Goddesses and Gods.wps - Welcome to Our Temple

corn grow.
The Dark Mother should also be placed here, although culturally, I have a tendency
to think of the Dark Mother as more in keeping the Crone Aspect. It is a bit of work
to see the Dark Mother in the West, to separate Dark Mother from Crone, but it is
worthwhile. If you have any background with the tarot I would suggest you take it in
that context, it is beyond the scope of this text.
Our exploration of the Goddess and her Aspects brings us now to the Crone. For me,
the Crone is the most fascinating of the Aspects of the Goddess. Partly I suppose
because she is the most mysterious and paradoxical.
"Blessed Goddess, old and wise, open mine, thy child's, eyes. Speak to me in
whispered tones that I may know the rune of Crones."
With life and growth comes age and wisdom, and the Crone is this in part. She holds
fire and power, which wisely used can be of great benefit, but hold great danger for
the unaware. Hers are the secrets of death and of life, and the mystery beyond the
mystery.
Part of the pleasure in knowing the Crone aspect is that while, unlike the fully
aspected Goddess, she is not also Maiden and Mother, she does retain the experiences
of both those Aspects in order to be Crone. The Crone, wizened though she is, must
still be able to reach into herself and recall the innocent joys and high passions of the
Maiden and the love and warmth of the Mother. To be Crone and to not have
forgotten, to still be able to experience Maiden and Mother is, to me, very appealing.
More importantly, to be comfortable in that Aspect, where you have truth and
knowledge but have left youth and physical beauty behind, and to still feel youth and
beauty without being desirous of them is an admirable quality.
Crone is the least paralleled Aspect of the Goddess to our human society. We discard
our old and wise, not understanding their value as teachers and models, and fearing
their appearance as a reminder of our own mortality.
Knowing Crone is a door we much each open for ourselves for to know and love her
is to cast aside a great many of our cultural and societal malteachings.
While the individual Aspects of Threefold Goddess are certainly valid concepts and
paths to knowing Goddess, I should caution that most mythological Goddess figures
are composite Goddesses. Earth Mother Goddess figures are fully aspected Goddess by
definition because they represent the full cycle of the Wheel. Most other Goddess