EPISODE 025 | Reflection: Turning Shit into Sunshine (aka Lessons from Season One)

As Crone Rising Season One closes, Lee reflects on the constellation of women who shaped this journey — from joy to rage, reinvention to grace. Drawing wisdom from Kirsty Spence, Christine Mason Miller, and Linda Sivertsen, she explores what it means to stay relevant, visible, and sovereign in a world that prefers we fade. This is a meditation on gratitude, boundaries, curiosity, and creative sovereignty — the quiet magic of endings that become beginnings.

Key Topics Covered

• Invisibility as power and discernment
• Redefining relevance as participation, not performance
• Boundaries as rituals of care
• Emotional regulation and creative sovereignty
• Gratitude as quiet activism
• Community as the antidote to isolation
• The Crone archetype as initiation, not ending
• Season One lessons and future trust in pause

Once you’ve listened to the episode (or complete season), reflect on this: What does relevance mean to you now? Where in your life are you quietly rising — no spotlight, no applause, just showing up heart-first? Share your reflection with @crone.rising.official on Instagram or with Lee directly on Substack. 

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.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

There is a particular quiet that comes at the end of something you've poured your whole heart into. Not the silence of absence, but the hush of integration, the moment when everything you've gathered begins to settle into the bones. That's where I am now, standing at the close of Crone Rising Season 1. 26 episodes, 18 guests, one surprise yet to come, and a conversation that has turned into a collective incantation. Women refusing to disappear. When I began this project, I wanted to know if invisibility was inevitable, or if it was simply a story we've been told so often that we'd started to believe it. Over these months, I've learned that relevance isn't something you chase. It's something you inhabit quietly, defiantly, on your own terms. Kirsty Spence began our final trio with a question of her own. A deeply academic, deeply human curiosity. What does relevance even mean? She turned my signature question back toward me, and in doing so reminded me that inquiry itself is an act of visibility. Kirstie lives in motion between worlds, the classroom and the Camino, intellect and intuition. She teaches young minds and in turn stays perpetually young in spirit. Her insight was this relevance isn't a performance, it's a participation. She remains relevant because she's engaged, reading, downsizing, asking, learning, saying no when needed. What I love most was her fierce honesty about boundaries. She spoke of abolishing people pleasing, naming it for what it is, energy squandering in pursuit of approval. She has learned to be relentless in downsizing not just her belongings, but her obligations, her distractions, her emotional clutter. She reminded me that emotional regulation, that elusive middle aged alchemy, isn't about being calm all the time. It's about knowing when to speak and when to stay silent, when to rage and when to rest. And then there was her line that still echoes in me. Ask how instead of why me. Ask what's next instead of why me. That's the practice of the modern crone, the pivot from victimhood to agency, from complaint to curiosity. If Kirsty gave us the intellectual scaffolding of relevance, Christine Mason Miller offered the soulful interior of it. Her question wasn't how to stay relevant in the world, but to whom do I even need to be relevant? That subtle reorientation from the gaze of others to the gaze of God or soul or inner compass is everything. Christine spoke of personal relevance as devotion to her art, to her home, to her future 80-year-old self. She's living in service of the woman she is becoming. She described invisibility not as an erasure, but as invitation, a call to deeper transformation. When people stop looking, she said, there's freedom in it. Freedom from the gaze, freedom from the constant performance. She called it an evolution, a shedding of concern for what doesn't matter, and a reclaiming of what does. Her wisdom radiated through small practices, gratitude as daily activism, intuition as compass, consistency as integrity. I want my words and my actions to be in alignment, she told me. And I felt that in my body. Because alignment isn't a slogan, it's a full contact sport. You feel it when it's off. You feel the hum when it's right. And then she offered the truest kind of revolution, quiet activism. Not the performative outrage of social feeds, but the rebellion of presence, tending home, tending relationships, tending self. Her boundaries aren't walls, they're rituals of care. I set them up to keep myself safe, she said, not to keep others out. Christine reminded me that our relevance grows not from shouting louder, but from listening more deeply, to intuition, to grace, to what wants to be born through us. And then came Linda Siverton, the woman who's been teaching creative sovereignty long before we had language for it. She is, in many ways, the godmother of the creative crone, a writer who knows the holy tension between wanting to hide and needing to share. I'm a total homebody, she laughed, but I still force myself to show up. Her words landed like gospel for every woman who's ever wrestled with visibility fatigue. Because relevance for Linda is not about being everywhere. It's about being in resonance. She stays visible by being generous, offering her writing, her Canva creations, her dear book Mama Wisdom. Each post, each conversation, each act of creative sharing builds a thread of community that reminds us we're not alone in the work. What struck me most was her refusal to hold a victim narrative. She told a story about being falsely accused of plagiarism, an experience that could have flattened her, but she alchemized it into gratitude. In the devastation, I got grateful, she said, finding lessons in professionalism, communication, and grace. That story mirrored something I've long believed, that the truest alchemy of the crone is turning shit into sunshine. Not denial, not bypassing, but transmutation. Linda's story was proof that even our most painful moments can compost into wisdom when we meet them with self-awareness and compassion. And of course her reflections on her mother's deathbed, hearing the words I wasted my life, were both haunting and galvanizing. They reminded me that regret is not an inevitability, it's a choice deferred. Linda chose differently. She chose creative fulfillment, gratitude, and connection, and by doing so showed us what a well-lived life can look like. Across these three women, and really across all eighteen voices, I see a pattern emerging. Not the sameness, but of symphony. Kirsty taught us that relevance is the byproduct of curiosity. Christine reminded us that alignment is the root of peace. Linda showed us that gratitude is the engine of endurance. Each of them echoed a truth I've heard again and again this season. We become visible not by demanding attention, but by inhabiting our authenticity. When we stop trying to be seen and instead start seeing ourselves, one another, the world, everything changes. These conversations have shifted me. I began Crone Rising wanting to explore invisibility. I've ended it believing that invisibility can be a kind of power, a cloak of discernment, a place from which we can watch, witness, and choose what really matters. Looking back over the full season from Robin to Linda, Joy to Rage, Reinvention to Grace, what I see most clearly is the constellation we've created, each woman a star, illuminating a different facet of aging. Robin Blackburn reminds us that joy itself is a radical act, that laughter, creativity, and curiosity are rebellion against invisibility. Catherine Taylor embodied sovereignty and softness, showing how strength and grace coexist when we root ourselves in self-knowing. Mary Elizabeth Babcock offered vitality as a practice, curiosity and self-compassion as lifelong wellness. Clara Baron's Luga reflected the beauty of enduring friendship and legacy, the mirrors that help us see who we were and who we've become. Pat Sanigan stood for advocacy and authenticity as we age, a reminder that visibility is not vanity, but courage. Judy as a party explored reinvention and boundaries in retirement, proving relevance doesn't retire when the corporate job ends. Sharon Flood brought reverence and renewal, her story a testament to faith, community, and the courage to begin again. Gabrielle Saint George reminded us that wit, wisdom, and irreverence are healing tools, especially when used to name what others won't. Kathy Zilski showed that creativity and vulnerability are twin engines of reinvention. Relevance that is funny, self-aware, and beautifully human. Nancy Irons Murray offered quiet resilience and grace, navigating loss and transformation with humility and strength. Danielle Russo brought reflection and emotional honesty, showing how stillness can reveal our truest next steps. Wendy Jackman reflected storytelling as legacy, the power of giving voice to what once stayed unspoken. Nancy Drope embodied grounded generosity and mentorship, proof that leadership in midlife often looks like guidance. Tracy Trafford revealed the tender courage it takes to keep evolving, to live truthfully, even as our stories change shape. Kathy Clare Hayes offered embodied compassion, reminding us that tending to our health, hearts, and boundaries is sacred work. Kirsty Spence brought intellectual curiosity and emotional honesty, reframing relevance as personal evolution rather than public approval. Christine Mason Miller illuminated gratitude, intuition, and consistency, how aligning inner and outer worlds becomes its own quiet revolution. Linda Siverton reminded us that creative connection keeps us visible, that gratitude, professionalism, and humor can transform even pain into purpose. And me? I suppose I brought the question. The invitation to ask again and again, what does it mean to be visible, wise, and wildly alive at this age? And soon, Sharon Lair, our bonus surprise, will join that chorus, reminding us that the story continues even when the season ends. Together we've built a constellation that refuses to go quietly, a chorus of women lighting the sky with experience, curiosity, and grace. If I had to distill the season into lessons, into something to carry forward, they would sound like this. One, curiosity is a form of reverence. Every woman I spoke with remains deeply curious about herself, others, and what's next. Two, boundaries are not barriers. They are energetic agreements that honor our capacity. Three, reinvention isn't starting over. It's remembering who we've always been and daring to live from there. Four, gratitude transmutes everything, even grief, even rage, even the long, quiet seasons of waiting. Five, community is the cure for invisibility. When women gather in conversation, creativity, or laughter, we dissolve the myth that we are alone. And six, the crone archetype isn't an ending. It's an initiation, a calling into leadership, creativity, and spiritual sovereignty. As Crone Rising season one closes, I'm not dreaming into season two. Not yet. I'm savoring the pause, the quiet, the relief of clawing back up to twenty hours a week once devoted to editing, scheduling, scripting, and sound. There's deep satisfaction in this stillness, and knowing that I don't need to rush into the next thing. I'm resting in the exhale, trusting that whatever project wants to find me next will arrive in its own time, as all good things do. In the meantime, Cronrising will live on wherever you find your podcasts. To every woman who said yes, who shared her story, her vulnerability, her laughter, thank you. To every listener who tuned in, left a comment, whispered me too into the dark, thank you. And my past self who dared press record even when she had no idea how to edit a waveform, thank you. We are all rising still, not to be seen, but to see, not to stay relevant, but to stay real, not to fight for space, but to create it for ourselves, for each other, for whoever comes next, because visibility is sovereignty, and relevance, the true kind, is simply showing up heart first over and over again.