Reap the wisdom, feel the power, embrace the joy
Marian Van Eyck McCain
2002
Website
Buy this book new or used from Amazon

Originally a social worker and a transpersonal psychotherapist, workshop leader, and health educator, Marian now concentrates on writing and environmental activism and is secretary of the Wholesome Food Association. She leads a women's group and a writer's circle. There is a wonderful email newsletter available through her website.

It was such a surprise and a pleasure, finding this book well after my sense of what is necessary and possible for us as older women had taken shape, to discover that Marian McCain’s vision is so similar to mine. She is some ten years further down the path than I, living in England rather than the U.S, yet we are tapping into the same ethos—as  if it is an archetype waiting below the surface of our glitzy culture to re-manifest as we realize our deep need for it, and the earth’s need for it.

I like her choice of the word “elderwoman” to signify this vision of the older woman who (in my formulation) has long made self-development her goal, who accepts and appreciates herself and has compassion for others, who understands the value of her experience and her ethical judgment, who can see clearly the broad perspective of our relationship to nature and other humans and how our individual choices are shaping our world, and who is passionately committed to living her convictions and speaking her mind in whatever way she is moved to do that.

McCain says, 

My realization, as a young mother, that my own inner wisdom was of equal - or greater - value to me that the advice of the experts fired me with confidence. So again as an elderwoman, the sudden dawning of the fact that we, not “they,” are the real experts is the one thing which, more than any other, has served to light my inner fire. It is from that deep and sure knowing that I now find myself marching forth, sword in hand, to fight in whatever ways I can for those things in which I most passionately believe. (p.155)

simplicity :: deep vision :: passion :: compassion :: nonattachment
Earth-centeredness :: comfort :: connectedness :: respect :: creativity
delight :: lightness :: enoughness :: heart-listening :: peace and quiet
authenticity :: responsibility :: radical aliveness :: acceptance of change
:: balance ::

She sees the elderwoman especially as the guardian of the relationship between humans and the Earth. She talks about how our perspectives change as our bodies change and we find ourselves in a different relationship to the world and to those around us. Our desires change, and if we are open to what is happening within, the needs and wants that are not real fall away, while those which are essential rise up and command our attention.

We know this vision is achievable for us because it is the role that older women have taken in many traditional societies—that of counselor, healer, the wise one who could make decisions knowing first hand the history of past failures and successes. Indeed, according to Renee Eisler, (The Chalice and the Blade), women were the priestesses during a 1500-year reign of peaceful agrarian Neolithic civilizations which were based on the partnership model. These matrilineal societies worshipped the Goddess, the mother, the source of both life and death. There was equal distribution of wealth, a fine artistic tradition, and a highly developed infrastructure of roads and irrigation.

As McCain points out, there are a lot of us.  If enough of us live our beliefs when we make choices in our individual lives, moment by moment, perhaps we can begin to change cultural values.

This vision, as you might have noticed, has nothing to do with passively sinking into an irrelevant, sickly old age which has eventually to be relegated to the nursing home - that fearful image which can haunt our dreams and which sadly, too often, reflects our experience with our own parents. 

This gently-written, evocative exploration of what it might mean to not only grow old, but to grow wise in both the ways of the world and the ways of yourself, can re-focus your energy in a wonderful way.

Log in or Subscribe to Membership Community to discuss this article in the Forum...