AUTHENTIC ADULT WOMAN

WHAT IS AN AUTHENTIC CRONE?

A couple of crusty old friends challenged my use of the word CRONE in connection with myself.  So while reading the usual demeaning definitions; ("a term of abuse, a beast, a hag, an ugly withered woman") --   

I was delghted to find this one:  "AN OLD EWE"! 

I rather like the idea of 'an old ewe'.  Look at this touching  picture of her here... plodding up the mountain!  She looks exhausted.  Her coat is in tatters.  Her old face is tender and resigned.

I love her. I often feel like she looks.  

I also admire her.  It is her nature to climb.  She's a mountain goat.  She keeps on doing what she's meant to do.  

Me too.

But the real reason I call myself a Crone isn't just because I'm withered and tattered.  It comes from Jungian analyst Marion Woodman in her book, Conscious Femininity.

"In the middle ages, the word Crone meant The Crown of Life.

..the Crone is the woman who has gone through her crossroads --The crossroads represents a place where consciousness is crossed by the unconscious -- a place where you have to surrender your ego will to a higher will. 

A Crone can be who she is and live with the straight, flat-out, naked truth.

She can afford to be honest.

She discerns what is authentic and what is not authentic."

The Crones I admire have real "presence".

 

They aren't into power.

            

            Like Marion Woodman, they can act as a tuning fork.  They ring a true tone that can bring people into an experience of their own essence.

            

            I've spent decades becoming an Adult Woman...one who speaks with her own authority, who is not dependent on others for her identity.  And those characteristics are surely the foundations of Cronehood.

            I've gone through many crossroads.  And I must (frequently) surrender my ego to a higher will.

                                                    So maybe I'm a novice Crone?

I'm not sure that my friends like it, but I feel freer now to express my own truth, and sometimes it's more blunt and less than 'pleasing'.

            A challenge now is to balance this new REALNESS with kindness -- while keeping my hard-won integrity.

 

                                          More and more I am what I am.  And that's OK.

This process of becoming a mature and conscious Crone isn't easy - and it surprises me daily.

_______________________________ 

        (Alas, I don't know the photographer so I can't give proper credit for this perfect picture.)

MARY OLIVER

I heard Mary Oliver read her poetry last night.  In person! What simple brilliance!

The auditorium is packed.  We wait, almost breathless. Then tiny frail white-haired Mary steps to the lecturn, and declaims and challenges - in her deep rich cigarette voice -

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with 

 your one wild and precious life?" 

Will you pause to see beauty? Do you honor and cherish all living things?

Can you remember to "let the soft animal of your body love what it loves?

 

And here are her Three Instructions for living a life:

 

    "PAY ATTENTION

     BE ASTONISHED

     TELL ABOUT IT"

 

In her poem, Messenger, these words say it all:

"My work is loving the world"