Throughout all cultures, the magic of creation resides in the blood women gave forth in apparent harmony with the moon, and which sometimes stayed inside to create a baby. This blood was regarded with reverence: it had mysterious magical powers, was inexplicably shed without pain, and was wholly foreign to male experience. Early menstrual rites were perhaps the first expression of human culture.
Native American (Lakota):
Follow your Grandmother Moon. Her illuminating cycles will transform your spirit.
Begin with the Grandmother Moon at her brightest and most open. This is a time of outward activity and high energy. Sleep where the moonlight touches you. Walk outside where there are no artificial lights. Feel joy and creativity. As the Grandmother begins to cover her face, begin to withdraw into a quieter, less social place. Move to that inward place that is more about being than doing. In the dark of the moon, when bleeding, the veil between you and the Great Mystery is the thinnest. Be receptive to visions, insights, intuitions. Go to a quiet separate place such as a Moon Lodge. Later, come out of the dark, a woman with a cleansed body. As the moon returns, come back out into the world, carrying your vision.
Customs and Traditions
Indians of South American said all humans were made of moon blood in the beginning.
In Mesopotamia, the Great Goddess created people out of clay and infused them with her blood of life. She taught women to form clay dolls and smear them with menstrual blood. Adam translates as bloody clay.
In Hindu theory, as the Great Mother created the earth, solid matter coalesced into a clot with a crust. Women use this same method to produce new life.
The Greeks believed the wisdom of man or god was centered in his blood which came from his mother.
Egyptian pharoahs became divine by ingesting the blood of Isis called sa. Its hieroglyphic sign was the same as the sign of the vulva, a yonic loop like the one on the ankh.
From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Christian churches refused communion to menstruating women.
In ancient societies, menstrual blood carried authority, transmitting lineage of the clan or tribe.
Among the Ashanti, girl children are more prized than boys because a girl is the carrier of the blood.
Chinese sages called menstrual blood the essence of Mother Earth, the yin principle giving life to all things.
Some African tribes believed that mensrual blood kept in a covered pot for nine months had the power to turn itself into a baby.
Easter eggs, classic womb-symbols, were dyed red and laid on graves to strengthen the dead.
A born-again ceremony from Australia showed the Aborigines linked rebirth with blood of the womb.
Post-menopausal women were often the wisest because they retained their wise blood. In the 17th century these old women were constantly persecuted for witch craft because their menstrual blood remained in their veins.