Greetings!

Welcome to the August 2021 Crones Counsel Newsletter. Summer is still going strong but Autumn is knocking on summer's door.
Maggie Fenton
Deep Summer
By Maggie Fenton

These are the days of deep summer. The days are already shortening and lightning bugs are visible in the fields by 7 p.m. I leave the windows open at night and the katydids sing me to sleep. These are days of abundance. Tomatoes are finally ripening and BLTs are on the menu as is fresh corn on the cob.
 
Growing up in central Kentucky, we didn’t have the luxury of air conditioning and Kentucky summer nights were close and warm. My older brother and I slept on the upstairs open-air porch, the “sleeping porch.” All the lovely sounds of deep summer are embedded in my brain from those nights. Early morning brought the lowing of cows ready for milking and my brother would crawl out of his cot in the dark to go to the barn. When I heard the coffee pot perking, I’d get up too so I could help make breakfast. Early on, I learned to make biscuits so that was usually my job. Some mornings we had oatmeal or sausage and pancakes and I’d watch my brother put away pancakes until I thought he would burst.
Dishes washed and put away, I’d go to the garden with my Mother to pick whatever was ripe. Easily distracted by the buzzing bees and butterflies drawn by the zinnias, cosmos and other annuals that were as important to the garden as the vegetables, I’d need to be reminded more than once to keep working. We canned tomatoes, corn, green beans, beets. She loved okra and would sneak it into salads and stews, knowing that we would carefully pick it out if we found it. After the stalks turned brown, we dug potatoes and put them in the cellar for winter. Winter squash, pumpkins and onions were also stored there.
   
These traditions still hold; during my working life, I grew a few vegetables on my deck, giving more time to flowers. But now in retirement, although my garden isn’t as big as the one on the childhood farm, we grow most of the same vegetables as well as the flowers. My daughter and son can’t seem to keep their hands out of the dirt either and a new tradition is vegetable bartering or trying to foist more zucchini off on one another. My mother, the gardener, would be delighted.
Fall Equinox
Fall Equinox Virtual Gathering Via Zoom
Saturday, Sept 18, 2021

10:00 a.m. Pacific Time
11:00 a.m. Mountain Time
12:00 noon Central Time
1:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Other countries, please determine your time.

$25.00

Registration is open now and will close on September 11.

The Gathering will last approximately two hours.
CroneTimes
Check out the July 2021 Crone Times, the journal of Crones Counsel, Inc.

Here you will find some great stories of Friendship by Sandy Eno, Ria Coesel, Alicia Schilder, Marina Anderson, Raylene Houck, Barbara Test, Anita Hedlund and more!
Dear Elsie
Dear Elsie
Welcome from Pixler Hill, Dear Crones. This is the season to Harvest in the Northern Hemisphere and a time to Plant in the Southern Hemisphere. Be we sowing or reaping, I’ve found that most of us crave connection with Sisters as we navigate the seasons of our journey through Cronehood.

August’s question addresses a need for creative ways to make that happen.

Dear Elsie,

I am a fifty-six year of Wise Woman in the making. I have committed to embark on a four-year soul journey to Wise Woman. I live in a culture other than my own. While I crave the type of connection I see embodied in your groups, I have been unable to find anything like that here. I’m not the extroverted type so starting my own seems daunting. What might an isolated crone do to commune with her sisterhood?

Tara

Dear Tara,

What an excellent question. While many Crones in this group do have in-person or online groups, not all do. There are some women here that are also living in other cultures or otherwise experiencing the toll of our long pandemic induced isolation. If you are planning to join the Zoom gathering in September, I suggest sharing your quest for support with the whole group on the chat. That would be one way to see if anyone else shares your dilemma. Mention it in your Wisdom Circle, too. You are always welcome to reach out to any of the Mother Board for help. Lots of good ideas and resources. Contact information is available on the website; www.cronescounsel.org. Come on, dear ones, can someone give our searching Sister Crone a helping hand on her soul journey?

Elsie

If you would like to ask Elsie a question, please send her an email.
Reintroducing Anne Richardson-Smith, another Mother Board member

By Carol Friedrich

Anne is currently the Secretary for the Crones Counsel Mother Board. She has been attending Crones Counsel gatherings annually since 2014, and in 2008, and 2011, thanks to her Crone Aunt, Christina Horst. 

Being an introvert, it took her awhile to connect with new Crone friends. (Oh, yes, her picture is from her antics as MC for the Follies at CC 27, Tucson 2019, when she found her “extroverted self”.)

In 2016 she started a Crone group in Bellingham, Washington, and, in 2018, that local group planned CC 26, the Crones Counsel Gathering there. With that in mind, she says that nothing is more fun than collaborating with senior women who take care to provide their best. This month the group has planned their second local "campout". 

Anne was chosen by the Mother Board to coordinate Regional Meetings. Two took place, one in San Diego, and the other, Raleigh, NC.  The planned New Mexico retreat for 2020 had to be cancelled due to the pandemic.

Anne grew up in Ohio, lived seven years in the Bay Area, and then stayed in the Northwest. She now lives in Bellingham, Washington. 

Anne has been an educator, therapist, and director of a women's non-profit, named "Pathways for Women". One of her hobbies is developing music programs for YouTube which she presents at Senior Centers. Anne was widowed, and, then, in 2020 she remarried -- at age 77 -- her senior dance partner. It is important that she mentions she prays for respect-for-all, and peace. One of her mottos is “We are Crones! Lively, Engaging, and Outrageous”.
Poetry Corner
My Garden
By annie lehto

Flowers and fairies
Green and gold
All colors blazing
Scents and sounds
Bees hovering

I sit and gaze, or meditate
The elements near by
Wind chimes to the east
Candles to the south
A fountain to the west
Crystals to the north

All around me
Encompassing
Encasing
Embracing
Surrounding me with love

If you would like to submit a poem for the next newsletter, please send it to Kaya Kotzen.
Crones Counsel
Annual gatherings about women of age, for women of all ages, sharing stories, enriching connections to ourselves, each other, and the world.


Crones Counsel