Welcome to the Conversation

 Posted by on March 1, 2012
Mar 012012
 
Deborah Hill, MA, LMFT   Ann Nix, MA, CHHT
Individual and Couples Therapy
Group Facilitation
Art and Personal Development
Our conversation began in the year 2000 and continues still. Ann and I came together with a shared concern about becoming an older woman in a culture that dislikes anything old and has a particular fear of the aging woman. We had both arrived at this fateful threshold in our lives and the problem had become all too personal.

Ann and I became fast friends wading through all the material we could find; trying to make sense of the bewildering life stage we were in. Through our collaboration we uncovered a disturbing complex of beliefs about aging and femininity that we began to refer to as the Cultural Spell. We knew we had a lot of work to if we were to free ourselves from its grip.

The following pieces are taken from our early writings where we used the imagery of a fairy tale to trace the feminine experience through the vicissitudes of this transformative life passage. Our current work continues on our blog.



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Breaking the Spell

 Posted by on December 17, 2011
Dec 172011
 


Becoming an older woman isn’t easy. While we know that aging happens only to the fortunate, at another level we are all too aware of what awaits us. We watched our mothers disappear as though a spell had been cast upon them, and we are determined not to let that happen to us.


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The Queen is Missing

 Posted by on December 3, 2011
Dec 032011
 


Fairy tales are the dreams of a culture. Their characters and stories comment on our collective predicament. They give a sense of meaning to the problems of our times, even though that meaning may not yet be clear. Like dreams, fairy tales voice hidden truths in the language of metaphor and symbol. They safeguard the important questions, even when we have forgotten to ask them.


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A Kingdom in Chaos

 Posted by on December 1, 2011
Dec 012011
 


The Kingdom was in chaos. People rushed here and there. Everyone was talking and no one was listening. Buildings were taller, travel was faster, women were more beautiful, men were stronger. Children grew up quickly, but no one grew old. Everything was bigger and more, but there was trouble in the Kingdom. And the Queen was missing.


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Into the Forest

 Posted by on November 30, 2011
Nov 302011
 


Many women wake in the middle of the road of their lives…lost, alone and afraid. Many of us lose our way of belonging. Our children nearly grown, we no longer feel needed. No longer useful. No longer seen. We are alone in a way we have never been alone before. We may not know precisely what is wrong, why we feel the way we do, but we do know that there is no going back to the old story of our lives.


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