The Invisible Rite of Passage, or, "I am NOT Menopausal--I'm Just Stressed Out!"

After reading about the menopause and getting to know the myriad of signs, I began to encounter clients and friends who were in denial that it was happening. One friend who was having hot flashes decided she had some sort of weird illness, probably terminal, that was bringing on what she called her "fevers." Like any new body of knowledge or healing technique an astrologer acquires, the more educated I became about this phase of life, the more clients came who needed the information. Women in their late forties to early fifties who came for readings and who were having major transits to the Moon typically believed they were going crazy. Although relieved to discover they were sane, they were not necessary delighted at the possibility that they were menopausal. Especially when women are isolated from older women and extended family ties due to geographic mobility, it is all too easy to deny that menopause has begun. ("Nonsense! I still have my period every month!") We seldom recognize that years of hormonal shifts precede the actual event of menopause (literally, the end of the menses). These gradual changes can create emotional ups and downs, a dicey temperature regulator that can result in both chills and excessive heat, problems in concentration and memory, and a large variety of other odd symptoms. The last period itself is often the midpoint in as much as a decade of physiological changes--it's not over 'til it's over. Our ignorance is changing, as there is now a rash of books about the menopause. The same feminists who led us as we burned our bras in the Sixties--articulate thinkers like Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem, Kate Millet, and Germaine Greer--are now leading us into a liberated, non-establishment menopause as well. They are in their fifties, hitting that menopausal wall, and climbing over it into cronehood, writing books that let us share their wisdom and process of self-discovery for the later years. More women are letting go of their shame and secrecy about this condition, discussing their symptoms openly. As that self- obsessed Pluto in Leo crowd, the Baby Boomers, start into theirs, we'll be hearing all about their hot flashes and their black blood clots, just as we were successively forced to sit through their psychoanalysis, their dreams, their spiritual initiation, their dysfunctional family backgrounds, and their recovery. When the Yuppies just below that enter the change, it may even become trendy, albeit high tech. There'll be menopause rooms on the Internet where we can kvetch to our heart's content in blessed anonymity about night sweats and even, in this tell-all age, vaginal dryness. NOTE: The Moon in Your Life contains many tools for balancing the lunar parts of our nature, including a summary of natural remedies for the menopause.