Thoughts on croning quilt for Jan

Jan has invited me to make a small quilt to celebrate her moving into the crone years of her already very full life – and her inner croning work of radical self-acceptance and living in the now. This is what she has mentioned in our brief conversations/emails about inclusions for the quilt. Motifs that have arisen for Jan are:

·      Transformation by fire (cauldron)

·      Underground river of Universal Consciousness

·      Deep love and wisdom of crones, so often seen as destruction/ugliness

·      Images of crones of past, as negative deities (hags)

·      Animal-headed goddesses

·      The raven

·      Breaking down for re-creation to occur

All Crone stages represent a death of some kind, and in our physical Crone time there are endings, closures and dissolutions, which we seek to see as positive, beginning to recognize the creative transformation of our energies into other forms. As Crones we also stay in touch with our inner child by exploring openly emerging consciousness of the young. Likewise, it is important that younger women validate and revere the Crone’s experience, wisdom and power.

The Wise One, or Cailleach to the Celts, was she who knows the secrets of the Universe. As the shape-shifting Hag she symbolises that part of ourselves that possesses deep knowledge, understanding and seasoning, helping us towards our inner light. She is a spiritual teacher and guide who has learned the value of being in creative solitude with self. She appears as the dark moon and lives in the unconscious where dreams begin.

In a short visit from Jan, we briefly looked at the Crones in the Daughters of the Moon Tarot cards. They are:

·      Ixchel – Eaglewoman, Mayan Goddess of the Moon, with eagles as its messengers. She cuts away stifling thought patterns and has the wisdom to do it with care and love learned from past struggles. This way she brings things to their natural closure.

·      Hecate – of the underworld, keeper of the sacred well fed by underground rivers and waterfalls; she is the oldest of the old, a midwife between death and rebirth, offering security in emotional knowledge gained through deep emotion and passion. She is a reflective spirit, and offers peace and tranquility by her waters for confronting and choosing alternatives to outworn ways of being in the world. She is also Goddess of the ‘trevia’ (see Shinoda Bolen).

·      Cerridwen – keeper of the cauldron containing the sea of souls; knowing all for who they really are, she is honest, trustworthy, and is a capable shape shifter (into many animals). She knows the secrets of fire, or energy in all its forms to promote change and growth with safety.

·      Passowee – Buffalowoman is a wise and practical planner, a herbal healer, who knows the ways of earth and growing plants, and of protecting young life while it grows.

Another lovely goddess image is Spiderwoman, the life weaver, who continually spins the substance and weaves the manifestation of the world a we know it, and as the Crone she cuts the thread of time. She resonates with the wheel of the year, the wheel of fortune and karma, coming to develop skills and a wisdom through which we develop a positive trust of life’s processes and celebrate the major landmarks in sacred ritual and creativity.

[1] Ffiona Morgan,1991, Daughters of the moon tarot. Daughters of the Moon: Forrestville, Ca