Bone Woman: Conscious Eldering
The Call from
Bone Woman
As women start to take responsibility for their own story,
they liberate dismembered soul parts, not only of their own hereditary patterns,
but the inherited cultural belief systems, and in this space something new is born.
Yia Alias
Introducing the Process
The Late Summer perimenopausal phase of women’s cyclic life heralds the maturing process of a woman's psyche. It is a shift that moves a woman from the summer phase of life, with its energy of outward expression - nurturing, working, and creating - to the integration/distillation Queen of the Harvest phase of Autumn to the Conscious Crone phase. The post menopause phase is a rich fertile culmination of all the learning and experience a woman gathers into her Harvest Basket from her cyclic years.
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The synthesis of all she has learnt coalesces into a truly unique substance that is deeply embodied, enabling her to witness and hold herself and her community with the depth of Love that time brings.
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Back to the Bones
The Journey to Conscious Elderhood means a meeting with Bone Woman: an energetic force that strips us back to what is essential and authentic, connecting us to our place and responsibility within the continuum of Life.
Bone Woman Calls
Sometime around the 6th Septennial/ 42nd year, a disruption begins for many women. A call echoes beneath the busyness of everyday activity. For the consciously evolving woman, observing her cyclicity can be a first clue. I hear from many women that their cycle flips- that is- they were menstruating when they normally ovulate and vice versa. This can be accompanied by unpredictable emotions as the foundations of the familiar start to quaver. Though each woman will have her own unique experience through the years that converge in the Autumn phase, there is a shift that can challenge the predictable routines that hold everything together. Some describe dissatisfaction, uncertainty and unease with their life tasks.
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A crisis of meaning may be experienced - the comfortable identity that once served a purpose no longer feeds the wild feminine Soul that yearns for expression.
The transitional passage of peri-menopause offers a wonderful and challenging invitation, an opportunity to rebirth oneself in this lifetime. Values that dont serve this birthing need to be shed and transmuted. If this passage is not recognised, the untended inner community will let it be known either through a healing crisis or relational and emotional upheaval. All that does not serve wholeness/holiness must be sacrificed to bring about a necessary surrender that dismembers illusion and allows space for a new archetype to be birthed.
Kerri Alexander, naturopath and herbalist, tells us that Bone loss at the spine begins at about 18months before the last menstrual period and that there is a rapid acceleration in the first 5 years following menopause. It is no wonder that with the decline in oestrogen levels that affect our Bone density that there is an almost literal experience of Bone Woman shaking us out of our well worn identities into new unfamiliar territory. This experience may feel like being in a void as one moves away from the after bloom of youth, and, like the dissolving of the caterpillar before it becomes a butterfly, into the new emergent embryonic Elder.
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​​Career change or loss is common at this time, and a questioning of the value of eldering women in the workforce and society in general may start to emerge. The rollercoaster of hormonal shifts can be destabilising and relationship and friendship groups may suffer or be sacrificed to reflect what is emerging. This can feel very alienating, as the yearning to belong to something of value changes with this realignment of beliefs and values.
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Rage from all the suppressed and built up angers may emerge, feeling disproportionate to the situation at hand. Some women go through the empty nest experience, where life may feel devoid of meaning and relevance as the caring role changes and the identity of mother needs to find new meaning and purpose. Others are squeezed between the demands of their teen or young adult children, as well as increased caring responsibilities for their eldering parents, shouldering a double load of responsibility,
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I have borne witness to many women through the powerful transition of peri menopause and what I have observed is that the transformational void isnt a place where you just beautifully integrate and return. The void is a place where the past patterning and the emergent energies of our true Calling are cooked up together. It is a place that one returns to often, and like the hormonal fluctuations where one moment there is purpose and focus, the next moment one is thrust back down revealing that there is so much more to process.
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It takes time to un-flesh all that we have inherited through our
hereditary patterning, and the societal and cultural expectations
we have served. Creating new neural pathways and new habits all take time.
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The new emergent embyonic elder incubates in this transitional void with
all its old patterns and potentialities all bubbling away together. It is possible
to let go the old life depleting loops. It is possible to set intentions and foundations for the future that you wish to become. Taking responsibility for ourselves is scary, yet there is freedom and a great liberation that comes by developing Conscious Presence as an Observer to ones life.
The process you will find here on this website offers a framework and a creative process called 'Whats in the Harvest Basket?'. It invites you to integrate the experiences of life and to see the patterns as an Observer as you consciously delve into the corridors of the past through what are called septennials, seven year cycles.
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Having a 'midwife' in the form of a counsellor or wise elder to witness ones emergence is good medicine along side the 'Whats in the Harvest Basket?' process. Our stories need witnessing and holding so that we can see ourselves through the telling of our stories. This liberates the stories that are hidden in the shadows. Stories of shame, guilt, abandonment, grief, envy, fear - to name some - and in this liberation new energy releases to inspire the passion to reignite ones Calling.
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As one integrates the experiences of the past, as Minmia Wiradjuri senior law/lore woman says, one becomes “intimate with the emotions” and there is more energy available to care for self each other the earth and its creatures.
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The higher self must use the lower self as raw material,
otherwise there is nothing for it to work with,
no dross to turn into gold,
no grist for the mill to transform.
Jacqueline Small
Pic by Helen Zee www.helenzee.com
Like a left hand allowed to at last show
its competence.... I welcome this
transition as my companion.
Fiona Mackie
Navigating the Borderlands
The Void
It can be a challenging time when the well structured identities of the past no longer fit, and have no meaning or relevance any more. One can feel stripped right back to the Bare Bones.
For some, grief deeply buried in the substrate of the psyche can overwhelm. Kelly McDaniel, author of Mother Hunger, speaks of the relational injury that can happen in our formative years. The formative years set the foundations of how we relate through life.
​Many women in my counselling practice express the deep pain they feel with the loss of their youth and beauty. Not able to turn back the clock and without positive role models of aging they struggle.
Image: Healing Ceremony, HearthGround.
​When women maintain a silent/passive response as their default setting within the paradigm of the over-culture, the rich emotional life that acts as a wise guide settles into the deep archaeological layers of the psyche. Incrementally, these daily compromises, marginalise the untended emotional, inner community, and the great SHE that lies beneath all the layers becomes restless and needs expression. An anarchy of emotions can erupt when the authentic soul tries to free herself of all the cultural and hereditary accoutrement.
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Some women are, only at peri-menopause, realising the magic of the menstrual initiatory pathway and I hear their grief. However – we didn’t know what we didn’t know in the past and this does not negate the worth of digging into the Harvest Basket of life, activating your inner witness and synthesising what you have gained in life. Ritual can play a part and help here, as can connecting to the cycles of the seasons and of life, even if you are not cycling monthly anymore.
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There has been much work done on the spiritual practice of the blood mysteries of menstruation and birthing. That territory has had a lot of mapping and exploration but what about the terrain of menopause and beyond? There is a great transition, akin to travelling through the birth canal, to travel through before menopause is complete: the peri-menopausal passage of Bone Woman. Its key word is disruption!
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There is literature on the physiological transition of menopause: the hot flushes and powerful hormone fluctuations, however the beginning of this phase can be missed. Each woman has her own unique experience and expression through these years that converge in the Autumn phase of life. We have all benefitted from the discoveries of western medicine yet this same paradigm has minimised and capitalised on the initiatory threshold of menopause.
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Some women express dissatisfaction, uncertainty and unease
with their life tasks, and, for women who have had children, this
can be a time when the defining mother role starts to shift. This
change can rock the boat and challenge the predictable routines
that hold everything together. A crisis of meaning may be experienced
as the comfortable identity that once defined us - our roles and
relationships – all that once served a purpose no longer feeds the wild
feminine soul that yearns for expression.
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Remember that women are cyclical beings living in synthetic systems. Being smart is key: find ways to optimise your energy as you age. Unstructured time is essential in creating the cauldron where our new selves can gestate. Ritual can help to let go and free the self from obligations that no longer serve, in order to free up more energy. Ceremony activates wakeful consciousness, makes action intentional and sacred, and fortifies the will to continue acting.
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Wolves are intelligent beings who learn from mistakes. Whatever painful lessons she learns becomes knowledge for the whole group. Wolf is a wonderful metaphor for how the contribution of our personal experiences and lessons have the power to affect and enhance the whole.
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Ultimately we are all alone, we birth ourselves alone. We also must advocate for ourselves and our needs, with the support of our communities. Menopause gifts us with a deep and transformative wisdom that affects the way we relate to ourselves and to the world around us.
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With each shedding of layers (absorbed values and expectations) we shapeshift and try different roles. Sometimes we think we have arrived only to find that what appeared to work came from another set of expected values. Bone Woman is the stripped down place where all that dissolves, though frightening, is not yet reformed, however if you stop and listen there may be a calling that wants to express itself through the most aligned and unique expression of you. In shamanic practice this is called the Hollow Bone.
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Whether you are in peri-menopause, menopause or beyond, the pathway outlined on this website is intended as a support to your journey through the borderlands where Bone Woman awaits. The pathway includes the following:
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What is in the Harvest Basket? (The process of reviewing one’s life with balanced perspective);
Sorting the Seeds (Distillation of the septennials of one’s life into a mandala image);
Bone Woman Refleshed (Activation of a soul seed symbol as medicine for the journey toward elder-in-becoming).
....if we are not careful, we are
endlessly stolen away from
ourselves, without even noticing
that we are gone.
Fiona Mackie
Heading 3
When everything is stripped away we are left with our instinctual and intuitive nature. She becomes Queen of her own underworld experience and takes responsibility for herself, her choices and emotions. She becomes ‘boss of self’ as Minmia (Indigenous Law/lore woman) names it.
A modern shamana is able to navigate both worlds: inner and outer. This is a sovereign time for women, having being moulded by their cycling years. They have experience, knowledge, and compassion. In traditional cultures older women are valued for their gifts of wisdom, and they become the teachers, mentors and elders of their people. It is time now to reclaim our women ways, to be brave enough to embody our power and shine, our very Earth depends on us women having the courage to express the divine feminine that we carry in our being.​
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Wolf medicine can enter here: wolf is the pathfinder – the forerunner who presses ahead to learn, then returns to the group to teach and share. Wolves have and enormous sense of family and connection as well as strong individualistic urges. They are part of society yet still embody dreams and ideas.