Hindu Goddesses
Kali
With her necklace of heads, skirt of severed arms and
blood-drunk visage, Kali presents a forbidding figure.
However, as a symbol of Time, her hag-aspect merely
reflects the fear humankind feels for its own mortality.
Those fluent in Kali’s ways recognise death and
destruction of the flesh as natural processes in the
cycles of death and rebirth, and do not fear the bloody
veil, knowing that behind it shines the benign smile
of the Mother Goddess, waiting to gather these fragments
of her creativity back unto herself. Thus she symbolises
at once the duality of illusory Maya and the
ever-present need to transcend the one-dimensional traps
of the flesh. By dismembering, she arrests spiritually
unhelpful patterns; through trust and effort the ‘victim’
is recomposed in a more enlightened form. On a mundane
level her processes might be summarised as learning
through experience, and gaining from challenge.
Mataji
In this image Mataji strongly resembles Durga, who
similarly is often seen as an embodiment of all the
Goddesses. As shown by her numerous arms, Mataji, the
Great Mother, combines the attributes of all the other
female deities, representing the Shakti in its
entirety. Riding her tiger and blithely displaying her
weapons, from the lethal discus to the lotus of mantric
meditation and transcendence, Mataji perfectly represents
the amalgamation of the qualities of ‘feminine’
godforms.
Laxmi
Laxmi is the Goddess of luck, fertility and abundance,
and her blessing brings all that is good on the material
planes. Flanked by regal elephants which shower her
with life-giving water, ever-smiling Laxmi is understandably
a popular target for devotional prayer. The gifts she
proffers if pleased range from health to strong offspring
to increased financial and social status. In Tarot terms
she is the Empress and the Ace of Pentacles alike.
Radha
Krishna’s consort Radha represents total devotion
to and concentration on Lord Krishna, and as such is
sometimes emulated by Krishna-devotees. Though married
to another, her every though and action is for Krishna,
symbolising the irrelevance of social and transitory
concerns when compared to the Great Love; that of the
devotee for God. As a character she is by turns celestially
love-stricken and insanely jealous of Krishna’s
other Gopis, or metaphorical lovers. Thus she
symbolises the all-inclusiveness of Godlove and the
task of overcoming individual needs in favour and recognition
of the Greater Good.
Egyptian Goddesses
Hathor
Hathor is closely related to Isis, and represents the
more domestic, nurturing aspects of the latter. Frequently
depicted with a cow’s head or merely wearing horns,
sometimes with a lunar disc, Hathor is one of the oldest
and most popular Mother Goddesses of Egypt. The musical
instrument the Sistrum is sacred to her, and
was often crafted with a cow-shaped handle in respect
of this. As benign and ever-giving as the cow itself,
Hathor combines the sacred traits of the bovine with
the bovine traits of the sacred; a steady, protective
love, slow and ruminatory enough to allow entire generations
of human life to flourish. She blesses homestead, agriculture
and progeny. She is merely concerned with the living,
however. One of the groups to whom she pays particular
attention is that of the lost souls wandering between
worlds. To these she offers a little much-needed nourishment,
to help them on their way.
Isis
How can I sum up this greatest of Goddesses in a nutshell?
Many have tried, but the result is usually a long list
of other goddesses and female counterparts. That is
the thing about Isis; her sacred spirit imbues all other
Goddesses, and, indeed, all forms of life. She is Nature,
but then she is also Nurture; she is Magick, but she
is also intensely practical; she is Lover and Wife to
Osiris, but so great was her grief when she lost him
that she is also always Mourner; she is Beneficiary,
and Exacting Mistress, Goddess of Love but also of Marriage
and hard, hard work; she requires effort from her devotees,
and her gifts do not come cheap. Perhaps above all she
embodies the intuitive response to life; love and spirituality
being her domains, doubtless the most important aspects
of any person’s life. She also guards over incarnational
patterns, guiding her initiates by hand through the
physical expressions of their inner realities. Her image
is well-known; often winged, Cleopatra-style hair and
visage shown in profile, half her face in the Underworld
and Magickal Planes, the glyph of a throne on her head,
a most graceful and beauteous Goddess. She will bless
any positive enterprise, so great is the scope of her
blessings, but the magickal aspirant or initiate receives
particular blessings from the most occult aspect Isis,
in whom the powers of Sun and Moon are intertwined like
the snakes upon a Caduceus.
Maat
Maat is the epitome of Justice both on a physical and
a karmic /cosmic level. She represented by the Scales,
the heart of the ‘accused’ being weighed against
her feather. If the heart has but one redeeming feature,
the Scales will most likely balance. If, however, the
heart is characterised by evil and injustice,
it is rightful fodder for the waiting Ammut, the ghastly
celestial dog-trash-can from whose powerful jaws no
soul may return. Maat is encountered by all in the Halls
of the Assessors, where the newly-dead congregate to
be judged, one by one, and to meet their fate accordingly.
She is also a day-to-day reality, the very essence of
Truth. By ‘Speaking Maat and thinking Maat’,
i.e. by always using ones spiritual integrity, the soul
avoids accumulating heavy astral matter which clogs
the capacity for ascension. Then one is free to rise
into the starry regions of Nuit, released from earthly
ties and concerns.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND EXERCISES ON ISIS, NEPHTHYS,
MAAT, SEKHMET AND HATHOR, SEE INVOKE
THE GODDESS BY KALA TROBE, PUBLISHED BY LLEWELLYN.
Greek Goddesses
Artemis
Chaste Goddess of the hunt, protectress of women and
children, particularly of women in childbirth, Artemis
is a clearly delineated figure both physically and functionally.
Taut and focused, she represents ‘solar’ intellectual
functions as well as the lunar qualities usually attributed
to her; she is Goddess of the New Moon, true, but never
ethereal. Indeed, her twin brother Apollo, theoretically
a solar deity, displays characteristics as effete and
creative as one might expect to find in the lunar sphere.
Artemis or Diana is clean-cut, solitary, strong and
skilled. She loves a challenge and is unrivalled in
the chase. Pine torches burn around her as she brings
new souls into the world, and her wily eye deduces the
fate of the bawling infant, blessing it with her protection
whatever its future may be.
Hecate
Hecate, Queen of the Witches, spreads her volumous
cloak over the world in autumn, her cackle as subtle
as the rustle of piles of dead leaves, the snap of a
twig underfoot, the raven’s distant caw. Small
animals forage for food under her beady eye, spotting
every morsel that might help them live through winter.
Dogs, sacred to her, whimper with fear and respect,
or howl at the dark moon in an ecstasy of knowing. Menstrual
women catch her in the corner of their eyes, the latter
glinting with something that makes their menfolk shudder.
Beware, beware, is the whisper on the wind. Of
what must we be beware? Of hubris, of complacency.
There is more to life than this. Hecate disparages,
stern and ancient. She knows all the tricks of the trade,
and her Priestesses are wild and wily, stopping at nothing
to fulfil their own purposes. Cold as stone, cowled
against entreaty, powerful as Hades itself she stands,
one foot dipped in the Styx, the other on her land.
She is Moon and Earth and Underworld. The archetypal
hag, Hecate rides hobnail-boot-clad through our psyches,
brushing out the obsolete with her thrice-blessed broomstick.
Hera
Bitter Hera, flanked by cawing peacocks whose thousand
eyes spy out and record the doings of her errant husband.
Also, the whereabouts of his many ex’s, their
progeny, the progression or otherwise of her numerous
rivals and enemies, and…she is always busy. Trying
to counter scheme with bigger scheme. Who dares to thwart
her, who risks their lives with such disrespect?
Hera is sure to smite them for their hubris. Like a
bluebottle she will irritate them, like a mosquito drive
them to insomniac distraction, like an evil midwife
she will forbid them to bear the bastard children of
her husband Zeus, forcing them to endure perpetual pains
of labour without the respite of birth; they deserve
this for luring him from her, with their smooth girls’
skins and lustrous lashes, o-so-pure. Virgins defiled
by Zeus shall be the medium of the wronged wife’s
wrath; for it is true that Hell hath no fury like a
Woman Scorned. Beware, all ye who would come between
man and rightful wife, all ye who would draw husband
from ordained female counterpart; the many peacocks
of Hera have your number!
We know where you live, in which city, in which street
and in which town. And we are not afeared to track you
down. We simply hope that it was worth it.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND EXERCISES CONCERNING GREEK
GODDESSES, SEE KALA TROBE’S BOOK INVOKE
THE GODDESS, PUBLISHED BY LLEWELLYN.
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