Subjects I'm Passionate About

Love

 

How is it that two separate herds of wild elephants knew that the heart of a great man who had loved them suddenly stopped?

Lawrence Anthony was known as “The Elephant Whisperer.” He was a conservationist who saved countless elephants, many of which were rogues who had left their herd and were destined to be killed by humans.

After Anthony’s death, two separate elephant herds made their way through Zululand land on a 12-hour journey. They arrived at Anthony’s compound one day apart to mourn and pay their respects to the man who had loved them. They stayed for two days, then slowly returned to the bush.

The elephants were connected to each other, their whisperer, and the earth.

Are we devoid of such a connection?

Perhaps we have been drummed out of it. Or could it be that the cells within our bodies are as intelligent as those of the elephants? Perhaps we can reconnect to the wildness within ourselves and with each other. When we learn not to dominate nature but to live in harmony with it, we will reclaim what is rightfully ours.

Are we giving up so many freedoms that we are also giving up our power to be as wise as the animals?

Here at Goddesses 50 and beyond, we figure that age 50 is a good starting point. By 50, many women are getting their acts together. As women enter peri-menopause, a transaction that can last 6-12 years, many women realize that they are not willing to put their dreams on hold. And then there is the menopausal zest for life that few talk about.

Northrup tells the story of a woman on a snorkeling trip to a tropical island where she was practically “drunk with joy.” Next to her were a couple of 20-year-olds complaining about the sound of the motor and that the wind would make it hard to get into the water.  They were sailing over turquoise waters, about to commune with the fishes and worrying about the sound of the motor.

According to Christine Northrup, to live agelessly is “engaging in life without fear that you are going to fall apart.”

At around 50, our bodies begin to send us signals. Your heart talks to you; other structures send out signals; listen to them. It is time to take care of yourself and stop putting other people’s needs ahead of yours. It is a time of change, even if we don’t know it.

Even if you are not one of the wealthiest ones who can take cruises and buy expensive handbags to cheer yourself up, you can still live with excitement and joy.

When I began following the blog “The Daily Coyote,” I found that the author had set out from NY on a Vespa (a small motorcycle) and aimed across the country. She intended to go to San Francisco, but when passing through Wyoming, she fell in with it. After her trip to San Francisco, she returned to Wyoming, where she got a job sub-teaching and working on a farm. She found a cowboy hunk who brought her an orphaned coyote pup that she raised safely for 14 years. 

She is an excellent photographer, and after getting the coyote pup named Charlie, she began photographing him daily and sending the pictures to her family. She started a blog, “The Daily Coyote.” Someone mentioned her blog on another well-known blog, and it took off. She wrote a book by the same name, which is how I found her. She still writes her blog and still lives with her hunk--and about 60 miles from a grocery store. She raises organic beef cattle. The meat sells out faster than she can produce due to her notoriety. She sells calendars with pictures of Charlie, writes her blog, loves her animals, and has a pet steer she can ride.

This woman was young when she made her trip--still is, but we aren’t old at fifty, sixty, or seventy.

So, consider the possibilities. It makes me want to rent a camper and take myself and my blog on the road. I always wanted to be like Charles Kuralt, who wrote beautifully about little-known facts of history and traveled the back roads of America, where he found that people were more alike than apart. For twenty years, he wrote and traveled the roads and began a TV  program called Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt. “For a time after he retired, the Sunday Morning TV show stayed true to Kuralt’s vision of sticking with gentler subjects.

What have you wanted to do?

Here, we are talking about the holistic approach to living and saying that Mind, Body, and Spirit are connected. I have discovered and/or learned that when one of those three aspects is out of whack, the body responds. Physical ailments occur, as do depression, addictions, and anger. It’s like the carnival game of hitting prairie dogs as they pop out of a hole, only to miss them and have them pop up someplace else.

So, how do we address these three aspects of our lives?

Well, that’s what we are attempting to do. And I hope you will pop in with your input.

I wanted this blog to spark some creative juices.  And as we heal ourselves, we heal our sisters.

 

Here we go...

"W

"When your perception of yourself changes, so does your biochemistry.”

--Christane Northrup

 

The idea for this site began when I was about three pages into Christiane Northrup's book Goddesses Don't Age. I went, "Wow! I need this! We need this!'"

I excitedly searched for a Goddess picture to put on a site, named the site Goddesses 50 and Beyond, and now I'm putting it out there for those live-wire women who are into a holistic approach to living and healing—Mind-Body-Spirit—and would like to learn and share.

We need some normalcy here; times are cuckoo, fractured, angry, and polarized. 

It's time to bring back Momma. back!

For millennia, the feminine has been considered the carrier of the light. Anthropologists have noted that the sacred feminine was worshiped as the Great Goddess of Mother Earth. Isn't that what Gaia is all about—respecting the earth as a mother?!

I also know many women are suffering, overwhelmed, trying to be superwomen, holding down jobs while caring for husbands, children, family, and sometimes elders. Then, there is the childhood stuff that needs to be released. (We will go into that later.) When all that happens, the body complains, and Dis-ease develops. Many take antidepressants and pharmaceuticals. There is arthritis, fibromyalgia, rashes, stomach problems, and pelvic problems. In Japan, they say that adult diapers will outsell baby diapers.  

 It is time to get our acts together, help each other, and live outrageously.

"Self care," says Northrup, "is not self-indulgent, it is self-preservation."

I'm laying it out there for those attracted to this site to see a commonality and a sharing of similar beliefs.

All wellness and vitality come first from our connection with our Spirit, which is the conduit that can change our biochemistry.

We used to believe that genes were complete, little packets of information, predictable. Now, some brilliant scientists have found that genes can turn on and off, and the science of epigenetics was born, and we find that we are not victims of our genetic heritage.

Northrup quotes Dr. Mario Martinez, Psy. D, the founder of the Biocognitive Science Institute, says we should refuse the senior discounts because they reinforce the false belief that we are growing older and more frail, that we can't work, and that we need someone to take care of us.  

Martinez further explained how attitude affects outcome. In Peru, he said, the term "hot flash" means shame.

In Japan, menopause is considered "a second spring" when a woman goes deeper into wisdom. 

 Guess who has the least hot flashes?

 In Africa, the !Kung tribe has no word for hot flashes. There, a woman's status increases as she enters menopause.  

The years 50 to 80 and beyond can be the best of our lives. 

When we see that we are a part of it all, the planet, the stars, our sisters, our children, our animals, the trees, the ground, the soil, that rose in your front yard that so touches your heart, that friend you've had for 50 years, the awe you feel when standing by a mountain stream and staring at a snow-topped mountain, or that creative endeavor that puts you in a no-time zone—that's when you are with Spirit/God. That's when you know you are valuable and have a mission. 

Remember, we all sprang from the same fountainhead—that is, initially, we were all one. The One splintered (Big Bang?), and here we are. Science is showing, at an increasing rate, that consciousness is contagious and that shared knowledge increases the consciousness of the whole.

The story of the 100th monkey came out in the 70s and took the world by storm. True or false, it explains the idea of collective consciousness. The story was about one little female monkey who lived on an island where the tribe subsisted primarily on sweet potatoes. One day, she began washing her sweet potato. Soon, the entire tribe was washing their potatoes. Then scientists discovered that monkeys on a neighboring island, totally disconnected from the first monkey, began washing theirs.

Recently, my daughter shared that similar occurrences are happening with people, not washing their potatoes but somehow gathering information from a group who have already solved a problem. Crossword puzzles, for example, once solved by a group of people, somehow lend the ability to solve it faster to the next group.

The same goes for rats in a maze. Once, let's say, 100 rats have solved the maze, the following 100, disconnected from the first, solve it faster. And the ones after than even faster.

Clinical psychologist Lisa Miller believes that the brain might function more like an antenna—capable of sending and receiving consciousness, which holds information, love, and intelligence. 

This is not the mechanistic view we have previously thought. In other words, consciousness can exist independently of matter. 

It's sad that we have grown more apart than together, with politics and religion being big separators. It appears that whatever powers that be intend to keep us off-kilter and angry. Geesch, angry people can be persuaded to do bad things.

We're better than that. Don't let them do it.

With the experience of my husband's health issues, I'm seeing more and more that medicine is fractured. (Three cardiologists, a lung specialist, a urologist, radiation people, a surgeon, a swallowing therapist, a physical therapist.) Medicine is so complex that we need specialists. But what about one who pulls it all together?

Now, don't get me wrong, I adore doctors. If one of us has an accident and our guts are hanging out, we don't send them to a chiropractor. We send them to a doctor who can fix them. That's what doctors are good at—trauma.

But I'm talking about health and wellness, the holistic approach, all working together.

Recently, I saw how attitudes can be raised by a simple act of absurdity. It was a cold early morning on a subway in New York; people were going up and down huge escalators to change trains. Most were morose, depressed, and going through the motions when Improv Comedian Charlie Todd had a brilliant idea. He had friends come down the escalator holding signs for those going up. One sign said, "Rob Wants," next, "To give You," followed by "A high five." The following sign had an arrow pointing down and said, "This is Rob."

Rob, hand out, gave around 5,000 high-fives that day, and the people were smiling and joyful.

If you are on board the principles behind this site, give us a thumbs up and join the party.

Time to be joyful,

XOXO, Jo

P.S. This site will be open to guest bloggers who have information pertinent to our cause. And please share comments that can be of benefit—antidotes, resources, a book that changed your life, whatever.