I’m reading Crones Don’t Whine, by Jean Shinoda Bolen, about women getting wiser, not just older.
I want to talk about this paragraph:
The thought that we are spiritual beings on a human path, rather than human beings who may or may not be on a spiritual path, has intrigued me since it first entered my mind.
Well it intrigues me as well. If asked, I would always have said that our spirituality is the most important part of us. But I realise I would not have really meant it.
This paragraph has made me realise that in fact, I’ve thought of our humanity as the most real part of us, and our spirituality as a kind of ‘bolt-on’. If pushed to real honesty, I would also have said there are several individuals in whom I simply cannot recognise any spiritual dimension.
So if we turn it around, what does it mean? Are we some kind of fallen angels? Gods descended to earth like ancient Greek myth?
Well no, of course this concept of the body as a vessel, a kind of suit of clothes for the soul which we will lay down when we die, is familiar to Christian and other religious thought, including reincarnation. We should reverence our bodies as the vessels which contain our souls. (Which means not over-indulging them, as well as not starving them.)
But it strikes me that this still speaks of separation and there’s something about the concept of spiritual beings on a human path that seems more intertwined. As if our human body is more than just a garment for the soul, but somehow part of it. I keep picturing a person on a forest path with the eyes of the soul sparkling freely, like the eyes of a grave but merry elf peeping from behind a great oak.
And is there also an implication here that there is another path for spiritual beings to be on, not just the human path? What might that be? Is the reverence that we feel in the forests and mountains a mutual recognition of another, parallel spiritual path?
I have absolutely no idea what the book says about all this. I was so struck by the paragraph I’ve quoted that I wanted to consider it before reading on. It’ll be interesting to see.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Barney 10.21.07 at 12:03 pm
This chimes strongly with my thinking on how our spiritual and physical dimensions sit together. I have heard/read it said that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, but many of us see it the other way around, because the physical is so immediate to us and we are veiled from our spiritual reality.
We inhabit the physical/material world for a part of our existence so that we can learn certain lessons and develop qualities and virtues that we need for the next phase of our life, the phase that comes after what we call death.
The Baha’i writings use the metaphor of the womb – this world is like the womb of the next. Just as the baby in the womb needs to go through various stages of development before it emerges into our world, our human/spiritual reality needs to go through stages of development in this world, before it emerges into the next life.
Coincidentally, I was struck with by the title of the book you’re reading, Tess, I was talking last night at a Baha’i celebration to a Baha’i friend who is a herbal healer by profession. She found it sad that so many women use plastic surgery and other means to deny their ageing into their time of wisdom. This brought to mind Susie, a Baha’i woman in Canada who is a friend of mine. Susie, whose ancestry includes First Nations (I think), and who is wise, funny, a grandmother, deeply spiritual, joyfully refers to herself as a crone.
Tess 10.21.07 at 3:23 pm
Thanks Barney, yes I like the womb metaphor.
I think terminology is really important. The word crone is being reclaimed by many older women in the same spirit as some of the black community now use ‘nigger’, and ‘dyke’ and ‘queer’ are being used by many gay people.
There’s a kind of joyful, spirited defiance to claiming former insults that can transform the hatred in them.