Resources for Heroines at Mid-Life

Her Journey: Books and Resources for the Heroine’s Quest at Mid-life

A Woman’s Journey to God, Joan Borysenko

Animal Speak by Ted Andrews  (animal totems and descriptions)

Archetypes, A beginner's guide to your inner-net, by Caroline Myss www.archetypes.com

Circle of Stones, Woman’s Journey to Herself, Judith Duerk

**Goddesses in Older Women, Jean Shinoda Bolen. A Jungian psychologist

Descent to the Goddess, A Way of Initiation for Women, psychologist Sylvia Brinton Perera. (Explores the myth and symbolism of Inanna in great detail.)

Inanna, a retelling of the Inanna myth by Kim Echlin, with illustrations, a Story book

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, her Stories & Hymns from Sumer, Wolkstein & Kramer

I am a Woman Finding my Voice, Janet F. Quinn

I Will Not Die an Unlived Life --by Dawna Markova

Listening to Midlife: Turning your Crisis into a Quest, Mark Gerzon

Persephone Rising, Awakening the Heroine Within, Carol S. Pearson

SoulCollage Evolving, Seena Frost

The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock, (and workbook)

Visual Journaling, Going Deeper than Words, Barbara Ganim & Susan Fox

Woman at the Edge of Two Worlds, Lynn V. Andrews (menopause as spiritual quest)

**Women’s Intuition, Paula Jeeves. “By nature, we women are highly intuitive.”

Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst on the Conscious Feminine, Books & Articles at https://mwoodmanfoundation.org/

Wisdom is Feminine

”Wisdom is a woman, a crone, a goddess, and a feminine archetype. In Greek mythology she is a barely personified Metis, swallowed by Zeus. In the Bible she is a hidden Sophia, the goddess who became an abstract and ungendered concept. Wisdom may be found at twilight where the three roads meet as Hecate, or in the hearth fire as Hestia. She may be the invisible Shekinah who enters the Jewish home for the meal that begins the Sabbath. She was once the Celtic goddess Cerridwen. She is Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom and Erda in Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung.”

~ Goddesses in Older Women, Jean Shinoda Bolen.

February, Restart your Year

How did it get to be February already? I'm just pulling out of the fog of January, ice and snow keeping me indoors, rain, freezing rain, falling slush....then a week of sunshine.

Miraculously, creative and inspirational projects are simmering anew, my brain energy has been reborn. Was it the week of restful reading in the sun, or perhaps seeing my teacher Prem Rawat give an inspirational talk on Essential Gratitude in LA?

All of a sudden my calendar is filling up with workshops and retreats, plans as far ahead as June. My schedule has jumped from 0-60 km an hour overnight, or so it seems.

A life coach once recommended that we wait till February to restart the year. I think that is a very good idea, and it happened by itself this year without me planning it.

What's intriguing me right now: healing old family wounds and finding the gifts of shadow. I've been taking a course on Daily Om called Releasing Family Karma (or Shadow) - they list the 7 shadow energies as: illness, addiction, abuse (physical and sexual), violence, poverty, abandonment, and betrayal.

It's been a very informative exercise to make a family tree with all the generations I know of, and their subsequent shadows.  I saw depression, anxiety, addiction, abandonment and illness come up in several generations, on both sides of my family tree.

Sometimes these were closely held secrets, until one current family member became ill or depressed, and the stories of aunts, grandmothers, great grandmothers began to surface. I have read on other websites that these traumas are stored in our DNA and carried down. Apparently neuroscience is catching up here, with experiments on how rats parent when they are deprived of basic nurturance and affection by their own mothers.

Another course I have just signed up for will help me write, make art, do more SoulCollage (R)  cards around these shadow energies - wherever there is conscious awareness and transformative art brought to attend and tend, it allows old wound to heal. I have been aware of most of these for over 30 years, and began writing about it in my 30's (am now 62). What I see is that deeper acceptance and  grieving the losses and old 'story', allowing feelings to surface from out of the depths, brings lightness of being, renewed joy, gentle compassion for myself and others. We spiral upwards, around our stories, seeing them from a new angle each time.

Or like they say, you need to deal, to feel and heal.

Here's a poem I found on Facebook today, posted by a fellow SoulCollager, that says it all.

The Joy of Incompleteness
Albert Crowell

If all our life were one broad glare
Of sunlight clear, unclouded:
If all our path were smooth & fair,
By no soft gloom enshrouded:
If all life’s flowers were fully blown
Without the sweet unfolding,
And happiness were rudely thrown
On hands too weak for holding–
Should we not miss the twilight hours,
The gentle haze and sadness?
Should we not long for storms and showers
To break the constant gladness?

If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render?
I think if we were always glad
We scarcely could be tender.
Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold and miss indeed
Its sweetest consolation:
If sorrow never claimed our heart
And every wish were granted
Patience would die, and hope depart–
Life would be disenchanted.

(artist unknown)

Mid-Life Mothering and the Heroine's Quest

In some parts of the world, it's back to school week. In others, it's after Labour Day weekend, in a few more days. This year, I have only one child headed off to university out of town, for her last year. My son has flown back to the coop (almost, not living at home),  living in the same city. It always makes me wonder about my mothering role - when they are not at home anymore, and don't need me as much, but are still tethered to me by phone messages and texts.

What does it mean to have children later in life? I was talking to my hairdresser today, who has done a lot of weddings this summer, about the age women are getting married. She says most of them are in their 30's, but some as young as 24 (my daughter's age). Fifty years ago, this was probably the norm - my mother got married at age 21, and was done having kids by age 31 (eight in ten years, wow!)

My story was different, and I determined to be a different kind of mother. As I told my hairdresser, I got married at age 29, and wanted to have kids right away. But two miscarriages and seven years later, we had our first when I was 36, and my second child at age 38. I felt young, I looked young, but when you flash forward 12-13 years later, I was 46 and hitting menopause or pre-menopause as my kids were hitting puberty.  Not a pretty sight, lots of hormones flying in the air, lots of attitude, pouting, and mood swings hitting the fan!

It's not something we plan for - so many women getting married and having children in their 30's do not even think about menopause yet, they are focused on finishing school and getting in some working years before having children. But I wish I could tell them, from the vantage point of my wise old 61 years, remember that Mid-Life is only a decade away - and your priorities shift again. Mid-life has actually been the richest period of my life, and my 50's have been the most satisfying and creative years. But as I was leaving my forties, it didn't feel that way. There was a period of descent into overwhelm, confusion and lost wondering, where I was not sure of the way anymore, or of who I was, after so many years of intense mothering full-time (and writing part-time). The only way I got through it was with journaling, blogging and writing a book, The Tao of Turning Fifty about my rollercoaster ride through menopause.

The Heroine's Quest at MidLife 
Now in my early 60's, I have a much stronger handle on what the mid-life transition is about. It's about transition! It's about change. It's about redefining our sense of self (yet again). It's about finding mean and purpose and understanding our own story.

New Yorker Cartoon

'm preparing an on-line course in October for the first time, and am very excited to offer mid-life women (whether in their 40's, 50's or 60's) a chance to look at the story arc of their lives, and be their own Heroines. By that I mean, be the main protagonist in your own story - not necessarily Superwoman or Wonder Woman, but an ordinary woman going through the ups, downs, sideways moves, two steps forward, four steps backwards that constitutes a woman's cyclical life. The story we tell ourselves adds to our sense of the meaning and purpose of our life.

We may not be facing dragons and slaying monsters, on the outside at least, but we are facing challenges every day. Choices we make, juggling a home life and work life and children's lives, and still trying to find a sense of Self somewhere in there. The older we get, the more obstacles we've faced, the more achievements we have accumulated, the richer the stories that we will look back on and say, Wow! I did that, I went there, I can see the story unfolding (but often, only in hindsight).

"Our personal myth-or story- provides a way for us to understand our origins, who we are, where we belong, and whether our life has meaning. If we can be aware of our own story as it unfolds, we have a better chance of understanding and making friends with our lives. Mythic patterns provide guidelines or maps." The Heroine's Journey Workbook, Maureen Murdock.

If you are in the middle of a mid-life transition, or are curious about how to reclaim your story, or name what are living right now, I hope you'll check out this on-line offering -

Her Journey: the Heroine's Quest at Mid-Life, an 8 week class to help you reframe your midlife journey as a sacred task.

More details and Registration on my website: www.jenniferboire.com

Jennifer
xxxx

The Tao of Turning Fifty, https://www.facebook.com/TheTaoOfTurningFifty
and Creative Soulful Woman  www.facebook.com/creativesoulful 

Falling apart at mid-life

http://borislava33.deviantart.com/art/Falling-apart-525640004r

I remember weeping in the bathtub

I remember muscles soft like mush, a broken knee, walking with crutches

I remember healing in the sun-filled solarium in winter, listening to Yo Yo Ma

I remember falling apart

I remember  getting a frozen shoulder a few years later, after bursitis, and walking 2 large dogs every day; the acupuncturist said, can’t anybody else walk the dogs?

I remember tears, and playing lullabies to soothe myself to sleep

I remember daily naps, in the afternoon

I remember asking my daughter to tuck me in at 8:30 cause I couldn’t stay awake

I remember sleeping with a heating pad under my shoulders, intense pain

I remember backing out of many volunteer jobs because I could not handle the stress; And then my shoulders got better

I remember being disappointed in myself

I also remember how hard I tried to be good,  to be counted on, and reliable and how I felt ashamed of not seeing things through.

But my brain was mush, my legs were mush and I was in a fog, lying in pieces on the floor

I wrote poems about this, but nobody wanted to hear them

I could not hide my failing apartness, nor my wicked mood swings

I needed solitary confinement or a straitjacket, not to harm my children with all the yelling.

I yelled a lot, for no reason

As I said, the walls were not holding

It was a time of falling down

And ceasing to pick myself up.

It did not last forever. 

t just felt like it.

Jennifer Boire

Cycles and Fallow Times at Mid-Life

Have you noticed that even after your monthly cycle has stopped you still feel like you have a cycle?

You can't call it PMS anymore, but there are moody times, ups and downs, cranky irritable days and out of sorts days, as well as Happy Happy Happy as Pharell Williams days.

When I hit a cranky out of sorts day, I usually forget that what I really need is some down time - the other day, Easter Monday, my husband came home early from work. We were both overtired from three Easter brunches or suppers, too much of a good thing (wine, especially affects me). Just can't party like we used to!

So he went to play solitaire on the computer in the home office, and I escaped to my daughter's empty room (yes, we are empty nesters) to curl up in a red velvet chair and read a book. Then I lay down for half an hour before cooking supper. When I woke up, I felt much better.

Sometimes, it's a walk outdoors that revives me, like this morning, after Zumba class, a mixture of pilates, yoga and salsa dancing with weights, my dog needed to go outside, and since the weather is gorgeous, and sunny, after 24 hours of rain, I leapt at the chance to pull on my sneakers and walk.

I am not very active, physically, so all this exercise is new for me. My favourite is still yoga, but since my muscle mass is disappearing (at age 59), I have to keep up with it.

So exercise and sleep are two things that get me back on track when I'm cycling low. I know my estrogen is low because I have a touch of vaginal atrophy and am taking a supplement for that. And I've been treated for adrenal fatigue in the last year, so I know that feeling tired, although it affects me less and less, needs to be taken care of.

Can you learn your new post-menopausal cycle? Pay attention to your need for rest, good nutrition, and exercise - especially outdoors in this good weather. Your body, our women's bodies, may not bounce back as quickly as they used to, and may need more upkeep and maintenance - don't let your chassis fall apart. Get regular checkups and oil changes! Sunny days are here again.....

that's my spring advice for you post-menopausal babes!
Musemother