It sounds like a sentence
4 October 2026I'm 38 years old, and many of the women around me are about my age. Women in our late 30s and early 40s. And what I find is that we are afraid to say it. That some of what is going on in our body, our psyche, our emotions, is perimenopause.
Because perimenopause sounds like a sentence.
That is what we have been conditioned to believe. That it means I am disconnected from my body. I am no longer a sexual being. I am no longer fertile, and there is no need for me in this society. So we don't say the word, as if not saying it means it isn't happening. The women a few years ahead of us, whose bleeding has already stopped, are sharing where they are. But they didn't say when they were in it.
Ruby May is saying it from inside it, in our YINtentions conversation, live since 2 October: My Nervous System needs Pleasure.
This is upsetting and confusing to me. Menopause and perimenopause are a natural part of life: our hormone levels fall, and our periods change until they stop. It usually happens between 45 and 55, and it can come much earlier. The symptoms usually last seven to nine years, sometimes longer, and they change along the way. Some carry on after menopause.
It is so much more than hot flushes. Sleep that won't come. Mood swings, low mood, a foggy memory. Aching joints. Dryness. A quieter sex drive (or so the belief is). Some women feel many of these, some hardly any. This is our body speaking.
In midlife some women feel desire fall away, some feel it grow, some notice no change at all. In one large study, more than three in four women in midlife said sex was important to them. Sexuality does not end with menopause.
It is ok to feel these symptoms. And it is ok, at the same time, to crave to be in your body as a sexual being.
Let's please burst that bubble and take ownership of our body. Because what we are actually craving is to be sexual. To be desirable, first and foremost by ourselves. To know where our pleasure lives within.
When I get to know myself, when I get to know what my womb desires, when I get to know the touch of my hands on my breast as healing, as pleasure, in all the aspects it has, I come back to the juiciness and the life force in me.
Coming into our body, coming into our sexuality, is owning that there are many facets to me. Perimenopausal is a component of my experience. And so is my arousal, and so is my desire, and so is my healing capacity through my touch.
Come and join Womb Shakti. That's what we'll be doing. Wednesday evenings from 21 October, in whatever phase of life each of us is in. It is a practice and a circle, not a treatment: a place to be in your body while all of this is happening.
What is your body telling you in this phase of your life? Hit reply.
with juiciness and warmth,
Happening in the Yin Rhythms Spiral
🌹 Womb Shakti 🇬🇧 - fall in love with yourself and your body again. Through movement, breath and touch in a circle of women. Eight weeks, Wednesday evenings online, 18:30 - 20:30 Geneva time (GMT+2 on 21 October, GMT+1 from 28 October) to 9 December. 989 CHF, or in instalments: write to me before you enrol.
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🌹 Łono Shakti 🇵🇱 - ten sam krąg, po polsku, we wtorki od 20 października. Dla Ciebie albo dla Polek w Twoim życiu.
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🕯️ Samhain - a free celebration of the season's wisdom, Monday 2 November, 19:00 - 20:30 CET, online. The threshold into the dark half of the year. We move with the intelligence of the season and nourish ourselves through community.
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🎙️ YINtentions - Ep. 13 with Ruby May, My Nervous System needs Pleasure. Seven years of charting one cycle, and then the map was gone: what a woman does when the territory she was walking disappears.
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🌀 Rhythmic Movements - coming soon.
📬 Field Notes - every letter, in one place.
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