Analysis of The Gray - Part 2

I ask her the same thing and she tells me that after her father died, she went looking for 'The Gray'
In the dream, I know that this refers to a fantasy quest game that we played as children and that The Gray is a bracelet of red, white and grey polished stones, cut into cylindrical shapes.
I knew from my own father that M's father in real life died a couple of years ago and that he had Alzheimer's disease;  my mother suffers from this and is currently being cared for in a nursing home.
In my dream notes which I scribbled down early in the morning, I have written The Gray - capitalised just as I have here, using the American spelling - normally I would write grey  and not gray.
As children we played many elaborate fantasy games usually involving some adventurous quest, or mystery and we often found ourselves believing in our fantasies.  In the dream I recall straight away that The Gray was such a game, and I felt very excited that she had gone on to fulfill this quest. I had an image of The Gray as a bracelet of long cylindrical white, grey and red stones.

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The death of the father is symbolic for me on a couple of levels here.  It could refer to the  'death' of the superego - that controlling voice inside which governs socially appropriate behavior in us, and also induces feeling of guilt. (apologies for that huge generalisation there).  Both M's father and my mother had/have Alzheimer's disease - an insiduous condition which, among other things, can totally strip away that control, often resulting in 'socially inappropriate' behaviours.
Received wisdom portrays women as going crazy at menopause. In fact, despite the raging hormones of the climacteric,  depression and sadness at this time is more likely to have other causes - poverty, marital problems, workplace difficulties.  It seems from my reading so far that the madness of menopause is a societal condition, created by... guess what?  It seems that those early church fathers did not like the idea of women enjoying sex, let alone indulging when there was no chance of procreation, so they decreed all older women to be crazed and ugly - a charge that seems to have stuck. So,  the death of the father could also be the disregarding of patriarchal attitudes here - basically the father is dead, long live the mother. 

Now that this patriarchal superego is dead, I am free to grow old disgracefully - to search for The Gray, or find my inner crone. This phrase is capitalised to emphasise the importance and the sacredness of this quest, and I feel an anticipatory thrill when she tells me about it. (I don't think the spelling is important - most of the literature I have read thus far has been American, so will contain that spelling). I also think I can use the experiences I have had under the father's control to become stronger in this new phase of life and to make my menopause my own.
Barbara G Walker talks about how the Virgin and Crone aspects of the Goddess are interchangeable, and she tells the original myth of Persephone who was in fact the crone aspect of the Demeter trinity.  I find it truly amazing how in my dream, the friend of my childhood, or maidenhood, whom I have not thought of or seen for almost 40 years, appears as I approach the time of the crone - 'Do you not recognise me?'  It packs this big idea into such an accessible form.  The idea of a quest ties in so much with this Virgin/Crone theme, too, as in Roman mythology, the maiden/new moon was known as The Huntress (Diana), but Ms Walker argues that The Huntress character originally was part of the dark third aspect. I don't think there is too much of a difference between a quest and a hunt. Interestingly, she also says that the mother aspect in this trinity was Pluto, who was a female deity and the name Pluto meant abundant with milk - who gave her the sex change, I wonder?

The image of The Gray as a bracelet of red, white and grey stones.  The colours are almost equated with those of the Triple Goddess - white, red and black.  Stones are part of the Earth and there are many stone monuments and figures sacred to the goddess.  We recently spent a few days in Callanish (? cailleach - old woman?) and were very taken with the stones there.  I said on my other blog that they made me think of strong mothers.  And a bracelet is a circle - each part merges into the other in a never ending cycle.
So - what a dream!  It has been quite a journey of discovery unpacking this one.  I feel very positive about the images and ideas that I have taken from it, and grateful for the insights it has given me.  If you have read these posts, I hope very much that you have taken something from it too.
Blessings.

Analysis of The Gray - Part 1

Re-reading the dream (see previous post)  there are obvious links to aging and menopause and so many of the themes from my current reading and thinking are in there.  I will try to make sense of them here, but apologies if it becomes rambling.
Two Women - younger leading the older.
I did not really see who the younger woman was, or what age.  I thought later it might have been M's sister, who was 3 or 4 years younger than she was.  In any case there was a sense of her caring for M, who was really quite stooped and slow.  The younger woman helping - not leading - the older one to where she was going.
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So - if these women in the dream are aspects of myself -  the younger woman is me just now - reading, reflecting, thinking and writing about my life, the change, and my hopes and fears etc, which will help me when I become that older woman.
I think I know them in the dream and I do now recognise them as these aspects of myself.

The older woman is my childhood friend and neighbour.
I grew up with M as my next-door best friend from pre-school until they moved away when I was about 10 or 11. She represents my childhood - my carefree innocent existence as a Maiden.
Also the community in which I lived was of strong women who were at mostly at home during the day. The mothers were  very supportive of each other during this time of childrearing and domestic activities.  My own mother had been a nurse before having me and my sister, and she was often called upon to help with various crises.
Thinking about it now, from a child's point of view it seems almost tribal and idyllic. The fathers had interests in common too - golf, football, tropical fishkeeping among other things - no heading off to the pub every night here..   My father and M's used to coach a local boys' football team and would take them off to a camp every year.  Our  families would go midweek to visit for the day and it was a great adventure.
They moved away when I was around 10 or 11 - just before I entered the menarche at the age of 12.  This again emphasises me as the Maiden aspect in the dream.
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I have just started reading The Crone, by Babara G Walker and right from the first page it is chock full of wonderful images of the matriarchal societies from ancient herstory. I knew about them anyway, but had not realised how separate the two sexes lives were, or just how 'powerful' the women were.  (I don't really want to use the word powerful here, as, to me it has negative connotations regarding aggression and war etc, but until I can think of a better one it will have to do). Reflecting on my reading, and the images this dream has brought back to me, however, I  really get a strong sense of how those societies must have worked and how natural their way of life was. Indeed I imagine that where women get on with life on their own, or free from male dominance, then it will be a supportive place, where wisdom is shared..  I see it now in the online forums I frequent, and in the blogging community.

She asks me what I have been doing all these years, and I tell her in terms of what children I have had and the age I was when I gave birth to them.
I recount my  life to date solely in terms of my mothering. I detail the ages I was when I  had each child, and mention my divorce and happy remarriage - I use the word 'Soulmate' to describe my husband.  There is no mention of  any career or other achievements.
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So this is referring to my Mother aspect.  I give a full account of my fertility during the time since puberty, when I last saw M and now, as I stand on the cusp of the menopause.It is significant that I tell her my age at each birth.  I had my first daughter at the age of 19, second when I was 28, my first son at 31 and my younger son at 46, so I have had a baby in every decade of my fertile years.  I also indicate by mentioning my divorce an remarriage that I have gone through a dark time but that I have come through it and am at peace with myself.  This could also relate to my recent reading of the demise of the matrifocal societies and the rise of patriarchy, with all its attendant horrors (cruel gods, wars, genocides, the witchcraze and the general denigration of women as a gender).  Vicki Noble in her powerful book, Shakti Woman, talks about her hopes for a re-membering of the Goddess as a way of healing for women. men and for the Earth.

I feel I had better state now that when I talk about patriarchy I am referring to the social and cultural system of male dominance particularly in government and institutions.  It is not meant to be anti-men in any way, as many males suffer from the effects of patriarchy in the same way.

This is becoming what my husband calls a 'big' dream.  There are so many layers being uncovered that I am going to split this post into two parts. The second half will appear in the next few days.

A Dream - The Gray

I don't really want this to turn exclusively into a dream journal, but I had one last night that is just so relevant to where I am at right now.  I just love how the unconscious takes everything that is spinning around in my head from the present and the past and remoulds it into a coherent and recognisable form.  So here is the dream.

I am walking along a street when two women pass me.  One is slightly younger than the other, who looks rather stooped and bent.  The younger woman is helping the elder along.
I think I know them, but am not sure. They too hesitate as I pass and the older one asks "Do you not recognise me?"
I do immediately recognise her as M.F. - my childhood friend and neighbour, whom I have not seen since I was around 11 years old.
She asks me what I have been doing all these years, and I tell her in terms of what children I have had and the age I was when I gave birth to them.  I mention my divorce and later remarriage to my 'soulmate'.
I ask her the same thing and she tells me that after her father died, she went looking for 'The Gray'
In the dream, I know that this refers to a fantasy quest game that we played as children and that The Gray is a bracelet of red, white and grey polished stones, cut into cylindrical shapes.

Wonderful stuff!  I will write up my reflection in the next post.

It's Radical!

I have been reflecting a bit about the title of my blog Radical Menopause.  'Radical' seems to be a very trendy word right now - Radical Parenting, Unschooling, Veganism, Dudes - everything just has to be 'radical'. And of course, here am I jumping on the bandwagon. When I conceived the idea for this blog, the title seemed to come instinctively to me, so I want to briefly explore the word and see how it fits in with me and the ideas I am writing about here.

The word comes from the Latin 'Radix', which means root. Straight away this brings to mind the idea that the Menopause is the awakening of the Kundalini - the snake that lies coiled up in the womb, or root chakra.  This radical awakening seems to occur because the energy in a woman's body is changing from the focus on childbearing during the years since the menarche to a more spiritual, intuitive way of being. The serpent of enlightenment is rising in us and if we are open to it and embrace that energy we can only honour ourselves - and live healthier lives into our old age.

When I began this blog, I keyed in the title 'Radical Menopause to that well known search engine, to check that no-one else was using it for a business, book or whatever.  Happily for me I could find nothing.  Unhappily, however, the search turned up many sites talking about Radical Hysterectomy.  Now, while no-one seemed to be advocating radical hysterectomy as a cure for menopausal symptoms ( I hope), it did make me reflect on the patriarchal desire to control womens' fertility, the peddling of the idea that menopausal women are something to be feared and  if we take these hormones and we wont be one of them.
Erm - no thank you, I will just be getting on with it myself, and I quite like the idea of being feared by the patriarchy.
Radical to me means going back to the roots of our ancient mothers who accepted the change as a different phase of life - the crone - the Wise One. Older women are still 'The Disappeared' in this culture, but as more of us finally come of age, I can only hope this begins to change - that the spirit of those mothers and elders will be stirred.

I mentioned yesterday to my husband that I was thinking about this post and the word 'radical'.  This morning he shared a dream he had last night about a long forgotten childhood memory.  Growing up in a mining village in Central Scotland, he was a coal miner's son.  His father was extremely active in left- wing and communist politics in the 1950s, and was a shop steward for the union. He was friendly with many well-known left wing politicians and academics at the time, and my husband remembered in his dream how one professor came down to stay with them and his name was Freeman.
I thought about this dream today - while  'radical'  is fairly obvious in the political sense - the name Freeman has radical connotations too. A Free man, or woman is not bound by a system which tries to control them.  They make conscious choices based on their own instinct or unbiased information - they are free and they are radical.
So there - I am a free radical menopausal woman - I will do it my way - watch out for my serpent rising!

Dreaming

I have been doing a lot of Dreamwork over the last few months - and what a rich seam there is to be mined.  My husband has a special an interest in psychoanalysis and dream analysis, so our early morning conversations are very interesting to say the least!
Often we find that our dreams are relevant to each other and insights from one dream can help both of us.
We each have note pads under our pillows to jot down the main points of dreams to help with recall later.
This has led to some strange looking notes and can even become part of the process.  Once my husband awoke from a very vivid dream and wrote down the single word 'Hollywood' - certain that he would remember such a clear dream.  What could he remember in the morning?  Absolutely nothing!  Once I had a very detailed and rambling dream, as mine often are, and wrote most of it out in the middle of the night.  Next morning there was an empty pad - the writing down was also part of my dream!  Fortunately I did remember most of it.  A few weeks ago I woke up and started furiously scribbling down  a dream I could feel slipping away, only to realise at the bottom of the page I had been using the wrong end of the pencil!
 Vicki Noble writing in Shakti Woman talks about group and community dreaming, and I do believe we enter a kind of collective unconscious world when we sleep, so with that in mind, I  plan to share the odd interesting dream here and then reflect on them in a following post.  I have found this to be very useful in these early stages, not to mention good fun - isn't that what it is all about?

Erratic.

This post title could refer to my blogging and my menstrual cycle.  I am interested to note that it is almost 9 months since I last posted here - a sort of pregnancy, during which I have been reflecting, dreaming and researching - trying to make sense of what is about to happen.  So - what has been happening then, during this gestation?  Well, cycling again - very l -o-n-g ones and  really short ones and the odd normal one.  I go around flinging wide the windows and switching off the heating, while my family sit huddled around the fire..  My sleep is often disturbed and not by children.  I am still nursing, but only at bedtime and occasional mornings.
Emotionally I have felt the normal range of human emotions, but they seem heightened, and I am much more inward looking than before.
My dreams often contain symbols which I can relate to the changes in my body and emotions, and I dream a lot.  I no longer wear makeup or dye my hair, but feel completely happy with the way I look. I have begun to think really seriously about my health - taking up Tai- Chi and making dietary changes.
I have read and studied and  realise I have so much to  learn.
Susun Weed, in her excellent book, says once you ask yourself the question 'Is this menopause' then the answer is a resounding 'YES'.
So now I know.