The Maiden
The Maiden is a fresh girl poised to enter womanhood. She's like a tight rosebud that is just beginning to open. We call on her when we want to emphasize the facet of ourselves as women that is free-spirited and independent. However, in Wicca, we acknowledge the shadow-side of things, as well as the light side, both of which are as they should be. While the Maiden is a playful virgin and pure of heart, she can also be a tease. Her innocence, with her passions untempered by experience, can lurch into danger without warning.
The Mother
The Mother is the woman-creator of the entire universe. The beasts, the people, the water, the minerals, the fire, the stars and the silence between them, all issued from her womb. Like a good mother, she is caring, nurturing, and compassionate. Her maiden exuberance has gradually led her to a more settled phase in her life where concern for others reigns. With the sacrifice to duty comes the satisfaction of being anchored to those she loves, and hope for her children. No longer a virgin, she enjoys the fullness of her sexuality. If the Maiden is spring, she is summer. If the maiden is a bud, the Mother is a blooming rose. We call on her when seeking blessings and guidance in our love lives, sexuality, and our family. Like a good mother, she strives to see the true nature of the child she nurtures, and seeks to bring its best attributes to fruition, even if it is not as she would have preferred.
However, the Mother, too, has a shadow side. On the shadow side, she can be grasping, manipulative and filled with false pride for her accomplishments through her family. She can use her sexuality to control gods, kings, and men. She is a princess turned empress, without humility and true dedication to the ones whose care has been entrusted to her. While women have traditionally been taught to fear their shadow side and eschew power for themselves, an element of power --but under control of concern for others-- is actually a healthy part of womanhood.
The Crone conceals ancient magick in her cloaks.
She is the wise-woman of the witch archetype. She is steeped in time, herbal lore, magick and ritual. She has lived to see her beauty fade, but she has received wisdom in its stead. She has a treasury of memories of lovers gone by, children, friends, and good times . . . and hard times, all to revisit in her memory. She may still be sexual and beautiful in her own right, but she has the quiet remove of one who has seen things come to pass, and then pass away.
She is the keeper of the gates to the realms beyond our own.
She stirs the cauldron of birth and creation with her gnarled old staff.
Of all the dark aspects of the Goddess, the Shadow Crone is the most feared.
She is the Witch in Snow White, a hag of death to whom all must inevitably surrender.
Those who wish to safely pass her gates must face the harrowing aspects of disease, decline, and death.
