Today is my 49th birthday, and peri-menopause is in full swing. My last period lasted 26 hours. As my blood started to flow, I felt love and bliss emanating from my womb.

I lay on my bed for 4 hours, riding the waves of energy that flowed through the fibres of my body.

The last time I wrote a poem about my stage of womanhood was January 2021, at that point I was standing at the edge of the lake >

This poem captures the nothingness and everythingness of my current state of being.

The boat has set sail
I’m on the lake
Most of the tether has frayed

I hear…
Leave that world behind
It’s done

The fog starts to settle
Let them enjoy it
It’s no longer for you
You’re no longer for it

I know there’s land the other side
I don’t know what’s there
I know what’s there

It feels more like home
A familiar welcome signals me
It feels like a return

I have questions that don’t need an answer
Questions that aren’t really questions
I don’t have questions
There are no answers

There’s only a strand of rope left
Leave her behind
Make peace with her 
It’s noise fades, I can hear the water

Nothing matters
Everything matters
Nothing exists
Everything exists

I am the boat
I am the lake and the land
I am here
I am everything

The final strand tenses
It stretches
I pause
Watching the strand
Wondering if my heart will break.

By Melanie Swan

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Melanie is an experienced Soul & Shadow Worker, Womb Medicine Woman, podcast host, writer and trainer.

For over 20 years, she has supported individuals and healing professionals to restore connection with the body, repair attachment and separation wounds, and embody primordial wisdom rooted in the womb, heart and soul.

Melanie's approach blends somatic womb healing, shadow integration, shamanic healing and soul-level repatterning - offering a deep and lasting pathway back to the true self.

She hosts The Sacred Womb Podcast, leads The Unification Of The Divine Masculine & Feminine Training and is currently writing her first book: The Sacred Womb - a handbook for coming home to our true nature, along with Poems For Peri-Menopause.