"Dear brave souls, I warmly invite you to come be at the fireside with me and the Dangerous Old Woman and the Power of the Crone. Who is the crone? She is the most dangerous, the most radical, the most revolutionary woman in existence. Whether in fairy tales or in consensual reality, the old one goes where she wants to and she acts as she wishes; she lives as she chooses. And this is all as it should be. And no one can stop her. Nor ought they try." –Clarissa Pinkola Estés, PhD
Entering the terrain of wisdom occurs at any age. We sometimes step, sometimes stumble, and other times we are pulled into the territory of the Crone when the need for a deeper, larger understanding of our most meaningful path can no longer be denied—when the gifts hidden in our challenges must be brought forth.
In The Power of the Crone on–demand event, we join Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés for six sessions of original stories, poems, blessings, and healing insights for the creative soul. The ways of the crone have been set down in stories, stories that our hearts and souls long to hear in order that we might fully flower in our own way.
Says Dr. Estés: "If you weep, the crone will move closer to you. Laugh, and she wants to hear the joke. Dance, and she wants to dance with you and in you … More so, she has help for the hurt heart and for the one poisoned by bitterness, and she can pull the thorn from the breast; she can tattoo your scars with flowering boughs. This is the crone."
Join us at the fireside at this pivotal time in history when we are each invited "to fulfill the callings of the souls on this earth with verve, with style, with critical insights, with wisdom, and with love."
Session One: La Grandote (The Giantess):
Called to a Wise and Wild Dance Like No Other
Stories and commentaries include:
- "Heliotrope: The Orcharder Who Tried to Deform the Trees"
- "Demons of Talent: Pressure from Self and Others to Bury One's Gifts"
- The Wild Child and the One-Sided Mean Mother
-
Las Giganta: The Giantess Crone and Her Granddaughter
- The Crone Chooses to Be Invisible or Oceanic, Depending
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer "The Backwoods Woman … When the Old Woman Comes to Shake You Awake."
Session Two: La Calavera's el Rondo:
Crone Speaks about the Night Between Two Days
Stories and commentaries include:
- To Learn to Let Live What Must Live, to Let Die What Must Die
- "Story as Shapeshifter According to Soul's Needs"
- "The Old Woman Doll Maker"
- "The 13 Phases of Life/Death/Life"
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer "Blessing Song for the Winged: Knowing When It Is Time … and with Infinite Tenderness."
Session Three: Las Cacareas (The Old Cacklers):
The Ribald Humor of Old Women
Stories and commentaries include:
- "The Unrepentant Trees"
- Fountain of "Youth": The Crone Cautions Against One Error in Life
- "El Mano and the Monster: Jumping into the Abyss in Order to Live"
- Laughter as Spellbreaker: "The Old Russian Widows' Joke Club"
- Big Edna and the Crone's Trickster Stories
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer "When 'The Great They' Say 'Stop Acting Up.'"
Session Four: La Arbolaria (The Spellbreaker):
Living the Inner Life on the Outer Edges
Stories and commentaries include:
- Perils at the Root: The Basket Trees
- The Night University: Front–Stoop–Storytelling Elders and Beasts
- "The Girl Who Had No Story"
- The Examined Life: How Men, Women, and Children Lose Their Stories
- Past Damsel-hood: Crone Teaches How to Create a True Story of One's Own
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer "The Rhymer's Advice."
Session Five: La Sobradiente (Old Snag):
The Heart Broken Remains Open
Stories and commentaries include:
- The Checker–Barked Cherry Tree
- The Hunchbacked Old Woman
- Story of "Father Bring Me Fire"
- Story of "The Sitar Player"
- Story of "The Man Who Tried to Die"
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings, and we conclude with the blessing prayer "Gratitude Is an Emotion of the Heart."
Session Six: La Misteria (The Seer):
Pruning the Deadwood, Retrieving the Treasure
Stories and commentaries include:
- Crone of Velarse, the Elder's Work: To Guard the Hidden Trove
- "The Crone Knows," the Usefulness of Seemingly Useless Things
- Story of "Jack and the Beanstalk"
- Eros and Psyche: Starvation in a Land of Abundance
- Belief in the Non–Ordinary: Crone Advises about Dust
A Q&A session follows Dr. Estés' teachings.
