michelle-and-ruby.jpg"Nothing in our society-with the exception of violence and fear-has been more effective in keeping women in their place than the degradation of the menstrual cycle." -Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup

"On approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grass withers away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits." -Pliny, 636 A.D.

"Without menstruation and the sciences of measurement women developed from watching first the moon and then the stars, there would be no clocks or watches, no astronomers, no mathematicians or physicists, no astronauts, none of the architecture and engineering which have been born from exact measurement and proportion." -Blood, Bread, and Roses by Judy Grahn

"How might your life have been different for you if, on your first menstrual day, your mother had given you a bouquet of flowers and taken you to lunch, and then the two of you had gone to meet your father at the jeweler, where your ears were pierced...and then you went, for the very first time, to the Women's Lodge, to learn the wisdom of the women? How might your life be different?" -Circle of Stones by Judith Duerk

"Suppose that society is a lie, and the period is a moment of truth which will not sustain lies." -The Wise Wound by Penelope Shuttle & Peter Redgrove

-Michelle

Michelle Singer is a freelance journalist currently living and working in Montpelier, Vermont. Former GladRags employee and menstrual enthusiast, she is also a great lover of books, hiking, and wrestling with the continual confusion of feminism. She lives in a multi-generational home with all her most important fans-her parents, husband and two truly adorable children.