Sitting in the sun, appreciating change
"Sitting, Sun soft and cool
So unlike my Queensland air".
I'm sitting on a wooden wharf looking at the melting snow, thinking of the seasons and how everything changes. We cannot hold on to spring or summer or autumn or winter. Change is ceaseless. But we can experience all four seasons at four different times and we can translate those seasons into life cycles.
It used to be there were three, what P.L. Travers (writer of Mary Poppins) called "Nymph, Mother, Crone" and also referred to as the triple goddess.
Thoughout the 2000's our theatre company, The Nest Ensemble, performed an original production of The Knowing of Mary Poppins (directed by Leah Mercer), an exploration into the life of the writer of Mary Poppins, and at the same time, an exploration into the lives of everywoman. P.L. Travers wrote about the nymph as being the young one, the innocent, the child (and Stace Callaghan played a definitive nymph). Next came Mother (played first by Carol Schmit, then Jodie le Vesconte then Molly Knight), the one who gives birth (either to ideas, creativity or the human kind)and she then follows this with Crone (I played Crone in all the seasons).
I believe (and I'm not alone in this) with the change in our life expectancies and the new attitudes to aging, there is another age that fits between mother and crone. I'm not sure what to call it, perhaps something like counsellor, or consultant but neither of those ring true. So I am on the search for that fourth word, so that the ages of women go like this: nymph (spring), mother (summer), [counsellor/consultant/teacher/healer, the storyteller](autumn) and finally the crone, (winter). Many people incorporate the role of teacher/healer into the crone archetype but I believe the crone is the ultimate achievement of womanhood. She is far more than healer, far more than teacher. She is an alchemist. A magical being.
But right now, I am interested in third stage. That is what I will dream on. And of course none of this is new. Psychologists talk about many stages of life, but I am most interested in growing the triple goddess into a quadruple goddess.
On Medusa Coil's blogspot, http://medusacoils.blogspot.com/2010/05/triple-goddess-and-queen.html I found a similar discussion. Also on https://feminismandreligion.com/2013/02/24/the-full-spirited-four-fold-goddess-the-maiden-the-mother-the-queen-and-the-crone-by-mama-donna-henes/.
A fun read, an examination of using the word 'queen'...I'm going to give myself time to dream this on.