The Crone
When night falls She rises
When Moons light fades till no more Her face is seen
Waning year belomgs to Her
She is the Crone.
When you think of the word Crone what comes to your mind?
The Crone is the third aspect of the Goddess . Just as to the christians a trinity in the godhead so our Goddess is a trinity or triplivity. Maiden Mother Crone.
Crone defined in werbsters dictionar a older women a wise women.
The Crone has been through the excitement of life, the joy of play the passion of love, the pains of birth, the love of Mothering and nurturing, and now She is wise with the years of life behind and has much to offer and teach us.. She j has been called the old hag ...and very misunderstood over the years. Men have made demonic tried to get rid of her or just made her evil for the Crone is the dark Mother She is about endings death, transitions, major change, the shadow, mystery.She has been called by many names.
The Crone
by Lillith Silverhair
the Crone's Mysteries Most of Earth's population is oriented toward the masculine polarity biologically because the masculine polarity is what humans must have to enter into the proper relationship with Earth. As we dwell on the planet, we must have the opposite polarity to Earth. Earth is feminine polarity in matter. We dwell as mates to the Earth. Then, as we begin to mate with our own inner selves, with our own feminine polarity, we begin to create a doorway into the inner realms (the non-ordinary, nonphysical realms of reality) of higher consciousness. Once we polarize to the feminine, we can manifest the duality of both the male and female in our body, which allows us to merge and transcend - to join together in union with the sacred fire. Alchemy then occurs, and we evolve beyond these realms. The need of the planet now is for us to become aware of the ethics, values and knowledge that are contained within the feminine system. We will destroy ourselves if we do not become aware of these things, because the feminine system has two very important truths going for it. The first is that to become open to the feminine side of ourselves is to become open to non-ordinary reality. This means that we become open to spirit and are able to tune into, and to become aware of, the spirit in all things. The second truth is that until we realize and honor the first truth, we will always have war; we will always be assuming our right over another person's right to live. In the ancient mysteries, the Goddess represents the view that the source of all life - of all existence - begins in the feminine polarity of energy. This feminine polarity resides in all levels of existence, in all dimensions of reality - physical and non-physical. The initiation path which leads the soul to the doorsteps of the Goddess is called the "Path of the Veiled Mysteries." The unique distinction of this path always stresses the personal experience of the Initiate/witch, and her or his relationship to the feminine polarity. However, a re-education is needed - a modern understanding of the feminine including its function and its characteristics is required before the Initiate can proceed. In the language of the Goddess, participation in Her Mystery School means experiencing the "Feminine Initiation Procedures." These procedures are, in reality, developmental stages through which all human beings must pass. If you choose to experience these changes consciously, committing them in service to your own soul's evolution, then you are indeed on the initiation path of the Goddess. The voice of the Goddess calls out to many people. We must always strive for balance between the outer external life (male) and the consciousness-directed inner life (female). The inner life must be the ruler of the outer life. Traditionally and historically, according to most esoteric thought, it is good to polarize to the inner spiritual life, as the physical vehicle is nothing but a shell. Within the system of the feminine initiation procedures, there are specific paths, specific aspects of the Goddess, that allow a person to bring into balance the masculine and feminine parts of themselves. First we have the path of Gaia, Earth Mother which is the path of relating to the Earth and its growing seasons of caring for the Earth. We have the initiation path of Isis/Demeter which is concerned with the power of Birth-rebirth and includes karmic lessons of raising families, nursing, healing, shamanism, religion and all those cycles of growth and nurturing. We have the path of Aphrodite/Venus which symbolizes evolution through love, fire, union, or fusion into oneness. All aspects of love, intimacy and sexuality as well as love through service, charity and devotion are emphasized. We have the path of wisdom which is the path of the mind; This is the path of Athena. The task of this path is to change mind patterns and their effects on the world through the sciences, philosophy, politics, etc. There is the path of Hecate/Kali. This is the path of involution, destruction and darkness. It is about the sacred power to destroy and the mastery over death. This path encompasses anger, fire, explosions, and fusions of energy. This path emphasizes the ability to work on the negative parts of oneself: the dark-side. On this particular path, you will have intense lifetimes concentrating on the soul's journey into the underworld of the self and mastering the art of change through the death process or violence. We also have the Bodhisattva path (or vow) or the spiritual/mystical path. In this path many are becoming awakened. It is the path of unconditional love through service. The Goddesses Kuan Yin and Tara are its symbols; mercy and compassion are its practices. If you choose this path, ultimately you will use your enlightenment to serve the Earth and humanity. This is not a path you choose because of your ego. The reward is not escape from the wheel of rebirth by non-attachment, but rather enlightenment from an open heart. Before you choose this pathway; think very carefully. We need to surrender the self to spirituality - the energy that permeates all living things - to the Goddess. If we are having trouble with that, our spirit guides are around to help us. When we surrender to nonphysical reality, there is a mini death; certain parts of us physically and psychically die off. If we look, we find that part of the female population instinctively has had this inner surrender to spirit. The remaining female population still relates to the masculine polarity and its way of living. They are not able to balance the feminine/masculine duality within themselves and will manifest many problems. With the males, we find that most males are polarized to the masculine, with virtually no connection to the feminine. These men have difficulty acknowledging and expressing their inner emotional truths, which may come out in extreme behavior like rages, violence, and substance abuse. Male aggressive behavior in our current age is sanctioned in sports (area of combats) and economic competition. Prostate problems, heart attacks, strokes, and early death are diseases of the absence of the feminine energy in the male. The remaining male population who have a connection to their inner feminine are often alienated or ostracized for their emotional natures. Most of our poets, artists, actors, musicians and anyone who values the inner world over the material has difficulty with the current planetary male-centered power structure. These polarity problems are not recent phenomenon. They have been with humanity since the fall of Atlantis. Whether we are born into a male or female body, whether our internal polarization is masculine or feminine, both woman and men must connect to the feminine polarity within. They must find the Goddess within them. If born a female, it is not as hard connecting with the Goddess then born a male, naturally. When we decide we are going to travel the Goddess path, it is required that we open to the feminine within, the Goddess within us. The female polarity is the key to the inner realms as the male polarity is the key to the outer realms. The Goddess is the inner realm. The world must eventually return to the celebration of women bearing children and honoring the feminine creative process. In the story of human evolution, the female-male processes will be mastered by both sexes. This is the path to enlightenment and balance in all creation. Women have been struggling for a voice and power in the politics, religion and the economy. All these areas have to do with controlling flow. When women control the flow, everyone gets a piece of the action. For example, when a group of children walk in the door and there is a large cake, but more children than there is cake, the woman in charge will do everything in her power to make sure that everyone gets a piece of cake. The energy of the female is to get "the all" taken care of and nourished. This is something that men do not always understand. The energies of the male, the masculine, seek to be the only one. It seeks exclusiveness and dominance. This is not bad, it is just how masculine energy functions! It seeks oneness through conquering not sharing And so the feminine is the many while the masculine is the one. Masculine energy represents individuation at all levels of creation, and the feminine represents the oneness, synthesis, or union at all levels of creation. OPENING PHYSICALLY There is a certain degree of psychic phenomena that occurs when you start "Reawakening" to the path. You realize that everything is connected, everything flows in energy patterns. By meditating, you can create a corridor between the planes. That, of course, is the whole idea of meditating - connecting and attuning to the non-physical dimensions or inner planes as they are sometimes called. In many cases, when you start opening internally toward the self and connecting to your emotions and unconscious mind, you become sensitive to picking up messages from the unseen planes. You become more "Psychic", more aware, more attuned. Becoming aware of your own soul and living a soul-oriented life develops psychic capabilities as a natural side effect. We need to create a discipline of meditation and contemplation; creating space and time in our lives on a regular basis for contact with the soul which contains all the information about our past lives, karma, and the many levels of ourselves that are unrealized. Inside the soul is a spark of the divine, the part of us that is no different from Creator. How do we know if we are close to entering the path of the Goddess? What does the entrance to the path look like? Literally, it is an initiation phase, a phase within the development of the spirit or soul. When the priorities of the inner being want success rather than the outer life, you are on the path of the Goddess. In the past, it was religion that said the only way we can find self-worth is by attaching to God through church or dogma. While that is similar to "Living for spirit," on the Goddess path, we must find and experience our own spirit. When we do that, the world becomes beautiful. The entrance to the soul and the spirit is through the heart, through love, which is the Goddess. The very act of opening the heart creates a by-product vibration, love. It is released into the universe; that force of bonding, binding, fusion, and oneness. Love causes the act of filling in the spaces so that there is no loneliness or isolation, only connectedness. Love does not have to occur between two people. It can be love of a rock, tree, animal, child, human, or other sentient being. Sometimes this love is called "Compassion" and that is what the Goddess is love and compassion. The heart is a gateway; love, compassion, and understanding (wisdom) are the states of being that allow entrance into soul; by practicing love, compassion, and wisdom which is the Goddess, we keep that connection or passageway open. All knowledge of the Goddess path has but one goal in the end: if we can become compassionate, we can truly walk through the doorway of the heart and into the heart of enlightenment. To carry the key of compassion is to achieve the highest in human evolution. The first step to the Goddess path is to live a life dictated by physical needs and desires. The second step to the Goddess path is to focus in the emotional body. This is when you live your life purely from emotions, desire, fear and the primal emotions dominate. The third step to the Goddess path is when you follow the mind and the mind is broken - you experience the limitations of the mind. A dominating third chakra will not allow non-physical reality of intuition to exist. It may not even allow your feelings, your emotions, a right to exist! When you are totally polarized to the mind "I think, therefore I am" becomes a self-fulfilling behavior pattern that creates your life. Locked into the mind's tyranny, you are directed by the rational though of how things should be, not necessarily how they are. When you enter the initiation chamber of the heart, you will experience a radical shift in the way you process and evaluate your reality. The fourth step to the Goddess path is centered upon the opening of the heart chakra. Simply expressed, it is the ability to actively practice giving and receiving love. Unconditional love. Not only the love that you have for someone you know, but love and compassion for those you do not know. When the Goddess Kuan Yin died and was ready to cross over, she heard the cries of the world and decided to stay until the very last soul crosses over because She has unconditional love and compassion for all mankind. It is also related to the concept of "Self" love and the doorway to the love of the Divine. In opening the heart chakra you will experience a feminine initiation. The ability to receive love into the heart chakra is a feminine dynamic. It is the pathway for the connection to spirit. It is quite interesting that the relationship of the heart to the feminine polarity is thus: when we learn how to give and receive love, we are, in effect, learning how to be mothers. A mother must give her child life. She must give of herself for her child to live. She must also take in sustenance. She must receive that she may continue to give. When you are on the feminine path (where humanity's divine nature leads) you need to align the self to the opening of the heart chakra. When you are open in the heart, you automatically become a receiver of love as well as a giver of lover. The fifth step to the Goddess path is focused on putting enlightened consciousness back into physical reality (physical plane manifestation of the Earth). We take the wisdom that we have learned in the heart challenges and put it to work. When we have made significant contributions, then we are released from the "ring-pass-not", which is the actual boundary of the planetary biosphere (Earth's aura), which cannot be crossed until a soul has reached a certain evolutionary vibration. If this vibration is attained, we may pass through this plane and we no longer are compelled to reincarnate. If we have become enlightened like a Bodhisattva or a Buddha, we can go past "the-ring-pass-not" and not come back. In other words, released from human form and the "Wheel of Rebirth". The fifth step is focused on the throat chakra and the ability to create by sound - using voice, communication, speaking out, and the art of channeling. What is the fifth step? It is taking the compassion, the wisdom and the enlightenment from the first four chakras and directing this spirituality enlightened consciousness back onto the Earth plan, humanity, and all the lower kingdoms. We are feeding this energy back into the Earth to purify and make the Earth Goddess, Gaia, sacred again. When the fifth step is completed, you, the devas, angels and elementals meet and begin to work together. Until the fifth step, the human evolutionary track is separate. However, when a person completes the fifth step, they may work with all the worlds and their inhabitants. These "Worlds" are animal, vegetable, mineral, deva, elemental and angelic, as well as the etheric realms, astral, mental and Buddhistic planes. People of the fifth level are very powerful because they have the ability to manipulate their own deva and elemental space. This power is hard earned. Everyone and everything intersects at the fifth step. The sixth step is the opening of the third eye sometimes called sixth chakra. The third eye is often incorrectly described as the psychic center. In actuality, the third eye is concerned with how we function in time. It is also an electro-magnetic doorway between the realms of the higher nonphysical dimensions. If the third eye is functioning, people have the ability to connect into the past, present and future. This is the ability of the Crone. When we embrace the darkness within, we discover so much about ourselves. We discover how the universe works. When we have this key - how we create and recreate our lives - we are truly given a gift of power and a key to freedom. We can begin to go into our own darkness and embrace the shadow side, all the little negatives, all those horrible things about ourselves. We can embrace this and it will not kill us but regenerate us. We will find that the third eye becomes a trusted friend. It becomes a trusted doorway to any particular insight, memory or lifetime that we need to go to retrieve information. Lunar and Solar Essence When we say that something has a lunar essence to it, we are talking about its inner essence as the shadow side, as the side not seen by the physical senses. When we speak about something having a solar essence we are talking the power of the sun, which dominates the daylight. When we talk about the solar aspects of one's self, we are talking about that which loves the day, loves action, and loves the physical material world. The Sun also governs mental activity, too, because it takes a great amount of sunlight to fuel the mind. When we say that people's lunar aspects are in conflict with their solar aspects, we are saying that their outer activity or their outer priorities are in conflict with their unconscious or subconscious. They are in conflict with their higher plane self, with that which is not readily known or seen by the outer world. The Crone In the Goddess path, the goal is to remember who we are spiritually and psychologically in the world of spirit, not in the world of humanity. The feminine represents the truth within and the masculine represents the truth without. The masculine represents the truth for physical reality and the physical plane. The feminine represents what's true for the inner reality or nonphysical plane. There is a point where they both meet and the truth "as above so below" is revealed. It is the search for that point which is the secret of enlightenment. In the Goddess path people go inward to look for examples of the inner truth. They can take what they believe is the outer truth and compare, analyze. They learn how to recognize inner truth in the outer world. One does not gather the secrets of the universe to gather power, to become more powerful than one's neighbor, to get more money, more property. These things do not last long. But peace and love does. The kind of love that has an open heart and finds love in everything and goodness. An open heart is not foolish, it is not naive, it is not gullible. An open heart knows the darkness of the people one loves, because an open heart sees and feels everything. Another good ref about Crone and women mysteries is
Look in the witchcraft section. Lady Hecate has muck kn owldge andf experience as a High Priestess and She has been in the craft many many years. |
NAMES: Crone, Cerridwen (Celtic), Hecate or Hekate (Greek), Carravogue (Goddess of winter County Meath Ireland), M�rr�gan or Morrigu (Celtic), Nemglan (Irish battle goddess), Ala (Nigerian), Ama No Uzumi (Japanese), Asase Yaa (West African), Annis (Celtic, later turned into various evil fairies or ghosts such as Black Ann and others), Badb (Irish), Baubo (Greek). Baba Yaga (Russian), Tripura Bhairavi (Tantric), Cailleac Bhuer (Celtic), The Corrigan (from Cornwall to Breton, France), Elli (Nordic), Grandmother Spiderwoman (Native American), The Hyldermoder (Scandinavia), The Leanansidhe (Isle of Man), Oya (Yoruba), The Muireartach (Scottish Highlands), Changing Woman (Navaho), Ereshkigal (Sumerian), Estsanatlehi (Native American), Kalma (Finnish), Lara (Roman), Lilith (Hebrew), Macha (Irish), Mother Holle (German), Nicneven (Celtic), Sedna (Inuit), Xochi Quetzal (Aztec), The Wyrd, Nox or Nyx (Greek), Snow Queen (versions in Sweden & Japan), Queen of Shadows, Nightmare, Hag, the Wicked Witch.
SYMBOLS: (Depending on the culture) Caldron, Owl, Snow and or winter, Yew tree, Dogs, Darkness, Waning Moon, Dark Moon, Cat, Frog, Raven, Snake, Spider, Ghosts, Triquette, Triple Spiral, )O(
PERSONIFICATION OF (or) AREA OF CONTROL: Sacrifice, the Destroyer, the Huntress, Curses, the Underworld, Wisdom, Karma.
USUAL IMAGE: Depending on the time, culture and various aspects of the different goddesses in question, whither they are shown as kind or fierce, common or imperial, or are associated with other aspects such as night, winter, death or rebirth the different Crone Goddess are depicted very differently, however they are usually depicted as elderly women.
HOLY BOOKS: The Trimorphic Protennoia (Gnostic), Lilith's Fire by Deborah Grenn-Scott, Wicked: The Life & Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire.
HOLY DAYS: Dec 25, Feast of Frau Holle, on the night of which Mother Holle was said to fly around the world giving presents to the good, and punishing the wicked like a combination of Santa Claus and Batman. / January 6, when the good witch La Befana flies though the skys of Italy giving candy to good children and coal to bad ones. / August the 13th, November the 30th, and the 29th of each month are holidays for Hecate. / October 31, Halloween or Samhain which is associated with a number of Crone Goddesses. / The Kali Puja, a movable holiday which takes place on the same day as one of Hinduism's brightest holidays Diwali, the Festival of Light.
RELATIVES: (Sisters) Maiden and Mother Goddesses all as varied and diverse as their senior aspect the Crone Goddess / (Children) As she is the mother of many Mother and Father Goddesses and Gods, as well as any number of sacred sacrificial kings/sons, she is the ultimate Mother of all.
SYNODEITIES: See NAMES above.
DETAILS: If modern society has a hard time dealing with death, and it does, that's nothing compared with the fear, angst, and denial with which it regards old age.
From plastic surgery, up to and including the injection of toxic chemicals into our faces, to the Balkanization, if not outright exile of those over a certain age, to the rendering of people, mostly women, over 45 years of age to almost invisibility by the mass media, it is plain to see, if you have the vision to look at it, that we as a whole are not dealing with the natural progress of aging well.
This was not always the case, there was a time when those who had managed to survive a remarkably harsh world were regarded as someone who might actually have something important to contribute.
Mythically this was expressed by a goddess figure that, along with the Maiden, and the Mother, was the most powerful part of the first of all trinities. The Crone is found in India, among the Greeks, the Celts, as well as single a deity. .
The Crone goddess made sure that everyone remembered that while at the time they may have been alive and vital, winter was still inevitable, and all life would someday have to deal with old age and death. And as hard and ugly as death could be, it was possible to look it in the eye and not be afraid of it.
The Crone was too old to let deceit stand and from her karma, severe or benevolent, fell on those who had created it so they got just what they deserve.
She is the one who sees what needs to be destroyed and is without sentimentality seeing to it's destruction, in her older forms she was also the one who, as the huntress, knew that life could only come from death.
She was the Goddess who was beyond the giving or restraning of sex as a gift as the Maiden did, or sex as a way to bring about new life as the Mother did, she saw it as either something no longer needed, or as a way to teach a lession, or as simply a thing for pleasure and nothing else.
She was the goddess that became such minor deities as the many different fairies who appeared to men as a beautiful maidens who after a night of preternatural bliss, would in the morning, leave the man to find himself in the arms of the crone, where he, if unable to deal with this transformation was eaten, or if able to accept her, find her beautiful again.
The crone also turned up in the unusual Roman myth of Vertumnus and Pomona. Which, at least according to David Littlefield, shows the Roman mindset turning away from rape and/or servitude as the only forms of adult male and female relationships (for reference see any myth involving Zeus getting his rocks off) and moving toward something more healthy.
The myth, as related by Ovid, tells how Vertumnus, the shape-shifting god of seasonal change, plant growth and gardens, finds himself in love with the nymph Pomona who wants nothing to do with him and so seals herself up in her orchard refusing to even speak with him.
Vertumnus gains entrance to the orchard by changing himself into a crone and telling Pomona stories which, along with giving Ovid a reason to relate other myths, lets her warm to the person telling the tales and later to Vertumnus himself on his revealing his true form.
Whatever the case, the Crone, in whichever form she was imagined, was the sacred mythic avatar for women who could live their own lives without the need or approval of others, practically men.
Which explains why with the coming of the new male centered philosophies and mind-sets, the image of the Crone Goddess became darker and darker, until with the coming to supremacy of Judeo-Christian, she is kicked completely out of Heaven and left to make do as best she could in the dark recesses of the mind as the wicked witch.
Which brings us to the situation we find ourselve in now. These myths come from the same Collective Mind we run our our lives with, whether we acknowledge it or not, so for the mental health of society I strongly suggest we once again become comfortable with the various forms of the Crone Goddess.
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