In honor of the arrival of Spring I thought I’d dust off my epic poem about an Aries perspective on an important mystery.

ARIES WOMEN

i.
Put away your vampire books. Forget about picking scabs or peeking at booboos under band-aids. These things are for children who have yet to discover better things.

ii.
Indulge in all the paraphernalia. Tampons, sponges, belts, sticky pads, reusable pads, simple rags–each has new information to shed on the subject. Wear junior tampons so you can change them often. Examine the mottled colors–the red, the browns, the tiny globs and veins. Notice how the smell of used tampons differs from used sanitary napkins. Hold your sponge under the faucet til the water runs clear. Fill the tub and let the water turn scarlet. Allow a few spots to annoint your underwear.

iii.
They tell you to keep a record of when you start, but why stop there? Record how it started–fast and red or a brown trickle and then the red part? Where were you when it happened: in a store…at the office…in bed with a lover? What times of day do you bleed the heaviest? How many days do you spot? Do you have cramps and where are they? Do you flow evenly or do you have liver clots and how big? How many pads per cycle do you change in a public restroom?

iv.
Do not call it a period. Others may say moon-time, dot, that time or on the rag, but the word that says it best is “bloods.”

v.
Build a bloodhut or a blood tent or a bleeding corner of your room. Bleed on flannel or silk. Take the first day of bloods off work or school to celebrate. Take a walk. Buy yourself flowers. Make cup after cup of hot tea and stare into space. Revel in that warm sticky feeling between your legs.

vi.
Brag about it to your friends. When you excuse yourself to change a tampon make sure everyone knows that’s what you’re doing. Mention it often so that people around you are almost as continually aware of it as you are.

vii.
Slip your finger in the opening of pleasure and slide in the thick red juices. Note the sound your fingers make as they slosh. Hold your bright red fingers to the light. Notice the aroma different from regular blood and different from regular cunt. Lick the very tips of your fingers.

viii.
Collect your wise blood by squeezing a tampon or sponge into a teacup. Use it to paint runes or rattles or the ever popular walls. Annoint the sides and wick of you vulva shaped candle for an exceptionally potent spell. Blood can be frozen in ice cube trays for craft projects during those in-between times.

ix.
Squat naked outdoors as you face the East. Let your blood sanctify this place marking the end and beginning of cycles. Pray for a good cycle, a healthy cycle, marked with love and accomplishment.

Squat again in the South, the direction of fire. Thank the Mother of All for your fiery nature which gives and replenishes itself perpetually.

Squat a third time in the West, the direction of fluids. Feel the mysteries unfolding within the darkness of your body. Feel the cosmos bleeding with and within you.

Squat one more time in the North, the direction of wisdom. Touch the body of your Mother Earth and rub your fingers in her living soil. Thank the earth and moon and stars and sun that you can have blood, all the blood you need and want, without hurting yourself–or someone else. Bless the juices of creativity flowing downward and outward and onward in a river of endless possibilities.