Roseanne Barr Celebrates Crones and Cronehood

 Illustration by Sean McCabe from Newsweek, Nov. 28, 2011

Back in September 17, 2009, when my blog “A Rolling Crone” was a year old, I wrote a post called “What is a Crone, Anyway?” 

The reason I wrote it, as I said, was that several friends of mine – especially some  from the Midwestern states where I grew up—objected to the word “crone”  in the blog’s title because they found it  offensive and insulting to women.  So I did some research to find out the origins and true meaning of the word “Crone” and found a wealth of information. As I said then, it’s a topic for a PhD thesis, not a single blog post.

Many women have written eloquently about cronehood, including a woman called “ZBudapest” in an essay called “Crone Genesis”. Read it!   She says, “We are one block of herstory, one savvy chain of generations, one strong and active generation that is going to continue to change the world. When we are done, being old will be fashionable, stories and movies about old people will be normal, and we will live a long time.” 

It made one proud to be a crone.

Now a sharp-eyed friend of mine, Barbara McCarthy, brought to my attention the essay written by Comedienne and actress  Roseanne Barr  in the  Nov. 28 issue of Newsweek.  It originally appeared on the web site “The Daily Beast.” The subject of her essay, titled  “Roseanne, the Pirate Queen” is menopause, but at the end, she considers the meaning of “crone.”

I’ve always considering Roseanne to be a wise and witty woman.  (And have you noticed how much livelier Newsweek has become since its editor-in-chief’’s chair was taken over by Tina Brown—who is also editor in chief of “The Daily Beast”?)

So, although Roseanne tends to write in a more profane style than I do, I love what she has written and want to quote part of it below.  Having discussed the  subject of menopause-- “Menopause is the victory lap over the curse of being born a female,”--Roseanne concludes:

Ah, OK, I’m in full Crone mode now.

Depending on who’s defining the word “crone,” it can be a really wonderful gem of language. Crone got saddled with the role of synonym for hag, an old grizzled woman who’s often bitchy at best, malicious at worst: the sinister, old, gossipy type who sometimes had magical or supernatural associations. Luckily, intelligent women, and some men, have begun returning the word to its rightful definition: an experienced, mature woman who’s arrived on the north shore of the raging seas of this largely corrupt planet.

We’ve run the gauntlet and we stand, battered, bruised, and perhaps even worse, some of us, but we’re consciously here and mostly intact.

And, with a little luck, we have some time to affect things. Some sources cite Crone as the third stage of goddess formation: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Well, I like the goddess part, but I don’t mean to insult or diminish women who aren’t mothers. In fact—after holding the world up to the light and subjecting it to a quick exam I call “Do the math!”—I’m here to say, we could use a lot more women who don’t become mothers of their own offspring, but instead Mother the world in a more expansive way—and help to alleviate some of the misery and need of countless millions of people who are here already.

But, let’s get past the idea of things we have to do, breathe a sigh of relief, and remember that there’s probably more time to do things we want to do. Form or nurture a few good and real friendships, and silently observe the world. You don’t need a young athletic body or piles of money to read some of the world’s great books; or to soak up brilliant music and art; or to grow something beautiful (and edible?) in a little garden spot. May your uterus remain relatively undisturbed during these, your glorious turban years!

Now that you’ve read Roseanne’s take on crones, (and I hope you’ll read mine, as well), please share your thoughts on this important and challenging phase of life.  But only if you’ve sailed through the sea of menopause and entered the relatively calmer harbor of  crone-hood.

You can leave a comment below or e-mail me at: joanpgage@yahoo.com

Who is the Crone of the Week?

And the award goes to…no NOT Betty White (who IS experiencing a dramatic revival at the moment) but to Florence Critelli, who works in a Long Island pharmacy and battled with a robber last week, then insisted on finishing her shift and driving herself home. Florence is 91.

Around 11 a.m. the robber entered the Rite Aid Pharmacy in East Northport and handed Florence a dollar for a candy bar. When she opened the register, he reached over and grabbed a handful of cash. The great grandmother of 13 “grabbed his hand to stop him from taking the money and I just screamed,” she told the New York Post yesterday. Then the bandit punched her in the chest, knocking her to the floor and ran out with the cash.

Florence refused medical attention when police arrived and then turned down the suggestion that she go home to recover. “I didn’t want to come home. What was I going to do but sit there and be bored?”

She finished her shift at 5:30 and insisted on driving herself home. She’s been working at the pharmacy for 17 years. She told the Post her hobbies include playing the slots at casinos and knitting and crocheting mittens that are given to the needy. She’s been married twice and has two children and seven grandchildren as well as the 13 great-grandchildren.

I think I’m going to design an award to send to the occasional Crone of the Week who personifies crone power. I think it should be a statue of an owl, since the owl was the symbol of the Greek goddess Athena and also represents wisdom.

Not that it was too smart for Florence to fight back against the robber, but it does show gumption.

I love her attitude at the age of 91 and also the afghan she has on her couch in the photo above. I bet she knitted it herself.

WHAT IS A CRONE, ANYWAY?

Almost a year ago, in October ‘08, I launched this blog, saying: “I will try to address issues and events that are of interest to crones over sixty, who are definitely under-served in the media. Yet we are, as a friend remarked, the pig in the python—the huge population of women who are still tuned in and creating despite (or because of) our age.”

It was daughter Eleni who came up with the inspired name “A Rolling Crone” for the blog after I had discovered that “Crone Chronicles” was already taken.

I e-mailed my friends and colleagues announcing the blog, and was surprised when I heard from several friends that they found the word “Crone” offensive and insulting to women. (Some of them added that they also were offended by being referred to as “Ladies”, when they were, in fact, women, not ladies.)

I noticed that most of the objections to the word “Crone” came from the Midwestern states—where I grew up—while friends on both coasts, in Europe and in Israel generally loved the blog’s title.

One reason I used the word “crone” was that, when I lived in Manhattan, about five of us, er, women friends, started calling ourselves the Crones back when we were in our early fifties. (Our husbands, naturally, were the Geezers.) The Crones did fun things --some athletic, like hiking or kayaking, but most of which involved sitting in a restaurant laughing so loudly that we were sometimes asked to leave.

The most fun thing we did, in my opinion was a Crone Walk from the top of Manhattan (Fort Tryon Park) to the bottom (Battery Park). Husbands were allowed to meet us for dinner on the last day. The walk took three days and involved staying in hotels (where martinis were consumed) eating in restaurants, and visiting stores, art exhibits and historic spots. Our first lunch—in Spanish Harlem—was in a restaurant where no one spoke English, only Spanish. Our last lunch was in a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown, where no one spoke English, only Chinese. (Just one of the reasons why Manhattan is my favorite city ever.)

After hearing complaints from my friends about the word Crone, I decided to research it. I was vaguely aware that some indigenous peoples considered Cronehood to be the honorable third stage of a woman’s life (Maiden, Mother, Crone) and that entry into cronehood—and menopause—was celebrated with rituals, because the crones were revered as wise women who could impart their knowledge to the tribe.

When I started researching “Crone” and “What is a crone?” on Google, I quickly realized that this is a topic for a Phd. thesis, not a single blog posting.

If you would like academic insights into the various historic personifications of the wise crone, check out a site by Kathleen Jenks, PhD, called “mythinglinks.org”, especially an essay called “Common Themes, East & West: Crones & Sages”.
She refers to Eve, the Mother of All, (holding in her hands an opened pomegranate, whose Hebrew name, rimmon, comes from the word rim, to bear a child.) She also mentions Hecate, Baba Yaga, native American rituals , tales from India’s Crone shamans—it’s a treasure chest of crone facts including a bibliography.

That led me to a lyrical and eloquent essay by a woman called “Z Budapest”-- “Crone Genesis” --that begins, “I am in my first year of Cronehood. In my sixtieth year.” Near the end of her essay she writes “We are one block of herstory, one savvy chain of generations, one strong and active generation that is going to continue to change the world. When we are done, being old will be fashionable, stories and movies about old people will be normal, and we will live a long time.”

I also discovered that women who celebrate their cronehood, especially with rituals, are often Wiccans—followers of paganism as a religion. This is not true of me and the Manhattan crones—who each probably have our own brand of religion or spirituality, although we’ve never discussed it. What joins us, I think is laughter, not a particular political or religious agenda.

But there is, I quickly learned, a growing Crone movement in this country —probably multiplying in strength as more and more women reach cronehood.

If you look up cronescounsel.org, you will see that the upcoming Fall 2009 Gathering, Crones Counsel XVII is happening Oct. 21-25 in Atlanta, GA.

That site says that the mythological Crone comes from the mists of ancient times, in the Middle East, Greece and the Balkans (30,000-10,000 BCE)… “The goddess was revered as one all-encompassing mother goddess who controlled birth, death and rebirth. This concept began to change as women themselves became increasingly under the dominion of men…Crone, hag and witch once were positive words for old women. Crone comes from Crown, indicating wisdom emanating from the head; hag comes from hagio meaning holy; and witch comes from wit meaning wise. The Crone began re-emerging into our consciousness in the early 1980’s and today many older women are embracing this connection. We are tapping into the ancient crone’s attributes of wisdom, compassion, transformation, healing laughter and bawdiness.”

So I submit that calling myself a crone and my blog “A Rolling Crone” is not insulting to my age group.

I’ve noticed, among my friends, that when a woman turns sixty, she often throws a birthday that basically is a celebration of herself, although previous birthdays and most of her party-giving efforts might have been devoted to celebrating her husband or children or parents.

I think at sixty a woman tends to step back and think “I’ve done pretty well so far, so I’m going to give myself something I’ve always wanted—a trip to Europe-- or enroll in a class to learn tap dancing or piano—or just throw a party that’s all about me and invite all my friends. (One of the New York crones rented a chateau in Tuscany and invited her friends.)

Here are some thoughts I came across from Linda Lowen who writes a blog about women’s issues. In an essay called “The Crone Movement -- Empowering Older Women”, she quotes a past member of the Crones Counsel Board who said “A Crone is a woman who has moved past mid-life and who acknowledges her survivorship, embraces her age, learns from the examined experience of her life, and, most likely, appreciates the wrinkles on her face…A Crone is a woman who is comfortable with her spiritual self, her intuition, and her creative power.”

Linda Lowen comments: “Wonderful qualities for a woman to possess at any age, but especially significant for a demographic that often feels bypassed by a society that has little use for women once they reach menopause. This Halloween, if you’re a woman 45 or older, instead of feeling tricked by the process of aging, consider the treat of making peace with yourself as you appreciate this phase of your life. Embrace your inner Crone.”

(That’s easy—Every Halloween as I wait on the porch for the influx of trick-or-treaters, I’m always dressed as a witch!)

I would like to hear from you how you feel about the word “Crone”.