I wanted to share with my sisters my life and my moon flow...

I have been in practice now for about a year of collecting my blood during my flow via a diva cup and offering it back to Mother Earth in prayer. I will share later why this is soo significant for me however for the sake of time I will stay will the subject at hand.

The Lakota word for Mother Earth or Grandmother earth is "Unci Maka". "Wopila" is the word of many thanks and making "Wopila" is to make an offering - an action of thanks which is usually done through a spirit plate of a food offering. Last year in Standing Rock, at Oceti Sakowin Camp, I stayed with my Oyate (family) Cheyenne River Sioux to help protect the water. It was there that I was re-awakened to the divine and sacred nature of a woman and our flow. Our blood is power and revered as sacred. Women in Lakota tradition are considered sacred in their entirety and especially during our flow we are not to practice in ceremony of inip or as western culture says, "sweat lodge". This has been misconstrued to mean that we are dirty and not allowed but the truth in tradition is that the tribe believed that a woman is so powerful at this time that she would take the power of the prayers from the other members of the tribe and spirit would not hear them. Women met together in a sacred tipi during this time where we shared oral traditions, nurtured and bathed each other, braided our hair, helped women give birth, and sang and worshiped through our sacred prayers and ceremonies. The tipi itself is a representation of the womb and that is why all creation and meetings were held inside, to be blessed by the power of the womb.

During this learning, I wept for the loss of years that these teachings have been kept apart from me and from countless women everywhere. I returned home and bought a diva cup and with shaky hands and a mind full of questions and fears, I began to teach myself how to collect, honor, and offer my blood back to my mother. The photo below is one of my most significant offerings as this was the day of the eclipse. I made a medicine wheel and an offering of blood. I made my intentions for the healing, for the medicine, for spirit and connection to earth to rise and awaken in the hearts of men and women alike. I poured my blood into my hands and released it into the water. I wept. (and to be transparent... I looked around to make sure no one was watching... ). I share with you now as this has been a very private sort of practice for me and I still feel fear and embarrassment to share in public... Oh, the wounds that my bones still carry, the wounds of women everywhere, the wounds of embarrassment for being a woman, how did this happen? These wounds of shame for our very own essence will no longer be accepted in this life by me.

I am Woman, I am a creator, I am a goddess and divine and sacred. And I bleed every month as a reminder of my power, as a reminder of the divinity that I carry in this body. My blood is no longer wounding, my blood is healing the world as we begin to impregnate our sisters everywhere with the truth of our power as women, as healers, as teachers, and channels for the divine wisdom that is us.

May your blood be revered as sacred and no longer thrown in a trash can. May you be reminded that if you begin to seek out this path and journey of honoring your blood, you may have shaky hands and intimidating fears rise up, questions that burn in the mind and heart... and may each and every one of these sensations be an invitation to heal those wounds, for all of us. Find your power sisters, for this is the flow of life! This is medicine!

In Lakota traditions, it was a woman who brought spirit and medicine to the people. She was the White Buffalo woman... the buffalo is the spirit animal of the north, the north is the time of winter and a time of the womb...

Love, Keia 

A'ho, Hau Mitakuaye Oyasin (To all my relations, I acknowledge you)! lilililililililililililili!!!!