As I go through menopause, I feel the stirring of something new and different inside me that does not arise out of knowledge from the medically defined facts of the body, though it is intimately connected with them. I do not know what this new something is, and yet, to my dismay, it seems almost to want to displace my knowledge at times, like a young usurper of the throne.
The days when I feel the presence of this strange something usually happen to be those days when my knowledge has chosen to desert me unexpectedly, inexplicably, leaving me floundering. Days when my mind goes blank and questions go unanswered. Days when I blush and panic at my inability to respond, wondering why my mental filing cabinet is suddenly jammed shut, my inner computer “down” and silent.
At first, when I began to have such days, I struggled and fought, trying vainly to get my knowledge systems up and working again. It was only when I gave up the fight and settled into a strange new inner silence that I began to feel little stirrings of that new way of being that still has no name. And because of my wish to honor and explore this new way of being, I decided to approach the whole questions of menopause from a slightly different angle. This is the angle of surrender. Surrender, that is, to a natural process, in order to learn its deepest lessons.
MARIAN VAN EYK McCAIN
Transformation through Menopause (Bergin and Garvey)
Next step: Fall into my arms and sleep