The Grandmother, or Elder, Cycle

Grandmother or Elder?

This week the Wisdom Circle, still working with Brooke Medicine Eagle's questions, considered the Grandmother / Elder stage of life. Not all of us are actually grandmothers; some of the group chose lives without children.

I myself have step-grandchildren. While I am fond of them and they of me, they live interstate; I seldom see them and we have little interaction.

Elder or Crone?

The question arose, what is the difference between Elder and Crone? We used to be familiar with the concepts of Maiden, Mother and Crone, but nowadays many women include the role of Elder before the Crone stage.

One of the group, Dede, explained that she sees it in terms of the symbolism of a rose. First there is the bud, the Maiden stage. Then the rose opens to fullness, the stage of Motherhood or Maturity. Then the rose grows older and scatters its petals on the earth, as the Elder scatters her wisdom. Finally the rose shrinks and transforms into the rose-hip, holding the seeds for new birth, equivalent to the Crone stage when one becomes more still and goes inward.

This makes beautiful sense to me!

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These are my own answers to the questions raised:

What are your beliefs about ageing and what a woman's role is expected to be in her later years?

I don't know that I have beliefs so much as observations. There is such a variety of ways to age! I suppose I believe in a certain slowing down after the age of 60, and again in the late seventies, because this is what I have experienced and other women have said things which confirm it. But I also know that our minds affect our bodies in ways we are only beginning to understand. (I’ve recently become very interested in brain plasticity.) So I don’t know that the slowing down is inevitable; perhaps it can be countered. At present I am working on reversing it!

On the other hand, the things we associate with ageing are not necessarily bad things. It may be a blessing to take life at a slower pace! Perhaps we finally get to smell those roses that people keep talking about.

Was menopause a signpost and/or a gateway on your path to ageing?

It was bit of a nuisance when I was going through it. However, I had it easy compared to some. My Mum told me she ‘sailed through menopause’ without noticing it much, and I was the same. Only two hot flushes (mind you, they were memorable!) and only a few episodes of flooding. Then it was nice not to have periods any more, and to dispense with contraception. It felt like new freedom. At that time I read the words of many older women who said it was an entry into one’s full power as a woman, and one’s full wisdom, and I embraced that idea. Perhaps it was both signpost and gateway. I think the crucial question is, what does it point to or open to?

[Someone in the group suggested it means ‘men on pause’, with sexuality becoming less urgent, and that being with oneself would be welcome. I had the opposite experience and have heard of many others like me, with a post-menopausal surge of new eroticism and a delight in the freedom to express it without worrying about childbirth. It's now, decades later, in widowhood, that I enjoy learning how to be with me.]

What belief do you hold about menopause?

It marks the end of the reproductive years.  That’s it, full stop. 

From whom did you acquire these beliefs and attitudes ---- Mother – sisters – friends – older women – society?

Probably from my mother and the other women in my family, on both sides. Everyone seemed to be pretty sensible about it, and not scared of it. 

In what way are these messages brought home to you and reinforced –  at school – through the media – at work? 

I don't think my attitudes were reinforced by these groups. I think school, the media and society sensationalised it a lot more than my family did.

– through women's groups?

The women’s groups I belong to now, like those I belonged to then, don’t regard older women as has-beens, or defective in any way. Far from it. So this reinforces the intelligent attitudes I was brought up with.

What are the greatest feminine aspects you display in your unfolding path?

I’m good at caring for people when that is necessary, in both practical and emotional ways.  I’ve learned about unconditional love, compassion and nurturing, and I find new ways to apply them. 

If you have children or young people and can influence their learning in any way, what are the important values you can teach them about the feminine aspect?

(I don't get much opportunity for this, but if I did) That feminine strength doesn’t have to be like the masculine. We can be strong and tough without being aggressive, power-hungry or unfeeling.

What aspect of the feminine are you connected with at this time of life?

I see in myself aspects of all the great Goddess archetypes, so I suppose I would have to say wholeness – even though I don't express them all in equal measure.

What are the greatest feminine aspects you wish to display in your unfolding path now?

Love. Wisdom. Strength. Intuition. I don't think these are particularly feminine, but I might perhaps express them in a feminine way, with tolerance and gentleness.

Thank your teachers.

I thanked Brooke Medicine Eagle, and all my sisters in the Wisdom Circle.

                            

Reflecting On My Journey

– and on the writing of it here

I'm surprised and a little confused that I set out to write about my journey in magic, as many people had requested, only to find myself sharing other aspects of my life – family stuff, student days, love and marriage, psychotherapy....

Perhaps this makes more sense if I regard my journey as being about healing, a broader focus which includes the magic. Like many witches, I see magic primarily as a tool for healing. And of course I have others, most notably Reiki but not only that. I have learned and often incorporate a variety of other methods of energy healing, too. Also the psychic readings and mediumship, in the way I do them, are forms of counselling.

I could even include poetry. It's my art before it is anything else – and as well, many times in many situations, it has been healing for me to make it. Other people sometimes tell me they experience it as healing to read or hear. I don't do it as therapy, for myself or anyone else, but it can and does serve that purpose.

One of my life cards in the Tarot is the Hermit, the Wounded Healer, who is also the Way Shower. Looking over my life as I have started to write it here, I see very clearly that it has been a journey of self-healing on many levels. And I see that it has not been solely for myself. While it has indeed been for me, that's not where the story finishes. The message of the Hermit card, particularly as interpreted by my favourite Voyager™ Tarot, is that I learn how to heal myself so successfully that I can then show others how to do it for themselves.

And then – saying the same thing in a slightly different way – my Spiritual Astrology book tells me that, as life goes on, I will find that all the things I accomplish for myself are actually meant to be shared with other people. It happens that I teach Reiki, Tarot, Creative Writing ... and have done so for many years.

What I've written at this blog so far is clearly a first draft, or worse – a hodge-podge, jumping all over the place chronologically and in its focus. But now that I've understood the pattern and (unconscious) organisation of my life, I think it will be easier to structure a final draft later.

My dear friend Katherine, a healer and visionary, told me long ago, 'You ARE Reiki. Poetry is what you do; Reiki is what you are.'

My magical mentor, Ridge, once channelled a message for me: 'Your value is not in your poetry! But it is good that you continue to play with your poetry.'

I didn't want to hear those words. A poet was THE thing I most wanted to be since I was a child, and that has never changed. And I am that; I have spent my life on it, with no regrets. Poetry is my joy and my purpose, my reason for living, the thing I can't not do, that which would make my life worthwhile even if everything else were stripped away. When you come right down to it, I do it for me.

Now, after all, crucial as it is, it turns out to be part of a much larger context and direction for my life. How about that! Now that I see it, it's just so obvious.

Mind you, my other life cards are Death, which means drastic change, transformation, rebirth: still suggestive of healing – and The Moon, the Muse of poets! (Smile.)

Anecdotal Asides: Gigi and Lassie

The memoir excerpts on this blog are necessarily condensed, otherwise they’d go on and on forever. Also I am relating them to stages on the Heroic Journey, so as to have a structure to work with. (For many years, lacking a structure, I couldn’t even make a beginning on telling my story.)  
When I start remembering, all sorts of things come flooding back, which don’t seem to fit into the general narrative or would expand it too much for the parameters I’ve given it. Yet they seem like good stories, which perhaps my family and friends would like to read, if no-one else. 

Maybe I’ll weave them into the main narrative if that ever does become a book. Meanwhile, I thought I could add them here as discrete anecdotes.

Finding Gigi

Bill told me he was wanting a dog, and he heard about an old lady who had this beautiful German Shepherd she wasn't able to look after any longer.

He went to her house, got out of his car, and saw the dog in the yard. He looked over the fence, whistled to her and said,

‘What do think, sweetheart? Will you come with me?’

She took a flying leap over the fence, jumped into his embrace and started licking his face.

It was a done deal.

Losing Gigi

I wonder how old she was when Bill found her. I know she was fully grown, not a puppy. I would guess maybe three or four. I seem to remember that she was five when I first met her.

As I’ve told in the memoir, we didn’t keep her with us when we got together. Bill’s parents couldn't bear to part with her. He saw her daily at  work during the week, as his father used to bring her to whatever building site they were working on. 

Sometimes Bill brought her home to us for the weekend, but things were tense between her and my cat, so this didn't happen often.

She died some years later, from a heart attack. Bill blamed his parents for feeding her too many fatty tidbits – as they fed themselves. His mum was very fat; his father less so only because he always did a lot of physical work.

But he didn't reproach them. They had loved her and looked after her in what they thought was the best way. She had a happy life, within the average span for a Shepherd, and always knew she was loved.

About Lassie

Lassie, as I said in my last blog post, came to us via a young friend who was moving house and couldn’t take her. He wanted her to go to people who would love her.

At that point I was still a little scared of big dogs. Lassie proved the instant cure.

On her first evening with us, she was lying at our feet on the kitchen floor when my cat, Guinivere, walked into the room. Lassie, who had been peaceful until that moment, instantly went for the cat.

The cat dived under the kitchen table, which perhaps would not have protected her for long – except that, without stopping to think, I leapt out of my chair, grabbed the dog by the collar, hauled her off and clouted her across the snout, shouting, ‘Leave my cat alone!’

She did, then and forever after. And I realised I was braver than I’d imagined, given enough motivation.

Guinevere clearly knew she was now off limits, and felt free to torment the dog. She did sweet things like lying in wait on top of the table, and as Lassie walked past she’d jump on her back, rake her claws along it and then jump back up on to the table in one swift, easy sequence. She did not respond to orders to leave the dog alone!

But then Lassie was hit by a car out the front of our place one day, got a broken leg, and spent a few days at the vet’s. She came home with a leg in plaster and a bucket around her head. 

Guinevere approached her, they touched noses, and then appeared to commune telepathically for a little while. I could imagine Guinie saying, ‘Whatever happened to you?’ and Lassie having a bit of a whinge about it. After that, they were the tenderest of friends, often having a chinwag and at times even curling up together. There were no more attacks by either on the other; you’d think such things could never have happened.

Despite our first encounter, Lassie and I became dear friends. This was also in spite of a power struggle over her food. Peter had told us she should have a mutton flap every day, boiled to tenderness. The first time I did this, which took a long time and made the kitchen smell, Bill declared it ridiculous and said I should feed her raw meat. He got her a juicy big bone.

‘Look,’ I said next day, ‘She hasn't touched her food. I’ll have to do what Peter said.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ said Bill. ‘Put it in the fridge overnight and give it to her again tomorrow.’

The next morning, again, she turned up her nose at it. Bill insisted I persevere. The third day she fell on it and gorged! Thereafter, she happily ate her meat raw.

She was a gentle, motherly soul. When I had children, she loved them as if she was their mother, and was very protective. This had its disadvantages.

As they got older, if I told them off for doing things they shouldn’t, she would place herself between me and them and give me a soft, warning growl. I didn't for a moment think she would ever hurt me, but sometimes it gave me pause to wonder if I was speaking too harshly to them and moderate my tone.

She was also highly intelligent. Not only did she show this in the usual doggy ways; I could sit and have long talks to her and she would gaze into my eyes giving me the distinct impression she understood it all – or at least understood what I was feeling. She mothered me too, e.g. coming to fetch me if she thought I was sitting up too late writing my poetry, and indicating clearly that I should go to bed now. She wasn't wrong!

She was the whole family’s dog, but perhaps mine most of all. I was the one who spent the most time with her, and most often did the care and feeding.

She lived with us a long time. Calculating it as best I can now, I think it must have been about 13 years – and she wasn’t a puppy when we got her. Eventually she succumbed to age; it became obvious she was struggling to cope with life. 

She was tired all the time, her breathing was laboured, and it was an effort for her to move. It was Spring. I didn't want her to endure the summer heat in her condition. I said we needed to take her to the vet to be put down. Bill and the kids were absolutely unwilling to accept this idea, but I was adamant and eventually persuaded them that it was what would be best for her. (I have a ruthless streak when I need it.)

We thought she would like to see Peter again before she went. We hadn’t seen him for quite a while, but we got in touch, told him what was happening, and invited him over. He came and spent an evening with us. Afterwards he thanked us for doing that for him. We didn't contradict him, but it wasn’t him we did it for; it was Lassie.

 We had various animals over the years, most eventually left us, and we’d usually experience some ghostly manifestations for some little time afterwards, gradually becoming less frequent. That didn't happen with Lassie.

What did happen was that one night, some years after her death, I was sitting up late one night, when something made me turn around from my desk. There in the doorway of my study, I saw Lassie walking in as of old, looking at me meaningfully to tell me it was past time I was in bed. She was right, as always.

I didn't feel spooked, but peacefully glad to see her and full of love. The interesting thing was that – as ghosts are often described – I could both see her and see through her.

When she saw that I had got the message, she quietly vanished.

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I am a cat person, as everyone knows, but that doesn't mean I can't love and appreciate dogs too.