Saturday, June 2, 2007

Maiden Mother Crone


You know, I always thought Crone was such an ugly word. And I certainly never wanted to be one. But in truth it's a woman who's lived the length of her life. However, dictionary.com only has it as what comes to mind: ugly, old, wicked. When really it should be bountiful, knowledgeable, magnificent. So at 32, I'm not a crone. Neither are you by the way. With a 6 year old, you are hardly ready to transition to the letting go part of parenting.
You made me think on my own place in my family. My Mom was 46 when she died. So you are very close to her age. So I was about Christopher's age, in relation. I can't imagine dying that young. And it's changed the whole dynamic of my family and not just my immediate family. It's hard to go through life without a mom. She was someone that I could tell anything and she wouldn't judge. I feel like my brothers are lost without her. My Dad has completely moved on. It makes me sad that my kids don't know her.
Ok, I was going to be all deep but now I'm getting bummed out. I've decided to live forever.


2 comments:

Mary said...

That's an awesome picture. The idea of the crone as old and haggard, witchlike, is something that's been drummed into our heads by the ChristianWhiteMaleMajority. I mean, it totally permeates our culture. When they started deciding to bludgeon everything that wasn't THEM, the figure that the people had originally turned to for Guidance -- the Wise Woman -- was recast as a crone. So we're reclaiming the Crone as the true Wise Woman she has always been. There's nothing scary about it, really.

Mary said...

Oh! And that's one of the things that puts me in this wild juncture of my life. If one looks at the crone stage concretely, it is when the woman is no longer childbearing. But in the figurative history (?) the crone then becomes the creative energy that is available when that energy is not channeled into childrearing and its attendant demands.

So when I had the hyst, I technically entered menopause. It's hard for me to grasp.