My understanding of the ways to connect myself with the Earth through my moon blood has been cobbled together from my own experimenting, errors, and random bits of information collected throughout my life. And I wonder how many fragments will equal a whole. How many rigged together half-practices will make enough sustainable substrate so we don’t have to invent the wheel each generation? Even the fragments though, have allowed my body to harmonize. 

Modern life does not support the flow and cycle of menstruation, aiming instead to suppress and suffocate it, and hoping to mask the smell of blood and pussy. My sense is that this suffocation works its way to our hearts and psyches, luring us to question our innate power. We, whose bodies are the sacred threshold. We don’t need to look for creation “out there.” We don’t need to “invent” or “develop” life. We are the creators of it, the nourishers of it. Within us resides the unmistakable threshold, the portal of life becoming. We are ancient and holy and our menstrual blood is the proof. When I feel far away from my creative and sacred self, my witchy ancestors remind me that this wise one is only a moon away. “Call her here,” they whisper. “Invite them close. Grieve what has been lost for much was taken. But it is only a moon away. Remember your place here among the soil, trees, and clouds.”

“We would squat down together each month and bleed into the earth,” my elder classmate told me as we carpooled to qigong class in the early aughts. She had lived on some land with some people and this was a regular practice for them. “It felt amazing to do this together,” she said. 

Another friend told me they healed themselves of several imbalances by drinking their menstrual blood regularly. 

“You want the rich blood from the middle of your cycle,” they said. “Not the first or last blood because those might be too watery or chunky. It shouldn’t smell or taste bad because that also indicates imbalance.”

Though the taste varies, menstrual blood has a lighter flavor than liver. The first time I tried it, I brought the menstrual cup from my lips to my lips, sniffing its richness. Then I drank it down in one gulp. It tasted full of life. I smiled at myself in the mirror and stuck my tongue out. My teeth were outlined in red and my tongue was bright. The body high that came shortly after was undomesticated yet grounded, wild yet connected, and otherworldly yet earthly. I sunk into deep time as I walked through my morning. When I was menstruating regularly, I drank the blood from about day 2 through day 4. 

The first menstrual blood tincture I made was a mess. I collected the blood from one moon cycle into a jar, added vodka, and put a lid on it. It instantly coagulated and even after weeks of steeping, smelled funky. I took this first-attempt blood tincture to a ritual and offered some on the altar. Barely liquid enough to get out of the small dropper jar, I was embarrassed by the small globs on the plate and the strange mineraly waft under my nose as I made my offerings. Had it been a solo ritual I wouldn’t have minded but there were over 30 of us there. 

I heard somewhere that a bunch of us offering our blood to the land each cycle would go a long way to bringing humans back in balance with life on the planet. I do this wherever I’m living or visiting. I don’t regularly water my houseplants with my blood, preferring instead to give it to the Earth at the base of a tree, but I’ve heard it’s amazing.

Below are what’s worked for me to make offerings, tinctures, and anointing oil with my menstrual blood. I’ve experimented a lot and the recipes are pretty good. Before making an offering from our bodies, it’s good maintenance and protection to lift our essence out of the blood, intending that it remain with us. I do this by holding my hand over the offering and imagining sucking up any of my essence back into my hand. 

Distinction: This is kitchen witchery, not drug manufacturing. Drugs work along a direct line of action. Herbs and other balance-supporting practices have a sphere of action. Both support life as long as they are employed with right timing for the right thing. Balance and connection don’t come from a single magic pill but rather many small practices done over long periods of time. Allopathic medicine and its extraction of drug constituents from plants, while appropriate for some applications, is not our goal here. Allopathy treats symptoms, it does not work towards a goal of health. And because of its pervasiveness when we embark upon making products for ourselves, we can tend to confuse direct line of action with sphere of action, magic pill with consistent practice, and getting it right with learning. 

What we’re doing here: 

• Seeking balance with life
• Creating personal tools of connection 
• Bringing forth our creativity
• Manifesting our beauty in the world
• Acknowledging there are lots of correct ways to do this 

What we’re not doing here: 

• Treating symptoms as isolated problems
• Creating pedaleable products
• Fixating on ratios 
• Seeking perfection

Blood Offerings to the Land

Equipment needed: 

Jar with lid

Menstrual cup or tampons

Menstrual cups have made this so much easier. Before I used a cup I would put my blood-soaked tampons in a quart jar of water. Each day I’d squeeze them out and then offer the blood tea and intention to the land. (Plug here for menstrual cups, they’re amazing but can take some getting used to. If you’re cup curious, check out putacupinit.com.) 

Menstrual Blood Tincture and Anointing Oil

I don’t remember where I first heard of tincturing menstrual blood or making anointing oil. I like to think Sheila Na Gig shared it with me in a dream. A tincture is alcohol and anointing oil is oil, but they’re the same in their preparation. Don’t combine alcohol and oil together, these are two separate recipes. The liquid is called the menstruum and the leftover matter is called the marc. The menstruum is our tincture or oil, and once the preparation is finished, the marc is offered to the land. 

Tincture Ingredients and equipment: 

4 or 8 ounce mason jar with sealing lid

Cheesecloth or stainless steel strainer

80 – 100 proof vodka 

⅛ – ¼ cup of dried menstrual blood (see below)

(A tincture if stored well, will keep basically indefinitely)

Anointing Oil and Equipment: 

4 or 8 ounce mason jar with sealing lid

Cheesecloth or stainless steel strainer

⅛ – ¼ cup of dried menstrual blood (see below)

4-8 ounce jojoba (I like jojoba because it doesn’t go bad, but any oil can be used)  

Steep- put dried blood in jar and fill with alcohol or oil. Close lid. Label and let sit for 6 weeks or longer, using your intuition and intention to guide the process. I put things like this on my altar and let my ancestors and helping spirits bless it with me. 

Strain- when it’s ready, strain the menstruum from the marc with cheesecloth or a strainer, offer marc (and maybe the cheesecloth as well) to the land.

Consecrate and store- Label storage jar with date and ingredients. Bless and infuse with your intentions. Store on your altar or in cool dark place

Drying blood

Collect your blood in a glass jar with a fitted lid. Once you have about a quarter cup of blood or more, put it in an open ramekin and set it on a radiator or other low heat source for a day or two, until dry. Drying the blood first prevents the smell and coagulation. Once dry, crack it into little pieces with a knife. 

Ideas of using menstrual blood tincture and anointing oil:

• Restoring right relationship with life. The Earth and nature spirits here are always seeking balance. It is humans, because of our free will, who can choose not to be in balance with life. So our intention is to bring ourselves back into balance with life around us (versus thinking we need to bring the Earth back into balance). I usually say something like, “May this offering bring me into balance with life. May I be a person of place and part of this land.” 
• This blood comes from the threshold between the Earth plane and the all-that-is. Use it in any capacity related to this.
• Restoring health and well-being
• Balance

To wrap up, I offer a blessing for each of us. I give thanks to my ancestors for helping me cobble together and experiment with this knowledge. I bless the ancient technology of working with our moon blood to remember our part in the life and magic here on this fabulous and cozy planet. May our efforts restore and cultivate balance for ourselves and all of life. May we revere and love our bodies and our blood, and may this reverence bless all of life. 

Photo by Yu Kato on Unsplash

Emily is currently in training as a Bodysex Coach. 

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