The Astrology of Menopause
Between the ages of 42 and 59 there is a revolution in
women’s lives that doctor’s call menopause. Astrologers have three names for
it: the Uranus Opposition around the age of 42, the Chiron Return at 51, and
the Second Saturn Return around 59. These three stages that span the entire
menopausal experience are the rites of passage into our wise woman years. Like
any journey they have their merciless moments of drama as well as quiet
epiphanies. But how might menopause be different if these times came with an
instruction manual like some of us received when we turned 13? “This is
menstruation! Welcome to Becoming a Woman.” How might it be different if we did
get a menopausal map?
Astrology offers us the closest thing to a wise woman’s
survival guide of these times that I’ve ever seen, although the links between
these three stages of menopause hasn’t been truly explored. I’m going to touch
on this huge subject and offer a few insights, although the exact timing of
these events is best explored with your own astrologer.
At the first stage of the Uranus Opposition we begin our journey by being slightly unnerved
and restless. The body’s electrical energy system begins to get reved
up---fired by new messages from our glandular system. Uranus rules the
electrical circuitry in our bodies, and the evolutionary purpose of Uranus is
to create change---our life opens up; we see new options and possibilities. Our
culture calls these years “peri-menopause” but astrologers see this as the time
when we begin to be more true to ourselves, and do things differently. We may
be shocked because repressed aspects of ourselves and long-forgotten dreams now
come forth and demand expression. The unconscious stirs as we hear ourselves
speak raw and out-spoken truths in a way that startles even us. This is the
same energy that makes us feel even sexier and stronger as we become serious
truth-tellers.
Peri-menopause is
powerful and underestimated, especially since it creeps us on us undetected.
It’s as if our internal “shit-detectors” are amped up, and we can smell a rat
or hear a lie a mile away. At this first entrance into the menopausal journey
it’s time to consciously make new plans, craft new intentions, de-clutter our
inner psyches and outer homes, and prepare for a new life. The Uranus
Opposition is the first call towards what the Jungian psychologists call
individuation; towards becoming who you truly are. Trying to maintain the
status-quo at this time is the worst thing one can do. Let this be your motto:
“Let’s do something different.”
As we move through our forties into menopause, it’s as if
we’re being stripped of the Teflon coating of hormonal agreeableness, as we’re
being catapulted into a time of intense honesty punctuated with times of
intense irritation.
