Berta Parrish, whose graduate work is in Jungian and archetypal psychology, writes for those women who seek “an alternative vision for growing older”—one in which life has meaning and purpose. She focuses on an initiatory process as the way to become a wise woman or crone and guides her readers through five stages of initiation into elderhood.

What stirs up my excitement over Dr. Parrish’s book is the ease in which she guides her reader in the process of meeting her own Inner Wise Woman and dialoguing with her.

Parrish carefully notes that this is not achieved through guided imagery whereby the ego’s desires are engaged; rather it is a seeking of “…spontaneous inner images to emerge, without influence from your ego or other limitations.”

Meeting our Inner Wise Woman is just one step of Parrish’s initiatory process, which encompasses awareness, visualization, letting go, trust, and celebrating the passage. Parrish makes the process as uncomplicated as this sounds with a balanced mix of practical guidance, spirituality, personal memoirs, suggested activities, and intention-setting guidelines.

This, however, is not a “quick fix” book to be read in a sitting of 3 or 4 days. With both solo and group activities included in each of the ten chapters, a crone circle could easily use this book for an entire year as focus for their monthly meetings.

Wise Woman’s Way is easy and fun to read and well documented with appendices: “How to Remember and Record Your Dreams”; a Discovering Life Themes Chart; “Films with Positive Images of Elderhood”; and a sample Wise Woman Ceremony. I recommend it to any woman interested in infusing positive purpose into her life.