As we start to transition into a new season and the final months of the year, I’ve been feeling called to the ancient story of Inanna. She was the Sumerian queen who lived over 3500 years before common era. She went on an epic journey when she heard that her twin sister was grieving the loss of her beloved while due to birth her baby. Inanna felt it was her sisterly duty to go and support her sister, not realizing that her sister carried bitter feelings towards her. After Inanna arrived, Ereshkigal killed her and placed her body on a stake in the underworld. It was after 3 days of death that Inanna’s community were able to come and tend to her body that Erishkigal felt compassion for her sister. It was this loving feeling that played a role in Inanna’s rebirth.

And so in the end, Inanna‘s journey is one of a descent, sacrifice and a death in order to be reborn more fully whole. She is now known as the Goddess of Heaven and Earth: It was in her death that she was offered an opportunity to be reborn more fully and also without her ego. (If you want a more in-depth psycho-spiritual telling of the story, check out Rachael’s podcast episode on Deconstruction.)

Inanna’s story follows a clear map that depicts the process of transformation. She needs to walk through seven gates down to the underworld that include stripping down, and removing the material items that have symbolized her queendom. As she becomes more raw and vulnerable, she also becomes more pure and complete.

There is so much more to this story but I like to think of this process as a weaving that is unfolding the Spiral of Life:
Incomplete → Something is missing and feel called to seek it
Death Portal → Everything falls apart – the job, the relationship, previous version of you
Awakening → The aha moment of a realization
Rebirth → Stepping into a more full expression of you

Mythopoetic stories offer us a map that weaves us through a journey. The threshold awakens time of in-between, and then flowing into the becoming and possible initiation. I say possible because we are not always aware of the potential. So many of us move through life uninitiated by it, closed to the possible full expression of our soul’s calling. It is our psyche that constantly moves us towards truth so that we can come back to who we really are. I look to these ancient stories of feminine archetypes and heroines’ journeys, as well as nature, as guides when I am on my own journey that leads to a threshold where I feel stuck, and I can’t see a way out. They offer us transformation literacy, by teaching us the flow of becoming, developmental transitions, and rites of passage. I know that humans have been here before me and what feels more like a guide or reassurance is this deeper trust that this is actually meant to be a journey of transformation, of maturation of evolving.

I’m not saying that trauma needs to happen in order for us to become whole, but rather when trauma happens the healing we embark on after is what can ultimately create a new pathway, as well as help us come back to our original blueprint before the trauma happened.

Recently, I had this realization that the stages of trauma therapy mirror the journey Inanna takes to the underworld and back. She moves down and through various gates before ultimately accepting her fate. Trauma therapy, according to Judith Herman’s model, moves through a similar arc: Resourcing for safety, stabilizing our memory and mourning intentionally, and then integrating this story into our everyday life. Post-traumatic growth offers folks a chance to offer their lived experience to others who are newly on the path of healing.

I’m not alone in making this connection. I just starting finally reading Carly Mountain’s book Descent and Rising. Her book centres the Inanna myth as a way for us to see her story in us. I noticed how Carly refers to Erishkigal as the exiled parts of Inanna and it make me realize that this ancient story is a great depiction of Internal Family Systems and the healing process of integration. “When Inanna descends to meet Erishkigal she enters a healing journey to embrace what she has abandoned inside of herself.” Maybe somatic therapy and parts work is in fact the modern-day version of Inanna’s feeling her body morph as she moves through the gates. Maybe the items that she removes are protectors that have gotten in the way of her full self. Maybe it is not a coincidence that it 7 gates she must walk through – we have 7 chakras in our body.

Healing includes grief tending because trauma includes grief for what was taken from us that should’ve happened. Grieving is also holding space for what happened that should not have happened. Stages of healing need to include time to mourn, which comes with its own arc of denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. As the body heals in stages, so does this practice of acceptance. It can take time to heal from each stage and healing takes time.

Let us also remember all the versions of who we were are still in us. They shaped us. That younger child that i once was, who believed in magic and played with fairies, she set a path of magic and intuition in motion. That teenager who rebelled – she taught me i have my own gnosis and truth and deserve to follow this path. Maybe i am just born again in my middle-aged body, not quite who i was too, but i am also an integration and immersion of all of the women who i was. Now, i am called to something more and i have the capacity to fulfill my younger selves dreams.

We are not meant to be alone.

We are not meant to go to the deep end without having a harness or life jacket.

We’re also not meant to always stay at the shallow end, not taking risks.

Growth and maturation happens when we find this balance of both.

Incorporating our heavy moments with the ones that are more easeful is how we can be our true most fullest expression of self.

Inanna as the Autumn Queen
Let’s go back and remember how we are nature too. The Autumn season is known as the time of perimenopause, and second spring is the first stage post menopause. These cycles mirror the seasonality of mother earth and all her creations. It is mirrors the butterfly journey: We are in the chrysalis during Autumn and this is the underworld cave that Inanna dies in. She is yet to be reborn as a butterfly.

When we apprentice with nature and weave a thread of connection back to our ancestors’ wisdom, our everyday life becomes a devotion our souls calling is heard. When we embrace this truth of our story and the way that we can be of service it is a rebellious reclamation and remembering. That’s why I do what I do as a village tender and community builder. I know it’s my calling to build community in an intentional, sacred and natural way.

In her lovely book, When the Ache Remains, Lisa Olivera shares a process of Coming Whole to Self. It starts with a Descent that is clearly an underworld journey. Like the story, she trusts that we need to go inward and deep and do the necessary grief work to become whole. After that, we need to Face the Depths. This is when the Portal Opens – the pain needs to be faced in order for it to soften. Just like the goo in a chrysalis, it is during this alchemical stage that offers us a door to move Out of the Cocoon. We are unfolding and emerging. Only then can Integration manifest the wounds as medicine teachers. We need to accept them and not fix the scar. Finally, when we Surrender to Presence, it offers us the fullness of life – the joy, love, the pain and the grief. We can’t bypass joy because it is a way to honour and remember our infant self, the seed of the caterpillar that remains in us, only to be offered back to the soil of life. We can still hurt and feel deep joy. This is the whole-hearted way to become whole unto self. It means integrating the shadow parts of us, not running from them. Lisa Olivera offers us this truth: “The task is to stay devoted to your own aliveness, knowing it is the true path to wholeness, knowing it is the true path of fully living.”

I feel called to pause here and share that i write from my own perspective, and these reflections are about the mental, emotional, and psycho-spiritual perspectives of menopause, and so are not medically-based. I am not here to tell you what to do with your body and developmental changes. That is for you to decide. I am hoping that by reading this so far (a big thank-you by the way!) that you see that The Change is not all about the body and what we are losing. We also have the potential to gain something – our own life.

As I have been journeying through my own transformation through perimenopause, it’s led me through a path of realizing I need to offer support during this time in our lives. I see my role as a psycho-spiritual therapist as a womb to tomb midwife, a guide for someone’s Inner Inanna journey. And yes, we are all may go through this descent. It is when we turning inward into the body, and thus into the soul that we can be transformed.

And yet, it is not a given – not all of us of transformed by life’s initiatory rites. Becoming a mother is an invitation to descend and be changed, as is perimenopause. It is when we become aware of the gift of descent that we can hear our soul’s calling. And so integration needs to happen, not unlike a plant medicine journey. Having a ceremony on the other side can also be really empowering, because rites of passage are meant to be greeted and witnessed upon the return. Seeing each person as a unique template with different needs and paths is part of village tending, for both receiver and honouree.

Where do we return to after perimenopause?

Motherhood and menopause follow on arc. Becoming a mother is a deep initiation. It can re open past wounds and is the death of something as you are becoming something new. Moving through perimenopause offers a transformation because we alchemize our shadow parts in order to integrate us and make us whole. Those hot flashes are your body’s call to action. That rage is reclaiming your full expanse of feelings. That brain fatigue is making room for your own creations.

Motherhood is at the beginning of our midlife and marks the bridge between the first half and second half of life. It can be a decent journey, but it is definitely an initiation. Not all rites of passage have a descent, but all decent mark a right of passage. Perimenopause is just after the arc and is a new descent that offers us a reclaiming of our own life and not just the roles we play. Each blood rite acts as an initiation to deepen into self.

Menarche = be continue the maternal line
Sexual Awakening = be devoured and pleasure
Mother = vessel for life
Menopause = be a wise elder

So what is the time in-between? This is the wet, impressionable Clay Time to deeper into truth. Perimenopause is the compost time to clear the path and the one chance to come into self. The second half of life is our gift to embody life learnings.

I’m so grateful that i studied human development in my undergrad degree. It focused on developmental stages and transformation literacy. When we can orient to what is changing, accept what is no longer, and build resources for this dysregulating time, we can embrace the unfolding. As Jessie Harrold shares, this allows us to eventually emerge filled with power and potential. Similar to adolescence and matrescence, this is the time to move through what Jane Hardwicke Collings has called Sageessence. This is the process of becoming a sage. That means, we need to integrate this identity into the rest of who we are. We need to weave the previous versions of ourselves into a new tapestry. We cannot go back to who we were before.

Before that can happen, we do need to slow down and grieve those old parts, paths, and identities. They shaped us even though they are no longer needed. We may carry disappointment about what didn’t get to happen, regret for what we didn’t try in time, and that needs to be held in order to be metabolized.

One way to help us embrace this new stage is to learn more about the spiritual aspect of transformation and learn some new skills and gather resources. This is not just a time for strength classes – we also need to remember what our calling is, what our magic is, what our passion is. We cannot have this wisdom without the embodied learning process. This fast fashion culture is making us lazy versions of our truest potential.

We can look back on Inanna’s story and see its relevance to the transformative power of menopause. Maybe perimenopause is the dark underworld cave of remembering and reclaiming that needs to happen. Maybe it’s not unlike the chrysalis of transformation that needs to happen in order to become more truly ourselves.

We have entered an age of quick fixes. We also exist at a time of humanity that doesn’t revere our elders or mentors. We focus on the symptom and supplement without also seeing the transformative power of surrender. We have learned to want the answer without the depth and the transformation without the sacrifice. This leaves us unchanged and uninitiated. A full ascent and rising doensn’t work that way. Sorry, not sorry.

I love working with women in midlife: Who you’re becoming now is born from incorporating your wild self with your soul’s essence. Therapy and friendships that have the ability to go deep are a lot like in Inanna’s underworld journey. They can go deep and also be a safe, brave space to be witnessed in the depths. This helps us feel less alone so that when we do come back up we’re not alone.

I want to go to the depths of your sorrow so it can be alchemized as a place for healing.

I want to accompany you to the descent so that we can come through it and experience the ascension of our full self.

I want your body to feel safe enough in my presence so that you can share those things that you have told no one, so that you can experience the felt sense of the missing experience of connection, trust and being understood.