The Crone

The Crone aspect of the Great Goddess is the least understood and most feared of the three aspects. She has been called the Terrible Mother, the Hag, the Dark Mother and the Wise One. Because She deals with death and the end of cycles, most tend to avoid this face of the Goddess. Black is her color, but sometimes also dark blue and the deepest of purples. Black is the absorber of all light, the color of darkness where all life rests before rebirth.

The Crone is winter, night, the abyss, menopause, advancement of age, wisdom, counsel, the gateway to death and reincarnation and the Initiator into the deepest of Mysteries and prophecies. The waning Moon is Her monthly time of power. The Crone's number is nine and multiplies of nine. This number symbolizes wisdom and sacred magick. Nine is also a Moon number, which means spiritual completion and wholeness. The Moon goes through its phases from New to Waxing to Full and back again to New.

In life, we go out from the Crone's recycling cauldron into existence, then eventually return again to Her waiting cauldron. Physical death is part of life's cycle of wholeness. The Crone aspect of the Goddess goes far beyond the recycling process. The Dark Mother is the ultimate Teacher of the very deepest of spiritual Mysteries. She teaches the wonders and possible dangers of trances. Her Mysteries  include the contracting of spirits. It is through Her that we learn to prophesy, seeing clearly backward and forward through time.

The Crone aspect is valuable when we need to end a cycle, a relationship, an on-going problem, or whatever. She closes one cycle so that the Maiden can open another. She is the Great recycler, pulling in all energy and matter that has reached the end of its time, breaking it down in Her cauldron so that the Maiden can create the matrix seed and the Mother can reform it and re-create. While the Maiden is the dispassionate guardian of balance, the Crone is the Sorrowing Mother who dispenses justice with both love and sadness. She knows the laws must be upheld, but that does not keep Her from feeling sorrow when the verdict appears harsh to us. Injustice and imbalance, in whatever forms, are anathema to Her. We may not understand or see the balancing of the life scales, but the Crone never rests until those scales are in balance.

The Dark Mother  never seeks us, we must seek Her. When we have finally reached the Divine Center and sit at the Mother's feet to receive knowledge, the Crone appears and beckons. By following Her on into the black void beyond the Mother, we learn that the labyrinth does not end at the center. Rather, it continues through the collective unconscious, winding past frightening primal images and out again on the other side. By continuing this journey under the guidance of the Crone, we find that the spiral that leads downward once more leads through and upwards.

The Crone is as important to the existence of the Great Goddess as are the Maiden and the Mother. Their aspects are so merged and intertwined that they can not truly be separated. One aspect leads automatically into another. The Great Goddess is each of these and all of them. The Crone is honored at the Pagan festivals of Samhain and Winter Solstice. The Winter Solstice is shared with the Maiden and Mother, for that festival is a special time of the Triple Goddess.

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