Duke University
Ashtyn Adams is a third-year Master of Divinity student at Duke University, specializing in the intersections of theology, ecology, and embodiment. Her favorite ways to connect with the earth and her community are through skiing and discovering new vegan recipes with friends and family. During her program, she has interned with Creation Justice Ministries, where she wrote a weekly blog advocating for environmental justice policies and faith-based efforts to protect, restore, and rightly share God’s creation. Her recent work, Encountering the God Who Bleeds, uses a feminist eco- theological lens to examine menstruation as an issue of theological ethics, exploring both divine and creaturely renewal. Ashtyn plans to apply to doctoral programs next year to further her research.
This work examines the theological and ethical significance of menstruation within the context of creation and preservation. Drawing from feminist theology, eco-womanism, and biblical exegesis, it argues that menstruation—a process often shrouded in shame—parallels the regenerative blood of Christ, offering profound insights into the cyclical and sustaining nature of divine love. By integrating the overlooked experience of female embodiment with the doctrines of creation and incarnation, this approach challenges anthropocentric and patriarchal frameworks that sever human spirituality from the more-than-human world. Anchored in the doctrine of creation, menstruation is framed as a “monthly liturgy” that mirrors Earth’s cycles, illustrating the deep interconnection between human bodies and ecological systems. Building on biblical scholarship surrounding the menstruating woman in Mark 5, the narrative is re-centered as a moment where Christ’s porous and feminized body reveals a God who sacramentally bleeds without limit—a God who participates intimately in the cycles of life and renewal, and whose vulnerability sustains life in its constant flux. The encounter between Christ and the bleeding woman underscores divine participation in the transient, messy, and fertile realities of creation. Through dialogue with Indigenous cosmologies, medieval mystics, and ecological ethics, this analysis invites a reevaluation of preservation not as static conservation but as dynamic stewardship rooted in reciprocity. It calls for a renewed theological vision that honors both female bodies and the Earth as sacred, generative sites of divine encounter.