Sagewolf, I agree with you on the bloodletting. It has become so taboo, but we have disinfectants and everything nowadays. As I've mentioned before in the menstruation thread, blood is an important substance to me spiritually. I don't think I've ever used it in ritual, but if I felt the need, I would. I think there's a bit of a connection with the whole black mass issue, and so people tend to avoid it so that there's no confusion.
The modified community, I have found, tends to be rather ritualised. I think that's what drew me into it, the whole "modern primitive" aspect. Each piercing or tattoo has a meaning and a significance. We don't have coming of age rituals and stuff anymore. A modification, therefore, is often taken as a rite of passage from one state of being to another. It hurts, sure, but I think that's an important part of it; I wouldn't have earned it, if it hadn't hurt. (Actually my last tattoo, Kali in sanskrit on the back of my neck, didn't hurt at all. It felt like a massage, only reeeeaally small
) Personally I think piercings are a more significant rite of passage, despite my tattoos having more meaning to me. I think this is because they take more courage: a tattoo goes on for a long time, but a piercing builds up and then is done. Uh, that was a weird sentence... you know what I mean. And if anyone's had a surface piercing done, they hurt like a 
. Mine was a badge of courage to me. It lasted eight months, but I cherish the scar it left behind.Man, I could go on about this all day. I should stop and sleep before I have to wake up again.
For the longest, I'd tattoo the kanji for water into my left ankle over and over with no hesitation. It wasn't anything permant, just pen ink, but it was a rite ever time I did it, it gave me time to think and sort things and learn to handle thinking while in pain, all in all, very characture(sp?) building. Speaking of, I've got a birthday comming, I think I'll stop by my tattoo artists place alittle later. 