My goddess for the crone:
Baba Yaga
Origin: Slavic
Influences: the harvest, life cycles, fate, death,
AKA: Jadwiga – (Jaga/Jagusia/Jadzia)
Symbols: corn sheaf, broom, mortar and pestle
This goddess is birthed in the myths and legends found in fairytales. She lives in the forest, on ground that borders life and death. Baba Yaga is a wild woman and a goddess with an unpredictable nature. It’s said that if you come upon her in the woods, she will either eat you, give you advice, or put you to work. (Let’s hope you meet her on a good day.)
Baba Yaga doesn’t fit in with mundane society and what the majority would consider the norm. She presses the envelope, shall we say. This goddess is the ultimate individualist, birthed from the dark side of the crone. This old hag is often depicted flying through the night sky in a mortar, using the pestle to steer her ship.
Origin: Welsh
Influences: transformation, rebirth, inspiration, regeneration, death, knowledge, shapeshifting
Symbols: the cauldron
As in so many of the goddesses of transformation, their ability and their myths are linked to the changing of the seasons and the natural cycle of birth and death that goes with the Earth’s natural occurrences.
Cerridwen most often comes to us at times in our life when we are facing a huge transformation and challenging changes. Most often, when something new is coming on the horizon, something old must die to make room for it. This sounds so ominous and scary, but most of the time, when you really think about it and all the upheavals and changes in your own life, the “death” of something almost always comes naturally, whether this be a relationship, a career, a lifestyle, etc. Most often, in my own life when this has happened, it feels like, “Oh ya’, it was about time.”
Cerridwen and her magical Cauldron of Transformation contains the energy needed to plant seeds of inspiration that allows us to fearlessly pursue change and chase our goals.
How to experience the crone:
- Mentor a younger woman…
I’ve never mentored anyone, at least not in the intentional a kindly-hand-on-the-shoulder and a deep look in the eyes way with the words, “I am going to mentor you.” I’ve received emails over the years from people who felt as though I mentored them through my websites, blogs, and books, but I don’t know if that counts.
However, this section has made me think of all the ways other people have mentored me over the years, and I can probably assume that some of them had no idea of the impact they were making, the “mentoring” they were doing.
My sixth grade teacher, Iva Harrington… such a gorgeous middle-aged lady, full figured, beautifully groomed daily with her 1960s beads and matching earrings, her red lipstick, silk stockings, and dainty feet. She couldn’t have children of her own, so she adopted two daughters.
She was a “nurturer”, and she was drawn to children, especially children who might have a different road in life than others, and one of those children was me. It’s not a huge thing, my “difference”, from the other children, just that my teen-age parents chose not to raise me, so it was my paternal grandmother who did. The other children would refer to “Mom” when talking about their home life; I referred to “Grandma”. They were puzzled.
Of course, in the conventional world of the 1960s (the hippie flower child energy hadn’t reached South Dakota yet), I was “different”, and the kids in class were keenly aware of it.
Mrs. Harrington took extra time and attention to make sure I didn’t always feel different. I adored her. She mentored me, yes, she did, in whatever sense you want to view this word.
However, this section has made me think of all the ways other people have mentored me over the years, and I can probably assume that some of them had no idea of the impact they were making, the “mentoring” they were doing.
My sixth grade teacher, Iva Harrington… such a gorgeous middle-aged lady, full figured, beautifully groomed daily with her 1960s beads and matching earrings, her red lipstick, silk stockings, and dainty feet. She couldn’t have children of her own, so she adopted two daughters.
She was a “nurturer”, and she was drawn to children, especially children who might have a different road in life than others, and one of those children was me. It’s not a huge thing, my “difference”, from the other children, just that my teen-age parents chose not to raise me, so it was my paternal grandmother who did. The other children would refer to “Mom” when talking about their home life; I referred to “Grandma”. They were puzzled.
Of course, in the conventional world of the 1960s (the hippie flower child energy hadn’t reached South Dakota yet), I was “different”, and the kids in class were keenly aware of it.
Mrs. Harrington took extra time and attention to make sure I didn’t always feel different. I adored her. She mentored me, yes, she did, in whatever sense you want to view this word.
- Start a scrapbook of your life…
I am anticipating many happy visits to Michael’s and Hobby Lobby to leisurely meander down the aisles filled with scrap booking goodies.
This is where I wish I could insert a visual video in a book. There’s just so much “stuff” popping up in my mind: colors, textures, paste ins, add-ons, frills and furbelows, frames, glue, glitter, and stickers.
My mother gave me a scrapbook created by her Aunt Grace, my great-aunt, who took a trip around the world in the 1950s. The whole venture cost her just over $2,000.00 all those decades ago. She was a spinster schoolteacher, and she created the most wonderful scrapbook of her adventures, complete with napkins, brochures, and menus from restaurants, also photos galore – my favorite is the tiny woman with a long gray braid wrapped around her head, sitting on a camel in Egypt ahead of the Pyramids; and another of her perched with a group on a bench ahead of the Taj Mahal in Agra India. It was so much fun to read what she had written as well, about the horrific car ride through Japan, with bumpy roads and miserable conditions, and her relief when they got to their hotel. On and on it goes. It’s a time capsule.
It's so much fun to turn the pages of this scrap book, and you can “feel” how much fun it was for Aunt Grace to create it.
Yea, start a scrapbook.
This is where I wish I could insert a visual video in a book. There’s just so much “stuff” popping up in my mind: colors, textures, paste ins, add-ons, frills and furbelows, frames, glue, glitter, and stickers.
My mother gave me a scrapbook created by her Aunt Grace, my great-aunt, who took a trip around the world in the 1950s. The whole venture cost her just over $2,000.00 all those decades ago. She was a spinster schoolteacher, and she created the most wonderful scrapbook of her adventures, complete with napkins, brochures, and menus from restaurants, also photos galore – my favorite is the tiny woman with a long gray braid wrapped around her head, sitting on a camel in Egypt ahead of the Pyramids; and another of her perched with a group on a bench ahead of the Taj Mahal in Agra India. It was so much fun to read what she had written as well, about the horrific car ride through Japan, with bumpy roads and miserable conditions, and her relief when they got to their hotel. On and on it goes. It’s a time capsule.
It's so much fun to turn the pages of this scrap book, and you can “feel” how much fun it was for Aunt Grace to create it.
Yea, start a scrapbook.
- Write a bucket list…
You’re never too old to start a bucket list. If you’re still breathing, if you’re still on your feet and mobile, if you still get up every morning and wonder what you should do, start a bucket list – then act on it.
How do I know this?... from personal experience.
“First” things I’ve done after the age of 60…
How do I know this?... from personal experience.
“First” things I’ve done after the age of 60…
flown on a planeseen the oceantraveled to the Grand Canyonmoved across countryvisited Los Angelessold a house/bought a house
Yep, start a bucket list. I’m still working on mine. As the old saying goes… “I ain’t dead yet.”
I still want to…
visit Scotland and Irelandwrite a fictional noveltake classes in psychologyapply for a PI license
- Heal an estrangement…
If you can’t heal an existing estrangement, before you or the person you’re estranged from checks out, you will regret it; and in the spirit world, they may regret it as well, for an eternity.
Why is it so hard for one party or the other to be the first to extend the olive branch, the first to say, “I’m sorry”, or the first to say, “Let’s talk”?
I was estranged from my mother when she passed, so much so that my half-sister and her dad, my stepfather, never informed me of my mother’s death. It was only through the reaching out of one of my cousins that I had never met that I learned of her passing.
My mother, who did not raise me, came into my life when I was in my early forties, already an established wife and home-schooling mother of seven children. Since that time, we have been estranged since my youngest child was five years old, and that child was seventeen at the time of my mother’s passing.
The reasons for the estrangement are mostly lost in the fog of time and seem rather silly now, but it had to do with my parents’ disapproval of my life-style choices and the way in which I chose to raise my children. I put my foot down, knowing that the results could well be I would never see my mother again, and I was right.
Do I regret my decision? Not really. I don’t regret setting healthy boundaries and maintaining them for the welfare of my family. I could not revert to the lost child my mother seemed to want or needed to encompass at that time. I could not revert to the vision she must have held of me in her mind. I was already a middle-aged woman with an established life when we connected.
I do regret the obstinacy, the lack of empathy, the incapability of accepting boundaries, and the lack of respect that made a reconciliation impossible, and I often wonder if my mother regrets that now, in the afterlife. I am inclined to believe she does – or did, and I do believe that her spirit reconnected with me after her passing and made things right.
It’s all good now.
But don’t do what we did. Heal an estrangement while both parties are alive, while you can still look each other in the eye and share a hug, while you can enjoy morning coffee together, while you can share holidays and still enjoy fun times on this earth in the physical plane.
Better late than never.
Why is it so hard for one party or the other to be the first to extend the olive branch, the first to say, “I’m sorry”, or the first to say, “Let’s talk”?
I was estranged from my mother when she passed, so much so that my half-sister and her dad, my stepfather, never informed me of my mother’s death. It was only through the reaching out of one of my cousins that I had never met that I learned of her passing.
My mother, who did not raise me, came into my life when I was in my early forties, already an established wife and home-schooling mother of seven children. Since that time, we have been estranged since my youngest child was five years old, and that child was seventeen at the time of my mother’s passing.
The reasons for the estrangement are mostly lost in the fog of time and seem rather silly now, but it had to do with my parents’ disapproval of my life-style choices and the way in which I chose to raise my children. I put my foot down, knowing that the results could well be I would never see my mother again, and I was right.
Do I regret my decision? Not really. I don’t regret setting healthy boundaries and maintaining them for the welfare of my family. I could not revert to the lost child my mother seemed to want or needed to encompass at that time. I could not revert to the vision she must have held of me in her mind. I was already a middle-aged woman with an established life when we connected.
I do regret the obstinacy, the lack of empathy, the incapability of accepting boundaries, and the lack of respect that made a reconciliation impossible, and I often wonder if my mother regrets that now, in the afterlife. I am inclined to believe she does – or did, and I do believe that her spirit reconnected with me after her passing and made things right.
It’s all good now.
But don’t do what we did. Heal an estrangement while both parties are alive, while you can still look each other in the eye and share a hug, while you can enjoy morning coffee together, while you can share holidays and still enjoy fun times on this earth in the physical plane.
Better late than never.
- Do something contradictory to your nature…
I wasn’t born in the mid-west, but I spent my entire life there, and for my entire life I have always felt I was not where I was meant to be. It was a strange and disjointed feeling.
Unexpectedly, while standing in the shadows of senior citizenship, I met Bob. We had only known each other for a very short time when that little voice popped into my head. You know, that disembodied voice we’re told to listen to. It was barely perceptible at first, a whisper. It was observant and opinionated, and it was a consciousness that pointed out various discrepancies in our lives at the time.
This unusual phenomenon, mixed with a lifetime of dissatisfaction in my location, came along with some opportunities to travel and explore other parts of the country, to experience new places with awesome and intriguing ambience.
Finally, one morning, that little voice in my head popped out of my mouth, and I said, innocently enough:
Unexpectedly, while standing in the shadows of senior citizenship, I met Bob. We had only known each other for a very short time when that little voice popped into my head. You know, that disembodied voice we’re told to listen to. It was barely perceptible at first, a whisper. It was observant and opinionated, and it was a consciousness that pointed out various discrepancies in our lives at the time.
This unusual phenomenon, mixed with a lifetime of dissatisfaction in my location, came along with some opportunities to travel and explore other parts of the country, to experience new places with awesome and intriguing ambience.
Finally, one morning, that little voice in my head popped out of my mouth, and I said, innocently enough:
“Would you like to move to Arizona?”
The answer was “yes”, and so we did.
The answer was “yes”, and so we did.
Source for this blog post:
The Divine Me
Along the way, let's "Face the Mirror" , and take a good look at what you need to concentrate on to be the best you can be and let your inner goddess shine.
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