the real coming of age:
celebrating the wise woman years
by julie savage parker

Okay class, take out your books— Jubilee Time: Celebrating Women, Spirit, and the Advent of Age by Maria Harris—and turn to page one.

We're talking about coming of age in this issue—the real coming of age—and it's gonna be good. Hang on to your (red) hats!
From Amazon's publisher's blurb on the book:

In keeping with the bestselling When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, and Gail Sheehy’s New Passages, Jubilee Time celebrates the freedom, opportunities, and power of older women, who are too often maligned in our youth-obsessed culture. Based on the Jubilee passage in Leviticus—”You shall hallow the fiftieth year. It shall be a Jubilee for you”—this practical and philosophical book helps women assess what values and beliefs they want to carry forward into the second half of life.

warning!
You have, of course, read When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple? It is a poem in a book of the same name. The poem is actually called Warning; its author is Jenny Joseph who was born in Birmingham, England, in 1932. Warning is a celebration of being one's authentic self with the advent of age, a theme running through not only many of the pieces in this issue, but through WNC WOMAN as a whole. It begins:

WARNING When I am an old woman I shall wear purpleWith a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me. . .
If you haven't read it, go to whenIamanoldwoman.com.

(By the way, has anyone read The Seven Sacred Rites of MenopauseThe Spiritual Journey to the Wise-Woman Years by Kristi Meisenbach Boylan? Is it good?)

Hunh. I have in my notes "soul’s journey in search of spiritual balance". Did I make that up or did I read it somewhere? Phooey. Ah, Menopause Brain! But I digress..... (I digress a lot these days!)

the "c" word
When discussing this issue with the circle of women who help give this publication its juice, the word "crone" was mentioned. Half the group blanched, and half the group immediately hung garlic around their necks and cried "No! No! Not the "c" word!"

But the third half of the group exclaimed "Yes! Let's claim it! Let's celebrate it!" For those not in the know, many women are now celebrating this rite of passage and having croning ceremonies to claim this fabulous new stage of life. We ran out of space in this issue but we'll talk about croning ceremonies in a future issue. (Com'on, Alice!) To tide you over, see cronechronicles.com, a journal of conscious aging, birthingthecrone.com, menopause and aging through an artist's eyes, and yoni.com.

When we first thought of this issue, we thought of the magical, mystical age of 50—an age many of us experienced as marking the beginning of our very best years. Then we got an article about being 60, then one about being 70, and finally several women over 80 cropped up. And creeping in after the deadline was one from a woman celebrating 40 by climbing Macchu Picchu. So, we are not quite as attached to focusing solely on 50 as we once were.

A separate but related theme (which will be an ongoing feature in WNC WOMAN) is called Beautiful Dreamers about women (in this issue, all over 50) who dreamed a beautiful dream (some quite literally) that they've spun into 3D. Instead of just whining "Somebody oughta do something!"...they did it! Linda McLean, Debra Roberts, Stephanie Citron, Margaret McKeel, Katherine Graeter, Pat Magnus, Clare Hanrahan—we salute you! (And if we weren't so modest—ahem—Sandi and I would salute ourselves for creating WNC WOMAN!) Throw in the groundbreaking women of the last century responsible for prison reform for women [See Clare Hanrahan's article on Alderson Federal Prison where she used to hang her (red) hat for her acts of civil disobedience] and we have some very powerful women.

Now before you write and tell us you are 20 or 30 or 40 and you are doing great things, I say yes, I know, and you are fabulous. But there is something about being 50, girlfriend, that is so rich and so delicious that until you reach it, until you round the corner from 49 to 50, you have no idea what treats are in store for you.
So, to wrap up, (unless you prefer I digress a bit more?) this issue is a doozy. All of you who are older today than you were yesterday, join me in celebration. Think about it:

Freedom.
Opportunities.
Power.
Yes!