“CRONECAST”: Here I go!

Well, not yet, but soon. Housemate Dan gave me the title, a play on “podcast,” but this new venture will be not just audio, since my son Colin, with whom I had dinner last night, insists that the audience must see me as well as hear my voice, when I tell my stories. (It’s true, I do tend to get animated.)

Ever since I hit crone age — just when is that, pray tell? It’s a matter of dispute, and of course I shall go into this subject thoroughly, at some point — I’ve been telling stories. In fact, actually, I’ve been telling stories since way before that, and have known for decades that storytelling is perhaps the most crucial human activity that knits us together.

Imagine, in all the tipis, yurts, igloos, and longhouses of old, how very long the winters were without electricity. Imagine how folks would sit around in the dark, stirring the fire, telling and listening to stories, making and keeping the oral history of their peoples alive and growing. And who did they call on most for stories? Why their elders, of course, those who had lived the longest. For these were the ones who carried the history within their long memories. So too, here in Green Acres Permaculture Village. Who has been here the longest? Me. So I’m the defacto her-storian of the place. It’s a big job, to remember, to re-member, to continuously knit ourselves back together again through time and space.

And what do we need most now, at this fractured, acceleratingly centrifugally spiraling moment in the his-story of our species? We need the exact opposite: to knit ourselves back together again, to instigate centripedal spiraling as a counter to its polar opposite. Not to replace it, but to balance it. Again, let me repeat what I say a hell of a lot: we need to learn how to recognize the value and necessity of embracing paradox, opposing points of view, and furthermore: let us learn to consciously inhabit the mysterious space between them, dynamically balancing and rebalancing the two poles of any recognized polarity as we go forward.

Opposites exist within each of us, too, and usually the (ignored or denied or hated) end of any polarity gets projected out, onto others. And thus the drama begins!

The completion of any story is the recognition of and learning how to “take back the projection.” To integrate, this time consciously, the vibrant dynamic of opposites within the self! And it’s the responsibility of the tribal storyteller to bring this drama of opposites to life. It’s the responsibility of the elders to show how — through tales of real life experiences, gathered and interpreted over time, initiating larger and larger meaning — the various cycles of our lives live on inside us as larger and larger concentric circles, as wholes. This is what counts. This is what is missing.

We are so bent on gathering, making sense of, and sharing knowledge, that we have completely forgotten about, or even dismissed the value and necessity of its opposite: wisdom.

Knowledge is left-brained, the bits and pieces that we pick up along the way, and attempt to relate into ordered, logical sets.

Wisdom is right-brained; it occupies the interstices of the lines we draw, the patterns we weave, and it holds them all as blessing, in gratitude.

As my husband Jeff said, soon before he died of a heart attack, at the age of 55: “I really like getting older, because there’s so much more to think about!”

Exactly! And this famously encyclopedic man didn’t mean knowledge, facts, here; he meant experiences, the choices he had made throughout his lifetime, and how they formed and kept on reforming him. At this point, I’m 26 years older than Jeff! You can imagine how “much more to think about” I’ve accumulated since he died and left me both bereft and enthralled. See my book, THIS VAST BEING: A Voyage of Grief and Exaltation.

And let me tell you, while wisdom may primarily be the province of the old, it is not automatic. Most people, as they age, do not become crones, or elders. Most just calcify, get rigid, habit-bound, less and less curious, and yet, like everybody else in this culture, cling to “life” and utterly terrified of death.

I aim to remain flexible, to keep taking risks, to love life ever more extravagantly, and to share what I am finding and ruminating upon with others as I stride happily towards that death that I sense, given my near-death experiences, and my life with the spirit of Jeff since he died, is indeed another birth. And I aim to do all this with you. Weekly CroneCasts will be my latest offering. Each of an indeterminate length, depending on the story to be told. Some stories require  backstories — actually they all do: but we always have to stop somewhere in our endless search for a deeper beginning, a deeper meaning.

I’ve ordered a suitable microphone. Colin and I will pick out a new tapestry of some kind to cover my overflowing closet backdrop for the visual.

The first CroneCast will tell the story of my relationship with the archetype of the Crone which began, actually, in childhood, and then of course, ramped up over time.

After that, I’m going to tell the stories of my four marriages, each one very different from the other, and all of them incredibly valuable along my own evolutionary journey.

Son Colin tells me I need to tell the story of separation from my sons, and then bring him on next time to talk about it. YES!

Thus some CroneCasts will be devoted to Croneversations with others, as well.

One thing I’m NOT going to do is focus on current events. I appreciate especially all the young independent journalists — like Jordan Sather, X22report, Amazing Polly, SGT Report, Liz Crokin, Coreysdigs, youarefree.tv., and many others who do this fact gathering and interpreting business in such a powerful way. YES! Hats off to the young ones and how they are helping us make sense of these chaotic times.

I plan to start a youtube channel for the CroneCasts, and here’s a preliminary version of what it will officially be About:

We’re so focused on increasing knowledge, but whatever happened to wisdom?

When people meet me for the first time, and politely ask, “How are you?” I answer them: “What level do you want to talk on?” I am a Ph.D. philosopher from Boston University who was fired from her first job as “too experimental” for an experimental California college in 1973. Since then I have worked as a consulting astrologer and published Crone Chronicles: A Journal of Conscious Aging (1989-2001). In 2009, I initiated an experiment that has evolved into an intentional community, Green Acres Permaculture Village, in Bloomington, Indiana, and I blog daily on exopermaculture.com.

This 76-year-old crone WOKE UP when she was 26 years old and here shares stories from her own life, and the ever deepening meaning she gleans from them.

What actually got me going on this new venture was that three people commented (see comments), asking me to do so! Not that I hadn’t been thinking of it as a possibility; but I  need a nudge. I start new ventures in response to an invitation. That’s the best way for me, according to my Human Design, as a “Manifesting Generator.” I used to try to start things “out of the blue,” but found that these ventures did not succeed. Those begun out of a felt need from others, do.

And what really put the icing on the cronecast cake was when Dan said, to my question, what shall I call it, and I want the word Crone in it, with another word that starts with “C.”

CRONECAST! That response flew out of his mouth without him thinking about it. In fact, he looked sort of sheepish afterwards, as if “really?” Did I really say that?

I did an astro chart for the moment when I decided YES, I will call it CRONE CAST. The chart put powerful Pluto on the Midheaven path opposite my natal Jupiter in at 23° Cancer, and inaugurated a steady Taurus Ascendant conjunct the Moon. Taurus governs the throat, the voice! My own natal Moon is in Taurus.

Furthermore, transit Jupiter, at 19° Sagittarius, sits only two degrees from my natal Sagittarian Ascendant/Sun combination, and will soon be passing over them. So I’ve known for awhile now that I would push in some new direction soon.

Lots of other astrological synchronicities as well. Maybe I’ll go into them later. In any case. It’s a done deal. Just the technical details need to be worked out, and we’re good to go.

The reason I’m announcing it here, beforehand, is because I would like to invite any reader who cares to comment on this matter in any way, to do so. (For example: should I call it CRONE CAST, CRONECAST, CroneCast or Cronecast? Whaddya think?) Would love any further feedback. Already you have nudged me into action. Thank you!