SageWoman #50
Our Wise Blood
reprint

SageWoman #50
Our Wise Blood

SageWoman's amazing 50th issue features an in-depth examination of our physicality — specifically, our blood cycles, otherwise known as menstruation. SageWoman may be on of the only magazines to have ever had an entire issue on this topic, which otherwise is (even in these supposedly enlightened days) hidden behind a veil of pseudo-science, coyness and, most of all, not-so-subtle shame and embarrassment.

Not here! This issue is dedicated to celebrating our red, brilliant, earthy, wet womonhood as both symbolized by and manifested in, our bleeding. Bleeding-without-dying is, after all, as explicitly female as birthing children, an act to which it is intimately connected. Our writers took this meaty, messy topic and ran with it. In "Moontime Magic" Elizabeth Webster Shillington writes "When I think of menstrual blood I imagine the rich dark smell of my womb blood. I think of the smell of the soil after it rains, of release and replenishment, of rebirth and renewal."

The many facets of our blood found a variety of expressions; from Sabrina Vourvoulias comes an article full of practical advice for mothers guiding their daughters, "Creating Ceremony to Mark Women's Mysteries," while Jan Henrikson discusses the deeper (and lighter) side of those ubiquitous "feminine products" in her witty "Escaping the Menstrual Mafia." Shannon Barton Harriman describes her menarch — including her harrowing violation and healing journey back to re-purification — in "Holy Blood, Sacred Curse." Loremistress extraordinary Diana Paxson reveals the mysteries of the Apache healer, mother, and goddess in "Changing Woman: Seasons of the Blood."

There's more from our regular columnists; a recipe for savory sesame tofu in "The Enchanted Kitchen", Susan Weed's latest installment in describing her herbal adventures, Carol Christ's thealogical musings of the mythology of menstruation, and step-by-step description of how to create your own lunar calendar by Waverly Fitzgerald. That and reviews, the Rattle, rituals for all aspects of moon blood magic ranging from menarche to hysterectomy and much, much, more.

96 pages, edited by Anne Newkirk Niven and originally published in the summer of 2000.