Crossroads, Thresholds, Rituals & support Of Menopause

55 was the biological number that accompanied this solar return for me.

I have felt myself at some big life crossroads this last year or so and with the world in a state that I can hardly hold the smallest of understanding, I have found myself struggling to see my way. There have been some tough choices, big decisions, lots of change and a tugging at my internal sleeve. Damn, you know that tugging, right? That special place that really digs her heals into the Earth and says

I’m not gonna go away

Still here

Pay attention

I have a special bond with this place. My practice has taught me to pay attention to this place. In the quiet I can obseve this place-open her up, just like one of those rooms you step into at Ikea that’s all decorated, showing you exactly what that file cabinet will look like next to the desk and how the chair picks up the color scheme of the fabric on the curtains. It’s a story, really, that they are creating in the same way that there is a story that I am creating too. But hopefully my story is supported by my practice and professionals that help me to navigate and be in connection with a deeper part of me that goes beyond the superficial and into a deepening: a deepening of my life and the aspects that create it. And because I have felt the crossroads crossroading and because I feel my engagement in things that really matter to me in the world, I have been doing my best to stay with it.

What brings about big life crossroads? In my observations over the years there are many possibilities. Some may be planetary alignments (astrology or jyotish in Vedic tradition) or maybe life has brought a set of choices and decisions that interlink to each other but each has it’s on vitality. Regardless on how and why they show up, crossroads are important and require us to examine things with focus, observation, care and consideration while also practicing the patience to stay with it, even in discomfort. I looked up the meaning of crossroads and here is what Merriam Webster said:

a crucial point especially where a decision must be made

Thresholds are also unique spaces. From Merriam Webster:

Threshold:

the place or point of entering or beginning : outset.

As someone who practices and works with people during highly transitional frames of life, thresholds are often part of the conversation. They are reverent and sacred and in my experience come from a place of needing a change. Change like your life might depend on it. And when thresholds are thresholding, it can be very helpful to invoke a a type of honoring, a type of clearing, a type of purification, a type of gaze: a ritual. I think of thresholds as cause for ritual and ritual helps us cross over thresholds, they hold each other’s hand and walk together like the best of friends-side by side. I often think and consider what is my mind, body & spirit really asking of me during this highly transformative time? Ritual can really support clearing some of that up, I believe.

Through both my personal and professional experience, the years around menopause bring many things. Full of hormonal shift and bodily changes, a recognition of some of life’s linear movement and maybe even feelings of loss and grief. But there is also something else. For some it comes through a whisper and for others a ferocious bellow.

A call to LISTEN.

To listen in ways that our life has led us up to at that very moment. To listen with our whole being. Experiences, understandings, lessons learned and willingness to give less fucks about what others might think, say and do. Yes, it is all there. From within you, this place of deep knowing and the gates to the sea where your pearls of wisdom gather. Your life has taught you many things. Applying them is some of the deeper meaning of what menopause summons in us.

In my experiences it is a braid that ushers us to the pearls, to the wisdom, to this greater understanding at this time of time of life. Crossroads often bring us there, and ritual and wisdom help us at the thresholds to cross over. Stepping into this next phase of life with greater understanding, wisdom, deeper connections to oneself and continued understanding of what we want to do with this precious life. The menopause years are here for many reasons. I’ll be damned if I am going to reduce it to a meme or to a product that will solve it all. I know it’s not as simple as that, and I also know that there is a wiser, deeper conversation going on from within that is asking (maybe demanding) to be heard.

The practices of Yoga, Ayurveda & their many limbs are very helpful in coming to the heart of this conversation, this internal flame that moves and breaths from within. Channeling in directions that are aligned and attuned is the mark of paying attention and staying in honesty. Stay with it, listen in, be patient and kind to yourself in the process and in Right time the shift in the alignment of the crossroads moves, maybe even just a little. And with that a threshold appears and a step into the directions that awaits from deep within may become more realized.