April 25, 2022

Back then it was hard to fully absorb the words of her challenge. The sisters gathered were perhaps a decade or two away from elder hood and our spiritual teacher was inviting us to an aspirational consideration of being Crone. We would of course have choices. But being a granny on the front porch rocking and knitting and baking cookies and watching the world go by was clearly not anything she thought we should aspire to. Her attitude was reflective of her warrior spirit and the implicit agreement that in this spiritual community our purpose is to manifest our sacred ideals in action as well as prayer.

Now, decades later, I claim Crone. And while rocking chairs have never been my thing, I had thought my life had settled into a comfortable rhythm of writing and sacred journeys to Ireland and tending an Irish cottage. Apparently not. With this new initiation and threshold I am called to new rhythms and I am called to be uncomfortable as I step into what is unfolding. New vibrations course through my body in anticipation. I am both grounded and totally ungrounded. 

I’m approaching my seventy-first summer and have wondered if I’m totally off my rocker to launch this new sacred adventure. Well. Clearly I am.

I’m reminded of two of my Irish heroines. Augusta Gregory wrote a two-volume study of the folklore of her native area called Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland when she was sixty-eight. She also played the lead role in three performances of her play Cathleen Ni Houlihan, when she was sixty-seven. Maud Gonne was active in Irish politics until she was seventy-three and published her autobiography when she was seventy-one. And they are but two examples of amazing Crone accomplishments. 

So yes. I am off my rocker. And I’m in good company.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith