Meet the Bloody Women behind the Blood Rites Camp
What was your first period like?
yeah take a moment and remember...
We discovered a majority of women had horrible experiences. So, you're not alone.
We also discovered that although our expressions are different these featured bloody women (below) have an in common mission. To heal ourselves, our communities and our planet. Through our own unique expressions we offer you trans formative music, subversive media, food as art and an education on how to heal. We are constantly in the process of healing ourselves. So our offerings are intrinsically connected with how we consciously are healing the dominator culture that has objectified us women.
Pulling the wool off our eyes and seeing how capitalism destroys how we view ourselves in a culture that has been profiting on societal imposed insecurities. We have shared with you our blood stories as a radical act of vulnerability. Not to make wrong or point out error, but rather to expose the truth. The truth that you are not alone. That the death of childhood and the growth into womanhood is painful, that the release of the fertile womb is a tender process that needs to be delicately held OUTLOUD and not stuffed away or muted. There is magic in our blood. There is magic in the ability to commune with the moon and feel the high tides of our inner ocean.
yeah take a moment and remember...
We discovered a majority of women had horrible experiences. So, you're not alone.
We also discovered that although our expressions are different these featured bloody women (below) have an in common mission. To heal ourselves, our communities and our planet. Through our own unique expressions we offer you trans formative music, subversive media, food as art and an education on how to heal. We are constantly in the process of healing ourselves. So our offerings are intrinsically connected with how we consciously are healing the dominator culture that has objectified us women.
Pulling the wool off our eyes and seeing how capitalism destroys how we view ourselves in a culture that has been profiting on societal imposed insecurities. We have shared with you our blood stories as a radical act of vulnerability. Not to make wrong or point out error, but rather to expose the truth. The truth that you are not alone. That the death of childhood and the growth into womanhood is painful, that the release of the fertile womb is a tender process that needs to be delicately held OUTLOUD and not stuffed away or muted. There is magic in our blood. There is magic in the ability to commune with the moon and feel the high tides of our inner ocean.
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scroll down to see all six blood sisters
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Tatiana will be leading moonlodge and teaching.
In times before electricity and the advent of artificial light, women bled with the moons cycles. During this time women collectively spent time away from their daily lives, set up camp and bled together directly into the earth. Women naturally circle together. In a circle there is no hierarchy, everyone is equal. We listen to each other. Vulnerable sharing without counseling has a profound impact on the psyche. Pure active LISTENING produces an alchemy. Something more dynamic than joy. So spacious that all emotions, thoughts, ideas, body sensations are expressed and honored. This deep expression is an integral part of what it is to be a woman, for that matter an earthling. That is why I've fully committed to a life of holding space for moonlodge. It's my greatest gift to community. It's what I needed when I left childhood and started this intricate adventure into womanhood. Blood story I've been distilling down my first menstruation. The moment I left being a girl and became a young woman. It was a crash landing. I hated it. I thought I was dieing. In middle school I remember listening to the girls talk about their periods in the girls bathroom, calling it Aunt Flow or the monthly curse… Even through their complaints I wanted it to happen to me. I wanted to join that women's club, I wanted to feel grown up. It happened when my mom was out. I sat on the toilet in agony. I wanted to vomit, poop, cry, scream. I was NOT prepared. The loose education I got from phys ed class, about how to care for a raw chicken egg with a male student, did not prepare me for what the hell was happening to me. When my mom finally came home, she pulled out her floppy big pads handed me midol and asked me if I needed anything else. In my head I wanted to scream; “What the hell is happening to me? Why does it hurt so much? Is something wrong, with me?” but I said nothing... I've held Moonlodge for over ten years now. It saved my life. So many times. When I've revisited that original thought thread of; “What the hell is happening to me? Why does it hurt so much? Is something wrong, with me?” —the ritual of circling with women in Moonlodge reminded me of what I forgot. That I was not alone in thinking these things! Similar things float around in other women's heads. That growth and change is happening to me. It sometimes hurts but the pain won't last long and if it does I ask for help. There might be something wrong, but not with me inherently. Having these things reflected back to me in the stories of women during Moonlodge is powerful. |
Christina is our chef and will be cooking all of our meals. She specializes in seasonal, local, and organic food and yummy baked goods. Curating an ayurvedic informed, hormone balancing menu. She loves to create community through service and the gift of nourishing food. Through the ritual of preparing, eating and cleaning together.
Blood story After spending the afternoon at their church I’d gotten home and discovered that I’d started my period. I felt weird about that. That I’d just been in a church and then this had happened, maybe like even being there had caused it to happen, the power of that space to transform the body. But also weird because there was a disconnect, even an at odds feeling, with religion and this natural body process. I wasn’t ashamed, it just felt wrong to have been in a church with that happening to my body. Like that wasn’t supposed to happen, because that place is not the place for engaging in any part of your sexuality, even your period. I had a hard time with my periods. They were strong; they were painful (I remembered describing it like “imagine getting kicked in the balls and then have that pain vibrate from your toes up your legs and into your stomach”) and they left me feeling really emotionally vulnerable “like if you blew on me, I would just fall over”. It wasn’t this exciting thing anymore. And it felt gross. Gross, sitting in class and then laughing or sneezing and feeling blood shoot out of your body onto a sticky smelly pad that felt like a disgusting diaper. Then came the magic of tampons, what a relief!!! And I was scared of them. I didn’t know if I was doing it right. But, I also had this feeling like the act of touching myself and putting in a tampon was kind of dirty. Like interacting with that part of my body, even to take care of it in this way, was in the same category as sex and masturbation and those were dirty and shameful. And here, with full transparency and vulnerability I will say that I had a lot of shame around masturbation. I, like a lot of kids I imagine, though I feel like it’s not talked about, discovered masturbation and don’t fully know what it is, but it feels like it’s something to hide and be ashamed of. That feeling stayed late into my teens and twenties and really did inform and impact how I felt about sex and intimacy. I have had an IUD now for almost 8 years. My periods dropped off pretty quickly after getting my first one. And though I don’t miss the pain and temporary inconvenience, I do feel like my body is now and has been for a long time “off”. My hormones have not been on a natural cycle for a long time and I wonder about how that impacts and informs my body, my feelings and my life. I have no idea even now sitting here where I am in my cycle, I stopped tracking the tiny signs years ago, and I feel like that loss of knowledge is a loss of power. A loss of my bodies natural wisdom and capacity to communicate with me about me. And here I feel like there is a natural plunge into the dominant patriarchal paradigm. With birth control, yes I am given an amount of freedom and control of my own body, but at what cost? And why is it more readily socially accepted or expected that as a woman who wants to exercise power over her own body and future that I be willing to pay of price of losing touch with some of the most primal and powerful wisdom my body can offer me? |
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Liz is the Steward of the 80 forested Acres off of the Pacific coast of California that we will be communing with + camping on. Liz will also be teaching the Dream Circle workshop.
Liz is a western herbalist and magic maker who believes in affordable, accessible, community-based health care and the healing power of plants. She came to the herbal path through her own healing crisis as well as a frustration with the loss of ancestral wisdom and privatization of health care in the United States. Disenchanted by sterile doctor’s offices, she believes in the healing that comes from our own gardens, the local land and our kitchens. She is devoted to encouraging others to find empowerment through self-care and harm reduction, to find healing in a cup of fir tip and strawberry leaf tea, and to find magic in the simple practices that connect us to the Earth. She teaches classes on plant medicine, ancestral remembrance, folk magic and the interweaving of herbalism and social and ecconomic justice. She lives on the magical Mendocino coast where she spends a lot of time making flower essences and blowing kisses to the whales. Blood story I was on the beach in Florida when I was thirteen. I was wearing a bathing suit that I felt uncomfortable in. Luckily, I was with my mom and I was able to tell her that I had started bleeding. She pulled me aside, and brought me to the public bathrooms. She was excited for me and gave me a hug. Later that day, she gave me some pads that felt like diapers. It was nothing memorable. I don't actually remember a lot about my moon when I was younger. I don't remember what I liked or disliked about it. It was just something I dealt with on a month to month basis. It wasn't until college that I learned about sacred blood mysteries that I got an understanding around the magic potential of this monthly cycle. It felt extremely exciting, this thing that was kind of a burden every month became a possibility of personal transformation with each lunar movement. Over time, it gave meaning to my life in many different ways. Self-informed. Self-empowered. Self-reflective. Knowing my own tides, knowing my own power. |
Janeen will be teaching a class about Blood Collection.
Janeen is a queer California-based business owner, spending most days in service to folks who menstruate. She started Holy Sponge! as a result of her own personal process of leaving tampons and switching to sea sponges. Her love for sponges grew in such a way that she abandoned her career in clinical therapy to work in service to offering bleeding folks new ways of seeing and caring for their beautiful bodies. Blood Story 1995: A suburb of Cleveland, Ohio I was 15, ungrounded, a cheerleader, anticipating blood soon. In the bathroom, my coach tells me, "Don't ever wipe your ass with a tampon in. The string..." And my mom tells me that once she put two tampons in at once at it landed her in the hospital. I get my blood and not much is said by anyone, except I see my mother whispering to friends of the family before a meal begins and I know she is telling them about it. I try pads but bleed through my shorts onto a chair in science class and know the boy next to me saw. So, the dreaded tampon... and ouch- I'll never forget the panic in the the 8th grade stall. Someone gave me a big tampon, and I am too dry. I try to get it out, and that- that feeling is the feeling of dry shards of rayon scraping my uterine wall. The messages were: You are a woman now. You have to pay for Eve's sin (Goddess forbid a woman who wants to eat from the tree of knowledge). Your period is the price you pay. Suck it up and pretend it's not happening. So I listened and I did, until I no longer could. My Saturn Return started at around age 26 and was quite dramatic, turning me away from that kind of messaging & toward mySelf. MySelf, my compass, my blood, my knowing, my desires, my sexuality, my power...none of which agreed with patriarchy or the life I had grown up within, so I changed everything. My body is my companion, and I will never ignore her again. |
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Adey will be crafting a musical initiation the night of the new moon. As well as teaching.
Weaving harmony, intuition & embodiment she leads us deep into the layers of our psyches. “Music for uncovering the lost pieces of yourself”, Adey’s talent as a journey-weaver and master songstress will stretch our imaginations and delight our senses. Blood story I have a deep passion for Women’s Blood and the cycles of her life. My painful life experience taught me how to honor and listen to my body’s wisdom and the wisdom of our intelligent planet. My speciality as a musician and healer is in the realm of the psyche- I observe and study the archetypes and stories behind our actions and manifestations. With an emphasis on “PMS”- my music expresses the woman’s journey through some of the most trying times of her life. It is a conversation about living in modern times as an ancient soul, remembering us all into being. It is a musical Remembering of who She is. I think about how my life would have been different if I had a positive experience starting my first blood. If I had a sister or mother who had the Wisdom of the Moon to guide me, to understand me... When I first bled I was horrified, confused and in so much pain. The women in my life seemed to have no understanding of anything I was going through. The images of our culture reinforced my confusion, anger and self hatred. Over the next 15 years I dove into the mysteries & took refuge in nature and writing music. I learned to understand my pace, cultivate my inner life, listen & ask the right questions. I channeled my pain and inquiry into music that today I record and perform as my profession. I studied powerful healers, read volumes of wisdom, began friendships with powerful women and slowly a path of healing was illuminated, a path that was my own. I am honored to hold space, to dive deep and co-create a Ritual that will have a lasting impact on not only all who attend, but for generations to come. We do this for All our Relations, so our daughters’ daughters will have solid ground to bleed upon, she will not fear her own cycles and tides, she will be supported in her innerstanding of who she is and trust the Sacred nature of her body, mind and spirit. We do this so that we may become an integrated Human species with reverence and respect for each other and the planet. And so it is. “Jump up! and live like a never before seen sprout. Jump out of the husk and try to flower so as to make a fruit to feed a time of hope beyond our own.”- Martin Prechtel |
Zen will be the photographic witness, capturing the overall essence of the Blood Rites camp. With your permission you'll be photographed. The documentation (mostly photo and some video/sound) will be shared with you after the campout. She will also be teaching.
Blood story I got my first period a week after my twelfth birthday. My mother was returning home from a trip overseas and when I told her after she got home, her first words to me were “Oh god” while rolling her eyes. I felt like I was a burden. She gave me uncomfortable pads to wear. At that time of my life, my mother was a single parent who worked very early in the morning until evening so I was basically on my own. I grew huge tits and hips pretty early on so I felt extremely awkward and was sexualized from a very early age. To say that I was completely out of touch with my womb would be an understatement. It wasn’t until my mid-20’s that I started studying shamanic traditions and was told by a medicine person to offer the blood from my womb to the earth. Every month, since then I have collected my blood and feed it to my plants. I have come to LOVE having my period--my sacred moon time. And I feel so blessed that my body gets to cleans itself every month. |
