Gazing into the fire of my woodstove, I had a surprising vision. I saw myself as an old hag with straggly white hair, a thin body, strong but no longer with the energy of youth, and intense eyes that seemed to look far into the beyond. Shocked, I looked to be sure that I was indeed looking at myself, not some alien being. Yes, there I was — old, wise, and owning herself.
As a woman who has never birthed a child, I have continued to see myself as a girl, a maiden, a young thing with her whole life ahead of her. I am aware enough at 75 to know this as sheer fantasy. But the river of this belief flows deep, far beyond my rational mind. I often hear myself say that I am not interested in getting old. I don’t want to be around after the party is over. I just want to quietly take my leave and move on to the next adventure or even nothingness if that is what will be offered.
So this was a surprise, a full-out leap away from my unreasonable demand that I stay young forever. It heralded my willingness to explore territory outside my personal experience, even though I was familiar with watching friends and family age, finding their own way.
No, I don’t want to be old and useless. I don’t want to lose the form of my body to which I have become accustomed. I don’t want to lose my powers, mental abilities, and possibilities of endlessly healing and growing. Yet we humans are made to get sick, age, and die.
I remember a story that my father often told. He had a much-loved cat when he was about five. One day, he found the cat cold and still. He brought the cat to his father, who explained that the cat had died and that, like the cat, we will die too. In the power of his five-year-old voice, my father proclaimed, “Well, I just won’t do it.” Death finally did take him. Granted, he was almost 100, but his will could not change the inevitable. We all die.
I thought I had accepted that I would die but skipped over the part that dictated that I would age. I had to accept death when it came to my mother at her too-young age of 41. So, in my mind, death and aging were not necessarily connected, and I drifted along, believing I could still be a girl even as the years passed.
The vision of myself as the old hag was transformational. I looked at this woman and saw wisdom. I saw pain and ecstasy. I saw experiences that had been turned into love. She no longer had any need to strive. There was nothing to prove, nothing to attain. She had done all that and more. This was not a time of rest, however. This was a time of active engagement with the entire universe. Power ran through the body of the old woman. She no longer had to save her erotic energies for a single man. She could make love with the universe. She could be the creator and the destroyer. She could sit and hold the powers of creation and destruction, watching the show or taking on the roles of gods and angels.
I watched her sit gazing into the fire. I felt her power. I felt her love. I knew I would be ready for her when the time was ripe.