The Scarlet Mattress

It happens to all of us, women, so let’s talk about it.  Night time rolls around and we drift off into our mysterious menstrual dream-time – Fully equipped with overnight cloth moon pad attached to the undies.  Perhaps some of us even adorn our mattresses with crimson red sheets to match our blood, for an added layer of ritual…  and protection.  Morning rolls in and even through all of those layers of cotton, those glorious red stains still found their way to the sheets (and mattress) in the general vicinity of where our yoni contentedly rested through the night, downloading us with all those deep visions.

We check the pad.  Nope, the blood didn’t seep all the way through that diaper sized organic cloth moon pad.  Didn’t even make it to the underwear layer!  How did it make it to the sheets, and through to the mattress then?  Ahhh, yes…  The good old butt-crack funnel.  Our back crack successfully channeled the blood downward from the lower vagina area, past the perineum, past the butt-hole (these areas are all still covered by the enormous overnight cloth pad) and all the way up to the top of the butt-crack, where the blood is finally able to creep past the pad…  Through the underwear, through the sheets, and onto the mattress.

Ok, now that we have humorously addressed what I am oh so sure has happened to all of us women at least once, let’s check out another angle outside of the view from the top of our butt-cracks.

I am extremely comfortable with my blood.  I would even venture to say that I love my blood (“crazy”, I know.)  If all environments and systems are conducive, I will simply bleed onto red underwear… *GASP*.  Each month when my cycle greets me, I find myself addressing my own childhood programming, outdated systems, boundaries and beliefs.  Brief necessary side note:  My partner Daniel, whom I am blessed to share my life and household with and honors my feminine path more deeply than I could have even dreamed up, gifted me something special last year for my birthday.  He gifted me a set of crimson Egyptian cotton sheets and pillow cases to put on our bed during my bleeding days each cycle.  The intention was to create a sweet honoring ritual of my bleeding that involved us both to a degree, set a clear start and end date for when I was bleeding, etc.  Through practicing the ritual for a few cycles, I noticed that it also added a layer of blood stain protection between my body and the mattress.

Back to where I was headed with the blood on the sheets and mattress:  A couple of cycles ago, we peeled back the crimson sheets after I was finished bleeding to bare the stark white futon mattress below.  Daniel exclaimed as the mattress was unveiled, “Wow! Look at those!”, as he pointed to a series of different now wine colored, aged blood stains on my side of the white futon. The process of changing sheets must have become like clockwork for me, as I had not even noticed the degree to which the blood stains had accumulated in that area.  Maybe I had just grown used to them. (Check out the picture to the right of the blood stains on my very own mattress itself

Admittedly, even myself who feels so comfortable with my blood, was immediately embarrassed and started conjuring up excuses for the trail I’d left behind. “I’ve tried cleaning them…” or, “Darn, it just drips up my butt crack every time!”  The list goes on.  Daniel shushed me mid excuse-making and said, “Hey…  I’m calling it out because I think they are beautiful! They are the crimson markings of your femininity.  I like them!” I was astonished – I mean, I knew he honored my feminine path, but my very male partner was telling me he thought my blood stains were special. *Commence flush of gratitude*

A number of things were called out in that moment.  1. My partner exhibited an even deeper level of respect for me as a woman.  2. He brought my attention to yet another area of my childhood programming, where blood stains from menstruation where still embarrassing.  3. He offered up a perspective of empowerment to replace the embarrassment.  Yet another moon time moment where I got to shift an old story I had playing on repeat.  Thank you again, menstrual wisdom.

Blood pours from our wombs each month (those of us women that are still bleeding, that is.)  Fact? Fact!  Just like blood from a cut on our body might stain our clothing, our menstrual blood sometimes seeps its way and leaves its mark on our belongings.  Let’s re-write the very old paradigm, that this is embarrassing, or even deeper – that we need to hide that we are menstruating.  Because honestly, that is what it comes down to –  the fact that someone decided menstruation was taboo and should be hidden.  Menstrual blood is menstrual blood, let’s just let it flow and continue empowering ourselves and our cycles as women, and re-program those stories we might have taken on as children that were never ours to begin with!