How to Be an Elder: Myths and Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés Presents Volume Five of the Dangerous Old Woman Series

”What makes an elder, a heartfelt spirit, a clear mind, a talented heart, one who is young while old and old while young, an activist for the Soul? Is it formulae, schemas, lexicons? It could be. But also, and often more so, I think it is very like the flowering of the trees in the forest, as we gather more years: we straggle and stride onward in our better learned ways to give out even more seeds for new life, and to blossom wildly in so doing for self and others … The old ones are yet traveling underground and overland toward us as we meet one more time: La Vidente, the Seer; La Que Sabe, the Knowing Woman; La Levantadora, the Lifter of Curses—the Dangerous Old Woman in her many likenesses calls to you to 'get down to business.'” (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD)

How to Be an Elder presents the culmination of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés' masterwork, inviting us to “come into our own as wiser and wild souls” through six sessions of teachings, stories, poetry, and blessings. In this fifth and final volume of Dr. Estés' landmark series, we will explore how it is that through the gathering of our years we become a beautiful refuge for ourselves, our Souls, and for those who come after us.

“Did I mention, dear brave souls,” reminds Dr. Estés, “that you came with all the seedlings needed to do your work, to take your venerable places in life? Now is the just-right time, like Sleeping Beauty, to break the enchantment, to truly awaken and awaken others, as either a rookie Dangerous Old Woman, or a mid-career Dangerous Old Woman, or as Crone with Crown complete!”

Stories, poems, and blessings Include:

A Simple Prayer for Remembering
El Arbol de la Vida: The Tree of Life
Blessing Prayer: “Tattoo Your Scars with Flowering Vines”
“Sleeping Beauty”
Blessing Prayer: “Do Not Fold Your Wings So Small”
“The Shoebox of Tangled Necklaces”
“Rumpelstiltskin”
Blessing Prayer: “May You See with Three Sets of Creator-Blessed Eyes”
“Rapunzel”
“The Loathly Bride”
Blessing Prayer: “You Shall Be Like a Volcano Heard From Afar”
“This Little Time Traveler”
“The Stolen Mother Moon”
Blessing Prayer: “The Hardening off of the Heartwood”
“Distilling Aunt Edna from the Bottle”
“The Rabbi's Advice to the Harried”
“A Handful of Mud”
“Baucis and Philemon”
Blessing Prayer: “The Mountain for Old Lovers”