Fireless Altars and Crone Encounters by Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D.

Fireless Altars and Crone Encounters

Ten or fifteen years ago, I led a group of students through the wheel of the year. At Imbolc, we held a divination party. At Beltane, we painted our faces and carried wreaths of flowers through the streets to the ocean. At Lammas, we harvested our gardens and cooked a feast.

At Samhain, we met at Alice’s house. Her back yard was a miniature jungle of oaks and olive trees with a clearing near the center. It was a windy night and the fire season that year was ferocious. As we were laying herbs and flowers, skulls and bones, and a cauldron for scrying on the altar, the wind came up again. I decided it would be both prudent and meaningful to have a fireless altar. No candles. No incense. We cast our circle, invoked the dark goddesses, and a dog howled nearby. It was a most satisfactory ritual.

Reader, think of the dark altar as a dark mirror. As you quietly sit in the darkness, look with the eyes of your imagination and see what the dark altar shows you. Use the night vision of your soul and look for the crone or sage you’re growing up to be.

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” Regard the fair crone, the fair sage. Not fair as in “pretty,” although you may see the fairness of a face lined with the lessons of a lifetime. Fair as in “without bias, distinct, pleasant and courteous in speech.”

Reader, what do you want to know about your life in the coming season or year? Who knows more about you than you yourself? Who can speak more truly for you? Sit in the darkness with the crone or sage you will become and ask your question. Listen to your answer.

Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is the author of Pagan Every Day: Finding the Extraordinary in Our Ordinary Lives (RedWheel/Weiser, 2006), a unique daybook of daily meditations, stories, and activities. Her earlier books are Finding New Goddesses, Quicksilver Moon, Goddess Meditations, and Practicing the Presence of the Goddess. Her day job is freelance editing for people who don't want to embarrass themselves in print. Barbara lives in southern California. To purchase a signed copy of Finding New Goddesses, just send Barbara an email at bawriting@earthlink.net.