EPISODE 013 | Reflection: The Spiral Path to Relevance

In this deeply reflective solo episode, Lee Currie weaves insights from three powerful Crone Rising conversations—with Sharyn Flood, Gabrielle St. George, and Cathy Zielske—into a tapestry of truth, resonance, and reclamation. More than a recap, this is a spiral of reverence: for joy reclaimed, rage awakened, and peace hard-earned. Lee explores the archetypes of seeker, sword, and hearth, and invites listeners to consider where they land on the map of their own becoming. This episode honours relevance not as performance but as presence. It’s a call to return to self—again and again—with tenderness, truth, and fire.

Key Topics Covered

• The spiral nature of the Crone journey
• Joy after divorce and solo travel (Sharyn Flood)
• Political truth-telling and aging as power (Gabrielle St. George)
• Therapy, body image, and maternal healing (Cathy Zielske)
• Archetypes of the seeker, the sword, and the hearth
• Redefining relevance beyond visibility
• The sacredness of root seasons, blooming, and transformation

After you listen to the podcast, answer this: Which of these archetypes speaks to you right now?

• Are you the Seeker, like Sharyn—curious, courageous, ready to choose joy?
• The Sword, like Gabrielle—unapologetic, purposeful, a firebrand for truth?
• The Hearth, like Cathy—grounded, intentional, holding space for peace?

Or maybe you’re moving between them. Maybe you hold all three.

Send your reflections to @crone.rising.official on Instagram. Tell us how you’re staying visible to yourself. Because eldering is a culture—and we’re building it together.

Crone Rising is for every woman who’s done being quiet and done being small. We’re not here to fade. We’re here to rise — unapologetic, unmuted, and unmissable.

Connect with Lee Currie

Subscribe, share, and leave a review if Crone Rising resonates. Your voice matters. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

This is Crone Rising, episode 13. And yes, that number is on purpose. It's the number of the goddess, the wild card, the rebel, the one who doesn't play by patriarchal rules and doesn't ask for permission. It's also Wednesday, August 13th, and I'm your host, Lee Curry. This is another solo reflection episode where I pause together the sparks, threads, and truths dropped by the women who have joined me over the past few weeks. This is not a recap. This is reverence for what was said, for what lingered, for what cracked something open in me, and maybe in you too. Today I'm walking back through three luminous conversations with Sharon Vlood, Gabrielle St. George, and Kathy Zilski. Each woman brought her full self to the symbolic crone table, bold, nuanced, curious, and deeply honest. And from those conversations, themes arose. We're going to trace them together like a spiral. This is how we crones process. We don't draw straight lines, we circle, we feel, we gather and drop breadcrumbs. We know that a rich and full life on this plane of existence is not linear. We are not wired to look at life that way. So settle in, pour yourself something delicious, a cup of tea, a glass of wine, sparkling water in a fancy glass, and a slice of lemon. Wear something comfy. Light a candle if it helps you breathe more deeply. And let's begin. The fun and feisty engineer with a passport full of stamps and a heart wired for growth. Sharon and I talked about life after divorce, not just the heartbreak of it, but the expansion it invited. We explored her journey of rediscovering joy through solo travel, snorkeling in the Galapagos, and learning to listen to her own desires after years of putting others first. She told me a story about a free diving class she signed up for, not because she wanted to dive deep into the ocean, but because she needed to learn how to breathe underwater again. That metaphor stuck with me. How many of us have forgotten how to breathe in unfamiliar environments? How many of us avoid new terrain because we just don't trust ourselves to survive it? She reminded me that accountability isn't about blame, it's about ownership. She said, quote, I wasn't good at choosing life partners, but I'm good at choosing for myself now, end quote. That struck me deeply. It made me think about my own choices, especially in the aftermath of my own divorce. I too have a broken partner picker. How many times I overrode my instincts, smiled when I wanted to scream, settle for things that didn't nourish me, and how many times I've sat in the dark with a journal asking myself, what do I want now? And Sharon? She wants to visit as many countries as her age. She wants to walk her dog. She wants to take the photos. She wants to feel wonder, not wait. That kind of clarity is magnetic. She also shared how she's parenting adult sons now, how she marvels at their choices, their courage, their tattoos, and how she's learning to let them be who they are without clinging to the old role of mother as manager. That also resonated hard. Because when we stop trying to manage everyone else's path, we get to finally walk our own. We also laughed about her dating experiences post-divorce, the culture shock of apps, the vulnerability of meeting new people after years of partnership, the bittersweet reality that even when you are ready to love again, the landscape may not be ready for you. What I learned from Sharon is this relevance doesn't come from being seen by others. It comes from refusing to stay invisible to yourself. It comes from choosing joy, choosing growth, and letting your life reflect who you are now, not just who you were taught to be. Now let's talk about Gabrielle. If Sharon is the seeker, Gabrielle is the sword. Sharp, purposeful, refusing to look away. She came into the conversation with her convictions intact and her tongue sharpened by truth. Her style isn't everyone's cup of tea. Unless your cup is filled with unfiltered, unapologetic, middle finger-waving tea brewed with a heavy pour of feminist fire. Early in our conversation, she said, quote, I have no fucks left to give, end quote. And she meant it in the best possible way. Gabrielle's refusal to compromise her ethics for likability gave me chills. She's lost followers for being vocal about Palestine, for calling out harmful ideologies, for refusing to pretend that politics are separate from personhood. And she says without hesitation, quote, that's a price I'll gladly pay. End quote. It made me think about how often I edit myself, even now, how often I weigh the impact of truth telling on audience size, or consider the optics of a post before I press publish. Gabrielle reminded me that relevance without integrity is hollow. She also spoke about aging as a power move, not something to dread, but something to leverage. Her body may have changed, her face too, but her voice, it has never been stronger. She said, quote, if you're speaking up now, that tells me what side of history you would have been on then. End quote. That one lodged itself under my ribs. So I started asking myself, where am I still playing small for comfort? Where am I still hoping to be palatable instead of powerful? And what would it look like to drop the act and rise fully into the crone archetype I claim to honor? I can promise you, it was not met with enthusiasm. Gabrielle reminded me that power is not posture, it's presence. It's doing the right thing when it costs you, and doing it again and again. She also talked about how women's attention is constantly hijacked by beauty culture, by anti-aging marketing, by the exhausting pressure to stay relevant in a way that's always just a little bit performative. But relevance, she argues, should be rooted in truth, in evolution, in standing on the foundation that doesn't crumble under scrutiny. She talked about her political awakening, yes, but also her commitment to growing, to remain curious, to not letting bitterness calcify. That's what makes her voice so potent. It's not just loud, it's alive. What I learned from Gabrielle is this relevance is not about staying agreeable, it's about staying awake. She reminded me that you can be compassionate and still draw hard lines, that there's nothing wrong with being a little dangerous when the world needs your fire. And then there was Kathy. Kathy is hearth. She brought a quiet strength to the mic, a voice sharpened not by shouting, but by years of softening into truth. She told me flat out, quote, with age does not come wisdom. With work does, end quote. That stopped me. We give age so much credit, but Kathy pushed back. Wisdom isn't inevitable. It's intentional. She credits twelve years of therapy for the self-awareness she now holds. She did the work, owning inherited patterns, healing attachment wounds, and learning how to stay with herself through discomfort. We talked about neuroticism, parenting, smoking, control, but what lingered was the threat of self-reclamation, her choice not to pass down what hurt her, the work of becoming a parent her children could trust, the refusal to collapse into performative motherhood. And we talked about body image, about food, about the damage done by an industry and culture obsessed with shrinking women. She talked about smoking as an appetite suppressant, about hiding behind it, and about the years she spent silently criticizing her own body, only to realize that her daughter had absorbed every word. That hit me hard because I've done it too. In offhand comments, in glances at a mirror, in the way I move through the world with apologies stitched into my posture. But Kathy doesn't wallow in regret. She transforms it. She offered a path forward, gentler, slower, real. And the most radical thing she said? That invisibility might not be a curse. It might be a kind of peace. She said, quote, now I'm curious about what's outside of me, not always stuck in the swirl of how I feel. End quote. What if we've misunderstood invisibility this whole time? What if disappearing from systems that exploit us is not erasure, but rebellion? What if relevance, as Kathy models it, is not about visibility, but vitality? What I learned from Kathy is this transformation doesn't announce itself with trumpets. It arrives slowly, over time, in therapy sessions, in difficult conversations, in choosing curiosity over control, in sitting quietly with the truth of who you are, and deciding that she is worthy still. So here we are. Three conversations, three very different women, three maps of relevance drawn in their own voices traced across time. Sharon reminded me that joy is a practice. Gabrielle reminded me that rage can be righteous. Kathy reminded me that peace is earned. And me? I'm still learning to trust my voice, still unlearning the urge to be perfect, productive, pleasing. Still carving a life that fits the shape of who I am now, not who I was 10 years ago, not who the world said I should be. Relevance, I'm learning, isn't about attention. It's about resonance. Not the performative, not the performance of being visible, but the power of being present, fully, without apology. And here's the truth: there's no final arrival. We spiral, we circle back, we grow, regress, expand, retreat, repeat. That doesn't mean we're failing. It means we're human. Sometimes we bloom, sometimes we seed, sometimes we root down and disappear from sight, but never from substance. We meet ourselves over and over again, but we are never the same person. The season you're in, it's sacred. So if you're in a root season, be there. If you're blooming, shine. If you're shedding, let it fall away. There is no wrong way to be a crone. We are not behind, we are not broken, we are not invisible unless we want to be. We are becoming again and again. So here's my invitation to you. Which of these archetypes speak to you right now? Are you the seeker like Sharon? The sword like Gabrielle? The hearth like Kathy? Or maybe you're moving between them, or embody all three. Whatever your current season of self, I want to hear from you. Send me a note or a voice memo, send a DM to at crone.rising.pod on Instagram with your reflections, your rituals, your joys. Tell me how you're staying visible to yourself. And if this episode resonated, please share it with someone who needs it, with someone who feels unseen, with someone standing at the edge of her own becoming. Because this is how we build a culture of eldering with intention, by witnessing each other, by choosing truth over performance, by rising, not alone, but together. Be kind to your past self. Stay loyal to your present self and make space for the version of you that's still on her way. This has been Crone Rising, episode thirteen, the one with the goddess number. See you next week!