July 2, 2021
The Light Of Ancient Wisdom
Deepening my connections with the Seven Nations, I find myself navigating landscapes and experiences I could never have imagined. In my circles of elder spiritual sisters who are on the same journey, we often talk about how grateful we are to have each other because if we talked with others about this we would be considered weird. Weird. It’s actually exactly what we are supposed to be.
While this is perhaps new for us, it is a landscape very familiar to our ancestors. Our ancestors of both biology and soul.
In old traditions those who acted as elders were considered to have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld. Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the unseen realms of spirit and soul. A person in touch with the otherworld stands out because something normally invisible can be seen through them.
The old word for having a foot in each world is ‘weird.’ The original sense of weird involved both fate and destiny. Becoming weird enough to be wise requires that a person learn to accommodate the strange way they are shaped within and aimed at the world.
An old idea suggests that those seeking for an elder should look for someone weird enough to be wise. For just as there can be no general wisdom, there are no ‘normal’ elders. Normal bespeaks the ‘norms’ that society uses to regulate people, whereas an awakened destiny always involves connections to the weird and the warp of life.
In Norse mythology, as in Shakespeare, the Fates appear as the Weird Sisters who hold time and the timeless together.
Those who would become truly wise must become weird enough to be in touch with timeless things and abnormal enough to follow the guidance of the unseen. Elders are supposed to be weird, not simply ‘weirdoes,’ but strange and unusual in meaningful ways.
Elders are supposed to be more in touch with the otherworld, but not out of touch with the struggles in this world. Elders have one foot firmly in the ground of survival and another in the realm of great imagination. This double-minded stance serves to help the living community and even helps the species survive. Michael Meade
Since I wrote and published my Call To Crone book, I find that so many who are not elder aspire to be crone. Perhaps an aspiration for the wisdom they sense in it. But being crone, being elder, is never about wisdom alone. It requires a journey of experience. My counsel is always to take time to enjoy the journey and accumulate the insights as they come. Take the time to become weird enough to be wise.
Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com