CAROLYN POGUE
I have always felt connected to the earth. On the small Ontario farm where I grew up, there were myriad opportunities for absorbing that relationship. My earliest memory is of my mother kneeling at the rock garden, gesturing for me to bring my little tin watering can. “Listen!” she said leaning down even farther. “I think the flowers are still thirsty. Can you hear them asking for more?” I could. In memory, I still can. Menopause gave me a whole new take on that connection.
In my forties I chanced to read Ronald J. Glasser’s book, The Body is the Hero. In it he wrote, “Not only does our blood go back to the ancient seas; we are also, literally, children of Earth. The carbon in our bones is the same carbon that forms the rocks of the oldest mountains. The molecules of sugar that flow through our bloodstream once flowed in the sap of now fossilized trees. The nitrogen that binds together our bones is the same that binds the nitrates to the soil.” I loved that a doctor had set down in black and white that I was one with Earth. It was both humbling and freeing. I didn’t have to “have dominion” over anything. Instead, I was one little part of everything.
The year I turned fifty, menopause began. In some respects it was secondary to my life at that time. Periodic international travel had been part of my history, but that year I took three international trips. To celebrate my fiftieth birthday, and my daughter Andrea’s twenty-fifth, we travelled to England to see where my grandmother had last lived before immigrating to Canada in 1898. A few months later I went to India as a representative of The United Church of Canada on the first Women’s Interfaith Journey. Because my husband was then national leader of that church, I later took the opportunity to travel with him to Harare, Zimbabwe to a meeting of The World Council of Churches. These three journeys were the opportunities of a lifetime. In between airports and hot flashes, night sweats and jet lag, I gained more knowledge about women, this good Earth, and my own body. I learned to ride the waves of menopause, to ski down its slopes, to enter into its saunas and freezers while still paying attention to the world around me.
The trip to England connected me to my maternal line of ancestors, the “flesh of my flesh.” I told Andrea about the courageous ten-year-old child who became my grandmother and her great-grandmother. My grandmother had been one of 100,000 British Home Children sent to Canada to work as a servant. I had an inherent need to place my hands on the living soil from which she was born. I wanted to touch it, smell it, run my fingers through it, learn from it. And I had a need to share this with my own daughter, to reflect with her on our lives and what we had inherited from this strong woman. In my mind’s eye, I still see us standing in the garden at the orphanage where my grandmother had lived, delicate blue forget-me-not flowers nodding in the breeze. These sweet little blossoms reminded me that my ancestors walk with us, into all unknown territories — of menopause, of loss, of delight.
In the autumn I left Canada again to go to India. The Henry Martyn Institute of Hyderabad had partnered with The United Church of Canada to attempt to answer the question: “When men engage in interfaith dialogue, they travel to a conference centre, make speeches, and hold discussions. Given the chance, how would women do it?” We participants did not know each other at first, but regardless of our differences, we immediately recognized that our experiences of the body and our approach to Spirit were very much the same.
To answer the question, one representative each from Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and local tribal traditions from across India and Canada travelled in India for nearly one month with a facilitator. (The following year we travelled again, this time in Canada.) In India, we visited rural and urban communities and met in story circles with schoolgirls, anti-poverty activists, and women working for literacy, cultural awareness, health, and peace to discuss our lives and build community. The powerful stories we heard were like water in a desert. One example lives with me still.
When one group of creative women learned that yet another local woman had reported spousal violence and had in turn been beaten by police, they made official-looking laminated identity cards for themselves and, fifty strong, stormed into the police station flashing their cards. They warned that if ever they heard of another incident they would return with 500 of their sisters. From this testimony, I saw how women working together could move mountains.
In Mumbai we met honoured storyteller and teacher Marguerite Theophile. Asked to define spirituality, she answered, “Like menstruation, child birth, sex, and eating, spirituality can be a mess. We need to recover our way of being at home with what is messy and reconnect with the joy of that.” Here, I witnessed the rhythms of women uniting in our struggles against sexism, poverty, family violence, and underrepresentation in the halls of power. I thought about how, sweating wildly even in a cool, breezy garden, menopause was a big part of this mess. As with all things in life, a good sense of humour also helps. I was left with a powerful vision of the many different realities we live in and the many ways to approach the problems we face.
In December I flew to Harare, Zimbabwe with my husband. Coincidentally that year the World Council of Churches Assembly’s theme was also the fiftieth year, known as Jubilee: “You shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land.” Personally, I was up for a Jubilee celebration! Fifty was turning out to be a remarkable year of change, learning, and celebration — night sweats notwithstanding.
Based on the Church Assembly theme, three hundred and forty-five Christian denominations worldwide were asking rich nations to forgive the crushing debts of the poorest countries. Our Assembly also marked the end of The Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women. And so thousands of us gathered to share stories, solidarity, and hope. One evening a South African woman entered the huge meeting tent tenderly carrying an urn. The water in it represented the sacred tears of women throughout time, she said. She poured out the water, proclaiming, “Enough tears shed!”
The vision had been named. I saw that my own Jubilee year was indeed a good time to begin again — both globally and personally. Menopause held the promise of a fresh start, and so forgiveness of others and myself made sense.
Part of the gift of those menopause journeys was the luxury of time to consider women’s strengths and spirit during a period when I was emotionally wide open. I took time to reflect on how women are perceived in different societies and understand how the prevailing notion that old women are ugly, useless, and irrelevant is a bias of culture. In India, I was moved to see a young Hindu woman kneel and touch her mother-in-law’s feet as a show of respect. Travelling in India and Canada with Myra Laramee, a Cree Elder from Winnipeg, Manitoba, affirmed for me the value of elder-led ritual and teachings. In Africa I met elder women from around the world. Another memorable grandmother was from Thailand. I was at the dinner table one evening as she questioned two young women from Jordan. “What is your passion?” she asked. “Where does your strength lie?” Gently, she guided the conversation so that they would gain courage in their work for gender equality. I see these women now as esteemed teachers.
My menopause years were full of the challenge and opportunity to deepen my connection with women and with Earth herself. As “weather events” took more precedence in the news, I realized that I was living my own personal Climate Change. Weren’t there volcanoes, lava flows, temperature fluctuations, and floods also coursing through my body?
Duwamish Chief Seattle warned us long ago that what befalls the earth, befalls the children of earth. The kindness and nourishment that my body needed was actually not different from that needed by the earth.
My empathetic little three-year-old self, always resident in me, still hears the call of thirsting flowers. Even when we are living in life’s rock garden, a sprinkling of tender care can grow great beauty. Childhood and menopause can help us remember.