How women can reclaim the Hag to create a wiser, more authentic world

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Episode Transcript:

Lian Brook-Tyler  01:10

Hello, my beautiful people, a huge warm welcome back to the show. In today's crazy modern world, men and women are living shallow, disconnected and unfulfilling lives. So we created the path for those who are ready to reclaim their wildness and actualize their deepest gifts. The next crucible to open we'll be waking the wild sovereign in early 2023. It always sells out so if you are feeling the call to sovereignty, and actualizing, your inner king or queen archetype, then register your interest now and you will be the first to hear when it opens for application. The link you'll need is http://primalhappiness.co/wtws/ And now on to this week's show. It's with Dr. Sharon Blackie. Award winning mythologist psychologist and writer Sharon is widely known and regarded for her publications classes, seminars and workshops which center on the growth of the mythic imagination and applicability of myth, fairy tales and folklore to the social, political and environmental issues of today. She has written five works of fiction and nonfiction including the best selling if women rose rooted, and our work has also been published in collection to anthologies and other international media sites, including the Guardian, The Irish Times, and The Scotsman, Sharon has given lectures and classes at several universities, Jungions, organizations, retreat centers and cultural events all around the world. It really was a treat to have Sharon join us on the show. In this episode, we explored the topic of female elderhood and Sharon's work to support women reclaiming their inner hag mature into their own unique expressing hagitude. And pass down that deep feminine wisdom for the benefit of their community. Let's dive in. Hello, Sharon, a huge welcome to the show.

Sharon Blakie  03:13

Thank you very much for inviting me, it's a real pleasure to be here.

Lian Brook-Tyler  03:16

Oh my goodness, the pleasure really is all ours. So so pleased to have you here. Because as I was just saying, there, there are so many topics I would love to talk to you about. But I'm equally delighted that we're talking about this particular topic, I think it is so needed at this time really is it's coming up this kind of reimagining menopause and female elderhood is just coming up constantly in the lives of so many women we know I know, rather. So I just think yeah, this, this is the conversation that we really need to be having right now. So, so happy we are. So I would love to know, personally, as I say, you know, both in my own life, I'm not quite at menopause stage. But you know, starting to approach it starting to kind of look out there for, I guess, you know, role models, different experiences of menopause that aren't this kind of doom and gloom that we are typically presented with culturally. And I'd love to know what your experience of that was having come from already a life where you were, you know, much more deeply rooted than the many women in our culture. What was that experience like for you as you approached menopause and female elderhood? What was what was your experience of that?

Sharon Blakie  04:39

Well, it was a little bit strange compared to many people's transition into the menopause because I had been taking the pill for many, many years to combat endometriosis. And I had always said to my doctor, that when I was 50, I would come off the pill no matter what, because of the risks as you get older, so I came off the pill and it seemed that menopause had been some aspects of menopause had been happening A little bit in the background. So I didn't really have a long transition, it was a bit of a kind of car crash, in a sense. When I came into that time of life though, I probably already had about three midlife crises, there was a point in my life where I was specializing in them. And a couple of really major transitions already. So to be honest, I wasn't expecting very much at all. I thought I'd kind of done that. And also, I wasn't necessarily particularly clued up on the physical aspects of menopause, my mother had had, you know, very early menopause due to a hysterectomy. So I didn't really know what to expect. And so it took me a long while I think when the rage began to understand that this was a symptom of menopause, very fiery, just like the hot flushes and the other physical symptoms that came along with it. So it was a I was a bit perplexed, I think, to be honest, at the beginning. And it was only with time that I kind of understood, really that profound transition, which was still taking place, even though I had already gone through a couple of others beforehand.

Lian Brook-Tyler  06:13

Yeah, so that really makes sense. And for me, to my mother had a hysterectomy and went into we think early menopause, it would seem fairly undramatic and wasn't I don't think he was she was completely sure when it happened. We just know it did. Yes, but it kind of meant that I had much less of that kind of Map to navigate by, which in some ways was was a good thing. I think perhaps because most most maps, I think that we've been handed are potentially negative ones. But it perhaps does give you then give you at least something to be aware of in terms of what you're saying the rage, the hot flushes, that you can then start to navigate by. So that what then happened, what was the journey that then took you on to understand what was happening and what it was calling you to?

Sharon Blakie  07:06

Well, what's clear to me, certainly, with the passage of time is that menopause really is an alchemical process. So I see it very much as a process of stripping away, where everything that you thought mattered to you is stripped away, literally back to the bare bone, it's, you know, you're in a crucible, it's been burned. There's a process in the old school of alchemy called calcination, which is literally being burned back to the bone. And I think what that process is for the physical, the profound physical changes, that are kind of mapping in it, in a sense, the psychological changes, is really to strip us of everything that we thought we were defined by of many of the structures that form our life, and to see what's left at the end of it, you know, what's left, when everything has been stripped away? So I think for me, you know, I went through the same kind of journey that many, many women do, you know, what am I here for? And why am I living like this? Gosh, my, you know, I've got more wrinkles than I used to have in the kind of what the culture thinks of as beauty is gradually fading. So all of that churning around that deep questioning, I see it very much as a kind of a time between stories, you know, when the old story, whatever it was, or the old stories that you have been adhering to, during the early part of your life, which are very much about building and doing. that old story comes to an end. But the new story hasn't begun yet, because you don't quite know what it was. So I found menopause itself is a bit of an unruly period. You know, I didn't really, I didn't really know what I was doing. I felt as if I was flailing around for quite a long period of time. Until, for a good number of years, I think until, until, you know, a couple of different transitions happened.

Lian Brook-Tyler  09:00

So I, I saw a quote that you, I think from the book, or maybe it was from an article you wrote on the menopause, and you described menopause as a threshold place, as the waiting room in which we quietly sit and meditate on the unknown that is to come. And I feel that that's something that we often don't know as women, we're, we're having all of these things bought into questions you describe, and then are either clutching for answers, or do what we can to kind of like quieten it all down you know, like no, no, let's get it all back in place. It's all okay, you know, if I can only kind of get everything back to how it was, Are we okay? And not understanding that this is a liminal space, and it's meant to be liminal space. And then the answers will be revealed in their own good time, if we've allowed ourselves to honor that space first. And certainly I don't think that's something that we are typically aware of as women, it's not something we are being guided into that we're being shown by women that have come before us. Typically,

Sharon Blakie  10:13

I think it's not really, perhaps so much women that come before us. I think it's the cultural mythology of womanhood. That teaches us that as we as we grow older, the main thing that we have to do is cling on to what we had at all costs. And so the cultural narratives around menopause, and elderhood are about holding on to useful things, and everything that wants to find you for as long as you possibly can. So even the conversation about HRT isn't seeing it as a very useful medication to control some really wild symptoms that some women have, but as something that you must take to, you know, keep plump, and plump cheeked, and, you know, all of all of the rest of it, and that's a pity. So, I think the women before us were equally defined by those cultural narratives, you know, that's what they thought they had to do. So I think it's really important that we, we see a shift, otherwise, we all flail around, as I did and don't know what to do during menopause. So you know, I wouldn't say that my menopause was particularly sitting, meditating and quietly waiting for the transition to come through. I didn't really know enough about it at the time. But I think it should be, I think that we should recognize that it is this transition period, it is this time between stories. And of course, you know, when I say sitting, meditating, I don't mean that it's going to be easy. But you know, you have crazy times during menopause, that's normal, that's natural. But that we go into it, we're in it with a kind of expectation that throughout all of the all of the, the various types of shattering things that are going on, there is a point to it, that we will come out of it with a greater sense of who we are a greater sense of meaning and ready to embark on a quite new and really, you know, potentially quite exciting new journey as we travel into elderhood.

Lian Brook-Tyler  12:02

I love that, I think there's something so powerful about knowing there's meaning to the struggle to know that as we're entering an initiation, a time of challenge and change that it has deep meaning. And I think that completely can change our experience of it. And what you've just said there, I think does provide a sense of meaning that allows us to journey through that that time, you know, again, I completely hear what you're saying doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be you know, quiet and calm, but at least flow with it in a way that isn't quite as discombobulating as it otherwise might be. And again, I really hear you this is this is a cultural context is all playing out in. And what I'd love you to, I'd love to know your thoughts on the way I see it is a we, the culture is ultimately created by all of us. And there is a kind of ways that that cultural narrative can shift, but ultimately, it has to happen internally, as well and potentially first. And so, yes, culturally, we are saying, you know, women should stay the same should cling on to youth. And do you see those kind of options for us individually as women within that cultural narrative that we can choose?

Sharon Blakie  13:33

I think, what I have always believed and, you know, as you know, my initial training background was in psychology, and particularly more recently in depth psychology. And I'm very attached to something that Carl Jung said, he said that when the cultural mythology begins to fail people, you know, it doesn't nourish us anymore. That doesn't help us. And then the creation of a new cultural mythology falls on individuals. That's how it begins to change, it begins to change literally one person at a time. And there was another depth psychologist whose name escapes me at the moment who talked about, again, when when we when we don't find the cultural mythology in any way reflects who we think we are. We do in a sense, fall out of myths, you know, we fall out of that cultural mythology. So the onus is on us as individuals, I guess, to reimagine what it is for us. So I have always believed that change, real change has to begin with individuals that you can't change from the top down, you can't change narratives from the top down, that there has to be a kind of seething kind of, you know, underworld wave of requirement for something new and that that will come from individual women who choose to see the world differently and who choose to live by different stories. So that has always been, what I have tried to do in my books to present inspiration for the new stories, and that's what I'm doing in hagitude is to try to say, look, there are different ways of being in elderhood. There are different ways of imagining it. And some of them are quite magical. So why don't we start here?

Lian Brook-Tyler  15:19

Huh? Yeah, that makes so much sense. And do you see that new myths almost like have their time they have their own spirit that is being felt by many women, separately, at the same time seemingly separate at the same time as in what we could call that kind of new myth, of hagitude is already organically being experienced by women, to you know, might be that it's not fully conscious yet it might be there's, they're not able to give themselves full permission for it yet. But it's a kind of idea that's has its time, and it is coming organically through different women.

Sharon Blakie  16:08

Yes, I think so I think we have been living pretty much by the same kind of cultural mythology for centuries now, which tell women that you know, they're not really supposed to have voices. And then when they get older, they're a little bit inconvenient. And they really should just shut up and let the men And the younger people get on with it. And I think, you know, it's natural, that that will get old, very boring. And that women would naturally and organically, as you say, begin to think, okay, we can surely do better than this. So I think partly, it's a question of timing, I think all cultural stories, get to a stage where they have had their day, they're clearly not working anymore. Look at the state of the world. And then in all walks of life, people begin to question their little bit of it. So yes, I think older women are beginning to question their bit of it. How can we change this story for us for our time of life? And because I think we haven't got very many we have some, but we haven't got very many really good role models in Western culture out there of elder women it can we have some it, it kind of leaves a vacuum into which we have to grow. And I believe that the old stories, the old myths, which provides such interesting images of elder women, very archetypal, very simple, but nevertheless, very powerful, can give us a bit of a clue when there isn't very much out there in the outside world to go on.

Lian Brook-Tyler  17:42

Yes, yes, I absolutely agree. And I think the I'd love to know if you if you've seen this too, I think the challenge is, when we then can do look to the myths and stories that I guess had been most present, they are often more negative ones or require a kind of degree of imagination or depth of understanding to even see something beyond that the the story of Baba Yaga is coming to mind where there's so much in the story of Baba Yaga that is actually really rich and beautiful, very powerful, and yet very easy to see her purely as this very kind of dangerous, ugly, old woman. And so the myth that we do have, I'm not saying the Baba Yaga is necessarily a common one that everyone would know. But I think those ones that are kind of most likely to be known come with a lot of baggage, a lot of negative connotation. So even looking for those, those myths that actually could act as role models is isn't isn't easy. That in itself kind of always requires a map back to.

Sharon Blakie  18:58

Yes, it does. And so we have to first overcome the fact that the stories are presented to us as about princesses, or you know, their equivalents is younger women are the protagonists, and you don't often see older women as a protagonist as the main character in the fairy tales. And because we're taught to look at stories in a very heroic way, you know, who is the hero of this story, let's focus on them. We're not really taught to look as carefully at at the characters who might not be quite so profoundly in the main action, but actually behind the scenes, pulling the strings and that's what happens in European fairytales, particularly with old women, that they are the ones who have the bigger picture. They are the ones who know what is required for the hero or the heroine, whoever it may be to complete their journey. And that that journey is necessary to keep the world in balance, perhaps are the ones who see what must be done and who kind of in a sense, pull the strings put the right people in the right places in the story. and set people off along along along their journeys. And that is a really, really important role. You know, if we look back at European mythology, we have remarkable characters such as the Three Fates in Greek mythology, who in art were presented as younger women, but in all of the old texts actually were very old women. And they literally wove the world into being, you know, we have this impression that they were just doling out, you know, odd little twee destinies to individual humans, they weren't, they were weaving the world into being. And they were ensuring that nobody took more than they were entitled to. Because if they did, the world would go out of balance. So they were literally responsible for keeping the whole balance of the cosmos. That because the Three Fates don't have a heroic story of their own, they tend to get ignored, while we all focus on people like Theseus and Perseus, you know. So I think part of it is just that sense of reorientation, where we begin to look differently at the characters who are not the main characters. And when it comes to people like Baba Yaga, or any character who we might see in an old story as a witch, you can guarantee that there is more to them than meets the eye, you know, so Baba Yaga is the necessary tester of the younger people, she is the data, they go to her looking for fire, and they have to pass certain tests. And if they fail the test, there is a lot at stake, they get put in her oven and eaten. So it's not this is not just these not just little things, these are life or death tests. And they're all in the hands of Baba Yaga, this wonderful old woman who lives in the house on chicken legs. So it's really I think, for me, one of the reasons why I bang on so much about stories is to try to help people find these new ways of looking at the old stories so that we see the deeper meaning and the older meaning in them.

Lian Brook-Tyler  21:54

Yes, yes, I so love what you just said there. I think there's, as you say that we actually have so many stories, and it isn't necessarily even about finding new ones is about taking having a different perspective on what's already there. So looking at, we talked about that kind of waiting room phase of menopause, and then coming out the other side into into that crone stage that and that in itself, obviously is an archetype. Could we could we have a look at those different archetypes, we talked a bit about the kind of witch archetype, the Baba Yaga. And the role she's playing. But we have a look at some of those different archetypes that you see are available for us as women moving into that stage that at the moment are, to a large extent, just not not visible to most of us.

Sharon Blakie  22:51

I mean, before I do that, I just like to just talk a little bit about the word hag if that's okay. The reason I don't use the word crone is not because I don't like it, but because at least in in European mythology, and in the way that that we use the word crone tends very much to represent a woman right at the old end of the elder spectrum, you know, somebody is really old, probably quite wrinkled, and maybe even quite frail sometimes. Whereas the word hag has a different connotation, if you actually go back to the old stories, and you start to look at where it is used. So hag is very much it can be used for any stage  Elderhood, it can be used for menopause right through to the very end. And it really is used to reflect someone who is completely whole unto herself, you know, who, who is very authentically herself, who does not define herself in relationship to anybody else, she may have relationships with other people. But that's not how she's defined. She's not the wife of somebody or the mother of somebody, she is who she is. And she is not defined by the structures that society would like to confine her in. So she is outside of those social structures. So we have this immensely powerful older woman, who is defined by who she is, who has slightly outside the social structures. And of course, that's why the word has been used as a negative, because that's very frightening. You know, if you're within the social structures, the cultural structures, you know, the church society, whatever it may be, and you look at people who are outside it, then that is a threat, because if you are outside the structure, you do threaten it. So I think the word hag has become vilified, you know, over the centuries, and, but looking at what it means in terms of these wonderful, authentic, you know, older women with power, who stand outside the system and therefore can see the bigger picture from outside of it. That's a really important word to reclaim. That's why I think that hag is actually quite a positive but you know, I don't think clearly I don't expect everybody to leap on The label and then take it to their heart. So there are all kinds of different images of older women in European myth and folklore, you know, that are covered in some detail in Hagitude, one of the more so Baba Yaga, for example, she would be the dangerous old woman, she would be the tester, the initiator of the hero or heroine who tests them to the point of death, you know, it's difficult to see her equivalent in, in contemporary culture, perhaps there really is none. And perhaps she's all the more powerful for that, but she's a very, very real one, we might be able more clearly to see the fairy godmother in culture. Because, you know, the fairy godmother in the old stories wasn't necessarily as kind of, you know, frothy, old woman in a pink taffeta gown with twinkling wands. she was much more earthy than that. But she was the one who mentored the heroine, particularly fairy godmother is normally happened to girls in the story. And this is a really important role, and particularly for those of us who can't be grandmothers, because we don't have children or we don't you know, ourselves or we don't have children in our lives, we can still be the fairy godmother. And it's not just a question of waving your wand, you know, there is deep wisdom and what a lot of the fairy godmothers actually say, rather than what they just create, like, you know, coaches out of pumpkins, and what have you, so we can all see that kind of important mentoring characters throughout the culture. And that's the role we might want to adopt one more. the truth teller, you know, we see these wonderful old women, particularly in the context of, let's say, the medieval Grail romances, they're called lothly ladies, and they ride out of the woods, and they tell the fine knight who has gone on the quest for the Grail, all of the ways in which he's gone wrong, you know, all of the ways in which he's taking himself far too seriously, all of the ways in which he has failed to ask the right question to notice this or to notice that, and they lay into these knights and tell them all of the ways in which they really need to get a grip. But then when they do get a grip, and they attain the Grail, they come back, and they, you know, really hit them with praises. So, I think that in a culture that is so very polarized, where the discourse is so very polarized, I think that role of the truth teller is really important. It's not to just blurt out what you think, but it's to really look at what needs to be said about a culture and about the ways that it is failing. So those are just you know, a small number of the kinds of archetypes that we can find in the old stories. I absolutely love those. My my daughter actually has a fairy godmother. It is a an older dear friend who really just kind of took it upon herself to call herself my daughter's fairy godmother. And I was as you were describing the fairy godmothers role, but I was, I was really smiling and thinking, Oh, my goodness, like my daughter is so blessed to have that and be provided by something that, you know, for all the things I can provide her with. There's something different that she's provided by her fairy godmother. Yes, so beautiful. And, again, if that's when you said when you said that archetype of the fairy godmother, there was a part of it was just like, Oh, yes, of course. And yet strangely, isn't. It wasn't an obvious one is a kind of like, almost surprised when you said it. And I don't know why there was a surprise and particularly given I've just said, my daughter's got one, but it just wouldn't have occurred to me without you saying it, which was interesting itself. Yeah, I think a lot of that is because we, you know, we see so many of these characters disneyfied. They become just kind of silly, you know, or just a little bit twee. And then the old stories, you know, they weren't nevertheless fairy godmothers. But they're a bit more they were slightly more serious characters. You know, you think of the fairy in the story of Sleeping Beauty, the very last fairy, the one that that tries to, it was you can't undo the curse that's been put on the princess by the fairy who's cross because she wasn't invited to the christening. She can't just have the power to undo it. And that kind of curse can't be undone. But she knows exactly how to subvert it. And you know, there's some wisdom in that which we don't often see in the kind of Disney type movies where we see fairy godmothers they're just a little bit kind of funny and a little bit not entirely serious.

Lian Brook-Tyler  29:37

Yes, and then doesn't allow us to see the real the real power, and I think necessity for for older women to play that role. Okay, I can really see how important it is.

Sharon Blakie  29:54

I just wanted to say that you know, one of the one of the kind of non disneyfied fairy godmothers in movies for a while, certainly for those of us who are my age is Mary Poppins. You know, Mary Poppins isn't a fairy godmother character. But although she's very funny, and she can sing and all of the rest of it, the wisdom that she passes down to those children of how to be in the world, how to live their lives in a way that's joyful and authentic is absolutely critical. So you know, on the one hand, she may seem like a very light character. But what she is doing for those children is really, really important. So the fairy godmother can be a very serious archetype.

Lian Brook-Tyler  30:29

Hmm. Oh, my goodness, yes. I absolutely love that example. I really do. Yes, the, that truth teller archetype you spoke of, as well, really? Wow. That requires, hmm, I was just thinking, you know, in my own work, and many of the women that I work with, they already are being called to that archetype in their own way before menopause. And I can really see that kind of having traveled through that gauntlet and come out the other side that like you will be a key archetype for them. But also the courage that takes in the stories you talked about, you know, that's all happening within a context where the Knights they might not welcome necessarily the truth that they're being told, but they have kind of gone there to hear it, and then come back and, you know, have benefited from it. But in our culture that doesn't welcome. hags telling truth, there's something required that isn't necessarily going to be easy. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, you know, how can women that have been called into playing that role? And how can they do that in a way that isn't a kind of, you know, complete, you know, absolutely smashing their nervous system to pieces, you know, these things aren't necessarily easy, or even, you know, they're their lives, you know, disrupting important relationships? What would you what have you seen about that, that could be helpful,

Sharon Blakie  32:10

I think, the way you approach it is with a great deal of care. And to me, this is very much an older woman archetype, you know, and I think it, I see it as something that that is particularly strong post menopause, when you've got the rage out of your system, because truth telling is not about lashing out. It's not about just spouting my truth, in quotes, you know, just because you want your voice to be heard. And it's not about what used to be called calling things out. Because sometimes that's just, that's just for the sake of, just for the sake of it, and it doesn't do any good. So to me, proper truth telling if I can use that word is, is really knowing when a truth needs to be told, not when you want it to be told, or when you want your, you know, your version of it to be told, but when it really is necessary, in the culture, when you have to disrupt a process, which is heading to a very, very bad place. And I think, knowing that does take a great deal of wisdom, I wouldn't have said that I was at my wisest in the full throes of menopause, or even necessarily before, so it's something that I have grown into, with the years, very, very cautiously, but it is, as you say, a really important one. And for example, it takes it takes the wisdom to understand that there are different types of truth, you know that there isn't just one truth, your truth through your way of seeing the world, that different people come with very, very different perspectives and experiences to a situation and knowing how to tell the truth. What is going to steal their hearts and minds, as opposed to somebody from a different situation who may need a different kind of way of being approached with the truth. Gosh, that's a big, big weight to carry, you know. So I think it is something to be only indulged in very, very carefully, if you're sure that you have the wisdom, and the insight and the lack of self promotion to you know, because it's not about it's not about your voice, it's about the culture and the situations in which we live and how they progress.

Lian Brook-Tyler  34:28

Yes, that really makes sense. It really does. What do you what do you see about the women who are already in the stages of life that incorporate that, as you say the kind of word hag actually can be, you know, anywhere, I guess from menopause or the start of menopause beyond it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently, the women that already you know, perhaps quite far into that stage of life. That, because again, they've been raised in a culture that didn't recognize these different archetypes were available to them. Something I've been really present to is that, firstly, there just aren't many female elders, you know, in terms of true elders really embracing the archetypes we've talked about. There just aren't many out there for those reasons. Is there anything that you, you would say to those of us kind of looking out at the world and like looking for those elders, and maybe even have older women in our lives that perhaps we could, you know, in some way, almost like co-create that alchemy a bit later than perhaps it otherwise would have happened? And I'm not asking a particularly clear question, but it's just something that's been in my awareness quite a lot over the last few years. So I'd just love to know if you had any thoughts on those kind of almost like women that have gone deep into that time in life, but without having had that opportunity to become consciously become these archetypes.

Sharon Blakie  36:08

I mean, that really is why I wrote Hagitude. And we have a year long, kind of membership program. That's just starting to really address some of those questions, you know, to get a group of women together from perimenopause onwards and say, Okay, what do we need? What do we need to grow good elders and to become good elders ourselves? So I think I really do could just reiterate, I think we find inspiration, not just in the old stories and archetypes, but in in other forms of literature, in movies, you know, one of the examples I use is Mildred, in the three, three billboards, there was a truth teller, you know, who wasn't going to take the lack of investigation by the local sheriff into her daughter's trauma, which was just wasn't going to take a lack of investigation. So she took out three billboards, in ebbing, Missouri, where she, you know, demanded what she thought needed to be done. So there are characters that we can and and when I was a child, and I didn't see many good female role models around me, I found good women in books and, and I believed that there could be women like that in the world, because some woman had written one, you know, therefore, in a sense, what we imagine we can become. So I do have a very strong feeling that we need to really collect the stories, which is one of the things we're trying to do, we need to collect the examples. But more importantly, we need to have conversations with each other about what it takes to become a good ancestor, for example, whether or not you have children, and therefore our physical ancestor. And what it means to recognize these profound transformational periods in our lives like menopause. And, by the way, it doesn't end at menopause. You know, I had a really big profound initiator experience when I was 60, which was 10 years since the beginning of menopause. So we also have to recognize that this is just not a one off thing. How do we create? How do we recognize and create ways of honoring these big rites of passage? So that's just a couple of the kinds of questions that we do need to ask and that we need to share ideas and resources to, you know, to, to figure out how we might do it better. So it's just about as recognizing the problem, and going looking for other types of solutions. If we can't find actual, real, live elder women in our communities, who are going to hold it together for us, how can we grow into them?

Lian Brook-Tyler  37:38

Hmm, yes, that that really makes sense. And I think there is something beautiful in even us recognizing that this is something that we need personally, and our culture needs and our ancestors need. It certainly wasn't something that for many years I was even aware of. There was a was a gap. You know, it wasn't like I was thinking, oh, you know, there's elders missing and particularly, there's female elders missing. And the, although there was a kind of grief really, in the recognition that that was missing. There was also a sense of power and beauty in in the recognition that that it was missing and needed to be reclaimed in some way created in some way. And again, that comes about through us being honest, speaking to each other looking at the stories and I've just been again, it's been so so present me and I've only just recently found a mentor who is a female elder, and I've realized that I hold her so much more precious than I would have if I hadn't realized that. That's a really important, necessary role that we are lacking culturally. And so I feel there's something thing. Like my questions aren't particularly articulate today. I think there is just so much here that I'm like I can feel so, so deeply, emotionally I am not necessarily articulating as clear as I'd like, but there's something in that recognition that there is a, this is a, it's not just a theoretical, you know, oh, we don't have this, we need it. But also, what I can really feel is this, this grief, you know, my body, there's something missing that I need. So I'd love to hear again, I haven't asked you a particularly clear question, but anything in what I've just shared that you're able to speak to?

Sharon Blakie  40:45

I would really I absolutely, of course, agree with you. But I guess my responses are going to be what I've probably already said, about, about recognizing that lack, and trying to fill it in whatever ways we can, if you don't like this story, then look to change it. How do you change your story? When you examine the characters, and you know, you examine the way that you look at the characters, you examine the opportunities that are available to the characters, you look at the way that they think about themselves, if they think about themselves as victims, is there a way that you can change the way that they look at that, you know, themselves. So all of these kinds of techniques that I think is or as a writer of fiction, and as a psychologist who specialized in narrative, where we just look at the building blocks of what's going on around us, and we start to pick it to pieces. And then we think about what we really need to replace it with. And of course, this can only happen over time, we can't overnight, change the cultural narrative. But we can look at it, we can break it down into its component parts, we can throw out the bits that we don't like, and we can say, Okay, now what are we going to do? What are we going to, you know, what are we going to replace that with so that we don't make the same mistakes again. So I think for me, the most important thing is to instill into people the idea that narratives can be changed. That, you know, we're not we're not, we're not victims of fate, there were no such things as victims of fate, in spite of the people who don't necessarily understand if I can be really rude. I don't mean to be rude, I just did the truth, I don't necessarily understand what fate was saying classical mythology, people weren't victims of fate, in the way that we think about it. And they always, always, always had the opportunity to change the trajectory of the path that they seemed to be on. So looking at that on an individual basis, but also on a community basis, and then on a societal basis, all the way up, I think is the only thing that we can do. Because change really does have to start at the bottom, with each one of us questioning the story and questioning our place in it.

Lian Brook-Tyler  43:04

Oh, I absolutely love everything you said there. And actually, I was just thinking back to how I came about finding the elder that I mentioned, it was, I guess, really looking inside and realizing like, okay, the story so far is I really lack any, any kind of female elder in my life. And I made a conscious choice to discover one. And it was the first time I'd actually made that conscious choice. I think up until then it had been like, Oh, I love I'd love to I don't have one. And then there was a very conscious point where, you know, putting into language you you've just been using, I made a conscious choice to change that story. And be kind of on the lookout, you know, Okay, where is my female elder. And it was two days later, I discovered her. And I can really see that now sort of looking back with the languaging that you've been using. Like that's, that's why it happened. There was a point where I chose to change that story, rather than and I'm not generally a kind of someone who does adopt a victim stance in relationship to things but I can see that in a subtle way. I had almost just accepted Oh, there are no female elders, therefore I can't have one. And then I changed that and lo and behold, one came into my life almost immediately. So I really love the way that you're suggesting that even those of us that believe we are not being victims to those stories can be in these kinds of subtle, unseen ways where we just believe that the kind of the way it looks out there is the way that it is

Sharon Blakie  44:49

indeed and I think one of the reasons that I love the old fairy stories too much even though on the surface they seem very simplistic and the characters very one dimensional, what they all do all of the best of them is to enable us to see a way out of an apparently impossible situation. And way out, that doesn't always happen by what we might think of as magic, you know, but But always, but only by what we might think of as magic, but always incorporate some kind of test of our own character, and the willingness that we might have to accept help from others and to help others in return, you know, so I think I think the clues are there, in the old stories, to help us shift the way that we look at the narrative that we imagine we are otherwise in and to begin to see our way through the dark woods to know what breadcrumbs to leave in what places so that we can, we can find a path.

Lian Brook-Tyler  45:56

Wonderful. So we're almost out of time. But I'd love to know is what's your, what's your vision? If if we see that this generation, which really is made up of a number of different generations of women, but ultimately women who one way or another are feeling this call to a new myth? And to begin to create that myth themselves to enter this idea of the hag, you know, in a whole different way to what we've seen is available. What what do you see is possible from that for all of us? And what kind of world does that create this different to what we have today?

Sharon Blakie  46:40

I think a world that is more focused on questions of authenticity and meaning, because I think we are again, presented with a cultural narrative in which the only meaning is more, more of everything, you know, more profit, more money, more and more and more years of life, so that every generation must have more than the next than the previous generation. And that's the meaning that we're taught to live by. And I think what menopause does for all of us, whether we choose to follow that path or not, is it makes us question, it will lead us down a path of questioning what this life is for, and particularly what these older years are for. And so I think, if women are kind of trained, for want of a better word, to recognize that this comes up in the second half of life, then we get a significant proportion of our population, because a significant proportion of our population is elder, looking at what this is all for, and in a wide way, you know, so we have these wonderful archetypes as well, who are women, old women, who are guardians and protectors of the world. You know, we need that. We need that very, very badly. And that, you know, old women who could just look at what we're doing to the planet, and why we need more of everything, and why the economy must always grow, and start to ask the questions to challenge that to say, is this the narrative we really want? I think that is the function of elderhood. It's not that younger people can't challenge those narratives as well. But I think it is, I think it is something that comes up for everybody in elderhood, the question of meaning, the question of preservation of what is good and true and necessary. Whereas you know, it's an exceptional younger person who decides to devote their lives to that. So I see it as a, as a world that would be more questioning what open to challenging, apparent truths, like the economy must always grow, even if it's at the extent the, even if it's destroying the planet, and a little bit more balance, a little bit more balance, so that in a sense, we all become the fates who kept the cosmos in balance. didn't allow any of us to take too much.

Lian Brook-Tyler  49:00

Yes, I wow. I so glad I asked you that question. Because there's so much in that vision where I can, I can absolutely see on a kind of, you know, each woman basis, there's a real real meaning and beauty in US reclaiming these archetypes, but what you've just what you've just described is a vision that ultimately all of us benefit from. So thank you so much. For listeners, I'd like to find out more about your book hagitude And the work you're doing with that. And then also, you know, the amazing your work you're doing more generally where can they find out about all of that good stuff?

Sharon Blakie  49:42

Well, my main website is Sharonblackie.net. And there you can find out about all of my books, and some more general courses that I run on the mythic imagination, but there is also a new website called hagitude.org, which is specifically around hagitude and and about around the membership program that we are setting up to create a community of women who can answer some of these very good questions that you've asked me today. And also where you can find resources, such as the stories. We're trying to build a collection of stories over and above the ones I used in hagitude, which show powerful elder women so that again, people can take them and use them for inspiration. So there's all kinds of stuff going on over at hagitude.org.

Lian Brook-Tyler  50:26

Wonderful. Thank you so much Sharon. This has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Sharon Blakie  50:26

Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure for me too.

Lian Brook-Tyler  50:29

What a wonderful show here are my best bits. We can reclaim menopause as a time of stripping away letting go of the roles and expectations of our life and culture, allowing us to open to the deeper knowing of who we are and to become. The archetype Sharon describes, such as the fairy godmother and the truth teller, are ones that is so clear are deeply needed in our culture. The Vision Sharon spoke of that of a wiser, more authentic world is one that many of us really see as needed, and are looking for solutions for. The hag seems to be an important part of the answer. If you'd like to get notes and links for everything we spoke about this week, do hop on over to the show notes, and there at primalhappiness.co/episode380. As I said earlier, the next waking the wall crucibles we open, will be waking the wild sovereign early next year and if you would like to register your interest, if you are feeling that call to sovereignty, go register your interest now at primalhappiness.co/wtws. If you don't want to miss out on next week's episode, head on over to Apple podcasts stitcher or your app of choice, hit that subscribe button. And that way you will get each episode delivered all so magically to your device as soon as it's released. Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. Catch you again next Tuesday.

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