Rising Above Ageism

Spring!  The excitement of seeing the first crocus open, of spying a wild iris, of rejoicing in the sturdiness of the daffodils emerging from under a February snowfall, their bloom tips ripening from green to yellow.  We are weary of winter.   We are yearning for spring.   The world reawakens before our eyes. What happens after we die?   In my images of the Harvest Queen (autumn) and the Crone (winter) we saw the fullness of a woman maturing from mother to queen, as age lines began to emerge on her face.  Her expression from queen to crone became somber, then sad as the despair of the inevitability of death became real to the crone, and then, full acceptance as she slipped into the peace of the final sleep.  Where did she go?  That is the great Mystery, isn't it? In this image for the maiden, the comforting hand of the crone is upon the head of the infant ... the transfer of life energy is being completed just before the maiden awakens.  And when she awakens, it is to the freshnes

  I'm exploring this concept at the request of Kathleen V., who is leading a Crone workshop in which I'm participating.  She asked whether I'd ever written about any aspect of my shadow self in my journaling over the years. I immediately thought of one experience I had in my early 20's.  I had just left a difficult relationship and had moved to a house with two friends near Bass Harbor, Maine.  The small house was rural, built above the rocky shore facing the harbor.  Behind it the forest rose up into the hills.   One winter night I was dropped off on the road.  As I trudged up the lonely driveway to the house through the snow I realized the house was empty.   I had not lived there long, and I had not been home alone before.  I kicked the snow from my boots and opened the kitchen porch door.  As is the case for many farm houses, the small enclosed back porch stored coats and boots and when the outer door was closed an inner door helped protect from the cold entering the

 Treasures in my arms! When my only child, my daughter, was expecting her first child I was as focused on her as she was on the child she was carrying.  I watched her move through her pregnancy with grace, her eager anticipation of the life as a mother she had chosen with love, and I rejoiced even as I watched over her carefully.  I made suggestions about diet and such until I realized she was doing her own research and doing a very good job of it.  So then I listened and agreed and supported her as she moves through the months.   When the day of her baby's birth arrived I was near her in the hospital.  My daughter and her husband had decided that no one but the nurses and doctor was to be with them in the delivery room for their labor and birth, so I was in the closest waiting room all day.  A few times her husband came to get me, but only when she asked to see me, and in those times I held her hand, comforted her as a mother knows to do for her child, then removed myself again to

The Crone  We will need the strong core of grace given by the Harvest Queen as we approach the following transition.  We approach Yule, the dark of the year, with the Winter Solstice our next passage.   As we embrace  The Crone  we are fully aware that life will seem to end with the death of our bodies.  Our strength is within, yet as our bodies age we sometimes doubt our abilities.  We forget inconsequential things, minds and bodies wandering, sometimes at peace and sometimes restless.  Forgetting is a way of shedding what is not important:  The Crone  brings awareness that we will close our eyes to sleep soon, and we will enter the deepest mystery of all. Acceptance is wise. The time of the Crone is not only about our doubts and fears.   Acceptance of the transitions to come allows us to embrace our role as Wise Women.   We play with children, giving ourselves over to the fullness of the play.  We lead by example, showing our daughters, nieces and friends how to face the dark.  We lo

Harvest Queen  The  Harvest Queen  represents the Autumn Equinox, also known as the celebration of Mabon.  The light and the dark are in balance on the equinox, and as the days unfold the darkness begins to overcome the light.  We celebrate our harvests, and then come the days of contemplation.  Wisdom emerges from our depths into our conscious minds, and if we fully accept this upwelling of knowing from within, we enter a time of new strength, preparing ourselves as we become, day by day, one who understands grace.    Celebrating the Autumn Equinox    She who has matured through her seasons, from infancy and childhood to maiden, thence to mother, and as she ascends her Autumn Throne, her crops are fully grown.  She has earned her crown. The left half of the painting represents the end of summer, and the fullness of nature, and that of a woman fully matured. The right half of the painting represents the beginning of autumn; the beginning of the fall ... the very beginning of the descen

Nikolaus Gyzis' painting:  Grandma Dancing with Granddaughters, 1883. I'm reading Mary Pipher's recent book, _Women_Rowing_North_, in which she shares her ideas about being a woman as  entering her elder years. In her second chapter, Pipher wrote about ageism directly. The line that has stayed with me most clearly is this: What women mean when they say  "I'm not old," is "I won't accept the ideas that culture has about me." However, in the real world, I've been taking my grandchild to a weekly preschool music class where we delight in rhythms, songs, trying out instrument.  At circle time I used to sit down on the floor along with many (but not all) of the other parents and grandparents and their kids.  Those who chose to sit on chairs instead of on the floor had their reasons, but I liked to participate, even on days when, in order to stand up, I'd first have to get on my hands and knees then push up slowly.  I liked hol