Hearing the call, what is waiting to be born

This period of confinement due to the corona virus shutdown around the world is a challenging time for some, and a blessing for others.

If you are struggling to make ends meet, going crazy working at home while your children also need attention, I get it. I have the greatest sympathy (having been a writer who worked at home while my children were young).

But if you find yourself with some extra down time, and have managed to meet all your basic needs for shelter, food, safety, love and belonging, perhaps you are feeling the call for finding a deeper meaning and purpose.

Especially during the mid-life transition,  there is often a call to transformation, to reinvention. This is not so much a mid-life crisis involving little red sports cars as it is a sense of dissatisfaction, of wanting something more, of longing to get in touch with a deeper, soulful part of self. Or of finding meaning and being able to give back to the world.

Personally, I felt it most strongly during menopause, where everything I had done from age 30 to 49 began to drift away. I had been writing and publishing poetry, actively involved in the writing community doing readings and volunteering with the League of poets and local writers' organization, when I suddenly lost interest. I had two teens entering puberty at the same time as my hormones were rising, so the hot flash clash was part of this issue.

But I remember going to a week long writers' retreat and discovering over the course of that time that my true interest was not in belonging to a literary group. I wanted to reach out to women like me, mothers who were at home, part-time or full-time and trying to find their creative flow. I was not motivated by literary prizes as much as getting together with a circle of women and exploring our needs, our themes, our angst and our blessings. My women's circle became a sacred space for me to feel seen and heard.

The Creative Circle I was teaching from home sustained and fed me, as well as providing support for other women for about ten years, but then it happened again, I heard the call to reinvent myself. Maybe because I had been giving and supporting others all my life, as a eldest daughter, mother, and teacher, my well was a bit empty. I wondered how I could continue to serve while taking care of myself and feeding my soul. I took a year long course on Rites of Passage and how to create rituals so I could incorporate that on retreats with my circle of women and also celebrate their turning fifty.

But soon I was 60 and menopause long past. I was not an elder yet, nor a grandmother. Who was I now? What did I really want to do with my wild and precious life? I did what I often do when in a period of not knowing, I left for two weeks on a pilgrimage to Ireland visiting various sacred sites of the goddess with a Celtic Shaman. During a drumming ritual and ceremony, she helped remind me that my creative center was calling out for me to nourish it with something just for me. I came back still reluctant to stop leading workshops.

I was, however, keenly interested in my mother's ancestors from Ireland. How had my great grandmother's voices been shut down, and how could I dialogue with their stories of anxiety, depression and other challenges, and learn more about my own? I began writing a memoir, using letters and information from my mother, my maternal aunts, and a memoir written by a great-aunt about her life in the early years of the 20th century. I lost my mother recently, at age 89, and feel a need to get back to that writing and expand it.

All this to say, my life pattern since my mid-forties has been one of frequent reinvention, new projects, studying with teachers and travelling on pilgrimages, but above all, seeking to listen to the inner call and follow my intuition. Honing the feminine side and listening to my intuition may have been the real goal all along, rather than changing my role, giving myself a new job to do, or even a new book to write.

This call to finding our core values or selves, and honour our inner depths, may lead us to leave behind certain roles or aspects of our selves. We may feel disoriented or lost in the maze of choices available to us and not know what we really want. I know many women in my circle have gone through this in their late forties and fifties.

What I have found is that creative process has been so helpful - whether it's by using journal writing, taking a class on fairy tales and myth, using ritual and ceremony, or making collages and using the symbolic language of images, we need to find a way to go beyond our rational selves, and get back in touch with our deeper longing.

This inner voice is often covered over by the outer world of busyness, or by guilt of not being seen as productive - which makes this confinement period a great gift - we may have less structured work time, more silence, more alone time, and more opportunity to reflect, and get a clearer picture of what the elements calling out to us are. If we choose to, of course. There is always the option to pig out on ice cream and chocolate, binge-watch shows on Netflix and zone out, which I also have resorted to over the past two months. Right now my hunger is for something real, something deep and authentic, and perhaps you feel that way too.

What I want to offer you is a path to regain strength and serenity from simple practices that help to tend the soul, listen to your heart, and find where your life is calling you. Sorting and sifting, like Psyche in the underworld sorting peas and beans, is an essential task. Making peace with the past, embracing all the parts of us, the fabulous and the flawed, are also important mid-life tasks.

Life is a process of growth and change. Little by little, we find new versions of ourselves waking up, or older versions and dreams we had forgotten being revealed. Paying attention to our lives requires we grow out of the limited awareness of ourselves as merely the 'roles' we play.  Learning that our struggles and challenges are great teachers, and that we have hidden allies on our side, will help us discover our dreams, our loves and fears and bring new self-awareness, as Bud Harris, the author of Sacred Selfishness says. SoulCollage(R) and journaling have both helped me redefine who I am, embrace all the parts of myself, the fabulous and the flawed with greater self-compassion.

I hope to offer an on-line class coming soon which will help us remember What Wants to be Born in You. It is never too late to dig deep and hear the call.

See my website for more information about what I offer and sign up for my newsletter so you can find out when this class will begin.  online classes can be followed by zoom from the comfort of your living room or bedroom; a circle of support created with you in mind.

www.jenniferboire.com

How Corona-Quarantine is a Descent Motif

I am reminded today that this pivotal moment has archetypal overtones and not just because it reminds us of the Black Death, or the Plague in the middle ages. It brings me back to a class I have taught several times called The Heroine’s Journey – based on Joseph Campbell’s mythological studies of the structure of archetypal stories.

Right now, in 2020, we are experiencing a huge disorientation from the shutdown and fears generated by the global corona virus pandemic. Suddenly we are realizing it’s not going away in a matter of days or weeks, but probably months. Despite watching for clues from the pundits on TV every day, the future remains unclear. We are living with the Unknown every day. We have fallen through the rabbit hole.

In other words, we have stepped into a fairy tale or myth  – we have stepped across a threshold into the unknown, just as the hero or heroine does in myth – they leave the known world and are faced with a new landscape, one in which their bearings are thrown off. Nothing works the way it should. Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, Persephone in the Underworld.

For most of us, there is no office to go to, no clients to see, the kids are at home, not in school, there is the prospect of illness and a sense of danger from the virus keeping us on high alert. Even shopping for food has become fraught with danger. Our adrenal glands – the defenders – are on the ready for fight, flight or freeze. Borders have been closed, we can't escape to the country cottage. Some people have family in the hospital – like me - my 89-year-old mother who went in for emergency gall bladder surgery a few days ago, now has pneumonia. We are not sure when or if she can even come home.

So what does the heroine do? She takes a deep breath, and looks for her Allies so she can face her Challengers – but first she must name these challengers – it helps to Name them and Claim them by writing them down. That's where we begin on this quest motif.

Allies: Whimsical bear with Butterfly, Spirit Bear brings Hope 

Check in with yourself. How am I feeling? What is off kilter? Am I sleeping and eating well? Am I getting enough support or do I feel alone and helpless? Are my childhood traumas of not being seen and heard coming to the fore? How am I getting help? Who can I call on, and what are my inner strengths? Who can I count on for help?

In my Heroine’s Journey class, after the students found and named their Allies and Challengers, I had them imagine a deep cave full of crystals which they entered in a visualization, and searched for 3 tools – three aspects or qualities that they could draw on – for example, patience, courage, a brave heart. Or symbols that represented that – a rose, a pot of herbal medicine, a sword.

Do not under estimate the power of your imagination. Our psyche loves to work with images, and uses metaphor and symbol to communicate with our conscious self. You could do this work with painting, drawing or collaging in an art journal.

In our class, we made SoulCollage® cards for our Allies, and our Challengers, using cut out images chosen intuitively from magazines. I also suggested they make a Protector card – to call up an image of their most powerful defender, Warrior Ally or Angel of light they could picture, or maybe a strong animal guide, someone to have on their side, to have their back.

Warrior with Wolf Energy & Medicine Bundle 

Once the allies were found and met, the tools gathered, we began the descent, well equipped and less fearful. The descent to the abyss is never our favorite part of the journey. It may feel like entering a dark night of the soul. But again using imagery, imagine a caterpillar's transformation - first it has to  spin its cocoon and sleep for a while. Did you know that before a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, she actually dissolves into a liquid mass of cells and then regrows into a butterfly with gorgeous wings? That is the transformation and turning point part of the journey.

Where we are at right now in 2020 feels like the cocoon phase, or bug soup of uncertainty – outwardly we are facing the challenges of a new life schedule, or we may have even settled into a kind of rhythm of working, studying or staying at home, and fighting off germs by washing hands frequently and mask wearing. But the inner mood may be dark – we may feel hopelessness setting in. The frequent depressing news reports about the number of deaths, the number of infected, not just in our town or city, our province or state, but in our country, and the whole world – is all a bit staggering.

How do we get through the Bug Soup phase? The quest story tells that we can't fight it, we can only advance by softening, allowing, accepting, and trusting the power of the dark to soothe us and rock us and hold us. And by being grounded in our bodies, in touch with our intuitive knowing. This is the power of the inner Feminine, the earth mother, if you like. Imagine you are being held, soothed, coddled and sung to.

SoulCollage(R) card: Home and Hearth 

Perhaps you are like me and are trying to stick to a routine, or perhaps you are dealing with troubled clients and feeling maxed out like my husband, who is a financial adviser. This is where the wisdom of the feminine comes in – that we can allow ourselves time every day to sink down into our bodies and feel what we feel. That we can breathe into it and allow the allies of Stillness, Surrender, and Simplicity to guide us. That we acknowledge how we feel, and reach for what will truly help us – meditation, soothing music, yoga, stretching, chicken soup, homemade chocolate chip cookies. The main thing is – our old way of keeping busy will no longer work, or it may help for a little while but feels like a temporary fix. Powering through will not help in the long run. We need the soft power of the deep feminine, the inner knowing, a calming Presence to see us through and a lot of self-compassion.

A suggestion for a new way of getting through this challenge on this weird new journey, is to challenge yourself to not Soldier On Through as usual, but find a more yin way – be receptive, gentle, inward, reflective. By rooting ourselves and grounding, moving slowly, taking deep breaths, watching the sky, listening to the birds, keeping true to the rhythm of life, the rhythm of our body which is in need of more sleep, more rest, more exercise (but not strenuous), more self-care. Be gentle in the cocoon phase.

Rest and Self-Care, Comforting Rituals 

I’d like to reassure you that just like in the myths and fairy tales there will be a happy ending. Know that like in every Hero’s Journey, after the descent into the abyss, there is a turning point –a moment of Hallelujah! a moment where your fears and tears turn into hope and jubilation. It may be a small moment, a sick person turning the corner and feeling well, a husband coming out of quarantine to rejoin his family, a collective moment of gratitude for the marvelous generosity of  human beings who are helping us survive in hospitals, clinics, grocery stores and food production as people sing and clap in the streets and on their balconies. Whatever it is, we give thanks for new learning, for new growth, for transformation of hopelessness into Hope.

The Return or end part of the journey involves a return to life; it is a natural part of the cycle, like Spring after Winter; it’s a rebirth or resurrection. A major part of the rebirth or recovery is that you have now been gifted with new knowledge to take home with you, and share with the world. You will receive the gifts of the depth work you have done. Then, in gratitude, you can give thanks for the difficult lessons learned, and the revelation that the inner strength, the courage you needed were there all along; the patience was there too.

When this is all over, how ever many months from now that will be, we will truly give thanks. I know I will appreciate those hugs and kisses, those handshakes and greetings, the physical closeness of my adult children, siblings and friends SO much more. In this time of trials and uncertainty, have faith that the journey will wind around to its conclusion, and then of course, a new beginning, another journey begins.

May we all be a little bit wiser by then, a little more compassionate with ourselves and others, and in the meantime, hold ourselves with love and acceptance during this adventure.

If this speaks to you, here is an exercise you can do: 

In the myth I used as the basis for my class, the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven decides to go down into the underworld (hers is the first written archetypal descent and rebirth story).  On her way down, at each gate she is stripped bare of every worldly power, all the symbols of her persona as Queen of Heaven – her headdress or crown, her breastplate and armour, her lapis lazuli staff or measuring rod, her jewels and her robe or dress. She arrives down there naked and vulnerable before the eyes of Goddess of the Underworld, her sister Ereshkigal, who looks at her with the eyes of death. Inanna’s corpse hangs on a hook for 3 days until her assistant raises a hue and cry and the gods send some little creatures representing the water and food of life to come and resurrect Inanna.  She rises again with new knowledge, the powers of the Underworld and of Heaven are hers.

Corona Virus Quarantine: Sheltering in Place 

I asked my students, what they needed to let go of on their descent, like Inanna, or what had been stripped from them.

What I had to let go on my descent:

The shitty shoulds – the good girl, the perfectionist, the inner critic voices that tell I am not doing enough, I am never enough. I should be less selfish, be better, help the world more, do more.

Fear of change, of this new thing coming into being, of the unknown future; paralysis.

Impatience – the pressure from my Yang inner masculine side – to be productive at all costs. To not stop. To keep working harder. It’s hard for me to tread water, stay in place, not go anywhere. Everything is on hold.

Doubt and hesitation – second guessing, not trusting my intuition, that inner voice of wisdom. The more I listen, the stronger it gets.

Anxiety about putting everything off till later. I need to accept that I don’t have the head space right now to write a book, research a new project. Patience with myself is required. Deep breaths, my allies are also anti-anxiety herbs….calming tinctures, Tulsi tea, chill pills, cannabis tincture.

Do you  also feel like this is a time of transition that could lead to a transformation?

Name your allies and challengers - make a list.

What do you need to let go of in this descent period? What is being stripped away?

What are some of the hidden gifts you may receive?

I hope putting this into an archetypal journey context has helped you. I may look at offering this course again on-line, once my bug soup phase is ended…

 much peace to you,

jennifer

The Heroine's Quest at Mid-Life

I am relishing this latest Creative Circle class, as we near the end of exploring our Heroine's quest or Journey. We have been journaling and making SoulCollage(R) cards each week, for seven weeks now.  Below is a card I made about meeting the Beast, and my brave-hearted little girl (lion-heart or Coeur de lion) who is leaping into the fray, small but mighty.

The mid-life journey (anywhere from mid-40's to mid-60's) has lead me on many inner adventures, and a few life changes too. Why do I look at it as a Heroic Quest? 

A woman's cyclical journey through life involves many transformations. She leaves behind one self to become another - from pre-puberty to teen, from maiden to mother, and at menopause, her body and hormones are changing once again. The Heroic Quest involves a separation from the old life, a descent into the abyss, a revelation or transformation, and a return. Most women go through this more than once! Even Joseph Campbell calls mothering a heroic task.

It takes courage to be a woman, but it also calls on the power of the Feminine. We can stride into the forest and wrestle the Beast or bears, but more often the strength that is needed is slower, more patient, as in labour and childbirth. 

A woman's strength comes from her center, from the wholeness of her being, and it demands her Presence, her intuitive knowing and response to what is needed. At menstruation, we learned to tune in and listen better to our own hormonal rhythms, our mood swings and emotional needs. At childbirth, we learn to surrender to the body and a baby coming out, and then to its needs for food and rest. 

At Menopause, we transform once more, and learn the big lesson of Descent and Return. We are on our way to becoming Elders. And the need for self-care becomes paramount, so we can better serve the young children, men and women coming up behind us. 

We can fight these rhythms of change, the seasons and cycles, and suffer being out of whack, out of tune with ourselves. Or we can listen to the inner rhythm, connect to body, mind and soul, giving ourselves that tender, gentle care we so lovingly lavish on others. 

That self-compassion and kindness, that gentle self-love goes a long way to healing the heroine's angsts and fears. Follow your intuition, and a pathway will open up in the dark woods. Follow your bliss, and don't let the dragons of fear paralyze you. 

This is your Quest, your Journey. And you will emerge brighter, better, stronger than before. The second half of life awaits you. Enter and Enjoy!

Musemother

www.jenniferboire.com

Menopausal Journey as Rite of Passage

Is menopause merely the cessation of your period?  Is it about losing your memory, having hot flashes,  and losing your fertility? Or is it a mid-life reorientation project? Do you feel like you're falling down the Rabbit Hole?

This journey you are embarking on somewhere in your forties is a deeper phase to your woman's journey, a developing and a continuing and it involves a lot of unknowing. It felt to me like being in a labyrinth in the woods, a circular path that branches out and leads in so many different directions it's really 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 center (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 towards finding yourself in mid-life.

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, or maybe you’ve skipped two months and your pregnancy test comes back negative.  Then it comes back again for six months, so you forget there's something going on.  Or suddenly you notice your PMS has increased 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 whack.  Or maybe you just aren't sleeping well at night and all the Chamomile tea or hot milk can't calm the hyper little gerbil running in its cage between 2 and 4 a.m.

There are many different physical symptoms and lots of websites to describe them to you, everything from sore joints to hot flashes and heart palpitations. What my blog tries to point to is not the symptoms, but the journey.  It's as if you are 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.

One way you can honour your not knowing is by standing still.  The first thing to do when you feel lost is to 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 home again.

This mid-life woman's way has been largely uncharted till recently.  The women who came before us perhaps felt 'women's stuff' didn't matter, or the subject was so taboo, no one actually talked about it.  Or they were told it was just their uterus being hysterical. The male hero story describes the quest of the masculine, but where are the stories of the Feminine Quest?

It is time to honour your own knowing, your own woman’s journey.  Questing. Know that the way out is the way in.  Going down and in will lead you up and out.

To help you with this rite of passage, I have written The Tao of Turning Fifty, What Every Woman in Her Forties Needs to Know. Check out my website at www.jenniferboire.com for a free excerpt.

Take good care now, and stay in touch,

Musemother/Jenn

also on Facebook and Twitter

Mid-life crisis or transition?

It's funny that often we hear about men having a mid-life crisis - going out to buy a little red sports car, or leaving their wife of 25 years for a buxom 25 year old, but when it's a woman, we often use the term mid-life transition.

I'm sure there are women buying up little sporty convertibles and racing around looking to pick up younger men, (and more power to them), but the transition from ages 40 to 50 is really an opportunity for figuring out what we want to do with the rest of our life, and gaining more self-knowledge. Like any transition, it can be fraught with difficulties - especially if the hormonal picture is unbalanced. Not everybody experiences hot flashes, night sweats and feels like they're going crazy; some women breeze right through with nary a symptom, but enough women are blogging, writing and talking about these symptoms, that we immediately think of the physical hormonal upset when we think about mid-life and menopause.

For myself, in writing the book The Tao of Turning Fifty, I discovered that the biggest thing women had on their minds was not so much the physical discomforts, although insomnia can drive you around the bend, but more about finding themselves in a place without any markers or road maps.  It doesn't say anywhere that turning fifty will make you question your whole life, or send you on a quest to find your passion, but it does seem to play out that way.  It's like one phase of your life (the fertile, child-bearing, nest-building, career building part) has finished, but the next phase isn't immediately clear. You're in the hallway, having come out of one door, and the next door hasn't materialized yet. It is called The Change.....

My greatest need in my late forties, was the need to get away, to redefine myself aside from the roles of wife, mother, poet, volunteer organizer, etc. To look at what I'd been doing for the past twenty years, and reassess. Some women want to go back to school, some have enough degrees, they just want to learn how to do cranio-sacral massage, reiki or to throw pots on a wheel. The creative or right-brain side often comes to the fore. We rediscover our love of creative play - painting, photography, writing, weaving. It's as if the uterine and ovarian energies need to be channeled into creation of a different sort. Many women want to give back, and this time has also been called The Guardian years (Joan Borysenko).

So welcome this challenge, this change, this period of transition. There are hidden gifts, much growth and learning, if we can allow ourselves some down time, some interior reflecting time, some away time alone, some time to share heart to heart with other women. I urge you to pay attention to this inner calling and find out what more is on the other side of 50.

New Release: If it's all too much for you, listen to some soothing music and centering exercises on the new Musemother Relaxation CD, $12.00 available from me by email, info@jenniferboire.com, and soon to be available for purchase through paypal on my website www.jenniferboire.com

namaste,
Musemother/jenn
ps Best article on confusion surrounding Menopause; offers sound advice about choices in healthcare for menopausal symptoms: http://www.womentowomen.com/menopause/endingconfusion.aspx?

Finding the joy of menopause

“Lie back, and the sea will hold you”

                First Lesson, Philip Booth

Yes, I want to tell you, there is emotional turmoil.  Yes, there is pain and a descent into darkness. Yes, you may feel like you’re lost in a dark tunnel with no way out some of the time. The rest of the time, you dance and laugh at parties with a glass of Merlot in your hand, and serve the children tacos and spaghetti, whichever is their favourite. You come home from work tired and decide to read a book after supper, but instead you fall asleep at 8:30, wake up sleepless at 3:00 a.m.

Two years earlier, I felt like bug soup. Inside my chrysalis, all my ragged edges, horns and spotted caterpillar shape, the multiple legs and little prickly bits were all melting, turning into bug soup, and I felt mush-muscled. Only God knew what shape I would take or how my wings would form, which colours scintillate.  Some wild blue turquoise, yellowy green, something completely different than the rose or fuchsia I imagined.

I felt tired, not only physically, but mentally tired of resisting this quiet destiny. No flames, flammèches or fireworks; it was low-key and subterranean, a lying low until strength could be gathered for flight. The peri-menopause is the period before the coming cessation of bleeding, not wholly begun yet because I was still bleeding profusely every 28 days, except for one month missed. This was the chrysalis phase, an in-between transition—I was not yet transformed, not of one world-- the young energetic past--nor of the other (mellow, old and wise) but on a shuttlebus between the two states. Perhaps 49 is not the end of energy and youthful vigour (although in the sorry shape I was in, both hips and shoulders aching, it felt like it). But just a transition phase.

Yes, at this phase the tears come more easily, and even a little something wrong upsets you. But what I want to talk about is the joy that follows, the big joy, not just a little joy, that does come finally after the dust settles, or after you come blinking out of the tunnel, into the place where you don’t recognize yourself. Once you come up into the clear mountain air, a small ray of sunshine appears, then a whole bright day ahead.

Where did I find my joy? In discovering I was ready to serve – not like before, not to forget myself, nor to give all my power away by being a good girl and getting kudos or to please others, but opening to being a fully satisfied, complete woman, a woman with power. In discovering I have wings, and in learning how to spread them – not to fly away – necessarily, but to rise above the pettiness, jealousy and drudgery of my own mind, to find the purity, clarity, and peace of heart within. Oh, my wings are real; they are white and muscular. But they shine invisibly, growing out from my heart center.

Where did I lose my joy? In making myself small, too small to see. In resentment, and fear of speaking out, fear of owning my truth, fear of what my neighbour thinks of me. I used to feel it hunched a little in my neck and shoulders, but it’s leaving, being cleared away by the work I am doing and the grace of god. I am an ordinary woman with extraordinary powers, that have also been given to each woman. The power to love, the power to inspire by my actions, the power to forgive myself for being human and making mistakes. Where do I find my joy? In sharing the wealth: in hearing your stories, and in sharing mine. In making it brand new, each new day. In realizing I am flawed but fabulous!

My life story is fairly ordinary: I was a child, I  learned to love, I loved people who sometimes hurt me, but I am extraordinarily blessed in being with a caring, gentle man I love and had two children with him; I have bled once a month (almost) since I was fifteen, and since age 51 I am finished with that. I have been in the liminal space, in between young and old, but I am still in the middle years. From here, I can look backwards and forwards, but my pleasure is to stay right here, right now, in the present. And breathe, once more, into the closer, immediate present.

Getting some nurturing, in Rolfing therapy and healing massages and osteopathic treatments have helped open up the shoulder and neck muscles and release the fear I’ve been holding. I also had some coaching in which I discovered I wanted to work with ordinary women, not be a literary wunderkind. I have found my joy, in the possibility of speaking in my own voice to other women, in leading workshops and retreats and sharing my discoveries, and in all of us learning that we are not alone.

And where I really found my joy was in the openness to not knowing, to relaxing into the questions, dialoguing with my inner Wise Self in my journal as I rappelled down the mountain inch by inch, finding a safe ledge to stand on, then finding there was water down below where I could float on an air mattress, and let the sea support me. 

Ah that is where my joy is, in being supported by the universal ocean. The trust I am learning to feel inside. That is worth gold; that feeds and nurtures me.

I wish you the courage to stick with the questions in the transition phase and emerge on the other side of the mid-life transition into your wonderful, powerful Joy.

Namaste,

Musemother

Life's Quest

There are two quests in my life. The questing girl seeks a connection she already has but has not been aware of - the deep knowledge of the feminine way, a woman's way in the world. A way of knowing and being that is not based on outer knowing only, or facts and logic, but is whispered to her just before she acts, take this road, choose this way. Without knowing company is coming, she sweeps the kitchen floor and changes into finer clothes, and within 10 minutes the phone rings, mother-in-law with guests on the way over in half-an-hour. S

Sometimes she knows who is calling before the phone stops ringing.

She doesn't always listen.

The other quest is on the inside too, but has no real name. It's not a labyrinthine journey, it's a thirst. The heart that is human, partly divine, partly mortal, seeks it's other half - it's Beloved or best Friend. The one who knows, the one who doesn't speak in theory, but who knows the joy of living. For no reason, for no external purpose. Fulfillment, you could call it. Just receiving with open arms, accepting the gift of life and knowing a deeper purpose - gratitude, kindness, peace.

Could it be that the quester has the answer inside her all the time? like the story of the musk deer who seeks the source of the musk, thinking it is in another musk deer....

Recently I heard this:

Think of life like this: It is your opportunity to spend time with the best friend you ever had. It is your time. This chance to be with the ultimate clarity that there is in this whole universe. It is your chance to spend time with the ultimate kindness. It is your chance to spend time with the infinite. It is your chance to spend some time with the ultimate joy.

What a turn around from my conditioning of life as struggle, life as 'comme ci comme ca', life as teacher that you can't always get what you want.

A chance to spend time with the ultimate joy?

best,
musemother

Leaving Home

“It’s an old tendency of humans to leave home and strike out across a frontier that beckons as a zone of magic, mysticism, inspiration and holy conversion. When we are at loose ends emotionally we tend to set out on a symbolic journey into unfamiliar territory where newly aroused senses allow us to feel vigilant and reborn. In part this is based on the intuition that to change one’s self one must relinquish all that is known and habitual, cast off from the shore of one’s home and the endearing familiarity of everyday life, whose moods and manners one comes to know like an old friend. …we do not always travel to escape our circumstances but to find ourselves. Why must we do that in a foreign place, having become foreign to our past.

...The wilderness may be an actual frontier fraught with danger, or it may be a wilderness of doubt.

from Cultivating Delight, Diane Ackerman

Sometimes people travel to lose themselves, some people travel to find something they've lost, a nostalgia for their childhood town, or a sense of who they once were in younger years. Some people strike out alone, others in groups.

For myself, my mid-life quest or peri-menopausal quest, has taken me from Australia to India, from Panama to Massachusetts, from Vancouver Island to New Mexico. At least once a year, and often twice, I leave my kids in the capable hands of a caretaker plus my husband (or in recent years, up to their own devices) and go on retreat.

Sometimes it's a long journey amidst a group of fellow seekers, sometimes it's a lone ride in a rental car through the desert. Sometimes it involves camping on a natural reserve on the other side of the world and dealing with jet lag as I meditate amongst the Kookaburras, sometimes it's singing with 45 other women in a convent just south-east of Montreal and sleeping in a tiny room.

The important thing is, I get away by myself. That is, without family to take care of. I take some needed time out, because a year-long sabbatical is out of the question until the kids leave home. I'm used to working alone in my home office, typing away at my laptop, but it's not just solitude I'm looking for. It's the mystical sense of finding 'me' when I remove myself from my habits, my daily routines, my ruts, and plunk myself somewhere new, either in a workshop or retreat, and ask questions of where I am, what I'm doing, what I want to do.

The answers have been slow in coming. Sometimes it's about rooting deeper into my essence. Or jumping fully dressed into a swimming pool at midnight. But it always involves a challenge. Driving into a lightning storm on the desert roads of New Mexico with 2 newly found friends was dangerous, exciting and felt like crossing the fear-barrier inside me. Waking up to coyotes howling every night in a pitch dark adobe dwelling was breaking part of the fear-barrier too. Sitting in front of a blank page, facing the sacred Taos Mountain, waiting for a sign about what my work would be, or should be, or what project called to me, I faced the fear inside. Maybe nothing would come out of it. Maybe I had to stall this project of calling myself a writer and go back home empty-handed.

The answers are rolling in, now, slowly but surely. As I continue to learn, read, study, follow my natural inclination towards researching menstruation and menopause, I am finding my subject, or it is finding me.

I continue to quest. I invite you to read some of the entries on this blog, for pieces of my journey. Perhaps they resonate with your pieces. Or not. We each have a quest, and I believe that menopause is a fantastic opportunity for self-knowledge, self-awareness.

So leave home, if need be, as often as you can. And return. With something new you've learned about you.

nameste,
musemother