Older Can Be Better At The Age Of 66, Maxey Megrue Is Embracing The Richness And Wisdom Of Her Age
Maxey Megrue could be one of Disney’s fairies in “Sleeping Beauty,” Flora, Fauna or Meriweather. She wears a silver bob and round goldrimmed glasses and she beams.
Yet at 66, she’s decided the word “crone” fits her stage in life. She finds humor, irony, and celebration in the term.
In the center of her dining table stands the remnants of the last crone ceremony she conducted, in honor of a friend’s birthday: partially burned candles, glittery stars, Hershey’s kisses wrapped in gold.
Megrue, a Spokane hypnotherapist and women’s spirituality teacher, has embraced the word “crone.” She attended a national Crone Council in Scottsdale, Ariz., this fall. She subscribes to a journal called the Crone Chronicles and hopes to help start groups for potential crones in Spokane.
“I couldn’t find a positive word for an old woman in our vocabulary,” Megrue said. “There just isn’t one.”
During the time before the witch burnings in Europe, crones had a place of honor in society, Megrue says. They were the healers, the midwives and the artists.
Today, she wants to encourage other older women to join together to celebrate their collective wisdom and experience.
“We’re the connectors of the past and the future,” Megrue said. “We are the conduits of memory.”
Megrue believes that groups of older women can support one another’s growth, and become the community’s wise old women who act as mentors to younger women.
In the past few years, Megrue has discovered what it means to be an older woman in this society. It means invisibility. The waiter doesn’t come to your table as quickly anymore. In a group, people rarely look you in the eye when they’re speaking to you.
“It’s scary because the world tells you you need to compete by having your face lifted, your hair dyed and your figure trimmed,” she says. “You’re ostracized for being loud and pushy.”
But Megrue resists the temptation to pursue youth. Instead, she finds richness in embracing her age.
She serves as mayor of her small retirement community. She still works as a hypnotherapist and runs groups for women.
She doesn’t volunteer to babysit or bake cookies. But she will, like the older women in the movie “How to Make An American Quilt,” tell her stories to younger women, stories designed to give them courage to carve their own paths through life.
Outside Megrue’s living room window, the Spokane River tumbles past. It’s steel gray against a misty winter sky.
Megrue calls the river her metaphor. It gives her a sense of stability. She watches flotsam bob past, and realizes that things come in life and they pass.
“Any time I need to go deeper, I look at the river and the answers sort of bubble up,” she says.
Megrue finds metaphor everywhere. A sculpture of a serpent, symbol of death and rebirth in the shedding of old skin, sits on her window sill.
For years, Megrue taught a class called Cakes for the Queen of Heaven at the Unitarian Church. She explored women’s spirituality and found her self.
Now, she’s reached the crone stage, “that space between what is left of life and its end.”
It’s a stage that transcends concerns about ego, and external approval. It’s about embracing and integrating one’s entire life experience.
On Megrue’s 60th birthday, she felt ignored. Her friends were busy. Her family lives outside of Spokane. Two out of three of her sons forgot to mail her a card.
So she invited five friends to her lake cabin for a crone ceremony.
They brought food, pictures and about 10,000 candles. One night they showed pictures and told stories about themselves in the various stages of their lives: maiden, mother, matriarch and crone.
They lit candles for each of the old women who had been meaningful in their lives. They honored their mothers. They got angry with their mothers. They laughed. They cried.
In the morning, Megrue’s tabletop was covered in melted wax. She kept it for a very long time, savoring the memory of that magical evening.
Megrue knows that what women provide for one another is not answers, but support. Support in seeking one’s own answers. Support for traveling the river with strength.
Her latest vision: Organizing a river float trip down her favorite stretch of the Spokane. For grayhaired women only.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MEMO: If you would like help in starting your own crone group, call Maxey Megrue at 327-3327.