...a positive journey of aging that's filled to the brim with wisdom, learning, and possibility

FIND SOME NEGATIVE SPACE FOR POSITIVE RENEWAL
Life too busy? It sure feels that way. And most everyone reports the same: "I'm overwhelmed." "There's just too much to do." "How can the days be flying by so quickly?" "I never have any time to relax!" Sound familiar? Whatever the season, the events ahead, the stages of your children or grands, the work you do, the joys or challenges you face, STOP. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Count your blessings. Put your feet up. Take a minute, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year. Relax, rejuvenate, restore, renew.

"Do nothing, nothing, nothing more." This is a sign my colleague and I printed out and tacked up on our office wall at some point last year. I stuck a copy on the first page of my day planner too. Of course I bypass the wise counsel more days than not. (Just today I agreed to teach a course - "just two and a half hours, just one night a week, just six weeks long, just another six for the advanced section...") But I am beginning to make more conscious choices to purposefully do less.

It's hard! My first empty-nest year just flew by. The year I thought there would be plenty of time. Yet it always felt like there was no time. Looking back, there was sufficient time to pack in a thousand things. But how do you fit in nothing?

It's hard! So many things I want to do pull and tug at me. (Even things I don't want to do vie for attention...) I want to spend my time with family and friends. I want to get my body healthier, read good books, de-junk my old house. I want to plant more flowers, travel, listen to good music, learn how to sail. I want to save the world! I want to do nothing.

On the whole, a rather self-centered list. One that gives me pause. Clearly, my "giving" cup is just about empty. When I mentioned this list to a friend, she reminded me of the importance of the earth laying fallow a period of time for restoration. Do nothing. Do nothing.

It's hard! Guilty "I shoulds" constantly creep in. My "to do" lists at home, at work, and for La Leche seem unending. I cross items off and add twice as many more. I think about Steven Covey's (The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) "important/urgent" grid and know that too much that gets done from those lists falls in the "urgent, but not important" quadrant; too much that gets left out -- or never even makes it on the list -- is "important, but not urgent." In fact, with a never-ending list of things to do, it's easy to lose sight of what's important -- really important -- to me. When I'm doing too much, time for reflection gets lost. I know I need to get back in balance -- and one good way is by doing nothing.

It's hard! How does life get so busy and complicated? It just does. Mom, wife, daughter, sibling, worker, volunteer, citizen -- each role requires an investment of time. So many demands from the "outside," yet the inside calls too. The person that I am -- my primary role -- also has need for nourishment. Do nothing, nothing, nothing more.

It's hard! What does "doing nothing" look like? I'm reminded of my youngest daughter's responses to her friends' telephone queries: "What are you doing?" "Nothing," she'd reply, even though from my perspective, she and I were just having a great conversation. My oldest -- struggling to define her dissertation topic -- has her own take on doing nothing: "it's highly productive and -- if you're doing it right -- very time consuming..."

For me, I'm learning that to do nothing means no brain engagement. It doesn't mean the escape of MaJong solitaire on the computer or the complex "paint by numbers" puzzles that have lately caught my fancy. It doesn't mean reading a magazine or watching television. It's simply -- though not always so simple -- letting everything float away.

Until recently, doing nothing wasn't even a consideration. It certainly never made its way on to any of my "to do" lists. Now, it is at the very top.
____________________________
by Sue Christensen, Indiana USA
from Continuum, Vol 16, No 2, 2003

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BEHOLDING THE CRONE YEARS
Who becomes a crone? Is it a destiny all women share? Do we even get to choose?

It was a simple comment, but it has lingered in my mind now for months. "Good-bye, my crones in training," said our friend -- gray hair askew, long gauze skirt billowing over bare feet -- as we left her tucked away, memento-laden bungalow near the shores of Lake Michigan last summer.

Crone. I hadn't thought much about the word for a dozen years, not since receiving The Crone, by Barbara Walker, as a fortieth birthday gift from my husband. I had smiled at his thoughtfulness (or was it a practical joke?) but at the time, didn't feel at all connected to the withered, wrinkled wise woman gazing out from the book jacket.

Now that I've been labeled, I've been wondering just what is the path for a crone-in-training? Who becomes a crone? How and when does one "graduate" to cronehood? Is it a destiny all women share? Do we even get to choose?

Perceptions of the crone appear to be even more diverse than the women who hold them. "I am not going there," was the definitive response of one friend, while another has begun planning a croning ceremony for her sixtieth birthday. My own vision of cronehood includes internal wisdom, acceptance, and calm; my colleague, on the other hand, sees action and a certain degree of rabble-rousing.

"In ancient matriarchal societies," writes Walker, author of my crone book, "the older woman was revered as a powerful elder, a woman of great wisdom and judgment who functioned as a healer, teacher, and priestess. Symbolized as the Crone... [she] was considered to have prophetic wisdom, theological knowledge, and legal judgment; she was a decision maker as well as a moral and intellectual leader of her family or tribe."

With the emergence of patriarchal religion and society, this image of crone was replaced by one which depicted the crone as hag, witch, evil-doer. Still today, dictionaries refer to crone as "an ugly, witchlike old woman."

As the meaning of crone is debated, redefined, and rebirthed, what appears certain is that a whole movement of women is consciously celebrating their "coming of age." For some, this includes resurrecting old beliefs and embracing the crone within; for others, the markers are placed as far as possible from the dictionary depiction of crone. But are we really traveling in opposite directions?

Martin Buber writes in The Way of Man of an old Hasidic story about Rabbi Zusya, who realized shortly before his death that in the world to come, God would not ask "Why were you not more like Moses?" but "Why were you not more like Zusya?"

However we label our aging journey -- and whichever path we take to our end days -- is not our central destination point one that allows each of us to unfold into our fullest self?

So, am I becoming a crone? The wrinkles will be easy. Already my 15-year-old daughter has a great time playing with my emerging pockets of soft, sagging skin. I trust that my path in the coming years will lead me to myself. Whether that turns out in the end to be a crone may just depend upon the eye of the beholder.
____________________________
by Sue Christensen, Indiana USA
from Continuum, Vol 12, No 1, 1999