Reclaiming Maiden, Mother & Crone in Midlife Creativity

On archetypes, artistic awakening, and the power of women coming into their wisdom

Jun 25, 2025

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The Three Who Are One (image created via Substack)

Maybe you know the feeling of realising your standing at a crossroads or a threshold. You’re in some strange in-between, in that beautiful but also slightly terrifying space of transformation. I’ve been there quite often recently, and that’s what, at least partly, inspired today’s article (I also just really love mythology and folklore, can’t help it). Because crossroads and thresholds are mythologically the domain of the “Three Who are One”: the Triple Goddess, Maiden/Mother/Crone.

And if the headline makes you worry that I’m about to launch into some manifesto about overthrowing the patriarchy (though honestly, it wouldn’t hurt): This isn’t about neo-paganism or the flavour or radical feminist theology that often uses the triple goddess imagery. It’s simply about understanding the natural rhythms of our creative lives and honouring all the different energies that live within us. So while this article is for everyone, because it truly applies to everyone (no matter their gender), it’s especially for creative women navigating midlife…

Your Inner Beginner Is Still Alive

Over the years, I’ve had many older women come to singing lessons. They usually say something along the lines of, “I’ve always wanted to sing, but isn’t it too late to get really good? Don’t I already sound too old?”

Too late? Too old? The Maiden energy inside me wants to laugh. Not at those women, but at the notion that finding our voices has an expiration date. And it also makes me angry, because these are learned beliefs, seeds planted into our brains by ageism and (internalised) misogyny.

The Maiden isn’t about being young; she’s about the spark of playfulness and innocence that lives in all of us. She’s the part of you that still gets excited about a new writing prompt, that bookmarks articles about painting techniques you want to try, that dreams about finally writing that book or starting that podcast.

It’s the part that hasn’t been crushed by life, the part that still hopes and dreams.

And that’s vital.

I think about how we dismiss women in public life when they bring fresh ideas with excitement, calling them “naive” while often celebrating men with the same innovative thinking as “visionary.” It’s the same negative energy that makes us all (no matter our gender) retreat into ourselves and feel foolish for wanting to start something new at 45 or 55. But what if that’s exactly when our most interesting work begins?

Your inner Maiden doesn’t care that you’re not 20 anymore. She’s been waiting patiently for you to remember that curiosity about art, about story, about the power of voice doesn’t belong to the young. She wants you to play with words again, to experiment with different ways of expressing yourself, to make mistakes and not be afraid so you can find and honour your authentic voice.

You’ve Been Creating All Along

Here’s what I wish someone had told me during those years when I felt like I was helping everyone else find their voice while feeling like I’d lost mine: You aren’t failing. You are learning to be a different kind of creator.

The Mother archetype isn’t just about having children (though if you have them, you know the profound creativity required to raise human beings). It’s about all the ways we nurture voices into being. Maybe, just like me, you’ve been the one teaching music, coaching clients through their fear of performing, or slowly, patiently building your own body of work despite a thousand interruptions.

Some of us spend our thirties and forties feeling guilty because we can only sing, write or paint in stolen moments between work and family obligations:

“I’m not a real [insert creative discipline of choice],”

some of my clients will say during our sessions. But when I hear their voices (no matter the artistic medium they choose), shaped by years of juggling creativity and responsibility, I hear people who built from the depths of lived experience. And I want to shake them (just like I wish someone had shaken me) and say, “Yes, you f…ing are a real creator!” And often, I do that, but usually (not always 🤣) a bit less sweary…

The Mother energy teaches us that art isn’t just about dramatic bursts of inspiration. Sometimes it’s about showing up day after day, tending your voice practice like a garden, creating the conditions for authentic expression even when you can’t see immediate results.

Your Fierce Season Is Coming

In a culture that treats aging women like we’re somehow past our sell-by-date, who wouldn’t feel uneasy about Crone status? But if you start paying attention to the women around you who are truly embracing this archetype, everything changes:

The women who say, “You know what? I’m done caring what you think about me, my needs and my voice.”

The women who have moved beyond the need for approval.

The Crone speaks uncomfortable truths, she writes and speaks from a place of deep authenticity rather than trying to please. She’s post-caring-about-your-opinion. That makes her powerful, and some people detest that power: Strategic and willing to be called difficult if it means getting things done. These women are so done with being likeable!

For those of us approaching or entering this phase, it’s simultaneously liberating and also hard. The latter because we start to feel like we’re ruffling feathers, and many of us are used to being brought to heel. Standing in that power needs getting used to. So if you notice yourself saying or writing things you never would have said or written in your 20s or 30s, if your voice gets bolder, more honest, more unapologetically you? That’s nothing to apologise for, it’s something to celebrate.

The Three Who Are One

Midlife is when many of us first taste real Crone energy. Suddenly you care less about writing what you think people want to read and more about expressing something true.

But that doesn’t mean you are just one archetype because you are of a certain age. It’s called “The Three who are One” for a reason: The most powerful creative women embody all three. You can approach a new writing project with Maiden curiosity, develop it with Mother patience, and share it with Crone fearlessness.

I see this in the people I work with who are thriving creatively in their 40s, 50s, and beyond. They’ve stopped waiting for permission to tell their stories. They’ve recognised that their scars and struggles aren’t flaws; they’re the very thing that makes their voice essential.

We’ve been fed such limiting stories about women and creativity: That our voices peak early, that our best writing is behind us by 40, that aging is about our words losing power rather than gaining depth. But what if we’ve got it completely backwards?

What if your 20s were just the warm-up? What if your 30s and 40s were the apprenticeship? What if your creative life, the one where you know who you are and what you want to say, is just beginning?

Your midlife creative journey isn’t a consolation prize or a last hurrah. The world needs what you have to offer. It needs your Maiden wonder, your Mother care, your Crone truth-telling. It needs the stories you’ll write from your lived experience, your hard-won insights, your growing fearlessness.

It needs your voice.

But most of all, you need to give yourself permission to claim your full creative power. Not when you’re “ready” (you’re ready now). Not when the timing is perfect (it never will be). Not when you’ve figured out exactly what you want to say (the doing will tell you).

Right now. In this phase of life. With all your complexity and contradictions and accumulated wisdom.

The question isn’t whether you’re too old to write that book, or if it’s too late to find your authentic voice. The question is: What are you waiting for?

The very idea of The Creative Cure is that mental well-being information should be available to everyone, and that creativity is not a magical unicorn for a select few. That’s why my articles will always be free. If you’d like to support me though, you can do one of the following: