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.

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.