Cait Johnson - Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging: Finding Your Power through the Changing Seasons

For my granddaughter, Aevora Muse Hannan, and to my son, Reid, and his love, Simone, who made me a grandmother.

WITCH WISDOM FOR MAGICAL AGING

What a marvelous book! Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging is sheer wisdom cloaked in love, humor, and glorious sensuality. Cait Johnson has written a book so desperately needed in this world, not only to dispel the myths of growing older but to celebrate its delicious secrets. Think you know what happens as we age? Think again. Read this beauty.

ALISE MARIE,AUTHOR OF THE BEAUTY WITCHS SECRETS

How comforting to be taken in handand heartby these four wise witches with their ancient knowledge of the seasons and of our lives. If you have ever felt daunted by the challenges of aging, here you will find courage and inspiration, kindness and good counsel. Practical and lyrical, Cait Johnsons beautiful book is an invitation both to new adventure and timeless homecoming.

ELIZABETH CUNNINGHAM,AUTHOR OF THE MAEVE CHRONICLES SERIES

In Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging, Cait Johnson covers an often-neglected topic, helping women to age in a healthy and magical way. And, since women are all different, she presents many different aspects of aging, using the four elements and their seasons as a backdrop. From practical advice, inspirational wisdom, and rituals and activities, there is something here for everyone, no matter what kind of witch you are. Most of all, Johnson encourages us all to find peace, acceptance, and joy in our older selves.

ALICE KARLSDTTIR, AUTHOR OF NORSE GODDESS MAGIC

Old age is lots more than crepey, creepy skin and wrinkles. As Cait Johnson tells us, the usually pejorative words crone and hag really mean crown and holy. When we follow the advice of the four witches of the seasons in this book, we can attain our own holy (and practical) wisdom. We can put on our own crowns. The guys say that getting old aint for sissies. Well, guys, witches are not sissies! We read this book, we grow, we get wiser and more beautiful, we live our holy lives.

BARBARA ARDINGER, PH.D.,AUTHOR OF SECRET LIVES AND FINDING NEW GODDESSES

When we women reach a certain age there is often no one there to show us the next steps. Older women need an even older woman to illuminate the path aheadand that is what Cait Johnson has done. Too often we are greeted by images and accounts of goddesses who are described as young, nubile, and objects of desire. It is refreshing to be reminded of the divinity within the hag (from the Greek hagios, holy). This book would make a perfect gift at a croning rite or for any woman over the age of fifty or so, no matter the occasion. It would also make a delicious gift to yourself, whatever age you might be, with its many hints and advice for self-nurturance.

ELLEN EVERT HOPMAN,AUTHOR OF THE SACRED HERBS OF SAMHAIN

I learned so much from this wise, witty book of unexpected delights. Cait Johnson extends a generous invitation to journey from earthy practicalness to sublime mysteries. With loving guidance from the supernatural voices of the four witches who turn the Wheel of the Year, this book inspires us to imagine the dream of our elder selves.

STARR GOODE,AUTHOR OF SHEELA NA GIG

This sorceresss brew contains the soulful warmth of a therapist, the thoughtful pedagogy of a beloved teacher, a poets sensitivity to languages intricacies, and a feminists clear-eyed truth and rebel yell. Visit and revisit these pages, not just for the wonderful recipes, rituals, and meditations but to spend more quality time in the company of Johnsons witches who, by books end, feel like soul friends. Women of a certain age: feast on this book to feast on your life.

LISSA KIERNAN,AUTHOR OF TWO FAINT LINES IN THE VIOLET

Cait Johnsons words are like a broomstick ride into the enchantment of aging and its rich underground cave of Feminine Mysteries. This world needs the full power and presence of the crone with her medicine cabinet of earned wisdom, compassion, and paradoxes. Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging returns the aging woman to her noble throne. I look forward even more to becoming a crone after drinking in the power and insight in this book.

MAYA LUNA,CREATOR OF DEEP FEMININE MYSTERY SCHOOL

Witch Wisdom for Magical Aging offers an irreplaceable compendium of lifetested wisdom, straight from the hands of one of todays most powerful Wise Women. Blessed be you, Cait Johnson, for stirring up such a rare cauldron of delicious, inspiring, and practical delights!

ANNIE FINCH,AUTHOR OF THE POETRY WITCH LITTLE BOOK OF SPELLS

Contents

FOREWORD

Apprentice Ancestors

Caitln Matthews

A ge is not what we have all been led to believe it is. It is certainly not the end. At the relatively young age of sixty-nine, I see it mainly as a school in which we become apprentice ancestors. But we didnt ever think we were going to be in this school when we were young, of course.

Women pass through an extraordinary migration of changes as we grow and age. Down through the ages this has made us seem mysterious, even dangerous, in the eyes of the dominant male culture. For example, Aristotle and others thought we had wombs that wandered about our bodies, disordering our emotions, and that sweet substances should be positioned near the site of the womb to tempt it back into its proper place! But honestly, the story of women is even more extraordinary than that.

From the time when the menarche comes upon us as girls, to the moment that menopause switches off our years of fertility, our bodies change, and our view of ourselves mutates and develops in ways as extraordinary as the caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It is just that we have not ever heard much about the story of what comes after these changes, mostly because the life expectancy of women was historically a lot shorter than that of menwhich is why we hear a lot about the wooing of the princess but not about what goes on after the happily ever after part. Multiple childbirths took their toll on women all over the world. For example, my great-grandmother had fourteen children, my grandmother had six children, my parents had two, while I have only one child. The ability to control our bodies, including the number of children we have, has changed everything, allowing us to live into our eighties, nineties, and, like my paternal grandmother, more than a hundred years.

Because of this and other factors, we have inherited the stories of women who died young, worn-out and worn down. Frequently attached to these stories are attitudes that reveal fear and disgust about older women, sometimes even persecution, rather than any sense of celebration. The words of elder women have rarely come down to us, as their lives were often circumscribed as age diminished their agency. So because there are not many waymarks for women of older years by which to navigate, we have had to make our own. These waymarks are often ones that we discover en route, especially when all the many changes that we undergo begin to come to an end.