Nymph, Creator, Sage (and Numinous)
The year is a dancing woman…
At Yule, the time of Darkness and Dreaming, the Great Goddess is the Dark and Numinous One: Great Mother, Star Mother, Earth Mother, Transforming and Shapeshifting Ground of All Being, from Whom all things proceed and unto Whom they must return. The endless expanse of love and magic from which all beings arise. Within this limitless potential, an idea, a dream, a vision of future form, the spark struck, the seed planted.
At Imbolc, the time of Growing Light, the Great Goddess is the Midwife, the slowly brightening sky which calls forth the Dawn, the growing sun which calls forth the Spring, the Nymph: the seed cracks, the spark catches, utterly dependent on the warm earth, the fire wood, as a nursing infant is on her mother. The future, welcomed in, begins to take form, still full of potential.
At Ostara, the time of Wakening, the Goddess is the Nymph, a child with insatiable curiosity, laughter, and play, running wild and free into the brightening world. The seed now sends green shoots above the earth, the first small flame flares. Still dependent on the web of community around her, the Nymph is protected, guided, and nurtured, the seedling watered, the flame tended.
At Beltaine, the time of Flowering, the Nymph takes up the mantle of Adventurer. With her flowering independence, she ventures further and further out into the unknown. She samples widely of what the world has to offer and begins to discover her own unique talents, passions, and voice. The new plant with strong roots blossoms and bees dance among the flowers, the flame grows.
At Litha, the time of Sweet Water and Honey, the Goddess becomes the Lover who has discovered which passions call to her and pursues them intently. She enters into the passionate dance of Creation with the numinous, alluring universe around her, nurturing discovery into experience, she daydreams with optimism of where her passions will take her. The bees pollinate the flower and turn the pollen to honey. The flame becomes a steady fire.
At Lammas, the time of Harvest, the Goddess as the Creator has stepped fully into her power, applying her passions and expertise in the world around her, crafting and tending projects and goals, keeping gardens, making art and magic, weaving community, and Mother to children if she chooses. The flower becomes the fruit which nourishes life. The hearth fire is in full roar, sharing light and heat.
At Harvest Home, the time of Sharing, the Creator becomes the Sage, the Wise One, an expert in her fields of passion, she harvests and shares the fruits of her knowledge, Guiding the Nymphs and Creators around her as teacher, priestess, and mentor. Out of the fruit, the seeds of future growth. The flame darkens to embers as the light of the year wanes, still full of passionate heat.
At Samhain, the Gloaming, the Sage becomes the Crone, the Elder, a powerful Witch harnessing a lifetime of magic. She issues the call to adventure to the Nymph embarking into the world. The veil between the Crone and the Numinous is thin, and when she is ready, she steps through, becoming one with the Numinous once more. The seeds fall to the earth as the leaves of old growth fall away. The embers give way to fragrant smoke as a new spark is struck in the Dark …
Maiden, Mother, Crone has a special place in my heart. Something about this Triple Goddess form feels familiar and comforting like a favorite book or an old sweater. I have seen other paradigms suggested before (and tinkered before myself once or twice), but none of them have sung to me the way She does. Still, as many have noted over the decades, the Maiden-Mother-Crone (MMC) paradigm has its positives and its drawbacks. I have been pondering these drawbacks lately and would like to explore them here.
Many women find MMC an important signpost on their journey to honor the sacredness of their bodies in a world that views women's bodies as vessels to be controlled. Most women find themselves in mother roles at some point in their lives, so MMC is a broadly-applicable symbol of the cycle of female life. Even women who don't have children, it is said, inhabit the Mother: this phase is one of creation and nurturance -- perhaps you create art, gather community, run a business, teach, etc. But while some childfree women may find the endeavor of broadening the definition of motherhood worthwhile, it remains that, as a reflection of the life cycle, MMC does implicitly equate adulthood with motherhood. And in my experience, in person and in books, rites of passage into the Mother phase are discussed around and performed exclusively for the arrival of a child. There are Maiden rituals to mark puberty, Mother rituals for new mothers, and Croning rituals for our sisters past menopause, but what of our sisters who remain childfree -- do they never receive a rite of passage into adulthood, only Maiden and Croning rituals? I have searched high and low for Mother rituals for childfree women, or even women who just aren't ready for children yet but would like something marking the transition into their adult years, and turned up almost nothing. It is one thing to say that even childfree women embody the Mother, but if that is not borne out in our traditions' ritual practice in a consistent way, those words fall flat. Female adulthood does indeed end up being equated with motherhood, which is not particularly feminist to say the least. If you are part of a tradition that has come up with a satisfying solution to this sticky issue I would love to hear about it! A couple solutions have come to mind: set the Mother transition for a particular age or astrological timing (while still having new-mother rituals for women who have children, to be clear -- honoring the mystery of that experience is important!); or, encourage young women of a certain age or astrological timing to reflect on whether they have reached this stage of their life yet and request a ritual when she is ready.
Even with those potential solutions, however, it remains that MMC is also implicitly centered on the female reproductive cycle. I think it is a worthy feminist endeavor to honor the female reproductive cycle which, under patriarchy, has been simultaneously regarded as both shameful and as women's only source of value. But, we must be careful not to fall into old, patriarchal habits of placing undue identification on women with their bodies and wombs and neglecting their intellect and other attributes. In her essay Why Women, Men and Other Living Things Still Need the Goddess: Remembering and Reflecting 35 Years Later, Carol Christ states, "as a feminist, I value my mind and my body and the body-mind continuum. While I value other than rational ways of knowing, I do not consider intellect, reflection, and rational thinking to be in any way alien to my woman-self. I believe that intelligence is found to varying degrees in all living things and in all individuals in the web of life… I defined Goddess as the intelligent embodied love that is the ground of all being. Intelligence. Embodiment. Love. In relating these three, I suggested that intelligence arises out of the body and nature and is found in all individuals in the web of life in different degrees. I also said that deep feelings of relationship expressed as love are not irrational but are fully part of an intelligent response to the world" Of course, Goddess encompasses the whole of human experience. The light and the dark, the emotional and the rational, creation and destruction -- she contains the infinite multitudes of the universe and of women's (humanity's) experiences. But is this born out in our most common symbol for Her? Of course, the Maiden, Mother, and Crone are all intelligent! That intelligence should be assumed! But in the patriarchal milieu we all still live in, does the MMC emphasis on the reproductive cycle render that complex, intelligent love flat and one-note? In The Spiral Dance, Starhawk notes, "We must also change the context in which we respond to symbols and the ways in which they are used. If female images are merely plugged into old structures, they too will function as agents of oppression, and this prospect is doubly frightening because they would then e robbed of the liberating power with which they are imbued today." Has Maiden, Mother, Crone been robbed of its liberating power?
Wrestling with these questions, I set out to try and devise a new Triple Goddess (as a thought experiment if nothing else). I wanted to try and make a paradigm that had room for the Maiden, Mother, and Crone within it but was more expansive, perhaps, in a way that can explicitly include women's creative and intellectual lives.
Nymph
The word Nymph has a few definitions: originally, in ancient Greek paganism, the term referred to nature spirits who inhabited trees, forests, glades, and mountains, often conceived of as young women. In English, it became a term to refer to young women (similar to the word Maiden), particularly beautiful, young women, and in the world of science, it refers to the young, larval stage of insects such as dragonflies. I think this multilayered meaning lends itself well to this form of the Goddess. The Nymph phase of the Goddess is the waxing moon and the child and adolescent of Spring. She knows herself as part of this world, as the nymphs of old. She has an innate and primal freedom, unbound by the expectations of society. She is embodied and playful, innocent and curious. Life is one big adventure and experiment. She is the scent of flowers on the breeze and the sting of bark on your palms when you climb trees and the infinite rainbow colors of the world. She is the spirit of growth that brings renewal and new life. She is with the young and young of heart as they set forth to explore the world. Her worship is in the making of messes and mistakes for they are the root of all learning. She is found in searching, seeking, learning, play, curiosity and delight.
Creator
I've toyed with a few different names for this phase of the Goddess. When I started writing this post, she was called Nurturer, but the name felt a little clunky and not quite expansive enough (although she certainly does contain nurturing). Creator, in addition to being a relatively common word, already has a sacred connotation in many religious traditions. Personally, I find feminized versions of the word like creatress and creatrix a little grating (though I have been known to use creatress once in a while); it feels absurd to me to cede the word creator as somehow inherently masculine and in need of a feminine counterpart (if you like the feminine versions, however, you could sub them in here). Creator, in its simplicity and sacredness, felt right to me for this form of the Goddess. The Creator phase is that of the full moon and the grown woman of Summer. She has fallen in love with her passions, and love, the mother of invention, calls her to create the world she wishes to see: knowledge where there was ignorance, art where there was void, justice where there was injustice, community where there was isolation. She is the rush of ocean waves in the beating of your heart, the flowering of the wild rose, the hearthfire that holds the center, the cauldron which alchemizes raw ingredients into nourishment. She is the spirit of passion that brings expertise and innovation. She is the creative spirit of life that abides in all things. Her worship is in the manifesting of new skills, life, art, and community. She is found in diving deep, developing discipline, crafting, birthing, devotion, and love.
Sage
At first, I called this phase of the Goddess the Knower, but as with Nurturer, it felt a little clunky. A Sage is someone defined by their wisdom and good judgement. As with Creator, Sage may seem to have a masculine tinge to it, but that is only due to the patriarchal history of our culture and language. The Sage phase is that of the waning moon and the Crone of Autumn. Harnessing her abundance of experience, she sees situations clearly and offers discerning guidance. She speaks her mind, shrewd and cunning. She is the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves, the bone-shaking chill of the first Autumn breeze, the tenured professor, the mystic seer, the retiree pursuing her interests, the sickle moon flanked by constellations, the playful slyness of the fox. She is the spirit of fulfillment and endings. Her worship is in cultivation of wisdom through learning, listening, experience, and discernment. She is found in reflection, teaching, guidance, divination, truth-telling, and courage.
The Numinous
The Nymph, Creator, and Sage are the Triple Goddess of the Moon, of Her waxing, full, and waning light, but in the numinous dark, a fourth face is revealed: the Great Goddess, She from Whom the Nymph is born and unto Whom the Sage returns. She is the infinite starscape of the night sky and the mystery of Winter. She is the intelligent love that abides in all things. She changes everything she touches, and everything she touches changes -- the great Initiator, Transformer, and Midwife. She is the air in your lungs, the stardust in your bones, the ocean in your veins, the spark of spirit within all things. She is found in the awe of love and the mystery of consciousness. She is.
What is the difference between the Maiden and the Nymph, the Creator and the Mother, the Crone and the Sage? Nothing. The Maiden was always curious and adventurous, the Mother passionate and innovative, the Crone cunning and wise, but perhaps new names can reinvigorate their liberating power. Or perhaps Maiden, Mother, Crone language could remain, used in work with the female fertility cycle, while new names (these or others) are applied for the broader life stages of the wheel of the year. We can embody these phases at many points in our lives: we are the Nymph anytime we try or learn something new; we are the Creator anytime we take on a new passion project or make a new connection; we are the Sage anytime we give advice or exercise discernment. Perhaps, when a woman experiences her Saturn return, we could have rites of passage that are as much about honoring the values that she has chosen to hold the center of her life as the passing of a biological milestone. In the Wheel of the Year at the beginning of this post, I've mapped out each phase's manifestation at each sabbat, what might be thought of as roughly introverted and extroverted manifestations of each phase's energy: the Nymph as child taking in the lessons around her and as explorer seeking out her own lessons; the Creator as lover focused in on her passions and as artist/mother manifesting her love in the world around her; the Sage as guide teaching and dispensing wisdom to those around her and as crone reflecting deeply on her life's mysteries; the Numinous as the transformer taking in the Sage and the midwife ushering the new Nymph into being. Arranged around the Wheel, the pairs across from each other illustrate a sort of creative tension as well as the energy as it is currently manifesting in the alternate hemisphere: the Midwife and the Creator, the Nymph and the Guide, the Explorer and the Sage, the Lover and the Numinous. The introversion/extroversion and creative pairs were not something that I crafted, but existing energies which reveal themselves when we look deeply. It is said the Goddess has 10,000 names. What other new names might reveal themselves when we look deeply at the Goddess within and around us?
