Practice wisdom: The place of wisdom

Abstract

A dear doctor friend, with whom I made the Jungian journey in the early nineties, congratulated a female colleague upon her sixtieth birthday, by informing her blithely that she was now a Crone. Weeks later she still hasn't forgiven him. A 'Crone' in Jungian terms refers to the archetype of woman wisdom. This year, before the column is printed I too, will have crossed over to the other side. On reading aloud to my husband an article about middle-aged women, I was assured I was no longer middle-aged! (He also protests, whenever I look forward to grandchildren, that he is not sleeping with a grandmother). Perhaps all this talk of the horror of ageing has led me to reflect on the nature of wisdom. I recently read David Tacey's The Darkening Spirit with a quickening of hope - hope for wisdom in our ailing world.