The following is adapted from a section in Pema Chodran’s book, ‘When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times‘. I have taken the liberty to revise her comments on ‘well-being’ finding that I could substitute the buddhist term well-being with ‘wisdom’.

Although I have stated that it is almost impossible to describe an actual point at which one suddenly has ‘wisdom’, the metaphors in this quote really help me envision both the process and the result - the content and context of crone wisdom.

“[WISDOM] of the body is like a mountain. A lot happens on a mountain. It hails, and the winds come up, and it rains and snows. The sun gets very hot, clouds cross over, animals shit and piss on the mountain, and so do people. People leave their trash, and other people clean it up. Many things come and go on this mountain, but it just sits there. When we’ve seen ourselves completely, there’s a stillness of body that is like a mountain. We no longer get jumpy and have to scratch our noses, pull our ears, punch somebody, go running from the room, or drink ourselves into oblivion. A thoroughly good relationship with ourselves results in being still, which doesn’t mean we don’t run and jump and dance about. It means there’s no compulsiveness. We don’t overwork, overeat, oversmoke, overseduce….

“[WISDOM] of speech is like a lute without strings. Even without strings, the musical instrument proclaims itself. This is an image of our speech being settled. It doesn’t mean that we’re controlling, uptight, trying hard not to say the wrong thing. It means our speech is straightforward and disciplined. We don’t start blurting out words just because no one else is talking and we’re nervous. We don’t chatter way like magpies and crows. We’ve heard it all; we’ve been insulted and we’ve been praised. We know what it is to be in situations where everyone is angry, where everyone is peaceful. We’re at home in the world because we’re at home with ourselves, so we don’t feel that out of nervousness, out of our habitual pattern, we have to run at the mouth. Our speech is tamed, and when we speak, it communicates. We don’t waste the gift of speech in expressing our neurosis.

“[WISDOM] of mind is like a mountain lake without ripples. When the lake has no ripples, everything in the lake can be seen. When the water is all churned up, nothing can be seen. The still lake without ripples is an image of our minds at ease, so full of unlimited friendliness for all the junk at the bottom of the lake that we don’t feel the need to churn up the waters just to avoid looking at what’s there.”

Whether we are ready to call ourselves ‘crone’ at this stage is a matter of personal preference. The true stage of menopause or cronehood begins approximately a year after the last menstrual cycle: do we just suddenly become the ‘wise one’? How could this be?

No, of course, just as it took a lengthy stage of perimenopause and premenopause ups and downs to reach the physical aspect of cessation of the menses, likewise revealing of the inner wisdom expressed by the mature crone is also a process.

No one can tell you how to reach this stage for yourself though shamans such as Susun Weed and Lynn Andrews advise that it is important to give yourself a crone’s time off - maybe a year even but at least a month or a week to just be with yourself, rediscovering who this new person is! Time in nature, journaling, drumming and dancing, prayer and meditation, are all excellent tools for the inner journey of connecting with your authentic self.

And how will you know when you are a crone? Well, it makes me think of the Buddhist saying, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!” If you think you have reached enlightment, you have surely been tricked. There is no single mountain top from which you can claim “I am here!” And as far as calling yourself a ‘crone’, I think it is significant to note that one who walks the path of a shaman will never refer to him or herself as a ’shaman’ or a ’shamanic healer’. There is no need for a label, one is simply what one is and what one does is to simply BE!

Though there are an almost infinite number of possible symptoms/reactions/tangible messages of the advent of menopause (Susun Weed’s Menopausal Years: The Wise Woman Way explores over 30 categories), the one that seems to stand out most dramatically from the others is the ‘hot flashes’.

Symptoms like depression and irritability, migraines and fatigue are not new to women in this day and age - stress of the workplace and relationships in general have given us all a headache or depressed state on numerous occasions over the years! So these are often easy to discount as true indicators of the approach of menopause. And though not every woman will experience hot flashes or night sweats, most do at some point. Many try to explain it away as overeating or stress induced, and eventually they will recognize the flashes as something speaking to them from a deeper, inner place, not really about the outer causal influences at all.

So, what about HOT FLASHES? » Read The Rest

“Give me your full attention, young Crone,” says Grandmother Growth in a voice deep and resonant. “For you will pay attention, I assure you, when your menopausal Change lets loose lightening-like hot flashes and waves of energy that free your feelings and stir your spirit. As you hold the wise blood inside more and more, menstruating less and less, strong energies will move in you. The women’s mystery teachings of menopause urge you to take time off to adapt to these energies, to take, symbolically or actually, real Crone’s Time Away and allow those hot flashes and sleepless nights to guide you into metamorphosis and initiation.”

-from Susun Weed’s Menopausal Years: The Wise Woman Way

Menopause - are we talking the same language when we communicate about ‘menopause’? Whenever I mention to women in my area that I offer workshops for women going through menopause, I get lots of comments like “Oh, I’m done with that!”. It seems most women relate menopause as an ‘event’ that is related only to the cessation of their menstrual flow.

My perspective is that menopause is a stage of life - as a woman begins to feel and sense changes in her body and emotions she enter this stage and it is formally / clinically called perimenopause or pre-menopause. Once the menstrual cycles have not occured for approximately a year, a woman can say truly that she is ‘ IN menopause’ - but not that she is ‘DONE’ with it! Sisters, this is when the interesting part begins! » Read The Rest

Menopause (the pausing of the menses) technically occurs on the last menstrual flow in a woman’s life. Traditionally, a crone is one who has reached the 13th month after their last menstrual flow. The years before and just after menopause is referred to as the climacteric.

Climacteric, from the Greek klimakter, meaning literally a rung of a ladder or figuratively a critical point, is also defined by Webster’s as crucial (essential) or critical (as in turning point). And we have all heard the ‘change of life’ term used by our parents or grandparents. Those of us versed in metaphysical or shaman ways also think of menopause as an initiation, a rite of passage. » Read The Rest

“Give me your full attention, young Crone,” says Grandmother Growth in a voice deep and resonant. “For you will pay attention, I assure you, when your menopausal Change lets loose lightening-like hot flashes and waves of energy that free your feelings and stir your spirit. As you hold the wise blood inside more and more, menstruating less and less, strong energies will move in you. The women’s mystery teachings of menopause urge you to take time off to adapt to these energies, to take, symbolically or actually, real Crone’s Time Away and allow those hot flashes and sleepless nights to guide you into metamorphosis and initiation.”

-from Susun Weed’s Menopausal Years: The Wise Woman Way

Menopause (the pausing of the menses) technically occurs on the last menstrual flow in a woman’s life. Traditionally, a crone is one who has reached the 13th month after their last menstrual flow. The years before and just after menopause is referred to as the climacteric.

Climacteric, from the Greek klimakter, meaning literally a rung of a ladder or figuratively a critical point, is also defined by Webster’s as crucial (essential) or critical (as in turning point). And we have all heard the ‘change of life’ term used by our parents or grandparents. Those of us versed in metaphysical or shaman ways also think of menopause as an initiation, a rite of passage.

So lots of perspectives from which to approach this vast subject of menopause! The way I have grown to view it is from a spiritual or shamanic angle - that the body is giving us valuable information for making the necessary changes in our emotional and spiritual bodies, drawing us closer and closer to our essential or Authentic selves. Yes, we are no longer mothers, no longer vessels for bringing new life into this world….or are we? Maybe simply our vision of motherhood and birth and creative expression changes!

This blog “Wise Woman Ways” will explore this opening to a new way of being with ourselves as women. It is not about the blood being visible or not. The blood is with us always. The indigenous or shaman perspective is that as menopausal women we are ‘keepers of the blood” or “holding our blood”. More on this to come……….