I’m not an arty type, but I need some red ochre (clay, I assume?) for a first menstruation ritual, and I have absolutely no idea where to get it or what to look for. Is it readily available in its raw form at art supply stores, or will I only find synthetic pigments called red ochre? I live in Chicago, near Evanston, so there’s no shortage of art supply stores, but I don’t want to sound like an idiot calling around for it. I just need a small bit to do a body painted pattern on three girls, and maybe a chunk for each of them to take home with them. Local would be best, as I need it by Sept 7th.
If you want to order online this site seems to have what you are after, the mineral red ochre. They are a make your own paint information and supply company. If you prefer already mixed paint, Good’s of Evanston has some handmade oil paints, along with many other options.
I don’t know where you live, but red ochre is a kind of clay-ish rock that’s composed mainly of iron, and I find it all the time at a nearby river. Might wanna check around before you go buying it.
If you have a USGS station nearby, they might know if there’s some around. Or a state geologist, they’re usually interested in stuff like that.
If you go to an art store and tell them that you want some genuine red ochre earth pigment powder, I’m sure they’ll be helpful. If they ask why it has to be the genuine earth pigment (they probably won’t), just tell them that it’s vital to the integrity of the work.
Make sure you get “cosmetic grade” if you intend to put it on people’s bodies. The art grades (especially the cheap stuff) sometimes has heavy metal contaminants that you don’t particularly want to smear all over yourself. And it’s not necessarily clay; basically it’s rusty soil, or even just fine particles of rust (iron oxide).
Oops, that “thank for all the help” was addressed to everyone else who responded. It looks like I was being sarcastic to woodstockbirdybird, and that wasn’t my intent at all.
I have to say, though - from what I Googled on the subject, it sounds pretty close to child molestation to me. Rubbing a mixture of (her own) urine and ochre on your daughter’s bare nipples? I don’t know if that’s part of the ritual you’re performing, but if it is, I have to say, it’s pretty damned disturbing.
Can I just ask if you’ve made sure the menstruator wants this? Because I’ve heard a lot of stories about parents way more interested in celebrating this particular milestone than the one whose uterus is actually dripping. I’m not casting any judgment on the idea of celebrating such a thing, but you wanna make sure the kid actually wants to do so before you hire the clown.
Eew. No. (But where did you find it? I am looking for other ideas, but I won’t use that.) We use a mixture of red ochre and oil to anoint a glyph on the forehead. There’s an initiation, which involves the moms and other close adult women on one side of the room, and the young women on the other. The young women bring a beloved item from childhood to leave on their side of the room, crossing over to the moms and aunties to be welcomed into “womanhood.” This is when I (as Godmother and Priestess of the rite), annoint each girl’s forehead and present them with a clay goddess figurine for their personal altars, as well as a chunk of the ochre, if I can find it in that form. (The goddess figurine does have an indent for each girl to place a drop of her blood in it and seal it with melted wax, if that’s what she wants to do, but that’s done alone in her own privacy, not with us.)
Then each mom (two of the girls are sisters, one is an only child) give the girls a New Responsiblity and a Privilege (example: “You are now expected to do all of your own laundry. You may now stay up until 10:00 on weekends”) that comes with their new status as Young Women.
Then we all share chocolate and blackberry juice, and relax, telling stories of our own first periods, how our moms handled it (some good stories, some bad), our early experiences with menstruation and boys, advice about how they can respect their bodies and not give into peer pressure around sex, but grow and explore at their own pace, that sort of thing.
We’re pretty clear with the girls that they’re not Grown Up Women, but we do recognize the beginning of menstruation as an important milestone in their lives. The men of our community do a similar ritual with the young men at some point around 14 or 15, but I don’t know the details of it. I trust my husband that it’s safe and appropriate.
Anything sound inappropriate in this? I hope not. It’s only the second ritual like this I’ve planned. It needs to be a little intimidating for the girls, but I don’t intend it to come off as “molestation” or anything.
One thing I can’t decide is whether or not to give them their childhood item back. Opinions seem split on this. Some people think that not giving it back hammers home the idea that we give up childish ways as we grow. Others give the item back, saying something like, “You will always have mementos and memories of your childhood. Keep this in a special place, and take it out when you find life getting too serious.” I’m torn.
Excalibre, yes, all three girls are looking forward to it, but that’s an excellent point. They’ve all been raised in neopagan families, with rituals for everything from Summer Solstice to a hangnail. They came to us to ask us to do “something ritual-y” for them.
The putting away of childish things seems a lot more in keeping with what I know about other cultures’ coming-of-age rituals. Keeping it around and reminding yourself not to be too much of an adult seems more in keeping with self-indulgent 60s-era hippie attempts at co-opting other cultures’ practices and adapting them to the particular ideals of their subculture. But then, I’ve often felt that hippies did a poor job of actually understanding other cultures; I have a serious problem with people attempting to jam their own particular beliefs into other people’s cultural practices. And it strikes me as a particularly modern and Western thing to encourage adults to act more like children.
In my own culture, the young women who had reached the age of beginning their menstrual cycle were all taken one day to the practitioner of the healing arts in our educational enclave, where they heard the reading of a sacred text; I believe also watched some form of filmstrip. They were instructed to never speak of what they had seen or heard to the men-children, or discuss it in our presence.
That’s pretty much what I think, too. Thanks for articulating it for me.
And you’re right. The bit of me that’s hesitating is afraid of the mothers - afraid that they’ll want to coddle and protect their daughters and think I’m being “too hard” on them. When actually, this ritual is about transforming their view of their daughters as much as the girls’ view of themselves - it’s hard for mom to accept that her baby isn’t a kid anymore. But she’s gotta.
Screw that. Sometimes a priestess has gotta do what a priestess has gotta do. If we wanted touchy-feely infantilizing crap, we’d be Christians! (I’m joking, I’m SO joking, please don’t flame me!)
pravnik: That was my experience, too. People look at me rather :dubious: when I talk about ritual work, but the fact is that we still have them in everyday life, they just look different than they used to.
You’re joking, but the particular feature of sexually segregating such things and keeping them secret from the other sex is actually pretty common in regards to adulthood rituals in many cultures. The more I learn about anthropology, the more I become convinced that a lot of the things we do, and have rational explations for (or perhaps explanatory rationalizations), are motivated by exactly the same mysterious forces that guide people’s behavior in “primitive” cultures.
