Crossing the River of Blood and Fire

Menopause as a rite of passage

You’re changing!

“Entering the Ninth Cycle,” by Meinrad Craighead

Your cycle, once a reliable marker of time, has become unpredictable. You might go months between periods of bleeding. Or maybe you bleed for weeks on end. Your bleeding, once a detail to manage with medium tampons or a menstrual cup while you went about your busy life, now demands your full attention and stops you in your tracks. You didn’t realize it was possible to bleed this much and stay standing!

Your emotions are changing. Maybe you feel like a teenager, suddenly unable to control your temper or your tears after decades of having the reigns of yourself. Or, like someone exiting an estrogen-induced fairy hole where you consistently tended to the feelings of those around you, you now lack interest in managing the emotions of others. Where you were once always aware of how your expressions and behavior affected other people’s feelings, you are no longer interested in whether living your truth may upset your community.

Your body is changing. Silver hair has arrived. You get hot for no reason, then shiver with cold sweats. Your skin feels less elastic and resilient. You gain weight much more easily than you lose it. Your joints may start feeling stiff. And, distressingly, your vagina has been behaving differently. You begin to understand in every cell of your body that you are mortal, you will age and eventually die. But you also know that you have decades more life to live and you want to ensure you remain comfortable, joyful and active.

Menopause is an alchemical state, alchemy being the magical and scientific process of turning one element into another. Alchemists strove to turn lead into gold. During the time of life we call menopause, a woman magically and scientifically transforms from the fertile years to the Golden Years.

Stories tell us that the first alchemist was a woman. Named Miriam the Prophetess,  some say she was the sister of Moses, others the daughter of Plato. Some insist she was the child of the Queen of Sheba. All histories of alchemy note that she was a brilliant inventor of scientific instruments. Variations of the stills and condensers invented by Miriam are still used by scientists today.

The ancient Greek writer Zosimos tells us that Miriam could communicate with the animating spirits of metals and elements. The elements themselves instructed her on combining their natures to create entirely new elements. The old stories say Miriam remains the only alchemist in the human story who successfully transformed lead into gold.

To be female is to be an alchemist, a shapeshifter, a prophet. We all viscerally remember the transformation from child to womanhood. The budding breasts, the first blood, the entry into cyclical being. With this change often comes grief over the end of childhood and excitement surrounding the great unknown of being an adult human female. Every month we blossom and bleed, for decades.

If we are lucky, we learn to ride our cycles. We grow to understand we are alchemically different during the time of ovulation than the time right before and during bleeding. In the first half of our cycles, we are open to newness and welcome great change. As we approach our bleeding time, we explore the darkness, take inventory of what is not working, feel the pole of negativity. Then we bleed and release and start anew.

During this fertile phase of life many of us transform yet again into mothers. We conceive and gestate life, growing larger than we ever thought possible. We open to the mystery of birth, surrender to a power we did not know we had within us, and bring new souls to this Earth. And once again, we are different. Upon becoming mothers, many women describe a sensation of a vault door slamming shut, closing off your previous life and leaving you in this new land of motherhood. Once again, there may be grief over the loss of the childfree life. But new powers arise. We produce milk, the only food our infants need. The heart infinitely expands and the gift of prophecy known as “mother’s intuition” descends and develops.

Like puberty and pregnancy, menopause is yet another crucible of transformation. You are crossing the river of blood and fire into a territory previously unknown to you. Other women have made the passage, but until you arrive there yourself you cannot really know what lies on the other side.

Puberty, the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause are all opportunities for our bodies to show us where we may be out of balance. Menstrual cramps often indicate nutritional deficiencies (or excesses) or postural disturbances. Premenstrual negativity unveils what we have been hiding from ourselves the rest of the month, the lump under the rug can no longer be ignored. Childbirth strips us down to our core and forces us to drop all pretenses and “get real” with ourselves. Mothering pushes us beyond all previous psychospiritual limits.

In our culture, which worships science and technology and values control over nature above all other virtues, communications from our female bodies get labeled medical pathology. The big emotions of puberty, menstrual discomfort, pregnancy, birth, postpartum emotional upheaval, and female fertility itself are all treated as conditions requiring medical management, surveillance, and drugs.

Most teenage girls in the United States are prescribed synthetic hormones which render them temporarily (we hope!) infertile. Girls and young women are told these drugs will relieve menstrual cramps, resolve premenstrual negativity, and keep their skin clear. The unmentioned tradeoff is disconnection from the powers of the female fertility cycle and the loss of self-discovery that comes from listening to the body.

Pregnant women turn themselves over to the authorities for medical management. The culture at large believes the female body cannot be trusted to grow infants safely. The unspoken messaging is that without constant surveillance, including not just blood testing and belly measuring but frequent scrutiny of our insides through ultrasound imaging, women’s bodies (you know, ourselves) might accidentally kill our unborn infants. For the vast majority of American mothers, birth is a technological horror show, resulting in surgical extraction of our infants 33% of the time. Even though many women know in their bones there must be a better way, it is incredibly difficult to have an empowering birth experience within the US medical system. Most women find themselves medicalized.

Epidurals, cesareans, synthetic oxytocin, and even IV fluids have been shown to interfere with breastfeeding. Given that nearly 100% of women birthing in US hospitals receive at least one of these interventions, it is unsurprising that so many mothers experience difficulty feeding their infants. This leads to further medicalization and the burgeoning and profitable profession of certified lactation experts. Where women once leaned on family, community and no-cost peer support groups like La Leche League to help with breastfeeding, now we get labeled with official diagnostic codes and the insurance industry pays certified professionals to treat feeding our babies as a medical problem.

It is equally unsurprising that new mothers find all of this depressing. Lacking extended family, community, and sometimes even in-person friendships, women turn again to the medical industry to help with the baby blues. It breaks my heart that the word postpartum, which literally means the first year after having an infant, is now synonymous with depression. Every day I hear women say, “I had postpartum,” meaning they were depressed after giving birth. While the shift from maiden to mother usually involves grief and emotional upheaval, postpartum bliss should also be an expected part of our birthright as women.

Like puberty, fertility, pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, the medical industry is more than eager to treat menopause as a disease state to be managed with drugs and surgery. Women who want this type of management have no problem finding it in our medical system. We do not live in a black and white world. Sometimes a woman who does not want drugs or surgery may find herself in a life-threatening situation requiring those interventions. We should be grateful to live in times where we have these options.

My calling is to help women who want to live in harmony with their bodies and who are drawn to the plant world for help with our healing. We can listen to the wisdom of the body as difficult sensations arise and learn from these sensations how to find the best path forward.

If you are interested in learning about herbal support for menopause, consider signing up for my informative class on the topic. The course will be recorded, so you don’t have to join us in “real time.”

Crossing the River of Blood and Fire