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...

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....

Let's just start out with the stereotype, shall we?  Here we have the Wicked Witch from the fairy tale, the alter ego of the Queen who had been the "fairest of them all" before her little princess stepdaughter began to come of age as a maiden.  The Queen sought the death of the maiden in order to remove her as competition for the role of "fairest" female in the kingdom.  Of course, in the end Snow White was rescued by a charming prince to live happily every after, while the Queen was sent to a horrible (yet, according the the story, deserved) death. Raise your hand if you want to be "the fairest of them all" forever!  I certainly do. Since she was a teenager, whenever I have gone out with my daughter the male heads that turned have been for her.  As we both grew older, if we approached a counter together, the salesperson or concierge would sometimes address her first, as the person more capable, unless I asserted myself.  I remember this happen...