Welcome to Cronation
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Crone: A woman over forty who seeks to embrace Earth’s cycles of life, death, and transformation with the wisdom and compassion of an open heart.*
Nation: A group of people united by a common interest
Cronation is a novel, set in the near future, populated by characters whose mission is to midwife the birth of a new era of creative partnership and community collaboration in gratitude, joy, and celebration. Cronation is a manifesto and a shout out to all the women who claim the Crone identity and embrace the rights and responsibilities that entails. Cronation is also a reimagining of my life’s work in the Open Studio Process in story form that I hope is fun, inspiring and opens a space for others to rewrite and enlarge their own stories.
As the definition above suggests, the Crone phase of a woman’s life age-wise begins at 40. If you are like me, however, that was not an endearing thought at age 40. Now that I am 63 I am just beginning to understand what it means to accept and even embrace aging in a conscious, mindful way. Perhaps I am just a self referential Baby Boomer but my take is that the planet is also going through a major change and that She and I have a great deal in common. I reject an apocalyptic trope while certainly acknowledging that we humans are doing lots to stress and undermine the health of the planet. But I feel deeply that both humankind and the planet are experiencing a developmental shift that entails both danger and opportunity. Plenty of folks are focused on the danger, some in useful ways and others in desperation. I am mostly interested in the opportunity.
Cronation is an invitation to explore the opportunities that abound in a time of great change.
Cronation is an invitation to explore the opportunities that abound in a time of great change. Septima Poinsette Clark famously said: “I have great belief in the fact that whenever there is chaos, it creates wonderful thinking. I consider chaos a gift.” She noted that in the Bible, God created the world, not from nothing, but out of chaos. Chaos is our opportunity to engage creatively with the “what-is” of our individual and communal lives and ask the question: “what-if?” My intention in this blog is to share my own Crone self as it unfolds and that of other women as we chart this time together on behalf of ourselves, our ancestors and our grandchildren. Cronation is an idea. The idea is that there are enough of us, older women, with wisdom, energy, insight and chutzpah to step out of the margins of the culture and speak some truth, rattle some cages, cause a ruckus, and have some fun.
I hope you will join me. Please read Cronation, pass it on to another woman, write to me and share your stories, dreams and visions. Let’s get this party started.
*The definition of ‘Crone’ above is a slightly reworked version of the mission statement of WWW.CRONEMAGAZINE.COM. Thank you Anne Newkirk Niven for holding a space for Crone wisdom in your publications.
