Hot Flush Dark Cave

Hot flushes and cave pictures. The spiritual portal of menopause lay open in front of me. At first an unconscious gathering of images: caves, tunnels, Gaudi architecture, anything resembling a dark, internal, inviting cavity. My special board, an array of collected imagery, visual fodder gathered bower-bird style: photos, drawings, scraps of material, textures, colours, no apparent rhyme or reason. On closer inspection I notice the recurring, alluring theme of caves begins to dominate my consciousness and my board. Cave entrances alluding to a dark, quiet, protected space, a sanctuary that I ow longed to crawl into. I realise an urgent need to reflect on self; to plunge into the depths of myself. I am responding intuitively to the ancient call; an invitation to menopause. I have accepted this invitation from a deep and mystical knowing. An intuitive understanding leads me forward on this well-trodden path. I consciously dive through this spiritual portal with an open heart, a sense of adventure and a big “Yes” on my lips. A deep knowledge of the tools I require is embedded in me. Solitude, nature, time and creativity are required for this journey. Oh yes, and a cave. I need a cave.I sit in my empty nest, my feathers are worn, ruffled, I am exhausted, completely depleted. Twenty years of family life comes to a close with the departure of our youngest child leaving to attend university. I am suddenly exonerated, free. Free to go into the cave. I turn the nest on its head, shaking the contents loose, shaking myself loose. I turn the nest on its head and find my cave. My “cave” is a tin shed on seventeen acres in the hills on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. The directive. A channelled meditation. A Time In Nature. Please find a spot that calls you and sit. If you have a way of being here then simply be. If you would like to try and find a way of being here then you could try this. Gaze at the earth and notice a small detail, a blade of grass, a leaf on the forest floor. Before your mind starts to think, lift your eyes to the tree trunk and wander with your eyes through the branches and out to the leafed fingers. Gaze at the mountaintop, then further again up to sky in its totality. Then back to the earth, looking once more for a small detail, all the while moving your focus before thought steps in. Follow a bird’s flight, a butterfly, a breeze in the leaves. Continue this cyclic absorption of nature. I am a shattered mess of a woman; broken, disassembled bones and body parts. Still further releasing, letting go. “What else must I release?” I ask. “ Impressions, past impressions, wounds; this post-menopausal woman shall be a clear and true vessel. Ego shattered into a million pieces, body parts rebuilt to form union with the one.” I feel its closeness; more healing, more pain, more releasing. Less attachment to what was, no attachment to what might be. Exhausted, pulverised, molten, some form of perverse alchemy at work. Sometimes painful, both physically and emotionally. Other times joyful and always transforming. It seems that nothing is left untouched in this initiation, all surfacing to the light, to be exposed, considered, dealt with and released.