Hi,everyone! This is an article I found in one of my favorite websites.Please,take a look.
Source: http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt
Blood Mysteries
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.
General Information
In creating this page I was confronted with the fact that although women's spirituality is a very strongly emerging presence today, there is extremely little information on that sacred mystery that makes women sacred and unique. This page is not just intended to focus on women's blood mysteries, but on the magick and mystery of blood in general. I had planned to start with women, as I am one.
It puzzled me as I searched the web, magazines, and books for distinguishable and accurate information regarding blood, especially women's blood, as I had not thought it a taboo any longer. But make no mistake, the information may not be readily in print, but it is there and has been for more years than any of us can comprehend. Ever since the first women humans have had the gift of sacred blood.
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. We all return to her embrace, bloody-rich womb place, when we die. Every woman is a whole/holy form of her. Every woman's blood is a holy mystery. The word "blood" is one with some mystery and stigma attached to it. It bothers no one to say the word "blood" when a person is cut and bleeding. It bothers no one to use the word "blood" in poetry and song. But it does begin to make people tense when we hear/see certain words spoken or written with of the word "blood". For example, "sacred blood" alerts most people immediately to a hushed and quiet sense of wrong or taboo. What about "blood mysteries"? That is equally shocking to some.
But blood is the elixer of life. Without it we cannot live. In fact, through the monthly cycles of blood shedding in women we realize that blood means fertility and is a metaphor for life itself. This is the beginning of blood as something sacred and blood as a mystery.
Blood mysteries teach that women's blood is holy blood, healing blood. The blood mysteries teach us to remember that life and healing comes from and returns to woman.
Every month we remember: I am woman. I am earth. I am life. I am nourishment. I am change. Even as women cycle monthly we each have patterns in that cycle. We may feel fatigued, creative, sad, happy, or introspective, for example, during certain patterned times throughout our cycle. Part of the scared mystery of this is realizing that these times are portals for magick and growth. By recognizing this we become more in touch with our bodies and our selves.
For too many years has the word "period" been hushed. We are women. We bleed. We also give life to every human being that has ever existed and ever will exist. When we hear terms like, "oh, she must be on the rag" to describe a woman's attitude it is demeaning to every woman. What person can presume to know what a woman feels or how her period affects her? That is especially no man's place to presume such things. Why, when a woman complains, is she a "bitch", or has PMS? When a man complains he is seen to be expressing justfiable woes, but a woman is called "bitch" or "nag" before what she has to say is even heard- have you ever asked yourself why that is? The answer is quite disturbing. Women, in this world, do not matter as much as men. This is not to say we need special treatment- we don't. But we live in a world oriented toward men... and it shows.
I am no feminist. At least not in the hard core sense. I enjoy a man who opens doors for me, yet I assume he knows I am capable of doing it myself. I enjoy when my husband will step forward and defend me if needed, although he and I both know I am quite capable of handling myself in any situation. I am not a "feminazi", but for those who are, I have realized the justification in that view. Women are not an extension of men. We are separate, equal, and magickal.
As a woman, I am 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 the bloody places: the narrow space between life and death, the mess of nourishing life, the flow of letting life go. The Wise Woman tradition is a bloody-handed woman, a bloody-thighed woman, a woman who sees to the other side of things.
All shamanic powers are the powers of women's blood mysteries. Shamanic powers are the natural powers of menstruating, menopausal, and post-menopausal women:
* Oneness with the earth, with Gaia, as a responsive nuturing 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
excerpt (modified) from Healing Wise
It is time for women to reclaim their strength.
The blood mysteries are important in daily life as well as for magickal purposes. The following pages hold ritual, magick, and perspective....
THE PURPOSE OF WOMEN’S RITUAL
To celebrate Women’s Mysteries is to reclaim and to re-sacralize our journey through the five blood mysteries. Although the blood mysteries are natural physiological occurrences, under patriarchy these passages have become tainted, even to ourselves, by being ignored, discounted, invalidated, and shamed through a cultural denial of women’s uterine blood and by the oppression of male-dominated religions. Women don’t even realize that they are being robbed of the opportunity for profound spiritual connection through the reverent celebration of their bodies. Under patriarchy, the natural cycles of womb blood are defined as unclean, polluting, and shameful when they are recognized at all. Because women are not permitted to consciously live in their bodies and must adapt to the artificial ways in which their lives are structured, there is an impact on the way women experience menstruation, pregnancy, birth, and menopause physically, emotionally, and psychically. Young girls are taught to hide the evidence of their monthly cycle, and most menopausal women experience this passage in silence, depression, and isolation. Historically, under patriarchy, the human body, and especially women’s bodies and their children, became men’s property. Women in most parts of the world today continue to suffer from the impact of this historical change. How have we women internalized that attitude in our own self-perception? To what extent does that historical change continue to affect us personally and collectively today? When the miracles of creation and transition have been so long denied to us, how can we begin to measure the depth of our loss, the absence of our birthright to recognize ourselves as reflections of the Goddess? Is it possible that the patriarchal legacy of ownership is the source of the disconnected feelings that so many women of today have with their bodies? If we don‘t feel that we truly belong to ourselves, how can we be truly present and aware of what we feel physically and emotionally?
The reclaiming and recreation of women’s rites takes the diverse threads of women’s lives and weaves them into a tapestry, a whole multi-colored cloth of physical, emotional, and spiritual health. Ritual provides a medium to convey meaning to ourselves through the manipulation of symbolic objects, specific activities, or actions; serving as a bridge to carry meaning to the personal or collective, conscious and subconscious mind. When ritual is consciously created and enacted, the women are transformed and the past, present, and future are linked into a continuum that can be observed, felt, and learned from. When life passages are clearly marked through ritual, we can "connect the dots of events in our lives" to see the pattern in what may have previously felt like a random series of events. We can observe, understand, and integrate those events that have shaped our attitudes about womanhood, sexuality, love, and life.
Although some people use the words ceremony and ritual interchangeably, ceremony describes a series of acts, often symbolic, as prescribed by law, religion, or state. Ceremony generally implies little to no improvisation, and is generally more rote, regimented, and concerned with the exact order of things and the precision of each enactment.
The purpose of ritual, on the other hand is transformation. Although ritual is likely to have a specific purpose, form, enactments, and direction of flow, its flexible form allows room to breathe and incorporates the unforeseen and unexpected inspirations and responses of those women facilitating and participating. Although there may be transformational aspects to ceremony and ceremonial aspects to ritual, the internal result of the experience indicates which form is dominant in the occasion: transformation or merely a marking of time.
In order to heal and help change past attitudes or beliefs that impact the present, many women are creating rituals in the present that revisit past experiences and milestones not recognized as significant at the time. There is healing in giving ourselves in the present what we were not able to give ourselves, or did not know that we needed in the past. A post-menopausal woman might create or participate in a menstruation ritual that may help to heal her from generations of familial denial of that important passage for young women. I have witnessed countless times the power ritual has to transcend linear time and help to heal past experiences.
Ritual can give women a sense of connection to their ancestors and to the greater circle of women spanning centuries of history and culture. This is especially true of the blood mysteries where the blood connection from our maternal ancestors, our grandmothers, our own mothers, through ourselves, and on to our daughters, is so deeply felt. When we celebrate a young woman’s first bloods, we are linking back to our single shared ancestor from our most ancient past, through our woman line, our woman’s blood. It is upon the womb blood of women that all human life depends. It is the elixir of life contained within the Holy Grail of the womb from which creation itself sips.
RITUAL AND WOMEN’S LIVES
Any life passage or transition we experience deserves conscious attention. We internalize attitudes or beliefs about ourselves, our bodies, our sexuality, and life in general based on how our experiences are responded to, or not, by others and ourselves. In the aftermath of a significant transition, we formulate life decisions, consciously or unconsciously. These internalized decisions continue to influence us in our present and into our future, affecting our behavior, actions, and choices. Unexamined, negative subconscious decisions can have devastating far-reaching affects. An example of this would be a girl’s first menstruation. Often, this first experience is met with secrecy, embarrassment or shame. Somewhat more positively, but less frequently, the girl’s parents do their best to not make it a "big deal." Internally, the girl develops an attitude that either being a woman is dirty or shameful, or becoming a woman is "no big deal." Either decision follows her into womanhood, affecting her relationship with her body, her sexuality, and the physical symptoms of her monthly cycle. In other words, what we do or don’t do in treating or responding to a significant life passage or transition can have an enormous effect on the rest of that woman’s life.
According to medical intuitive and healer Caroline Myss, every memory, decision, and attitude has an energetic factor or consequence to it. There is an energetic "cost" to not dealing with these negative past or present experiences. For every negative experience we have had that has not been consciously dealt with, there continues to be a "leaking" of one’s present life force energy to that past experience. In her words, "You are in as many places as your emotional energy takes you," and that using your present reservoir of energy to "finance" the past is one of the causes for susceptibility to physical illness. Ritual provides an opportunity to address memories, decisions, and attitudes energetically. It is never too late to "call your spirit back," as Caroline Myss describes it, and "unplug" your circuits from those experiences. The impact upon our lives from passages that were unmarked by ritual is impossible to fully comprehend. Many women are creating rituals to help heal and change attitudes or beliefs that impact their present consciousness. They are magically reaching back into the past, revisiting experiences, making different decisions based on new awareness, and marking milestones that were not recognized as significant at the time. Any event that you find personally significant is worthy of ritual attention.
EXERCISE:
1. Take a moment to think of an important experience that was not consciously treated as significant, either by yourself or others.
2. Reflect on what actually happened and how you remember feeling at the time.
3. Recall now, what decision or decisions (consciously or unconsciously) did you make from the experience. What information did you come away with that affirms or undermines your beliefs about life, love, yourself, other people? What might you have internalized that is continuing to motivate your actions, decisions, or beliefs in the present? How much of your life force in the present continues to be spent on this (these) decision(s)?
4. After examining this issue, what decisions do you still hold to be true? What decisions would you choose to change? What new decision do you choose to hold? Record or share your answers in some way either through writing, drawing, dance, talking, singing, etc.
Doing this exercise often for different passages can bring you in touch with great personal revelations. It also can give you ideas for creating rituals in the present that re-frame events of the past. Begin to make a list of passages or transitions you would like to create ritual around. It is not too late to create a ritual now that would have been healing or helpful twenty or thirty years earlier. Ritual has the power to transcend time and allow the mind and heart to heal and begin anew.
Magick & Perspective
If I command the moon it will come down
And if I wish to withhold the day
Night will linger over my head
And again,
If I wish to embark on the sea
I need no ship
And if I wish to fly through the air
I am freed from my weight
- Ancient Greek Papyrus
She is acknowledged, and worshipped in many contemporary cultures, by diverse names and in many aspects. She is the Goddess - counterpart to the God, and equally important to spiritual balance in today's world.
The first association made with the word "Goddess" is usually the images of primitive fertility goddesses, which are found scattered over Europe, images which are thought to be among the first representations of the divine known to humankind. In searching for Her we undertake a journey into that part of our own psyche, which resonates to the call of the wise.
However, She is not only the inspiration of dead civilizations, nor an historical curiosity - seeking the Goddess is not a reversion to the primitive, but rather an identification with a multi-faceted symbol. She means many different things to those who choose Her as artistic patron, or as inspiration for their creative work and spirituality.
If we are inspired by myth, we are drawn to examine the roles of men and women in the society, which gave rise to the myth. Among the earliest cultures, images of fertile women and of the hunt were crafted in stone and clay, in ochre painted on cave walls and carved into the rock. They are representations of two human needs - children to increase the tribe and food to sustain it - arguably the oldest representations of deity. The images are important in their own right, for beyond the necessity for water, food Shelter and companionship, these early people sought to express their concept of forces in nature, which shaped their lives. Like all good art, it crosses cultural barriers and evokes feelings, which are relevant today, because we are still connected to the same human needs.
Today, priestesses and priests of the Goddess add their knowledge of psychology to the experience of history, to create a new worship from an ancient wisdom. They celebrate the Goddess in religious rites, yet they also draw parallels between the myths of the Goddess and the phases of human life - just as some people relate to the myth of Persephone in the Rites of Eleusis and perceive that it tells the tale of the Maiden (Persephone), the Mother (Demeter) and the Crone (Hekate).
A triumvirate of maiden, mother and crone is, in modern paganism, related to the phases of the moon, corresponding to first crescent, full moon, waning moon and dark moon. The process of birth through growth, maturity, aging and death is also connected to the aspects of the goddess, though the aspects are called by many diverse names from as many different pantheons.
THE MAIDEN
In dreams, the Maiden often represents the potential self, the person we are becoming, and a possibility not yet real. Something has been conceived - a new attitude or idea, the seeds of a poem, an unknown strength, the courage to resist, or create or die.
There is a place within us which contains the Maiden - complete unto ourselves, virgin, we proceed from a willingness to meet every stranger as another deity in disguise. The Kore in Greek Myth can represent the potential within us all. We seek Her power, in the willingness to enter initiation, to abandon perceptions, to enter the realm of the unknown. She is the Maiden who lives in harmony with nature, who is reckless and restless about rules and restrictions. She is the Kore, stolen away by death into the underworld where She undergoes the transformation knowledge brings. She is stolen, dispossessed of Her innocence to become the initiate who is Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
The knowledge gained in this journey, from child-woman to ruler of the dark mysteries of the underworld, marks a separation from the mother in the individuation process; severed from the complacency of childhood, we face our own decisions and trials. We take risks - sometimes risks that are not wise ones - but all these risks and adventures make us who we will become. We are reminded that a willingness to face our own mortality and effect the transformation of an initiatory experience marks our ability to complete the cycle of personal spiritual growth. The Maiden awakens us to the potential and creative strengths that slumber in the underworld of our own psyche.
THE MOTHER
The Mother is nurturing, creative and gives of Her substance to the world. She embraces the principles of returning and recycling energy. Through Her, the gifts borne by the Maiden are transformed in the crucible of mature realization.
The Mother can be perceived as our nurturing self, complete, but also a companion. She reaches beyond the singular to contain a multitude of possibilities. She is the relating principle, able to encompass a relationship of equals, to create and to build strength in Herself and others. Giving of Herself, She receives in return the freedom to fill Her cup with new dreams. The Mother has many images - She is the serpent and the butterfly Goddess; She is the deer, the bear, the wolf or the sow and is mistress of the art of transformation. Her association with these creatures is not totemic; She is not a woman with the characteristics and strengths of an animal. Instead, She is the creature or the Goddess. Part of these tales of transformation speaks of metamorphic change, dispossession and the process of alienation. Many myths tell of a Goddess who, in the dark of night, or at certain times, transforms or is transformed by some magic process (not always by choice) into a mythic beast. Her offspring are referred tor as foals, cubs or kids and are more powerful than their (often) mortal fathers in that they have the blood of faerie and the power to transform themselves. These myths are part of our Heritage, where the realm between the worlds exerts its attraction and speaks to us of spiritual truths.
Red is the color of the Mother - blood of birth, of the menstrual flow that Heralds the sea change at puberty and heats the blood in passion. It also represents blood drawn by Her or owed to Her in battle. It is no co-incidence that love Goddesses are often also warrior Goddesses; their language is that of the blood, the water of life. She teaches us that duration and ripening, of ideas and maturity, are important; She emphasizes that we must free our children and ideas to blossom in their own way. Until we have given of ourselves, we cannot either return to the Maiden within and learn things from a new perspective, or move into the realm of the Crone, who is the weaver of dreams.
THE CRONE
The Crone is the queen of the shades, dark mistress of the night. She gathers the strands of our realizations and weaves a many-colored tapestry to illustrate our lives. As a midwife and timekeeper, She attends each birth and cuts the cord that binds us to the Mother. She is priestess and seer, weaver of magic and tide, who holds the spindle and measures the thread of our lifespan, weaving it into the web for a certain time and then releasing us to the regeneration of death.
As ruler of the crossroads, She is the giver and taker of gifts. She may grant us everything we desire or withhold it. She may wear all the faces of the Goddess simultaneously and is often portrayed as a serpent with many heads or as a medusa. She is that which we most fear and are most fascinated with - the realm of death. She leads the initiate into the depths of their own renewal in
Her role as teacher of the mysteries. She is found in the twilight world, as wise women are often portrayed, or on the edge of a forest, a river, and the sea or in an isolated cave. This makes Her a figure of dreams and magic. When we seek Her power within us, we challenge the boundaries of life and are "out on the edge" of reality. Her, the balance is precarious but She teaches us to synthesize realizations from the knowledge we glean from experience of life. Some of Her powers are those of the Fates, the Norns, and the Muses. She is also seen as a spirit of the wind and of wild places where things may be transformed into their opposites. As such, She can as easily change Her form and be seen as a woman of any age She chooses.
She is wanderer and oracle, Herbalist and shape shifter, wild woman of the wilds. She moves between the worlds of humankind and the elder gods freely and without restriction for She is a creature of all places, not just one physical realm. Where the Maiden can be seen as encompassing potential, and the Mother contains all fulfillments, the Crone rejoices in release from ties. Her knowledge of that which binds makes Her the ruler of cord magic and spinning. She apprehends the lessons of past, present and future and leads us into the mysteries of renewal.
A MODERN PRACTICE
The Triple Goddess who manifests as Maiden, Mother and Crone, is one of the forces worshipped in the Old Earth Religion and in modern Paganism and Wicca. She is the creator / preserver / destroyer who interacts with other multi-faceted deities.
We borrow from cultures of the distant past a concept of pattern, an ordered progression of changes within the individual and within society. Whether we perceive the Goddess as the primal female aspect of our own nature or as an aspect of deity; or indeed, as the creative principle of the universe, we can relate to imagery of the Goddess and find reflections of Her cycles in our own bodies. The process of change and growth that occurs in our life is echoed in the myths of the Goddess, from various cultures, which stress connection with nature and cultural rhythms. The theme of the Goddess leads to an examination of the role of deity in our everyday lives and, in turn, an exploration of the inspiration provided by spiritual or religious principles.
Now and again in the world individuals seek personal inspiration from the environment and express that connection through art, music, dance and ritual. We create the fragile strands of a cultural web and call on the many aspects of deity who are part of our spirituality.
The Goddess has many names and is as real to Her Priestesses and Priests today as She was in remote history. We call on the ancient wisdom, on the Lady who has changed Her shape to fit the needs of Earth's children. We worship and celebrate in open fields and groves of trees, in suburban living rooms and city parks, carrying a wild magic in our hearts and a willingness to undergo transformation and challenges in the names of the deities we worship.
The Goddess is once more honored in all Her aspects and finds a place in our hearts and our daily lives. Her power is seen in nature, in the depth of sacred pools and in the pull of the tides of earth and sea. The Mystery lives within us and is known by many names; we all carry Her within us, whatever our gender or age.
As an individual, I am poised between the faces of deity - between the underworld of dreams, myth and creativity on the one hand and the realm of thought, action and self-expression on the other. As priestess and woman I flow along the edge of the blade, a precarious but exhilarating balance - celebrating deity and life.
The BLOOD MYSTERIES of Avalon
The young maidens coming into their first moonblood were considered the embodiment of the Maiden Goddess and Huntress. Those who had borne children embodied the Mother Goddess, offering the additional wisdom of their greater life experience to the work of the moon-time. Their guidance assured that the Goddess's messages would be clear and true for all of Her children.
Among the Hunter-Gatherers, women were honored as the source of all life. It was they who provided for the tribe by gathering the foods and herbs that were needful to sustain them through the long winter months. The children they bore sustained the Elders when age kept them from continuing their duties. No man was allowed to be present at childbirth. Only when the midwives had done with their task and mother and child were safely delivered was the father allowed within the birthing room. Mothers were honored and richly gifted by the whole community.
MOTHERHOOD: In all Sisterhoods, the changing role of the mother-to-be was honored prior to the onset of labor by Rites symbolizing her descent within and emergence from the Regenerative Cauldron of the Great Mother. Although the priestesses had novices to help mind their babes, in becoming a mother each woman assumed the role of nurturer within their tribe. Tribal mothers were considered the embodiment of the Mother Goddess.
MENOPAUSE: Most powerful of all was the woman who no longer shed her blood, but kept its wisdom within her. Except during the Moon Rath, the Crone had no need of minding children; her task was to teach and guide the community's spiritual life. In the most ancient reaches of our Tradition, tribe and clan were ruled not by Chieftains or High Kings, but by a Council of Nine women Elders accomplished in healing, midwifery, oracle and priestesscraft. It was these Elders who provided judicial, spiritual and mundane guidance to tribe and clan. The woman whom all the Council agreed was the greatest adept among them became the Morgen. As the Sisterhoods grew and expanded, it was she who represented her people among the Nine Morgens of Avalon.
THE GUARDIANS: It was the men's task to guard the sanctity of the Moon Rath or Oracle and ensure that nothing intruded upon the solitude of the bleeding women. In the time of the Hunter-Gatherers, the tribes lived in a matrifocal world (a Mother-centered society in which women and men are considered equals]. Men were honored as hunters, builders and protectors of home and family. In a time when folk owned no land or cattle, wars were few; but the elements provided plenty of challenges and what stores could be put by had to be protected from the ravages of nature's other creatures. In a time when warriorcraft consisted mainly of Shadow work with "the enemy within," men earned their highest honor as guardians, fathers and sages.
MENARCHE, MOTHERHOOD & MENOPAUSE: Maiden, Mother, Crone
At the heart of Avalon's Women's Mysteries lie the Blood Mysteries. It is through their moonblood that women most strongly experience Cycle, the turning of the ancient Avalonian Wheel. Embodying the central mystery of the Cauldron of Death and Rebirth, moonblood was the first offering to the Great Mother: It fed the child within the womb or bore it thence unto the tomb; in the fields, fed corn and rye; but held within made women wise.
A "mooning woman" [a phrase whose origins are obvious] is at her most powerful, open to the subtle messages of all the Worlds. As offering to the Great Goddess, her blood ensured the tribe's survival. In time past, when women's moons came mainly at dark of moon, special rituals and customs marked and honored its passage.
MENARCHE: In all nine Sisterhood centers, women met in a Moon Mound or Rath [dream lodge] to share the visions evoked by the blood, which was collected for offering. Their dreams, shared when they emerged, provided guidance for family and tribe.
In Avalon, Ban-Draoi sat atop the druid's egg [kept at the Temple of the Morgens, vulva of the Goddess within the landscape] and prophesied. Their blood, collected in the cupmark on the top of the stone, was used as offering in ritual and given back to replenish the fields.
The Rites of Passage of the Sisterhood centers through all Ages and Archetypes reflect the deep symbolism with which ritual actions and words were imbued by the ancients. Ritual (especially of the pre-Celtic, Hunter-Gatherer period) was light on speaking and heavy on symbolic imagery. The holiest images were those which reflected the body and essence of the Great Mother in any of Her forms. If we examine the fetishes and other artifacts of the people of the Goddess Cults we find an abundance of vulva, womb and breast images consistent with a faith that revolved around a nurturing Mother Goddess.
These are also the images evoked in ritual, for
"Like Attracts Like..."
Through the shapes and forms of individuals and groups in stillness and in motion the sacred landscape of the Mother is revealed and the spiral journey illuminated. In our literal, function-oriented world it is often difficult to refind the silence of sacred space and the subtle nuances of symbolic language. Yet it is this which we must rediscover if we are to fully experience and understand Avalon. We must balance function and poetic form. We must cease to be functionaries and become again the vessels of the gods.
The Siren
Sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound!...
The Sirens will sing his mind away on their sweet meadow lolling.
There are bones of dead men rotting in a pile beside them and flayed skins shrivel around the spot.
In my skin, she is there; ink and blood paint her into everything I am, while she gazes from behind me, murmuring curses we would kill to hear.
She is veil of death, womb of blood, mystery of the abyss. At her feet, the dead and the alive succumb to her song, to her flood of blood and sea and to her ever open wound. In the past, we bled for the vision quest, blood streaming down thighs as, in groups, we gathered to exchange stories, to collect premonitions.
Between our legs were Chaos, Night, Revenge. In other histories, we bled impurity, our womb had teeth. The word hysteria rose out of the theory that our wombs moved freely around our internal organs and caused insanity. The female blood and flesh were meant to be feared, reduced, denied, and now, synthetically perfumed.
To some, the woman was associated with water - unconsciousness, mystery, depth, and sensuality. She held the power to bring drought and flood and to use her voice to condemn, cast spells and judgment, to make blind or reveal. Listen! the swish of the blood,
The sirens down the bloodpaths of the night,
Bone tapping on the bone, nerve-nets,
Singing under the breath of sleep. 1
She gave the moon, and thereby, gave dreams - in some cultures, she was forbidden to sleep during menstruation, for her dreams were considered altered by psychic powers too violent to be allowed to speak through her. Elsewhere, it was this violence that was sought after in the bleeding woman - dreams became means of divination. She became the moon, the triple-moon goddess, the maiden, mother, and crone. Her blood entailed descent, as in Persephone and the crossing of the threshold of womanhood in her descent to Hades. The pomegranate she ate from was womb, seed, and blood. The Furies, born from the blood of castrated Uranus, black-clothed avengers of crime, especially crimes of blood. Their names are Allecto (neverending), Megaera (envious anger), and Tisiphone(retaliation).
The bleeding cycle was used to gauge time, for the woman's blood is bound to the moon and the tides of the sea. Said Kali, "I AM Time, ever inclined to destroy the worlds and annihilate all and anything that is not worthy of keeping." Here we unveil the Fates, born of night, symbolic of ancient forms of Justice. Triple-goddesses still, they spin, measure, and cut the thread of life. Whatsoever they will, be it annihilation or poetry, must come into being, must be born out of chaos and blood. The woman's blood and flesh as life giver and life taker is prevalent in the paradoxes that so imbue the history of blood.
The blood that flowed from Medusa's decapitated head fell on the desert, and there engendered snakes. The Gorgon's remaining blood was caught in vials by Athena - it had such power that a single droplet from the left side could raise the dead, and the same amount from the right could instantly kill. 2
To mark themselves with the power of menstrual blood, women have historically made signs on their bodies to recreate the creative power, bringing warnings, protection, repellence, attraction, and religious significance. The teaching of menstrual principles to men and the use of blood as a signal or sign or status was heightened by the use of slashing - the women could create blood at will, through cutting. The sight of blood on another woman's thigh could start a woman bleeding, so slashing, for some people, was a method of synchrony. Women found that they could have menstrual signals visible on their faces and other parts of their bodies even when they were not in the dangerous state of menstruation. Among native tribes, chin tattooing was primarily a mark of the female status achieved at menarche. Among some people, tattooed lines continued down the neck onto the breasts or stomach. In addition to using tattoos for ritual purposes, people marked their mouths and bodies with bits of special carved wood and shell. They were pushed through holes punctured in the skin, ears, nose, septum, or embedded in the flesh of the menstruant.
All of the openings of the face were, by extension, vaginas in need of protection. Protective ornaments have also been embedded around, and between, the eyes. Scarification was also used to adorn and protect. Her body was a writing tablet before writing, covered with information. Her face, breasts, abdomen, and back would be decoratively scarred as well. 3
Invoker of wound and mystery, the body of the woman is the immaculate witness to time, vengeance, creation and destruction. The blood that floods down her skin is the siren song of mystery religions, violence, the impenetrable thread that binds sex and death. In chaos she invokes shadows - the word made flesh - the rapture of the curse, the bouquet of the underworld, the eyes that bleed.
