About The Kintsugi Collection
Women standing at the precipice of perimenopause are not at an ending. They are at the beginning of a rebirth. The ‘unexplained’ rage isn’t just an annoying symptom. It’s an invitation.
As an artist, it’s my job to tell the truth. And I believe that the conversation around perimenopausal rage is incomplete.
I started going through perimenopause shortly after I turned 35. I was perplexed at first because I thought I was far too young. But after doing some research and speaking with other women, this is actually a pretty common occurrence. Aside from irregular cycles and hot flashes, I was experiencing the most intense rage that I have ever felt, and it appeared to come out of nowhere. I’ve always been a pretty easy-going person (and a people pleaser), so it seemed especially strange. I would wake up furious…my blood boiling from seemingly nothing. I didn’t want its vermin to spill out onto my family and affect them, so I knew I needed to look deep within and find the source along with the solution.
My first question was why does this rage so often come up during the perimenopausal years? I believe we reach a breaking point where all that has been buried cannot be held down any longer. It’s containment has reached an expiration date.
One of the first things I noticed about this rage was that it did not only belong to me. I could feel it coursing down my female bloodline going back eons. Women needing to survive in a patriarchal culture has long meant that silence was required of us. And while we are more free now than previous generations (at least for now anyway), there’s still a lot that isn’t spoken about as much as it really should be.
So what was the source of some of this rage you may ask? I believe there are many common threads between my own life, other women’s lives, and our ancestor’s lives. And I acknowledge that there are threads of pain for others such as racism, colonialism, bigotry, etc. that intersect with the experience of misogyny. I write only from my own experience and I will not pretend to know what sort of tapestry of rage other people find themselves trapped in. For me personally, one of the biggest sources of anger is the experience around motherhood. In early matriarchal societies, children were put in the center. There were villages that helped raise children and it wasn’t one or two people doing it all on their own. Parenting is such a monumental and important task, and it simply isn’t meant to be done without community help. I feel angry about the toll of not having the support I’ve really needed at times. It’s not only disadvantageous to parents, but the children as well. I am lucky enough to still have an amazing extended family and a supportive partner. My experience around the lack of a village pales in comparison to others, and yet I still feel the toll it takes. Society begs women to have children, then casts them aside with no paid parental leave, no affordable childcare, no community help, and practically no financial resources. I am a very firm believer that all parents of children under the age of 18 should receive a universal basic income. We must return to the matriarchal ways of mothering and designing society to support and uplift parents and children.
The ravaging of the earth is another source of this deep ancient rage. I am an animist, and I see the earth as a living being. She is our primordial mother, and yet look at how we treat her. Extracting resources in unsustainable ways, desecrating sacred lands, polluting and killing and ravaging and destroying. And yet it’s her that allows us this life….it is because of her that we even exist. She feeds us, nurtures us, and provides for us prosperously. We are all a part of the earth and we are part of her. I think it makes perfect sense that we feel her rage too. She is treated the same way that women are treated under patriarchy…with violence.
I could go on and on about the different sources of buried anger that I believe myself and most women feel, even if they aren’t fully conscious of it. There’s capitalism, racism, genocide, war, unsupportive partners, the rot that exists in relationships with other women, the daily exhaustion, and the lack of self-care we so desperately need. There’s the laundry that’s always piling up, the endless errands and appointments, the generational trauma, deciding what’s for fucking dinner again, watching children get bombed on live tv, the boss that won’t stop demeaning us, caring for sick parents on top of it all, medical misogyny, reproductive rights being held above our heads, having to pour from an empty cup yet again, and the summers that get hotter every year. There are so many things. Things we have to bury and push out of our minds just to get through our daily lives.
But the things add up, unfortunately. I believe perimenopause is when the things add up to an insurmountable level and we can’t just push it down any longer. The heat flowing through our veins and every hot flash is an attempt to alleviate some of it. I do not and will not doubt the medical science explaining hormones and all of the symptoms that originate from their changing and fluctuating manner. But I do believe that there are psychological, emotional, and ancestral causes that should be considered.
The good news is that for many of us, around the age we hit perimenopause, our power really begins to come online. Many of the women who are witches, shamans, healers, medicine women, etc. have now been studying their craft for years. We have the wisdom to turn lead into gold. We are capable of healing on behalf of ourselves and the collective. There are spirits who come to assist us during this time such as crow, spider mother, and bear. Hecate, The Morrigan, and Medusa. Spirits that look after and help women during this stage. Crow has long been a symbol of aging women and the hag…often viewed as a symbol of death. But I think at midlife we are only mourning patterns and ways of being that no longer serve us. We are shedding the old layers of lead so we can put on our cloaks of gold. We mourn and let go so we can live the second half of our lives more free and powerful than before. It’s a patriarchal lie that women lose their value as they age…a lie steeped in believing younger women are more attractive and therefore more valuable. I could go on and on about that, but please do not believe those lies. Please know that the patriarchs are scared of us because of the previously mentioned power coming online around this age. We can shift realities and birth new worlds into being with these powers. Their fear has us believing that our value is slipping away with each coming year, but it’s all a smoke show.
I was weaving in my garden around late spring when I accidentally stepped on some broken pottery. At the time, I was deeply struggling with the unexplained rage. The pottery became the inspiration for healing the way I know how to do best…through art. My art and healing work are not separate…they are interwoven as one. The Kintsugi Collection is not only a batch of pretty paintings for your walls…they are living portals. They are a spell, a transmission, a prayer for healing for whoever owns them. Through the process of creating this collection, I have felt so much of this rage and anger heal and soften within me. I don’t wake up with hot blood boiling through my veins anymore. I have clarity and healing around the roots of my pain and anger. I feel so much lighter, more integrated, more whole, more powerful. My hope is that when you buy one of these paintings, it acts as a sacred talisman to help you do the same.
May all women be free and healed. May all children be free and healed. May all beings be free and healed. May the earth heal. May we once again create a society that values our very lives.
-Kate