Excerpt from "Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging"

Several years ago, as I sat with a group of friends comparing our jowls and saggy arms and laughing uproariously, it occurred to me that unless we die young we’re going to get older. It’s seems like a journey to a strange land that none of us have ever visited before, and we don’t have a map. But wouldn’t it be nice if we did?

Like everyone else, I hear the perpetual yawp of our culture nattering on about the Land of Aging being an ugly, dangerous place, and how we’d better spend a lot of money pronto so we won’t look like we’re well on the way. But I’m here to tell you: our culture has it all wrong. The Land of Aging can be filled with freedom and beauty, wisdom and pleasure.

If you look at our language around aging women, you’ll notice the strangest phenomenon: the word crone actually comes from “crown,” not referring to any temporal hierarchy of power, but to the deep wisdom emanating from the head. And hag comes from the Greek word hagio, meaning “holy.” How the meanings have changed!

I know in my bones that we could all use a loving guide to aging in a way that our culture has forgotten: with a sense of magic and spirit. So, welcome to Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging, a kind of Baedeker or Fodor guidebook to becoming a Crone Queen, an elder, a Wise One. This book is presided over by four kindly, wise old witches, one for each season, who will be your helpful companions on the trip. They can be bossy. They are certainly feisty. And they want you to feel loved and supported on your journey.

In these pages, you’ll explore how to honor and care for your changing body, how to fling the “shoulds” out the window and embrace your own essential self, wearing colors and fabrics that call to you rather than blindly following the dictates of fashion. You’ll look into creating a more magical home, feathering your nest with sacred objects and mementos that reflect your passions and experiences. You’ll taste all the delicious ways to enter a more joyful relationship with food and with your sensuality. You’ll be encouraged to forge more strongly connected friendships that comfort your tender heart. You’ll meet a few powerful archetypes that light your way on the aging journey, take fun quizzes, explore rituals and guided meditations, discover nourishing recipes made with simple, easy-to-find ingredients, be inspired by poems and playful ideas—and so much more.

Witch Wisdom celebrates the Wise Woman in all of us who knows how to turn inward, who hears the voice of her deep self, who tunes out the cruel messages of our culture and ignores the siren song of advertising that promises us youthful skin and hair (for a price) because she knows that wrinkles and gray hair can be beautiful, and that connection to her own vibrant spirit is what makes her fully alive. As novelist Ursula LeGuin writes, “For old people, beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young . . . It has to do with who the person is.”

Old women are closer to the wild. We have learned so much, dreamed so much, done so much—just having weathered life past the age of 50 is an accomplishment! As we draw nearer to the mystery that is death, we become closer to Source. And having gone beyond so many of the other-pleasing concerns of younger women, we are free to embrace our magical uniqueness in a new way, living out our Crone Queen years with verve. Of course, the experience of magical aging is different at 55 than it is at 95; there are many phases of the journey, and they aren’t all easy. But they are all part of coming to terms with life, and we can embrace and celebrate this challenging and ultimately liberating time.

A friend once told a great story about watching a 90-year-old woman dancing with gusto at a wedding. “She was the most beautiful woman there,” my friend said, “because beauty is about energy, life force.”

If we yank our gaze away from the mirror—or even better, if we see true beauty when we look into it—we can devote some of our precious life force to making things better on this troubled planet. Without all the demands that beleaguered us in our middle age—young children, spouses, aging parents—we’re often free in our later years to be feisty and outspoken and passionate about our beliefs in ways we were too distracted to explore before. French woman of letters Colette said her own beloved mother entered old age “with such serenity, with the gaiety of those who have nothing more to lose and so excel at giving.”

And now a word about witches. Many of you already self-identify as a witch, but others of you may be new to the word except as it refers to the cultural image of wicked hags with warts and an evil cackle. Our culture is finally changing to embrace what witches really are: Wise Ones, healers, makers, connectors, transformers, lovers. We come in all ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities, although other cultures may call us bruja or mchawi or strega. Our English witch comes from the Old English “craft of the wise.”

So how do you become a witch? According to Z. Budapest, one of the grandmothers of the modern feminist witchcraft movement, all you have to do is say, “I am a witch” three times. Because, as Alice Hoffman, author of the book Practical Magic, says, there is a little witch in every woman. This book will offer you many ways to explore your own witchy magic: be sure to check out the list of Magical Helpers in the appendix at the end that will strengthen and aid you on your own particular path.

There is a place deep in our hearts where we are conscious and strong in our aging. In fact, we can imagine an entire generation of women sailing on magical brooms into our elder years with open curiosity and verve, celebrating our magic, our wisdom, and our connection to All That Is, embracing our queenly, croning selves and enjoying the hell out of the ride. Imagine how much happier you would be. Imagine how much kinder the world would be. I invite you to be a part of this revolution. I invite you to be an old witch.

Cait Johnson is an author, counselor, teacher, playwright, performer, and witch. The author of six books, including Witch in the Kitchen and Celebrating the Great Mother, she trained with the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and has a private practice as an editor and intuitive counselor in New York’s Hudson Valley. https://caitjohnson.com/

Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging by Cait Johnson © 2022 Destiny Books. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com

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