Alchemy and Initiation: A New Story on Aging
These Seasons of the Soul as the Ageless Flame and Fierce Grace of Later Life
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Aging is an Initiation
I’ve been sensing something profound as I age, something that feels less like decline and more like initiation. A homecoming, a return to myself in a way that wasn’t accessible before.
In part because death feels closer, not imminent, but inevitable. I sense it in my bones, not with fear but with peace, as if some ancient part of me knows this path. A time-honored familiarity, older than the stories our culture disseminates around aging.
I feel a natural spontaneity these days. Free from the incessant standards of beauty and desirability that are placed on women. Free from the hormonal tides that once swept through my body and emotions.
And aging brings its challenges. Yes, my body has softened and in some places it sags. I also have more pain in my joints, and I need to take things more slowly at times. But I feel the sacredness in this. I’ve become and am becoming a vessel of lived wisdom.
My grey streaks, wrinkles and the shifting landscape of my body aren’t flaws. They don’t render me invisible; they make me real. Living sigils etched over time, mapping the terrain of my life. Visible expressions of a life deeply lived.
What surprises me most is the creative fire that has awakened in me. Not as a flicker but a full flamed passion. There’s less self-censorship and a deeper longing to express truth! Inspiration’s gates are wide open.
And with all of this has comes an unexpected gift: the return of childlike wonder. Not naïve, but reverent. I find myself in awe every day. The call of a hawk or cackle of the crow. A shaft of sunlight streaming through the trees. The warmth of tea in my hands. Life feels vivid, especially when it’s still and quiet.
Aging in Our Western Culture
Aging is one of the most misunderstood rites of passage.
In truth, aging is a natural and sacred part of the cycle of life. Nature shows us this clearly: the sprouting of spring, the growth of summer, the harvest of fall and the withering of winter. Aging isn’t a disease or affliction but an inevitable time we all arrive at if we are fortunate to live that long!
Yet our culture often frames aging as a slow decline: something to fix, conceal or fear. Medical and cosmetic industries reinforce this view by pathologizing the natural process of growing older to profit from our collective dread! Wrinkles to erase, hair to dye, skin to tuck and sculpt, prescriptions to refill, all to correct what is simply human.
Mass media compounds this issue by portraying elders as fragile, dependent, or obsolete. These stereotypes fuel ageism, robbing aging of its dignity and limiting the vibrant, meaningful lives older adults are fully capable of living.
In Western society this is even more exasperated, where individualism and personal achievement are emphasized resulting in families being more dispersed and spread out. Multigenerational homes or where older adults have their children living near them are less common. Unlike many Eastern, Latin American, Asian, and Indigenous cultures, where elders tend to be more honored and family is seen as an interdependent whole.
Many older adults in the West rely on retirement communities, assisted living, or nursing homes. As of 2024, more than 1.4 million people in the U.S. live in Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing homes.1
I’m overjoyed that my family has stepped outside this mold. Both of our adult children live with us, not as dependents, but as cohabitants in a home where we support one another. We share expenses, household responsibilities, and daily life. It feels like a true community, rooted in reciprocity and care.
Myths About Aging, the Real Truths
Myth #1: Aging means losing relevance.
Truth: True relevance comes not from youth or performance, but from lived experience and embodied truth. In many traditions, elders are the healers and wisdom keepers.
Myth #2: Creativity fades with age.
Truth: Creativity often blooms later in life. Freed from the pressure to please, many people find their creative voices more powerful than ever before.
Myth #3: Aging means becoming stuck in your ways.
Truth: Aging can open us to even greater wonder. With age, the ego can soften if one is open to that. The more we live, the more we’re able to understand how mysterious and miraculous life truly is.
Myth #4: Death is something to fear.
Truth: Death is a companion, a teacher, not an enemy. Aging brings us into sacred relationship with impermanence, whispering to us about what matters. When we stop and befriend death, we start living more fully.
Myth #5: Aging is a disease that can be prevented
Truth: This is more a marketing ploy than truth. There is no doubt lifestyle and diet changes can make the aging process easier, improving health and well-being. But it does not halt or reverse it. Aging, again, is a normal part of life.
Myths About Aging Specific to Women, the Real Truths
Myth #1: Beauty fades.
Truth: Beauty transforms and deepens. Society sells us a narrow image of beauty, but real beauty is soul-deep.
Myth #2: Hormonal changes make you less feminine.
Truth: Menopause is a rite of passage into a deeper, more rooted feminine power. Freed from the cyclical fluctuations, many women experience a sharpening of their intuition and a fuller embodiment of truth. This is not an ending, but a sacred becoming.
Myth #3: Older women should be quiet and step aside.
Truth: Now is the time to take up space and speak. The crone is not silent, she is fierce, wise, rooted, and visionary. Older women are meant to lead, mentor the younger, and speak with the thunder of lived truth.
Aging as Alchemy
Beneath the noise of cultural expectation, something holy is happening.
Aging is a sacred alchemy, transforming experience into wisdom and striving into surrender. A harvesting of insight as a return, not to youth, but to essence, to presence, to being.
To reclaim aging as a rite of passage is to honor its power, to celebrate its gifts and the elders who carry this. When we meet aging not as a problem to fix but a mystery to be lived, we begin to dismantle the fear and illusion surrounding it. And in doing so, we open the door to a culture that values wisdom, reveres experience, and welcomes the full spectrum of life.
Feminine Mysteries
For me, aging has drawn me deeper into the Feminine Mysteries. The mythopoetic and animist ways of life and nature. The roundness of life as the cycles. Spirals that bring me beneath the surface of roles and linear time, into the space where death and life are not enemies, but lovers. Here, I’m learning to meet death before dying. And in that meeting, something softens. Something ripens.
Meeting Death
Yes, aging carries grief. There are goodbyes. Some are slow, some sudden. Each year more and more dear ones are passing on. And my body is shifting, the pace changing. But with grief comes a deepening. A clarity of soul that cannot be rushed.
I will not hide to make others more comfortable. I will not apologize for growing older. I claim this stage of life as holy ground. It’s priestess territory where the veil is thin and the essence of things is revealed.
Aging is not a curse to endure. It is a sacred invitation to remember who I truly am beneath all the layers of existence.
And I say yes to that invitation.
Death walks beside me now, not as a threat, but as a companion. Not morbid, but beautiful. The keeper of the last threshold, the final teacher. Reminding me to live fully, to love deeply, to let go of what no longer serves.
And in death’s presence, I discover not an ending, but the radiant, unshakable truth of being alive.
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https://health.usnews.com/best-nursing-homes/articles/nursing-home-facts-and-statistics
Julie, this is so deeply felt and beautifully expressed. As you know, I just turned 51, and reading your words brought tears to my eyes. I wouldn’t return to a younger age for anything, and yet I hold such gratitude for every moment of that first half-century. Each one stretched me, softened me, shaped me. Aging, for me too, feels less like a decline and more like an unfolding. A return to a power that was always ours, but we had to first have enough moments under our feet to reach it. I feel vast in a way I couldn’t have imagined in my twenties or thirties, and that vastness is something I want to claim, not conceal. Thank you for writing this with such clarity, reverence, and power. It’s a gift to us all! 💖💖
Great piece. The section on death was perfectly articulated.