Recently, because of my age, I have been privy to numbers of friends who are going through the “change” of life. Since our culture greets this rite of passage with the same enthusiasm it accorded the Plague, we women are naturally horror struck as this perfectly natural ending to our birthing cycle occurs. We are one of the few cultures on earth that endures as much physical and emotional pain around this event and so in researching alternative possibilities to life being “over” as a result of our age and the M word, I’ve found some interesting information.
If we lapse back to early centuries when the Goddess cultures were predominant, we would find the Menopause a time of passage into the great cycle of wisdom in which biological creativity was now completed and creative wisdom was fully emerging. It was a time when the full bloom of woman’s powers came into being. She had completed her responsibility to the procreation of the species, was no longer bound to the menses of each passing full moon, and now was in position to move more fully into her deep intuitive nature. Without the disruption of hormones, her clarity was unequaled.
Menopause is the third and most powerful stage that woman can enter ritualistically related to her body, the first being menstruation and the second childbearing. It is also intended as the crowning point of her life, not its end.
As patriarchal societies claimed world dominance, they subverted woman’s power to the process of biological birthing only. Woman’s worth was tied to the inheritance she brought to a marriage and her ability to procreate. The great wise Crone was reduced to a hag; depicted as evil, despicable and revolting. The picture that we have inherited comes from this legacy rather than the pre-patriarchal days, and part of woman’s great fear is losing her youth, her looks, her sexuality, desirability, and her value.
The power of that early PR campaign was to disempower a whole segment of society, which it did quite successfully. Now, as aging baby boomers have elevated the neurosis of menopause to new heights, we need to retrieve our heritage as women who are moving into the elder years…to the circle of wisdom.
It is up to us to invite wisdom through our choices. If our vanity is tied to the physical body, we are bound to be disappointed, because as of yet, there is no cure for death. However, as we resist the notion that we are used up and finished, we are able to look at life through a different lens…one not filtered by our need to fit an outworn image.
To say that this rite of passage is without physical change, discomfort and in some cases health risks is naïve, but as Christiane Northrup, M.D. has stated in one of her newsletters on women’s health, “modern medicine treats menopause like a sickness, not a natural life passage. They view it as a ‘disease’ that women cannot escape.” She further states that “we are being sold a bill of goods. Huge amounts of money are being made by hormone companies that frighten women into thinking that menopause requires a doctor’s treatment. And many of those treatments - hormone replacement therapy, frequent mammography and cervical screening - are based on dubious research. Doctors have never studied a group of non-symptomatic, healthy menopausal women… The so-called menopausal syndrome is a mishmash of fact, fallacy, and prejudice. Instead of women feeling confident and positive about menopause, we are being persuaded to feel anxious, fragile and prey to a host of unpleasant diseases.” She, as physician Sadja Greenwood, feel that the menopause is a time when a woman’s power, wisdom and creativity push to the surface, calling for our attention. I have been told by women on the other side of this that there is a sense of freedom that is unmatched in any other part of their lives.
If we women have nurtured our interior life during our earlier years, we have nothing to fear as we enter this rite of passage. There is richness in the elder years, when we are no longer bound by some of the concerns we faced earlier. As one of my friends who has passed the menopause threshold told me… “I have a knowledge and acceptance of myself as never before. It is great to be through with all of that…and also great to be over 50.!”
Beyond these practical views, there is a spiritual component to this process. Modern woman is often disconnected from her heritage as sacred guardian of earth and wisdom. Because of the ensuing centuries where potency of the feminine has been subjugated to the dominance of Brute Force…as has earth…we have neglected our spiritual heritage. When woman remembers her true nature, she has no need to fear the powerful time of life that menopause represents. There is no time in life when woman or earth, regardless of age, is not of high value. It is our perception of ourselves that values or devalues us, and to accept an external idea of who we are and what we can be based on our age, our condition, or anything other than our own knowledge is banal.
Rather than buy the myths about aging, let’s embrace the long ago goddess culture’s attitude that this is one of the greatest season’s of our lives…an opportunity for renewal into a richer, fuller aspect of our being. And rather than point fingers in blame at anyone else, let’s evolve who and what we are to a more magnificent possibility for the benefit of all life.
From Seasons of the Soul print edition, Spring 1998