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39. CRONE - old crow, she caws CRONUS - crone us, we cause MENOPAUSE - pause, o men! pause omen - MEN, NO PAWS!

In linear, non-angellish thinking, time goes in only one direction. When one phase of life is ended, it gives way to another, until life itself is ended by death. But the Crone is not of this fate. She is not an old woman, haggard with regret of despair, retuning to childhood or seeking solace in the forgetfulness of age. Rather, she has gathered time into herself. She has the wisdom of age, but retains the innocence of the child, the magnetism of the maiden, and the care of the mother. Her wisdom comes from knowing the entire experience of the tribe.

As a child, she fell asleep in the arms of the mother. As a menstruating woman, she rode the cycles of the moon - her menstrual or moon-strual cycle - back and forth between this world and the other. As a mother, she learned to bring the spark of spirit from the other side to this one, to care for the fledgling soul on the same path of learning she had just trodden. Now, as Crone, she has learned to stay awake in both worlds. Just as she once guided others here, she now guides others across. She is the bridge between the worlds.

In native traditions, the crow - or Old Crow - is a truth-teller, who reminds us of the truth of Spirit in the passage back and forth, between physical and spiritual, between temporal and eternal. Some call Crow, or her sister Raven, the Black Bird of Death, and say we all have a dark bird perched on our left shoulder, just out of sight, who only speaks when we need to be reminded that we have left the path of truth and honor. She caws, in order to cause us to reconsider our path.

The Crone is the Elder of the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother, Crone; Past, Present, Future; Birth, Life, Death; Creation, Preservation, Destruction. She speaks the truth of death into the truth of life, the truth of life into the truth of death, and so joins death back to life again. The Old Crow-In, She Cause. That is the law of time. That is the law of tie-me to the cycles of life.

What part of your life needs to surrender, to die, to be released so that you can be reborn?








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Angelynx. A divination deck. John Sacelli. Chris Deschaine.