Menopause, The
Wise Woman Way
with Susun Weed
by Lora Spivey
At 39, I discovered that what I had thought to be insanity was in fact my indoctrination into the secret rites of menopause.
I naturally sought council from those of my women friends who had entered this path ahead of me, and I was given much advice. But one thing stood out. They all said to me, "Do you have Susun Weed's book?"
A decade ago, Susun Weed wrote Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way. Since then, her wisdom and guidance have helped thousands of women to recognize that what happens to a woman in menopause is not the end for us, nor is it a medical condition to be pathologized and treated as illness.
Instead, Susun views menopause as a spiritual journey of unfoldment to a new level of awareness. In fact, she goes so far as to say that menopause is "a journey into enlightenment."
Susun has recently released New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way. In this expanded edition, she includes her own post-menopausal work, commenting that "it's a bit heavier now."
When Susun speaks, she is said to carry the voice of the Wise Woman tradition.
Lora: Susun, what exactly is the Wise Woman tradition?
Susun: The Wise Woman tradition is the oldest healing traditon on this planet. Even today, according to the World Health Agency, ninety percent of all health care is provided at no charge by women in their homes!
Every woman is a natural healer.
- The Wise Woman tradition is dedicated to helping us rediscover the healer who lies within.
In the Wise Woman tradition, instead of fixing the broken machine, as in the scientific tradition, or cleaning up a toxic mess, as in the heroic tradition, we nourish the wholeness of each individual.
Lora: Can you elaboborate on your view that menopause is a natural process and a spiritual journey?
Susun: I'd like to begin by sharing with you the work of Kristen Hawkes. She's a researcher at the University of Utah who's spent a great deal of time studying the Hazda Tribe.
Among the Hazda, the most productive, healthiest, and wisest members of the tribe are women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, and Dr. Hawkes believes that menopause is the reason. She believes that after women have completed their childbearing years, they are positioned at the height of their intellectual and physical powers, available to give themselves wholly back to the community. So menopause is a process of enlightenment for the individual woman.
Most importantly, most altering, is the understanding that menopause is healthy.
One example that will show how menopause promotes health has to do with the production of the hormone estradiol.
When a woman is born, only twenty-nine of the thirty hormones are turned on. Then at puberty we turn on the thirtieth, which is estradiol. We need estradiol in order to ovulate.
But estradiol is to cancer as kerosene is to fire. It doesn't cause cancer, but if there's a "spark" it can provide the fuel. So although the risk of breast cancer in young women is very low — in America, it's only one in twenty thousand — pre-menopausal cancer can be devastating, and it's partly because of the presence of this hormone.
By age forty, the cancer risk is one in four hundred, and by age fifty it's one in fifteen. But as this risk of cancer is increasing, the amount of estradiol in the body is decreasing. In other words menopause, by turning off the production of estradiol, directly promotes the longevity of women.
Lora: The idea that menopause is unhealthy seems to be one of the big misconceptions we have about it. What are some others?
Susun: One of the biggest misconceptions is that menopause basically has to do with fewer hormones. In fact, the opposite is true.
The levels of hormones in a woman's blood are never higher than when she is in menopause! The levels of some hormones actually are elevated up to sixty times their pre-menopausal levels.
Most of the symptoms related to menopause have to do with hormonal overload!
Then why, you might ask, does taking estrogen stop these symptoms? It's because estrogen suppresses the production of the other hormones. However, it also prevents the woman from actually going through menopause.
Another great misconception is that in the past, women did not live long enough to go through this change, and that is why we need medical help to do this now. That simply isn't true.
Statistics do say that in the 1800s the average life expectancy for a woman was fifty years. But that doesn't mean that most women died at age fifty. The statistical average includes infant mortality figures, and in those days the infant mortality rate was about one in three. In order to have an average life expectancy of fifty, the vast majority of women who survived childhood had to have lived into their seventies, and gone through menopause without hormonal therapy of any kind.
In fact, 30,000-year-old archetypal figures such as the Goddess of Wilendorf call down to us through the ages, saying, "You can do it!"
Archeologists have found many, many of these figurines. Some believe that every household may have had one. And when we hear the information from Kristen Hawkes, we can sense why. For the Goddess is the repository of all wisdom and knowledge.
And it is menopuase that actually sharpens her faculties.
Lora: In your book you speak of menopause as an awakening of Kundalini energy. You've stated that once this awakening has occurred it is impossible for a woman to continue believing that the external reality is the sole reality. You've also documented scientific experiments in your book which indicate that a woman who is having a hot flash is literally in a state identical to deep meditation. Can you elaborate on this?
Susun: Hot flashes are a very important piece of energy work. Men sit in meditation for eighty years hoping to have a hot flash!
A hot flash is a rising of the Kundalini. Kundalini can be described as life force energy. Men strive for this, yet all a woman has to do is live to be old enough.
That's another one of the misconceptions, that the fewer symptoms a menopausal woman has, the healthier she is. I believe the opposite is true. Especially where hot flashes are concerned, the more the better. A healthy and vital menuopausal woman is going to work with her Kundalini energy — perhaps a lot.
Lora: So what I hear you saying is that rather than suppressing menopausal symptoms, we should nurture ourselves and allow the process to unfold.
Susun: Menopause is metamorphosis. It is a process like that of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
woman-butterflyThe first stage is the cocoon. Envision the caterpillar out there, eating leaves, munching lawns, feeling great, then suddenly saying to itself, "I don't know what's coming over me, but I really want to be alone." The caterpillar goes off and finds a quiet, secret, dark place to be. It's intuitive. Each menopausal woman in her own way will encounter the feeling that everybody else can deal with whatever they need to deal with — it's time to focus on me.
The second stage is melt-down. Within that cocoon, the caterpillar does not just lose a few legs and grow wings, the caterpillar melts down. The caterpillar actually turns to goo, or slime — and then has to rebuild into a butterfly. Each woman in her own way, will experience part of the melt-down phase of menopause. As with anything, we can either wallow in self-pity, or ask, "What opportunity is this?"
The opportunity is to become a butterfly. And the butterfly, having then been created, splits open the chrysalis from the top of the cocoon and emerges as a transformed being.
The woman emerges feeling new inside and out. It is now time to honor her as the wise woman.
So I urge woman entering menopause to begin a butterfly collection. By that, I mean to collect inspiring images of vibrant women twenty or more years older than they are, women they'd like to grow up to be.
I have one picture on my refridgerator of an eighty-year-old woman waterskiing on one leg and holding the tow rope in her teeth. I have another on my bathroom wall of an eigthy-three-year-old woman who has just won the national Older Women's Power-Lifting Championship. And I have one of a ninety-year-old woman by my desk who is doing a full standing split with her right leg above her on a stop sign.
These are some of my butterflies. They don't have hourglass figures or the most beautiful faces., but these are the women I want to grow up to be.
By being butterflies, by collecting butterflies, we help make the world a better place to be in.
Lora: What a beautiful, glorious vision. I can see myself celebrating what I used to be dreading.
In your book, you do offer advice on herbs and healing ways that can help us through this metamorphosis. Can you share some of these remedies?
Susun: It is always appropriate to take care of yourself. If you're trying to take care of yourself so you won't have symptoms, that may not work, but if you are not feeling victimized by your body, you can use your symptoms as a way to pinpoint areas that need special nourishment.
Quiet time alone in nature or sitting comfortably while listening to soothing music open the way for the flow of Kundalini.
Handling powerful Kundalini energies is easier when the nervous system is strong. Nourishing herbs such as oatstraw infusion, tincture of motherwort, cronewort (mugwort) vinegar, and the many varieties of seaweed are excellent green allies.
Hatha yoga, pranayama, and t'ai chi can help, too.
Lora: Your books emphasize that what we need is often growing wild all around us. Most of us are conditioned to believe that it is not safe to consume wild plants. I certainly have memories of my mother telling me not eat wild plants as they would make me sick or even kill me. What do you say to those of us who depend on manufactured products?
Susun: I often say that my real work is to teach people that what their parents taught them about avoiding wild plants is wrong. Of course, it was done with the best of intentions, because their parents and grandparents didn't know any better.
In fact, somewhere along the line for most of us transplanted Europeans, somebody's great-great-grandmother was burned as a witch. Witch burning broke our oral traditions.
People say to me, "Aren't you excited that MDs are starting to use herbs?"
And I say, "No, not at all. I'm going to be excited when I see three-year-olds using herbs."
My goal is to change how we think about health and healing. May we all reclaim herbal medicine as the simple, safe, primary care it is: a gift of health from the green nations.
My primary ally, my teacher in all things, is Nature: the Earth and her many companions.
The goal of my books is to help women to learn as I learned — not what I learned. I want them to find their own way and to trust their own intuition. I am not telling women how to do it right, because there is no one right way. I am sharing all the ways there are to do it, so they can choose. So they have their own power.
Favorite herbs for menopausal women
dandelionThese plants, and their cautions and contraindications, are described in detail in Susun's book New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way. Please refer to the book, and then to your own intuition, before you decide whether or not to use any of these "green allies" to aid you during your menopausal years.
* Oatstraw infusion (Avena sativa) — Oatstraw infusion strengthens the nerves, helps reduce emotional distress, promotes sound sleep, keeps the bones and heart strong, and strengthens libido. Oatstraw used as a tincture instead of as an infusion is stronger as a sedative but not as nourishing to the bones and heart. Oats for breakfast is an excellent way to "take" this herb, but avoid pills and capsules. Oatstraw baths are exceptionally calming.
* Nettle infusion (Urtica dioica) — Nettle infusion strengthens the adrenals, eases anxiety, increases energy, helps prevent night sweats, builds blood, protects bones and heart. Eating cooked nettle is another excellent way to gather its benefits, as is the use of nettle vinegar. Avoid freeze-dried, encapsulated, or tinctured nettle, as these forms may be ineffective and are over-priced.
* Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) — A tincture made from the fresh flowering tops is a favorite with menopausal women, their daughters, and their mothers. A few drops (up to 25 at a time) will calm emotions, relieve heart palpitations (and strengthen the heart), reduce the severity of hot flashes, increase vaginal lubrication, and moderate or eliminate PMS and menstrual cramping. Motherwort vinegar is a fantastic tonic, and it's tasty. The tea, on the other hand, is violently bitter and disliked by 99 out of 100 women.
* Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) — Any part of the dandelion, in any form, is a superb strengthener for the liver, which is the control center for hot flashes. Dandelion improves digestion (especially of calcium), helps relieve headaches, and sees to it that the liver provides steady blood sugar supplies. Dandelion wine (from the blossoms) is the most elegant way to take this remedy, but the cooked leaves, vinegars made from the roots and/or leaves, and the pickled parts themselves also are excellent, nourishing digestives. The tincture, especially of the root, is considered the strongest medicine, but doesn't contain bone-building nutrients, so is not the ideal form.
Susun WeedSusun Weed, one of the foremost authorities on herbal healing, is a High Priestess of Dianic Wicca, an initiated member of the Wolf Clan and the Sisterhood of the Shields, and a Peace Elder. Her adopted Native American grandmothers are Twylah Nitsch and Keywaydinoquay. She is the founder of the Wise Woman Center and Ash Tree Publishing, and is the voice of the Wise Woman Tradition.
Susun began studying herbal medicine in 1965 when she was living in Manhattan while pregnant with her daughter, Justine Adelaide Swede. She wrote her first book in 1985, Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year (now in its 29th printing). The book was Ash Tree Publishing's first title. It was followed by Healing Wise, Menopausal Years, the Wise Woman Way, and Breast Cancer? Breast Health! The Wise Woman Way. New Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way is her most recent book.
In addition to her books, Susun contributes to the Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women's Studies, peer-reviewed journals, and popular magazines, including a regular column in Sagewoman. She is the star of two professional video tapes ("Weeds to the Wise" and "Menopause Metamorphosis") and has appeared on many television and radio shows, including National Public Radio, ABC and NBC News, and the Wisdom Channel.
Her websites are SusunWeed.com and AshTreePublishing.com. You can reach her by mail at Susun Weed, P.O. Box 64, Woodstock, NY 12498, or by fax at 845-246-8081.
*This is not to say that a man cannot be a healer; but in order to do so, he must to discover his woman self — his nurturing self.
