On sunday mornings, I go to a dance class, or, better put, a sort of dance gathering. Great music, about 150 people moving around getting drenched with sweat and feeling really good – all before 10am.
One of the most remarkable things about this particular gathering is that there are a lot of older women there – women in their sixties, seventies, even a few in their eighties.
Yes, they do a little less jumping than the younger ones, but they are still moving, dancing, and looking radiant.
I started to notice that one of my favorite things about this class was dancing with older women.
Moving with them, looking into their eyes, beholding them was profoundly healing for me.
We throw around phrases like “was healing for me” a whole lot so I want to slow down there and say, no, I really mean it, it healed something for me.
I realized, dancing with them, how deprived I was of seeing older women’s faces. After all, in the many images I enounter everday on TV, billboards, magazines, web ads, pinterest pics, you rarely see a real older woman’s face. Wrinkled, radiant, and healing to behold. Beautiful in the way we forgot was beauty.
Women need to see those faces, for reasons I can’t quite put into words but that I have experienced. They bring it all back into balance. I think you know what I mean.
We don’t just need grandmothers’ faces. We need their voices too. Look at most institutions and you’ll see at lot of “grandfather power” – the power of the older male figures in our society. We need “grandmother power.” We need the wisdom, abilities, and love that older women bring.
I learned this phrase “Grandmother Power” when I met documentary photographer Paola Gianturco, who has been featured everywhere from Oprah to The New York Times. Her latest work is on Grandmother Power. She’s inspired me to launch a project, The Grandmother Power Blogging Campaign, which I share more about below.
If you don’t have a blog, I hope you’ll participate in the project as a reader – stay tuned for the Grandmother Power blog posts during the week of May 7th. And if you are a blogger, I hope you’ll participate by writing a post for the campaign – details below.
Love,
Tara
A Special Invitation to Bloggers
Above: Grandmothers study solar engineering so they can bring light to their villages in India.
If you have a blog, I have a special invitation for you. I’m organizing a “blogging campaign” – a collaborative effort when hundreds of bloggers from all around the world will join together to write about a single topic at their blogs.
What’s the topic that I am so jazzed about that I couldn’t resist working to get women around the world talking about it?
Grandmother Power. Grandmother Power is about the power of older women to change our world.
You can write about “Grandmother Power” in many different ways. You can pay tribute to a grandmother or another important older woman in your life. If you are an older woman, tell us about your vision for your grandchildren. Or, use one of the amazing stories & photos we’ll be sharing of activist grandmothers around the world – drawing from the book Grandmother Power by Paola Gianturco.
We’ve got more than 10 writing prompts like these to get you going!
If you’d like to participate, sign up HERE and you’ll receive all the details!
Love,
Tara
Amen. Last night I watched The Waltons, the episode where Grandma returns after her stroke. In real life, Ellen Corby did have a stroke and was off the show for I believe an entire season, and even after her return, she had mobility problems and could barely speak. There was some criticism of her return, people feeling she was being exploited, but it was HER choice to come back, her situation was handled with respect and elegance, and she was with the show for several more years. It was a beautiful tribute to the roles our elders play in our lives, but made me weep for the loss of that dynamic in our society today. Like you, I grew up where I was among grandmas and grandpas ~ my own and my friends ~ and that was “normal” to me, that you treated them with reverence and respect. But in today’s society, they are too often disregarded and dismissed. Looking back, I now wish I had spent even more time sitting with them, hearing their stories, and learning more of their history and my heritage. They were a treasure to our family and our society.
Beautiful…so amazingly synchronicituous as well!
I have been thinking about this today!
My mother is a grandmother who in her late 70’s STILL dances with me in the lounge to the latest trance/jazz/house/techno whatever!!
She showed me how to dance when I was just 4 years old and started a love affair with movement and music as my personal therapy, that I will never lose.
My 22 yr old son is very close to my mother – and when he was experiencing struggles today, I suggested we go to Grandmother for some healing balm for the Soul.
No-one can do that better than a wise old woman!
Yes!
Going to the onsen (hot spring) in Japan had a similar effect on me. Everyone is completely naked, women in their area, men somewhere else completely. Some old women were so bent over and small and bunched up, but we all had one thing in common — enjoying the healing effects of taking a warm bath. And somehow in that space everyone seems beautiful, no matter how old or what weight. It’s a great experience.
I don’t have a blog although my daughter has encouraged me to start one. I’m a grandma, 64 and so honored that you would do something like this. I know this will go public so I’m not going to be totally honest right now. Mostly I’ve felt like once women hit 50 we are no longer of value. We just kind of recede into the background. The most valuable resource present in my life are my wonderful same age girlfriends. I have a great husband, two great kids and two grandchildren but I get the feeling they really aren’t interested in much of anything I do. Perhaps this project will be a conversation in many households. There is much I would like to share with my family before it’s too late. I have fortunately been able to learn a lot from my parents because they have lived long lives. I am trying to journal so I can leave something behind just in case. Good luck.
Yes! I am always on my Grandma about writing down her stories because she has so much information and wisdom. In fact, sending her a journal so she can start documenting for all of us grandchildren. I really think she needs to write a memoir. I have no doubt it would be a bestseller with her storytelling abilities! Thank you!
What Mix did is start his well-known dot com…. it is allowing visitors to post blogging on his particular site absolutely free, just to point out to that he can be a realistic person.