Just what do you mean…The Seasons of a Woman’s Life?

Each transitional stage in a woman’s life can be mapped out like the seasons. Every part of life is sacred in it’s own way, to be cherished and enjoyed. There are ways to fight against who we are or are becoming in each transition, and there are ways to nurture and feed ourselves to a healthier, happier time.

Spring – Finds the girl becoming a young woman. Her body changes, becoming more lush, shedding its boyish figure for softer, rounder curves. That is the outward appearance of the transition. But inside there is so much happening! Hormones become triggered for the first time, emotions run rampant, desires and interests change, life takes on new meaning. For the first time the young woman must think about the fact that her fertility has awakened! This is usually called puberty.

Summer – By now the young woman’s body has filled out and matured into the blossom of full womanhood. This is the time period many become pregnant. But to be in this stage a woman need not have children! A woman’s body again has undergone a change….or really a refining of what began in Spring (Puberty). There is now a true fullness and ripeness to the figure and form that her body taken. Now is when the nurturing of herself and others truly begins.

Fall – The dreaded season of fall….hot flashes, night sweats, emotional upheaval, and all the other horrors of peri-menopause and menopause begin. Again the body is in transition. It is leaving the period of fertility behind, adapting to drops in hormonal levels, coping with loses (both emotional, and physical). Children leave home and leave the nest empty…..husbands are in mid-life crisis and leave home for someone younger….parents have aged and pass onto the next level of existence, leaving us behind! But this can be a wonderful time of blessings, it does not all have to be “bad.” It can also be a period of expanded awareness and greater extension of self to others.

Winter – This transition is begun in retrospect. We look back on the last year, find that it has been a full year since our last menses, and discover that menopause has come and gone, we are now post-menopausal. This is the final transition before death….which can be 20, 30, 40 years into the future! This is a time when the wise blood stays within, where we find ourselves positioned to be arbiters, guides, teachers, and healers to the fullest extent because our bodies no longer make the demands upon us it did earlier in life! We are at last free to explore and nurture ourselves fully. It is not an end but another beginning!

© Karol Thunder Rowe