Skip to main content

Winter Woman, Bone Wisdom

Honour and celebrate the Crone, the Wise Old Woman in all of her forms and to consciously embrace our Elderhood.

What is Winter Woman Bone Wisdom?

Winter Woman Bone Wisdom is a one-day workshop in which we explore the archetype of the Crone.

A space to honour and celebrate the Wise Old Woman in all of her manifestations and to consciously, intentionally apprentice to our Elderhood.

This Workshop Will Help You:

  • Challenge the negative cultural narrative of the Crone
  • Unpack your worries and concerns, to confront your fears of aging and death
  • Consider what kind of elder you would like to be and the legacy you want to leave
  • Explore the transformative possibilities of Eldership as your final rite of passage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZWz3ksOtHM

Why Eldership?

Elderhood in our culture is framed around a negative narrative that idolises youth and productivity.  It’s tangled up in a story of loss rather than gain; something to avoid or at least delay if we can.
Elderhood is the Winter season of our life. A time to reflect on a life lived, the joys and the sorrows, our woundings, our gifts and the wisdom that lives deep in our bones.
Elderhood culminates in our final rite of passage but it also reminds us that we still have the time and the opportunity to live well, to live intentionally and leave a rich legacy for future generations.
Let’s begin our apprenticeship to Cronehood now.  Together we can learn the art of eldership and reclaim the Crone as the Elder Wise Woman of Power that She is!

“Winter Woman Bone Wisdom is an opportunity to gather in circle, share stories, honour the Crone, and reclaim elderhood as a sacred and valuable stage of a woman’s journey.”

Jane Hardwicke CollingsFounder

“The Crone has lived long enough to see the pattern in the weave of life. Her sacred work is to remind us that we are all woven in. Eldership is an opportunity to step into power, with wisdom, dignity and courage.”

Lynda

“This workshop allows us to dream into and prepare for what is possibly our ultimate Rite of Passage and the Elder we wish to be.”

Participant

“My vision is that Elder Women are fully respected, empowered and visible. Embracing their elder years with meaning, excitement, joy and wonder, rather than with fear and dread.”

Jules

“A beautiful opportunity to gather our stories and weave together our legacies for the grandchildren and those yet to come.”

Julie

Workshop Structure

A Winter Woman Bone Wisdom workshop begins with the creation of a safe container, the sacred circle which holds us all throughout the day. In this co-created space we ground and centre.

We pass the talking bowl, to listen, to share and to reflect.

We honour our sisterhood and allow our stories to weave their magic; weaving us together and back into the bigger Story of which we are a part.

We will start by challenging the negative cultural stereotypes of the Crone and the fears and anxieties that we may have around aging, our health and ultimately our death.

Then we’ll counter those stories by exploring the many and more positive archetypes of the Wise Old Woman.

In this workshop we co-create the wheel of life and chart the changing seasons, energies, feelings and opportunities of each phase.

Then we dive deep into the medicine of the Winter Season and the Crone archetype, her powers and potential, so that you can reframe and celebrate her bone deep wisdom and power.

We will sit in ceremony to contemplate what the Crone means to you, to meet with our ancestors and to seek any wisdoms they may wish to share.

Elderhood is a time to consider how we want to live the rest of our lives and the legacy we wish to leave for future generations.

There was a real sense of safety, reverence and authenticity throughout the entire day. The space felt sacred — gently guided, yet spacious enough for each woman to journey in her own way.

One of the most profound parts for me was the mugwort tea journey. The plant medicine opened a doorway to deep inner guidance and reflection, and I left feeling connected to something ancient, wise and quietly powerful within myself.

The workshop invited such honest exploration around ageing, womanhood, cycles, wisdom and the bones of who we truly are beneath all the conditioning. I felt both grounded and expanded afterwards.

I’m incredibly grateful for the experience and would highly recommend this work to any woman longing to reconnect with her deeper knowing and the wisdom carried within.

Beth Adderley

The Winter Woman Bone Wisdom workshop was like chicken soup for my soul. I gained so much wisdom of how I can honour the Crone women in my community so that they feel seen and heard. I also gained a lot of insight into how I want to be when I reach my Crone years. Something I have always feared but I now have a new found appreciation and reverence of what is to come in my life and how I can prepare myself for it. My most favourite part of the workshop was having the privilege to sit at a beautiful Crone woman’s feet and listen to her share stories of her life. It felt like a warm, soft hug.

Kelly Summers

I am in my early 40's and have the chance to Invision the Crone I want to be was something very special. I could imagine myself at my 70's, have internal chats with the woman I will be hopefully one day and debrief with her what we need to change today in order to make that reality. As in all Jane's workshops, I felt held, supported and invited to look inside in a gentle and honest way, without judgment, without rush, just true and love. I left the workshop grateful for having the opportunity to be around amazing women, imagining together what we want to be, what tressures we carry till the very end, what we are willing to let it go. It also helped me to understand better the impact my kids' grandparents have on them and reminded me how important was having my grandmother around me. I recommend this workshop to every woman, at any age. Actually, as soon the better!

Renata Roncalli

As a Mage woman I found this Workshop insightful and empowering. I especially appreciated the focus on honouring the Crone. I found it moving to witness the reverence of the women as we listened to the wisdom of the Crones who were present. A beautifully held and important workshop.

Carolyn

The Winter Woman workshop was deeply meaningful for me, particularly as I am still in my 40s and have the opportunity to learn and integrate this wisdom well ahead of my own turn to be a winter woman. Jane has an incredible way of making this content relevant to a woman of any age: by explaining how bone-wisdom is useful in the mini-winters we live through, by sharing the value of cycle living (which always needs a winter season to complete a turn), and by prompting us with questions about older age that can meet us wherever we are in life.

Ashley Jones

The workshop reminded me of the importance of connecting with and honouring the wise crones in my life and with my inner crone. The ceremony in the workshop provided me with strength & peace for the winter time of our lives. Can’t wait to attend again in the future.

Kim

Winter Woman Bone Wisdom Teachers

Sydney & Southern Highlands

Jane Hardwicke Collings

Founder of the School of Shamanic Womancraft • Creator of Moonsong, Shamanic Dimensions of Pregnancy and Autumn Woman Harvest queen workshops • co-creator of Winter Woman, Bone Wisdom Workshop • Grandmother •

My interest in bringing and offering this information is to help how I can in healing the wounded feminine and the wounded masculine of our patriarchal culture.

My mission is to help women reclaim feminine knowledge and wisdom, to help heal birth, menarche, menstruation, menopause and death, for all my relations.

I represent three lineages:

Home birth Midwifery –  ancient wise woman practices passed down the generations that I learned from Maggie Lecky Thompson (Australia).

EarthSong (Boulder, Colorado, USA) Shamanic Teachings and Practices – that I learned from James Harvey (AKA BlackBear) and Cedar Barstow.

Shamanic Midwifery – the teachings and insights of the Late Jeannine Parvati Baker (USA).

(Jane Hardwicke Collings is not registered as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.)

Blue Mountains, NSW

Jules Gundlach

Jules was born and raised on her sacred ancestral lands of Avalon in the Summer Country of England and now lives in the Blue Mountains.

Jules has been a Herbalist and Natural Health Practitioner for over thirty years and a Psychotherapist for twenty. She has been co-facilitating monthly Red Tent Gatherings, Moon Circles and Women’s Retreats for over ten years.

Jules is deeply passionate about women’s health, wellbeing and empowerment which she believes is deeply connected to the Ancient Women’s Mysteries

The intention of her work in all its differing guises, is to support herself and other women on their collective journeys to re-member, reclaim, re-wild, embody and celebrate what it is to be Woman.

Melbourne, VIC

Linda Ruff

Shamanic Craftswoman • Workshop Teacher • Counsellor • Circle Holder • Death Walker •

 

Linda is a teacher of the School’s Autumn Woman Harvest Queen and Winter Woman Bone Wisdom workshops.

Linda sees life as a collection of threads we weave over time. A tapestry of ancestral, familial and cultural stories that we are woven into when we are born and an emergent story that we weave for ourselves.

Stories of hope and fear, gifts and woundings, longings and dreams. As we meet the challenges of menopause,eldership and death, the threads might be feeling a bit threadbare or tangled. These are sacred moments, fullof possibility and potential. She supports us to see the patterns in the weave and encourages us to craft ournext chapters with trust, compassion and intention.

Linda works on Wurundjeri Country, Naarm, Melbourne.