Virgin, Mother, Crone.
These are the three stages of a woman's life. There is also the humorous five stages--
To grow up, fill out, slim down, hold it in, to h*ll with it.
Either way I'm in the last stage. If you look around carefully you may find Crone rites of passage ceremonies. It is a time of celebration once a woman passes Menopause or reaches about 56 years of age. I missed that opportunity. Considering myself to be a crone is a little hard to accept, I think I prefer to see myself as an Elder and hopefully a Wise Woman. In many traditions the Elders in the community are revered as resources of wisdom, traditions and story telling. In my collection of sayings I have many that speak to the realities and hope of reaching old age. I present some of them here.
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Time goes, you say.
Ah no!
Alas, Time stays,
We go!
Austin Dobson, The Paradigm of Time
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Age and Youth belong together
When age is not willing to listen to youth,
it has lost it's right to leadership,
and when youth is not willing to listen to age,
it is not ready for responsibility.
Benjamin Mays
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If you don't run your own life someone else will!
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A Prayer
'May we be motivated by Love.
Inspired by Joy,
Directed by Wisdom, and
Balanced by Peace.
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What greater wisdom can there be than kindness?
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To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart--
and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love.
Karl Viktor von Bonsteller
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We are all born originals--
why is it so many of us die copies?
Edward Young
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Time is the coin of your life.
It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.
Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Carl Sandburg
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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
A.C. Carlson
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How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because some day in life you will have been all of these.
George Washington Carver
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Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but
beautiful old people are works of art.
Eleanor Roosevelt
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You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.
J. Krishnamurti
8 comments:
Having reached the crone stage myself I feel sad! Sad I wasted so many opportunities for fear of what people thought, and struggled for so long to fulfil the expectations of others.
This might seem strange to younger bloggers, but remember, us crones were brojught up in the 40's and 50's and that's the way it was (well, in my neck of the woods, anyway!)
I love all those pithy sayings, and now, at this late stage, I am trying hard not to be a copy, but just be ME!
You don't have to regret the past unless you just want to for some reason. Smile because now you know you are in charge of your life and it's never to late to be a child. Hope you know the poem that starts, When I am old woman I shall wear purple and a red hat that doesn't match...... If you don't-- just type that much into your search engine and you'll get it.
Yes, I love that poem! I've been going in for bright colours this last hyear or two - not hats though!!
Hahahaaa...Okay, I think I'm in the "crone" stage!
Oh, thank you! I laughed and laughed. ((hugs))
Oh Beth,
You may not have the age to enter cronehood, but how you choose to enjoy your life as you go along is what really matters. Be bold, have fun, don't hurt anyone on purpose and sing and dance with joy. And, keep taking your wonderful pictures and telling your stories.
I love the Elder and Wise Woman description. Thanks again for your meaningful post.
Gilly this is for you.
I too wasted a lot of years.
Then maybe they were not wasted.
They were years of learning and growing. That is what happened to us. Now we both can be just "ME".
Hello Ernestine, So good to see you here. I'm off to see what you have been doing this week.
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