Pagan Coffee Talk
We will discuss topics related to the Pagan community. All views are from a traditionalist's point of view. The conversations are unscripted (no preparations have been made ahead of time). A special thanks to Darkest Era for the use of their songs: Intro- The Morrigan, Exit - Poem to the Gael. Check them out at http://darkestera.net/.
Pagan Coffee Talk
Croning the Night Away
Join Lady Alba and Lord Night for a riveting conversation about croning. They discuss whether or not the ritual is spiritual in nature, bringing to light what exactly a crone is. The conversation covers celebrating womanhood, as well as manhood, and the overuse of mundane ceremonies. Closing the episode, they talk about the clear-cut lines that Paganism gives us and brings up the question, are we just creating ceremonies to give us something to do.
Join us on
Discord: https://discord.gg/MdcMwqUjPZ
Facebook: (7) Life Temple and Seminary | Facebook
Welcome to Pagan Coffee Talk. If you enjoy our content, please consider donating and following our socials. Now here are your hosts, lady Abba and Lord Knight.
Speaker 3:So sounds like we have had some interest in, or some questions about, croning yes, recently. Okay, where would you like to start?
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 3:How about? What is a crone?
Speaker 2:Yes, can we start with that? What is one Sure? I mean, if we want to get technical, yes Can we start with that.
Speaker 3:What is one Sure? I mean, if we want to get technical?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:It's just an old lady.
Speaker 2:It's just an old lady. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:A crone is any woman who is past her ability to naturally conceive a child. Right, that's it, that's it, that's it. So the funny thing is right, a crone could be 45 years of age or 65 years of age, I mean, or older.
Speaker 2:Or even younger.
Speaker 3:Or anything in between. Yeah, yes and no, though, because I do think right, I mean medical. Let's put medical situations aside, right? You know, traditionally a crone is someone who is an elder within their own household. They are, they are. They are definitely well within their rights to obtain their senior citizen discounts yes, to obtain their senior citizen discounts, yes, and they seem to have this accumulated knowledge and wisdom. And that's what I was going to say. It's not so much just the physical, it is how you conduct yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a crone is wise in a way that is speaky little, listen much yes, yeah, very much, and crones are in most instances. They're not quick to emotion, they're not quick to reaction, they're not quick to anger, they're not quick to much of anything.
Speaker 2:No, they very much sit back, take it all in and offer their advice or their thoughts or their opinions when it's absolutely necessary now the closest I've ever seen on tv to the, what we refer to as a crone, would be what granny from the beverly hillbillies maybe. Maybe not quite as flamboyant or over the top but yeah, this, knowing how to do these healings and certain there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there are not a lot of great examples, no of crones on television, because of course I mean hollywood loves young and and beautiful, so I mean the crone character for many storylines is not even all that interesting. She has often been vilified, she's been neglected, she's been right, she's been turned into the wicked witch sort of thing when they were turned into the three, what?
Speaker 2:the three witches with the one eye and from great mythology, yep yep.
Speaker 3:So I mean, I can't think of a pop culture reference crone no not, not off, not something that really cements all of what she should be right, okay so now the traditional requirements, not saying agree or disagree okay, so traditional requirements was based on craft right based on craft was one must have given birth and be gone through menopause.
Speaker 2:Okay, which this then starts a different argument on this or conversation on this.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, so you know, we have to deal with the biological fact. Everybody then wants to know well, what if you haven't given birth, but you've been pregnant?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:What if you were unable to give birth Right? What if you wanted to give birth but you couldn't get pregnant? What if you have children, but but you couldn't? Get pregnant, what you know right. What if you have children but you never gave birth to them? Yeah, yeah we could play that game all day long. I think for modern craft it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3:No, I think the reality is that you have to have been a mother yes that is really the, the, the marker, and please, I don't want to hear any in it because I know it's coming.
Speaker 2:I don't want to hear the, but I have pet babies I was about to ask you that what about the fur babies? No, no, no, I don't want to hear it. That's not quite.
Speaker 3:Because, for every woman that takes the crone title, whether they themselves have had a child of their own, believe me when I say that becoming a mother, be it by choice, by circumstance, by any kind of strange adoptive process, right, whatever it might be, trust me when I say that sort of is the moment where you know that relationship is priming you for cronedom. Yeah, but aside from that, yeah, you're done with menopause. You no longer bleed, you cannot conceive anymore.
Speaker 2:I mean, those are now let me ask you is this going to sound really weird, bear with me for a second. Sure is a crony a female mystery. Or is it craft? Is it the? Is it part of our religion, or is it just something that came from the female mission? I'm not saying this, yeah, because then my question is is what spiritual or religious significance does having a croning do? It's not like a first degree, it's not like an initiation. Right, right, right right.
Speaker 3:So well, we're back to a ceremony versus just life, Right? So in my opinion okay and this is not to take anything away from anyone else a croning is simply an acknowledgement that is honorific, Right. It really is just usually inside of a Covenstead, an acknowledgement of an elder female who has contributed much to the community over the years, who has left a mark but who maybe has never gained an initiation beyond a first degree.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:That to me, is someone who is deserving of a croning. Okay, because to crone a second or to crone a third, that's ridiculous. Yeah, I see there's no point in that. And I and this is where I do get frustrated, because we do see a lot of covens that start doing, you know, oh, the croning of ladies, such and such, and then we have the, the queening of ladies. Oh, stop it. Why are we inflating egos more than we need to? What is that about?
Speaker 2:all right, then here's my next question on this. All right, there's no male equivalent of this ritual there is is. There is, I've never seen it.
Speaker 3:Oh, of the ritual.
Speaker 2:Right, there's no hermiting.
Speaker 3:No Right, there's no get off my lawn yeah.
Speaker 2:But we could make it that would be a great one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the great. Get off my lawn-ing Exactly Because, again, it's ego. That's what I find so funny about this when men hermit right, when men were sage, if you want to be you know, make it sound nicer. When that process they literally it is what it is it's isolation. They go off into their like, leave me alone. Right, cut your hair, pull up your pants, eat, eat a sandwich. Get off my lawn. You know I don't. They don't want the pomp and circumstance Somewhere along the line. However, because of matriarchal, you know the reclamation.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Of the matriarchal belief systems, right? Oh, we have to honor the crone. Oh, we have to honor the crone. We have to honor the crone. Okay, go sit down with your grandma for 45 minutes. Yes, honor the crone. Go volunteer a few hours a month at an old folks home or at a memory care clinic or care clinic or anywhere that is packed with elderly people. Go on earth the crone, the. The great irony of that process is that in most cases, you're talking about a society that is largely forgotten and shut away yes.
Speaker 3:So if you want to honor them, go be amongst them.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:That's it, Because unfortunately again I know I sound like a broken record here but the ego thing I see too many places where it's like, oh you know, so-and-so turned 50. It's time for a croning. If she is a spry, active 50-year-old who still has children, maybe in their early 20s, she's going to yoga class every day, she's still working and has, that woman is not being croned. That is not the criteria.
Speaker 3:You know that is. And look, the longer we live, the more delayed this idea of what a crone is. Yeah, it delays, it defers. So it used to be when we were kids, right celebrating somebody's 50th. I mean, that's not a milestone now, but it made more sense. You know, we remember that. You know, oh, you used to have a retirement party when you turned 60. Yeah, now people are working till they're 75.
Speaker 2:Yes. So come on. I mean, I mean, over the years we all heard that saying what, uh, oh, no, no, 50s the new or 60s, new 50, or something like that exactly.
Speaker 3:So there, there to me, there are other again. What makes someone a crone? My personal belief in this largely, and this goes for men and women, right.
Speaker 3:So the hermit as well. It is when you have reached a point in life where your body has given up Right or is no longer serving you, but your mind still is. Yes, that's one of the key components. Okay, so, yeah, I can't do the things physically that I used to. I need help with certain aspects of day-to-day life, but my mind is still there. Yep, it's still active, it's still functional, it's still able to be a productive member of the society, whereas my body is not, because that's, if we go back, anthropologically right, that's what it would have been grandma is not able to go out into the field anymore, right, right, but that doesn't mean she can't watch the six-year-olds and tell stories.
Speaker 3:Right? Doesn't mean she can't watch the six year olds and tell stories.
Speaker 2:Right Doesn't mean that they can't do.
Speaker 3:They're still productive.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:They are still active, productive members of society. Yes, and that's the thing we forget and it's where our elderly in many cases.
Speaker 4:It's sad it's sad well, I mean we, we sort of treat elk.
Speaker 2:We do the whole eldering thing about the same way. It just sort of there's no ritual, there's no not, at least not in our tradition. There's no ritual or anything to for that status. It just sort of happens, yeah, yeah agreed.
Speaker 3:A lot of why I think croning has become more popularized now especially, is because we are in this era of women again, the reclaiming. It's very new. Agey, right, I no longer bleed. Let's celebrate, because it's the opposite end of what we did when you first bled as a teenager, right? Or you know young adults, so it's the same idea, right? Oh, we celebrated that, so now let's celebrate this other side. This is a very new phenomenon, right?
Speaker 2:okay, I mean because for us guys, can I don't? We don't celebrate the first time.
Speaker 3:We can I be graphic here? Yeah did you celebrate your last poop? I mean, okay, what, I don't see what?
Speaker 2:well again guys do not celebrate the first time they have a dream. Yeah, all right, it's not like oh, hey, yeah, no yeah, I got a boner we made a, a mess, that's what.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's very this is all very much the the female reclamation right, religious space. We just see it as normal. It just is what it is. It's just part of it's the cycle. It happens to all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and please don't wig out. If you look at somebody going, hey, so what are the traditional requirements to do that and they tell you a bunch of stuff that you don't agree with, that doesn't mean they follow it that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but again, I just think you're not going to see a ton of traditionalists doing this.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Because then we also become participation trophy witches, yep, right, okay. So it starts with a wiccaning. So then we have what something? A paging right, right or a maidening for you know, puberty. And then we get in, and then you've got the hand fastings for marriage and then it's like, oh boy, come on. I can understand the want to feel connected to your faith and I understand the want to kind of parallel maybe what you grew up with, right, or to feel like there's a connection there. But again, for most traditionalists that is doing the opposite of what your faith is supposed to do, that is, making it the me, me, me, me, me show Right. Instead of putting the focus on the faith, Instead, yeah, you're putting your you're almost going.
Speaker 3:It's about me in relation to the faith no, it's not. You're putting you're, you're almost going. It's about me. In relation to the faith no, it's not, it's not I mean cause.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, the faith will still be there, without you.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean, and the cycles will continue Without us Without you. Yeah, they just keep on going.
Speaker 3:So it's it's always very interesting to see that like you know again, you know social media tiktok, rust and paste. Sorry, had to, had to do it. Had to do it. Who knows, by the time this airs, it might be back. I don't know. But you know, we see all these cool things now on, like instagram and you know these, these, like the photographers that take women over the age of 50 out into a field and dress them up like a goddess and do goddess photography and great, that's fantastic, that's super fun. Please don't call it witchcraft.
Speaker 2:Please.
Speaker 3:Where is that? What? What that's not Now look do. I think that that is a fantastic idea for the women's group inside of a Covenstead. Absolutely, get together, hire a photographer, dress up, be silly, have fun. Right, this is actually sounding like fun.
Speaker 2:Yes absolutely Right where you're. This is actually sounding like fun. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Get a bunch of headdresses. Do the maids, do the married women, do the moms, do the crones, do people individually? That sounds like an incredible way to celebrate whore manhood. I would agree with you there Together. You know, the men do the same thing. Just hand them a block of wood and a polaroid camera. They don't need the whole shebang.
Speaker 4:They really don't they don't want.
Speaker 3:Trust me, they don't need hair and makeup, they don't really care just let.
Speaker 2:The majority of times you give us a basketball set, it's out on the court. We'll figure out something.
Speaker 3:That's my point just give them an activity or a thing and maybe get a photographer to take random pictures. That's fine. But that is a celebration in a different way and it's unifying, right, and it's all the stages. But to continually single people, I mean, come on, we also have some covens where people are getting older and you've got larger numbers in these older categories. You'd be having a croning a week in some cases, and it's not that I don't love the idea of it I don't have a problem with the idea, it's just.
Speaker 2:This is what we're thinking about when we're having these conversations, right, about these things yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:To me it seems like there is a better way to make that connection and not have it be again all about ourselves or all about the individual. That's where it's tough, you know, because we do. We want to honor people, we want to celebrate them, but at the same time, like what?
Speaker 2:no, no, I'm gonna say this now as a priest, and I'm looking at this ritual and I really am very tempted to always hear high priestess. This looks like completely your stuff, yeah, and not me. So I'm gonna go back over here and play with my legos and I get that, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I mean vice versa, when I'm looking at you going, uh, you know where's my, where's my, uh, my treasury report, I mean you know yeah, it's the same thing but there's again, this is a. This is a tough topic because I don't want to take away no, but it's like, okay, like even the idea of a wickening, because if we go on the other end of the spectrum, in theory I love the idea of a wickening, but it's not a sacrament. No, it is not, nor will.
Speaker 2:It is not a recognized right of the faith not doing this will not keep you out of the summer exactly.
Speaker 3:You are not. You are not, uh, denying your child a godless existence.
Speaker 2:If you don't do this, I mean, because I think most people don't realize that a christening is literally their belief, that without this you cannot christening is it is based on that path Absolutely essential.
Speaker 3:If this rite does not happen, this child's soul is in danger. Right yeah, the bar and bat mitzvah of the Jewish faith, it's the same thing there, thing there. Without that passage, that ceremony, that person is not viewed as an adult inside of the tribe.
Speaker 2:That is the religion.
Speaker 3:We don't have that. We are so cut and dry. You are an initiate or you're not.
Speaker 2:That's it and not being an initiate or not being an initiator. Not being an initiator still will not keep you out of the summer, Exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly. We don't believe there is no right, there is no barrier by not having a degree to practice the faith or participate or do certain things. We just see it as a higher attainment of knowledge that makes people clergy versus not Right. Attainment of knowledge that makes people clergy versus not right. That's that's really I mean, if we want to be very, very basic about it. So this is, I think, part of the reason why, you know, when we hear some of the elders talk about the newer practices, they do they kind of roll their eyes and they seem a little disgruntled and curmudgeon-y about it. Right, because it's why. Why is that even necessary? Why is that a?
Speaker 2:thing, or is all of this an attempt to get us together more often as a coven to strengthen those bonds?
Speaker 3:I wish it was. I wish it was. I see these practices mostly being carried out by people who are unassociated with a group or with a church of pagan practice. They're operating on their own, or you know, they're bringing in a practitioner for that particular service, but then that's it. They have no further interaction. So I don't know, that's that's where it may look. Hand fastings, wic and weddings are at an all time high, but none of these people are part of churches, very, very few of them. So go figure, a pagan wedding is trendy.
Speaker 2:I did not realize that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very, oh my God, extremely. A pagan wedding in the woods is all the rage, mm-hmm. My daughter's boyfriend, who ordained himself to marry a family member years ago, recently conducted a wedding for a friend. It was a pagan ceremony and I was looking at him going. What the hell do you know about?
Speaker 3:a pagan ceremony. Yeah, and he was telling me all about how he had to learn to tie knots for the ceremony and he told me that was the hardest part of the whole thing was I had to learn how to tie this really intricate Celtic knot. And I'm like, let me guess, because you tied them together in a hand fasting. And he was like, yeah, I guess. So I'm like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just wild to me.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's parts of that ritual I know and I'm like no, y'all didn't do those because.
Speaker 3:I don't know. This is where I mean we're again. We're in this really interesting spot right now where the Internet offers enough material for people to be dangerous without a real understanding and this is dangerous, right, this is just what everybody's doing, so like.
Speaker 3:So, anyway, I got the chance to see the pictures, right. Yeah, beautiful outdoor service, very woodsy, very, very pagan, extremely. I mean like the bride was dressed like she was just stepping out of the Renaissance Festival, I mean you know all the things. Yeah, I think the groom had horns, I mean. But here was the part that got me, because these are the moments, this is how you know, and I mean, again, I'm not bashing on anybody's wedding, it's your wedding. It looked beautiful. I would have come. It looked like a hoot. The bride was walked down the aisle by someone dressed in one of those dinosaur costumes that you see, you know on, uh, where people the dancing dinosaurs the big blow-up dinosaur costumes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess her father is not in the picture and so she was walked down the aisle by dinosaur. There's a part of me that finds that infinitely hilarious. I'm like that's amazing. Absolutely, dance with your dinosaur down the aisle incredible. On the other hand, as a pagan priestess, I can't preside over that, there's no way. Right, as a third degree, I'm like listen, listen, right and will. Will I marry you? Right, like, will I conduct a ceremony? You have two choices. Yes, absolutely. We can conduct a private, small ceremony where we marry you in ritual space and then we do the wedding for everybody else. Fine, have your dancing dinosaur and I will act more as an officiant, totally fine. Or let's have a ritual space, let's do the wedding, the hand fasting, whatever you want to call it, and then leave circle dancing with the dinosaur or something like that. I don't know. But but some of these other parts? I'm like and and look, and people think I mean again, because we are that society now of everything's available, all the information is out there. But is it Because my daughter's boyfriend performing this ceremony?
Speaker 3:Did he take his role seriously? Absolutely. These were close friends. He was honored to perform the ceremony. Did he memorize role seriously? Absolutely. These were close friends. He was honored to perform the ceremony. Did he memorize the words? Absolutely. Did he learn how to tie all these fancy Celtic knots? Absolutely. But does he have any clue? The significance behind them, or the lore or the history?
Speaker 2:No, or the purpose of what you're doing and why you're doing it Right.
Speaker 3:That's something. No or the purpose of what you're doing and why you're doing it. Right, that's something, yeah, yeah, I don't like it. I don't like it. I understand that.
Speaker 2:I don't like it either. It bugs me.
Speaker 3:It really like. That genuinely irks me Because it shouldn't. But again, that's a traditionalist talking yes, right, talking yes.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it upsets me because that's it. My brain automatically goes where's the traditionalist when? What happened? What did you do? You're swearing loyalty to someone else and oaths and stuff like this in front of the gods.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah To us you can't get no more sacred, no more, no.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if I'm going to cross the line here.
Speaker 2:so Go for it.
Speaker 3:We'll decide if maybe this will get edited out, maybe it won't. In a traditional setting, that union would be for a year and a day at which time that bride and groom would need to come back and sit down with the priest and priestess who officiated their wedding yep specifically to say would you like this to continue?
Speaker 2:or would y'all like to go your separate way?
Speaker 3:right, what's the what? What say ye after this initial trial? Yeah, because that's what it is. And then what? And I mean, if they say great, then yeah, it's not like you're coming back to us every single year no but initially that is a part of what we do, yeah anything else on this? Subject you can think of. I just think we are in a time when let's let's be honest, historically right. We are in a time of abundance, we are in a time of uh acquisition yeah right, that's, that's literally.
Speaker 3:I don't know. You know this like that. This is how our generation, our people in history, our time in history is going to be known. We are the consumers. Yes, we have more shit than humans have ever had before. Okay, so when we run out of stuff to get our hands on and again we still have too much time on our hands because we're not hunting, we're not gathering. We're not farming, we're not right.
Speaker 2:It doesn't take all day to cook one meal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're not having to tax ourselves the way we used to. That now, sure, it spills over into ceremony. Let's create things. Let's create things, let's create celebrations, let's create events, okay, I mean, hey, if that makes you happy and you have the energy and the desire and you are just a consummate little pagan party planner, do it. Go for it absolutely, like that is joyful and it's wonderful. But let's at least acknowledge what is necessary and what is not, so that we're not making others who perhaps cannot afford or are not able to attain that thing, right, so they don't feel bad. You are no less a witch because you were not wiccanned. You were no less a witch because you were not croned. That's the idea, right, let's celebrate what is, but let's be clear that others of the community are not being seen as less than for not having that. Yeah, that's all.
Speaker 2:Coffee, coffee.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. Join us next week for another episode. Pagan Coffee Talk is brought to you by Life Temple and Seminary. Please visit us at lifetempleseminaryorg for more information, as well as links to our social media Facebook, discord, twitter, youtube and Reddit.
Speaker 4:We travel down this trodden path, the maze of stone and mire. Just hold my hand as we pass by a sea of blazing fires.
Speaker 2:And so it is the end of our day.
Speaker 4:So walk with me till morning breaks. And so it is the end of our day. So walk with me till morning breaks, thank you.
