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Expanding on the

Grandmother Effect

Expanding on the

Grandmother Effect

Expanding on the

Grandmother Effect

Expanding on the

Grandmother

The Wise Woman’s forgotten power:

way-finder, care-taker, peace-maker

What we can learn from grandmother whales

and grandmother trees

Older women: tending the web of life with

wisdom, perspective, and compassion.

The Wise Woman’s forgotten power:

An eSeries from ARealGreenLife.com | by Kate Martignier

An eSeries from ARealGreenLife.com | by Kate Martignier

An eSeries from ARealGreenLife.com | by Kate Martignier

An eSeries from ARealGreenLife.com | by Kate Martignier

2

Expanding on the

Grandmother Effect First Edition, October 2020

This eSeries is free. You’re welcome to share it with friends.

If they enjoy it, please encourage them to support my work

by subscribing to ARealGreenLife.com.

Acknowledgements and Disclaimer

Very little of what I write is original thought. Work that has influenced me and

contributed to the opinions I’ve expressed here is represented in the quotes and

footnotes throughout.

The contents of this eSeries are a synthesis of my own research, opinions, and

experience. I encourage you to do your own research and form your own

opinions. How you use this information and any results you get as a result of it

are entirely your own responsibility.

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 2

Wise Woman Ways .................................................................................................................... 3

On growing older .................................................................................................................... 5

The healthy maturation of human beings ............................................................................. 6

The Role of the Grandmothers .................................................................................................. 7

Grandmother whales ............................................................................................................. 8

Grandmother trees ................................................................................................................ 9

Weaving the dreams for the grandchildren ......................................................................... 10

Invisible Old Women ................................................................................................................ 11

An invisible tradition ............................................................................................................ 12

What could she have to offer? ............................................................................................. 14

Two Stories ............................................................................................................................... 15

The medical doctor and the wise woman healer ................................................................. 17

One story makes the wise women way invisible; the other reveals it ................................ 18

Healing myself is healing the world ..................................................................................... 19

I see the Wise Woman ......................................................................................................... 20

Image Credits ........................................................................................................................... 21

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Introduction

The “Grandmother Hypothesis,” or Grandmother Effect, is the idea that the presence of

grandmothers helping in the care of their grand-offspring has been an important factor in

human survival and evolution.

It’s called a “hypothesis” because it hasn’t been “proven.” It’s an idea that seems plausible,

but when you’re sticking to scientifically correct terminology you can’t claim that something

is true until it’s been measured, verified, recorded.

In the pages that follow, I won’t be sticking to scientifically correct terminology. Instead,

we’ll go exploring.

We’ll explore how women, and older women in

particular, contribute to peace and well-being for families, communities, and the wider web of life in ways

that are not measurable and have rarely been recorded.

We’ll explore Wise Woman Ways that can co-exist with

science, but are not bound by it or limited to what

scientific methods can verify.

The powers of older women extend far beyond babysitting (valuable as that is), and I think

we need their contributions and their guidance more now than ever before.

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Wise Woman Ways

"Wise Woman thinking1" is a way of thinking that embraces and honors our relationship to

the Earth, to each other, and to the entire web of life in which we belong.

A wise woman way of looking at life suggests that we let go of trying to fix or reject our

imperfect selves or the unwanted "other" (be the other a pathogen, a weed, your contrary

spouse, a difficult person at work, a person of a different race or political leaning, or any

other kind of "other").

Instead of fixing and rejecting, this deeply feminine

perspective focuses on relating and nourishing, which empowers us to move toward building health and

wholeness rather than exploiting and destroying it.

When we look through the wise woman lens we go from feeling as if we are alone in an

unfriendly universe, to seeing how we belong, how we are interconnected with each other

and with all other lifeforms, and how humans can be a force for good on planet earth.

1 The Wise Woman Tradition is described in Part 1 of Susun Weed's book Healing Wise

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Matrix cultures are built on the natural fact that women give and sustain life, through their bodies, their love, attention, work, and their arts.

[These] matrilineal cultures share worldwide patterns, [including strong] egalitarian, communitarian values of peace and for life.”

Max Dashu, “Matrix Cultures"

Wise Woman ways of seeing and being in the world have always been available to us; in the

words of Corinna Wood, "the Wise Woman path is a process of remembering what we

already know.”

I don't think you have to be a particular gender or age to recognize and live in Wise Woman

ways. But I do think that women, and especially older women, are particularly able to

remember and re-awaken and apply these wise, often subtle, holistic, nourishing

approaches.

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On growing older

A friend asked me recently how I feel about growing older and approaching menopause. (I

turned 50 this year.) I replied, “I’m embracing it. I’ve earned it.”

This is my second growing up, and I’m making the most of it.

“The later years should be a time when life becomes whole. The circle closes and life’s purpose is fulfilled.”

Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind

That’s the way it feels for me: I’m becoming more whole, and I’m loving that aspect of this

time in my life.

Every wrinkle and sag, every grey hair (there actually aren’t many grey hairs yet, which is a

shame because I’m sure they’d make me look wiser), every pause for consideration before

moving my body in ways that have come easier in the past – I embrace them all.

Not because I like having to move more carefully than I did when I was younger, but

because I like having to pause – it facilitates presence.

These wrinkles and sags and pauses are mine, and they’re helping me feel more deeply into

myself, helping me feel more grounded, more present, and more whole.

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The healthy maturation of human beings

For so much of my life I’ve been trying to run away from a self who felt unwanted and

unworthy, and who I would gladly have left behind forever if I could. That was, I realize in

hindsight, exhausting, demoralizing, and impossible. Wherever I went, there I was.

Now I’m discovering that—surprise!—I’m actually okay.

I’m not a bad, shameful, unworthy person. And neither,

in case you were wondering, are you.

We’ve just grown up in a matrix which, although we think of it as normal, is not at all natural

for us. It lacks many of the things necessary for the healthy maturation of human beings.

Our culture measures the worth of children in “good behavior” that reflects well on parents,

caregivers, and teachers, and the worth of adults in visible wealth, status, followers, beauty

(defined by very narrow criteria), youth, and power2.

No wonder we have difficulty seeing and identifying our own intrinsic worth.

Such a culture impoverishes us all, at every life stage, making it much harder than it should

be for us to grow into our power as fully functioning, whole adults.

It’s critical that we recognize this and that we consciously seek to keep growing in spite of it,

because there is a desperate need for powerful, fully functioning adults in the world today.

Powerfully, fully functional adults are needed to guide the children and mentor the

emerging adults. And they’re needed to take care of the web of life, to take responsibility

for repairing it, renewing it, participating in it, enriching it, so that the children and

grandchildren can thrive.

Growing older does not mean becoming less useful or less needed. Quite the opposite.

2 I’m paraphrasing Laura Grace Weldon.

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The Role of the Grandmothers As the eastern sky began to lighten on the last morning of a recent camping trip, I went to

the rocks above our campsite to do some stretches and a meditation.

I'm a very amateur meditator at the best of times. On this occasion I was more distracted

than ever because as the sun rose, I became aware of another meditator on the bluff above

me. I recognized her as the mother of a teenager from our group, a woman a few years

older than me.

And then another woman from our group, also a few years older than me, walked silently

into sight on a rock slab below me and began a yoga routine facing the sunrise.

My focus was lost, no matter how I tried to sink back into the landscape. But never mind my

poor meditation skills; there was a different kind of magic in my session on that morning. I

hold both of these women in high regard, and I felt comforted by their presence.

Why should I be comforted by the presence of older women sitting on rocks and stretching

in the morning sunlight, aside from the fact that they’re my friends and I like being around

them?

To answer that question, I need to share a perspective about older women that is not

mainstream in our culture, and I’d like to begin to illustrate it by telling you about

grandmother whales and grandmother trees3.

3 I came across this research about grandmother whales and grandmother trees in “Autumn Woman Harvest Queen,”

Jane Hardwicke Collings’ empowering ecourse about menopause as a rite of passage.

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Grandmother

whales

Scientists know of four species other

than humans in which the female

loses her fertility when she has lived

only half her lifespan4.

They are orcas (killer whales), beluga

whales, pilot whales, and narwhals.

In these four species of whales, the male’s typical lifespan is nearly over around the time his

female counterpart is losing her fertility and embarking on the second half of her life.

Scientist have been searching for a reason why a female

whale would outlive her fertility. What possible use could

she be, if she can’t reproduce?

Turns out, the role of the post-reproductive female whale is a leadership role. Whale

families, called pods, are led by the oldest female in the group.

Among other things, grandmother whale remembers where to go in lean years when food is

scarce. Which to me indicates that whales learn and accumulate knowledge throughout

their lives, and that this knowledge is passed on to subsequent generations not as a stored

repository or instinct, but in a dynamic process of living and learning that’s completely

dependent on the presence of older female whales.

Studies have found that when a grandmother whale dies too soon, her descendants are

much more likely to die early deaths also.

When too many older females in whale communities die, entire pods can weaken and

collapse – especially now, when whales and the ocean systems they rely on are so

compromised by threats relating to climate change, pollution, and decimation of ocean food

chains.

4 You can read about recent studies into menopausal whales here and here

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Grandmother

trees

Trees live in communities too,

connected by the fungal threads of

mycelium networks. Within the

tree community, the oldest tree

supports the younger trees via this

underground web of connection5.

With roots that reach deeper and

further, and with her crown way up

high in the forest canopy accessing

the sunlight, this tree, sometimes

called the “mother tree” or the “hub tree,” provides her descendants and relatives with key

nutrients and other resources that they cannot reach themselves.

The mother tree also sends warning signals about approaching threats, such as parasites or

insects, that younger trees have not encountered yet.

The oldest tree that serves this role can be connected to hundreds of trees at once, increasing the survival of

seedlings and the health of the community.

When these large old trees are dying, their final act of care is to send key nutrients and

other resources to the other trees via the fungal networks. And if too many older trees are

cut down, the whole system collapses.

5 Read more about the underground networks that connect the trees of the forest almost into one organism, in "Trees Talk

to Each Other in a Language We Can Learn," "The Underground Mycorrhizal Network," and "Talking Trees."

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Weaving the dreams for

the grandchildren

Like being born, reaching adolescence, giving

birth, and dying, menopause is a transition

from one life-form to another.

It’s a major rite of passage that enables and

emowers a woman to transition from the role

of nurturer to the role of way-finder.

There is a descent into darkness, there is loss,

there is change, and then a new woman, a

different woman, emerges. She emerges by means of self-knowing; there is much deep,

personal work to do in the metamorphosis of menopause.

“Aboriginal Law Women identify a whole new role post-menopause. Not a renegotiated one, but an entirely different one.

The role of the grandmothers is to 'weave the dreams for the grandchildren.'”

Jane Hardwicke Collings, Women's Mysteries Teacher

In aboriginal culture and in other indigenous cultures, dreaming life and waking life are

closely entwined.

“Dreaming,” in its many forms and with many variations and layers of meaning, has to do

with maintaining culture and serving adult spiritual responsibilities, in particular the

responsibility of caring for and constantly renewing the seen and unseen dimensions of the

living matrix in which the people are embedded.

In this context, I would interpret “weaving the dreams for the grandchildren,” to mean

something along the lines of working to ensure that the web of life, which will sustain the

children, is itself sustained.

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Invisible Old Women

In sharing with us the stories of the whales and the trees, science confirms what indigenous

people have always known: older women have important roles to play.

Older women can be wise leaders.

Older women have a crucial contribution to make in caring for and renewing the web of life

that sustains us all.

Post-menopausal women on earth today number in the millions. 2030 is projected to see

1.2 billion of us, with 47 million adding to that number each year.

That’s a lot of potential for way-finding.

But for our culture to benefit from the contributions older women can make there is a lot of

work to be done, because it’s impossible to find or show the way if we are ourselves lost,

undervalued, and unseen. In Jane Hardwicke Collings’ words:

For post-menopausal women to be the women the earth needs now, there is a lot of healing, re-awakening and remembering to be done."

Jane Hardwicke Collings

The healing, awakening and remembering need to be done individually, by each woman as

she passes through the menopausal rite of passage.

And the healing and remembering also needs to be done collectively, by all of us. As a

culture, we need to remember and embrace the power of the Wise Woman Tradition.

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An invisible tradition

Our culture tends not to see the contributions that older

women (and older men) can make (perhaps this is partly

why in developed countries, older adults are either driving

around the country in camper-vans or sitting in old

people's homes rather than contributing to a richer

community life).

Older women in our culture are in a sense "invisible" –

unseen and undervalued.

The Wise Woman Tradition is ... rarely identified, rarely written or talked about. It is an invisible tradition."

Susun Weed, Healing Wise

In Healing Wise, Susun Weed lists the many reasons why the Wise Woman Tradition is today

invisible6:

• “To say that a woman in the kitchen is engaged in healing her family and community

and keeping her universe in balance is a lot to claim for making dinner, and most of

us don’t see those connections.

Nourishing is an invisible process. Nourishment through nursing and through

gathering and preparing food, historically, was very often pushed into the

background by white male anthropologists who were fascinated by the drama of the

hunt.

6 You can find this list in Healing Wise, pages 8, 9 and 10. I’ve reworded it somewhat for brevity, I’ve added a sentence or

two for clarity, and I've added additional references.

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• Most healthcare given worldwide (up to 99% by some estimates) is provided by

mothers caring for their families’ health. This is not measured or paid for, so it’s not

considered significant.

• Women, especially women of color, are invisible to white men and white male

society. For hundreds of years, women have not been seen as powerful. Women

healers, midwives, and herbalists are frequently written out of accounts, omitted

when lists are re-copied, or known only by a husband’s name. (See “Restoring

Women to Cultural Memory” and other work by Max Dashu)

And the lineage of the European Wise Woman Tradition was all but lost in the witch

hunts, the systematic killings of millions of women initiated by the Church and the

male-dominated medical establishment which spanned the 1300’s to the 1600’s.

(See "Herstory"7)

• The Wise Woman Tradition is an oral tradition, and we have grown accustomed to

believing things only if they are written down in books.

• There is no visible structure in the Wise Woman Tradition. You can’t get a degree or

a certificate in it; there are no tangible markers for it.

• Each nourishing and healing encounter in the Wise Woman Tradition is unique. In

the scientific worldview, a single instance of anything is worthless. The more

repeatable and the easier something is to standardize (in other words, to strip it of

its uniqueness) the more visible it is.

• Commonness is invisible. It’s so familiar to see a woman tending, nourishing,

supporting health. What’s to note about it?

• Prevention is invisible. To prevent health issues via nourishment involves no drama,

does not draw attention.”

7 Please note that this is extremely disturbing reading. Do not read it at bedtime. If you have a trauma background or are

emotionally vulnerable, do not read this without trusted support.

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Most history passes over women. Our names and faces are missing, our stories omitted or distorted, covered over by an endless masculine litany of kings, warlords, priests (with an occasional queen or concubine—often a woman blamed for ruining everything)."

Max Dashu, in her article "Restoring Women to Cultural Memory" (See The Suppressed Histories Archives for more)

The number one rule

If a woman chooses to be visible in our culture today, the

number one rule she is required to abide by is that she

must appear to be young.

And if she can’t look young? She must look masculine.

Women who conform to the dominant expectations

about what important people look like can get away with

being prominent.

But an older woman who doesn’t look young and/or

powerful? Especially if her skin is dark? What could she

possibly have to offer?

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Two Stories

Collectively, we’re standing at a juncture where we get to choose between two narratives

about what “reality” is, and how the world works.

One of these narratives, which Charles Eisenstein calls “the story of separation,” is based on

worldviews developed during the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries.

The alternative narrative is what Charles Eisenstein calls “the story of interbeing.” This story

is based on a synthesis of indigenous wisdom and 20th and 21st century science.

Let’s take a look at these two stories, side by side.

The story of separation

The story of interbeing

Everything is separate. What happens here

makes no difference to what is happening over

there. If you shift a problem away from

yourself, it’s the same as solving it.

Everything is inextricably connected and intimately

related. Change in any part of a

system/group/pattern/constellation impacts the

whole.

You can’t, for example, throw your rubbish away,

because there is no “away.” We can’t wait for

“them” to solve our problems, because there is no

“them,” only “us.”

If you want to change something, you must use

force. The bigger the change you want, the

more force you need.

Change can come about in unseen, unexpected,

and spontaneous ways. It’s not always dependent

on force.

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The story of separation The story of interbeing

Worth is always measurable. The worth of

adults is measured in wealth, status,

followers, beauty, youth, power.

The worth of children is measured in

behavior and accomplishments that reflect

well on their parents and teachers.

Worth is a given, and need not be measured.

You are uniquely, immeasurably worthy, just

because you’re you.

Security, certainty, and prestige are very

important.

Earning money is how you obtain these

things, so earning money is much more

important than enjoying yourself, relating

to others, or relaxing in nature.

Certainty never lasts for long.

Security comes from relationships, and from

right living in relation to the living world

around you.

Prestige is not needed, since individual needs

are generously met by the collective and

nobody needs to take anything from anybody

else by force or by superiority.

Power is always obvious and is measured

either in physical strength or in forces a

powerful person or group can bring to bear

on other people or groups.

Power is often subtle or even invisible.

Power with others (rather than power over

others), arises from power within self, which in

turn is seeded and nurtured by others (for

example, the more experienced providing

mentoring to the less experienced).

Messiness is to be avoided in all its forms.

Messiness is to be embraced and enjoyed,

since it’s part of life.

Natural processes like birth, learning,

growth of all kinds, are haphazard and

random if left to nature; it’s better to

control and standardize them, often to

medicalize them.

Nature is to be trusted and aligned with.

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The medical doctor and the wise woman healer

Another way to illustrate these two ways of interpreting reality is to think about how health

care typically works within each of them.

Recently, I went to a medical doctor who lives in the story of separation. First, the office

staff collected my data. They weighed and measured me, noted down my blood pressure

and oxygen levels, heart rate… then, suitably reduced to numbers on a sheet, I was ushered

into the next room to wait for the doctor.

The doctor spent more time looking at the computer screen than at me, entering data and

analyzing it to come up with a diagnosis. Fifteen minutes later, typically, you leave with a

pharmaceutical prescription and instructions to come back in 3 months for more testing. (In

my case, I refused the prescription.)

Conversely, here’s the kind of experience I’ve had when I go to a healer who lives in the

story of interbeing.

First, the healer looks into my eyes, and I feel safer immediately.

For an hour or more, she listens to me. Really listens.

I’m nourished by her undivided attention and unconditional acceptance. The healer listens

to my story, rather than taking my data. She asks questions that draw parts of the story out

of me that I had not previously recognized. This in itself is deeply healing.

And when finally the healer in the story of interbeing prescribes, the prescription is full of

nourishment. Real food. Rest and renewal. Connection.

She may prescribe supplements, homeopathy, or other remedies, and she sometimes also

calls on modern scientific medicine, but these are secondary to the nourishment; they don’t

replace it.

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One story makes the wise women way invisible;

the other reveals it

In the story of separation, wise woman ways of relating and nourishing are indeed invisible,

because they are not measurable and can't be quantified.

In the story of interbeing, feminine lore and wisdom are valued and we recognize8 the wise

woman’s tremendous forgotten resources, wisdom, perspective, compassion, and

nourishment.

We’ve never needed these subtle, gentle forms of power more than we do now.

8 The world “recognize” can be broken down thus: “re” – again; “cognize,” as a verb – perceive, know, or become aware of.

So, to “recognize” is to become aware of something again, that you were aware of before but had forgotten.

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Healing myself is healing the world

When I was in my twenties and thirties, I wanted to help heal the world.

Then in my early forties, painfully humbled by parenthood, I gave up that grandiose plan in

favor of healing myself to lighten the baggage I would hand on to my children.

Now at 50 and with my first child bumping against adolescence, I have learned that healing

myself, in a sense, is healing the world. At least, it is if you choose to inhabit the second

narrative I described above, the story of interbeing.

The work of healing ourselves, one by one, in the deep

darkness of the low places we descend to during hard times, times of grief and loss, and during our midlife

rites of passage, is the work that matures us into adults

who can hold space for the changes our world so desperately needs.

I understand now that when a person—any person, but perhaps especially an older

woman—sits quietly, breathing in healing and breathing out peace, that’s a recipe for

powerful magic.

The magic is in the peace she engenders, in her communion with Mother Earth, and in the

personal power she generates, which she will use for way-finding and peace-making in her

community.

This magic is invisible because it cannot be measured or quantified or defined or

standardized or duplicated or patented or commercialized.

If you’re looking for proof, I can’t provide it. I can’t quantify what can be achieved when an

old woman sits on a rock, breathing.

But even without proof, I was deeply comforted on that recent morning by the presence of

post-menopausal women sitting in silence above a campsite full of homeschooling families

as the sun rose.

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I see the Wise Woman

I see older women, the invisible ones, like the old trees: garnering nourishment and

support to share among families and children.

I see older women, the invisible ones, like the old whales: finding the way in their

communities, showing the way.

I see older women, the invisible ones, tending to the web of life: invoking a world of

peace and connection in which the children and grandchildren can thrive.

In Susun Weed’s words:

“I see the Wise Woman. And she sees me.”

Thank you for reading.

If you’ve enjoyed this, please support my work by sharing it with your friends.

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Image Credits

Cover Page: Mali Maeder from Pexels.com

Chapter 1, compilation, left to right and top to bottom: Chaucharanje from Pexels.com, Nay Lin Aung from

Pixabay.com, EkaterinaShakharova on Unsplash.com, Domi Chung on unsplash.com, Anthony Metcalfe on

Unsplash.com, Wildan Zainul Faki from Pexels.com, GlenHodson on Unsplash.com

Chapter 1, woman wearing scarf: Wildan Zainul Faki from Pexels.com

Chapter 2, whales: NOAA on unsplash.com

Chapter 2, tree: Mali Maeder from Pexels.com

Chapter 2, strong older woman: Rene Asmussen from Pexels.com

Chapter 3, woman with basket: Ye Zaw on Unsplash.com

Chapter 3, woman with umbrella: Tadeu Jnr on unsplash.com

Chapter 4, woman meditating: Leonard Cotte on Unsplash.com

Chapter 4, woman looking into camerra: Dazzle Jam from Pexels.com