Crones Know Sorrow—and Joy

Queer spoken-word artist Andrea Gibson said:

“A difficult life is not less worth living than a gentle one.

Joy is just easier to carry than sorrow,

and you could lift a city from how long you’ve spent holding

what’s been nearly impossible to hold.

This world needs those who know how to do that.

Those who can find a tunnel with no light at the end of it and hold it up like a telescope

to show that the darkness contains many truths that can bring the light to its knees.

Grief astronomer,

adjust the lens,

look close.

Tell us what you see.”

An insightful someone recently shared this poem with a Circle I’m part of, then asked us to consider our sorrows, and the truths that our darkness reveals.

What is your list of sorrows?

My first ten sorrows were personal: stemming from childhood, young adulthood, middle age. Me as little girl, mother of a little girl, me when friends began to die, me now as grandmother.

What truth is revealed in your darkness?

Knowing I’m in the thick of Crone Carnival planning, a Circle member asked: How is the Crone in your list of sorrows?

I said: The Crone contains all the ages she’s ever been.

She notices when her child self, her young adult, mother, aunt or grandmother self has the reins of her body or mind. She accepts all these selves, and even the sorrows they carry.

Healing comes from awareness and acceptance of all the selves inside us, and seeing the struggle of these selves through fear to love, then fear to love again, over and over until arriving at our core and what we know to be true, our own place of centeredness. (At least for a moment, now and again.)

I have an 11th sorrow too, a final sorrow. It is a global sorrow for our world.

The Crone knows sorrow and feels its continuing, universal presence.

She knows too that moments of beauty and joy pop up in the darkness, and may even reveal their greatest depth there.

Crones will gather on Jul 20 in a beautiful park surrounded by giant, old trees. There will be Crone stories, drumming, dancing, creating, reflecting, connecting… because Crones know sorrow and they also know how to drum, create, dance and laugh.

They hold the pain, the joy, the beauty all together, embracing the full human experience of being alive.

Registration for the Crone Carnival is REQUIRED. Register now!

Also, Medial Women Circles are returning in the Fall! Stay tuned for details and get on the waitlist here.

— Carolyn Kolovitz