Hagitude

Reimagining the Second Half of Life

Unearths the stories of the little-known but powerful elder women in European myth and folklore, inspiring listeners to radically reimagine the last decades of their lives as the most dynamic of all

Western folklore and mythology are rife with brilliantly creative, fulfilled, feisty, and furious role models for aging women, despite our culture's focus on youthfulness. In her exciting new book, mythologist and psychologist Sharon Blackie explores these archetypes, presenting them in a way sure to appeal to contemporary women. Drawing inspiration from these examples, women can reclaim midlife as a liberating, alchemical moment rich with possibility and their elder years as a path to dynamic power.

After menopause, women can expect to live another forty to fifty years, making this stage of life longer than childbearing years. As Blackie describes it, midlife is the threshold to decades of opportunity and profound transformation, a time to learn, flourish, and claim the desires and identities that are often limited during earlier life stages. This is a time for gaining new perspectives, challenging and evolving our belief systems, exploring our calling, uncovering meaning, and ultimately finding healing for our accumulated wounds.

©2022 Sharon Blackie (P)2022 Tantor

Hagitude best attitude

I enjoy Sharon Blackie’s writings. This one is my new favorite as I am going to be turning 59 in 3 months and many of the things she has written about are in my own life.

I love how she combines modern psychology with ancient myths and folktales In weaving a new story of empowerment for women.

The fact that she narrates her book is just icing on the cake!

Transformational

Interwoven wisdom of spiritualists, philosophers, mythologists, and of course, elders of many creeds and cultures—this poetic synthesis by Sharon Blackie has illuminated new paths for me to explore as I leave maidenhood behind and begin my midlife metamorphosis. I deeply appreciate her revisioning of the crone era; it is not a waning of life, but a winging off of stale beliefs that have soured and bland objectives that no longer feed our soul. Blackie’s book, part memoir and part manifesto, will help women of any age and season develop an attitude of new vitality towards their present and futures selves.

Just what I needed to hear

Very rich, direct and clear. Lovely to listen to. So glad she read it herself.

Insights into a vibrant old age

This was a most unusual book, and very timely for me as I enter my eighth decade. The author validates aging as a worthy work and her tales of her own journey, as well as her stories of aged and powerful women through folklore and myth, shine a powerful light on what it is to be an aging woman in our time.

Insightful, informed, inspiring and sassy

Sharon Blackie has no need to be apologetic about her brightness, incisiveness, and erudition concerning the myths of her ancestral land. We need more women’s voices like hers, departing from patriarchal bull-shit in an way that has nothing to envy men (no penis envy, Mr. Freud!)