A mother goddess is a goddess portrayed as the Earth Mother who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. From the elegant snake-offering goddess figures of Knossos to the rock-cut images of Cybele, to Dione ("the Goddess") who was invoked at Dodona, along with Zeus, until late Classical times, it is sometimes too facile to class all archaic female goddesses as manifestations of the mother goddess. Archaeologists tend to avoid such theories in interpreting sites and material remains and sometim ...

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Mother goddess - Matriarchy and goddess history Mother goddess - Sumerian Mesopotamian and Greek goddesses Mother goddess - Celtic goddesses Mother goddess - Norse goddesses Mother goddess - Olympian goddesses Mother goddess - Hinduism Mother goddess - Shaktism Mother goddess - Mother goddess worship in Catholicism Mother goddess - Neopaganism

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Mother goddess, Mother goddess - Matriarchy and goddess history, Mother goddess - Sumerian Mesopotamian and Greek goddesses, Mother goddess - Celtic goddesses, Mother goddess - Norse goddesses, Mother goddess - Olympian goddesses, Mother goddess - Hinduism, Mother goddess - Shaktism, Mother goddess - Mother goddess worship in Catholicism, Mother goddess - Neopaganism

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In the Aegean, Anatolian, and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, a Mother Goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the 'Great Mother'), of Gaia, and of Rhea. The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece had many characters with mother goddess attributes, including Hera, Demeter and Athena. In Minoan Crete one of her aspects was the Mistress of the Animals (Potnia Theron) who some say devolved into the huntress Artemis; the archaic Artemis of many breasts ...

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Mother goddess, Mother goddess - Matriarchy and goddess history, Mother goddess - Sumerian Mesopotamian and Greek goddesses, Mother goddess - Celtic goddesses, Mother goddess - Norse goddesses, Mother goddess - Olympian goddesses, Mother goddess - Hinduism, Mother goddess - Shaktism, Mother goddess - Mother goddess worship in Catholicism, Mother goddess - Neopaganism

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A goddess is a female deity, in contrast with a male deity known as a "god". A great many cultures have goddesses, sometimes alone, but more often as part of a larger pantheon that includes both of the conventional genders and in some cases even hermaphroditic (or gender neutral) deities. As the concept of monotheism and polytheism can be relativistic, so too can related concepts be culturally misunderstood. The concept of gender as applied to a god and goddess, may connote deeper tendencies of patriarchy and matriarchy, which ...

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Goddess - Ancient Near East
Goddess - Egypt Goddess - Mesopotamia Goddess - Arabia
Goddess - Indo-European religion
Goddess - Hinduism Goddess - Graeco-Roman religion Goddess - Celtic religion Goddess - Germanic religion
Goddess - Abrahamic religions
Goddess - Judaism Goddess - Christianity Goddess - Islam
Goddess - New religious movements
Goddess - Wicca and Neopaganism Goddess - Religious feminism
Goddess - Secular use

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Followers of the Wiccan, Dianic, and Neopagan religions, as well as some archeologists and mythographers, believe that long before the coming of the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Triple Goddess embodied the three-fold aspect of Gaia, the Earth Mother (Roman Magna Mater). A mother goddess was worshipped under a variety of names not only in the Ancient Near East and the ...

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Triple Goddess - Maiden Mother and Crone
Triple Goddess - Maiden Triple Goddess - Mother Triple Goddess - Crone Triple Goddess - Lunar imagery
Triple Goddess - Fates Triple Goddess - Other trifold goddesses

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Goddess worship is a general description for the veneration of a female Goddess or goddesses. Many New Age Goddess devotees prefer the term goddess spirituality, avoiding the term "worship" for a faith that does not distance the Divine into a remote, hierarchical separation. Goddess veneration may be also used instead of "worship", as it can imply respect and intimacy without undue deference. In such contexts, "spirituality" is often preferred to "religion" because major organised religions have not typically nurtured go ...

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Goddess worship - Examples of goddess worship

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Amman is the rural South Indian mother goddess (predominantly in Tamil Nadu). She is usually portrayed with a red-hued face, and cures all summer heat-based diseases like pox and rashes. She is most famously referred to as Maariamman. In many rural shrines, She has no form - just a granite stone with a sharp tip, almost like a spear head. She is adorned with garlands made of limes. During the summer months, people walk miles carrying pots of water mixed with turmeric and neem leaves to ward off illnesses like the ...

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Danu is a goddess in Hindu belief. She is said to be the mother of Vritra, and of the Asuras called the Dānavas. Categoy:Hindu mythology Other related archivesAsuras, Hindu, Vritra, goddess

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Matriarchy is a form of society in which power is conceived as lying with the women and especially with the mothers of a community. The word matriarchy derives from the Latin word mater meaning mother and the Greek word archein meaning to rule. There exists a different term for 'women's rule', it is gynocracy. Matriarchy is distinct from matrilineality, where children are identified in terms of their mother rather than their father, and extended families an ...

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Matriarchy - Matriarchal societies
Matriarchy - Nair Matrifocality
Matriarchy - Archaeological hypotheses Matriarchy - Matriarchies in mythology Matriarchy - Origins of the unclear concept Matriarchy - Matriarchies in literature

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The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in Neopaganism and Wicca. Doreen Valiente, a student of Gerald Gardner, originally wrote a Charge in verse, and later in prose: the prose version is the one known today. It has since been modified and adapted by many others, and is in the public domain. The original text of the prose version is found in Eight Sabbats for Witches by Janet and Stewart Farrar. See The Rebirth of Witchcraft by Doreen Valien ...

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In Egyptian mythology, Bast (also spelt Ubasti, and Pasht) is an ancient goddess, worshipped at least since the Second Dynasty. The centre of her cult was in Per-Bast (Bubastis in greek), which was named after her. Originally she was viewed as the protector goddess of Lower Egypt, and consequently depicted as a fierce lion. Indeed, her name means (female) devourer. As protectress, she was seen as defender of the pharaoh, and consequently of the chief god, Ra, who was a solar deity, gaining her the titles La ...

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Bast goddess - Bast in Popular Culture

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In Irish mythology, Danu or Dana was the mother goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann (peoples of the goddess Danu), although little is recorded about her as a character. Her Welsh equivalent is Dôn. Danu Irish goddess - Antiquity of her Recognition. Based on the evidence of place-names, such as the river Danube (Latin: Danuvius), Dniestr, Dneipr and Don, she may have been worshipped throughout the Celtic and possibly Indo-European world. Indeed, the presence of a goddess named Danu in Indian Mythology, ...

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Danu Irish goddess - Antiquity of her Recognition Danu Irish goddess - Etymology of the name Danu Irish goddess - Other names

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Aradia, according to Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, is the messianic daughter of the goddess Diana who came to Earth to teach witchcraft to her oppressed worshippers. Aradia has become an important mythical figure in Wicca and in some other forms of Neo-paganism. Aradia goddess - Aradia in Leland. Leland claimed that the majority of the book was based upon a manuscript given to him detailing the beliefs of an undiscovered religious witchcraft tradition in Tuscan ...

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Aradia goddess - Aradia in Leland Aradia goddess - Aradia in Neo-paganism Aradia goddess - Notes and references

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In Celtic mythology, Damara was a fertility goddess worshipped in Britain. She was associated with the month of May/Beltaine. Other related archivesBeltaine, Britain, Celtic mythology, May, fertility, goddess

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In Egyptian mythology, Bata (also spelt Bat) was originally a deification of the Milky Way, which, since it was in early times considered a pool of cow's milk, made Bata be considered a cow goddess. She was originally worshipped in Seshesh, the 7th nome of Upper Egypt, where she, as a representation of the cosmos, was thought of as the essence of the soul. Hence her name, which is the feminine form of the word ba, the spiritual element that egyptians conside ...

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Arete (Greek Ἀρετή) was a minor Ancient Greek goddess of virtue, daughter of the goddess of justice Praxidike. She and her sister Homonoia, goddess of concord, were known jointly as the Praxidikai (Exacters of Justice). As with many minor Greek deities, there's little or no real mythical background to Arete, who is used at most as a personification of virtue (see Arete (excellence)). The only ...

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The author and poet Robert Graves' study of the nature of poetic myth-making, The White Goddess, first published in 1948, and revised, amended and enlarged in 1966, represents a tangential approach to the study of mythology from a decidedly idiosyncratic perspective. It proposed the existence of a European deity, the White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death, represented by the phases of the moon, who he argued lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European mythologies. In this work, Graves argued that "true po ...

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In Hinduism, Ardra is the goddess of good luck and fortune. The name is also used for the Nakshatra that corresponds to the star Betelgeuse. Other related archivesBetelgeuse, Hinduism, Nakshatra, star

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In Australian aboriginal mythology, Wala is a sun goddess who lived with her sister, Bara, and her sister-in-law, Madalait. Bara accompanied her across the sun every day, but Wala realized she made the earth too hot and made her stop. Other related archivesAustralian, Bara, aboriginal mythology

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The term Bird goddess was coined by Marija Gimbutas with relation to Neolithic Europe. The Vinca culture, in particular, had a bird goddess. Griffen (2005) even claims to have discovered a sign for the bird goddess in the Vinca script. Later goddesses with associations with birds include Nuit, Lilitu and Athena [1] and perhaps Circe. Gimbutas also identified a "Lady of the Beasts" (the female analogon of Pashupati) ...

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Bird goddess - Literature

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