It is only the courageous woman who can successfully traverse around the medical industry's threats to her continued well-being and look into herself and her life for the better management of this major transition time. Yet one more in her reproductive life. Little exists in the way of positive modeling or acceptable ritual for this transition. Abandonment issues loom large and unspoken at this time. The drug industry sells subtly the promise of eternal youth and beauty, yet their products are either worthless or ultimately poisonous over the long term. Science flounders on this issue and myth takes over. And in the myth, particularly in the US culture, the aging woman disappears. This is a threatening cosmology.

Keep in mind also that a prior generation of US women were surgically castrated at the rate of 65%. Presently this is down to 30% but this is still unheard of in any other country in the world. And according to WHO statistics, the US woman is getting unhealthier and unhealthier over the last few decades which coincided with this surgical rate and massive use of hormone drugs as "replacement."

One other bit of failed science about menopause is this myth that the typical age is 51. Many women find that menopause can happen from age 35 on and that for their genetics this is normal, not premature. This age 51 is misleading and particularly tragic for women who innocently delayed pregnancy decisions thinking they would remain fertile into their 40's. Too little important information on this topic, too much taboo and myth. But this new generation of women and the internet is starting to change all of this.

Menopause should be a powerful dream symbol, and it is one that has a cultural overlay that needs to be discussed more thoroughly. But in the final analysis, it is only one more of life's transition times, taken one day at a time. There is no immediate bright line shift. The menopause (non-surgical) process takes years to complete. It does demand change as it is a midlife readjustment time and a message to inventory all aspects of one's life that are no longer working and to shed them and reprogram for a new and freer history. It has been said to be the time to deal with unfinished business. The reward is a deepening sense of autonomy, but in the beginning this independence can be unfamiliar territory for many women. And that is the mythic transformation - when the  choice has not been made to retreat backwards into a drug dependent simulation of a more immature hormonal state.