The Cool Crone that I AM

As I play with my son on the trampoline, I feel the breeze of the cool air coming in. I love this flirtatious weather, because I know the heat is over. 

I used to love the summers. I loved the heat. I loved the intensity of the heat. And failed to appreciate the subtle energy shifts of the cool weather coming in. I, like most people, used to focus on the loss of summer and on the doom of winter. That’s what happens when we don’t notice how our perceptual filters keep us enslaved to the same-old stagnant ‘reality’ we replicate cuz we don’t know what else to do… 

But the last few years, something has shifted inside of me. Fall has become by far my favourite season, and winter follows. While I love summer for all the reasons everyone else does, I have become a huge fan of the cool weather. Something about its crisp clarity that really attracts me to it and makes me want to inhale it deeply, and savour it. 

In life, everything is a metaphor ...

Like everything in life, this too, is a metaphor. A metaphor for how I now choose to live my life. Chronologically, I am still in the “heat” phase of my life. I am, after all, in my prime birthing years. 

Yet spiritually, inside my being, I feel the Crone that I AM vibrantly. She is on fire. Like the cool weather knows it’s here to stay, I know the Crone that I AM is here to stay. As winter approaches, her Life Force amplifies. 

The Crone that I AM has no desire for the scorching heat, and all that’s a metaphor for (oh how I used to love drama & trauma). Her heat source is infinitely nourished from the inside, and so on the outside, the cool weather will do just fine. 

Choosing that which nourishes life...

Since I have embraced fire as the Life Force that nourishes me, it has meant delving into every nook and cranny of how I hold my fire so I intentionally digest the kind of fire that takes from me and mindfully nourish the one that sustains the vibrancy of my being. 

This process has demanded embracing perpetual letting go. Of old roles, strategies, culturally conditioned identities … and all that comes not-so-neatly packaged with that. As it turns out, I have no need, let alone desire, to prove anything to anyone anymore. I notice the lives people live increasingly with curiosity. No, my judgments have not gone away, mainly because I know what’s possible if only people would embrace an empowered way of living that is reliable, predictable and replicable. And at the same time, I let go … just because I believe something to be ‘right’, it does not mean it’s the same for another.

Still, it hurts to see people I love live lives that constrain their essence. It hurts to watch the world surrender their minds to the highest bidder. It hurts to watch Gaia and all her inhabitants scream from the pain humanity inflicts on them. 

Pain as fuel.

Instead of focusing on the pain of the perceived loss, however, I am embracing the pain to fuel my internalized fire. I am embracing the pain to lead me to my perpetually evolving highest potential. I am embracing the pain to discover the immense joy that I carry when I invite and allow the totality of Life to move through me, unstoried. 

There is such magic in that single Life nourishing, mindful breath. It isn’t a breath to make pain go away; instead, it is a breath intended to amplify “what is” so that out the other side, I emerge as the “more!” that I AM now capable of becoming. 

To the people of the world who have been taught to shut down Life-in-flow, what I’m speaking to likely sounds crazy. So be it. To be sane in this world means to be considered crazy. I fully embrace that now. I have no desire to be perceived as sane in an insane world.

However, the people who can hear me, do. Because they, too, know … this world we are living in is an illusion. But that illusion has taken over whatever reality could be, and so we are all stuck stuffing our faces with anything from food to drugs to social media to perpetually numb ourselves. Escaping life, however, means not ever living … 

Turns out, there is no power in numb; been there, done that, almost died. 

Power comes from Presence. Period. 

Anything less, is an illusion sustained and created by another to ensure compliance. Period. 

Yet what does it take to know your Self? What does it take to educate yourself to an alternative way of being? 

Strategies are no longer enough to help us leave the destructive fire inside our being behind. What it takes is profound commitment to discovering The Truth of our own experience. You know…the thing most of us try desperately to escape. That thing. 

In my emerging Crone years, I am discovering, too, that living this way is not for everyone. The fear, the pain, the shame, the rage, the outrage, the illusion has deep, deep holds … and because of that, most people would rather keep living miserable lives than entertain the notion that they are powerful beings, if they choose to discover how to be the essence of who they are meant to be. 

Crazy, I know … 

Especially since there’s an infinite supply of someone else to blame …easier to just keep doing what we’ve always done, hoping for life to somehow magically change …but not really. So, there’s that. And as long as we comply with the paradigm of fault & blame, we are necessarily trapped in the illusion and we never taste the sweet sacredness of personal responsibility. 

But, like another woman I work with said: “we keep feeding the story we’re not ready to let go of, yet.” This is why I surround myself with such brilliant women who, in their unwillingness to look away, call it what it is. 

I believe our life journey is to discover the essence of our being and live from it.

… or not. There’s intelligence to that, too.  

All in all, life is good …

In this month's conversation the women of Unapologetically Unfuckwithable explored the topic of the fire of Crone and how that is different from those of maiden and goddess. We explore how women internalize the messages of shunning their fire in order to feel "safe". We delve into how we came to believe the things we believe about our fire, and what's possible when we embrace it for the genius that it inherently holds. Particularly, in this segment, I delve into the fire of the maiden (externalized as she is depended on another to literally survive); the fire of the goddess (externalized as it is depended on the gaze of another and her sexual fruitility); and the fire of the Crone (as internalized fire that is pure power).