This is an invitation to join us for our next Women’s Elder Council gathering, extended to you by a core group of Elder women who have been meeting since 2013.
At our last Council we decided to meet four times a year and to extend an invitation to all women who are interested in exploring the sometimes confounding experience of Eldering as women in our time. Together we have accomplished at least six hundred years of living and have much to offer.
We have wandered and wondered over the territory of such questions as – What is this thing called aging? What does it mean to age as women in a culture that does not ask us to take our place as Elders but asks us instead to disappear. Is Eldership only a matter of aging? How do we support each other in this life stage? Can we reclaim the sacred understanding of the Old Woman in this impoverished culture? Whether we are forty, fifty, or seventy, how does the inevitability of our dying shape our lives now?
What is vital to pass on to the young that will assist them to meet these times?
We will continue to question the cultural rhetoric about aging women and look at the hidden biases we have internalized.
Let us again gather together to further explore our own experiences of this mystical aging process. We need to unearth how to be supportive to each other as we move towards the unknown and how to assemble a gaggle of crone warriors to guide and prepare us to take our place as Elders.
We exist within a culture that negates and stifles the old woman, offers no support for the psychological work necessary to prepare consciously for our own aging and ultimate death, and refuses to honor the sacred archetype of the Crone, Hag, Baba Yaga, The Grandmothers, and Wise Old Woman.
Indigenous cultures honored the Elder as a repository of living knowledge needed to live. What can we learn from these old ways as instruction and guidance? What is Elder activism? How do we show up and stand out and not freak out?
Join us as we carve out a space for ourselves as Elder women, learn how to be in community and connection and share the courage to be brave, old, and passionate with humor, acknowledging our fears/pains/sadness, and celebrating our lives. We will share our dreams, stories, learning and laughter to see the wisdom that might be gleaned from our experiences.
If interested, contact Nora Jamieson by email using the contact button above or by phone at 860-693-9540.