Menopause Metamorphosis

Healthy Vagina

Healthy Vagina

The vagina is a muscular, mucus-lined passage that connects a woman’s outer genitals with her uterus. When we speak of sexual penetration, it is the vagina — not the cervix, the part of the uterus which projects into the vagina, or the uterus itself — that is penetrated. During sexual arousal, the vagina lengthens, opens, and raises a sensitive bump called the G spot.

For thousands of years, men have perpetuated the belief that the vagina is an inert, hollow receptacle which can be penetrated and filled at their will and whim. But tens of thousands of years ago, when women told the stories, the vagina was honored. (And a universe of thanks to Eve Ensler for The Vagina Monologues which has, at least, made it acceptable to say the word “vagina.”)

This vagina, it goes without need of saying one would wish, is alive and sensitive. It is responsive and inherently capable of letting its wishes and desires be known. The vagina, and its health or lack thereof, is deeply connected to a woman’s sense of safety.

Modern women are trained to view their vaginas as dirty and smelly. That’s another misconception. A healthy vagina has a pleasant odor, a slightly sour taste, and is naturally “self-cleaning.” A healthy vagina secretes clear or milky fluids which protect the delicate vaginal tissues. These fluids are heavier and more slippery during ovulation.

The vagina contains health-promoting micro-organisms, as well as microbes that can overgrow and cause symptoms. In the healthy vagina, glucose exuded from the blood serum is eaten by vaginal flora and metabolized into lactic acid. This acidifies the vagina, promoting healthy flora and depressing the disrupters. If there is too much glucose or too few flora, the acidity of the vagina is compromised and infection — from inherent organisms or transmitted organisms — is likely. For health, wash your vaginal area only with plain water, or very dilute vinegar, not soap, which is alkaline.

Antibiotics and antibacterial agents including antibacterial soaps and essential oils kill protective vaginal micro-organisms. Taking antibiotics doubles the risk of developing a vaginal infection.

Celibacy, lesbianism, and double monogamy are life-style choices that cut down on the number of infectious organisms introduced into the vagina. But nuns, lesbians, and monogamous women can still get vaginal infections.

excerpt from: Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way

Post-Menopausal Climax Years

Post-Menopausal Climax Years

The post-menopausal years symbolically begin on the fourteenth new moon after your final menstruation. (And continue, of course, for the rest of your life.) Hot flashes, aching joints, heart disease, incontinence, vaginal atrophy, and broken hips may diminish the quality and quantity of these years. Use of Wise Woman ways in the post-menopausal years can halt and reverse osteoporosis (the bones accept calcium once again), keep estrogen- and progesterone-sensitive tissues in the vagina and bladder from weakening and drying out, and maintain a healthy, vigorous heart and circulatory system.

Eat vegetables, fruits, and grains instead of meat. Eating meat and meat fat weakens your bones as well as your heart, promotes cancer, and may contribute to post-menopausal hot flashes.

Move, dance, walk, stretch, go, inquire, keep active. The essence of vitality is change. Now that you've been through the Change, don't stop, keep changing. Break the rules and the taboos. Become an expert on pelvic floor exercises. Take up belly dancing. Pump iron. Wear purple.

Write a legal will. And revise it every ten years. Face your own death. Plan for your own death. This completes the second stage of your initiation.

Nourish yourself with every bite. Aging increases our needs for many nutrients while reducing our digestive ability. Make every bite count toward optimum vitality and step up digestive efficiency by using dandelion root tincture before meals. Discover new ways to serve yourself calcium-rich foods at every meal. Use herbal vinegars regularly. Gradually replace bone-depleting white flour products (bread, pasta, pretzels) with fiber-rich whole grains and whole grain products. Drink vitamin- and mineral-rich herbal infusions instead of mineral-depleting coffee, tea, and soft drinks. Try yogurt and fresh fruit instead of ice cream for stronger bones and fewer vaginal infections.

Plan your Crone's Ceremony of Commitment to Her Community. Anytime after your second Saturn return (age 57-61), you are ready for the third stage of your menopausal initiation: rebirth. You are She-Who-Holds-the-Wise-Blood-Inside. You are newly crowned, newly born, baby Crone. After isolation, after death, you rejoin the community. In your isolation, you revisioned yourself. By giving death to yourself as Mother, you claimed all of yourself. It is time to share that vision, to name yourself publicly, Crone, woman of wholeness.

"I am the Crone. I feel my way along paths following the energy and warmth that others have placed here. Trusting the dark, I am guided not by light, but by the flowing movements I sense. I am like the water that follows, without sight or foreknowledge, the ancient river's channel."

My Native American teachers tell me that we are in the midst of earth changes that will culminate around the year 2013. They say the earth changes will bring heat, and floods, and upheaval on an enormous scale. I am struck by the fact that 50 million women will have achieved menopause by 2013. Since we, as women, are one with the earth, is our massive, collective Change Her Change as well? Can we moderate her hot flashes? Give her ease from flooding? Soothe her emotional uproar? Emerge transformed together after our changes? How will we do it? With drugs, against the problems? With nature, blessed by all we are given? Will it matter to the Earth, Gaia, what choices I make in my menopause? What stories I tell myself? What I tell other women?

excerpt New Menopausal YearsThe Wise Woman Way

*