You have probably heard of the feminine archetypes of maiden, mother and crone but have you heard of the Maga? Maiden, Mother and Crone were created many years ago when women had babies at 15 and died at 45, so many never reached Menopause. Now that we live longer it has been understood that there is another major rite of passage that women go through in midlife, that is the Maga. This is the transition through midlife, through menopause to our crone years.
Maga is our Autumn season, our harvest season. Maiden is Spring, Mother is Summer and Crone is Winter. When you think about the seasons of our life and what we are doing in those years, that makes a lot of sense. In Autumn we reap the rewards of spring and summer growth, harvest crops to wind down for the winter. Trees in Autumn drop their leaves, they don’t need them anymore and they prepare to hibernate for winter before spring comes and they grow new leaves again. This is a good way to think about our midlife journey through midlife and perimenopause. In their book The Womens Wheel of Life, Elizabeth Davis and Carole Leonard break down archetypes into 12 sub types. The Maga season is represented Amazon, Matriarch and Sorcerous.
In Portuguese Maga means Sorcerous. She who practices Alchemy. Alchemy is transformation and Maga time is a very transformative time for most women. Think of the alchemy and energy that is required by the earth to create gemstones, the chaos that ensures when a star is being created in the universe. Think of the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. Maga season is a time that may have all of these qualities. Where a woman learns to love all the parts of herself, dark and light. Where she can blossom into the full feminine expression of herself. Jane Hardwicke Collinges has introduced us to the concept of Maga which she learned from her teacher Dr. Cedar Barstow.
It is a time for review and reflection in our life. To review where we have over abundance in our life. Maybe there are aspects of ourselves, patterns of behaviour that were developed in childhood years as a strategy for protection or survival that are not going to serve us well going forward.
Many women birth and create businesses or new work in this time period. They feel a strong yearning to do work that has greater meaning and purpose for them, work that has a broader community impact. The great thing is they have the energy to do this. As their menstrual cycle starts to wane and finish, all the energy that went into that every month and was lost during menstruation or went into creating babies, is now available to use. It is not surprising that we see so many Maga Women who have an enhanced sense of vitality about themselves. It is time to harvest your knowledge and work experience gained so far, to create something for yourself in the second part of your life.
It is time to review and reflect your choices in how you exercise and care for your body. As you grow and shape your life through this time, your body may be giving you some strong signals in the form of pain and discomfort. Soothing emotional distress with wine and chocolate is not going to help in the long term. That just gives your nervous system a quick hit. We need to keep moving our body but we don’t have the energy we had in our twenties or thirties. As our hormones decrease, collagen production does too. You see the impact on your skin. Your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments they need collagen to help repair at night. They also need good quality sleep. This means you need to choose wisely, exercise that honours where your body is now.
How long does Maga season take? It will take however long it needs to take. We can’t predict the onset of menstruation, it happens slowly over time; we cannot predict how long labor will take in birth and the same goes for menopause arriving. There is no magic pill to fix us in this time. You have to take a big picture view.
The little nudges that you are being given by your body. When we ignore them, say like hanging onto our youth, things start to happen that feel uncomfortable. This is difficult when we live in a culture, particularly in the western world, that is obsessed with youth. Where age is not respected and seemingly older women become invisible. You can change this by choosing to embrace it and choosing pleasure in your life. What brings you pleasure?
Where can I start my review? If you took a systemic view of your life and came from the bigger picture, looking at the whole and parts of it you might start to see some patterns. Look from multiple perspectives; emotional, physical, mental, sexual. What can you see? Look at the tapestry of your life.
Often this is a time when women want to spend a lot of reflective time on their own reviewing their life and being supported by other women in sisterhood. These are both vitally important. The alone time creates a space for us to really get to know ourselves and have a relationship with ourselves. The sisterhood is important because humans are social creates who need the connections with others. We all need connection and community, where we feel understood and appreciated. We need other wise women, the crones in our life, to help us through this path, through story telling. To help us understand how we can embody our wisdom to understand our passions and purpose. To help us understand how we can serve our communities.
If you would like to explore Archetypes further, I can recommend reading the Womens Wheel of Life. If you are interested in reading more about perimenopause transition, I can highly recommend “The Wisdom of Menopause” by Christiane Northup and “New Menopausal Years the wise woman way” by Susan Weed. Both offer a multi- perspective view of this transition.
If you are interested in the hormone and collagen relationship you can click on the menu above to go to my podcasts. Episode 2 with Sarah Smith is about physical changes to our body in midlife and we talk about this.