The Sacred Seasons: How Journalling can Help Us Embrace the Archetypes of Womanhood

Sacred Seasons

We often measure life by milestones—birthdays, careers, achievements—but there’s another kind of map women carry. One that doesn’t follow the clock or the calendar but moves more like an unfolding story.

This map isn’t about age. It’s about the inner stages of becoming.

The seasons of the soul.

At different times in our lives, we embody different aspects of womanhood—not just roles like daughter or mother, but deeper archetypes that live in all of us. These archetypes—Maiden, Mother, Priestess, and Crone—offer us insight into what we need, how we grow, and where our wisdom lives.

Rather than thinking of these seasons as fixed or sequential, we can view them as inner landscapes we move through again and again. You might be stepping into your Priestess while raising children. You might return to the Maiden after a painful life change. These are not labels—they’re invitations.

And because these transitions aren’t always smooth or obvious, journaling can be a powerful companion. Writing gives shape to what we’re feeling. It allows us to pause, notice, and name what’s happening beneath the surface. It helps us understand what we’re shedding, what we’re seeking, and what we’re stepping into. A journal doesn’t just record your life—it helps you live it with greater clarity and care.

This inner journey isn’t new. For centuries, women have navigated these same seasons—quietly, bravely, and often on the edges of formal faith structures. The wisdom of the Divine Feminine has always lived here.

Let’s explore each of these sacred seasons—and the unique insight they bring.

For a tender exploration of how women are using journaling to heal and reconnect with the Divine, visit The Sacred Power of Journaling: Why Women Are Turning to the Page to Heal, and Reclaim Themselves.

The Mother: The Creative Heart

The Mother is summer—expansive, productive, and deeply relational.

While often associated with biological motherhood, this archetype goes far beyond parenting. You might mother a child, yes, but also a project, a relationship, a business, or a community. The essence of the Mother season is about creation and nurturing—offering time, energy, and love to something outside yourself.

This can also be a season of imbalance. The demands of caregiving, working, and spiritual giving can leave little room for your own soul. Many mystics wrote of this tension. Even women in early monastic life wrestled with how to tend others while staying connected to their own inner well.

Psychologically, the task of this season is learning to balance care with boundaries. To honour your own needs as sacred. To understand that nurturing must include the self.

Journaling in the Mother season can help reclaim your voice amid the noise. What do you need right now? What brings you joy? What relationships need tending—and which ones need boundaries? This season calls for presence, reflection, and deep love.

The Priestess: Integration, Insight, and Inner Authority

The Priestess season often emerges in midlife, but it can also appear any time a woman begins to live from her inner authority. This phase is marked by a shift—less concern with others’ expectations and more focus on alignment, purpose, and spiritual depth.

It often follows a time of upheaval or awakening. You may find yourself questioning your career, identity, or spiritual beliefs. The outer world may feel unstable—but something within begins to solidify.

The Priestess archetype mirrors the lives of early Christian women who held spiritual power outside the formal structures. Hadewijch of Brabant, a 13th-century mystic, wrote fearlessly of divine union and longing. The anchoresses—women who chose lives of contemplative solitude—offered deep spiritual counsel from within their quiet cells. These women did not hold public authority, but they embodied inner wisdom and spiritual clarity.

This phase becomes a portal—a threshold into applied self-wisdom. You begin to ask: What has life taught me? And how do I now want to live it?

Journaling in the Priestess season is about integration. What truths are ready to be lived, not just known? What boundaries support your values? What parts of yourself are asking for more voice, more reverence, more expression?

The Crone: Wisdom, Reflection, and Letting Go

The Crone season is winter—quiet, spacious, and profoundly wise.

While culturally feared or ignored, the Crone archetype has long been honoured in sacred texts and traditions. She is the elder, the keeper of memory, the one who no longer needs to prove or perform.

In mystical Christianity, the Crone is reflected in the lives of the Desert Mothers—early Christian women who left behind worldly status to live in simplicity and contemplation. Others lived inside the monastic tradition, holding wisdom, herbal knowledge, and soul care across generations. They remind us: wisdom is not about speaking louder—it’s about becoming truer.

This season is marked by a turning inward. Less doing. More being. The Crone is a portal into legacy, healing, and letting go. You may ask: What am I here to pass on? What am I finally ready to release?

Emotionally and psychologically, this season brings both liberation and loss. There may be grief, but also a deep sense of freedom. There’s less noise. Fewer masks. More space for peace.

Journaling in the Crone season is about meaning-making. What has your life taught you? What stories need to be honoured, healed, or shared? What values do you want to embody in your remaining years—however long or short they may be?

You Are Always Becoming

You are not bound to one archetype.

At different points in your life, each one will rise to the surface—guiding you, challenging you, inviting you into a new understanding of yourself.

Some seasons will stretch you. Others will soothe you.

Some will ask you to act. Others will ask you to pause and listen.

There is no single path, no perfect order—only the invitation to meet yourself honestly in the phase you are in.

This sacred unfolding mirrors the journey of the mystics—who never claimed perfection, only presence. They teach us that we are always in motion, always being drawn closer to the Divine.

You are not behind. You are not lost.

You are simply becoming—with wisdom, with grace, and with the quiet strength of the women who came before you.

Want to journal through your season?

At Rose Blessings, our prayer journals are created to honour the sacred stages of your journey. Whether you are discovering, nurturing, integrating, or letting go—your journal becomes a space of sacred reflection, guided by the feminine faith that has always lived within you.

With love and grace,

Rose Blessings