)O( ~*~ Goddess ~*~ )O( The Maiden, Mother & Crone
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In the beginning was the Mother.
As far back as 30,000 years ago, the people of the earth worshipped a female deity. In cultures around the world, the Goddess has been revered in myriad forms, in temple and grove, cathedral and cave. She has been celebrated and venerated through ritual, myth, and art.
In Neo-pagan Witchcraft the Goddess is the very essence or central figure of the Craft and worship. She is the Great Mother, representing the fertility which brings forth all life; as Mother Nature she is the living biosphere of both the planets and the forces of the elements; she has roles of both creator and destroyer; she is the Queen of Heaven; and she is the moon. She possesses magickal powers and is emotion, intuition and psychic faculty.
The path of Goddess is not defined or laid down in dogma. It is a living, daily connection with sacredness. There is literally no end to the ways in which you can find and honor Goddess. The Goddess is Gaia, the earth ... Ix Chel, the moon ... Arianrhod, the stars. She is Oya, who brings the storms, and she is Mary, who calms them. She is Nut, who births creation, and Kali, who destroys it. She is maiden, mother, queen and crone. She is lover and spinster, warrior and sibyl, nurturer and judge.
The religion of the Goddess centres around the Hearth. Whether this be the inner sun flaming within the matrix of our earth, or the sun itself, this is the source of manifested life. Within the body of all mothers, whether Goddesses, women, female creatures that give birth to egg or seed, the inner fire is the Divine Centre. In this nucleus is our own heart's life, that heart whose rhythmic beating keeps us alive and sets moving the rhythmic Dance of Creation. This Heart-beat of the Cosmos sets moving all heart-beats, even the tiny pulse within a blade of grass. On the earthly level the heart brings life. On other levels it is Love. For the Heart exists on all levels.
The Divine Force within the Goddess is believed to be genderless, but within the universe it is manifested as male and female principles. Often within the worship of the Divine Force the Goddess, or the female principle, is emphasized to the exclusion of The Horned God, or the male principle. But, theoretically both are recognized.
The Goddess has many facets, names and aspects. Although in witchcraft and Neo-paganism she is mainly worshiped in her aspects of the triple Goddess: Virgin, Mother and Crone. -
Goddess worship dates back to Paleolithic times. Many anthropologists speculate the first "God " or gods of the peoples were feminine. This coincides with ancient creation myths and beliefs that creation was achieved through self-fertilization. Within the concept of creation the participation of the male principle was not known or recognized yet. The Goddess was believed to have created the universe by herself alone.
From this belief came the agricultural religions. It was thought that the gods only prospered by the beneficence and wisdom which the Goddess showered on them. Evidence appears to indicate most ancient tribes and cultures were matriarchal.
Although this maybe true, there seems to be little evidence that the feminine portions of these societies held themselves superior over their male counterparts. Generally Goddess worship had been balanced by the honoring of both the male and female Deities. This is illustrated by the belief in and the observance of the sacred marriage of the Sky God and Earth Mother in many global societies.
Among the first human images discovered are the "Venus figures," nude female figures having exaggerated sexual parts that date back to the Cro-Magnons of the Upper Paleolithic period between 35,000 and 10,000 BC.
In southern France is the Venus of Laussel which is carved in basrelief in a rock shelter. This appears once to have been a hunting shrine which dates to around 19,000 BC. In this carving the woman is painted red, perhaps to suggest blood, and holds a bison horn in one hand.
Also in Cro-Magnon cave paintings women are depicted giving birth. "A naked Goddess appears to have been the patroness of the hunt to mammoth hunters in the Pyrenees and was also protectress of the hearth and lady of the wild things."
Other female figurines were discovered dating back to the proto-Neolithic period of ca, 9000 - 7000 BC, the Middle Neolithic period of ca. 6000 - 5000 BC, and the Higher Neolithic period of ca. 4500 - 3500 BC. Some of these figurines were decorated as if they had been objects of worship. In black Africa were discovered cave images of the Horned Goddess (later Isis, ca. 7000 - 6000 BC). The Black Goddess images appeared to represent a bisexual, self-fertilizing woman.
During the predynastic Egyptian period, prior to 3110 BC, the Goddess was known as Ta-Urt (Great One) and was portrayed as a pregnant hippopotamus stand on her hind legs.
The Halaf culture around the Tigris River, ca. 5000 - 4000 BC, had Goddess figurines associated with the cow, serpent, humped ox, sheep, goat, pig, bull, dove and double ax. These things were known to the people and became symbols representing the Goddess.
In the Sumerian civilization, ca. 4000 BC, the princesses or queens of cities were associated with the Goddess. A king was associated with God.
Throughout the eons of history the Goddess assumed many aspects. She was seen as the creatress, virgin, mother, destroyer, warrior, huntress, homemaker, wife, artist, jurist, healer and sorcerer. Her roles or abilities increased with the advancement of the cultures which worshipped her.
She could represent a queen with a consort, or lover. She might bear a son who died young or was sacrificed only to rise again representing the annual birth-death-rebirth cycle of the seasons.
Throughout the centuries the Goddess has acquired a thousand names and a thousand faces but most always she has represented nature, she is associated with both the sun and moon, the earth and the shy. The Goddess religion, usually in all forms, is a nature religion. Those worshipping the Goddess worship or care for nature too.
Concerning the thousand names of the Goddess. The first is that "Every female divinity in the present Encyclopedia may be correctly regarded as only another aspect of the core concept of a female Supreme Being." "If such a system had been applied to the usual concept of God, (giving him the different names and titles which people throughout the centuries have attributed to him), there would now be a multitude of separate 'gods' with names like Almighty, Yahweh, Lord, Holy Ghost, Sun of Righteousness, Christ, Creator, Lawgiver, Jehovah, Providence, Allah, Savior, Redeemer, Paraclete, Heavenly Father, and so on, ad infinitum, each one assigned to a particular function in the world pantheon." -
)O( ~*~ The Venus of Willendorf ~*~ )O(
~ EARTH MOTHER - MOTHER GODDESS ~
By-Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe
The concept of an Earth Mother or Mother Goddess or Great Goddess derives primarily from the Greeks. In the Theogony, written in the early 7th century BCE, the poet Hesiod named the "deep-breas+ed" Earth Gaea, "a firm seat of all things for ever," who, after emerging out of Chaos, brought forth "starry Ouranus" (the sky), Mountains, the sea, and, after having lain with Ouranus, a number of non-cosmological Titans.
Plato (c. 427-347 BCE) in the Timaeus (40e) calls her Ge. According to Pausanias in his Description of Greece (2nd century CE), there was an altar and sanctuary dedicated to Gaia (the Gaeum) at Olympia (V.14.10), and another, known as the Gaeus, near Aegae in Achaia (VII.25.13). There was also a sanctuary of Earth the Nursing-Mother near the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens (I.22.3).
The Romans worshipped her as Tellus, or Terra Mater, whom Varro (116-27 BCE) called "the Great Mother."
Tellus or Terra Mater (detail from the Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome)
image source
In De rerum natura, the Latin poet Lucretius (died c. 55 BCE) calls the earth Tellus and refers several times to her as Mother Earth or the Great Mother, stating that "she alone is called Great Mother of the gods [Magna deum Mater], and Mother of the wild beasts, and maker of our bodies" (II.597-599).
The cult of the Great Mother [Magna Mater], later identified with the mother-goddess Cybele (and by the Greeks as Rhea), was established in Rome by the 3rd century BCE. The Greek satirist Lucian (120-c.190 CE) mentions the "Great Mother" in his dialogue Saturnalia (12).
A measure of her prominence in the pagan world is the space St. Augustine (354-430 CE) devotes to attacking her worship in The City of God Against the Pagans (VII, 24).
Largely suppressed during the Christian period, she emerges again in the 18th century when references are made to the female Earth as Mother Goddess.
Interest in the Earth Mother and the Great Mother increased significantly in the 19th century. Besides the classical sources attesting to her worship, the 19th century became aware of the many contemporary tribal peoples who worshipped the Earth as a female deity.
In 1861, in the first volume of his book Das Mutterrecht ['The Mother Right'] [see BIBLIOGRAPHY] the Swiss anthropologist Johann Jacob Bachofen (1815-1887) argued that the matriarchate or gynecocracy found among tribal peoples, where authority in both the family and the tribe was in the hands of the women, was to be associated with the worship of a supreme female earth deity.
When these ideas became meshed with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, laid out in 1859 in his On the Origin of Species, there emerged the view that human evolution must have passed through an earlier matriarchal stage.
Though controversial, this view posed no serious threat to patriarchal order. Indeed, in the context of arguments developed by the social Darwinists in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, it nicely demonstrated the superiority and evolutionary "fitness" of patriarchy over matriarchy. The fact that matriarchy was to be found in the contemporary world only among "primitive" tribal peoples only served to substantiate this claim.
It was against this background of ideas that archaeologists working at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century saw the newly discovered Paleolithic "Venus" figurines, and which permitted an interpretation of them as representations of the Mother Goddess.
Despite the lack of evidence, beyond the appearance of the figurines themselves, ancient Greek cosmogonies, and the spurious connection with much later tribal practices, numerous scholars have nonetheless felt free to extend the idea of an Earth Goddess or Mother Goddess into the prehistoric past and to claim that Stone-Age peoples had believed in her as a universal deity.
Other scholars, however, have rejected these ideas as a basis for interpretation and have pointed out, for example, the lack of obvious signs of divinity in the figurines. But, again, lacking written documentation these claims either way are difficult to support or refute.
Although the paradigm of the "Venus" of Willendorf as Mother Goddess persists, in recent years the figurine has also been interpreted as possibly functioning in a more gynaecological context, perhaps serving as a charm or amulet of some kind for women in connection with fertility.
At the time of its discovery, the statuette showed traces of red ochre pigment, which has been thought to symbolize, or serve as a surrogate of, the menstrual blood of women as a life-giving agent, as is the case in later traditions.
The emphasis given to the "Venus" of Willendorf's vulva and the possibility that the red ochre served as a blood substitute suggest that the figurine may have served some purpose in connection with female menstruation.
If the "Venus" of Willendorf was made to function within this sort of context, it would place the figurine emphatically within the sphere of the female. This would increase the possibility that it was carved not by a man, but by a woman.
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Edited
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Edited due to the contents of the post.
Please show respect to other people's belief. -
)O( ~*~ The Willendorf Goddess Cowrie Amulet ~*~ )O(
The Symbolism & Magickal Use Of Cowrie Shell
Cowrie shells symbolise love, fertility, good luck, material gain and blessings. Cowrie shells are highly valued by many Cultures & Religions for their magickal properties, value & shape, which symbolises fertility and Goddess Blessings, due to their resemblance to the female Vulva, a symbol of Goddess. In the olden days, cowrie shells represent "Money" and they are first representation of "Primitive Money" thus excellent for attracting Wealth, abundance, Monetary Gains and Money Matters.
The Magickal & Healing Properties Of Tiger Eye
Tiger Eye enhances courage, brings passion and physical strength, and allows these attributes to be tempered with mental clarity and a joyful outlook. With its vibrant golden color, tiger eye is used to increase wealth and vitality. A Powerful Stone of Earthly Power.
)O( ~*~ The Willendorf Goddess Cowrie Amulet ~*~ )O( is double-sided pendant, Caramel Fire-Glazed Raku Porcelain Willendorf Goddess on one side, Cowrie Shell on the other, with Tiger Eye Quartz bail. It comes with a black cord necklace.
This )O( ~*~ Willendorf Goddess Cowrie Amulet ~*~ )O( is Charged & Blessed by High Priest Oceanos to bring forth Goddess Blessings , Attract Wealth, Abundance & Monetary gains, Heal all issues of poverty & Money Matters, Improve Vitality & Overall Well-being. It comes in a set complete with a Goddess Prayer Instruction scroll, Goddess Charged Candle in a beautiful chiffon bag. This is Exclusively available in ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ for a limited time only... Good Luck!
Blessed Be,
Oceanos
© copyright by ~*~ LIGHT OF ATLANTIS ~*~ All rights reserved. -
NOVEMBER 2006 ~ GODDESS OF THE MONTH
Rhiannon is the Great Goddess as worshiped by the Welsh. She is an embodiment of life, death, and rebirth, for in her realm there is no death without regeneration.
Her name derives from Rigantona, which means "great queen." A shape-shifter, she can assume any form she wants; she often appears as a white horse. She is a muse goddess and is accompanied by three sweetly singing birds who can revive the dead or put the living to sleep.
The source of the king's power derived from Rhiannon, the queen, and a candidate for kinghood met Rhiannon dressed as a stag, a regal figure symbolic of rejuvenation, beauty, strength, and instinctual masculine energy. In alter myth she appears a Nimue or as Vivien, the Lady of the Lake.
Rhiannon is a beautiful queen of the night, a reminder of the close balance between death and rebirth. She demands that we honor our instinctual and animal selves as a source of creativity, abundance, and order. -
hmm
november goddess is it only for this yr this month?
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Merry Meet Scorpboi,Originally posted by scorpboi:hmm
november goddess is it only for this yr this month?
Nope, Goddess Rhiannon is not only for this month of November or this year, she is Goddess for all time for those who adores her. I am just doing an Introduction of various Goddesses, one Goddess every month.
Blessed Be,
Oceanos -
Originally posted by OCEANOS:
icic
[b]Merry Meet Scorpboi,
Nope, Goddess Rhiannon is not only for this month of November or this year, she is Goddess for all time for those who adores her. I am just doing an Introduction of various Goddesses, one Goddess every month.
Blessed Be,
Oceanos[/b]
interesting indeed -
Agreed!Originally posted by scorpboi:icic
interesting indeed -
Merry Meet Scorpboi,Originally posted by scorpboi:icic
interesting indeed
Well just do pop by often have a look. I will introduce a Goddess every month. Goddess of 1000 names will be interesting if i can introduce all.
Blessed Be,
Oceanos -
Originally posted by OCEANOS:
Interesting it wil be indeed.
[b]Merry Meet Scorpboi,
Well just do pop by often have a look. I will introduce a Goddess every month. Goddess of 1000 names will be interesting if i can introduce all.
Blessed Be,
Oceanos[/b] -
Originally posted by OCEANOS:
i sure will
[b]Merry Meet Scorpboi,
Well just do pop by often have a look. I will introduce a Goddess every month. Goddess of 1000 names will be interesting if i can introduce all.
Blessed Be,
Oceanos[/b]
goddess of 1000 names interesting
1 goddess one month, so 1 yr have 12 months
long time to introduce all goddess -
Not nesessarily one a month. Can have more dependant on Oceano's mood.Originally posted by scorpboi:i sure will
goddess of 1000 names interesting
1 goddess one month, so 1 yr have 12 months
long time to introduce all goddess -
yep~~~Originally posted by Karkadann:Not nesessarily one a month. Can have more dependant on Oceano's mood. -
icOriginally posted by Karkadann:Not nesessarily one a month. Can have more dependant on Oceano's mood. -
WelcomeOriginally posted by scorpboi:ic -
new goddess will be intro soon
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bump
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Lol OCEANOS bro too busy to add the goddess for this moth
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Originally posted by marzguy:
yup
[b]Lol OCEANOS bro too busy to add the goddess for this moth [/b]
good things must wait -
yup regardless on how long. Great things are worth waitingOriginally posted by scorpboi:yup
good things must wait -
Originally posted by marzguy:
Here's your queue number. Happy waiting.
[b]yup regardless on how long. Great things are worth waiting [/b]
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Lol #1313, still long way to goOriginally posted by Karkadann:Here's your queue number. Happy waiting.