Maiden, Mother, Crone..Embracing the Goddess Within

I love it when women are defined in ways that limit us. It gives us such an opportunity to thumb our collective nose at all those people who think they know us. The worst is when it’s a woman doing the defining. She has obviously accepted a more patriarchal view of herself and bought into it hook, line and sinker.

I read an article that discussed the changes women go through and how that impacts the family structure. It ended with a comment from a woman who thought that maybe she might still have some value in the family and society even though she was now in menopause. As if you’re only valuable if you can bear children? 

What on earth has happened to us? Hobby Lobby (a place I will never go into) has decided that they don’t, as a company, want to provide birth control as part of their insurance policies for their employees. Are they also going to restrict Viagra? Or are men exempt from this type of personal control? All of this is under the guise of religious freedom. But which religion? Because as far as I can tell, it seems to center around whatever understanding of Christianity you’re told to have.

Well, I for one, am done listening to everyone else’s view of me. If that means negotiating outside the margins then that’s just fine. It’s easy to become caught up in the drama of others and to seek a level, if you will. Vibrationally, we try to match the levels of others so that conflict and drama subside. Unfortunately, that means for some of us, lowering our vibrational levels, resulting in distress and sometimes illness. We’ve convinced ourselves that we have to go along to get along. The problem is, we limit ourselves when we do that, instead of setting the example and living the life we want to live.

We live our best life when we live authentically. We cannot do that when we listen to oppressive judgment. Our inner voice tells us the truth. We need to listen to it and reject placement by others. We can be anything we want to be and we need to convey that to our children, be they sons or daughters. In our Maiden years, we have a right as young women to live in such a way that maximizes our potential, instead of settling for something that stifles it. If marriage and/or motherhood isn’t what you either want or are ready for, you should be able to choose that for yourself without hearing the likes of Rush Limbaugh tell your parents on his radio show that you’re a slut for wanting birth control. Not all women use birth control for birth control. But even if they do, it’s their private decision, not one the company they work for should be involved with. Of course the simplest thing to do there is to create a single-payer system and take the employer out of it completely. But that’s not happening yet.

If you do choose motherhood, then you should be able to do so and not worry about the implications of that. Communities should be geared around preservation of the family. But then that would involve ideas like equality and respect, and that’s a bridge too far for some people these days. What’s missing is the understanding that we are all one – physically, spiritually, all of it. If we all embraced this fact, then it would be anathema to even consider oppressing anyone. Instead, we would be looking for ways to elevate us all.

Now, back to menopause and value. I read a piece a few years ago by an author whose name I cannot remember in Huffington Post which suggested that instead of looking at menopause as a bad thing, to look at it as a time when the fugue state we’re in during our Mother years (whether we have children or not) vanishes, leaving only clarity and wisdom. Wow..how brilliant! That’s exactly what it is! Your Crone years are the years where you become the Wise Woman. You’ve lived through the drama and the wisdom gained is endless. You have the benefit of hindsight that only comes with age. I embrace my Crone transition because I embrace the Goddess within. I don’t need plastic surgery, or hair dye for that matter..I’m happy with my silver hair. I developed a Witch’s streak in college, and after that, my brown hair gave way to silver everywhere. I don’t discourage women from making themselves look younger if that’s what they want to do. Just make sure it’s for you..and not for someone else.

It’s easy to give yourself away to keep the peace. Unfortunately, no one learns the lessons they need to learn, including yourself. We’re far more important than they give us credit for. We don’t need to explain ourselves to anyone. We are loving beings and we need only to live our lives in such a way that honors our connection to Source. 

We are Maidens. We are Mothers. We are Crones. 

We are Goddesses. It’s time we embraced that and give the the world the balance it so desperately needs.

~Blessed Be!