This is the witching time of year, the season of the Crone!
In ancient times, the Goddess as Crone or ‘Queen of Witches’ ruled the autumn harvest festivals. Hekat in Egypt, Hecate in Greece, Latin Proserpina, Semitic Lilith with her sacred totem the owl, Celtic Cailleach, Welsh Cerridwen – these are just a few of the many manifestations of the Crone Goddess.
The words we use
It is interesting that many of the words we apply to Crones have been twisted from their original meanings to represent something vile, ugly or evil. Hag derives from the Greek ‘hagia’, meaning ‘holy one’. There is little agreement as to the derivation of witch, but suggestions include the ancient Indo-European word ‘weik’, which connects to religion and magic; the Anglo-Saxon witega, a prophet or seer; a relationship to wit, or wisdom; a root meaning ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’. Some people believe that the word Crone is rooted in the meaning ‘crowned one’, though standard etymology still has it as a Middle English term of abuse.
Halloween and Samhain
Halloween has its roots in these ancient traditions, particularly Samhain (pronounced SOW-en) Samhain is the most important of the Celtic festivals, the end of one year and start of the next.
It is a day on which to remember, to commune with and honour the dead. At the same time it was a celebration of the eternal cycle of rebirth.
It is a time of endings, of coming to terms with the many small deaths, the losses that are part of every life. But it is also a time of beginning, of transition and change. It is a time to go within, a time to come to know yourself, to celebrate the growth you have realized over this last cycle and release all that was in preparation for what will be.
Samhain night exists outside time and between worlds, deeply rooted in mystery and enchantment.
Crone nature
As an archetype, the Crone assists us in transition from one life to the next, leaving one level of our existence and entering the next, hence her association with Samhain.
I find this illuminating as to the nature of the Crone. For me it creates a sense of her as a midwife of the soul. She teaches us that sometimes we must let go if we are to move on.
Looking back at the my visual exploration of the crone in 2010, I love the idea of the season of the Crone as a time to harvest experience and to become a way-shower.
In her article The Ancient Crone, Anya Silverman describes the Crone as
an older woman who has learned to walk in her own truth, in her own way, having gained her strength by acknowledging the power and wisdom of the totality of her experience. She is “a wise old woman’.
A Crone is a woman burnished bright by an inner fire that sharpens both her wit and her intensity, her passion and her power.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, in her wonderful book Crones Don’t Whine, notes that ‘to be a crone is about inner development, not outer appearance’. She writes of the Crone as a potential,
much like an inherent talent, that needs to be recognized and practiced in order to develop. This wise presence in your psyche will grow, once you trust that there is a crone within and begin to listen. Then in the quiet of your own mind, pay attention to her perceptions and intuitions and act upon them. Crone qualities are the distinguishing features by which a crone (as a woman or an archetype) can be known.
Crone qualities
As I embrace my own season of the Crone, I have been exploring and considering what Crone qualities I would wish to make manifest in my life. These include
- earned wisdom
- compassion without the illusion and sentiment of youth
- non-judgement
- inner beauty
- confidence
- honesty
- authenticity
- self-knowledge balanced with self-compassion
- humour
- courage
Jean Shinoda Bolen’s list has an earthy practicality that offers some useful guidance. She says Crones
- don’t whine and don’t indulge their whining inner child;
- are juicy – and what makes life juicy is being deeply involved in life;
- have green thumbs – they nurture growth, weed well, prune and build strong boundaries;
- trust what they know in their bones – they transform their bad experiences into wisdom and embrace mystery;
- meditate in their fashion, developing heartfulness and nurturing inner life;
- are fierce about what matters to them – a crone is a woman who has found her voice;
- choose the path with heart, understanding that choosing one path means giving up another;
- speak the truth with compassion, increasingly knowing when to speak and what to say;
- listen to their bodies, responding to their needs and hearing the underlying messages between the emotional and physical body;
- improvise, adapting to change;
- don’t grovel – for approval, love, acceptance;
- laugh together, the deep belly laughs that come from a well of feeling;
- savor the good in their lives, knowing how fortunate they are still to be alive.
Embracing the role of modern Crone
In an awesome blog post, The Rise of the Modern Crone, Diana Frajman suggests that
It takes a woman with an understanding of two of the most basic of human needs to evolve into a modern Crone. Those needs are connection and community.
She suggests that it is only with an understanding of connection that wisdom can have an impact and goes on to define the role of modern Crone:
. . . This is an amazing time to embrace your inner Crone. More than ever the world needs the comfort and certainty that wisdom and experience from a life well lived can give. The voice of expertise and mastery combined with the sageness of maturity and wisdom assures us that there is hope. We need these enlightened guides to bring us safely into the future. That is the role of the new modern Crone.
What a challenge!
Meditating today, I remembered the sense of metamorphosis as I emerged from the stage of maiden to mother. I had a vivid image of pouring all the learning, the experiences, the insights from my life into a great cauldron set amongst the flames and brewing an elixir of transfiguration. I was aware of the Crone as the most powerful embodiment of the feminine, freed from earlier responsibilities and constraints, connected to mystery and a kind of primal wildness.
I am excited to embrace the season of the Crone, to discover in myself its potential and consciously to recognize and practice those ways of being that manifest it most fully.