And Circle becomes the feminine mother intuitive, the nurturing part of myself and the dreamer who speaks softly inside me. My dear family in all directions, how does she make it right for others? How much does she give, how much is she responsible for? Does she assume they cannot look after their own needs? Mother one, who knows. Mother, one who knows. Mother who has so many roles she forgets herself many times over. Mother moon, looking down towards the earth. Towards the children in the darkness, I see you. There are no needs that do not need acknowledgement, no needs that are not real and worthy of love and tenderness. Even those needs we would dishonour through fear of judgement. Connecting back down to earth, to memory in the bones, I see you again, earth bound mystery.

Mother, feminine, loss, betrayal, speak the love you once knew and let not the tides wash away too soon the possibility of deep growth that try’s to force its way through the cracks made open in the stretching mind of the body. Mother mystery, so much unknown and yet so much held in the voices unspoken, learning to trust, mother learns to trust and speak, for only she is the one who knows deeply the turmoil in her own belly. Learning to give freely from this turmoil to see what was unable to be set free and protecting the one, she unravels the bloody yell back to where it came from. Whore, witch, mistress, enchantress, dark mother writhes in unseemly passion, what many of us could not possibly know or take a second glance towards, incase it touches one finger tip to poison our minds against what is now settled and confirmed.

That sweet confirmation of victim, lost to the story. Dare we take another look into a realisation that all is not lost and thrashing out that one last spell, we are victim no more. My world is changing both inside myself and all around me. I notice how the body shifts itself into a new gear, one that is preparing for a whole new level of being with woman hood. It is inevitable, it must change as the age draws nearer and bleeding ceases, I am not the ‘productive’ beast any more, the child bearer and big bellied mother. A grandmother now and happy for it to be this way. My body changes inside as the small womb shape becomes that hardened walnut and shrinks its size. So too does my world around me and I find the nest of my home far more appealing. I want to curl up under softness and find the dark corners of my mind for contemplation. To burrow into the dream time and watch the colours changing to their subtle more undefined shades.

My small workspace mirrored around me, reminds of that walnut and I keep drawing on my own medicine woman from the shell of its existence. There is no need for the big immense gathering any more, I simply do my work as much for myself as with anything else that needs it. Unraveling years of hard work now done, now completed as all things must be.

 And the change happens, I become the elder, the grandmother, the wise women holding wisdom beyond her years. My years that started before I was ready and so they must continue.

 In my own circle I am aware of so many changes, as women it can be a challenging time but I had learnt that the only way was in the deepest surrender, to allow my body to do what it needed and though some times uncomfortable, letting it have its way, going through as much as it needed to. Menopause has been happening forever and here is yet another way for women to try and control what is one of the most natural of process’s. Just like our first menses and our childbearing, we have been too quick to try to control it, make it less uncomfortable and avoid it if at all possible.

I am welcoming these changes, I know it can be a rough ride but just as in birthing my babies, I have had to surrender to nature, to allow its forces to pass through me. I noticed so many changes and at first they took me by surprise. So suddenly they seemed to happen. Well I knew it was due, so no surprise, but the rapidity at which things changed could throw me off my centre. Still I noticed a stronger sense of myself, more confidence and a deeper knowing of who I was. The skin may be changing but it was simply another cover for a worn out ego that did not serve any more. Like my own snake shedding her skin it was time to take on a gentler and more mature outer layer and a softer sense of being a woman. My circle began to show new forms, animals that could offer me a different sort of companionship, different textures that matched the walls and the linings of the cauldron. A darker presence that spoke to me in a different language and yet I understood every word.