43 and the Year of Wisdom

I turned 43 this past weekend.

And I'm not saying that with a disclaimer or an apology. I'm not following it with "but I don't feel it!" as though feeling it would be something to be ashamed of. I'm done with the cultural script that tells women to shrink from their age, to perform a version of youth they will never inhabit again, to treat the passage of time as a quiet tragedy.

43 is not a tragedy. 43 is a threshold. 43 is a prime number; indivisible, standing on its own, beholden to nothing. Add the digits together and you get 7, which is also prime, and in numerology carries the energy of the seeker and the mystic, the one who turns inward to find what the outer world can't offer. A number of spiritual depth and inner wisdom. I didn't plan that. But I'm not surprised.

Every year I treat my birthday as its own kind of new year, a moment to look back at who I was and forward at who I'm becoming. This year, one word kept surfacing in that reflection.

Wisdom.

Wisdom isn't just the accumulation of information. Wisdom is the thing that lives underneath all of it. The thing you can't rush or manufacture. The thing that only comes from having lived, made mistakes, survived them, and chosen to keep going anyway.

I've been building that for 43 years. And I'm just now starting to trust it.

Here's where the complexity lives, though, and I think wisdom means being honest about this part too.

People look to me for guidance. As a witch, as a mentor, as someone who has walked through enough dark hallways to know where a few of the light switches are. And I'm genuinely honored by that. But there are days I sit across from someone who needs my wisdom and think, do I actually have this? Mentally I don't always feel 43. Sometimes I feel older, worn smooth by experience. Other times I feel like I'm still figuring out the same things I was at 25, just with better vocabulary.

Maybe that's exactly what wisdom is, though. Not certainty. Not having all the answers. But knowing the difference between when to follow the road and when to step off it entirely and find your own path through the trees.

Last week I also started HRT, and something about that feels symbolic. I joke that I have one foot in my crone era. But I don't think it's entirely a joke. The crone isn't a diminishment. She's the most powerful version of the feminine; the one who has nothing left to prove, nothing left to perform, and everything to offer. I feel her at the edges of myself. I'm not fully there yet. But I can feel where I'm headed, and I'm not afraid of it.

I'm walking toward her on purpose.

So what does 43 actually look like? Here's what I'm building:

Studio Cerissa is growing. The Patreon, the mentorship, the Reader's Circle, the content I create for people who want to practice with more depth and less noise. The Science of Spellcraft workshop is in development. The Lore & Reflection series is in production with written and audio essays tracing my Northern European and Celtic ancestral threads, because wisdom also means knowing where you come from.

Fireflower Cottage is finding its shape with handmade jewelry, curated goods, the tangible expressions of the craft. It's the virtual version of the "witch's cottage" I've dreamt about for a long time.

And Shadowcraft, my shadow work journal, is out in the world; a guide for anyone ready to stop running from the parts of themselves they've kept in the dark. With another book in the works.

I don't have every step mapped out. But I don't think wisdom requires a perfect map. It requires honest eyes, a willingness to feel your way when the path disappears, and the courage to trust what you know.

I know more than I give myself credit for. At 43, I'm finally starting to believe that.

What word is following you into this season? Leave it in the comments!

I want to know what's calling you forward.