From Carol T.  Oct 11, 97 
 Since this is billed as a work in progress, I won't give an in-depth  critique. That would be unfair, and besides, I'm probably not a good audience for this particular effort, both because I don't go in for  warm, fuzzy, meditative stuff and because I don't have any symptoms  of menopause at this point (I'm 49), except that my periods have become irregular. My mother didn't go thru any cave, and I hope I don't either. 

 First of all, I don't particularly care for the cave analogy. The  only caves I've been in have been cool, not warm as in the story,  and if they hadn't been well lit, I'd never have gone inside, as  I'm slightly claustrophobic and hate pitch darkness. Secondly, I  find the story paranoid in tone, enough so IMO to warrant the criticism it received from a certain sector. The last sentence is perhaps the most telling: "And no men are allowed for it is the  Men-O-Pause Cave." 

 All I can say is if you currently have a man in your life and choose not to take him on this passage, then don't be surprised if you don't find him waiting for you on the other side. It may be well to remember that not all of us will experience menopause as a dark limbo (or hellhole or whatever) and that (one way or another),  we're not going to lose our libido or our interest in men. I can tell you from experience that no matter how unlikely it may seem, there'll be some other woman out there (and not just the young chicks) waiting to nab your man while you ignore him in the egocentric depths of the cave. 

 Believe me, I have no intention at this point of losing what I have. Maybe this sets me apart as strange, but I have never had a woman friend. Most woman don't seem to have anything interesting to say--at least not the ones I've run into. Maybe I should get out more often, but that's neither here nor there. As it stands,  the only person who's ever understood me and accepted me as I am, warts and all, is a man, and I would certainly never consider going anywhere he couldn't follow. 

 On 12 Oct. 97 02:25:24 GMT, Carol wrote: 

 I don't have any symptoms of menopause at this point (I'm 49), except that my periods have become irregular. My mother didn't go thru any cave, and I hope I don't either.

  First of all, I don't particularly care for the cave analogy. The only caves I've been in have been cool, not warm as in the story, and if they hadn't been well lit, I'd never have gone inside, as I'm slightly claustrophobic and hate pitch darkness. 

 Secondly, I find the story paranoid in tone, 

 How come? Will you give me a specific example? 

The last sentence is perhaps the most telling: "And no men are allowed for it is the Men-O-Pause Cave." 

All I can say is if you currently have a man in your life and choose not to take him on this passage,

 It may be well to remember that not all of us will experience menopause as a dark limbo (or hellhole or whatever) and that (one way or another), we're not going to lose our libido or our interest in men.

 can tell you from experience that no matter how unlikely it may seem, there'll be some other woman out there (and not just the young  chicks) waiting to nab your man while you ignore him in the  egocentric depths of the cave.

Believe me, I have no intention at this point of losing what I have.

Maybe this sets me apart as strange, but I have never had a  woman friend. Most woman don't seem to have anything interesting  to say--at least not the ones I've run into. 

 Maybe I should get out more often, but that's neither here nor there. As it stands,  the only person who's ever understood me and accepted me as I am,  warts and all, is a man, and I would certainly never consider  going anywhere he couldn't follow. 

I suspect that there is some confusion and apparent disagreement here because, as you so reasonably say, you are not yet really a  perimenopausal woman. Since you have not experienced anything of the  "cave" that you can relate to, you must take a very practical literal view of it. Nobody wants to exclude men socially or emotionally - but  physiologically it is unavoidable. There is no *opportunity* for  choice. 

 From Cheryl: Sunday Oct 12, 97 
 Pat, I agree with all that you have said to Carol.  I wonder if Carol has had much pain in her life to this point.  For me the cave represents the pain of  menopause as much as the transformation process.  True, a cave is cold and  dank.  I've been in one - very claustrophobic (not me, but the feeling while in there).  Total darkness without the lantern and always the imagined  crawly things which might be waiting.  It's the stuff nightmares are made of.  Pain can do things like what the cave does.  It can sensually deprive and the sear of pain can actually feel cold sometimes.  Women experience  pain which men can only imagine.  When going through three natural childbirths, my husband was there beside me, but he could not know how it  felt.  He was there, but he wasn't inside the pain with me.  PMS is another  womanly pain with many facets.  We have heard some women call peri-menopause  the worse PMS of their lives.  If a woman has never had menstrual pain,  endometriosis pain, ovulatory pain, PMS, childbirth, or some other  experience of chronic womanly pain, I can see how she might not understand this cave simile or the idea that men will never know or be a part of it.  I  would never wish such an experience on anyone, but it seems to be an inevitable part of our lives on this earth. 

 There aren't many men who will sacrifice their own good night's sleep to sit up with their insomniac peri-menopausal  wife.  There's a lonely pain - the silence of the empty, yet screaming night and the frustration as one tries to go back to sleep or tries to stay awake to use the extra time, while  *being* in that state of seeming suspended animation.  Carol, take your man  into that dark night with you, if you dare.  Turn all of the lights on and have him sit there with you until it passes, see if you can make him stay  with you in that place when you get there - especially when he has to get up and go to work in the morning, and you will probably also have to go to work too and work that next day with the pain of not enough sleep the night before. 

 But, insomnia is not a good example because men can get that symptom also.  A better one is the bleeding.  So many of us have experiences with excessive bleeding and flooding.  There is the mental pain of seeing one's seeming life blood just pouring out and no way to stop it.  Sometimes this is accompanied by physical pain, sometimes not.  There are the constant trips to the doctor's office and the changes in medication and the tests to see what is causing it and the decisions of what to do about it.  You can drag  your man to the doctor's office with you, if he will go, and show him the  blood you've lost, if he will look, but he will never know how this feels.  It is a womanly journey and thank heavens not all of us have to know this part of the trip. 

 Some women go through the "dark night of the soul" during their peri-menopause.  This is not an experience peculiar to women.  No man or woman who travels that route takes any other person with him/her.  If you  haven't yet had your spiritual desert followed by it's sweet springtime,  you might find yourself in the middle of it right along with peri-menopause.  Mental or spiritual depression by themselves can steal your very life.  Combine them with unremitting symptoms of peri-menopause and you can have a  woman with the real imperative to scream "leave me alone!".  There is no man  who can follow into that darkness. 

 Carol may be thinking she will depend on HRT to remove all of her symptoms  when they arrive.  Many women have found that they can delay their symptoms  by taking drugs.  They, of course, can't change the fact that they are no  longer reproductive or that they are aging.  They can hang on to what they can with hair color and face lifts and fanatical exercise and fad diets.  HRT may work for a while, but the changing endogenous hormone levels will let some of the symptoms show through and dosages will have to be adjusted  and prescriptions changed.  There is still see-sawing to get it right.  There is still the unknowing of what these drugs might be ultimately doing  and the constant hope that it will be okay.  What do men have that is comparable to this?  I know of nothing in their lives which is this complicated, bearing potential for such multifaceted pain and specific to  their gender.  They can sit beside you, but they will never know what it is like inside.... 

 On Sun, 12 Oct 1997, Cathe wrote: 
 On 12 Oct. 97 02:25:24 GMT, Carolwrote: 

 First of all, I don't particularly care for the cave analogy. The only caves I've been in have been cool, not warm as in the story,  and if they hadn't been well lit, I'd never have gone inside, as I'm slightly claustrophobic and hate pitch darkness.   .... 

  As the author of the MenoCave story, I disagree that a story needs  to be "accurate" as most myths are in no way "accurate" nor is religion.   But they do need to be universally accessible recognizing there is a culturally shared common denominator. 

  The cave is a metaphor for something dark and unknown but also  something that has limits and a perceived place of hibernation. In  revising the story recently, I described it as a "cave, more like a tunnel  really." But to me, with my artistic license allowed the author I liked  the ring of the title "Men-O-Pause Cave" over "Men-O-Pause Tunnel." My  thought was more of it being a place of retreat, but the concept of it being a tunnel and a passage more vividly connoting a beginning and an end is a far better image. 

  Also I do not see the Men-O-Pause Cave as a place where we reject men in our lives, but rather a place that is ours alone as it only can  be. The MenoCave, again as a metaphor is a place a woman goes to maybe only a few minutes during the day, or night during the insomnia hours, or a real retreat in real time. Mythic stories are not meant to be literal,  but they do have to be universal and to date I know of none, other than the stories of the Greek Goddess Hestia, that could serve as -healing-  stories. 

  We do have meno myths out there but as far as I am concerned they are not -healing- myths: you go crazy at meno; you become a victim of your  hormones at meno; you have to drug yourself at the first sign of a hot  flash; your female organs are worthless after meno and will only cause you  problems if you keep them; after 50 your risk of all disease goes up  requiring you to be constantly medically monitored; after meno you are estrogen deficient; artificial estrogen will keep you young; uncontrolled meno will drive away your partner and alienate your family; it is not okay  to show you are having a hot flash........ 

  If the thought of a cave sends someone into thoughts of  claustrophobia, then something deep  has been touched. I personally saw the cave as warm, dark and moist and recall the cave described in Dr. Jean  Shinoda Bolen's mid life book called "Crossing to Avalon" where she explored the sacred goddess sites in Europe and the US. 

  Sooooooo, as this is intended to be a collective story to touch the widest audience, let's just start by exploring the initial concept of  creating a -place- for this passage to occur, or if putting it in a  concrete place is wrong in the first place. The idea is that it is a metaphorical "place" that is different from our prior lives. And from listening to  stories here for over a year, I saw an early need was to  indicate that meno was going to be a -different- place, a place withunknown road marks, a place of confusion where normal bearing would be lost, a place where all the previous "rules" could get turned upside down, but a place that could become knowing, somewhat safe, possibly predictable, have generally recognized common denominators and would serve as a road map image for new initiates to the process. 

  In private I have gotten many letters from women new to meno who cried when they read the story and it helped them feel comfortable and they seemed to recognize a lot of the imagery. So it does touch someuniversal aspects, but the goal is to touch a lot.... but then because meno is so individual, and many things get tossed into meno that may notreally be meno, (is endometriosis really a meno problem? is excessive  bleeding really a meno problem? are fibroids really a meno problem? or  are these coincident with meno for some women but are not universal to the  understanding of the meno transition) 

  I am glad this story is getting discussed. I have revised it butit is now 3 pages and it will be a chore for me to type it into the  computer for posting. But let's just look at the basics of the outline of what we are trying to accomplish element by element. 

  This is a good discussion on the preliminary setting of the story  ...a cave... a tunnel ..a foreign country ...a trip to terra incognita  ...a closet in the back bedroom of your house ...a trip to the basement  ...the attic... the Menopause Attic where the clutter of the past is accumulated, where the crazy relatives are kept, where it is dark and full  of secrets from past owners .... 

  Again, I was moved to try and write this thing after it seemed  like we got so many posts from new women who were saying the same thing  ....I am scared and I am confused and I think I am going crazy.  I heard they were very vulnerable and alone and I wanted to find a way to tell a story to heal this sense of self-alienation right off the bat. The individual complexity of each person's unique meno journey can come later,  but right away I wanted to create a safe comfort zone where a new woman  could catch her breath and slow down and not be rushed into anything until she got her bearings and could extinguish a lot of the more damaging meno  myths that may have already become part  of her fears and her vulnerabilities. 

 From Laura Oct 12, 97 

 (Joan) If the thought of a cave sends someone into thoughts of claustrophobia,  then something deep  has been touched. 

 On Sun, 12 Oct 1997 10:36:38 -0700, Joan  wrote: 

Sooooooo, as this is intended to be a collective story to touch  the widest audience, let's just start by exploring the initial concept of  creating a -place- for this passage to occur, or if putting it in a  concrete place is wrong in the first place. The idea is that it is a  metaphorical "place" that is different from our prior lives. 

...(is endometriosis really a meno problem? is excessive  bleeding really  a meno problem? are fibroids really a meno problem? or  are these coincident with meno for some women but are not universal to the  understanding of the meno transition) 

 For myself, I would opt for  bleeding problems from whatever cause as one of the the challenges/pitfalls to be overcome  - a problem to be overcome in the best tradition of narrative. Hot flashes too - they have wonderful potential (dragons breath or whatever....) Both bleeding and hot flashes are very common even if not universal so should be significant to many people. 

 I am glad this story is getting discussed.

 But let's just look at the basics of the outline of  what we are trying to accomplish element by element.  This is a good discussion on the preliminary setting of the story  ...a cave... a tunnel ..a foreign country ...a trip to terra incognita  ...a closet in the back bedroom of your house ...a trip to the basement  ...the attic... the Menopause Attic where the clutter of the past is  accumulated, where the crazy relatives are kept, where is is dark and full  of secrets from past owners ....

 Here's mine - My cave is actually a collection of caves, joined by waterways (something like the potholes in the limestone of Derbyshire England where speleologists abound). 

  I see a party of women traveling happily down a creek riding the current in inner tubes. The creek goes into the first cave and runs into a whirlpool. Depending on which part of the whirlpool your tube  arrives in, you flow out into various branches of set of caves - you  might even be in a part which simply takes you half way round the whirlpool and funnels you out the other side - surprised but without visiting any of the other caves which contain challenges. Of course the view from the other side is different.... 

 Imagine a "roundabout' in the UK or a "traffic circle" in some parts of the states. Teehee it could be that too. Meno as an entrapment on a roundabout, initially unknowing of which exit to take, and even when you found out, being unable to cross the the other lanes of traffic to emerge. Round and round and round till at last....... (a bloody  collision, a steaming broken radiator hose, a tailback....) 

 Please explain how allegory can be accurate?  What do you mean by accurate? I am really not understanding what you are saying below.  A "story", as in the story of something which has happened, can be accurate in its detail, but allegory is by nature a device where nothing is as it seems.  All aspects are symbolic and have parallel or deeper meanings.  It is obvious to me that the cave story is an allegory.  The cave is not really a cave, but represents something entirely different.  It might represent the ignorance of the woman coming into menopause with no previous knowledge of what to expect.  It might represent the darkness of white nights.  It could also represent the disconnected feeling one has from cloudy thinking or from wanting to be alone.  The cave can represent the years one is in peri-menopause or the individual woman's body in which the menopause happens.  It can be many things to many different women.  For you the cave might be the confining pain you feel in your shoulder.  You are in the cave when you feel it and just want to get out, and there is no way out, but on through the darkness of unknowing what it is or when it will stop being there.  How do you make something which is so all encompassing (and this is a very good one!) as an allegory accurate?????