There’s a conference coming up on Mary Magdalene and various other manifestations of the Divine Feminine. Growing numbers of people are connecting with the Mary Magdalene archetype these days, which I find very interesting. Some of this has no doubt been provoked by the Da Vinci Code, but I think more accurately it is a rebirth in the collective of reintegrating aspects of the feminine which were confined to the collective shadow and which carry a good deal of numinous power and spiritual information.
I recently found out that my book on menstruation (Her Blood Is Gold) was the inspiration for a group of Catalan women to do blood rituals in the cave in Southern France in which MM is traditionally reputed to have lived.
There’s a book coming out (probably next year) by anthropologist Anna Fedele on this phenomenon, and it includes a lengthy interview with me on my spiritual journey and how I became interested in the sacred aspects of menstruation and started bleeding on the ground.
My next project, once I get my part of the relationship book written, is to arrange a new edition of Her Blood Is Gold. If anyone has any ideas that could assist with this, please email me. Various editions have nearly happened in the last few years and have fallen through each time for one reason or another. I suspect that in order to have better control over things, I should self-publish, but funds and time have not been in place for this. Any suggestions gratefully received.
Anyway, to find out more about the conference click here.
just hope that you can publish this wonderful book again, Lara. I have two copies, a precious one and a lending one and I know many women whose lives have been touched and changed by this book, I just wish that it could be more widely available….
Thanks Kate! I’ll let you know when I succeed in getting a new edition out there. In 2008, for sure.
Hi Lara, back in the early 1990′s Her Blood is Gold was my inspiration and fortitude as I made a huge decision to quit college and strike out on my own life journey. At the time, i was enrolled in San Francisco, California, in a Comparative Religions course. My professor actually believed what he said in class one day…that there were no historically noteworthy women as spiritual teachers or enlightened beings because their menstruation process held them back from attaining such. That was the last straw for me in a succession of straws. I did not know why, but I knew I could not commit to study such disinformation. In the spare time that filled my days after, I would spend hours in bed reading your book among others. It was not my copy. Always meaning to get back to it…15 years or so later, I am looking for a copy of it on the Internet. And I found your website. Yaaaay!!! So happy you are still expressing yourself. Blessings. I plan to get a used copy soon, and please republish…if there is anything I could do to volunteer assistance, you may email me at dykstrakristi@gmail.com Blessings.
Hi Lara,
Her Blood is Gold, also re published as Honoring Menstruation, is a classic text on the value of the menstrual cycle for women’s emotional, psychological and spiritual development. I work as a coach and counsellor and have many female clients who draw support and inspiration from your book. Let’s hope it stays on the bookshelves for a long time to come. Warm wishes, Gemma Summers, The Good Mind.
Greetings Lara,
I just finished your book Her Blood is Gold and I want to thank-you for this exquisite piece of gold! I wish every young woman just beginning this journey could read this so that they could celebrate this experience. I was fortunate to connect with my elders/traditional teachers within my community in my early 20′s allowing me to reclaim many of our beautiful traditions and rituals. I raised my daughter and prepared her in a much different way for this. We marked this special time with a beautiful coming of age ceremony which i can go back to in my memory and experience over and over.