The First Liberated Woman

Great, another one. I stand, inches away from my full length mirror examining my face.

It’s bad enough that as an aging woman, I have to contend with grey hair, wrinkles, sagging, menopause, and even varicose veins but I can not tolerate hair on my chinny chin chin.

Aren’t we suppose to be the fairer sex? So why do I need to wage a losing war over whiskers? My fading vision can’t even see them most days. Half the time it’s only when the next wiry bastard grows to a inch or more in length before I notice it. How many other people noticed it before me? My vanity can’t take much more of this.

I am beginning to understand the saying, “Growing old is not for the faint of heart”. It takes guts to face head on the slow deterioration of one’s body. It takes a liberated frame of mind, one free from the youth worshipping media trap that modern culture is currently addicted to.

This is one of the reasons I like the title of Crone so much and why I am apprenticing to eventually become one. Crones were the first embodiment of a liberated woman.

When one thinks about the name Crone, the vision of an ugly old hag comes to mind. Maybe a little witchy looking, with a cackling laugh and plenty of attitude. A person not to be trifled with. When I think about the name Crone, I get a totally different mental picture.

To me a Crone is an old women all right but she is liberated from the confines of the social and sexual attitudes that is expected of a woman. A Crone does not dress and groom to fit into society, she chooses her look to please herself. She is not afraid to wear her age because she has earned every grey hair, lump, bump and wrinkle. A Crone does not conform to socially expected behaviors. With age, she has acquired much wisdom and so chooses her own path.  Her attitudes and confidence in her personal beliefs show that she has mastered life. She is no longer required to follow others, she leads. That is truly an emancipated woman.

Most everyone gets to experience youth, with it’s dewy innocence and vibrant exuberance, but fewer still reach their venerable dotage. Being called a Crone should be an honour women would want to achieve because it marks a level of wisdom and mastery that only age can give you. If you have lived long enough to reached this stage, celebrate it, flaunt it, and be proud.

I am a novice, I have much yet to learn. Letting go of vanity and embracing the aging process, wrinkles, whiskers and warts included, is a slow process, but the freedom from the cultural expectations of youth, to always look and act beautiful no matter the cost and to fit in with the social norms are behaviors I can easily let go of. I wasn’t really good at them to begin with.