Why has nature cursed us like this? I used to wander, waking in the morning in a pool of my own blood, living a stain on my classroom chair, carrying like 10 mega pads in my skirt pocket hoping no one would notice. Once during an English class, blood started actually running down my leg and dripping on the floor and I had to ask the teacher if I could go check on “a wound I had”… poor little teenage me. I remember this and I feel a knot in my chest. It was other times… thank goddess things are changing and the word period is not as scandalous as before. Or is it? Maybe it's just that I’m older and don't have any more fucks to give.
I had terrible dysmenorrhea when I was young. When I did bleed, I bled like an open tap. My temperature would drop loads and a couple times I even passed out during my heaviest days. I had PCO’s. I had high testosterone and prolactin levels. I went to an endocrinologist who put me on progesterone and the pill and when he stopped the meds my prolactin shoot up so high I produced milk for 3 days. I was very self conscious about the whole thing. The blood, the body hair, the acne... the blood. It was a literal bloody nightmare.
But from that nightmare I grew conscious of my body and my health. I ditched the endocrinologist after he suggested next step was operating my hypophysis (I know, WTF!) I learned about hormones and herbs. I decided I wanted to learn Yoga but back then Yoga wasn't even a thing where I lived. After doing a lot of digging through the phone book (Internet wasn't a thing either) I found this adorable swami and convinced him to give me lessons but because he lived far away it needed to be worth his while so I dragged my parents, boyfriend and neighbours into it. Before I finished school I was waking up at 4:30 to have a 1 hr yoga session before the school bus picked us up. I learned to do energy healing using my hands and treated myself for months. Slowly, my hormones began to go back to normal.
A few years went by but I was still having lots of issues. Bleeding was better but I had constant UTI’s or thrush. I did more research; I found new remedies and herbs. I started doing steam baths with white vinegar and calendula, I tried yogurt, garlic.. I tried it all. Eventually I met a herbalist who really deepened my understanding of what periods really meant for the body, for the soul, and even for the earth. He taught me that the body’s health depends among other things of the way in which it stores and distributes heat. He explained to me the womb is a warm organ and it needs to become warmer during ovulation in case the egg is fertilised and needs to implant, so our temperature raises and stays like this until our period. Then the womb opens up and with its lining, it releases too this extra temperature, but then because it is open, it is vulnerable to getting or trapping cold inside.
How does the cold gets trapped inside, you ask? Simple:
Contact: walking barefoot, sitting on cold surfaces, exposing our bellies and lower back to the wind, going out with wet hair, etc.
Ingestion: eating stuff at fridge or freezer temperature like juices, ice creams, ice in our drinks
etc. or by eating cooling foods like citrus fruits.
He said most of the issues women have with their reproductive organs (cysts, amenorrhea, endometriosis, or even PMT, etc) could be prevented if we were taught this from menarche. He said the reason why some indigenous people don’t allow women in ceremony when they’re bleeding is because their power during menstruation is so strong that it interferes with the work of the shaman. That during our moon we are fully connected to the cosmos and to the earth and we’re cleansing all that is not needed anymore, not only for ourselves but for our communities. He said he was convinced that if men menstruated too, there would not be war on earth. (Later on I realised there’s no need for this... all we need to do is go back to planting our blood and that’s enough... but more on that on another post)
So I followed his advice and did an additional warming treatment with plants during which I couldn’t go outside my house or even open a window for like ten days. For the first time in my life I noticed my fingers and toes were naturally feeling warm. My periods got even better. They became regular, they became shorter, they became lighter.
A few more years went by and I stumbled upon the path of the Sacred feminine. I say stumbled because I honestly wasn’t even looking. I was doing a course in permaculture which I guess, ultimately, has everything to do with it.. but that’s a story for another time. I researched and read and took courses like a maniac, you know, very á la ADHD. I gave up teaching languages and started from scratch training as a doula. I learnt to do massage, I learnt to care for the pregnant and postpartum womb. I learnt to do energetic womb healing. I learnt about obsidian yoni eggs, colour therapy, belly dancing, menstrual painting. I approached my “reproductive health” from a completely different angle. I was still looking through the glass of holistic therapies but this time, instead of trying to fix my womb, I was learning how to listen to it, how to connect to it, how to love it. I started a dream journal and when I was able to, I’d stay in bed during my moon, just dreaming and writing and dosing, sipping cinnamon tea and letting a completely different reality take over.
I noticed that whenever my clients were about to start labour my blood would come too. Sometimes even two weeks before or after I was due. I felt that pregnancy moved such a vast amount of energy and opened up such a powerful portal between life and death that it required other women, anchored by their own wombs, to hold the process and create the necessary release. To this day I am convinced this is one of the reasons why most of the times, even in the most precarious situations, women supported by other women in their births are capable of unimaginable things.
I started thinking that menstrual blood had her own wisdom. Allow me the freedom here to refer to her as a she, because I know her first and foremost in Spanish, where you know, sangre is a she. I understood that she needs not to be healed, but that she is the healing. That if we create the right environment for her to unfurl (through temperature, through food, through attentive listening) she will bring us blessings that are beyond our wildest dreams.
I had been told I may not be able to have a baby. I had been told I would have to be on the pill forever. I had been told many things that weren’t true at all! "Beware of medical diagnosis" a midwife and dear friend said to me once when I told her about the PCOS "Remember they're more about something that's happening that about something you are. Nothing is set in stone". And indeed, I never again took hormonal contraception and my cycle was perfectly fine. Two years ago I got pregnant straight after I started trying. I was 39. I had an amazing, healthy pregnancy. I birthed at home without a midwife, in the presence of my partner and my doula and felt like a motherfucking goddess. I’m healthy, my son is healthy. My womb is healthy. I love my period, my vulva, my womb. I read my dreams as if they were books. I’ve found power, energy, wisdom, medicine and release in my menstruation. So I can tell you without a doubt that yes, periods can be fun. But more than fun, they can be healing.
Tips for period care
- Get some spices, herbs and flowers to make warming magical teas. Mines usually include cinnamon and clove but you can also add rose and nettles which are lovely for womb support. On occasion I would also add a bit of dark rum because why the hell not
- Don’t wash your hair during the first three days of blood (the first day is the first day you bleed from sun to sun, so if you get your period say at 4pm, your first day is the following day)
- Don’t walk barefoot, get cold or expose your pelvic area.
- Wrap your tummy with a womb belt, scarf or anything that gives it an extra layer of warmth
- Don’t eat citrus fruits, fresh vegetables, dairy or fatty products or drink beer.
- Don’t have unprotected (because semen is cold in nature too or so I’ve heard)
- If you can, avoid showering altogether. If you can’t stand the cold –or the feeling of being dirty- have a bath with some warming essential oils.
Tips for awakening you inner witch during your period
- Keep a dream journal and sleep as much as you can during those days
- Do a menstrual portrait
- Plant your blood in a little ritual to honour your blood and the earth
** If you want to learn more about this or would like a consultation don´t hesitate to contact me :)
Art work submitted for my blog La Serpiente Violeta by artists
Paula Araya * Ela Arango * Natalia Pezzi
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