Western medicine has long spoken of post menopause as loss: loss of fertility, loss of beauty, loss of relevance. A woman’s body becomes a site of “management,” her mind a problem to be medicated, her changing hormones an illness to be treated. The message is clear: “better to fix her than to listen to her.”

There is a strange arrogance in modernity: the belief that only now, with PET scans, neural tracers and peer-reviewed journals, are we finally discovering the truth about menopause. As usual, there is a great deal of noise. Yet if we take the time to listen more deeply, we may encounter an older knowing—a lineage that hums in our bones and, in many traditions, is received through the energetic portal of the womb.

The research literature on menopause has a great deal to say about symptoms, hormones, health and wellbeing; it's also increasingly exploring confidence, freedom and self-actualisation1. But it rarely asks a question that feels important to me. What is the contribution of postmenopausal women?