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Crowning: a Combination of 'Croning' and 'Sage-ing' that embraces the challenges and opportunities of aging in today's society.

6/12/2019

Aging in today's society brings challenges, and many aging people can feel under-valued and unappreciated from time to time. In this post I want to briefly look back at some older, healthier perspectives related to aging and start a dialog about how we can borrow from ancient wisdom and traditions to create more vibrant lives for the aging in today's society.

Croning, an ancient concept about aging women, has most recently been viewed negatively but in some circles it's beginning to regain its former power and beauty. While being called a crone today calls to mind a wrinkled, unloved old woman, in the distant past it referred more to a female elder that is a wise woman, healer, and teacher. In a March 2018 article about Croning ceremonies, author Patti Wigington describes how some women are beginning to reclaim the name of the crone in a beautiful way. A sage can be defined as someone who has attained wisdom and is a virtuous person. While becoming a sage is not gender-specific, the term seems to be used most frequently to refer to wise men. In his book Age-ing to Sage-ing, rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi describes a revolutionary approach to growing older, describing an aging process that is full of adventure, passion, mystery, and fulfillment, rather than anxiety.

On May 31st, 2019, we at The Intentional Living Collective hosted a gathering of 14 people in Ann Arbor to start a dialog about the challenges and opportunities of aging in today's society. "Crowning" is the working title for our group, and it's an intentional combination of the terms "Croning" and "Sage-ing". We're beginning to explore ways to face the challenges of aging and to use wisdom, wonder, and creativity to help aging community members live a vibrant life, reclaim their individual sovereignty, and share their gifts with the greater community. In this first meeting we brainstormed a "wish list" of things we want to see for the aging in our community and we explored creative housing options for seniors including the Inter-Cooperative Council, the UM Housing Bureau for Seniors, and the Veridian Community from the Thrive Collaboration. Special thanks to Marijo Grogan for pulling the event together, to Nick Coquillard from the ICC, to Britney Williams and Janet Hunko from UM-HBS, and to the awesome group of seniors and providers that participated.

We've since set up a shared resource drive to organize the Crowning efforts and are planning follow up gatherings to dig deeper and make plans with the hopes of growing this into a community collaboration to transform the aging experience into something better. While housing is a concern, it's just one of many that we may choose to embrace. Interested in hearing more? Check out The Life Transition Zone and our section on Crowning, and if you'd like to get involved please contact Marijo Grogan at [email protected].

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Major life transitions. "We all got 'em, what are we gonna do with 'em?"

6/12/2019

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With all due respect, when Jimmy Buffet offered those words in the song "Fruitcakes" he was talking about relationships, not life-changing, potentially-overwhelming, character-shaping events - but the question fits perfectly. We all face major life transitions from time to time and we're often not prepared to deal with them - so what do we do to get through them?

Personally, I faced what felt like a tidal wave of life changes when I was about 30 years old and I was completely unprepared. I made one very important, life-changing decision and it triggered a series of other events that washed over me and left me overwhelmed and looking for help - which wouldn't end up coming from normal sources. Imagine, if you will, making a heart-wrenching decision that would change your life for the better forever but would hurt some people that you loved - and that the people around you would judge you harshly for it. I was open and honest about my decision with my community of family and friends, and for me that experience was isolating and led to feelings of intense sadness and loneliness. When I shared it with family, who loved me very much, they supported me the best they could but for the most part they couldn't understand or agree with my decision and actions and also couldn't help but see the situation through their own "lenses" and wishes. My community of friends also didn't understand or agree with my decision and actions, and most of them judged me harshly without understanding or empathy and simply turned their backs on me. I turned to my church community, but felt strongly judged there as well and it felt like they wanted to "save" me through Christ by changing my mind. As a last resort I tried the therapist route, and when I found one that I could connect with I finally felt objectively heard, but he also wanted to medicate and "fix" me. In the end he made it clear he was disappointed that I wouldn't take antidepressants or change my path - and so I felt even further isolated. I did end up working my way through a series of seven major life transitions that hit me in a six-month period, and I learned two very important things in the process: the first is that I'm stronger than I knew but didn't find out how strong I was until I faced overwhelming circumstances, and the second is that with hope, inspiration, and resources I can get through anything that doesn't kill me. I decided then that at some point down the road I would build an organization that would serve as a "safe space" or "port in the storm" for people to turn to when their normal support channels weren't enough or let them down.

Two decades later, I'm now the founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization called The Intentional Living Collective and one of the things we offer is a program called The Life Transition Zone that offers hope, inspiration, and resources to people navigating major life transitions of many kinds. We provide hope and inspiration to people in their most challenging times by offering a free collection of transition-relevant, short videos of real people in our community sharing their personal stories, experiences and learnings. We then offer free access to community based, transition-relevant resources and programs that users can filter and search to find the help they're looking for - as well as helpful resources they didn't even know existed. Are you or someone you care about currently navigating major life transitions? Check out the all-new Life Transition Zone here!

The list of resources and programs in our database is limited, and we're working to expand and deepen it. If you know of a resource that should be added to our database, please contact us at [email protected] and we'll work to add it. At this time we're focused on the Southeast Michigan/Northwest Ohio region but this will expand over time with hopes of offering this program across the country. We are, in fact, developing something even better called The Community Collaboration Portal that will make it much, much easier to connect people and organizations that need help and resources with the people and organizations that can offer them. Stay tuned!

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Crowning: a Combination of 'Croning' and 'Sage-ing' that embraces the challenges and opportunities of aging in today's society.

Major life transitions. "We all got 'em, what are we gonna do with 'em?"

Cal Loo

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