Menstrual Cycle
What if you experienced the cycles of the seasons – from Winter, to Spring, to Summer, to Autumn – every four weeks?
What if you embodied the rhythm of a full life span – from birth, to maturity, to old age, to death, to rebirth – each and every month?
This is what your menstrual cycle is. Your intimate monthly initiatory journey. Your inbuilt feminine spiritual path.
As a woman you are coded for power, and the journey to realizing the fullness and beauty of that power – your Wild Power – lies in the rhythm and change of your menstrual cycle.
Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power
The keys to a life fully, powerfully and wisely lived are embedded within our body’s cyclic intelligence. This is the gift we are given as a soul born into a beautiful body that menstruates. Why? Because as women, we are the life-givers. The ones who can carry life within our bodies. The mothers of humanity. We are intimately encoded with the sacred rhythm of all life and the cosmos, within our womb, within our blood. Have you ever thought about the fact that most religious structures and practices were created by men, mostly for men? Perhaps these were practices that the male needed to develop, in the absence of their body being directly encoded with its own spiritual initiatory process.
For centuries within our culture, this Feminine Way of the menstrual cycle has been denied, demonized and rejected. We’ve been led to believe it’s a limitation or a weakness we must overcome in order to succeed … The extraordinary truth is that your menstrual cycle is in fact a highly potent, potentially liberating process. It’s your custom-made initiatory path to power.
Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power
Sacred Menstruation
While menstruation is treated as taboo under all systems of oppression worldwide, most notably the patriarchal system that’s been in operation on the planet for over 4000 – 5000 years, menstruation in original indigenous cultures was considered sacred and a highly potent time of intuition and spiritual connection for women. No wonder the ruling structures of the past few millennia have been so persistent in it’s demonization and suppression.
In the Native American teachings a menstruating woman has the potential to be more psychically and spiritually powerful than anyone, male or female, at any other time.
Her Blood is Gold
In Seren and Azra Bertrand’s book “Womb Awakening”, they state that women were the original shamans. “What we call shamanism is essential feminine consciousness, a truth reflected in an old indigenous proverb from the Chuckee tradition that says, ‘Woman is by nature a shaman’.” In Lara Owen’s book “Her Blood is Gold”, she suggests that before the controlling and negative programming of the patriarchal systems, our menstrual blood was considered magical, with our sacred substance being the very root of all ritual.
The word ritual comes from rtu, Sanskrit for menses. The earliest rituals were connected to the women’s monthly bleeding. The blood from the womb that nourished the unborn child was believed to have mana, magical power. Women’s periodic bleeding was a cosmic event, like the cycles of the moon and the waxing and waning of the tides. We have forgotten that women are the conduit to the sacred mystery of life and death.
Lara Owen, Her Blood is Gold
Our menstrual blood is the blood of life. The sacred substance that sustains us all at the very start of our lives in the womb. Yet how devastating it is that the blood of death (war, violence, and trauma) is constantly splashed across our TV and movie screens – so glorified in our world, while the blood of life is so shamed, tabooized, and must be hidden at all costs. Reclaiming the blood of life is the very reclamation of life itself, and the medicine for true and lasting peace in our world. For when we remember that the blood of our wombs is sacred, the blood of life will eclipse the blood of violence and there will be no more war.
The REDvolution!
It’s time for a REDvolution! It’s time for us women to reclaim the gifts and powers of our menstrual cycle, and restore dignity, respect, and pride to our experience of bleeding. Here are some ways you can join the REDvolution!
The Red Temple Podcast
Being so passionate about the wild power of our menstrual cycle and the shamanic potency of menstruation, Clare of the Solstice and I felt called to create a podcast about it, and share this redvolutionary message with the world! Tune into The Red Temple Podcast, where we muse about the magic of our menstrual cycle, and traverse this embodied feminine spiritual path together in sacred sisterhood. Journey with us, as we unveil the Goddess Codes living within our wild wombs.
Menstrual Art Exhibits
Creating art with your menstrual blood is a profoundly powerful ritual that connects you intimately to your womb, your feminine power and the very source of life deep within yourself. The first time I reverently engaged with my menstrual blood – truly saw it, sat with it in sacred space and created art with my magic substance – it felt like I was coming back home to what it means to be a woman. The experience awoke in me the deep remembrance that I am not a daughter of the patriarchy but a daughter of the Great Mother. I was returned to her awaiting arms, and have been in service to Her ever since.
It’s time for us as a collective, to come out of the shadows, shed the robes of shame around our menstrual blood, and showcase its beauty, power, and wild majesty to the world! On Saturday, June 8th, 2024 Blood Sisters of The Red Temple presented our first Menstrual Art Exhibit in the heart of Austin, Texas, showcasing over 12 women’s menstrual blood and yoni-themed art. Our mission was to create a family-friendly event, honoring the beauty, power, and sacredness of our menstrual blood, while deconstructing the outdated taboo around our primal substance – the very blood of life itself. Click here to listen to The Red Temple Podcast Episode 6: A Menstrual Art Exhibit.
This was not just an exhibit, but a movement! The start of the REDvolution! This event is hopefully the first of many events of this kind, integral to re-shaping our cultural narratives about menstruation. If you’re interested in working together on a Menstrual Art Exhibit, and/or hosting your own, I’d love to hear from you! I’m happy to provide any guidance or support that I can. Feel free to reach out on social media or email me directly! Join us in the Redvolution. In this re-birthing of the New Earth. It is time!
Shamanic Womb Cave
Inspired by attending our Menstrual Art Exhibit, Guy, founder of the Medicine for the People Spiritual Gathering, invited us to create a womb space at this Texas festival, featuring the healing power of menstrual art. So in September 2024, Blood Sisters of The Red Temple birthed our first “Shamanic Womb Cave”, offering a sacred space for all to return home to Source – the Womb – throughout this gathering. We all came from a womb. And we were all born from this blood of life. Welcome home!
Decorated with collaborative menstrual art pieces, this sacred womb space was a cozy haven of peace, meditation, introspection, healing, and awe. Staying open 24 hours a day throughout the festival, our Shamanic Womb Cave offered grounded, nurturing and potent medicine for the people. The menstrual art that lined the walls of the Shamanic Womb Cave was inspired by the Paleolithic and Neolithic cave art of our distant ancestors, originally created in red ochre and likely menstrual blood. The cave was considered a most holy and divine space by the ancients, representing the sacred womb of the Great Cosmic Mother – the One who births us all into existence.
Our Menstrual HeArt (Healing Art) Chandelier was co-created by women all over the world, with the intention of returning the medicine of the Mother to the people. Her love, her nurturance, and her life-giving power, are all held potently within the blood of life painted on each individual art piece. On this medium of paper hearts and circles, the menstrual blood shines with healing love and vibrant lifeforce. “Thank you so much for the Womb Cave. I just kept going back there throughout the festival because it was so powerful. Please tell all the artists how grateful I am for their sacred contribution and for their potent medicine. I’ve been coming to this festival for over 10 years and this is the best offering I’ve experienced. I really hope you keep doing it. We need it.” ~ Gentleman Festival Attendee
School & Youth Classes
I’ve created a PowerPoint class to present to schools or community / youth groups on the “Superpowers of the Menstrual Cycle”. During our interactive two-hour class, students will discover the different phases of the menstrual cycle and their energetic characteristics, while also learning about the hormonal and physical changes that occur throughout the cycle. Female students will be empowered to leverage and optimize the gifts and powers of each menstrual cycle phase, while male students will be empowered to know how to best to work with women during these phases.
Throughout the class, students perception of menstruation and menstrual blood will be altered through sharing about the spiritual power of menstruation and the inherent beauty and power of menstrual blood. And on completion, everyone will be given support material and resources to assist them on their monthly cyclic journey.
If you’d like me to come present this empowering and engaging content to your school or community/youth group, let’s connect!
Days for Girls Nepal
In Western Nepal, girls are often isolated in cattle sheds or small huts each month during their periods, as part of a cultural practice called chhaupadi. Not only do girls face embarrassment over menstruation, but they often are exposed to real danger — from extreme weather, smoke inhalation and attacks.
Days for Girls Nepal (DfGN) is changing that narrative from one of shame to one of celebration, led by a local training team of Nepali girls and women.
While in Nepal, I visited the Days for Girls Nepal head office in Kathmandu. Maya and her team are doing very practical, powerful and transformative work, serving communities across the country with life-changing menstrual health solutions, vital education and stigma-shattering advocacy. They are leading the REDvolution in Nepal, and need as much support as possible on their journey.
Your donation will ensure DfGN reach more Nepali women and girls with the resources they need to manage their periods for improved health, education and livelihoods.
Sign up to my Newsletter
… and receive a Welcome Gift Package which includes downloadable pdfs of my Celtic Wheel of Life, Meditation Like The Sky script guidance, and an interactive Menstrual Cycle Wheel to help you and others in your home visually track where you are in your monthly cyclic journey.
Keep an eye in your inbox for my newsletter every six weeks for the Celtic Festivals throughout the Wheel of the Year, with an additional newsletter sometimes in-between, with special news, events, and updates.
Resources
Free PDF Downloadables
Menstrual Chart (Circle): Start charting your menstrual cycle, and learn to navigate the ebbs and flows of your monthly cyclic nature with ease, wisdom and wild power! This is a template I created for myself, and love sharing with my community. This circle chart is a great way to get started tracking your cyclical nature. After a few months, when you’ve got enough completed charts to compare, you’ll begin to see a pattern emerging of your monthly cyclic nature. It’s a fascinating and revolutionary treasure throve of information to discover about yourself, and invaluable data you can start to plan your month around. If you’d like to journey deeper into understanding your cyclical nature and your inner seasons, I recommend Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer’s book Wild Power.
Menstrual Chart (Grid): If you’d prefer a more comprehensive map of your own cyclic territory, you can use the grid chart instead. This chart tracks everything that the circle chart tracks, and in addition, includes all 3 main fertility indicators: cervical mucus, cervix position and basal body temperature. Combining these fertility indicators as well as your energy/mood observations, gives you a fuller picture of when you’re fertile (whether you wish to know this information for planning or avoiding pregnancy), and allows you predict when your period is likely to start based on pin-pointing your day of ovulation and knowing the average length of your luteal phase. For support in more detailed tracking of your menstrual cycle, I recommend Lisa Hendrickson-Jack’s book The Fifth Vital Sign.
Menstrual Art Templates: These Flower of Life templates are a great way to start painting with your own sacred substance. For this level of detail, I like to use Jerry Q‘s #4 flat detailed paintbrush. To take your ritual to the next level, you can print these templates on seed paper and return this powerful blessing of life back to the Earth.
Free Menstrual Cycle Content
Fertility Friday Podcast – Lisa Hendrickson
The Menstruality Podcast – The Red School
The Period Party – Nicole Jardim
The Red Temple Podcast – Brenda Ryan & Clare of the Solstice
The Sacred Power of Women’s Menstruation – Bridget Nielsen
Womben Wellness – Usha Anandi
Sustainable Menstrual Supplies
Glad Rags – Cloth pads and menstrual cups, USA
OrganiCup / All Matters – Menstrual cups and period underwear, USA
Organic Craft Store – Cloth pads on Etsy
Period Aisle – Cloth pads, period underwear and menstrual cups, USA
Ruby Love – Period underwear and teen first period kits, USA
She Thinx – Period underwear, USA
Sweet Lavender and Chili Flakes – Handmade cloth pads, Ireland
TCS-Eco – Handmade cloth pads, period underwear and menstrual cups, UK
The Period Company – Period underwear and cloth pads, USA
Menstrual Cycle Books
Code Red: Know Your Flow, Unlock Your Monthly Superpowers, and Create a Bloody Amazing Life, Lisa Lister (Hay House UK, 2020)
Cycles of Belonging: Honoring Ourselves Through the Sacred Cycles of Life, Stella Tomlinson (Womancraft Publishing, 2022)
Her Blood is Gold: Awakening to the Wisdom of Menstruation, Lara Owen (Archive Publishing UK, 2008)
Moon Time: Harness the ever-changing energy of your menstrual cycle, Lucy H. Pearce (Womancraft Publishing, 2015)
The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack (Fertility Friday Publishing Inc., 2019)
The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (Wyatt Books for St. Martin’s Press, 1997)
Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer (Hay House UK, 2017)
Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life, Azra Bertrand and Seren Bertrand (Bear & Company, 2017)
If you are in your wise woman menopausal years, I highly recommend the following book recently published by the women who wrote the revolutionary “Wild Power” book:
Wise Power: Discover the Liberating Power of Menopause to Awaken Authority, Purpose and Belonging, Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer (Hay House UK, 2022)
The Spiral Path of the Priestess
I am passionate about living in alignment with my menstrual cycle, especially nested within the broader context of the Irish Celtic Wheel of the Year and our female life cycle and powerful archetypes, as outlined in my Celtic Wheel of Life. This has been such a huge revelation for me, that I now consider my menstrual cycle my main spiritual path and practice.
The menstrual cycle is a woman’s spiritual practice.
Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power
The phases of our menstrual cycle are mirrored in the patterns of all the rhythms and cycles of life, from the smallest to the largest experiential scale: the breath cycle, our daily circadian rhythm, the monthly lunar cycle, the solar cycle of the seasons, and the plant and human life cycles. By overlapping these rhythms of our body, with the cycles of nature and the cosmos, we gain an expanded understanding of the energy, gifts and potentials that each menstrual cycle phase holds for us, and how best to leverage this immense spiritual and initiatory gift that lies within the sacred vessel of our body.
The Celtic Wheel of Life (menstrual webpage) by Brenda RyanMy Irish medicine wheel, the Celtic Wheel of Life, is a guide to living the sacred spiral path of the priestess, where we, as women, reclaim our feminine spiritual path of cyclic living, reestablish our initiatory journey towards embodied wisdom, and reintegrate ourselves back into the fabric of nature. When we live the spiral path of the priestess, we consciously work with the sacred cycles of our body, attuning ourselves to the natural rhythms of nature and the cosmos – aligning ourselves to the very power of life and the universe itself.
Living in alignment with our menstrual cycle is living the sacred Spiral Path of the Priestess.
Brenda Ryan
Each of our inner seasons, from Menstruation (Inner Winter), Pre-Ovulation (Inner Spring), Ovulation (Inner Summer), and Pre-Menstruation (Inner Autumn) holds different gifts, strengths, skills and qualities. When we learn about our own innate patterns throughout the month, and work with them not against them – leveraging each part of the cycle according to its super powers – we start to perform sacred feminine alchemy.
Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, in their paradigm-shifting book, “Wild Power” – a must-read if you’re on this menstrual cycle awareness journey – coinED the term “Menstruality” to describe the female life process from menarche to menopause, through the menstruating years and into our mature years. They describe menstruality as “our ‘initiatory journey to power’: a psychological death and rebirth process that leads to ever more expanded levels of consciousness. It’s the actual lived experience of this repeated initiation, which occurs month after month; the deep knowing that a woman accumulates in herself and simultaneously generates in her community.”
Menstruation is a deeply shamanic experience of death and rebirth; we are releasing and rebirthing in one profound bio-spiritual journey.
Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening
Our menstrual cycle is our monthly pilgrimage to the sacred sites within ourselves. It is our intimate holy spiral path of initiation. The hero’s journey encoded within our body, that we can choose to ignore, resist or traverse.
Menstruation
Initiatory Journey: Death
Inner Landscape: The Shamanic Cave of Surrender, Rest & Dreaming
The Mórrígan’s Cave, Oweynagat, Co. Roscommon, Ireland
Follicular Phase (Pre-Ovulation)
Initiatory Journey: Rebirth
Inner Landscape: The Renewing Waters of Rebirth, Growth & Exploration
River Boyne, Co. Meath, Ireland
Ovulation
Initiatory Journey: Maturity
Inner Landscape: The Fertile Fields of Sensuality, Creativity & Expression
Grange Stone Circle, Co. Limerick, Ireland
Luteal Phase (Pre-Menstruation)
Initiatory Journey: Elderhood
Inner Landscape: The Wild Mountains of Reflection, Release & Completion
Loughcrew Cairns, Co. Meath, Ireland
Healing Prayers & Dreaming for the Collective
“Divine Mother, thank you for the blessing of being a woman. Please help me release all memories of the times this precious gift of the feminine has not been honored. I now open into the knowing that I am a beautiful, wise, and deeply sacred woman. I honor and appreciate myself.”
Seren Bertrand, Womb Awakening
“Imagine a society in which the cycles of life are revered and respected as quiet orchestrators of our lives – instilling a deep reverence for the planet and everything on it.
Imagine that the menstrual cycle is understood as the heartbeat of that Great Orchestration, and most crucially, honoured as the sacred source of life for us humans.
Imagine that knowledge of the full spectrum and power of the menstrual cycle is commonplace, and all women feel the utter rightness of having this experience within them.
Imagine a world in which the menstrual cycle is respected as a woman’s spiritual practice.
Imagine girls growing up in this menstrual-affirming world.”
Alexandra Pope & Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power