Excavating Your Inner Crone to Navigate the Unknown
The crone, sage, or conscious elder does not shrink away from the unknown; they welcome it and say, "Hello, friend," with a wink and a smile, because they know that the seeds of new life rest in the dark. Or, as one of my real-life crone mentors, Sil Read, often says, "The gold is in the shit".
Fear also dwells in these dark, unknown parts the soul. You've likely bumped up against some of these inner soul gems–those prickly and seemingly impossible inner callings that seem too scary to unpack–that's the shit asking you to alchemize it into nourishment for yourself and others.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge
The crone or conscious elder does not shrink away from the unknown; they welcome it and say, "Hello, friend," with a wink and a smile, because they know that the seeds of new life rest in the dark. Or, as one of my real-life crone mentors, Sil Read, often says (just as her crone mentor used to say), "The gold is in the shit".
Of course, fear also dwells in these dark, unknown parts of the soul. You've likely bumped up against some of these seemingly impossible inner callings that seem too scary to unpack, a.k.a. the metaphorical shit asking you to alchemize it into nourishment for yourself and others.
Initially, these soul gems might not feel very exciting and will likely elicit fear and uncertainty. That's your inner crone or conscious elder, nudging you to something that needs your attention–a gift that needs unpacking.
In The Power of the Crone, mystic and author, Clarissa Pinkola Estés describes the crone as:
...the one who sees far. Who looks into the spaces between the worlds, and can literally see what is coming, what has been, what is now, and what underlies and stands behind many things. In one way, you could say that the crone represents the ability to see with more than just one's eyes alone, but to see with the heart's eyes, the soul's eyes, through the eyes of the creative force and the animating force of the psyche.
There's a reason the overculture seeks to exile the crone and conscious elder: they hold the wisdom needed to navigate the unknown. This doesn't mean that every elder is conscious of this wisdom; conscious elderhood requires excavating and cultivating this exiled wisdom. We’re being presented with grand opportunities to cultivate and excavate the wisdom of the crone. Where are you being asked to see with the eyes of your heart and soul?
Resting in the Unknown
The crone's animating force knocked loudly on the doorway of my heart on my 4oth birthday. Amidst a circle of wise women, holding pomegranate seeds in my hands and discussing the descent of Persephone, it landed in my body that I was and had always been queer. As the words bubble up, I realized I hadn't spoken something so true in a long time. Alongside my queer awakening, I realized I could no longer continue on in my online business, that had supported my family for the last decade. The saddest part was that I knew I wasn't living the life I wanted or needed to, the scariest part was that I didn’t know what came next.
I created this painting at a point when I could no longer carry on the way I had been. I knew my only option was surrendering to the unknown.
Resting in the Unknown by Cassie Uhl
I felt like a failure and found myself frozen, completely unsure how to navigate these new truths. I fought hard against stepping into my queerness amidst a 14-year marriage, putting down a decades long business, and facing my debt. I found myself scheming plans to keep my marriage the same, ignore my debt, and resurrect a business I no longer believed in, when all the Great Mother needed me to do was surrender to who I was already becoming.
Resistance is medicine, and it's often a sign that you're up against something with a deep tap root.
What I didn't understand at the time was that my attempts to force outcomes stopped working because my inner world no longer matched my external reality. I had already changed. These words from Mysteries of the Dark Moon by Demetra George remind me of the wisdom of endings, “She will not lead us to our goal by revealing what it is but rather by eliminating everything that it is not.”
The archetypal forces who know how to navigate the unknown–the crone and conscious elder–have been exiled from the over-culture as irrelevant. Not to mention, we're biologically hardwired to be change-averse (1). It is not a moral failing to find yourself in fight, flight, or freeze when you're unsure how to navigate your life. It is biological and by design.
The external will always strive to match the internal and vice versa.
When something inside you screams for an external change that you can no longer ignore, it indicates an internal change has already occurred. If you’re reading this, we’re likely in agreement that what we see out in the world needs to, and is ready to change. This yearning signals a misalignment between our inner landscape and our external reality.
Just because the misalignment between what your soul wants and what we're living can be identified doesn't mean the path will be clear and known. In These Wilds Beyond Our Fences, philosopher Bayo Akomolofe shares, "These are the days we must fall apart to become larger." Allowing the external to crumble and facing the ensuing unknown creates fertile ground to build something new.
The good news: the archetypal energies that know how to navigate the unknown live within you, and all of us. You can breathe life into your inner wise one and live into what the unknown is asking of you. This isn't a call to get out your megaphone and post up on a busy corner demanding that others "wake the fuck up". Dancing with the fear of the unknown (whether personal, familial, or global) is an inside job.
By leaning into these exiled archetypes who know how to navigate in the dark, you have an opportunity to take back your power in an overculture that thrives on you not.
If you haven't found yourself navigating in the dark yet, don't worry, midlife sets us up to encounter these archetypes in their full glory. Midlife is the training ground for crone-dom and conscious elderhood.
More depth and darkness = bigger deaths
Perhaps, like me, you're acutely aware of what it's like to navigate the unknown, because we're watching it happen en masse as climate catastrophe, fascism, war, and uncertainty increase. The tectonic plates of change are shifting in big ways in our outer world, so it only makes sense that internal changes will match it.
I see this need to transform in the clients who come to me and say, "Something in me is changing, but I'm unsure how to navigate it or what to do." I see it in myself as I feel the pull to shift towards what my soul feels is needed rather than sticking to what the overculture would prefer, e.g., staying productive, buying things I don't need, and avoiding the inner dread these times are invoking.
The discomfort I encountered over the last two years wasn't because I had done anything wrong. In fact, I had done everything right by allowing my soul to expand and change. I just needed to let my outer world crumble so it could catch up to what was happening inside me.
When your external world no longer matches your internal landscape, it's an invitation to surrender to the callings of your heart and soul.
The Art of Surrender
The overculture teaches us that quitting is giving up and endings are failures. The crone and the conscious elder see the wisdom in your endings and bow at your bravery to navigate the unknown.
As I surrendered, it made space for my inner crone. My only option was to take action based on what I felt in my soul, even (especially) when it didn’t make sense.
Over the last two years, I confronted what it means to be queer in a 14-year marriage to a man I still love, and embarked on the still ongoing process of renegotiating what marriage looks like when I'm clear about my needs. I stopped forcing an online business I didn't even enjoy because I was too scared to pivot into the in-person end-of-life work I know I'm here to do. And, I faced the debt my business had acquired over the last decade and dealt with it.
It's been challenging, messy, and slow, and continues to be so. But the last two years of my life have also been freeing, beautiful, and true. Nothing is resolved or "fixed"; everything is still in a process of becoming.
Today, I'm working in end-of-life care in my community as a death doula and caregiver, teaching in-person witchcraft workshops, chipping away at debt, navigating what it means to come out as queer at 40, and deepening into levels of love and trust with my husband that I didn't realize were possible. My outer reality once again aligns with my inner truth, and the best part is that my family and community are better for it, too.
Getting to where I am today wasn’t easy, it was humbling, scary and challenging. I did a nursing assistant training with a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds over the summer and started working 12-hour night shifts making a nominal hourly wage at a local non-profit hospice. It’s been humbling, but it’s also provided me with the hands on death care experience I need to provide the holistic death care my soul is guiding me towards.
Surrendering to the unknown is a death in its own right, and there are no scripts for death. The unknown is scary, which is why practicing your crone and conscious elder muscle is so important, especially right now.
Reclaiming What’s Been Exiled
Even though the crone and conscious elder have been exiled from the overculture, their wisdom endures. What a privilege it is to choose to bow at the feet of the conscious elder. The invitations are abundant right now.
Seek out the conscious elders around you; you'll know who they are because they are the most ferocious truth-tellers. Read about the archetype of the crone; many stories have remained (Baba Yaga, Spider Woman, the Challieach, etc.). Listen to the wisdom of autumn and winter. Become attuned to the death process and how it moves through plants, animals, and people. The archetype of the crone and conscious elder is alive and well when seek them out. Most important, listen to the difficult and scary whispers (or loud hollers) from your soul, notice the fear surrounding them, and face them in a way that works for you.
The art of surrendering to the unknown is the way to rebirth. There's no evading the crumbling if you want to honor what your soul is asking you become. It must happen.
We began with C.P.E, so let’s end with another favorite quote of mine, the reminder that rebirth will always come. In The Power of the Crone, Clarissa Pinkola Estés shares that “the secret to being reborn is to have faith that it will come.”
Every descent into darkness will be different. Some will move swiftly, others will seem endless. While the terrain is different each time, the body will re-remember how to navigate with greater ease every time you surrender.
When you navigate the unknown of your soul and allow your outer life to reflect its inner callings, it will create changes that expand into your family and community. Don't pass by the gold just because that packaging is scary. Call on the inner crone and conscious elder who live within you, and seek them out in stories and nature. They will lead you into the dark unknown of your soul, show you what’s ready to fall apart, and stand beside you as you navigate the crumbling and the rebirth.
In care, Cassie
1 Levin, S. (2024, November 27). Brain power revealed: the neuroscience of human behavior. Columbia University School of Professional Studies. h tps://sps.columbia.edu/news/brain-power-revealed-neuroscience-human-behavior
