Crone in Corrogue: Wild Wisdom of the Elder Years

Glorying in the elder years, a time of spirituality, service and some serious sacred activism

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

Abducted by Fairies

You might have thought I had been abducted into the Other World.

It has been nearly a year since I posted here. You could well think I have been abducted by fairies. For I have indeed been inhabiting a liminal space.

2016 was a year where I needed blog sabbaticals. I entered a liminal space and I needed (and still do to a certain extent) to take pause and prepare for the whatever next.

Well, in some ways, I knew what some of it was going to be. After over thirty years of co-habitation, my darling Beloved and I decided to mark our partnership with a formal wedding. And it was not a hand fasting, but a Humanist Society of Ireland service. Because in 2016, the more there were public statements where you stand for equality and the humaness of our being the better. Nor is Tony particularly pagan identified. So it suited us.

While the practical considerations of pulling together a wedding are headachey, there are all the other little goblins that come out of the woodwork, too, when you finally, formally unite two lineages together. Because, they are right. Marriage is different. And I needed to prepare for it on a spiritual level. And that required a lot of journalling, sacred pausing and some space to hyperventilate down international phone lines  or Skype to my Company of Good Women who supported me on the day.

So about this time in 2016 I embarked on exploring the Wheel of the Year with the seasonal range of Joanna Powell Colbert's 30 Days e-courses.  I started with Brigit, She who is my go-to WiseWoman (along with Danu, who more like my go-to Wise Granny).

It turned out to be an extraordinary stroke of self-care for an introvert facing the most public day of her life, with over one hundred guests coming from Denmark, Germany, England, Wales, all the counties of Northern Ireland, nine counties in the Republic, as well as folk from New York, Maryland, and Idaho.

The 30 days courses were also an antidote to the growing internet ugly over the course of the year. In that held cyber space, I made some very genuine soul friends, many of whom share an affection for Danu. When I finished the Wheel of the Year at Yule, earlier this year I likened it to being the digital age's equivalent of the Canterbury Tales. It felt like I had been on pilgrimage while I made two very important transitions.

The first was the wedding, which was held on 28th August on a blazingly sunny day in Leitrim, which many would consider an oxymoron.  And it was joyous.

b2ap3_thumbnail_DSC00842.JPG

The second happened at Samhain. I turned sixty and over 2016 I knew I was ready for my croning. I was really happy to to embrace my elderhood. 

With a friend who also turned sixty this Samhain we held a joint croning ceremony via the web. Siobhán had her circle present for her in Louisiana, which I was perched by my hearth in West Cavan. Another friend linked in from Atlanta.

Like marriage, the croning ceremony has made crucial changes to my whole outlook and sense of being.

So it is at this juncture that I am going to go off with the fairies in this blogging space.

But I will return shortly to the Sagewoman blogosphere in new form.  I will  be regularly blogging about the magic of that transition into Crone and Elder.

 

Last modified on
Bee Smith has enjoyed a long relationship with SageWoman as a contributor, columnist and blogger. She lives in the Republic of Ireland, teaches creative writing and is a member of the Irish Art Council's Writers in Prisons panel. She is the author of "Brigid's Way: Celtic Reflections on the Divine Feminine."    

Comments

Additional information