Hilary Geller remembers the struggle of accepting the aging face she saw reflected in the mirror.
To her, then, growing older meant losing her significance in society. It meant being thought used up and ugly.But three years ago, she embraced her aging in a little-known ceremony known as croning. A slow but growing movement coming out of the West Coast, croning has become a way for women to joyfully mark their passage into postmenopausal life.
"It's honoring the wisdom and experience of women," says Joyce Fienberg, a Los Angeles gerontologist who was croned in a ceremony four years ago and now leads croning ceremonies for others.
"It's a way to honor older women and to make people aware that a woman's value doesn't end when she ceases to be able to reproduce and ceases to be beautiful as defined by our culture."
For Geller, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., deciding to embrace her own aging was a step away from the struggle and fears of growing older.
"Getting old was something I was afraid of," said Geller, who is 53. "But after the ceremony, the crone that was lurking in the corner became my friend and my joy."
"Crone," of course, is a word that means "an ugly, withered, witchlike old woman." By calling themselves crones, these women are trying to reclaim the word, redefining it to mean "an older wise woman."
The ceremonies are all different. Some take on a mystical flavor, others are more straightforward.
Geller's ceremony took place at an annual gathering of Elder Flower, an organization of older women centered in Northern California.
She declined to describe the ceremony - saying the details are for only crones to know - but did disclose that the ceremony was held in the Mendocino forest, with the women all wearing black and holding hands around a bonfire.
"So much of the movement is supernatural in the sense of a belief that the power of the older woman is the source of everything in the universe - that's more mystical than I care to make it," says Fienberg, 60, who teaches women's issues at Antioch University in Los Angeles.
Fienberg views the movement from a feminist perspective, focusing on how croning empowers older women and helps them feel they are confident and important members of society.
When she leads croning ceremonies, she drapes the subject in a long purple cape, reads women's poetry and discusses the loss of personal power women can feel when they are of a post-menopausal age.
"What do we do for a woman who has had 30 years of nest raising?" asks Fienberg, who has held ceremonies for groups at health spas and for individuals in private homes. "Men are honored by achievements," she says. "But there is no retirement ceremony for women. We tell them their future is to go into clinical depression."
Dea Shore, 56, of Sacramento, held a croning party for herself six years ago when she turned 50, which she calls the traditional age of the crone.
"Older women have always been considered the healers or keepers of knowledge," says Shore, who had 150 people over to her small apartment for an open house the day of her croning. "The idea of it is beginning to empower younger women. If we don't help them, who will?"
Shore, who has degrees in anthropology, psychology and women's studies, blames the media for perpetuating a society "that thinks of women over 50 as dried-up old prunes. Being a crone means we no longer will be victims. We are survivors."
For 60-year-old Margaret Chadwick of Sacramento, Calif., becoming a crone meant starting to live as she pleased. After 35 years of marriage to a man who refused to let her work and discouraged her from having friendships of her own, she divorced him, bought her own house and started a new life.
"I was really isolated for a long, long time," says Chadwick, who believes her story isn't that uncommon for her generation. "I have no problem with my age at all. I can be myself where I could never be myself before. Now I can have my own opinion and make it matter."
Her croning ceremony was small and informal, consisting mainly of her female friends sitting around talking with her.
"Being a crone isn't so much a ceremony as it is a fact," explains Chadwick. "This is really a stage in life. It's a realization. It's an accumulation of experiences. I think every woman becomes wise. Women become crones whether they ever admit it or not."
Geller says she is still in transition into her crone stage.
"To me, it's an emotional paring down," she says. "It was a relief to me to realize I didn't have to try to be 20 anymore. I was trying to act 20 and look 20 and I had no energy left over for myself. I'm much more self-accepting now."