I’m crouching over my toilet, blindly feeling around, almost afraid to look too closely. I manage to pull out my menstrual cup without spilling too much. I open the jar that used to hold strawberry jam and empty my blood into it.

I’m experimenting with how to engage with my cycles.

Initially I’m shocked at how little blood is in my jar. I swear I nearly bleed to death every time I get my period. Maybe I’m a little dramatic though.

Menstrual blood has nitrogen, phosphorus and magnesium: three essential nutrients for soil health. I’ve been aware of potentially using menstrual blood as fertilizer for a while, but didn’t feel compelled to try it myself until I met Anastasia*, who firmly believes in the power of returning menstrual blood to the earth.

“The earth really misses women offering back their blood,” she said. “The earth is aching for us to reclaim our place.”

Anastasia is a petite woman with large brown eyes. She moves gently and maintains a calm smile across her face. Still, she has experienced her share of major life transitions. A particularly impactful experience for her was participating in a psychoactive experience that is sacred to her Peruvian culture. Following the experience, she found herself very vulnerable to negative energy. She sought guidance from two female shamans and they recommended she use her menstrual blood to create energetic barriers around her home.

All Anastasia had to do was collect her menstrual blood in a jar and infuse it into the earth in four corners around the perimeter of her home. She then took a moment to envelop the area with smoke from Palo Santo—a type of wood which, when burned, can be used to purify and seal energies.

Anastasia felt emotionally and physically stimulated during this process.

“I felt this really intense buzzy tingling in my heart space and up through the top of my head,” she said. “And just a sense of, ‘I’m at the right place at the right time. I’m aligning with my truth right now.’”

I wanted to feel that peace myself. I have personally struggled for a long time with menstruation. I remember my first period. I was so angry. No part of me wanted that. My mom kept telling me to be proud of it and that just seemed like nonsense to me.

I still feel somewhat victimized by menstruation. You will not meet a person who complains more about her cramps and then even more about the spacey feeling pain relievers give me. My period has always left me feeling inconvenienced. Not to mention, I just don’t have the energy to go about business as usual. I find myself placing blame onto my cycle—and in turn, to mother nature—for the mistakes I make during my period. The inherent danger to all this is making menstruation even more stressful.

So when my period came around again, I grabbed a jar, lodged my Diva Cup, and let myself bleed it out. Something surprising happened though. I wasn’t simply excited about what I was going to use my blood for, it was that I had the option to make use of it. My blood was no longer a waste. I became so much more accepting of the fact that it was a part of me.

Anastasia has found that once you accept menstruation, and you give yourself permission to feel the cycle of emotions that come with it, many of the tensions dissolve.

“You’re not fighting with yourself, you’re not fighting with your body anymore,” she said.

I think that’s the key to what changed in me. This part of my cycle didn’t feel like a hugely unwelcome thing anymore. I was open to it. I almost wanted it. I swear my cramps even alleviated a bit. Anastasia had a similar sentiment.

“If you’re a cycling person you’ll find at times you get really cranky and anxious and you don’t want to be around anyone,” she said. “Before I used to think, ‘What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I be bubbly and bursting all the time?’ And now I’m just like, ‘Oh, this is my time to feel that.’ And it’s just—the anxiety isn’t there anymore.”

I ended up using my own blood for my plants. I was sure to thank my body for letting me nourish the earth in this way.

Anastasia strongly believes in connecting with cycles—menstrual and otherwise. She too has felt the inconvenience of menstruation and had to challenge her feelings about it. In relearning, she has embodied the idea of cyclicity. To her, it means to be aware that there are phases in menstruation, your life, your day-to-day, everything. And more importantly, to be aware that the bad parts of the cycle do end and to take on those moments with acceptance and gratitude.

“I find with the increased awareness of cyclicity and how I embody that, it helps me handle challenges in my life—both external challenges and internal ones—with more grace.”