MENSTRALA
The Art Movement
A reply to humanity's oldest most provocative taboo.
A symbol for woman's taboo mystery is the phoenix rising, the immortal, cyclically regenerating mythical firebird from ancient legends representing spiritual rebirth.
Dragonrose, The Fairy Godmother of Menstruation
Supporters and contributors to the Menstrala art movement are collectively reforming the stigma of cyclical bleeding for future generations. The Menstrala art movement offers menstrual activists an artistic outlet to be seen and heard, represented and validated.
Lamenstra
A Mandala With Core of Gold Symbolizes Wholeness Through Four Seasons of the Solar Year.
~ Monthmatics Inventor
Why Use the Forbidden Medium?
In every Menstrala, 'the medium is the message,' to quote Marshall McLuhan.
The purpose of the movement is for the medium to direct awareness to the rite of passage into fertility.
Personal, political art, Menstrala support reformed education that teaches girls about their fertility cycle through thoughtful discussions of cycle logical and psychological relationships to seasons, lunar phases, evolutionary processes and grander cosmic rhythms."
~ Vanessa Tiegs, Mother of Menstrala, Inventor of Monthmatics, and Founder of The Menstrala Foundation
The Menstrual-Ovulation Cycle Connects With Grand Cosmic Rhythms
Setting The Stage to help girls deflect the indoctrinated shame of bleeding.
Since the turn of the millennium, Menstrala have been setting the stage for teens to further expand and develop the movement.
The 1st International Menstrala Competition, 2014
Over 100 Menstrala entries were submitted to the jury.
In 2014, the artist was invited to serve as a judge in the first international Menstrala competition organized by a University in Mexico. Increasing numbers of Menstralists around the world have begun choosing to address menstruation visually.
"Menstrual cyclicity is a central part of womanhood, so it needs to be illustrated in relation to cycle logical power. I invented a system to pass down this sensible knowledge and I named it Monthmatics."
As explained by the artist:
"Just as we renew during sleep and winter recess, women reclusively renew their fertility during the lunar-menstrual cycle, which is woman's natural blood sacrifice enabling her to procreate humanity. The fact that menstruation became so easy to joke about (see examples of memes) shows that girls are unsupported in dealing with the painful monthly recurrence that affects their health, wellness, self-identity, self-esteem, and sexuality. Maturing from puberty into a woman involves teenagers finding their voice and self-defining their menstrual experience, regardless whether they choose to make Menstrala art or not."
. . .
"By defining menstruation as a monthly renewal, we enthrone the mystery of womanhood: the return of woman's pro-creative powers after bleeding for several days without dying."
Deconstructing Mind Control
Menstrala take a stance in deconstructing negative programming honed on girls. Contributions to the Menstrala art movement raise awareness of the need for health reforms in public education and medical practices. One such organization is CeMCOR's Endowment Fund. Since its inception in 2002, The Centre for Menstrual Cycle & Ovulation Research at the University of British Columbia promotes new medical standards in women's health.
Pain-Thing Memes
What had started in 2000 as a visual journal of "Pain-Things" unwittingly produced an army of memes.
Served to the Vatican
The jpeg of "October Flight" was requested and served to the Vatican's website domain on November 9, 2002.
Human World Cultures Have Menstrual Blood Origins
Dr. Judy Grahn's Metaformic Theory and Blood, Bread & Roses, explain how menstruation created world cultures.
The word taboo originates from Polynesian tapua referring to woman's menstrual blood.
Woman Is The Lunation
In the “Lunar Cosmology” of the Aymara people in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia, the word for the menstrual blood of woman is p'axsi wila, meaning moon blood, which also refers to the first glimpse of the new moon. (Denise Y. Arnold quoted by Dr. Judy Grahn.)
Rituals: R'tu
The word ritual originates from Sanskrit r'tu meaning menstruation rite. Woman's blood rites of passage (menarche, defloration, giving birth, menstruating, and menopause) are the original human rites. Man's parallel menstrual rite was the ritual of tattooing and piercing.
Cosmetics
The word cosmetics, sometimes called make-up or war paint, derives from cosmetikos, meaning ordering the cosmos through symbols written on the body. (See Dr. Judy Grahn's Metaformic Theory and Blood, Bread & Roses).
Her Moons, Hormones, Harmonies, Her Money
A pregnant woman symbolizes the full moon.
A menstruating woman symbolizes the dark moon.
Some women can experience as many as 500 bleeds, but with no cultural validation or educational support to practice mindful menstruation.
Women secrete (secretly) two currents at different phases: the white or clear current during ovulation, and the red current during menstruation. These two moon currents, or "moonies," subliminally refer to words used in finance: money, currencies, and liquidity.
Astrology As Encoded Electromagnetism
We evolve through time measured in cycles:
The Sun magnetizes. The Moon reflects.
Planetary cycles catalyze constellation narratives.
We express our star dome with our birth signature.
Magnetism is spatially infinite. Consciousness is spiritually infinite.
The human psyche ripples a magnetic spiritual consciousness.
Stellar lumen cycles generate toroidal geometries of infinite futures.
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