QUEER MENSTRUAL TRAILS

a round-up of recent inspirations

Hey Folks, 

Last week I wrote about turning down a place at the New School of the Anthropocene, which honestly gave me quite the vulnerability hang-over. Thanks to everyone who got in touch in solidarity - it was really very sweet to know there are others of you out there who intimately know these predicaments.

I also wrote of how excited I am by the emergence of so many people doing cool shit in the intersecting fields of menstrual justice, menstrual futures and cycle awareness. I love drawing connections together, so I want to make more of an effort to talk about some of the exciting things I see happening in the menstrual realms  - as such, this is a bit of a round-up of all things that have been swirling in my cauldron recently…

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If you’re in the South West this summer, please go see WhiteFeather Hunter’s Arcanum Sanguinis - Occult Blood at the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle. 

I haven’t managed to visit yet, but I’m hoping to get down there this Autumn. Hunter’s work is some of the most exciting exploration of the uses of menstrual blood that I think I have ever seen. This is the sort of reimagining that absolutely thrills me. 

In this show she presents recent work alongside objects from the museum and other collections. (Occult nerd that I am, I’m pretty excited about the addition of Genesis P. Orridge’s Sigil for Derek Jarman within the show, but mostly I’m just hyped to finally see some of Hunter’s work in the flesh.) 

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If you can’t make it to Boscastle, Treadwells are hosting a panel discussion on August 8th, with Hunter, Peter Grey and Alkistis Dimech of Scarlet Press and Simon Costin. Chaired by Dr. Amy Hale, this is basically a dream line-up for me!

I would be 100%  attending this if I wasn’t arriving in Northern Spain at the same time. Please go and then tell me how it was!

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Meanwhile, Dr. Terra Sprague is working on a project  - Elerrate Moonblood Stories - to collect tales from menstruating folks who have a public or private practice of giving their blood back to the earth. As a fellow Bristol-dweller, I managed to meet with Terra a few weeks back to chat with her more about this piece of work.

We both realised that neither of us could actually remember when we first started giving our blood back to the earth, but we had a really exciting conversation about our own practices; the privilege of choosing what we get to do with our blood and the ways in which colonisation has eroded our ancestral knowledge on this subject. 

I don’t really have a set practice each cycle anymore. I’ve done so many different things with it over the years; but for me, it was a real gift to reflect on over a decade’s worth of experimentation and I’m so glad we met. 

Terra is looking to collect more stories. If you’d like to contribute, I think the best way to get hold of her is via email Elerrate@gmail.com though you could also DM on her Instagram. 

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This is beautiful article on the colonisation of menstruation. 

Here’s a sweet snippet to wet your whistle: 

Colonization has made a taboo and a financial tariff of menstruation. Not just for us as Inuit but for everyone. We know this as we stand in line to pay multinational cosmetic companies for their plastic menstrual products. We know this as our modern work schedules ignore menstrual cycles. We understand that as we get no rest when piturniq and Aninngaaq call on our bodies.

(I found this via Whitefeather Hunter’s Insta - she always finds the gems.)

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I’m very excited about Lasara Firefox Allen’s The Genderqueer Menopause Coach podcast, which you can find here. 

There’s still really not much out there for gender non-conforming folks when it comes to peri/menopause; something that I am more and more aware of as I try to find info to support myself, so I’m thrilled to see another person talking about this. 

Episode 3 is a particular treat because it features one of my big menopause heroes - Heather Corrina, who wrote What Fresh Hell Is This? which is one my favourite books about menopause.

It’s also exciting to me to see Lasara doing this - they wrote a book called Jailbreaking the Goddess many years ago, which was one of the first texts I’d ever seen on queering the sacred feminine. In the early days when I was still trying to figure out why I was uncomfortable with a lot of those narratives, this book gave me permission to keep questioning and critiquing. (I really recommend this text if you’re tired or frustrated by the gender essentialism pervading through lots of Maiden/Mother/Crone tropes and are curious about what a queered sacred feminism might look like.)

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Ithell Colquhoun, Oil on a Wet Road, this was in an auction of her work last year - I’ve no idea what date it was painted.

Finally, I’m having a renewed obsession with occultist and artist, Ithell Colquhoun. I won’t waffle on about her now, but I thought you might enjoy this short passage on menstruation from her autobiography, Until Twelve. I found this via Amy Hale’s text Genius of the Fern Loved Gully, which is a beautiful exploration of the ‘supersensual’ life of Colquhoun:

This is what must be done, even though it will make civilisation turn over. It is harmful to attempt a normal appearance - business, housework, the catching of trains - when normality is absent and its place taken by intensified sensibility to hidden springs. It is the mood to divine buried treasure, to speak the oracular words, to consummate the ritual marriage. It is a natural break in outward routine and to neglect this rhythm brings age, harshness, irritation, the loss of beauty and peace. Through retirement I have become reconciled to the moon.

I think we can all agree that Ithell was definitely on to something. I love to imagine her engaging with her blood at a time when talking about such things would have been even more misunderstood and hidden. I’m crossing my fingers and toes that when Amy Hale’s next book comes out she might reveal a little more about this aspect of Ithell’s experiences.

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In my own personal wheel of the year the phase from Midsummer to Autumn Equinox is officially Grief Season.

Let the cancelling plans at the last moment; acting out-of-sorts, endless avoidance-induced Youtube wormholes and doing weird shit commence! YEAH!! 

Jokes aside, without fail, this time of year finds always me stalking through the more challenging landscapes of grief’s boundless terrains. It’s the anniversary of my brother Al’s death the day before my birthday in August and I always struggle to know what to do with the complexity of emotions that rise up as I approach this time.

So far, my main tactic each year is to run away (!) so I’ll be taking all of August off and getting out to Northern Spain for some sunshine; to eat my weight in fabada and nerd-out on Asturian and Galician folklore.

I’ll be back in September.

Thank you, as ever, for taking the time to read my sporadic trails.

Love, Lottie X