MENSTRALA
Replying to Humanity's Oldest Taboo & The Origin of Feminine Consciousness
Galaxy Crossing, Menstrala No. 40
The immortal Phoenix, symbol
of cyclical rebirth
3 Menstrala: Galaxy Crossing,
Raising Midnight & Wings Beneath the Waves.
Phoenix & Dragon: Yin & Yang
Why Create Art Using the Forbidden Medium?
In every Menstrala, 'the medium is the message,' to quote Marshall McLuhan.
Creating Menstrala using the taboo allows the medium to:
1) raise awareness of girls' rite of passage into fertility;
2) reframe the stigma of woman's cyclical bleeding;
3) present cultural meaning and educational validation; and
4) support mindful menstruation.
Proceeds are dedicated to education about the hidden secrets of the fertility cycle, illustrating the psychological and cycle-logical relationship to seasons, lunar phases, evolutionary processes and grand cosmic rhythms.
Menstrala No. 1: Silverfish Spirits, 2000
Lamenstra, The Menstrala Mandala
The gold core of renewal
through the solar cycle's four seasons.
Menstrala No. 3: Dragonrose
The Fairy-Godmother of Menstruation Turns
A Drop of Menstrual Blood Into Gold
Setting The Stage to encourage girls to deflect the indoctrinated shame of bleeding.
Since the turn of the millennium, Menstrala have set the stage for teenage girls to develop a prospering universal academic art 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 central to womanhood, so it needs to be illustrated in relation to cycle-logical power. I invented a visual system to pass down this knowledge and I named it Monthmatics."
"Just as we renew during sleep and winter recess, women reclusively renew their fertility during the lunar-menstrual cycle, woman's natural blood sacrifice enabling her to procreate humanity. The fact that menstruation became 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 involves teenagers finding their voice to self-define their menstrual experience, regardless whether they choose to create Menstrala art.”
"By defining menstruation as a monthly renewal, we enthrone the mystery of womanhood: the return of woman's pro-creative power after bleeding for several days without dying."
Rebalancing Destructive Mind Control
Menstrala help to deconstruct negative programming honed on girls. The Menstrala art movement raises public awareness of the need for educational health reforms. 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.
Memes
What had begun as the artist's online visual journal of "Pain-Things" unwittingly produced an army of memes.
Served to the Vatican
The jpeg of October Flight, Menstrala No. 42, was requested and served to the Vatican's website domain on November 9, 2002.
World Cultures Originate from Menstrual Logic
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 Are R'tu
The word ritual originates from Sanskrit r'tu meaning menstruation. Women's blood rites of passage (menarche, defloration, childbirth, menstruation, and menopause) are the original first rites. Man's "parallel menstrual rites" were circumcision, tattooing, & piercing skin.
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 white full moon symbolizes woman's pregnant womb. An invisible dark moon or red eclipsed full moon symbolize woman's menstrual phase.
Women (secretly) secrete two currents at different phases: the white or clear current during ovulation, and the red current during menstruation. These two moon currents, the "moonies," subliminally refer to the words money, currencies & liquidity.
Astrology Encodes Electromagnetism
Time is cyclical. Magnetism is spatial. Consciousness is spiritual. Humanity cyclically pulses spiritual magnetism. We manifest our stardom, a space-time map of the star-dome under which we were born.
Planetary cycles catalyze the narratives of all of the constellations as we deliver our birth signature to the world. The sun, the moon, the stars' stories, and planetary cycles influence the meaning of our fleeting existence.
Copyright © 2024 Vanessa Tiegs. All rights reserved. Linking to the digital files on this website is permitted. Commercial usage of the artworks requires a licensing fee for any one time usage and a royalty fee for multiple usage in derivative works. Exceptions are applicable to academic and educational usages.
We need your consent to load the translations
We use a third-party service to translate the website content that may collect data about your activity. Please review the details and accept the service to view the translations.