How I became a menstrual educator

The Red Tide is Rising… the Mama’s voice, that which has moved me over these last 15 years of becoming a menstrual educator is hankering to be heard. There were library searches I would do back then, questing for someone else that may know about what I was beginning to learn from my body. Not finding very much, but what I did find I consumed with such gusto! The Wise Wound, Red Moon, Wild Genie, Her Blood is Gold.

I tried to create a collective of menstrual educators back in 1999/2000… I wasn’t ready then. I almost owned the Australian and NZ license for the Keeper… that would have made things very different… But what I ended up doing was building the Temple of the Blood CD… A menstrual meditation that is for clearing away the shame. Making the commitment to Her to listen to what moves me. To share what arrives when I give my blood room. That is what I do, make room for her. As I do, more and more deliciousness arrives.From StarFire to Harnessing the fertile force, to this new Womb Temple to be built here on our farm, all of these “idea’s” come from within.

I assure you, I didn’t grow up wanting to be a menstrual educator… there is no degree for that, YET. What I did say out loud when I was 15, was that I was going to follow the Kathy Cunningham religion, and from there, I learned to listen to what I knew was a “truth” of sorts for me. That was what led me to Reiki, then to natural childbirth at home, then living out bush, then to the keeper, then… well then I just fell in love with my bleeding self, with the sight of the blood and ever since have been with whatever it is that is in the way of that for me, and for any other woman I have walked with.

Starting where I began… clearing that shame state, that place of containment and why we are contained by it, made a whole lot of sense. Then there is the sisterhood space, trusting being a woman in reference to trusting women. Following the blood then took me to how our blood effects our birth… a simple place of gentle practice, cycle after cycle, and walking with our birth educators over these last 12 years, witnessing that conversation that will be had when women won’t be silenced!

That’s a big part of this… I would never be told, Katherine, you can’t talk about this…EVER… So I just kept following the blood… letting it take me, surrendering completely… like you can in water… and be carried to wondrous places… even if you’re only in the bath!

Our blood is an intrinsic part of our mind, a voice from our collective long silenced, tis time to bring this voice, from the deep, forward… SHE has a lot to say!

Blood Jewels

I want to write now… about how there is a huge difference between blood mind and jewels and the general creative problem solving force…

Often tis in the context, the meaning or value…rarely is this how to build a better mousetrap thinking, but more how to live, you and the mouse, how you are with one another, best build a way into and through that than to try to get out of it, by killing it usually…

It’s like our system is set for solve… “solve” is a alchemic term… it means to dissolve all and to my thinking that is what the blood mind does… releases all that is in the way… all that has clouded the reality of the situation.  What truly IS in the core… until you let go of all the song and dance, release the fear of dying, and generally dissolve the ego, the soul self can’t get a look in…

For me, the blood jewel is all about Her…. what can be brought through when we truly serve Her, this blessed earth, with our lives…. with ourselves, our skills, our dreams, our passions… for me, that source, that spark of direction and curiosity is based in this surrendered state… of following the life… the natural flow of what wants to be created… do we want to create another line of prison clothing? Bejeweling the chains of debt and ownership…?

OR do we want to build another piece of authentic expression so honest that is cracks us open again and again…

What are our opposable thumbs for any way? To consider even more fucked up ways to fuck ourselves and this planet over? OR to let go of all the fear and self loathing, long enough to offer up our beauty, however fragile and vulnerable it is…

I use my precious mind, my delicious thinking to solve… and when I finish my blood, I take all that is left and “coagula” it into my life, lived with perceiving new and delicious ways to inspire more women and the men that love them, to release the shackles of submission and servitude to that noise outside of you that will only consume all of you, leaving just enough to remain alive and feel the mill…

In turning from the manufactured reality to the blessed one we’re living with… you know, where the water, air and food come from, where the sun and moon dance with each other in such gentle harmony. These natural environs can be engaged… beyond being managed… just like the blood, like children, like feelings… all can be engaged with, lived and loved, learned and explored, immersed and felt deep down to the core…

To bleed well is to bring forth life, your life, beyond the blessed bebe’s you have the honour or holding in your arms, the life that you share with these bebe’s the one you build… either from the messy noise of the owned mind by the masses that will if you let them, OR the engaged mind serving the belly of goodness, like milk and honey goodness, that nourishes so much more …

Aho to the blood mind that offers up the blood jewels. The earth is communicating… through each heart, hands and sweet mind that can hear Her!

This is my Latest Blood Jewel…

What’s yours?

Finding the worth… when we are told there is none.

Mama is an abundant state. Being with our Earth, our natural Earth, an overflowing cornucopia of goodness, a type of abundance that feeds everyone, freely… That’s the thing about Love, tis given freely or not at all. To be with the Earth is to be with Love. To find worth there, deep sustaining worth in and of the Earth, is to feel that love. If there is no worth, no value… where is the Love?

I have quested for the worth of Woman most of my adult life. The worth of being ALL that we are, reaching deep into our nature, and finding that we are connected to our blessed Earth in such a core way, such a profoundly beautiful way… tis just that all this noise has us forget who we are, what we are made of, where we actually live. All these song and dance routines outside of self that seem to consume our attention, our time, our energy… they are not why we are here… to make more shit that we don’t need, consume more excitement than our calorie controlled intellect can possibly process, in fact all we have done with this noise is create a sort of barrier around us. A dampening field that has us numb to the real value-able parts of our loving Earth.

Perhaps if we stopped, let go, breathed the deep breath, heaved the big sigh… the one for those that are fed up, over all the BS and just wants to go home now. Turn from the noise of it all, turn off the telly, burn the paper, switch off the radio… even try putting you smart phone in the bread box for 2 hours… then just get out there… into Her, feel the earth beneath you, the sun above, the wind and water moving through everything… You are the centre of the Circle… every where you go… the elements, the directions, are just waiting for you to acknowledge them, respect them, find value and worth in knowing you are a part of these primary elements of life. As women, we have a belly full of worth, a profound part of this dance of life moving through us each cycle… do we know this worth?

May today be the day you find real worth in being a Woman. May today be the day you find real worth in the Women around you. For me, this is my work, my coalface…

This Sweet Black Earth Lodge.

 

The Grandmother lodge site, just the edges defined, the hole dug.

I have been promising a real description of the Black Earth Lodge… and here it is.

I hope that most people reading this post have attended at least one sweat lodge in their lives, if not SOTEMS, a wonderful organisation, is a powerful place to get to experience a sweat lodge at CERES on a regular basis, both mixed lodge and men’s and women’s lodges.  I am writing with an assumption that you have been to a sweat lodge, if not, there is descriptions of the experience here. 

Ever since I moved out to the Farm, I knew I was to build a lodge… but I was unsure if I was to be delivering full sweat ceremony, it didn’t feel like I was to be doing so. I even went to a dear Shaman sister to ask if she could assist in my training to be able to pour lodge, and together we recognised that what was to be built was not the most traditional of lodges… which being that I am not the most traditional of shaman’s is probably why.

Then, during a deep blood about 6-8 months ago I found an option I had never heard of before, but feels amazing. Here is the theory; there is profound alchemy in the movement between the elements that are in the lodge, between the earth the air the fire and the water, deep spirit is accessed. The intensity of the heat, the dedication of self to keep breathing through the heat, allowing all else to fall away, is part of the journey.

The Sweet Black Earth Lodge is still an alchemic process, we are still in strong relations with the earth the air the fire and the water, tis the configuration that is fundamentally different.

Instead of heating the rocks for the centre of the Grandmother lodge, we heat loose black earth. As it is moved from the fire to the lodge in a wooden yoni shaped vessel, we are taken deep into the belly of Her. Softly. As we are all placed in the dark lodge as we would a sweat lodge, we rest with our feet in the centre, in the hole, and the blessed black earth arrives to bury our feet. Gently filling in around our feet with this warm earth, the soft warm earth. Allowing ourselves to sink further in as the darkness consumes us all. Sinking deep within, letting it all go, allowing oneself to die, unto themselves.

In lots of ways this is a very familiar place for me and my blood practices, tis the process really of bleeding and I deeply look forward to entering the lodge as I next bleed as it will be finally ready. Perhaps it is the invitation to my man, to join me in this sweet black earth lodge that will be the most profound. My feeling is that I will be able to share just a small taste of the descent that is bleeding, the surrendering that is slipping off this mortal coil for but an instant, an hour or however long it takes for the earth to go cold, and the return begins.

Please, I would really be honoured if you would share what this theory feels like to you…? Would you join me in the deep dark sweet black earth?