Women are unique beings. We go through many phases in our life, on this heroic feminine journey. First the transformation from child to adolescent, the budding body, the menstrual cycle, initiating us into the blood mysteries.
Then for some, pregnancy and childbirth - the complete transformation of our bodies to harbor for a new life, the giving over of oneself to another, as Joseph Campbell says, transformation from maiden to mother. This has always implied a bit of risk and danger, and loss of blood; less so in contemporary times in most countries. Still, it is a major change, sometimes inconvenient (when you can't bend over to tie your shoes), causing mood swings and happiness and sacrifice, joy and frustration. Breastfeeding can be joyful but oh so life-changing in terms of our schedule and lifestyle adjustments.
Then, we're not done changing. The Change arrives sometimes in our mid-forties, announces itself gently or loudly, pushes and pulls us in hormonal swings, hot and cold, yet again. This time, the blood is on its way out. And greater wisdom or connection to our intuition is coming in. Something is lost, but something important is gained. A woman is ripe with her own knowing, learns to speak up for herself, embodies compassion if she is gentle with herself.
Women are unique, yes, and I believe it is a woman's goal or task to learn awareness of her cycle all the way along - from birth to menarche, from giving birth to menopause.
This blog and Musemother blog (where I more frequently write) address that rite of passage. I believe the most important tool a woman has is her self-awareness, and journal writing is a beautiful tool for knowing oneself.
The Tao of Turning Fifty will launch on Amazon by Feb. 9 (next week), and every woman in her forties (and sixties) will benefit from the information in this book, from Where Did My Libido Go, to I Need to Get Away, Why Rest is Radical and Tools for Inner Guidance, this workbook allows you to journal along with it, and answer your own questions. Enjoy the journey. A link will be posted on the website www.jenniferboire.com as soon as it is ready. Many of the chapters in this book came from the blog.
Showing posts with label journey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journey. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Monday, January 11, 2010
Honour the Feminine Quest
What is it to enter menopause? is it merely the cessation of your period? is it a mid-life reorientation project? is it about losing your memory and having hot flashes? losing your fertility?
Or is this a journey you are embarking on, a deeper phase to your woman's journey, a developing and continuing and an unknowing. It feels to me like a labyrinthe in the woods, a circular path that branches out and leads in so many different directions it's easy to get lost.
What is the path of a woman's life? especially a woman who decides to have children, who gives over her body to create another body. How does she regain her centre (if she has lost it)? and how does she keep those boundaries clear - me, us, them? How does she find herself again? Menopause is part of that journey.
Menopause is not an overnight thing. It creeps up on you slowly. You don't notice it happening until one day you realize your period hasn't come this month, and your pregnancy test comes back negative. Then it comes back the next six mnnths so you forget about it. Or your PMS increases to two weeks out of the month, and if you really stop and look at it, you see your emotional landscape is a little out of control. Or maybe you aren't sleeping at night and even Chamomile tea or hot milk doesn't help the little gerbil on its cage running all night long in your brain to calm down.
There are many many symptoms, and lots of websites to describe them to you. What this blog tries to point to is not the symptoms, but the journey. It's as if you were on the highway to Ottawa from Montreal, and took a side road without realizing it. You look up and wonder where you are, the landscape doesn't look familiar, the trees are in the wrong place, and the road signs post names of towns you don't remember or recognize. You need to figure out where you are.
Honour your not knowing by standing still. The first thing to do when you feel lost, is to stop. Stop running in circles, stop pretending you know where you are. Stop and ask for help.
Someone who has been there before may help you. Someone who has been lost and found the way again.
A woman's way has been largely uncharted till recently. The women who came before us were told they didn't matter, or they were second best. The male hero story describes the quest of the masculine, but where are the stories of the feminine quest?
There are many wise women who are writing now about women's cycles, women's journey, woman's life trajectory, especially about menopause. Browse this website for some of their articles, for reviews of their books, for mention of the sacred journey.
It is time to honour your own knowing. Begin with admitting you don't know, and stay with the question. Questing.
Or is this a journey you are embarking on, a deeper phase to your woman's journey, a developing and continuing and an unknowing. It feels to me like a labyrinthe in the woods, a circular path that branches out and leads in so many different directions it's easy to get lost.
What is the path of a woman's life? especially a woman who decides to have children, who gives over her body to create another body. How does she regain her centre (if she has lost it)? and how does she keep those boundaries clear - me, us, them? How does she find herself again? Menopause is part of that journey.
Menopause is not an overnight thing. It creeps up on you slowly. You don't notice it happening until one day you realize your period hasn't come this month, and your pregnancy test comes back negative. Then it comes back the next six mnnths so you forget about it. Or your PMS increases to two weeks out of the month, and if you really stop and look at it, you see your emotional landscape is a little out of control. Or maybe you aren't sleeping at night and even Chamomile tea or hot milk doesn't help the little gerbil on its cage running all night long in your brain to calm down.
There are many many symptoms, and lots of websites to describe them to you. What this blog tries to point to is not the symptoms, but the journey. It's as if you were on the highway to Ottawa from Montreal, and took a side road without realizing it. You look up and wonder where you are, the landscape doesn't look familiar, the trees are in the wrong place, and the road signs post names of towns you don't remember or recognize. You need to figure out where you are.
Honour your not knowing by standing still. The first thing to do when you feel lost, is to stop. Stop running in circles, stop pretending you know where you are. Stop and ask for help.
Someone who has been there before may help you. Someone who has been lost and found the way again.
A woman's way has been largely uncharted till recently. The women who came before us were told they didn't matter, or they were second best. The male hero story describes the quest of the masculine, but where are the stories of the feminine quest?
There are many wise women who are writing now about women's cycles, women's journey, woman's life trajectory, especially about menopause. Browse this website for some of their articles, for reviews of their books, for mention of the sacred journey.
It is time to honour your own knowing. Begin with admitting you don't know, and stay with the question. Questing.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Sacred Journey of peri-menopause
"When a woman stops doing she must learn how to simply be. Being is not a luxury; it is a discipline. The heroine must listen carefully to her true inner voice. That means silencing the other voices anxious to tell her what to do." The Heroine's Journey
When we decide to live differently, to listen to the voice within instead of the pressures without, when we decide to live authentically and be true to ourselves, there is bound to be friction, conflict, a feeling of being left behind. We fear letting other people down by not volunteering for every new project that comes our way, as if our commitment to Self was selfish. We feel lost, unsure, on a quest.
But the price we pay for not listening in, is too high , and often involves physical injury or chronic pain. In my case, it was a neck stiffness and shoulder ache that refused to leave in spite of osteopathy and physiotherapy treatments. Only when I made a difficult decision to stop 'doing too much' and let go of a major volunteer commitment did the neck pain ease up. I decided the major house renovation project (one year long) was taking up 50% of my time and energy and deserved my full attention (aside from writing, singing commitments, women's circle, household and teen management tasks).
A friend of mine was on a leave from work for burn-out, and was considering a career change during her time-off. At the end of the leave, she had a few ideas of what to do next, but nothing firm, and decided she still needed the income from her marketing position so she returned to work part-time. Not only was her employer not giving her key assignments, but her joie-de-vivre and pleasure in her former position was gone. A short while afterwards, she had a car accident on her hour-long drive to work and broke her collarbone. This put her back on sick-leave and allowed her to pursue her other options. She ended up taking a correspondance course in herbology, and is now finishing up. She seems much happier now that she's doing what she loves.
In the period it takes for us to 'transition', to discover where our joy is and what will truly allow us fulfillment in work or artistic endeavours, we may feel like we have lost our way. It may feel like the paths are criss-crossing in labyrinthine form, and often, our journey involves a descent or dark night of the soul where we question everything we are doing. It may feel like depression, or at the least, a time to be isolated, alone, leaving the upper world of external values to find our own ground, our own intuition, our own feminine values.
We need to remember the importance of this journey, this task, to find the lost pieces of our selves, to find our way to a place of knowing within.
Allow yourself the time you need to figure it out, to feel your way through, and pay attention to your inner urgings - it may not seem rational or logical, but you will save yourself some pain and suffering if you listen well.
nameste,
musemother
When we decide to live differently, to listen to the voice within instead of the pressures without, when we decide to live authentically and be true to ourselves, there is bound to be friction, conflict, a feeling of being left behind. We fear letting other people down by not volunteering for every new project that comes our way, as if our commitment to Self was selfish. We feel lost, unsure, on a quest.
But the price we pay for not listening in, is too high , and often involves physical injury or chronic pain. In my case, it was a neck stiffness and shoulder ache that refused to leave in spite of osteopathy and physiotherapy treatments. Only when I made a difficult decision to stop 'doing too much' and let go of a major volunteer commitment did the neck pain ease up. I decided the major house renovation project (one year long) was taking up 50% of my time and energy and deserved my full attention (aside from writing, singing commitments, women's circle, household and teen management tasks).
A friend of mine was on a leave from work for burn-out, and was considering a career change during her time-off. At the end of the leave, she had a few ideas of what to do next, but nothing firm, and decided she still needed the income from her marketing position so she returned to work part-time. Not only was her employer not giving her key assignments, but her joie-de-vivre and pleasure in her former position was gone. A short while afterwards, she had a car accident on her hour-long drive to work and broke her collarbone. This put her back on sick-leave and allowed her to pursue her other options. She ended up taking a correspondance course in herbology, and is now finishing up. She seems much happier now that she's doing what she loves.
In the period it takes for us to 'transition', to discover where our joy is and what will truly allow us fulfillment in work or artistic endeavours, we may feel like we have lost our way. It may feel like the paths are criss-crossing in labyrinthine form, and often, our journey involves a descent or dark night of the soul where we question everything we are doing. It may feel like depression, or at the least, a time to be isolated, alone, leaving the upper world of external values to find our own ground, our own intuition, our own feminine values.
We need to remember the importance of this journey, this task, to find the lost pieces of our selves, to find our way to a place of knowing within.
Allow yourself the time you need to figure it out, to feel your way through, and pay attention to your inner urgings - it may not seem rational or logical, but you will save yourself some pain and suffering if you listen well.
nameste,
musemother
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Menopause and Power
"There is an enormous elemental force at work in women's bodies that is both intensely intimate and universal - ecstatic, creative, restorative and full of love. We experience this force at menstruation (and also during pregnancy and giving birth).
The post-menopausal woman, who has understood and lived the journey of the cycle, fully inhabits this power." A Woman's Quest, Alexandra Pope
The post-menopausal woman, who has understood and lived the journey of the cycle, fully inhabits this power." A Woman's Quest, Alexandra Pope
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