Menopause as Initiation. You are not ending. You are becoming.

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The Call of the Change

If you've found your way here, you too probably believe that, one, the menopausal journey is one of transformation with a profoundly spiritual thread & two, it's time to rewrite the story of 'The Change'!

Many middle-aged women moving through ‘The Change’ can struggle with what comes next. 

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While the years of the menopausal journey can be extremely challenging - this challenge holds purpose. With each hot flush we are burning off the unnecessary, with each 3 am awakening we are given time to contemplate our lives in peace, with the body making what seems like constant demands, we learn to listen deeply & perhaps begin to care for ourselves in a way that once seemed impossible. This is not disfunction, this is initiation.

 

​The tough times do pass believe me... if you read no further than these next few lines, please hold onto three pieces of advice. 

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• Give yourself time; time to rest, time to reflect, time to journal, time to face yourself, time in silence.

• Listen to yourself; your body & inner-knowing are trying to guide you.

• Find a way to gracefully accept what has passed & know that somewhere inside you have the resources to transition naturally & powerfully to the next phase - The Wisdomful Woman.

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​You are not losing yourself, you are becoming 

Modern societies story of Menopause is one of general decline, you do not have to accept this story. Menopause is a time of descent. A descent into our core, where, should we choose to walk this internal spiral downwards, we will retrieve our inner-most treasure! This phase of life is a sacred rite of passage, a middle-aged initiation into the role of  the Wisdomful Woman!

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Menopause, or the journey towards the day when the holy ‘one year’ mark has passed is an initiation & to view it as less is to do yourself an injustice.

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​Yes, you may feel as if you're going a bit mad (other people may reinforce this view)

• Firstly, all interesting people are a bit mad! Secondly, madness is a creative force, our focus is to refine this creative surge and create our legacies!

Yes, you may find your tolerance levels are at an all time low.

• This is okay - you've likely been tolerant, too fucking tolerant, your whole life...  Just for now 'intolerant women' are learning what is theirs and what is not - it's a burning off process.

Yes, you may feel as though you have lost control of yourself/your life.

• As though a vast gap has been created and you're unsure how to navigate this expanse. The social narratives of fear, symptom lists & negative views of ageing peddled by the beauty & pharmaceutical industry are slopped out on the path ahead of us, creating a preoccupation with the idea of youth & associated beauty, which often fills this expanse, but it really doesn't have to be this way. There is something bone-deep beautiful that radiates from the older woman, freed from insecurities, whose earthy grounded-ness holds a sense of calm presence. She who is able to yield to the seasons and remain centred!

 

No, you have NOT become a horrible person. Calm, loving kindness, does return post menopause). You simply have a new and improved bullshit filter that comes that with an adjustment in hormones. From nurturing Mother, whose impulse is to do just that, to grounded, Wisdomful, sovereign woman with clear purpose and strong intent to live life on her own terms & do what she is here to do! What may feel like rage, detachment and an unravelling of who you were is in truth a sacred process of disidentification. You are shedding, refining and coming home. ​

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The Question of Change​

If you feel like you are hurtling towards emergency, I have a question for you:

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“What do I want?” as in "What do I want , really?"

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Not what’s expected of us. Not what’s appropriate. Not what others need. But what do I, truly, want?

 

As women we can become so caught up in caring, responsibility, the endless spinning of practical and emotional plates that asking ourselves the pivotal question “What do I want?” can be lost in the mix.

 

For some women this very question can seem so overwhelming that it's avoided all together. Peri-menopause, the change in hormonal levels and the sometimes over-powering levels of rage & inability to even tolerate other people breathing, is the perfect time to ask, contemplate & begin to answer "What do I really want?"

 

Over time I've changed the tone of this question to - "What is mine to do?" - in this broader context, in a spiritual sense, I have found that when these two questions are held together with reverence, they create an equilibrium. I was able to find a balancing point, a centre, an alignment - and it's here in the centre that Wisdom is found. The ability to position ourselves at the centre of our own lives & overtime, maintain this position, is key to a conscious, empowered menopause - a mid-life miracle - entailing endless possibilities!

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This is what we explore, uncover and nurture within the Rite of the Womb Retreat. ​We do not offer a "quick fix" to the Change. We offer sacred space for you to return to your own knowing.

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The old story we are leaving behind...

The Mother role is so well defined, and some would say all pervading in western culture that the possibility of something, anything, beyond seems intangible – surely Grandmother-hood is the next phase. Right? Yes, of course, when the tiny beings present themselves or there is a community opening for the older woman (minus the tiny beings) but is this all? Inhabiting the grandmother role for many looks much like continuing the same routine as was lived during motherhood – kinda like Motherhood Round 2… becoming a glorified babysitter but with more aches and pains and no ‘pocket money’ for your services.

What if what's on offer to us during this sacred transition is more, sooo much more than that?

What if the roles we can assume are far more rich, varied & nourishing than we ever imagined?

What if these newly unearthed roles became the foundations for a freshly imagined society?

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The Wisdomful Woman you are walking towards...​

1. At the change of life we have the potential to become the fully embodied channel between heaven and earth - just as the oracles, the pythia of Delphi once were. 

2. We are undergo a thorough process of refinement - the waves of nature, our bodies, the divine plan is showing us the route to our whole selves should we surrender.

3. A profound sense of self, anchored in our core, a solidity, certainty & courage guided by our inner compass - no longer being externally referenced!

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​​So, if we can begin to talk about menopause as an initiation and a natural process which, with our own conscious engagement, engineers us into wholeness then we can, together, make change in our world. 

 

​Collective consciousness after all, is exactly that. If we women, at the change of life, can make actual CHANGE then we positively effect the collective - we reset the future trajectory for those who come after us. Yes, the daughters and granddaughters but also the sons and grandsons too… as a present, the embodied wise woman figure guides young men into appropriate behaviour towards the female of the species and their inner feminine. ​​​

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A strong matriarch is the trunk of the family tree. Just as the masculine mountains rest on the feminine earth… we, women are a basis for growth that has long since been ignored and suppressed. From here, a new archetype emerges—not just Grandmother, not just Elder, but Wisdomful Woman.

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The Rite of the Womb Retreat is an invitation into her becoming.

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