SHE OF THE SEASONS

SHE OF THE SEASONS meets at Snapdragons in Victoria Park on Thursday 19 November. It's a free eco-arts group for peri-menopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal women, and it runs weekly.

Snapdragons is a Community Interest Company based in the former bowling pavilion at Victoria Park, and its whole mission is bringing communities together through nature. The group's work follows the seasons of nature and the Celtic calendar, mirrored against the seasons of a woman's life. The idea is to help women reconnect with an identity outside of the roles they're often defined by — like caregiving, work, or the beauty standards the patriarchy pushes on them.

Each year, twenty women take part in folk-inspired wild-making projects: growing plant remedies, making natural perfumes, storytelling, dancing, singing, willow work and community wassail. It's a hands-on, creative way of spending time together, and the focus is as much on the making as it is on the people you're doing it with.

SHE OF THE SEASONS is part of Orcas and Us, a free menopause project run by The Conscious Sisters CIC. The name comes from a strange fact of nature: menopause is incredibly rare in the animal kingdom, and only a handful of species, including orcas and humans, are known to experience it. The wider project runs from October 2025 to October 2027, and alongside the weekly group, they run NEEDLES AND NIGHT SWEATS online embroidery workshops and WEAVE A HEATWAVE pop-ups at Livewell's Wellbeing Hubs across the city. The group is free to join, though it's currently on a waiting list.