Crone Speak is an act of faith in the creative juices that are ready to circulate once we emerge from the rubble of patriarchal and colonialist deception.
Those of us who have cleared some of the dust from our eyes and our throats, have, I believe, a responsibility to help clear the way for others. That is what like-minded crones, on whose shoulders I stand, have verified. We are not alone. Our ancestors surround us, just waiting for us to recognize them so they can support. Let’s invite them to write with us.
I feel them around me as I cultivate Crone Speak. I feel the strong presence of my mentor Meridel LeSueur who said, “Let your life swell downward so you become like a vase, a vessel. Let the unknown child knock and knock against you and rise like a dolphin within.”
Meridel wants me to complete my novel and she wants you to speak your silenced secrets, the very truths you were punished for knowing before. You have never forgotten them.
It may be difficult to imagine how writing is activism, but Meridel knew it was, and so did Maya Angelou, Audre Lord, and Adrienne Rich. They want to join us at the writing table. They want to see our words in print, being read by others, and germinating creativity with every breath.
So many of us spend years hiding behind the myth of normal. Maya Angelou said, “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.”
The daring to speak what only you can speak, to use words that are your very own in ways that are unique to you, that is what is ready to rise up right now. Can’t you feel it?
“If I didn’t define myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive,” said Audre Lord. Writing is how we differentiate ourselves from other people’s fantasies of us.
Meridel LeSueur was the voice of the power of community. She whispered her secrets and her visions in my ear. I can feel her sweet breath now as she and I are luminous with the legacy we were born to sustain.
“Let us seek each other in the village of the earth,” Meridel says.
“In the root dark where we live in the dust you will find us, and
In the underground vein, in the germinal seed.”
If you are inspired by this vision of Crone Speak, subscribe and you will be invited to programs designed to open what Meridel called “the nocturnal door” and free you from you from where you are “hidden deep in a furrow.”
Through Crone Speak I intend to build a global village of women voicing their truths. Watch this space to learn about programs that will root you in the lineage of Crone Writer Activists. These programs will be available only to Crone Speak subscribers.
Claim your lineage. Subscribe now to Crone Speak.