quote from Red Tent
This was powerful enough that I thought I'd share it:
"'The great mother whom we call Innana gave a gift to woman that is not known among men, and this is the secret of the blood. The flow at the dark of the moon, the healing blood of the moon's birth-to men, this flux and distemper, bother and pain. They imagine we suffer and consider themselves lucky. We do not disabuse them.'
"'In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month's death, preparing the body to receive the new month's life, women give thanks-for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood.'
"Then she took my hand and told me, ' I say this before the proper time, daughter mine, though it will not be long before you enter the tent to celebrate with me and your aunties. You will become a woman surrounded by loving hands to carry you and to catch your first blood and to make sure it goes back to the womb of Innana, to the dust that formed the first man and the first woman. The dust that was mixed with her moon blood.'
"'Alas, many of her daughters have forgotten the secret of Innana's gift and turned their backs on the red tent. Esau's wives, the daughters of Edom, whom Rebecca despises, give no lesson or welcome to their young women when they come of age. They treat them like beasts-setting them out, alone and afraid, shut up in the dark days of the new moon, without wine and without the counsel of their mothers. They do not celebrate the first blood of those who will bear life, nor do they return it to the earth. They have set aside the Opening, which is the sacred business of women, and permit men to display their daughters' bloody sheets, as though even the pettiest baal would require such a degradation in tribute.'" [pp 158-159]
"'The great mother whom we call Innana gave a gift to woman that is not known among men, and this is the secret of the blood. The flow at the dark of the moon, the healing blood of the moon's birth-to men, this flux and distemper, bother and pain. They imagine we suffer and consider themselves lucky. We do not disabuse them.'
"'In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month's death, preparing the body to receive the new month's life, women give thanks-for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood.'
"Then she took my hand and told me, ' I say this before the proper time, daughter mine, though it will not be long before you enter the tent to celebrate with me and your aunties. You will become a woman surrounded by loving hands to carry you and to catch your first blood and to make sure it goes back to the womb of Innana, to the dust that formed the first man and the first woman. The dust that was mixed with her moon blood.'
"'Alas, many of her daughters have forgotten the secret of Innana's gift and turned their backs on the red tent. Esau's wives, the daughters of Edom, whom Rebecca despises, give no lesson or welcome to their young women when they come of age. They treat them like beasts-setting them out, alone and afraid, shut up in the dark days of the new moon, without wine and without the counsel of their mothers. They do not celebrate the first blood of those who will bear life, nor do they return it to the earth. They have set aside the Opening, which is the sacred business of women, and permit men to display their daughters' bloody sheets, as though even the pettiest baal would require such a degradation in tribute.'" [pp 158-159]