Virgin, mother...crone?

For a few years now, my friend May has been urging me toward the "crone" stage of my life with exuberent pronouncements about the wisdom of mature women and the freedom from the day to day needs of children. Of course, for May, this is all philosophical--she has no children and is still young. Nevertheless, her enthusiasm has been an infectious antidote to the unexpected unslaught of a hot flash or the encroaching frustration of a dodgy memory. Imagining myself as a wise elder of the tribe was compelling. Yet it seemed premature (like the gray in my hair) for me to exchange the honorable position of "mother" for the more suspect "crone," when I had just tripped into my fifth decade.

This month, however, I have begun to resign myself. My daughter has left home to save the world (or at least one little corner of it), and I am beyond excuse a mother in name only. So I've been thinking about being a crone.

In pre-Christian Europe, elderly women were honored and respected members of the community. They conducted religious rites at which omens were read for all. In the Goddess temples of the Middle East and Egypt, they were doctors, midwifes, surgeons, and advisors on health care, bringing up children, and sexuality. They officiated at ceremonies and transcribed sacred books and vital records. They were teachers of the young.

Bt 1711, Joseph Addison observed "that when an old woman became independent on the charity of the parish she was 'generally turned into a witch' and legally terminated." Hmm...sounds lovely, eh?

I looked up the word "crone" in my trusty thesarus, and found: hag, bag, battle-ax, beldam, biddy, crone, fishwife, fury, gorgon, harpy, harridan, Jezebel, Medusa, ogress, shrew, slattern, sorceress, termagant, virago, vixen, witch, bear walker, beldam, charmer, crone, enchantress, hag, hellcat, magician, minx, necromancer, occultist, she-devil, siren, sorceress, warlock. Well, hell. This doesn't look as if it's going to be much fun...