This is the ninth in a series, WomanKind on reclaiming the feminine.
“author” from the Latin word auctus, which translates literally to ‘one who causes to grow.’
The story begins around the age of 50, it could be an alter-tale for many women. It goes something like this. Woman wakes from a recurring dream, one where she is constantly running, exhausted, trying to hold everything together, fixing one thing here, for another to fall away there. Missing the flight, the deadline, the moment.
Finally, she hears a clear voice that says “you can stop running now.” It’s an invitation to let go of everything that’s not hers to hold, to walk away from the old story and not look back. Time to shed the skin, marvel at the softness beneath and begin to author a new story that’s as ancient as the cosmos.
We awake to watch ourselves dream ourselves. We can begin to reread our book of life this time without pretending it is non-fiction.
Stephen Levine, A Year To Live
To rewrite my story in ‘fresh ink in my own handwriting’ is a kind of rebirth, I have to first cleanse, heal and release suffering and attachment trapped inside the old story. Doing so clears the way for a new narrative told through acceptance, kindness, love and gratitude.
The story of authoring myself is not about denying all my different “selves”, the ones I thought people wanted of me – rescuer, peacekeeper – and the other ones I adopted – imposter, keeper of secrets. I claim all of these selves that shaped my experience, healing and weaving through them wholeness and wisdom.
I go there to find my story, I go there to be born again; to be made whole; to unite with what I was, what I am, and what I will become.
Serene Jones, Theologian
To author oneself is a ‘stunning act of bravery’ according to slam poet and author, Dominique Christina. Before age 50, I was never this courageous, because I was asleep. It’s daring to be wild and awake when we are born into a body where inner patriarchy is in our blood, that bleeds out into a world that seeks to keep women small, tame, apologetic, silent and suppressed, to a life prescribed by someone else. I have pressed the ‘Unsubscribe” button on this way of life. I want to grow more than I want to be comfortable.
Storytellers are the makers of culture and the shapers of consciousness. And as Elizabeth Lesser says in the title of her new book, ‘when women are the storytellers the human story changes.” In a Western world that defines a menopausal woman as irrelevant and of little social value, I actually have to roll up my sleeves and write a bigger script. This year and the body of work, WomanKind, is the beginning. Menopause is one of those stories we like to keep a shameful secret. I’ve crafted a short retelling….
Menopause is one of life’s most ‘seismic experiences’. It could shatter everything you thought to be true about yourself. You may be forced to ‘bleed out loud’, sweat inconveniently and ‘be wounded in full view’. Menopause has the alchemical power to transmute lead into gold. Pass quietly or volcanically, either way make you matter for the next generation.
As consciousness shifts collectively and the M word is spoken more often in public discourse (but not nearly enough), there is no better time to reconnect with our story, our heart work, the kind of work that comes from dreaming, visioning or just plain out of the blue. Give yourself permission to rewrite the narrative you’ve been given and see what flows out onto paper, through clay, through the lens of a camera, in the garden, or boardroom – journal, write, paint, dig, design, draw. This is medicinal.
Stand up and speak, claim our story, breathe life and expression into our words. Sing, scream, rage, speak a mantra, use sound to reach the deepest crevices where light hasn’t been. And if the words don’t come straight away, just wait and listen. Note the internal and external weather system: revel in the rain, despair in the scorching heat, be flung about by gales. Allow nature to move us, and don’t be surprised. We are nature. This is remedy.
Sit down in meditation and see what unfolds. Seek out spiritual guides, therapists, friends who can scaffold our experience, be with us, knowing that we are all falling away or have fallen at some time. When we risk sharing our story with full vulnerability we give others permission to do the same, This is soul work.
Menopause and beyond into conscious aging is a threshold and gateway to woman wisdom. We can cross the threshold in full knowledge of the power of standing in the embodied feminine, remembering her potential to bring us to our knees. Whether through kneeling in grace, or howling in disbelief, it is a story to be written, shared, spoken, celebrated and remembered.
Breaking the silence, that was part of the affliction, and that was rebellion, and a coming to life, and a coming into power to tell stories, my own and others. A forest of stories, rather than trees and the writing a charting of some paths through it.
Rebecca Solnit, author and feminist
Phrases in speech marks are from the words of Dominique Christina spoken in her Sounds True podcast, This is Women’s Work.