The Crone

She is the Spirit of Night, the sleeping body of the Earth in Winter. Because She is no longer fertile, there is something androgynous about Her. Her partner is the androgynous Winter King.

She is visualized most often as an old woman in a black hooded cloak with pure white hair and skin. She carries a silver sickle and She is crowned with nine blue stars.

She has a second form, called Ulli, a sweet old grandmother whose color is royal blue.

Her symbol is the Crow or Raven, in some cases the Vulture.

Starhawk has a useful meditation on Her in The Spiral Dance, Exercise 41: Waning Moon Meditation, in Chapter 5: The Goddess.

Visualize a waning crescent, curving to the left, surrounded by a black sky. She is the Old Woman, the Crone, who has passed menopause, the power of ending, of death. All things must end to fulfill their beginnings. The grain that was planted must be cut down. The blank page must be destroyed for the work to be written. Life feeds on death - death leads on to life, and in that knowledge lies wisdom. The Crone is the Wise Woman, infinitely old.

Feel your own age, the widsom of evolution stored in every cell of your body. Know your own power to end, to lose as well as to gain, to destroy what is stagnant and decayed. See the Crone, cloaked in black, under the waning moon. Call her name, "Anu!" and feel her power in your own death.