The butterfly that emerges from the chrysalis, who has risen to fly above the world and can see the big global picture, and who has taken the time to rest among the flowers and can see the intricate, beautiful detail of everyday life—that is the conscious feminine. She has the wild wisdom of nature and Mother Earth that comes from flying above time and seeing aging and life for what they really are.
The feminine and masculine energetic aspects are the primary archetypes in women and in men, although the feminine is dominant in women and the masculine in men. Throughout human history, we have emphasized the masculine approach to the world, finding knowledge through science, focusing on the external world, to the point where we, and our Earth, have become imbalanced.
As we age, we feel this imbalance more acutely, and the conscious feminine begins to emerge, grabbing us by our vocal cords and saying, It’s time! Now! Time to get back into balance by embracing our intuition, our inner knowing, our commitment to focus on meaning and what really matters in our lives. The conscious feminine arises in many of us as the Crone.
The Crone is not the withered old woman, the hag that patriarchal society has portrayed her to be. She is older than those definitions. She reaches back in history to claim a lost female identity that views older women in a positive light.
Mythologically defined, she is the “wise one—the Crone,” the one who knows. She is personified in myth by Hecate, Medusa and Kali Ma, who carry the darker mysteries, and La Lobe, Kwan Yin and Sophia, representing the Mother of all. Whatever persona the Crone embodies, she is our midwife into life, death and rebirth mysteries. She is both the creatrix and destroyer of life.
This archetypal motif, which is showing up in dreams and art, is symbolic of the force that will turn the tide from destruction to re-construction of Mother Earth and the resurrection of our souls. Out of the chaos, new potential will rise from the ashes of what no longer works.
Wherever the Crone is called, she creates transformation amidst ambiguity and chaos. Crones are passionate change agents: innovators, activists, teachers, healers, visionaries and prophets.
Crones are also the ultimate Truth Tellers. They are authentic and transparent, in touch with the difference between fact and truth. You’ll know you’ve found a true Crone if she is completely present—totally being herself.
She is vulnerable yet she owns her power, and she values her own experience and knowing. Women who carry this archetypal energy will spend much of their time between two dimensions—inward on the psychic plane and outward in the world of everyday concerns. Their point of view is both/and, not either/or. Moving between time and timelessness, they live in the moment and have the wisdom to get ready for the future.
Cronehood is not limited by chronological age, but is rather a summation of feminine life experience. Cronehood is not limited by gender. Men who fully realize the sacred feminine within can also achieve the wisdom, presence and consciousness of the Crone.
The onset of midlife accelerates the emergence of this aspect of womanhood to awaken. Menopause may be the initiatory bridge into “Crone time.” But it is in our 60s and 70s that she turns up the heat.
Like puberty, before we got our periods and now as we leave midlife, we are again moving into uncharted territory. As young pubescent girls, the prize was becoming a highly desired woman. But the prize of becoming a wise woman has not yet been embraced.
In our 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, we have the ability to come into our fullness. Something’s shifting in the deep bedrock of our souls—it’s the Crone rising. This potent archetypal energy force will not come to all of us as we age, but those to whom she reveals herself are being asked to speak their truth like never before.
The Crones are the culmination of Greatness. They are the future of aging. Through the full expression of their passions, their presence, their truth, they will lead us all into a new consciousness.
