Free Bleeding
what it means to menstruate as it pertains to the sacred vessels of divine masculine and feminine energies
FEB 04, 2025
New moon, prophetic dreams
the silver crescent of a figure that hangs before me in the dark sky
the one that hangs between my breasts.
That I reward myself for singing songs of praise
I find in my dreams—erase.
Blood of a magi and my beating heart
the blood that floods my veins and flows through the sacred
temple of my womanhood.
A connection to divine feminine—praise God praise
The Lord, this holy spirit
as it makes us clean again, as this blood
the lamb, runs with me.
Wash over me. I am made pure
again in the light, in the flow
I am pure in the blood I shed.
Sync with me.
‘My body is wise. I surrender to delight. I embrace challenges. I’m enough as I am.’ 1
It is important to know the basic understanding of the scientific cycle as it describes menstruation. If you are unaware of what a period is, or cannot remember your health class in grade school: a menstrual period occurs when the uterus sheds its lining. In effect, this process prepares the woman for pregnancy. The body produces hormones that ask the ovaries to release an egg as the uterus thickens its lining. If pregnancy does not occur and the egg goes without fertilization, the hormone levels drop and the body sheds the lining. Menstrual blood is a mixture of tissue and blood, where bleeding usually lasts for 3 to 8 days. This can vary from person to person as does flow, hormonal levels and actual cycles (considering methods of birth control, stress, or any other reproductive health-related experiences). The average cycle is 28 days, but this can also vary and becomes more regular in maturation.
Every time I get my period, I feel relief, like thank God I’m not pregnant. The warmth of a new spring season washed over me, and then I’m grateful to be alive. The effect of menstruation is a mysterious phenomenon that has effectively been a minor part of humanity’s historical documentation. For this reason, it is challenging to research, but because we live in a somewhat progressive future, as this pertains to human rights and acceptance of all peoples (to some degree anyway), it is evident that we have been trying to be more mindful about these things. As a result, there is more progressive research. Still, it lacks the historical bounds to make it a viable subject, as well as the simple fact that menstruation is only experienced by women. Where we have for many years been stuck in a patriarchal society, there is by default ignorance towards the feminine body. I do not speak for every nation, but I feel qualified to speak for women who menstruate, simply because I am one of them. There is, because of this misunderstanding between sacred energies, both masculine and feminine, an inherent denial of acceptance on bleeding as an art, bleeding as a sacred process, and a misunderstanding of the magic between each of us. When only those who experience it can feel it, this trust that is lacking as a consequence of our division is often what makes or breaks the connection.
What does it mean to run around as a young child, to then be taught that one day you will lose all of that bliss, and that it is God’s will of it? That you might experience rash and unbearable pain or emotions, that your husband or wife or partner will look at you funny if you overreact to something whilst you bleed. That you have to then be careful about pretty much everything you do, because from that day onward, you’d be a woman, and women must be careful about what they do in this world.
I sit here hunching over my laptop, at the end of my period. I wonder what is life without this innocence? And I think we do not lose It as a young child, waiting for a period. We lose it by the decisions we make and what we allow into our sacred vessels. It is not a period that will decide your fate, but it is a metaphor. How will you shed your blood today? Will you give unto peace? for hope? or is all your blood washed away in vain? Do you allow the men who think they know your body better to dictate this for you? Will you listen to the wisdom that your mother has grown to know? will you of your grandmother? that of the moon? At the very least, listen to your intuition, the residing force in your gut. You owe it to yourself, the innocence you have forgotten.
The degrees to which menstruation is experienced globally are diverse, and are often dependent upon any given culture’s ideological structure; that is, the lived experience of menstruation is typically tied to a mythos, or alternatively, a system of tightly-held religious and mythological beliefs. Young women from various places in the world and from various religious denominations experience brutal awakenings the moment they begin to shed blood. They are sometimes told to stay out of certain places, to stay away from their husbands during their time of menstruation, or to stay away from boys in general (when they are ripe of age), to stay outside the church, to sleep outside like dogs. They are warned of the curse that God has bestowed upon them, warned of the repercussions of the sinful act of having sex and the possibility of giving birth to a bastard. They are, from that moment on, no longer innocent, and treated as women, to then go about doing womanly things.2 While this is a generalization of the restrictions and practices that women have experienced, it is true that there are many drastic measures taken to not only protect the sanctity of what it means to bleed and to be a woman, but also to avoid the hysteria of this experience and essentially cast out women during their time of the month. Women from all over the earth experience this societal stigma, and rightfully have tried to make voices of themselves, claiming their natural birthrights to humanness and femininity.
It is a tragic thing to know that women in 2025 (I wish I could scream this number, but honestly it means nothing) still experience shame for bleeding. Menstrual stigma supports many of these negative impacts through stigmatic experiences which begin when we begin to bleed. The results of this range vastly from simple teasing to serious medical conditions. The source is predominantly the effect of a society that is demonized with sexism and misogyny. This might go deeper to say that the stigma forms in each system of education; where a young child, whatever the gender or household or experience, might be taught that a menstrual cycle is pervasive and undesirable. To consider dismantling this stigma and healing the roots of these issues, all of which are deeply embedded into our society, asks for all peoples to look within themselves, to de-condition these stigmas that were taught to us all as young children. 3 This stigma might have a lasting effect towards supporting other stigmas as well.
For instance, I feel it necessary to speak about women in competition with each other. The societal aspects of this argument are vast as our capitalistic agenda pushes competition on any level and thinks it good. This is where we are prone to doom. This competition sparks jealousy. It creates beauty standards that are wildly inappropriate. It allows the range of subtle and harsh teasing and villainizing, the appropriation, negligence of humanness, to become normalized. These standards and emotions make young girls want to kill themselves, and some do. These things make old women grow bitter because they suddenly do not have the space to share their wisdom, where society pushes them out. These things are encouraged by all ranges of people, young or old, no matter your gender, no matter your background or circumstance; this is made true by virtue of the fact that we all have egos. No one wants to be seen as weak or vulnerable, but the simple fact that we are human is what makes us weak or vulnerable, yet, by this same virtue, we can also become strong and resilient. Further, this ignorance of the range of emotion and human experience denies us all of the appreciation of the wisdom that our elders hold within and denies us of the forgotten innocence and experiences of a pure or troubled youth. Those of whom, like myself, who have noticed these issues and speak about them, are often mocked or repressed for the same issues they want to explore. It is a vicious cycle. Menstruation may not be the core of these issues, but this is an essential part of remembering the sacred feminine and the divine energy that is within. Without these energies that are sacred and divine, we find ourselves at fault with each other and therefore the rest of the world.
XIX
If we speak of beauty, this includes beautiful women —
For it is interiorizing to behold them:
To see Pure Beauty in femininity as such,
In a noble and loving way —
As if the soul were already in the meadows of Heaven. 4
We might all be vessels for our souls, but this does not simply limit women to being containers or child-bearing bodies. Even though it is a crucial role for our part in society, to be defined in is this way is horrifying. This objectification of the sacred feminine is soul-crushing, it denies us of our right to the necessary part of building a symbiotic society. In studies surrounding Simone de Beauvior’s account of the feminine body in le deuxieme sexe, scholars such as Sarah Fishwich note:
symbolically, man's relationship to Woman, the Other, is inextricably linked to his relationship with Nature, which also represents the Other for man. In the patriarchal representational economy, both are identified with similar concepts: terror and compliance, earth, the life-cycle, contingence and shadowy chaos. Caught up in a dense web of symbolizations, woman, Beauvoir asserts, has been produced through the mechanisms of patriarchal representation and ideology. The idea of "woman" is mediated through a complex network of binaries which displace one another endlessly. 5
This sacred feminine is within us all. Its residing force finds itself in nature, in the unfoldment of our universe, and still we neglect to truly know it, to truly see it, because its truth is not obvious, because we have forgotten the ways of nature, because we have forgotten God, and the ways in which we must live within it, within this universe, lest we perish. It is important to allow this unfoldment as it finds its place best fit, and we might not all see this in the same way; that in itself is the beauty of the feminine. We might not all be child-bearing and we might not all experience menstruation, but there does exist the energy. The anima in the masculine that is the feminine aspect within their psyche, while the animus (the unconscious masculine) that resides within the feminine psyche—as archetypes of the representations of the opposite unconscious mind—are the bridges between what is conscious and unconscious. This might also be the bridge to heal these wounds. Realizing that each embodiment of the feminine or the masculine has its allowed force of the opposite within itself. May we recognize that when one of us succeeds, we all succeed, as it is envy that will disguise itself amidst the drama of life. It is this energy that will dismantle all that we have built up until now. It is within this cycle of uncertainty and capitalistic agenda that fuels this rivalry.6 This competition, jealousy and envy, the bitterness and the extremities of distasteful happenstance in youth, or for that matter all phases of life, are not necessarily the fault of the bitter elderly, nor are they the fault of sheltered youth, nor are they the ignorance of any middle aged person. It is collectively all our faults and all our responsibility, as we all enable each other to become what we have.
Each of these roles in life and society find vitality in what they represent. Having a first period, becoming mature and flowering into an individual, the end of a phase and experiencing menopause; each may find a reason to be proud of its existence, finding a reason for being. The cycles of womanhood and the extreme importance of wisdom in old age are what may fuel a society to flourish, and as we ignore these cycles and the wisdom of the end, again, we find our doom.
since the advent of patriarchy, only [these] powers have attributed
harm to the ladle of liquor which flows from the female genitals. (translated from original French, (5)) The art of bleeding by the sacred feminine body is a ritual. Each phase of this cycle deserves the grace and a safe space to flower in and of itself. Society ignores the needs of this by asking us all to bend our bodies, minds and souls to the empire we have created. This breaking and bending; however, is not just about women and menstruation; this is about the cycles of nature, the moon, the relationship between the animus and the anima, oceans and tides, seasons, the sacred divinity of man and woman partnership, of being human. My personal relationship with the moon has been formed through each bleeding cycle, through my observations of noticing and understanding what the moon represents within nature. Where I had unconsciously experienced the effects of the moon and her wisdom, the light of the night, as a young child; I began, through my years of going though bleeding cycles, to notice the way in which we communicate with each other. There have been many times in my young adult life where I have struggled to appreciate the wonders of this flow, of the cycle of menstruation. There have been times when the blood that came from my body was triggering; reminding me of abortion, of rape, of mutilation, of things I’d rather forget. I would dissociate, I would circle through flashes of trauma. I felt no one understood my pain, that I was alone. It wasn’t until I noticed that this experience was an effect of social stigma, that I began to really heal from these dark wounds, as opposed to ignoring them or dissociating. I realized that my hesitation to acknowledge that other women experience these same things and that it was possible to heal these wounds, not only within myself, but together, with the rest of the world, was a truth to the separation, competition, and ignorance in our material world, our patriarchal society. Also, I failed to realize the pattern of falling into faulty romantic partnerships was supportive of these negative aspects of living and breathing. That my own ignorance blocked me from seeing the core of these dark truths, that I could also be saved and save myself. Life, being amoral, can be immoral; Grace, being pure substance, is capable of absorbing all accidents. 7
Fundamentally, every love is a search for the Essence or the lost Paradise; the melancholy, gentle or violent, which often appears in poetic or musical eroticism bears witness to this nostalgia for a far-off Paradise and doubtless also to the evanescence of earthly dreams, of which the sweetness is, precisely, that of a Paradise which we no longer perceive, or which we do not yet perceive. (6)
We do not yet know the solemn ride it is to traverse this ocean of life within the pureness of unity, because our would does not permit it to exist. We might be able to fool ourselves by marriage, a legal unity, but the soul unity is what matters, this is what must be kept sacred. Although it might be a possibility, to find a soulmate of one’s primordial existence, it is not common; it is a rarity in our society. And we may lie to ourselves, finding comfort in defining birth charts, the astrology that should serve unto us a mirror, yet it leads so many astray. Even our personalities and the psychological definitions we submit to are perversive towards the unfoldment of sacredness and divinity. Our life path numbers, subtle messages from God, psychology in general, trauma bonds, karmic cycles, religious ties, familial approval, or an enneagram, this is not always true to what is within. These things might help us to see a larger photo of synchronicities, they might help us to heal in ways we had not previously known, these things might help us to discover missing pieces. However, there is much more to this photo, and there are so many that might be stuck in places of psychosis, or are possessed by these evil energies that float around our world; it is challenging to see the difference. The veil has become as thin as a layer of ice in spring. So long as we continue to allow ourselves to be swallowed in pride, envy, the myth of sin, the world that is dictated by the cosmos, the world that prefers us in psychosis, the world that runs on the perversion of purity, this evil empire, we will not know our hearts. Let alone, to know another soul as completely as we might try to reach of our own.
The ambiguity of the sacred feminine might be a supportive essence of the patterns that do not allow real growth and connection. It might only by ambiguous because we are not yet ready to know the truth of what it means to be divine, which contributes to the mythology that this knowing is only for a select few, where only few are ready to understand and have worked toward this path. It might be ambiguous because that is simply just what it is. Through knowing what is within, we know the feminine, to then act upon the energy that feels it must be exerted outwards, we grow to know the masculine.
Feminist movements as they pertain to menstrual products, protesting and the politics of periods, and free bleeding have made honorable efforts to support substantial growth to allowing this sacred feminine within the walls of our patriarchal society. Although misguided at times, the core of these efforts are mostly rooted in the truth that is this voice of the feminine body. However, just because we have been trying to be progressive, trying to move forward, does not necessarily mean this it has all been good. I have written about feminism before which might allow this statement to be expanded upon if you are interested (click here to read feminism sucks). Essentially, we must remember the core of truth in life, where we have forgotten what it means to be sacred, what the sacred feminine is, why we have in the past (or ancient past) connected menstruation to be a sacred happening, why it has become increasingly important to be present and listen to intuition. There are many noticeable effects to be derived of the generations who lived before us and their tolerance (or lack thereof) with the feminine modalities towards life.
Menstrual products have long been an interesting topic. Tampons are a relatively new thing, but there have been documentations of women in previous worlds who used many forms of sponge-like items and cloth to soak up menstrual blood. Despite our ancestor’s experimentation and creative habits, there is a long withstanding protest against taxes on feminine products and modern feminine products in general. This protest might be a movement to shape equality among women in countries and parts of the world where these items are unavailable; moreover, it stands to tell the truth about the period, that of which should be kept sacred. This protest is alive and well by the effort of free-bleeding. Free bleeding is, essentially, when a woman decides to go about her life whilst experiencing menstruation, not using any products to soak up the blood. This is an aspect in our modern world that is not generally accepted since it is often seen as unsanitary (and genuinely is in some cases), gross or primitive. Although menstruation is a natural occurrence, we have tended towards higher degrees of cleanliness that are expected in many places of business and domestic life.8 Personally, I free bleed when I’m at home because no one can stop me and because it feels great. I find that feeling the blood release itself from the lining of my uterus and fall from my vagina is not only sensually fruitful, but I feel directly connected to the entire process. I feel my primal energies and I feel the sacredness between my legs. Further, many feminine products are not conducive to vaginal health. I find it disturbing that so few products are made organically; many are made with chemicals or fragrances that are, in my opinion at least, unsafe. I am also disturbed by the acquiescence between medical professionals and their common dismissal of these concerns, except to warn of toxic shock syndrome. ‘Just don’t leave your tampon in for too long, and you’ll be just fine !!!’ This conversation irks me. We are ignorant to the magic that is the uterus and we are afraid to talk about it. The magic of what it means to shed blood in this way.
In girl world, we could run on a calendar that is synchronous with the lunar phases. In this world, periods would not be seen as sinful and unclean. However, since this world does not exist, we are made to suffer with the repercussions of patriarchal ignorance. This means that finding a man who is not afraid of blood and sincerely appreciates this cycle, is a challenge. This means that women must also learn; to cherish their cycle. Without it, we simply would not exist. The menstrual cycle is often correlated to the four seasons as it is naturally apart of a four phase process. As a woman moves through these phases or seasons of her cycle, she will change depending on hormone levels. As it pertains to which phase or season compares to that of the menstrual cycle, it is up to each woman to decide for herself. Regrettably, this inner rhythm and the aspects of intuition are not encouraged in our society, which expects every participant to be consistent with their performance. This magical and intuitive gift is not just for women; every person that walks this earth has the ability to listen to their own intuition, to the rhythm of their own body, in which this is a constant force that blossoms through us, just like the breath. Fluctuation and fluidity are not allowed in our society. We are not allowed to have intuition and emotion. At best, we are expected to be mechanical and robotic.
It has become increasingly urgent for us women and men alike to attune to our cycles as fields in medicine, technology and science progress, leaving behind the sacredness in life.
Although we all may operate on different fields of existence, this power that exists within us all is crucial to expanding consciousness and moving forward into a future that is actually prosperous and lively and fruitful. The kind of healing that can come from understanding these cycles is beautiful. The kind of healing that is imbued within a woman’s menstrual blood can serve this practice. When we bleed we listen to our rhythms and cycles, we find the wisdom that is necessary to fuel this forward motion and the healing that our society actually needs as a whole. A period might directly reflect what a woman might be experiencing in her life and the areas in which she might choose to heal. 9 In learning my own rhythms and becoming attuned to the cycles I experience, I have found my own magic and ways of healing. Indeed, the peoples of our ancient past were not wrong to assume that period blood yielded healing properties and could engender a magical experience. I often feel that my intuition grows stronger during menstruation. I feel strong and powerful when I listen to my body.
Our society does not know this power because we refuse to listen to ourselves.
This is a conversation that I would be happy to have at great length, as I realize the more I find, the more I can write about. And I just might! But of course, you’d be the first to know. More to come soon.
1Meri Mort, Nordic Magic: Cozy Publishing & Meri Mort, 2023, page 121 & 122.
2Maharaj T, Winkler IT. Transnational Engagements: Cultural and Religious Practices Related to Menstruation. 2020 Jul 25. In: Bobel C, Winkler IT, Fahs B, et al., editors. The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies [Internet]. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan; 2020. Chapter 15. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565655/
3Olson MM, Alhelou N, Kavattur PS, Rountree L, Winkler IT. The persistent power of stigma: A critical review of policy initiatives to break the menstrual silence and advance menstrual literacy. PLOS Glob Public Health. 2022 Jul 14. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10021325/#:~:text=Menstrual%20stigma%20refers%20to%20the,why%20and%20how%20menstruation%20matters.
4Frithjof Schuon, Philosopher, Poet and Artist. 2025. Frithjof-Schuon.com. 2025. http://www.frithjof-schuon.com/fem-feminite-engl.htm.
5Fishwick, Sarah. “Reassessing Beauvoir’s Account of the Body in ‘Le Deuxieme Sexe.’” Simone de Beauvoir Studies16 (1999): 55–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45170535.
6Writes, Natasha. 2024. “Natasha Writes.” Natasha Writes. 2024. https://www.natashawrites.info/black-motherhood-divine-feminine/redefining-sisterhood-why-jealousy-is-killing-our-feminine-power.
7Femininity - Frithjof Schuon. 2022. Frithjof Schuon. May 23, 2022. https://en.fschuon.info/?page_id=1706.
8Sharkey, Lauren. 13 Things to Know About Free Bleeding. 2019 Aug 19. Healthline. Healthline Media. https://www.healthline.com/health/free-bleeding.
9Swan, Teal. Periods and Menstruation, a Spiritual Perspective. 2017 June 15. Teal Swan. https://tealswan.com/resources/articles/periods-and-menstruation-a-spiritual-perspective-r254/.
