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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in the great mother

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Your words to me are as the milk of your breasts.

 

In many Wiccan circles, as—on the Goddess's behalf—the priestess recites The Charge of the Great Mother, it's customary for her to stand in the Star or Goddess position, with legs and arms spread wide. It's a posture of revelation and self-offering.

Well and good. But there's another liturgical possibility here, a very ancient one.

In Russian painter and mystic Nicholas Roerich's 1910 Idols (Pagan Russia), shown above, we see a depiction of a pre-Christian Slavic sanctuary featuring standing wooden images of various gods, surrounded by a temenos wall.

Let me call your attention to the second figure to the right. Clothed in a checkered skirt, the goddess here depicted cups her hands beneath her breasts.

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“The Only God Worth Worshiping is the Great Mother, Source of All Life”

You know the feeling: the words leap up off the page and seize you with such force that you know you're never going to forget them.

Years ago, I was reading an article about German Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907).

“The only god worth worshiping is the Great Mother, Source of all Life,” she was quoted as saying.

(I should mention that I've since tried to track down this quotation, so far unsuccessfully; but since her words smote themselves into my heart at the time, I'm willing to trust my memory on this one.)

To look at her paintings, you could certainly believe that she would say such a thing. Her secular madonnas, many of them self-portraits, radiate a serene and luminous sanctity of their own.

***

The wand beeps over my breastbone. With a jerk of his head, the TSA guy indicates: Show.

By her chain, I pull the little silver goddess up out of my shirt.

“Who's that?” he asks, surprised.

(Interesting: not "what?" but "who?")

“The Great Mother, Source of All Life,” I tell him. Then I hear myself adding: “I have it on good authority that She's the only god worth worshiping.”

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Calling the Great Mother this Eclipse

From July12th/13th (depending upon your time zone) we commence a momentous season of a rare series of three eclipses within a month. The first occurrence this eclipse season is a solar eclipse in Cancer. Then at full moon, on July 27th, we have a total lunar eclipse in Capricorn. The following new moon in Leo is on August 11th. There is plenty of internet chatter about how these eclipses will have a huge impact on both individuals and the collective. But we all have a conscious choice how we are going to walk in the world. So I thought I would share with your how I plan on marking my path through this next month.

For this solar eclipse in Mama Moon sign Cancer I have created an altar for collective ceremony and prayer with a group I belong to, the Sanctuary of the Divine Feminine. This is an altar that is dedicated towards healing traumatised children and divided/separated families.  My intent is to symbolise by using photos of parents and children together, of extended families rejoicing in happy celebrations and gatherings. This collage is at the foreground of the altar and uses images from both my own and my husband's lineages as representatives for all families.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
The Spiritual Path of Motherhood
I didn't ever guess that motherhood would be my spiritual path. When I was a really little girl I dreamed, as many little girls do, of having a baby. As I grew older my soul longed for something deep and mystical and all around me in my small hometown I saw people having babies and then working jobs that they didn't enjoy to pay for those babies. Motherhood seemed common and boring, I certainly didn't ever consider being a stay-at-home mom and put very little weight into what motherhood would entail for me.
 
I have felt a strong pull to walk a mystical life ever since I can remember. When I was three years old I was disturbed that a girl in my junior kindergarten class was continually missing due to illness, I approached my Mom with my concern and she suggested we say a prayer for her. From that moment on I asked to pray for Anna every night, I would report to my teachers the next morning that I had been praying for Anna to be well. At the end of that year I proudly carried home the 'prayer' badge that I had been awarded. 
 
As life continued and I grew older, I struggled with anxiety and depression throughout my formative years, the world felt heavy and my pull to the Divine was strong, I didn't know how to find Heaven on Earth and I spent many years thinking that death was my only doorway Home. At the age of 18 I opened up the first of many, many books that explained to me how to experience spirit on Earth. Hope was planted. By 21 I had fully committed myself to walking a spirit led path and left behind mind altering chemicals and began to practice a way of life that required mindfulness, taking stock of my life, amending past harms and a daily surrender to a Higher Power that I call Goddess to guide my thoughts and actions.
 
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