The Enchantress

I was at a recent birthday dinner for a dear friend, and the conversation turned to the phases of a woman’s life through the archetypal lens of the maiden, mother, and crone.

Though female trinities appear in many ancient cultures and myths, the idea of the maiden, mother, and crone seems to be a modern framing of the stages of a woman’s life, popularized by contemporary writers such as folklorist Robert Graves, Starhawk, Margot Adler, and others.

I remember back when I was in my forties, someone mentioning the trilogy of maiden, mother, and crone, and I thought to myself, “That can’t possibly be all there is; there is definitely another archetypal stage missing."

Well, it turns out others had similar thoughts.

There is a fourth phase that has entered into the collective mythic imagination regarding a woman’s life through the archetypal and rhythmic lens - the phase of “the enchantress.”

I think it’s important to mention that the “mother” is not just relevant or applicable to women who have given birth, but signifies the essential qualities of mother and mothering that run through all women, regardless of whether they have children or not.

In fact, all phases are present in all women at all times in their lives. Haven’t you ever experienced the wisened, thoughtful wisdom of the crone in someone very young?

When we think in archetypal and mythic timelines, we understand that phases are not necessarily bound to a linear sequence, yet, on a biological level, there are distinct periods of each woman’s physical life that do follow a linear progression.

Remember, though, when we enter the realm of myth and archetype, qualities and characters shapeshift, morph, transmute, spiral, and circle back again.

The mythic and the biological weave together and around each other like DNA strands.

Enter the enchantress...

I’d be curious what thoughts, images, and sensations arise for you when you think about the enchantress.

Will you ponder (maybe close your eyes?) what enchantress invokes for you for a moment before reading further...?

Enchantress, enchantress, enchantress...

The etymology of the word comes from the Old French enchanter, which traces back to the Latin incantare, which means "to sing spells upon" (in- + cantare, "to sing").

So at its root, enchanting literally meant casting a spell through chant or song.

I’ve honestly somehow missed that the word enchantress contains the word chant in its roots!

How beautiful, enchanting, and dare we say charming?!

“Charming”: from Middle English charme, from Old French charme meaning "chant, magic spell," from Latin carmen meaning "song, incantation."

Wow! The “enchantress” is ”charming!”

How fascinating that both words have roots in expressing oneself through singing, chanting, or reciting “magic incantations and spells”.

 And yet, the enchantress title conjures more still...

What are the qualities of an enchanting woman?

When I imagine an enchanting woman, some of the qualities that come to heart and mind are someone who is magnetic, radiant, and creative. Oftentimes even quietly so...

The enchantress is sensually alive, embodied, and emanates female sexuality beyond motherhood or performative gestures.

The enchantress carries codes and qualities of magic, and a knowingness that life is alive with mystery,  mirth, myth, song, rhythm, incantation, and metaphor.

In other tellings of the four archetypal phases of a woman’s life, some place “The Queen” archetype in one of the quadrants.

The “Queen” archetype evokes midlife sovereignty, which seems to be a natural and even hormonal reconfiguring of a woman’s mind, body, and psyche, so it is fitting as a fourth phase as well, though the queen archetype doesn’t resonate as strongly for some of us.

To my mind, “The Queen” archetype invokes a ruler and is, of course, associated with a "queen, being a female ruler of a state, or a wife of a king.

Well, that’s all fine, but definitively not all women imagine or desire ruling over others, and certainly not all women are wives.

So the enchantress it is!

The four archetypal phases of a woman’s life - maiden, mother, enchantress, and crone - though not necessarily linear, and so, not always in that order. :)

After all, in the realm of myth and archetypal “reality,” things are a bit more, or even much more, mutable, fluid, rhythmic, and spiraling. Kind of like the feminine psyche....

Now imagine an enchanting woman with her frame drum in her hand, chanting songs and incantations to the rhythms that resanctify the soul and soil of the earth.

 And in other news...The honeybees and the Bee Priestesses are reawakening from their wintertime and timeless mythic slumber!

More on that next time...

[Photo: Roman relief showing a dancing maenad 120-140 AD Photo: Luis Garcia. Copy after a Greek original sculpted in Athens at the end of the fifth century BC, traditionally attributed to Callimachus. Edits by Krista Holland]