The Menstruality Podcast - 107. The Healing Power of Making Your Own Menstrual Art (Jasmine Alicia Carter)

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Those of us who are passionate about the power of menstrual cycle awareness can feel a little  crazy in our world. Not only does our culture overlook the power of the menstrual cycle, but it continues to perpetuate an atmosphere of shame around all things menstrual. That’s why I love meeting women like Jasmine Alicia Carter. Jasmine is a Menstrual Artist and Feminine Empowerment Mentor. She’s been painting with her period blood since 2016. It’s become a sacred art and ritual that has changed her life and the lives of thousands of women across the globe, through the budding Menstrual Art Movement!In our conversation we explore:How Jasmine paints with her blood, and the healing, de-shaming power of working creatively with your blood.What happened when Jasmine’s menstrual art went viral via an article in the daily mail - how she transformed the hate she received into fuel for her practice. The ripple effect of her menstrual art, for her son, partner, family and the wider community gathering around the menstrual art movement. ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyJasmine Alicia Carter: @jasminealiciacarter - https://www.instagram.com/jasminealiciacarter

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hi, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I imagine you get me with this one. It can feel like you're crazy when you're interested in the menstrual cycle, in a world that not only misses the power of menstrual cycle awareness, of living cyclically,

but actually also continues to perpetuate an atmosphere of shame around all things menstrual. And that's why I love meeting women like Jasmine Alicia Carter. So Jasmine is a menstrual artist and a feminine empowerment mentor. And she's been painting with her period blood since 2016. It's become a sacred art and ritual that's changed her life and transformed the lives of thousands of women and people who bleed across the globe through this budding menstrual art movement that's formed around this work. So in the conversation we look at how Jasmine paints with her blood, the de-shaming power of working creatively with your menstrual blood, what happened when Jasmine's menstrual art went viral via an article in the Daily Mail, which is a tabloid here in the UK, and how she transformed

the hate that she received into fuel for her practice. It's amazing to hear that story. So we talk about so much more I hope you enjoy it the healing power of making your own menstrual art with Jasmine Alicia Carter oh Jasmine it just feels so perfect to be with you today here just as my period starting just on day one and um for our listener I want to describe that Jasmine is surrounded by the most incredible art behind her that she's created with her own blood and I'm so excited to explore all of this with you today. Jasmine how are you doing and where are you at in your cycle and how is it how is it feeling for you today yes I'm so happy and honored to be here I'm currently ovulating but I have been through

so many things lately a lot of trips I have two kids two children one toddler one of them has been sick for a long time so like this ovulation is having a lot of luteal vibes you can say so you're on your period I'm feeling quite a little luteal so like the vibe I think is just perfect this conversation is exactly the best that I need right now I feel exactly the same it was so good to wake up and see my period come and think okay I get to go and hang out with a menstrual artist for an hour like could there be anything better how did this all start for you how did you begin painting with your blood have you always been creative has it always been part of your life

yeah yeah definitely since I was a very young child I remember I was always painting I was using everything that I had and having papers and just drawing all over and my mom told me that I was kind of already intrigued by blood because I would purposely like cut myself with the blinds of the windows and go around the house staining all the walls with my hands full of blood and just like mama mama look what I did so it was just like something that was kind of always twirling around me. But no, absolutely. When it comes to period blood, it was quite a before-after kind of experience because it came as a surprise because prior that moment, there was absolute despite and hatred for my blood.

I came into my first menarche when I was 12 years old, and the introduction was it was really cold, really passive, nothing to do with empowerment and love and acceptance and joy and sacredness, nothing to do with that. And it became just a burden, which very painful periods, very long time in which I was just so horrible. I suffered with PCOS. I had endometriosis. I had horrible period cramps. So I had to vomit. My blood was really dark, black, dense. It was just like all the nose, all the things that didn't work until I was on my period. And I was on that day on a plant ceremony retreat so it came through the medicine of ayahuasca

I don't know if anyone knows about this it's quite like coming out lately um and yeah and she just like it was kind of like lifted the veil and just showed me the truth about what is period and it was a complete shock because I was, I wasn't completely unexpected. And I went through a very deep initiation, which for the whole period of the ceremony would last around five to six hours. So for entire six hours, I was completely immersed in the experience of what is period. And it blew my mind because it was it feels kind of gruesome but then when you look at the go really into it it felt it was just so beautiful I felt I was in eternal ground so like in this kind of cemetery and I was looking around and the skies were all red and everything was just black and I just where am I am I in hell like I just thought, where am I? Am I in hell?

Like I really remember the word that I had to go in hell. And then I look at my hands and I saw pieces of my flesh just dropping down on the floor below me, the earth actually. So it was just falling down and I was looking, I'm like, what's going on? And I started to get kind of panic attacks. But the moment the flesh fell on the earth it would be sucked in by the earth beneath and from the earth that flowers would emerge and i was like what's this what is

this beautiful and yeah so it just felt like this this i was in the deep process of what it means to die. No, just like accept serenely the aspect of life that is death. And I was just fully immersed in it. I was in shock and in awe. And there was so many intense emotions. And then all of a sudden I had to pee. Very human biological response. And I went to the bathroom. I took down my underwear and I saw my pad with blood on it.

And that was the, like the, I just looked at it. And I felt that I looked at it in the way in which I had to, I was called to look at it the first time it ever came to me, but I didn't have that occasion because the first time I felt I was about to die. In this experience, I was looking at it and it was just beautiful I just said wow I'm bleeding I'm not dying I'm seeing death all over me except I feel so alive I'm feeling all of these crazy emotions I feel I feel I feel so much what have what what a mystery what a beautiful thing and I just saw the the intrinsic sacredness of it because because it was just completely like blowing my mind up, you know, like it was just completely illogical. It was just completely out of the box. And I was like, oh my goodness, I feel so alive. This blood, I can't throw it away. I was on my pad and I just

felt so like, probably for 10 entire minutes, I was thinking, what do I do with that with this? Should I roll it up and throw it away? But it's just like this experience it's just too too too precious so what should I do so in the end I just rolled it up and I put it aside and I brought it with me in the ceremony but then the next day I started to like check out and and look on different ways I could collect my blood and I found the menstrual cups so I went immediately I purchased one at the first pharmacy and I started collecting it and then I had it in my jar I brought this one for solidarity since I took it out of my freezer and said okay I'm gonna bring it here since we're so listeners she's lovingly stroking this beautiful pot of blood and we'll talk later about how you keep your blood and how you work

with it and carry on with this story because it's absolutely amazing keep going so yeah I had my my cup and then I threw it in a vase and then I just felt of course from my artistic side there was always art has always played a major role in my life and alchemizing deep emotions. I come from a very rocky background, a lot of trauma, emotional trauma, a lot of experiences that we could say were quite intense. And art always felt like this huge support in my life in which I could really like alchemize what was going on, you know, and just kind of release that density from myself onto something onto paper and sculpture and whatever was the medium so it just felt obvious like to merge one of my greatest passions in my life that was art to this great incredible new thing that came into my life that gave so much meaning to myself

as a woman was the first contact of like there's something deeper into me being a woman that when I was been told all the way now and this blood was just speaking to me so I just merged these two things together just felt so obvious and then I just created my first ever mandala because I was already on a spiritual path we can say so mandalas always gave me this beautiful sense of creating order since I was a very chaotic soul I'm very tormented and mandalas always bring you back to a sort of order and rhythm so I just felt let's create a nice mandala with my blood and that that was the story like the beginning of this incredible love story that goes on from far 2016. Wow I'm I'm so touched by what you're sharing I I just want to pick up a few different threads of that story I mean I feel like we could

speak about it for hours but I'm really amazed by that you know the child in you that could see that our blood is something really I mean exciting and interesting I love tracing people's callings all the way back like through to the early years and to feel that passion and that curiosity and that desire to create you know and I'm thinking of the like the first human art that we know about like the hand prints prints on the walls of caves of prehistoric times. And that was you as a child, like seeing, I can make marks in this world with my blood. And now to feel what you're doing with your blood in terms of not just

making marks, but making a movement. Like this has become, can you walk us into that? This has become a whole movement. A whole movement a whole movement which I this it's the single thing I'm most proud of of all the things I must say that I do now in my work as a woman embodiment mentor and a shop owner an entrepreneur and all the things like that movement which is complete non-profit for me and it's just a jewel like it's it's this melting pot in which so many women leaders all across the world over the years have been just inspired by my story and seeing more and more women picking this up and just deciding to say you know what I'm gonna try this for myself

I'm gonna see what is what's the fuss about what's all this trend what is this thing she's talking about and seeing how it is revolutionizing their own lives and doing this act and it just create this beautiful space it's just i tune in every single day and i just look at it i'm just like wow look look what we've created look at this remembrance look at the sisterhood the, that red thread that just connects us all. Where is it leading to? This feels like a healing place, like a healing jewel, a safe shore. We can just go tap into and reconnect and just get all this beautiful inspiration. Because every single woman then has their own unique message that is given through their wombs during their bleed.

And what we're seeing on that page now it's on instagram but i have so many plans for that so many but for now just tuning in and you can see like how how much wisdom each one of us carry within and how many messages are just so connected to one another i just i'm so proud of that page so much this is so beautiful I'll put a link to it on the podcast page because I was looking through it this morning and seeing the translation of people's menstrual visions and dreams into art so fascinating because it's like a whole universe inside each painting and I could just feel myself dropping in. You know, I am in a very dreamy place, but I recommend it for anyone on day one of their day one, two, three.

If you want to do some menstrual dreaming in community. But we are often in our own little units in our houses. I guess it was such a good way for me to plug into. Oh, yeah. You know, because in our world today when you just go to the shops or the library or you know whatever play date with your kid it can feel like it's crazy what we're doing like the fact that we're interested in the menstrual cycle and yes yeah you had a particularly profound experience with this I'd say or particularly shocking big dramatic experience with this so so you were interviewed by the Daily Mail online

and of course the Daily Mail do what they do which is shock and crazy and you know they just want to have the big headline that's going to get the most clicks for their advertising and all of that we know how that capitalist machine works so they took your life work and they desecrated it and I'm not interested in what they said really but I am very interested in your process with it because a big reason why so many of us don't create or don't share what we create is because we're scared of what the world will say and you my sister have kind of been through seeing like where that can go and you and you held yourself through it and

your community held you through it and you've come out the other side with so much strength and the work has also grown so amazingly kind of because of it so could you walk us into that story and and share some of what you learned yes thank you thank you for that so that particular moment of the daily mail that then rippled out to the like every single corner of the world I had messages every single day of sisters oh you were in tv in Nigeria you were in tv in India you were in like so many different places like what is going on but prior that moment I already had a few interviews from maybe minor titles, but already came, gave that kind of wave of haters and bullies and like all the things that really just didn't resonate with my work at all. And maybe we could just name a couple of them, Jasmine, just to give people a sense, like the essential message is this is disgusting. You are disgusting to do anything with your blood

I mean I hate to say it but I want people to get like I mean I'm sure they know I can be quite explicit what they say had anything become you are a cursed woman you will die in hell I would receive so many like death threats in my emails um there's this ghost lady that will come and eat you up like all sorts of things it was intense yeah the shaming well it was almost like too surreal to believe you know like it was like where is this coming from like are you seriously saying telling me these things like a part of me was always like in denial and just like saying these people have no idea what they're telling like it even thought like the feeling the feeling that i have when i receive these kind of comments is like it's not them speaking it's like story stream of thoughts

that has been created for so many years you know for centuries and centuries but honestly it's not even coming from them like this is the field the energetic charge that i received from these things it's just like you have no idea what you're talking about like and a very masterful move you're making there to see to be able to feel into them yes to be able to move beyond your own reactivity first which is hard as a creative to then see ah this is something in the collective you know this is something coming through you not of you yeah I must say probably it's just the journey that brought me here to understand this because in the beginning when I just started sharing my stuff you know and just the beginning and it

was an Instagram with just a few followers and I was just like sharing a little bit of my process and what it felt to me and very very small reality and I would have people like sharing a little bit of my process and what it felt to me and very, very small reality. And I would have people just like a little bit intrigued. Like, what are you doing? People that would say like, this is disgusting. And of course it would hit me like, oh my God, what am I doing? Is this right? Is this wrong?

Maybe I should just keep it for myself. Like these questions would come a lot, a lot, a lot. But as I was moving forward step by step and doing this every single month, every single month, coming back to it and seeing how much it was transforming my own life, my own perception of my own womanhood, the relationship with my womb, with my femininity, with my whole menstrual cycle. It was just so beautiful, so beautiful, so integral. You know, it was just, I couldn't look back. It was just impossible for me

to look back and say, no, like, this is too important. This is something that everyone should know. So I was getting empowered by this own work, like this practice, because that feels like a spiritual practice to me. It's 100% a spiritual practice, something that is making me unshakable inside because I am witnessing the change in my life. I am now arriving at a point in which I'm seeing more and more women leaders coming to this work and seeing the change themselves. the people who will get it will get it and the people that won't will probably get that backlash and we'll get it or maybe they will just say oh my god it's so disgusting and then when you're after they will come from you know you know what jasmine i was sitting with this thing and at first i felt so much disgust i was like hell no i'm not gonna go there but then i i just i i found myself looking for you like people been looking for me on instagram didn't remember my name but they've

been looking then i finally found you because i wanted to tell you this now I'm painting with my blood you know like you have no idea how these things these seeds are being planted no even if they're haters I see that I ultimately they're people we're confused we're born confused in the end we don't have a GPS. We don't have a manual of how this thing works. This is also thanks for my spiritual practice that really gave me the base and foundation of compassion for all beings. This is such an important thing and quality, I think, to refine when you're doing this type of work, because, of course, it is triggering. It is hella triggering. So coming from compassion every single time is like, OK, I see where the trigger is coming from. I'm not going to react to it. I'm going to respond to it. It's always so different, you know, from place of grace, not of, you know, it's different.

Or I can be like anyway anyway but it depends on the situation because you can be but from a loving place as well you know yes yeah I'm thinking of that painting which I shared on our red school Instagram this morning of the goddess Rangda she's got some fierceness and it's all from compassion right 100% had so much fun painting her wow she taught me a lot yeah there was something that you wrote on a post in response to the uh to what happened with the daily mail and you said where to go where when everything outside seems so loud and hard to the feminine hand on heart feeling the beat reverberate in my chest

hand on womb feeling the stillness and true power of the cosmos within connecting to the why in an instant and melted any feeling of dist calling in that and I'm grateful for your willingness to be part of the whatever it takes there it's just it's just when you're walking your dharma just call it you know your destiny your supreme destiny everything is just it just falls into place and it's just like there's nothing else I can do like there I just feel I'm out of I don't have any other choice than to do this and I'm choosing this choice and I've been chosen by this choice so it's like I'm here and this is what I do and I will always do it because this is my calling so

that's it I'm choosing this choice and I've been chosen by this choice it's like holy bondage it's happening whether I like it or not so what would you say to someone listening who is edge walking in whatever way they're edge walking you know might be around menstruality it might be around something else and they have that feeling that you had of maybe I should just keep this for myself like maybe this is too much for this world or it's too dangerous what would you say to them and in the for their creative process to literally embrace that fear have have tea with it, and do it anyway. Really simply put, have tea with your fears. That's a saying that I say often, you know,

like, wake up and drink fear for breakfast, you know, because that fear is also what is making you alive. Like, because I see emotions as energy. The more energetically charged an emotion is, the more potentiality that energy has. And you can direct it towards something. So just like learning to disassociate the name of an emotion and just seeing it as energy. Where is it coming from? Is it from my chest? Is it from my throat? energy where is it coming from is it from my chest

so from my throat is it from my belly is it from my womb like just noticing where it's coming from and feeling the intensity of it and then you know acting upon it can be dancing it can be doing something completely weird that you're not used to just going out of the box that is a feminine you know she hates logic she just pies and anything like puts you in a box and confines you and like something like a plus b like no just do something weird so many women like just come to me like jasmine i just felt this urge and impulse to put my blood on my face is that weird like no woman like that is their divine like this is a divine remembrance because it's not only that it's not only me it happened so many times i just feel this beautiful impulse just put my blood people put it on their hair and they put

it all over their bodies they just feel this oh this thing that just enlivens them and it's it has duality in it like oh my god what am i God, what am I doing? And oh my God, this feels so good. You know, like this, you're dancing between this. You know that you're up to something great. No, like it's, but it takes courage. And courage doesn't mean I'm not afraid. You know, courageous people, it don't mean that I'm not afraid of anything.

It means I have fear, but I'm going to do it anyway. And that is exactly where it takes you to the most incredible places and I am living embodiment of that because I'm living currently a life in which I'm looking I'm like I have no idea how I got here but I have a glimpse of it because it's the feminine that brought me here it's my womb this work the devotion to towards this work and towards the femininity and just that brought me here so it's just like i received so many messages like i don't know where to start just talk to your womb start with your blood start with your blood that's the marrow that's where we come from i had two home births i

the motion of blood and blood before blood after blood in the middle like blood is everywhere it's part of who we are we're born through blood come back to blood it will give you that remembrance what has your how has your cycle helped you with this because as I hear you speak with this this voice of courage to me it feels like a very a voice of premenstrual wisdom that's willing to go right into the darkness and the um the mess of this world and as you've said transmute it into something how has your cycle guided you with this journey with the feminine big question big question it's like the more I would go deep into my menstrual cycle the more so many happenings in my life started to have also meaning and sense I come from as I mentioned a very rough life I had quite some intense experiences and you need to touch them because everyone carries their own story and but I would like through a spiritual practice because I was I first came to

spiritual practice I'm very devoted student of tantric buddhism okay and there's shamanism and other things but mostly tantric buddhism gave me so much because it always speaks about using the emotions to your path towards enlightenment. So everything that is around you, you can always pick them up and bring them towards a path towards your own liberation. And this was just so life-changing for me because it allowed me to go into my past, go into that darkness,

go into that shadow, and get all of those things that were murky and then bring them towards a path of bring it to compassion, liberation, wisdom. So then when a few years later, then menstrual art came, the menstrual blood and womb wisdom, and then these doors started just opening as the feminine does, and just guides you you know exactly where you need to go it felt like from this past that I already had of doing this kind of shadow work we could call it made me become even more attuned and more passionate about these two phases of our cycle that are so incredibly deemed as taboo which is the luteal phase and the menstrual phase I was doing really good with ovulation and follicular most of us do generally

the world celebrates us and loves us in those phases yes I love it wholeheartedly it's so beautiful of course and all the things but when like the sun starts to go down and autumn starts to come the leaves start you know to get brown and everything starts to go inwards and that's the moment where it's like oh that's that's the call you know for ceremony and it has so much intensity in it because it has so much colors when I talk about the menstrual cycle you know and I love autumn I lived most of my years in Italy and in the north of Italy so So a little bit near the mountains. So the seasons were really lived, like all four seasons.

And I would always see the beauty of each and every phase. I just remember the smell of autumn. Like, I just love the smell of the leaves. I love the smell of the mushrooms in the forest. I love the humidity. Like, there's so many things that I just, I would appreciate about those phases. So many, I'm like, oh, it's so cold.

You can see how people react to these things, you know? And it tells a lot of how you react also to the feminine, how you react to your own social cycle. Because of course the outer seasons mirror completely our inner seasons. And most people do not appreciate, most people, a lot of people do not you know appreciate winter and we just like more the summer phase let's have fun and all the things and now in winter and autumn it's time to recollect it's time to you know plan

and do give priorities to think of any priority and starting to think people don't like to think and sit down and take moments you know to think through what how is my life going what is wrong what is serving me what is not and it's so incredible that as women we have that opportunity every single month every single month it's like the greatest blessing honestly because every single month we have a chance to sit and literally feel like she is my woman and I are just like on the phone. Like this is the feeling I wish every single woman to have. You have your bestie on the phone, like I'm having my womb. Tell me, what do I need to know?

And then PMX comes in because you're not listening. So it takes devotion, 100% devotion. It takes willingness it takes your capacity to really um move with grace through the uncomfortable because it is uncomfortable it can get really uncomfortable when you want to navigate premenstrual phase and menstrual phase and because it means you need to start to listen to all the things you never gave yourself permission to listen to and there's a lot there is a lot because it's permission to listen to. And there's a lot. There is a lot.

Because it's not only our own story, but there's the collective then. Okay, once you say, okay, I'm finished. I'm liberated. I worked on myself. I love my womb. I love my blood. Amazing. But then there's the collective.

I'm just going to pause this episode for a minute to share some resources and invitations for you if this conversation is inspiring you to take your relationship with your menstrual cycle to the next level of intimacy connection devotion firstly we have our free love your cycle discover the power of menstrual cycle awareness to revolutionize your life short online course which you can find at redschool.net forward slash love so you can access that for free and you can also join the waiting list for our menstruality leadership program which is starting again next spring it's the world's first leadership training designed for trailblazers change makers nurturers and creatives to realize your full authority and leadership through the power of the menstrual cycle you can find out more at menstrualityleadership.com

that's menstrualityleadership.com. What helps you to lean into discomfort? Or one of the phrases we often use at Red School is hold the tension. The inner autumn is so often asking us, can you sit with this hot pot that's boiling and let it become what it wants to become, rather than let it boil over into reactivity? What supports you in that practice, personally? One of my favorite words, which is sensuality.

Sensuality. Because it's so deemed as something sexual, but has nothing to do with that. Like sensuality is whatity because it's so deemed as something sexual but has nothing to do with that like sensuality is what in the world is senses you're going to use all of your senses your taste your hair your touch and all these things and drop into it you know like i feel this like how can i bring how can i how you're going to feel it more? How can I amplify that, that distress, that pain, even in pain, when you're in pain during menstruation, what I would do a lot is like rock my pelvis. This knowledge that we've known for so many centuries, right? Like all dances that would come from the feminine lineage was always about moving and rocking your hips.

Why is that? Right? Because we know that like rocking and moving your hips and rocking your hips why is that right because we know that like rocking and moving your hips and moving your body in a certain way we're just centering back into our deepest holy ground which is our womb like every time there's something intense i immediately contact my womb and she helps me drop and she helps me just like just melt you know the melt that melting spot you just want to melt into the sensations that is what makes me so much you know and then when you're melted you just like you're either dancing or singing or there's like always this this feminine urge to just like melt sensual sensuality bring more sensuality and how can I drop softer into this maybe touch yourself in a certain way maybe just caressing your face just maybe in the front of the mirror whatever

feels you know comforting for you sensuality beautiful and always available to us maybe if you're working in an office you might like to like take a walk outside for five minutes or go to the bathroom and just do that kind of mother hug where you like hold your arms and just yeah yeah that is such a key yeah Sharni who's one of the founders of Red School always goes to that place to pleasure sensuality like how can I awaken a little bit more pleasure in this moment and like you're saying it's available to us could I smell the beautiful smell of an orange or could I yeah how could I move my body a little bit to awaken a bit more of that sensual pleasure and you're right it's not sexual it's like the erotic but not connected to sexuality sensuality and it's all around us in the natural world I'm just walking through the woods sometimes in the rain and it feels erotic to me because all my senses are alive and I can smell like you're saying the the like smell of the leaves

composting and mulching down and hearing the rush of the river and feeling the rain on my skin and it's like I'm alive it's our aliveness exactly yes yeah I'd love you to tell us a bit about the process of painting with blood like like for people who are listening. And I know, I just know I can, I can just tell that there are people going, I really want to do this. Like the next period, I really want to do this. Could you give us some, some guidance? Yeah. So of course I have been in the art field for quite some time. So it's like, I have been in the art field for quite some time.

So it's like, I'm really attuned to my unconscious and its messages and how to just deliver them, you know? And so each cycle, we are going through an entire month of happenings of experiences of downloads of grief, of joy, of, there's so much going on in our lives, right? Sometimes we're like, I don't even remember what I did yesterday but but your blood your womb remembers and she holds that right so when your blood is coming in it's a beautiful moment to just sit attuned to yourself like what happened this month what is the key

emotion what is the key sensation what is the the the message that the wisdom of this path month for me and there's always something coming through so i always take like formal moments in which i just sit and i just go through a little bit what was this past month or just dropping into my womb like literally you could just close your eyes and just take breaths and just imagine like breathing through your womb just asking the question like what do you want me to know about this past month what is relevant for me to know and then something would pop out there's always something a message a word or a sentiment a sensation and that is something that then I would then like work it through

or work it out to then create an art, an artwork. Beautiful. This is kind of the process that I go through. So sometimes, in this case, Randa, I really like to work with fierce goddesses, fiercest ones, because they teach us so much about love and i'm just like that kind of i have that fire you know this is like a fire of burning down everything just like this powerful force and so during the space i remember i was living through

very intense feelings they were more internal nothing majorly external but it was just like this conflict it was just this inner like restlessness of not feeling that I was living in the life that I wanted and like probably there were children that were just making me go mad and like there were certain things that I was kind of repressing and so in that moment I was like this whole month was just about like oh this very contractive kind of energy so I just felt like what could liberate that what could just like you could bring more fire out of that and then the image of Rangda came to me I said okay I'm gonna paint and through that artwork and through painting I would just feel like this this anger moving the stress moving all the contractions start to move you no so as we're depicting we can

really attune to our in our bodies it's like just somatic practice 100 which like feeling all of this sensation how they're just pouring out of you i also lived a miscarriage here some a few years ago so through that miscarriage blood i used it to depict a mandala. And I put a little baby in the middle of the center of the mandala. And then I just created this beautiful flower all around it. And it's been so healing, so beautifully healing. This is something that I always recommend women who go through these processes and this grief, how to go through the grief, use your blood. Use your blood is such a beautiful way to consecrate to give meaning to allow energy to just move and flow and just give that farewell in such a

beautiful way how much of the grief in those experiences is because our world does not know how to hold them we've lost the rituals and we've lost the holding and so using our blood as a way to hold us through dark times through grieving times are so beautiful jasmine thank you i mean i wish we would all live in a situation where we had so many women around us and wise women that knew exactly what to do and prepare the yoni steam and prepare the food and prepare the meal and prepare the players and make a circle and sing songs for this woman in the middle like that would be the ideal but now we know we're living in this world and this is such a huge support such a huge support when we're like alone and of course reach out to who can but sometimes

many of us are that confined because society wants us this way but i found that this is such a way such a deep beautiful way to honor you know these deep transitions in our life so breakup even breakups are with people that you just can't get rid of you know like bam use your blood it's such a powerful force carries your dna like it's just it comes from the inside of you and it's ours like no one can take it away from us it's ours we can reclaim it and it's so powerful like it's just you yeah and you're using you to create something I'm creating beauty all around me beauty is my means I always say I'm bringing blood to luxury status like this is what I what I do for like you know I bring blood to luxury status something that is so raw and just connoted to death and all the like disgusting no

it's beautiful like i want you to see it you know like this is who we are you know like loud and clear i love it so there's a lot i love mandalas as i um already mentioned mandalas are such a beautiful way to give perspective you you know, and bring back. So if you're going through something intense during your menstrual cycle, even like you're having reproductive illnesses of any sorts, like you can really choose a topic. You know, I want to heal my womb from miscarriage. I want to heal my womb from a breakup. I want to heal my womb from cysts or polycysts or like whatever comes through i want to heal the relationship with my mother i want to heal my relationship with my husband i want to say goodbye to like find the topic that is so alive for you

right now and then use your blood to ritualize that and create something like and it doesn't have to be perfect it doesn't have to be no mandalas are the most simple because it's just a repetition of a pattern and that in a sense gives rhythm it gives order gives sense and it really has this alchemical magical way to just like release you know the message in a way so i love love love i Also in the past, now I'm slowly, slowly coming back because then I gave birth very recently, 10 months ago. So I'm still coming back to full on the work I do. But I love the sessions that we have in groups

in which we paint all together. So I invite women to collect their period bloods throughout entire month. We have a month of preparation to collect the blood. And then we arrive at the session in which we're all together with our blood. And then we will paint all together, you know, or a mandala. It depends on what. So it's a beautiful view.

Mandalas are such a powerful way to navigate, you know, and just a beautiful way to connect for the first time also with this practice. Mandalas come from many traditions my understanding of what mandala is it's a circular image with repetitive patterns within it and they they're seen throughout many different cultures right as it goes from far far far far out time even like aborigines you would find they would do these like kind of stencils of images of geometry you know a sacred geometry it's always there but mostly i came to mandalas through buddhism from hinduism you would see a lot of these they're using all sorts of therapeutic practices also for mental diseases mental art therapy there's always mandala coming through again and again

and again because it has this capacity you know to really put everything into order but it's a little broken the mandala will put it perfectly into a perfect shape it's so true i'm in an interesting period of my life where my spiritual life is there's been a long dissolution that i've had to trust it's hard and i am there is trust and also yeah you know when you're in the middle of a of a dissolution it's it's a dissolution it's hard and I am there is trust and also yeah you know when you're in the middle of a of a dissolution it's it's a dissolution it's not it doesn't necessarily make sense but I what I find myself doing again and again is just drawing a small circle and then eight petals around it and then eight more petals and then eight more petals and I just do it you know daily probably but I'm just doodling or like if I have a moment there aren't a lot of words for me at the moment but there's a lot of

yeah like you said there's an I hadn't thought of it that way that there's an organizing going on when I do that yeah yes yes yes so true I find myself doing that as well like when I'm overthinking and I just like doing this it takes me out of my head and into my body and or into life you know into that is the thing the phrase out of my head into my body like what is present in this film and the mandala is just like bringing you here just compartmentalizing everything all the stress the chaos and you just suddenly find yourself at peace. Like, wow. Mandala for so many phases of my life, like so many, so many different phases. There's always a mandala coming through.

Yes. So you'd get the blood. So like, obviously it's easiest if you have a menstrual cup, because then you can take it out and put it straight in a jar. And that's what I tend to do. Although I've lost, my moon cup's gone somewhere. So I have to go and get another one this afternoon. I have them in the shop. I also sell them you'd like I have I have this shape particular it's designed to be completely ergonomic you know so following the natural line of the vagina

because most of them are just straight which I found extremely uncomfortable I have to find so many brands and I was just like I'm done with this let's draw one so it's just made on purpose to make it really ergonomic and it's a lot of success in my shop so so for those of you listening it's just a different shape it's it's a bit rounder at the bottom and so it matches the shape of the vagina yeah so so you gather the blood and then would you keep it in the in the fridge is there anything you do with it when it's in the fridge okay so i also would like to to point out that many women come to me saying that cups are just not a thing for them like we try them they don't want them they're really uncomfortable and what can i do an

alternative so in alternative of course i would suggest blindly to use cotton organic pads they have to be cotton they have to be organic no nasties no commercial deal please organic cotton because it's also like sterile so it has nothing inside and it's so easy easy to squeeze and squeeze the pad and make the blood come out so you will have the freshest blood this way this is the only different way that i found unless you just squat over the jar when you know because at a certain point you get so attuned to your blood that you know exactly when it's about to release so when you're having that thing or like oh i'm about to release you just sit and squat and let the release happen in the jar so

you got three different ways okay and you would use a jar whatever jar i use glass preferably and with the lid because so then you can seal it you know, bacteria won't start to like do a thing. And then I would put it in the fridge if I'm not planning to use it immediately. Right. So sometimes you cut it fresh from the yoni and then you can start painting immediately. You can do your own rituals. You can put it in your face and then you can go. There's so many things you can do. And then when you're completed or you just want to save it for another maybe tomorrow the next two days if you're doing a big painting for example it needs more time you would store it in the fridge because it will slower the process you know of deterioration of the blood and because it will

deteriorate it's alive so it will deteriorate, I've seen that it lasts well up to seven days in the fridge, after which it will start to feel, smell a little funky. So in that case, if you just know ahead of time that it's something that you still would like to cultivate and keep for future, whatever you want to do, like I do, because my freezer is full, you store it in the freezer. You will then store it in the freezer. and that will go on for like forever because it lower the temperature will just completely freeze the process of deterioration during the hot season it will deteriorate very much quickly so like be aware and you would put it in the fridge more often. And during wintertime, since it's cool, it will take more time.

So this is generally the process. Thank you. That's really helpful. And you had a beautiful image of you painting with your son and he was kind of getting involved in the painting. What happened there? Can you tell us the story of that? So my son, my son was born when I was already been doing this work for quite so many years. So he was just born into me being super comfortable and creating these paintings every single month. I just I have some images and just remembrance of I had my blood on the floor.

I was painting and then I just had to go into the other room to get a thing and come back and my son was there with the blood in his hands and all smeared in his face and blood everywhere it's like so he grew up in this environment you know in which I'm completely surrounded by my blood and he knows about it he knows everything about it and now that he's now four he's starting to ask more specific questions and it's like but are you bleeding like what is it and so I started to explain and and I'm 100% sure that the comfort that I feel for my own blood made him so comfortable with my own blood and seeing blood at whole that he was present during the birth of his brother so he was like in the water and he saw everything from beginning to end he knows where babies come from and he just felt super chill like he was so grateful so happy he

felt so involved that there's no scenes of jealousy there has been nothing but just pure unconditional love for his little brother and he's super mindful and super protective and it's just so beautiful just you know like the ripple effect of doing this kind of work right but then um it just was like two cycles ago he was just so he loves art probably because he's just seeing his mama painting every time he just likes loves painting and using it and then he said just one day mama I want to paint with your blood once can I can we do that together I'm like sure of course so we set it up my blood came that day and I was like ah when they and I said Ravi my blood came it was like so we can paint it was just so excited and just felt so like so beautiful and so, like I was changing a big narrative there.

It just felt like something happening in the moment that was just rippling out the entire world. And it just felt so overwhelming. And yeah, we just sat together. And he started, he got his brush and he started painting. He uses also his little fingers. He felt comfortable in doing it. We just created this painting together. And it was just so beautiful just so beautiful

can we speak about the ripple effects of this because I get so moved to feel it it's true that came from him he asked for that that wasn't you imposing so what can you walk us into just like dream with me what what does the world look like where menstrual blood is not seen as something as disgusting and shameful but seen as the stuff that makes life and therefore obviously immensely sacred and like what what could that world look like yeah what are the ripples of ripple effects of this nearing to a purer land I believe when something like that could ever happen but it's happening my life is a proof of that because I look myself I look at my life like literally my life how it began it was just me and my art and then my mom was the first one to come walk into my room and see me painting and

she's like oh that's a beautiful drawing I'm like yeah it's made with my period but she was like what is the shock the terror in her face I will always remember that I will like I still have a memory a very strong memory of her face and I was, this is exactly what it's doing. Like, this is exactly why I should be doing this. I really had the really like deep calling. I was like, yes, that's the reason. And then over time, past one week, two weeks, one month, years, took years for my mom to appreciate this work now. Took years for my mom to gain the respect, to have respect for my mom to gain the risk to the respect to be have respect for my work because now it's being so big it's impacting so many people but it all came from me walking first me believing in it me acting upon it then my mother was there and then my I didn't have my now husband um so I had partners

but that didn't see the beauty in this they were just like always weirded out and they didn't go so well because it was always this feeling of I am learning to love myself. I'm loving my blood. This is part of who I am. Like if you want to love me or if I have to learn to love myself, pure unconditional love means love without conditions. So like me standing strong into this led me to have finally found a husband a partner and then become now husband that is completely utterly devoted to my work he's the beauty of it he has no repulsive at all he loves we do so many concert rituals and there's also tantrism of course in which we you know there's so many things that you do with the liquids that come from your body, et cetera. So there's also a huge spiritual component to it. And the comfort that my husband feels with blood, I really feel that made him so supportive

during my birth as well. Because we're talking about the flesh and the blood and the marrow and the rawness and this, all these rites of passage of womanhood, right? Like blood is such an integral part of all these aspects. So the more comfortable also your partner is, the more he will support you throughout. He became comfortable. Then my mother-in-law became comfortable.

And we were living together with my husband, my mother-in-law, and she would always find these little jars of blood in the fridge. But then, you know, again, again I would paint I would share my message people would start to understand you know like it started to it was a seed planted from me and then slowly you know how seeds go they just the roots go very deep down and then the plant will start grow and grow and grow and grow from becoming a seedling it will become a full-blown tree and that is the moment in which that's the life I'm living now I feel the tree I feel the tree it's so big it's so everyone around me is

so used to this that when I'm having my blood I'm having celebrations my son is like oh my husband comes and kisses me on my forehead and hugs me like there's a celebration moment going on like oh congratulations you have your period what a beautiful thing in the beginning it wasn't like this but being me more and more involved in this process and being happy and just like doing my thing the more they would just get this is how we work as humans actually right like when you see someone leading by example, at a certain point, people will just get used to it. It takes time. It's not going to be like one, three.

It took a lot of time, actually. It took a long time, at least a few years, to carve a life in which I finally can take time off during my period to just stay with myself. Because it's a privilege that not many have I carved it out though I was how I was working nine to five I was working in a bar I was looking up working until 4 a.m in the morning even when I was on my period and I felt I was about to pass out even while I was already painting and that was making it even harder to accept because I'm like I'm feeling this I want to just be at home and painting but I'm here working my body's imploring me to stop

but it helped me to really go deep into the empathy the empathy that I have for everyone that is not able to live what I'm living now I feel it in my bones every single time when I'm bleeding the weight that the woman the whole entire woman lineage goes through the screams of despair the exhaustion of living a life that just does not mirror what is who we are inside this beauty the sacredness of who we are you know and so it takes it requires it requires all of you that's what i say like it's not something that you say oh it's just a hobby that i put on a side like it requires all of you if you want to see that change in the world because it's a big thing like we menstruate for a big chunk of our lives

and how people relate to our blood i mean chunk of our lives and how people relate to our blood I mean it ripples out onto how people relate to the feminine at home so it's a big deal it's a really big deal for me so if we don't take this at heart nothing will ever change feeling it tell us how we can connect with you if people have listened to this and would like to connect with your work so I have my Instagram which is my most preferred channel for now um which I need to change my strategy because of course talking about period blood all the time it gets flagged very easily and I got so many like notifications if you continue this way we're going to shut you down like oh well so Instagram Jasmineasmine alicia carter the

other page is menstrual art movement most beautiful page in the world and i have my website which is www.sacredwoman.com i have an online boutique and a shop where i sell a lot of different products for the whole reproductive wellness of women so we have fun cups you'll find free bleeding blankets designed on purpose you know so when you're having your bleed you can also just like release everything just sit on it and you let your allow your blood to just flush out that is so healing these are mostly the ways you can contact me you can find me thank you so much this has been such a joyful amazingly joyful conversation thank you so much jasmine lots of love it's been a pleasure it's been an honor thank you so much it's been so nourishing i'm so grateful

wow what a rich conversation thank you so much for staying with us all the way through to the end and I'm finding myself so curious at the end of this conversation to hear from you like how has this landed with you what has this inspired and awakened for you when it comes to your own bleed or your practice with your menstrual blood has it inspired you to bring more ritual into the process? Or are you ready to take your blood and start making art with it next time? I would just love to hear from you. You can always email me at sophie at redschool.net. So that's it for this week. I'll be with you again next week and until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.