This story of elder women, whose wisdom is sought by the young sounds really nice but is not relatable to many and I might speculate, to most.
I believe I speak for many when I say, no one listens to me. No one thinks I have elder wisdom. No one wants to hear my stories, nor do they want to tell me theirs. No one has that much time for me.
Often, I’m not believed when I tell my stories or even offer my opinion on serious subjects. My education is not respected.
There are smirks when I speak. And they argue with me over what I know I know or what I might have just read. My knowledge is dismissed. I’ve learned not to press, instead I walk away silent.
However, I like being my age. I like the experiences I’ve had. I like looking back, as I have much more time for memories now. In fact, I have much more time behind me than I have in front of me.
So, I like at least to write or to tell myself the stories of my life. I hope I have a lot more time to write and to remember. I’m not there yet, though I know I will pass away, to wish to die as I have heard the elderly say.
I’m not holding my breath for a time I might be needed. Times when what I’ve learned will be interesting to someone. Times when others choose to listen or to read what I think.
Times have changed and I wonder if wise ones, crones, the grandmothers and grandfathers have a place anymore. Though I know that in some cultures the elders still hold value.
In our culture, often the elders are put away or choose to live distant from family and friends, in retirement homes or if they need assistance, in nursing homes or they spend their days alone at home.
People are busy holding down one, two or more jobs just to get by. They query each other, “has anyone called grandma or grandpa today or aunt Phyllis or aunt Elaine?” “No” is most often the response, I’ll try to get there tomorrow or I’ll try to call this weekend.”
I know it’s not just me who holds little intellectual or spiritual value to anyone. It’s not for lack of love for I know I am loved and loved deeply. But I know many elder care workers. This story is far too common when the crones, the grandparents are dropped off to pass away, unwanted.
I am glad when I hear that there are those elders who are still respected and still hold value in their communities. I listen to the “wisdom speakers”. Some of them are old and some of them are quite young. Their wisdom gets me through life.
I listened, even as a child, to my grandmother and to my mother when they told me the stories of their childhoods and their lives as wives and mothers and their careers. I loved hearing about their joys, their heartbreaks, what it was like to live in a different era. I wish I could remember more of what they told me. Sometimes I wish they were still here today so that I could tap into their wisdom.
But this is not my story. The crone, the wise elder is not my experience. I’m finding it easier to be quiet more often.
………………………………………………….
Below is the original post that inspired my response.
One day you wake up, look in the mirror and see the crone, the hag, the elder, the wise one grinning back at you. She’s laughing; you thought she would never catch up to you, but she’s here! I tell you this is the place to celebrate, sing, dance, do ritual, howl, rage, laugh, keen to honor the old woman that is knocking at your door! Fling open that door now! We living in the times when your elder wisdom may be the very thing we need to carry on. The young folks starving for our wisdom and they might not even know it. Ancestors been walking through my dreams, knocking on my door, saying before you come to dance with us, call your wise women to lay down their down to the bone truths. This wisdom is needed now, folks are thirsty for the tongues of the grandmothers. Come on In – sit a spell, I ain’t going nowhere, I’m right here. Let me tell you a story and maybe you’ll share a few with me and the rest of the world that longs for the stories yet to be told.
It was April 5th, 2023 at 4 o’clock in the afternoon when happy hour began. It was just 8 and a 1/2 hours before the pink moon arose at 12:34 am on the 6th.
Coincidentally, I awoke just at 12:34 without prompting. There were no bells that rang. There were no sounds outside of the house nor light that entered my room. I simply awoke.
I wasn’t surprised that it was at just that moment that I stirred and sat up. These things often happen to me. They probably happen to you too and if you’re paying attention you will notice them. Perhaps you look at the clock just at 11:11 or 3:33. I often wake up at exactly 12 o’clock midnight. Always in my mind, the thought arises, and I say, “it is the witching hour”. I don’t want to think those words but there they are.
Without intention, my friend and I planned to get together on this date a week or more before, never occuring to us that there might be significance. Perhaps it did occur to her being that she is deeply knowledgeable in astrology. If she did, she didn’t mention it to me.
I texted her early in the morning wondering if we were going to meet at her house or go out for food. It was then that she said she wanted to go to the Sapphire Hotel having never been there before.
I was excited by this prospect having been there several times previously. I knew the food was good, maybe even better than good and I knew the drinks were exceptional and extraordinary.
The hotel is squeezed between a coffee shop and a framing shop at the end of a busy business district known as Hawthorn. It’s one of those areas filled with bars, restaurants, bookstores, ritual shops and grocers. There’s only a small sign on the window painted in gold announcing it’s location. The windows were dark but I could see the small candles that burned inside and the brooding ambient light, the only evidence that it was open.
The Sapphire Hotel has a dark and shady past, having once housed a brothel. Such is the history of Portland, Oregon. Like most, if not all port cities, they hold deep and dangerous secrets hidden in their past.
We were the 1st to enter. We left the daylight behind us and chose a table tucked against the wall, a candle on the table, already flickering in the dim room. The dark wooden walls and floors, the oriental carpets and red velvet drapery alluded to the mysteries that lay dormant.
“How many of the people who come here know of its history”, I wondered. I could name many hotels and restaurants with seeedy pasts that housed whores and entertained criminals. But Portland has become a city of transplants. Not many anymore have been around long enough to care about its past.
We pondered over the drink menu with its many strange names. Finally I settled on a “Wai Fai password”. Mango with dark rum and heavily spiced. She ordered an “Aquarius”, astringent with Campari, reminiscent of a Negroni but sweeter. We ordered salty, mapley bacon wrapped dates and Korean bbq wings so spicy it took two before my mouth and lips got used to the heat. We lingered over these, leaning into each other, as we shared what we had been reading, studying, doing and worrying about since we last met.
Time passed as we enjoyed each other’s company. Maybe it was an hour when we decided to order our entree. It would be a medium rare steak with chimichurri sauce, roasted and seasoned potatoes and steamed fennel laced broccoli for us both. It is a rare occasion for me to eat beef but knowing what I knew already about the food here, I gave it a try.
The steak was thick and tender, slightly pink in its interior with a spoonful or two of the chimichurri so as not to overwhelm the flavor of the beef. This was one of those times that I thanked the universe that I had given up on veganism.
Still the conversation simultaneously and continuously wandered from topic to topic in some organic way that only we could follow, as again we lingered over our food and our 2nd drink. Perhaps another hour or more passed, we weren’t counting the minutes.
Because my friend had named our dinner out, “fuck it”, having been through a bit of suffering lately, we added dessert and a 3rd drink. Dessert was a dark, appearing almost black in the candle light, lava cake on a large plate surrounded by a scoop of vanilla ice cream, more than a dollop of whipped cream and a drizzle of caramel. We wanted coffee drinks to counter the sweetness but my Spanish coffee was laden with rum, kahlua, tuaca and another coffee liqueur but I declined the whip cream. Her drink of choice was a surprising Campari laced coffee with a whip of Negroni cream. “What?”, You might say, but it was extraordinarily pleasant leaving the mouth slightly dry.
Again, we lingered. We had drunk and eaten to our pleasure limit. By now we had spent 4 lush hours and we weren’t done yet but we gathered up our coats and bags and reluctantly departed. We slowly made our way to the car while petting dogs along the way: The big, black 12 year old, with his muzzle turning mostly white, with cloudy, rhuemy eyes and the one year old meat head pittie who wiggled and jumped on me to my delight.
We had a wonderful time at the Sapphire Hotel. But all things must come to an end. If like Buddha says, “Life is suffering” this was a pleasant reprieve. Thank you, my dear friend, for this respite.
I was talking today to another about a conversation I was having with a friend about the meaning of dreams, of spirituality. She thinks that I should not be talking about spirituality because my perspective is not spiritual. She thinks my friend would be better talking to someone who is spiritual. Perhaps she is right.
It’s not that I do not acknowledge spirituality, it’s that I stand there, face to face with it and am not afraid to ask questions of something that, to me, does not exist. Why do I need something to believe in?
I see only the stories made by men. I acknowledge the stories. Yes, I acknowledge that others put faith in them. I can acknowledge the creative beauty of the stories but I also recognize their sinister intentions, their dark, shadow side. I put faith in nothing. I believe in nothing.
This is a great comfort to me… that I can live in this world, with a beating heart and understand, that my courage consists of this: I know, only, that I am. I know nothing for sure, not even that and that is OK for me. I know that I am vulnerable and that I will not be here for long. I know that my existence consists of both joy and sorrow and that I have no control over my experiences and that is terrifying but true.
I will talk to you about anything but know for sure, that I do not live with belief or faith in belief. My perspective might frighten you. You would not be the first to be alarmed.
We have been in lockdown. We have been quarantined since mid-March 2020. We are expected to wear masks when in public places. Stores and restaurants and bars were shutdown, many to never open again. Businesses have closed. There is massive unemployment. People are infected with Covid-19 and some are dying.
And worse yet, we have a toxic president pushing for a fascist regime. He is up for reelection in November and his campaign is deeply rooted in white supremacy. He is hell bent on destroying not only America but the world. I’m terrorized.
I could write a list of what is wrong but it would be too long for the post I want to write. I will say only that we need real change. We need a universal awakening to stop the engrained systemic racism resulting in police brutality and injustice and inequality in every aspect of life.
We are destroying our home. We have raped and pillaged our only source of life. This just might be the end of us. And yet we persist in this destruction. My heart is sick.
And yet, the earth will heal after our self-inflicted demise, there is no doubt. When we no longer strip the forests, pollute the air, soil and water; when we are no longer here to burn down our home, the earth will recover. I should be hopeful.
While I wake every morning to face yet another day, to sort through what new tragedy has taken place, what new atrocities await us… how much money we spend on war machines to annihilate innocent people, to count how many children are in cages, how many refugees are in transit, and are hungry and homeless, how many US citizens are homeless and hungry, and not to mention the working poor, I become more cynical and without hope. I can hardly take it.
And yet, I am one of the lucky ones. I have shelter, food, clothing family and friends, but that brings no solace. Solace will only come with real and lasting change. History teaches us that only hatred and greed are the only constants in this world.
You will argue with me, I know that. I have heard all the arguments. There is nothing new that you can come up with. NOTHING!. You will say, “but look at all the beauty that surrounds you: nature, music, all of the arts, people who are good, people who are protesting and working towards a better world.” I know. But that doesn’t make change. It never has and I doubt that it ever will. I feel desperate.
But my initial intention for this post is to celebrate our mother, our great mother, who would provide for us everything we need if we weren’t so full of hate and greed. We do not understand her.
Two people have mentioned the changing of the season though we are not quite half way through summer. Do we somehow, intuitively feel the change, see it in the shadows, and see the end of life of earth’s flowering? Fruit and vegetables and all that carry seeds are ready to burst and fall upon the ground.
I have resisted and complained when folks start talking about the season’s ending when we’re fully engulfed in the present season. But I am beginning to understand and to embrace it. I think this follows my lack of recognition of changes in my own body.
I was never really conscious of my own, very intimate, monthly cycles of ovulation and the impending expulsion of my eggs in a flood of fluid and blood. I never experienced PMS symptoms or cramps with my menstrual cycle. I never knew when those changes were about to take place or were taking place until there was obvious evidence. And when the cessation of that cycle came, I wasn’t conscious of the internal changes taking place. I didn’t equate the changes of my emotions and psychology together with the changes in my body. The symptoms of menopause were slight and short-lived.
I am not saying that I didn’t sense the changes as one season was ending or another beginning but I was fully present: summer was summer, winter was winter, etc. Don’t talk to me about spring when it is still winter.
I am just beginning to understand how others more overtly acknowledge and accept mother earth’s cycles, her seasons and how that pertains to my own lack of consciousness of my own cycles… her barreness, her fertility, her impregnation and fullness of pregnancy and then her birthing. And of course there is the building up to each cycle, so I should have been able to put these together. I could be more joyful at the slow turning of the seasons and to welcome other’s acknowledgement that they sense the preparation of the mother to the changes.
Though the universe, the planets and the stars, tell us that the solstice and the equinox turns on this date or that date, we are in the fullness of earth’s cycles everyday and even in the smallest of increments.
How to tie the world’s demise to the earth’s resilience? Well, as chilling March turned into April, winter awoke from slumber and sprang forth in exuberance. Trees grew leaves and flowers. Sprouts burst out of the cold soil. Color was everywhere. Even in April’s cold rains, life emerged, undaunted by the turmoil produced by humans.
If I could wish for anything, it would be peace and justice and a consciousness that this earth is our mother, the very source of life, and that everything is dependent on our loving care.
So friends, let’s talk about the changing seasons. Let’s talk about how “a change is gonna come”. Let’s talk about it. Just maybe it will.
eyeamdust 