I am ...

Edelle Rose is an emerging Crone (which basically means that at 62 I am getting older and trying to do it consciously), who everyday awakes to a new reality of Self. Who am I? The older I get, the harder it is to define me. Am I the nurse I have been since 1982? Am I a mother, since I have 3 amazing adult children who continue to teach me the most important lessons of life? Am I a gardener, delighting and struggling with my Ozark Mountain garden of rock and clay, producing giant Okra trees and delicious sweet potatoes? Am I a political activist who now eschews the label as too small after years of anti-nuclear, prison awareness, anti-racism work? Am I an American? I have never left this country and even now do not feel called to do so. Yet, it is the land, this amazing place on Earth that I am connected to and not a government or way of life ... or so I hope. Am I a Buddhist? Just when I thought so, my identity expanded again and its hard to use the label - its too small for the experience of Oneness that I AM as I walk daily through the scrub oak forest with Liza, my lop-eared Border Collie and Jim, my more than eccentric partner.
The one label that seems to abide with me through the years, the one I feel most comfortable with - that identifies me to myself, is "working class woman". In this I feel allied with all the women of the world who get up every morning to feed the children and deal with the realities of this world in all its harshness and bliss.
So in the end, I am a woman, walking the land in times of great change. In this I am connected to so many women across the planet - attempting to open to each new day - each new breath.
These writings are my record of the journey. The order is only that of consciousness and sometimes immediacy, like the birth of a grandchild or the death of a friend.