicorns
* Foreknowledge
* Acutely sensitive senses of smell, taste, hearing, sight, touch
* Healing

The Wise Woman tradition understands healing/wholing as blood mysteries.
The blood of birth and death, and the blood of nourishment, these are
the natural knowledge of women, these are the things that make us wise.

 

About the Author:
Susun Weed, green witch and wise woman, is an extraordinary teacher with a
joyous spirit, a powerful presence, and an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs
and health. She is the voice of the Wise Woman Way, where common weeds,
simple ceremony, and compassionate listening support and nourish
health/wholeness/holiness. She has opened hearts to the magic and medicine
of the green nations for three decades. Ms. Weed’s four herbal medicine
books focus on women’s health topics including: menopause, childbearing,
and breast health. Visit her site www.susunweed.com for information on her
workshops, apprenticeships, correspondence courses and more! Browse the
publishing site www.ashtreepublishing.com to learn more about her
alternative health books. Venture into the Menopause site
www.menopause-metamorphosis.com to learn all about the Menopausal Years the
Wise Woman Way.

Liked this article?
Support Susun’s work and Spiritualitea by purchasing one of these superb
books(these links will go to amazon):
Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Healing Wise
Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way
Breast Cancer? Breast Health!

For permission to reprint this article, contact us at: susunweed@hvc.rr.com
or Susun Weed, PO Box 64, Woodstock, NY 12498 (845-246-8081)

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