[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
afar.
Myesyats
Like the lunar goddesses, Myesyats, the Slavic Moon God, represented the three
stages of the life cycle. He was first worshipped as a young man until he reached
maturity at the full moon. With the waning phase, Myesyats passed through old age
and died with the old moon, being reborn three days later. As he was the restorer
of life and health, parents would pray to him to take away their children's
illnesses and family sorrows. Other sources have a female version, Myesytsa, a
lovely Moon maiden who was the consort of Dazhbog the Sun God, and became mother of
the stars.
Myesyats brings healing and family harmony.
Selene
Selene is the Greek goddess specially associated with the full moon, sometimes
forming a triplicity with Diana and Hecate, the twin sister of Helios the Sun God.
Selene rises from the sea in her chariot drawn by white horses at night and rides
high in the sky in her full moon.
At the time of the full moon, she is invoked by women for fertility and by all who
seek the power of intuition and inspiration.
Mother Goddesses
Mother Goddesses are for fertility, abundance of all kinds, female power and all
rituals for women.
----
[Insert pic p064]
Seite 35
wicca01.txt
----
Astarte
Astarte is the supreme female divinity of the Phoenicians, goddess of love and
fertility, associated with the Moon and all nature.
Invoke her for power and wisdom, seduction and passion as well as fertility.
Cerridwen
Cerridwen is the Welsh Mother Goddess, the keeper of the cauldron and goddess of
inspiration, knowledge and wisdom. She is a natural focus for rituals involving all
creative ventures and for increased spiritual and psychic awareness. Invoke her for
divination and especially scrying and for all rituals of increase.
Ceres
Ceres is the Roman goddess of the grain and all food plants. Her daughter
Proserpina was taken into the Underworld for three months of the year by Pluto,
causing Ceres to mourn and the crops to die. This was the origin of winter.
Through this, she is seen as goddess of fertility and abundance, as well as a deity
of the natural cycles of the year. She represents loss and is a focus for rites
concerning grief and mourning, with the hope of new joy ahead for women and
especially for mothers. Her Greek counterpart is Demeter.
Demeter
Demeter, the Greek Corn Goddess or Barley Mother, was the archetypal symbol of the
fertility of the land. Demeter is often pictured as rosy-cheeked, carrying a hoe or
sickle and surrounded by baskets of apples, sheaves of corn, garlands of flowers
and grapes.
Like Ceres, she mourns for her lost daughter Persephone for three months of the
year and so is another icon for those who are feeling sorrow or loss and for
maternal sacrifice. But she can be invoked for all matters of abundance, for
reaping the benefits of earlier work or effort, for all mothering rituals and as a
protectress of animals.
Innana
Innana was a Sumerian goddess, known as the Queen of Heaven, who evolved into the
Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Innana was goddess of beauty, abundance, fertility and
passion, famed for her loveliness and her lapis lazuli necklaces. She was the first
goddess of the morning and evening stars, a legacy that has passed to Aphrodite and
Venus.
Like many of the Mother Goddess icons, she descended into the Underworld annually
to face and overcome many trials, to bring back to life her shepherd god consort
Dumuzi.
Ishtar
Ishtar, the Babylonian version of Innana, also descended into the Underworld each
year to restore her consort Tammuz to life. She was a fierce goddess of weapons and
war. In Ancient Babylon, a sacred marriage took place each year between Tammuz and
Ishtar. This was celebrated at the festival of Akitu, or Zag-Mug, which marked the
rising of the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates and the coming of the spring
rains, to bring fertility, at the spring equinox.
Like Innana, she is a goddess of fertility, restoration, renewal, birth and the
life cycles; she also represents power with responsibility and necessary sacrifice
for future gain, but above all transformation.
Isis
The Egyptian goddess Isis is the most powerful and frequently invoked goddess in
formal magick. She is mother, healer and the faithful wife who annually restored
Seite 36
wicca01.txt
her consort Osiris to life, thus magically causing the Nile to flood and fertility
to return to the land. She is the patroness of magick and spell-casting, having
tricked Ra the Sun God into giving her his secrets. Some accounts say she was
taught by Thoth, god of wisdom and learning.
Her cult spread throughout the Roman Empire and she remained in Mediterranean lands
in her guise as the Black Madonna, holding her infant son Horus, until the Middle
Ages. She is sometimes represented as a vulture, in which form she appears on
amulets (protective charms) with an ankh, the symbol for life, engraved on each
talon. Isis demonstrated the power of maternal protection when she hid Horus in the
marshes from his evil uncle who would have destroyed him.
Deities Of Marriage
These deities can be invoked in rituals concerning the family and the home.
----
[Insert pic p066]
----
Frigg
Frigg was the Viking Mother Goddess whose jewelled spinning wheel formed Orion's
belt; as patroness of marriage, women, mothers and families, she can be invoked for
all rituals concerned with families and domestic happiness. She invited devoted
husbands and wives to her hall after death so that they might never be parted again
and so is goddess of fidelity.
As Ostara, goddess of spring, she was known among the Anglo-Saxons and is
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]