Red Moon Passage

by Bonnie J. Horrigan

"Red Moon Passage does not come from one particular culture. In renaming menopause for myself, I tried to find words that would describe both our growing out of the blood cycles and childbearing years, our indelible physical connection to the feminine, and the fact that as menopause is completed, we enter into a new realm of being. In every way, we are on a voyage to a new land."
--Bonnie J. Horrigan, from the Introduction to Red Moon Passage


In the spirit of The Feminine Face of God, Coming Into Our Fullness, and When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, this new perspective on women and spiritual power, Red Moon Passage, celebrates menopause as an archetypal journey of transformation. Written with notable grace, it contains a personal story of sorrow and triumph as well as enlightening conversations with eight extraordinary women from different backgrounds and Jeanne Achterberg, Paula Gunn Allen, Angeles Arrien, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Kachinas Kutenai, Carol S. Pearson, Jamie Sams, and Barbara G. Walker. These women attest to the magical, life-affirming, creative and re-generative potential of menopause that is within every woman.

Red Moon Passage provides uplifting, thought-provoking insights about menopause as a spiritual journey to a new way of being. It shows that the Red Moon Passage is not a transition to an end stage of life, but is itself a magnificent and powerful new phase.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 1997

Reviews

[Carolee Wheeler · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you like Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung (SO MUCH JUNG), and loosely-goosey shamanism, then this book might be for you. Amid discussion of the “divine feminine,” sweeping pronouncements about womanhood, and presentations of “Native American medicine”, it definitely reads as much older than 25 years. I did appreciate some of the exhortations to have “appropriate consciousness” about the transition and to, effectively, “lean in” to it rather than fighting it, and to not assume that every difficulty is a problem requiring a solution. But that was in the introduction.

[Baxter Clare Trautman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book - it made going through menopause a gift rather than a curse. If you're there, or almost there, READ THIS.

[Jane Killingbeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was my bible for going through my mid life , and inspired me in many ways, far beyond menopause, - the essays are thought provoking about many aspects of womens lives, especially an interesting take on womens spirituality. I still dip into it often.
Thoroughly recommended