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Goddess - Mother
The great Mother Goddess, exists at the center of all life. She draws the earth upward, that Her blood might flow down to nourish the four corners of the world. She is the earth, mother and womb of all living, that has received God's life giving forces, and brought forth all creatures. She is the Matter, Mater of the whole universe, the stuff the worlds are born or made of. And the seeds of the earth are born upon Her breath, that they might find a home in the desert, and thereby bring the fiery spark of new life to that once desolate place. The oasis in the desert, like life in the cosmos, is a miraculous little jewel, improbable almost to the point of impossible. Only the fourfold energies of Isis that penetrate space and time to intersect at this place bring forth Life. She is the soul of all mankind, our fairy Godmother, who is our inner mother, lying behind and beyond our physical mother.
As Isis she is the Mistress of the Four Elements (terrestrial earth and water, and celestial wind and fire - symbols of both the divided functions of body and spirit and the rational and creative aspects of the mind). As the embodiment of all the forces of nature, She is Mother of all life. It is Her Elemental Will that forges the transcendent, static, ethereal, (the sky) with the immanent, dynamic, material, (the earth) into the unitary miracle of living things.
She is Maya personified as the world-protecting, feminine, maternal side of Ultimate Being, and as such, stands for spontaneous, loving acceptance of life's tangible reality. She affirms, she is, she represents and enjoys, the delirium of the manifested forms. Maya is Eve, "the Eternal Feminine," In herself Maya embodied all three aspects of the maternal trinity. Her colors were white, red, and black, the colors of the Virgin-Mother-Crone. Like every other form of Kali, she was Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.
She holds next to Her breast the Egyptian symbol known as ankh. It literally translates as life or vitality, but it is also a pictograph of man (head, arms and body). This is the image of mother and child. Like all mothers, she struggles to protect Her children - and cannot. As children grow and wander far from their mother's gentle protection, they must eventually suffer. And like all mothers, She suffers the pain of Her children, and suffers in Her helplessness to prevent it.
As the physical feminine brings forth physical life, so, too, does the spiritual feminine bring forth spiritual life. It is through this aspect of the Goddess we hold in our hearts that we are reborn: not merely physical, but spiritual beings.
We must learn to resonate with and unify those divine elemental vibrations of earth and sky (that is, unify the two halves of consciousness - the terrestrially informed rational and celestially informed creative, the masculine and feminine, and the conscious and the unconscious. To be sensitive to the energies of nature, is to be attuned to the Goddess and Her transcendent nourishment that informs the needs of both body and spirit. Between the passive and active extremes of the living experience, is the center wherein one makes contact with the Goddess, and is replenished and sustained by Her life-giving benevolence.
It is a central role of the feminine archetype - the Great Mother Goddess - to bring one into this center, where the transformation occurs. Our stories about the Goddess are stories about ourselves. And our desire for the miracle benediction of the Goddess, is pervasive.
Cybele -the most ancient deity know - who later becomes:
Ishtar in Persia, Artemis in Greece, Diana in Rome, the Virgin Mary, Africa in Oya, Australian Aborigines -Rainbow Serpent Mother, Kwan Yin in , Olla in Cuba & Puerto Rico , Isis in Egypt, Brigette in Haitian, Fatima in Islam, Bifrost in Norse, Shakti in India , Maj In Scandinavia.
Every year on the first of May, people celebrate May Day in honor of the goddess. Men and women rejoice over the rebirth of spring by dancing circles around the maypole and by wearing vibrant green - the color of the earth itself. She is remembered as the goddess of spring and rebirth, like the month of May that bears her name. "Maia" means "the maker," and every spring she makes the lush green grass and the fragrant flowers grow again.
The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday". Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter*), "Mothering Sunday" honored the mothers of England
Some historians claim that the predecessor of the Mother's Day holiday was the ancient spring festival dedicated to mother goddesses. In the ancient Greek empire the spring festival honored Rhea, wife of Cronus and mother of the gods and goddesses. In Rome the most significant Mother's Day-like festival was dedicated to the worship of Cybele, another mother goddess. Ceremonies in her honor began some 250 years before Christ was born. This Roman religious celebration, known as Hilaria, lasted for three days - from March 15 to 18!
More like the modern celebration of Mother's Day is England's "Mothering Sunday", also called Mid-Lent Sunday, observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent. Some say the ceremonies in honor of Cybele were adopted by the early church to venerate the Mother of Christ, Mary. Others believe the Mother Church was substituted for mother goddess and custom began to dictate that a person visit the church of his/her baptism on this day. People attended the mother church of their parish, laden with offerings.
As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honor the "Mother Church" - the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration . People began honoring their mothers as well as the church.
In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) West Virginia. is credited with originating our Mother's Day holiday. In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. The first Mother's Day proclamation was issued by the governor of West Virginia in 1910. Oklahoma celebrated Mother's Day that year as well. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May. The House of Representatives in May,1913, unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the President, his Cabinet, members of Congress, and all officials of the federal government to wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. Congress passed another Joint Resolution May 8, 1914, designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. The U.S. flag is to be displayed on government buildings and at people's homes "as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country." President Woodrow Wilson issued the first proclamation making Mother's Day an official national holiday.
While many countries of the world celebrate their own Mother's Day at different times throughout the year, there are some countries such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May. Other areas celebrating Mother's Day included Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South America and Africa. The Mother's Day International Association was incorporated on December 12, 1912.
Happy Mothers day!
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