The Queen in her "ripeness of being" is empowered and filled with light. She has regained confidence after a period of consolidation. She has pride in her accomplishments, but the pride is more in who she is than what she has done. She honors the journey that she has been on, and it has humanized her. She has "gotten over herself" and when she looks in the mirror she sees not only her unique inner beauty, but she also sees the world. Instead of feeling "invisible" she has become "transparent."

She shimmers. Purple, the regal color, from the Latin "purpureus" meaning "very, very holy" (B. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, p.829) gives way to iridescence. She wears both proudly and humbly the purple heart that life has given her. If she gets inflated or gets too allied with a goddess then she is a Witch in the disguise of a Queen, like the Snow Queen or Alice's Queen of Hearts. When this happens—and it happens to us all from time to time—she will inevitably become disappointed or deflated and need to start all over humbly.
 
 

In the phase of the Queen, there is often:

When she has become an inner queen, a woman has arrived at her interior dwelling place. She can hold and mediate the opposites of love and death. Something new has been created; her life is simultaneously bigger and smaller than before. She has the capacity to return to her own center. She is generous and gracious, womanly and powerful. She has been initiated through pain and suffering; this she neither forgets nor dwells upon.
 
 

Often she is silent, yet she can speak the truth. She lives out the rest of her life in touch with something divine, as if she knows her place in the universe. Whatever she must deal with, whether it be her last illness or being all alone, she remains herself. She is compassionate, fierce, radiant and sacred.
 

I was moved by the synchronicities of Sally losing and finding her mother's bracelet. Sally had finally ended being the bound daughter to her now deceased mother. She had separated enough to become her own person yet feel closer to her mother and daughter and granddaughter to come.

The Witch spent many years as the wise woman of the woods, healing illnesses and injuries.  She began to notice an increase in sword wounds, and horrible things done to women and children. She heard rumors of bands of brigands in the area, and knew that it was now time to act. She spun herself a glorious cloak, dying it with the blue and purple flowers. She combed out her long white hair.  She carved herself a wondrous walking stick, because for all her healing arts, she could never heal her own burned and scarred feet.  With cloak and hair streaming behind her, she left the cottage.  She headed toward the castle, her old home.  It was almost in ruins.  Once she had left, there was no one to maintain it.  Her husband the King had never reappeared, the kingdom was impoverished and crippled.  There was no protection for the good people that lived there.

She approached the castle, and was stopped by a man with a sword.  He challenged her, wanting to know who she was.  She pulled herself up very tall, almost as if drawing power from the center of the Earth.  "I am the Queen of this castle.  Let me pass."  The man sneered. "Oh no you are not.   The Queen was wicked, she died dancing in red hot shoes."  At this, the Queen removed her shoes, and showed the man her scarred and wounded feet.  He paled, for he was the child of the Huntsman who had been ordered to kill Snow White and bring back her lungs and liver for the Wicked Queen to eat. He had been raised on tales of the Witch, and was frightened.  Again the Witch saw how much she was loathed and feared.  She felt remorse, and then had a glimmer of an idea.

"Come," she said to the huntsman's son, "I have a plan.  We must work quickly to save the kingdom."  And with that, she grabbed his hand and pulled him to her secret room.  He fainted then, thinking for sure that she was going to kill him.  The Witch looked around the room, seeing the remnants of her last visit there, when she made the terrible poison apple for Snow White.  She awakened the son of the huntsman, and put him to work clearing away the poison.

When the room was clear, she told him the plan.  "Look,"  she said, "Everyone is terrified of me.  Let's use that!  Put out the word that I am back, and bring along a frog or two.  Tell everyone that you saw me turn some people into frogs, and the brigands will run away."  They spent the morning catching frogs, and even found some toads.

The plan worked, the brigands left, and the Witch then had to redeem her reputation.  She was helped immensely by the huntsman's son.  When the son's wife was giving birth, there was difficulty.  In despair, he called on the Witch for help.  Of course, the poor wife feared that then she would have to give her first-born child to the Witch, but that did not happen.  Instead the Witch used her knowledge of nature, and herbs, and the elements and threw in a tiny bit of magic, and both woman and baby survived and thrived.  Over time people began to come to her for healing, then to settle disputes.   Although there were always some who refused to trust her transformation, soon her wisdom and compassion were known throughout the kingdom. She truly was the Queen.

One day she heard a bugle announcing a visit from a neighboring Queen.  Ushered in, she saw it was Snow White, but Snow White did not recognize her stepmother. The Witch saw that Snow White retained her beauty, although being a Queen and a mother seemed to given her a few wrinkles. Snow White said, "My lady, I do not know who you are, or your right to be here.  This castle was my Father's, but he died in a battle long ago. I am here because your wisdom and compassion are known far and wide.  I need your help.  My husband is very ill.  I dearly love him, as he saved me long ago.  Can you help?"  At this, Snow White looked into the Witch's face.  She saw a woman with age spots, and wrinkles, and long white hair.  The witch's eyes were filled only with tenderness and benevolence. The Witch prepared the healing potion for Snow White's husband.  It was only when the Witch stood up to escort Snow White to the door that her wounded feet became visible.   Snow White suddenly knew!

They were silent, looking at each other.   Snow White could not believe how much her vain and proud stepmother had changed.  She looked as if she never looked in a mirror anymore!  And she had been so kind, this previously Wicked Stepmother.  Snow White didn't know what to think.  Here she was with her mortal enemy, who happened to be the only person in the world who could cure her husband.  What was Snow White to do?

The Witch apologized for all that she had done to Snow White, plotting to have her killed, using laces, combs and ribbons, and finally the poison apple.  She admitted her guilt, and made no excuses for what she had done.  She was truly contrite, and she asked Snow White for forgiveness. Snow White said, "I had heard that the new Queen here was a woman of great compassion. Word has spread far of  your healing and your wisdom.  Yet I do not know if I can trust you or forgive you."   As she said that, Snow White was afraid that the Witch would kill her.  Instead the Witch bowed her head, and said, "It is my greatest hope that someday you will forgive me.  In the meantime, please know that your husband will live."

Snow White left, and soon thereafter word came that her husband was cured.  The Witch lived on for many years, ruling with grace and compassion, mercy and wisdom.  She never forgot that she had been through the fire and the flood, nor her time apprenticed and healed by Grandmother Bear.  She was all these things, and more, as she was truly herself.  She had become a Queen.
 
 

Sunset the night Josephine died.

Conclusion

So here we must leave the women that we've introduced to you who are navigating through the waters of their mid life passage. They provide us with a template of the woman's journey through the years that correspond with menopause. Leaving behind the potentialities of the girl, lover, and mother roles that have both enriched and bound her, each in her way has grappled with her aging process and eventual death. We've seen how external and internal trials and difficulties facing women "of a certain age" can catapult her into embodying the Witch archetype of icy wrath, bitter despair, relentless envy, and immobilizing shame. As her body changes, her fertility wanes, her children leave, her partners change or die, she must confront the limitations of her mortality, her lost opportunities as well as the losses that are part of aging in this culture.

We have shown you  examples of women who have struggled and been able to transform and come to a new place in their lives. Not all women fare so well. Each of us can fall into and get stuck in the Witch archetype, which is cold and arid and deadening. Through painful introspection, suffering, and grace, we may have the opportunity to re-create ourselves and transform into a woman who can relate to the elements of Queen archetype. We have presented the Queen as a woman who has grieved her losses and gained renewed vision and compassion as she has come into ripeness of being. She is a model  for feminine maturity that can guide and inspire us through mid life and beyond.
 
 
 

References

Authors

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