Embodying the Crone

The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone by Dawn Of the Shed

Last week I wrote a post for this blog. It was like pulling teeth, but I did it. There is an expression that I’m sure you’ve heard: If you don’t have anything nice to say….Well, I didn’t. Like, I couldn’t. And instead of writing something not nice, I wrote about not having anything nice to say. It ended up going in a bit of a circle. And I didn’t publish it. How could I? When so much of the rest of the world has seen such loss and is experiencing so much division? In the midst of political upheaval and a global pandemic that rages on while vaccine roll-outs of various designs strike both fear and hope in the public? I live in Aotearoa, where life is relatively ‘normal’ and buffered from the racially charged tumult of, well, the U.S. for one. My own complaints peaked with having been told a few weeks ago that I can’t paddle anymore. Like for the rest of my life. Oh, and aging. Something that surfaces at intervals as you near the half-century mark of your life quite naturally, I’m sure. Big deal. Long story short? Eventually I put on my big girl pants and hit delete.

I can’t say for sure why I felt like that last week, but I have been following the Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, and tracking my own rhythms alongside the shifting moon, and I have to say, I kind of blame the moon. It sounds pretty wacky, I’m sure, especially to the colonised mind, which has had its profound connection to the natural world and the mystical pretty much shamed out of it, but it’s true. The moon was (and still is) in its first quarter, Tamateo Āio, which according to the Maramataka is “a time to draw near and to uncover risk in your life.” We are meant to “be aware of things beneath the surface and use expertise to navigate difficult situations.” It’s an average energy moon, but it’s one that can make you feel kind of stuck (if you resist it). Mostly that is my M.O….to resist being still. Even now, at 49, I prefer to move and groove—not rest and be still. So yeah, I felt stuck.

Now I’ve been tracking my own rhythms and comparing them to those of the moon phases for almost a month—since the last full moon, Te Rākaunui (which is upon us once again and will happen in two days). At first I noticed that I felt very different from what the Maramataka suggested. So different that I consulted an app I still have on my phone which shows the moon phases in the northern hemisphere (just a couple of days off from ours). I was thinking maybe my body was still attuned to the northern hemisphere moon; I was born there and did live within the moon’s rhythms from that vantage point for most of my 49 years of life. But somewhere along the way, perhaps in efforting myself to connect with the moon from this new vantage point…seeking it out every night and often in the early mornings, reading about it and learning its impact on the tides and the rhythms of the people here in Aotearoa, I think I must have flipped. Like my personal compass just adjusted itself for this whenua. This beautiful land.

So on Tuesday of this week, the 23rd of February, I felt firmly situated within Ōtepoti, firmly rooted in Aotearoa, and under the spell of the moon as it is seen from the southern hemisphere. Marama, he is called. Man, is he powerful. Yeah, in New Zealand, the Moon is seen as male. In Māori lore we are told that Marama took to wife two daughters of Tangaroa, atua (god) of the sea, lakes, and rivers (and all the creatures that live within them). He is said to be the spouse of all women in the sense that he affects our bodies every month. So this week the Maramataka told me that on Friday things would get better. We would burst into one of the most productive days/nights of the year: Mawharu. According to the Maramataka, under this moon, “everything is available.” It is a time of abundance and sharing. A time to be generous and move without fear. So even though I was feeling so terrible on Tuesday…and then again on Wednesday…I thought, Well, maybe I am aligned with this moon. Maybe on Friday something will shake loose and open into the flow that I have felt with such clarity and in so much of the time since I’ve been here.

On Tuesday I forgot my phone. On Wednesday I forgot my lunch. On Thursday I got a huge parking ticket (at my job, no less). All week I felt low and ineffective. I trudged through my work and pretty much fielded conflicts all week long. On Thursday I missed calling my dad for his birthday. Because the week was so wonky, I had set an alarm to make my birthday post to him on Facebook. This I did on Wednesday night, knowing he would wake up to it. But somehow on Thursday I got mixed up about the time difference. At work I thought about my dad all day. I remember midday thinking about my mother’s birthday, only a month prior, and wondering why I hadn’t waited to call her when we were all home, so that my husband and son could also wish her a happy birthday and sing to her like we’d done almost every other year. Weird. But I would definitely do that for my dad tonight. When 7:30pm came and everyone was present, I realised, midway to rallying everybody, that he would of course be asleep by now. Right. Hence the solo call to my mom in the middle of the day on her birthday. It was seriously that kind of week. It’s not like the time difference between North America and New Zealand has changed in the last three months.

So I went to bed feeling bluer than ever. I sent my dad a pathetic little video message that I knew he would wake up to and in it a promise to call him upon waking myself. Since I moved here I haven’t gotten to talk to him much. He’s not much of a phone guy, and plus my mom is happy to talk with me and then pass on the juicy bits. But that still leaves me missing him terribly. I can’t help but think there’s also still some tension around my departure in the first place. I think my parents both hoped, when we moved to my hometown almost three years ago, that we were home to stay. Our announcement, coming up on one full year ago, that we would be leaving California to reunite with our younger son within a couple of months, came as quite a shock. So missing my window to call on my dad’s birthday was terrible. For so many reasons.

And then the moon shifted into Mawharu. This is seriously my favourite moon (based on this one day, I’ll admit). I set my alarm early, to call before work, but when I called, Dad was not there. “Your dad’s out golfing, hon,” said my mom. “He’ll probably be home any minute, but…” It felt for a moment like I’d missed him again, but I jumped in the shower and got ready for work and tried him one more time before leaving. When he answered, my dad was outside in the sunlight and hanging out under a bright yellow sunshade. He was smiling and happy and had just gotten home from golfing. He showed me a project he was working on in the yard, and we chatted without any tension at all. He told me about the many puzzles he’s done since lockdown and of his impending vaccination that will hopefully set a course for “normal” some time in the not-so-distant future. He wasn’t mad that I hadn’t called the day before. He seemed completely unfazed by it, in fact, and I felt a wash of warmth and what I can only describe as joy. It felt like more than one-moon-phase-worth of change, and I received it with profound gratitude.

That’s how Friday began. I got to work and there was a fairly grim email (cc’ed to everyone and their dog) waiting in my inbox. I took a deep breath and responded (to all those people) with grace and generosity and with an utter lack of ego (I find it just doesn’t serve me these days). Within moments, I’d received a reply that was equally generous; the fear and tension that had so driven the original email had been easily diffused. Two disasters averted. With a bit of a stutter start, my Friday was off and running. I softened into the beautiful harbour view on my way to and from work. I had an opportunity to appear as a guest author in my friend’s online classroom. I was able to speak with genuine inspiration and clarity and, best of all, hopefulness. Thank you, Mawharu Moon! And yes, I say that somewhat facetiously…of course I don’t relinquish my own autonomy, my power to steer my own course. But energetically, there’s something to it—connecting with the land and the sky and the elements. I’ve always known this, and here, in this whenua, surrounded by the tupuna (ancestors) of a mighty people who have survived in the same way my own colonised ancestors survived…there is power and grace in learning. In growing within what surrounds me and has, without equivocation, embraced me.

This morning, I find myself with some nice things to say. Plus just two weeks ago, on a new moon (Whiro), I wrote about embracing our brokenness and about Spirit and about hope, and I did publish that. I’m allowed to waver a bit, I suppose, but I think I won’t publish the lowest bits just now. I want to be “impeccable with [my] word,” as Don Miguel Ruiz instructs, and I want to accept the social responsibility of a writer as outlined by Albert Camus. I know that I can.

I’m not raising babies anymore, but I remember when my boys were little, I used to constantly remind myself that no new inclination/behaviour/habit is the new way of being with your baby. It’s just how they’re being right now…today, this week, or maybe even this month. But things change so quickly with babies. Just when you become totally exasperated by some particular thing (or even enamoured of it), it changes. For better or for worse, baby rearing is a state of flux.

I’ve decided I’m going to treat menopause like that. Like I’m a baby again. I can’t say for sure that I’m in menopause, but my fluctuating emotions, body temperature, and metabolism (not to mention my age) seem to suggest it. It’s a period of transition. From Mother to Crone. The same way I once transitioned from Maiden to Mother. That word ‘crone’ gets a bad wrap. It has somehow gotten reduced to mean ‘an ugly old woman, a hag.” But the Crone is an archetypal figure, a Wise Woman. There is immense beauty in this idea alone. It is an honour and an accomplishment to embody her. Being a Crone is hard earned, and it is powerful. The Crone carries all of the wisdom of her years, and her spirit is textured and coloured by the richness of her experience.

It hurt to become a Mother. Physically, my pregnancies were really difficult, and of course giving birth is a new variety and intensity of pain for most of us. And there were things we gave up. Activities, yes, but also things about ourselves. Ways of being. That hurt too, though we did it willingly and wouldn’t change it back for anything. There is likely to be pain in becoming a Crone, as well. That is the way of growing. It hurts. And the faster it happens, the more dramatic the change, the greater the pain. Transitioning from Mother to Crone is going to hurt. Let’s face it. But there doesn’t have to be so much resistance. There doesn’t have to be fear.

In my life I have always been ready for the next thing when it finally happened. Thinking far ahead it’s frightening. I remember wondering, as a young girl, how it would be to ever fall in love, truly in love, and get married. I wondered as a young wife how I would ever know how to be a mother. I wondered as a high school student how I would ever be ready to be a university student; as a university student I wondered how I would know how to be a teacher. I could go on and on. But the older I get, the less I have these wonderings. Because I have seen the pattern now. Somehow, some way, I have been ready for each of these new ventures, new phases of life, as they arrived.

As a girl, I remember thinking I never wanted to grow old. I thought it would be terrible to be, for example, prevented by the state of my own body from doing the active, extreme things I loved to do. And yet here I am at 49. I’m not happy about quitting paddling, but I can give it up without losing all of the things I love to do. I still surf and do yoga and swim. If my husband gets his way, I’ll soon be trying wing foiling too. I’m still me. And I begin to understand how I might one day be content with stillness. How one day, as I come to the twilight of my life, I might be content with the richness of my own thoughts and memories and by the youth and pulsing energy of all the other lives around me. I don’t feel afraid about that anymore either.

Just like having teeth is (from a baby’s perspective) no better or worse than not having them (how can that baby begin to imagine what will be opened to her by having teeth with which to enjoy it?), being a Crone doesn’t seem better or worse than being a Mother (though again, how can I imagine what will be opened to me in this new phase of life, not having tasted it in my Maiden- or Motherhood?). It is just different. New. And it hurts, like the cutting of those teeth. There are tears, and there is fussiness. Fluctuation. These are allowed. I will treat myself like a baby. I will be patient with my growing, and I will know that some phases will only last a week or even a day, like the phases of the moon. I will love myself up and ride out the less pleasant phases with patience. Sssshhhhhhh…

In the same way that I know the newborn is inside of the toddler, the toddler inside of the child, the child inside of the teenager, and so on, I know that I am still Maiden and Mother. Of course. Of course. I will always be a Mother especially. Maybe first and foremost. It’s just such an important thing. But as I embrace becoming a Crone, I will look to the loveliness of this new way of being in the world too. I have pictures and memories and even writings that chronicle this journey, those two younger and, perhaps in our society, more appreciated phases of life, but I will also embrace the now. I am moving, with grace and with the Moon pulling at my energy, with my partner at my side, into this loveliness. I will continue studying the Maramataka, learning the phases of the Moon and its influence on every living thing. And in gratitude, I will watch the Moon closely for a reflection of my Wise Woman self as she rises.

Crone in a Boat

Beaver Moon of November 2020

I remember being infinitely comforted by the idea, when I was a church-going 12 and 13-year old, that God will not give you more than you can handle. It’s scriptural. The verse is in I Corinthians, I believe (man, that’s going way back in my reading life)…and I think it talks specifically about “temptation,” which is a dubious concept at best. But still. As a youth memorizing bible verses at Awana to earn little patches like some acolytic girl scout, I remember thinking this was of some comfort.

Later in life, as a doula helping women to give birth, I provided similar comfort when I could assure them, unequivocally, that the moment during labor in which you believe you can’t go on, the one where you think you seriously cannot continue, is the one in which you don’t have to. That’s when it’s time to push. It’s uncanny. In an esoteric way, I think this felt like a spiritual truth to me—like some evidence of that biblical promise. I’m quite certain now that it’s simply evidence of the wisdom of the body, which is of itself a spiritual thing and as good evidence of the Divine as any I can see.

Pushing is, of course, its own variety of pain, but it’s the change you need at that point in your labor, and it means the baby is nearly in the world. Pushing means that the period of softening endlessly into the intense pain of the cervix dilating under the pressure of baby’s head and your contracting uterus is over. Now is the time to be active and to use your strength, rather than to continue passively enduring what feels, especially to a first time mother, like the highjacking of your body.

All of this also supports the idea that the way to go about facing a challenge, especially one that involves substantial pain, is to lean into it. What hurts the most in labour is the baby’s head pushing against the cervix—your uterus is doing this on purpose, to open a passageway from the womb to the air. It feels a bit counterintuitive not to resist pain, but the labouring mother who understands this knows to be that pain. To close her eyes, breathe, and lean into the thing that hurts the most, because it is the thing that is bringing her baby closer to her arms.

Why all this talk about limits? About pushing and trusting and enduring pain? Well, I have, rather unwittingly, joined a team of women who paddle surf canoes. It is with a surf/lifesaving club here in New Zealand. I have paddled canoe before…in Hawai’i. Waka ama it’s called here in Aotearoa. But this is different. It involves sprinting, just like regatta season on the long, six-paddler canoe with an ama (the outrigger part of the canoe that provides stability); only this is a double-hulled canoe, each side with only two seats, and we take off from the beach, vaulting into the boat and paddling our asses off through the breakers. We turn on a buoy, and we paddle in, trying to time it so that we ride a wave as far as we can (instead of getting smashed by it) and never, god forbid, letting our boat turn sideways to its propulsion.

This week, only my second week of paddling these boats, there was a large swell. One that made our 75-year old, hardcore lifesaving champion, triathlete coach Dave pause. Maybe he wouldn’t make us go out. The wind was howling, and the waves appeared to be building. This was on Tuesday. In the back of the boat, giving direction and in charge of steering, were two young women, Lily and Brooke, both teenagers. In the front were my new friend Pam and myself, both of us with adult children of our own. The entire time, I looked to Lily and Brooke for reassurance. And when I say “I looked,” I mean that I listened for their relaxed and happy chatter behind me, while I kept my head down and forward, just trying to keep breathing and paddling as hard as I could to Pam’s count. “One, two, three, four, five…” and so on.

We utterly exerted ourselves to get the boat out around a large rock and then continue to sprint toward the beach, swells lifting our canoe from behind and, if Lily timed it right, a good-sized one breaking, sending us skidding down its face. If Lily and Brooke weren’t afraid, I knew we would be okay. Just because I was terrified, it didn’t mean that we were actually in any danger, I reasoned. After our first go, which was pretty scary but successful, we waited on the beach while the younger crew of girls completed their circuit.

As they paddled toward the shore, their timing was a bit early and the canoe itself was turned slightly across the approaching wave, rather than aimed straight down it. Before we knew it, one hull jutted into the air and girls went flying as the boat capsized in the surf. The two men on the beach, both with rescue tubes trailing behind them, ran out into the water to help them, as they sputtered to the surface and tried not to get hit by the canoe being tossed around by the breaking waves. I just stood on the shore and watched with my mouth agape. I remembered thinking, “These people are hard core.”

The swell continued to build. Surely Dave would not send us out again. Dave took a moment to get the other girls sorted on the shore. Amelia’s foot had gotten stuck in the foot strap as the boat had flipped, and she was in a fair amount of pain, so her dad, the other guard, was checking that out. The next thing I knew, I heard shouting: “Okay, let’s go. Here’s a smooth!” It was to our crew that Dave was shouting. A smooth, it turns out, is a short window between sets of waves where it’s as safe as it’s going to get to paddle out. With only the faintest hesitation, Lily followed his command.

“Okay,” she said, let’s go.” We lifted the boat up on our forearms and started chugging toward the breaking waves. Pam and I exchanged nervous glances but did as we were instructed by our fearless young leader. Lily captains our boat with the certainty of an elder. She knows the sea and the equipment, and she doesn’t hesitate. Perhaps that is why I feel so safe with her steering and leading our little rig. As a lifelong surfer, I know that hesitating in the face of a big wave is the worst thing you can do. Never freeze! Lily never freezes. She seriously commands our craft, and she does it with confidence.

This time out the breakers were so hectic and large that we had to hide behind the large rock for a moment before continuing our trek, making our turn, and sprinting toward the shore. As the wave picked us up, Lily and Brooke took turns coaxing us, “Okay, pick it up,” one of them would say, and Pam’s counting would speed up. “Pick it up!” Their voices were a bight higher, more tense this time, and I’m pretty sure I heard someone say “Shit” and then “It’s okay,” which lit a fire under me even more. I didn’t feel I had much left, but I was propelled by fear, and I got somewhat of a second wind. As the boat lifted on the breaking wave, I heard Lily again.
“Lay back!” she shouted, so Pam and I leaned back, putting the blades of our paddles out into the water next to the boat on either side. “Lay right back!” Lily shouted again, her voice high and tight. We lay back, pretty much flat, our eyes squinting as whitewater surged up around us. We were screaming down the face of the wave, perfectly straight and with great speed. It was wild and fast and beyond exciting. The wash of emotion that came over me was of a variety I haven’t felt in many, many years.

“Waaaaahoooo!” I squealed as we began paddling again, very fast now upon our approach toward the sand. That squeal certainly had in it some gratitude for not being catapulted out of the boat as it buried its two bows into the water and went ass over end into the surf, but it was also celebratory…a wild exclamation of our victory. Over danger and over fear. It took all of our strength. All of our courage, and we had triumphed. Together. Waahoo indeed.

I think both girls and Pam were surprised when I swept them each into a hug and cheered us all on. I felt like a little girl, and they couldn’t help but laugh at my exhilaration. They too were thrilled and proud of us, but this wasn’t their first time at the rodeo. Plus, they probably had the wherewithal to wonder whether Dave was going to push our luck by sending us out a third time…he did not.

That was Tuesday. Let it suffice to say that Thursday was even bigger. The waves were actually breaking OVER the rock we could normally hide behind for protection if we needed it. On this day we practiced starts and while it was still terrifying, as we still moved (as quickly as humanly possible) through the danger zone, Dave didn’t make us paddle the normal distance, which was way too dangerous under such conditions. We did early turns and practiced our timing and riding in on the reforming waves. Afterwards, we carried the canoe up the beach, our legs wobbly from fear and also exertion, and someone mustered the one dollar coin it takes to have a warm shower instead of a cold one. We all enjoyed the fresh, hot water, chatting happily about our day, then piled on our warm, dry clothes, spilling out of the locker room and into our cars.

This week, as the Beaver Moon rose over the harbor, I reflected on my experience in that canoe. Just when I thought I couldn’t go any further, that I would expire or explode or languish in that boat, something shifted, and I found myself riding a wave with my teammates. Each time it was the same. One moment I was struggling to keep going, every muscle burning and my lungs heaving, and the next we were hurtling through space and water, digging our paddles into the sea to steady a careening boat. There was certainly fear, and a different kind of exertion as we lay back, tensing our feet against the foot straps and straining our cores to keep our seats, but there was also exuberance and joy.

I know I can handle this. I go back for more. This weekend I have my lifeguard refresher (my certification has expired—you have to be a certified lifeguard to compete—and yes, I have agreed to compete at this crazy sport). I have no idea how far I will have to swim tomorrow, or how fast, but I know I can do it. I am 49 years old, and I have been taking it easy for a long time. I have been yoga-ing it up, yes, but many years have passed since I pushed myself in this way. Since I asked my body to go its maximum distance. Since I faced fear and failure and even competition. I am no longer a Maiden, and Mother am I still but to men. I move with grace into my years as a Crone, and I do it without fear. This Crone is strong, and she is tenacious. Magic even.

I survey this business of my life. The ways in which I have challenged myself and continue to challenge myself. I have learned to lean into pain and to breathe through it. And I have learned to trust the rhythms that envelope me. I grow old. I grow in wisdom and in grace. ‘I’m a crone in a boat,’ I say. It gives me a giggle. ‘It is good,’ I think. ‘Very, very good.’