Growing Gray: A Jungian Writer Embraces the Crone

Jean and Shadow

Jean and Shadow

I’m honored to have a guest post by Jean Raffa this week. I met Jeanie more than 15 years ago at a workshop in Orlando, FL. She is a Jungian teacher, author of three books, and a wise crone. Find her bio at the end of this piece.

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Have you noticed that gray is the in color these days? I’ve been seeing it everywhere: women’s clothing, jewelry, purses, shoes, furniture, fabrics, paint, cars, kitchens, bathroom fixtures. Suddenly, gray is the new gold.

The gray I’m loving most is the soft, silvery, salt-and-peppery gray of women’s hair. Especially my own. My love affair with gray hair originally came about by necessity – I started going gray in my twenties and quit fighting it in my mid-thirties – but its inevitability doesn’t diminish its beauty for me.

Jean with a friend in Costa Rica

Jean with a friend in Costa Rica

In a society where the word “beauty” refers primarily to external manifestations of youth, where aging is seen as an enemy and authenticity is regularly sacrificed for appearances, the emergence of strong and healthy elder women who are comfortable going gray is an accomplishment to be celebrated. In her book, Wise Women: A Celebration of Their Insights, Courage, and Beauty, Joyce Tenneson does just that. The women featured in these extraordinary photographs are images of the Wisewoman archetype, also known as the Crone.

This is not the witch of fairy tales, but one of the three faces of the Goddess celebrated in ancient Greece. The other two were Maiden and Mother. They symbolized the shadowy, mysterious Lunar Mythology of birth, death and regeneration that characterized humanity’s spirituality before the golden sun god’s Solar Mythology about the battle between good and evil replaced it.

The archetypal gray-haired Crone not only represents the phases of a woman’s life, but also the ageless feminine wisdom in all of us that is not fooled by appearances, fads, or conventional thinking. She knows there is nothing inherently unattractive about gray hair or wrinkles. Is a shiny, unlined pebble inherently more attractive than a boulder etched with intricate networks of ancient fissures? Is the deeply seamed skin of an elephant less amazing than that of a sleek shark? Is a smooth sapling more beautiful than a gnarled tree that has been bleached, twisted, stripped of bark and relentlessly pounded by rain and  ocean spray?

In the Fall of 1999 I was 56 years old. That year I fulfilled a lifelong dream of owning a horse. I chose a two and-a-half year-old thoroughbred whose forebear was the famous gray racehorse, Native Dancer. Honey’s Shadow Dancer began his life the color of dark steel with a few white spots, but within a year after I bought him he was transforming into a beautiful dappled gray.

Jean in Costa Rica

Jean in Costa Rica

His color was significant to me. As a child I’d been in love with Walter Farley’s Black Stallion and the Lone Ranger’s white horse, Silver. At 26 I’d briefly owned a white horse but was forced to sell him when I became pregnant with my first child.  Over the next 30 years I set aside my love for horses in favor of my family and career. By 56 I had been studying Jungian psychology and following my passions for writing and self-knowledge for ten years.  Gifting myself with a gray horse in the Fall of my life was a choice to celebrate a miraculous healing ability that age, hard work, and experience had given me: to travel an enormously satisfying middle path that is, like gray, neither black nor white.

Over the next six years Shadow nurtured my ongoing integration of black and white: shadow and ego, instinctual body and logical mind, nature and spirit. He became my beloved teacher and friend. When he died of colic, I descended for a time into a gray world between life and death where he taught me new lessons about memory, remorse and grief.

For me, gray’s softer tones symbolize the integration of opposites that now characterizes my life. Things like respecting my true nature. Tolerating the tension of not-knowing.  Seeking peaceful solutions in neutral zones.  Forgiving myself and others our flaws. Embracing the joys and sorrows of human existence. Trusting the cycles of life and losing my fear of death. Accepting loss, aging, and the inevitability of diminishing abilities. And growing wiser, more conscious, and way more comfortable in my cronehood.

Jean portrait***

Jean Raffa is a former teacher, television producer and college professor who, with the help of Jungian psychology, began following her passions for self-discovery and writing during mid-life. Her books are The Bridge to Wholeness: A Feminine Alternative to the Hero Myth, Dream Theatres of the Soul: Empowering the Feminine Through Jungian Dreamwork, and her newest Wilbur Award-Winning book, Healing the Sacred Divide: Making Peace With Ourselves, Each Other, and the World. These can be found at this Amazon link and Larson Publications. You’ll be interested in Jean’s blog Matrignosis, her facebook page, and her website.

20 Comments
  1. Thank you for inviting me to be a guest writer on your wonderful blog, Elaine. And “Back at you!” with the “wise crone” compliment. If we do deserve this honorific, the credit goes to the wise women who mentored us through the last half of the 20th century. I know that Marion Woodman is a personal favorite of both of us, but I also credit Jean Shinoda Bolen, June Singer, Barbara G. Walker, Jean Houston, Riane Eisler, Elaine Pagels, M. Esther Harding…. I could go on and on….

    Here’s to passing the torch to the young women of today who are learning to grow gray!

    Love and gratitude,
    Jeanie

    • It’s my pleasure, Jeanie.

      To your wonderful list of Jungian power women, let’s add Marie-Louise von Franz. And I don’t want to leave out my favorite crone Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron. Or the late Ella May Damiani (wife of my teacher Anthony Damiani) who taught me so much about love and devotion to the Higher. I’m sure I’ll think of more.

      Thank you again for the personal, psychological, and spiritual wisdom you share.

  2. Gray IS the new gold. Thanks for this warm embrace of the aging process, including grey hairs.

    • Thanks for your comment, Jill. I have no opinions about what others do with their hair–and I sometimes wonder what I would look like as a red-head or with a green streak. Why not? But when I met Jeanie, she was beautiful, elegant, even regal, and completely gray. Her beauty influenced my choice to let my hair turn gray and white.

      • Awwww….I didn’t know that, Elaine! That feels so wonderful! Like you, I have no opinions about what others do with their hair: each should do what feels right for him/her. And, like you, I have fantasized about dying my hair red, and, truthfully? Even blue!!!

        • So now you know, Jeanie, that I’ve been your secret fan since we met–and we only met once. I looked at old notes and think that was 1998.

          • I’m very honored, my friend. 1998 sounds about right. Since then I’ve been a fan of yours, Elaine, and now that I’ve read your brilliant manuscript I’m shouting it to the world! You rock, Lady in Gray! 🙂

          • Now it’s my turn to say, “Awwww.”

  3. Dear Jean,

    I’m so moved by your words here on Elaine’s blog. You’ve given me much to think about as I approach another birthday. Instead of whining about the lines on my face and my aging neck, I want to start celebrating my professional and personal victories these past 54 (almost 55) years. This year has been one of great achievement but also one of mighty loss in the life of my family. In May, I lost my beloved dog and dad five days apart, and just as we were learning to deal with this, our oldest son’s cat went missing then his fiance’s brother took his life on July 5th.

    Your words of wisdom give me permission to let go of things I can’t control. I did choke up when I read about your beloved Shadow. You wrote, “He became my beloved teacher and friend.” That’s exactly how I feel about my dog, Bubba. Until his physical death, I never knew how much I could love and mourn another creature that is non-human.

    BTW – I think you are a beautiful woman. I loved studying all the photos and I’m so glad Elaine featured you are her important blog. Thanks Elaine. 🙂

    Kathleen

    • Thanks for your loving response, Kathleen, and for telling your personal stories. What a difficult tragic year you’ve had. May the next one be brighter with many new lessons learned. Jeanie? Her elegance and beauty when I met her in 1998 always stayed with me, along with her wisdom and terrific books. Vic and I loved Jeanie and her husband immediately–one of those moments of instant recognition. Meeting her at that time (I was in 53) helped me let my hair turn white. This is a personal choice and I think all women should do as they please, but Jeanie showed that a woman can look gorgeous, vital, and wise all at the same time. My progress is slow, but I practice.

      • How we do love beloved pets. With well-socialized dogs, horses, and cats, there is a unique animal resonance and openness. Willow always wants to be with me and comes when I call. If she hesitates because the wild apple she found on the trail is just too delicious, the promise of a cookie changes her mind. Human relationships are more complicated.

    • Oh, my, Kathleen. Your words and story touch me deeply. Thank you. I’m so very pleased to know that something I wrote was freeing and has given you a new way to view your aging process! (Perhaps we should use a different word, “wisening,” for that is what it surely is for women who listen, understand and reach out to others with love.)

      Shadow really was an extraordinary teacher, as was my gentle and brave golden retriever, Bear who died a few years ago. Like you, I never knew how much I could mourn a non-human creature until then. I’m still trying to understand what that’s about. I think much of it has to do with being the lucky recipient of their authentic, never-ending loyalty and love, and how empty life feels when the physical manifestation of that is gone. Wouldn’t the world be something if humans could figure out how to tap into that kind of love?

      Thank you for writing. You are a beautiful woman too, and I send you warm blessings on this next exciting phase of your adventure!

      Jeanie

  4. Wonderful to read Jean’s guest blog and all the comments! When I was younger I sometimes went back and forth between bleaching my hair blond and then dyeing it black! Now I am happy in my gray. And more peaceful.

    Thank you all.

    Lynne

    • Thank you for responding, Lynne. Yeah, free from white roots and constant trips to the beauty shop. Maybe a little wisdom developing, too, or we can hope for that.

    • Thanks, Lynne. I feel more peaceful too, having let my hair go gray. For me it was a choice to let go of the compulsion to live up to cultural standards and expectations that caused me more stress than I was comfortable with. My hair turned gray very early. I hated worrying about the color, the cost of fixing it, and the time it took, so I chose to reduce the stress these worries caused in my life.

      Others experience more stress when their hair color makes them feel uncomfortable or unattractive. I totally get that! I didn’t feel unattractive with gray hair, and that certainly made my choice easier for me!

      That’s why, like Elaine, I have no opinion about this issue and see it as an individual matter. For me the point is not about what color your hair is but how you feel about yourself and the way you’re living your life.

      Thank your for weighing in.

      Jeanie

  5. It is so good to meet you, Ms Jean Raffa. Thank you for these encouraging words that have me reconsidering my own greys and movement through my time.

    • Thanks for writing, Robin. There are no right answers to how we choose to age, but I’m glad Jeanie’s article is encouraging and thought-provoking. I focus on the wisdom aspect of the Crone rather, as is the possible harvest of the aging process.

    • Thank you, Robin. We absorb so many unconscious attitudes from society, and not all of them are in accord with our personal realities and priorities. A great benefit of the aging process is that it prompts us to reconsider what is and isn’t true and helpful for us, and then to make our own original choices. It’s good to hear from another soul who’s chosen the way of reflection and authenticity.

  6. Thank you Jean and Elaine, and all for your comments. I started to gray when I was in my early 20s. One day on a bus in Germany a 12-ish boy said, “Move over, Grandma.” For my 35th birthday my sister gave me a bottle of Clairol. When I moved to Ithaca at 41, a friend suggested that as I was moving and no one would know me it would be a great time to color my hair. But I never waivered about my hair color or the well-earned etchings on my face map. The gray of winter in Ithaca can be sad and depressing and too long, but can also be lustrous, pearly, and billowing. Gray is grayt!

    • Thank you, Ellen, for reading Jean’s piece and sharing your personal story about growing gray. Grandma? Not you. Not yet. Ellen, I knew you’d enjoy this piece, wise woman that you are.

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