Whether Chronos or Aion, Shai or Saturn, Aegir or even plain old Father Time, mythology is rife with masculine personifications of the nature and passage of time.
Chronos was often shown as an old, winged man with a thick grey beard holding a serpent or scythe. Aion was a young nude lad, surrounded by an orb. Saturn a godly gent that ruled the Golden Age. Shai was a chap with a feather on his head, responsible for measuring fate and lifespans.
All these mythological representations try to grapple with the essence of what Greek philosopher Parmenides called an illusion, and Heraclites thought was the very nature of reality. And who’s to say they were wrong. After all, we still don’t know if time actually exists. (Hint: it probably doesn’t).
The more I think on it, however, the more I like to imagine Time as wily, cunning, whip-sharp crone.
Because let’s face it. Of COURSE, she is. And society is terrified of her.
The Crone is that part of the triad along with Maiden and Mother that holds the most power but the least popular sway. She is the dark side of the moon. The last part of the cycle. The end of every road. The destination of every woman’s journey.
She is, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes says:
“The one who sees far, who looks into the spaces between the worlds and can literally see what is coming, what has been, and what is now…”
What better representation of time could there be, and who else would I want on my side as I face the inevitable turning of the Wheel. In her work, The Power of the Crone, Estes tells us she is the most dangerous, radical and revolutionary woman in existence. Estes says the Crone goes where she wants, she acts as she wishes, she lives as she chooses.
“And this is all as it should be. And no one can stop her. Nor ought they try.”
I SPIED MY OWN CRONE IN THE MIRROR AND WHEN SHE GRINNED AT ME, MY HEART DANCED.
For a long time, the thought of ageing scared me. I had so much to do. I was toxically married to the lie that I only had so much time to do it in. What is success worth, I thought, if it doesn’t come when you’re 20, or 30, or 40? What does it mean if you don’t look like an ingenue while you’re succeeding.
It all came to sharp end the moment I spied my Crone in the mirror during a pilates class. (What a place to see her.)
One minute I was doing planks, the next moment there she was, hair greying, eyes wrinkled and wise. Smile cocked. Energy powerful. And while I gazed at this image of myself who was me but not me, she looked at me dead in the eyes and said: “Why are you afraid of me? I am amazing.”
And she is you know - utterly amazing. This future self who is the culmination of all my experiences, and wisdom, and trials, and errors, and tribulations. This woman who has processed everything and transmuted all the lead into gold. (There’s your alchemical metaphor).
Time is a Crone and this magical birthday I’ll be holding a Croning to welcome her energy in.
Why wouldn’t I? She is, indeed, amazing.