ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the case study of Nicola. Nicola's ritual took place shortly before her hysterectomy. She had gone through a long period of loss—of job, income, and home: It happened to come at a time when there was just a whole lot of other loss really—it feels like it was a time of immense kind of tearing down and stripping. Whilst waiting for the operation Nicola had plenty of time for reflection, and began to think about how she could mark the event and her sense of loss in a spiritual way. Nicola's ritual is deeply rooted in her own embodied experience. She begins from her bodily experience of bleeding, which for her is intimately connected with her gender and her sexuality: But there was also very specific stuff about no longer bleeding. She is aware of the feminist theology which has critiqued patriarchal dualism and reclaimed the holiness of women's bodies.
