Lobsters, nautili, and emergent change (#5)

In recognition of aging

The delicious

Kate Horowitz

and I had a chat a while ago about getting older, and the perils thereof. It is WILD to me to have reached an age where the bulk of life’s big milestones (education, establishing relationships, bearing children) are in my rear view mirror, and what stretches out before me is a road both wide and unmarked by clearly defined societal goals. After fifty, femme-presenting folks really seem to fall off the radar, left largely alone to putter around empty nests and wait for grandchildren. We are assumed to have lived out our usefulness and drive to transform, and are generally expected to fade into a background of sensible shoes and sunscreen. There are a lot of angry voices about this sidelining, this dismissal, this conscription to the also-rans. There are Red Hat Society meetings. There are Silver Vixens. There are oceans of anti-aging creams.

But what of those of us who are happy to slip into the shadows, out of the glare of visibility, and burrow into the messy, goopy work of transformation? What about the joyously middle aged witch?

I have a longstanding beef with the Triple Goddess concept as it has soaked into the fibers of modern neopagan and occult practices, and not only because of the obvious clash with my non-theist beliefs. The distillation of feminine existence and power into pre-, currently-, and post-fuckable is, at best, a gross and misogynistic oversimplification. It ignores the real presence of the child-free, the asexual, the gender queer, and the women otherwise not participating in that assumed cycle of virgin, mother, & crone. It erases the complexities of wisdom, focus, and skill as they fluctuate and shift over the course of a lifetime, and more pointedly to this entry, leaves nothing for the middle aged witch to draw from for power & inspiration.

Specifically, where do we look for cues to manage, orchestrate, & solemnize our own midlife shifts? When we are no longer, or were never, in the immersive stage of mothering, but have plenty of kick left in us to defy submission to the desiccation of the crone, what does transformation look like?

In our conversation, Kate and I got to talking about her poem The Death of the Lobster, a gloriously gory tale of destruction & rebirth. The hard shell of the lobster constricts her growing flesh until she must change or die, and her bursting from her self made prison is violent and painful to the point of near annihilation. As we age, it is easy to encase ourselves in that familiar, lobster-like carapace, denying circumstances that pinch, beliefs that bind, relationships that chafe, until we erupt in a boiling, burning rage and thrash our carefully preserved shells to bits.

I will always - always - defend that cleansing, white-hot flame of rage as a tool for transformation. Sometimes the only thing that will shift an embedded stone is fire.

But for me, in my witchcraft as well as my recovery from a lifetime of emotional abuse, that model of change as full destruction has transmuted. Having, out of necessity, set fire to a LOT of things in the past few years, I am now less interested in waiting that long ever again before I make necessary adjustments. I’m not here to fold myself in a shiny encasement until I can’t take it any more and destroy it all over again; I’m here to grow, gently and persistently, and for my shell to grow with me.

Enter the nautilus.

I bought a small ammonite on a whim a few years ago, just a little muddy specimen looking somewhat lost on the crystal vendor’s display. I’m not especially drawn to shiny, expensive rocks, nor to oceanic motifs, but this quiet spiral drew my hand before I could even consciously decide to pick it up. It has been a constant on my altar or in my pocket ever since, fitting sweetly into my palm and offering a smooth, warm surface to work out my worries.

The nautilus, like most mollusks, grows its home around itself. As its soft body expands and begins to feel confined in its current shell, rather than destroy the inadequate carapace, the nautilus creates a new, larger chamber for itself. The old chambers are carried with it, an ever expanding spiral of previous selves that serve as ballast tanks to help propel the nautilus through the water.

My ammonite is the fossilized remain of a nautilus that lived countless eons ago. Its chambers progressively filled with quartzite and sandstone, like rings of a tree, hinting at the waters it tumbled in throughout the centuries. It carries its history with itself, within itself, but there is always another chamber after the last, another self to explore.

For me, middle age has been a time of immense discovery, of growth both gentle and urgent, of relishing the depth of field in my vision after fifty years walking the earth. It has been walking the spiral of my ammonite, winding my way out of the constricting past, but being aware of and grateful for the things learned along the way. I cannot wait to see what I learn next, as a person, as a witch, as an entity.

My fellow greying witches, what are you learning about yourselves in these uncharted waters?