The Call

“Go out in the woods, go out. If you don’t go out in the woods nothing will ever happen and your life will never begin.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

At one time or another in their life, most women will receive the Call. Right now there are countless women in the world receiving it, no matter what cultural, religious, or socio-economic background. However, here’s the thing: the Call isn’t a one-time only event, a cold caller that we can reject followed by a swift blocking of the number or ignoring the doorbell when it’s someone trying to sell us something. It’s a series of unfolding moments that insidiously creep into our lives that eventually utterly blindside us and leave us questioning our very existence. One minute we’re nonchalantly stepping out into our maiden era with a zest for life and a generous measure of invincibility, only the next to catch our reflection in the mirror and see the longing in the eyes of a woman whose life is passing her by. The list of hopes and dreams that she had etched in her heart forgotten, and un-lived.

You see, the Call begins with the slow rise of dissatisfaction, a deep sense of unease, the frustration and irritation of a woman who was once quick to smile, now even quicker to frown. Something, somewhere, in the deepest recess of our being is intrinsically ‘off’, and we have no idea why. Our joy for life becomes reduced to ashes, and there’s barely a flicker of flame where once there was raging passion. We feel short-changed, disappointed, regretful, rageful, overwhelmed, and tired. Bone tired. But this isn’t just any old existential angst, its existential angst with purpose, and it’s brought along an accountability buddy with it: the soul. Now, undoubtedly the soul has a habit of knocking at various points throughout our lives, but there’s no other time that its most prevalent and persistent than during midlife, for this is a pivotal moment in our personal evolution where the decisions we make, or fail to make, will determine how we live out the second half of life. Perimenopause doesn’t only gift us with a second round of puberty (as if the first time wasn’t bad enough), but also the opportunity to heal what we didn’t get the chance to during our first phase of adulthood. The soul also comes calling around this time, with the intention of wanting to know what the hell we’re going to do with our long-forgotten hopes and dreams and, where possible, get us back on track. Unlike the caller we can block or the door-to-door salesman we can ignore, the soul won’t give up or shut up. It knows that our acknowledgment of its existence is the difference between a life half-lived, and one in which we thrive.

The brilliant Jungian Analyst and writer, James Hollis, wrote that the first half of our lives are all about becoming who we need to be to fit in and survive in the world[1]. As women, we give so much to this period. We carve out an education to appease our parents, mould ourselves to relationships, and play the role of the picture-perfect mother who has everything under control, all whilst bending ourselves backwards to adhere to unrealistic societal expectations. Some women sacrifice their careers for motherhood, or so that their partners can achieve theirs, their own gifts and talents left discarded and collecting dust. In contrast, some women sacrifice motherhood for careers - relationships too - only to realise a little too late that there’s an emptiness, a yearning, they’re now unable to fill. Of course, others try and have it all and as a result arrive at midlife utterly spent for their efforts. And what about the women who spend the first half of life keeping small for fear of being too much, or even just being seen? Numerous women traverse this time forgoing the things that once dearly mattered to them, but those things are never truly forgotten, not really, because the soul is constantly taking stock. The dreams that are too painful to relive, our first choices, our plan A’s, all get sidelined along with every single part of ourselves that we were conditioned to believe were wrong or unacceptable, into the shadow, the forgotten wasteland of the psyche. We have grown up and shown up in ways that have rewarded us with acceptance and validation, for anything other than that would be annihilating and yet, in a desperate bid to belong and to survive, we ironically end up annihilating ourselves anyway. Ordinarily this would be soul destroying, but the soul isn’t about to let that happen. Its job is to ensure we fulfil the inherent purpose we each possess. This is why it we get the Call. And this is why it’s so damn persistent, not to mention painful. To reject the Call is to reject happiness, fulfilment, connection, even life itself.

Arrival at midlife can sometimes feel as though something seemingly changed overnight when in fact it’s been a gradual series of small corrosive moments that has brought us to our knees. The soul comes calling during the time of perimenopause through to menopause, when our children have left home, or perhaps dealing with serious illness. Its voice reverberates in the pain of break-ups and bereavements, the shattered hope of a career once dreamed of, or in grieving a body that doesn’t look or work quite like it used to. The unease and uncertainty that we experience at this stage is immense. “Who even am I?” becomes an unwelcome daily mantra and our get up and go has long got up and left. We’re depleted from a life thus far of giving to everyone else and living in a constant state of response, that we don’t even have time to think about the life we once wished for, let alone do anything about it. We’re worn-out and we’re disillusioned. However, the soul doesn’t give up that easily. We can justify our excuses, and rightly so, but that nagging unease in the pit of our bellies will forever continue until we choose to answer the Call.

Hollis speaks of midlife - what he calls ‘the middle passage’ - as the discovery that we’ve been walking around in shoes that no longer fit[2]. No wonder we feel so uncomfortable! The underlying sense of unrest, the anxiety, the impatience, these are all signs that we have outgrown something significant. That something significant is the previous version of ourselves. Our soul is desperately trying to communicate that to us in the only way it knows how: through our bodies. Physical sensation is the language of the soul. Every shift in nervous system state – a flutter in the belly or tightening of the chest – is the soul speaking. Any discomfort we experience is the soul’s way of bringing us to attention. It’s calling us to fulfil a higher plan, a deeper purpose. One that we almost don’t dare admit for numerous fears including not being enough, not being understood, or not being able to accomplish it. But to heed the call of the soul is to bring us back in alignment with our destiny – the very reason we were put here on this Earth. The soul calls us back to a path which ultimately rewards us with a reclamation of the Self. And this Self is always seeking Its expression through us. Hollis teaches that during midlife we’re faced with three key tasks: to keep our appointment with destiny and what life wants to do through us, to understand how we block our own way, and to follow the numinous, the ever-present mystery that is contained within life[3].

Four years ago, I unknowingly found myself knee-deep in the midlife transition. I was in the throes of perimenopause, my only son had unexpectedly moved away, I was re-evaluating my long-term career as a yoga teacher, I had lost a beloved friend to cancer and, less than two weeks later, I miscarried during what had been my last attempt at motherhood. It’s safe to say I felt disoriented, alone, and hadn’t a clue who I was anymore. I had also recently married, and it was during our honeymoon overlooking the moody waters of Loch Duich in the Scottish Highlands that I realised, for the first time, that I wasn’t in fact lost, but was being held within a void. I had taken a long, heartbreaking, and arduous journey, and like Inanna’s descent to the underworld, I had been slowly stripped of everything that had held meaning for me: my son, motherhood, my most cherished friendship, my youthfulness, and my teaching identity. I came to understand the void as a period of rest and gestation, and the dark as a profoundly safe liminal space where the old had fallen away to make way for the next chapter of my life. I discovered that there is indeed a creative potency hidden in endings. I slowly learned to accept where I was, in a strange no-woman’s land, and poured my heart into the practice of nondual Tantra, sitting in devotion each day to Kali and watching her wondrous ways unfold throughout my life. I began to see the stripping back not as destructive, but purposeful. Just as the Earth decays each autumn and lies dormant until the spring, this exact same symbolism was being mirrored within my own life, and the lives of women all around me. After a serendipitous Tantrik pilgrimage to the Himalayan foothills in India, I unexpectedly found myself on a year-long training to become a Priestess of Magdalene[4] and little by little things began to fall into place. Through studying to become a counsellor and my existing knowledge of women’s cyclical wisdom I began to understand that we don’t transition and heal through a rigid and linear process, but one that is fluid, dynamic, and spiralic in nature. We ebb and flow in and out on a spiral journey of self-discovery. This continuous flux skilfully reveals a further layer for integration every time we find ourselves on the path and, in doing so, the opportunity to reclaim yet another aspect of who we are.

In the wonderful realm of Jungian psychology, Jung taught that the centre of gravity shifts during midlife from the ego to the Self[5]. This axis shift is how we go from coasting along in our everyday lives somewhat content, somewhat not, to full blown discontent and losing our sense of meaning. The flow of our libidos (psychic energy) stagnates, and without a map to navigate this time, so do we. As women, our psychological processes are fundamentally cyclical in nature, as are our bodies. Science has finally caught up with eastern philosophical systems, which have always held the belief that the body and mind are one inherently woven and integrated coherent system. Our unique feminine systems cycle with the moon and the tides, the weather and the seasons. For equilibrium to reign, our energy must be able to flow in and out in its own intuitive alignment. When this energy stagnates, such as during the midlife transition, we are left faced with a stark choice: to heed the Call and embark upon the journey, willing to move through the discomfort and discover all that is still waiting to be revealed about ourselves along the way, or to remain stuck. Choosing to stay where we are is undoubtedly comfortable, on the one hand, but equally as uncomfortable on the other. The concept of comfort zones is characteristically paradoxical: we find safety in remaining who and as we are, but we also pay a dear price for it. Remember, as the soul’s job is always to reorient us to that appointment with destiny and what life wants to do through us, those feelings of discontent and stuckness will remain, unless we take the Call. It’s a harsh truth, but we cannot bargain with the soul. Regardless of whether we’re a mother, a career woman, in a romantic partnership, or not, the soul comes knocking for us all. Without exception.

The midlife passage is a powerful threshold moment of awakening. We are neither maiden or crone, perhaps we have never experienced motherhood, or we are empty-nesters, and we are not youthful (at least, not by society’s standards), but neither are we old. The word ‘Queenager’ is gaining traction within common vernacular, but what does it mean to be one? Whilst there is most definitely a huge element of sovereignty to be gained during the midlife transition, how do we find that amongst the onslaught of turbulent hormones, relational challenges, and general state of disconnect?

Culturally, there are many customs throughout the world that view the midlife transition as a sacred rite of passage, from the post-agricultural goddess worshipping traditions of India, the Asante and Akan nations of West Africa, to the Diné (Navajo) First Nation people of North America. Not to mention contemporary pagan and goddess focused spiritualities, many of which have their roots in much older Celtic or palaeolithic fertility cults, or practices of womb rites such as those found in the Magdalene and Gnostic traditions. The common thread that unites them all is their deep reverence of the sacred feminine, and their mutual belief that when a woman reaches midlife and moves through menopause, she steps fully into her power. In the Shakta (specifically Shakti worshipping) lineage of Tantra, a woman isn’t traditionally initiated until she is in her fifth decade of life because it’s only then that her Shakti has matured through various life transitions and threshold moments such as birth, motherhood, sexuality, death, and ageing. Whichever way you are spiritually inclined, the midlife transition can be considered a paradoxically destructive, yet beautiful moment of revelation for women. Our task here is to be able to hold what Jung called the ‘tension of opposites’ – opposing feelings and experiences - until a third possibility arises and, in this case, it’s a new, integrated version of the feminine Self. This beautifully mirrors the symbolism of birth – death – rebirth which has been held in our collective psyche for aeons.

In nearly every indigenous, pagan, Celtic, and goddess-worshipping tradition, initiation and rites of passage have formed an integral part of their way of life, providing meaning for the transitions we navigate at the different developmental stages. From observing a young woman’s shift from childhood to maidenhood with her first bleed at menarche, to celebrating the wisdom of the elder whose bleed is no more, honouring these psychological, biological, and spiritual landmarks helps us to find the latent meaning contained within them. In the Tantrik traditions, it’s believed that our shakti flows in a downward motion from the crown of our heads to the womb, via the essence of soma.[6] This flow provides the sustenance for our menstrual cycle. As soma reduces and eventually stops at menopause, our shakti is then retained in the wisdom centres: the womb, heart, third eye, and the crown. At this stage, it is said that our yoni[7]becomes a tirtha[8] for our expanded consciousness. At menopause our natural rhythm ceases to flow outwards and instead spirals inwards, which is why menopausal women are most suited for deeper rites of initiation. A woman with her shakti contained, is truly a powerful force to behold!

Women were never meant to settle for anything less than extraordinary. In the same way that an acorn contains all the potential to become an oak tree, we too enter this world with an unlimited amount of dormant psychic power that awaits activation. I see women all around me settling or dimming their light, their gifts unused and their creativity stifled. A woman who doesn’t allow her libido to flow freely stagnates and her wild, intuitive nature becomes buried under a never-ending to-do list and “things-we-must-do-for-everyone-else”. And so, the cycle of discontent – or even misery – continues. The Call comes to us at midlife to counteract this. If we reframe how we perceive the Call we will see that it is, in fact, a necessary inconvenience, a blessing in disguise. We might be mid-way through our lives but there is a whole lot of woman inside of us still waiting to be expressed.

[1] Hollis, James. The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, 1993

[2] Hollis, James. A Life of Meaning, 2023. The concept of walking around in shoes that are not right for us was originally attributed to Carl Jung.

[3] Hollis, James. The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife, 1993

[4] A Priestess of Magdalene is a woman who is trained in the art of embodying the divine feminine mysteries. My lineage is the mystical Desert Rose tradition which views Mary Magdalene as the divine feminine and Yeshua, the divine masculine.

[5] Jung, C.G. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Collected Works Vol. 8, 1960

[6] Sanskrit: soma – lunar nectar

[7] Sanskrit: yoni – womb/womb space

[8] Sanskrit: tirtha – pilgrimage site