How can myth and folklore help us find our way in the second half of life? What can we learn from the places we inhabit, and the stories that are rooted in the land?
When menopause hit Sharon Blackie at fifty, she said she was not ready to “do what the culture told me I should do and go sit in a corner and be quiet”. Unsatisfied by the portrayals of post-menopausal womanhood offered by contemporary culture, she turned to folklore and myth to see what we might learn from the old stories that are rooted in the land.
I've only just come into motherhood, but have also noticed the relatively impoverished view we have of older women (mostly we just don’t see them at all). Reading Sharon’s books Hagitude – Reimagining the Second Half of Life and Wise Women – Myths and Stories for Midlife and Beyond has introduced me to so many flavours of hag, goddess and wise woman that I previously did not know.
Sharon is a former neuroscientist and a psychologist, with a deep knowledge of the mythic imagination and its relevance to us today. In our conversation, she explains that growing older does not have to mean that we stop growing; in fact it can be a time of deep transformation.
“I believe that the second half of our lives is the time when we come into our calling. Menopause is a pause, a time between stories. The old story of the first half of our lives is just crumbling in front of our eyes. We don’t quite know what the new story is. So we’re in this pause period. That’s the point at which we begin to really focus in on this gift.”
In that context, we discuss depth psychologist James Hillman’s acorn theory - the idea that we all come here with a unique pattern or gift that we carry with us. This gift can take many forms:
“It’s not about grandiosity. It’s not about doing something dramatic. It’s just about a way of being uniquely human in the world. Just showing up as some unique flower in a particular garden is enough, perhaps, for the world.”
We also talk about the importance of land and place, which is at the centre of much of Sharon’s writing and work. “Place has been my greatest teacher,” she says. And she exhorts us all to find ways of being in relation to whatever place we find ourselves.
“I do believe very strongly that we have a moral obligation to find a way to belong to the place where our feet are planted, not just the place we love most, or the place we were born, but where we're living right now. However satisfactory or unsatisfactory we find it, we have a moral obligation to be in relationship with it, and that relationship is two-way.”
I’ve admired Sharon’s books and her excellent Substack for years, so it was a pleasure and honor to have this time to speak with her. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
Very best to you from intensely green spring fields here in Sweden,
Ingrid
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EPISODE DESCRIPTION
How can myth and folklore help us find our way in the second half of life? What can we learn from the places we inhabit, and the stories that are rooted in the land?
Dr. Sharon Blackie is an award-winning and internationally bestselling author, speaker and teacher. She’s a former neuroscientist and a psychologist with a background in mythology and folklore, and her work is focused on the mythic imagination and its relevance to the personal, cultural and environmental issues we face today.
She is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and in two of her recent books, Hagitude and Wise Women, she explores how folklore and myth help women reimagine the second half of life.
Sharon’s lates book, Ripening: why women need fairytales now has recently been released!
LINKS TO THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT:
Sharon Blackie’s website
Hagitude and Wise Women, books by Sharon
The Soul’s Code by James Hillman
Cailleach, Irish hag deity
Listen to the other episodes in the Blood Mysteries series, exploring the interweaving of the biological, emotional and spiritual, in the context of women’s bodies:
![37. Embracing our cyclical nature // JENNY KOOS [Blood Mysteries pt. 1]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!K8as!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fvideo_upload%2Fpost%2F187499795%2Fd18c5f58-18c4-4456-8653-e8960a204b1e%2Ftranscoded-1771852900.png)
