Earth goddess

“ Generally she was called a moon goddess, certainly she possessed a twofold nature — as queen of the heavens she directed the moon and stars, and sent down life-giving rains on the earth, and as the personification of the productive force of nature, she was the patroness of fertility. ”

“ A goddess she was made, Immortal, fair, unfit to suffer change. So now she lives, and never more shall fade. In earth, a goddess. What can be more strange? Then will I hope! A goddess, and so near; She cannot choose, my sighs and prayers but hear.
[Pg 437]
SONNET XXV.
SEven are the Lights that wander in the skies: And at these seven, I wonder in my Love. To see the Moon how pale she doth arise; Standing amazed, as though she durst not move: So is my Sweet, much paler than the snow; Constant her looks, those looks that cannot change. Mercury the next, a god sweet-tongued we know ”

“ Venus comes, from the sea to take possession of the world, as a goddess who loves men should—quite naked and quite alone. Earth is more to her liking than is Olympus, and amongst her lovers she has more men than gods. ”

“ Of the older mother-right scarcely more than traces remain, survivals from an older alien culture. The goddess is no longer supreme. A new divinity, a sky-god, or sun-god, or manifestation of light or brightness had already appeared—the Greek Zeus, Latin Ju-piter, with the same root appearing in all the languages. The earth-goddess is not banished, but remains as consort [Pg 252] of the male divinity. The supreme divinity of the religious cult is no longer local. ”

“ No fancy of nature can be plainer than that the Heaven-father and the Earth-mother are the universal parents, nor could [360] any ceremony acknowledge them more naturally than the Chinese marriage when bride and bridegroom prostrate themselves before Heaven and Earth. The Earth-goddess is clear in classic religion, Dēmētēr, Terra Mater, and perhaps the last trace of her worship among ourselves may be the leaving of the last handful of corn-ears standing in the field or the carrying it in triumph in the harvest-home. ”

“ All this order and arrangement the goddess first imparted to you when establishing your city; and she chose the spot of earth in which you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and of wisdom, selected, and first of all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest herself. And there you dwelt, having such laws as these and still better ones, and excelled all mankind in all virtue, as became the children and disciples of the gods. ”

“ This goddess, sometimes called by the Greeks, Rhea, and by the Latins, Ops, is considered to be a personification of the earth. She is goddess, not of cities only, but of all things which the earth contains. She was the daughter of Cœlum, and the wife of Saturn. ”

“ Prayers must not be said to the goddess who only remembers––but many prayers belong to the goddess who creates. And the most belovéd of all is the goddess E-yet-e-ko (Mother Earth) who nourishes them all their days. He learned that they planted their corn and their cotton by the stars and the plum blossoms, in the way his mother said they did by the river of her land, also that the great bear of the stars was called by them the great animal of cold weather, and that the Sun had eight children, or wandering stars in the sky. ”

“ In such a heart, nature is reflected as in a magic mirror, on whose surface the Beautiful shines in three-fold beauty. There the eye can reach far away over stream, and meadow, and hill, and take in the whole circle of the earth; there the morning and evening-red shine, not like roses and rubies, but like the very cheeks of the Goddess of Beauty ”

“ Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods Thyself a Goddess, not to earth confined, But sometimes in the air, as we, sometimes Ascend to Heaven, by merit thine, and see What life the Gods live there, and such live thou!" ”

“ Creator Venus, genial power of love,
The bliss of men below, and gods above! 130
Beneath the sliding sun thou runn'st thy race,
Dost fairest shine, and best become thy place.
For thee the winds their eastern blasts forbear,
Thy month reveals the spring, and opens all the year.
Thee, goddess! thee the storms of winter fly,
Earth smiles with flowers renewing, laughs the sky,
And birds to lays of love their tuneful notes apply. ”

“ Another goddess is Young Mother Eagle, the Sun's mother, and it is she who holds the world in her talons and guards everything; the stars are her dress. With Grandmother Growth beneath, Young Mother Eagle above, and the four Rain-Serpent goddesses, the six cardinal points of the world are defined. It will be observed, too, that the goddesses are deities of the feminine element, earth and water; while the gods are divinities of the masculine elements, fire and air. ”

“ They are like travellers who pass through a wonderful landscape without even asking where they are. This planet consecrated to Venus, the goddess of beauty and love, who, in the days of ancient Greece, was said to [Pg 104] have emerged from the waves to charm gods and men, and whose mythical history brings us such eloquent evidence of the influence of celestial aspects upon the origin of religions—this planet, we say, owes its terrestrial glory to its situation between the Earth and the Sun. ”

“ But with the rose there are a thousand beautiful objects all consecrated by myth and legend, based on deeply-seated affinities, all reflecting the solemn mystery of birth and death in unity, all expressing love and pleasure, and all mutually convertible one into the other. All the differently-named Venuses, yes, all the goddesses of ancient mythology, are but one Venus and one goddess—all gods blend in one Arch-Bel, or 'Belerus old,' of myriad names—he, the inscrutable Abyss, self-developing into male and female—who is reflected again in every object which springs from them. ”

“ The thought of wrenched clouds, of crying human shapes, of torn beasts and birds sobbing and circling without the closed curtains of her shrine, served her imagination like a hymn. She measured her content against the strength of such hopeless appeals, like a very nun of incontinence, shut from the rigour of the world within the scented oratory of her own worship. She was Venus Anno Domini, the Paphian goddess yet undethroned, and yet justified of her influence over man and Nature. ”

“ Imbued with soft tender feelings, she could not bear to see the altar of the goddes dyed red in human blood. But, in no other particulars, would she permit of any breach of observance. That goddess—the ruler of the universe—the dispenser of joys and sorrows—and the giver of final beatitude—now bade her in a dream to sacrifice her own life. ”

“ The goddess shone through her indeed, glowed in all her body, she was a worshipful temple of love for me--yes. But I could feel, like a thing new discovered, the texture and sinews of her living, her dear personal and mortal hands. ”

“ I cannot think where I saw the eyes like those of the goddess, but perhaps it was in that part of my life which is forgotten and ruled off with a line. It gave one the greatest and most majestic feelings to stand there with the gods, and to know that one was a god one's self, and that lightning did not hurt one, and that one would live for ever. ”

“ Great in the sight of mortals, and not without a name am I the Goddess Venus, and in heaven: and of as many as dwell within the ocean and the boundaries of Atlas, beholding the light of the sun, those indeed, who reverence my authority, I advance to honor; but overthrow as many as hold themselves high toward me. ”

“ Venus herself it is, this woman who appears to him. Then the heart and senses burn within him; a fierce, devouring passion fires the blood in all his veins; with irresistible constraint it thrusts him nearer; before the goddess's self he steps with that canticle of love triumphant, and now he sings it in ecstatic praise of her. ”

“ But the three gods did not stand by themselves. The mythical personification of nature, of which all three were in at least one aspect the products, required that each of them should be coupled with a goddess, and in each case it appears that originally the goddess was a more powerful and important personage than the god. ”

“ That goddess is all in all, she is changed through every thing in world, and is the cosmos itself and the power of the intellect also; she fills the whole concavity of the sky with her form of pure vacuity. ”

“ We have never seen any thing to come up to our newly discovered goddess before, but she is what we have been all our lives looking for. The idol we fall down and worship is an image familiar to our minds. ”

“ Can the falling stone turn upwards to the sky, or when Nature draws it, can the tide cease to flow? A goddess whom I have offended, that goddess whose strength causes the whole world to be, has laid her curse upon me and because I have bent before the storm, as bend I must, or break, another goddess whom I serve, thou thyself, O Mother Isis, hast added to the curse. ”

“ The following stanzas are from the hymn addressed to Night (x. 127) :—
Night coming on, the goddess shines In many places with her eyes: All-glorious she has decked herself. Immortal goddess, far and wide She fills the valleys and the heights: Darkness with light she overcomes. And now the goddess coming on Has driven away her sister Dawn: Far off the darkness hastes away. Thus, goddess, come to us to-day, At whose approach we seek our homes, As birds upon the tree their nest. The villagers have gone to rest, Beasts, too, with feet and birds with wings: The hungry hawk himself is still. ”

“ With the God who dwelt with angels
In the shining age of yore.
And I stood sublime, victorious,
While below lay earth with glorious
Realms of angels shining,
Crown-like on her temples evermore,
Not an Earth, an Eden more.
Earth, I cried, thy clouds are shadows
From the Asphodelian meadows
Of the sky-world floating downward,
Early rains that from them pour;
Love’s own heaven thy mother bore thee,
And the Father God bends o’er thee,
’Tis His hand that crowns thy forehead;
Thou shalt live forever more,
Not on Earth, in Eden more. ”

“ This ethereal Venus is the immaculate glorious woman whose absolute beauty the greatest poets, writers, painters, sculptors and musicians have striven to express in words, in form, in colour and in sound. Thus is Venus the noble cogency of divine pure love which has been striving through all the ages to make the world a paradise and to bring man back again to the Eden he has lost. No blood sacrifices stained the altars of this 41lovely goddess, and the ancients delighted in bringing to her temples sweet blossoms and fragrant spices for incense. ”

“ Just as the ancient Greeks embodied their ideals of virtue in the forms of gods, we can give our ideals of reason the forms of goddesses. The Goddess of Truth dwells in the temple of nature, in the green forests, upon the blue seas, on the snow-covered mountain-peaks. ”

“ Nature never seems so miraculous as it does when you emerge from this hidden realm of marvellous imitations. The "dear goddess" is so serene in her resplendent and more harmonious beauty! The gorgeous amphitheatre of trees, the hills, the sky, and the air, all seem to wear a veil of transfigured glory. The traveller feels that he was never before conscious how beautiful a phenomenon is the sunlight, how magnificent the blue arch of heaven! ”

“ Hecate, which was one of the names of Diana, was distinguished as the Goddess of magic and enchantments. Venus was the Goddess of love, the most irresistible and omnipotent impulse of which the heart of man is susceptible. ”

“ Venus. I am Venus! I have many names in the outer world! It is I who rule the God of Love, I sway the hearts of all true lovers; in your world I have caused you poor mortals to burn for me—aye, and with an unconsuming, unquenchable fire! ”

“ Truly it may be said of the Virgin Goddess that, like the golden dawn, which she is thought to impersonate, she brightens more and more, still heralding by her effulgent but imperfect light the advent of the perfect day. ”

“ One of the prettiest, oldest, and most universally favorite solar myths is the one which represents the Sun as a divine being, youthful and of surpassing beauty, beloved by or wedded to an equally powerful goddess, but meeting a premature death by accident and descending into the dark land of shades, from which, however, after a time he returns as glorious and beautiful as before. ”

“ The Moon-God is no more heard of, and the traditions concerning the Sun-Goddess diverge from those concerning the Impetuous Male Deity in a manner which is productive of inconsistencies in the rest of the mythology. ”

“ Divinity in the sea was called Neptune, in the sun Apollo, in the earth Ceres, in the deserts Diana, and diversely in each of the other species of things: as divine ideas, they were diverse deities in Nature, and all were referred to one deity of deities, one source of Ideas above Nature. ”

“ I could not enter that Radiance they entered yet Earth seemed to me bathed in an aether of Deity. I felt at times as one raised from the dead, made virginal and pure, who renews exquisite intimacies with the divine companions, with Earth, Water, Air and Fire. To breathe was to inhale magical elixirs. To touch Earth was to feel the influx of power as with one who had touched the mantle of the Lord. ”

“ My favoured hypothesis is that the movement has become increasingly polarized along several of the aforementioned tensions, dividing along two trajectories: the esoteric/personal and the exoteric/ecological. The esoteric values Goddess as an inner reality, a extension of the self, an archetypal or mythic source of power, a spiritual lifestyle choice. The exoteric values Goddess as an ecological, pantheistic and/or cosmological whole, the living body of nature. ”