The Crone: Invitation and Initiation by Kay Turner

 

Art by Lauren Raine

The Invitation.

When she first arrived in my energy field I was terrified of Crone.  I felt her grip on my body and psyche as the breaking down began - hormones and mood spiralling me out of control and togetherness.  Her invitation was carried by Jaguar.  She waited in the shadows.  The envelope was jet black.  The writing was jagged and punctuated with ancient symbols, which I later deciphered from runes, and was penned in coagulated old blood and a Crow feather quill I believe.  She spoke to me in her obscurity, in a non-reactive and sovereign voice

“This is an invitation and initiation.  You can resist or engage.  You can stay and wither or you can journey and thrive.  You choose”.

Fear of the ‘lack of control’ meant I did resist for several years.  As I clung tightly to the old paradigms, ways and layers of Self, body symptoms intensified – hot sweats trying to process the internal rage and migraines – my splitting psyche unable to hold revelations and knowing and see the conditioning and programming it had been running on.  Mood instability was my whole being messaging  “YOU.  HAVE.  TO.  CHANGE.   EVERYTHING”.

And so eventually I said yes to her.  She gave me a hand along the way to the yield.  Pain.  Toxic relationships.  A divorce.  An exquisite new lover turned soul-full husband.  A serious accident.  She was insistent.  I caved in to be honest.  I was on my knees, completely collapsed, already withering at a rapid rate, frail.  It turns out saying yes to her invitation is the best decision I have ever made.  The breaking down was actually a breaking out - an escape route from falsity, repression and denial.  Acceptance was the key which opened the door onto a road of freedom.

The Initiation.

The invitation was handed to me when I turned 37 years old.  The initiation itself, also known as perimenopause, seems a lengthy process.  I’m still moving through the stages so I can’t speak to the outcome, finale or ‘end product’.  I do wonder if there actually is one or if Crone’s advancing and closing in is an ongoing undoing of that which is not the truth of Self and of Soul and a taking of the place of ‘elder’ and all that means and represents in its fullest and most exalted expression in society.

What I can share is that the most profound and unexpected aspect of the initiation so far has been the igniting of Sacred Rage.  Righteous, Holy, Rage.  Tapping into this copious lifeforce and allowing it to literally rip through every area of my life, catalysed the onset of the restoration of my boundaries and all aspects of my health.  Pure Sacred Rage is savage, indiscriminate and ferocious.  It is the primordial current of Gaia which I’ve discovered is alive within me.  It is not anger.  Anger is tempered in comparison and can be channelled, consciously deployed, in many ways.  Sacred Rage is untamed and wild.  It has one purpose – to obliterate – injustice, untruth, inauthenticity.

As I write this, I can feel this frequency simmering, pulsating and coursing through my blood.  I feel the Earth’s annihilating energies and their manifestations – the tsunami, the volcano – and I feel powerful.  Crone has gifted me the ability to destroy.  I track it moving though me in every hot flush, which are less frequent now I have plugged into this force.  When rage floods my system I pay attention to where I am, the situation and my thoughts, and notice what I need to address, face and change.  A devastating demolition is detonated and as I sit in the aftermath - the tatters and ruins – I rest and reflect and wait for the next blitz.

The Crone initiation is not graceful, picturesque or a state of easeful flow.  It is not a ‘tidy’ cyclical experience of letting go gently, making space, planting new seeds and watching them flourish and grow.  The initiation is brutal, relentless and thorny.  It is barren, barbed and brazen.  Crippling anxiety, the darkest depression, social avoidance, are all part of Crone’s training, as she asks time and time again – will you stay the course?  She is a no-nonsense mentor, offering tough-love and truth telling.  She promises nothing – other than integrity and authenticity.  There is no celebration or collaboration and camaraderie in this initiation.  It is a solitary path.

An excerpt from our upcoming anthology, The Crone Initiation and Invitation. Women speak on the Menopause Journey.

Kay Turner is a teacher, facilitator, researcher and writer who visions collective evolution. She catalyses individual, collective and institutional evolution through education, embodiment and creativity, and the amalgamation of metacognition, intuition and instinct.

Kay has contributed to the Girl God Anthologies Warrior Queen: Answering the Call of the Morrigan and In Defiance of Oppression - The Legacy of Boudicca. Kay will also feature in other upcoming Girl God Anthologies Just as I am - Hymns Affirming the Divine Feminine and Songs of Solstice - Goddess Carols. Currently she is co-editing the upcoming Girl God Anthologies: Re-Membering with Goddess: Healing the Patriarchal Perpetuation of Trauma, The Crone Initiation and Invitation: Women speak on the Menopause Journey, Rainbow Goddess - Celebrating Neurodiversity and Pain Perspectives: Finding Meaning in the Fire. In addition, Kay is writing her own books: Mentorship of Goddess: Growing Sacred Womanhood and Making Love with the Divine: Sacred, Ecstatic, Erotic Experiences.