We call it of life. It begins in mid-life, usually somewhere between 40 and 55, and can last for roughly a decade, its many and varied particularities appearing only in women. Menopause, whether naturally occurring or medically induced, is not a widely studied topic in field of folklore, although I have found it to be a many-faceted folkloristic issue for research and discussion. Over last five years, I've explored topics such as humor and menopause, late-life pregnancy and menopause, and medicalization of menopause. Hysterectomy, one of medical aspects, has become a surprisingly rich topic for change-of-life analysis, as more and more move away from describing their mid-life transition as a wholly medical experience, and begin to define it through artistic expression, including creation of healing and rites of passage ceremonies. What first intrigued me about topic of menopause was reluctance of insiders to divulge any details to outsiders about what they experienced, or were experiencing. The topic was definitely in this country before 1960s, and it is rare to find a reference to menopause in literature predating that era. Virginia Woolf wrote about it in her 1922 novel, Mrs. Dalloway, but references to menstruation and menopause [were] edited out (Showalter 1994:142). In 1953, Thomas Mann was criticized by reviewers and public for the subject of The Black Swan, menopause in women (1980:ix). Since sixties, women's health issues have been increasingly popular in publishing world, which might lead us to think that reluctance to speak of menopause may be a generational thing. Baby boomers are supposedly more open about sex and reproductive issues, and have been known to speak candidly on any topic. However, menopause is about aging, and a folkloristic analysis might still turn up some trepidation on part of hip fifty-ish to discuss changes their bodies are going through. Gail Sheehy, in The Silent Passage, her New York Times Bestseller book on menopause, says that most are still not liberated enough to talk about the last taboo (1995:3), and she cites instances where who have been through the change won't even discuss it with their own sisters or daughters (1995:34). One place we do talk about menopause is on Internet, where news groups and chat rooms seem to provide anonymity desire in order to search openly for information and support. On one site alone, scrolling down from www.deja.com to alt.support.menopause, I found 90,000 threads on everything from hot flashes to migraines, bleed-throughs to mood swings, hysterectomy to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Those who don't have access to Internet may have to rely on books, most of which are written by doctors and other people in medical profession. They lack personal accounts of event, way analyze it or not, and what they say about it aside from what medical experts tell them. Because medical establishment has menopause as an illness in past (Coney 1994), suggesting that it can be treated by medication and surgery, profession has been blamed for thwarting any open discussion or celebration of natural and potentially exciting process. According to Susan Starr Sered, answers to question of why we (the folk) don't talk about menopause are found in continued denigration of women's health and productive expertise, in our male-oriented society, along with institutionalized attacks on women's rituals (1992:132). Barbara Meyerhoff has suggested that and others in Western industrialized societies should create their own of passage, especially in situations of difficulty. Some of examples she cites are menopause and surgery (1982:132). For women, two are inextricably linked because hysterectomy causes immediate menopause if ovaries are removed, and is said to hasten menopause otherwise. …