Western civilisation does not honour, acknowledge or believe in the sacred power of a woman’s inner mystery or her innate need for intimate communion with the cyclic ebbing and flowing of her feminine psyche. In a world that has lost touch with the blessed truth of ancient female mysteries, our busy outer directed society has also lost touch with the simple honouring of all that is sacred upon this earth.

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For this world knows nothing of the sacredness of menstruation, the sacredness of birthing, the sacredness of lovemaking. And it knows nothing of the sacredness of menopause or of the power and wisdom that this important pilgrimage bestows when a woman plummets into the depths of its fiery realm of transformation.

As priestess and wise woman, the female elder traditionally has a natural place upon this earth. For she is the custodian of the gentle and mysterious powers of the night, the custodian of sacred loving, the custodian of the earth’s bountiful secrets. And yet, in a world that corrupts and pollutes and destroys, it is difficult for her to find her true place and to live from this inner place as a woman of wisdom and power.

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When a woman enters the inner realm of the Dark Goddess, the Crone, the Ancient One, she merges with the divine spirit of menopause as she enters the infinite vastness of her womb cave of transformation. And, if she is willing and open, in the profound depths of this deep, dark inner place, she fully welcomes and embraces her sacred initiation into wisdom and power. This initiation takes place in the innermost circle of the labyrinth, where all that has gone before has meaning and has purpose as it is dissolved within her menopausal cauldron of fire.

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Many women in western society fear this cyclic flow of powerful change, for they have been conditioned to think and believe and live from the intellectuality of the mind, and not from the surrendered openness of the heart and from the divine sacredness of the womb.

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This dark and mystical and mysterious time of Change can call a woman so powerfully, so deeply into her heart of hearts and into the awesome power of menopause. And this calling invites her to relinquish, to surrender, to let go, to become at ease with and inspired by and infused with the radically defining finality of endings and the deliciously sensuous opening of new beginnings.

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During this letting go phase of menopause, the wise wild spirit of the Crone invokes the release of emotional attachments to past love affairs that linger when lovers are long since gone, of clothing that no longer flatters or enhances or beautifies, of possessions that once reflected peace but are now tarnished with the dust-filled accumulation of too much past. She destroys the familiar need for all relationships, careers, friends, places, food and fashions that no longer bestow pleasure, treasure, nurturance and joy, for her sacred task right now is to lovingly yet ruthlessly discard all that is no longer relevant, useful, uplifting or purposeful in her life. And this letting go phase of menopause is a profound inner purification that contains no judgement, no criticism, no shame, no blame, for it is as natural as the serpent shedding its skin, the caterpillar shedding its cocoon, the moon shedding her fullness as she transforms within the velvet darkness of the night sky.

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This ancient Dark Moon Goddess is most potent whenever a woman stands upon the threshold of her menopausal journey, for she is most dear to her at this time. The unreal image of the modern woman is created by distorted worldly ideas of sexual attractiveness that repress her innate wisdom, intuition, sensuality and power. Her body is commonly treated as an object for sexual gratification and greed or a vessel for conveniently bearing children. Rarely is her body fully perceived, seen or loved as the sacred temple of the female essence or as the pure and sensual reflection of her glory or her power.

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Like the earth, her primal wildness is seen as too threatening, too difficult to deal with and very much in need of structure, of suppression, of control. And like a wild animal that has been contained and tamed and fenced in and domesticated for far too long, she yearns to become reunited with her true nature, with the sacredness of the earth, with the lunar essence within her womb.

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And this wild and primal energy of menopause offers her all of this and more, if she listens, if she heeds, if she opens, if she surrenders to these wise messages of the deep. It is now time for the torn and faded and broken and unravelled threads to become mended, to become whole. It is now time for these threads to richly glow with the vibrant colours of transformation. And it is now time for these threads to become rewoven into the rich tapestry that powerfully and lovingly links mothers and daughters and grandmothers and great grandmothers through the sacred menopausal initiation of power, of wisdom, of truth.