THE ELDER

The word ‘elder’ can mean many things.
The Elder may be fierce, eccentric, wild; she may be the Trickster energy that sets about disrupting the status quo.
She may also (or later) represent the deep, restful dark: the slow sinking back into the quietness within that is arguably one of the greatest gifts of extreme old age.
To a woman of the Celtic nations, to become Elder is above all to become Cailleach: to represent the integrity and health of the wild places and creatures of this world.
To become Elder is to become strong – strong as the white old bones of the earth, strong enough to endure the long, lonely vigil to the end of the world.
To become Elder is to hold the power, stay the course.
Above all, to become Elder is to become the bean feasa, the Wise Woman: the one who knows the secrets and speaks the languages of the land, who speaks with the moral authority of the Otherworld, who weaves the dreaming of the world.