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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Guide Weather Subscribe Contact Us January 14, 2005 No photo Menopause presentation coming up By John Darling Tidings Correspondent Menopause doesn't have to be a time of mood swings, insomnia, hot flashes and declining sex drive. Far from it, say a group of women presenting "MenoMorphosis" here next weekend, a conclave aimed at helping women use "the change" as a time of personal and community empowerment. "It's a big change, a burning away of what's not relevant in your life," says Lhesli Dove, 52, a performer-ceremonialist, who just completed menopause and is a presenter at the conference. "If you fear it, if you don't meet it head on, if you don't honor the change and learn to use it as a time of betterment, what you fear - getting old and deteriorating will happen." "It's a time of liberation," says Ashland yoga teacher Iris Lambert, 58, a presenter at the conference. "You can see it as a problem, but the message here is seeing the heat (hot flashes and night sweats) as a purification and cleansing as you shift from making choices based on hormones to making choices based on your higher nature." "It's a strengthening of intuition, of, literally men-o-pause, a pause from men, a time to honor the self, to withdraw, to take time with yourself to reshape your life after the sacrifices in motherhood and family," says Kippi Waters, 49, who is staging the workshop, "MenoMorphosis," at the Windmill Inn, Jan. 21-23 (www.menopauseworkshops.com or 482-2182). "Menopause," says Dove, "is a burning away of what's not relevant any more in your life. You're preparing for a new, big cycle and your mind, which may seem confused in menopause, returns sharper and better. Menopause can be explosive. It can seem to tear up your life, because you're no longer giving your power away to others, doing a job you don't like and living the life you were obligated to live." In a time of lessening physical reserves - and loss of nutrients in night sweats and hot flashes, women must learn to strengthen their bodies, immunity and energy by dropping the refined foods, sugars, caffeine and anything that doesn't "pack a nutritional punch," says Waters. Menopause is an opportunity to wipe out life's "little addictions" which takes up nutritional space without giving much back, says Lambert. "The digestion is less active, the metabolism is slowing down and a lot of women let themselves go, eating as they did when they were younger, then they get fat," said Lambert. "This situation," says Dove, "adds to the stress, depression and hormonal swings. Then they feel they can't come back from it. A certain leeway - pop, coffee, sugar - is gone. You're looking at a diet 50 to 80 percent vegetables and fruits." What works for menopause, the women say, are whole grains, like rice, corn, barley, oats and millet. Leafy greens are full of calcium being lost from bones at this age and are also rich in vital iron and magnesium. Healthy fats - especially the omega-3 fatty acids - are essential. Eating organic dairy and meat helps screen out harmful growth hormones fed to cattle. Exercise - especially aerobics like walking, biking and swimming - cuts stress and helps stabilize hormone swings, says Lambert. "It's a time when gravity is pulling on you and if you don't do yoga or hike, it will try to pull your joints apart and atrophy your muscles off the bone," she notes. "The mind calming of yoga and other exercises is key to a good menopause." In using hormone replacements, the women stress the importance of bio-identical compounds made from natural substances, such as yams and soybeans - not the synthetic chemicals patented by drug companies (they can't patent natural compounds). Many herbs help in menopause, says Ashland herbalist Joyce Stahmann. Black cohosh reduces hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety-depression and joint and muscle pain. It's is available in herb stores or over-the-counter as Remifemin. Other herbs, Stahmann says, are vital for cycle regulation, cysts and PMS, motherwort for sweats, flashes, anxiety, insomnia, heart palpitations and heavy bleeding - and American ginseng for fatigue, stress, immunity, sweats, hot flashes, blood pressure and brain fog. Occurring in the forties and fifties (with an average cessation of periods at 52), menopause hasn't earned its reputation as "the change" for nothing. "There's not a lot of support in our society to see menopause as anything but a bigger curse than periods," said Dove. "But it's a time of moving from the mother phase to the crone, which means the wise woman, stepping into her own power and using her energy for the benefit of the wider community." 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