00:00:00.661 --> 00:00:03.828
(soft mystical music)

00:00:11.095 --> 00:00:13.845
(waves crashing)

00:00:32.074 --> 00:00:33.690
- [Speaker 1] I like to remind myself

00:00:33.690 --> 00:00:37.290
that we're actually made of stardust,

00:00:37.290 --> 00:00:41.553
that our blood also is
literally made of stardust.

00:00:54.660 --> 00:00:57.180
- [Speaker 2] As cosmologist,
Brian Swimme puts it,

00:00:57.180 --> 00:00:59.490
leave hydrogen gas alone long enough,

00:00:59.490 --> 00:01:04.450
and it will turn into
giraffes, rosebuds, humans.

00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:13.440
- I love to think of how it is not just

00:01:13.440 --> 00:01:17.790
a philosophical idea, how
it is a biological fact,

00:01:17.790 --> 00:01:22.560
that we are one with the universe,

00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:25.980
and our blood is one little proof of it.

00:01:25.980 --> 00:01:30.723
I try to keep that in mind,
that we are made of stardust.

00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:40.583
(Haunting music continues
with choral voices)

00:01:44.963 --> 00:01:48.270
- The baby comes out having a blue tint,

00:01:48.270 --> 00:01:51.543
and as it opens its mouth, Wah!

00:01:53.130 --> 00:01:57.420
And that air gets into the baby's lungs.

00:01:57.420 --> 00:01:59.940
You will see this beautiful pink color

00:01:59.940 --> 00:02:03.090
traveling up the neck and into the head.

00:02:03.090 --> 00:02:06.570
And it's a beautiful sight
to see this transfer of color

00:02:06.570 --> 00:02:08.220
from blue to red.

00:02:08.220 --> 00:02:11.250
And what it is is the
blood being oxygenated,

00:02:11.250 --> 00:02:13.962
and the baby is now an
independent breather.

00:02:13.962 --> 00:02:15.870
[Music Continues]

00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:19.563
- So, she who bleeds is
she who brings forth life.

00:02:27.390 --> 00:02:29.553
- There's something
called a red egg party.

00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:36.600
Within the first maybe six
months of the child's life,

00:02:36.600 --> 00:02:38.820
you invite all your friends
and the whole community,

00:02:38.820 --> 00:02:43.560
and have a big banquet,
and give out red eggs,

00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:45.750
eggs that are dyed red.

00:02:45.750 --> 00:02:48.000
- When I married my husband,
I was trying to decide

00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:50.600
what color dress to wear,
because I wasn't a virgin.

00:02:51.900 --> 00:02:54.840
So I decided what I really
needed was a white dress

00:02:54.840 --> 00:02:57.060
with red stains around the hem.

00:02:57.060 --> 00:03:00.240
I didn't really do that,
but this was my fantasy

00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:02.690
and everyone who heard
that was totally appalled.

00:03:04.980 --> 00:03:08.820
- [Speaker 3] In many
cultures, a woman's virginity

00:03:08.820 --> 00:03:11.823
was considered one of the
greatest treasures of the family.

00:03:12.810 --> 00:03:16.980
The proof would be the sheet

00:03:16.980 --> 00:03:19.860
on which the marriage was consummated,

00:03:19.860 --> 00:03:22.833
hung out for the rest of
the neighborhood to see.

00:03:27.660 --> 00:03:30.270
- I used to be really afraid of blood.

00:03:30.270 --> 00:03:32.883
People bleeding used
to make me wanna faint.

00:03:50.422 --> 00:03:51.930
- I got in a rock fight

00:03:51.930 --> 00:03:54.150
with a guy who lived across the street,

00:03:54.150 --> 00:03:55.530
and he hit me on the head,

00:03:55.530 --> 00:03:57.813
and my whole face was bleeding.

00:04:03.990 --> 00:04:04.823
- Cruelty.

00:04:06.510 --> 00:04:07.950
Misery.

00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:09.970
Somebody suffering somewhere

00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:17.933
- It's blood.

00:04:23.850 --> 00:04:25.950
- My associations with it are mostly pain.

00:04:35.090 --> 00:04:38.370
- In Chinese tradition,
when you get married

00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:41.070
you wear a red dress to
your wedding banquet,

00:04:41.070 --> 00:04:42.370
which is a big feast

00:04:44.190 --> 00:04:47.010
- But that was one way of
sealing a relationship, you know?

00:04:47.010 --> 00:04:49.890
You would prick yourself, and
you're gonna be blood cousins,

00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:52.473
or blood friends, friends for life.

00:04:56.520 --> 00:04:58.620
- [Speaker 4] Real blood
is a whole different thing

00:04:58.620 --> 00:05:01.323
from storytelling blood.

00:05:03.510 --> 00:05:07.470
- He is accessing blood that is new,

00:05:07.470 --> 00:05:10.113
a force that hasn't been tapped yet.

00:05:13.230 --> 00:05:15.150
And it goes back to the idea

00:05:15.150 --> 00:05:17.670
of who has access to the woman's sexuality

00:05:17.670 --> 00:05:18.820
for the first time

00:05:20.130 --> 00:05:23.640
- A girlfriend's mother took
it upon herself to tell me,

00:05:23.640 --> 00:05:26.280
well now you have to be careful with boys.

00:05:26.280 --> 00:05:28.620
It had absolutely no meaning for me.

00:05:28.620 --> 00:05:30.750
I didn't know what she meant.

00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:32.340
- [Speaker 4] No one said it, but it meant

00:05:32.340 --> 00:05:34.080
that I could get pregnant.

00:05:34.080 --> 00:05:38.610
- We'd play a game, and
the game is Joe Willie.

00:05:38.610 --> 00:05:40.890
I've made up this fictional character,

00:05:40.890 --> 00:05:44.070
and this guy is usually
the most handsome guy,

00:05:44.070 --> 00:05:48.180
and talks the smoothest,
and he cons your daughter

00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:51.300
out of all her decision making practices.

00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.760
So when we go down the street,

00:05:53.760 --> 00:05:55.860
it's like, is he a Joe Willie?

00:05:55.860 --> 00:05:58.260
Do you know what a Joe Willie is?

00:05:58.260 --> 00:06:00.780
Because she will never have to come to me

00:06:00.780 --> 00:06:03.240
if she chooses a Joe Willie,

00:06:03.240 --> 00:06:05.730
and say I didn't know who he was,

00:06:05.730 --> 00:06:08.253
because she knows who he is.

00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:13.140
- We wear red dresses
and people think that

00:06:13.140 --> 00:06:16.050
that's very whorish, or out there,

00:06:16.050 --> 00:06:18.720
and I think that is because
it's like wearing blood

00:06:18.720 --> 00:06:23.100
on the outside, having our
guts strung on our bodies,

00:06:23.100 --> 00:06:25.080
and maybe that's too much for our society.

00:06:25.080 --> 00:06:27.633
Too bright, too bold.

00:06:28.650 --> 00:06:29.763
Not virginal.

00:06:31.560 --> 00:06:32.763
Not modest.

00:06:34.830 --> 00:06:37.590
- Red makes me feel the boldness

00:06:37.590 --> 00:06:39.993
that I do have inside myself.

00:06:41.310 --> 00:06:45.120
- This was my going away
dress when I was married,

00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:46.410
and it was red.

00:06:46.410 --> 00:06:48.460
I never considered not having that color.

00:06:49.320 --> 00:06:52.800
I was happy being married and in love

00:06:52.800 --> 00:06:55.653
and I thought this was like a big yell.

00:07:00.870 --> 00:07:03.030
- [Speaker 2] Dear friend, I find myself

00:07:03.030 --> 00:07:05.850
living with two men, my cousins.

00:07:05.850 --> 00:07:09.090
Both of them are extremely
neat and fastidious

00:07:09.090 --> 00:07:11.430
and on antidepressants.

00:07:11.430 --> 00:07:13.650
I have this fear of
spilling menstrual blood

00:07:13.650 --> 00:07:15.960
on the wall to wall carpeting.

00:07:15.960 --> 00:07:20.190
I'm aware of my chaotic
femaleness around them.

00:07:20.190 --> 00:07:21.451
Strange.

00:07:21.451 --> 00:07:24.368
(soft tense music)

00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:39.467
(river flowing)

00:07:48.420 --> 00:07:50.970
- [Speaker 5] There's
something that sets us apart.

00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:53.853
There's a signature.

00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:57.338
If we were to reveal it,

00:07:57.338 --> 00:08:00.161
we'd say it's the signature of blood.

00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:05.463
The blood follows us throughout
the journey of our life,

00:08:06.300 --> 00:08:09.663
whether it's with us, or no longer there.

00:08:10.830 --> 00:08:14.073
That is part of the womanhood secret.

00:08:16.620 --> 00:08:21.000
- Women in ancient times were
not only the bringers of life,

00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:23.703
but they were also the
caretakers of death.

00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:33.510
So when that honoring of death

00:08:33.510 --> 00:08:35.410
became repressed in our culture

00:08:36.480 --> 00:08:41.250
and taken over in a way
that death then became a way

00:08:41.250 --> 00:08:46.250
to conquer things, to hold
the power of life and death

00:08:47.550 --> 00:08:50.733
in your hand became a
power over structure.

00:08:59.010 --> 00:09:03.540
And in a culture where
blood is not honored

00:09:03.540 --> 00:09:08.540
in its sacred ways, we honor
it in the more violent ways.

00:09:09.687 --> 00:09:10.800
Power over.

00:09:12.817 --> 00:09:13.650
[2 ddrum beats]

00:09:13.650 --> 00:09:16.817
Competition as opposed to cooperation.

00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:23.643
Patriarchy has repressed and
suppressed our mysteries,

00:09:24.510 --> 00:09:25.923
women's blood mysteries.

00:09:30.930 --> 00:09:32.070
- When we were moving

00:09:32.070 --> 00:09:35.970
from a matriarchal society
to a patriarchal society,

00:09:35.970 --> 00:09:39.900
this most significant substance

00:09:39.900 --> 00:09:43.863
was totally turned around.

00:09:46.350 --> 00:09:47.910
It is not magic.

00:09:47.910 --> 00:09:49.260
It is the lowest.

00:09:49.260 --> 00:09:51.420
It makes women low.

00:09:51.420 --> 00:09:54.750
And this was vital to the rise

00:09:54.750 --> 00:09:57.780
of the Judeo-Christian
religions and culture,

00:09:57.780 --> 00:10:00.363
that this magic be taken away from us.

00:10:03.237 --> 00:10:04.070
[Drum Beats With Hunting Music And Voies]

00:10:11.700 --> 00:10:15.720
- I worked with combat
vets in a VA medical center

00:10:15.720 --> 00:10:19.032
and sat over the course of five years

00:10:19.032 --> 00:10:21.674
listening to hundreds of stories

00:10:21.674 --> 00:10:23.417
of returned combat veterans.

00:10:26.460 --> 00:10:29.760
And one of the things was
how many of them spoke

00:10:29.760 --> 00:10:34.593
of fighting and killing
other human beings.

00:10:39.330 --> 00:10:43.740
There was, on many occasions,
the reference to blood brothers,

00:10:43.740 --> 00:10:46.080
and really what they were talking about

00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:49.830
was the incredible sense
of aliveness that they had

00:10:49.830 --> 00:10:54.035
in combat situations
where blood could be shed.

00:10:54.035 --> 00:10:54.868
(crowd applauding)

00:10:54.868 --> 00:10:57.390
We might be tempted to
call it almost a bravado

00:10:57.390 --> 00:10:59.490
and a machismo, but it really wasn't that.

00:10:59.490 --> 00:11:03.450
It was something that
happens to the human being

00:11:03.450 --> 00:11:06.750
put in these extraordinarily
powerfully stimulating

00:11:06.750 --> 00:11:09.813
circumstances where life
and death were on the line.

00:11:12.990 --> 00:11:16.680
I'll never forget the
images and the sensations

00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:18.970
of blood on their hands

00:11:21.420 --> 00:11:23.910
- And this is in stark contrast

00:11:23.910 --> 00:11:27.240
to the blood that I think
women are interested in

00:11:27.240 --> 00:11:29.460
and associate with the
blood of menstruation,

00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:30.843
the blood of childbirth.

00:11:34.260 --> 00:11:37.410
I think we still have a
preponderance of experiences

00:11:37.410 --> 00:11:40.020
that say the blood on your underpants

00:11:40.020 --> 00:11:42.603
is something to be wadded
up and hidden away,

00:11:43.620 --> 00:11:47.550
whereas in the movies, someone
is sprayed with bullets

00:11:47.550 --> 00:11:50.790
or his head cut off, or a
limb, or something else,

00:11:50.790 --> 00:11:54.060
and we seem to be able to tolerate that.

00:11:54.060 --> 00:11:56.140
I think this really has to do

00:11:57.334 --> 00:11:58.167
(gunshots firing)

00:11:58.167 --> 00:12:02.234
with the positive associations
with a warrior nation.

00:12:02.234 --> 00:12:05.244
(slow dramatic music)

00:12:05.244 --> 00:12:08.070
(artillery firing)

00:12:08.070 --> 00:12:12.703
- They spoke of an obsessive anxiety over

00:12:13.830 --> 00:12:17.700
and sensation of blood on their hands.

00:12:17.700 --> 00:12:21.450
This could happen in dreams, at night.

00:12:21.450 --> 00:12:24.273
It could also even happen
during waking hours.

00:12:25.170 --> 00:12:28.650
A few of them feeling
compelled to wash their hands

00:12:28.650 --> 00:12:31.410
or to not want to touch other people,

00:12:31.410 --> 00:12:34.290
not shake their hands
because of the sensation

00:12:34.290 --> 00:12:36.780
that they had of blood on their hands.

00:12:36.780 --> 00:12:39.393
Blood had a particular
significance to them.

00:12:41.137 --> 00:12:41.970
[Dramatic music continues in backrouns].

00:13:01.222 --> 00:13:04.350
- I do think that our particular culture

00:13:04.350 --> 00:13:07.263
loves the metaphor and imagery of war.

00:13:08.130 --> 00:13:10.800
We might not like to reflect on that,

00:13:10.800 --> 00:13:13.170
but I think it is from that,

00:13:13.170 --> 00:13:18.170
that our tolerance for the
blood of violence has sprung.

00:13:19.830 --> 00:13:24.543
We are excited and even
thrilled by the blood of war,

00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:33.510
and the sadness seems to be missing.

00:13:33.510 --> 00:13:35.040
We seem to have an appetite

00:13:35.040 --> 00:13:38.733
for war, and gore, and spilling blood.

00:13:42.039 --> 00:13:42.872
[Dramatic Music Continuess].

00:13:56.460 --> 00:13:59.040
- [Mark] I'll never
forget the helplessness

00:13:59.040 --> 00:14:04.040
that many of these guys
shared about these images

00:14:05.940 --> 00:14:10.170
that could be very intrusive,

00:14:10.170 --> 00:14:14.223
and interfere with their
daily lives at times.

00:14:23.790 --> 00:14:27.600
- And I think the imagery
of the body and birth

00:14:27.600 --> 00:14:31.200
and so on, although they
are in a way terrifying,

00:14:31.200 --> 00:14:34.170
I mean, they're very raw,

00:14:34.170 --> 00:14:37.080
but they're not aggressive
in the same way.

00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:41.550
And it leads one to think
about life and death

00:14:41.550 --> 00:14:45.453
in a very different way, a
fundamentally different way.

00:14:47.530 --> 00:14:50.970
(slow solemn music)

00:14:50.970 --> 00:14:53.253
- In many cases, there
was a sense of guilt.

00:14:56.250 --> 00:15:00.577
The bloodshed through battling
and killing the enemy,

00:15:00.577 --> 00:15:02.227
or the blood of a fallen comrade.

00:15:05.340 --> 00:15:08.913
Our culture defines the
warrior role as one of honor,

00:15:11.310 --> 00:15:14.370
and the shedding of
blood for one's country

00:15:14.370 --> 00:15:17.463
was perceived as an honorable thing to do.

00:15:19.800 --> 00:15:21.453
What it was about subsequently,

00:15:22.470 --> 00:15:24.690
turned the blood and
the meaning of the blood

00:15:24.690 --> 00:15:26.013
into something else.

00:15:32.550 --> 00:15:36.030
I was profoundly impacted by the stories

00:15:36.030 --> 00:15:38.320
of these men and some of the women

00:15:39.960 --> 00:15:42.940
who shared with me the wounding

00:15:43.800 --> 00:15:45.693
that they carried around with them.

00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:52.590
It has to do with the meaning
of the blood on their hands

00:15:52.590 --> 00:15:53.820
and in the guerilla warfare,

00:15:53.820 --> 00:15:55.170
women and children could be the enemy,

00:15:55.170 --> 00:15:56.460
and the blood on their hands may be that

00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:57.560
of women and children.

00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:08.943
That was an important hurdle to get over.

00:16:12.706 --> 00:16:13.539
[Music Shifts To Light Percussion].

00:16:17.070 --> 00:16:20.133
And it's a legacy that's
referred to again and again now,

00:16:23.670 --> 00:16:26.400
in terms of the choices to
enter into bloody combat

00:16:26.400 --> 00:16:27.543
with other countries.

00:16:35.130 --> 00:16:39.000
- This ties into the role of blood

00:16:39.000 --> 00:16:42.393
in every single female
child's development,

00:16:43.230 --> 00:16:48.180
that shock and the nexus
point of the monarchy,

00:16:48.180 --> 00:16:50.973
when she begins her fertile life,

00:16:55.410 --> 00:16:58.740
and the closing down and
shifting and changing

00:16:58.740 --> 00:17:01.560
of that flow when she enters menopause.

00:17:01.560 --> 00:17:06.560
These biological events
are ripe with images

00:17:07.800 --> 00:17:10.980
and metaphors and ways of
understanding our lives,

00:17:10.980 --> 00:17:15.840
that I think are, perhaps,
a helpful contrast

00:17:15.840 --> 00:17:20.613
to the images of war
and crime and violence.

00:17:26.708 --> 00:17:28.830
- [Speaker 6] I think now
we've come to the limit

00:17:28.830 --> 00:17:30.780
of what patriarchy can achieve

00:17:30.780 --> 00:17:32.313
without destroying the planet,

00:17:36.030 --> 00:17:39.180
and it looks as though we
really have to integrate

00:17:39.180 --> 00:17:42.940
the true values of the
feminine very quickly

00:17:44.520 --> 00:17:49.053
in order to avoid problems
that are irreversible.

00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:04.320
- My name's Lynn, and
I'm a menstruating woman.

00:18:04.320 --> 00:18:06.720
- I'm no longer menstruating.

00:18:06.720 --> 00:18:09.330
I am all done with periods.

00:18:09.330 --> 00:18:11.970
- I am a menstruating woman,

00:18:11.970 --> 00:18:14.160
though not menstruating at the moment.

00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:15.570
- I do bleed.

00:18:15.570 --> 00:18:17.870
- I'm a woman of full circle.

00:18:17.870 --> 00:18:19.650
- I am Paula, and I'm
a menstruating woman.

00:18:19.650 --> 00:18:20.970
- Free at last, free at last.

00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:22.050
Thank God Almighty.

00:18:22.050 --> 00:18:23.550
I'm free at last.

00:18:23.550 --> 00:18:27.150
- The culture would call me premenopausal.

00:18:27.150 --> 00:18:30.731
- And I've been around for
a long, long, long, long,

00:18:30.731 --> 00:18:33.150
long, long, long, long,
long, long, long time.

00:18:33.150 --> 00:18:36.910
- I am well beyond the menopausal stage.

00:18:36.910 --> 00:18:41.910
- We are the crones, the
older and the wiser women.

00:18:42.480 --> 00:18:44.430
- And I do bleed.

00:18:44.430 --> 00:18:46.800
- I still get my monthly cycle.

00:18:46.800 --> 00:18:50.040
- I'm at a stage in my life
that they call perimenopause,

00:18:50.040 --> 00:18:52.680
which is not as romantic as pericomo.

00:18:52.680 --> 00:18:56.190
Now after all these years of
complaining about having it,

00:18:56.190 --> 00:18:58.710
I found out that that's
what's keeping me young.

00:18:58.710 --> 00:18:59.973
- As I've gotten older,

00:19:01.080 --> 00:19:03.240
this monthly bleeding is very reassuring.

00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:04.473
- My name is Sarah,

00:19:05.340 --> 00:19:08.340
and I'm just too shy to do this.

00:19:08.340 --> 00:19:11.730
- You know, in a way, it
makes sense to have a tent

00:19:11.730 --> 00:19:13.770
or a hut, or a place to go to,

00:19:13.770 --> 00:19:17.913
and not have to deal with anybody.

00:19:25.290 --> 00:19:26.990
- [Speaker 4] It's all a metaphor.

00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:33.320
- [Speaker 6] To move us
into a place of wholeness

00:19:33.630 --> 00:19:35.517
where there are no words.

00:19:45.381 --> 00:19:50.381
(soft mystical music)
(waves crashing)