Reclaiming the Matriarch

Finally, we are coming to honor and appreciate the Crone, the font of wisdom a woman becomes after a life well-lived and lessons well learned.  I believe though, we are missing an important stage of life in our usual paradigm, the stage of Matriarch.  That gives us four stages: Maiden, Matron, Matriarch, and Crone.

Matriarch is the woman who has raised her children and completed her obligations as an active parent, or one who has devoted her 30s and 40s to establishing her career and who reaches mid-life ready to step into her power.  One therapist calls this the “Dangerous Woman” because she is likely to set aside all that stands in the way of her post-menopausal zest for life, and put herself first.  She may leave off caretaking others as she carves out a place for what she wants.

Women in their 50s and 60s, even 70s who validate their right to be important, for their needs to matter, and their work to be meaningful may leave the nest they’ve so devotedly built, or shift from that successful, yet stifling, career to find themselves.  Many take off on travels they always wanted to do, others begin entrepreneurial adventures that express their inner nature, and still others finally validate their right to become that artist they always wanted to be.  Women may change their appearance, shuck societal constraints, and step boldly forward to work on causes they must do something about.

I believe the matriarchs of this world are a force to be reckoned with, a power to be unharnessed and respected.  They show us what a sovereign self can achieve when one is operating from internal guidance and the beat of one’s own drummer.   When a woman validates her right to gain her sovereignty, she unleashes amazing potential to create what has never existed before–her unique gift and expression, gleaned from all her life experience to date.

In ancient Egypt, during the matrilineal period when people lived more in concert with natural rhythms, this period was considered the height of one’s life.  Childhood and adolescence was seen to extend to age 28 during which time one focused on being a student, young adulthood ran to age 56 and was a time for apprenticing and interning with masters.  Only during the 3rd 28 year cycle, from 56 to 84 did one establish oneself in one’s true life expression and work.  The 28 years from 84 to 112 and beyond were the Crone times, time to be an elder and give back, teaching the young.

We instead try to make young people determine their life’s work while still in the hormonal changes of becoming an adult, and manifest their whole career or family by mid-life.  Our society than acts as if all that life experience is useless simply because the person is “aging” just as they are entering what could be their most productive and effective years.  Go figure.

So we need to add a rite of passage for this shift during the hormonal changes of “middlescence” that menopause represents.  The hot flashes are often now fondly called power surges as we recognize they are nature’s way of bringing our creative energy up into the higher chakras and the brain.  I believe this is Goddess’s design to prepare women for this creative surge of bursting forth as an individual with a world to change, each in our own small, or large, way.

We deserve to be recognized for the power we’ve worked so hard to build.  Once this is complete, we’ll be satisfied and gratified entering the true crone years, the late 80s, 90s and beyond.  Hopefully our communities will develop meaningful rites of passage for this transition as well.

I would love to see Matriarch added to the pantheon of possibilities for women.  When I began hot flashes, my apprentices at the time called me a “Baby Crone” and wanted to honor my passage into cronehood.  But I felt too young, too unformed as a proper wisewoman, and it felt too soon. Since meeting Louise Hay in her 60s and Elizabeth Kubler Ross actively teaching into her 80s, I have long felt I would peak during those years with my best work.  Looks like it and I want to feel that peaking is valid and accepted as normal.  Then I will enjoy the couple of decades that follow to be the Crone who truly has much to give back to the generations to come.  Blessed Be.