The second of a 7 part series Woman, reWilded on reclaiming cycle wisdom, woman wisdom in autumn season.
Autumn is in full swing in the valley. As light fades, pecan and persimmon trees let go of their luminous gold orange leaves, rust coloured Welcome Swallows search for places to build their mud nests in preparation for winter. For the first time, I welcome more darkness than light. I’ve learnt that Inner Autumn – the Mage or Maga season of peri/menopause – is a time of making peace with and not being afraid of the dark.
Inner Autumn is a time of letting go of what we no longer need, finding what is precious, what helps us nurture our light in the winter season to follow. In Autumn we harvest what we need, share abundance, knowing there may be scant resources in winter. Autumn is a signal to slow down, reflect, go inward and tap the deep well of resilience and courage that is called for in times of darkness.
Mage, the archetypal figure of menopause, can appear in any season from early 40’s at perimenopause and continue into late 60’s. She is the alchemist who, with gratitude and reverence, takes the gritty, gorgeous experiences of life and places the writhing hot mess into a pot on slow cook.
What emerges is condensed and distilled molecules of wisdom; conscious discernment of where to place her energy; a deep capacity to nourish self: knows what ignites and calls her to create. In the cooking process, difficulties and challenges transmute to strengths, opportunities and gifts; they become molecules of grace (1). The grace to say NO, the grace to stay or go, the grace to know the difference.
In the context of a woman’s life cycle and the entire menstrual cycle, the most misunderstood, maligned and untapped feminie power lies in Phase 4 our Inner Autumn (see image above). In our culture, the premenstrum and bleeding days, perimenopause and menopause are seen at best an annoyance and at worst, a handicap and limitation (2).
Yet this stage holds so much gold. It illuminates many things that have been pushed under the carpet over months and years and at perimenopause come to meet us in full voice, unedited. It is the voice of the inner critic that has many things to teach us (3). Misunderstood and maligned because the veil becomes very thin between us and our truth. Many women can experience rage, grief, betrayal, depression and physical symptoms from not caring for self during other seasons. Whatever it is that might have been swept under the carpet can no longer be ignored in perimneopause (4).
Not conscious of the power of my own menstrual cycle, when menopause arrived at the earlish age of 47, I was burnt out literally from my obsession and addiction with my summer self; a need to be in the constant warm glow of summer and others approval, I denied the gifts of my dark shadow self. In do, do, do mode most of my life, I carried on through the insistent call of my inner critic during premenstrum that my life needed to change. My relationships, my work, the way I lived, were not aligned with my soul. My symptoms of exhaustion just carried on into the next phase unaddressed.
Now, in finding ways to release the grief and rage, I experience my Mage self through writing, immersing in nature in the forest and ocean near my home. I work my passion of illuminating the beauty in others, seeing and sharing their light through full moon circle and creating a healing space to rest, befriend and tend the body through the work of Indigo.
Living softly during Inner Autumn hones self care. It’s a time to say “No”, to feel, intuit and to realise our deepest creative longings. Whether it is in the height of PMS or menopausal meltdown, we can emerge and create our best work. Lucy Peach, songstress and author of The Period Queen book and podcast found she wrote her best songs in autumn just before a bleed (5).
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Autumn season is aligned with the lung and large intestine, organ-meridian pairs that personify release, purification and refinement (6). It’s a descent into Yin, cool, dark feminine energy. When we keep warm, nurture Yin, through foods and daily practices, we are less likely to suffer the seasonal colds and flu commonly associated with the change of seasons.
Metal is the archetypal energy of Autumn that cuts away at what is not needed. Imbalanced metal qualities of perfectionism, control and judgement can be amplified at this time. The emotions of grief and sadness are a natural part of the metal lung season.
As Katherine May says in Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times, “the active acceptance of sadness is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need” (7): grieving spring and summer just passed; grieving things that have not been accomplished; grief of fading youth, beauty and loss of the menstrual cycle.
In Ayurvedic medicine, Autumn is the Vata season. Vata is personified by the elements of air and space; dry, cool and contracting. Digestion and elimination is enhanced with simple warm, moist, cooked foods like soups, stews, porridges, congees, steamed and roasted veg.
White foods can be beneficial such as apple, sesame, mushroom, potato, leek, parsnip, rice, garlic, daikon/radish and chicken. In the transition into winter all the abundant root vegetables and winter greens are lovely to eat. They are deeply grounding and nourishing, bringing the energy out of airy heads and deeper, back to mother earth.
In exploring Autumn Woman, I have found as the outer light dims, my inner light glows. My true nature is Autumn. I am a Vata, Metal type, a Maga Woman, more comfortable in my interiority, self-reflection and traveling deeper in relationship with Nature as Self. As Julia Baird says in her beautiful book Phosphoressence: On awe and wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark,
…an ability to find, nurture and carry our own inner, living light….This is not about burning brightly, but yielding simple phosphorescence – being luminous at temperatures below incandescence, quietly glowing without combusting.” (8)
Note: The archetypal rhythms that you see in the images above have been crafted by me as a menopausal woman cycling with the moon. Your own experience may be vastly different from this. What matters is nothing needs fixing, nothing is broken and everything about you is right.
The concept of Inner Seasons as a way to understand the stages of the menstrual cycle was originally identified by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer in their book Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power.
References:
1.Caroline Myss and Tami Simon, Awakening to the Great Transformation, podcast, Sounds True
2. Alexandra Pope, Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power: 2017, London, Hay House, p4.
3. Alexandra Pope, Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer, Wild Power: Discover the Magic of Your Menstrual Cycle and Awaken the Feminine Path to Power: 2017, London, Hay House, p151.
4. Dr Christiane Northrup, Wisdom of Menopause; 2001, UK, Piatkus.
5. periodqueen.com.au
6. Herbs and Practices for Autumn, Superfeast podcast
7. Katherine May, Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times,; 2020, London, Penguin.
8. Julia Baird, Phosphoressence: On awe and wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark; 2020, Australia, Fourth Estate.