Embracing My Crone | Celebrating My Self
I found out last year I am a Crone! Which makes life make so much sense, now that I know. And makes me so joyful, because finding aspects of our Self is always a beautiful and wonderful thing.
I know what you’re thinking.
Yay, Joy! And also—WTF is a Crone?
In narrative archetypes across varying cultures[1], the Crone is often portrayed as a wise old woman, widowed or never married. She often has mystical wisdom powers; is sometimes cast as a witch; and appears in the story either to aid the sojourner on their way, or to punish them for cosmic misdeeds.
She “appears” because she’s generally not a part of society; there is often the suggestion that this is either because of her exclusion because she does not fit in with the dynamics of the society, or her own distancing from the dynamics of society. But folks seek her out for knowledge and wisdom when they face the real obstacles of life—which are often beyond the imagination and abilities of typical society.
There’s a lot that’s projected onto the concept of Crone given different cultures, experiences, and prejudices against women.
Here’s what archetypes get generally correct about the Crone:
Crones are what many societies would consider witches. Because as The Babysitter’s Club Season 1 reminds us, “witch” is how societies have historically referred to (mostly women) "who refuse to conform to society's expectations of who they should be." And as Thor reminds us, “magic” is a word human beings use for what we don’t understand. So—yeah.
A Crone is not necessarily casting actual spells[2], but both evokes personal and communal transformational energy from within herself, and inspires one another to grow and transform. Crones invite and even compel us to beyond the conformity (witch!) to places we don’t understand (magic!).
The label of “witch” is more about society projecting its fears and refusals to grow and change onto persons such as Crones, more than anything that Crones may or may not be doing beyond simply existing. I know we are all shocked by this. Taken aback. Mouths shut wide open.
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A Crone may live a more isolated than typical existence. This doesn’t necessarily mean a house in the woods, but that that “witch” may also be called a bitch for not being as “giving” of her time and energy as society insists women should.
So it might be the woman who doesn’t have people over to her home because you can’t come here—and that’s considered rude when she’s supposed to be a perfect hostess.
It might be the woman who decides to be an auntie to children in her family and community rather than raise children of her own—because she loves children and her peace.
It may be the cisheterosexual woman who isn’t partnered or married because she loves men as human beings, and loves her peace and her people more than the nonsense women are often offered in exchange for our entire lives in cisheterosexual relationships.
It may be a woman who is married to a man and raises her own children and hosts you in her home, and also has deep and clear, if gracious and loving, boundaries about who may enter in. If you’re not invited in and a meeting is necessary, she will come to you. And then she will depart.
In all these instances, her boundaries are deep, clear, gracious, and loving—even when people don’t like and try to disrespect them. She will simply reassert them, and kindly escort you to the door of her home or life if you continue to be confused or disrespectful.
Her people will protect that space and its boundaries on her behalf. Because her people are people who share mutual respect and support for wholeness and boundaries. They are not protecting her specifically or solely; at her inspiration and modeling, they are protecting their co-created space and covenant of love, peace, and justice—which she facilitates and holds as a living, breathing, and continually emerging community covenant.
Here’s why Crones are like this: Mindfulness of energy as a force that shapes all our lives and wellness makes Crones rightfully selective about the people with whom we share space, and the spaces into which we enter. Crones tend to give personal time and energy only into spaces that mutually desire to share energy and co-create. We’re not fooling with anything lesser.
We likely blessed you and then separated from you not because “something is wrong with you,” but because we recognize and honor that our energies don’t align well. It’s not necessarily you—it’s us together. By the time something is “wrong,” we would have ignored a lot of signals that we should not have been there in the first place, or should have exited sooner.
Crones live out of our genuine wisdom and intention for healthy interconnection—for us and for one another—not out of false, polite, and often energy- and life-draining mores of larger culture. For Crones, the primary question is not about whether a space is nasty, but whether the space is nurturing. If it’s not lifegiving, why would we invite it? If it’s not lifegiving, why would we stay? No really—why?
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Crones are wise truth-tellers. Well, yes. Because Crones tend to believe in Love, justice, liberation, peace, and so forth. Belief is something that is practiced and lived, not just felt or talked about. Strong, healthy practice means cultivating and living from wisdom in order to actually fulfill what we believe.
So Crones focus on developing wisdom so that we can live all of these beautiful, badass things in which we believe—so that we share and co-create powerfully loving community. Wisdom doesn’t belong to Crones—we belong with Wisdom.
This also means that we are called to see and live beyond the boxes in which society claims life must be lived, towards who and how we know we can be in wholeness and thriving—in ourselves and with one another. And we're going to go ahead and live it even as we are repeatedly told it's not possible. Vision, hope, and wisdom tell us what’s possible, not society. Crones are a living possibility of the so-called impossible.
My favorite thing about Embracing My Crone is learning that we live lives not of bypass, but of living beyond and above, in which we focus on justice as aspects of Love and Mutuality. Crones do not give injustice more energy than what it deserves, which in fact feeds it. Crones eschew the life-draining fallacy that it’s our responsibility—or within our capability—to solve all of the world’s problems. We ground with particular communities, and pursue justice within and for them. We do the work we can do in focused and meaningful ways.
Crones view justice as an innate aspect of healthy community, and so also responding in healing and transformative ways where justice is absent. This includes first and always within our own Selves. And so Crones cultivate and remain in peace not as a destination or retreat from life, but as an ongoing integrated awareness of when and how we can continue building, and when we need to be bothered and respond with healing injustice. Whether building, bothered, or both—Crones handle business.
The number one thing Crones do is Love. So we don’t do nonsense. We are called to engage living and healing presences, because health and just alignment are innate desires of Love. Crones ground in Love, which requires truth-telling, continual dreaming and vision for renewal, and emergent lives of:
Drinking our water and advocating for the wellness of the water (and so the well-being of all Creation). These are mutual, interrelated necessities and respects for life;
Nurturing and nourishing Our Selves, as opposed to performing recovery tactics as “self-care”;
Addressing unhealthy and harmful energies and practices in our Selves and in one another. In personal relationships and in society;[3]
All towards minding our business of building our bomb ass lives.
And we support, nurture, and invite one another in doing the same.
All of this is important, and in ways, this last part is critical because it’s in many ways our purpose. Crones, isolated as we at times may seem, believe in genuinely beloved community above all else. Interconnectedness and solidarity are sacred for Crones. Even if we don’t have a specific life or work in another part of the community, Crones recognize the inherent interdependence and co-existence of all our beings and communities. Our part is not the whole—we are part with a greater whole.
Who we are and how we live has impact beyond our immediate lives and spaces—for better and for worse. So interconnectedness means far more than my being well and wishing one another light and love. It means my being well and being the light and love to and with one another. Which includes advocating for justice for one another. Which includes being mindful and accountable for the ways that we may be living our lives is outside of Love and Justice, and are contributing to harm and injustice in others’ lives.
Crones believe—live—that well-being is nurtured and grounded within our Selves so that we can live and nurture it beyond our own Selves.[4] Crones know that another world is on the way[5]—it’s coming through each of us who lives it. And when we embrace our Crone, we refuse to settle in or for the trash at present, no matter how gilded the platter upon which we may have it served to us personally.
The Crone is aspect of the divine feminine force—“feminine” being an energy that can be inhabited by any body—which continually calls us beyond the glamours and masking of the dominating and oppressive forces at all levels of relationship and society. We live beyond the pitifully false towards our sensually whole, genuine, and real. Not so much the historically hysterical and deluded understanding of “magic.” The “magic” is just…Being Real. Honest. Genuine. And Loving.
Crones in fact most desire God’s cosmic design for Love, truth, and thriving. Crones help make visible and real the possibilities, beauty, and grounding for our transforming with the nurturing and thriving origins of who we are created to be. And the present world, which can’t exist in the really real—because it’s false—really, really doesn’t like that.
*drinks water and continues on towards the origins of my Being regardless, because I’m not responsible for nor interested in maintaining lies*
Crones don’t go out of our way to fight injustice. As a matter of living lives of co-creating Love, Peace, and Justice, we address, remove, and transform injustice when it’s a barrier on our journey in Love, wholeness, and thriving.[6]
The beauty of Crones—and our beautiful invitation to present societies—is that the very ways we live and exist demonstrate to folks who feel forced into unhealthy and unjust mentalities, behaviors, and practices that we don’t have to live with nor under these energies. This in fact is terrifying not just for the folks who intentionally use unhealthy energies, but also for the folks who have been playing along with those energies because they insist “there is no other way.[7]” It’s hard to admit that we’ve participated with injustice because we’ve been—agreed to be!—bamboozled at times.
So I am confessing here: I have also been—agreed to be!—bamboozled.[8] (That's what the next two pieces in this series are about, lol.) I have a sneaking suspicion that that’s not just me. Largely because it’s many of us. And—on this site, I stay on me, and unless and until invited to focus on you, invite and encourage you to consider you.
It's never too late to recover Our Selves, and to begin and learn to live more fully. The greatest tragedy and self-injustice is to never say “Yes” to our own life.
As for me and my house—Crone sounds awesome, and I’m looking forward to learning, loving, and celebrating myself in these ways in life to come.
Some famous women who manifest energetically as Crones in their public life:[9]
Mother Earth/Gaea
Medusa
Marsha P. Johnson
Megan Fox
Meghan Markle
Emma Watson
Fannie Lou Hamer
Eartha Kitt
Tina Knowles
Solange Knowles
Sylvia Rivera
India.Arie
Shirley Chisholm
Haunani-Kay Trask
Janet Mock
adrienne maree brown
Amy Tan
Audre Lorde
Arundhati Roy
bell hooks
Octavia Butler
Elizabeth Warren
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Olympia Snowe
Mary J. Blige
To the Crones before, the Crones beside, the Crones yet to come, and those who meet us in the meadows and margins to co-create greater communities and worlds in Love, Justice, and Peace, thanks for being Cool People together in this way:
Thought I'd never know, love like this before
I let go then I run and we run with the rivers
You helped me fly
You give me life
[1] Archetypes are the common characters, motives, behaviors, and consequences/outcomes that we find in stories over human history.
[2] At least not to be a Crone, although she may be a Crone who also casts actual spells.
[3] The need to address unhealthy and harmful energies and practices—in ourselves and in one another—is unfortunately common in our society, so Crones are often involved in works of relational and or societal justice. And we understand that this work is not life itself. We do this because these are necessary healing acts towards our living greater life.
[4] I feel like many womanists and mujeristas are innately Crones. But there’s a lot of folks labeling themselves things that they maybe are not, so it’s clouding the field…
[5] Thank you, Auntie Arundhati <3
[6] This is personified in the Okoye of the Marvel movies and tv shows, who we first meet in her firm, “Move, or be moved,” to Black Widow. That firmness is affirmation of her alignment with justice. Which is also why she firmly and compassionately informs Bucky—after detaching his arm because he picked the wrong fight—to take a beat before he swings by Wakanda again. Okoye’s energy is, “I love you. And you know good and well you done fucked up today. So do the right thing, and don’t hit us up for a bit, because #HealingSpace.”
[7] Like folks who may insist/have insisted that the only way to “secure the bag” is to accept less than what we’re worth…only to have someone else demonstrate that if we are patient, wise, and strategic, there are other ways. And—the folks who demonstrate that securing the bag often isn’t a healthy or healing focus point, and is often itself a distraction of injustice.
[8] It's also what the last Matrix is about, lol.
[9] I assume that men-identifying and gender nonconforming persons can be Crones. And this is a reflection about my specific experience as a woman recognizing my identity as Crone, and learning to understand that through the various experiences of woman-embodied Crones in my world around me.