August 19, 2022

I saw the notification land in my email. Ah, someone bought a copy of the Crone book. Wonderful. And then I saw the name and did a double take. Wanda? Could it be? It turns out that yes, it is really the same woman I organized antiwar protests with. The same woman I boycotted grapes with. The same woman who lived with me in the radical political collective on campus fifty years ago. 

After those university years, our lives journeyed off in different directions and we hadn’t been in touch with each other since. Our email and video chat communication in the last few days has brought back a flood of great memories. It’s also brought new frame for an old wisdom. 

In one of her emails, Wanda wrote; I have not changed the core of who I am. I just see what that core is more clearly and I see the obstacles that cling to the core like barnacles on an old ship keeping it from being the best version of itself.

She is indeed so much this same Wanda I knew all those decades ago. The fundamental threads of laughter and joy and social justice shine in her as they always have. Just as the threads of our sacred nature shine in all of us, the sacred threads we are all born with, those sacred threads that are gifts for us to steward in our lives. 

As elders, as Crones, it is ours more than ever to step into that intentional stewardship. It is ours more than ever to scrape off the barnacles and shine the bright light of the sacred women, the wise women, that we are.

Thank you, Wanda, for your amazing insight. Some things never change.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith