Reclaiming the Crone

The other day I made the fatal mistake of glancing at my arms whilst in a gravity enhanced yoga pose.

Seriously?? When did THAT happen??

And by that, I mean the switching of my arms with my mother’s! Where the bloody hell have my beautifully toned, smooth skinned limbs gone? And why the fuck was I not given more warning??!

I have turned to crepe overnight.

I am a hanging basket of sinew, deterioration and disappointment.

In India, I once did an entire yoga practice blindfolded. I think it might be the way forward. Either that or a full wetsuit.

Yet, something is trying to emerge through my eye clenching down dogs. It niggles through my heart chakra each time I am invited into various forward folds. I think it might be a little thing called…acceptance.

With each inhale, it seeps in a little more, with each exhale I push it away.

Nope! Not ready for that resigned fate accompli just yet. I want my body back!

But my body is changing and apparently no amount of coconut oil or collagen supplements is going to alter that. And so, what choice do I have? I am sure that resisting it will only lead to more lines and wrinkles anyway…all that tension is terribly ageing. And isn’t this what I stand for? Keeping it real, natural, authentic, growing old gracefully as they say. But maybe it’s not just about acceptance, somehow that doesn’t quite feel deep enough.

No, maybe this is much more about embracing, honouring, and LOVING being in ‘the winter of my life’ – or let’s call it autumn – and if my saggy, wrinkly skin is the visual evidence of all that I have gained and all that I AM, then bring it on! Bring on the crone! But let’s not wheel her in with a crochet blanket on her lap and the vague hope of chair yoga after breakfast if she’s lucky. Let’s call her in dancing, abundant, passionate, wise, wild, and free!

Imagine if we all embraced the crone. How different the world we live in would be?

I teach a women’s movement practice called Qoya. The word Qoya means Queen in Quechua (an indigenous Peruvian language). But it doesn’t refer to the regal, crown wearing type that is familiar to us. No, the Qoya were the female elders of the tribe. They were revered and consulted by the men for decisions that needed to be made on the land and within the community. They were the oracles. They knew which seeds to plant where and when. They knew which direction the next rains would come in from. They knew when each ceremony needed to take place and why. They knew how to gather, connect and love, and they certainly knew how to dance. They danced for joy, they danced to heal, they danced for the earth, they danced for their ancestors, they danced for guidance.

The Qoya were crones.

Isn’t it time we got back to revering our elderly selves? Isn’t it time we got back to respecting the wisdom and knowledge that our female lineage holds?

We are a million miles away from how the Qoya were seen.

I wonder if the Qoya even had a word for menopause? I doubt they would have been rushing to the local Shaman at the first sign of a hot flush or mood swing to get something to ‘take it all away’. I’m pretty sure they knew that this was the most transformational, empowering process that a woman would experience in her life. It’s where the inhibitions fall away so that the wisdom can ooze out. It’s where the not giving a fuck about what others think enables our truth to be told. The truth that holds half a century of incredible human experience, undoubtedly made up of a tapestry of traumas and wounds, earth shaking joys and heart-breaking pains. All of which are then alchemised into wisdom. The wisdom that has yielded from decades of learning, of breaking, of daring, of loving and of losing, of holding and of letting go.

So rich.

What a waste not to embrace that, not to dance with that.

We are so programmed to ‘hold back the years’. We are bombarded with offers of ‘age defying’ this and ‘anti-aging’ that. In a world where we can apparently be anything we want to be. Except old. Whatever you do, don’t look old.

So, what if we replaced the word age with the word wise? Do we really want to hold it back, defy it and anti it??

“No one wants to see long grey hair on a woman!” my mum declared the other day as she talked about the lady across the road who has, apparently “really let herself go.”

Well, let’s hope you’re not around to see my long grey hair when it decides its’ ready to emerge, I thought. I know many women – some older and some younger than me – who are daring to let their long grey hair be seen!

Isn’t it time that every liver spot, wrinkle, and crinkle was celebrated?

Isn’t it time that every bingo wing was seen to hold a thousand beautiful and tragic stories?

Isn’t it time things changed?

Isn’t it time we re-claimed the crone?

(For more information about Qoya visit my Work with Me page)