Queen before Crone?

Is there a stage we've been missing?

Learning to stretch my wings and fly without anyone on my back.

When I was setting up this Substack originally, I felt strongly I wanted to call it Relevance of a Queen but I let a friend talk me out of it. She felt the use of the word Queen has been overused and become a cliche. I felt, and still do, that we’ve never really inhabited ourselves as the true queens we are. In my opinion, this word has been sullied on purpose so that we stay away from it.

Indeed, other scholars are starting to talk about the Queen stage. My intuition was right and I let myself be discouraged by a doubter who had too much sway over me. Lesson learned.

At 57, I don’t quite feel like a crone yet. It seems to me there’s a step in between Mother and Crone and this is where I’m firmly planted. I’m not sure when I’ll arrive into Cronedom but I’ll know it when I get there.

As a Queen, I’m learning to own myself fully. Doing this sometimes causes grief. There are parts of me that must be let go and mourned. Mostly this comes from releasing who I thought I was to fully inhabit who I actually am and was all along.

This fuller knowing starts to come in once you get past having to care for others full time and start to have time to think about yourself again. It should be a glorious thing, but in many ways it’s disorienting. In this part of life, we construct a new ballast for ourselves. It’s determined and thoughtful work requiring great attention.

And that’s the rub. None of us have ever been told that it’s right to put that much attention on ourselves. Part of the battle is wrestling ourselves into submission, giving ourselves permission to focus completely there.

I went to a breathwork and sound bath workshop at a yoga studio last night. While listening to the teacher’s voice ask us, ‘Where has your loving breath not yet reached in your body?’, I thought to myself…’everywhere’. I’ve never thought to breathe for myself alone, for my own bodies sole benefit. What a novel idea.

After the class, I vowed to make more room in my life for this type of experience, ones where there’s no way to get distracted away from myself. This must be built into every week, and perhaps even every day.

How else will I find my Queendom?

What are your experiences with this process? How do you feel about the word Queen to describe yourself?

I’d love to know…please leave a comment on this page and join the discussion!