The Goddess: What She is, and Her Charge:
Hear ye the words of the Great Mother, She who of old was also called among men Artemis, Astarte, Athena, Dion, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Arianrhod, Isis, Brigid and by many other names:
"When ever ye have need of anything, once in the month, and better it be when the moon is full, then shall ye assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of Me, Who am Queen of all witcheries and magicks. There shall ye assemble, ye who are fain to learn all sorcery, yet have not won its deepest secrets; to these will I teach things that are yet unknown. And ye shall be free from slavery; and as a sign that ye be truly free, ye shall be naked in your rites; and ye shall dance, sing, feast, make music and love, all in My praise. For Mine is the ecstacy of the spirit, and Mine also is joy on Earth; for My law is love unto all beings. Keep pure your highest ideal; strive ever towards it; let naught stop you or turn you aside. For Mine is the secret door that opens upon the Land of Youth, and Mine is the cup of the wine of life, and the Cauldron of Cerridwen, which is the Holy Grail of Immortality. I am the gracious Goddess, who gives the gift of joy unto the heart of man. Upon earth, I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal; and beyond death I give peace, freedom and union with those who have gone before. Nor do I demand sacrifice; for behold, I am the Mother of all living, and My love is poured out upon the earth."
Hear ye the words of the Star Goddess, She in the dusts of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, and whose body encircles the universe:
"I who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mystery of the waters and the desire of the heart of man call unto thy soul, Arise! and come unto me! For I am the soul of nature, who gives life to the universe. From Me all things proceed and unto Me all things must return; and before My face, beloved of Gods and men, let thine innermost divine self be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite. Let My worship be in the heart that rejoiceth; for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals. And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honour and humility, mirth and reverence within you. And thou who thinkest to seek for Me, know thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not unless thou knowest the Mystery; that is that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee, thou wilt never find it without thee. For behold, I have been with thee from the beginning, and I am that which is attained at the end of desire."
By whichever of Her myriad names we choose to call Her, the Goddess is the Great Mother of all things. We see Her all around us, in the waves of the ocean where life began, in trees and animals, in others and in the moon. She is the ship upon which we sail the seas of our unconscious minds; the Womb through which we are born and the Tomb in which we are interred.
She is the Earth Mother, Lady of All That Lives, She is the power of fertility and generation. She is the ruler of things seen, but not felt; intuition, emotion, wisdom. She is the spark of creativity and the Cosmic Muse of the poet.
We see the Goddess in the moon, and as it changes throughout the month, so too does She. When the moon is young and waxing, we call upon the Lady in Her aspect of Maiden, for at this time She is ever-young, virgin and unspoiled. She is the spirit of newness, of beginnings, of new desires and of growth. White is Her colour.
In the fullness of the moon, when that argentine orb hangs full and pregnant in the night sky, so too is the Goddess pregnant, for now She is the Mother, 'darksome and divine', arms open and womb full of life. She is the spirit of completion, fruition and life, the Empress of the Tarot deck. Her colour is red.
Yet, as the moon in the sky begins to darken, its glimmering orb waning, the Lady becomes the Crone, the power of Age, of wisdom and the Mysteries. This is Her terrifying aspect, for just as She creates She also destroys. The Crone aspect of the Lady is shown clearly in the Hindu goddess Kali, who is both Mother and Destroyer. The very act of giving birth implies a bestowing of form, and all things of form must disintigrate and die, from the lowliest cell to the greatest mountain. Without an understanding of this horrifying, and seemingly bloodthirsty aspect of the Lady we cannot hope to achieve even a basic under standing of Her or of the universe we inhabit. Her colour is black.
The Goddess must never be looked at as simply a female version of the Judeo-Christian God, for She is not. She is the Queen of all that is, and She is both immament and transcendant in nature. As Isis Veiled She is the glory of the Earth and the seas, She is 'Mother Nature', and She is the very living Earth. But as Isis Unveiled She is the Queen of Heaven, transcending the universe and showing us the path back to the stars.
We worship the Lady at Esbats, rituals falling on the full and new moons. The wine we sip from the chalice is the waters of Her womb, the blood She sheds monthly. It is a blessed sacrament, it is communion with the sweetness of life and the glory of being, and these untouchable things, our hearts and our joy, are Her greatest gifts to us in this life.