For Women Who Desire to Become
Empowered Elders of Age and Wisdom

Crossing Rivers: Two Journeys into the Heart of Old Woman is the title of my Project Demonstrating Excellence which incorporates the Doctoral Dissertation.

The two journeys are those of my primary research participant, dona Guadalupe de la Cruz Rios and myself. The broad research question I was asking is, What is the value and purpose of old age for women and of old women to society?

The more focused research question which lead this ethnographic research was, Is there an inner knowing and spiritual power that can come to women with age? The following excerpt synthesizes the two journeys into what I have come to recognize as the attributes of the archetypal Wise Old Woman. Attributes we women can all aspire to attain.

Singer Michelle Shocked has a song entitled "When I Grow Up." The first line goes "When I grow up I want to be an old woman." Guadalupe tells us she looked at the light of the old Huichol women she saw and wanted to be like them. Imagine for a moment, if you will, what our society would be like if young girls saw the power, beauty and light of old women and strove to become like them? Imagine if the majority of old women had gone through their purification and were indeed powerful transmitters of energy, highly charged "grandmother batteries," old women so strong and at ease within themselves and their knowing that any one observing them would automatically know they were forever lit.

She stands, the empowered old woman, balanced, free and rooted in her knowing of Self, Mother and Other. Feet planted firmly on the ground, eyes focused with clear intent, a heart that is light, jovial and wide, wide open connecting her to all the powers, she is a lushly sweet, strong, fierce force. She is the living personification of The Great Mother. She knows the sacrifice and suffering that come with the desire and discipline to know the deeper order. She suffers no fools, knows the power of her word, of good thoughts, of forgiveness and focus. She knows love of herSelf, her body--all bodies--come from her body. She knows the magic and mystery of the mother/daughter connection without which all of life, female and male, is barren. She understands her sexual energy, owns it and isn't afraid of its power because she has learned how to use it wisely. She is rooted and lit.

Excerpt from Crossing Rivers References:
* Valadez, Susana Egar. (1993). "Patterns of Completion in Huichol Life and Art". In Vicki Noble, Uncoiling the Snake. In a private interview with the author" she described old Huichol women as “lit candles.”
** Allen, Paula Gunn. (1991). Grandmothers of the Light: A Medicine Woman’s Sourcebook. In a private interview the author she referred to grandmothers in Native American ceremonies as “grandmother batteries.”

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