“When women maintain a silent /passive response,

as a default setting within the paradigm of the overculture, the rich emotional

life that acts as a wise guide, settles deeply into the archaeological layers of

the psyche. Incrementally these daily compromises marginalise the untended

emotional inner community.

 

The great SHE /intelligence, connection to the Oneness, that lies beneath all

the layers, needs expression. An anarchy of emotions can erupt when the

authentic soul tries to free herself of unhealthy cultural and hereditary

accoutrement.

 

As women start to take responsibility for their own story, they liberate

dismembered soul parts, not only of their own hereditary patterns, but

the inherited cultural belief systems, and in this space something new is born.”

 

~ from “Bone Woman Calls:

Peri menopause as Shamanic Dismemberment”

Yia Alias, Womens Mystery E Journal.

​

Who is Bone Woman?

 

Bone Woman is a powerful force/archetype that I experienced from deep

in the ground of this ancient landscape. She came bursting through my body

/mind /emotions, heralding the beginning of my peri menopausal journey in

my 42nd year, 6th Septennial (seven year cycle). Her voice echoed loudly into

the core of my being: Let Go! Let Go!

 

My comforting role as a breast feeding mother was ending, I experienced great grief at weaning my last child. The new me had not yet been dreamed up, my old pre-mothering model no longer inspired. I had to surrender and trust this frightening space of the void. Out of this nadir emerged old traumas, memories of childhood, suffering, abuse, all those

things that had been sublimated so I could cope. They demanded my attention.

 

Feelings of shame, marginalisation, disgust, insecurity, fear, doubt, rose out of this dark space like forgotten shades needing expression. I was unmasked, stripped down, my concepts of beauty and the values that were enfleshed by the over-culture were stripped from me. I was too ill to eat and almost died from pneumonia. My metaphoric skin was scraped away revealing Bone.

 

There was no distraction great enough to hide behind. Like the myth of Innana, where she descends into the underworld and is hung on butcher’s hooks and left to rot, I was left bereft of identity.

​

It became my mission to re story MY Self, to enflesh myself with things that had meaning, that had truth, sacredness and substance. I did this through ritual and dance, consciously farewelling the old and calling in the yet unknown version of me. A new identity started birthing, and with this birthing came aging. And with aging came eldership and new responsibilities.

 

Consciously Evolving Eldership

 

It has been over twenty years since the beginnings of peri-menopause, the year that Bone Woman called me to wake up. She heralded in a new beginning and set the stage for the slow and sometimes painful journey of menopause and into early eldership.

 

In my work now as a counsellor/mentor I witness a version of this story in most of my clients journeying through the threshold of the 6th septennial, ages 42 – 49, which aligns for most with the peri menopausal/autumn season of a woman's life.

 

And like autumn there is not only harvesting, but there is clearing and pruning work that needs doing so that new growth can incubate during the dark winter months to emerge strong in the coming seasons.

 

Whats In the Harvest Basket?

 

This is a process I offer to support women to consciously journey into their biography to tend, transmute and integrate their Life Journey. This work is inspired by the Biographical Living Way work of Karl-Heinz Finke, anthroposophist, and the Personal Journey work of Raphael Locke, a leader in the transpersonal movement in Australia.

 

This process is divided into seven year sections called septennials. As every cell changes over a period of seven years, so too, do the physical, emotional and mental states evolve. Whats In the Harvest Basket? allows one the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of self. To integrate past experience (often forgotten) and to recognise any patterns of life depleting attitudes and belief systems, and in so doing, invites one to re script oneself. To reflesh ones own Bone woman with values that resonate from deep Truth and Love.

 

Despite the hardening values of this power and money driven culture, the fact that we have access to health care, water and nutrition means we are living longer now. And the autumn post menopausal time can be as Germaine Greer says “long golden mild and warm...” With this comes responsibility, a responsibility that grows out of being “Boss of Self” as

Minmia indigenous Wiradjuri law/lore woman says. The personal wound and the collective wound are one. I see the process of conscious eldering as an expression of the shamanic journeyer who like the mystic, tends and transmutes old stories to bring healing back to community.

 

The Power of Bone Woman Refleshed

 

This feminine presence who expresses as shamanic mystic and conscious journeyer restores herself on her own terms. And in her restoration, she becomes a forerunner in the shift of a new global, collective consciousness. This consciousness has the power to transform the wreckage inflicted over aeons; power over and disrespect of women and this planet. She

is a transformer, a processor of our dormant wounds, a truth speaker and she bears her scars as her adornment. She becomes a midwife of the soul supporting others on their

journeys.

 

Bone Woman Refleshed has the ability to birth and support new ideas, new concepts and becomes a designer for a future that is unfolding with every breath. 

Women are awakening,

The groundswell has burst the banks …

 

She says No to the sanitising of the human experience! No to the disrespect of the planet!

No to the filth of pollution! No to violation! No to rape! No to humiliation!

What a blessing it is to be present in these times to witness this shift.

The power of the Divine Feminine will not be held back any longer. She is here!

Lets collectively press Reflesh!

 

In Love Yia Alias.