Resilience After Fifty

12/25/2021

On this day, I wish you blessings of comfort and joy
In this precious coming year we have been given
And , together in this, prayers
for our capacity to, each of us,
evolve and awaken
and come to face
For all living beings
what we each must do for our environment
For the approaching Climate Emergency
with wisdom and peaceful acceptance,
With grieving and then resourcefulness
and confidence
Held in our rich mutual connectivity
and our love

11/28/2020

Being a witch promises us a lodestone: a legacy, a lineage of women, weird and wise, who came before us. It gives us a context in which to fit our suspicions, fears, superstitions and our new, unexpected lateral power. It provides meaning in an otherwise barren spiritual landscape, without demanding the sacrifice or cognitive dissonance of most mainstream religions. It suggests a connection to a broad, if invisible, network of other women practicing the Craft. And it promises a compass with which to navigate the unknowable territory of growing older.

This excerpt from Witches: The Transformative Power of Women Working Together by Sam George-Allen (Melville House, 2020) appears by permission of the publisher.

Witchcraft is having a moment. But look past pop culture's teenaged spellbinders and consider the encouraging example of the unconventional crone.