There is an ancient Hopi prophecy that states, "When the women give their blood back to the earth, men will come home from war and earth shall find peace.”
When I first heard this prophecy, I was in awe. For one - I did not understand what a blood offering had to do with global peace, AND I really hated menstruation at the time. This prophecy puts high value on an experience that many womxn have a sticky relationship with and the Bible has deemed impure.
I believe that patriarchal religious dogma has woven a collective matrix of shaming womxn through the tools of crusades, mission work, and development projects across the globe for the last several thousand years. These beliefs run deep and have been pumped into the wells of memory within our blood.
Here is one example of what the Bible states about menstruation:
"When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening... If a man lies with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean....
...When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge" (Leviticus 15).
The Bible speaks truth to some, not all. And even those who don't believe - the words of the Bible have created a paradigm of morality that has swept across the entire globe and has reached the brains of all.
Paradigms are insidious, often invisible to us - an invisible matrix that those who are under its spell have little to no idea that the paradigm is impacting them. These paradigms help formulate the computer programs of the collective mind that create entire belief systems of how one sees the entire world, plus perceives oneself.
When I read those verses from the Bible - I feel pretty shitty about menstruation, and thus, about being a womxn. I recognize that those words are not telling me to feel that way - however, to state that not only am I unclean while I bleed, but also those who come in contact with me are unclean, and that in order to be pure again, I must go to a Priest (a man) to make an offering (which is an animal sacrifice!) for my sin of bleeding (which is totally out of my control, by the way!), so that I may regain purity... that's... pretty... intense.
Even though I don't believe those words in the Bible as truth, they impact me. They impact all womxn. These words have created a societal norm for how to conceptualize a natural occurrence of our bodies.
I remember the first time that I bled; I felt cursed. It seemed so unfair to carry the burden. For months, I dreaded the time that 'it' would come. Somehow I felt different after menarche - as if I was the elephant in the room and everyone knew that I had changed, and that I was bleeding.
I remember feeling icky, gross, unclean, impure... Do any of those words sound familiar from the words in the Bible? Interestingly enough, I never read those verses before my first menstruation.
I cannot help but notice a puzzling difference between the Hopi prophecy and the words in the Bible. Why the stark contrast in speaking about menstruation with reverence and power and one with uncleanliness and power?
Neither the prophecy nor the Bible verses officially state that menstruation has power, but it is implied. Womxn collectively offering their menstruation to Earth to bring world peace... now that's power. Other people being unclean simply because they touch a womxn who is bleeding... now that's raw power.
I want to break down the Hopi prophecy to offer a lensing in which your menstruation births life.
There is a fertile river that runs between your legs. The blood that flows is the current that started out as the potential to nurture and sustain a seed into being. And when there is no seed to gestate for 9 moons, the lining of the uterus is discharged and flows through the blood.
This blood is the fluid that would surround a budding baby in the womb, the same blood that would breed life through the sustenance, nutrients, and minerals within the fluids.
So this blood, if offered to Earth, would bring the men home from war and bring world peace - why?
Because Earth needs to be nourished and fed - she needs offerings to sustain, regenerate, and re-fertilize her entire body of resources. Earth needs to be replenished too.
She has a BIG task to do - to nurture ALL LIFE - not just us humxns, but the animals, plant nations, mineral kingdoms, etc. She has a WHOLE lot of life to grow. She is our Mother.
And we, as womxn, who still bleed, have a gift - a red river that flows between our legs that can nourish, feed and breathe new life into the soil that will continue to sustain ALL beings on Earth.
Hearing this prophecy helped me to see that menstruation is not a curse, but rather a gift - one that I could come into right relationship with to re-write my story of how I perceive myself as a womxn.
I went from feeling ashamed of the natural occurrence that I was destined to experience to feeling the magic, raw power, and beauty that menstruation is.
Within my bones, I believe that all of our ancestral roots, when we go back far enough, have reverential practices for menstrual mystics on their moon phases. There was a time when Goddess was revered all across the globe and womxn's bodies were also respected!
My invitation for you is to honour this rite that is yours - that only you can experience as a womxn - whether you still bleed or not, whether you have a physical womb or not.. You have been blessed with the elixir of life, and it would be an honour to be here in sisterhood with you, together, as womxn who are reclaiming the lost menstrual rituals to bring peace to Earth.
If this is a new perception for you to try on - a great place to start is to re-write your story, to build a new relationship with your bleeding to see if you can learn how to listen to your cycle to allow it to be a time of mysticism, reflection, power, and reverence - one that is pleasurable, rather than a time that is painful.
When we make space for ourselves to bleed and we carve out time for a sacred pause, I wonder if the collective experience of menstruation as PMS would shift to a collective experience of orgasmic birthing of new seeds, visions, and life for all of humxnity.
This is my vision, so I seed it cycle by cycle, as I listen to the wisdom of my womb to invite health and wellness for myself, so that I can offer fresh life to Earth.
It is my greatest joy in this lifetime to support womxn on their womb awakening journeys. If this post speaks to you, and you want to explore deeper, I'd love for you to check out mentorship with me, to see if booking a FREE Connection Call may serve you to come into deeper relationship with your body and access your womb as the power portal that is your birth-rite. You can learn more about this here.
XO
Meg
Citation
1. Hopi Prophesy quotation found at https://beccapiastrelli.com/menstrual-rituals/
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