Moon goddess

“ A goddess who is the sister of the sun-dis, but who not in the daytime but in the night has to battle on her journey across the sky, must be a goddess of the moon, a moon-dis. This moon-goddess is the one who is nearest at hand to bring assistance [Pg 690] to Balder. Hence she can be none else than Nanna, who we know is the daughter of the owner of the moon-ship. The fact that she has to battle her way across the sky is explained by the Norse mythic statement, according to which the wolf-giant Hate is greedy to capture the moon, and finally secures it as his prey (Völuspa, Gylfaginning) . ”

“ It was the similarity of the periodic phases of the moon and of womankind that originally suggested the identification of the Great Mother with the moon, and originated the belief that the moon was the regulator of human beings. [400] This was the starting-point of the system of astrology and the belief in Fates. The goddess of birth and death controlled and measured the lives of mankind.
But incidentally the moon determined the earliest subdivision of time into months; and the moon-goddess lent the sanctity of her divine attributes to the number twenty-eight. ”

“ Those nations who have worshipped the sun as god of the day, have paid similar worship to the moon as goddess of the night. The ancient myths spoke of the moon as a pure and lonely maiden, fond of silence, hunting, and the [Pg 73] forest shades. Increasing knowledge has shown us the moon as neither goddess nor maiden, but as a satellite of the earth, from which many ages ago it was cast off into space, and by the attraction of which it is held as by invisible and unbreakable chains. ”

“ Like other goddesses who preside over birth she may also have a lunar connection. It is probable that the Huaxtec nose-ornament which she wears in common with the octli-gods is a lunar symbol.12 In Codex Borgia (sheet 55) she is represented as standing opposite the moon, but this may only indicate her connection with night and witchcraft. I am of opinion, however, that Seler’s assumption that she is a moon-goddess is not altogether capable of proof. On the other hand, goddesses of vegetation and childbirth are frequently associated with the moon, and his theory may be perfectly sound. ”

“ The Moon-god [361] or goddess marks the festivals of rude forest tribes who dance by the light of the full moon. It is not uncommon for the Moon to rank above the Sun, as perhaps for astronomical reasons was the case in ancient Babylonia; but more usually the Sun stands first, as seems to us more natural; and commonly Sun and Moon are looked on as a pair, brother and sister, or husband and wife. It is easy to understand why at the famous temple in Syria, Sun and Moon had no images like the other gods, because they themselves were to be seen by all men. ”

“ In precisely similar manner the Semitic moon-goddess, who followed the course of the sun, at times manifesting herself to the eyes of men, at others seeking concealment in the western flood was represented as half woman, half fish, with characteristics which make her lunar origin indisputable. ”

“ The sun controlled the heart, the moon the brain, Jupiter the lungs, Saturn the spleen, Mars the liver, Venus the kidneys, and Mercury the reproductive powers. But even with this distribution among the heavenly bodies the moon was allowed plenipotentiary sway. As in mythology it is the god or goddess of water, so in astrology it is the embodiment of moisture, and therefore rules the humours which circulate throughout the human system. ”

“ We know that the Dakotahs worshipped the moon, and therefore see no difficulty in identifying that divinity with their god of dreams and water. "In the legend of the Muyscas it is Chia, the moon, who was also goddess of water and flooded the earth out of spite." [260] In this myth the moon is a malevolent deity, and water, usually a symbol of life, becomes an agency of death. Reactions are constantly occurring in the myth-making process. The god is male or female, good or evil, angry or amiable, according to the season or climate, the aspect of nature or the mood of the people. ”

“ Artemis and Diana, moon-goddesses, had power over all growing things, and as some Celtic goddesses were equated with Diana, they may have been connected with the moon, more especially as Gallo-Roman images of Diana have the head adorned with a crescent moon. In some cases festivals of the moon remained intact, as among the Celtiberians and other peoples to the north of them, who at the time of full moon celebrated the festival of a nameless god, dancing all night before the doors of their houses.579 The nameless god may have been the moon, worshipped at the time of her intensest light. ”

“ Thou art victorious dancing with a skull full of the blood of Ruru in thy agitated hand, as if thou wast holding the vessel of security of the three worlds. Goddess beloved of Śiva, with uplifted eyes, though thy name means the night of doom, still, with skull surmounted by a burning candle, and with a skull in thy hand, thou dost shine as if with the sun and moon. ”

“ When Apollo sinks in the west, the chariot of Diana appears, and she drives like a queen over the floor of heaven, which is studded with twinkling stars. How lovely is the night! Sometimes we see only a silver crescent, and the rim of the moon. This the children call the baby moon. But night after night the moon shows more and more of her silver face, until she seems like a great ball floating high in air. This we call the full moon. The stars are her maidens, who welcome her coming and attend her on her journey. ”

“ This night is not calm; the equinox still struggles in its storms. The wild rains of the day are abated; the great single cloud disparts and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. The moon reigns glorious, glad of the gale, as glad as if she gave herself to his fierce caress with love. No Endymion will watch for his goddess to-night. There are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes Æolus. ”

“ Should the planet happen to be at the height of her splendour when the ceremony is performed, their future life will be a scene of festivity, and all its paths strewed over with rosebuds of delight. But when her tapering horns are turned towards the north, passion becomes frost-bound, and seldom thaws till the genial season again approaches. From the moon they not only draw prognostications of the weather, but according to their creed also discover future events. ”

“ Then her “visions of the night” are at times sublimely beautiful. Her star-decked vault of heaven, absolutely free from all mists and fogs and damps, seems so high and vast. The stars glisten and twinkle with wondrous clearness. The flashing meteors fade out but slowly, and the moon is so white and bright that her shadows cast are often as vivid as those of the sun in some other lands. ”

“ Even the triumph of Easter is not celebrated until, by attaining its full, the moon accords its aid and sanction. Is it not interesting thus to discover the true note of Catholicism in the most ancient paganisms, and to find that the moon, which for us is incarnate in the blessed Virgin Mary, was for the Syrians and Greeks respectively personified in the virgin Ashtoreth, the queen of heaven, and Diana, or Phoebe, the feminine of Phoebus? ”

“ If the popular mind, to-day, and in a country particularly accessible to the influences of modern culture, worships the personified moon, it may be considered as certain that antiquity did the like. Mythology is woven out of so many strands that goddesses like Artemis and Diana may have been much more than lunar personifications ”

“ Women, on the contrary, will remember that the moon should be first seen not “full face,” but “over the the right shoulder;” they will be aware that with such vision may be united a wish, to which jesting fancy assigns a probability of accomplishment. But these, also, will be surprised by the discovery that lunar divination is maintained with profound seriousness, and that the honor paid to the orb is nothing else than a continued worship, still connected with material blessings expected from its bounty. ”

“ The moon is the most familiar symbol of God's providence; we feel that she is nearer to us than any other heavenly body, and that her special duty is to wait upon us. She accompanies us like a guardian angel, bearing a lamp before us, in the darkness of the night. She circles round us like the parent bird round the nest of her helpless young. She is the first round in the ladder that leads up to the throne of God — the first link in the chain that binds us to the universe of worlds. The moon is thus specially fitted to be useful in bringing home to us the presence and the providence of God. ”

“ The moon, an hour high just after eight, is past her half, and looks somehow more like a human face up there than ever before. As it grows later, we have such gorgeous and broad cloud-effects, with Luna's tawny halos, silver edgings—great fleeces, depths of blue-black in patches, and occasionally long, low bars hanging silently a while, and then gray bulging masses rolling along stately, sometimes in long procession. The moon travels in Scorpion to-night, and dims all the stars of that constellation except fiery Antares, who keeps on shining just to the big one's side. ”

“ Well, that is the sort of illumination which the lunar man will enjoy under these circumstances; all the features of his country will be brightly lighted up by the full earth. Of course, this earth-lighted side of the moon cannot be compared in brilliancy with the sun-lighted side, but the brightness will still be perceptible, so that when from the earth we look at the moon, we see this glow distributed all over the dark portion; that is, we observe the feebly lighted globe clasped in the brilliant arms of the crescent. ”

“ ADDRESS TO THE MOON. Daughter of heaven, fair art thou! the silence of thy face is pleasant! Thou comest forth in loveliness. The stars attend thy blue course in the east. The clouds rejoice in thy presence, O moon! they brighten their dark-brown sides. Who is like thee in heaven, light of the silent night? The stars are ashamed in thy presence. They turn away their sparkling eyes. Whither dost thou retire from thy course, when the darkness of thy countenance grows? hast thou thy hall, like Ossian? dwellest thou in the shadow of grief? ”

“ Why, he has been known to take the shine out of old Sol himself; though from his partiality to us it always makes him look black in the face when we, Alexander-like, stand between him and that luminary. We, too, are the only people by whom he ever allows himself to be eclipsed. Illustrious man in the moon I he has lifted our thoughts from earth to heaven, and we are reluctant to leave him. But the best of friends must part; especially as other lunar inhabitants await attention. ”

“ Pictures of moonlight lovers strolling along moonlit lanes, rowing on moonlit rivers, in moonlit boats, moonlight gleaners and the harvest home have been painted over and over again in word and color, but the why and wherefor of the extraordinary brilliance of the Queen of Night during the period that she is known as the “harvest moon” has been completely lost sight of by the great majority. ”

“ Yet she does not abandon all hope, but trusts that on some future day one of her earthly sisters may be found sufficiently pious and pure and innocent for the Moon to call her to share this blessed life. So from time to time the Moon-maiden gazes down on the earth with increasing hope and laughing eyes, with her face unveiled, as on the happy evening when she first looked down from heaven on the Vaskjala Bridge. But the best and most intelligent of the daughters of earth fall into error and wander into by-paths, and none among them is pious and innocent enough to become the Moon's companion. ”

“ In the nineteenth century as well as in the dark ages, in London as well as in the ends of the earth, men of all colours and clans are found turning their faces heavenward to read their duty and destiny in the oracular face of the moon. Many consult their almanacks more than their Bibles, and follow the lunar phases as their sole interpretation of the will of God.
Among those who worship the moon as a personal deity, whether beneficent or malign, its influences are of course welcomed or dreaded as the manifestations of supreme power. ”

“ THE MOON-MOTHER The world is a child who roams all day
Through windswept meadows of gold and gray.
The gold flowers fade; he foils to sleep,
And night is his cradle wide and deep.
The moon-mother creeps from behind God's throne
And steals up the skies to protect her own.
She leans her breast 'gainst his cradle-rim
While her small star-children gaze down on him.
Stars are his brothers; clouds his dreams ”

“ Receiving re-echoed radio signals from Luna's pock-marked surface is already old stuff, last year's headlines. People read these reports as they go about their daily work: outwardly they do not change, but we feel confident that inwardly a very profound disturbance is moving into the hearts of humanity.
For thousands of years, as far back as recorded legend goes, the moon has been a symbol of the unattainable, of the heights of ambition and vanity and desire. ”

“ The moon always seems to me like a beautiful woman, for she often hides her round, shining face with a blanket of cloud, and sometimes she even runs away from us altogether, as if she were tired or displeased. But to-night she smiles and uncovers her face, so that all the young men are out, each playing upon his flute near the home of the loved one! ”

“ Another work, issued also in London, says, "Cynthia, 'the queen of heaven,' as the ancients termed her, or the MOON, the companion of the earth, and chief source of our evening light, is a cold, moist, watery, phlegmatic planet, variable to an extreme, in astrological science; and partaking of good or evil, as she is aspected by good or evil stars. When angular and unafflicted in a nativity, she is the promissory pledge of great success in life and continual good fortune. ”