Crone as Catalyst

She has come of age, she carries lived wisdom, emotional intelligence, and an unwavering sense of self

photo from my Crone Ceremony, temporary tattoos for fun

CRONE = WISE WOMAN

In the distortion of the patriarchal system, the term Crone has been reduced to something ugly, an insult meant to imply an old, bitter, irrelevant woman. It’s been equated with being undesirable, past one’s prime, or no longer of value. Hag!

But that distortion is a tactic, one rooted in fear.

Because what patriarchy has always feared, it tries to discredit. What it cannot control, it demonizes. And what threatens its power, it attempts to erase.

The truth is, the Crone represents a woman in her full power. She is seasoned by life, not broken by it. She carries lived wisdom, emotional intelligence, and an unwavering sense of self. She no longer seeks approval. She no longer waits to be chosen.

That makes her dangerous in a system built on female compliance.

So the label “Crone” was twisted into something to be avoided or ashamed of.

No more! We claim it. As something to honour.

Because a woman who has nothing left to prove is a force. And when women embrace the Crone within, they stop asking for permission to exist. They lead, they speak, they heal, they disrupt, and they birth new ways forward, often quietly, always powerfully. Their wombs are power portals throughout their entire lives.

image from Pinterest

poem:

When Women Speak

there are stories that come only when women sit in circle

stories about working twice as hard in offices and boardrooms
for half the recognition—
being praised for competence but passed over for leadership
because we didn’t play the game
or flatter the ego that expected to be fed

stories of stretching thin
across kitchen tables and PTA meetings
between colicky babies and tidy homes
trying to earn a worthiness
we were told that, must be proven
with productivity and perfection

we often carry a belief
quiet and cruel:
that if we just do more, give more
they’ll see our value

many of us did
for years, decades even

we traded ease for acceptance
selfhood for being needed
silence for safety

and there is another thread
one laced through our girlhood—
the weight of the gaze
unwanted
the energy that crept too close
before we even understood
what needed guarding

we learned to be vigilant—
to dress “appropriately”
clad in armour made of invisibility

to smile
to smooth discomfort

and then, in one of life’s strangest betrayals—
after all the shaping and shrinking and shielding—
we are told we’ve become…
invisible
as if aging into wisdom
were a vanishing act
instead of an arrival

the truth is, when I sit in a circle of women—
I see no invisibility
I see the rich whole essence
I see radiance carved by resilience
I see beauty that doesn’t beg to be approved

I see truth. I hear truth. I witness sovereignty.

some women speak aloud for the first time in such a space
and you can feel the tectonic shift
of healing happening right there—
in the sound of their own voice, finally heard

in those circles, I feel humbled
grateful
in awe

not just by what these women have endured—
but by how they still love… deeply
still show up
still hold the beauty of life itself, in their hands like an offering

women do not thrive in isolation
they do not flourish in roles that hollow them out
they bloom in spaces where their stories are seen as sacred
where sisterhood is present, patient and sincere

we gather, because we remember
sisterhood is a source of hope for humanity

© 2025 Lulu Trevena | Live Life With Wonder
All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

image from my Crone Ceremony

I originally shared this piece below on Facebook and felt it belonged here, deeply woven into this celebration of the Crone.

They may try to erase her... the WOMAN entering her fully ripening age. CRONE.

You are seen. You are known. You are not alone.

We are many… a Collective, a Constellation. A rising current.

The evolutionary wave crashing through the old world, making way for what’s next.

After decades of loving deeply and working hard, of holding families together, standing quietly behind businesses, marriages, and dreams that weren’t always her own… She, the Crone, emerges.

Not a shadow of her former self, nor some faded relic of irrelevance… hell no!

She rises as embodied succulent wildfire. Unapologetically. A raw, uncontainable power.

Too fierce to dim.

Too wild to be tamed or toned down.

Way, way too sacred to silence.

And far too damn luminous to extinguish.

She is clarity. She is passion. She is the unwavering power who has danced barefoot in the fire, soot between her toes, not merely to survive, but to alchemize. She let the flames lick her clean like a wild beast, devouring the stories that no longer served her. Every burn revealed a deeper truth beneath the armour.

She is Crone… Ancient.

A majestic concentration of lived experience, woven through her maiden and mother/adult female journey. She is the culmination of every woman who inched her way to the edge and dared to rise… to fly, unbound, in her full freedom.

She is forged from the bones of grandmothers who whispered their wisdom into all directions, words carried by the wind and etched quilt-like into the earth.

She is tempered by time, made potent by pain, and lit from within by a luminous flame so fiercely radiant and sacred, it refuses to die.

She is the eye of the storm, the majestic raging storm itself, and the calm that follows. The blatant reckoning and the deep, soul-laden remembering. She is not seeking permission… she claimed that long ago on her path. Now, she brings prophecy.

The Crone is not some quiet, invisible, lone shrinking violet. She’s barefoot, wild smoke, boob sweat, witchy-poo chin hairs, ambrosia elixir on her lips, stars trailing her hips and piercing eyes of forged steel. Her wisdom doesn’t beg to be heard; it resounds like thunder in the bones of those ready to remember their own power.

This past weekend, I had the absolute pleasure of gathering in the Just Love Forest with 20 golden-aged women from all walks of life. Together, we stepped into sacred ceremony and reclamation, not for approval or performance, but for ourselves.

Honestly. Powerfully. Resolutely.

We howled. We wept the weighted tears passed down from generations before us. We danced freely, twirling and rocking. We laughed openly from the deepest places in our wombs and bellies.

We stripped off the armour, rusted with other people's expectations (and many of our own), heavy with years of shoulds and silences, and stood bare-souled in the wild, nature as our witness. We didn’t flinch or shy away. We roared. We reclaimed every exiled part of ourselves, every scar etched with heaviness, memory, burden and meaning.

The lies, those stale, secondhand narratives flung at us by others and time itself, were cast off like dead skin. We shed them. Slithered free with pride and grace. We hurled them to the forest floor with a guttural thud. They split open, decomposed under truth’s fierce gaze, and turned to dust in the broad, unblinking daylight. And any residue tossed into the fire.

We watched them crumble. And we rose… clearer, fiercer, and in a don’t-f#ck-with-me kind of way. We rose in reverence of ourselves.

The Crone isn’t fading. She’s no ugly hag to be hidden.

She is fierce and sovereign.

She is the Wise Woman, the Crone in her fullest, most exalted power.

Grounded. Radiant. And unapologetically alive, and possibly up to mischief… and tackling the patriarchal distorted system at every turn.

To every woman who has been overlooked, undervalued, or underestimated. It is time to move away from those diminishing voices, and know your time isn’t up… it’s just the beginning.

I, Lulu, claim my feminine power as Crone with overflowing delight.

… we will not go gentle into that good night, we will rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We are Light Houses.

‘It’s All About Me’ is a powerful reminder to all women that they matter. I found this statement so potent that I wrote a chapter in the soon-to-be-released book, Joy Unleashed and had it boldly printed on T-shirts and baseball caps, something you can wear and truly own. 25% for Black Friday