On dancing in the dark
Navigating the "gifts" of perimenopause. Part 2 Chasing the Hag series.
Part 2 of the Hag series. You can find part one: Chasing the Hag: Cailleach’s sacred sites in Ireland here. And part 3: Being Chased by the Hag will come soon.
This more personal Hag article on perimenopause has been sitting in my drafts box for the best part of a year. It feels raw and edgy to share, maybe as I am still navigating the waves that arise, the new challenges that present in this transitional phase of life. Nonetheless, I’m releasing it anyway in the hope that it may just touch, inspire or prepare another woman in her own transitional dance…
Sometime in the past couple of years, the realm of perimenopause embraced me in its soft, dark arms. When I look back and reflect, it actually happened quite suddenly, yet so gradually at the same time. Without realising it, somehow I stepped fully over the threshold into the liminal realm and here I still am, navigating the transitions of this phase of dissolution. Things will never be the same, and yet what they will be, I don’t know - that threshold has yet to be crossed. I’m in the ‘peri’ - ‘around’ time.
In between.
I speak to women who are well on the other side of menopause and their experiences are as individual and unique as each person. Some say it was like the flick of a switch, some barely noticing the threshold, others that it took them ten years of transitioning.
10 years!!!
I guess transition takes as long as we need it to take. Being someone who believes that all transitions can be gentle if we do the listening and can flow with it, I am also incredibly aware of my own resistances to change - and that seems to be what is coming up for review.
Obviously I can only speak of my own experience and what I have noticed. Maybe parts of it will resonate.
Take what you will, leave the rest behind.
So here’s what I have noticed so far:
Retreat
The few years prior to stepping over the perimenopause threshold, I now look back and notice a deepening urge to retreat from the social world. My hermit tendencies increased and my interactions with others narrowed to the essential and golden. My tolerance for anything else has lessened considerably! My energy levels no longer can support anything that is not nourishing for my soul on some level. Pushing against this and trying to live how I was before brings up irritation and frustration (sure signs I am crossing an inner boundary).
Internal change is a big process. Menopause is a dissolution, like the pupating caterpillar getting ready to transform into a butterfly. The dissolving caterpillar needs a few essential things in order to transition into a butterfly. The main ones being a cocoon of protection and stillness/rest. Even the slightest disturbance to a pupae can mean those imaginal cells never get to create their new winged body.
Rest and outer stillness is essential for the inner dissolution.
Time out.
That thing our hectic culture so detests.
Nanna naps are needed.
How can you create this safe and still nesting place for your own transition even amidst the necessities of life?
Life literally hangs by a thread as the internal alchemy unfolds…
Listening to the body
Then there’s been the accentuating of old physical conditions. The body talking, or should I say screaming for attention. Hey, you haven’t fully dealt with this, there’s more to learn here. Or the Oh this needs burning up, clearing out, weeding, burning, purifying, from the inside out.
All those little things I’ve pushed aside to deal with later, the ‘going beyond’ my body’s capacity that used to work but rather suddenly, refuses to. All start rearing their lovely little heads with a grand ultimatum. Now. Or I’ll force you. No more pushing away, pushing under, going beyond my capacity or out of body.
Now the body says.
Now.
Deal with it.
At first it felt overwhelming. But only until I turned to face it. To make my body a priority. To metaphorically take the bull by the horns. This not only brought a sense of empowerment back, but it’s been amazing how fast things can shift when we actually turn and face them.
Just when this started becoming easier and almost a joy – each thing arising an opportunity to look deeper and heal. Then the next perimenopausal upheaval arrived…
Second puberty
The horrendous, neverending weeks of waiting for the release of a bleed that never comes. All the buildup and tension without the rebalancing of the thunderstorm. The storm that never breaks.
Is there any wonder perimenopausal women are spiky?
Try feeling that and still being polite.
Perimenopause after all, is the premenstrual phase of life. Argh!!
With an elimination channel suddenly absent and the body learning to readapt, in the meantime there can be pressure on the other channels – like the skin, the digestion, the control centre. I mean, talk about second puberty! Yet the shift in hormones can make these systems even more sluggish.
Everything is changing. What once worked, now needs a different approach entirely. More opportunities for change. (Groan. Sigh. Accept.)
I get it though. It’s the resistance to changing that brings difficulty. Still very much working on this!
Without any dietary changes, within a couple of months, my body is a different creature. My breasts have doubled or tripled in size (where were you when I cared?!), yet so has the rest of me. Venus of Willendorf eat your heart out.
Then there’s the hormonal ups and downs. Until perimenopause, I didn’t realise how much hormones rule our experience of the world. Intellectually maybe, but now it is a physical, unmistakeable reality. Take those happy hormones away and bam, there goes any desire to speak anything but the truth or to smooth things out when they actually need to change. That cyclical cocktail of hormones, I realise, is what makes us nice and amenable. It is no longer knowledge in my brain, but an all out physical wisdom in my body.
There are days when my hormonal low is such that there is no inspiration or energy for anything and my thoughts go mental with negativity. This is when all those life skills come best into play. Compassionately parenting ourselves. To patiently dive into the feelings rather than avoiding or backing away from them. It’s a process.
Diving into the darkness, back into the inner realm seems to be an ever more frequent necessity. It’s second puberty, but this time with awareness and a skillset that requires rigorous practice. (And if you don’t have the skills, its time to reach out for support to develop them - it’s never too late.)
What cycle?
The cyclical changes have another disorienting affect. I’m someone who has tracked my cycle since it began. Somehow I stumbled upon Natural Fertility by Francesca Naish in my early 20’s and used my cycle for contraception ever since. In the more recent decades, my cycle awareness deepened coming across the work of Jane Hardwicke Collings (who has a great workshop on menopause by the way). I have explored using my cycle for creation, manifestation, business, intention setting and eventually sharing it in my own work as an aspect of nature connection and alignment. It has been such a gift living like this.
So to suddenly have my cycle disappear felt like a rug being pulled out from under my feet. Gone is a trusted navigation system.
To accentuate this disorientation, I soon traveled overseas in midwinter. Upside down times, polar seasonal shifts and still no cycle. I could almost advise everyone struggling with The Change to travel overseas. All my ground and habits dissolved. I was forced to let go and surrender. To dance in the dark. (Except it was light until 10pm)!!
When I got over the initial shock, I realised one of the big lessons inherent in it. Simply, to get unstuck, to let all structures (including my cycle) dissolve and crumble, to simply listen to what is needed in each moment.
Ever deeper listening.
It’s actually very simple.
Rest when tired, eat when hungry.
Moment to moment listening.
Release all knowing.
Rest in the unknown.
Be like water.
Dissolve and Become.
I am reminded of the wisdom teachings of Sage, beautiful common garden Sage (Salvia officinalis). Which by the by, is a great all rounder for menopause and flushes (whenever I have a bout of hot flushes, I take 1-3 drops of Sage tincture a day for 3-5 days (or as needed) and they clear up with ease. Alternatively you can have Sage tea regularly. My other go-to general, all-rounder menopause remedies so far have been Sarsaparilla and Blue Triangle Butterfly (also amazing for hot flushes). But menopause is such an all system functional shift that virtually any women’s herb will effect it if you are working in a wholistic way and matching the frequency of a herb with your unique needs.
But back to Sage.
One of my embodied experiences with Sage many years ago was the utter bliss of release. I experienced it as the dropping away of the petals of a flower in complete surrender. In our culture there is so much focus on blooming, so much so that we often forget this greater wisdom (a.ka.Sage) phase of the flower – when it releases its petals, when it lets go and let’s god. When it becomes one with the all, releasing its “beauty” in the outer world in order to find its true beauty.
Sage is all about the inner blossoming.
This inner blossoming is Sage medicine, and I suspect this is the medicine and wisdom of menopause. If we’re to become the wise sage femme (‘midwife’) of the future generations, we need to embrace this initiation of surrender and inner knowing. The medicine teachings of Sage (and Clary Sage for that matter).
The paradox of sharing pieces of my experience, is that it is external information, which at most can simply be inspiration for the journey into yourself. No other persons experience will hold all of what you seek, because as far as I can tell, the initiation of menopause is about going within and finding your own truth and wisdom.
I close with the words of the Clary Sage song:
Close your eyes go within,
deep into the dark night.
On-ly from here you’ll find
your way back to the light.
Spiral round into the ground,
the labyrinth is your mind;
Only with your eyes closed tight
will the way forward unwind.
It’s in the dark you’ll find your way,
back to the brilliant light of day.
It’s in the dark you’ll find your way,
back to the brilliant light of day.
Stay tuned for the final article in the hag series: Being Chased by the Hag: The Crone’s Initiation.
Most of my articles are free, if you’d like to support my work please consider sharing, upgrading to paid or purchasing one of my books.
About Heidi
I’ve been walking the plant spirit path for close to 30 years. With herbalism, homeopathy, and plant alchemy/spagyrics as early companions, midwifery and shamanism came a little later. After years of listening to the plants, I’ve since taught hundreds of people how to deepen their connection with nature and learn to hear the whispers of plants. I continue to offer The Flower Codes Training/ Shamanic Herbalism online course, as well as various in person shamanic nature-based courses such as Herbal Alchemy Spagyrics.
My published books include:
"The Flower Codes: Plant Spirit Teachings for your Soul to Blossom."
"Wild Flower Walker: A Pilgrimage to Nature on the Bibbulmun Track”;
and Blue Triangle Butterfly: A Homeopathic Proving
Activating the Language of Flowers
Imagine a world where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and blossom to their full soul potential. Imagine a culture that realises personal blooming not only benefits the whole but enhances everyone’s capacity to shine. Could flowers hold a key?
In The Flower Codes, messages and teachings received in conversation with the plant devas, are combined with grounded herbal wisdom, historical knowledge and years of herbal experience to reveal the power of flowers to awaken, heal and guide us to remember and embody our blossoming self. In the first book of the series, the three flowers that contain the ancient encoding for sacred birth are explored in depth - for the first step in birthing a Sacred Earth lies in our own inner transformation.
International paperbacks or Ebooks: https://books2read.com/TheFlowerCodes-Book1
I can soooo relate to this - thank you sooo much for sharing your experiences. I loved reading it and as usual it''s so helpful and making me ponder about a lot of things ..... Thank you Heidi