The Ages

The question of if and when one is a Crone has fascinated me for a long time.  I’ve had many a Pagan tell me that a year and a day after menopause is the moment one becomes a Crone.  Well, that would have had me Croning at age 46!  I wasn’t ready then, nor was I a decade later.  Now, as I approach my sixties (along with others in my Coven), I am beginning to feel a little more of the understanding and wisdom—I now know for certain—I lacked, at age 46. In fact, I have long been of the opinion that all stages of human development are organic in nature and, thus, are as unique and individual as our DNA. However, there are, in my opinion, eight specific Ages we go through during the course of a lifetime.  I call them, “The Ages”! and, as I said, there are eight of them.  Let me explain…

But, before I get into the specifics, let me first say that there are no lines of demarkation.  In fact, this is the very reason I do not specify any particular age or milestone at any particular time—because we are all so different—but, I’ll get back to that a little later.  For now, here are, The Ages:

1. The Age of Innocence

• Akin to Imbolc on the Wheel of the Year
• We are all born innocent—a blank slate, if you will.
• Our very survival depends on those who care for and nurture us.
• Our needs are basic and, for the most part, quite demanding.
• Our understanding of the world around us is basic and quite limited.  At first!
• But, as we begin to recognize voices and faces and the touch and smell of our family/caregivers, etc., the first blush of the light of our future personalities begins to shine.

2. The Age of Development

• Akin to the Spring Equinox on the Wheel of the Year.
• At this stage of our lives, we begin to develop rudimentary skills, such as, for instance, walking and talking, riding a bicycle or operating a pedal car.  This Age lasts, for many of us, through the time when we learn to count, read, or write.
• We begin to develop a sense of self.
• Also, a stronger bond with family and loved ones.
• Formal schooling often begins during this Age.
• Our personality is being developed now; along with our nature.
• Skills we began to learn in the Age of Innocence are honing and we are adding new skills daily and, often, at a rapid pace.

3. The Age of Understanding

• Akin to Beltane on the Wheel of the Year.
• Somewhere around puberty, we begin to understand things differently and independently.
• Hormones run wild and, quite often, so do we!
• We begin to understand things we simply “believed” in the prior Ages.  (Santa Claus looks different to us now, for example.)
• This is a time when we are more apt to begin the process of separating from those who parented us and identifying with a peer group.
• We are often very idealistic and, frequently, the first stirrings of the fire of idealism kindle within us.
• This is a time of awakening sexuality and an early understanding of matters related to it.
• The seeds of our future self are beginning to germinate now.

4. The Age of Energy

• Akin to Litha on the Wheel of the Year.
• Now begins the long, hot, “Summer season” of our lives.  We often raise children, have a career, make a home for ourselves, build a business—or, do all that—and more, at once!  This is the time when we tend to be acquiring things—such as cars, houses, families, and experience.
• We come, at this time of our lives, into full bloom—character-wise, personality-wise, skills-wise—in short, in a multitude of ways.
• We often make, follow through with and/or finalize decisions about matters such as parenting, marriage, career or vocation.

5. The Age of Wisdom

• Akin to Lughnasadh on the Wheel of the Year
• This is the time when we begin to see signs of our own burgeoning wisdom.
• Now, the fruits of our labors in the prior Ages are becoming apparent to us.
• We often become “the voice of reason,” or are seen as the “glue” in a group; such as family or friends.
• When we reach this Age, we have the benefit of a great deal of hindsight… and, for many of us, we can also see, with a great deal of clarity, either what we are facing in the final three Ages or, simply that we have only two living Ages left—even if we don’t think of it that way!

6. The Age of Mortality

• Akin the Autumnal Equinox on the Wheel of the Year.
• Now is the time we acknowledge and face our own mortality.
• By this Age, we have seen our fair share of death—in all forms—either personally, from loved ones, or impersonally, to those we did not know..  From those who perished young, or succumbed to sickness, accident, war, or even murder or suicide.
• Loved ones are often becoming more important to us than things, possessions, or even petty differences—the tendency is, to become more mellow in this Age.
• The Age of Energy is well behind us now.  The fire is not out, but it is waning.
• If we have not already done so, we often make out our Wills or make our final wishes known in some way.

7. The Age of Simplicity

• Akin to Samhain on the Wheel of the Year.
• The time of our lives when we, perforce or by choice, tend to scale back and simplify.
• Perhaps we go into Assisted Living, a nursing home, or just a smaller home.  Maybe we sell our home and rent.  Whatever makes maintenance and upkeep easier on us and/or everyone else.
• This is the Autumn of our lives… the time when things are falling away slowly but surely and we are drifting, as would a leaf from a tree, toward the—inevitable—end of our lives.

8. The Age of Mystery

• Akin to Yule on the Wheel of the Year.
• Just about everyone has an opinion as to what happens to us when we die.  Thus, I refer to death as the Age of Mystery—it is the final season of our lives.

The lovely and, sometimes confounding, thing about The Ages is how fluid and individualized they are.  One can be in more than one Age, in more then one aspect of one’s own lifetime or development at once, for instance.  We all live and die at different times and at different stages of our development and, the circumstances of our lives often impact the nature of our development along the way.  An example of this would be a severely abused child.  While the child may grow up all the way into the Age of Wisdom, a part of them may be “stuck” in their youth, never having had their (healthy) Age of Development fully realized.  Similarly, their Age of Understanding may have been warped by unhealthy experiences, which, in turn, will impact all the subsequent Ages if not addressed and resolved successfully.

So you see, we all of us, with no exceptions, enter and leave different Ages at different times in our lives and, sometimes, even go back to re-visit a prior age or, even remain in a given age while simultaneously moving on to the next one.  Why is this?  We are all individuals.  Wonderfully complex, complicated, and whimsical individuals who live according to free will, not specific timelines or rules!  

Now, this may be a little interesting, but, in a practical sense, how does it help us?  Well, here are a few things to keep in mind…

• Just because a person may be old enough to be in a certain Age, does not mean they are magically and automatically there!  (e.g. A young person may have reached puberty, but this does not mean they have sufficient self understanding to immediately and safely become sexually active.) 
• Ages can—and usually do—overlap.  However, as much as one can, of course, see a need to simplify and do so, in, say, the Age of Understanding, the likelihood that one is doing so for the same reasons one would in the age of Ages of Wisdom, Mortality, or Simplicity is slim at best.  
• It can sometimes be helpful to remind ourselves that not every Crone or Sage is wise and not every Maiden or Youngman is foolish!  It is a wise Pagan who takes note of the Age someone may be in, but does so while holding stereotypes or judgements at bay.
• I have said it before, but it always bears repeating:  Ignore the “Judge Not” crowd!  Judge people, situations, and circumstances—even making snap judgements where appropriate.  (Failure to heed this, could one day, cost you big—up to or including your life.)  But, never judge harshly, with bigotry, or malice.  
• Celebrate every Age for the wisdom it holds.  
• If you look down your nose on what you perceive to be a prior Age, you are not in the Age you think you are.

So, in what Age are you?  Personally, I am a burgeoning Crone, in my Age of Wisdom—who can see the Ages of Mortality and Simplicity all too clearly!

Blessings,
Winnie

My Walk With The Bear

He stood, a bear, lumbering out of the deep, dark woods of silence--he rose slowly and purposefully, positioning himself between the offending neurologist and myself.  “She’s had enough for one day,” he said quietly, and I felt his arms, warm and familiar, encircle my body, holding my tremors at bay, absorbing my misery like a sponge.  I sobbed uncontrollably and barely noticed as the doctor--essentially, dismissed--left, placing his business card on the cart beside us.  “I don’t think I can get my pantyhose back on,” I finally whispered, my voice halting, my jaw stiff with emotion.  I lifted my head from his chest, leaving a slimy patch of despair on his shirt and wiping free--with the back of my hand--the thread of saliva that joined us like an umbilical cord.  “It’s not that cold, you won’t need them,” my husband assured me.

He was wrong!  

Cold, I have learned in the 13 years since the day I was diagnosed, can aggravate my Parkinson’s symptoms more than most things and, on that day--a frigid day in January, 2003--it hit my legs like the icy slap of death itself.  “It’s f-f-freezing,” I stuttered.  “Yeah, I noticed that too,” he said, grinning at me with that familiar and all too welcomed twinkle in his eyes.  

He’s always been able to make me laugh, my husband.  But there was no laughter in me that day--no joy, very little dopamine, and absolutely no hope.  I wanted to smile back, but all I could manage was a further slump to my already defeated shoulders and a shaking withdrawal of my heart into the now fragile support of my backbone.  At least, that’s the way it felt to me.  Odd thing, since I had, just an hour earlier, walked with my customary confidence and self assurance into the hospital for testing--confident, but harboring a secret.  A secret that was now fully out in the open and no one could have been more surprised by it than I.

I had dismissed the tremor in my right leg as a pinched nerve for over a year.  But then, the tick in my right thumb began and, when I could ignore it no longer, I decided on a home remedy: I Googled it.  Starting with my worst fears first, I ruled out Multiple Sclerosis (my Aunt has MS, so it was top on my hit list of fears), then worked my way from there, finally resting at the impossible after ruling out everything else I could think of: My symptoms pointed directly at Parkinson’s Disease.  Surely not?  I even Googled Panic Disorder and Restless Leg Syndrome, but every rabbit warren of hope I tunneled down kept directing me right back to the Mad Hatter I was coming to suspect was at the root of my problem.     

Later that day, I had an unexpected daytime visit from my mother-in-law.  We were drinking tea and chatting when, without warning, the full gravity of my suspicion filled me with terror and spilled over in hot, burning tears, scarring my cheeks with invisible track marks.  “I think I might have Parkinson’s Disease,” I blurted out, squeezing my eyes closed in an unsuccessful attempt at staunching the flow of tears.  “How can I do this to Wayne?” I asked, weeping and hanging my head in shame, “how can I put him through this?  No husband deserves this, most especially not mine.”  I cried that day, not for me--but, for my husband.

My husband?  Yes.  Because, he was my partner, my Consort.  In my world view, he did not deserve this.  I had no right to "inflict" this on him.  

“Why on earth do you think you have Parkinson’s Disease?” my mother-in-law asked.  I told her about the tremor in my leg and the tick, tick, tick in my thumb (which was by then, in fact, a full--if intermittent--pill rolling tremor), and the Google search that screamed Parkinson’s! at me like a personal cyber obscenity attack every time I looked at symptoms.  She said, “Oh, no, surely not.  No… I have no doubts it will be something quite simple and quite treatable… Perhaps it’s Restless Leg Syndrome?  I’m sure it’s nothing serious…  You’ll see, the doctor will find out what it is.”   

“Perhaps you’re right,” I said, but I only did so, because I could not face the specter of a diagnosis like that any more than she could.    

I thought I could will it away.  Wish it away.  Hope it away.  But, I ended up facing it head on--albeit against my will--about a month later when I saw the neurologist  my GP referred me to.  I was scheduled for a nerve conduction test but, as it turned out, I didn’t have to have one.  A few questions and a physical exam were all it took for the doctor to pronounce my life sentence.

Before I even went there, however, something told me I should not attend the appointment alone.  I had heard a nerve conduction test could be rather painful, so I asked my husband to come with me. But, it was more than a fear of physical discomfort that prompted me to take Wayne--my second backbone--along, it was the secret I was keeping deep inside, while at the same time hiding so deftly from myself.  Which is how I came to be sitting in front of the neurologist that day, hearing the words, “You have Parkinson’s Disease,” and how I came to be--quite ludicrously--defending myself...   

An “attack” on the senses can only be met with a rapid fire response.  I launched my own attack, “No, no, no, NO, NO!”  My opponent was unfazed, “You have Parkinson’s Disease,” he responded calmly, dispassionately.  I fired a counter attack, “Find something else!”   “There is nothing else,” he said, “you have Parkinson’s Disease.”  Now I was getting mad, “I said find something else… tell me to take two of these and call you in the f#*$@*g morning!” I said.  He slowly shook his head--and I let go with a salvo of profanity.    

But, it was no use, my opponent would not budge.  “And,” he said, “I don’t think I’m telling you something you hadn’t already guessed.”  “But, that’s not the point,” I stabbed back, sobbing now, “you are supposed to find something else.  You  are supposed to make it right.”  But, suddenly, my shoulders slumped, my head went down, I gave in, defeated.  “How certain are you?” I asked, the question coming softly, muffled by my hands.  “One hundred percent,” came the gentle, but firm, response.  The fight left me then, I simply sat there, weeping. 

This--blessedly--is when The Bear stirred.  Slowly, deliberately, he came to life.  He stood, as if uncurling himself from hibernation, stretched his shoulders back, then stepped between me and the offending doctor--at precisely the moment he was needed.  His intervention came not a moment too soon, nor a moment too late--and I needed his strength more than anything in the world right then, because I had not a single scrap left of my own.  He stood with his back to the doctor, effectively shielding me from my nemesis, my fear, my pain.  I sank into his arms and shook there, as much from gratitude as the symptoms that were, by then, already quite familiar to me.

I have always been a fierce woman.  Strong and capable.  The person everyone counts on, depends on, calls when the chips are down.   But not that day.  No, that day, I was defenseless and easily bested by four simple words: You have Parkinson’s Disease.  And, had it not been for The Bear, lumbering out of the corner, standing strong and uncompromising between myself and the harbinger of my fears, I believe I might have shrunk away to nothing that day, right there on the gurney, clad in nothing but a paper gown.

Since then, The Bear and I have faced everything this disease has lobbed at us--from medications that made me vomit and lose bladder control, to vision problems, incessant loss of sleep and even brain surgery--and it has been far from easy.  But, we watch each other’s backs and, when one of us can bear it no longer, the other shoulders the burden.  And, we laugh together.  A lot.  We are long since past the point of pretense or denial, but we do not dwell on it either.  We still occasionally grieve, feel sorry for ourselves, and get angry about this thing but, in the final analysis, together, we are fearless, shameless, and happy--not all the time and not always at the same time, but certainly, most of the time.     

Then, there are my friends... but, they are a beautiful story for another day.  This day, my story comes down to four simple words: 

I have Parkinson’s Disease.

The postscript to this story, however, is that this disease has a largesse of spirit that knows no bounds!  It brings with it the gifts of compassion, understanding, patience, serenity, acceptance, comfort, perseverance, and optimism--to name but a few of the blessings Parkinson’s has given me.  Sure, I’d rather have received these gifts by way of winning the lottery but, so long as the gifts come, I’ll not complain about the source.   

I was 45 when the words were spoken to me and, on that day, in that place, I had no room for hope, only helplessness and fear.  So much has changed since then.  It took a few years for me to realize that my disease might slow me down, but it was probably not going to kill me (yet, anyway).  It might complicate my life, but I would have a life.  I would face it every day, but I would not dwell on it as a day-to-day thing.  Rather, I would be able to put it firmly in its place: A fact of my being, but not the only fact, not by a long shot.  

Most of all, perhaps, my grief over my husband's role in this has abated--somewhat--I still struggle with it sometimes, but I have come to understand that we are Handfasted together, he and I, (thirty-three years tomorrow, as a matter of fact!) and the knots of love that bind us together so tightly, have not and will not be undone by something as powerless over us as is Parkinson's Disease.  

In the dozen or so years since my diagnosis, I have learned that for me...  Fear, gives way to courage.  Anger, succumbs to grace. Doubt is bested by certainty.  And, time?  Well, time changes everything, so bring it on, Parkinson's, The Bear and I are ready for ya!       

Blessed Be,
Winnie