Never in my life have I seen Women more confused, defeated and desperate than those in the throes of Perimenopause. Nor have I witnessed so much denial about entering a phase of physiological change. And there’s no wonder why - this chapter of a Woman’s life is wild and poorly traversed terrain.

Perimenopause is like a remote island that’s yet to be properly mapped. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of a Woman’s reproductive system – a captivating, feared and mysterious destination. And it’s possible that it became grossly misunderstood because those who did the original mapping were men without wombs, vaginas, breasts and the underpinnings of what it means to be a Woman.

In the scheme of things, Women only started living beyond their child-bearing years in the past couple of centuries, making menopause a newish-thing. Based on available historical data (which is a lil’ colonised and bias) the average life expectancy of a Woman around the time of Christ was 25-30, the dark ages 30-40 but somewhere between the 18th and 19th century Women started living longer. Which meant that our body’s learned to function beyond our capacity to conceive and give birth. For the Womb and the entire endocrine system, this would take some adjusting because not only would we experience in our lifetime menstruation, arousal, sex, pregnancy and birth, we’d now live long enough to experience the consolidation and reconciliation of that journey.

Those formative years were a bit of a mess. While women’s bodies might’ve been ready to progress it’s clear that their cultural circumstances were not. This was the era of the Enlightened & Victorian Age followed by the Industrial Revolution and there was a distinct lack of resources available for Women to make sense their experiences. Think post-witch-hunt dark-ages. What chance did they have? Women were on their best behaviour or god forbid they returned to the stake. It was deeply shameful and taboo to bleed or display emotion during this time and sadly, many peri/menopausal Women were ostracised, isolated, butchered or committed to asylums. Their experience was viewed through the lens of early medicine and by the authority of men. If you want to know how Menopause was historically ‘treated’ check out my blog The Dark History of Menopause.

In contrast, Indigenous cultures better understood that a Woman’s body transitioned between different phases of life and created stories, myth and meaning to embrace what they interpreted as an archetypal initiation. They had room to explore the phenomenon of aging and quite likely possesed the plant medicine, ceremony and community to accept it too. Their connection to the land and to source no doubt giving them more scope to adjust. So while menopause is universal, and women of all cultural backgrounds experience it, what seems to be different is the language and cultural significance surrounding it.

Menopause may not be as old as time itself, but the Womb is. I take great comfort in that. The male Y chromosome was born from our primordial X chromosome soup (much later in fact). So when I speak of the original Womb that birthed life into matter, this is what I mean. For historical purposes, let’s call Her God. The Womb is the source of all life (and death) but somewhere in the centuries between, we fell into Womb amnesia (and to be fair, in the current climate of trans-ideology, we risk a similar fate).

Never-the-less, here we are as Mid-life Women with our raging, protesting, story-telling, grieving wombs. Being called to not only meet our symptomatic needs but invited to dismantle structures of oppression, misogyny, patriarchy and abuse too. All Women experience having a Womb. Whether it be through orgasm, menstruation, birth, pregnancy, pain or discomfort - the Womb is a primal and ancient language that we collectively share. It knows us initimately.

The Autumn Woman is an archetype, a season onto itself. Its rich symbolism gives us meaning to frame our experiences. Though different for everyone, perimenopause is an intentional and inevitable journey of the body’s aging process - one we’d do well to understand and behold. Even so, I’ve lost count of the Women in their mid-to-late forties who define perimenopause by strict medical parameters - holding off using the term until their Dr tells them so. There’s much unspoken internalised misogyny in becoming Autumn. Many deaths to meet.

Perimenopause is deeply personal but it helps to have an understanding of the physiological changes occurring and a language that re-roots us in the Womb. This is the paradigm shift unfolding as Gen X Women move through Mid-Life. I experienced something similar at the time of my preganancy’s when the words “Sacred & Gentle Birth” were bravely uttered. That movement made a calm birthing experience a possibility for us. Now I’m at the gates of my perimenopause and sense the same invitation to utter brave words. Like birth, a confronting but deeply rewarding initiation into the FULLNESS of being a Woman and something, like all our Rites of Passage, we must uphold as sacred and Holy.

>>> Join me for my next Wild Autumn Woman online immersion,where we learn to map the beautiful and wild terrain of our Peri/menopause. Commencing Autumn 1st, 2023 <<<

The Wild Terrain of Peri/menopause

The Goddess & War

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