Crone
Genesis
by Z
Budapest
Fifty-nine
is such a bore, I have decided I'll be sixty
years old twice.
In my
sixtieth year, I am in my first year of
Cronehood. Many women think that Cronehood is
somehow assumed because you "feel" like a Crone.
Or because you stopped the bloods, so now you
are a Crone, or even after having had a
hysterectomy you want to storm the bastion and
the majesty of Cronehood. But all in vain!
Croning is not up to you anymore than your birth
was. Because Croning is a star thing. A star
thing, or rather a planet thing because it's
ultimately a Saturn thing. Unless you have
completed 58 years, you are only prepping for
Cronehood.
Here in
Cronehood the air is thinner, the sparks are
more visible, and the dreams are deeper. In this
land of Cronehood my heart is at peace, my anger
is barely lurking. My curiosity is up, my energy
is manageable. I do miss sometimes the stormy
queen hood I had enjoyed, the tearful ups and
downs of love, the everlasting waiting for
things to move faster. But now I feel it's all
unfolding as it should. If I am careful and keep
holding the Lady's hand, I'll get another
destiny, a third wind, another passion, a higher
love.
The
bones do hurt more, the joints cry out for their
former selves, I swim and eat well, take Nettle
as my daily tea.
Life
still loves life through me. Life makes love to
life in me. The planet earth is awesome and I
treasure that I am here. But each birthday the
ghost of lost youth also comes by to
collect.
"Hmm…
this year I'll take the spring in your steps,"
she says," and I take your lips, leave you
thinner ones, give your arms and elbows a little
more pain as a reminder. Just one word to you,
floss, brush, and stop the sweets."
"Go
away!" I cry. And if you want to tell me how
wonderful it is to be old, how wonderful we
look, and how great we can be, well yes, you are
right, considering the alternatives.
When I
was just into my Queen hood, around 1975, the
Holy Book of Women's Mysteries was written with
my coven, the Susan B Anthony Coven Number One.
Into this body of work we have set down all the
passages of life, including Croning which to us
was still a distant ritual. It awes me to think
in the midst of our second destiny lives we made
time to dream up the future. And how powerful
those mornings have become, looking back; we
were eating breakfast, dipping fries, at Mama's
Cafe in Malibu and coming up with visions,
rituals, casting a long shadow into the future.
You'll never know when you make history.
The
first Croning performed was much later in 1978
for Maxine who was a good friend. It took place
at her apartment on Brooks in Venice and we
built the altar so big it covered most of her
living room. We used bells in those days,
ringing out each year she lived. When the ritual
was performed, our bodies were actually in the
sacred space, it was powerful and transforming
for those of us who looked ahead while she was
looking behind, appreciating.
Never
were older women so different from the way we
used to be old. Today, at the turn of the
millennium, we are blessed with the highest
number of older women Croning all at once. The
Baby Boomer generation which was a backlash to
the death toll of World War 2 is now coming
home, Croning. The world's consciousness is
changing in quantum leaps as well. It takes an
army of Crones to usher in the Age of Aquarius.
Ohh you
want to know about the historical background of
Croning. I am afraid to tell you, lest I burst
your bubble. No, there is no direct evidence of
any kind for ancient croning rituals. All I had
when I first started reclaiming it was that in a
culture where menstruation was a ritual, so must
be aging. In my country the older women are
dressed in black, with black babushkas on their
heads. When did they assume the colors of black?
It vibrates with the energy of Urdh, the Fate
Goddess of the past and beginnings. Black is the
primary sacred color of the universe. It
contains all colors. The total black outfit
served as a kind of uniform.
I have
never found out just when the older women first
appear in black. Was there a ritual as for the
married woman, whose heads get wrapped with a
babushka of many colors? No clue. But that isn't
bothering me as a priestess. I receive
revelatory information, I meditate over
something and answers come. So sometimes a
culture is so lost, yet so obviously in front of
us still alive. I have found many clues in folk
art, folk dresses, folk dances, folk poetry, and
songs. But nothing about Croning. I just created
it based on the patterns of other rituals for
which there was evidence.
There is
also a question, is the new Crone up to the
black? When I thought about these things and
reclaimed the Croning as a women's ritual, I was
more partial to purple. Purple is a power color,
it's synthesis, hence a wisdom color. I imagined
the Crones to be more in the realm of purple,
the amethyst, the garnet, the opal. A Crone ring
to be worn, as the black babushka once was worn.
I have rewritten what I knew from my culture,
and transformed it in a feminist context that is
appropriate to the USA. I doubt very much that
the Croning ritual would be so popular if I had
said we all had to dress in black babushkas and
black dresses, black shoes!
I had no
idea that Women's Spirituality would grow to the
large proportions it has. Nor could I imagine
back then how there would be one day a magazine
for Crones, and rituals of Cronings all over the
USA. This is the gift of time, when you realize
what seemed like a fun Sunday morning writing
the material, is now touching lives and
transforming gloom. I am truly grateful for this
.
Nowadays
I am receiving the gifts I have sent on their
way thirty years ago. Such was my own Croning,
performed at the International Goddess 2000
Festival in La Honda. The sacred circle was the
well of a Greek Theater called Gaia's Bowl. The
circle itself represented the fullness of life.
I had to circle from the east moving from point
to point, the childhood part of the circle, the
young woman part, the queen part, then the Crone
part. I walked around with a white wolf mask on
my head. Good thing, when I got to the end of
Verdandi (second destiny) I shivered and shook,
realizing how close I was to the end of life. I
just stopped and sobbed. I really felt saying
goodbye to my strength, goodbye to my wild
sexual self, to the queen that I was. Goodbye to
my bubbling energy and walked slowly into Crone
territory. I was never the same after that. I
threw into the fire sacrifices of cinnamon
sticks for good luck, because I have one more
destiny coming.
My
Mother did not have a Croning, but at the age I
am now, she called me home for her "coronation".
This was 1977 and she had built a "Pagan Temple"
which was shown at the Museum. Mother was a
Temple Raiser. Under the disguise of Art, mother
managed to create a worshipful space to the
SOURCE of life. Little girls in folk dresses
came to see her and in their eyes there was
respect and joy, they too wanted to be one day
artists like my mom. I had to leave the space
and cry in the corridors because I was so
moved.
The
temple featured a center piece, the Source, very
female, folk artist, intricate and sophisticated
circles interlocking with circles.(published in
the Holy Book of Women's Mysteries) It had Adam
and Eve projected out from her shoulders, as
themselves, no longer snow white like the rest
of the show, but standing apart as the only
works in flesh colored terra cotta. The visitors
stopped to pray at the Goddess statutes, some
left flowers behind. Some lit candles. The
Museum guards looked the other way. I ran out
again to cry for joy. I was so proud of my mom.
I could see how her work, raising the Goddess
temple, and my work, creating the rituals that
go into it, clearly were soul related.
Many
years have passed since. All our combined
efforts created a powerful Goddess Movement, and
from it the Crone movement. It all hangs
together like the webbing of life. We are all
creating, staffing our century. We are all
working for the Fates.
The
Crone goddess of course is every one of them,
since they are all trinities, and the third
aspect is always the Crone. But the most
impressive ones I love are Alecto, Tisiphone and
Mageara. I have written a whole play for them
(Rise of the Fates) and how they will save our
world. These three names were forbidden to be
uttered under the threat of death by the Greeks.
So you know they are the real names of the Weird
sisters, the Fates. Alecto begins the thread of
life, Tisisphone develops it, and Magera (whose
name means the abyss) cuts the threads when they
have done what they were spun for. The three are
actually one force, life.
You have
to see the three fates as Energy, Matter and
Meaning. All the female deities are emanations
of the Three Fates. All of the goddess thealogy
we have been developing come from this original
trinity. And it is this trinity that gives us
the new paradigm from the old duality. As soon
as you start thinking in trinities, you are
thinking holistically.
The
fates teach us that women are humanity. Men are
our sons (hence part of us). There is no
separation in the bigger picture. Together we
make up the human species, subject to star
influences, enduring astrological ages, the
winds of time.
As we
march into the future and the old world dies off
more and more, we will be the old world soon. We
will be the establishment. Oh horrors and oh
blessings!
Many
more women come into the beginning, closing up
the ranks. There hasn't been a generation gap
since the sixties. And there won't be any for a
long time.
We are
one block of herstory, one savvy chain of
generations, one strong and active generation
that is going to continue to change the world.
When we are done, being old will be fashionable,
stories and movies about old people will be
normal, and we will live a long time.
Don't
worry about the Goddess Movement getting watered
down when it goes mainstream, because this is
supposed to be a folk culture spirituality. Not
a close knit cult. Nor an organized religion. It
is supposed to build communities.
In fact
don't worry about any of it, just do your part,
little bites at the time. The Fates will fit it
all together smartly. They are good at
historical webbing. Blessed be!
This article was written with the questions
provided by Crone Connie Spittler of Crone
Videos.
Z
Budapest is the author of Summoning the Fates, a
women's guide to destiny.
She has
sparked and nourished the Goddess Movement since
1971 and created many of the rituals in use
today. Other books by her are Grandmother of
Time, Grandmother Moon, Goddess in
the Office, Goddess in the Bedroom.
You may order them all from Powell's
Independent Bookstore.
Z is
still organizing a biannual festival called
Goddess 2000 in La Honda, CA. June 8-11th Check
out for info http://www.zbudapest.com
Sacredspiral
http://www.sacredspiral.com
Pagan
Patterns and Designs
http://www.rowanpress.com
Z
Budapest - Women's Festival
http://www.sacredspiral.com/zbudapest/index.html
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