We know that all living things are born of the Earth, made of its substance, taken in with food and water. We know, too, that the Earth is a small scrap of star stuff, captured by the nearest star, our Sun, so our own original heritage is from the stars, at the birth of creation.
The Goddess in many of her pagan pantheons is also the Moon Goddess, triple-faced and triple-phased. The young Moon Maiden, child sweetheart, beloved mistress, growing daughter of the night, is her waxing form. Full-bellied Moon Mother, full-blown rose of light, travellers’ joy, guide and companion on the magical paths, she leads our monthly revels.
In her waning phase, she is the dark-visaged hag deep-steeped in wisdom, crotchety and sharp, but she is the giver of knowledge to those who will face her in the darkness, and as a dutiful grandchild ask for help. The Moon Goddess also has a hidden face, at the dark of the moon, when the night sky is empty and the light of the stars alone illumines the wild places. This aspect of her you will need to discover for yourself, man or woman, for this is part of the Mystery of moon magic, and is not spoken of in words.
The Goddess is also Ocean, the great sea from which arose the evolving forms of life, third mother to us human beings. The first mother is Earth, the second the moon awakening mind, and the third mother, all the sacred waters, from spring and pool, to lake and river, to mighty sea and moonled power of the tides. Those who become her children will find her in all her aspects, alive in wild places, and in those magic rings, circles out of time, between the worlds, created by ritual and controlled desire.
The Goddess is nameless, yet she has many names in many lands and pantheons. If you examine their mystery you will find not names but titles, attributes, ‘job descriptions’, even, spelled out in many tongues. The Goddess is the Ruler of Change, of Times and Tides, and as such she is the Mistress of Magic, for that is ‘the art of causing, controlling and shaping change, in this world and the inner worlds’. She is the Giver of Oracles, for nearly all the ancient sacred centres had their sybil, or oracular priestess, working under the thrall of the Goddess to offer wisdom to those who came to ask.
She is the Birth-Bringer, the Death-Taker and the Rebirth-Giver also. She is the Initiator of the magician, the Inspirer of poets, who have drunk from her magic cauldron or heard her singing in the light of dawn. She is the Enchantress, the Spell-Weaver, the Charmer and Binder, the Measurer of Life’s Thread and She Who Cuts the Thread. She is Our Lady in Darkness, ruler of the Underworld, the Otherworld, Queen of the Dead and the Unborn. She is the Healer and Restorer, and she redeems our forgotten, childlike selves, if we call upon her.
If you look at the names applied to her in the ritual invocation at the head of this chapter (taken from one of Dion Fortune’s novels, The Sea Priestess), you will see several names attributed to the Great Goddess. Isis, she who rules the pantheon of gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt, as Isis Veiled, the Queen of Nature. The name Isis, Aset in Egyptian, means ‘Throne’, so she represents the ‘seat of
power’, the base, the structure of that which is worshipped.
Ea is the Mother of Time, Soul of Space, Oldest of the Old. Binah, the dark Mother of All, the great sea, the female principle, yin. Ge is the sphere of the Earth, root of such words as ‘geology’ - the science of rocks; ‘geography’ - mapping the Earth; ‘geomancy’ - a magical form of divination whose symbols are drawn in the earth. None of these sacred titles is a name.
Similarly, if you start to look for images you will find many, in every culture, apart from Islam in which all depictions are forbidden. You will discover paintings, carvings, embroideries, rock pictures, statues, pottery figures, even huge earthworks, like that at Silbury Hill in the South of England, depicting or symbolising the Great Goddess in her many guises, or displaying her various traditional symbols.
From the great image of the moon in the sky, which is also her symbol (for she is not the physical mass of the moon), to the tides which it creates within the mighty oceans and smallest rivers, to the rising waters of springs: the seasons of the Earth, and the substance of the Earth beneath our feet, on which we have our homes and being, all these are parts of her. All are sacred, and held as holy in her name. All have power which we may draw upon, once we gain the key which unlocks her secret wisdom.
The Goddess has to be invoked, that is, called up in the imagination by using poetic description and symbols associated with the aspect which you seek to contact. If you are new to this idea, keep it simple. Use a prayer or description from a classical source, when you are in a quiet place. It is usually best out of doors, and simply standing beside a river, in a garden or any natural setting, where you feel at peace and free. Read the words, or imagine the image, then close your eyes and relax and see what happens. Here is a description taken from Apuleius’ story The Golden Ass in which the hero, Lucius, invokes the Goddess and …
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I had scarcely closed my eyes before the apparition of a woman began to rise from the middle of the sea with so lovely a face that the gods themselves would have fallen down in adoration of it. First the head, then the whole shining body gradually emerged and stood before me, (poised on the surface of the waves … Her long thick hair fell in tapering ringlets on her lovely neck, and was crowned with an intricate chaplet, woven of every kind of flower. Just above her brow shone a round disc, like a mirror, or the bright face of the moon, which told me who she was.
Her many-coloured robe was of finest linen … and along the hem was a bordure of flowers and fruit … The deep black lustre of her mantle, slung across her body from the right hip to the left shoulder and caught into a great knot, was embroidered with glittering stars … and in the middle beamed a full and fiery moon … All the perfumes of Arabia floated into my nostrils as the Goddess deigned to address me: ‘You see me here, Lucius, in answer to your prayer. I am Nature, the Universal Mother, mistress of all the elements, primordial child of time, sovereign of all things spiritual, queen of the dead, queen also of the immortals, the single manifestation of all gods and goddesses that are.
My gesture governs the shining heights of Heaven, the wholesome sea breezes, the lamentable silences of the land below. Though I am worshipped in many aspects, known by countless names, and propitiated with all manner of different rites, yet the whole round Earth venerates me.’
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This fragment of a magical book, of adventure, folly, sacrifice and communion with the Goddess, in which Lucius is transformed into a donkey until the Goddess frees him and makes him her priest, contains the very essence of pagan worship and the invocation of Isis very powerfully demonstrates the kind of image words can conjure up. Similar esoteric verses, prayers and invocations will be found in the works of many poets, ancient writers, priests of the old religions which predate Christianity, including the Bible.
The Song of Solomon contains beautiful love poems dedicated to Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom, describing her face in terms of flowers, her breasts as white deer, feeding among lilies. Do not overlook this book because it seems to reject the power of the wise one. In fact both the Old and New Testaments contain much magical and pagan information, if you are willing to search it out.
The God of the Witches is also many-faceted, being symbolised by the sun in the sky, and, because of the changes that the turning seasons bring, he is an evolving deity too. He is also depicted surprising frequently as having horns or, in Britain and France, the antlers of a great stag. Like the Goddess, he has many titles, which often refer to his being a Horned God; Herne, or Cernunnos, or Pan, that archetypal half-man, half-beast, ruler of wild creatures in the ancient forests.