I’m becoming aware of what seems to be a movement, an upwelling, an awakening, that is happening in our collective (western, primarily female) awareness, of women arriving at their post-menopausal years with a whole lot of vitality and wisdom, and not at all ready or willing to become an invisible, useless "older woman."
Just look at some of the titles that have recently been published:
Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life , by Sharon Blackie
Creatrix Rising: Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women, by Stephanie Raffelock
Goddesses in Older Women: Archetypes in Women Over Fifty, by Jean Shinoda Bolen
We are living longer, and although we’ve come a long way for sure, at this point in our lives we are at “a moment of developmental possibility most of our mothers didn’t have.”
We have a whole new chapter to write, a chapter about self-actualization, deeper meaning, spiritual development, and fulfillment of purpose. A chapter about sharing the potency of our gifts and wisdom in service to the world.
Here’s a quote from Stephanie Raffelock: “In fact, none of the women I knew were comfortable with the worn-out definition of older women. The vitality and creativity birthed at midlife could not be silence in this new kind of woman. What it meant to reach midlife had changed. Women were no longer willing to consider themselves too old to dream.”
It seems pretty clear that the old Triple Goddess model of Maiden—Mother—Crone is no longer sufficient (was it ever?) to call women forward into the fullness of their potential.
Did you know an Irish poet and essayist, Robert Graves, came up with the notion of the Triple Goddess in 1948? Perhaps it’s not surprising that a man, embedded in a partiarchal mindset, at a time when women had only recently been granted the right to vote, would completely miss the potent post-motherhood possibilities of women.
I believe it's time for the "Quadruple Goddess:” Maiden—Mother—QUEEN—Crone. I believe it’s time for women to claim, define, and flesh out our own growth path!
What is a Queen?
Here's an image to help us start the conversation of fleshing out this peri-post-menopausal chapter:
I first came across the idea of the Quadruple Goddess in January, 2024, in Christiane Pelmas’ Substack post God Save the Queen: On the Art of Not Being Disappeared. Christiane's idea of the Queen hit me like a lightning bolt - it put words to my experience of how, at age 62, I was just coming into my prime in terms of mastery and knowing my purpose, my contribution. It was a massive “aha” moment of self-recognition.
So, using the Quadruple Goddess as a very rough map of a woman’s life stages, I’m conceiving of the Queen as a stage that begins perhaps as early as the mid-40's, when a woman enters peri-menopause, and also starts questioning everything and feels a longing for deeper meaning and fulfillment in her life.
The old ways of getting things done don't work so well anymore, and the thrust towards achievement and productivity starts feeling increasingly "flat" or lackluster, or just plain unsustainable. At this phase we may start to engage or reconnect with spiritual practices, looking into "what's really going on here" and trying to discern what's “real” and “true.”
I just want to make a note here: if we're in survival mode, the impulse for more meaning may not show up because our energies are so focused on securing basic needs like food, shelter, generating income, etc. And, not every woman is called towards queenhood, which is totally fine and right!
However, if we are called in this direction, and if we have the right kind of support, I believe we can evolve across an important developmental threshold: an embodied, psycho-spiritual awakening where we realize a fundamental unity with all life.
No longer solely separate, something relaxes at the very core of our being, and we can gradually become willing co-creators with life as it unfolds. As our conditioning and limiting beliefs are integrated, we become increasingly free to dare and express our authenticity in meaningful service and participation with life. We can step into the deep presence and power of our awakened Queen-hood, and finally, confidently do what we're really here to do.
In the Mother stage, we give birth to children and/or projects and careers. In the Queen stage, we give birth to ourselves, so we can be mothers to the world. (I need to find the citation for this idea…)
Embodied spiritual awakening is central to what I believe is the full potential of the Queen phase of a woman's life.
This is akin to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly-- the transformation is that fundamental and significant!
A Closer Look at the Developmental Stages of Becoming a Queen
Let’s zoom more deeply into the Quadruple Goddess model and look at the what’s involved in stages of becoming an awakened queen…
The above map is based on the absolutely brilliant work of Dr Carole Griggs, and my colleague, Ted Strauss. Carole and Ted spent years poring over many different models of human development stages (psychological, Integral, spiritual, etc), and synthesized them into one comprehensive framework called the Griggs-Strauss iConscious Map of Human Development. **
The left edge of the map starts with the basics: from birth, to childhood self-centrism, to teenage conformity, to adult striving/ accomplishment, and even eauality/harmony. These echo Maslow’s “heirarchy of needs,” which you may be familiar with.
But the iConscious map goes way beyond these familiar stages, and articulates further psycho-spiritual developmental possibilities.
I've overlaid upon the iConscious map the Maiden—Mother—QUEEN—Crone model, and I’ve zoomed in and delineated what I believe to be the relevant stages of becoming a fully-awakened, fully-realized Queen:
Pre-Queen: In this pre-awakened stage, you might have spiritual "glimpses" or intuitions of something "more than this”and the unified field of Everything, and also may experience old structures and strategies starting to fall apart and unravel.
Baby Queen: This is when you've become clear about the unified nature of life and sense yourself as no longer separate. You've really "landed" in your body, in this world. You realize you are made of the same fabric as the universe, you are infinite and finite at the same time. This realization marks the beginning of deeper unraveling of conditioning necessary to transform into fully liberated, authentic expression.
Full Queen: After several years of unraveling & unwinding conditioning (including the limitations imposed by a patriarchal culture) and expanding more deeply into your multi-dimensional and authentic nature, you are ready to fully express and live your purpose and potential, your fully flowering Queenhood.
An important note about stages: the numbered stages on the iConscious map are not just "states", or “glimpses.” These are your actual center of gravity, how you consistently experience yourself and the world.
The Stage 9, “Embodied Unity,” awakening is not just a momentary recognition, but a permanent, life-changing, irreversible shift in one’s identity and perception of reality.
I'm not going to go into more detail about this map right now — probably in a future essay/ post — but the main thing I want to point out here is that I believe embodied spiritual awakening is a natural developmental potential for all humans, and is a pivotal initiatory threshold we cross on the journey to becoming an awakened Queen.
** The Griggs and Strauss’s iConscious Map of Human Development incorporates many models, including: -- the research and theories of developmental psychologists such as Piaget, Kohlberg, and Maslow; -- the mature ego-development concepts proposed by Jung, Meyers-Briggs, and Susanne Cook-Greuter; -- Integral theorists such as Jean Gebser, Ken Wilber, Terri O’Fallon, and Beck & Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics; and -- developmental maps from spiritual traditions such as Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Indian philosopher, Sri Aurobindo.
So, how do we get there? How do we move through these developmental stages?
Let's look at our next diagram, “The Queen’s Spiral of Awakening”
In my experience of becoming a queen and in my many years of supporting others in their embodied awakening process, it seems to me that the process of growth/ evolution is like a spiral.
The phases of the spiral could be identified as:
Unraveling - Consciously encountering constrictions/ triggers/ activation caused by our childhood wounding and conditioning, and allowing them to integrate and resolve. It includes becoming conscious of unconscious beliefs, patterns, conditioning and recognizing its impact on our lives over time. Unraveling also involves surrendering our compulsion to fix, strategize, control, manipulate ourselves and/or our environment and other people in order to feel safe (and/or to feel loved, feel valuable and wanted, etc). Easier said than done…
Reconfiguration - After a chunk of constriction has unraveled and integrated (not exiled, exorcized, overcome, or reasoned away), some “space” and ease are created, allowing for a new range of motion and possibility. It may take some time for our mind and body to adjust to and inhabit/ claim this space that is based on a bigger, more accurate “truth” than the old, constricted pattern was operating from.
Emergence & Expression - As our body/mind opens to new space and freedom, we again start feeling impulses to move and take action. We learn to listen to these subtle, emerging "prompts of being,” and allow ourselves to move and interact with the world in a slightly different, more authentic way.
And of course, as we express ourselves and take action, life will give us more opportunities to encounter our limits and conditioning, and dive into another round of unraveling!
It's helpful to keep in mind that the sequence of the spiral can happen within an hour, a day, a week, a month, a quarter, a year, even a decade.
In other words, you may experience months or years where one of these phases is predominant - e.g. "unraveling" is often the foreground of our experience during the Pre-Queen and Baby Queen years. Unraveling is a big part of the post-awakening transformation process. But as we approach our Full Queen years, unraveling starts easing up and "emergence & expression" tends to loom in the foreground, although minor spirals of unraveling continue to happen along the way (probably until we die!).
While the spiral of the awakening process is relevant to all people, a woman’s journey into full empowerment and sovereignty necessarily involves unraveling the negative influences of our patriarchal culture.
As members of a marginalized, oppressed group, women have internalized many limiting self-beliefs that, often unconsciously, undermine our ability to express both our brilliance and our tenderness and our considerable feminine gifts.
How Does the Spiral of Awakening Relate to the Stages of Awakening?
Here’s a visual to help you get a sense of how the Spiral relates to the Stages:
I believe the spiral of Unraveling—Reconfiguring—Emerging & Expressing is how we grow, how we (most of us, all of us?) evolve, from one developmental stage to the next.
Let me acknowledge that women can, and do, awaken spontaneously without a spiritual teacher or path. However, many of the accounts I've heard report a significant period of disorientation and even wondering about one's sanity (especially if it's a sudden awakening). Without guidance and context, awakening can be very disorienting!
And, let me also say that you can go around in circles for a long time if the spiritual path is focused solely on transcendence. As appealing as transcendence is, dissociation from the material world can only take you so far.
What does it take to grow a Queen?
So, how do we consciously and effectively engage the Spiral of Awakening? What kind of support do we need? Let’s look at this diagram:
Evolving across the threshold of Stage 9, Embodied Unity (or embodied awakening) is a natural, organic process!
It's similar to the birthing process - there are things you can do to make it easier, and types of support that can make a tremendous difference.
In other words, you cancooperate effectively with this natural, organic process, and whether or not you work with me, these are the 5 Elements I think are needed in order to spiral along merrily and effectively into our full queenhood:
1. Map & Concepts — A reliable map of the terrain of awakening helps you see/ know/ trust that you are “on track,” and to relax into the journey. It gives your mind something to do as the spiraling works on and transforms multiple dimensions of your being. Key concepts help you orient towards specific aspects of the journey, so that the challenges you experience have meaning and purpose. Maps and concepts also help reduce the confusion and disorientation that can come from the awakening process.
2. Orientation / Attitude — The journey of awakening our queen can be really intense at times, and certain orientations and attitudes help us navigate those challenging rapids more smoothly and effectively, and with less fighting and friction. These attitudes can help us reduce “unnecessary suffering” as the caterpillar dissolves and the butterfly begins to form.
3. Skilled, Awakened Guides/ Midwives — Having women who have made the queen transition ahead of you, who know the territory, and who know how to support your self-birthing process, is truly invaluable. Not only can they provide role-modeling, but their wise support and nuanced guidance can help us navigate stuck and/or painful places, illuminate our hidden patterns, give us tips and tricks to avoid pitfalls, and point us in fruitful directions.
4. Practices — There are things you can do to cooperate with the awakening process, and there are things that are counter-productive (and probably a whole bunch of things in between). It’s really good to cultivate some simple, fundamental skills that support this transformational process.
5. Nurturing Environment & Community — Hey, it’s so great to not do this alone! Being around other women who are in their “self-birth canal” can be so mutually encouraging. When the mainstream culture is not only oblivious to this initiatory passage, but is effectively counter-productive to it, then we need to co-create environments/ climates that nurture baby queens into being with supportive ground rules, principles, and practices. In other words, creating a culture that supports queening.
Although over time we get better and better at cooperating with this natural, spiral process of awakening on our own — especially as we become more empowered and sovereign as full queens — I think there’s always some need for all of these elements in some way or other. I’m 12 years into my awakened life, and I still lean on my teacher/mentor when I’m spiraling through an unraveling “rough-patch,” I still use practices to support my continued expansion/ evolution, I still refine and elaborate my maps and understanding of the awakening landscape, and I still deeply need and cherish my small circle of co-evolving awakened queens.
Characteristics of a Full Queen
Here’s what I’m experiencing in myself and seeing in my colleagues who have done a lot of post-awakening unraveling/ integration:
Increased intimacy and reciprocity with self, others, and the world
More ability to know and speak our truth
More clarity about what’s truly important and what’s not
Less fear and more trust in self and in life —> increased ability to dare and engage, take action, and experiment
More self-confidence and self-love
More clarity and peace about what’s “mine” and “not mine” to do — not trying to “save the whole world” despite our hearts being deeply open to the suffering around us
Engaging in meaningful projects, offering our gifts in meaningful and satisfying ways, letting go of what doesn’t feed our soul
Less driven, more ease and flow, more open, and yet also more grounded
Deep, expansive, unwavering Presence
Growing sense of sovereignty and self-reference, even while open and responsive to the world
Increasingly comfortable with, and valuing of, our divinely feminine gifts and nature
Conclusion
I hope this “essay” gives you a glimpse of the magnitude of what’s possible if we consciously cooperate with our evolutionary impulses and move across the psycho-spiritual developmental threshold of becoming a Queen, and inspires you to go for it!
This is a work in progress! There are many criticisms of the Triple Goddess model, e.g. the “Maiden” stage doesn’t resonate with today’s young women, and the etymology of the word “Crone” shows it was clearly meant as a derogatory term. And the term “Queen” in the Quadruple Goddess model is also a point of contention, e.g. some women are hesitant to use a term that is stained by the harm and warfare done by colonizing kings and emperors, and prefer a term like Creatrix.
I resonate with the term Queen because of a medicine journey I did a few years ago where it was brilliantly and unequivocally illuminated to me that “The Divine, Sovereign Feminine Must Be Put Back on Her Throne.” As a past competitive athlete and chemical engineer who was completely and utterly indoctrinated in patriarchal /rational/ mechanistic values, this powerful declaration echoed my own “recovery” process of the feminine.
In closing, I welcome any and all comments about my approach and the models I used in this essay, so I can refine it and make it even more useful and true (to the extent that any model is useful and true).
