We are in the final weeks of Winter where I live. It’s connected to the sacred feminine energy of the Crone, the elder matriarch who models rest, wisdom, and patience. Winter is seen as the menstruation time of shedding, of turning inward, of pausing. The crone also embodies the dark feminine qualities of not caring about what others think of her, and being able to create on her own terms for her own needs. She holds the balance of sovereignty and solitude, and sits at the tension of becoming conscious as an elder who embraces love, joy and compassion, instead of resisting them and living from a dark and disparaging place.
In North American overculture, we have not revered our elders, especially our grandmothers and older women. Patriarchy has intentionally cast them to the side. Our modern-day witch trials all but made this so. Gone are actual fires (thank goodness) so instead are offers of botox, hormone supplements, and weight loss programs (called Raven no less!) to keep us looking young, beautiful and vital.
We don’t have to look far to know where this is coming from. These first 2 months of 2026 have been accompanied by files that have opened up the dark side of humanity, to no one’s surprise really. These are the pandora box nightmares of our times. It also confirms that the patriarchal Kings of men have been grooming us all to stay young-looking, and ultimately reliant on their products, preferences, and power. It is inspiring to see how many of us are resisting this oppressive and violent system, creating by pedophilic patriarchal men. It is long overdue.
It is not lost on me that we live in a world where blood is shed in war and violence, and yet it is monthly blood and anything to do with the womb that really terrifies men in power. We don’t have to look farther than these files that remind us just how young and pre-pubescent men in power want women to be, before we claimed our power.
In her book, The Owl was a Baker’s Daughter, Marion Woodman wrote, “I cannot grow in the life of the spirit until I grow to love my body. Only when [women] surrender to that spirit will their body reflect that totality instead of seeking the spirit outside, women must learn to hear the voice of their own abandoned self, and that’s reconnect with their own inner mystery. The woman who has not found herself in her own body is dependent on a man to help her to be born on this earth, and is therefore inclined to project herself onto the man she loves. By whatever route, she must find her own God within.”
I have been resisting internalizing the male gaze and preference for many years, and yet it can be so hard at times. We are inundated over and over again and absolutely without our consent or full consciousness. The story that the ideal woman is of a certain age, calibre and creation. Perimenopausal women are forced to fight against this inevitable unfolding that comes with age. We need to embrace our changing body as a natural life stage, like puberty. It is not a disease! This means having autonomy over how we can for our body, as well as address our internalized sexism and ageism.
We don’t have to look any further than social media and pop culture to know just how true this cultural norm is.
I’ve been watching a show that captures this tension quite well. It’s an older show that I only recently discovered and seemingly have become a bit obsessed with. It’s called Younger and is the story about a woman in her early 40s who can’t find work after her divorce, and so decides to portray herself as a much younger woman in order to be employable.
While it’s entertaining to be sure, it does provide just enough of a dose of satire and a feminist lens to still be seen as light. And yet I wish it was even stronger. Though my journal here isn’t a review of the show, it makes my point that women of a certain age become more invisible as we age; the show has only mentioned perimenopause and menopause one or two times in one episode (though i’m hopeful it comes up again in later seasons). and of course, the fact that this actor portraying this woman is young-enough looking to pass for 26 is also something to not glance over.
I also love spending time with multigenerational women, for the most part it’s with women 15 years or even 20 years younger than me. What inspires me about that generation is how they are already embracing their spiritual soul in a way that I never got to then. We need these mutually beneficial relationships where support is reciprocal. There is strength in these bonds. And yet, i can’t help but also notice that there are no elders for the main character. She has a couple of friends her age, and yet there’s no one to guide her to reclaim her rightful place. There’s no one there to help her see that she is already valid and worthy based on all the experience she’s had.
It’s also hard not to notice the reality of her needing to become a maiden in order to start over again after divorce. The rite of passage wasn’t completed so she has to start over and have this do-over opportunity. I don’t know where her parents are: She’s a bit like me, flailing without elders and so it gives me pause to remember this challenge i am taxed with. As I enter 50, I’m in this midlife portal, midwifing my way through midlife. I’m nowhere near becoming an elder, and yet I think if I really consciously embrace each life stage, it allows me time to apprentice with elderhood: To really learn about what I will need to be an elder for my children and others, what tasks and skills i need. So I’m doing it now – gathering and gleaming gems of wisdom so that I can store them away in my cauldron of transformation that might come out if I’m lucky in 20 years. It’s a time capsule in reverse, casting a vision for my future. As I see this, what feels really true is my wise older self is with me now, thinking about the future and not just mine but the way that I hold support for others.
A Conscious Path to Crone and Elderhood
I have been reflecting on my mom’s story, especially the psychological wound i inherited from her, that of loneliness and elder-loss. My mom came to Canada in her early 20’s and was never really mothered again. She left behind her whole family and home country. She went through childbirth, learned English, gained weight, lived in an unhappy marriage, and also experienced menopause all without being mothered. Food was her comfort and inner mother, feeding her with support and some presence.
As we are sitting in this liminal space between one season coming to an end and not yet entering a new one, it’s a beautiful moment to remember how we too have our own inner seasons. Rebecca Campbell calls Inner Winter the time of the fertile void. It is the medicine of Winter, where we are called to rest so we can regenerate and ultimately be born anew in Spring. Seasons and life mirror each other – an ending is a beginning. The seed in the fertile womb of earth needs to evolve into a new iteration, and not remain the same. This is how the tomb of one ending becomes the womb of a new version of ourselves, at each threshold.
Liminality holds the tension that is developmental transitions like menarche, matrescence, and menopause. When we can embrace the transition as an all-encompassing rite of passage and infuse ritual and ceremony to it, we can endure the challenges that come with it and also not feel so alone in the process. Take perimenopause for example, on one side of the coin, it is called a midlife crisis. Whereas i see it as a midlife awakening, a portal that opens up if we can step through it with consciousness and be transformed – that it is the reward of transformation and integration. We need to accept we are no longer who we were, and not yet this new version rite of away. This is the liminal in-between that offers us time to embody who we are becoming. We are incubating in the goo of the chrysalis, not quite a butterfly.
We need to navigate the paradox of what needs to end in order to birth a new reality as an Elder, a wise woman, a Crone. A big component of this acceptance is learning how to validate all of the feelings they come along for a ride, including anger, and not perpetuate limiting beliefs that view anger with shame.
I’m really feeling this alignment with the seasons in my late stage dance with perimenopause, and also this idea of a second spring being an opportunity to begin something again. Second Spring is a term that Kate Codrington coined as a way to take the first step into life in our Post-menopause. It’s not that I’m in this brand new phase of life like the magician card in tarot, but rather this next iteration or evolution of the wheel, where I’ve moved up and over the second mountain of life a little bit.
The Red Thread
As someone who honours cyclical living and the moon phases as a guide, learning about my own mother line through the red thread story is playing a key role in how I navigate this new landscape. Red thread work includes healing our lineage and mother wound, and also having a reparative experience with an intentional ceremony to honour this rite of passage. For many people who menstruate, we did not have an official way of being honoured when our menses started. This is a healing re-authoring opportunity. Do you remember the first time you bled? How was it honoured, how did you feel about it? Do you know your mom’s first initiation and if it was honoured at all?
This stage of life is being experienced by more people than ever before. Not only are we living longer, we are also more severed from our ancestors’ practices and customs about rites of passage. Our individualized society and prioritization of the nuclear family has led to a devaluing of community and ceremony. We see more folks striving to de-colonize their therapy practices and everyday life, surely. Our mothers are not sharing about their menopause transition so easily so we are left to learn about it on our own, without the mentors we so desperately need. So, the vultures in the medical system sneak in and make us feel the only options to support our symptoms are physical interventions. There is not enough guidance about what is waiting for us on the other side of this portal – more life, and one that is more ours.
We need to remember that we are not meant to be alone in life transitions. In fact, when we face them alone, it has a risk of more psychological strain and struggle on us. We are not seen or supported through the thresholds that are part of our human experience. We move through life uninitiated. We are ashamed about our body’s changes, confused about what to do, and also left alone in the overwhelm.
The symptoms that accompany menopause are natural processes that should support our maturation into elderhood. What we call hot flashes may be our body’s way of trying to get our attention to slow down. Our brain fog may be a quiet revolt about thing we no longer need to know. Our body’s changes can be like a tree’s age rings that shows wisdom and a life fully lived.
A psycho-spiritual lens to perimenopause inspires the image of a threshold or portal to step through. Instead of going through the experience with legacy burdens or limiting beliefs, we can have clarity and compassion. With this change comes grief and the loss of an established identity. This identity or midlife crisis can be a descent that inspires an awakening. Looking back at the Heroine Journey, we can see that initiations are a time of descent and sacrifice that create transformation.
When we accept this initiation as a rite of passage and the gift of it, we also get to experience a more transformational shift as we step through the perimenopause portal with conscious awareness. What is waiting for us is the felt sense experience of calm, clarity, renewed focus, re-found strength and a deeper connection to our purpose (research conducted by Dr. Kirsty Holland and Dr. Jennifer Hacker Pearson).
Seven Tasks of Ageing
I spent most of last year in this soul mystery school of sorts with the wise teacher Sil Read. She herself was mentored by Marion Woodman years ago. The class was broken down into three trimesters, helping us hold the tension of opposite realms of conscious feminine initiation. We wove a web via the archetypes of Mother through Virgin, all the way to Crone. I am in the era of the Virgin; a Sovereign woman who is whole and embracing myself. I am doing this with more balance and grace now as i enter my 50s consciously. Looking back at my life now, i see how i attempted to find the balance as i entered other stages of life. The messy adult initiation of 23-34, my mothering threshold at 35. And now, stepping through the portal of my Virgin era (officially 50-70) feels more fully present and possible.
In Carl Jung’s body of work, he shares tasks of aging. I love the consciousness that comes with stepping into this role with integrity and intention. I chatted with a dear friend about this and we got curious about the elders we want to be someday. I’m nowhere near ready to be a crone as I’m just now finding my footing in my virgin/queen era. To be an elder is a privilege that most older adults don’t get. To be seen as wise when i am a 75 woman is the biggest accomplishment and achievement for me. And not for the work i do and the success from that. Rather, it is from a life fully lived, and to have people sit at my fit and ask for my life story; that will be such a gift and honour. And yet being wise is embodying my knowledge in putting it into action and so this is one way that I am tested with apprenticing with becoming an elder someday. If I am so lucky to be one, I will do it with a badge of honour: That means I need to do it with joy over despair, love over being negative.
Our grief phobic and illiterate overculture is afraid to face the reality of aging and death. When we accept this inevitable ending, it offers us an opportunity. How we choose to begin to face the reality of this is the key to unlocking this door that stands at the crossroads.
We are never “old” old because in each new moment you are new. It is in this newness that i seek to explore more in my work. The nature of circling back to myself and my life already lived is a practice of remembering what younger versions of me wanted, and being able to fulfil those dreams now because I also want them still AND can birth them. And it’s having that wisdom to know how to apply all i have learned along the way. When we take time to sit with who we are becoming, and what we hope for our life – this allows space for sovereignty and agency.