Creating the Circle: Women's Sacred Work, and Why We're Never Too Old to Weave It
Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society
Circles weave themselves; this is how easily they happen
This piece was inspired by a note I saw yesterday:
“The older I get, the clearer it becomes: people don’t disappear into gardening, baking, books, and long walks because life got boring. They do it because peace became priceless.” - Mike Bales
Any of you out there feeling this way too? I am more and more drawn to peaceful hours, peaceful days.
Yesterday afternoon about 2 pm I located my favorite pair of Cirque II Outdoor Research pants. They are one very hardy set of pantalones if you will. These pants, now eight years old and hard-used, had holes from rough riding in Mongolia, hikes all over the world, and a ripped pocket from putting up with an extra fifteen from yours truly. Most of that is gone, the pocket can relax, but now, repairs.
These pants are my faves for the next many months and many more adventures here in Ecuador. Take note: those of you who love the outdoors, Outdoor Research makes stuff to last and last and last. These days not only is that rare, but we’d all be well-advised to learn how to mend again.
As Susan intimates, quiet time beckons. Mending your stuff invites quiet time.
Stay with me, going somewhere with this.
The pants and I settled into the pretty sun room of my landlady’s house (above). Sole, my friend and landlady, located needle and thread. For the next two hours we sat and told stories. She spoke Spanish, I tried to. We laughed and commiserated and I sewed. We drank fine, rich, local Loja coffee until the holes and pocket were mended.
Sole is grossly overworked, going through menopause and has this huge house, its rental apartments, kids and grandkids and more to take care of. She’s tired, confused about her body’s changes. As are we all at such a time.
Meanwhile the daughter Sofi, 26, smart and pretty and bedeviled with migraines, came in and out, She joined us for peanuts and homemade pollo papas soup. We laughed and gossiped and lied and solved the world’s silly problems in ways only women can do.
I have been bereft of such company and this kind of quiet, thoughtful time for years. I am mending both my heart and life this way. The pants are an afterthought.
The sewing is what gets done while the real work gets done.
Three generations: the daughter is 26. Sole the mother is in her fifties. I am 73.
We wove a sacred circle right there in Sole’s kitchen.
Many of you know exactly what I’m talking about. Some, who grew up pointed at careers or shoved into motherhood or whatever endless distractions there may be, or both, may not.
Every one of us women is born with an innate need for such gatherings. Everyone one of us potentially heals from them and has something essential to offer them. We wither without these connections.
For those of you who are hungry for something else again and have a bit of a spiritual, possibly pagan leaning, I strongly recommend that you look this up, and review some of the lovely reading about what happens when women gather intentionally.
Or, as we did yesterday, gather without intention. Good stuff happens anyway. When women gather, the potential for magic is multiplied.
A fine author and expert on the matter is Jean Shinoda Bowlen, MD.
That’s for you to explore. There’s terrific healing in such circles. Sofi, who lives at home because of multiple health issues, appreciates being heard deeply, her stories validated, and her curiosity sated about what it’s like to live a very active life as an elder woman.
She wants to be heard and she needs hope.
Sole, who is pulled in a thousand directions, loves being my Spanish teacher, finding ways to be of service as I slowly settle into a brand-new life here, just as I deeply appreciate her wisdom and all the many facets of her busy life which benefit all who are in her orbit.
It’s also lovely to be able to speak with her about life after menopause, which she grins about as she simultaneously fans her face.
She wants to be heard and she needs hope.
I’ve spent much of my business career working with women, women business owners mostly. As a national speaker, trainer and consultant I’ve done workshops, personal counseling and far more, including forming a women’s group in Spokane WA that got profiled in a best-selling book on networking.
In all that, though, I was not able to create the kind of deep quiet time that Susan refers to, and which I have long needed,
Since arriving in Ecuador people have been asking me if I’ve gotten this or that done yet.
Do do do do do do do DO. Busy busy busy.
The Big Rocks (find a doctor find a gym find a vet find a supplement store find a dentist….)
Nope. I do One Big Thing every day.
Today it was Find a Gym Day.
Didn’t happen. After a long wonderful call with a new friend in Cotocachi, a town north of Quito, I got a series of texts from my two horse riding friends.
We’re taking you to brunch.
Huh? I hadn’t even walked the dog yet.
Shit.
Mika was walked in quicktime, my friends dragged me to a place that sells food that looks like this for breakfast:
then dragged me all over Cuenca to show me places to purchase things I needed, wanted and had no idea I would want, and did.
There went the day. I got caught up on all the story lines from last November, we plotted and planned and ate magnificent food and I came home with huge pieces of fruit so heavy that both arms are about an inch longer.
A papaya, bright yellow, the size of a watermelon, a ripe pineapple ready to burst and a babaco, the last of its green fading to brilliant yellow.
We drove by the gym, which saved my trying to locate it.
The whole day, waylaid by women friends. I didn’t get the Big Rock done. I got more important things done: ate good food, laughed a lot, was plied with tons of important insider information about my new home, got caught up on gossip and was happy as shit all day long.
Another kind of circle. Then this:
I collected Mika about 3 pm, a good girl who waited patiently for me all day. Then I sat down at that gorgeous table with Sole, and Maria the household help, and Mika my dog who was happy for the company as was I, and we wove another circle over Maria’s miracle papas soup.
Such things did not happen in Eugene Oregon.
As I finalize the hanging chad details (a Verizon bill that I don’t owe but they want me to pay for service that I cancelled on time) from my previous life, all I have to do is look at how today went.
I had hours and hours and hours with new friends.
Hours and hours. In one day I spent more time with new friends than damned near most of my time in Oregon, but for one woman I breakfasted with once every six weeks. That was a lifeline, along with a brief friendship with a neighbor whose company proved essential during the worst of the post surgical pain, but a friendship that didn’t stay the course.
In one day I spent more time with new friends than damned near most of my time in Oregon.
It happens. But that underscored just how lonely my time in Oregon had become.
We all know that women are the community. Because too many of us have traded villages for voice mail and texting and screen time, we have too often isolated ourselves from the greatest power available: women’s sacred circles.
I have dearly missed the dynamics that happen in a group of mixed ages, backgrounds, cultures, experiences, which is once again what I am experiencing here.
The difference this time is that I am the elder.
It’s astounding to me- albeit perfectly understandable when given societal context- that we resent aging when it is that very thing that can potentially convey the greatest power we have; to serve, to support, to guide, to listen, to soothe, to provide perspective and patience and love.
To offer hope.
All those things are available for us to give at any time, but never so much as when we are crones, gifted with many decades, and with great fortune, a touch of wisdom.
We want to know of our elders that there is hope. That being an old woman is not a daily death sentence, that being older is also being full of life and love and activity and joy.
Of course it can be. Substack is full of women who address that very thing. Offer that very thing.
All of us who do this work are following an ancient urge: recreate the sacred circles. The urge is primal, powerful, and above all, deeply personal.
I’m here for it.
As another day dawns here in Cuenca, Ecuador, a new life continues to knit itself into being, the Big Rocks remain on the list to get done, I get to listen to the morning chorus of birds and the nearby river.
And wonder what the day will bring.
Let’s play.
Thank you as always to my patient subscribers and readers. Please consider supporting my work. It’s an act of great love:
I love this and I love it for you! Several times this year I have tried to convene a circle and what I get in response is a rundown of the crammed schedule and a comment maybe next month Tuesday at 4 might work. Sigh. From retired women, no less. Your new situation is so hopeful and beautiful. And I also saw and appreciated Susan Cain’s post.
So pleased you have landed softly and about to be part of creating a sacred women's circle with your hosts. Your post has given my heart a glow. Thank you. 🙏💖