The Goddess has been recognized throughout the world, and
worshiped for thousands of years, in a myriad of Aspects and guises.
The most commonly recognized aspects being those of the Triple Goddess:
the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone; Birth, Life, and Death respectively.
From the earliest times, these aspects have also been associated
with the phases of the moon, and the changes of the seasons, and have contributed
much to the way we perceivethe Great Goddess in all Her forms.
Regardless of the Aspect; Birth, Life, or Death, we have long been seeing this Cycle
as being governed by a sublime Divinity of unlimited facets and capacity.
From the Egyptian Mother Isis suckling Horus,
to the Virgin Mary cradling the baby Jesus,
there is a commonality, an underlying current that connects us all in the way
we interpret and envision the Spiritual that can be neither forgotten nor dismissed.
Even far back in the dim reaches of our history as a species,
we can find carved female images, which symbolized
how our stone age ancestors perceived and experienced the unknown, or the Spiritual.
Out of Egypt came Isis, Daughter of Earth and Sky,
who married her brother Osiris, the fertility God,
who was slain by his brother. After Set had slain Osiris,
he cut his body into fourteen pieces, and cast them to the winds.
It was Isis who gathered them up (finding all except for the
phallus which ended up in the Nile) and healed the body,
then magically restored the phallus;
she was thus able to conceive Horus, who is often
portrayed as a babe suckled by his mother Isis.
Her cult was the most popular and widespread to in Egypt, and with time,
Isis slowly assimilated the aspects of the other Goddesses,
becoming the Great Goddess.
From Rome came Diana, the Triple Goddess;
the Virgin, The Mother, and the Destroyer.
Diana's cult was so widespread in the Pagan world, that the early
Christians dubbed her the
'Queen Of The Witches' or 'Goddess of the Heathens'
out of petty malevolent jealous rivalry.
Even though the abominable inquisiter Torquemada
of the 14th century denounced Diana, declaring her to be the Devil,
the embodiment of all that is Evil,
She continued to rule the Forests and Woods of Europe throughout the middle ages.
Diana remained known as the Goddess of the Woodlands and the
Hunt up through the 18th century in England.
Demeter was the Greek Goddess of the Earth and Grain, whose daughter Persephone
was taken to the Underworld by Hades.
Demeter searched for Persephone, wandering the earth in despair
and weeping for her lost daughter while the land remained barren.
Finally Hades relented:
Persephone was given leave to return to the World of the Living,
thus causing Life to spring forth once again from the land;
but a heavy bargain had been struck,
for Persephone must return to the Underworld every fall,
and spend a fourth of each year with Hades, Her husband.
From the Norse comes Hel, Goddess of the Underworld,
keeper of the Helleder (Hel's men).
To the Norse, Hel was the supreme, inescapable fate of all,
even the Gods.
Going to Hel's realm was not deemed a punishment,
but rather a new plateau of existence.
Some myths speak of Hel as being a dark aspect;
a Crone Goddess much like Black Kali.
As the Nether Moon, she was called Nehenellenia,
whose altars were found from Holland
through Zealand as late as the 14th century.
