Chapter 1: Leadership Thread One: Archetypal

How can we take advantage of the leadership, wisdom, and experience of our elders rather than relegate them to the sidelines? How can women reclaim their agency, power and place as leaders and wise women?

One way to explore these questions is to look to ancient history, mythology, psychology, and archaeology for stories, histories, images, role models, and archetypes of our wise elders. This foundational chapter will examine buried, hidden, or obscured mythologies and archetypes that can help us discern the qualities of leadership and wisdom of elders and wise women.

Jungian psychologist, Jean Shinoda Bolen (2001) defines an archetype as “potential human patterns that, once activated, are expressed through our attitudes and actions, or projected by us on to others.” The Joseph Campbell Foundation notes: “The concept of the archetype was central to Joseph Campbell’s understanding of mythology… Joseph Campbell finds variations on the same basic motifs occurring universally throughout the myths and rituals of all cultures. Many of these images precede the written word – whether painted on pottery, shaped into figurines, or even etched on stones and bones, stretching tens of thousands of years into the past” (2006).

The author will explore wise women archetypes from many cultures that can be reclaimed and used as maps for discovering our innate wisdom. The chapter concludes by addressing the negative stereotypes of aging and reminding readers that “communicators of all types have the power to shape people’s attitudes around aging simply based on the images they utilize” (AARP Press Room, 2022).