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Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life

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I love this book. It’s mind-blowing in the most profound and exhilarating sense. This is an anthem for all we could be. It’s an essential book for this, the most critical of recent times. I sincerely hope every woman who can read is given one, and has the time and the space to read it.’ Manda Scott, author of the best-selling ‘Boudica’ series and ‘Into the Fire’ I am a longtime appreciator of Sharon’s work and have taken her classes and seminars. Until this book I would have said that I didn’t feel much of a divide; her ideas have excited and validated me. Then she reports that even a lesbian (gasp!) shared her views, as though finding one person in a more marginalized group who shares your views to bolster your own absolves you of your intolerance. For women who feel separated from their true feminine self, this is a rallying cry to rediscover those ancient roots and be part of the life force again .’ cygnus review

There isn’t enough information about elderhood, for those interested. There certainly isn’t enough written in a positive framework about women who age, nor enough mythical introductions which aren’t preaching from the current fashion of witchstagram (again many who are authentic get drowned out by trolls, who have the patience of a pamphlet) It may be the first time CBC or BBC book recommendation and interviews have let me down. Hagatude is almost in it’s entirety a memoir of their menopause and post-menopausal life. Did I need to know about their husband’s midlife crisis, NO. Did I really need so much information about their cancer, NO. Not more than as a transition point that made them face their own mortality and thus an intro into the next elder woman archetype. Hagitude unearths the stories of the little-known but powerful elder women in European myth and folklore, inspiring readers to imagine that the last decades of our lives might be the most dynamic of all. This moving and uplifting book will inspire a new generation of female elders: women who have reclaimed their Inner Hag, matured into their own unique brand of hagitude and who are ready to pass down their deep feminine wisdom for the benefit of the wider Earth community.

Interview with Sharon

As well as writing five books of fiction and nonfiction, including the bestselling If Women Rose Rooted and her latest, Hagitude, her writing has appeared in anthologies, collections and in several international media outlets – among them the Guardian, the Irish Times, and the Scotsman. Her books have been translated into several languages, and she has been interviewed by the BBC, US public radio and other broadcasters on her areas of expertise. Her awards include the Roger Deakin Award, and a Creative Scotland Writer’s Award. Her next book, Wise Women: Myths and folklore in celebration of older women will be published by Virago in 2024. Hagitude is already becoming a beloved cult classic, as a myth-infused manifesto for the possibilities for life from middle age onwards.’ I was born in the north-east of England, a Celt through and through: my family and ancestry is both Scottish and Irish, and I was raised on an imaginatively rich diet of Irish myth, poetry, music and history. After studying psychology, I spent several years as an academic neuroscientist/ psychologist specialising in the field of anxiety and panic, and working at the Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris and the Institute of Neurology in London. After a few twists and turns, including some unwise years advising a tobacco company on smoking and health and safer cigarettes, and the acquisition of a master’s degree in Creative Writing, I moved to a croft in the north-west Highlands of Scotland. There I returned to my roots, in practice as a therapist specialising in narrative psychology, myth- and storytelling, as well as in other creative imagination techniques and clinical hypnotherapy. My passion during those years was, and still is, creating transformation in individuals and groups. In her trademark mythopoetic style of writing sharing deeply researched folk legends from our very own British Isles, and with a wild and deep attachment to these lands she inhabits, this book will remind you of just how powerful and transformative this midlife journey we are in truly is.

In the oldest known cosmology of my native lands, it wasn't a sky-bound old man with a beard who made and shaped this world. It was an old woman. A giant old woman, who has been with us down all the long ages, since the beginning of time.' It is elegantly written and seems to be well researched and supported in some places. Other places it’s very diary entry, literary review with no clear thesis. I was all set to recommend this. The early chapters where the author discusses elder archetypes, reclaiming the wise woman archetype and no longer accepting the modern patriarchal attempts to invalidate and dehumanize women past child bearing years, especially those women who never gave birth to children, were great. They were interesting and empowering, although it does help to be a Jungian scholar for a good portion of her text (I am not). Today, Mary teaches classes in Gaelic song and its surrounding culture, mostly online. She specialises in The Keen (Irish Funeral Lament) and Fairy Song. She holds certificates in Vocal and General Education, Shamanic Studies and Sound Therapy. She also has an MA in Chant and Ritual Song and a PhD in Traditional Irish Song Studies, which she began at the age of 60. She is currently working on a book about the Irish Keen.

Truly disappointing due almost entirely from my expectations. I really thought it was about women archetypes, myths and legacies of certain older women and their influences on our soc-economic landscapes. This is only sprinkled. I’m honestly amazed that someone who speaks out against the patriarchy and who values women’s spaces and who sees how truly marginalized women are cannot see the how her perceived threat - by THE most marginalized segment of society - mirrors the way men under patriarchy are threatened by the women they oppress.

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