After 30 years, Bernice Johnson Reagon, the founder of Sweet Honey In The Rock, is retiring, but the a cappella ensemble will go on, continuing to deliver its political, cultural message

Cazenovia, N.Y. - The weather reports had been ominous, the sky a dreary gray. Hundreds of music fans are sprawled over the damp field on blankets and lawn chairs, their eyes darting nervously between the stage and the dark clouds above.

The six Black women sauntering onstage don't look worried as their colorful tie-dyed blouses billow with the howling wind. They take their seats as though on thrones. The first note rings out from the right where Bernice Johnson Reagon holds court, her unlined brown skin gleaming, salt-and-pepper hair trimmed in a neat Afro. Out comes a blast of her deep, hearty contralto:

For nearly three hours the a cappella voices of Sweet Honey In The Rock celebrate self-love and Ella Baker, soulfully mourn the battered earth and Iraq through a pastiche of traditional African chants, children's songs, Negro spirituals and church hymns. Sign language interpreter Shirley Childress Saxton's whole body dances to the beat of the cymbals, cow bells and shekeres (a rattle-like gourd covered in netting with seeds attached). Below them, families frolic in the grass barefoot. A Brown girl and a White boy embrace on the front row. Inspired, a fretful child proclaims, "I don't like war!"

But soon the rain begins to mist over the crowd. "Listen more to the things than the people," the singers advise the audience in five-part harmony. Then their soaring voices mimic the sounds of natural "things" - hisses, chirps and gushes.

It's been 30 years now that Sweet Honey In The Rock has been weathering storms: They've seen childbirths, international tours and 22 women come and go. They've defended dissertations, conquered Broadway and survived a deadly lover. But since their 1973 inaugural performance at Howard University, one thing has been constant: Bernice Johnson Reagon.

But come year-end, Reagon is calling it quits as Sweet Honey In The Rock's founder, chief composer and arranger, and artistic director. "I need to move in my life at a different rhythm at this age," says Reagon, who turns 61 on Oct. 4. "I think we have to learn how to go on. If you know that dying is a part of living, if you pay attention to the seasons, you know that nothing stays the same."