She brings her past into this cave and when she leaves the cave she will be facing her future. Her mind begins to grow fuzzy as her routine bearings are lost, but a new fertile ground is being plowed up as the old clogs of weeds are plowed under in her fading memory of the world outside. What happens in this cave can not be predicted, but it is a safe, nurturing place for her to sort out the baggage she brought in, discard what she no longer wants to carry into the future and repack carefully the items she knows now she never wants to part with. 

        After all it is only a cave. It has a beginning and an end and many, many women have gone before her. Nor will she be the last one to make this passage.  She too will leave a little of herself behind to help guide the new ones whose time it is to also enter. She is alone, but many are there with her.  Each too, alone, but together. The path from beginning to end is common, but the sides trips and detours inside the cave are unique to each traveler.  But this much we know. The cave has a beginning and an end. And it has 33 pitfalls. Maybe a few less, maybe a few more. But by now the women on the outside can confirm there have been no new obstacles added to the original 33. 

        Often the woman emerging on the other side of the cave carries a far lighter burden and has only just the supremely functional tools for effective living left in her suitcase. And these now are no longer seen as burdens to carry. They are the tools for life itself. The woman emerges free from obligations others gave her and carries now only those tasks that she herself alone has chosen to carry on into the future. But inside the cave there are still many tests before she can get her new bearings and leave out the other side. 

        It is dark and she has not yet learned new ways of seeing things and there are these "33" possible hurdles to cross and she can stumble blindly into all of them or slow down and find a new way of negotiating around the new circumstances and find a path, on her own terms, around the 33 pitfalls.  Sometimes potions and pills serve to help this dark passage; some times not.  She is reminded that she is not entirely alone inside this tunnel cave as there are the echoes still in there of all the other women for over a million years who have gone on before her, ready to answer and urge her to go on. Or, urge her to stay and keep them company if in fact they got stuck in one of the 33 pits themselves. 

        But usually it is the voices of the women outside of the cave who will keep her going forward along with her own newly unburdened voice and spirit and a slowly emerging, shining light that will tell a her when its time to leave the Men-O-Pause cave.  She will know on her own when this time has come as she now knows how to listen to her own mind, body and spirit. 

        Her senses, her intellect, her emotions and her intuition are now all working in harmony and balance with her body. Only then can the climb back out of the cave be negotiated. If she is unbalanced or still weighted down with too many of the burdens she brought into the cave, she will need to stay and rebalance the load.  But the cave is warm and full of wisdom and she will find a way to surrender her burdens in the still darkness to lighten and balance her load so she can now go forward. : And once she has left, never in her life will she be able to walk past this cave and not make a silent offering for all she learned while she was there inside. And no men are allowed for it is the Men-o-Pause Cave. 

        Story time...........  ;-) 

Joan L. 

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