The Red Emptying

The Red Emptying
Watercolors, ink and menstrual blood on paper
2′ x 1′ approx

24th November 2014
I stand, sit or squat and ooze the scarlet walls of my womb.

Iron rich, pungent smelling, I seep messily into paper, cotton plugs, pads or water.

Into whatever material or receptacle we are supposed to, discretely and hygienically excrete our female unpleasantness and pretend we’re not.

But by whatever circuitous route our excretions are transported from our bodies and weave their way smeared or diluted through the foul and misguided systems we call sanitary, they will at last, we suppose, in tiny molecules re-enter the earth.

That’s where we came from and that’s where we return.

We eat the fruit and creatures of the earth as we always have, however much we may have tampered with them.  Packaged them up in layers of plastic and placed them in buildings far from the soil, muck excrement, fur, shell and blood that once coated them.

We scrub, shave, pluck, manicure, bleach, cut up, reshape, flush out, spray, coat and bind our bodies, trying to pretend we are above all that animal excretion.  But for all that and even with the many layers we have put between us and the dirt, we still do as all the creatures of the earth do and pass that stuff right back through our bodies, as powerful smelling food for the soil.

Currently, the accepted method of dealing with what we call our “waste” is to flush it away in vast amounts of water.

There are too many of us and we all live on top of each other and we don’t like to see it or think about it or smell it.

But with this system, it is very difficult for our nutrient rich excretions to re-enter the earth in ways which are useful.

Instead we mix this good stuff with damaging chemicals.  They pollute.  Fertilizer in the wrong place.

But here I stand and my menstrual blood pours down into the soil and the thirsty roots drink it up.

Making the Red Beast
Ink and menstrual blood on paper
2′ x 1′ approx

Now dabbling in my elemental fluids I trace a tendril like creature, an almost life, now scarlet, shiny, life-like but will fade and dry to brown, dead, shed, unneeded protection for an unmade life.

on a practical note, here is one link to a method of waste management that allows bodily substances to fertilize in places where they do good.

http://natsol.co.uk/urine-diverting-compost-toilets/

I have a Separation Compost Toilet (as they are also called).  The pee/blood goes on the compost heap or straight on the garden and the shit goes into wheelie bins, with dry soil or ash as the flush, it remains in these bins for a few months and is then emptied into purpose-built bays, where it’s left for 3 years or so, at this stage it looks and smells just like soil, it is then spread on Comfrey beds and the Comfrey can then be used as a garden fertiliser.  After seven years the soil can safely be moved anywhere.  This is an extra safe way of doing things and there other ways of dealing with it.  Further research can be done for anyone interested.  I live in a rural area.  How these methods could be used in a built up environment has not yet been worked out I think.