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The older woman is respected in many cultures as the wise woman, the one to be revered whose advice and opinion is sought out by younger women. With the emphasis on youth in our own culture, this vital dimension of the older woman is often disregarded and ignored. As we each age, we must be mindful of the gifts women with age can offer. She can counsel with sage advice, she can lead and guide, and she can teach many of life's lessons. It is equally important for the older woman herself, the crone, to feel valued, appreciated and powerful. The aging each year is simply a birthday gift from nature.

Hold up a mirror and look closely at your face. Take your time, and take a careful look. Come to see the inner strength that you possess. Acknowledge your wisdom, your love and your beauty. You have earned this respect, from others and from yourself.

The Agony of Struggle

The word "agony" connotes extreme pain and long suffering; mortal agony is the futile struggle that comes before death. The word agony stems from the ancient Greek word meaning "struggle." The Greek word, however, also contained the sense of competition at philosophical debates, public issues, beauty contests, literary and musical events, and especially the athletic games. These contests pitting rival against rival were called agones - fights or struggles for supremacy, for survival and conquest. The most ancient agones were sacred competitions following funerals, especially of heroes or leaders, as Homer describes in the Iliad to honor the death of Patroc1es, friend of Achilles.

November 4-17, Plebeian Games

The Plebeian Games, or "Games of the People," were held in Rome. They were first mentioned in 216BC and firmly established as an annual event by 220BC. The central event was the Feast of Jupiter on November 15, or the Ides.

Funeral games following religious services at the grave site were customarily held by the Etruscans, the early settlers of the Tuscany region of Italy, who passed on the custom to the Romans. Contest and rivalry for the sports gift prize in such events as the foot race, boxing, wrestling, long jump, javelin throwing, and chariot racing may have been a way to express and channel the strong emotions of anger, rage, and grief among the friends of the deceased. Though the origin of the games, the "Agones," or Ludi as the Romans called them, was funereal, they grew in size and popularity as
Rome itself grew. Annual games to honor deceased heroes were instituted and even added to the religious calendars combining athletic events with competitions in poetry, drama, and music. Eventually, games were established to celebrate events not associated with a funeral, yet they always maintained their religious character, including sacrifice to a deity During November, the Plebeian Games, the "Games of the People," offered Roman citizens two weeks of clever theatrical presentations juxtaposed with athletic competition. These games were a tribute to the best minds and bodies of the times; they were a religious ritual in November.

The Games of the People were established in the third century BC and held for several weeks in the first part of November. They marked the second most popular and impressive games held during the Roman year, the first being the Roman Games in September. The focal point of these games was the Feast of Jupiter, held on the Ides.

The first week, November 4-12, was set aside for theatrical and scenic performances. The last three days, November 15-17, were given over to the athletic games held in the Circus Maximus. The two-week event began with a solemn procession led by Rome's magistrates and high priests from the Capitol through the Forum along the Sacred Way to the Circus Maximus.

The eight days of theatrical events were a busy time for art patrons in ancient Rome. Plays, both drama and comedy, were important aspects of Roman religion. A number of religious rites that we have already discussed were always accompanied by games: the festival of Dea Dia in May, Magna Mater in April, Apollo in July, and Jupiter in September. Both the Greeks and Etruscans held funereal games in honor of the deceased, while the regular Greek games such as those held every four years at Olympia (actually there were four or more pan-Hellenic games) were in honor of a deity. At the New Age, or saeculum, of Augustus in 17BC, very special Saecular Games were only part of the ritual for the New Order of Ages and the millennium.

November 13, Jupiter

The Feast of Jupiter was held on November 13, marking a transition point in the Games of the People from the theatrical to the athletic. There was a solemn rite to Jupiter and a banquet.

November 13, Feronia

Feronia is a most ancient goddess associated with agriculture, for she received the first fruits as her offering. Feronia was especially popular throughout central Italy, yet she also had a sacred grove and temple in Rome. Feronia was also seen as a patroness of freed slaves, the "Goddess of Freedom" she was called. An inscription on her temple at Terracina, where slaves were freed and given the symbolic cap of the freedman, read, "Let the deserving sit down as slaves and rise as freemen."

November 13, Pietas

Pietas was a goddess who embodied the quality of respect and duty to the gods, Rome, and one's parents. The quality of devotion exemplified by a child's piety and respect for the mother or father was honored by the Romans. Pietas was depicted as a young women often accompanied by a stork representing the loyalty of child to parent Pietas warns us to be dutiful to parents, country, and the gods.

November 14 is the milestone birthday of the anti-communist U.S senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57). From February 1950 until December 1954, he was a powerful force in Washington:

• In 1939, McCarthy began his political career as a judge in Wisconsin, after inflating his opponent's age to 89 (from 66) and reducing his own to 29 (from 31). His campaign slogan was Justice is Truth in Action.
• McCarthy was a marine from 1942 to 1944. He said he was known in the Pacific as Tail-Gunner Joe - serving on 14, then 17, then 30 missions. In 1951, he applied for, and was given, the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had only flown on a few air strikes, as a passenger when resistance was light.
• In 1946, he was elected to the Senate; his campaign slogan was Congress Needs a Tail-Gunner.
• In 1950, looking for a dramatic issue for the 1952 election, he was advised that communism was a hot topic. He made a radio speech, claiming to have a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. Surprised by the stir he caused, McCarthy later tried to get a copy of that speech to check what he had said. Ultimately, he was unable to produce a single name - this led to his downfall.
• Postwar events created sympathy for McCarthyism: Canada's Gouzenko case, the fall of China, the first Soviet atomic test, the treachery of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, the perjury of Alger Hiss, the Korean War, Republican frustration at being out of power for two decades, and the belief Hollywood was influenced by Communists.
• It is unlikely that McCarthy had deep feelings about what he did. In 1956, at a party, he met a civil servant and former drinking companion he had ruined and said to the man his wife was "talking about you the other night. How come we never see you? What the hell are you trying to do - avoid us?"

On October 19, 1944, Japanese vice-admiral Takajiro Ohnishi asked 23 young navy pilots to volunteer for suicide missions against Allied warships; those who crashed into aircraft carriers would get posthumous double promotions. They all agreed, creating the first "special attack group" in time for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which began the next day. Notes on Japan's kamikaze attacks:

• Some suicide fliers were volunteers, others under orders. There were kamikaze boats and rafts.
• By October 25, the U.S. navy realized that suicide crash landings on its ships were not just being improvised. It clamped a news blackout on kamikaze fliers and began to figure out how to deal with their strategies (such as their habit of tailing a group of American aircraft back home to the carrier). One in every four kamikaze flights inflicted damage, and the navy was seriously concerned that Tokyo not find out the success of its tactical surprise.
• A hero during the indoctrination of the kamikaze pilots, sailors, and swimmers was naval warrant officer Magoshiche Sugino. Japanese believed that he had given his life in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese war, while sinking a ship to bottle up the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. In 1946, he was discovered living quietly in
  Manchuria. Mr. Sugino had been rescued by a Chinese boat and, upon learning he was a dead hero, decided to keep a low profile.

Some of the dimensions of the 1914-18 war to end all wars:

• The conflict cost both sides a total of 8,5 million dead. Even on the quietest days, thousands of troops were killed or wounded - a process termed "wastage" by British officers.
• The western front soon bogged down into a stalemate from Belgium to
  Switzerland. Both sides built networks of trenches long enough in total, by some estimates, to circle the Earth. + German troops built the best trenches: they picked the high ground and designed their earthworks to be permanent. Sometimes their dugouts included wallpaper and varnished woodwork. Ramshackle British and French efforts were always wet and sometimes flooded. Opposing lines could be as close as seven metres.
• The front lines, especially during winter in low-lying Flanders, were a sea of trenches, craters, latrines, corpses, and vermin. Approaching troops could smell the trenches before they saw them.
• The men were small (by modern standards) and their packs heavy. The average British recruit weighed 132 pounds and carried accoutrements of 77 pounds, including a greatcoat that might weigh 20 to 50 pounds more when soggy. Wounded ~en drowned by the thousands in the mud; so did unlucky sleepers.
• By 1916, both sides had steel helmets instead of cloth hats.
• The enemy was rarely seen; his bullets and shells were more common. During heavy shelling, troops endured up to 30 shells a minute - a "thunderstorm" or "symphony" of sound that was felt as much as heard. Across the English Channel, the barrages of Flanders were plainly audible.
• Informal truces sprang up when barbed wire needed mending or there were soldiers to retrieve (the wounded might moan in no man's land for days).
• Big attacks were rarely surprises; they were preceded by heavy shelling and openings of the barbed wire. On July I, 1916, when the British attacked in the Sornme, they had 60,000 casualties - one man for every 18 inches of the front.
• Record heaps of munitions were used. For instance, south of Ypres, British miners tunnelled for a year to place a million pounds of high explosives into 21 shafts. On June 7, 1917, the complex was detonated; 19 shafts went up, burying 10,000 Germans and jolting the British prime minister 130 miles away in Downing Street. In 1955, another shaft exploded, jolting thevillage of Ploegsteert but causing no injuries. The last shaft, deep under Ploegsteert 'Vood, has yet to be heard from.
• Today; bones are still being discovered. The war's battlefields will yield their metal fragments for centuries, experts say. On a rainy day in Albert, France, near the Somme, the fields give off a smell of rusting iron. (Sources: The Great War and Modern Memory, Goodbye to All That, The First Day on the Somme, EyeDeep in Hell.)

Honor your soldier with one of these patriotic gifts from Cookie Gift Baskets.

I, the natural mother of all life, the mistress of the elements, the first child of time, the supreme divinity, the queen of those in hell, the first among those in heaven, the uniform manifestation of all the gods and goddesses-

I, who govern by my nod the crests of light in the sky, the purifying wafts of the ocean, and the lamentable silences of hell-

I, whose single godhead is venerated all over the earth under manifold forms, varying rites, and changing names.

Isis and Isia

Since the worship of Isis was another mystery religion, very little is known of the events of the Isia. The procession to her shrine, however, was a mesmerizing event. The parade began with men and women dressed "as their votive fancy desired" leading the way. A chorus of women followed wearing only white and strewing the path with fresh flower blossoms and perfumed oils. Others came in order carrying torches and waxen candles to honor She Who Made the Stars of Heaven.

Next followed musicians and a choir of young people in snow-white garments singing songs to the pipers' tune. Then came the priests and priestess shouting. "Make way for the goddess." A band of men and women of all classes and ages who had been initiated into the mysteries of the goddess and who wore linen clothes of the purest white followed. The women had their hair done up with veils (not confused with wedding veils) of the finest silk covering their heads; the men had all shaven their heads. They each carried a silver or bronze sistrum, rattling the sacred instrument as they walked.

Isis was accessible to slave and emperor alike and could be approached through personal prayer. She listened to all supplications and required only faith and devotion from her followers, not money or expensive offerings. Two thousand years ago, Apuleius invoked her presence with devout faith as follows:

Queen of Heaven, who wanders through many sacred groves, and who is worshiped and esteemed in different ways, 0, Goddess of the Moon who shines upon the walls of cities with beams of female light, who nurtures the wildflower garden seeds in the earth with your moist heat, and glows with divine radiance when the sun has set. ° by whatever name, and by whatever rites, and in whatever form that you may be invoked, come now and help me in my hour of need. And, moved by the prayer and declaration of faith, she appeared:

The first thing that I noticed was her abundant dark hair falling gently in soft curls onto her neck. Upon her head, she wore a garland woven with a great variety of flowers. She was crowned with a divine tiara worthy of description, for in the center, just above her forehead, was a plain circular object that was in fact a miniature full moon that glowed with a soft clear white light. On either side of the moonlike globe, two serpents were placed together with sheaves of grain.

Her multicolored gown was of the finest linen, a part was pure white, another was dyed the color of yellow crocuses, with a third the color of rich red roses. Yet, the pitch-black cloak around her shoulders caught my eye, for it shone with a dark glow. This amazing garment fell in soft folds of fabric, swaying gracefully to the ground in a hem of knotted fringe. The elaborate border seemed to cling to the garment of its own accord, of brilliant hues, comprising every kind of fruit and flower. This magical cloak was sprinkled with glowing stars and in the center was a full moon emitting soft moon beams in every direction. The goddess held in her right hand a bronze rattle, a sistrum, her sacred instrument. She carried a miniature golden boat in her left. An asp with raised head and puffed out throat encircled her right arm. Such was the goddess Isis.