December 20th, 2025

It’s what we are called to do as Crone. To craft and manifest our Crone credo. Yes, we have always been guided by beliefs and values. But over the years those have been shaped and shifted by our accumulated wisdom. Now we are called to be clear on where we stand in the world…and what we stand for. As elder. As Crone. And in this we are shaping our legacy. 

This season of stillness, of shorter days and longer nights, is the season of Crone. We are invited to step into the cave of contemplation to celebrate and drink deeply from our well of wisdom. A well that holds our Crone credo.

I’m being called to enter the silence.
To dream and rest.
To create an opening  for possibilities
and potential still to come.
To tend the seed
that is even now
gestating in the dark.

Held in the cave of
both past and future,
I’m wrapped in the warmth
of myths and ancient ways.
Held by the ancestral mothers,
I enter the stillness of this time.

Arlene Bailey

Blessings for creative cave time, sisters. May it feed your soul.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

December 15, 2025

It’s what we do as elder and Crone. We tend legacies for future generations. Mythic and spiritual legacies. But especially our own legacy. Our legacy of wisdom. 

Over the years of spiritual journeys in Ireland, a sisterhood has evolved. Many of these sisters are Crone. And through the sisterhood, a Wisdom School has been created where we come together to share and deepen our wisdom. I will probably share more about the HazelWood Wisdom School. But here I want to share a Wisdom Circle offering.

This is an opportunity to come together with other Crone sisters to celebrate and deepen our Crone wisdom. Our legacy of wisdom. I would be honored to have you join us for this Crone sister well of wisdom.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

Email me for more information and registration: judith@stonefires.com

January 20, 2025

Sugar and spice. I’m so far beyond that. As Crone, this is where I stand. Rage. There is a fire that burns in me. It’s not personal. I am enraged and outraged on behalf of injustice, both social and environmental.

There has been conversation in my sacred sister circles that suggests we have to be grounded in love. And I am. Love for my people and the planet. There has been conversation that we need to be grounded in Light and joy. And I am. But it is spiritual bypassing to suggest those are the only energies we are to hold and manifest. We can hold all of that and still be enraged. And I am.

In these dark times ahead, I will flame my fire, celebrate my passion, and claim my rage. Fierce and formidable. I am Crone. Sisters, it’s time to Crone up. It’s time to be rooted in rage.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

If you haven’t yet read Sharon Blackie’s latest book, Wise Women: myths and stories for midlife and beyond, I highly recommend it. Her writing is an inspiration.

November 14, 2024

Once upon a time,
there was an old woman
who lived in a cottage
at the edge of an
enchanted woods. 

Familiar words that introduce the old women of faery tales. Words that might introduce us. Crones, wise women, mystical women, and witches often dwell, in legend and life, on the edge of enchantment. Living between worlds in liminal landscapes. This is our power and our magic. To weave the wisdom of both worlds. To weave the wisdom of other worlds into this one.

Dwelling in wild and
liminal landscapes.
Sharing wisdom stories
with all who would
venture near.

In these times people need our wisdom stories, sisters. And I believe that in these times they will venture near. Let us gather our stories. Let us be ready.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

October 25, 2024

When we weave the
threads of ancestral wisdom
into stories that are resonant
and relevant for these times…

As we merge with this mystical season. As we weave wisdom from our life stories. As we weave the wisdom of this life and past lives and ancestral knowing, I thought I would share this graphic I created for the Sacred Wisdom Sisterhood. For indeed, this is our sacred alchemy.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

October 23, 2024

When we weave
the threads of ancestral wisdom
into stories that are resonant
and relevant for these times…

Samhain. This is a season of mystical energies and thresholds. The threshold of crossing from one year into the next. The threshold of descending darkness as the days grow ever shorter. Mystical connections with ancestral energies. And for Crones, the threshold and mystical connection with our own ancestral journey.

I’m often asked if there is some magic age at which we become Crone. There isn’t. Yet  I’m always taken aback by women in their forties who engage in Croning ceremonies.

To be Crone is to have walked
many seasons and cycles.
To be Crone is to hold within us
all aspects of Sacred Woman,
the experiences and wisdom of maiden, mother, and elder.
To be Crone is to stand
at the crossroads, at the bridge
between life and death.

It’s been my experience this doesn’t happen by the time we are forty. Or even fifty or sixty. It is the journey of a life time. Yes, there are younger sisters who are beginning to weave the Crone thread into the fabric of their lives. But that thread is not yet secure. It is not yet part of the vibrant pattern. 

Being Crone is knowing we are approaching that threshold. Knowing that we will become ancestors. It’s no longer an intellectual construct. We know it by heart and soul. We know it in our bones. 

Birth.
Death.
Rebirth.
The journey
of returning
to source.
The journey
of Crone.

This season, this Samhain season, is our time, Crone sisters. It is our time to celebrate this journey. To take communion with the ancestors. To release the old years of what no longer serves us. To weave stories of wisdom that are resonant and relevant for these times. To be soul filled as we dance our way to that threshold.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

February 8, 2024

Two long time friends are now on hospice. And the memories of our times together are a flood of emotions. It seems this becomes more and more the landscape of this Crone journey. Bright lights leaving. Bright lights in my life over decades. 

Crone sisters. We’ve been joking for a while that there is more time in the rear view mirror of our lives than the windshield. Joking. But it’s not all that humorous. 

One of my sister circles has been meeting monthly for decades. We have walked our journeys together. And now we are walking each other home. For this circle, I was inspired to create this graphic. The invitation is to gather our memories. To sift through and celebrate those in which we have made meaning in the world. There is joy in this. And this is a time for joy in our lives.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom
Judith

January 5, 2024

I’ve always known I’m going to die.
I just never believed it.
Dr. Stu Farber,
Palliative Care Physician 

When news arrived that a dear friend in Ireland is now in palliative care, tears were immediate. I’ve known he’s not well. But the thought that I will probably not see him again is devastating. He’s been such a gift and something of a mentor on my spiritual journey in Ireland. So generous in sharing his decades of accumulated Druidic wisdom.

And with this news, I’m reminded that an intellectual understanding of approaching the death threshold shatters when that knowing lands in my body and soul. As Stu intimated in his pithy observation, knowing this and believing it are vastly different experiences. 

Navigating this landscape of belief, I find such comfort in these words from Ram Dass. Reminding myself that indeed we are, so many of us, on this sacred journey together. Holding each in the gracious space of love and light. Supporting each other to walk that journey with all the sovereignty and integrity and intention we can gather about us. In this I so relish my spiritual sisters and brothers. Which makes this friend’s crossing so poignant. 

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

January, 2, 2024

In this season of dark days here in the northern hemisphere, so many of my Crone sisters are relishing their cave time for contemplation and introspection. Here we are in another cycle of the year with even deeper awareness of our immanent, although not immediate we hope, journey home. And we take stock. Again.

I also am hearing that many of my Crone sisters are cleaning out their caves. Purging closets and cupboards and bookshelves. Letting go what is no longer relevant to their Crone journey. And at this point, we really don’t need the many gifts so lovingly given in this season of holy days. We are not about accumulating stuff.

That said, there are gifts that I cherish. And I’ve received a few of those in the past few weeks. These are not physical gifts, but reflections on how my being in their lives has had an important impact. As I am now focused on creating opportunities for sisters, and a few brothers, to step more fully into their spiritual sovereignty, these gifts are an affirmation that so feeds my soul. Is there anything more wonderful than witnessing such a glorious actualization? 

And I will say, as I share three of these gifts with you, that the actualization is absolutely due to their whole heart and soul engagement. They have made magic from these experiences. And I honor them for that. 

All that I found in myself began with Ireland and you.

You are central to my journey and without you and without your magic,
I would not be able to be in this place. How does one say thank you
to someone who has opened up life and erased all limits
so that my spirit may expand as it was designed to do?

I was reflecting on major turning points in my life.
The trip to Ireland with you is definitely one of them. 

Dear Crone sisters. May you receive and relish the gifts of affirmation and appreciation for what you have offered through your life that has allowed others to manifest and celebrate their amazing human and sacred nature.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith

August 19, 2023

Hag.
Etymological roots
include the Greek
hagios, or holy.

We were at Loughcrew, Sliabh na Cailleach, a hill of the divine hag. Standing in front of the central sacred cairn, I took time for a bit of communion. I was melding with her energy. And clearly she was merging with mine. I don’t know which of the sisters captured this image of me slipping into the countenance of Crone, but I thank her for it. 

Merging with energies in other realms is becoming a more frequent occurrence for me of late. I welcome this, even if it does take some getting used to. I generally don’t have a photographic record of it. 

I’ve been sitting with this image for a while. Knowing there would eventually be a blog post. I was just listening and waiting for the right time. And then, as the universe works, I just read Hagitude, Sharon Blackie’s new book which I highly recommend, and found this in what she wrote:

We each resonate with different archetypal landscapes, and with different nonhuman others which inhabit them along side us. …. How then do we uncover those patterns; how do we bring those images to life and let them work their magic on us? It’s not about striving to interpret them, because an image is like a kiss – once we begin to dissect it, the magic is gone. It’s simply about being with the images which call to us. It’s about believing that those images hold wisdom and insight. It’s about letting them slowly reveal themselves to us, and so revealing someone of ourselves in the process. They provide clues to who we are and who we might become. They provide clues about our path in the world and about the nature of our unique calling.

We uncover those patterns by being with them. By inviting them to take root in our lives and let the wisdom flow through us. This is not an intellectual endeavor, for as Sharon comments, striving for interpretation withdraws the magic. But our bodies and souls know absolutely what to do with these patterns. How to recalibrate to be in alignment. How to open as best we can to the wisdom and the insight and the magic.

It just takes a bit of communion. Sacred communion. And for me, that day on the hill was divine hag communion.

Blessings of Crone Wisdom,
Judith