From Joanne Sienko Ott, "The Crone Archetype: Women Reclaim Their Authentic Self by Resonating with Crone Images":

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“What does it mean to be an elder in this culture? What are my new responsibilities? What has to be let go to make room for the transformations of energy that are ready to pour through the body-soul? - Marion Woodman (as cited in Bolen, 2001, p.2)...

 

The Crone – the ancient holy one. She holds the power of age and time, of retribution, and of transformation… Ancient, though not always aged, she may be beautiful, but she‟s not pretty. Ellen Lorenzi-Prince (as cited in Thomason, 2006, p. vii)...

 

Succinctly stated, this quote from Ellen Lorenzi-Prince describes the essence of the crone. The crone image represents wisdom, inner knowing, and intuition (Bolen, 2001; Estés, 1992; Walker, 1985, 1996). The crone uses her wisdom as transformative justice (Bolen, 2001; Mookerjee, 2008; Walker, 1985, 1996). The crone helps us through transitions, drawing us inward during difficult times and bringing meaning to the shadow side of us that dies and comes to life again (Bolen, 2001; Mookerjee, 2008; Walker, 1985, 1996). The crone symbolizes the cycle of life (birth-life-death) that is present in the human experience and in all creation (Bolen, 2001; Gomberg, 2001; Walker, 1985, 1996)...

 

Barbara Walker (1996), in her book The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, compiled research about various crone images found in myths from a historical perspective. According to her research, the feminine wisdom found in the crone became the image of the Goddess of Wisdom (Walker, 1996). In ancient times, the Mensa symbolized the lunar 'wise blood' and it was believed that women entering the third stage of life (post-menopausal) kept their wisdom within (Walker, 1996). The Mensa was considered the source of women's wisdom (Ulanov, 1971; Walker, 1985). Rather than symbolizing a curse, the Mensa represented for women a 'gathering of her energy and feelings to a deeper center below the threshold of consciousness… a time of developing fertile insights' (Ulanov, 1971, p. 176). Some examples of images of this archetype are Sophia, Metis, or Medusa (Walker, 1996)...

 

Walker (1996) also defines the crone as representative of 'inevitable destruction or dissolution that must precede regeneration' (p. 187), which is found in the images of Kali the destroyer, Cerridwen the death–dealing sow, Queen of the Underworld, or Persephone the destroyer. The underworld is a metaphor that represents the collective unconscious and going inward (Bolen, 2001). Crone, the word itself, is believed to come from Rhea Kronia, signifying Mother of Time, and is connected to black creatures, such as the crow, which is sacred and related to death (Walker, 1996)...

 

The crone is also synonymous with the hag image (Bolen, 2001; Walker, 1985; 1996). Hag is derived from the root word 'hagia' which means holy in Greek and once mirrored high respect for older wise women (Bolen, 2001). 'In Greek she became Hecate, the Crone or Hag as queen of the dead, incarnate on earth in a series of wisewomen or high priestesses' (Walker, 1996, p. 366). The term 'hagiology'still refers to the study of holy matters or of saints, however the word hag no longer carries the same meaning as 'Holy Woman' as originally intended (Walker, 1996)...

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Practical wisdom, such as mastering a skill, and accumulated intelligence, in the form of wise counsel, are represented by the image of Metis, from Greek Mythology (Bolen, 2001). Walker describes the myth of Metis: 

 

‘Mythical mother of Athene, assimilated to the Zeus cult by the claim that Zeus impregnated her, then swallowed her, so her wisdom-principle became part of himself. Thus he was able to give birth to Metis's child Athene from his own head.’ (Walker, 1996, p. 653)...

 

Sophia is the image of feminine wisdom and spiritual insight. In the Bible, the Book of Wisdom is commonly referred to as Sophia, and represents spiritual knowing or soul knowledge (Bolen, 2001; Ulanov, 1971). According to Walker, Saint Sophia is the 'canonical adaptation of the Gnostic Great Mother: Latin Greek Sophia, the spirit of Female Wisdom…Symbolized by the dove…Sophia once represented God's female soul, source of his power' (1996, p. 951)...

 

Wisdom can also come from inner knowledge that is passed down from our ancestors… Estés (1992) recounts the story of Vasalisa and Baba Yaga, from eastern Europe, about a mother who, before she dies, gives her daughter, Vasalisa, a doll. Vasalisa is later cast out by her stepsisters to fetch fire for the hearth and then searches out her grandmother, Baba Yaga, deep in the woods, who through trial and error, teachers Vasalisa about the power of her own inner wisdom and to how to retrieve her intuition and trust it. The Baba Yaga represents the wise-women responsible for handing down the gift of intuition (Estés, 1992). Vasalisa learns from Baba Yaga to trust and use her intuition and is reminded of this by her doll that symbolizes instinctual nature (Estés, 1992)...

 

Bolen (2001) states that Hestia is the archetypal image that symbolizes the center of the psyche or Self. Hestia represents a spiritual soul that is comfortable with herself and is not influenced by the ego or pleasing others, nor are others the center of her life anymore, such as with motherhood (Bolen, 2001). In Greek mythology she is considered a virgin, which is interpreted as not being dependent upon others in defining herself (Bolen, 2001; Harding, 1971; Walker, 1996)...

 

The underlying rage that is bubbling is the transformative wrath of the archetypal image of Kali-ma from India (Bolen, 2001; Mookerjee, 2008). Kali-ma symbolizes the destructive forces and how they can be transformed in the end (Bolen, 2001; Mookerjee, 2008; Walker, 1985). 'She is the power that creates and destroys, the womb from which all things proceed and to which all return' (Mookerjee, 2008, p. 22). Walker (1985) describes Kali-ma in her book The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom, and Power as: She was both ugly and beautiful, Virgin and Crone, darkness and light, winter and summer, birth giver and death bringer. She was a truer image of the real world‟s variety and cyclic alternation than any of the images developed by patriarchy alone. (p. 72).” (Ott, 2011).