Renaissance
This is the first part of a series based on menopause. I apologise for it being so scary, but it is about menopause and this is extremely scary for woman.
In a world where society has elevated fertility and beauty to such a massive degree in magazines television and social media, and then these issues are tempered with at the age of menopause many women are devastated.
I battled with menopause symptoms that deal with mobility and so could not bash through the weight gain and muscle loss as I would have in the past with sport and other severe activity.
I couldn’t believe that the universe was being so callous and mean to woman yet again. As if periods, sexual harassment, childbirth etc was not enough. I went deeply into the meaning of this picture once it was completed and realised it’s meaning after reading a book called ‘Hagitude’ by, which explains the symbolism that came from this picture.
The old woman is crawling towards the viewer, intensely almost stalking with a magnetic force that is so unsettling . The viewer desperately wants to look away and is repulsed by odd body shape, messy hair and deformed breasts. The symbolic menopause creeping up on us looking us squarely in the face is relentless.
But this is not what menopause is about. Menopause is about change symbolised by the butterflies. The old woman crushes a butterfly but the butterfly chrysalis’ are developing in her hair. She cannot dodge the change. The skull also in her hair is symbolic of death. This is the death of fertility and beauty which society has conditioned us to believe.
And so, at long last woman can become true to herself without these preconditioned concepts. It is also a crowning of the female individual symbolised by the crown which is placed on the skull at in a nonchalant manner, as she really is accepting ‘no more rubbish from anyone’. She can now grow to become a true queen in her own right.
