Moderator’s Note: This was originally posted on February 24, 2013. Sadly Mama Donna died on Sept. 21, 2024. You can read FAR’s post that honored her life here.
The Queen paradigm promotes a new understanding of what it might mean to be a middle-aged woman today who accepts complete responsibility for and to her self, and it celebrates the physical, emotional, and spiritual rewards of doing so.
Although I have been passionately devoted to the Many Splendored Goddess in Her complex multiplicity for more than thirty years now, I am not a believer in the Triple Goddess paradigm. It has never resonated with me because it belies what I believe to be the true nature of nature. The Triple Goddess in Her tripartite phases is widely understood to represent the complete cyclical wholeness of life. She who is Three is likened to the moon, the tides and the seasons, whose mutability She mirrors. And therein, lies the rub.
I am sorry, but forty years of researching, teaching, and writing about Celestially Auspicious Occasions — the cycles of the cosmos and the earthly seasons, and the multi-cultural ritual expressions that they inspire — I can state unequivocally that the moon has four quarters, not three, and that there are, as well, four seasons in the year.
While certainly there is still much to learn from the Tripartite Goddess model, the old triple-header construct is no longer all-inclusive. It no longer resonates with an entire generation of women who are in our middle years. We are no longer Maidens, nor Mothers, and not yet wise aged Crones. For us — more than 60 million climacteric women in the United States alone — the tri-level ideal is flawed.
It doesn’t include a description of my life or the lives of other contemporary women in their middle years living in modern developed countries. It does not address our issues and needs, nor does it embrace our unique and unprecedented position in society. It does not even recognize our existence. The old stereotypes simply do not apply to us.
Where is the authentic archetype for us?
Clearly it is time for a change of paradigm. Which is as it should be. Change, is, after all, the greatest teaching of the cyclical Goddess. In the absence of a traditional mythic example to inspire and sustain me through my midlife changes, I felt the need to invent one. So I formulated a fourth stage of development that would place me after the Mother and before the Crone in a newly defined continuum of Womanhood, thus providing me and other women of my generation with a recognizable role model for our mature, masterful and majestic middle years: The Queen.
The mythic model that I envision is recognizably like me, like us. Not yet old, yet no longer young, she is still active and sexy, vital with the enthusiasm and energy of youth, She is tempered with the hard earned experience and leavening attitudes of age. The Queen paradigm promotes a new understanding of what it might mean to be a middle-aged woman today who accepts complete responsibility for and to her self, and it celebrates the physical, emotional, and spiritual rewards of doing so.
Is this hubris? Who am I to challenge so powerful an archetype? Well, I am in fact, a proud member of the pioneering Sixties Generation, and consequently, I have certain modest experience in rebelling against out-lived archetypes. Our generation has long created our own characters, composed our own scripts, and authored the sagas of our own lives. Bereft of affirming depictions of our midlife, we are more than ready, willing, and perfectly capable of creating our own. We are our own role models, which is only fitting for Queens.
Donna Henes, Urban Shaman, has been a contemporary ceremonialist for 40 years. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately known, is the award-winning author of The Queen of My Self, The Moon Watcher’s Companion, Celestially Auspicious Occasions: Seasons, Cycles, and Celebrations, Dressing Our Wounds In Warm Clothes and Moon Watcher’s Companion, as well as the CD, Reverence To Her: Mythology, the Matriarchy, & Me. She is also a columnist for UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. In addition to teaching and lecturing worldwide, she maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy in Exotic Brooklyn, New York, Mama Donna’s Tea Garden And Healing Haven, where she offers intuitive tarot readings and spiritual counseling, and works with individuals and groups to create personally relevant rituals for all of life’s transitions.
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This is very much in resonance with my own work – but equally, why stop at 4? I think the goddess is many-faced, and we can encounter her many aspects regardless of the phase of our lives… I don’t think we should ask “Where is THE authentic archetype for us?”, but “Which aspects of our lives can be celebrated, bolstered, grow a little (or a lot more) in our awareness…”
Which faces of womanhood can we embody more strongly – also in different moments of our everyday life? The warrior archetype when standing up for truth; the lover archetype when in bed with ourselves our our beloved, the mother when we’re nurturing others or projects we believe in…
This is also the topic of my post scheduled for 5 December, and I’d love to invite you to have a peek at my Goddess Qi Gong work! There is still an early bird discount till the end of the month :-) https://www.elinekieft.com/goddess-qi-gong
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Thank you for reposting this from the archives. I wish I had seen it many years ago- am glad to see it now and will share. Blessings on the memory of Mama Donna.
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I used to cringe when I heard the word queen – patriarchy in drag – Now that women have lost the small edge we once had this queen bit seems totally without depth or meaning…. I believe that the triad of woman is a new age construction that many women bought into erroneously.( I certainly did for a while (I recall gathering of crones at 55 – ) – Like Donna my life experiences have taught me that four is the number of completion – women’s lives do mirror the seasons and they are four in number. Fall is not Winter – it’s the dying back/ the clearing away time – the space in-between and I am at a loss for an authentic name here. I think what’s important is to acknowledge those years between midlife and old age as being important – these years construct a kind of bridge between mothering and old age – for some the most productive years of a woman’s life..
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Just re – read Barbara’s post – how did I miss this one ? – and I quote Barbara “my friend, Carol Christ, expands on my paragraph about how the so-called “ancient triple goddess” was really invented in 1948 by Robert Graves in his book, The White Goddess. (Thanks, Carol.): I missed this too…
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Thank you Momma Donna for this re-ping article. It brough up a lot for me.
Like the author and many in the comments, our longer life experience has led me to the idea of four stages for the female experience:There are four phases for the moon and the sun and other cycles. I like alliteration I guess, so I came up with the Maiden, Mother, Matriarch, and Mystic. As an astrologer I looked at Saturn as the timekeeper with four cycles of 7 years each. But these stages of female life now don’t fit neatly into a single Saturn or Lunar return cycle. And the timing of the years for the Saturn cycle isn’t as precise. There are retrogrades for Saturn (and other planets) and timing for a transit can flucutate.
Still, there is a noticeable shift for both boys and girls at age 7 (the waxing square) and the ability to reproduce near 14, the opposition which coincides with coming of age ceremonies. For women in our culture the time of motherhood would now be considered to last longer than the first Saturn return near 28. Modern women often stretch this phase until the late 30’s and early 40’s. And at 42, that can be considered a full Saturn Cycle for this Motherhood phase.
By then, the Mother has enough experience and knowledge to be called on for advice and help from younger mothers and could assume the position of Matriarch. And at the 14 year cycle for this phase, around age 56, the approximate time of the second Saturn return, she may have passed through the menopause and moved into the full Matriarch energy. This coincides with the ‘Crone-ing ceremonies that declare you an Elder.
She may still preside over family functions and be the source for advice, but as time passes to either14 years for the Saturn opposition (70 years) or 21 years later (the last quarter phase at 77) a woman may be ready to turn the full Matriarchy over to her daughter and enter the time of focus on self-development, spirituality and creativity: The Mystic.
However these years aren’t as predictable…just close enough to show the shifts. For instance, this opposition at 70 years took place when I was closer to 74. And I have been moving far more into my creativity and spiritual growth. During these years I finished writing a trilogy (the life of a 5th century Druid Priestess). I also find my intuition and ‘knowing’ grows stronger, more of the painful memories are healed and releasted and my taste for drama, greatly diminished. My 28 year old self would be amazed! 😉✨🌀✨
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