Jean Shinoda Bolen - Crones Dont Whine: Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women

Women's Interest

This juicy, witty, lovely book, shining with Wise Woman candor, is the perfect gift for any woman over 50. I savored it like a rare, well-aged wine, and I know you will too.

Susun S. Weed, author of New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way

Jean Shinoda Bolen's groundbreaking early workmost notably Goddesses in Everywomanhelped a generation of women realize their potential and their value. Half a million copies later, that book still affects the lives of women.

In this new book, Crones Don't Whine, Bolen's playful sense of humor and keen insight combine to offer women thirteen qualities to cultivate. Engage in these small practices and you're bound to be a happier person who's doing her bit to make the world a better place.

These qualities are not cultivated overnight, Bolen writes. Crone years are growing years, when women can devote their time, energy, and creativity to what really matters to them. Bolen offers us a blueprint: Crones don't whine. They're juicy, and they trust their own instincts. They don't grovel. They do meditate. They choose the path with heart. Crones are fierce about what matters most to them. They speak the truth with compassion. They listen to their bodies, reinvent themselves as needed, and savor the good in their lives.

Turn to these thirteen brief pieces again and again, in bad times and good, alone and with othersbecause Crones Together Can Change the World, as Bolen points out in an inspirational, call-to-arms bonus essay.

Crones Don't Whine is a delightful and profound handbook for crones and would-be crones filled with wisdom, humor, passion, and just plain good advice. Don't even think of growing old without it! Thanks for this gift, Jean!

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessings

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst in private practice, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a feminist and former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women. She is the author of Goddesses in Older Women, The Millionth Circle, The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, and Close to the Bone. Please visit her website at www.jeanbolen.com.

OTHER BOOKS BY JEAN SHINODA BOLEN, M.D.

The Tao of Psychology

Goddesses in Everywoman

Gods in Everyman

Ring of Power

Crossing to Avalon

Close to the Bone

The Millionth Circle

Goddesses in Older Women

First published in 2003 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

York Beach, ME

With offices at:

368 Congress Street

Boston, MA 02210

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2003 Jean Shinoda Bolen

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Bolen, Jean Shinoda.

Crones don't whine : concentrated wisdom for juicy women / Jean Shinoda Bolen.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 1-57324-912-2 (alk. paper)

1. Middle aged women--Psychology. 2. Crones. I. Title.

HQ1059.4.B64 2003

305.244--dc21

2003010612

Typeset in Minion by Maxine Ressler

Printed in the United States

MV

10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.481992 (R1997).

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The third aspect of the ancient Triple Goddess was the Crone.

The third phase of a woman's life is after menopause.

To aspire to be a crone is to want the psychological and spiritual growth that she symbolizes.

The crone is an archetype an inner potential that we grow into becoming.

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE CRONE WORD

THE THIRTEEN QUALITIES

POSSIBILITIES AND THOUGHTS

THERE IS A MEDIEVAL SOUND to the word croneand a mischievous note to the suggestion that a woman would aspire to be one. It's not what any of us aspired to be in our youth, but that was when an older woman never told her true age, and before women came into their own as people in their own right or lived as long as we now do. We of the Women's Movement generation or its subsequent beneficiaries continue to have opportunities that never existed for all the generations (as far back as the ancient Greeks) that preceded us. We have been reinventing ourselves at each stage of life. I am proposing that it is time to reclaim and redefine crone from the word pile of disparaging names to call older women, and to make becoming a crone a crowning inner achievement of the third phase of life.

To be a crone is about inner development, not outer appearance. A crone is a woman who has wisdom, compassion, humor, courage, and vitality. She has a sense of truly being herself, can express what she knows and feels, and take action when need be. She does not avert her eyes or numb her mind from reality. She can see the flaws and imperfections in herself and others, but the light in which she sees is not harsh and judgmental. She has learned to trust herself to know what she knows.

These crone qualities are not acquired overnight. One does not become a full-fledged crone automatically following menopause, any more than growing older and wiser go hand in hand. There are decades that follow menopause in which to grow psychologically and spiritually.

Crones don't whine is a fundamental characterization. It's a basic rule that describes conduct unbecoming of a crone. Whining is an attitude that blocks spiritual and psychological development. Whining makes genuine communication impossible and extorts what then cannot be freely given. To catch oneself whining is an aha! moment. This insight can be the beginning of wisdom for a whiner who has the ability to observe herself and wants to change.

While an ordinary mirror reflects surface appearances, descriptive words can be mirrors in which we see intangible qualities having to do with soul. Each of the thirteen chapters that follow in the next section focuses on such qualities, specifically those that are characteristic of juicy, wise women. It is in cultivating these qualities that the third phase of life becomes a culmination time for inner beauty and wisdom. It is the perspective that makes the prime years of this phase of life an especially rich time to enjoy who we are, what we have, and what we are doing. It is a time when wisdom calls upon us to use our time, energy, and vitality well. It is an opportunity to have more chances, experience shifts in roles, and develop talents and interests. This may be a time to play and express affection, or a time for creativity or sensuality, or a time for meditation or therapy, or a time for family or a time when family recedes, or a time to make a difference in the world.

Crones can make a difference. What you say and do can change a dysfunctional family pattern. Your mentoring can support and make it possible for another to grow and blossom. You can be a healing influence for good. You can have a ripple effect throughout generations to come or through institutions and communities. With vision and intention, and in numbers and influence, crones together can change the world.