From Publishers Weekly
Recycling a format she successfully employed in Goddesses in Everywoman (1984), Bolen, the author of seven works of Jungian psychology, addresses an older audience, urging women over 50 to search out positive archetypes or patterns of behavior that lie dormant in their inner selves that will help them realize their full potential. A Jungian analyst and professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, Bolen relies heavily on her earlier work, in which Greek goddesses personified aspects of the feminine psyche. For "crones" (women in the postmenopausal stage of their lives), Bolen posits four principal goddesses--Metis, Sophia, Hecate and Hestia--each of whom embodies practical intellectual, mystical, spiritual, intuitive or meditative aspects of wisdom. She recounts the goddesses' mythic origins and shows how their attributes can help women forge a more meaningful life. Bolen also highlights the empowering attributes of outrage, mirth and kindness incarnated in certain Asian myths. In the second part of this work, Bolen revisits seven goddesses described in her original work, this time relating them to older women. Finally, Bolen urges older women to congregate in groups patterned on the consciousness-raising circles of the 1960s, to become a force for change spiritually and politically. Readers skeptical of Jungian philosophy may find the concepts here too abstract and convoluted to serve as a practical guide to aging. But for those who celebrate their maturity, Bolen's thoughtful mytho-psychology will be an inspiration. (Mar.)Forecast: Though this invitation to embrace their inner "crone" probably won't appeal to the wide female readership that made Goddesses in Everywoman a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and backlist staple, Bolen is closely connected to her core readers. With 32 workshops, bookstore appearances and lectures planned in 25 cities, she can look forward to solid sales. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Bolen is one of the most popular writers on goddesses, and with millions of baby boomers embarking upon their sixth decade, her new book should encounter a welcoming audience. Having shared her own midlife journey in Crossing to Avalon (1994), Bolen here looks to mythology for empowering archetypes for the older woman. For the first time in her work, she stretches her purview beyond the Greek pantheon to include goddesses from Egypt and Asia, and still she focuses primarily on the goddesses she has explored in such earlier works as Goddesses in Everywoman (1984). Bolen sees the aging woman as not only a font of wisdom but also a vibrant creative force, whose energies are free to move beyond the personal into the interpersonal and the transpersonal. Whether laughing like the mirthful Uzume or meditating with Hestia at the hearth, this "juicy crone" models power and passion in these pages. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Dallas Morning News
Dr. Bolen dreams big…hers is a strong voice as a leader in the women's empowerment movement.


Publishers Weekly
For those who celebrate their maturity, Bolen's thoughtful mytho-psychology will be an inspiration.


Marianne Williamson, editor of Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century
Goddesses in Older Women will inspire now older and wiser women's movement women to once again transform society.


Book Description
At some point after fifty, every woman crosses a threshold into the third phase of her life. As she enters this uncharted territory -- one that is generally uncelebrated in popular culture -- she can choose to mourn what has gone before, or she can embrace the juicy-crone years.In this celebration of Act Three, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Jungian analyst and bestselling author of Goddesses in Everywoman, names the powerful new energies and potentials -- or archetypes -- that come into the psyche at this momentous time, suggesting that women getting older have profound and exciting reasons for welcoming the other side of fifty.


About the Author
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is an internationally known Jungian analyst, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, and a former member of the board of the Ms. Foundation for Women. She lives in Mill Valley, California.

FROM OUR EDITORS

"Knowing which archtetypes are stirring and strong in you will help you to come into your own third phase with additional consciousness," says Jean Shinoda Bolen.

When Bolen's earlier book Goddesses in Everywoman was first published, it became a surprise bestseller and an unexpected star in the women's spirituality movement. Bolen viewed archetypal patterns from a Jungian-feminist point of view as they affected the first two phases of a woman's life Now she has devoted an entire book to the third phase of a woman's life, that of a "green and juicy crone." Here again, the goddesses (Demeter, Artemis, Persephone etc,) as they would age are invoked as role models as well as some non-Western goddessess. All can add perspective and wisdom to any woman's Act III.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

What's next for the getting-older generation of women who have been redefining themselves each decade? Women turn 50 and cross into uncharted territory. Jean Shinoda Bolen's Goddesses in Older Women names the new energies and potentials that come into the psyche at this momentous time, marked physiologically by menopause. Forty-five million American women will be on the far side of 50 and still active at the beginning of the 21st century. As she did in Goddesses in Everywoman, Bolen introduces a set of goddess archetypes—as inner sources of wisdom, humor, outrage, decisive actions, and compassion. Goddesses in Older Women is a handbook on how to be a juicy crone, and a reason to celebrate turning 50.

About the Author:
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., is an internationally known Jungian analyst, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, and a former member of the Ms. Foundation for Women board. She lives in Mill Valley, CA.

FROM THE CRITICS

Marianne Williamson

Goddesses in Older Women will inspire now older and wiser women's movement women to once again transform society.

Publishers Weekly