February 6, 2022

If we picked up the receiver and there was someone on the line, we put it down very carefully and waited. A guessing game of when they might be finished. Yes, it was a party line. And yes, I’m that old. 

At university those studying computers ran around campus with stacks of cards and knitting needles. The cards had holes in them and the needles were for pushing through those holes. Archaic coding methods. Yes, I’m that old. 

These days I’m glad I’m that old. Grateful I didn’t grow up with a mobile phone. Grateful I didn’t grow up with social media. Growing up with more space to breathe and be, I find it easy to step away from all that technological insanity. Sometimes it’s stepping, often it’s running. 

Cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin is the featured interview in the current issue of The Sun Magazine. He offers strategies for maintaining mental vitality in our old age. They include taking walks, getting better sleep, and trying new things. They don’t include constantly checking email, Twitter, and Facebook, which he describes as a “neural addiction.”

As I was creating this blog, a few suggested that instead of a blog I launch a page on Facebook. I had an immediate and visceral reaction. While I absolutely appreciate that FB is a great tool for many people and I watch with admiration friends like Anthony Murphy and Jane Brideson creating those pages for their work, I just can’t go there.

I watch posts pour through our newsfeeds like a waterfall. A great gushing of information that as quickly as it arrives flushes down the great FB drain into oblivion. This great gush and flush invites little if any deep consideration or contemplation. Just grab that thought in two seconds and let it go. On to the next. And on and on and on. 

It makes my head spin. And so I spend less and less time on FB. I’m never on Twitter and rarely on Messenger. Email is enough of an addiction for me and at least with email the exchange of information slows down and becomes an actual conversation. 

I recently agreed to put together memes for my spiritual community’s FB page. I was reluctant but those of you who know me know that I love creating those. However I’ve noticed a pattern. Those posts that can be consumed in two or three seconds get the most likes. Those that invite a deeper contemplation…not so much. Flush.

There was no way I could give serious consideration to opening a conversation about wise women and crones and this journey through the elder landscape on social media. This is a slow, considered journey that calls us to deep contemplation. This is not a journey of quick witticisms, sound bites and sight bites. This is a journey that invites the pace of party lines and knitting needles. 

This is not a journey of gush and flush.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith