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    Age Is a State of Mind:
The Power of Knowing You Are The Timeless Dressed up in the Costume of Time

    Age is a state of mind, I declare my union with the infinite sublime! I sing this declaration every year at my birthday, and throughout the year at the birthday parties for my friends.  Why?  

    My body temple and your body temple, are always changing. Our bodies are sculpted like the coastal trees and striated cliffs. It is tempting to fall into the seduction of thinking we are these amazing bio-physical bodies that identify us with a name and a form.  How many of you look in the mirror and think “How can this older person in the mirror be me?”  “What happened to me?”  Can anyone here relate? ---if so, I invite you to turn to another and say, “How can this be me?” ---

    Or how many times do you see a reflection of --- what you see and know others perceive as an old body --- yet you realize that who you are is more alive, aware and awake than you have ever been before in your entire life?  ---if you can relate, I invite you to turn to someone else and say, “You are alive, aware and awake!”

    Or, do any of you sense that the you of you is --- the very same presence that was there when you were a child, a teenager, a young adult ---the essential you who is the you that you are now?  Let’s see a show of hands for those who can relate.

    And are there some of you here that realize the real, true, authentic, “who I Am,” dwells only temporarily within this body.  Physicist Nassim Haramein declares that we are 99.9999% Space!   Each body is made up of one hundred trillion cells, an estimated seventy-five% water, contains billions of bacteria, and is a composite of all the five elements!  Too hot or too cold and these bodies perish. Given this composite doesn’t it appear more realistic to see that this body I call “me” is actually “the costume of time that my timeless essence is dressed up in?”

    Please turn to a neighbor and look at each other through eyes that are marveling at this conglomerate community we call a self.  As you look I invite you to release the image of the personality in front of you and instead look as if you are taking in a miracle.  Witness a Being in a body composed of all these intelligences.  What changes do you notice when you look at each other through these eyes of wonder?

    Isn’t it good news is that you are much, much more that the image you see before you in the mirror?

    I’m curious to know if any of you have had an initiation into this time of Life we call the Crone? In astrology the age fifty is the typical time for the Chiron return.  I consider this the first landmark of early “elderhood.”  

    In astrology the Chiron Return, usually around the fiftieth year, initiates the beginning of the Crone years.  There is ofter a revisiting of priorities and an intense desire to give back and contribute to the greater whole.  The Saturn Return, around age 58, is an even more compelling time of becoming an elder, a time when again the need to rearrange priorities becomes clear.  The outgrown must be discarded so the focus may be on what is now really important to us. At sixty, our fifth Jupiter return can accompany a need to start accomplishing the “bucket list” drawn up at the Saturn return.   Sixty-three brings us three-quarters around the track of the Uranian cycle, giving us extra incentive to shift gears into greater freedom and awakening. This includes the freedom that derives from discarding out-moded ideas, beliefs and conditionings.

    Lacking an external ceremony, I had a very powerful dream initiation that I recognized was ushering me into this new Life phase. In the dream, I flew to someplace that I didn’t recognize, landed like a bird, then walked into an earthen-like cottage where I was met by an old woman.  I don’t remember any more of the details at this time. When I awoke I recognized the dream as an initiation into the beginning of my life as a crone.  

        I like to navigate Life with the knowing that I am beyond an either/or, a this or a that, and  that I’m actually both/and and much, much more.  It feels freeing to leave behind the conflictive and restrictive container that wants to position us into being either for or against; either a this or a that.  Nature doesn’t abide by any such nonsense as that which is contrived by the human mind that has forgotten its own Nature.

    We act as if humans were a separate species, separate from all the other kindoms, giving us the ability to do whatever we like to the rest of the planet, as if it wouldn’t effect us or come back to us like a boomerang.  My late teacher, Thomas Berry said, “We are talking only to ourselves.  We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and stars.  We have broken the great conversation.  By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe.  All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of the spiritual ‘autism.”

    What if as crones, we have the power, the opportunity and the responsibility to reclaim the power of the elder to seed the coming generations with a renewed love and respect for our planet?  What if we are the ones called to speak out for the Earth, for social justice, and to complete the Soul journey we came here for?  

    What if we, as crones, can inhabitat the ‘tween” habitat where apparent contradictions can reside together in harmony?  What if we can definitively know that we are infinite beings engaged in a three dimensional space/time movie where the character we are playing --- that we are so intimately identified with --- is now occupying an older body, yet we can simultaneously experience that we are ultimately the great, timeless, presence living within it?  

    If these two dimensional realities were allowed to dance together within us, what MAgic might unfold?

    Is the invitation to us, as crones, to be to be the bridge between timeless wisdom, and the acquired “street smarts” acquired from surviving to become this old?  Is it possible that we can be a bridge to the adult children and grandchildren, who are often so caught up in the distractions of modern day life they find it difficult to stop, listen and respond to the larger challenges of our time?

    What if, as crones, we have an essential role to play in healing our frayed communities and our imperiled environs? What if we were to step into our power, embrace and declare ourselves as integral, vital and essential members of the human family that are stepping up to our responsibilities as elders to educate by our presence and experiences? We can refuse to go into complicity with the notion that old age is a time of decline, to be dreaded and avoided.
    One of my joys is crack open words and discover their inner codings.  One of my primary tools for this endeavor is to listen to how the word sounds phonetically. Hmmmm.....CROW-n! Aha!  Is it just coincidence that Jamie Sams, in her “Medicine Cards” book based on Native American animal medicine, says  “With Crow medicine, you speak in a powerful voice when addressing issues that for you seem out of harmony, out of balance, out of whack or unjust.”  She goes on to say, “The prime path of true Crow people says to be mindful of your opinions and actions. Be willing to walk your talk, speak your truth, know your life’s mission, and balance past present and future in the now.  Shape shift that old reality and become your future self.  Allow the bending of physical laws to aid in creating the shape shifted world of peace.”  To me, that sounds like an apt prescription or invitation for us as crones.  

    We can take a stand and caw out as a flock of crows, lifting your winged arms, and letting your voice caw it like it is!
    
    I think we have a new calling, a new potency, a new opportunity, to hold the “possibility consciousness” for a new way of being, that my mentor Thomas Berry called “The Ecozoic Era,” a time when humans are in harmony within themselves, with each other, and with the whole Earth community.  Let’s empower each other to be the change we are waiting for. We can be evolutionary catalysts and create a new Earth where all ages, all genders, all species and all habitats are respected.

    Questions we can ask ourselves are:
How are you are acting as an empowered conscious crone?  Share at least one example.
Is there a step or action that you haven’t taken that you’d life to.”  

    We can say to each other:  “I see you.  I see your wisdom.  I see your love.  I see your power. I see your kindness. I see your beauty. I see you, I bless you, I love you.”   

    
    There are no prescribed answers.  It is up to us to tap into our creative intelligence and together discover and craft wisdom for our times for we are all, in co-creation - young ones and elders - forging new visions and structures that will support our transition into a way of Life where we can experience peace, love, and joy in harmony with Nature.

    Our biggest challenge is to become “F.I.T.”   False Identity Transformers, leaving behind the human caterpillar consciousness of separation and flourishing as HUEman butterflies, realizing that we are one, united, inter-dependent web of Life.  The days will be gone when winning means someone else has to lose, when success comes at the expense and sacrifice of others.

     Dream Change Coalition founder John Perkins asked the indigenous peoples of Ecuador what we in North America could do to stop the ruin of the rainforests. They told him to go back home and help your people change the dream.  Our current dream of separation and manifest destiny is destroying the planet and us with it. Let us awaken, and as the wise, old crones that we are, change the nightmare to a sustainable, loving compassionate dream.

©  Esther Frances,  April 5, 2014