blood memory
~syd yang
Blood does not lubricate. It clings and coats and drips down arms, creating layers of connection as bodies rise and fall into each other...
Blood is life force, the nectar of the vampire, the vital elixir that courses through our veins. It is identity, it is culture, it is purpose and it is a reminder of who we are...
I am bleeding less and less these days, the ancestors in my blood calling their memories back to them. Soon, I will bleed no more, my flow turning inwards, my life-force no longer for others to consume.
The full poem can be found here.
Menopause (a term we are using to encompass both perimenopause and the menopausal experience) can be a confusing and often private threshold that many QTIBIPOC folks will experience. The ways that our bodies transgress social norms and disrupt cultural narratives informs how we navigate this liminal space. This is a time of evolution into our next incarnation(s). What do we want this evolution to look like? Who do we want to be on the other side of it? How do we understand this space without using the lens of White Supremacy and colonial notions of the “good body”?
Living under White Supremacy involves hiding, being ashamed of, or disgusted by our bodily fluids. We believe that part of throwing off the lens of colonial bullshit is to embrace our bodies, the realness, to not look away from the blood & the clots. If the title makes you uncomfortable or even turns you off, we invite you to sit with that & investigate what comes up,
M’kali-Hashiki and Syd invite you into a multipart conversation of three 90min salons to explore stories we carry within our bodies about the nuances and taboos of menstrual bleeding and aging:
June 27 5pmPST - Part 1: Cultural Narratives of Menopause
July 25 4pmPST - Part 2: Gender & Menopause
Aug 29 4pmPST - Part 3: Perimenopausal Sex & Desire
Come to one or 2 or come to all, whatever makes sense to your spirit.
Live captioning provided.
Who is this for?
Black, Indigenous or other People of Color who are queer, trans, and/or intersex who bled/bleed and/or have had a pause in their access to estrogen and are currently experiencing peri/menopause.
Does any of the following apply to you?
My cycle is becoming irregular
I’ve started skipping periods or am having them too close together
I am experiencing other hormonal changes ( i.e. headaches, hot flashes, libido fluctuations, etc.)
I don’t know what it means to be postmenopausal in a White Supremacist world that has compromised my ancestral cultural understanding of this time of my life.
I am longing for community and to learn from others during this time
Who is this not for?
This space is not for white people, folx harboring a hierarchical value system for human bodies’ worth, or people invested in isms/phobia (including the less commonly mentioned ones: transphobia/erasure; anti-sexworker beliefs/equating sexwork with sex-trafficking; fatphobia).
Who are we?
Mkali-Hashiki is a Badass Femme who recently celebrated her 53rd birthday. Black, Fat, kinky, poly, she’s spent the last 2 or 3 years dealing with changes in her cycle & body and all that comes with it. While she holds a lot of curiousity about this next incarnation; neither the title of Crone nor Auntie sit well with her, and she struggles to find the complex model of post-menopausal womanhood that she wants to live up to. As a Sacred Somatic Storyteller & Eros Educator, she helps folx heal their erotic wounds, deepen their erotic relationship with their body & The Divine, and move further along in their path to individual & collective erotic liberation. Find out more about her work by visiting FiercePassions.
syd yang is a mixed race, Taiwanese American trans non binary queerdo who recently celebrated their 48th birthday. An energy healer and an intuitive counselor, syd supports individuals around grief, sexuality + spirituality, trauma healing and eating disorder recovery. Navigating body autonomy and liberation has been a life-long journey as someone who lived with eating disorders and was raised in evangelical Christianity. Deep in their menopause journey, syd longs to nurture sacred spaces for other queer and trans bodies to experience aging as a liberatory process. More at bluejaguarhealingarts.com
Generous Giving
There is no fee to join the conversations. We offer these gatherings under the principal of dana, a Buddhist practice, which is the idea that everyone has the capacity to be generous; and the concept of reciprocity, with money as a tangible manifestation of energy. We offer you our energy in creating & holding the circle for these journeys, and a donation is just one way that you can give back (other ways include signal boosting, and bringing the conversation into your intimate circles).