In this blog post I’d like to take you with me on a recent visit to the special exhibition “Arts and Prehistory”* in the Museum of Mankind (Musée de l’Homme) in Paris.** Like the Feminine Power in London exhibition I… Read More ›
aging
Re-Anointing the Body by Eline Kieft
How ‘at one’ are you with your body, and what reasons might there be if your body-sense got separate(d) from your soul-sense? This piece starts with the difference between feminine and masculine spirituality, and introduces a few reasons why living… Read More ›
Aging and the Ancestral Dark? by Sara Wright
Unfortunately, an inner darkness has been with me all fall hiding in the corners of my mind and disturbing my body creating headaches and stomach troubles during the day. Although I attempt to protect myself from a culture that I… Read More ›
On Her Birthday by Sara Wright
One of the aspects of feminism that really disturbs me is the SILENCE around aging. Reflections on our personal lives are a critical piece that can help women to deal with this inevitable process. Oh, we write about the “wisdom”… Read More ›
A Reflection on Aging by Sara Wright
In feminism becoming a ‘wise’ crone is acknowledged (it is certainly true that experience brings insight), but the vulnerabilities associated with aging remain hidden. I wonder how much of this silence has to do with shame? Does our culture’s obsession… Read More ›
Winter Turns the Tide by Sara Wright
This winter has been most challenging on every level. I am exhausted, emotionally and physically. Most of my hair has turned gray. I have become an old woman who needs to be in touch with her limitations. On December 31st… Read More ›
Embracing Gray by Mary Sharratt
When I turned forty, my hair started going seriously gray. Fearing that this would make me look “old,” I drank the Koolaid and hopped straight onto the wheel of hair dyeing samsara, getting my hair professionally colored every six to… Read More ›
The Fierce Initiation of Menopause by Mary Sharratt
Modern Western culture despises aging. Aging women are held in particular contempt. Menopause is meant to be something embarrassing and uncomfortable. The pharma industry peddles hormones and other drugs meant to mask our symptoms. Few women see menopause as something… Read More ›
A Curious Blessing by Natalie Weaver
A few years back, I turned forty years old. On the cusp of this landmark birthday, I wrote about the stigma of so-called midlife crises. I resisted the idea that changes associated with midlife should be mocked, when indeed many of… Read More ›
A Feminist Liturgy of Old and Age by Lache S.
How the voices speak of what is and isn’t tastes of a superficial sauce I let drip from my lips. In the first dialectic of aging (harkening back to Marie Cartier’s helpful division of conversational foci), usually what is spoken… Read More ›
How My Pets Have Taught Me Compassion for All Beings by Ivy Helman
My cat is a hunter. You can see it in her eyes. She plays fetch considerably better than the dog and seems to enjoy playing with her “kill” – throwing it up in the air, batting it around and pouncing… Read More ›
Consideration by Valentina Khan
Yesterday I sat in my car, buckled and ready to reverse just when I looked out my side window to see the people getting into their car next to mine. There was a very elderly lady being seated in the… Read More ›
How do you feel about me now? by Natalie Weaver
How do you feel about me now? I was talking to an old friend the other day, and when I asked how he was, he said, “I’m getting by.” “Getting by? Not tearing it up, not taking ‘em down, and… Read More ›
Ode to My Twenties by Anjeanette LeBoeuf
Society has created this vortex of fear surrounding women aging. Yet, as I turn 30, I am only feeling awe. Awe over everything I accomplished in my twenties and awe in all the things yet to be realized in my… Read More ›
On Not Being A Big Hollywood Film Director, and Other Life Choices by Marie Cartier
As you read this, dear FAR community, it will be my 59th birthday. I was born February 27, 1956. I have one year to go before I turn 60. For this last year I desperately wanted to dye my hair… Read More ›
My Immortal Mother-in-Law by Elizabeth Cunningham
Before Olga Eunice Quintero Smyth died on December 4, 2014 at age 101 and 10 months, I was tempted to believe she was immortal, literally. I knew Olga for forty-five years (from age 16 to 61). For thirty-five of those… Read More ›
What is a Crone? By Deanne Quarrie
First of all a Crone is a woman. She has lived most of her life already and has accumulated many life experiences and therefore, can relate to those younger than her with greater understanding. She has acquired the wisdom associated… Read More ›
Mid-Life Genesis by Natalie Weaver
My mother-in-law, quoting her mother, has often said, “a woman who tells her age will tell you anything.” I think the “anything” here she is referring to is sexual disclosure. She may be correct because I am not above or… Read More ›
Birthdays and Aging and Feminism and Religion by Marie Cartier
“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.” ― Yoko Ono If you are reading this on February 28, 2014,… Read More ›
Lady Death by Jassy Watson
Lady Death is knocking on my dear old Poppy’s door. His health has been getting progressively worse with each day and it is a sad and trying time for all of the family. Naturally, with death, comes reflection, unresolved issues… Read More ›
Girls Gone Gray by Erin Lane
My hair started “going gray” at nineteen. Prophetic, you could say, for a college girl whose life was going the same way. The gray hair began around my temples, curling around my ears like a vine before following my hairline… Read More ›