More Grief Processing, Honoring Ancestors
I’ve been struggling with my moods, and I was reminded by a dear person in my life that in perimenopause, we are in a liminal space. We tend to operate from our old selves, as we have not quite finished shedding the skin of youth and found the comfort of our new selves.
There has been unexplained grief in my heart (I’ve written about this in the past here), and who knows if it is feeling the collective suffering in this country (United States), of the people from which I come from (Venezuela) or something else that is simply a part of my soul moving into the next phase of life.
As trite as it can come off sounding, this time of life is truly an initiation. As I write this, I’m in the middle of another round of co-teaching Celebrate Your Cycle to tween girls and their moms, and in talking to them about the stages of a woman’s life, it dawned on me that we are set to spend as much time post-menopause (if we’re lucky and age!) as we do in our fertile time of life with our menstrual cycle.
And yet, every depiction of womanhood I was exposed to when I was young was only about menstruation, pregnancy, and motherhood. I hardly heard stories of elders or grandmothers. Both my grandmothers passed before I understood how precious their stories are.
My abuelitos. Circa early 90s.
One thing I’m finally doing (after musing on it and hemming for a couple of years) is building an ancestral altar, to honor the gifts that have come down to me. I still don’t know exactly how it’s going to show up, but I know October is a great time for this. The veil is thin. It’s why we see celebrations honoring the dead and ancestors from all sorts of traditions.
On a different note, I did have something rather exciting happen to me on the fall equinox: I got my first period since December. I know some of you are laughing or groaning, since I know more than a few of you ready to be “done” here. I’m not quite there yet. It was very short and very light, in the new moon time.
Knowing it could be the last one also made me sad. I honored it with rest and took a day off from cooking. I forgot how much energy it takes to bleed!
When we do finish our bleeding time of life, THIS is the energy that we use to rebirth ourselves and bring new creations into the world that are not physical (eg, babies). This is the energy that redirects itself into a deeper spiritual fertility.
Sending you so much love today, wherever you are on this winding rollercoaster of midlife. 💓