Life stages

I am always struck when I come over to this blog, preparing to write, when I look at the pictures of me on the banner. Having absolutely no idea what to write about today, but with lots of possibilities stirring around in my head, I stared at those pictures for a long time, thinking. Last night I picked up a journal I wrote in early 1982, wondering who I was then. It's almost embarrassing when I see the naive, sweet person who wrote in there, not the me of today at all. Or is it?

At that time, I had recently experienced a strong religious conversion and was praying and meditating all the time. My wonderful cat Fopaw and I and lived in a basement apartment in Boulder. My half-time job at the National Center for Atmospheric Research was secure. Life was good. That conversion and the years I spent contemplating the possibility of entering a convent, spending Holy Week in prayer and contemplation during those years -- it all seems to have happened to another person. Those years are still inside me, though. Today I don't even attend a church of any kind, and so much has happened to me during those almost-thirty years.

It got me to wondering about the passage of time. Changes come into my life so imperceptibly, to my body, that I don't notice or comment on them, which I guess is natural. The stages of a woman's life are usually thought of as happening in three or four parts. The version I like best is Virgin, Mother, Warrior, Crone. It's empowering to think of those years after motherhood to be in a sense fighting to become an authentic person. The only one of these four that I would change is "Crone," since the sense of that word to me is not just an old woman, but a hag, a disagreeable old crone.

However, in looking up the meaning of the word, I found a reference to a book I read long ago, Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. It reminded me that Campbell links the crone to the Fairy Godmother. What a different image comes into my mind with THAT change in wording. The actual meaning of the word is "old woman" and I certainly can identify with that. The young girl who wrote in my journal was in her mid- to late thirties, what I now think of is the prime of life.

Rather than thinking of myself as a different person, though, looking at the handwriting and reading the words I wrote thirty years ago, I see the stepping stone of sincere searching for meaning that I was reaching for in all those religious meditations. It culminates in the person writing here, in this blog, today. This morning, still dark outside and with my partner stirring next to me, I can give thanks for the earlier Me and know that her journey is filled with adventure, discovery, tragedy, and contentment.

This week I will have my 68th birthday. As the oldest sibling in a family of six, we are all still here on the planet, and we are all in relatively good health. My parents had the equivalent of two families: three girls were born within seven years and then they stopped having any children until I was sixteen, when they had three more in quick succession. The last two were born after I had married and left home. My very youngest sister, Fia, just had her 48th birthday and is a grandmother. Being twenty years older than she is, I can wear the mantle of "crone" or "fairy godmother" with pride and look forward to what life experiences still lie ahead.

Although I don't pray or meditate in the same formal sense that I did thirty years ago, the attempt to make contact with God paid off. Today it seems natural to hear the Voice in my heart that assures me the path to wholeness is firmly planted beneath my feet. When I stray off the path, I am very aware of it and quiet contemplation helps me to find my way back.