The River of Second Spring: A Two-Day Garden Immersion

Location: A Private Sanctuary by the Birrarung (Yarra River), North Warrandyte.

There is a profound biological and spiritual threshold that most modern women are forced to cross in isolation. We call it “The Change,” but it is actually a Great Remodelling. 

I invite you to step out of the “busyness” of your domestic life and into the sanctuary of my garden. Surrounded by ancient Manna Gums and the healing flow of the river, sitting with a small group of women, we will move through a two-day initiation designed to bridge the gap between the science of your changing brain and the sovereignty of your soul.

Over these two half-days, we will journey together through:

• The Neuro-Metabolic Shift: Understanding the science of Dr. Lisa Mosconi and how your brain is literally upgrading its hardware for wisdom.
• The Herbal Wander: Connecting with the land and the native plants that call to your specific physical and emotional needs.
• The 10-Year-Old Dialogue: A powerful psychotherapeutic process to reconcile your past selves with the bright, bold star you are becoming.
• The Heroine’s Journey & Collage: Graphing your life’s “Descent and Rise” and creating a framed Collage of Wholeness to act as a living altar in your home.
• The Closing Talisman Ritual: A sacred ceremony to gift yourself a piece of “threshold jewellery”—a talisman you will only wear once you have fully claimed your “Second Spring.”

This is for the woman who feels the friction of a career and productivity or raising children while her soul calls for autonomy. This is for the woman who wants to be “at home in her skin wherever she is” 

Step into the garden. Reclaim your fire. Claim your rest

 

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                 Each woman will leave with a Framed Collage of her Wholeness and a consecrated Talisman

By seeing Menopause as a medical issue to solve rather than an age-appropriate rite of passage into the next, truly spectacular time of life, many women find themselves stuck in anxiety, sadness and confusion, not to mention the physical issues that accompany this avoidance. 

Our world, our families, and our selves desperately need us to accept this time as an initiation into the unknown. An initiation where we face grief, sorrow, letting go and fear. An initiation where we are regenerated and emerge stronger and wiser… embodying patience, fierce love, abandonment to life’s pleasure, and a wicked sense of humour.

“The Menopause Brain: A Renovation, Not a Decline.”

Recent neuroscience by Dr Lisa Masconi in her book ‘The Menopause Brain”  shows that the menopause brain is undergoing a profound metabolic remodeling. It is literally shedding the ‘people-pleasing’ receptors of the mothering years to make way for the ‘sovereign’ receptors of the Elder. You aren’t losing your mind; you are upgrading the hardware.”

The Motherhood Paradox

Even in traditional groups where menopause is honoured, there has been little to say about women who have young children. Most literature and stories speak to women who are either childless or whose children have grown. I am a perimenopausal mother with a young son. I know the friction of feeling the biological call to retreat and the deep external need to keep nurturing. We explore the ‘Slow Moon’ philosophy pioneered by Susan Mattern to find how we can be both a ‘home for our children’ and a ‘sovereign for ourselves’.”

In the “Second Spring,” your body’s natural cortisol buffer (progesterone) begins to decline. This is why perimenopause can feel like an endless cycle of “hurry, worry, and do.” We don’t just discuss this; we train for it.

You will leave with a personalised NSM Protocol including:

• Real-Time Reprogramming: Tools to switch off the “Cortisol Fire” in seconds using solar plexus breathing and vagal toning.

• Consistent Rhythms: A 15-minute daily “Nervous System Maintenance” routine involving rhythmic movement (Chi Gung/Yoga) and nature bathing.

• Focus Filtration: Practical boundaries for your digital and domestic life to protect your newly “remodeled” brain.

River of Second Spring

“I am a psychotherapist, but I am also a dancer who knows that the body tells the truth. I am a mother who knows the cortisol of sleep-deprivation. I am a woman of Maltese lineage who understands that our power is ancient.  It is my deep pleasure to bring you this grounded deep and humble offering to help guide you over the river of midlife, helping you hear the whimsical call and the wild cackle of your truly empowered, wise self

Leaning on more than 20 years of experience in facilitating women through rites of passage and psychotherapy, and gathering from

• Jungian and Transpersonal Psychology
• the work of Joseph Campbell, Clarissa Paula Estes
• Menopause specialists such as Neurologist Dr Lisa Masconi and Professor Rodney Baber. 
• decades of work with archetypes, ritual, and the guidance of the Spirit.
• Neuroplasticity 
• Archetypal process
• Neruo Linguistic programming
• Somatic processing

We, my kindred spirits, are the change that the world has been waiting for.

The Details

• Day 1: The Descent (Roots & Brain) – The Herb Wander, The Relationship to Bleeding, The Neuro-Metabolic Shift.
• Connect to and gather your own herbal tincture
• Learn the history of Menopause and its original place in our society as a rite of passage into wisdomhood.  A time that was celebrated and revered by the community, and how to recreate this in your own life.
• Learn the mechanics of menopause in simplified terms. It is not the body that drives it, but in fact, the changes in the brain and how these changes are essential if you are to discover a whole new part of yourself that most modern women miss out on. 
• Reclaim and integrate all of the versions of you with love

Day 2: The Rise (Myth & Talisman) – The Heroine’s Graph, The Collage of Phases, The Threshold Ritual.

• Discover your own personal mythology, which is the unconscious story that your soul lives by.
• Create and perform your own personalised ritual to powerfully step into your wise woman era. 
• Be gifted your personalised Talisman