We have a healing ritual from the ancient medicine women in our own homes. The ancient Miriams, the Maryam, or the Marys are believed to be plant medicine women who worked with the energy of plant and water. Here I am calling upon the woman with the alabaster jar, with spikenard at the house in Mark 14:3, Mary Magdalene and Mother Mother, the women who prepared spices and perfumed oils (in Luke 23:55), the Myrrh bearers, Mary Salome and Mary Jacob. And Miriam, keeper of the waters, as far back as Numbers 20.
The sacred frequency of water from a spring or well was part of the vibration that accompanied the healing elements of the plant. Plant energies and water when consciously placed together, like alchemy, create medicine. We know this from remedies like Bach and Meldings.
Next time you choose a bunch of flowers, intuitively, from the heart, from your source, take them home and place them in the vase, picture the healing you desire. As for the water, if you don’t have a fresh spring to collect water, try filtered water from a few refills. Place the water out in sunlight for energizing, motivation and positivity. Place the water in moonlight for soft soothing, cleansing and letting go. When the flowers are place with your careful intentions, sit with them, bring your attention to this as a practice. You can meditate with your gaze softly on the plant medicine you have created for your unique frequency, the plant, the water and You.
Next time you buy yourself a bunch of flowers, remember the ancient women healers also created medicine with plant, water and intention. Honour them, and remember them too. When you buy flowers for someone else, remember the intention for their healing, their frequency. And for a bit of fun, look up the meaning of the flowers you have chosen, the ones you pick out the most….you won’t be disappointed!
In my 49 life I am stressed and overwhelmed by the to-do-list, sometimes it is triggering. I am a carer, a wife, a sister, a friend, a holistic health practitioner and sometimes a spiritual artist. If I could spend my days meditating, crafting and napping oh I would! but this earthly existence has other ideas.
Wellbeingand Menopause Symptoms
I consider my wellbeing to be an internal garden, this requires nurturing, tending and not to be left un-managed. I am intuitive and seem to be crafting my way through this life so why wouldn’t menopause be any different. I have entered this mid-life phase feeling like my years of PMS have become the signs of my menopause. The fatigue, the overwhelm at the tasks for the day seem to make me sigh with heavy eylashes. I often wonder if the menstrual cycle of my earlier, maiden years was a signal to what I would be experiencing through menopause. What if PMS was “pre-menopause signalling”?
The fatigue seems to be the essential point of my feelings throughout my cycling years so no surprise it is the signal in my menopause. This fatigue seems to be the domino effect for the overwhelm and the stress. So I am looking deeper into this as my stating point, or my trigger point.
Menopause and Sleep Quality
Hormonal cycling expert Marilyn Glenville asks us to consider if sleep or lack of it is the cause, to look at our quality of sleep. If we have night sweats, are we waking up feeling hot and sweaty or waking up then getting hot and sweaty, the later relating to glucose dips in the night and so having more carbohydrates before bed. Another consideration is how nourished am I at the end of the day? Am I worried about the lists before bed or satisfied I have completed enough for one day to have a quiet mind to sleep?
Nourishment and Nutrition through the Menopause
When I think about how nourished and fulfilled I am in my day to day existence, my work, my responsibilities I am considering what really am I doing here on earth. Nourishment goes right to the root of the physical aspects and to the higher perspectives, (yes we are talking Maslow here!) I am asking myself if I am nutritionally nourished and soulfully nourished.
This week I have found that fatigue can be a lack of essential fatty acids, the Omegas. I can hear my mind re-routing right through the mackerel fish and seeds to the seeds within the mind (I am so esothetically focused!). It is like the universe is playing upon the need for the physical as well as the spiritual and this is where I am in menopause. We are talking duality between the form and the formless, I don’t think we can separate the physical from the spiritual as we go through menopause! And that is where the root of this thing called menopause comes thundering in. There is no ignoring this shake up in the midlife years, this shift needs and wants to be noticed, nourished even.
Omega, the Greek word for gender neutral has great significance when we speak about the menopause and the fact that the hormones that are essentially feminine and create a cyclical being within us are coming to an end. The Omega also means “the End”. It also has meaning in the word Roots, associated with fulfilment, death and personality traits for introverts, rooting downwards. You see you can’t make this up! Just look up the word Omega and you can see where this goes.
So this week I am considering my fatigue as the root of my overwhelm, and a need for some quiet time and some introverted nourishment of the senses. I have a need to feed my body with the omegas and to have some nourishment for my mind as well as my soul. As the night sky sets with softer hues, I need to prepare for sleep, no screens no tv, to nourish myself with introverted ways. A routine made up of soul nourishment for the end of the day, with meditation, prayer, movement, music and contemplation. And if fatigue arises by day, maybe I could respect the need and still opt for a nap too.
In my 49 life I am searching for a role model, a wise elder in the form of a Hag, in the best, fullest intention of the woman at the edge, the embodiment of the Hag. One who has pushed through the patriarchy and societies fair games into the undiluted vessel of a …… as my friend Kimberley quoted, a Queenager.
I don’t have a need for a knowledgeable teacher or well-read wordsmith. I have a desire, that’s it, a desire to be nurtured into this role-over into the 50somethings, with a storyteller and folklorist.
Today I was remembering the “Mothers” that I have had. By that I mean those who have mothered me, I have no qualms or crisis with my biological Mother, I had a childhood within a village, and this village expanded in my teens to include may women who shaped me….I met some strong, ferocious women, who taught me strong boundaries and determination, to never let a passion die, just because. I have been blessed by nurturing mothers who assisted in the framing of my emotions and how to gentle be with the children, the animals, the silent nuances of the caretaker. I also met with a friend’s unpredictable Mother who skilled me in to how to read the atmospheric dust storm gathering around them. Where their own boundaries were being flick into incitement, a valuable lesson in listening to my friend and when to just exit.
What I now just crave for is that wise elder to gather my attention, as my head is starting to spill, and leak to be honest, and to help me navigate this transformation with their wisdom after all they have been in my shoes and seen others do this before me, they are the experienced helper in this ageing ritual. I wish for help to expand my imagination, enliven me in my wearisome state and to give me a glimpse of the other side of this menopausal transition. I thirst for the folklorist to enchant me over to the otherly. To make my heart swell with the stories of becoming the white-haired women, to fairy-tale along the paths in the woods and weave the strands of consciousness together into a new realmdom of balance and non-linear living. To sing me the songs of transformed worlds of patriarchy and burning the need for a PhD just to be heard. I thirst for the elders to come bravely out of the fog filled woodlands and along the misty beaches shaking their rattles and sounding the drums to gather us around a fire. This is where I will be completely engaged with the storytellers, the well-keepers and the seeding earth dwellers who will gather and our days will be spent listening to the Earth Elders. Our chastised endeavours will no longer sit within us as unmaterialised, for we will learn of our inner sovereignty as “within us all along” as the Fairy Godmother always says at the end of a good tale. Our transformations will be in the form of inner knowings, remembrances, experience and oral traditions and seasons once more. Our new career trajectory will be based on heart compassing passions and journeying rather than a well executed bibliography. I have instead a thirst for juicy language and taking a seat within a circle where every seat is equal. I have a thirst for the magical over intellectual pursuits and for scrumptious chronicles than research papers. I desire the heady heights of the upper ridges of the mountain tops and pinnacle of the story than the offices of hierarchy. For non-essential processes to be burned away, as some things are just not necessary at the fire keepers hearth. This is my maturing into womanhood, cronehood, at the threshold of 50.
Today I am sitting within my 2nd house, my sacral chakra and it feels good to be connecting here at this point in my 49 life. I am reminded of my time, this time and of course, no time. When we put a structure on our time, doesn’t it soon feel restricted? Soon I will be in my 50th year, my 5th decade, a miracle in my ancient ancestry and a mile stone in my modern life. As I contemplate what this means to me, I am contemplating within my “own sweet abode”, the Svadhisthana, the sacral. Known in many traditions as the Dan Tien, the life force energy centre, the womb space, the void, the bowl, the ruler of water, the feminine aspect, the Empress archetype, the emotional and the creatrix centre.
As I sit within my sacral home it feels ripe and energetic. In the past when I have experienced a sense of fullness it was bloatedness, uncomfortable trousers and a reoccupation of the period about to come. I have a sensation of full bloom than boom! And it feels powerful. As I prepared to menstruate in my younger years I was conflicted with prementrual stress. I had a sense of urgency to prepare myself for some time with less and in the process I created greater stress to the point of manic cleaning house, arranging a just-so for others in my care. In the days leading to menstruation instead of winding down I got wound up! Over this last year my cycles have been slowing down, I bleed less, I miss some, and now I sometimes miss having the cycles, the pattern. Is that crazy to you? that I miss them? Now I have a sense of what I want to do, of where my focus is heading. I can see how far I wish to be filled to my edge, my boundary, rather than how far I can push to my limit!
The sacral is the centre of pleasure, of feeling nourished and fulfilled. It encompasses my need for creation and desires. Not just in the sexual sense, as it is most commonly portrayed, but as a desire to create all manner of things. It is where my personal desires feel connected in health, in abundance, to my heart desires. This is where creativity meets focus, in service to others as a Doula, or spiritual health with Reiki to reading of the women of sacral energies, the ancient texts.
The shadow side of the sacral energy is martyrdom. It is the feeling of deprivation, lack of joy, lack of creativity and ultimately lack of time. Time I create and time I can allow. Sometimes in this 49 life timing seems to be my main issue. Time is a luxury. It is no coincidence that sacrifice, to surrender, dates back to the Latin word, sacer, Holy. So just for today I will remain in gratitude and give thanks for this day of surrender and into the “sweet abode” of holy creativity. I will honour this fullness as a feeling for as long as I can.
Bless’d be the sacral bowl of life energy that I find today.
Medicinalmeadows 