River of life..., Why is using your OWN blood taboo? Options

Lets face it, blood is one of the most metaphysically powerful substances a witch has access to. And it is HERS (or his). So what is the hysteria that is so prevailent these days about using your OWN blood in rituals to add power to it. i can see in the old days when witchcraft was first struggling to come back and gain acceptance and they wanted to seem as bunny fluff as possible so that there would be no violent reprecussions. But we are past that stage now. i understand that wiccans don't want anyone to think that their Godess demands blood, but i am talking about witches. Blood freely and joyfully given is a powerful tool and i think it is a shame that we are letting fear ruin it for us. Now i know that it is a touchy subject for alot of people so, please, lets keep this as a friendly discussion. Thanks all

Well you guys must have been lucky! I went to a couple of drugstores trying to purchase lancets and they wanted to know which kind I wanted. I tried such things as "well those ultra thin one" or "the ones on sale". No such luck LOL. It was like they have them guarded against occultsts about to do a grimoirum verum working or something!
I finally did get my lancets, I had to ask to see the boxes so I could recognize which brand I usually buy, well this didn't work the first time, but did at the second drug store. <sigh>
Ah not up for the old slicing thy knife accross your chest and putting your cake of light there to stop the flow and get your blood in it? I really don't blame you on that one!
I have used play piercing needles affectively to draw blood, and those worked fine. I also tried to use a dagger, which took far too many tries as I was worried about injuring myself too much. Having to leave partway through the ritual for stitches just wouldn't have sufficed!
Well with the blood thing, women do have a decided advantage in case we don't feel like using lancets (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Athena