The Crones of Spring

Cackling Crones are the stuff of Samhain, perched on their brooms or stirring their cauldrons. But a number of goddess stories contain a "minor" figure, often an elder woman: a nurse, a crone, a wise woman, or a maven who plays a crucial role in bringing back Spring.

In the Greek story of Demeter the goddess of grain and agriculture and her daughter Persephone, goddess of flowers, the crone who got Demeter off her rock and back on the path was called Baubo or Iambe, depending on the version. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the king of the underworld to be his queen. Demeter did not know what happened to Persephone, and while she mourned for her daughter, the earth dried up and began to die. Baubo/Iambe offered Demeter a drink and tried to console her, but Demeter was far too distraught for that. Finally Baubo/Iambe started making dirty jokes and danced around, even exposing herself to the goddess. At that, Demeter smiled, and was able to get on with her quest to find her daughter. Persephone's annual return from the land of the dead is the metaphor for Spring. The Eleusinian mysteries celebrated and initiated people through this story, including an evening ritual called the Stenia, where women talked dirty and hurled insults at each other to relive their stress with laughter.

A Japanese story of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu has a similar theme. Amaterasu hid in a cave after her brother, god of storms Susano-O, got drunk and wrecked her weaving room, killing some of her ladies. When the sun hides, everything gets very cold, and soon all the other eight million gods were coaxing and calling Amaterasu to come out of her cave before all the people died. The crone who got her attention was Uzume or Ama No Uzume. She got the other gods and goddesses to clap and make noise while she danced, her bare feet making a drum of the tub she was standing on. She too exposed herself, and the other deities laughed, making Amaterasu most curious about what was going on. When she poked her head out, Uzume shoved a mirror in front of her so that Amaterasu could see her own beauty. She had never seen herself. When she came out of the cave, life was restored to the earth.

Even in a later Egyptian story, great Hathor exposed herself to her father Ra to bring him out of a deep depression during one of the conflicts between Set and Horus. Again, he laughed at the brazen display, which helped him take his focus off his depression and put it back to the problem at hand.

The name Baubo means vagina, and her gesture of raising her skirt [in Greek ana-suromai] is a mythical way of warding off evil, known as apotrophaic magic. The oldest figures of human beings [ ca. 30,ooo years ago] are of women/goddesses called Venus by early archaeologists because their primary feature is their large pubic triangle. This faceless and often arm and legless female seems to embody the very life force, both bringing us into the world as the saying goes, and taking us out. Almost all of the most ancient sites have images of vulva, sometimes without any accompanying body.

Lubell tells other stories of women who expose themselves as part of magic. The followers of Bast sailed down the Nile to Bubastis, exposing themselves and yelling raunchy insults to the women on the river banks. Women banding together using this gesture not only blocked the retreat of the Persian men in battle against the Medes, but even faced down the god of the sea when Bellerphon cursed the people of Lycia and called on Poseidon to wash away the city. The Celtic hero Cu Chulainn was stopped from attacking his own countrymen by Scandlach and 150 women with their skirts raised. More recently, the Kalina women of Luzon in the Phillipines used their feminine power to block the building of a dam which would have flooded their ancestral lands. In their case, they exploited a male honor taboo that the men would not touch them since they were naked and without weapons. They took away the men's weapons and stripped them, even in some cases, wrapping their skirts around the men's heads to shame them.

What are the messages here for us as we shiver in the still cold winds of March here in the Northern Hemisphere?

• We need to laugh. Laughter is the best cure, even laughter at non-PC dirty jokes. Bad things happen even to goddesses, so we can learn from them how to manage, how to keep our spirits up in dark, cold times. After all, when the fate of the world rests on the smile of a goddess, she might as well grin.
• We need to see our own beauty and not allow ourselves to become so depressed that we can't respond to our environments. Each of us is beautiful, from the youngest girl to the oldest crone. Ugly is what happens when we try to hide who we are. Taking our energy away from the world leaves it dark and cold. We need to acknowledge the wonderful goddess in teh mirror and let her energy flow through heaven and earth.
• We need our elders. Mavens, a word I like better than crone because it implies a person who has special, esoteric knowledge, have much to teach us because they have been there, done that, frequent flier miles and all. The maven or crone remembers when this crisis (pick one) happened the last time, or maybe the last three or four times, and she knows what doesn't work. She is practical and earthy, so she gets by with shocking us out of our rut.
• We need our feminine sexuality. If you have no partner, take care of yourself! Be comfortable in your body. Know that you are a channel for the life force. Let your physical self support and nourish your spiritual self. Dance. Sing. Kick up your heels. Help the Spring Maiden return. Peek in the mirror. She might look back at you, if you are lucky!

Come to FindAGoddess to learn more about goddesses, their symbols, totems and stories. contact Sheshat the Scribe

sources

Lubell, W. L. (1994) The Metamorphosis of Baubo: Myths of Woman's Sexual Energy: Myths of Women's Sexual Imagery. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP.