The Mother Dictionary

MOTHER: one of the aspects of the Triple Goddess, in this aspect She rules from Beltane to Lughnasadh.

(See also: MOTHER , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Great Mother. See CYBELE; MAGNA MATER; RHEA

(See also: Great Mother , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Father-Mother. See LOGOS; SVABHAVAT

(See also: Father-Mother , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Father (see Mother)

This symbol is highly personalized, and should be considered in light of your relationship with your father. Generally, dreaming of a father (yours or anyone else’s) represents authority, while mothers represent love and protection. If your relationship with your father was good, dreaming of him implies advancement and/or assistance from authority figures in your life. If your relationship with him was strained, however, dreaming of him indicates trouble coming from authority figures, such as your boss. If you’re dreaming of a dead parent, especially if he or she is speaking to you, important news is coming your way. Whether the news is good or bad depends on other dynamics in the dream.

Astrological parallels: Saturn (father)

Tarot parallels: The Emperor

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Father, Mother , Meaning of Dreams about Father, Mother , Dream Interpretation Father, Mother )

Mother (see Father)

Again, this is a symbol that is highly personalized, and needs to be considered in light of the dynamics of your relationship with your mother. If your relationship with your mother is or was good, you can expect happy times ahead. But if it was strained, someone may try to coerce you into doing something by pointing out things that he or she has done for you.

Astrological parallels: The Moon (mother).

Tarot parallels: The Empress.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Mother, Father , Meaning of Dreams about Mother, Father , Dream Interpretation Mother, Father )

EARTH MOTHER -

1. the Goddess in a form symbolizing the fecundity of women and the Earth.

2. a women who nourishes and cares for others. (NAD)

(See also: EARTH MOTHER , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Mother

• To see your mother in dreams as she appears in the home, signifies pleasing results from any enterprise.
• To hold her in conversation, you will soon have good news from interests you are anxious over.
• For a woman to dream of mother, signifies pleasant duties and connubial bliss.
• To see one's mother emaciated or dead, foretells sadness caused by death or dishonor.
• To hear your mother call you, denotes that you are derelict in your duties, and that you are pursuing the wrong course in business.
• To hear her cry as if in pain, omens her illness, or some affliction is menacing you.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Mother , Meaning of Dreams about Mother , Dream Interpretation Mother )

Mother

The relationship that we have with our mother is the most psychologically significant relationship of all. Rarely all good or all bad, our mothers always invoke powerful emotions. We may dream about our mothers in many different forms. She may be disguised in our dreams, and it is our job to find her in there. If you are dreaming about your mother, you may be addressing some issues or concerns in your dream, or your dream may be based on a valuable memory. The general image of "mother" in a dream may symbolize a variety of feelings and ideas: caring, nurturing, love, acceptance, hard work, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc. The mother in your dream could also represent the "collective unconscious," the source of the "water of life," and the yin. Carl Jung suggests that women in dreams represent our collective unconscious and men the collective consciousness. Thus, the woman is that force, or current, inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and the knowledge that in not necessarily attached to words. Men, on the other hand, represent the active part of us that use the information received to create the physical reality of our lives. When the two are working together well, we have balance and experience awareness leading to peace and productivity.

See also: Meaning of Dreams about Parents

Source: Dream Lover Incorporated, http://www.dreamloverinc.com

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Mother , Meaning of Dreams about Mother , Dream Interpretation Mother )

MOTHER, MAIDEN, CRONE - The three aspects of the Triple Goddess.

(See also: MOTHER, MAIDEN, CRONE , Wiccan, Wicca, Witchery, Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Dream Dictionary including the meaning of dreams about: Dagger, Dahlia, Dairy, Daisy, Damask Rose, Damson, Dance, Dancing Master, Dandelion, Danger, Dark, Dates, Daughter, Daughter-in-law, David, Day, Daybreak, Dead, Death, Debt, December, Deck, Decorate, Deed, Deer, Delay,

Dream Dictionary Index including links to 10.000 dream interpretations: Dream Dictionary Index

For more dream interpretation, see: Meaning of Dreams or Dream Dictionary

For articles about dreams, see: Dreams

reincarnation: "Re-entering the flesh." Punarjanma; metempsychosis. The process wherein souls take on a physical body through the birth process.

Reincarnation is one of the fundamental principles of Hindu spiritual insight, shared by the mystical schools of nearly all religions, including Jainism, Sikhism, Buddhism (and even by Christianity until it was cast out by the Nicene Council in 787). It is against the backdrop of this principle of the soul's enjoying many lives that other aspects of Hinduism can be understood. It is a repetitive cycle, known as punarjanma, which originates in the subtle plane (Antarloka), the realm in which souls live between births and return to after death. Here they are assisted in readjusting to the "in-between" world and eventually prepared for yet another birth.

The quality and nature of the birth depends on the merit or demerit of their past actions (karma) and on the needs of their unique pattern of development and experience (dharma). The mother, the father and the soul together create a new body for the soul. At the moment of conception, the soul connects with and is irrevocably bound to the embryo. As soon as the egg is fertilized, the process of human life begins. It is during the mid-term of pregnancy that the full humanness of the fetus is achieved and the soul fully inhabits the new body, a stage which is acknowledged when the child begins to move and kick within the mother's womb. (Tirumantiram, 460: "There in the pregnant womb, the soul lay in primordial quiescence [turiya] state. From that state, Maya [or Prakriti] and Her tribe aroused it and conferred consciousness and maya's evolutes eight- desires and the rest. Thus say scriptures holy and true.")

Finally, at birth the soul emerges into earth consciousness, veiled of all memory of past lives and the inner worlds. The cycle of reincarnation ends when karma has been resolved and the Self God (Parasiva) has been realized. This condition of release is called moksha. Then the soul continues to evolve and mature, but without the need to return to physical existence. How many earthly births must one have to attain the unattainable? Many thousands to be sure, hastened by righteous living, tapas, austerities on all levels, penance and good deeds in abundance.

See: reincarnation, evolution of the soul, karma, moksha, nonhuman birth, samsara, soul.

(See also: Reincarnation , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

Dead, Dead People, Dead Father, Dead Mother, Dead Relative, Dead Relatives

• To dream of the dead, is usually a dream of warning. If you see and talk with your father, some unlucky transaction is about to be made by you. Be careful how you enter into contracts, enemies are around you. Men and women are warned to look to their reputations after this dream.
• To see your mother, warns you to control your inclination to cultivate morbidness and ill will towards your fellow creatures. A brother, or other relatives or friends, denotes that you may be called on for charity or aid within a short time.
• To dream of seeing the dead, living and happy, signifies you are letting wrong influences into your life, which will bring material loss if not corrected by the assumption of your own will force.
• To dream that you are conversing with a dead relative, and that relative endeavors to extract a promise from you, warns you of coming distress, unless you follow the advice given you. Disastrous consequences could often be averted if minds could grasp the inner workings and sight of the higher or spiritual self. The voice of relatives is only that higher self taking form to approach more distinctly the mind that lives near the material plane. There is so little congeniality between common or material natures that persons should depend upon their own subjectivity for true contentment and pleasure.
• [52] Paracelsus says on this subject: ``It may happen that the soul of persons who have died perhaps fifty years ago may appear to us in a dream, and if it speaks to us we should pay special attention to what it says, for such a vision is not an illusion or delusion, and it is possible that a man is as much able to use his reason during the sleep of his body as when the latter is awake; and if in such a case such a soul appears to him and he asks questions, he will then hear that which is true. Through these solicitous souls we may obtain a great deal of knowledge to good or to evil things if we ask them to reveal them to us. Many persons have had such prayers granted to them. Some people that were sick have been informed during their sleep what remedies they should use, and after using the remedies, they became cured, and such things have happened not only to Christians, but also to Jews, Persians, and heathens, to good and to bad persons.''
• The writer does not hold that such knowledge is obtained from external or excarnate spirits, but rather through the personal Spirit Glimpses that is in man.--AUTHOR.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Dead , Dreams - Meaning of Dream about Dead , Dream Interpretation Dead )

MOTHER GODDESS -

1. natural mother of all things or mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the powers divine, the principle of them that dwell in heaven, manifested alone and under one form of all the gods and goddesses, at whose will the planets of the sky, the wholesome winds of the seas and the lamentable silences of hell are dispersed. (Isis)

2. archetypal feminine aspect of the Godhead.

3. mediatrix, creator of forms, the celestial energy that gives birth to the world and all beings.

4. Mother Earth, Mother Nature.

5. space, the void field of consciousness.

6. time, who devours all her children.

7. Tao, way of gentle turning back (Lao-Tzu).

• Ala - Ibo Amaterasu-ami-kami-Shinto Anoba-Gaelic
• Aphrodite-Cypriot Asasa Ya-Yoruba  Astarte-Phoenician
• Athena-Greek Bellona-Roman  Benten-Japanese
• Brigid-Celtic Ceres-Eleusinian Ceridwain-Celtic
• Coatlicue-Nahuatl Chicomecoatl-Nahuatl Chom Lhari-Bhutanese
• Cybele-Phrygian Danu-Druidic  Demeter-Greek
• Devi Sri-Balance Diana-Cretan  Estanalehi-Navajo
• Fortuna-Roman Freya-Scandinavian Frigg-Scandinavian
• Gaia-Greek Hathor-Egyptian  Hecate-Greek
• Hel-Norse Illamatecuhtli-Aztec Isis-Egyptian
• Ishtar-Babylonian Ixchel-Mayan  Jord-Norse
• Juno-Roman Kali-Indian  Kuan Yin-Chinese
• Lakshmi-Indian Lilith-Hebrew  Luna-Roman
• Magan Mater-Latin Mary-Christian  Mawu-Dahomean
• Mayahuel-Nahuatl Minerva-Greek  Morgan Le Fay-Irish
• Nut-Egyptian Ostara-Germanic  Pachamama-Incan
• Persephone-Greek Pi-hsia Yuan-chun-Taoist Rangda-Balinese
• Saraswati-Indian Sagarmathe-Himalayain Sophua-Gnostic
• Tara-Tibetan Venus of Menten-Neolithic Venus of Lespugue-Neolithic
• White Goddess-Druidic

(See also: MOTHER GODDESS , Wiccan Pagan, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)

Mother-in-law

• To dream of your mother-in-law, denotes there will be pleasant reconciliations for you after some serious disagreement. For a woman to dispute with her mother-in-law, she will find that quarrelsome and unfeeling people will give her annoyance.

Source: 10 000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustavus Hindman Miller

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Mother-in-law , Meaning of Dreams about Mother-in-law , Dream Interpretation Mother-in-law )

Trinity The divine powers at the head of every theogony. In the Christian Trinity, the original idea of a triune divinity is preserved but has become confused and adapted to theological speculation. If the Holy Ghost is regarded as feminine, as it was in primitive Christianity, we have the trinity of Father-Mother-Son.

The present manner of the procession of the Holy Ghost in the Occident is due to the early theological quarrels which was one of the main causes of the final rupture between the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches -- the filioque ("and from the son") controversy. The Orthodox held with the original procession of Father, Holy Ghost, and Son, while in the West the Holy Ghost or Spirit has become a kind of emanation from the Father or Son, or both of them, and is scarcely distinguishable in its attributes from the Son; while the place of Mother has been filled in the Roman Catholic Church by Mary who, though the mother of Jesus, nevertheless is not a member of the Trinity.

But there is another trinity besides that of Father-Mother-Son, that of the one divine root and its dual aspects -- a conception altogether lost in Christianity. The Christian God is at best but a Demiourgos or inferior creative power, and his necessary attributes clash irreconcilably with those pertaining to the supreme hierarch of our universe; but in many of the sayings of Jesus and in the Epistles of Paul is clear evidence of the true teachings as to the Trinity and the relation of the Father and the Son.

In the orthodox Christian view of its theological Trinity the three persons of the Godhead are not three gods but one God, and yet three Persons or individuals. So that we have one Godhead who is three-in-one, and yet one-in-three, which is not three gods, nor yet one God, but both. Moslems aver that the Christian Trinity is not one God in three aspects, but actually three gods manifesting as one, and the strict monotheism of Islam refuses to admit the logical monstrosity. The Christian Churches lost sight of the mystical origin of its own trinity out of the neo-Pythagorean and Neoplatonic mysticism.

All the great religious and philosophical systems of antiquity contained a divine or spiritual triadic unity as the cosmic source and focus of all beings and things, out of which emanate the universe and all that is in it. Examples are the Osiris-Isis-Horus of Egypt or the Brahma-Vishnu-Siva of India; yet these triads of gods are emanated reflections or representatives on lower planes of the still more sublime and ineffable triadic mystery above and beyond them.

(See also: Trinity , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

Aditi (Sanskrit) (from a not + diti bound from the verbal root da to bind)

Unbounded, free; as a noun, infinite and shoreless expanse. In the Vedas, Aditi is devamatri (mother of the gods) as from and in her cosmic matrix all the heavenly bodies were born. As the celestial virgin and mother of every existing form and being, the synthesis of all things, she is highest akasa. Aditi is identified in the Rig-Veda with Vach (mystic speech) and also with the mulaprakriti of the Vedanta. As the womb of space, she is a feminized form of Brahma. The line in the Rig-Veda: "Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha" has reference to "the eternal cyclic re-birth of the same divine Essence" (SD 2:247n). In one of its most mystic aspects Aditi is divine wisdom.

Aditi has correspondences in many ancient religions: the highest Sephirah in the Zohar; the Gnostic Sophia-Achamoth; Rhea, mother of the Greek Olympians; Bythos or the great Deep; Amba; Surarani; Chaos; Waters of Space; Primordial Light; and the source of the Egyptian seven heavens. Sometimes she is linked with the Greek Gaia, goddess of earth, to denote dual nature or the mother of both the spiritual and physical: Aditi, cosmic expanse or space being the mother of all things; and Gaia, mother of earth and, on the larger scale, of all objective nature (cf SD 2:65, 269).

(See also: Aditi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Woman In philosophy, symbolizes the mother aspect of nature or feminine characteristic of the universe always found in the triads of Father-Mother-Son (changed in the Christian scheme to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost -- the Holy Spirit in primitive Christianity always being considered feminine). From time immemorial it has been customary to associate primordial spirit-substance, later becoming matter, with the cosmic feminine principle represented symbolically by a horizontal line); and spirit has always been associated with the masculine principle (represented by a vertical line); but the words feminine and masculine are merely borrowed from human beings, and the characteristics of originating cosmic principles were far better expressed by pairs of opposites such as negative and positive.

In cosmogenesis, the feminine principle is represented by the waters of space or great deep, often called the womb of nature. From this figure of speech was born the conception found in some ancient cosmogonies, such as the Hebrew, of the ark, containing all the germs of lives of a universe and pictured as resting or moving on the cosmic waters. Another symbol for the feminine principle was that of the lotus, which likewise rests upon the water, finally rising above it when it blossoms. One symbol of the universe in germ before any aspect of manifestation occurs is the matripadma or closed "mother lotus," before the cosmic blossom has been quickened by spirit into expanding into becoming the universe. It is also referred to as devamatri (the divine mother), the matrix from which all the suns and planets were born.

In the cosmogony of the Hebrew Qabbalah, the first Sephirah which emanates from latent divinity is at times represented as feminine; yet when this feminine emanation becomes creative it is then represented as conjoining masculine traits with its own, so that at this stage it is envisaged as masculine-feminine. This first spiritual emanation, emanating from itself the next phase of cosmogonical production, is termed the Shechinah, the mother of all the successively emanated Sephiroth. Thus the Shechinah is an echo of archaic Hindu cosmogonic speculation, corresponding to pradhana or prakriti.

In theosophic cosmogony space is often called the Great Mother before cosmic activity commences and, at the opening of manvantara, Father-Mother with space becomes emanative and is called svabhavat or mother-space. Svabhavat is the emanation from cosmic space or darkness -- so called because its utter and undiluted essential spirit is virtually beyond the reach of the light of mind as manifested in humanity.

Metaphors such as woman and mother are always symbolical when referring to motherhood, and have no associations with physical sex, for "esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest Deity is sexless as it is formless, neither Father nor Mother; and its first manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial alike, become only gradually androgynous and finally separate into distinct sexes" (SD 1:136n). This was clearly understood originally, so that there was no degrading or misinterpreting of these figures of speech. With descending cycles, however, humanity's religious conceptions equally materialized: the key ideas having been forgotten or lost, abstractions became concreted into materializations, a masculine Creator or feminine Creatrix were then placed at the summit of the various pantheons, and early religious philosophy -- which was as scientific as it was religious and philosophical -- cast upon the background of the spatial universe images of human surroundings and way of life; so that the deities in the mythologies finally became human images, more powerful but equally swayed by passion, driven by impulse, and restricted by these even as human beings are. Such projection of human attributes into the cosmic spaces led to a still more materialized visioning of the divinities, so that the feminine or productive characteristics of nature in the popular religious mythologies finally gave way before the masculine, and the earlier, essentially beautiful idea of the mother of nature was swallowed up in the purely masculine traits of national divinities, many of them distinctly male and evil, such as the Jewish Jehovah, who waxed wroth and smelt the sweet savor of burnt sacrifices, or again the Greek Zeus swayed by ignoble passions.

"No exoteric religious system has ever adopted a female Creator, and thus woman was regarded and treated, from the first dawn of popular religions, as inferior to man. It is only in China and Egypt that Kwan-yin and Isis were placed on a par with the male gods" (SD 1:136n). The aspects of Isis, for instance, are familiar enough: as the mother with her child, and as the faithful spiritual consort of Osiris -- these were for easier understanding by the populace; but in the sanctuary Isis remained universal cosmic nature, the cosmic producing mother, the goddess whose veil of nature no mere human had ever raised. Plutarch recorded an inscription addressed to Isis: "I am everything which has been, and which is, and which shall be, and no one has ever drawn my veil" (De Iside at Osiride); to which were added "the fruit of my womb became the Sun" (Proclus, Commentary on the Timaeus, 1:82).

In China, however, the ideal cosmic feminine was named Kwan-yin, the mother of mercy and knowledge, what in Hindustan is called mahat or cosmic buddhi; she is called the triple of Kwan-shai-yin "because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is the 'Mother, the Wife and the Daughter,' of the Logos, just as in the later theological translations she became 'the Father Son and (the female) Holy Ghost' -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three" (SD 1:136).

With the Gnostics truth itself was portrayed as a disrobed divinity, every part of her cosmic form being numbered and lettered. This divine wisdom they called Sophia, virtually the same as the Qabbalistic Shechinah. Even in the modern Occident, instinct has determined that justice shall be pictured as feminine, as also liberty and peace. "The Gnostic Sophia, 'Wisdom' who is 'the Mother' of the Ogdoad . . . is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The 'father' is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere -- the mother of the seven planetary powers" (SD 1:72n).

(See also: Woman , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

grace: "Benevolence, love, giving," from the Latin gratia, "favor, goodwill."

God's power of revealment, anugraha shakti ("kindness, showing favor"), by which souls are awakened to their true, Divine nature.

Grace in the unripe stages of the spiritual journey is experienced by the devotee as receiving gifts or boons, often unbidden, from God. The mature soul finds himself surrounded by grace. He sees all of God's actions as grace, whether they be seemingly pleasant and helpful or not. For him, his very love of God, the power to meditate or worship, and the spiritual urge which drives his life are entirely and obviously God's grace, a divine endowment, an intercession, unrelated to any deed or action he did or could perform.

In Saiva Siddhanta, it is grace that awakens the love of God within the devotee, softens the intellect and inaugurates the quest for Self Realization. It descends when the soul has reached a certain level of maturity, and often comes in the form of a spiritual initiation, called shaktipata, from a satguru.

Grace is not only the force of illumination or revealment. It also includes Siva's other four powers - creation, preservation, destruction and concealment - through which He provides the world of experience and limits the soul's consciousness so that it may evolve.

More broadly, grace is God's ever-flowing love and compassion, karuna, also known as kripa ("tenderness, compassion") and prasada (literally, "clearness, purity").

To whom is God's grace given? Can it be earned? Two famous analogies, that of the monkey (markata) and that of the cat (marjara) express two classical viewpoints on salvation and grace.

• The markata school, perhaps represented more fully by the Vedas, asserts that the soul must cling to God like a monkey clings to its mother and thus participate in its "salvation."
• The marjara school, which better reflects the position of the Agamas, says that the soul must be like a young kitten, totally dependent on its mother's will, picked up in her mouth by the scruff of the neck and carried here and there. This crucial state of loving surrender is called prapatti.

See: anugraha shakti, prapatti, shaktipata, tirodhana shakti.

(See also: Grace , Hinduism, Body Mind and Soul)

sephiroth (sephirah, singular)

The ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life from the Kabbalah are:

1.    Kether, crown;

2.    Chokmah, wisdom;

3.    Binah, intelligence, "

4.    Superior Mother";

5.    Chesed, mercy;

6.    Geburah, severity and judgment;

7.    Tiphareth, beauty;

8.    Netzach, victory;

9.    Hod, splendor (of the mind);

10.              Yesod, foundation;

11.              Malkuth, kingdom

(See also: Sephiroth (sephirah  singular) , Body Mind and Soul)

GODDESS: the divine Universal Mother, source of fertility, wisdom and love. Often depicted in 3 in 1 aspects of: Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Her gift is Life and She is all Nature. The moon is her symbol, as are the cauldron, mirror and five-petaled flowers, to name but a few. Also called the Goddess Mother. The 4th Face of the Goddess: is that which is never seen, the dark side of the moon; the Face of Death. Some say the source of Her power.

She is the female aspect which pervades all of the universe in vast interrelationships of every possible sort, providing impetus, creative spark and more. It is capable of being perceived in many ways depending on the perceiver and transcends time as well as space. Most perceptions of the great goddesses are valid in their own aspects and are or can be of considerable value.

Pagans often choose the archetypal maiden goddess as patroness of things fresh and new, the mother or lady as patroness of challenge, passion, creation and nurturing and the crone goddess for patroness of wisdom and judgment. Such perceptions enable us to form close emotional and magickal links with goddesshood.

(See also: GODDESS , Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary)