TERMS STARTING WITH
Goddess of Mercy. See GUANYIN.
Goddess of Mercy
goddess ::: a female god or deity. Goddess, goddess", goddesses, Goddesses, Earth-Goddess, wind-goddess.
goddess ::: n. --> A female god; a divinity, or deity, of the female sex.
A woman of superior charms or excellence.
goddess ::: “The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit’s omnipotence.” The Life Divine
TERMS ANYWHERE
1. The state or quality of being divine. 2. A deity, such as a god or goddess; the Supreme Being. 3. The nature of a deity or the state of being divine. 4. A being having divine attributes, ranking below God but above humans. divinity"s, divinities.
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).
Aditi-prakriti (Sanskrit) Aditi-prakṛti [from aditi unbounded + prakṛti nature from pra forth + the verbal root kṛ to do, make] Spiritual-physical nature; Father-Mother within before it appeared in space, the universal matrix of kosmos personified in the dual character of the universe or of man. Aditi signifies infinity personified as a goddess; prakriti, nature considered as the evolver or producer in its original condition.
Aditi: The name (Sanskrit for boundlessness) of a Vedic goddess, mother of the gods known as Adityas; she is identified at times with the earth, at times with the sky, and at other times is hailed as a cow.
Aditi ::: the Vedic goddess of infinite being, the mother of the gods, manifested here as the earth-goddess (Pr.thivi2); the adya-sakti, the indivisible consciousness (cit), force (tapas) and bliss (ananda) of the Supreme.
Adityas: A group of Vedic gods, sons of the goddess Aditi. Their number is variously given as six or eight, in later times also as twelve.
Again, in myth and folktales, a magic liquid that cures all illnesses, brings the dead to life, or gives immortality. For example, in the Babylonian myth of Ishtar and Tammuz, the goddess descends to the underworld seeking the water of life to restore Tammuz to life. See also AB-E-HAYAT
Agyrmos (Greek) A collection of men, assembly; referred to initiation into the Mysteries, synonymous with synaxis. Hesychius called the first day of the initiation into the Mysteries of Ceres, goddess of the harvest, by these terms. The term synaxis was eventually dropped by Christians in favor of missa or mass. (BCW 11:99&n)
Aisa (Greek) Goddess who “gives to all their portion of good and evil, and is therefore karma.” (SD 2:604-5n)
Also personified as a goddess, the wife of Dharma (divine law) and daughter of Daksha.
Ana (Chaldean) The invisible heaven; the astral light, the heavenly mother of the terrestrial sea. One of the triad comprising the goddesses Ana, Belita, and Damkina. As mother of the sea, a likely origin of the Christian symbology of the Virgin Mary standing on the crescent moon and of her connection with the sea. “Anna (the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary) . . . is derived from the Chaldean Ana” (SD 1:91).
Anahita (Avestan) Anāhita, Nahid (Persian) Nāhīd [earlier form in full Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā, from ared to grow straight or high, expand + sūra strong, powerful + anāhīta undefilable from a not + ahit unclean] The Avestan goddess of the waters dwelling in the region of the stars; similar to the Hindu Ganga, she is described as “the large river, known afar, that is as large as the whole of the waters that run along the earth; that runs powerfully from the height Hukairya down to the sea Vouru-Kasha [the waters of space]. All the shores of the sea Vouru-Kasha are boiling over, all the middle of it is boiling over, when she runs down there, when she streams down there, she, Ardvi Sura Anahita, who has a thousand cells and a thousand channels: the extent of each of those cells, of each of those channels is as much as a man can ride in forty days, riding on a good horse. From this river of mine [Ahura-Mazda’s] alone flow all the waters that spread all over the seven Karshvares [the seven globes of the earth-chain]; this river of mine alone goes on bringing waters, both in summer and in winter” (Aban Yasht 3-5).
Anaitis, Anait (Chaldean) Also Anaitia, Aneitis, Tanais, Nanaea. A goddess whose worship was widespread over large portions of the Near East; “identical with the Hindu Annapurna, one of the names of Kali — the female aspect of Siva — at her best” (TG 21). Identified with the Greek Artemis and Aphrodite. “Anna (the name of the Mother of the Virgin Mary) . . . is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or Astral Light, Anima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devi-durga, the wife of Siva, is also called Annapurna, and Kanya, the Virgin; ‘Uma-Kanya’ being her esoteric name, and meaning the ‘Virgin of light,’ Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects” (SD 1:91-2).
Anjana (Sanskrit) Añjanā [feminine of añjana] The mother of Hanumat or Hanuman, the celebrated monkey god of the Ramayana, who is therefore called Anjaneya (son of Anjana). In her previous birth she was a goddess, but due to a curse was born as a monkey in the Himalayas. The birth of her son, Hanuman, lifted the curse and after a period Anjana ascended to svarga (heaven).
Ank, Ankh (Egyptian) The symbol of life in ancient Egypt, represented as the tau-cross surmounted by a circle, and often called crux ansata (cross with a handle). Usually placed in the hand of every representation of god or goddess; likewise in the hand of the initiant, and again on the mummy. Also the present astronomical planetary sign for Venus; and the ansated cross reversed is the sign of the earth.
Annapurna (Sanskrit) Annapūrṇā [from anna food + pūrṇa filled, abundant from the verbal root pṝ to fill, nourish] Giver of food; a name applied to the goddess Durga, consort of Siva, popularly considered in one of her aspects as the goddess ever granting food. Originally she was Ammapurna, mother of plenty [from amma mother]. In ancient Rome the goddess of plenty was called Anna Perenna, whose festival was celebrated during the Ides of March. The mystical significance of the name is Eternal Mother, ever filled with the seeds of beings, constantly nourishing and producing. Likewise, Durga is looked upon as the dark side of nature, for the reference is not to the spirit side of Siva, but to his consort, the veil or sheath of universal nature, which is both the container of all seeds of beings and consequently the feeder, and likewise the bringer about of death. It is a curious paradox that by food all beings are generated, but likewise by food death comes to all beings. See also ANNA.
Anukis [Greek from Egyptian Ȧnqet from ȧnq to surround, embrace] Third of the triad of deities of Elephantine, consisting of Khnemu, Sati, and Anqet or Anukis. Her worship was common in northern Nubia, but later centered at Sahal, where her principal temple was situated. At Philae she was identified with Nephthys or Neith, it being common to regard Khnemu as a form of Osiris: hence Sati and Anqet became associated with Isis and Nephthys. However, Anqet is also represented with the disk and horned headdress of Isis and is called the lady of heaven, mistress of all the gods; giver of life and of all power, and of all health and joy of heart. The goddess is also associated with the embracing waters of the Nile, though the root itself shows that she is the embracing and all-surrounding cosmic life as well as it minor functions in manifestation. The ascriptions given to Anukis as the giver of life and of all power associate the goddess with the moon, whether in the cosmogonical or lower generative sense.
Anumati (Sanskrit) Anumati [from anu-man to approve, grant] Assent, permission, approbation; personified frequently as a goddess. The fifteenth day of the moon’s age “when one digit is deficient” (VP 2:8), a time said to be propitious for the offering of oblations to devas and pitris.
Anunit (Chaldean) One of the popular nature goddesses of the early Babylonian peoples, who in one aspect is called Ishtar. Her worship was prominent at Sippar in the later Babylonian period. A sanctuary was erected in her honor by Sargon of Akkad at Babylon (3800 BC). Blavatsky held that Anunit was the planet Venus as the morning star, whereas the same planet as the evening star was Ishtar of Erech.
Aphrodite: Greek goddess of love and beauty.
Aphrodite (Greek) Greek Goddess of love and beauty, in older times regarded as signifying the harmony of cosmos. Originally the daughter of Zeus and Dione, a lunar deity like Aphrodite, both being represented with the horns of the moon or of the zodiacal sign Taurus; but the same deity in ancient mystical philosophy may be at once mother, wife, and daughter — so difficult is it to find among our common notions a symbolism that will convey the full meaning anciently intended. Later, under Eastern influence, she was said to have been born from the sea foam and to have landed in a seashell on the isle of Cythera. A sea goddess as well as an earth goddess of gardens, groves, and springtime, she was the wife of Hephaestus and connected also with Ares and Adonis; mother of Eros. As Aphrodite Urania, she was identified with the goddess of heaven Astarte, and later under Platonic influence came to represent spiritual love as opposed to earthly love, represented by Aphrodite Pandemos. Among her analogs are Isis, Ishtar, Mylitta, Eve, Vach, etc., all the mother of all living beings and of the gods, cosmically. The Romans identified Aphrodite with Venus, and the Egyptians with Hathor.
aphrodite ::: n. --> The Greek goddess of love, corresponding to the Venus of the Romans.
A large marine annelid, covered with long, lustrous, golden, hairlike setae; the sea mouse.
A beautiful butterfly (Argunnis Aphrodite) of the United States.
Aran.yani ::: the Vedic goddess of the forest (aran.ya, wilderness, perAranyani haps equivalent in the esoteric sense of the Veda to vana, forest, symbolising for Sri Aurobindo "the growths of the earth, our material ...22 existence").
arhat. (P. arahant; T. dgra bcom pa; C. aluohan/yinggong; J. arakan/ogu; K. arahan/ŭnggong 阿羅漢/應供). In Sanskrit, "worthy one"; one who has destroyed the afflictions (KLEsA) and all causes for future REBIRTH and who thus will enter NIRVAnA at death; the standard Tibetan translation dgra bcom pa (drachompa) ("foe-destroyer") is based on the paronomastic gloss ari ("enemy") and han ("to destroy"). The arhat is the highest of the four grades of Buddhist saint or "noble person" (ARYAPUDGALA) recognized in the mainstream Buddhist schools; the others are, in ascending order, the SROTAAPANNA or "stream-enterer" (the first and lowest grade), the SAKṚDAGAMIN or "once-returner" (the second grade), and the ANAGAMIN or "nonreturner" (the third and penultimate grade). The arhat is one who has completely put aside all ten fetters (SAMYOJANA) that bind one to the cycle of rebirth: namely, (1) belief in the existence of a perduring self (SATKAYADṚstI); (2) skeptical doubt (about the efficacy of the path) (VICIKITSA); (3) belief in the efficacy of rites and rituals (sĪLAVRATAPARAMARsA); (4) sensual craving (KAMARAGA); (5) malice (VYAPADA); (6) craving for existence as a divinity (DEVA) in the realm of subtle materiality (RuPARAGA); (7) craving for existence as a divinity in the immaterial realm (ARuPYARAGA); (8) pride (MANA); (9) restlessness (AUDDHATYA); and (10) ignorance (AVIDYA). Also described as one who has achieved the extinction of the contaminants (ASRAVAKsAYA), the arhat is one who has attained nirvAna in this life, and at death attains final liberation (PARINIRVAnA) and will never again be subject to rebirth. Although the arhat is regarded as the ideal spiritual type in the mainstream Buddhist traditions, where the Buddha is also described as an arhat, in the MAHAYANA the attainment of an arhat pales before the far-superior achievements of a buddha. Although arhats also achieve enlightenment (BODHI), the MahAyAna tradition presumes that they have overcome only the first of the two kinds of obstructions, the afflictive obstructions (KLEsAVARAnA), but are still subject to the noetic obstructions (JNEYAVARAnA); only the buddhas have completely overcome both and thus realize complete, perfect enlightenment (ANUTTARASAMYAKSAMBODHI). Certain arhats were selected by the Buddha to remain in the world until the coming of MAITREYA. These arhats (called LUOHAN in Chinese, a transcription of arhat), who typically numbered sixteen (see sOdAsASTHAVIRA), were objects of specific devotion in East Asian Buddhism, and East Asian monasteries will often contain a separate shrine to these luohans. Although in the MahAyAna sutras, the bodhisattva is extolled over the arhats, arhats figure prominently in these texts, very often as members of the assembly for the Buddha's discourse and sometimes as key figures. For example, in the SADDHARMAPUndARĪKASuTRA ("Lotus Sutra"), sARIPUTRA is one of the Buddha's chief interlocutors and, with other arhats, receives a prophecy of his future buddhahood; in the VAJRACCHEDIKAPRAJNAPARAMITASuTRA, SUBHuTI is the Buddha's chief interlocutor; and in the VIMALAKĪRTINIRDEsA, sAriputra is made to play the fool in a conversation with a goddess.
Ariadne (Greek) In Greek mythology, the daughter of King Minos of Crete, who fell in love with Theseus when he came to kill the Minotaur confined in the labyrinth. She gave Theseus a clue of yarn or thread by means of which he found his way out of the labyrinth again. Ariadne fled with him, but he abandoned her on the Isle of Naxos at the request of Dionysos, who then married her and raised her to immortality. Ariadne was identified in Italy with Libera, goddess of wine. “Analogy is the guiding law in Nature, the only true Ariadne’s thread that can lead us, through the inextricable paths of her domain, toward her primal and final mysteries.” (SD 2:153)
Arion (Greek) In Greek mythology, the first and fleetest horse, offspring of Poseidon or Neptune (god of the sea) and Ceres (goddess of the harvest). Also a Greek poet and musician of Lesbos (fl. 625 BC), best known for having been rescued on a dolphin’s back after an attempt was made to drown him at sea for his treasure. “Arion, their progeny, is one of the aspects of that ‘horse,’ which is a cycle.” (SD 2:399n)
Artemis (Greek) Greek divinity, commonly identified with the Roman Diana, daughter of Leto and Zeus, twin of Apollo. Goddess of chastity and protectress of youths and maidens against the wiles of Aphrodite, she is celebrated in Arcadian rites and legends which are older than those of Homer. These show her to be a nature goddess, patroness of fields and forests, goddess of life-giving waters, marshes, rivers, and springs. As goddess of agriculture, she brings increase to the fields, drives away mice and pests, and is the friend of the sower and reaper. The legend of the Calydonian boar shows her to have been worshiped as a harvest goddess. She was also called the tamer, the goddess of the chase, and the healer. She is the protector of the beasts, rather than their persecutor in the chase.
Artemis was also the protectress of mankind and was specially active in regard to the education of the child and youth. Boys and girls were consecrated to her in the temples. She was goddess of marriage and presided over births. Her chief festival, that of Ephesia or Artemisia, was held in the spring.
Asherah (Hebrew) ’Ashērāh A Syrian goddess of fortune having close similarities with the Roman divinity Venus, and connected by analogy of attributes with Ashtoreth or Astarte, another Syrian divinity.
Ashtart: The fertility goddess of the Semitic races; ever-virginal, yet the fruitful mother and creator of life. Also known as Astarte, in Babylonia as Ishtar, and in Canaan as Ashtoreth.
astamahopaputra. (T. nye ba'i sras chen brgyad; C. ba da pusa; J. hachidai bosatsu; K. p'al tae posal 八大菩薩). In Sanskrit, the "eight great associated sons"; a group of eight bodhisattvas also known as the AstAMAHABODHISATTVA or "eight great bodhisattvas"; they are KsITIGARBHA, AKAsAGARBHA, AVALOKITEsVARA, VAJRAPAnI, MAITREYA, SARVANĪVARAnAVIsKAMBHIN, SAMANTABHADRA, and MANJUsRĪ. Textual evidence for the grouping is found as early as the third century, the date of ZHI QIAN's Chinese translation of the Astabuddhakasutra (Fo shuo ba jixiangshen zhoujing). In earlier representations, they flank either sAKYAMUNI or AMITABHA. Their roles are laid out in the Astamandalakasutra, where the aims of their worship are essentially mundane-absolution from transgressions, fulfillment of desires, and protection from ills. The grouping is known throughout Asia, from northern India, where they first appeared in ELLORA, Ratnagiri, and NALANDA, and from there as far east as Japan and Indonesia-indeed, virtually anywhere MAHAYANA and tantric Buddhism flourished. They figure as a group in TANTRAs of various classes, where their number of arms corresponds to the main deity of the MAndALA and their colors correspond to the direction in which they are placed. In the mandala of the GUHYASAMAJATANTRA, they flank the central figure AKsOBHYA, who appears in the form of Vajradhṛk and his consort SparsavajrA. When each has a consort, the females are called the astapujAdevī ("eight offering goddesses"). There are four in the GuhyasamAjatantra mandala: RupavajrA, sabdavajrA, GandhavajrA, and RasavajrA. In the vajradhAtu mahAmandala, the group of bodhisattvas is expanded to sixteen.
astamangala. (T. bkra shis rtags brgyad; C. ba jixiang; J. hachikichijo; K. p'al kilsang 八吉祥). In Sanskrit, "eight auspicious symbols"; eight Indian emblems of good fortune, which became especially popular in Nepal and Tibet but are also known in China. The eight include the lotus (PADMA), the endless knot (srīvatsa, T. dpal be'u), the pair of golden fish (suvarnamatsya, T. gser nya), the parasol (chattra, T. gdugs), the victory banner (ketu, T. rgyal mtshan), the treasure vase (dhanakumbha, T. gter gyi bum pa), the white conch shell (sankha, T. dung dkar), and the wheel (CAKRA, T. 'khor lo). VAJRAYANA Buddhism deified the symbols as eight goddesses, the astamangaladevī, who each carry one of these emblems as their attribute. Chinese Buddhism regards the symbols as representing eight organs of the Buddha's body, and in one Tibetan tradition the eight are collectively identified as forming the body of the Buddha. Designs of these symbols are found throughout both sacred and secular artwork and commonly adorn furniture, murals, carpets, and brocade hangings. In Tibetan communities, the eight symbols are traditionally drawn on the ground out of sprinkled flour or powder as a greeting to visiting religious teachers.
Astarte (Greek) Greek form of the Syro-Phoenician goddess Ashtoreth, female counterpart of Baal. The goddess of love and fruitfulness, she was essentially a lunar goddess of productiveness or fertility. The Assyrian and Babylonian form was Ishtar, in Syria Atargates, in Phrygia Cybele, in the Bible Ashtoreth, and in North Africa Tanith or Dido. She was intimately connected in the Chaldean form of her worship with the planet Venus. She corresponds to the Egyptian Isis or Hathor, Greek Aphrodite, and Norse Freya. The Virgin Mary represented on the crescent moon weeping, is taken from similar images of Astarte (BCW 11:96-7).
Aster’t (Syrian) Goddess of the moon, consort of Adon, one of the most important divinities of Syria, corresponding closely to the Jewish Adonai. See also ASTARTE
As the divine artificer, working both in a cosmic and microcosmic manner, legends tell that Vulcan assisted in the production of the human race. He also fashioned Pandora, and aided in the birth of Minerva — for he opened Jupiter’s head with an axe in order to allow the goddess to spring forth from the head of the father of both gods and men.
Astraea (Greek) [from astr star] Star maiden; daughter of Astraeus and Eos, or of Zeus and Themis. Themis, born of Uranus and Gaia (heaven and earth), signifies law, order, equity, as does her daughter Astraea, who lived among men in the Golden Age as the goddess of justice. But when wickedness prevailed in the bronze age, she was the last of the gods to withdraw, with her sister Aidos (modesty), and is found among the stars of Virgo. Another myth says that Zeus, when he carried off Ganymedes, the personified object of lust, threw Astraea back on earth again, where she fell on her head. Ganymedes is Aquarius, and the astronomical meaning refers to an inversion of the poles, which brings Aquarius into the northern celestial hemisphere and places Virgo upside down in the southern half (SD 2:785).
A striking similarity is present in the mythology of the Algonquin Indians of North America; their chief deity was a mighty hare known as Menabosho or Michabo, to whom they went at death. One account places him in the east, another in the west. The ancient Germanic and Scandinavian peoples used the hare as a symbol, being sacred to the nature goddess Freyja; likewise to the Anglo-Saxon Ostara, goddess of springtime. This is believed to be the basis for the present-day association of the rabbit or hare with Easter. The anthropomorphic idea is found also among other races, very frequently among the Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese, and other Far Eastern peoples. It was considered to be androgynous, thus typifying an attribute of the creative Logos.
Asura Cave. A cave south of the Kathmandu Valley in Nepal where PADMASAMBHAVA is said to have meditated and conquered the twelve bstan ma (tenma) goddesses. It is an important pilgrimage place, considered sacred by Tibetan and Newar Buddhists as well as Hindus, and the site of several Tibetan monasteries. According to the writings of one Tibetan lama, the fourth KHAMS SPRUL (Khamtrul) Rin po che, the cave may take its name from a small passage at its rear that is purported to lead to the realm of the ASURAs.
Ate: In Roman mythology, daughter of Jupiter, goddess of revenge and all evil, inciter of mankind to evil thoughts and deeds.
ate ::: --> the preterit of Eat. ::: n. --> The goddess of mischievous folly; also, in later poets, the goddess of vengeance. ::: imp.
aurora ::: n. --> The rising light of the morning; the dawn of day; the redness of the sky just before the sun rises.
The rise, dawn, or beginning.
The Roman personification of the dawn of day; the goddess of the morning. The poets represented her a rising out of the ocean, in a chariot, with rosy fingers dropping gentle dew.
A species of crowfoot.
The aurora borealis or aurora australis (northern or
A vaguely defined deity symbolizing maternity, the fertility of the earth, and femininity in general; the central figure in the religions of ancient Anatolia, the Near East, and the eastern Mediterranean, later sometimes taking the form of a specific goddess.
a vaguely defined deity symbolizing maternity, the fertility of the earth, and femininity in general; the central figure in the religions of ancient Anatolia, the Near East, and the eastern Mediterranean, later sometimes taking the form of a specific goddess.
babalon ::: Babalon Also known as The Scarlet Woman, Babalon is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema. In her most abstract form, she represents the female sexual impulse and the liberated woman, although she can also be identified with Mother Earth, in her most fertile sense.
Balder, Baldr (Icelandic) The best, foremost; the sun god in Norse mythology, the son of Odin and Frigga and a favorite with gods and men. His mansion is Breidablick (broadview) whence he can keep watch over all the worlds. One of the lays of the Elder or Poetic Edda deals entirely with the death of the sun god, also mentioned in the principal poem Voluspa. Briefly stated: the gods were concerned when Balder was troubled with dreams of impending doom. Frigga therefore set out to exact a promise from all living things that none would harm Balder, and all readily complied. One thing only had been overlooked: the harmless-seeming mistletoe. Loki, the mischievous god (human mind), became aware of this, plucked the little plant, and from it fashioned a dart. He approached Hoder, the blind god (of darkness and ignorance) who was standing disconsolately by while the other gods were playfully hurling their weapons against the invulnerable sun god. Offering to guide his aim, Loki placed on Hoder’s bow the small but deadly “sorrow-dart.” Thus mind darkened by ignorance accomplished what nothing else could: the death of the bright deity of light. Balder must then travel to the house of Hel, queen of the realm of the dead. Odin, as Hermod, goes to plead with Hel for Balder’s return, and Hel agrees to release him on condition that all living things weep for him. Frigga resumes her weary round and implores all beings to mourn the sun god’s passing. All agree save one: Loki in the guise of an aged crone refuses to shed a tear. This single taint of perverseness in the human mind condemns Balder to remain in the realm of Hel until the following cycle is due to begin. Thus death is linked with the active human mind, Loki. As the bright sun god is placed on his pyre-ship, his loving wife Nanna (the moon goddess) dies of a broken heart and is placed beside him, but before the ship is set ablaze and cast adrift, Odin leaned over to whisper something in the dead sun god’s ear. This secret message must endure unknown to all until Balder’s return, when he and his dark twin Hoder will “build together on Ropt’s (Odin’s) sacred soil.”
baphomet ::: Baphomet Supposedly the legendary God of the Knights Templar, the Baphomet was first drawn by the Ritual magician Eliphas Lvi. Some are of the opinion that the name derives from the Arabic 'Mahomet', while others believe it is a Kabbalistic cipher for Sophia, the Goddess of Wisdom.
Bast (Egyptian) Bubastis (Greek) Boubastis [from bes heat, fire] The goddess of the seventh nome of lower Egypt, the capital of which was Per-Bast (Greek Bubastis). She was identified with the female counterparts of Ra and Tem — hence called the eye of Ra and of Tem, and the Shetat (the hidden one) — and at Thebes identified with Mut and Isis; her son by Shu was Khensu (Khonsu).
Bast is regarded as the personification of the power of the sun which manifests in the form of heat, a position which she holds together with the goddess Sekhet. But she is also intimately connected with the moon, especially in her connection with the cat — Khensu being a lunar god. Thus when she is depicted as a lioness her attributes are solar; when as a cat, lunar. This dual aspect bears a close analogy with the moon, which is further indicated when Bast is represented as being one of the goddesses of the birth chamber; and her son Khensu was declared to make women fruitful and make the human germ grow, especially in his character of the moon, the lightbearer.
Bel has been associated with the Phoenician Baal, the supreme god of the Canaanites, conceived also as the protective power of generation and fertility, connected with the moon. His female counterpart, Ashtoreth (Astarte, Ishtar) was considered as the receptive goddess, also a lunar divinity. In later times the rites connected with these deities became degraded into licentious orgies; sacrifices were made, apparently even human sacrifices, but at one time Ba‘al was worshiped as a sun god.
Belisama: Literally, Queen of Heaven. The name of a goddess of ancient Gaul.
Belit, Belita (Bab, Chald, Assyr) Chief lady; a title applicable to any important goddess in the pantheon, applied especially to Nin-lil, consort of Bel (or En-lil) at Nippur, where she was known as mother of the gods, ruler of heaven and earth. The title was likewise later applied to Ishtar (Greek Beltis).
bellona ::: n. --> The goddess of war.
beltane ::: Beltane (Beltaine) A Spring fertility festival held on 30 April in Wiccan and other Neopagan traditions to celebrate the joining of the powers of the Goddess and the God to cause creation.
Bhadrakali ::: name of a goddess, a form of Durga (see Durga-Kali).Bhadrakali bhadr bhadra
bhagavati. ::: goddess; the feminine form of Bhagavan
bhava ::: becoming; state of being (sometimes added to an adjective to bhava form an abstract noun and translatable by a suffix such as "-ness", as in br.hadbhava, the state of being br.hat [wide], i.e., wideness); condition of consciousness; subjectivity; state of mind and feeling; physical indication of a psychological state; content, meaning (of rūpa); spiritual experience, realisation; emotion, "moved spiritualised state of the affective nature"; (madhura bhava, etc.) any of several types of relation between the jiva and the isvara, each being a way in which "the transcendent and universal person of the Divine conforms itself to our individualised personality and accepts a personal relation with us, at once identified with us as our supreme Self and yet close and different as our Master, Friend, Lover, Teacher"; attitude; mood; temperament; aspect; internal manifestation of the Goddess (devi), in . her total divine Nature (daivi prakr.ti or devibhava) or in the "more seizable because more defined and limited temperament" of any of her aspects, as in Mahakali bhava; a similar manifestation of any personality or combination of personalities of the deva or fourfold isvara, as in Indrabhava or Aniruddha bhava; in the vision of Reality (brahmadarsana), any of the "many aspects of the Infinite" which "disclose themselves, separate, combine, fuse, are unified together" until "there shines through it all the supreme integral Reality"; especially, the various "states of perception" in which the divine personality (purus.a) is seen in the impersonality of the brahman, ranging from the "general personality" of sagun.a brahman to the "vivid personality" of Kr.s.n.akali. bh bhavasamrddhi
Bhavani: A form of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Time.
Bhavani (Bhawani) ::: [a name of the Goddess]; the Mother; the Infinite Energy.
Bona Dea A Roman divinity called Fauna, Fatua, and Oma: the sister, wife, or daughter of Faunus. Reverenced as chaste and prophetic, revealing her oracles to women only (as Faunus did to men), her festival being on the first of May and no male person being allowed to be present. A goddess of agriculture and shepherds, she revealed certain truths of nature to those approaching her in a harmonious, synchronizing state of mind. In general Bona Dea is the goddess of fecundity and productivity, the generative spirit of motherhood. Because she was considered to be the great producer holding the seeds of all things in her mighty womb, she was frequently identified with Ops, the goddess of plenty, fertility, and riches. The ideas regarding her are intimately related with Saturnus or Saturn.
Book of the Dead, Egyptian The name given to certain ancient papyri of the Egyptian, more correctly called Pert em hru (coming forth into day or light). They have been discovered in many of the tombs, interred with the mummies. Although by no means the only text of importance coming down from the ancient Egyptians, it is a work of extreme antiquity, containing the system expounded by the priests, and is far older than the two other extant works known as the Book of the Pylons and the Book of the Tuat. The work depicts in symbolic form the afterdeath state, as presented by the priests to the populace of Egypt. The soul is depicted in the guise of a pilgrim, journeying through various halls, at the portals of each of which he was obliged to give a correct answer — an account of the life he had lived upon earth. The pilgrim eventually reached the judgment hall, within which he was tried by the company of gods and goddesses. Before Osiris his heart was placed in a balance to testify for or against him. If he passed the test satisfactorily, he was permitted by Osiris to enter his domain and become as one of the deities.
Bragi is synonymous with spiritual intuition which, united with the mind (Loki), is the means of human liberation. His consort, the goddess Idun, daily gives the gods the apples of immortality.
Brisingamen (Icelandic) [from brising fire + men jewel] In Norse myths the fire jewel represents the fire of enlightened intelligence in the human race, pictured as a gem which the goddess Freya wears on her bosom. She is the spiritual power imbodied in the planet Venus and the protectress of evolving, aspiring humanity. Her gem has on more than one occasion been stolen by Loki — the mischievous lower mind — which brought grief to the gods, who have the well-being of humanity at heart. Once the precious gem was in grave danger: the matter-giant Trym (our physical globe earth) stole Thor’s hammer of creation and destruction and hid it deep beneath the ground, and for its return he demanded that Freya become his wife. The story relates that she snorted with such fierce outrage that the gem was shattered.
Bubastis: Egyptian cat-headed goddess of fire. Also known as Bast.
“Called in India the Fathers, ‘Pitris’ or the lunar ancestors. They are subdivided, like the rest, into seven classes or Hierarchies. In Egypt although the moon received less worship than in Chaldea or India, still Isis stands as the representative of Luna-Lunus, ‘the celestial Hermaphrodite.’ Strange enough while the modern connect the moon only with lunacy and generation, the ancient nations, who knew better, have, individually and collectively, connected their ‘wisdom gods’ with it. Thus in Egypt the lunar gods are Thoth-Hermes and Chons; in India it is Budha, the Son of Soma, the moon; in Chaldea Nebo is the lunar god of Secret Wisdom, etc., etc. The wife of Thoth, Sifix, the lunar goddess, holds a pole with five rays of the five-points star, symbol of man, the Microcosm, in distinction from the Septenary Macrocosm. As in all theogonies a goddess precedes a god, on the principle most likely that the chick can hardly precede its egg, in Chaldea the moon was held as older and more venerable than the Sun, because, as they said, darkness precedes light at every periodical rebirth (or ‘creation’) of the universe. Osiris although connected with the Sun and a Solar god is, nevertheless, born on Mount Sinai, because Sin is the Chaldeo-Assyrian word for the moon; so was Dio-Nysos, god of Nyssi or Nisi, which latter appellation was that of Sinai in Egypt, where it was called Mount Nissa” (TG 192-3).
Candi (Chandi) ::: a name of Durga, the Goddess who is the energy of Siva.
ceres ::: n. --> The daughter of Saturn and Ops or Rhea, the goddess of corn and tillage.
The first discovered asteroid.
Ceres: The Roman mother-goddess, identified with the Greek goddess Demeter.
Ceridwen (Welsh) Presumably cognate with the Roman goddess Ceres; in Hanes Taliesin (The Story of Taliesin) the wife of Tegid Foel. The goddess of nature, her function was to do battle with her favorite sons, to oppose and persecute them until they had grown stronger to endure than she was to afflict: then she turns and becomes their devoted servant.
chaitanyamayi [satyamayi parame]) ::: OM, O supreme Goddess who art all bliss, consciousness and truth of being.OM O
Chhinnamasta Tantrika (Sanskrit) Chinnamastā Tāntrika [from chinna severed + masta head] Buddhist tantric sect named for the goddess Chhinnamasta, represented with a decapitated head. In their highest initiation, the adept “must ‘cut off his own head with the right hand, holding it in the left.’ Three streams of blood gush out from the headless trunk. One of these is directed into the mouth of the decapitated head . . .; the other is directed toward the earth as an offering of the pure, sinless blood to mother Earth; and the third gushes toward heaven, as a witness for the sacrifice of ‘self-immolation.’ Now, this had a profound Occult significance which is known only to the initiated . . .” (BCW 4:265-6).
Chitkala (Sanskrit) Citkala [from cit abstract thought or consciousness + the verbal root kal to urge on, impel, stimulate] The inciters or stimulators of consciousness or intelligent thought; manasaputras. The spiritual beings who, during the course of the early and middle third root-race, furnished humanity with the higher manasic element from their own essence; hence one of the guardian spirits of the human race. Because the chitkalas or kaumarika manasaputras belong to the Hierarchy of Light or Compassion, they have frequently been allied with what the Chinese call Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy or pity, who may be called the feminine aspect of the cosmic Third Logos.
Closely associated with her was the tenth goddess Vor, she who is wise and of a searching spirit; none can conceal anything from her. Both are classed as handmaidens of the goddess Freya (Venus).
Cow The ancients employed certain animals as symbols to convey specific aspects of philosophical and religious teachings to the multitude, and “the cow-symbol is one of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning” (SD 2:470). Generally, the cow represents the fructifying power in nature — the Divine Mother or feminine principle. Among the Scandinavians that which first appeared at the birth of the universe was the divine cosmic cow, Audhumla, from whom flowed four streams of milk, providing sustenance to all the beings that followed. Among the Greeks the founding of a new race was associated with the cow — as instances, Io and Europa. In Egypt the goddesses representing the aspect of the Universal Mother are associated with cow symbols, principally Hathor and Isis. In India the cow symbol is reverenced: Kamaduh or Surabhi (the cow of plenty) represents the nourishing and sustaining vital and productive principle in nature. The goddesses of lunar type are found to be connected in symbology with the cow.
Crescent [from Latin crescere to increase] The moon in its first quarter, or the figure of a circular arc or lune; a symbol of the moon, which in its highest signification is the Queen of Heaven, Diana, the great mother of the earth, as the sun is the great father of all. It is associated in Egypt with Isis, in Greece and Rome with Aphrodite and Venus, in Asia Minor with Astarte or Astaroth and many other lunar goddesses, who are often represented with cow’s horns. The Roman Catholic Mary is sometimes represented as standing on the crescent moon, and when Venus-Lucifer became transformed into Satan, its crescent became the devil’s horns. The symbol also parallels that of the ark or argha and appears in the Egyptian symbol of the solar boat, where it indicates that the moon is the sun’s vehicle.
Cybele (Greek) Kybele. A Phrygian goddess of caves and mountains, vines and agriculture, and town life, first worshiped at Pessinus; later throughout Asia Minor and in Greece. The equivalent in Phrygia and Crete of Rhea, the Magna Mater (great mother), wife of Kronos and mother of Zeus. Her worship was celebrated exoterically, especially in later degenerate times, by wild dances by her votaries. In one of her phases Cybele was closely connected with the moon and its extremely recondite functions. The moon is at once a sexless potency, to be well studied because to be dreaded, and a female deity for exoteric purposes. Cybele is “the personification and type of the vital essence, whose source was located by the ancients between the Earth and the starry sky, and who was regarded as the very fons vitae of all that lives and breathes” (BCW 12:214). The breath of Cybele, equivalent in its highest substance to akasa-tattva — “is the one chief agent, and it underlays the so-called ‘miracles’ and ‘supernatural’ phenomena in all ages, as in every clime” (BCW 12:215). See also CORYBANTES; CURETES
daksina (Dakshina) ::: the pure intuitive discernment; Daksina: the goddess of divine discernment. [Ved.]
Danu: In ancient Irish mythology, the goddess of knowledge and culture, daughter of the god Dagda.
Dawn ::: Tehmi: “Dawn in the Veda is the goddess symbolic of new openings of divine illumination on man’s physical consciousness.”
deess ::: n. --> A goddess.
deity ::: 1. A god or goddess. 2. Divine character or nature, esp. that of the Supreme Being; divinity. deities. ::: the Deity. God, Supreme Being. **Deity"s.
deity ::: n. --> The collection of attributes which make up the nature of a god; divinity; godhead; as, the deity of the Supreme Being is seen in his works.
A god or goddess; a heathen god.
Demeter (Greek) [possibly from Doric da earth + meter mother] The Earth-Mother; one of the great Olympian deities, in popular mythology specially associated with the earth and its products, patron of agriculture, goddess of law and order, and protector of marriage and the birth of offspring. As the grain goddess, counterpart of the Egyptian Isis, Roman Ceres, and corn mothers, corn maidens, and harvest goddesses of the various native cultures of the Americas today, and of the early Teutonic and Scandinavian races of central and northern Europe.
demigoddess ::: n. --> A female demigod.
Demi-god: In polytheistic religions, the offspring of a god or goddess and a human being. Also, a human being deified after his death.
destiny ::: 1. Something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune. 2. The predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. 3. The power or agency that determines the course of events. 4. *(Cap.) This power personified or represented as a goddess. *Destiny, destinies, world-destiny.
Devamatri (Sanskrit) Devamātṛ Mother of the gods; a title of Aditi, kosmic or mystic space. Aditi is the Vedic Goddess-Mother from whose matrix the sun and planets were born, identical with the higher ranges of akasa, the spiritual essence pervading the space of any solar system; primordial kosmic substance in its highest or spiritual parts. Aditi therefore is the mystic womb of nature out of which all comes for the period of a kosmic manvantara, and into which again all sinks after the kosmic period of evolution has ceased and pralaya begins.
Devasena (Sanskrit) Devasena A Buddhist arhat; the feminine, Devasenā, is a host of spiritual or celestial beings, and a name given to Vach as an aspect of Sarasvati, goddess of occult wisdom.
Devi Candi Ranarangini Nrmundamalini (Devi Chandi Ranarangini Nrimundamalini) ::: [the goddess Candi who delights in battle and wears a garland of human heads].
Devi-Durga (Sanskrit) Devī-Durgā Spiritual and inaccessible goddess; also called Kali (the black one), she is a warlike, bloodthirsty goddess who destroys and devours her enemies without pity. She is “raw power, energy untamed by discipline or direction” (Classical Hindu Mythology 226). Sometimes considered an independent deity, at others an aspect of Siva’s consort, whose benign aspect is named Parvati.
devi ::: goddess; the consort of the deva; the sakti of the isvara in her devi "outer or executive side" as Nature (prakr.ti); the sakti as the isvari,"the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit"s omnipotence".
devi ::: [goddess]; the divine sakti- the Consciousness and Power of the Divine; the Mother and Energy of the worlds.
devihasya (devihasya; devi-hasya; devi hasya; devihasyam) ::: laughter devihasya of the Goddess, "the laughter of the Shakti doing luminously the work of the Divine and taking his Ananda in all the worlds"; a union of the .. four kinds of hasya proper to the four aspects of devibhava.
devi ::: n. --> ; fem. of Deva. A goddess. html{color:
devi. ::: the divine mother; goddess
Diana (Latin) [archaic fem of Janus] Goddess of light; an old Italian divinity, later identified with the Greek Artemis as daughter of Zeus and Latona, and sister of Apollo. Goddess of the moon and queen of the night, she presided over the chase, open country, forests, war, and water. As the moon goddess, identified in one aspect with Hecate. She was worshiped in her form of Lucina as presiding over births; as goddess of the night she was worshiped with torches, and was beloved as the protectress of the outcast and slave.
diana ::: n. --> The daughter of Jupiter and Latona; a virgin goddess who presided over hunting, chastity, and marriage; -- identified with the Greek goddess Artemis.
Diana: The Roman goddess of the hunt.
Dictynra, Dictynna (Greek) [from diktyon net] A sea goddess worshipped in Crete, an aspect of Britomartis (sweet maid), a goddess worshiped throughout the Mediterranean islands and coast, often identified with Artemis. Britomartis dispensed happiness and was a patroness of hunters, fishermen, and sailors, a goddess of health and birth. Dictynna, a daughter of Zeus and Artemis, seems to have originally been a moon goddess. She is said to “wear a wreath made of the magic plant diktamnon, or dictamnus, the evergreen shrub whose contact is said, at the same time, to develop somnambulism and cure it finally . . .” (IU 1:264).
Dido Also Elissa. Queen of Carthage in North Africa and traditionally its founder. According to Timaeus, her actual name was Theiosso, in Phoenician Helissa or Elissa; and Dido, the Phoenician equivalent of the Greek planes (wanderer), was given her because of her wanderings; Dido is also said to be the name of a Phoenician goddess and can be translated “the beloved.” After her husband was killed by her brother, Dido fled to Africa and founded a city which became Carthage. Rather than marry a local chieftain against her will, she killed herself; in the Aeneid she is said to have killed herself after being deserted by Aeneas.
Dido was “the patroness of the Phoenician mariners; and together with Venus and other lunar goddesses — the moon having such a strong influence over the tides — was the ‘Virgin of the Sea.’ . . . the Phoenicians, those bold explorers of the ‘deep,’ carried, fixed on the prow of their ships, the image of the goddess Astartè, who is Elissa, Venus Erycina of Sicily, and Dido, whose name is the feminine of David” (IU 2:446&n).
Donquel, etc. In the cabala, the Roman goddess
Dove Bird symbols play a prominent part in cosmogonic systems. In the Biblical deluge, as a blend of cosmic and precosmic allegories, Noah sends out first a raven, symbolizing darkness which was regarded as prior to light; and then a dove. In the Chaldean version, Noah is represented by Ishtar or Ashtoreth — a lunar goddess corresponding in some respects to Artemis and in others to Venus — and the dove is a symbol of Venus, which is also found in Greek mythology. In several nations the dove also symbolizes the soul.
Durga: A form of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of Time.
Durga ::: “In Hindu religion, the goddess who is the Energy of Shiva and the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother. She is the slayer of many demons including Mahisasura. Durga is usually depicted in painting and sculpture riding a lion, having eight or ten arms, each holding the special weapon of one or another of the gods who gave them to her for her battles with demons. (A; Enc. Br). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works.
durga ::: "In Hindu religion, the goddess who is the Energy of Shiva and the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother. She is the slayer of many demons including Mahisasura. Durga is usually depicted in painting and sculpture riding a lion, having eight or ten arms, each holding the special weapon of one or another of the gods who gave them to her for her battles with demons. (A; Enc. Br.)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works.
Durga-Kali ::: the Goddess (devi), combining two of her forceful perDurga-Kali sonalities as Durga, "the conquering and protecting aspect of the Universal Mother" and as Kali.
Durga ::: the goddess who is the energy of Siva.
earth ::: 1. The realm of mortal existence; the temporal world. 2. The softer, friable part of land; soil, especially productive soil. **Earth, earth"s, earth-beauty"s, earth-being"s, earth-beings, earth-bounds, earth-bride, earth-fact, earth-force, Earth-Goddess, earth-hearts, earth-habit"s, earth-heart, earth-instruments, earth-kind, earth-life, earth-light, earth-made, earth-matter"s, earth-mind, earth-mind"s, earth-myth, earth-nature, earth-nature"s, Earth-Nature"s, earth-nursed, earth-pain, Earth-plasm, earth-poise, earth-scene, earth-scene"s, earth-seat, earth-shapes, earth-stage, earth-stuff, earth-time, earth-time"s, earth-use, earth-vision, earth-ways, summer-earth.
Earth-Goddess
Easter [from Eostre or Ostara goddess of spring] In the northern hemisphere, the time of the renewal of life in nature, and therefore the appropriate season for celebrating the mystery of rebirth and regeneration. Easter day was close to the time of one of the four sacred seasons connected with the equinoxes and solstices, which were individually celebrated in the ancient Mysteries as representatives of the four main phases of the drama of initiation. It was the second stage of initiation when the awakened person, in whom the Christ had already been born (as celebrated at a winter solstice), was preparing to become a conqueror of self and then a teacher. Easter today is the result of a confusion and compromise between this ancient spring festival (chiefly in its Northern European form) with ecclesiastical legends and the Jewish Feast of the Passover (pesah). Good Friday, following the Christian version of this ancient theme, commemorates the descent of the Christ into the tomb, and the Sunday following, which is the third day counting inclusively, celebrates the resurrection. Due to a confusion in early Christian thought, there are certain aspects of the Easter celebration which properly pertain to the winter solstice, which the Christians, however, have rightly held as commemorating the birth of Christ. The Jewish ecclesiastical calendar was lunar, and the attempt to reconcile the solar calendar with the date of the Passover as fixed by the lunar calendar resulted in protracted disputes, ending in the present compromise with its fluctuating date. The use of eggs at Easter is symbolic of rebirth and shows the influence of the ancient rites, especially of Northern Europe.
Eileithya: A goddess of prehistoric Crete (mentioned by Homer); one of her cave temples was discovered at Amnisos (Candia).
Eleusinian mysteries: The oldest of all Greek mysteries, known to have been performed as early as the 19th century B.C. They were held in the vicinity of Eleusia, near Athens. They honored the mother-goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone who was abducted by Hades into the underworld and later was restored to Demeter by Zeus for eight months in each year. Thus, the rites seem to have originated as agrarian ceremonies to insure divine help for the fertility and productivity of the soil, Demeter symbolizing the earth and Persephone the seed. Later, the rites took on an occult significance, were ascribed the power to insure happiness in the world after death, and the power to give the initiate true enlightenment and understanding in this life and on the next plane of existence.
’Eloah (Hebrew) ’Elōah Goddess — although because of masculine anthropomorphic predisposition, it has been commonly rendered god by European translators; used as a title of eminence both for the Jewish Jehovah and the deities, especially the goddesses, of other nations.
Elohim (Hebrew) ’Elohīm [from ’elōah goddess + īm masculine plural ending] The monotheistic proclivities, not only of the Jews but of Christian translators, have led to this word always being translated as God; yet the word itself is a plural form, nor is it in any sense necessarily a plural of majesty, as suggested by some monotheistic scholars. A correct rendering should denote both masculine and feminine characteristics, such as androgyne divinities.
Empusa (Greek) A horrible monster, often considered to be a specter, said to be sent by Hecate in her capacity as deity of the underworld, to scare people, especially travelers; it was said to change into various shapes. By transferred meaning, used of hobgoblins in general. However, empusa was also a generalizing term for certain spectral beings or appearances entering the physical world from the lower realms of the astral, which were all directly under control of the moon, Hecate being goddess of the moon in one of the its most esoteric functions.
eos ::: n. --> Aurora, the goddess of morn.
Epaphos (Greek) Son of Zeus and Io, in this case the sun and moon; in the Dionysos-Sabazian Mysteries, the son of Zeus and Demeter, who is also a moon goddess. The birth of Epaphos, like that of Prometheus, symbolizes the entry of humanity on the upward arc of evolution after its descent into materiality. For Epaphos in one sense is the Logos, Zeus in the form of a serpent, and stands for the power that will carry humanity up again towards the spirituality from which it descended or fell — plus the experience garnered as intellectual beings.
Erinyes (Greek) [cf Latin Furae furies] Also Dirae. Furies, avenging goddesses; sometimes legion, sometimes three in number, according to the point of view of the ancient writers, named by Alexandrian authors, copying Euripides: Tisiphone (avenger of the slain), Megaera (the jealous), and Alecto (unceasing hatred). Their mission was to follow and reform evil doers, which has popularly been misunderstood to be persecution. Aeschylus speaks of them as being daughters of Night, Sophocles as being born of Darkness and Earth, and Hesiod as having sprung from the blood of the injured Uranus. They dwell in the underworld, whence they issue to pursue the wicked towards reformation and the reestablishment of all broken natural equilibrium; upon the expiation of crime in Aeschylus they transform themselves into gracious and beneficent deities called the Eumenides. In Athens they were known as Semnae (the venerable ones).
::: "Erinyes, in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, usually represented as three winged maidens, with snakes in their hair. They pursued criminals, drove them mad, and tormented them in Hades. They were spirits of punishment, avenging wrongs done especially to kindred. In Roman literature they were called Furies.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works*
Eris ::: /e'ris/ The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion, and Things You Know Not Of; her name was latinised to Discordia and she was worshiped by that name in adherents of Discordianism and has since been a semi-serious subject of veneration in several fringe cultures, including hackerdom.See Church of the SubGenius.[Jargon File] (1994-12-08)
Eris /e'ris/ The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion, and Things You Know Not Of; her name was latinised to Discordia and she was worshiped by that name in Rome. Not a very friendly deity in the Classical original, she was reinvented as a more benign personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the adherents of {Discordianism} and has since been a semi-serious subject of veneration in several "fringe" cultures, including hackerdom. See {Church of the SubGenius}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-08)
Eternal Goddess, the
Exoterically the Dalai Lama is often regarded as an incarnation of Chenresi, as a popular legend says that whenever faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapani-Chenresi emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the two great Lamas — the Dalai and Tashi Lamas. Esoterically he is called Bodhisattva Chenresi Vanchug (the powerful and all-seeing). Chenresi or Avalokitesvara “is the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of men” (ibid.). In China, Chenresi becomes the great goddess of mercy, Kwan-yin, represented by a female figure bearing a child in her arms.
Fates: The three Roman goddesses (Parcœ) who presided over the birth and life of mankind. Their names were Atropos, Clotho and Lachesis.
Feminine principle; female force: In esoteric philosophy, the passive, negative or receptive aspect of the cosmic order, force or of the deity. Matter, wisdom, form are usually conceived of as feminine and are represented by goddesses in the pantheons of the polytheistic religions.
fides ::: n. --> Faith personified as a goddess; the goddess of faith.
flora ::: n. --> The goddess of flowers and spring.
The complete system of vegetable species growing without cultivation in a given locality, region, or period; a list or description of, or treatise on, such plants.
For the Roman goddess, see APHRODITE
Fortuna: The Roman goddess of fortune, one of the most powerful goddesses of the Roman pantheon; she was believed to bestow riches or poverty on mortals.
Freya, Freyja, Froja (Icelandic, Scandinavian) Lady; Norse goddess of the planet Venus and sister of Frey, god of the planet Earth. Both are children of Njord, the Norse Saturn-Chronos, patron of the planet Saturn and the representative of time. Hence Frey and Freya are the children of time and due to end in time.
freya ::: n. --> The daughter of Njord, and goddess of love and beauty; the Scandinavian Venus; -- in Teutonic myths confounded with Frigga, but in Scandinavian, distinct.
Freya, the goddess of love and beauty, corresponds to the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus. As the higher intelligence of the planet Earth, she is the sponsor and supporter of motherhood, the family, and of the human race. She wears on her breast the “fiery jewel” Brisingamen, representing humanity’s finest characteristics. Often confused with Frigga, she is in certain respects interchangeable with her, inasmuch as the divinities of the solar system have strong correspondences with one another. Sacred to Freya is Friday (as Vendredi is to Venus).
Frey, Freyr, Fro (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from fro seed; Anglo-Saxon frea; Swedish frojda rejoice] The Norse god associated with the earth: in theosophy he represents the planetary chain whose soul-world (Alfhem) was his “teething gift in the morning of time.” Frey and his sister Freya, goddess of the planet Venus, are the children of Njord, the Norse Saturn-Chronos.
frigga ::: n. --> The wife of Odin and mother of the gods; the supreme goddess; the Juno of the Valhalla. Cf. Freya.
Frigga: Wife of Odin in Norse mythology, mother of Thor, Balder and other gods, patroness of conjugal love. Variously regarded as goddess of the earth and air.
Frog One of the oldest symbols in Egypt, for although associated particularly with the frog goddess Heqet, the four primeval gods of Egypt — Heh, Kek, Nau, and Amen — were each depicted with a frog’s head, the reference here being to the cosmic waters of space, out of which all things arose in the beginnings. Frog gods and goddesses were associated with the beginning or formation of the world, the symbol of the frog itself being that of resurrection and hence of renewed birth. “There must have been some very profound and sacred meaning attached to this symbol, since, notwithstanding the risk of being charged with a disgusting form of zoolatry, the early Egyptian Christians adopted it in their Churches. A frog or toad enshrined in a lotus flower, or simply without the latter emblem, was the form chosen for the Church lamps, on which were engraved the words ‘I am the resurrection’ . . . These frog goddesses are also found on all the mummies” (SD 1:386).
Furies ::: “Erinyes, in Greek mythology, the goddesses of vengeance, usually represented as three winged maidens, with snakes in their hair. They pursued criminals, drove them mad, and tormented them in Hades. They were spirits of punishment, avenging wrongs done especially to kindred. In Roman literature they were called Furies.” Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
Fury ::: One of the avenging deities, dread goddesses with snakes twined in their hair, sent from Tartarus to avenge wrong and punish crime: in later accounts, three in number (Tisiphone, Megaera, Alecto). Hence, an avenging or tormenting infernal spirit. Fury’s.
fury ::: one of the avenging deities, dread goddesses with snakes twined in their hair, sent from Tartarus to avenge wrong and punish crime: in later accounts, three in number (Tisiphone, Megaera, Alecto). Hence, an avenging or tormenting infernal spirit. Fury"s.
Gaia, Gaea, Ge (Greek) [cf Latin Tellus, Terra earth] One of the older gods, described as the first being that sprang from Chaos and as giving birth to Uranos (heaven) and Pontos (sea); yet it was by Uranos that Gaia gave birth to the titans, cyclopes, and hecatoncheires. This apparent anomaly is due partly to the variable meaning of the word earth, which may mean either primordial matter in process of formation, or the earth as already formed. Gaia is thus in one sense equivalent to Aditi or the great cosmic deep. With Chaos and Eros, Gaia forms the primeval trinity. Gaia is represented by its initial, gamma, which is also the third letter in the Greek alphabet and thus indicates the third stage of cosmic evolution. As the primordial mother, she was worshiped as the nourisher of all things, also as the goddess of death to whom all must return.
Gamma Third letter in the Greek alphabet. Its capital form often stands for Gaia, the goddess or divinity of earth, which in its cosmic aspect is the third stage of evolution. Alphabetically it corresponds to gimel, the third letter in the Hebrew alphabet; and in the English alphabet is replaced by the hard guttural, C.
Ganga (Sanskrit) Gaṅgā The Ganges, the sacred river of India. The Puranas and old tales of India represent the goddess Ganga transforming herself into a river and then flowing from the toe of Vishnu. She is said to have been brought from heaven by the prayers of Bhagiratha to purify the ashes of the 60,000 sons of King Sagara who had been consumed by the angry glance of the sage Kapila.
Ganymede [from Greek and Latin Ganymedes] The fairest youth among mortals, abducted by Zeus. One interpretation is that when Ganymede, standing for objects of low desire, is seized by the World Lord of a darker cycle, Astraea, goddess of justice and purity, is cast out, and the Golden Age is then over (SD 2:785); astronomically, it stands for an inversion of the earth’s poles, which casts down Virgo (Astraea) and brings up Aquarius (Ganymedes).
gardnerianwicca ::: Gardnerian Wicca Gerald Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a secret witch cult which had been in existence for over 300 years. Hence Wicca is often referred to as The Old Religion, with its own rituals and beliefs, most of them remaining secretive. Gerald Gardner's books Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft became the basis for the modern religion of Wicca, which grew in popularity during the 1960's, and spread quickly from the United Kingdom to the rest of Europe as well as the United States of America, Canada, Asia and Australia. It has continued to grow as a religion, its followers now placing a greater emphasis on a reverence for nature, redeveloping the 'Goddess-worshiping' religion from pre-Christian and non-Christian religions, and group magick aimed at healing.
Gauri (Sanskrit) Gaurī Feminine adjective brilliant, beautiful. Frequently used for feminine beings or entities, it means a maid; the earth; the goddess Parvati; consort of Siva and of Varuna; and likewise the Mother of Sakyamuni, Gautama Buddha.
Gauri ::: the goddess Parvati, consort of Śiva, identified with MaheGauri svari.
goddess ::: a female god or deity. Goddess, goddess", goddesses, Goddesses, Earth-Goddess, wind-goddess.
goddess ::: n. --> A female god; a divinity, or deity, of the female sex.
A woman of superior charms or excellence.
goddess ::: “The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit’s omnipotence.” The Life Divine
godhead ::: n. --> Godship; deity; divinity; divine nature or essence; godhood.
The Deity; God; the Supreme Being.
A god or goddess; a divinity.
God(s) and Goddess(es) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature’s hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.
godship ::: n. --> The rank or character of a god; deity; divinity; a god or goddess.
Greal: In the myths of the early inhabitants of the British Isles, a magic drink, supposed to give inspiration and enlightenment, prepared by the fertility goddess Ceridwen from the juices of six plants.
Hathor (Greek) Het-Hert (Egyptian) Ḥet-Ḥert [from ḥet-ḥert the house above] One of the oldest known Egyptian deities. Het-Hert refers to the sky or heaven, known by the Greeks as Hathor. Originally, Hathor was a cosmic goddess, consort of Ra, mother of light — the production of which was considered the opening act in cosmogony, producer of the twin deities Shu and Tefnut (the sky and the moisture of the sky). Later she was regarded as the great Mother, bringing forth all the gods and goddesses — Mother Nature personified. She has been associated with all the goddesses of Egypt, partaking of all their attributes; but her principal title was Lady of Amentet (the Holy Land or underworld).
Hathor: The cow goddess of ancient Upper Egypt, cow goddess of the sky which gives birth to the sun; the sky conceived as an immense cow with legs planted at the four corners of the earth, and upheld by the other gods.
Hathor was closely connected with Neith (at Sais), and in Ptolemaic times with Nekhebet, Uatchet, and Bast. “Hathor is the infernal Isis, the goddess pre-eminently of the West or the nether world” (SD 1:400n). Yet this was but the lower aspect of Hathor, Neith, and Isis. Neith, or the celestial Hathor, was one of the most spiritual, recondite, and abstract of all the deities of the Egyptian pantheon, in this sense the celestial womb of light, out of which came in hierarchical procession the world or the cosmos and all in and of it. See also NEITH
hebe ::: n. --> The goddess of youth, daughter of Jupiter and Juno. She was believed to have the power of restoring youth and beauty to those who had lost them.
An African ape; the hamadryas.
Hecate (Greek) Hekate. This goddess, daughter of Perses and Asteria, was given power from Zeus in heaven, earth, and sea. She was a mysterious divinity, popularly represented as the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft, haunting crossroads and graveyards, wandering only by night and seen by dogs, whose barking told of her approach. Identified with Artemis and Persephone, she was held to be the same as Selene or Luna in heaven, Artemis or Diana on earth, and Persephone or Proserpina in the underworld; hence she was called Tergemina, Triformis, Triceps, etc. She is the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic and is one prototype of the Christian Trinity (SD 1:387).
Hecate: In ancient Greek mythology, a goddess of magicians and sorcerers, commander of all magic powers of nature.
He (or she) is a sun god or goddess, and is described
Heqet or Heqtit (Egyptian) Ḥeqet or Ḥeqtit. A goddess, represented as frog-headed, generally identified with Hathor, but in Hermopolis also associated with Isis, as the two goddesses were the abstract and the concrete aspects of the same cosmic power. Originally the female counterpart of the god Khnemu, by whom she became the mother of Aroeris (Heru-ur or Horus the Elder). She is also connected with resurrection. See also FROG
Hera (Greek) Olympian divinity, sister and consort of Zeus, counterpart of the Roman Juno. According to the Homeric poems she was accorded the same honors by the other divinities as Zeus himself, who counseled with her and also shared with her secret things unknown to the other gods. She is represented as Queen of Heaven only at a later date. Like Zeus she had the power to confer the gift of prophecy. Mother of Ares, Hephaistos, and Hebe, she was the goddess of marriage and birth, patron divinity of woman from birth to death, and of domestic duties. Sanctuaries for the worship of Hera existed in many parts of Greece, the principal center being Argos.
Hera: In Greek mythology, the sister and wife of Zeus, queen of the gods, goddess of marriage.
Hermaphrodite [from Greek Hermes + Aphrodite] The form and typical nature of both the god and goddess in one individual. Androgyne also relates to a dual-sexed human being. Thus, the hermaphrodite imbodies nature’s universal polarity on its lower planes, which polarity is an emanation from the non-dual or non-bipolar mental and spiritual realms. In an abstract sense, this is a personification of the universal polarity in nature on its lower planes, wherein the so-called masculine and feminine principles are the opposing but coordinating agencies, often called positive and negative, in their creative and generative aspects. “The ancients taught the, so to speak, auto-generation of the Gods: the one divine essence, unmanifested, perpetually begetting a second-self, manifested, which second-self, androgynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to everything macro- and micro-cosmical in this universe” (SD 1:398).
Hesperides The Greek goddesses who, with the hundred-headed dragon Ladon, guarded the golden apples which Gaia (earth) gave as a wedding present to Hera on her marriage to Zeus. These apples grew on a tree in a garden by the banks of the river Oceanus near Mt. Atlas, which geographically for the ancients was the peak of Teneriffe, a remnant of Atlantis. One of the tasks of Hercules was to secure some of these apples. The Hesperides are, according to various authorities, three, four, or seven in number. Hesiod calls them the daughters of Night; they are also called Atlantides, and by some made the daughters of Atlantis and Hesperis.
Hestia: In Greek mythology, sister of Zeus, virgin goddess of the hearth, both of the home and of the city from which each group of colonists would take sacred fire to its new home.
Hippopotamus In ancient Egypt, a symbol connected with every goddess, especially Rert or Rertu, Apet, and Ta-urt. It was used as a kindly guardian of the dead in the underworld in the Book of the Dead. In a contrary aspect, the monster Am-mit, which appears in the judgment scene, has the hindquarters of a hippopotamus. It represents the horrors and fear of the astral world awaiting the defunct, which spring into life if that person’s karma has brought about awakening self-consciousness in kama-loka.
Horchia (Chaldean) A goddess of fire, and hence of the hearth, whether of the State or the family, and thus equivalent in some respects to the Roman Vesta. Also known under the name Titea Aretia and associated with the Earth Mother or the womb of planetary fire which brought the earth forth as one of the globes of the chain.
hours ::: n. pl. --> Goddess of the seasons, or of the hours of the day.
hygeian ::: a. --> Relating to Hygeia, the goddess of health; of or pertaining to health, or its preservation.
hygeia ::: n. --> The goddess of health, daughter of Esculapius.
Hygeia or Hygea (Greek) hygieia. Health; goddess of health, daughter of Aesculapius, represented as a maiden feeding a serpent from a cup — the serpent referring generally to the vital pathways or flow of the buddhi, often alluded to in Hindu writings as kundalini, drinking from the cup of knowledge. Identified with the Roman Salus.
Iacchos, the god of wine in more senses than one, plays an important part in these Mysteries. Demeter’s daughter Persephone, goddess of the underworld, was also honored. The usual accounts, vague and fragmentary only, describe the dramatic representations of the adventures of these deities, the esoteric meaning of which was given in the Greater Mysteries.
Iao (Gnostic) A three-letter mystery-name, parallel in one sense with the Sanskrit pranava, and reminiscent of triune deities represented by a triplicity of sounds. It occurs in many variations: Io, the Grecian moon goddess; Iaho, Jevo, Jehovah, and other Hebraic forms; Iaso, the possible origin of the name Jesus; Iacchos, the Bacchus of the Mysteries. It is at once threefold, fourfold, and sevenfold in meaning.
Ida or Ila (Sanskrit) Iḍā, Iḷā Refreshment, flow; the goddess of sacred speech, similar to Vach; in the Rig-Veda called the instructress of Manu, instituting the rules for the performing of sacrifices. The Satapatha-Brahmana represents Ida as arising from a sacrifice which Manu had performed for the purpose of obtaining offspring. Although claimed by the gods Mitra and Varuna, she became the wife of Manu, giving birth to the race of manus. In the Puranas, she is daughter of Vaivasvata-Manu, wife of Budha (wisdom), and mother of Pururavas. In some accounts she is born a woman, becomes a man named Sudyumna, then rebecomes a woman before finally becoming a man again. This refers to the androgynous third root-race, as well as to the later part of the second root-race.
Idun(n) (Icelandic, Scandinavian) [from id rejuvenation] Norse goddess of eternal youth; the oldest of the moon god Ivaldi’s younger brood, representing the soul of the earth. Her spouse is Bragi, the patron and inspirer of bards. Idun is the guardian of the apples of immortality which she feeds the aesir (gods) daily (at each new cycle).
Ila ::: [Ved.]: the goddess of the Truth-vision; a faculty of the rtam representing truth-vision or revelation; the highest Word, premier energy of the Truth-Consciousness; she who is the direct revealing vision in knowledge and becomes in that knowledge the spontaneous self attainment of the Truth of things in action, result and experience. [Puranas]: Mother of the Lunar dynasty.
Ilithyia (Latin) Eileithyia (Greek) [from Greek erchymai to come, come back] She who comes to aid women who are in travail; Greek goddess of childbirth, daughter of Zeus and Hera. Essentially a lunar divinity, her generative functions are often adopted by other divinities, such as Hera, Artemis, Juno, Lucina, and Diana. She was worshiped especially at Crete and Delos, though sanctuaries and statues were dedicated to her in many places.
imbolc ::: Imbolc One of the eight traditional Wiccan Sabbats, Imbolc is sometimes referred to as the Festival of Brigid. Held on 2nd February, it celebrates the growing strength of the God, still in His childlike form, and also the return of the 'Maiden' aspect of the Goddess. It is also a time for blessing agricultural implements such as the plough, as well as livestock. See also Sabbats.
In ancient Greece wheat was always associated with Demeter or Ceres (whence the word cereal), and as Demeter was the preeminent goddess of the Mysteries, sheaves of wheat also were associated with the Mysteries. Maize held the same place in ancient America. In the Christian Church wheat is still the food in the bread — the literal, physical “body of Christ.”
In another aspect the hippopotamus goddess was the female counterpart of Set and the mother of the sun god, whom she brought into the world at Ombos. “In Egyptian symbolism Typhon was called ‘the hippopotamus who slew his father and violated his mother,’ Rhea (mother of the gods). His father was Chronos. As applied therefore to Time and Nature (Chronos and Rhea), the accusation becomes comprehensible. The type of Cosmic Disharmony, Typhon, who is also Python, the monster formed of the slime of the Deluge of Deucalion, ‘violates’ his mother Primordial Harmony, whose beneficence was so great that she was called ‘The Mother of the Golden Age.’ It was Typhon, who put an end to the latter, i.e., produced the first war of the elements” (TG 142).
India ::: India is not the earth, rivers and mountains of this land, neither is it a collective name for the inhabitants of this country. India is a living being, as much living as, say, Shiva. India is a goddess as Shiva is a god. If she likes, she can manifest in human form.
In Hindu literature the number seven continually appears: the saptarshis (the seven sages), the seven superior and inferior worlds, the seven hosts of deities, the seven holy cities, the seven holy islands, seas, or mountains, the seven deserts, the seven sacred trees, etc. In Greece seven was often connected with the gods and goddesses: Mars had seven attendants, seven was sacred to Pallas Athene and to Phoebus Apollo — the latter with his seven-stringed lyre playing hymns to septenary nature as well as to the seven-rayed sun; Niobe’s seven sons and seven daughters, etc.
In Norse mythology, the name of an asynja (goddess) who occupies a world named Sokvaback (deep river) where she shares with Odin the draft of wisdom in golden goblets. Symbolically she represents the wisdom gained from experience of all the past, whether of humans or worlds. The sagor (plural of saga, stories) were the purveyors of wisdom.
In the Orphic teachings Demeter is not only the earth goddess, but is also Demeter-Kore the divine maid. This aspect is twofold: as Persephone the Virgin-Queen of the Dead; and as the mortal maid Semele, mother of the mystic savior Dionysos, and later enthroned as Semele-Thyone (Semele the Inspiried). As both maid and mother she is the immortal wife of Zeus, and is also called the mother of Zeus, as an Orphic verse declares: “The goddess who was Rhea, when she bore Zeus became Demeter.” In one of her aspects, Demeter is the one to whom, in the Orphic legend, is given the still beating heart of the murdered Zagreus-Dionysus.
In The Secret Doctrine, fohat is spoken of as the vahana of the “Primordial Seven”; physical forces as the vehicles of the elements; and the sun as the vahana or buddhi of Aditi (I 108, 470. 527n). Again, all gods and goddesses are “represented as using vahanas to manifest themselves, which vehicles are ever symbolical. So, for instance, Vishnu has during Pralayas, Ananta ‘the infinite’ (Space), symbolized by the serpent Sesha, and during the Manvantaras — Garuda the gigantic half-eagle, half-man, the symbol of the great cycle; Brahma appears as Brahma, descending into the planes of manifestation on Kalahansa, the ‘swan in time or finite eternity’; Siva . . . appears as the bull Nandi; Osiris as the sacred bull Apis; Indra travels on an elephant; Karttikeya, on a peacock; Kamadeva on Makara, at other times a parrot; Agni, the universal (and also solar) Fire-god, who is, as all of them are, ‘a consuming Fire,’ manifests itself as a ram and a lamb, Aja, ‘the unborn’; Varuna, as a fish; etc., etc., while the vehicle of Man is his body” (TG 357-8).
iris ::: n. --> The goddess of the rainbow, and swift-footed messenger of the gods.
The rainbow.
An appearance resembling the rainbow; a prismatic play of colors.
The contractile membrane perforated by the pupil, and forming the colored portion of the eye. See Eye.
A genus of plants having showy flowers and bulbous or
Irkalla (Chaldean) The netherworld or underworld of the Babylonians, also known as Aralu, its entrance approached by a deep cavern. It was ruled over by the goddess Allatu, or Ereshkigal (lady of the netherworld), sister or alter ego of Ishtar, the great nature goddess. The same idea is present in the Egyptian conception of Isis and Nephthys. Irkalla was ruled conjointly by Allatu and Nergal, who was also considered the god of the dead.
Ishtar (Chaldean) Ancient Babylonian deity, eldest of heaven and earth, daughter of Anu (the lord of the heavens). Her worship was fervently pursued by the multitude both in Babylonia and Assyria, although she was known under various names in different localities — Anunit, Nina, Nanna, Innanna, Atar — even when represented as the consort of Marduk (Babylonia) and of Assur (Assyria). In popular conception, she was the bounteous nature goddess, queen of beauty and joyousness, equivalent to Aphrodite or Venus, however, rather than Ceres, although synthesizing certain attributes of both these goddesses. Her other aspect is as the grim, stern harvester, withdrawing the life-forces so that everything during this period shall have sleep and rest. This aspect was stressed by the warlike Assyrians, who represented her as armed with bow and arrows, and hence she becomes their chief goddess of battles; whereas the Babylonians stressed the mother and child idea. Her symbol was an eight-rayed star.
Ishtar: The Babylonian goddess of fertility.
Ishtar, with Shamash and Sin (the life-force, the sun, and the moon), formed an important triad of divinities. In astronomy Ishtar was a name of the planet Venus — the double aspect of the goddess being made to correspond to the morning and evening star.
isiac ::: a. --> Pertaining to the goddess Isis; as, Isiac mysteries.
Isis (Greek) Ast (Egyptian) Ȧst. Chief goddess of the Egyptian popular pantheon, daughter of Seb and Nut. Generally portrayed bearing the papyrus scepter and the ankh, wearing the vulture headdress with the uraeus on her forehead from which rose a pair of horns (either cow’s or ram’s) encircling the solar disk: the horns represented mystic nature and the moon (SD 2:31). Her attributes pertain to the Great Mother, the personification of concrete nature, giving birth to and nourishing all things, portrayed by ancient artists as the mother suckling her babe.
isis ::: n. --> The principal goddess worshiped by the Egyptians. She was regarded as the mother of Horus, and the sister and wife of Osiris. The Egyptians adored her as the goddess of fecundity, and as the great benefactress of their country, who instructed their ancestors in the art of agriculture.
Any coral of the genus Isis, or family Isidae, composed of joints of white, stony coral, alternating with flexible, horny joints. See Gorgoniacea.
Isis: Wife of Osiris, greatest of all goddesses of ancient Egypt, “the Great Enchantress, the Mistress of Magic, the Speaker of Spells.”
isvaribhava (ishwaribhava; iswaribhava; ishwari bhava) ::: the temisvaribhava perament of the ruling Goddess; "the supreme sense of the masteries of the eternal Ishwari", sometimes mentioned instead of isvarabhava as a general quality of daivi prakr.ti.
isvari (ishwari; iswari) ::: the all-ruling Goddess (devi), "the Worldisvari Mother, creatrix of the universe, putting forth the Gods and the worlds and all things and existences out of her spirit-substance".
It is therefore the moon at full: “when from a god — Soma — she becomes a goddess” (TG 25). Mythologically the first fortnight of the moon or waxing period is often regarded as being masculine, and its second fortnight or waning period as feminine. The moon in some cultures is looked upon as masculine, in others as feminine. In Latin the moon was both lunus (masculine) and luna (feminine), but in most other languages the moon is almost consistently either masculine or feminine.
Its symbol represents the cow horns which are also a symbol of the moon and lunar goddesses. “Ancient mystics saw the ansated cross, in the horns of Taurus (the upper portion of the Hebrew Aleph) pushing away the Dragon, and Christians connected the sign and constellation with Christ. St. Augustine calls it ‘the great City of God,’ and the Egyptians called it the ‘interpreter of the divine voice,’ the Apis-Pacis of Hermonthis” (TG 323).
Ized, Izad (Pahlavi, Pers) A class of ancient Zoroastrian deities subordinate to Ahura-Mazda and carriers of his will. In the Avesta, the Yashts are addressed to the izeds. In the Bundahish, Neryosengh, the messenger of the gods, is referred to as an ized, as is Anahita, the goddess of the waters.
Jagaddhatri (Sanskrit) Jagaddhātrī [from jagat the world + dhātrī mother, nurse] World-mother, world foster-mother; applied to Sarasvati and Durga, among other Hindu goddesses. Used particularly in connection with Krishna in his aspect of the Logos, the avatara, and likewise with his brother Balarama, who both are brought to their mother, Devaki, by means of Jagaddhatri. Cosmologically, the name refers to a spiritual substance which is one of the first few removes from Brahman. In the building of worlds it is the cosmic matrix out of which worlds are born, and which therefore acts not only in the sense of mother, but likewise as foster-mother, nurse, and producer.
Jaya (Sanskrit) Jaya [from the verbal root ji to conquer] Conquering, winning, victorious. As a noun, conquest, victory, hence a favorite proper name, applied to gods and goddesses, Arjuna, the sun, etc. In the Puranas, the jayas are the twelve great gods (or twelve great hierarchies of beings) created by Brahma to assist him in his work of creation in the very beginning of the kalpa. Also termed chhandajas — those born of their own will or svabhava, in human and other form. Being lost in samadhi they neglected to create, and therefore they were cursed to be born repeatedly in each manvantara until the seventh. They are called respectively: Ajitas, Tushitas, Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas. They are equivalent to the manasaputras or reincarnating egos.
june ::: n. --> The sixth month of the year, containing thirty days.
The sister and wife of Jupiter, the queen of heaven, and the goddess who presided over marriage. She corresponds to the Greek Hera.
One of the early discovered asteroids.
Kali: Hindu goddess of time, wife of Shakti or Shiva, said to be the Mother, creator of all things. The personification of cosmic force.
Kali ::: Hinduism. One of the manifestations and titles of the wife of Shiva and mother goddess Devi, especially in her role as a goddess of death and destruction. Kali’s
kali ::: hinduism. One of the manifestations and titles of the wife of Shiva and mother goddess Devi, especially in her role as a goddess of death and destruction. **Kali"s.
Kali: Lit. Black. The Hindu Goddess of Time and Cycles of Time. She also represents the power of Dissolution, cosmic and otherwise, and is therefore equated with Night, Darkness, and Death.
Kalimandira (Kalimandir) ::: a temple to the goddess Kali.
kali ::: n. --> The last and worst of the four ages of the world; -- considered to have begun B. C. 3102, and to last 432,000 years.
The black, destroying goddess; -- called also Doorga, Anna Purna.
The glasswort (Salsola Kali).
Kami: A Japanese word translated as deity, god, goddess, etc. The original significance of kami is occult power, more or less like the meaning of mana (q.v.).
Kapilavastu (Sanskrit) Kapilavastu [from kapila yellow, golden + vastu substance] Golden substance; the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, the capital of his father, King Suddhodana. Mystically the birthplace of the inner buddha within each person, the home of our individual Father in heaven, and cosmically applying to our spiritual alliance in and with the sun — here called Kapilavastu. The whole legend of the Buddha’s life may be mystically interpreted through studying the symbolic meaning of the various names used there, because whatever actual historical fact may have been imbodied in these various names of his birth and later career, the names themselves were chosen likewise to portray his mystical birth. Thus his mother is called Mayadevi (goddess of illusion) or Mahamaya (great illusion), as every initiate, buddhas included, in a mystical sense is born from and out of cosmic illusion into the supernal truth of buddhahood.
Karma-Nemesis [from Sanskrit karma action, cause and effect + Greek Nemesis goddess of harmony or retribution] The appointed karmic lot or destiny of any entity, latent in the entity’s germinal existence and unfolded progressively in the course of its growth or evolution. The universe as a whole fulfills, in the course of its cyclic evolution, all that is contained in the germ at the dawn of its manifestation; and the individual, who in essence is a spark of the divine life, follows the same inscrutable law of destiny, as do also the worlds and all the beings in and on them.
Kore-Persephone (Greek) [from kore maiden cf Ionic koure] The name under which Persephone was worshiped in Attica; one of the three aspects of the earth goddess Demeter, who appears as wife, mother, and daughter. Kore-Persephone was one of the three great Eleusianian deities, the other two being Demeter and Zagreus-Iacchos, her child. As one of the chief divinities in the Mysteries, Kore (as Demeter-Kore) was fit consort of the dragon god (Zeus who wooed her in the form of a dragon).
Kwan-shai-yin is often confused with Kwan-yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion, the feminine Logos and counterpart of Kwan-shai-yin; but “Kwan-shai-yin — or the universally manifested voice ‘is active — male; and must not be confounded with Kwan-yin, or Buddhi the Spiritual Soul (the sixth Pr.) and the vehicle of its “Lord.” ’ It is Kwan-yin that is the female principle or the manifested passive, manifesting itself ‘to every creature in the universe, in order to deliver all men from the consequences of sin’ . . . while Kwan-shai-yin, ‘the Son identical with his Father’ is the absolute activity, hence — having no direct relation to objects of sense is — Passivity” (ML 344).
Kwan-yin, Kuan-yin (Chinese) The Chinese Buddhist goddess of compassion, the female aspect of Kwan-shai-yin, referred to in the Stanzas of Dzyan as the triple of Kwan-shai-yin, residing in Kwan-yien-tien, “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. Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested through Eswara, the Logos, is at one and the same time the Mother and also the Daughter of the Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the trans-Himalayan teachings it is — in the hierarchy of allegorical and metaphysical theogony — ‘the Mother’ or abstract, ideal matter, Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature . . . a correlation of Adi-Bhuta, manifested in the Logos, Avalokiteshwara; and from the purely occult and Cosmical, Fohat, the ‘Son of the Son,’ the androgynous energy resulting from this ‘Light of the Logos’ ” (SD 1:136-7).
Lakshmi ::: “… in Hindu mythology, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, consort of Vishnu. According to a legend she sprang from the froth of the Ocean when it was churned, in full beauty, with a lotus in her hand. (Dow). Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo’s Works
lakshmi ::: ". . . in Hindu mythology, the goddess of wealth and good fortune, consort of Vishnu. According to a legend she sprang from the froth of the Ocean when it was churned, in full beauty, with a lotus in her hand. (Dow.)” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Lakshmi (Sanskrit) Lakṣmī Prosperity, happiness; the Hindu Venus, goddess of fortune and beauty who sprang with other precious things from the foam of the ocean when churned by the gods and demons for the recovery of the amrita. She is variously regarded as the wife or sakti of several of the great gods, notably Vishnu.
Lakshmi: The Hindu goddess of fortune and beauty, wife of Vishnu.
Laksmi (Lakshmi, Laxmi, Luxmi) ::: [the goddess of beauty and fortune]; Prosperity, Wealth.
Laks.mi (Luxmi) ::: the goddess of beauty and prosperity.Laksmi
levana ::: n. --> A goddess who protected newborn infants.
Lucina (Latin) [from lux light] A name of the goddess Juno, or of Diana as the goddess of productivity and therefore with direct connection with the moon. A secondary meaning refers to Hecate, the lunar goddess, in her aspect of causing disturbed dreams and specters. The different names given to the functions of the moon, such as Diana, Lucina, Hecate, or Artemis, do not represent different mythologic individuals, but different lunar functions as exercised on earth — different aspects of the moon.
Maat (Egyptian) Maāt. The goddess personifying physical and moral law, order, and truth, regarded as the feminine counterpart of Thoth (Tehuti). She is represented as standing with Thoth in the boat of Ra when the sun god first rose above the waters of the primeval spatial abyss of Nu. She is called the daughter of Ra, the eye of Ra, lady of heaven, queen of the earth, and mistress of the Underworld, who guides the course of the sun. The type and symbol of the goddess is the ostrich feather; the word maat is represented by the hieroglyph of the feather and means primarily that which is orderly and direct, hence in a moral sense, right, truth, justice, including a reference to the fact that these supreme attributes weigh light as a feather in the scales of judgment, and yet are as weighty in importance as the universe itself. Maat was regarded by the Egyptians, in connection with her moral power, as the greatest of goddesses, for she was the chief lady of the Judgment Hall, into which the deceased must enter (called the Hall of Maati, “double truth”).
Maat: The ancient Egyptian goddess of justice. According to Egyptian mythology, the hearts of the deceased were weighed in a balance against an ostrich feather, the symbol of Maat.
Madhav: “This creation is an ordered manifestation of the Divine. There is a central Will, expressing the originating Truth-vision, impelling the whole movement. But also there are special emanations from the Divine charged with specific tasks in the organisation and maintenance of the emerging creation. These are the gods and goddesses, deities, Powers and Personalities that are in charge of their respective domains, on different levels of existence. Each world has its own guardians entrusted by the Supreme Creative Spirit with the work of building and furthering the manifestation of the particular Truth-principle that pushes for expression in that world-formula.” Readings in Savitri Vol. I.
maghoni (Dakshina maghoni) ::: Daks.in.a (the Vedic goddess . in.a maghoni "whose function is to discern rightly, dispose the action and the offering and distribute in the sacrifice to each godhead its portion") in her plenitude; "the discernment in its fullness". [R.g Veda 2.11.21, etc.]
Magna Mater (Latin) The Great Mother, the mother of the gods, a title given to many Asiatic goddesses at the time when the Romans were in Asia; identified by the Greeks with Rhea, daughter of Ouranos and Gaia, wife of Kronos, and mother of Zeus and other gods. In Asia the name was given specially to Cybele, whose worship later became degraded into licentious rites. Every nation had its own chief goddess, or mother goddess, who was called Great Goddess, exactly as the Latins did with their own Magna Mater.
Mahadevi ::: ["the great goddess", used as a name of Siva's wife Parvati or of other aspects of the Goddess].
MAHAKALI ::: Goddess of the supreme strength ; with her are all mights and spiritual force and severest austerity of lapas and swiftness to the battle and the victory and the laughter, the attahosya, that makes light of defeat and death and the powers of the ignorance. .*
Afa/ifliflh' and Kdh are not the same. Kali is a lesser form.
Mahakali in the higher planes appears usually with the golden colour.
Mahakali ::: one of the four personalities of the sakti or devi: the Mahakali goddess of strength and swiftness, who is the "inhabitant" occupying the Mahasarasvati "continent" in the harmony of the aspects of daivi prakr.ti, and whose manifestation in the temperament (Mahakali bhava) brings the force (Mahakali tapas) needed for the rapid achievement of the divine work; sometimes short for Mahakali bhava.Mah Mahakali akali bhava
Mahakali ::: the goddess of the supreme strength, one of the four leading Powers and Personalities of the Mother.
MAHALAKSHMI ::: Goddess of the supreme love and delight ; her gifts are the spirits grace and the charm and beauty of the Ananda and protection and every divine and human blessing.
Mahalaks.mi (Mahalakshmi; Mahalaxmi; Mahaluxmi) ::: one of the Mahalaksmi four personalities of the sakti or devi: the goddess of beauty, love and delight, whose manifestation in the temperament (Mahalaks.mi bhava) gives its "colouring" to the combination of the aspects of daivi prakr.ti;.. sometimes short for Mahalaks.mi bhava..Mah Mahalaksmi alaks.mi bh bhava
Mahalaksmi (Mahalakshmi) ::: the goddess of supreme love and delight, one of the four leading Powers and Personalities of the Mother.
Mahasarasvati (Mahasaraswati) ::: one of the four personalities of the sakti or devi: the goddess of skill and work, whose manifestation in the temperament (Mahasarasvati bhava) is the "continent" occupied by the force of Mahakali in the intended combination of the aspects of daivi prakr.ti; sometimes short for Mahasarasvati bhava.
Mahasarasvati (Mahasaraswati) ::: the goddess of divine skill and of the works of the Spirit; the Mother's Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order; one of the four leading Powers and Personalities of the Mother.
MAHASARASWATI ::: the goddess of divine skill and of the works of the Spirit, and hers is the Yoga that is skill in works, yogah karmasu kausalam, and the utilities of divine knowledge and the self-application of the spirit to life and the happiness of its harmonies.
MAHESHWARI ::: goddess of the supreme knowledge, and brings to us her vision for all kinds and widenesses of truth, her rectitude of the spiritual will, the calm and passion of her supramental largeness, her felicity of illumination; ~ TSOY, 4.18 - Faith and shakti
Mahesvari (Maheshwari; Maheswari) ::: one of the four personalities Mahesvari of the sakti or devi: the goddess of wideness and calm, whose manifestation in the temperament (Mahesvari bhava) is the pratis.t.ha or basis for the combination of the aspects of daivi prakr.ti; sometimes short for Mahesvari bhava. According to an entry on 18 March 1917, until then there had been only one very early manifestation of "Maheshwari herself"; what was referred to as Mahesvari was usually her manifestation in another sakti as part of the preparation of the pratis.t.ha for the full daivi prakr.ti.MahesvariMahesvari bhava
Mahesvari (Maheshwari) ::: the goddess of the supreme knowledge, one of the four leading Powers and Personalities of the Mother.
Manah —in Arabic lore, a goddess-angel of
Ma (Sanskrit) Mā In Hindu mythology a name of Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu, goddess of prosperity, welfare, and happiness.
Mictlan: The underworld which is the abode of the dead in Aztec mythology; it is ruled by Mictlantecuhtli, god of the dead, and his wife, Mictlancihuatl, goddess of death.
Mimameid is said to spread its branches over the land where Menglad (the goddess Freya) dwells. None may know of what root it is sprung but it “falls not for fire or iron.” In its topmost branches perches a golden bird named Wideopener, and in the Underworld a magic brew is secreted in an iron caldron secured with nine strong locks and guarded by the dread hag Sinmara.
Minerva (Latin) Roman goddess of intelligence, inventiveness, arts practiced by women, and of school children, physicians, poets, etc. Her oldest sanctuaries were in Rome, and her chief festival was the Quinquatrus, celebrated on March 19. Later identified with the Greek Pallas Athena. See also ATHENA
minerva ::: n. --> The goddess of wisdom, of war, of the arts and sciences, of poetry, and of spinning and weaving; -- identified with the Grecian Pallas Athene.
mnēmosunē (mnemosyne) [Greek] ::: memory; the goddess of Memory, mother of the Muses.
mnemosyne ::: n. --> The goddess of memory and the mother of the Muses.
Mother-goddess: A goddess appearing in every primitive religion or nature cult where the maintenance of fertility is a central interest; the representation of the deification of the female principle in the life and nature of the human race.
Muluk-taoos, Muluk-taus (Arabic, Yezidi) The lord peacock; symbol of the principal deity worshiped by the Yezidis, who is regarded as accomplishing the work of creation under the command of the supreme Deity. Although looked upon as a fallen angel and the source of all evil, he is not named the Devil, but is the emblem of intellectual pride on the one hand, and of hundred-eyed cosmic intelligence or intellect on the other: referring to the equivalent Persian legend of the creation of the peacock by the Evil One. The hundred-eyed peacock, however, may also stand for initiation, wisdom, the bird of the gods and goddesses connected with secret learning (SD 2:514; TG 218).
muse ::: n. 1. A state of abstraction or contemplation; reverie. 2. The goddess or the power regarded as inspiring a poet, artist, thinker, or the like. musings, musers. *v. 3. To be absorbed in one"s thoughts; engage in meditation. 4. To consider or say thoughtfully. mused, musing. adj. *mused. 5. Perplexed, bewildered, bemused. musing. 6. Being absorbed in thoughts; reflecting deeply; contemplating; engaged in meditation. muse-lipped.
muse ::: n. --> A gap or hole in a hedge, hence, wall, or the like, through which a wild animal is accustomed to pass; a muset.
One of the nine goddesses who presided over song and the different kinds of poetry, and also the arts and sciences; -- often used in the plural.
A particular power and practice of poetry.
A poet; a bard.
To think closely; to study in silence; to meditate.
Muses: Nine goddesses of Greek mythology, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. Each muse presides over an art or science and inspires the poets or artists in their creative moments.
Mut, Mout (Egyptian) Mut, Mout. Mother; the second member of the triad of Thebean deities, generally known as the Lady of Thebes, and holding with Amen-Ra (Ammon-Ra) the principal position among the gods of the New Empire. Although mother of Khensu (or Khonsu — the third member of the triad) and wife of Amen-Ra, she is often called his mother. Her attributes are those of the world-mother, the inscriptions upon the ruins of her temple at Thebes address her as “Lady of Heaven, Queen of the Gods, she who giveth birth, but was herself not born.” Sometimes she is represented with androgynous aspects (with the head of a man and with the phallus). She is associated with Isis and Nekhebet, although more often made equivalent to Nut, goddess of the watery deep, mother of the gods, and of all that is. Mut also in many respects has the characteristics that were attributed to Hathor.
Mut: The ancient mother-goddess of Thebes (Egypt), representing the powers of the watery flood; she was worshipped as the wife of the Nile.
Mysteries: In occultism or esoteric philosophies, this term is used in general for any occult discipline or body of teachings or practice, the nature and meaning of which cannot be divulged to non-initiates. Specifically, rites of antiquity in which priests, initiates and neophytes enacted allegorical scenes from the lives of gods and goddesses, the secret meaning of which was explained to new adherents upon initiation. (See Dionysian mysteries; Eleusinian mysteries; Isis-Osiris mysteries; Mithraism; mystery cult; Orphic mysteries; Phrygian mysteries.)
Nanna The Norse goddess of the now-dead moon, wife of the sun god Balder. When Balder was slain by his blind brother Hoder with the fateful mistletoe twig, Nanna died of a broken heart and was placed beside her husband on his pyreship. Her half-sister is Idun, the present earth goddess corresponding to the Greek Gaia. Idun continues to carry out Nanna’s task of supplying the gods with the apples of immortality of which they must partake daily to preserve their youth.
Neith or Net (Egyptian) Neith or Net. One of the most ancient Egyptian deities, the Lady of the West. Her characteristic symbol is the arrow; later Greek writers equated her with Pallas Athene. In late dynastic times, Net was closely associated with Hathor, but in the earliest records she is connected with the primeval watery ocean or cosmic chaos, from which arose the sun god Ra. More often she was associated with Isis — her concrete or manifested self — being called “the great goddess, mother of all the gods, mistress of heaven who came into being in the beginning.” Net is portrayed as the virgin mother, suckling the infant Horus, similar to the representations of Isis. The famous passage given by Plutarch (Isis and Osiris ch 9) generally attributed to Isis, was said to have been found engraved upon a statue of Net. Plutarch also states that the Egyptians often called Isis Athene, signifying “I have come from myself” (ch 42).
Nemesis (Greek) [from nemo distribute, allot] Originally a goddess of due proportion, who restores the proper order of things, but later used for the operation of divine wrath, for people who get their desserts tend to impute the wrath they feel to the divine law which allots. Nemesis has been called the retributive aspect of karma, yet in the earlier Greek writers she is the goddess who distributes both happiness and misery. It was only among the later writers that she became specially the punisher of crimes and the corrector of overweening exultation in good fortune. One of her names was Adrasteia, she whom no man can escape. But the idea of reward is, equally with that of punishment, man-made; for “Karma-Nemesis is the creator of nations and mortals, but once created, it is they who make of her either a fury or a rewarding Angel: (SD 1:642).
Nemesis: In Greek mythology, the goddess, daughter of the Night, who pursues and punishes the haughty and the criminal.
nemesis ::: n. --> The goddess of retribution or vengeance; hence, retributive justice personified; divine vengeance.
Nergal (Chaldean) The Chaldean deity presiding over the realms of the dead. The entrance to his domain was through a large subterranean cavern named Aralu or Irkalla, which was under the special surveillance of the goddess Allatu (though his consort was Laz). His symbol was the lion, thus the colossal lions engraved upon edifices represented Nergal’s guardianship. He was regarded as regent of the planet Mars.
net.- "convention, networking, messaging" /net dot/ A prefix used to describe people and events related to {Usenet} and the {Internet}. The convention dates from the time before the {Great Renaming}, when most non-local {Usenet} newsgroups had names beginning "net.". Includes {net.gods}, "net.goddesses" (various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers), "net.lurkers" (see {lurker}), "net.person", "net.parties" (a synonym for {boink}), and many similar constructs. See also {net.police}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-03-21)
net.god ::: (person) /net god/ Accolade referring to anyone who satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been visible on Usenet for more newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally.Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the Slime Sisters have (so far) been distinguished more by personality than by authority.See demigod.[Jargon File] (1996-01-07)
net.god "person" /net god/ Accolade referring to anyone who satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been visible on {Usenet} for more than 5 years, ran one of the original backbone sites, moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally. Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the Slime Sisters have (so far) been distinguished more by personality than by authority. See {demigod}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-01-07)
Nirriti (Sanskrit) Nirṛti [from nir the verbal root ṛ to go out, dissolve, decay] Dissolution, destruction; often personified in the Vedas as the goddess of death and decay. Virtually synonymous with pralaya.
Njord (Icelandic) A Norse deity, corresponding to Saturn of other mythologies and to Cronos (time). Njord is the father of Frey (the earth god), and Freyja (goddess of Venus, patroness of earth’s humanities); he is the patron of commerce and traffic, of agriculture and fishery. His home (globe) is named Noatun (ships’ harbor).
“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).
Nolini: “Morning star—Venus, Goddess of Love—embodying new Creation. Mother India—Nolini’s reply to a question from Huta.
Nox: In Roman mythology, the goddess personifying the night; daughter of Chaos, mother of the Day and the Light, of Dreams and Death.
nulli visa cito decurrit tramite virgo [Latin] ::: seen by none, the maiden (the goddess Iris) swiftly runs down her path. [Aeneid 5.610]
Nut (Egyptian) Nut. Also Noot, Noun, Nout, Nu. Goddess of the sky or cosmic space — whether of the solar system or the galaxy — daughter of Shu and Tefnut, wife of Seb (the cosmic earth or outspread space), mother of Osiris and Isis, and of Set and Nephthys or Neith; the heavens personified. Some manuscripts distinguish between Nut, the day sky, and Naut, the night sky, although the two are but lower and higher aspects of one cosmic divinity. Her attributes partake of those of the other nature goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon: she is addressed as Lady of Heaven, who gave birth to all the gods. The favorite representation of Nut is of a woman bending so that her body forms a semicircle — a part of the endless circle of space — upon which the stars are portrayed, while her consort, Seb, prostrate beneath her, completes the circle. Again, the solar boat is represented sailing up over the lower limbs, in order to pursue its journey over the day sky; and sailing down her arms to complete its cycle in the night sky.
Nut is an important goddess of the Underworld and figures largely in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. She is one of the twelve deities who judge the deceased. Her office was to supply food and water, enabling the one entering the Underworld (Tuat) to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra, the sun god, arose from the egg produced by Seb and Nut. Thus, wherever possible, the sarcophagus had the figure of the goddess represented upon it, her protective wings spread over the deceased, her hands holding the emblems of celestial water and air.
nut ::: Nut Usually depicted nude, her body made of stars arching over the world, she is the Egyptian Goddess of the sky who swallowed the sun each evening and gave birth to it each morning. In Thelemic practice, Nut revealed herself to Aleister Crowley in her manifestation as Nuit (see the Book of the Law).
nymph ::: n. --> A goddess of the mountains, forests, meadows, or waters.
A lovely young girl; a maiden; a damsel.
The pupa of an insect; a chrysalis.
Any one of a subfamily (Najades) of butterflies including the purples, the fritillaries, the peacock butterfly, etc.; -- called also naiad.
Oedipus (Greek) Oidipous. Swollen-footed; Theban hero, son of Laius, named by the shepherd who found him with his feet swollen from the holes bored in them when he was exposed by his father, as it was predicted that he would kill his father and marry his mother — which he subsequently did. In many cosmogonies there are characters who slay their fathers or who are represented as both husband and son of the same goddess. This symbolism, being interpreted literally in Oedipus’ case, has made a fine story of horror for the tragedians. Oedipus is also famous for having solved the riddle of the Theban Sphinx. Oedipus’ romantic and tragic history formed the theme of three plays by Sophocles and by Aeschylus. The essential significance of the story is the inescapable consequences following upon karmic causes, from which there is no escape once these causes have been set in motion by man.
Om namas candikayai ::: [om salutations to Candika (a name of the Goddess, cf. Candi)].
Osiris, Isis, and Horus form the Egyptian triad of Father-Mother-Son. Isis is credited with the characteristics of most of the other goddesses of the pantheon, but her chief attribute of producer and giver of life is manifested even in the underworld, where her help sustains the deceased. The symbol of Isis in the heavens was the star Sirius.
Palaemon (Greek) palaimon. The wrestler; applied to Herakles and Melicertes, a name of Phoenician origin, taken from the Phoenician divinity Melcart. Ino, daughter of Cadmus and wife of Athamas, flying from her husband, sprang with her child Melicertes into the sea; the gods out of compassion made her a sea goddess and her son a god under the name of Palaemon.
palladium ::: n. --> Any statue of the goddess Pallas; esp., the famous statue on the preservation of which depended the safety of ancient Troy.
Hence: That which affords effectual protection or security; a sateguard; as, the trial by jury is the palladium of our civil rights.
A rare metallic element of the light platinum group, found native, and also alloyed with platinum and gold. It is a
pallas ::: n. --> Pallas Athene, the Grecian goddess of wisdom, called also Athene, and identified, at a later period, with the Roman Minerva.
paramesvara-paramesvari (parameswara-parameswari) ::: the supreme Lord (paramesvara) and supreme Goddess (paramesvari) as the Two-in-One.
paramesvari (parameshwari; parameswari) ::: the supreme Goddess paramesvari (isvari). para par a prakr prakrti
Parvati: A gentle and beautiful goddess of Shaivism, one of the consorts of Shiva.
Pasht or Pakht (Egyptian) Pasht or Pakht [from pakat, pasht tearer, destroyer] The goddess of Pekhit, called the Lady of Ant and of Set, popularly looked upon as the punisher of guilt and remover of defilement. She was the female aspect of the lower cosmic Ptah — the intellectually creative principle — represented, because of her lunar attributes, as being a cat-headed or lioness-headed goddess, similar to Bast. As Lady of Sept (the star Sirius) she was identified with forms of Isis, Hathor, and Sekhet.
Persephone: In Greek mythology, daughter of the goddess Demeter; abducted by Hades to become his wife and queen of the underworld, she was allowed by Zeus to return to her mother for eight months in each year.
Phrygian mysteries: The mysteries or esoteric rites widely observed around the Mediterranean, centered around the mother-goddess Cybele who mourned the death of the youthful male deity Attis until he returned to life in the springtime.
pomona ::: n. --> The goddess of fruits and fruit trees.
Popular legend describes Demeter as mother of Persephone, who while gathering flowers on the Nysian plain was seized by Hades and carried to the Underworld. Searching disconsolate for her lost child, Demeter came to the dwelling of Celeus at Eleusis, where she was hospitably received although her identity was unknown. On condition of being given the sole care of the king’s son who was ill with fever, she remained and became the child’s nurse. Each night she placed the child on a bed of living coals, but the mother, discovering this, snatched the child away in alarm. Demeter then revealed herself as a goddess and, declaring that had she been left alone she would have made the child immortal, she relinquished her post in wrath. Before leaving Eleusis, however, she founded a mystical school or cult to keep alive certain otherwise secret teachings about human divinity and the life after death. The Eleusinian Mysteries, reputed to have sprung from this earlier effort, dealt particularly with the afterdeath states and the progress and experiences of the soul between earth lives.
Predestination: The doctrine that all events of man's life, even one's eternal destiny, are determined beforehand by Deity. Sometimes this destiny is thought of in terms of an encompassing Fate or Luck (Roman and Greek), sometimes as the cyclic routine of the wheel of Fortune (Indian), sometimes as due to special gods or goddesses (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos in Hesiod), sometimes as the Kismet or mysterious Fate (Mohammedanism), as due to rational Necessity (Stoicism) and more often in terms of the sheer will of a sovereign Deity (Hebrew, Jewish and Christian). In historic Christianity utterances of Paul are given as the authority for the doctrine (Eph. 1:11, Rom. 8:30, Rom. 9:18). St. Augustine believed that man's own sinfulness made his salvation utterly dependent upon the sheer grace and election of God. Extreme expressions of Calvinism and Lutheranism held that man does absolutely nothing toward his salvation apart from the grace and good will of the Divine. Classical examples of theological determinism are the views of Bucer (1491-1551), Calvin (see Calvinism), and the American theologian, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). The two classic theories concerning the place of the alleged Fall of man are supralapsarianism, the view that the Fall itself was predetermined; infralapsarianism, the view that man's predestination was set up subsequent to the Fall, the Fall itself only being permitted. -- V.F.
Priapus was the personification of the generative and productive fertility evident throughout all nature, on all planes of being. There was a divine or spiritual as well as a purely material Priapus, although the Priapus of the masses was always the lower or gross Priapus. Similarly with the goddess Aphrodite or Venus: there was Venus Urania, the celestial or heavenly Venus, and Venus Pandemus, the vulgar or popular goddess of generative production and vulgar love. The celestial Priapus was born of Venus and Bacchus, for they are post-types of Aditi and the spirit; while the later Priapus is no longer the symbol of abstract generative power, but symbolizes the four Adamic races (SD 2:458).
Raktabija ::: [the name of a demon who did battle with the goddess Candi; from the drops of his blood arose innumerable duplicates of himself].
random numbers ::: 1. (programming) pseudorandom number.2. (jargon) When one wishes to specify a large but random number of things, and the context is inappropriate for N, certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily recognised as placeholders). These include the following:17 - Long described at MIT as the least random number; see 23.23 - Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and 5).42 - The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, as revealed in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxly. Note that question, What is 6 x 9?, is indeed 42, showing that in six dimensions white mice have 13 digits.69 - From the sexual act. This one was favoured in MIT's ITS culture.105 - 69 hex = 105 decimal and 69 decimal = 105 octal.666 - The Number of the Beast.For further enlightenment, study the Principia Discordia, The Joy of Sex, and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:18).See also Discordianism or consult your pineal gland. See also for values of. (1997-02-10)
reference, cf the Roman goddess Pertunda,
Rhianon (Welsh) Nymph, goddess; wife of Pwyll Pen Annwn in the first branch of the Mabinogi.
Roman goddess of silence, and Harpocratos,
Sakhmet,the fierce lioness-headed goddess of the South.
sakti (shakti) ::: force, power; capacity; the supreme Power, the "Consakti scious Force which forms and moves the worlds", the goddess (devi) who is "the self-existent, self-cognitive Power of the Lord" (isvara, deva, purus.a), expressing herself in the workings of prakr.ti; any of the various aspects of this Power, particularly Mahesvari, Mahakali,Mahalaks.mi or Mahasarasvati, each corresponding to an aspect of the fourfold isvara and manifesting in an element of devibhava or daivi prakr.ti; the soul-power which reveals itself in each element of the fourfold personality (brahmasakti, ks.atrasakti, vaisyasakti and sūdrasakti); "the right condition of the powers of the intelligence, heart, vital mind and body", the second member of the sakti catus.t.aya; the sakti catus.t.aya as a whole; spiritual force acting through the siddhis of power. sakti catustaya sakti
Sakti (Skt.): Force or Power, typified as a feminine potency or "goddess" in the
Sarama ::: a Vedic goddess whose action is "a forerunner of the dawn Sarama of Truth in the human mind", depicted in "the figure of the divine hound which was . . . a possibly later development of the Vedic imagery"; she represents the discovering intuition, a faculty "which goes straight to the Truth by the straight path of the Truth and not through the crooked paths of doubt and error".
Sarasvati: Hindu goddess of learning, wife of Brahma.
Sarasvati is also a sacred river spoken of in the Vedas, and as a river goddess she was often invoked to bestow vitality, renown, and riches; elsewhere she is described as moving along a golden path and as destroying the monster-demon Vritra.
Sarasvati, Saraswati (Sanskrit) Sarasvatī The ethereal, the elegant one; the divine consort or wife of Brahma, his feminine alter ego, a later form or aspect of Vach (voice or the Word), a title of the Third Logos in Greece as well as in India. This parallels the Bath Qol (daughter of the voice, daughter of the Word) of mystical Hebrew thought, which can be taken either as the feminine aspect of the Logos itself, or as its daughter — the inspiration flowing forth from, or the feminine or vehicular side of, the Logos. The goddess of hidden learning and esoteric wisdom, Sarasvati is usually shown riding on a peacock with its tail spread. She is similar to the Gnostic Sophia, to the Sephirah of the Hebrew Qabbalah, and to the Holy Ghost of the Christians.
Sarasvati (Saraswati) ::: "she of the stream, of the flowing movement"; [Ved.]: the streaming current and the word of inspiration of the Truth; the goddess of the Word; [Puranas]: the Muse and goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts.
Sarasvati (Saraswati) ::: "she of the stream, the flowing movement",Sarasvati a Vedic goddess who "represents the truth-audition, sruti, which gives the inspired word"; in later Hinduism, "the goddess of speech, of learning and of poetry"; same as Mahasarasvati.SarasvatiSarasvati bhava
saraswati. ::: goddess of speech, wisdom, learning and the arts
saraswati ::: n. --> The sakti or wife of Brahma; the Hindoo goddess of learning, music, and poetry.
Sati or Satet (Egyptian) Sati or Satet [from the verbal root sat to pour out, shoot, throw, emanate, evolve forth] Worshiped at Abu or Elephantine, the consort of Khnemu, and sister-goddess of Anqet, and the second member of a triad. Together with Khnemu her attributes are watery, so that she is depicted as sprinkling water and scattering seed. She was associated with Isis-Sothis, and at Dendera with Isis-Hathor; and was associated by the Greeks with Hera. Her temple at Abu was considered one to the holy places in ancient Egypt, for in the Book of the Dead the Osirified defunct mentions that he has visited the Temple of Satet which was one of the ancient initiation localities. With Isis she was connected with the star Sept (Sirius), where dwelt the soul of Isis.
savitri ::: "In the Mahabharata, the heroine of the tale of Satyavan and Savitri; . . . . She was the daughter of King Ashwapati, and lover of Satyavan, whom she married although she was warned by Narada that he had only one year to live. On the fatal day, when Yama carried off Satyavan"s spirit, she followed him with unswerving devotion. Ultimately Yama was constrained to restore her husband to life.” *Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo"s Works
Sri Aurobindo: "Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; . . . .” (Author"s note at beginning of Savitri.)
"Savitri is represented in the poem as an incarnation of the Divine Mother . . . .” Letters on Savitri
The Mother: "Savitri [the poem] is a mantra for the transformation of the world.” Spoken to Udar
Savitri (Savitri2) ::: the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun; goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save.
Savitri ::: “Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; …” (From a letter of Sri Aurobindo to a disciple. Included as a Note at the preface to Savitri.)
sea goddess ::: --> A goddess supposed to live in or reign over the sea, or some part of the sea.
Sekhet: The lioness-headed goddess of the Egyptians-the twin of Bast, her northern counterpart. Sekhet is thus the sakti of the South, and as such, the symbol of the fierce summer heat whichbecame the type of sexual heat, pleasure, and strong drink (sakh). The sakti of the South is the real-izing power of Horus, i.e. the power of manifestation. This explains the verse in The Book of the Law: "Had! the manifestation of Nuit."
Shinto (Japanese) [from shin god + to, tao way, path] The way of the gods; applied to the popular religion in Japan prior to Buddhism. Japan was considered to be the land of the gods — a conception current among nearly all ancient peoples, each one of which looked upon its own land as the land of the original divine incarnations — and the ruler (mikado) as the direct descendant and actual representative of the sun goddess (Tensho Daijin). Spiritual agencies were attributed to all the processes of nature, and a reverential feeling inculcated toward the dead. Hero worship took the direction in the prevalent belief that noble-minded warriors should be exalted nearly to the position of demigods.
Sif (Icelandic) [plural sifjar affinity, kinship] Thor’s wife in Norse mythology; the singular form occurs only in the proper name of the goddess whose golden hair is the harvest, pride and joy of all the gods. Sif is guardian of the sanctity of marriage and the ancient law which forbade the union of any couple more closely related than through the fifth generation.
siṁhavahini (singhabahini) [Bengali] ::: the Goddess (devi) riding on simhavahini a lion, "the symbol of the Divine Consciousness acting through a divinised physical-vital and vital-emotional force".
Sinivali (Sanskrit) Sinīvālī The first day of the new moon when it rises with a scarcely visible crescent, a day greatly connected with occult practices in India. Also a goddess said to preside over fecundity and easy birth, which relates her to lunar powers and to the festival itself known by this name which celebrates the first appearance of the new moon. She is sometimes called the consort of Vishnu. The Greeks, Latins, and other nations had various names for this divinity, commonly known, for instance, among the Greeks and Latins as Eileithyia or Ilithyia.
Speanta Armaiti (Avestan) Spandarmatz (Pahlavi) Spandarmaz (Persian) One of the seven Amesha Spentas, the reflection of the first three male Amesha-Spenta in the supreme world; in man, the link with the source of intellect. She is the life-giving breath of love that embraces the whole. In the enumeration of the ethical qualities attributed in the Avesta to these intelligences, divine piety is watched over by Spenta Armaiti. When personalized, she became the goddess or genius of the earth. The Vendidad refers to her as the fair daughter of Ahura-Mazda. The Amesha Spentas correspond with the cosmocratores, the builders, and the Qabbalistic Sephiroth.
Sri Aurobindo: "Finally, we have the goddess Dakshina who may well be a female form of Daksha, himself a god and afterwards in the Purana one of the Prajapatis, the original progenitors, — we have Dakshina associated with the manifestation of knowledge and sometimes almost identified with Usha, the divine Dawn, who is the bringer of illumination. I shall suggest that Dakshina like the more famous Ila, Saraswati and Sarama, is one of four goddesses representing the four faculties of the Ritam or Truth-consciousness, — Ila representing truth-vision or revelation, Saraswati truth-audition, inspiration, the divine word, Sarama intuition, Dakshina the separative intuitional discrimination.” *The Secret of the Veda
Sri Aurobindo: “Savitri is the Divine Word, daughter of the Sun, goddess of the supreme Truth who comes down and is born to save; …” (Author’s note at beginning of Savitri.)
Sri Aurobindo: "The faith in the divine Shakti must be always at the back of our strength and when she becomes manifest, it must be or grow implicit and complete. There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit"s omnipotence.” The Life Divine
Sri (Sanskrit) Śrī [from the verbal root śri to honor, be devoted] Light, luster, radiance, glory, beauty; prosperity, success, high rank. As a proper noun, Lakshmi as goddess of prosperity or beauty. Also commonly used as an honorary prefix, equivalent to holy, sacred, e.g., Sri Sankaracharya.
Srivatsa (Sanskrit) Śrīvatsa The favorite of Sri (lord or goddess); a mystical mark worn by Siva in his representations, as well as used in various ways by the Jains as the emblem of the tenth Jina. This emblem is a particular curling of hair on the breast of Krishna or Vishnu and of other divine beings, said to be white and often in iconography pictured as cruciform and supposed to represent a flower.
Svasti (Sanskrit) Svasti Well, happily; a salutation meaning, may it be well with thee! Hail! So be it! Adieu! Amen! Also a noun meaning success, prosperity, fortune, health; a goddess so personified. Any particular auspicious object, supposed to denote good luck, is called svastika, among which is the familiar cross to which this name is given.
Syrian moon goddess of fertility. As Ashteroth
Tammuz or Thammuz A Syrian and Phoenician deity corresponding to Adonis. In Babylonia, the Greek story of Venus and Adonis is repeated in that of Ishtar and Tammuz with slight variations. The myth relates that Ishtar wooed Tammuz in the springtime and in the midsummer he met his death. To save her husband from the clutches of the goddess of the nether world Ishtar journeys thither. Her return to earth marks the return of spring.
Tamti, Tamtu (Assyrian) The personified sea, whether of the cosmic space of our solar system, or of a sea of earth; hence primordial humidity, personified as a goddess equivalent to Belit, the Nature Mother, worshiped particularly at Erech, the great Chaldean necropolis. Tamti also typified turbulent chaos or matter, hence called the great dragon. In planetology, Tamti is theogonically equivalent to Ishtar, Astoreth, or Venus. See also THALLATH; TIAMAT
Ta-urt (Egyptian) Ta-urt. One name of the hippopotamus goddess more commonly known as Rert or Rertu; regarded as the consort of Typhon, and closely associated with the beast portrayed in the Judgment scene from The Egyptian Book of the Dead called the Eater of the Dead — the Devourer of the Unjustified. Abstractly, Ta-urt represents not so much the punitive but the retributive aspect of karma, with a special application to the postmortem conditions of the defunct in kama-loka. See also HIPPOPOTAMUS
Taurt: The Primaeval Mother Goddess worshipped in ancient Egypt inthe form of a pregnant hippopotamus. She was represented astronomically by the Great Bear constellation (Typhon). Taurt means the Mother of Revolutions, and it is possible that she gave her name to the Tarot (q.v.) which is the Book of the Secret Revolutions of the Stars and Cosmic Time-Cycles.
Taurus stands for both sun and moon gods, its symbol being sometimes a bull and sometimes a cow, the Third Logos mystically being considered androgyne, differentiation into the two opposites not yet having supervened. Thus Taurus was usually connected with sun gods, such as Osiris; and at others connected with moon goddesses — Isis, Diana, Cybele, etc. — with the moon, and with the far higher Magna Mater (great mother), source of Taurus as the Second Logos, a distinctly feminine aspect.
Tefnut (Egyptian) Tefnut. [from tef to be moist] Egyptian goddess inseparably connected with her twin brother Shu, being brought forth by the sun god Tem (later known as Ra). Tefnut was the goddess of moisture, of the gentle rain and soft wind. She is represented as a woman wearing upon her head the solar disk, or more often with the head of a lioness. Thus, Tefnut is the clothing or garment of Shu as pradhana is to Brahman or mulaprakriti is to parabrahman.
Tehmi: “The Divine Mother is the Eternal Goddess—in a description of the New Creation.”
Tehmi: “The earth is the goddess, Mother-Earth.”
Tenshoko Daijin or Ten Sho Dai Jiu (Japanese) The Shinto sun goddess, the first of the five generations of so-called earthly deities — two of which generations are yet to be evolved forth — these seven in their turn following the seven earlier generations of heavenly deities.
Thalatth, Thallath (Chaldean) Thalassa (Greek) Sea, ocean; mystically the great generative principle of the spatial deeps. Thallath was the sea, personified as a goddess in the cosmogony of Berosus; used as one of the names of the great deep or abyss, Tiamat, or Chaos. It could breed only monsters, but was destroyed by Belus, and then the gods created heaven and earth. The reference is to the mystical waters of space, or the more concrete aspect of space itself, as the great source or womb of cosmic manifestation, out of which all things come and into which at the end of the cosmic manvantara all things again return. The moon is connected in its cosmogonical function with the waters of space.
The ark or argha was used by the high priests in ceremonials connected with nature goddesses such as Ishtar or Astarte: at such times the representative emblem or ark was shaped as an oblong vessel, and occasionally fish-shaped, the most familiar instance being the Ark of the Covenant. Oftentimes a mystical flame representing reproducing life was associated with the ark, which thus became a distinctly phallic emblem of maternal reproduction, and also referred to the spiritually and intellectually generative power of the upper triad working in and through the lower quaternary of the septenary principles of either nature or man.
“the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
"the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM, - OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name – it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self- existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13 – Page 315*
“The Chhandogya,… is to be a work in the right and perfect way of devoting oneself to the Brahman; its subject is the Brahman, but the Brahman as symbolised in the OM, the sacred syllable of the Veda, not therefore, the pure state of existence only, but that existence in all its parts… OM is the symbol and the thing symbolised.”the basic syllable OM, which is the foundation of all the perfect creative sounds of the revealed word; OM is the one universal formulation of the energy of sound and speech, that which contains and sums up, synthesises and releases, all the spiritual power and all the potentiality of Vak (speech, the goddess Speech) and Shabda (sound, vibration, word). The mantra of the divine consciousness brings its light of revelation, the Mantra of the divine Power, its will of effectuation, the Mantra of the divine Ananda is equal fulfilment of the spiritual delight of existence. All word and thought are an outflowing of he great OM,—OM, the Word, the Eternal Manifest in the forms of sensible objects; manifest in that conscious play of creative self-conception of which forms and objects are the figures, manifest behind in the self-gathered superconscient power of the Infinite, OM is the sovereign source, seed, womb of thing and idea, form and name—it is itself, integrally, the supreme Intangible, the original Unity, the timeless Mystery self—existent above all manifestation in supernal being.” SABCL Volume 13—Page 315
The connections of various kinds between Aphrodite (or Venus) and the moon, represented under various names, were numerous and highly suggestive. In fact, the Aphrodite Pandemos (the common and popular) was more intimately connected with the lunar powers and attributes than even with Venus. The moon, for instance, under the name Lucina, presided over births; under the name Diana was referred to as being the giver of life and lives, of abounding vitality; and under the name Hecate was the goddess of the underworld because the bringer of disease, decrepitude, and death.
The Dendera zodiac in Egypt, circular in form, has three Virgins, showing that three precessional cycles had elapsed and that this length of time had been recorded. Virgo is assimilated to Astraea, goddess of justice.
The early Christians looked upon the Holy Spirit as of distinctly feminine characteristics, influence, or svabhava, as the center not only of vital but of spiritual and intellectual activity, whether in the universe or man, so that the Holy Spirit corresponds to a divine sakti. A notable instance in Hinduism is the Sakti or goddess Durga, having both a lofty or spiritual, and an inferior or distinctly material, function in nature, and therefore a beneficent as well as a terrible action therein — the very name Durga meaning “terrible in action,” or “terrible in going.” And yet Durga is the consort or sakti of Siva, often called the Mahesvara (Great Lord); and the name of this goddess arises from the utterly impartial, infinitely just, and yet often simply terrific action of the forces in nature, particularly when karmically directed to works of regeneration, often called destruction. Cosmic operations or cosmic justice are often indeed to human vision terrible in their operation, which can never be set aside, stayed, or diverted. Hence Durga is often represented in iconography as surrounded with a necklace of skulls or by similar ghastly emblems — a series of ideas which the pragmatic West misinterprets and consequently depicts as horrible and revolting.
The great Eleusinian divinities, as far as is known, were three: Demeter-Thesmophoros as goddess of law and order; Persephone-Kore the divine maid; and Iacchos the divine son (the divine man whom it was the object of the Mysteries to bring forth from the “tomb” of the human man). Probably because of her association with Persephone, Demeter was in one of her aspects a divinity of the underworld and was worshiped as such in Sparta and at Hermione at Argolis.
the Great Whore, triple goddess (sic) of Heaven,
The Greeks identified Hathor with Aphrodite, for she was the patron deity of beauty and joy in life, of artists and their creative work as was the celestial and earthly Venus. Her chief position, however, was goddess of the Underworld, providing the deceased with food and drink.
The Holy of Holies in theory was the seat, residence, or sanctuary of the god or goddess to whom the temple had been consecrated; and piety always considered that the divine power was present there. A similar series of ideas clothes the chancel and its contained altar in Christian Churches even today.
Themis (Greek) Goddess of justice, who preserves harmony, adjusting effect to cause; considered, when conjoined with Nemesis and Adrasteia, as personifying karma.
themis ::: n. --> The goddess of law and order; the patroness of existing rights.
The moon “stands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the giver of life to the whole planetary system; the Moon is the giver of life to our globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She is the Queen and she is the King, and was King Soma before she became transformed into Phoebe and the chaste Diana. . . . For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child-birth and life: with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this: as the personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna is the three in one. For she is Diva triformis, tergemina, triceps — three heads on one neck, like Brahma-Vishnu-Siva.” (SD I:386-7) See also ARTEMIS; HECATE; MOON
The mythological aspect stresses the dutiful mother and faithful wife. Her sorrow upon the death of her husband, Osiris, as well as her wanderings in search of his body, are very similar to those of the Greek nature goddess Demeter searching for her daughter Persephone. To Isis is also attributed the knowledge of the potency of mantras, with which she revivifies her poisoned son, Horus.
Theopoea [from Greek theopoeia from theos god + poiein to make] The making of god-figures or their statues, the magic practice of endowing inanimate representations of deities with life or its semblance by means of akasic or astral forces. Reminiscent of the Greek story of Pygmalion who made an ivory image of a beautiful maiden, with which he fell so violently in love that he prayed to Aphrodite, goddess of love, to breathe life into it. The goddess is said to have granted his wish. See also THEURGY
Thesmophoria (Greek) [from thesmophoros law-giving] A Mystery festival celebrated at Athens, Abdera, and possibly also in Sparta, in honor of Demeter-Thesmophoros, as goddess of justice, law, and order. During its celebration, prisoners were released, the law courts of the city-state were closed, and the senate did not meet. Celebrated by women only, it took place on three days, beginning with the 11th of Pyanepsion — October 24-26. The first day was called Anodos (the way up), but also Kathodos (the way down, the descent). It celebrated with a great processional the return of Demeter with her daughter Persephone from the underworld, and as Kathodos, her descent into it. The second day was Kalligeneia (mother of beauty); and third was Nesteia (the fast), passed by the women in silence and fasting, sitting on the ground to celebrate Demeter’s sorrow. There is no information as to the rites of the second day, and nothing is actually known of the private ritual of any of the three days.
“The star worshipped in Egypt and reverenced by the Occultists; by the former because its heliacal rising with the Sun was a sign of the beneficent inundation of the Nile, and by the latter because it is mysteriously associated with Thoth-Hermes, god of wisdom, and Mercury, in another form. Thus Sothis-Sirius had, and still has, a mystic and direct influence over the whole living heaven, and is connected with almost every god and goddess. It was ‘Isis in the heaven’ and called Isis-Sothis, for Isis was ‘in the constellation of the dog,’ as is declared on her monuments. ‘The soul of Osiris was believed to reside in a personage who walks with great steps in front of sothis, sceptre in hand and a whip upon his shoulder.’ Sirius is also Anubis, and is directly connected with the ring ‘Pass me not’; it is, moreover, identical with Mithra, the Persian Mystery god, and with Horus and even Hathor, called sometimes the goddess Sothis. Being connected with the Pyramid, Sirius was, therefore, connected with the initiations which took place in it. A temple to Sirius-Sothis once existed within the great temple of Denderah. To sum up, all religions are not, as Dufeu, the French Egyptologist, sought to prove, derived from Sirius, the god-star, but Sirius-Sothis is certainly found in connection with every religion of antiquity” (TG 300).
-. The White Goddess. Garden City, N.Y.: Double¬
. thivi (Prithivi) ::: the earth-goddess, a manifestation of Aditi in the lower hemisphere of existence (aparardha).
Traces of the worship of goddesses equivalent to Vesta are found in prehistoric times. The cult reached a place of sanctity and importance in ancient Ireland, the Hebrides, and among the Incas of Peru. None, however, is so fully documented as the Roman cult of Vesta worship, centering around the guardianship of the sacred fire, symbol of the loftiest ideals of the state, and hence of the home and domestic life. In Rome the cult grew in importance until the position of the priestesses almost rivaled that of royalty. There is a tradition that Numa introduced the worship of Vesta into Rome and founded the Temple of Vesta.
Trimorphos (Greek) Triple-formed, triple; applied to a triple personification of the moon in ancient iconology representing the lunar body as a goddess with three heads, which also became with the ancient Romans Diva triformis (the triple goddess): Diana-Hecate-Luna. Also applied to the three Fates — Moirai trimorphai.
Tuatha de Danaan: In ancient Irish mythology, gods living underground. (The name literally means the folk of the goddess Danu.)
tutelary ::: a. --> Having the guardianship or charge of protecting a person or a thing; guardian; protecting; as, tutelary goddesses.
Uma. A gentle, kind Hindu goddess, consort of Shiva.
Uma ::: [a name of the Goddess, spouse of Siva].
Uma-kanya (Sanskrit) Umā-kanyā [from u-mā O [child], do not [practice austerities] — the exclamation addressed to Pārvatī by her mother + kanyā maid, virgin] The daughter of Himavat, who became the consort of Siva; also called Parvati and Durga. Uma-Kanya “being her esoteric name, and meaning the ‘Virgin of light,’ Astral Light in one of its multitudinous aspects” (SD 1:92). Now the goddess is worshiped as Durga-Kali (the black and inaccessible one); in this character “human flesh was offered to her every autumn; and, as Durga, she was the patroness of the once murderous Thugs of India, and the special goddess of Tantrika sorcery. But in days of old it was not as it is now. The earliest mention of the title ‘Uma-Kanya’ is found in the Kena-Upanishad; in it the now blood-thirsty Kali, was a benevolent goddess, a being of light and goodness, who brings about reconciliation between Brahma and the gods. She is Saraswati and she is Vach. In esoteric symbology, Kali is the dual type of the dual soul — the divine and the human, the light and the dark soul of man” (TG 352).
Uraeus [from Greek ouraios of the tail] Refers to the sacred serpent of Egypt (aar, aart, aartu in Egyptian); usually only the head and neck of the serpent are represented by the ancient Egyptians in the headdress of many divinities, and in the headdress of royal persons as a symbol of power, both occult and temporal. Egyptologists state that the physical basis of the symbol is supposed to be the Egyptian asp or cobra — Naja haje, naja being closely akin to the Sanskrit naga: “Occultism explains that the uraeus is the symbol of initiation and also of hidden wisdom, as the serpent always is” (TG 355). Generally, the representation of the sacred uraeus in headdresses — before the symbol became degraded into a mere ritualistic, formalistic emblem — meant that the individual wearing it had become an initiate and bore the badge of wisdom. Two deities in particular were always represented with the uraeus, Isis and Nephthys (Neith), therefore they were termed by the Egyptians snake goddesses (aarti). The uraeus crown itself was named tept.
Us.a (Usha) ::: the Vedic goddess of Dawn, bringer of divine illuminaUsa tion; "the illumining dawn of the higher or undivided Consciousness".
Vach-sata-rupa (Sanskrit) Vāc-śata-rūpā The goddess in a hundred forms, or Vach as the immanent feminine aspect of divinity in the innumerable phases and forms of nature. Vach as Sata-rupa is the divine creative activity unfolded into the ten planes and their many subplanes of the universe. Each of these has its own keynotes and subordinate keynote. The union of Svayambhuva-Manu with Vach-sata-rupa, his own daughter (here representing the first manifestation of prakriti), is explained cosmically as the symbol of the root-life, the germ from which spring all the solar systems, worlds, and gods, because here Svaymbhuva-Manu is the cosmic manu; on the smaller scale, he with his consort plays the same role in the planetary chains of the solar system, and on a still smaller scale on any globe thereof.
Vac: Sanskrit for speech, voice, word. In Vedic and occult philosophy vac has a similar role as the Logos in Greek philosophy. It appears personified as the goddess of speech and close to primeval reality in the hierarchy of emanations.
vacuna ::: n. --> The goddess of rural leisure, to whom the husbandmen sacrificed at the close of the harvest. She was especially honored by the Sabines.
vac (Vach) ::: speech; the goddess Speech. ::: vak [nominative]
Various terms more or less synonymous are akasa, the universal egg (from which Brahma issued as light), the virgin egg, the virgin mother, the immaculate root (fructified by the ray), the primeval deep, the abyss, the great mother. The divine ray and chaos are father-mother or cosmic fire and water. Chaos-Theos-Cosmos are the triple deity or all-in-all. Chaos was personified in Egypt by the goddess Neith, who is the Father-Mother of the Stanzas of Dzyan, the akasa of the Hindus, the svabhavat of the northern Buddhists, and the Icelandic ginnungagap.
Var (Scandinavian) Goddess of vows; ninth of the 14 goddesses Asynjur of the Eddas: she hearkens to oaths and covenants, and takes vengeance on those who perjure themselves, avenging every breach of faith.
venus ::: n. --> The goddess of beauty and love, that is, beauty or love deified.
One of the planets, the second in order from the sun, its orbit lying between that of Mercury and that of the Earth, at a mean distance from the sun of about 67,000,000 miles. Its diameter is 7,700 miles, and its sidereal period 224.7 days. As the morning star, it was called by the ancients Lucifer; as the evening star, Hesperus.
The metal copper; -- probably so designated from the ancient
Venus: The Italic goddess of gardens who was later identified with the Greek Aphrodite as the goddess of beauty.
venus ::: Venus The 2nd planet from the Sun, named after the Roman goddess of Love, her Greek counterpart being Aphrodite. Astrologically, Venus rules Taurus and Libra.
vestal ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to Vesta, the virgin goddess of the hearth; hence, pure; chaste.
A virgin consecrated to Vesta, and to the service of watching the sacred fire, which was to be perpetually kept burning upon her altar.
A virgin; a woman pure and chaste; also, a nun.
Vesta (Latin) Hestia (Greek) Daughter of Saturn (Kronos) and Rhea, sister of Jupiter, Juno, Ceres, Pluto, and Neptune (Zeus, Hera, Demeter, Hades, and Poseidon). The first-born, she became, as Terra or Gaia, the earth goddess. She is variously represented as the wife of Uranus, and again as a divine maid, both accounts probably being remnants of an earlier myth similar to those centering around Demeter, Isis, Neith, and other goddesses.
vesta ::: n. --> One of the great divinities of the ancient Romans, identical with the Greek Hestia. She was a virgin, and the goddess of the hearth; hence, also, of the fire on it, and the family round it.
An asteroid, or minor planet, discovered by Olbers in 1807.
A wax friction match.
Virgo (The Virgin): The sixth sign of the zodiac. Its symbol is probably a representation of the Girdle of Hymen, and has reference to the Immaculate Conception of a Messiah. It is usually pictured by a virgin holding in her hand a green branch, an ear of corn, or a spike of grain. Spica is a star in the constellation of Virgo. Here was commemorated the Festival of Ishtar, goddess of fertility. The Sun is in Virgo annually from August 23 to September 22. Astrologically and astronomically it is the thirty-degree arc immediately preceding the Sun’s passing over the Fall Equinoctial point, occupying a position along the Ecliptic from 150° to 180°. It is the “mutable” quality of the element Earth: negative, cold, dry, sterile, human; also critical, practical, helpful. Ruler: Mercury. Detriment: Jupiter. Fall: Venus. Symbolic interpretation : A green branch, an ear of wheat or corn; the Immaculate Virgin who gives birth to a world-savior.
water nymph ::: --> A goddess of any stream or other body of water, whether one of the Naiads, Nereids, or Oceanides.
A water lily (Nymphaea).
West The forces of the four cardinal points have each a distinct occult property, and are ruled over by the four regents. Blavatsky states that there is occult philosophy in the early Christian doctrine, echoes of which still linger in both the Orthodox Greek and the Roman Catholic Churches, that public calamities are due to invisible messengers from the north and west, and particularly from the west, the conjunction of the two points being combined in the northwest (SD 1:123). Most good, on the other hand, flows forth from the north and east. The Egyptian goddess Hathor is spoken of as the infernal Isis, the goddess preeminently of the west or nether world. East and west are not localities but directions, and when used in reference to localities the meaning is purely relative. Good and evil, too, are relative terms as experienced by human beings, for such messengers and influences are in all cases strictly karmic agents; and often what people in their blindness and weakness think a calamity or misfortune may indeed be a blessing in disguise. See also CARDINAL POINTS
What did the ancients mean by their gods and goddesses? They were intended to represent the guiding intelligences present within or in back of all invisible secrets, as well as astral and physical manifestations of nature. During the third root-race there were beings who were
What then is the explanation of the otherwise contradictory statements in the Bible regarding Solomon? Even from a historical and ethnological standpoint one may find a clue, for along purely exoteric lines there is nothing foreign in Solomon’s “idolatry” and his worship of other deities. The same racial strain ran through all the surrounding peoples as in Israel, and the respective worships, gods, and goddesses were all closely interrelated, derived from the same Babylonian concepts, appearing under different names — Blavatsky shows the identity of the mystery gods of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Israelites (SD 2:3). The gods and goddesses of the nations surrounding the Jews were all theologically interrelated, aspects or permutations of the same basic idea; and, as worshiped by the people, all were variants and, in their exoteric forms, degradations of the original conception on which every great theogony and cosmogony was built (cf SD 2:535 et seq).
When androgynous or hermaphrodite is used in philosophy, it does not mean physically or ethereally double-sexed — except when physical dual-sexed beings are distinctly referred to — but means the dual characteristic of nature in manifestation. Very often this duality is separated into “masculine” and “feminine,” using the words familiar to human life, although this duality is perhaps more accurately described by the words positive and negative, or by spirit and matter, or again by consciousness and vehicle. Here we have the reason for the separation of the deities in ancient pantheons into gods and goddesses, although occasionally in the mythological tales deities are represented as dual sexed. This androgynous or dual character of all the manifested worlds commenced with cosmic buddhi, or mahabuddhi, although the first more defined manifestations of individualized duality began on the plane of cosmic kama where fohat especially works. Above that the two rays from the One ascend again to reunite.
“Whether as Aditi, or the divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the ‘Angels of the Face,’ of the ‘Deep,’ or the ‘Great Green One’ of the ‘Book of the Dead’ ” (SD 1:434). These feminine logoi are all correlations of light, sound, and ether. In many aspects Vach approaches Kwan-yin, she of the melodious voice. Sarasvati, the goddess of divine wisdom, is a later form of Vach. The Hebrew Lahgash is nearly identical in meaning with Vach as the hidden power of the mantras, the divine sound. “But Vach being also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha — ‘the god who lives in all the Kalpas’ — her Mayavic character is thereby shown: during the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray” (SD 1:430-1).
wind ::: air in natural motion, as that moving horizontally at any velocity along the earth"s surface. Wind, wind"s, winds, wind-faces, wind-feet, wind-goddess, wind-haired, wind-lashed, wind-maned, wind-rippled, wind-stirred, priest-wind"s.
with her foot on the Divine itself ::: then she comes to herself and the struggle and destruction are over"; the Goddess (devi) into whose undivided consciousness-force (cit-sakti) "our divided & unequal individual force of action & thought" is to be renounced in order "to 86 replace our egoistic activities by the play in our body of the universal Kali and thus exchange blindness & ignorance for knowledge and ineffective human strength for the divine effective Force"; the sakti carrying out the lila according to the pleasure of the isvara, the second member of the karma catus.t.aya; sometimes the same as Mahakali.
Within its sacred precincts, the Aesir and Asynjor (gods and goddesses) meet to assess the previous life of the world tree and to determine their course for the future. The Lay of Odin’s Corpse give insight into the gods’ council following the death of a planet, and their difficulty in extracting the essence of that experience.
With Ishtar (the nature goddess) and Sin (the moon deity), Shamash formed an important triad, regarded as the life-giving forces in all manifestation.
Yantra (Skt.): The linear form of a mantra or Divine Name of which the most complete example is the famous Sri Yantra (sometimes called Sri Chakra), the diagrammatical represen tation of the Primordial Energy (Sakti). The Sri Yantra con stitutes the basis of Sri Vidya, the secret science of the Kalas or mystical vibrations that emanate from the suvasini chosen to fulfil the role of the Goddess in the Tantric Ritual of the Sri Chakra.
Zagreus has three distinct meanings: 1) the mighty hunter (the pilgrim-soul, hunting for the truth, its aeonic pilgrimage back to divinity); 2) he that takes many captives (the Lord of the Dead); and 3) the restorer or regenerator (King of the Reborn or initiates). Zagreus (later Bacchus or Iacchos) is the divine Son, the third of the Orphic Trinity, the other two being Zeus the Demiurge or divine All-father, and Demeter-Kore, the earth goddess in her twofold aspect as the divine Mother and the mortal maid.
Zarpanitu, Sarpanit (Babylonian) Also Zer-banit; Zirat-banit. The shining one, its ideographs suggest the words zer seed, banit producing. A Babylonian goddess consort of Marduk or Merodach. In later Babylonian times (after 1200 BC) when Marduk was elevated to the position of chief deity of the pantheon in place of the older Chaldean deities, Zarpanitu was regarded as the great nature goddess, replacing Belit (consort of Bel). A triad was formed by the addition of Nebo, the god of wisdom, equivalent to the Hindu Budha and the Greek Hermes. “As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of Zarpa-nitu (the Moon Deity) and of Merodach, who had become Jupiter, after having been a Sun God” (SD 2:456). Herodotus called Zarpanitu “Zeus-Belos.”
Zio (Germanic) The ancient Germanic sword god or war god, corresponding to Tyr in Norse mythology. He was called Tivisco by Tacitus, who describes him as a hidden god, held in such reverence by the Swabians that no one could enter the sacred grove of the Semnones, a prominent tribe of the Swabians, without being bound with a chain. The earth goddess Nerthus was regarded as his wife.
KEYS (10k)
9 Sri Aurobindo
3 Sri Ramakrishna
2 Ken Wilber
2 Hymns of Guru Nanak
2 Kabir
1 Velimir Khlebnikov
1 SWAMI VIRAJANANDA
1 Robert Anton Wilson
1 Ramakrishna
1 Nolini Kanta Gupta
1 Nihongi
1 Neil Gaiman
1 Laura Whitcomb
1 Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche
1 Joseph Campbell
1 John Milton
1 Guru Nanak
1 Dion Fortune
1 Chuck Palahniuk
1 Charles Baudelaire
1 Bertrand Russell
1 Kobayashi Issa
1 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
134 Rick Riordan
46 Sherrilyn Kenyon
26 E L James
25 Homer
17 P C Cast
14 Starhawk
13 Marion Zimmer Bradley
11 Sri Aurobindo
11 Madeline Miller
11 Lynne Ewing
11 Emma Mildon
11 Brian Godawa
10 William Shakespeare
10 Philippa Gregory
10 George S Clason
9 Laini Taylor
9 Kevin Hearne
9 C S Lewis
9 C D Reiss
8 Terry Pratchett
1:A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism. ~ Dion Fortune, #KEYS
2:A goddess of black veils and dark prophesies, a goddess of night sighs. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov, #KEYS
3:The present moment is a powerful goddess. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #KEYS
4:But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the Sense of human sight.
~ John Milton,#KEYS
5:an autumn moon
at the feet of the
Goddess of Mercy
~ Kobayashi Issa, @BashoSociety#KEYS
6:Maya, the mythical goddess, sprang from the One, and her womb brought forth three acceptable disciples of the One: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. ~ Hymns of Guru Nanak, eka mai, #KEYS
7:One ray of light from my Divine Mother, who is the Goddess of Wisdom, has the power to turn the most leaned scholar into a worm. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, #KEYS
8:Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. ~ Bertrand Russell, Fact and Fiction, #KEYS
9:Liberty is a goddess who is exacting in her demands on her votaries, but, if they are faithful, she never disappoints them of their reward. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, The Elections, #KEYS
10: Agni is the energy of consciousness, Varuna is the vastness of consciousness, Mitra is the harmony. Ila is the revelation, Saraswati inspiration, Bharati is the Goddess of the Divine Word. ~ Nolini Kanta Gupta, 04, 10.04 - Transfiguration, #KEYS
11:There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit's omnipotence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti, #KEYS
12:Ambassadress twixt eternity and change,
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
And saw the spaces ready for her feet. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Symbol Dawn,#KEYS
13:I smite the Titan who bestrides the world
And slay the ogre in his blood-stained den.
I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces,#KEYS
14:Above them all she stands supporting all,
The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled
Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask;
The ages are the footfalls of her tread,
Their happenings the figure of her thoughts,
And all creation is her endless ac ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Soul,#KEYS
15:When the Sun-goddess heard this she said: 'Though of late many prayers have been addressed to me, of none has the language been so beautiful as this'. So she opened a little the rock-door and peeped out.
Thereupon the God...who was waiting beside the rock-door, forthwith pulled it open, and the radiance of the Sun-goddess filled the universe. ~ Nihongi, I, 45 (720)#KEYS
16:I know how Gods begin, Roger. We start as Dreams. Then we walk out of Dreams into the Land. We are worshiped and loved, and take power to ourselves.
And then, one day, there's no one left to worship us.
And in the end, each little God and Goddess takes its last journey back into Dreams... and what comes after, not even WE know.
I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid.
~ Neil Gaiman,#KEYS
17:As comes a goddess to a mortal's breast
And fills his days with her celestial clasp,
She stooped to make her home in transient shapes;
In Matter's womb she cast the Immortal's fire,
In the unfeeling Vast woke thought and hope,
Smote with her charm and beauty flesh and nerve
And forced delight on earth's insensible frame.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Glory and the Fall of Life,#KEYS
18:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.
~ Chuck Palahniuk,#KEYS
19:There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded, Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, Where millions of Brahmâs are reading the Vedas, Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky, Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina— There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, #KEYS
20:Who is the object of homage?
You, whose face is very white, lovely and beautiful, glowing with light like an array of a hundred full autumn moons, all together, without the dust from earth and water, You are adorned with completely open, immeasurable twofold knowledge like the hosts of a thousand stars, The brilliant light of your clear wisdom manifesting the four correct analytical knowledges shines forth, Noble Lady Tara, Goddess Vajra Sarasvati, I pay homage to you. ~ Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche, Smile Of Sun And Moon,#KEYS
21:In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: is this not yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float quietly across the sky, is this not your own limitless Being, waving back at you? ~ Ken Wilber, One Taste, page 279, #KEYS
22:Tell me, enigmatical man, whom do you love best, your father,
Your mother, your sister, or your brother?
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
Now you use a word whose meaning I have never known.
Your country?
I do not know in what latitude it lies.
Beauty?
I could indeed love her, Goddess and Immortal.
Gold?
I hate it as you hate God.
Then, what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
I love the clouds the clouds that pass up there
Up there the wonderful clouds!
~ Charles Baudelaire,#KEYS
23:The library smells like old books - a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.
~ Laura Whitcomb,#KEYS
24:The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [T4], #KEYS
25:13. The Magic Flight:If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit. This flight may be complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
26:Where spring, the lord of seasons reigneth, there the unstruck music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions, few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, where millions of Saraswatis, goddess of music play the vina,
There is my Lord self-revealed, and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, II.57, Translated by Rabindranath Tagore[26],#KEYS
27:Dare to be wise! Energy and spirit is needed to overcome the obstacles which indolence of nature as well as cowardice of heart oppose to our instruction. It is not without significance that the old myth makes the goddess of Wisdom emerge fully armed from the head of Jupiter; for her very first function is warlike. Even in her birth she has to maintain a hard struggle with the senses, which do not want to be dragged from their sweet repose. The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error. Content if they themselves escape the hard labor of thought, men gladly resign to others the guardianship of their ideas, and if it happens that higher needs are stirred in them, they embrace with a eager faith the formulas which State and priesthood hold in readiness for such an occasion. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #KEYS
28:Part 3 - Return
12. Refusal of the Return:When the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet or the ten thousand worlds. But the responsibility has been frequently refused. Even Gautama Buddha, after his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated, and saints are reported to have died while in the supernal ecstasy. Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being. ~ Joseph Campbell,#KEYS
29:7. The Meeting with the Goddess:The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart. The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity. And when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed-whether she will or not. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace. ~ Joseph Campbell, #KEYS
30:The mythological hero, setting forth from his common-day hut or castle, is lured, carried away, or else voluntarily proceeds, to the threshold of adventure. There he encounters a shadow presence that guards the passage. The hero may defeat or conciliate this power and go alive into the kingdom of the dark (brother-battle, dragon-battle; offering, charm), or be slain by the opponent and descend in death (dismemberment, crucifixion). Beyond the threshold, then, the hero journeys through a world of unfamiliar yet strangely intimate forces, some of which severely threaten him (tests), some of which give magical aid (helpers). When he arrives at the nadir of the mythological round, he undergoes a supreme ordeal and gains his reward. The triumph may be represented as the hero's sexual union with the goddess-mother of the world (sacred marriage), his recognition by the father-creator (father atonement), his own divinization (apotheosis), or again-if the powers have remained unfriendly to him-his theft of the boon he came to gain (bride-theft, fire-theft); intrinsically it is an expansion of consciousness and therewith of being (illumination, transfiguration, freedom). The final work is that of the return. If the powers have blessed the hero, he now sets forth under their protection (emissary); if not, he flees and is pursued (transformation flight, obstacle flight). At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero re-emerges from the kingdom of dread (return, resurrection). The boon that he brings restores the world (elixir). ~ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Keys, #KEYS
31:Yet this was only a foretaste of the intense experiences to come. The first glimpse of the Divine Mother made him the more eager for Her uninterrupted vision. He wanted to see Her both in meditation and with eyes open. But the Mother began to play a teasing game of hide-and-seek with him, intensifying both his joy and his suffering. Weeping bitterly during the moments of separation from Her, he would pass into a trance and then find Her standing before him, smiling, talking, consoling, bidding him be of good cheer, and instructing him. During this period of spiritual practice he had many uncommon experiences. When he sat to meditate, he would hear strange clicking sounds in the joints of his legs, as if someone were locking them up, one after the other, to keep him motionless; and at the conclusion of his meditation he would again hear the same sounds, this time unlocking them and leaving him free to move about. He would see flashes like a swarm of fire-flies floating before his eyes, or a sea of deep mist around him, with luminous waves of molten silver. Again, from a sea of translucent mist he would behold the Mother rising, first Her feet, then Her waist, body, face, and head, finally Her whole person; he would feel Her breath and hear Her voice. Worshipping in the temple, sometimes he would become exalted, sometimes he would remain motionless as stone, sometimes he would almost collapse from excessive emotion. Many of his actions, contrary to all tradition, seemed sacrilegious to the people. He would take a flower and touch it to his own head, body, and feet, and then offer it to the Goddess. ~ Sri Ramakrishna, Gospel, #KEYS
32:reading :::
50 Spiritual Classics: List of Books Covered:
Muhammad Asad - The Road To Mecca (1954)
St Augustine - Confessions (400)
Richard Bach - Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970)
Black Elk Black - Elk Speaks (1932)
Richard Maurice Bucke - Cosmic Consciousness (1901)
Fritjof Capra - The Tao of Physics (1976)
Carlos Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan (1972)
GK Chesterton - St Francis of Assisi (1922)
Pema Chodron - The Places That Scare You (2001)
Chuang Tzu - The Book of Chuang Tzu (4th century BCE)
Ram Dass - Be Here Now (1971)
Epictetus - Enchiridion (1st century)
Mohandas Gandhi - An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (1927)
Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness (1097)
Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet (1923)
GI Gurdjieff - Meetings With Remarkable Men (1960)
Dag Hammarskjold - Markings (1963)
Abraham Joshua Heschel - The Sabbath (1951)
Hermann Hesse - Siddartha (1922)
Aldous Huxley - The Doors of Perception (1954)
William James - The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Carl Gustav Jung - Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1955)
Margery Kempe - The Book of Margery Kempe (1436)
J Krishnamurti - Think On These Things (1964)
CS Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Malcolm X - The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1964)
Daniel C Matt - The Essential Kabbalah (1994)
Dan Millman - The Way of the Peaceful Warrior (1989)
W Somerset Maugham - The Razor's Edge (1944)
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975)
Michael Newton - Journey of Souls (1994)
John O'Donohue - Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (1998)
Robert M Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974)
James Redfield - The Celestine Prophecy (1994)
Miguel Ruiz - The Four Agreements (1997)
Helen Schucman & William Thetford - A Course in Miracles (1976)
Idries Shah - The Way of the Sufi (1968)
Starhawk - The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979)
Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970)
Emanuel Swedenborg - Heaven and Hell (1758)
Teresa of Avila - Interior Castle (1570)
Mother Teresa - A Simple Path (1994)
Eckhart Tolle - The Power of Now (1998)
Chogyam Trungpa - Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism (1973)
Neale Donald Walsch - Conversations With God (1998)
Rick Warren - The Purpose-Driven Life (2002)
Simone Weil - Waiting For God (1979)
Ken Wilber - A Theory of Everything (2000)
Paramahansa Yogananda - Autobiography of a Yogi (1974)
Gary Zukav - The Seat of the Soul (1990)
~ Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Spirital Classics (2017 Edition),#KEYS
33:Workshops, churches, and palaces were full of these fatal works of art; he had even helped with a few himself. They were deeply disappointing be cause they aroused the desire for the highest and did not fulfill it. They lacked the most essential thing-mystery. That was what dreams and truly great works of art had in common : mystery. Goldmund continued his thought: It is mystery I love and pursue. Several times I have seen it beginning to take shape; as an artist, I would like to capture and express it. Some day, perhaps, I'll be able to. The figure of the universal mother, the great birthgiver, for example. Unlike other fi gures, her mystery does not consist of this or that detail, of a particular voluptuousness or sparseness, coarseness or delicacy, power or gracefulness. It consists of a fusion of the greatest contrasts of the world, those that cannot otherwise be combined, that have made peace only in this figure. They live in it together: birth and death, tenderness and cruelty, life and destruction. If I only imagined this fi gure, and were she merely the play of my thoughts, it would not matter about her, I could dismiss her as a mistake and forget about her. But the universal mother is not an idea of mine; I did not think her up, I saw her! She lives inside me. I've met her again and again. She appeared to me one winter night in a village when I was asked to hold a light over the bed of a peasant woman giving birth: that's when the image came to life within me. I often lose it; for long periods it re mains remote; but suddenly it Hashes clear again, as it did today. The image of my own mother, whom I loved most of all, has transformed itself into this new image, and lies encased within the new one like the pit in the cherry.
As his present situation became clear to him, Goldmund was afraid to make a decision. It was as difficult as when he had said farewell to Narcissus and to the cloister. Once more he was on an impor tant road : the road to his mother. Would this mother-image one day take shape, a work of his hands, and become visible to all? Perhaps that was his goal, the hidden meaning of his life. Perhaps; he didn't know. But one thing he did know : it was good to travel toward his mother, to be drawn and called by her. He felt alive. Perhaps he'd never be able to shape her image, perhaps she'd always remain a dream, an intuition, a golden shimmer, a sacred mystery. At any rate, he had to follow her and submit his fate to her. She was his star.
And now the decision was at his fingertips; everything had become clear. Art was a beautiful thing, but it was no goddess, no goal-not for him. He was not to follow art, but only the call of his mother.
~ Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund,#KEYS
34:Mother of Dreams :::
Goddess supreme, Mother of Dream, by thy ivory doors when thou standest,
Who are they then that come down unto men in thy visions that troop, group upon group, down the path of the shadows slanting?
Dream after dream, they flash and they gleam with the flame of the stars still around them;
Shadows at thy side in a darkness ride where the wild fires dance, stars glow and glance and the random meteor glistens;
There are voices that cry to their kin who reply; voices sweet, at the heart they beat and ravish the soul as it listens.
What then are these lands and these golden sands and these seas more radiant than earth can imagine?
Who are those that pace by the purple waves that race to the cliff-bound floor of thy jasper shore under skies in which mystery muses,
Lapped in moonlight not of our night or plunged in sunshine that is not diurnal?
Who are they coming thy Oceans roaming with sails whose strands are not made by hands, an unearthly wind advances?
Why do they join in a mystic line with those on the sands linking hands in strange and stately dances?
Thou in the air, with a flame in thy hair, the whirl of thy wonders watching,
Holdest the night in thy ancient right, Mother divine, hyacinthine, with a girdle of beauty defended.
Sworded with fire, attracting desire, thy tenebrous kingdom thou keepest,
Starry-sweet, with the moon at thy feet, now hidden now seen the clouds between in the gloom and the drift of thy tresses.
Only to those whom thy fancy chose, O thou heart-free, is it given to see thy witchcraft and feel thy caresses.
Open the gate where thy children wait in their world of a beauty undarkened.
High-throned on a cloud, victorious, proud I have espied Maghavan ride when the armies of wind are behind him;
Food has been given for my tasting from heaven and fruit of immortal sweetness;
I have drunk wine of the kingdoms divine and have healed the change of music strange from a lyre which our hands cannot master,
Doors have swung wide in the chambers of pride where the Gods reside and the Apsaras dance in their circles faster and faster.
For thou art she whom we first can see when we pass the bounds of the mortal;
There at the gates of the heavenly states thou hast planted thy wand enchanted over the head of the Yogin waving.
From thee are the dream and the shadows that seem and the fugitive lights that delude us;
Thine is the shade in which visions are made; sped by thy hands from celestial lands come the souls that rejoice for ever.
Into thy dream-worlds we pass or look in thy magic glass, then beyond thee we climb out of Space and Time to the peak of divine endeavour. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems,#KEYS
35:
"The beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne d'Arc would, if seen by an Indian, have quite a different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of one's mind.... You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother; the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy; and others would give other names. It is the same force, the same power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths." Questions and Answers 1929 - 1931 (21 April 1929)
And then? You are not very talkative today! Is that all?
You say that "each person has his own world of dreamimagery peculiar to himself." Ibid.
Each individual has his own way of expressing, thinking, speaking, feeling, understanding. It is the combination of all these ways of being that makes the individual. That is why everyone can understand only according to his own nature. As long as you are shut up in your own nature, you can know only what is in your consciousness. All depends upon the height of the nature of your consciousness. Your world is limited to what you have in your consciousness. If you have a very small consciousness, you will understand only a few things. When your consciousness is very vast, universal, only then will you understand the world. If the consciousness is limited to your little ego, all the rest will escape you.... There are people whose brain and consciousness are smaller than a walnut. You know that a walnut resembles the brain; well these people look at things and don't understand them. They can understand nothing else except what is in direct contact with their senses. For them only what they taste, what they see, hear, touch has a reality, and all the rest simply does not exist, and they accuse us of speaking fancifully! "What I cannot touch does not exist", they say. But the only answer to give them is: "It does not exist for you, but there's no reason why it shouldn't exist for others." You must not insist with these people, and you must not forget that the smaller they are the greater is the audacity in their assertions.
One's cocksureness is in proportion to one's unconsciousness; the more unconscious one is, the more is one sure of oneself. The most foolish are always the most vain. Your stupidity is in proportion to your vanity. The more one knows... In fact, there is a time when one is quite convinced that one knows nothing at all. There's not a moment in the world which does not bring something new, for the world is perpetually growing. If one is conscious of that, one has always something new to learn. But one can become conscious of it only gradually. One's conviction that one knows is in direct proportion to one's ignorance and stupidity.
Mother, have the scientists, then, a very small consciousness?
Why? All scientists are not like that. If you meet a true scientist who has worked hard, he will tell you: "We know nothing. What we know today is nothing beside what we shall know tomorrow. This year's discoveries will be left behind next year." A real scientist knows very well that there are many more things he doesn't know than those he knows. And this is true of all branches of human activity. I have never met a scientist worthy of the name who was proud. I have never met a man of some worth who has told me: "I know everything." Those I have seen have always confessed: "In short, I know nothing." After having spoken of all that he has done, all that he has achieved, he tells you very quietly: "After all, I know nothing." ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1953, [T8],#KEYS
36:(Nirodbaran:) "It was the first week of January 1930.
At about 3 p.m., I reached Dilip Kumar Roy's place. "Oh, you have come! Let us go," he said, and cutting a rose from his terrace-garden he added, "Offer this to the Mother." When we arrived at the Ashram he left me at the present Reading Room saying, "Wait here." My heart was beating nervously as if I were going to face an examination. A stately chair in the middle of the room attracted momentarily my attention. In a short while the Mother came accompanied by Nolini, Amrita and Dilip. She took her seat in the chair, the others stood by her side. I was dazzled by the sight. Was it a ‘visionary gleam’ or a reality? Nothing like it had I seen before. Her fair complexion, set off by a finely coloured sari and a headband, gave me the impression of a goddess such as we see in pictures or in the idols during the Durga Puja festival. She was all smiles and redolent with grace. I suppose this was the Mahalakshmi smile Sri Aurobindo had spoken of in his book The Mother. She bathed me in the cascade of her smile and heart-melting look. I stood before her, shy and speechless, made more so by the presence of the others who were enjoying the silent sweet spectacle. Minutes passed. Then I offered to her hand my rose and did my pranam at her feet which had gold anklets on them. She stooped and blessed me. On standing up, I got again the same enchanting smile like moonbeams from a magic sky. After a time she said to the others, "He is very shy." "[1]
(Amal Kiran:) "Now to come back to all the people, all – the undamned all who were there in the Ashram. Very soon after my coming Dilip Kumar Roy came with Sahana Devi. They came and settled down. And, soon after that, I saw the face of my friend Nirod. It was of course an unforgettable face. (laughter) I think he had come straight from England or via some place in Bengal, but he carried something of the air of England. (laughter) He had passed out as a doctor at Edinburgh. I saw him, we became friends and we have remained friends ever since. But when he came as a doctor he was not given doctoring work here. As far as I remember he was made the head of a timber godown! (laughter) All sorts of strange jobs were being given to people. Look at the first job I got. The Mother once told me, "I would like you to do some work." I said, "All right, I am prepared to do some work." Then she said,"Will you take charge of our stock of furniture?" (laughter)"[2]
(Amal Kiran:) "To return to my friend Nirod – it was after some time that he got the Dispensary. I don't know whether he wanted it, or liked it or not, but he established his reputation as the frowning physician. (laughter) People used to come to him with a cold and he would stand and glare at them, and say, "What? You have a cold!" Poor people, they would simply shiver (laughter) and this had a very salutary effect because they thought that it was better not to fall ill than face the doctor's drastic disapproval of any kind of illness which would give him any botheration. (laughter) But he did his job all right, and every time he frightened off a patient he went to his room and started trying to write poetry (laughter) – because that, he thought, was his most important job. And, whether he succeeded as a doctor or not, as a poet he has eminently succeeded. Sri Aurobindo has really made him a poet.
The doctoring as well as the poetry was a bond between us, because my father had been a doctor and medicine ran in my blood. We used to discuss medical matters sometimes, but more often the problems and pains of poetry."[3] ~ https://wiki.auroville.org.in/wiki/Nirodbaran#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:The present moment is a powerful goddess. ~ johann-wolfgang-von-goethe, @wisdomtrove 2:The Goddess Fortune is the devil's servant, ready to kiss any one's ass. ~ william-blake, @wisdomtrove 3:“The exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success is our national disease.” ~ william-james, @wisdomtrove 4:Conversation, fastidious goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will. ~ virginia-woolf, @wisdomtrove 5:The Moon! Artemis! the great goddess of the splendid past of men! Are you going to tell me she is a dead lump? ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 6:To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 7:Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of activity; despair curses at midnight; hope blesses at noon. ~ benjamin-disraeli, @wisdomtrove 8:With complete attention, landscape celebrates that liturgy of the seasons, giving itself unreservedly to the passion of the goddess. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 9:my 6 foot goddess makes me laugh the laughter of the mutilated who still need love... she has saved me from everything that is not here ~ charles-bukowski, @wisdomtrove 10:The mares that take me as far as my spirit reached me transported me when, as they led me, they brought me to the road, abundant in signs of the goddess. ~ parmenides, @wisdomtrove 11:Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. ~ bertrand-russell, @wisdomtrove 12:In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 13:There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 14:Each of us is here to discover our higher self or our spiritual self. We must find out for ourself that inside us is a god or goddess in embryo that wants to be born so that we can express our divinity. ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove 15:Sring is the mantra of beauty. Traditionally it is connected with Lakshmi, the Indian goddess of beauty. Chant "Sring" slowly, elongating each sound. As you do, you will see the consciousness of beauty of everywhere. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove 16:The command "Be ye prfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and he is going to make good his words. He will make us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature... a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 17:I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women - at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not. ~ john-keats, @wisdomtrove 18:Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 19:Art is a window to The Infinite, and opening to the goddess, a portal through which you and I, with the help of the artist, may discover depths and heights of our soul undreamed of by the vulgar world. Art is the eye of the spirit, through which the sublime can reach down to us, and we up to it, and be transformed, transfigured in the process. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 20:The Goddess doesn't enter us from outside; she emerges from deep within. She is not held back by what happened in the past. She is conceived in consciousness, born in love, and nurtured by higher thinking. She is integrity and value, created and sustained by the hard work of personal growth and the discipline of a life lived actively in hope. ~ marianne-williamson, @wisdomtrove 21:The Aztec gods and goddesses are, as far as we have known anything about them, an unlovely and unlovable lot. In their myths there is no grace or charm, no poetry. Only this perpetual grudge, grudge, grudging, one god grudging another, the gods grudging men their existence, and men grudging the animals. The goddess of love is goddess of dirt and prostitution, a dirt-eater, a horror, without a touch of tenderness. ~ d-h-lawrence, @wisdomtrove 22:Do you know this Sanskrit Shloka: "Let those who are versed in the ethical codes praise or blame, let Lakshmi, the goddess of Fortune, come or go wherever she wisheth, let death overtake him today or after a century, the wise man never swerves from the path of rectitude." Let people praise you or blame you, let fortune smile or frown upon you, let your body fall today or after a Yuga, see that you do not deviate from the path of Truth. ~ swami-vivekananda, @wisdomtrove 23:Mankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove 24:She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty, old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his fact and hands, with hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! -she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the Lady of the Wood. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 25:The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate- each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 26:In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: is this not yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float quietly across the sky, is this not your own limitless Being, waving back at you? ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 27:The silence of landscape conceals vast presence. Place is not simply location. A place is a profound individuality. With complete attention, landscape celebrates the liturgy of the seasons, giving itself unreservedly to the passion of the goddess. The shape of a landscape is an ancient and silent form of consciousness. Mountains are huge contemplatives. Rivers and streams offer voice; they are the tears of the earth's joy and despair. The earth is full of soul ... .. Civilization has tamed place. Left to itself, the curvature of the landscape invites presence and the loyalty of stillness. ~ john-odonohue, @wisdomtrove 28:When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am resting in intrinsic Spirit; I am in fact nothing other than witnessing Spirit itself. I do not become Spirit; I simply recognize the Spirit that I always already am. When I rest in simple, clear, ever-present awareness, I am the Witness of the World. I am the eye of Spirit. I see the world as God sees it. I see the world as the Goddess sees it. I see the world as Spirit sees it: every object an object of Beauty, every thing and event a gesture of the Great Perfection, every process a ripple in the pond of my own eternal Being, so much so that I do not stand apart as a separate witness, but find the witness is one taste with all that arises within it. The entire Kosmos arises in the eye of Spirit, in the I of Spirit, in my own intrinsic awareness, this simple ever-present state, and I am simply that. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:naked goddess with ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
2:Nature is a bitch goddess. ~ Greg Bear, #NFDB
3:Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, ~ Yann Martel, #NFDB
4:Who does a goddess pray to? ~ Sarah Diemer, #NFDB
5:Bellona a Roman goddess of war ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
6:Angelo: It was always you, goddess. ~ L J Shen, #NFDB
7:Every girl is a goddess. ~ Francesca Lia Block, #NFDB
8:In every girl is a goddess. ~ Francesca Lia Block, #NFDB
9:I call myself a 'domestic goddess. ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
10:That Justice is a blind goddess ~ Langston Hughes, #NFDB
11:She looked like a fucking goddess. ~ Pepper Winters, #NFDB
12:Now the fair goddess, Fortune, ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
13:Clearly, the Goddess has a sense of humor. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
14:Goddess of song, teach me the story of a hero. ~ Homer, #NFDB
15:I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess. ~ Donna J Haraway, #NFDB
16:Love Goddess in training. It could happen. ~ Judy Tenuta, #NFDB
17:She was the goddess of... herself. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
18:Goddess of song, teach me the story
of a hero. ~ Homer,#NFDB
19:You're either a goddess ... or a doormat. ~ Pablo Picasso, #NFDB
20:I'm pretty much a goddess around here. ~ Christopher Healy, #NFDB
21:Love, you’re a goddess. You were never normal. ~ Lia Davis, #NFDB
22:You are a GODDESS when you leave the salon ~ Jenifer Lewis, #NFDB
23:And write about it, Goddess, and about it! ~ Alexander Pope, #NFDB
24:My inner goddess is celebrating her inner bitch ~ E L James, #NFDB
25:My inner goddess nods frantically in agreement. ~ E L James, #NFDB
26:Calling to the gods, she's every inch a goddess. ~ E L James, #NFDB
27:Love a woman as a goddess, then love becomes worship. ~ Osho, #NFDB
28:My inner goddess is celebrating her inner bitch. ~ E L James, #NFDB
29:My Inner goddess jumped and hid behind the couch ~ E L James, #NFDB
30:O goddess, bestow on my words an immortal charm. ~ Lucretius, #NFDB
31:Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles ~ Homer, #NFDB
32:The goddess of beauty is the goddess Kitsch. ~ Hermann Broch, #NFDB
33:You dare take a selfie with the cobra goddess? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
34:Is my Goddess a dirty girl who likes to watch?” She ~ Setta Jay, #NFDB
35:Chemistry dissolves the goddess in the alembic, ~ Kathleen Raine, #NFDB
36:My Angel, goddess of my heart, you are beautiful. ~ Jaimey Grant, #NFDB
37:A goddess I want to debase in every imaginable way. ~ Celia Aaron, #NFDB
38:And the storm was my nemesis, my goddess, my salvation ~ Amy Lane, #NFDB
39:He's (Jose Canseco) built like a Greek goddess. ~ Sparky Anderson, #NFDB
40:Let me BBQ the red headed bitch goddess - Simi ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
41:So, yeah. Our cat was a goddess. What else is new? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
42:The Goddess does not rule the world; She is the world. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
43:A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
44:A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
45:Men of action are favored by the Goddess of luck. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
46:Oh...oh, goddess, it's true about your tongues... ~ Savannah Stuart, #NFDB
47:Today, you are the goddess my universe revolves around. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
48:You might be a Disney prince, but I’m a goddess. ~ Kimberly Kincaid, #NFDB
49:So, yeah. Our cat was a goddess.
What else is new? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
50:You are a black goddess when you come out the salon. ~ Jenifer Lewis, #NFDB
51:There is no goddess to forgive me for what I never did. ~ Julie Berry, #NFDB
52:Marilyn was history's most phenomenal love goddess. ~ Philippe Halsman, #NFDB
53:The present moment is a powerful goddess. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
54:You're a goddess among those who think themselves demigods. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
55:MEN OF ACTION ARE FAVORED BY THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
56:The Goddess ethos is: living for love, light, and legacy. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
57:The present moment is a powerful goddess. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
58:What kind of god or goddess places a limit on love? ~ Esther M Friesner, #NFDB
59:Men of Action are Favored by the goddess of Good Luck. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
60:My inner goddess fist-pumps the air above her chaise lounge. ~ E L James, #NFDB
61:Nemesis the Greek goddess of revenge. Roman form: Invidia ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
62:I mean, who wants to be the fucking goddess of macrame? ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
63:My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves. ~ E L James, #NFDB
64:She looked beautiful, fierce, as terrible as a goddess. ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
65:My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves. ~ John Green, #NFDB
66:But, when the goddess' work is done,The woman's still remains. ~ Bret Harte, #NFDB
67:God, Brigham. You never told me you were a goddamn goddess. ~ Maggie Shayne, #NFDB
68:my very small inner goddess sways in a gentle victorious samba. ~ E L James, #NFDB
69:It's a good day when a goddess gets on the school-bus with you. ~ Barry Lyga, #NFDB
70:She was a vengeful goddess and her will was absolute. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
71:Taste this, and be henceforth among the Gods thyself a Goddess. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
72:Besides, if she’s a goddess, why hasn’t she busted herself out? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
73:But not every image is symbolic; not every woman is a goddess. ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
74:Oh, goodie! I get to make the redheaded goddess mad! (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
75:Reyna’s destiny: to die defending a passive-aggressive goddess. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
76:Beauty! Terrible Beauty! A deathless Goddess-- so she strikes our eyes! ~ Homer, #NFDB
77:The goddess of crustaceans, our lady of hard exoskeletons. ~ Krystal Sutherland, #NFDB
78:At first the ancient images of the Goddess did not interest me. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
79:I have called on the Goddess and found her within myself ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
80:My inner goddess has left the building and taken my libido with her. ~ E L James, #NFDB
81:We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
82:goddess must have had a herd of stealth cows patrolling Manhattan. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
83:Society has sacrificed its virtues to the Goddess of Getting Along. ~ John Ruskin, #NFDB
84:A creepy cave,” I said. “The goddess of ghosts. What’s not to like? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
85:Beauty! Terrible Beauty!
A deathless Goddess-- so she strikes our eyes! ~ Homer,#NFDB
86:Our baboon was going completely sky goddess - which is to say, nuts. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
87:It’s wrong to want to protect you? To keep you above my shit? A goddess? ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
88:Those items your woman is looking at are a gift from the goddess, you oaf! ~ A R Von, #NFDB
89:Being brave enough to just be unapologetic for who you are‚ that's a goddess. ~ BANKS, #NFDB
90:Jailbait," he declared, leaping up. "You're a saint. A goddess, even. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
91:Be kind to your body, woman, goddess Be kind to it because others may not ~ Kat Savage, #NFDB
92:Job is we kill a goddess and save the world. Let’s not complicate it. ~ Daniel Abraham, #NFDB
93:Pull on your goddess panties, my dear. It's time to come out swinging. ~ Courtney Cole, #NFDB
94:You're much better off as a love goddess to die around the age of 40. ~ Sylvia Kristel, #NFDB
95:No god, goddess, or spirit would ever inhabit or employ a chicken. ~ Michael J Sullivan, #NFDB
96:the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. ~ Homer, #NFDB
97:The Goddess does not shower her gifts on those who reject them. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
98:She was a goddess of torment and understood the eloquence of violence. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
99:The Goddess Fortune is the devil's servant, ready to kiss any one's ass. ~ William Blake, #NFDB
100:The Goddess is one and even if She has many names, She's in every woman. ~ Laura Tolomei, #NFDB
101:Vera incessu patuit dea.
(The goddess indubitable was revealed in her step.) ~ Virgil,#NFDB
102:A court of rotting corpses to worship at the feet of the goddess of death. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
103:By Jove, Poirot,’ I exclaimed, ‘did you see that young goddess?’ Poirot ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
104:I hope to grow another head and two more hands, like an Indian goddess. ~ Bibhu Mohapatra, #NFDB
105:I’m not surprised to feel myself trembling. I’m touching my goddess. ~ Karen Marie Moning, #NFDB
106:the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess sucess is our national disease ~ William James, #NFDB
107:My little Dolly wasn’t my fucking slave. She was my goddess, a fucking titan ~ Tillie Cole, #NFDB
108:To defy the God of Progress is often to marry the Goddess of Poverty. ~ David James Duncan, #NFDB
109:I am not sure the God exists; but I have no doubt of the Goddess existence. ~ M F Moonzajer, #NFDB
110:My sister might be twice
the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch ~ Madeline Miller,#NFDB
111:You're a goddess. I love you. I'll never stop loving you." It felt like a vow. ~ L H Cosway, #NFDB
112:A goddess of black veils and dark prophesies, a goddess of night sighs. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov, #NFDB
113:I flush,and my inner goddess grabs a rose between her teeth and starts to tango. ~ E L James, #NFDB
114:She was the goddess of...herself. And he could not look away from her. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
115:A goddess of black veils and dark prophesies, a goddess of night sighs. ~ Velimir Khlebnikov, #NFDB
116:Eminent artist M.F. Husain portrayed her as the goddess Durga astride a tiger. ~ Coomi Kapoor, #NFDB
117:Houston stretches out before us, a modern goddess, bruised by not defeated. ~ Julia Heaberlin, #NFDB
118:My inner goddess is jumping up and down, clapping her hands like a five year old. ~ E L James, #NFDB
119:You have pleased your Goddess well. Your attentions will be required often.” More ~ Setta Jay, #NFDB
120:ANY FOOL CAN GET INTO AN OCEAN
BUT IT TAKES A GODDESS
TO GET OUT OF ONE. ~ Jack Spicer,#NFDB
121:Don’t lose hope, Frank. Rainbows always stand for hope. - Iris, Rainbow Goddess ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
122:Houston stretches out before us, a modern goddess, bruised but not defeated. ~ Julia Heaberlin, #NFDB
123:I am a Cajun Baby in a Texas girl, an all-American woman and a global goddess. ~ Erin Cummings, #NFDB
124:The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed. ~ Mao Zedong,#NFDB
125:Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law My services are bound. Wherefore ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
126:The Goddess's ways are not always clear.
No, but they are always interesting. ~ P C Cast,#NFDB
127:To feel like a woman, wear heels, to feel like a goddess, wear five inches. ~ Christian Louboutin, #NFDB
128:Goddess is nature and God is how nature is perceived by the human imagination. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
129:I hate to tell you this,” Jason said, “but I think your leopard just ate a goddess. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
130:... in the end, Goddess is just a word. It simply means the divine in female form. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
131:I vow to interpret every experience as a direct healing of the Goddess with my soul. ~ Rob Brezsny, #NFDB
132:I was a sinner, and she was my only prayer. A deity. The only goddess I worshipped. ~ Belle Aurora, #NFDB
133:The Venus flytrap, a devouring organism, aptly named for the goddess of love. ~ Tennessee Williams, #NFDB
134:All gods are one God, and all goddesses are one Goddess, and there is one Initiator. ~ Dion Fortune, #NFDB
135:Nothing could make me pull away meat-market love goddess. My sexy little filet mignon ~ John Corwin, #NFDB
136:Violence cannot destroy the body of the Goddess, for Her body is the world itself. ~ Rachel Pollack, #NFDB
137:Call upon the Goddess and God to protect you and teach you the secrets of magic. ~ Scott Cunningham, #NFDB
138:Goddess is the deep Source of creating integrity and the Self-affirming be-ing of women. ~ Mary Daly, #NFDB
139:. . . in the end, Goddess is just a word. It simply means the divine in female form. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
140:Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
141:You are my cock slut, my sex goddess, and my beautiful girl. That's all you need to know. ~ K I Lynn, #NFDB
142:A goddess of dawn
scooted under a zing of barbed wire
to witness your birth. ~ Yusef Komunyakaa,#NFDB
143:A man looks at a “sex goddess” and lusts. A man looks at a feminine woman and worships. ~ Larry Crabb, #NFDB
144:Let's not forget that in India the symbol of strength is a woman; the goddess Shakti. ~ Indira Gandhi, #NFDB
145:That moment was when she realized that every woman is a broken goddess. Every last one. ~ Cole McCade, #NFDB
146:The words I am about to express:
They now have their own crowned goddess. ~ Gabriel Garc a M rquez,#NFDB
147:Endeavors that help me satisfy you, my goddess of desire, pleasure, and corny one-liners. ~ Sylvia Day, #NFDB
148:Find the goddess inside yourself instead of looking for the god in someone else. ~ Francesca Lia Block, #NFDB
149:Imagine, if you will, this abstraction brought to life: a bourgeois Goddess. ~ Villiers de L Isle Adam, #NFDB
150:Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared. a ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
151:The goddess Nemesis, Bertol Grimmer’s favourite motif after the War. The goddess of revenge. ~ Jo Nesb, #NFDB
152:The moon rose, an opalescent goddess tipping light from her harsh maternal scimitar. ~ Gregory Maguire, #NFDB
153:You’re like a statue of some fucking Greek goddess, made out of the most perfect marble. ~ Callie Hart, #NFDB
154:You think I'm not a goddess? Try me. This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
155:But (Peresphone) was like, the goddess of flowers." Grover looked offended. "Springtime. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
156:Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy sideThy every action let the goddess guide. ~ Phillis Wheatley, #NFDB
157:Though both are bound in the spiral dance, I would rather be a cyborg than a goddess. ~ Donna J Haraway, #NFDB
158:What sorcery is this?” he snarled. “I lie down with a goddess and wake up to an old hag? ~ Tracy Brogan, #NFDB
159:Bridget Jones, wanton sex goddess, with a very bad man between her thighs... Mum... Hi. ~ Helen Fielding, #NFDB
160:Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess? ~ Ludwig van Beethoven, #NFDB
161:His second motto: Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy laws my services are bound. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss, #NFDB
162:Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Hate me because I’m a domestic GODDESS and beautiful. ~ Coco J Ginger, #NFDB
163:If there really was a goddess like Sedna who ruled the world, her real name was Bitch Irony. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
164:Opportunity is a haughty goddess who wastes no time with those who are unprepared." "You ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
165:What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and I'm about to become a goddess of vengeance. ~ Steph Campbell, #NFDB
166:Your faction relationship with the Goddess has improved from Hateful Bastard to Funny Little Shit. ~ D Rus, #NFDB
167:A queen keeps a court that is spoken about. A goddess keeps a court that is never forgotten. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
168:WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?’ Wadjet roared. ‘YOU DARE TAKE A SELFIE WITH THE COBRA GODDESS? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
169:WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Wadjet roared. “YOU DARE TAKE A SELFIE WITH THE COBRA GODDESS? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
170:If a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right. ~ Ina May Gaskin, #NFDB
171:I thought maybe I would become a god, or a goddess, or a president or a Nobel Prize winner. ~ Amelie Nothomb, #NFDB
172:I will rise from the ashes of the old ways to become Phenïx, the goddess of . . . accessions. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
173:She wears strength and darkness equally well, the girl has always been half goddess, half hell ~ Nikita Gill, #NFDB
174:...you ask me why I compare you to stars - it's simple - that's where your goddess has fled... ~ John Geddes, #NFDB
175:Your mom is a rainbow goddess?" "You got a problem with that?" "No, no. Rainbows. Very macho. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
176:Patriarchy may try to negate body and flee earth, but #Goddess forces us back to embrace them ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
177:Tell me who is able to keep his bed chaste, or which goddess is able to live with one god alone? ~ Propertius, #NFDB
178:There floats above the houses
The implacable goddess of love
With your life in her fist. ~ Alice Oswald,#NFDB
179:He was proud of his "hometown" goddess, even if he hadn't found his one true pairing (OTP) yet. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
180:Lamia is goddess of some-some.” When Lamia scowled, Nïx shrugged. “I calls ’em like I sees ’em. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
181:standing there in that glittering dress and wielding flame like some sort of avenging goddess. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
182:Sir Francis, recognising the statue, whispered, "The goddess Kali; the goddess of love and death. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
183:The goddess has never been lost. It is just that some of us have forgotten how to find her. ~ Patricia Monaghan, #NFDB
184:Ultimately, the body is just a shell; it is the soul which defines the man or woman, god or goddess. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
185:I never really thought of myself as a sex goddess; I felt I was more a comedian who could dance. ~ Rita Hayworth, #NFDB
186:My inner goddess is draped in a pink feather boa and diamonds, strutting her stuff in fuck-me shoes. ~ E L James, #NFDB
187:The beginning is the very best place to start. Julie Andrews said so, and she is a literal goddess. ~ Lyla Payne, #NFDB
188:Caissa, the goddess of chess, had punished me for my conservative play, for betraying my nature. ~ Garry Kasparov, #NFDB
189:My lady had the body of a siren, the face of a goddess, and the mind of an Armenian camel dealer. ~ Louis L Amour, #NFDB
190:That girl was a goddess and once a guy got hooked on her it was damn hard weaning off. - Drake ~ Victoria H Smith, #NFDB
191:You are a golden goddess, beautiful and kind. If I had such a sister, I would never let her go. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
192:Aphrodite (‘foam-born’) is the same wide-ruling goddess who rose from Chaos and danced on the sea, ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
193:Bedtime tales, myths, legends, fairy tales, lie the lessons and examples of what a Goddess would do. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
194:For the sake of clarity, goddess, when it comes to me, that’s not in your vocabulary. I don’t hear it. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
195:It is strange to think of a goddess needing friends.” “All creatures that are not mad need them. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
196:I was fourteen when I fell in love with a goddess. Goddesses have that effect, even on teenagers. ~ Debbie Howells, #NFDB
197:My inner goddess confirms that staring at a beautiful/rich/powerful face is the basis of True Love. ~ Jess C Scott, #NFDB
198:Oh come on. You treat her like a Greek goddess and act like a lap dog around her. It is embarrassing. ~ Wesley Chu, #NFDB
199:The Goddess teaches us that every ending is also a beginning. May there be rebirth from this death. ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
200:To one, science is an exalted goddess; to another it is a cow which provides him with butter. ~ Friedrich Schiller, #NFDB
201:Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"
"You got a problem with that?"
"No, no. Rainbows. Very macho. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
202:Frank nodded grimly. “Well…any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can’t be all bad. Let’s go. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
203:Okay, that makes sense. But just so you know, I have no warts. I am an ethereal goddess of perfection. ~ Penny Reid, #NFDB
204:The apothecary, the monk and the living Goddess went to war. We sound like the start of a joke. ~ Melinda Salisbury, #NFDB
205:Who wants to be a goddess when we can be human? Perfection is a flaw disguised as control. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
206:And I’d ask the goddess to give my brother back. It was the only way to bring my family back together. ~ Andrew Rowe, #NFDB
207:You are a goddess. You are a catch. You are, like, the outcome of every self-help book ever written. ~ Georgia Clark, #NFDB
208:People make their own reality, goddess. We hate and we love for reasons that are known only to us. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
209:Empathy for the plight of the Goddess may be essential in seeing how to face our own plight on Earth. ~ John Lamb Lash, #NFDB
210:he imagined fate as a goddess, capricious and fickle, or as a river, which could flood at any moment ~ Takashi Hiraide, #NFDB
211:Her new powers surging, she went to have a long overdue Come-to-Jesus talk with the goddess. (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
212:Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
213:I may be indigent in name, position, and in appearance, but in my own mind I am an unrivaled goddess - ~ Muriel Barbery, #NFDB
214:May the fairy goddess light your footsteps with stars, and may your travels be fair, however far you roam. ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
215:Oh, fantastic," Vic muttered. "Just bloody fantastic. The goddess has given me to a bleeding pacifist- ~ Jennifer Estep, #NFDB
216:The idea here was to look like she happend to be a sex goddess, not like she spent the entire day on it. ~ Linda Holmes, #NFDB
217:This," I said, "is a modern, nontraditional representation of Quan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy. ~ Marion G Harmon, #NFDB
218:I would be the master of my own fate. Me and the goddess Morrigan. No one else—and certainly no man. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
219:You've been a bitch, goddess. That's over. From now on, you step when I say walk. You eat when I feed you... ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
220:I’m a goddess right now; everyone should come and offer gifts of chocolate and mojitos. That’s my currency. ~ Lila Monroe, #NFDB
221:Tell him, too,” she said, “never to pluck flowers, and to think every bush may be a goddess in disguise. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
222:The Goddess of History looked down to earth. Only through the hottest fires can purification be achieved. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
223:Devil, it was game over. His goddess had gone to war on his defences and was now assured of her victory. ~ Jennifer Ashley, #NFDB
224:The goddess of assassins has tasted my blood, he thought, and he wondered if she liked it, and wanted more. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
225:Conversation, fastidious goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will. ~ Virginia Woolf, #NFDB
226:Mother Astarte who creates and destroys. Kybele, goddess of all that is, was, and ever shall be,” he invoked. ~ Karen Essex, #NFDB
227:You were the goddess I longed to worship. My unobtainable dream. The relationship I could never hope to have. ~ Tara Sue Me, #NFDB
228:I suggested that my patron goddess should take sensual pleasure, though I didn't put it quite in those terms. ~ Steven Brust, #NFDB
229:She smells like angels ought to smell, the perfect woman... the Goddess. Goldie. She says her name is Goldie. ~ Frank Miller, #NFDB
230:Are you a witch? A vulture, a hieroglyph, the sign or the name of a goddess? What sort of goddess is this? Who are you? ~ H D, #NFDB
231:I’m a goddess right now; everyone should come and offer gifts of chocolate and mojitos. That’s my currency. “Do ~ Lila Monroe, #NFDB
232:I’m not a warrior or a goddess,” I said at last. Adrian leaned closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
233:The Moon! Artemis! the great goddess of the splendid past of men! Are you going to tell me she is a dead lump? ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
234:As for you, well, you may be a goddess but I figure I’ve got a fighting chance at fucking you into submission. ~ Morgan Blayde, #NFDB
235:Goddess, why had she resisted his advances for over six months? He was a prince, yes, but he was her prince. ~ Juliana Haygert, #NFDB
236:Only by discovering and loving the goddess lost within our rejected body can we hear our own authentic voice. ~ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
237:Through the Goddess, we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
238:And his mother, especially as Botticelli had painted her and Auge carved her, seemed like a perfectly nice goddess. ~ Jo Walton, #NFDB
239:Her face had an imperious, timeless quality that I’d learned to recognize. It meant I’m a goddess; deal with it. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
240:Her gray eyes clear, the goddess Athena answered, "Down from the skies I come to check your rage if only you will yield ~ Homer, #NFDB
241:You know when I feel inwardly beautiful? When I am with my girlfriends and we are having a 'goddess circle'. ~ Jennifer Aniston, #NFDB
242:Archaeology profs aren't supernatural minions of a vengeful goddess," Patricia pointed out.
"Want to bet? ~ Allyson James,#NFDB
243:In Goddess religion death is not feared, but is understood to be a part of life, followed by birth and renewal. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
244:In time, Radha became a goddess in her own right, the symbol of sacrifice, surrender and unconditional love. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
245:Your mom is a rainbow goddess?” “Got a problem with that?” Butch said. “No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Very macho. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
246:Anytime you feel love for anything, be it stone, tree, lover, or child, you are touched by the Goddess's magick... ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
247:Maya, Indian goddess of illusions. Siren of shipwrecked sailors. If only you lactated Pinot Noir, you’d be perfect. ~ Rex Pickett, #NFDB
248:Nefertiti is like Athena born from the brow of Zeus, a head-heavy armored goddess. She is beautiful but desexed. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
249:What’s your real name?” I asked.
“Zusane,” she said. “Zusane Zaksauskas. But now I am Gobija, goddess of fire. ~ Joe Schreiber,#NFDB
250:And now I'm here for you, Megan. I am enchanted, as surely as if you were the goddess and I the mortal."
-Owen ~ Laura Kaye,#NFDB
251:Inside me! I gasp, and all the muscles deep in my belly clench. My inner goddess is doing the dance of the seven veils. ~ E L James, #NFDB
252:Sleep is a very capricious goddess, and it is precisely when she is invoked that she delays coming.
- Page 184 ~ Alexandre Dumas,#NFDB
253:To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia - to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
254:Twilight makes us pensive; Aurora is the goddess of activity; despair curses at midnight; hope blesses at noon. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
255:God may be in the details, but the goddess is in the questions. Once we begin to ask them, there's no turning back. ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
256:I’m not a warrior or a goddess,” I said at last.
Adrian leaned closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
257:The female statue is the Greek goddess of truth, and the two twins beside her are the Greek gods of fear and terror. ~ Bella Forrest, #NFDB
258:The goddess shrugged. ''One of my sons recently traded an eye for the ability to make a real difference in the world. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
259:The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts - Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
260:Traitor!" Hera shouted. "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
261:As for the goddess’s answer, I did not care. I would have no need of her. I did not plan to live after he was gone. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
262:If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
263:Goddess was made in my home in France. The material retained an integrity whit it would have lost in Los Angeles studio. ~ Mick Jagger, #NFDB
264:If the goddess—and that would be me, by the way—is displeased, you’ll get bats in your hair and mice in your boots. ~ Cherise Sinclair, #NFDB
265:Nïx paused dramatically. “I will rise from the ashes of the old ways to become Phenïx, the goddess of . . . accessions. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
266:Sweet Goddess, born of a blinding light and a changing wind, don't be modest - you know who you are and where you've been. ~ Bob Dylan, #NFDB
267:No one thinks to make the goddess a cup of tea; they just ply her with useless perfumed oils and impotent carved fetishes. ~ Jade Chang, #NFDB
268:That evening, she went from knock-kneed tomboy to Greek goddess in the space of twenty-two short, red-carpeted steps. ~ Suzanne Rindell, #NFDB
269:Yannick Grannec is the author of The Goddess of Small Victories , her debut novel about the life and marriage of one of the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
270:Her track, where'er the goddess roves, Glory pursue, and gen'rous shame, Th' unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame. ~ Thomas Gray, #NFDB
271:I never do anything fun, because I'm a housewife. I hate that word 'housewife.' I prefer to be called 'domestic goddess.' ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
272:Of all the merfolk, Keeper loved Yemaya best. Goddess of the deep. Yemaya. If you gave her a gift, she might grant a wish. ~ Kathi Appelt, #NFDB
273:The world which worships Mother Mary and goddess Durga also has experienced such heinous crimes against her daughters. ~ Debajani Mohanty, #NFDB
274:witch. A goddess. Someone not of this earth but not apart from it either. A woman to be loved and feared and adored. ~ Melissa de la Cruz, #NFDB
275:you are ares' lost sister.
goddess of sedated battles and lost girls.
always full of other people and never yourself. ~ Salma Deera,#NFDB
276:He held a goddess in his mind as one might cup a butterfly in one’s hands. Keeping it safe just long enough to set it free. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
277:I knew, right then, that no matter how bedraggled I looked or how blank he tried to keep his face, I was a goddess to him. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
278:Oh Heavenly Father, goddess mother, spirits of the universe, let our vibrations be positive and our actions harmonious. ~ Karen McQuestion, #NFDB
279:Ala!" Echo sprang to her feet, legs tangled in the sheets. The Ala was here. The Ala had brought food. The Ala was a goddess ~ Melissa Grey, #NFDB
280:Enough of passivity and passing time while waiting for the boy friend, the girl friend, the Goddess, or the Revolution. ~ Gloria E Anzaldua, #NFDB
281:The goddess of Battles visits warriors only once. He who does not grasp her at such a moment never reaches her again. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
282:The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
283:Beneath the vast diamond sky, I felt both all important and utterly significant, the goddess and the damned in equal measure. ~ Sarah Ockler, #NFDB
284:After all, the Indo-European word cunt was derived from the goddess Kunda or Cunti, and shares the same root as kin and country. ~ Eve Ensler, #NFDB
285:But it must be hard living the Lily Maid, the Goddess-Virgin, and the other all at once. Humans just do smell bad sometimes. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
286:In Wicca, rituals are ceremonies which celebrate and strengthen our relationships with the Goddess, the God and the Earth. ~ Scott Cunningham, #NFDB
287:Leo choked. ‘Your mom is a rainbow goddess?’ ‘Got a problem with that?’ Butch said. ‘No, no,’ Leo said. ‘Rainbows. Very macho. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
288:Leo choked. “Your mom is a rainbow goddess?” “Got a problem with that?” Butch said. “No, no,” Leo said. “Rainbows. Very macho. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
289:The voice of an Angel, the Heart of a Lamb, the spirit of a Lioness, the presence of a Goddess, love you R.I.P Whitney Houston. ~ Wyclef Jean, #NFDB
290:Consider the logistics of a god who has eight arms and three penises coupling with a goddess who has four arms and nine vaginas. ~ Steve Perry, #NFDB
291:Everything is fine and bright. Day must follow every night. My power keeps me safe from harm. The Goddess holds me in her arms. ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
292:Her mother chose to martyr herself to some domestic goddess routine that everybody else in the world had wised up to long ago. ~ Jean Thompson, #NFDB
293:The young girl looked at me, her eyes colder and brighter than the winter moon. "I am Artemis," she said. "Goddess of the Hunt. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
294:I am the goddess of the Mist,” Hecate explained. “I am responsible for keeping the veil that separates the world of the gods from ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
295:I remember performing on a punk stage with no mic in the middle of a mosh pit. My act was called "How to Be a Domestic Goddess." ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
296:The stories Essie most loved were ones about the Skyweaver, a goddess who spun souls into stars and wove them into the sky. ~ Kristen Ciccarelli, #NFDB
297:You’ll never know that just sitting across a room full of people, I have transformed you into a goddess. A destroyer of despair. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
298:an off-screen persona of Globally Conscious Earth Mother and an aggressive on-screen embodiment of Kali, Goddess of Destruction. ~ Angelina Jolie, #NFDB
299:I met a goddess.” “Well, these things happen,” said Slate. “Except, wait, no, they don’t. What the hell? Why’d you meet a goddess? ~ T Kingfisher, #NFDB
300:The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished, and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. ~ James G Frazer, #NFDB
301:As far as the gods go, right now is a trickster moment we’re living in, more than goddess time, Zeus time, or any other kind of time. ~ Martin Shaw, #NFDB
302:I just shook hands with a naked goddess. What was that she called you? She-ya-han? Does that mean dumbass in Old Irish or something? ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
303:He was the god of tide-lap and wingbeat, talon and pearl. She was the goddess of … herself. And he could not look away from her. ~ Stephanie Perkins, #NFDB
304:Next they passed a beautiful statue of a winged lady. “Who’s that?” said Jack. “She’s Nike, the goddess of victory,” said Plato. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
305:It was that—her reticence, he decided. That was what elevated her from woman to goddess, from merely stylish to perfection itself. ~ Melanie Benjamin, #NFDB
306:When the Greek goddess Hera married Zeus, the goddess Gaia created three golden apples and gave them to Hera as a wedding gift. ~ Denise Grover Swank, #NFDB
307:All my thoughts are of Aislinn Granville. She is the air I breathe. The beat of my heart. The light to my dark. The goddess of my dreams. ~ Tara Leigh, #NFDB
308:But hail, thou Goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the Sense of human sight.
~ John Milton,#NFDB
309:Crusty and Cross here,' he says and I grin. He’s still playful Fifty. My inner goddess is clapping her hands with glee like a small child. ~ E L James, #NFDB
310:We must find out for ourselves that inside us is a god or goddess in embryo that wants to be born so that we can express our divinity. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
311:May the four winds gather & disperse the strength to grant me with all the same blessings once bestowed upon the goddess of Olympus. ~ Truth Devour, #NFDB
312:You forget I’m a goddess,” she hissed. “Your goddess.”
And a bitch as well. But then, weren’t all goddesses afflicted with bitchery? ~ Kresley Cole,#NFDB
313:Accordingly, the fertility goddess is both mother and virgin, the hetaera who belongs to no man but is ready to give herself to any man. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
314:Calypso the goddess nymph of the mythical island of Ogygia; a daughter of the Titan Atlas. She detained the hero Odysseus for many years. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
315:May we enter, my goddess? I have a nervous old woman out here who is about to wet himself with worry that his brother is dead." Caleb ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
316:Because a goddess's job isn't to be good. It's to have compelling stories lyre players can tell about her at the court of kings and princes. ~ Guy Branum, #NFDB
317:James chuckled. “You’re the worst goddess I’ve ever met.”
“Calliope’s the worst goddess you’ve ever met. I’m just the most incompetent. ~ Aimee Carter,#NFDB
318:Since the Goddess always has been honored in sacred groves, it is understandable that patriarchs, then as now, leaned toward deforestation. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
319:This time the senators met in the temple of the goddess Concord, or Harmony, a sure sign that affairs of state were anything but harmonious. ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
320:Writing is done by someone. It is not, like some mythical goddess, a skill that springs forth, full grown from the genes of inspiration. ~ Leonard Bishop, #NFDB
321:Keep eating me up with those eyes, little Goddess, and I’ll be so deep inside that hot little pussy you won’t remember what you came here for. ~ Setta Jay, #NFDB
322:my 6 foot goddess makes me laugh the laughter of the mutilated who still need love... she has saved me from everything that is not here ~ Charles Bukowski, #NFDB
323:Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like - Here Mr. Brown paused again. Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. ~ Laura Whitcomb, #NFDB
324:You are a principal work, a fragment of [Goddess herself], you have in yourself a part of [her]. Why then are you ignorant of your high birth? ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
325:In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
326:I should know, for I am Morgaine le Fay, priestess of the Isle of Avalon, where the ancient religion of the Mother Goddess is born. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
327:When Lynette described everything that had happened, the puzzle pieces fell into place from my last vision. Goddess, I hate figurative language. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
328:You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind.” -Hera, goddess of marriage ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
329:I understood something then. My sister might be twice the goddess I was, but I was twice the witch. Her crumbling trash could not help me. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
330:The Goddess has a fourth face. It is secret, and you should prey, as I do, as I do Igraine, that Morgause will never wear that face. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
331:We mythologized our aircraft encounter into the Goddess Aphrodite's design, act one, schene one of a primordial narrative, the love story. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
332:All I know is, she is the wild warrior goddess with the flaming sword of righteousness. Do not mess with her, man, or she will fuck you up. ~ Shannon McKenna, #NFDB
333:I almost ask her, “Short or tall?” but catch myself just in time. She’s an Irish goddess. If I give her a tiny glass of beer she will hurt me. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
334:Leo almost jumped out of his tool belt. He turned...and mentally kicked himself. He just had to invoke Adidas, the goddess of off-brand shoes. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
335:Like one kissed by a goddess in a dream, he walked on air; and, while one is walking on air, it is easy to overlook the boulders in the path. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
336:You look amazing.”
“Thank you. You look pretty good.” Understatement.
“Oh this old thing? Shucks,” he said.
“Dork.”
“Goddess. ~ Chelsea M Cameron,#NFDB
337:Cutting through the roar of the wind, the goddess Nike screamed from the stables: “YOU CAN DO BETTER, STORM! GIVE ME A HUNDRED AND TEN PERCENT! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
338:For once you’re right, brother dear,’ Sadie said. ‘As much as I’d love to be a literal goddess, I suppose I’ll have to remain a figurative one. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
339:I'm obsessed with Greek mythology. My favorite goddess is Artemis. She's strong and reminds me of Katniss, the heroine of The Hunger Games. ~ Isabelle Fuhrman, #NFDB
340:She thinks petting me is an honor. This is an unexpected position to take for a goddess of slaughter, but I applaud her defiance of convention. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
341:Your fates are entwined. Either you mate or the Goddess must release the Radiant One back to the fate she was destined to have on Earth—death. ~ Mychal Daniels, #NFDB
342:Hail, Piper McLean,” Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at her funeral. “Daughter of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
343:Have you no more memories?' I am made of memories. The memories come, and come. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
344:If you were a girl with a brain and a dawning sense that you wanted to grow into something more than a wife, Mary Tyler Moore was your goddess. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
345:I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible. Was she now a goddess or a monster? Perhaps neither. Perhaps both. ~ R F Kuang, #NFDB
346:This sounds to me like you're telling me no...For the sake of clarity, goddess, when it comes to me, that's not in your vocabulary. I don't hear it. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
347:Never underestimate a woman simply because she is a woman. The Goddess of Life is female, and She is the only thing in this world mightier than death. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
348:Wisdom requires no form; her beauty must vary, as varies the beauty of flame. She is no motionless goddess, for ever couched on her throne. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck, #NFDB
349:Fiery goddess in search of the perfect god. Soar with me through clouds, frolic under the stars, hand me the moon for my own. Mortals need not reply. ~ Kate Perry, #NFDB
350:Actions speak louder than words. In the days to come the Goddess of Victory will bestow her laurels only on those who prepared to act with daring. ~ Heinz Guderian, #NFDB
351:Eight months of his life stolen. Next time Percy saw the Queen of Olympus, he was definitely going to give her a goddess-sized slap upside the head. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
352:In art and mythology, the Goddess appears in three forms. White represents the virgin, red the mother, and black, the crone, or the death-goddess. ~ Erin O Riordan, #NFDB
353:Lakshmi, the Goddess of wealth, comes of Her own accord where fools are not respected, grain is well stored up, and the husband and wife do not quarrel. ~ Chanakya, #NFDB
354:Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time. ~ Jane Yolen, #NFDB
355:A Goddess religion should be out in the open, not underground as it is right now. A Goddess religion would cause men to look at women differently. ~ Barbara G Walker, #NFDB
356:Pessimism is not good for the soul."
"I sold my soul years ago."
"To whom?"
"The bitch goddess Success. She cut town before paying off. ~ Jonathan Kellerman,#NFDB
357:True poetry (inspired by the Muse and her prime symbol, the moon) even today is a survival, or intuitive re-creation, of the ancient Goddess-worship. ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
358:Furies, Alecto. In classic mythology, Tisiphone and Megaera and Alecto, daughters of the earth goddess Gaea, punished crimes in the name of the victims. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
359:Personally, I don't think that having a water goddess for an ancestress is a guarantee of freedom against seasickness, nor come to that, shipwreck. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
360:The key to your power is simple: love. Love is strength. Your compassion is commanding. Your ability to heal is hailing. Let this be your Goddess ethos. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
361:Venus, a beautiful, good-natured lady, was the goddess of love; Juno, a terrible shrew, the goddess of marriage: and they were always mortal enemies. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
362:Aphrodite just kept smiling.
Because she was just doing what a goddess does-the same way that a tornado rips houses apart or a fire burns down a forest. ~ L J Smith,#NFDB
363:did he realize he was about to knowingly pair a Harpy with the goddess of Anarchy. Great. He’d be lucky if his head was still attached in the morning. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
364:Inside every woman there is a Kali. [Hindu goddess who morphed into seven hidden beings to win a battle] Do not mistake the exterior for the interior. ~ Jennifer Beals, #NFDB
365:Nell wagged her feathery tail. It was good when the goddess descended from the clouds and spoke to you; it gave you a cozy safe feeling in your inside. ~ D E Stevenson, #NFDB
366:She opened one eye. “The goddess Artemis is going to talk to the supreme god Zeus … about me?”
“Yup.”
She closed her eyes again. “I’m so not okay. ~ Rosanna Leo,#NFDB
367:He’d spent enough time thinking he was a mistake—as a demigod, on this quest, in life in general. He didn’t need a random crazy goddess reinforcing the idea. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
368:There comes a time in a girl’s life when she has to reach deep down into her soul, clear the pathways of her inner goddess, and let out her nuclear Satan. ~ Meghan Quinn, #NFDB
369:(By the way: her mom is Athena, the goddess of wisdom. My dad is Poseidon. We’re Greek demigods. Just thought I should mention that, you know, in passing.) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
370:To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia—to mistake an ordinary young man for a Greek god or an ordinary young woman for a goddess. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
371:You should have told them about him. (Artemis)
Told them what, Artemis? Behave or the bitch-goddess will unleash her insane killer on you? (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
372:Am I really going to die?” Cimil’s face lit up with shock. “Jeez. What kind of goddess do you think I am? We just met, and I only kill people I know. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, #NFDB
373:Each Goddess story tells a very real lesson: that women are magic. That women have the power to remove the illusion that we are all separate from each other. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
374:Laughing joyously, Kalona stood, and just before the curtain to the Otherworld closed, he took his Goddess into his arms and lost himself in her welcoming kiss. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
375:Men who care passionately for women attach themselves at least as much to the temple and to the accessories of the cult as to their goddess herself. ~ Marguerite Yourcenar, #NFDB
376:The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
377:Oh, Fortuna, blind, heedless goddess, I am strapped to your wheel,' Ignatius belched, 'Do not crush me beneath your spokes. Raise me on high, divinity. ~ John Kennedy Toole, #NFDB
378:That was Hera,” Thalia grumbled. “Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon.” “That’s it, Thalia Grace,” said the goddess. “I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me— ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
379:The Goddess does not rule the world; She is the world. Manifest in each of us, She can be known internally by every individual, in all her magnificent diversity. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
380:Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
381:She’s sunshine and fresh air and the northern lights. She’s a goddess, through and through with playful eyes and a smile that will knock you flat on your back. ~ Karina Halle, #NFDB
382:Maybe I had been subconsciously waiting to find a man who would treat me the way a woman deserved to be treated... like a queen in public and a goddess in private. ~ T K Leigh, #NFDB
383:Once upon a time,there were two moons, who were sisters. Nitid was the goddess of tears and life,and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
384:Read as much as you can, discarding negative or disturbing information. Learn by doing, and the Goddess and God will bless you with all that you truly need. ~ Scott Cunningham, #NFDB
385:I know it's hard for women to tap into that feeling of self-worth. We need to get the message out that you are valued, you are a goddess and don't forget that. ~ Jennifer Lopez, #NFDB
386:In a chariot of light from the region of the day, the Goddess of Liberty came. She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, the plant she named Liberty Tree. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
387:Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now stretches forth Her leaden scepter o'er a slumbering world. ~ Edward Young, Night-Thoughts (1742–1745), #NFDB
388:The simplest and most basic meaning of the symbol of the Goddess is the acknowledgment of the legitimacy of female power as a beneficent and independent power. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
389:I was back on the scented hillside with the moon coming out above the ruins of the temple where nothing remains now of the Goddess but her night-owls brooding. So ~ Mary Stewart, #NFDB
390:My mother was a domestic goddess and Mother Earth figure. She was sweet and placid - just what the perfect wife was supposed to be and I was determined not to be. ~ Joan Collins, #NFDB
391:Some people did take the domestic goddess title literally rather than ironically. It was about the pleasures of feeling like one rather than actually being one. ~ Nigella Lawson, #NFDB
392:The function of poetry is religious invocation of the Muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites. ~ Robert Graves,The White Goddess, #NFDB
393:The ladies in the beer commercials were hot, no doubt, but when a goddess wants to make an effort, no one else can even open the jar of mustard, let alone cut it. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
394:In this day when God is often referred to as 'It' or 'She' or 'Goddess' for the sake of leveling, I must say I can't recall Satan ever being referred to as 'She.' ~ Jeffrey Jones, #NFDB
395:It’s entirely up to you, Artie. He lives or dies by your word. (Acheron) No, akri! Don’t ask her that. She never let me have no fun. She a mean goddess! (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
396:Michaela, Sara, Michaela, Sara,” she murmured in a mock-thoughtful voice.
“Bitch Goddess angel versus my best friend, gee, which side do you think I’ll choose? ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
397:My heart swelled, causing my chest to ache and breathing to become nearly impossiple. Paralyzed by her beaty, i hovered over her. She was no nymph, but a goddess. ~ Katie McGarry, #NFDB
398:Now to find Tristan, if he survived the excitement. I hope he did. I have some things to say to him, and none of them are 'Goddess bless'.
-Numair Salmalin ~ Tamora Pierce,#NFDB
399:Once upon a time, there were two moons, who were sisters. Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
400:You look like a goddess. I really am wasting my time attending high school. I should be a very high paid fashion consultant for every single celebrity on this planet. ~ C J Anaya, #NFDB
401:my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love...
she has saved me
from everything that is
not here ~ Charles Bukowski,#NFDB
402:she worked and prayed for the welfare of humans for over ten million years. Then she was transformed into a goddess whose only desire was to ease the world’s pain. ~ Kris Waldherr, #NFDB
403:Xifeng tilted her face, a pale moon in the evening of the water. She felt like a goddess in the shimmering light. She was a poem come to life, each vein was a lyric. ~ Julie C Dao, #NFDB
404:If you're laying in bed next to someone that really doesn't make you feel like the goddess that you are, you need to rediscover what it is that you truly want and need. ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
405:Look to yourself for the answer - stop calling your girlfriends and stop calling your mom - you know if it's working or not, you either feel like a goddess or you don't ~ Lady Gaga, #NFDB
406:The Goddess of Fate clutched me in her hands and often threatened to smash me; but the will grew stronger as the obstacles increased, and finally the will triumphed. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
407:The Goddess of Old Europe and Ancient Crete represented the unity of life in nature, delight in the diversity of form, the powers of birth, death and regeneration. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
408:When you start a new project, no matter if it's a movie like Enigma or an album like Goddess, you are always learning something. While I search, I find something new. ~ Mick Jagger, #NFDB
409:Goddess,” he said, “I would strongly advise you to continue this journey as you were—in your carriage.” “Vazkor,” I said, “I would strongly advise you not to advise me. ~ Tanith Lee, #NFDB
410:It’s entirely up to you, Artie. He lives or dies by your word. (Acheron)
No, akri! Don’t ask her that. She never let me have no fun. She a mean goddess! (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
411:Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice - a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess. ~ Davy Crockett, #NFDB
412:NEED is an overused word. A swirling human figure erupted from the sand—Leo’s least favorite goddess, the Mistress of Mud, the Princess of Potty Sludge, Gaea herself. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
413:Anyone with a cursory knowledge of mythology knows that it is suicidal to sexually harass a goddess. Look what Artemis did to that guy who stumbled across her bathing. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
414:For all the Gods are one god (...) and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and their is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
415:Her hair was wild, her eyes were flashing, and her tattered underskirts floated around her. She looked like a glorious avenging goddess from some ancient erotic myth. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
416:Most folk consider that a woman aboard a ship brings nothing but bad luck because it provokes the jealousy of Ran, the goddess of the sea who will abide no rivals, ~ Bernard Cornwell, #NFDB
417:Liberty is a goddess who is exacting in her demands on her votaries, but, if they are faithful, she never disappoints them of their reward. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Karmayogin, The Elections, #NFDB
418:Mon ami, two people rarely see the same thing. You, for instance, saw a goddess. I—” He hesitated. “Yes?” “I saw only a girl with anxious eyes,” said Poirot gravely. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
419:Oh, poo, we can’t let the heifer-goddess die. Akri will die too if he can’t eat from her. C’mon, Xirena, you gots to help the Simi protect the bitch-goddess. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
420:She was a goddess of darkness as well as light. A Black Madonna: the blackness of death, but also the blackness of good soil, dark with decay, which gives rise to life. ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
421:You are whole. You are valued. You are loved. I see your wholeness. I know your value. I love you, just the way you are. Welcome to the path of the Warrior Goddess. ~ HeatherAsh Amara, #NFDB
422:f Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
423:In the matter of prejudice...we are all the same. Goddess and demon, human and monster: none of us understand difference, but at least some of us make the effort to try. ~ Liz Williams, #NFDB
424:L. 547. The terms made use of in this line, and in 481, may appear somewhat coarse, as addressed by one Goddess to another: but I assure the English reader that in this passage ~ Homer, #NFDB
425:I feel a resurgence of my 6-year-old self… that little warrior, goddess of a girl reminding me of who I was when I was little, before the world got its hands on me. ~ Jennifer Elisabeth, #NFDB
426:I'm not a goddess, for crying out loud. I'm a regular person who took feminism - which I have a deep connection to - and mixed it with music, which I really love to do. ~ Kathleen Hanna, #NFDB
427:I smite the Titan who bestrides the world
And slay the ogre in his blood-stained den.
I am Durga, goddess of the proud and strong ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Triple Soul-Forces,#NFDB
428:Once upon a time, there were two moons, who were sisters.
Nitid was the goddess of tears and life, and the sky was hers. No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers. ~ Laini Taylor,#NFDB
429:I don't mean to sound immodest, but I never had any doubt that I'd be successful, nor any fear of success. I was raised as a little goddess who was told she would be a star. ~ Irene Cara, #NFDB
430:If one is going to spend her afternoon singing hymns to the great porcelain goddess, she might as well do it in a really plush ladies room. Stupid fear of public speaking. ~ Molly Harper, #NFDB
431:Our Lady of the Hours that Pass, Madonna of stagnant waters and dead algae, Tutelary Goddess of vast deserts and dark landscapes of barren rocks, free me from my youth. ~ Fernando Pessoa, #NFDB
432:There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
433:And I remember when she first fell into my office how ordinary I thought she looked. She is anything but ordinary. With a little makeup and the right clothes, she’s a goddess. ~ E L James, #NFDB
434:becoming an ageless goddess means letting go of the fear that you aren’t smart enough, educated enough, or intuitive enough to make the right decisions for yourself. ~ Christiane Northrup, #NFDB
435:In the realm of the dark feminine there is no possibility of hiding. We are found out by our dreams and by our own reverberating complexes. ~ Sylvia Brinton Perera, Descent of the Goddess, #NFDB
436:Looks like you've learned your lesson! The planet of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, can even use the stink of a toot in the name of lovely justice!" -Sailor Venus ~ Naoko Takeuchi, #NFDB
437:So, even in the midst of craziness and exhaustion and a life-changing chaos,I was filled with peace and the sweet knowledge that I was walking the path my Goddess wanted me on. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
438:The spiritual sense of our place in nature... can be traced to the origins of human civilization... The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
439:Goddess” he said. Her voice floated to us. Yes, Child.” Will I see you again?” Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet ~ Laurell K Hamilton, #NFDB
440:I'm a bit uncomfortable, truth be told, with being seen as an expert, because there is always so much more to learn. I see myself as a perpetual student of the goddess. ~ Patricia Monaghan, #NFDB
441:In the Craft the Goddess is not omnipotent. The cosmos is interesting rather than perfect, and everything is not part of some greater plan, nor is all necessarily under control. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
442:Maybe I'll become a beautiful monster. A heartless creature. A goddess of pain. Maybe then the emptiness of this bullet hole, they left in my chest, will finally make some sense. ~ Unknown, #NFDB
443:the camp was going to be attacked on that day, something about a big bad goddess named Gaea, and an army, and Death being unleashed. You’re telling me that day is this week? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
444:Vanniv laughed. “Goddess, you love to hear yourself talk, don’t you? I mean, I respect that — my voice is amazing — but you’re coming on a little strong with the megalomania. ~ Andrew Rowe, #NFDB
445:Anya, the minor goddess of Anarchy? A woman who had more balls than most men—because she’d cut them off the guys stupid enough to get in her way and kept them as souvenirs. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
446:Artemis the bitch goddess. You know her. She’s the one who stole your soul. (Simi)
She didn’t steal it. (Gallagher)
Of course she did. She steals everything. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
447:Capture Halo, the Goddess of the South. Bring her to the North. To save one’s own skin is a marvelous thing, and this is exactly what Sterling plans to do by capturing Halo. ~ Harmon Cooper, #NFDB
448:I think Catholicism took root very quickly in Ireland because it's a very superstitious religion, the holy ghost, the holy spirit, it has a goddess, very visual, the music. ~ Conor McPherson, #NFDB
449:Are all men's lips as soft as yours, Ari?" Bathymaas
"I suppose, goddess. But I don't make it a habit to feel the lips of other men so I don't know for certain." Aricles ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
450:Goddess” he said. Her voice floated to us. Yes, Child.” Will I see you again?”
Just her voice now, young and old at the same time. “In the face of every woman you meet ~ Laurell K Hamilton,#NFDB
451:I peek over the back of the couch and there she is, my goddess of death, her hair snaking out in a great black cloud, her teeth grinding hard enough to make living gums bleed. ~ Kendare Blake, #NFDB
452:After much diligent research, aided by other women, I gradually came to understand that beneath the familiar Goddesses of the patriarchy, there is a much more ancient Goddess. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
453:I am running for President of the United States to enable the Goddess of Peace to encircle within her arms all the children of this country and all the children of the world. ~ Dennis Kucinich, #NFDB
454:If that Alpha wanted to dash off into the jungle with a mysterious goddess on her back on a whimsical evening run in the middle of a prospective battle, they would go with her. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
455:Love, My Goddess loves us all, and she gave up Bhelliom willingly out of that love. Bhelliom can't begin to understand love. In the end that may be our only defense against it. ~ David Eddings, #NFDB
456:Queen and huntress, chaste and fair Now the sun is laid to sleep, Seated in thy silver chair, State in wonted manner keep: Hesperus entreats thy light Goddess, excellently bright. ~ Ben Jonson, #NFDB
457:Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable. ~ Bertrand Russell, Fact and Fiction, #NFDB
458:You said your mom is the goddess of balance," I reminded him. "The minor gods deserve better, Ethan, but total destruction isn't balance. Kronos doesn't build. He only destroys. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
459:Because, good God, Lily Wellstone had the face of an angel, the body of a goddess, and the spirit of the devil glinting from her eyes. She was a woman worth losing his soul for. ~ Carolyn Jewel, #NFDB
460:One glimpse of that glistening, tan back, those rangy shoulders, the sweat-slicked black hair, and his libido woke up and started to pray to Cialis, goddess of horny middle-aged men. ~ Amy Lane, #NFDB
461:There is no why – no question and no answer. You cannot ask the Dark Goddess why – she is her own why. Your questions – my questions – are less than the dust beneath her throne. ~ Jane Meredith, #NFDB
462:Throughout the ages, stories with certain basic themes have recurred over and over, in widely disparate cultures; emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious. ~ Joan D Vinge, #NFDB
463:Accounting incomes were reduced by discrepancy [ but] "the net amount paid by lawyers for lawyerly discrepancy is close to zippo. In this case, the goddess of justice was blind. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
464:And none at all has ridden at the king's side since Aerinha, goddess of honor and flame, first taught men to forge their blades. You'd think Aerinha would have had better sense. ~ Robin McKinley, #NFDB
465:Why? Were you hoping for something more exotic?"
My inner goddess pops her head above the parapet.
"Oh no. I've had enough exotic for one day."
Mr inner goddess pouts at me. ~ E L James,#NFDB
466:Consider the holiness of your hands. They are how you do your work on this earth; they are a microcosm of the hands of the Goddess, and can change the world as easily as hers can. ~ Dianne Sylvan, #NFDB
467:Kronos took the child in his arms and saw right away that Demeter was another goddess. She glowed with an aura even more powerful than Hestia’s. She was trouble with a capital tau. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
468:May the wind carry her spirit gently May the Fire release her soul, May the Water cleanse her, may the Earth receive her, May the Goddess take her in her arms and guide her to rebirth. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
469:She’s fucking beautiful. A goddess, and yet she’s kneeling at my feet. I don’t deserve this woman, but I won’t hesitate to take every advantage to ensure I can keep her in my life. ~ Meghan March, #NFDB
470:Frigg was the goddess of married women and love. She was also Odin’s wife and queen of Asgard. Frigg and Odin had a son named Baldr. He was a beautiful god of light and purity. ~ Mary Pope Osborne, #NFDB
471:God and Goddess. Purusha and Prakriti. Observer and observation. Subject and object. That’s what it is. Not this, not that; this too, that too. That’s who we are. Tat tvam asi. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
472:I don't recall meeting Greek demigods in any of those places. Still, when one has dealt with magical baboons, goddess cats and dwarfs in Speedos, one can’t be surprised very easily. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
473:I had a sudden and irrational fear that I was going to turn into Anastasia Steele and start spouting off things about my inner goddess and referring to my fucking cunt as down there. ~ C M Stunich, #NFDB
474:The house of fame, he thought, is built on melting ice, not steel, and rumbles ever with a sound of rumors, while the goddess of fame is as false and capricious as her sister—Fortune. ~ Anya Seton, #NFDB
475:The woman’s name was Diana; she was the Roman goddess of moon and hunting, and I think birth, although I never really understood that part. To be fair, I don’t think she did either. ~ Steve McHugh, #NFDB
476:But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit. To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself—avoid trying to be something you’re not. For a goddess, that’s ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
477:If you say that you're a king, queen, god or goddess and you recognize that you're from ancestral greatness, you have to start living up to that. It's really just that simple. ~ Charlamagne Tha God, #NFDB
478:In fact, the Goddess who gives life is the Goddess who takes life away. That fact allows for no sentimentality. In feminine thinking, we hold the paradox beyond the contradictions. ~ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
479:It was I who was conquered. In just seven nights, that fledgling goddess not only discovered that I had a heart, but she stole it forever, then cradled it in the palm of her hand. ~ Celeste Bradley, #NFDB
480:O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
481:Ridiculous!" The goddess sneered. "Your mind is too wily, girl-too stubborn and intelligent. I couldn't steer you as easily."
"Steer me?" I protested. "Hey lady, I'm not a Toyota. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
482:The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That - with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word 'success' - is our national disease.
~ William James,#NFDB
483:And see, my son! the hour is on its way,
That lifts the Goddess to imperial sway;
This favourite isle, long severed from her reign,
Doveline, she gathers to her wings again ~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
484:It never occurred to me that she might travel from one man to the next to avoid being abandoned. Or to avoid being worshiped like a goddess, a worship she both relished and despised. ~ Alan Lightman, #NFDB
485:Shiva becomes the destroyer, acquiring strength and inspiration from his consort Shakti, who is both Gauri, radiant goddess of eroticism, and Kali, dark goddess of extermination. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
486:Sometimes...we don't want to feel like a postmodern, postfeminist, overstretched woman but, rather, a domestic goddess, trailing nutmeggy fumes of baking pie in our languorous wake. ~ Nigella Lawson, #NFDB
487:All men even, I have written, Jesus Christ began as flecks of tissue inside a woman's womb. Every boy must stagger out of the shadow of a mother goddess, whom he never fully escapes. ~ Camille Paglia, #NFDB
488:An evolved Goddess is someone who has a conscious comprehension and awareness to life, a beauty in their mindful nature, and is a role model who seeks to drive forward conscious change. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
489:Especially when she wrapped one hand around his cock and realized her fingers didn’t meet. Thank you, Goddess of…well, whatever goddess handled huge guys with accessories to match. ~ Stephanie Julian, #NFDB
490:Frey was the god of spring and summer! read the caption. He was the god of wealth, abundance, and fertility. His twin sister, Freya, the goddess of love, was very pretty! She had cats! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
491:I’ll let you come if you promise to never mention our age difference and always … and I mean always act like the fucking goddess you are, making me barely worthy of even looking at you. ~ Jewel E Ann, #NFDB
492:Our present lives are dominated by the goddess Reason, who is our greatest and most tragic illusion. By the aid of reason, so we assure ourselves, we have "conquered nature"? P. 91 ~ Carl Gustav Jung, #NFDB
493:She was more magnificent than any goddess. Addictive passion on two gorgeous,endless legs, between which he'd found a heaven far better than any mortal had dreamed or god had promised. ~ Olivia Gates, #NFDB
494:They reminded Kyle of a Greek god and goddess straight out of the Percy Jackson books. “Wow,” said Miguel. “Do you think Rick Riordan’s going to be here? That would be so awesome! ~ Chris Grabenstein, #NFDB
495:A ghost of that siren smile graced her lips as she tilted her head closer to mine, creating the undeniable pull of the sailor lost to the sea to the beautiful goddess calling him home. ~ Katie McGarry, #NFDB
496:She was his princess. No. She was his goddess. With her golden skin and golden hair. She was his light. His life. His everything.
He loved her more than anything else in this world. ~ Morgan Rhodes,#NFDB
497:Yes, I am a sorceress. I do not think I am ugly, but you must decide for yourself whether I am good or evil. I try to do the will of the Goddess, and that is all anyone can do. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
498:You are not the fat girl. You are voluptuous!...You are an angle descended from the heavens, a goddess of plenty walking among the denizens of hell where stick figures reign supreme. ~ Alesia Holliday, #NFDB
499:You look like a goddess when you come, did you know that?"
"I'm not a goddess."
"Not a goddess. Not an angel. Not a devil. Are you a ghost? Because you can't be real."
"I'm real. ~ Megan Hart,#NFDB
500:Our great symbol for the Goddess is the moon, whose three aspects reflect the three stages in women's lives and whose cycles of waxing and waning coincide with women's menstrual cycles. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
501:At least the statue didn’t rumble, “DIE, UNBELIEVERS!” and zap the mortals to dust. Reyna had once dealt with a statue of the goddess Diana like that. It hadn’t been her most relaxing day. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
502:Here was a fragment of Goddess myth that, through all its permutations, had somehow escaped being turned on its head. It was the perfect springboard for the sort of novel I wanted to write. ~ Joan D Vinge, #NFDB
503:Meg gagged. "I hate bugs."
That made sense for a daughter of the agriculture goddess, but to me the dead ant didn't seem any grosser than the piles of garbage in which we often swam. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
504:Nemesis personifies “the Goddess of Retribution, who brings down all immoderate good fortune, checks the presumption that attends it, …and is the punisher of extraordinary crimes”.36 ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
505:The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess’s eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. ‘Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
506:The inner cry is a very good way to meditate. As you're sitting there in meditation, just cry inwardly to God, to that source, to your spiritual teacher or to a particular god or goddess. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
507:But the possession of the country was wrested from the Firbolgs, and they were forced into partial serfdom by the Tuatha De Danann (people of the goddess Dana), who arrived later. Totally ~ Seumas MacManus, #NFDB
508:Ro, he's human and he cares about you. He has no way of knowing you're like this super-human, Goddess-channelling Vessel of death and destruction worthy of one very cool Japanese anime series ~ Lauren Dane, #NFDB
509:What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of creation. Coiled like a serpent, our Shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
510:Which meant his only assets were one whiny imprisoned goddess, one sort-of-girlfriend with a dagger, and Leo, who apparently thought he could defeat the armies of darkness with breath mints. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
511:O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow! ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
512:Though magical communities believe in the God and the Goddess - the equally balanced male and female sides of Spirit - they also believe this equality brings wholeness and creates the One. ~ Silver RavenWolf, #NFDB
513:Aurora, this living goddess in my home, is making me weak and for the first time ever, I have something to lose.
Her.
I can’t lose her.
And I can’t keep her.
I don’t know what to do. ~ Karina Halle,#NFDB
514:the first Goddess, Gaia, who was the earth, wide hipped, big bellied, the womb of the human race, the nurturing breast of all humans, the opulent and voracious beginning of all things female. ~ Kerry Greenwood, #NFDB
515:You are cold, while you yourself fan flames. By all means wrap yourself in your despotic furs, there is no one to whom they are more appropriate, cruel goddess of love and of beauty ~ Leopold von Sacher Masoch, #NFDB
516:Goddess-nurse of the young, give ear to my prayer, and grant that this woman may reject the love-embraces of youth and dote on grey-haired old men whose powers are dulled, but whose hearts still desire. ~ Homer, #NFDB
517:So you assume we go around painting ourselves with pitch and swooping from rooftops to devour innocents, and call ourselves things like Shale Swiftwing, Beloved of the Goddess, Scout-in-Shadows. ~ Max Gladstone, #NFDB
518:That's Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It's nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
519:That’s Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It’s nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
520:This book is dedicated to all the women on this beautiful planet. May we reclaim the fierce love of the warrior and embody the wisdom of the goddess to bring balance and harmony to the Earth. ~ HeatherAsh Amara, #NFDB
521:Like Ana’s inner goddess, I was so ready for these books, and that’s an uncomfortable realization, that I can take pleasure in something so terrible. Like most people, I am a mass of contradictions. ~ Roxane Gay, #NFDB
522:Maybe you are a goddess. A witch more like.”
“Witches aren’t real.”
“No? Then why do I feel like I’m under a spell, as if something is gripping me, and I’m helpless to free myself. ~ Juliette Cross,#NFDB
523:The Goddess is coming home to us; she brings wealth to our houses and hearts.” This is how I see my sisters. Pure as fire, the greatest wealth I could ever know, finally, finally, bringing me home. ~ Nikita Gill, #NFDB
524:When the “deity” of the other is deflated, either because it is exhausted or because one becomes accustomed to living with a “god” or a “goddess,” there is a terrific sense of ennui and boredom. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
525:Among her followers was a nymph named Britomartis, who was so good at making nets that Artemis would eventually make her a minor goddess – the Lady of Nets. (Did she play basketball? I don’t know.) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
526:Sing, goddess, of Achilles' ruinous anger
Which brought ten thousand pains to the Achaeans,
And cast the souls of many stalwart heroes
To Hades, and their bodies to the dogs
And birds of prey. ~ Homer,#NFDB
527:He smells like night-blooming flowers
Crushed, juicy petals on the pillows
His voice is full of ocean
Humming like the surf
He kneels before me like I am his goddess
He is a god ~ Francesca Lia Block,#NFDB
528:The goddess burned with rage. She wanted to throttle her father Zeus, but there’s only so much you can do when your dad is the king of the universe. She looked at Kallisto and shook her head in pity. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
529:The goddess of fire lit him up like a stump, just as she had promised, and I wondered why people who believed in the next life were so anxious to start living it instead of enjoying the one they had. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
530:By Hecate, the goddess I worship more than all the others, the one I choose to help me in this work, who lives with me deep inside my home, these people won't bring pain into my heart and laugh about it. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
531:A few months ago you assassinated a man who called himself a god; now you're going after a goddess in truth. Unless you can figure out a way to kill continents, after this you're going to have to retire. ~ Brent Weeks, #NFDB
532:Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic; it was supposed to engender difficult questions and to keep the conversation at a low temperature. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
533:She wondered if it was her stupid mother, the goddess of love, messing with her thoughts. If Piper started getting urges to read fashion magazines, she was going to have to find Aphrodite and smack her. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
534:There is nothing that is impossible to her who is the conscious Power and universal Goddess all-creative from eternity and armed with the Spirit’s omnipotence. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Faith and Shakti, #NFDB
535:With this contradictory parentage of mine: solid English earth and French water goddess, one could expect anything from me. An enchantress or an ordinary girl. There are some who will say I am both. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
536:A few months ago, you assassinated a man who called himself a god; now you’re going after a goddess in truth. Unless you can figure out a way to kill continents, after this you’re going to have to retire. ~ Brent Weeks, #NFDB
537:we see interesting parallels between the cultural manifestations of the divine feminine as the Shekinah and as the goddess Hekate in the Chaldean Oracles and the all-encompassing Indian goddess Shakti. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
538:But hail thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
539:For me Greece is Maria Farantouri. This is how I imagined Goddess Hera to be: strong, pure and vigilant. I have never encountered any other artist able to give me such a strong sense of the divine. ~ Francois Mitterrand, #NFDB
540:History knew the truth. History was the most inhuman product of humanity.It scooped up the whole of human will and, like the goddess Kali in Calcutta, dripped blood from its mouth as it bit and crunched. ~ Yukio Mishima, #NFDB
541:In a child's eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
542:In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
543:Question (from a reader) : Will the Wise Goddess Athena overthrow Zeus and become the ruler of Olympus? Athena's answer : What an interesting idea . . . No, just kidding, Dad. Put away the lightning bolt. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
544:She was the Goddess Who Must Not Be Named; those who sought her never found her, yet she was known to come to the aid of those in greatest need. And, then again, sometimes she didn't. She was like that. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
545:The Gentle Mother.” In Ramasu’s soft voice it sounded like a curse. “They took a goddess with a scythe in her hand, striding the rows of grain, and turned her to present the self of a housebound creature. ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
546:The Goddess of wealth is unsteady, and so is the life breath. The duration of life is uncertain, and the place of habitation is uncertain; but in all this inconsistent world religious merit alone is immovable. ~ Chanakya, #NFDB
547:Across the room, Jason soared into the air and lopped the goddess’s head off. Sadly, the head flew right back into place. “Unacceptable,” Hygeia said calmly. “Decapitation is not a healthy lifestyle choice. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
548:Hope follows on the heels of Faith. And the white-winged goddess—which is Hope—did not leave her, but prompted her to many little surreptitious acts of preparation in the event of the miracle coming to pass. ~ Kate Chopin, #NFDB
549:Isis, the Egyptian goddess of renewal is symbolized for the Hindus by Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the sustainer, and Shiva the transformer or destroyer - the Cycle of creation. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
550:Treat the whole existence as divine. Even a rock is a goddess, a river is a goddess. Even animals are nothing but divine forms. So remember that you are a goddess and that everybody else is also a god or a goddess. ~ Osho, #NFDB
551:Question (from a reader) : Will the Wise Goddess Athena overthrow Zeus and become the ruler of Olympus?
Athena's answer : What an interesting idea . . . No, just kidding, Dad. Put away the lightning bolt. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
552:Skin like ivory, perfect; A goddess, she
must be.
Slender fingers, unadorned; beautiful
simplicity.
A single teardrop; when did it fall?
Could this goddess be mortal, after all? ~ Amelia Atwater Rhodes,#NFDB
553:The Goddess is not separate from the world – She IS the world, and all things in it: moon, sun, earth, star, stone, seed, flowing river, wind, wave, leaf and branch, bud and blossom, fang and claw, woman and man. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
554:I am not the kind of goddess of victory that people cheer for. I am merely a marionette who is fighting to cut off her own strings. At my feet is a hill covered in skeletons...I am nothing but an angel of death. ~ Kaori Yuki, #NFDB
555: With Goddess-like demeanour forth she went; Not unattended, for on her as Queen A pomp of winning Graces waited still, And from about her shot Darts of desire Into all Eyes to wish her still in sight. ~ John Milton, #NFDB
556:All right, yeah, sounds good, but I have no idea where they might be. Do you? Is that one of the gifts you have?" Shaylin asked.
Aphrodite- "Goddess, you are brain damaged. No, I don't have a GPS inside my head. ~ P C Cast,#NFDB
557:Ambassadress twixt eternity and change,
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
And saw the spaces ready for her feet. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Symbol Dawn,#NFDB
558:I listened mesmerized, visualizing the goddess with her divine mate, wondering if it was possible for humans to replicate this perfect relationship. Would I be blessed with such a love in my life? ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, #NFDB
559:It knew that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood ffor thousands of years, was saying back to her: You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
560:The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspected self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
561:You’ve been a bitch, goddess. That’s over. From now on, you step when I say walk. You eat when I feed you. You come when I allow it. If I so much as look at your knees, you get on them and open your fucking mouth. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
562:All it takes is for people to believe and I am no longer just an artefact put together by clever engineers. I am an idea, a something made of nothing, whose time has come to be. Some may even call me "Goddess ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
563:My thesis is that the language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse, ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
564:Questing is hard. Fortunately, Thomas is here to spoon-feed them answers. We're one step away from him giving them an instruction sheet by Ikea, with cartoonish diagrams and a little goddess-slaying allen wrench. ~ Jim C Hines, #NFDB
565:Simi? You got some free time? (Kat) Of course I do. You know akri on Olympus with that heifer-goddess I want to eat, but he won’t let the Simi have no dinner. So why you calling me, little akra-kitty? (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
566:That little punk,” Zeus grumbled. “Prometheus armed the cockroaches.” Next to him, the goddess Hera said, “Uh, what?” “Nothing,” Zeus muttered. He yelled to his guards: “Find Prometheus and get him in here. NOW! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
567:Diana? Isn't she the goddess who hated men?'
He considered. 'I think of her as the goddess who tempted men by bathing outdoors, and turned them into animal life if they succumbed to the lure of bare flesh. ~ Eloisa James,#NFDB
568:Look at you. You’re like a goddess.” Scarlett smiled at his compliment then reached down to squeeze her own tits. She heard every man in the room shift and moan when she began to fondle both her tits in her hands. ~ Lola Newmar, #NFDB
569:Only by indirect means, when reflected in Athene’s mirror, can the Gorgon be destroyed—in other words, only with the help of the patron goddess of consciousness, who, as the daughter of Zeus, stands for “heaven. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
570:See... I knew baby Marissa was quality people, look how she's eating the head off the red-headed Artemis doll. Simi need to teach her to belch fire, then introduce her to the real heifer-Goddess herself(Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
571:Throughout the years, many Christian women have told me of their great respect for the bravery and courage evident in my work, perhaps even gesturing to their own Isis earrings or a Nile River Goddess pendants. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
572:You don’t want the Simi to watch over the bitch-goddess, do you? ‘Cause no offense, akri, that would just be wrong, and I love you, but that’s more love than the Simi has for anything. Even Diamonique. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
573:I have to be the luckiest husband who ever lived. My wife is a sex goddess.” Sam laughed. “Make sure to post a review to my website.” “No way. I’m not telling anyone else what I have, because everyone will want it. ~ Marie Force, #NFDB
574:Sjofn is the Goddess of Love. And love,” her eyelids suddenly fluttered dreamily, “love,” she breathed then she focused on me with a strange intensity that made me, even me, squirm a little, “love is everything. ~ Kristen Ashley, #NFDB
575:All you have to do is utter the words, “I pledge myself to the goddess Artemis. I turn my back on the company of men, accept eternal maidenhood, and join the Hunt.” Yes, you heard that right. Eternal maidenhood and ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
576:Art is a goddess of dainty thought, reticent of habit, abjuring all obtrusiveness, purposing in no way to better others. She is, withal selfishly occupied with her own perfection only - having no desire to teach. ~ James Whistler, #NFDB
577:Of course, the prophecy left certain latitude as to whether the Mother Goddess would bring the Messiah with her or produce Him on the scene. Still, there was this odd correspondence between prediction and persons. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
578:Simi? You got some free time? (Kat)
Of course I do. You know akri on Olympus with that heifer-goddess I want to eat, but he won’t let the Simi have no dinner. So why you calling me, little akra-kitty? (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
579:Her face was plastered with layers of powder and looked like a face of stone. And with her noble profile, she seemed, on the triangular, moss-covered pedestal hidden by her cape, like a crumbling goddess in a park. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
580:My love and sympathy flow towards her. Oh, what a mess you have got yourself into. Never mind; never mind, love; all can be undone. You are the one who undoes everything. Here is the compassion of the Dark Goddess. ~ Jane Meredith, #NFDB
581:...she is careful who she sleeps with, because only those willing totreat her witht he same reverence are worthy of her attention.
...you are the Goddess, and "all acts of love and pleasure" are your rituals ~ Dianne Sylvan,#NFDB
582:Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But like a thrifty goddess she determines Herself the glory of a creditor,Both thanks and use. ~ William Shakespeare, #NFDB
583:Though some of us saw Lux as a force of nature, impervious to chill, an ice goddess generated by the season itself, the majority knew she was only a girl in danger, or in pursuit, of catching her death of cold. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
584:Actaeon who saw the goddess naked among the leaves and
his hounds tore him
A little knowledge, a pebble from the shingle
A drop from the oceans: who would have dreamed this
infinitely little too much. ~ Robinson Jeffers,#NFDB
585:I feel like a goddess, jailed in her Olympus. Little wonder how the gods toyed with humans. Toyed with women, to watch them squirm, pollinate the seeds of despair; toyed with men, to satiate their Seven Deadly Sins. ~ Ellen Hopkins, #NFDB
586:The daughter is the goddess, separately or together, of Infatuation, Mischief, Delusion and Blind Folly, rendering her victims “incapable of rational choice” and blind to distinctions of morality and expedience. ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
587:Could you please put this--could you all put these--could you get dressed, please?" The woman only bestowed a serene smile on me. "We are as the Goddess requires." "The Goddess requires you to be naked on my lawn? ~ Kelley Armstrong, #NFDB
588:The professional knows when he has fallen short of his own standards. He will murder his darlings without hesitation, if that's what it takes to stay true to the goddess and to his own expectations of excellence. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
589:But I am Niniane of Avalon, and I account to no man on this earth for what I do with what is mine -- yes, mine and not yours. I am not Roman, to let some man tell me what I may do with what the Goddess gave me ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
590:If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
591:Liberty is a great celestial Goddess, strong, beneficent, and austere, and she can never descend upon a nation by the shouting of crowds, nor by arguments of unbridled passion, nor by the hatred of class against class. ~ Annie Besant, #NFDB
592:My sister, with her ratty red-highlighted hair and her linen pajamas and her combat boots—how could she possibly worry about being possessed by a goddess? What goddess would want her, except the goddess of chewing gum? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
593:Sring is the mantra of beauty. Traditionally it is connected with Lakshmi, the Indian goddess of beauty. Chant "Sring" slowly, elongating each sound. As you do, you will see the consciousness of beauty of everywhere. ~ Frederick Lenz, #NFDB
594:I know she’s my mate.” “Okay, then if she’s your mate, we have to believe the Goddess will bring you two together very soon. As I’ve said before, when a dragon meets his mate, he becomes magnetically attracted to her. ~ Mychal Daniels, #NFDB
595:The vulture Nekhbet, who'd one possessed my gran (long story); the crocodile Sobek, who'd tried to kill my cat (longer story); and the lion goddess Sekhmet, whom we'd once vanished in hot sauce ( don't even ask) - page 9 ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
596:Thor." The goddess scoffed. "If you want someone who can navigate one hundred and seventy channels of HD content, go to Thor. If you want someone who can accurately send people through the Nine Worlds, he's not your guy. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
597:What if she’s all I give you in this life of ours, my love?” she asked quietly. “Then I’ll shout at the goddess in fury,” he said fiercely. “I’ll beg to know why I’ve been given so much when other men have so little. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
598:Athna, please meet the, uh...Army of Awesome." Apollo arched a brow. "Or whatever they are calling themselves."
The goddess of wisdom, strategy, and a whole slew of other things inclined her head. "Nice title. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
599:Indeed, if we look closely at the art of the Neolithic, it is truly astonishing how much of its Goddess imagery has survived—and that most standard works on the history of religion fail to bring out this fascinating fact. ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
600:In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess - we connect with her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
601:In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess ~~ we connect with her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
602:My host needs a certain level of simplicity," the goddess continued. "Percy Jackson is perfect. He is powerful, yet his mind is not overly crowded with plans and ideas."
"Wow," I said. "Really feeling the love here. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
603:You will experience the triple Goddess—Maiden, Mother, and Crone. These phases are symbolic to, not just your own life, but life as a whole. Birth, life, and death. As women, it is important to understand you are the cycle. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
604:At her funeral, Diana's brother observed, 'Of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this--- a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of our modern age. ~ Kris Waldherr, #NFDB
605:Could you please put this--could you all put these--could you get dressed, please?"
The woman only bestowed a serene smile on me. "We are as the Goddess requires."
"The Goddess requires you to be naked on my lawn? ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
606:Helen, beloved of the goddess of love, went downstairs to crawl into her empty bed as Lucas, the son of the sun, leaned back on his elbows and watched his father-god brighten the bare wooden planks of her widow's walk. ~ Josephine Angelini, #NFDB
607:He looked at me for a moment, studying my face. What I had requested was very brazen for these times, something a lady would never do. But I wasn't a lady. I was a goddess and I would do whatever the hell I felt like doing. ~ Courtney Cole, #NFDB
608:If you truly believe that, my lady and queen, then for you it is truth: all the Gods are One God and all the Goddesses one Goddess. But would you presume to declare one truth for all of mankind throughout the world? ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
609:Most Whores are completely unaware of how important they are to society, and subsequently do not have the opportunity to learn how to be all-compassionate, all-loving, all-giving and all-receiving incarnations of the Goddess. ~ Inga Muscio, #NFDB
610:What if she's all I give you in this life of ours, my love?" she asked quietly.
"Then I'll shout at the goddess in fury," he said fiercely. "I'll beg to know why I've been given so much when other men have so little. ~ Melina Marchetta,#NFDB
611:A shooting star, a cloud, or some sign from the Goddess....? One second later, the world shattered. Her father's grumbling voice was suddenly cut off by an ear-splitting crashhhh! The skylight exploded into a million pieces. ~ T L Shreffler, #NFDB
612:He sad enough already because he has to deal with that bitch-goddess with the red hair. (Simi)
Simi! (Kat)
Well, she is a bitch-goddess. I know you love her, akra-Kat, but facts is fact and she a mean heifer. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
613:From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga, to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first, I came to associate food not only with feminity, but also with purity and divinity. ~ Padma Lakshmi, #NFDB
614:He's naked except for those soft ripped jeans, top button casually undone. Jeez, he looks so freaking hot. My subconscious is frantically fanning herself, and my inner goddess is swaying and writhing to some primal carnal rhythm. ~ E L James, #NFDB
615:The Master is the Supreme God and the Supreme Goddess. He is the essence of all Mantras, the embodiment of all deities, and dwells in all creatures. One can worship all the gods and goddesses in and through Him. ~ Holy Mother Sri Sarada Devi, #NFDB
616:There is no art in turning a goddess into a witch, a virgin into a whore, but the opposite operation, to give dignity to what has been scorned, to make the degraded disireable, that calls for art or for character ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
617:Nothing. Just that expectant, waiting silence where she knew he was looking at her. If she looked up, she’d see herself reflected in his eyes. What would she see, if she dared? A goddess…or a filthy little piece of gutter trash? ~ Cole McCade, #NFDB
618:Still, if I was really relying on luck, I might as well roll the dice. I stood up, trying to remember the name of the old Roman goddess of chance—Fortuna? It didn’t matter. I was quite sure she only spoke Latin, and I didn’t. I ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
619:If Goddess religion is not to become mindless idiocy, we must win clear of tendency of magic to become supertition. Magic - and among its branches I include psychology as its purpose to describe and change consciousness - is an art. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
620:I’m not some weak-ass girl who needs to be protected, Fairy. Whatever fucks with you will need protection from me, because Goddess be warned, I will fuck up anything and anyone who seeks to harm my future husband. Understand? ~ Amelia Hutchins, #NFDB
621:In a child’s eyes, a mother is a goddess. She can be glorious or terrible, benevolent or filled with wrath, but she commands love either way. I am convinced that this is the greatest power in the universe. My mother— No. Not yet. ~ N K Jemisin, #NFDB
622:I did not see the worst of him. Even at his best he was not an easy man. But he was a friend to me in a time when I needed one.” “It is strange to think of a goddess needing friends.” “All creatures that are not mad need them. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
623:If there were such a goddess in a book of olden tales, she would be the villain, tormenting the innocent from her high castle. The people of Weep were innocent—most of them—and she did torment them, but… what choice did she have? ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
624:Forgive yourself for being an imperfect human being. The goddess doesn't expect perfection, although she does expect you to try and do better. Allow yourself to be happy. Live the life you want, and follow the path of your heart. ~ Deborah Blake, #NFDB
625:I really love Charlize Theron. I've never met her before, but she seems really down-to-earth in interviews, really intelligent and funny and cool - and she's just this glorious goddess who holds herself with such confidence. ~ Alexandra Daddario, #NFDB
626:I’ve been reading about Buddhism. And Taoism. I haven’t decided between them.” “But…” Hazel looked mystified. “Aren’t you a Greek goddess?” Iris crossed her arms. “Don’t try to put me in a box, demigod! I’m not defined by my past. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
627:It's a perfect moment to quietly meditate on the cosmic Great Mother who can inspire us all; the divine, feminine Spirit of nurturance known as The Goddess, so revered in ancient times and being rediscovered by women today. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach, #NFDB
628:Stephan was secretive and a liar, but he was a very gentle and expert lover. She was the petted, cherished child, the desired mistress, the worshipped, perfumed goddess. She was all these things to Stephan - or so he made her believe. ~ Jean Rhys, #NFDB
629:I caught Bast’s arm when she was a few steps from the bank. “Stay away from the water.” She frowned. “Carter, I’m a cat. I’m not going for a swim. But if you want to summon a river goddess, you really need to do it at the riverbank. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
630:There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death. ~ Richard Holmes, #NFDB
631:With our goddess, the Pachamama, and it is not possible to continue having a monopoly of religious faith, only Catholic. We have therefore adopted the new constitution as a secular state where all religious beliefs will be respected. ~ Evo Morales, #NFDB
632:But then Rose pointed toward the woman’s feet. “You dropped your ear,” she said. And Astra—who’d been an empress, then a goddess, and whose dark sorcery now threatened to snuff out every soul in Grandual—looked down. Like an idiot. ~ Nicholas Eames, #NFDB
633:Don’t rub it in, Julia.” “I’m not. I’m confused. I mean, look at me,” I point to myself, “And look at you,” I point to her. She’s a flawless goddess in a skin-tight cocktail dress, and I’m all homeless junkie in a robe and headscarf. ~ Becky Monson, #NFDB
634:Margaret in contrast held her head high, her cheeks flagged with a becoming rose color. She looked like a goddess enraged. A goddess who might, if they were alone, assault his person--the thought of which unaccountably aroused him. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
635:She doesn't even know how to kill things properlike? What kind of girl have you given me to, goddess?" Vic protested, fixing his eye on Nike once more.
Nike let out a laugh. " Vic is a little bloodthirsty. You'll get used to it. ~ Jennifer Estep,#NFDB
636:spend hours debating the greatness of Elohim versus the Great Goddess. She could hear Betenos breaking down in her protestations. She knew it was only a matter of time before Betenos rejected her pagan upbringing and embraced Elohim. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
637:There in the silence of her own heart, she prayed the goddess to enlighten her and teach her mercy, and she prayed that Sakota might awaken to the grace of mercy shown her so that life could be saved. Strengthened by her prayers, the ~ Pearl S Buck, #NFDB
638:You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
639:All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. ~ Adolf Hitler, #NFDB
640:And one fine day the goddess of the wind kisses the foot of man, that mistreated, scorned foot, and from that kiss the soccer idol is born. He is born in a straw crib in a tin-roofed shack and he enters the world clinging to a ball. ~ Eduardo Galeano, #NFDB
641:It ratified a theory of mine that great writing could sneak up on you, master of a thousand disguises: prodigal kinsman, messenger boy, class clown, commander of artillery, altar boy, lace maker, exiled king, peacemaker, or moon goddess. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
642:She's a shiksa goddess and a trapeze artist, all of that. She can fix the truck...she's outta this world...she's bold, inventive and fearless. That's who you wanna go in the woods with, right? Somebody who finishes your sentences for you. ~ Tom Waits, #NFDB
643:She should have looked ridiculous, standing there wet and bedraggled in her silly underwear, but she looked magnificent. Like some kind of mythical goddess rising from the mists of time.
Statuesque, utterly feminine. Breathtaking. ~ Sarah Mayberry,#NFDB
644:The ad does not say “Buy this!”; it says, “Be assured that if you buy and display this product, others are being well trained to feel ugly and inferior in your presence, just as you feel ugly and inferior compared with this goddess. ~ Geoffrey Miller, #NFDB
645:We inhabit a three-body cosmos. Sophia is essentially the matriarch of a single-parent family—a single-planet goddess, if you will. But she relies on the support of the surrogate parents, sun and moon, to manage her terrestrial brood. ~ John Lamb Lash, #NFDB
646:You little (such a one who, while wearing a copper nose ring, stands in a footbath atop Mount Raruaruaha during a heavy thunderstorm and shouts that Alohura, goddess of lightning, has the facial features of a diseased uloruaha root)! ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
647:Aphrodite,” [Annabeth] said. “Venus?” Hazel asked in amazement. “Mom,” Piper said with no enthusiasm. “Girls!” The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug. The three demigods did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
648:When I did see the story of Persephone, I was really drawn to it. Persephone, the goddess of spring, was kept from Olympus by her mother, Demeter, because Demeter was very worried that the gods of Olympus would do something terrible to her. ~ Meg Cabot, #NFDB
649:I caught Bast’s arm when she was a few steps from the bank.
“Stay away from the water.”
She frowned. “Carter, I’m a cat. I’m not going for a swim. But if you want to summon a river goddess, you really need to do it at the riverbank. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
650:But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily. -Aphrodite ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
651:I've never wanted more, until I met you."
I gasp, reeling. Oh my. Isn't this what I want? He wants more. He wants it, too! My inner goddess has back-flipped off the podium and is doing a cartwheels around the stadium. It's not just me. ~ E L James,#NFDB
652:I walked over and looked closer at the statue of the goddess. She was wearing a headdress with a skull and a cobra and a crescent moon. Maybe this is what peace of mind was all about: having a poisonous snake on your head and smiling anyway. ~ Wally Lamb, #NFDB
653:She has won her heart’s desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
654:For ever the world of Fairy drifts further from the world in which the Christ holds sway. I have no quarrel with the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny that she ever held power in this world. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
655:It wasn’t feigned but true, and so after more than two years of wondering what had become of him, Azareen found out. In addition to the misery of serving the gods’ “purpose,” it was her fate to watch her husband love the goddess of despair. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
656:I walked over and looked closer at the statue of the goddess. She was wearing a headdress with a skull and a cobra and a crescent moon. Maybe this is what peace of mind was all about: having a poisonous snake on your head and smiling anyway. ~ Wally Lamb, #NFDB
657:Finn says, “No, ma’am,” as he enters the shop, where he gets poked directly in the chest by the fertility goddess. I move a step backward so he can get away because the last thing I need is for Finn to suddenly decide to become fertile. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
658:Five shall go west to the goddess in chains, One shall be lost in the land without rain, The bane of Olympus shows the trail, Campers and Hunters combined prevail, The Titan's curse must one withstand, And one shall perish by a parent's hand ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
659:Go ahead, spit it out,” she muttered. “You look…” Like a goddess of love and war and hope and ecstasy. Like a glimmering star that I have somehow been blessed to hold. Like the rest of my life. “…nice.” He wanted to kick himself. Ventress ~ Christie Golden, #NFDB
660:But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit, To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself --- avoid trying to be something you're not. For a goddess, that's especially hard. We can change so easily.
-Aphrodite ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
661:Colm sighed...
-She's quite beautiful. Like a fairy and a goddess all wrapped into one.
-How very... poetic of you.
...
He felt a sharp tug in the vicinity of his heart.
-And most accurate
He added
Colm & Graham ~ Donna Kauffman,#NFDB
662:Five shall go west to the goddess in chains, One shall be lost in the land without rain, The bane of Olympus shows the trail, Campers and Hunters combined prevail, The Titan’s curse must one withstand, And one shall perish by a parent’s hand. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
663:For who can admit the fault imputed to Homer by Protagoras, — that in the words, ‘Sing, goddess, of the wrath,’ he gives a command under the idea that he utters a prayer? For to tell some one to do a thing or not to do it is, he says, a command. ~ Aristotle, #NFDB
664:I’m nothing anymore, I’m not Proserpina, I’m not a librarian, I’m not a girl who loves summer and the smell of books, I’m not falling in love with two men, I’m not a bride or a saint or a goddess. I’m not a daughter. I’m simply . . . broken. ~ Sierra Simone, #NFDB
665:What? Why?” She looked at him, a cute furrow between her brows, but her body heated against his when he spoke of her punishment. His Goddess was far too much a fan of spankings. He needed to find something that she didn’t like so damn much. “You ~ Setta Jay, #NFDB
666:Tonight I had wrought magic powerful enough to have drawn the attention of a goddess. In that moment, though, I was certain of one thing: Of all the magic I possessed, none of it could begin to compare to the magic he and I created together. ~ Jenna Maclaine, #NFDB
667:Well done,” Devon said, stroking the horse’s golden hide. He glanced up at Kathleen. “You ride beautifully. Like a goddess.”
“Asad would make anyone look accomplished.”
He held her gaze. “No one but you could ride him as if he had wings. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
668:When she came into Venus’ presence the goddess laughed aloud and asked her scornfully if she was seeking a husband since the one she had had would have nothing to do with her because he had almost died of the burning wound she had given him. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
669:Apollymi keeps a tight rein on them. (Kat)
Death to the bitch-goddess! May she die in a flaming pit of Charonte spit! (Xirena)
Damn, Kat, you can’t win for losing. Is there anyone, other than you, who actually likes your family? (Sin) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
670:For example, the face of Nicole Kidman in Queen of the Desert and she is the most beautiful goddess on screen that you can find anywhere around in the world. There's no imperfections, and yet I don't need to know every single pore in her face. ~ Werner Herzog, #NFDB
671:Go ahead, spit it out,” she muttered.
“You look…”
Like a goddess of love and war and hope and ecstasy. Like a glimmering star that I have somehow been blessed to hold.
Like the rest of my life.
“…nice.” He wanted to kick himself. ~ Christie Golden,#NFDB
672:Goddess damn it, being a Siren quite literally sucked… she was a fricking straw for a ravenous rock.
Charisse grit her teeth in determination, unconsciously pulling up first one drooping sock, then the other… we’ll just see about that bitch. ~ Jane Cousins,#NFDB
673:HAZEL WAS AN EXPERT ON WEIRD. She’d seen her mother possessed by an earth goddess. She’d created a giant out of gold. She’d destroyed an island, died, and come back from the Underworld. But getting kidnapped by a field of grass? That was new. She ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
674:The first time she'd lured her ex to a restaurant it had been all she could do to snap him out of the reverie he entered, only for him to emerge spouting nonsense about how she was a princess, a goddess, even a fucking mermaid one time he called her. ~ Ali Shaw, #NFDB
675:Goddess, ...do not be angry with me about this. I am quite aware that my wife Penelope is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. ~ Homer, #NFDB
676:She blinked her eyes open, her lips parted and cheeks flushed, looking every bit like a goddess before him. And if he were a better man, he wouldn’t have been able to taint such purity. But he wasn’t a better man, and there was no turning back now. ~ A Zavarelli, #NFDB
677:And every song-bird shout awhile for her;But I am gifted, even in NovemberRawest of seasons, with so huge a senseOf her nakedly worn magnificenceI forget cruelty and past betrayal,Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall. ~ Robert Graves, The White Goddess, #NFDB
678:Annabeth turned the blade of her drakon-bone sword, which Percy had to admit made her look pretty intimidating and hot in a “Barbarian Princess” kind of way. “So I guess your Death Mist is pretty useless, then,” she said. The goddess bared her broken ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
679:The trader had told me that Mare Nostrum meant “Our Sea” in Latin, and I had marveled at the arrogance of Rome, which would dare to lay claim to the very elements of the earth. The goddess must have laughed at them, I’d thought. I certainly had. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
680:[In Amor and Psyche tale] a drowning man begs for help from Psyche and she must refuse him. When a woman is on her way to face the goddess of the underworld she must save all her resources and not be concerned with lesser tasks. ~ Robert A. Johnson, She #discernment, #NFDB
681:When I look at you, I feel like I’m looking at the other half of myself. You’ve filled the empty space in my soul, and because of that, you’re a Goddess to me. That’s the way I’m always going to treat you. For the rest of your life. I promise you that. ~ Gail McHugh, #NFDB
682:Aphrodite,” [Annabeth] said.
“Venus?” Hazel asked in amazement.
“Mom,” Piper said with no enthusiasm.
“Girls!” The goddess spread her arms like she wanted a group hug.
The three demigods did not oblige. Hazel backed into a palmetto tree. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
683:That’s Venus, September thought. She was the goddess of love. It’s nice that love comes on first thing in the evening, and goes out last in the morning. Love keeps the light on all night. Whoever thought to call it Venus ought to get full marks. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
684:After him came a cast of characters out of her worst nightmares—Linda Chavez, Arch Puddington, twenty others as bad, all of whom, she could imagine, had a secret password such as a derogatory remark about Toni Morrison, whom Margaret considered a goddess. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
685:You’re not using me. You’re mine. You are my own personal goddess. It’s my job to make sure you’re happy. And if I can’t make you happy, I won’t feel right if you’re not taken care of as best as I can. So please, tell me how many people so I can feel right. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
686:Where beauty is worshipped for beauty's sake as a goddess, independent of and superior to morality and philosophy, the most horrible putrefaction is apt to set in. The lives of the aesthetes are the far from edifying commentary on the religion of beauty. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
687:She was the only antidote for the bleakness that lived inside of me. My goddess. My deity. I wasn't a believer in any religion, but I'd make an exception in this case. I'd get down on my knees and worship at her alter every day if it brought her back to me. ~ A Zavarelli, #NFDB
688:She was the only antidote for the bleakness that lived inside of me. My goddess. My deity. I wasn’t a believer in any religion, but I’d make an exception in this case. I’d get down on my knees and worship at her alter every day if it brought her back to me. ~ A Zavarelli, #NFDB
689:When we bring our attention back to discovering who we are on the inside—not who we wish we were or who we think we should be—we begin a sacred path of transformation toward our innate, authentic, embodied power. This is the path of the Warrior Goddess. ~ HeatherAsh Amara, #NFDB
690:After seeing Dr Thorn turn into a monster and plummet off the edge of a cliff with Annabeth, you’d think nothing else could shock me. But when this twelve-year-old girl told me she was the goddess Artemis, I said something really intelligent like, ‘Um… okay. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
691:As often as we made love I remembered what my poet told me, that this man was born of a goddess, the force that moves the stars and the waves of the sea and couples the animals in the fields in spring, the power of passion, the light of the evening star. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
692:For a moment, she wasn’t Mia Corvere, daughter of a murdered house, parched with the thirst for revenge. Not a fledgling assassin or a servant of a goddess. Just a girl. And he a boy. Their eyes blind to all but each other. Aalea’s voice echoing in her ears. ~ Jay Kristoff, #NFDB
693:At the end of the room, merciless beneath a crop of withering spot-lamps, a representation of the Goddess presided over her fane, within an invisible haze of smokeless incense. Irreverently, Zy decided her stern expression was one of severe constipation. ~ Storm Constantine, #NFDB
694:He's holding an armful of pink tulips and wearing a hungry, focused expression. His blue eyes
travel up and down over my body, and I feel almost shy under his gaze.
"You're a goddess."
He says it like a normal person would say, "Your dress is white. ~ Liz Reinhardt,#NFDB
695:Oh, poo,” Simi said petulantly, “we can’t let the heifer-goddess die. Akri will die too if he can’t eat from her.” Her eyes flaming, she put herself between Artemis and the tomb. “C’mon, Xirena, you gots to help the Simi protect the bitch-goddess.” Xirena ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
696:I can promise you, if you would rightly apply your poetic view, my goddess might be represented as an invincible, victorious queen, and boldly opposed to yours. It is true, she bears the olive rather than the sword: dagger or chain she knows not. ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #NFDB
697:Maximus turned to the house, thinking. He had no idea how he would do it yet, but he meant to best her. He’d show her that he was the master, and when she’d admitted his victory… well, then he’d have her. And he’d hold her, by God. His huntress. His goddess. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
698:When the game ended, Mike laid down his control paddle. "So you've met the Nordic goddess, right?"
Aria glanced up at him warily. "Excuse me?"
Mike rolled his eyes. "Duh. Klaudia, which I'm pretty sure is Scandinavian for sex vixen. ~ Sara Shepard,#NFDB
699:Five shall go west to the goddess in chains,
One shall be lost in the land without rain,
The bane of Olympus shows the trail,
Campers and Hunters combined prevail,
The Titan's curse must one withstand,
And one shall perish by a parent's hand ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
700:But,’ she continued, ‘the goddess is too strong. Her will too absolute. The poison that is indifference …and I well know that taste, L’oric. Ask any orphan, no matter how old they are now, and they will tell you the same. We all sucked at that same bitter tit. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
701:The image you see here is a representation of the Thriae, a triplicate bee goddess—a recurring motif of trinity goddesses—who had the gift of prophecy. The other is a representation of Bhramari, a Hindu goddess of bees. Am I pronouncing that correctly, Laila? ~ Roshani Chokshi, #NFDB
702:To face a man in combat is challenge enough. To find the goddess in a woman is the life work of a man. Hard though the first may be, the second is the harder longer road. But every man seeks the woman of the dream, and only the best of men finds what he seeks. ~ Rosalind Miles, #NFDB
703:Was there not some Greek myth about the man who tried to ravish the goddess, only to have her turn to stone when he touched her? That is literally what has happened to Paris. When the Germans came, the soul simply went out of it; and what is left is only stone. ~ Charles Glass, #NFDB
704:I don’t believe in God with a capital G and, despite their obvious solidity, I don’t believe in the gods with their small g’s. Not as real forces in the universe. But I believe in the bitch-goddess Irony. She crosses all time. She rules men and gods and God alike. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
705:I spent centuries I your arms. This time our joining will be controlled by me, and you will revel in the pleasure I can bring you. Throw off the shackles of your distant goddess and come to me. Be my love, truly, in body as well as soul and I will give you the world! ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
706:Sabrina fair
Listen where thou art sitting
Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of Lillies knitting
The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair,
Listen for dear honour's sake,
Goddess of the silver lake,
Listen and save. ~ John Milton,#NFDB
707:You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me "the writer of the Constitution of the United States." This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
708:Attina- Ariel didn't spell out the sign; she moved her hand to suggest the robes of a goddess, the sign for Athena, for whom her sister was named. There was an implication of regalness and wisdom; Ariel was appealing to her oldest sister for her best values. ~ Liz Braswell, #NFDB
709:The Goddess spoke to all the dead. She was beloved for it. It seemed she passed on that gift to you. Oh, it taxed her immensely, but she tried to set as many to rest as she could. Sometimes it only takes one word of kindness, you know, to set a soul at ease. ~ Leanna Renee Hieber, #NFDB
710:Adrift and unmoored, she had tried again and again to throw him a rope to save him from the raging waters. And now he no longer felt like a drowning man at sea. Nora... the siren and the goddess, the ship and the wine-dark sea. She would either save him or end him. ~ Tiffany Reisz, #NFDB
711:I want to taste you,” he murmured, his wicked voice full of promises against her neck.
She nodded and let out a garbled moan that could have meant anything, but he thankfully seemed to understand she meant ‘dear goddess, yes please’.
-Con & Leilani ~ Savannah Stuart,#NFDB
712:At the human level, in Jungian terms – the Goddess whispers to a man’s anima, his buried feminine aspect, and the God speaks out loud to his male emphasis; while the God whispers to a woman’s buried male animus, and the Goddess speaks out loud to her female emphasis. ~ Janet Farrar, #NFDB
713:For some she came in a dream. For others in words as clear as a bell: it is time, I am here. She may come in a whisper so loud she can deafen you or a shout so quiet you strain to hear. She may appear in the waves or the face of the moon, in a red goddess or a crow. ~ Lucy H Pearce, #NFDB
714:Sweetly, he cupped her cheek and very slowly and deliberately pushed down the bodice of her blouse just a little. She laughed. They kissed. Kissed harder. The warmth between them heated, then blazed—the greatest gift of the Goddess—as Holgar tore off her clothes and— ~ Nancy Holder, #NFDB
715:Reyna clapped him [Frank] on the back. ‘That’s right. For hundreds of years, the gods tried to separate us to keep us from fighting. But there’s a better kind of peace – cooperation.’
Piper stood up from the audience. ‘Are you sure your mom is a war goddess? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
716:I thought about falling to my knees on purpose. This was the kind of beauty you worshiped. The kind you built temples for and offered sacrifices to. I wished I had something in my empty hands to give her, but what would a goddess want from a mediocre mortal like me? ~ Stephenie Meyer, #NFDB
717:Martin took the same course, thinking as he went, that perhaps the free and independent citizens, who in their moral elevation, owned the colonel for their master, might render better homage to the goddess, Liberty, in nightly dreams upon the oven of a Russian Serf. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
718:May I ask you a personal question?” “Of course,” his father said. “Though if it’s how to manage a woman like Rowan, I have no advice. You’ve met your mother. Women like them do whatever they like and men like us hold on and enjoy the ride.” Goddess wasn’t that the truth. ~ Lauren Dane, #NFDB
719:Oh, hi. I been married thirteen years, and lemme tell you, it's a thrill to be out of the house. I never get out of the house. I stay home all the time. I never do anything fun 'cause I'm a housewife. I hate the word "housewife." I prefer to be called "domestic goddess. ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
720:The bitch-goddess, as she is called, of Success, roamed, snarling and protective, round the half-humble, half-defiant Michaelis’ heels, and intimidated Clifford completely: for he wanted to prostitute himself to the bitchgoddess, Success also, if only she would have him. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
721:Indiana was such a devout disciple of Shakti that she had once considered taking her name until her father, Blake Jackson, managed to convince her that a Hindu goddess's name was not appropriate for a tall, voluptuous blond American with the looks of an inflatable doll. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
722:As a writer, I am not goddess of the universes I create. I am at most a stage manager of the plentiful gifts which tumble out of the horn of plenty, which is to say there is a source so sweet and forgiving and generous that I pray every day to let that source be my guide. ~ Rebecca Wells, #NFDB
723:Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It's time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
724:Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It’s time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
725:I would be the master of my own fate. Me and the goddess Morrigan. No one else- and certainly no man. Mael and Aeddan could fight over me until they were both bloody. My father could deny me my blade. But they couldn't force me from my warrior's path unless I let them. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
726:When the war has been fought out, and that peace established which is always the result of conflict and war, then it is that the goddess Athena reigns in all gentleness and purity, teaching mankind to enjoy peace, and instructing them in all that gives beauty to human life. ~ Michael Rank, #NFDB
727:Do you know, I had almost lost faith in the goddess? I almost stopped believing in Her. But I realized I had to become something. I had to take what was done to me and use it to make myself into what I wanted to be. And I wanted this. And when I called Her, the goddess came. ~ Lev Grossman, #NFDB
728:The Egyptians of 4000 B.C. believed that the goddess Isis, wife of Osiris, taught them how to grow olives. The Greeks have a similar legend. But the Hebrew word for olive, zait, is probably older than the Greek word, elaia, and is thought to refer to Said in the Nile Delta. ~ Mark Kurlansky, #NFDB
729:Dr. Montessori believes in liberty for the pupil because she thinks of life "as a superb goddess, ever advancing to new conquests." Submission, loyalty, self-sacrifice seem to her, apparently, only incidental necessities of life, not essential elements of its eternal form. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
730:Zia,” I said, “that’s a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?” Zia held up her staff and the carved lion’s head burst into flames—a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. “I am a scribe in the House of Life, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
731:I pull him deeper into my mouth so I can feel him at the back of my throat and then to the front again. My tongue swirls around the end. He’s my very own Christian Grey-flavored popsicle. I suck harder and harder … Hmm … My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves ~ E L James, #NFDB
732:Jason muttered "And I saw something...Really terrible." "That was Hera," Thalia grumbled, "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon." "That's it, Thalia Grace," Said the goddess. "I will turn you into and aardvark, so help me-" "Stop it, you two," Piper said. Amazingly, they both shut up. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
733:She could stay invisible forever. She didn't completely understand her power, but she was beginning to understand who she was. Goddess, she thought, and her molecules formed a smile before she rode the breeze with arc-shaped leaps, like a dolphin, up and down toward home. ~ Lynne Ewing, #NFDB
734:Men have jobs, while women have Roles: Mother, Wife, Goddess, Temptress, etc. That's probably why it's so hard for women to rewrite the rules. You're not just changing a job description, but an ancient myth. You're revising the Bible, Poetry, Legend and Psychoanalytic Scripture. ~ Caryl Rivers, #NFDB
735:We’re not going to make love? And I’m relieved. In fact, he’s had a totally hands-off approach with me all day. I wonder if I should be alarmed by this turn of events, but since my inner goddess has left the building and taken my libido with her, I’ll think about it in the morning. ~ E L James, #NFDB
736:Zia," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?" Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames - a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. "I am a scribe in the House of LIfe, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
737:Finally, sweet finally, he was inside her to the hilt.
"I need a second," he ground out, his body pulsing.
"You're really freaking big, Quinn," she panted. "Move. Please, for the love of the goddess, move."
He grinned before kissing her. "You say such sweet things. ~ Carrie Ann Ryan,#NFDB
738:Actually, I think you're more stymied playing the good guy than you are the bad guy. As the bad guy, you have no inhibitions. Nothing stops you from doing what it is you feel you have to do. You do it because it's what's required. I have to protect my goddess, as best as I can. ~ Dennis Haysbert, #NFDB
739:In truly understanding the Goddess and God, one comes to understand life, for the two are inextricably entwined. Live your earthly life fully, but try to see the spiritual aspects of your activities as well. Remember—the physical and spiritual are but reflections of each other. ~ Scott Cunningham, #NFDB
740:Zia," I said, "that's a goddess. She defeated Bast. What chance do you have?"
Zia held up her staff and the carved lion's head burst into flames - a small red fireball so bright, it lit the entire room. "I am a scribe in the House of LIfe, Sadie Kane. I am trained to fight gods. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
741:So …’ Percy said. ‘We're going to call you Kym. And you'd be a, hmm, Nereid, then? Minor goddess?’
‘Minor?’
‘By which,’ Jason said quickly, ‘he means under the drinking age! Because obviously you're so young and beautiful.’
Percy flashed him a look: Nice save. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
742:—I’d rather be here for you— I waited for it to appear on my phone. He nuzzled into the hair pooling at the back of my neck as I typed back. —And then what?— His fingers flew across the glass. —And let’s talk about the rest later. Today, you are the goddess my universe revolves around.— ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
743:bones. Grief. This is grief—and I’ve brought it on myself. Deep down, a nasty, unbidden thought comes from my inner goddess, her lips contorted in a snarl…the physical pain from the bite of a belt is nothing, nothing compared to this devastation. I curl up, desperately clutching the flat ~ E L James, #NFDB
744:Brujería, which combines Aztec myth, European witchcraft, and Cuban Santería, has Mexican cultural and religious roots. In the sixteenth century, when Spanish priests declared the pagan goddess Toantzin to be a Roman Catholic, Toantzin’s priestesses went underground and became brujas. ~ Kathy Reichs, #NFDB
745:...if there be any Gods at all, of which I am not even certain, I cannot believe they would stoop to meddle in the affairs of men. Nor will I wait upon the Gods to do what I see clearly must be done—who’s to say that the Goddess cannot work through my hand as well as another. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
746:in marked contrast to other high civilizations of the time, this religion—centering on the worship of the Goddess—seems to have both reflected and reinforced a social order in which, to quote Nicolas Platon, “the fear of death was almost obliterated by the ubiquitous joy of living.”10 ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
747:In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She’d bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena’s, which had led to Mount Olympus’s first reality TV punishment program: 'So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a Goddess?' Arachne had lost in a big way. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
748:One who cannot leave himself behind on the threshold of the moment and forget the past, who cannot stand on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without fear or giddiness, will never know what happiness is; and, worse still, will never do anything that makes others happy. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
749:I kneel on the planks for her blessing, and then sit beside her with my feet dangling over the edge and my own reflection looking up at me as if I were a water goddess living under the river, waiting to be released from an enchantment, and not a spinster princess that nobody wants. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
750:So, even in the midst of craziness and exhaustion and life-changing chaos, I was filled with peace and the sweet knowledge that I was walking the path my Goddess wanted me on. Not that that path was smooth and pothole free. But still, it was my path, and like me, it was bound to be unique. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
751:Above them all she stands supporting all,
The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled
Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask;
The ages are the footfalls of her tread,
Their happenings the figure of her thoughts,
And all creation is her endless ac ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Soul,#NFDB
752:I assumed he’d kill me, not my people. (Stryker)
The man’s name is War. Did that not clue you in about his personality? This would be tantamount to meeting Peone and expecting the goddess of retaliation to forgive you and blithely walk away to let you live a happy life. (Zephyra) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
753:Maugham reckoned another, deeper truth: that by performing the mundane physical act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his. ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
754:The test of civilization is the estimate of woman. Among savages she is a slave. In the dark ages of Christianity she is a toy and a sentimental goddess. With increasing moral light, and greater liberty, and more universal justice, she begins to develop as an equal human being. ~ George William Curtis, #NFDB
755:When you're in love, when somebody says something like, "How can you be with that woman?" you say, "What do you mean? I am with this goddess of love, the fulfillment of my whole life. Why are you saying this? Why do you want to throw a rock at her or punish me for being in love with her? ~ John Lennon, #NFDB
756:He inhaled and spoke without thinking, ignoring their audience. “What has happened?” “You know full well, Your Grace, for what—who—I fight.” Her eyes were glittering and he couldn’t believe it, but the evidence was clear. Tears. His goddess should never weep. He took her arm. “Artemis. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
757:Jason muttered "And I saw something...Really terrible."
"That was Hera," Thalia grumbled, "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon."
"That's it, Thalia Grace," Said the goddess. "I will turn you into and aardvark, so help me-"
"Stop it, you two," Piper said. Amazingly, they both shut up. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
758:People talk about the golden age of Hollywood because of how women were lit then. You could be Joan Crawford and Bette Davis and work well into your 50s, because you were lit and made into a goddess. Now, with everything being sort of gritty, women have this sense of their use-by date. ~ Cate Blanchett, #NFDB
759:Do you ... still believe?'
'Our very presence here, a Polynesian goddess sitting next to a Zulu thunder god, listening to the song of a Greek siren, should be proof enough that religions can and do coexist.' He looked back at the cross over the entryway. 'And I still do not know. ~ Karsten Knight,#NFDB
760:Oh, parts of my body got all kinds of tingly seeing that go down.
Kat whipped toward me, her eyes glowing from within. In that moment, she looked like a goddess— a goddess of vengeance.
If we weren’t in the middle of a fight, I’d have you up against a tree right now. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
761:That power of the Gods which orders for the good things which are not uniform, and which happen contrary to expectation, is commonly called Fortune, and it is for this reason that the Goddess is especially worshipped in public by cities; for every city consists of elements which are not uniform. ~ Sallust, #NFDB
762:The Dagda, who reigned just before the coming of the Milesians, was the greatest of the De Danann. He was styled Lord of Knowledge and Sun of all the Sciences. His daughter, Brigit, was a woman of wisdom, and goddess of poetry. The Dagda was a great and beneficent ruler for eighty years. ~ Seumas MacManus, #NFDB
763:The Great Goddess—the Divine Ancestress—had been worshiped from the beginnings of the Neolithic periods of 7000 BC until the closing of the last Goddess temples, about AD 500. Some authorities would extend Goddess worship as far into the past as the Upper Paleolithic Age of about 25,000 BC. ~ Merlin Stone, #NFDB
764:We passed statues of glowering monsters and gods whom I’d fought in person—the vulture Nekhbet, who’d once possessed my Gran (long story); the crocodile Sobek, who’d tried to kill my cat (longer story); and the lion goddess Sekhmet, whom we’d once vanquished with hot sauce (don’t even ask). ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
765:Zeev Feinberg parted from his own obligation and left Yaffa on the sofa, blushing about something he had just wispered to her. Now Zeev wanted to see what the goddess of luck had given his friend, and once again noted that the bitch invariably gives nuts to people who have no teeth. ~ Ayelet Gundar Goshen, #NFDB
766:Luck is a goddess not to be coerced and forcibly wooed by those who seek her favours. From such masterful spirits she turns away. But it happens sometimes that, if we put our hand in hers with the humble trust of a little child, she will have pity on us, and not fail us in our hour of need. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
767:Pony eyed the pitcher of hot fudge sauce Nellie had placed on the table. “And if you pass that pitcher, I will reveal a nugget of information that will please you and instantly return me to your good goddess graces.”
Nellie pushed the pitcher forward. “Spill. Not the fudge sauce. The info. ~ Jude Watson,#NFDB
768:According to Annabeth, our family, the Chases, had some sort of special appeal to the ancient gods. Maybe it was our winning personalities. Maybe it was our brand of shampoo. Annabeth’s mom, the Greek goddess Athena, had fallen in love with her dad, Frederick. My dad, Frey, had fallen in love ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
769:Artemis is freedom—wild, untrammelled, aloof from all entanglements. She is a huntress, a dancer, the goddess of nature and wildness, a virgin physically and, even more important, a virgin psychologically, inviolable, belonging to no one, defined by no relationship, confined by no bond. ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
770:I am the daughter of a water goddess. I am a woman with water in her veins and power in her breeding. I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever walk away from me certain that he won’t walk back. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
771:I was just disciplined. I knew I had to get back into shape after six weeks for the film Goal II, but I cheated in the end - I wore a corset. I loved my pregnancy, I blossomed. I felt goddess-like and very secure. I found it comforting to have a little thing growing inside me, and very calming. ~ Anna Friel, #NFDB
772:Nor has the beauty myth always been this way. Though the pairing of the older rich men with young, “beautiful” women is taken to be somehow inevitable, in the matriarchal Goddess religions that dominated the Mediterranean from about 25,000 B.C.E. to about 700 B.C.E., the situation was reversed: ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
773:As far as I'm concerned, Cate Blanchett is a goddess, but she's really down to earth. She's got all those Oscars, she's made all those amazing films and she could spend her whole life doing that, but what does she also do? She gives birth to three boys and creates her own theatre in Sydney. ~ Sylvester McCoy, #NFDB
774:Narayan will pay. I will tear his heart out and use it to choke his goddess. They do not know what they have awakened. My strength has returned. They will pay. Longshadow, my sister, the Deceivers, Kina herself if she gets in my way. Their Year of the Skulls is upon them. I close the Book of Lady. ~ Glen Cook, #NFDB
775:So, even in the midst of craziness and exhaustion and life-changing chaos, I was filled with peace and the sweet knowledge that I was walking the path my Goddess wanted me on. Not that that path was smooth and pothole free. But still, it was my path, and like me, it was bound to be unique." Untamed ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
776:The truth is simple: Life is perfectly imperfect, unpredictable, and unexplainable. A Warrior Goddess does not try to control life or even understand it. Our job is to consciously choose what we are aligning with and then let go, and dance in joy and gratitude for every moment of existence. ~ HeatherAsh Amara, #NFDB
777:When she spoke again, she didn't recognize her own voice. It was a low, thrumming thing, the rage within her burning like a crucible, making it something new.
"I'm a daughter of Nemesis," she said, "the goddess of divine retribution. You may want to think about how well I can hold a grudge. ~ Leigh Bardugo,#NFDB
778:The light of the sacred prostitute penetrates to the heart of this darkness. . . . she is the consecrated priestess, in the temple, spiritually receptive to the feminine power flowing through her from the Goddess, and at the same time joyously aware of the beauty and passion in her human body. ~ Marion Woodman, #NFDB
779:I’m Cass. What’s your name?” She reached her fingers through the bars to stroke the girl’s hair.
“Minerva.” Her labored breathing slowed somewhat as she choked out the single word.
“That’s a strong name,” Cass said. “The goddess of wisdom.”
“I don’t feel very wise right now,” Minerva said. ~ Fiona Paul,#NFDB
780:We passed through glowering statues of monsters and gods whom I'd fought in person- the vulture Nekhbet, who'd once possessed my Gran (Long story); the crocodile Sobek, who'd tried to kill my cat (longer story); and the lion goddess Sekhmet, whom we'd once vanished with hot sauce (don't even ask) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
781:Theologians frequently assert that God has no body, no gender, no race and no age. Most people state that God is neither male nor female. Yet most people become flustered, upset or even angry when it is suggested that the God they know as Lord and Father might also be God the Mother, or Goddess. ~ Carol P Christ, #NFDB
782:All gods are one God. Your Goddess is another way that the One has expressed Herself in the world. She came to you as She came to me, preaching compassion and hope, teaching vengeance against those who have wronged us and love for those who are close to us. Your Goddess is our Lady. They are one. ~ Naomi Alderman, #NFDB
783:She’s my limitless ocean. My Mount Everest. My peak. She’s the sun, the moon, and the stars. My reason to breathe. When she smiles at me, redemption is mine. She’s my religion. My church. My sacred valentine. Oh, my little Mount Everest. My reason to breathe. The goddess, the muse. Sarah Effing Cruz. ~ Lauren Rowe, #NFDB
784:Where the hell are you, Cimil?"
"Popping tags with Roberto," she replied.
"Popping what?" he asked.
Cimil growled. "You shame Macklemore - I'm at a thrift store. Where else would a goddess find a microwave for her potpie and a new pair of pink hot pants? And a Lee Majors doll! Score! ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff,#NFDB
785:I don't get anywhere meditating," she said. "I see people sitting there with their eyes closed, a smile on their lips or else grave-faced and arrogant, concentrating on absolutely nothing, convinced that they're in touch with God or with the Goddess. So instead, let's listen to some music together. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
786:And one more thing. About my name — Artemis — you were right. In London, it is generally a female name, after the Greek goddess of archery. But every now and then a male comes along with such a talent for hunting that he earns the right to use the name. I am that male. Artemis the hunter. I hunted you. ~ Eoin Colfer, #NFDB
787:Chase looked up from his beer when the bar door opened again, and his eyes widened. Hot damn! There was a goddess standing in the doorway. Holy shit, that was one hot woman…and that hair? He could already feel it sliding against his skin as she rode him like a wild stallion. Bet it will feel like silk. ~ Tamara Hoffa, #NFDB
788:I was born a Love Goddess. My parents, Caesar and Joanne, always told me that I was a little Goddess and Petite Flower. I was a Petite Flower, and I had all these brothers who were always trying to boss me around. I told them, "No. You must kiss my hand or kiss my feet". That's how I became the Goddess. ~ Judy Tenuta, #NFDB
789:Wine is the liquid form of the Goddess Tara, who is the saviour of all living creatures, the mother of all enjoyment and Release, the destroyer of dangers and disease, who burns up all sins and purifies the worlds, O Beloved , who grants all success and increases knowledge, understanding and learning. ~ Wendy Doniger, #NFDB
790:Cassandra sat on the floor with Chris and Kat, playing Life. They had tried to play Trivial Pursuit earlier only to learn that a Dark-Hunter and an immortal handmaiden to a goddess had a decidedly unfair advantage over Cassandra and Chris. In Life, the only thing that mattered was luck.’ (Cassandra) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
791:Vane looked back at her one last time, knowing he would never see her again. She was so beautiful there with large, amber eyes set in the pale face of a goddess. There was something about her that reminded him of a Rubens angel. She was ethereal and lovely. And far too fragile for an animal." - Vane ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
792:The idea that women are innately gentle is a fantasy, and a historically recent one. Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, is depicted as wreathed in male human skulls; the cruel entertainments of the Romans drew audiences as female as they were male; Boudicca led her British troops bloodily into battle. ~ Naomi Wolf, #NFDB
793:The nightmare was shaped like a goddess - a beauty with a body curved to incite reckless sinning. She wore an angry pout that he knew would burn his mouth. She had hair like snow and eyes as cold and fathomless as the deepest reaches of space. How like a nightmare to seduce and terrify at the same time. ~ Erin Kellison, #NFDB
794:A Divine Feminine symbol acts to deconstruct patriarchy, which is one of the reasons there’s so much resistance, even hysteria, surrounding the idea of Goddess. The idea of Goddess is so powerfully “other,” so vividly female, it comes like a crowbar shattering the lock patriarchy holds on divine imagery. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
795:Don't tell me," Ford said. "Another Ginger Goddess."
"Nah," Logan grinned. "I just wanted to see if you knew how to make a sissy drink. It was good though. Thanks."
Sawyer, still sprawled back in his chair, laughed.
Okay, that was it. Ford was cutting everyone off, the f***ers. ~ Jill Shalvis,#NFDB
796:In Lovelock's view the earth was a 'super-organism,' a cybernetic feedback system that 'seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.' At the suggestion of his neighbor, author and screenwriter William Goldman, he called the system Gaia after the ancient Greek Earth goddess. ~ Steven Kotler, #NFDB
797:nemesis. ‘Instead, the unions directed their wrath toward another nemesis, the European Community’s Executive Commission …’ (Time magazine). A nemesis (from Nemesis, the Greek goddess of vengeance) is not merely a rival or traditional enemy, but one who extracts retributive justice or is utterly unbeatable. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
798:Put your affairs in order, mortals,” she boomed, as a gust of wind—yes, wind inside my shop—blew their hair back. “I will feast on your hearts tonight for the offense you gave me. So swears the Morrigan.” I thought it was a bit melodramatic, but one does not critique a death goddess on her oratory delivery. ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
799:I don't believe you appreciate the gravity of the service you have performed here. While it's true under normal circumstances that resurrection is a substantial favor to ask of a goddess, your brother's life is worth so much less than what you've done here today.” Katherine sighed. “Sounds like you knew him. ~ Robert Bevan, #NFDB
800:I will ask you once to put the dark-skinned girl down and leave."
Crandle snorted. "And if we don't?"
That one eye narrowed slightly. "Then, long after we are gone to the goddess, the grandchildren of the grandchildren of those who witness will whisper fearful stories of the way I broke you. ~ Joe Abercrombie,#NFDB
801:My father is the harbinger of death and destruction. My grandmother the Great Destroyer. My mother is the goddess of the hunt. I think I’ll be okay. (Kat) Yeah, you do have the history of absolute terror and cruelty in your veins. (Sin) Remember that if you ever come between me and my chocolate bar. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
802:The gods are being kind to me in my old age. Most beautiful women are either good, stupid or vicious. And you are the marvellous exception. Lovely as a goddess, clever as an Athenian and a bad hat like myself, yet one who still has decent feelings. I’m going to kiss the lips off you once we land in France. ~ Dennis Wheatley, #NFDB
803:We lose in depth of expression when we go to inferior animals for comparisons with human beauty. Homer calls Juno ox-eyed; and the epithet suits well with the eyes of that goddess, because she may be supposed, with all her beauty, to want a certain humanity. Her large eyes look at you with a royal indifference. ~ Leigh Hunt, #NFDB
804:Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one - and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle! ~ Homer, #NFDB
805:Hey." I folded my arms, trying to keep my own eyes on her face. "Aren't you supposed to be a virgin goddess?"
A soft, tinkling laughing came from her. "Honey, have you ever heard of kiss and don't tell?"
"Have you ever heard of a bra?" I demanded. "Because I can see your... you know. Everything. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
806:In ancient Greece, the earth was personified as a mysterious goddess called Gaia. A cosmic, procreative womb who emerged out of the primeval void called Chaos, it was believed Gaia existed before all other life. It was also believed that Gaia created all of life. In Roman mythology, she was known as Terra. At ~ Kris Waldherr, #NFDB
807:Were I to personify Justice, instead of presenting her blind, I would denominate her the goddess of fire. . . Of unbending integrity Justice should feel, hear and see; but truth alone should be the polar star by which she should shape her movements, and equity only should constrain her determinations. ~ Judith Sargent Murray, #NFDB
808:You are in your puerity. You have not brought stinking members into the house of Amanti. Elleb Inam, Titep Notep, we name them to the Hall of Honour. Your head has been touched by the god Enel-Rah and your face has been brightened by the goddess Aruc-Ituc. Return, sainted youngling, and walk once more among us! ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
809:As a child of the Goddess, I know that when a being dies, the soul lives on. That dying is only a way of forgetting pain and suffering--that it is a pathway to travel back to the Goddess to be renewed and made strong-- to rest and to one day be ready to return to this realm, for it is spoken by the High Priestess... ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
810:In Darkness and Light, in Life and Death Two souls will join to share One Path With heart and mind, and every breath You become each other’s present and past What the future holds only the Goddess can see Paved by the choices you both shall make Step by step toward your Destiny In Bond Eternal that none shall break ~ Aja James, #NFDB
811:The woman was the kind of woman that the British find breathtakingly sexy and I could never figure out why. She had short, dark hair that was a little bit spiky on top and a curvy little body. She was cute, I supposed, but was no goddess. She wasn't worthy of him. And yet Sean looked like he wanted to eat her up. ~ Megan Crane, #NFDB
812:Ever since I was a little girl, I was taught that my primary purpose was to become a goddess in heaven so that I could multiply an earth.
I wanted that. I wanted to become a goddess with my husband... to be eternally pregnant and look down on an earth and say, "That's mine, and all those babies down there, I had! ~ Ed Decker,#NFDB
813:I once worked with the nicest young hairdresser and one afternoon when we had nothing to do he explained how to give a blowjob from a man's perspective, and I tell you it changed everything. After that, every man I went with called me 'a goddess', 'a revelation sent from God' and 'an oral-copulating genius'". ~ Marshall Thornton, #NFDB
814:Leo choked. "Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"
"Got a problem with that?" Butch said.
"No, no," Leo said. "Rainbows, very macho."
"Butch is our best equestrian," Annabeth said. "He gets along great with the pegasi."
"Rainbows, ponies," Leo muttered.
"I'm gonna toss you off this chariot," Butch warned. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
815:The command "Be ye prfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and he is going to make good his words. He will make us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature...a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
816:The heart that loves must one day grieve. Love and grief are the Goddess's twined gifts. Let the pain in, let it open your heart to compassion. Let me help you bear your grief and then may your heart ease and open to greater love. May the love that flows eternally through the universe embrace and comfort you. p.85 ~ Cate Tiernan, #NFDB
817:Woman is an incarnation of 'Shakti'- the goddess of power. If she is bestowed with education, Gujarat's strength will double. Let the campaign of 'Kanya Kelavni' be spread in every home. Let the lamp of educating daughters be lit up in every heart. Then only the vision of 'Jay Jay Garvi Gujarat' will be realized. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
818:Bummer,” Glo said. “Do you want me to say some words? I’m an ordained minister. I even have a certificate.” “What church?” I asked her. “The Church of the Barley Goddess.” “I don’t think that’s a real church.” “They have a website,” Glo said. “The World Wide Web wouldn’t allow them on there if they weren’t real. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
819:Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
820:If the essence of creativity is linking disparate facts and ideas, then the more facility you have making associations, and the more facts and ideas you have at your disposal, the better you'll be at coming up with new ideas. As Buzan likes to point out, Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was the mother of the Muses. ~ Joshua Foer, #NFDB
821:My father is the harbinger of death and destruction. My grandmother the Great Destroyer. My mother is the goddess of the hunt. I think I’ll be okay. (Kat)
Yeah, you do have the history of absolute terror and cruelty in your veins. (Sin)
Remember that if you ever come between me and my chocolate bar. (Kat) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
822:They're really into it, laughing and teasing each other, and I am looking at Pam and thinking once again how she is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and that if we were back in the olden times she might have been made into a goddess because she is so beautiful. Sometimes I cannot stop my mind. It's scary. ~ James Howe, #NFDB
823:Simi. Return to me. (Acheron) 'Return to me, Simi.’ Don’t go frying the goddess. Don’t go frying Thanatos. I am not a yo-yo, akri. I am a Simi. I hate it when you get me all excited about going to kill something and then tell me no. I don’t like that. It boring. You don’t ever let me have any fun anymore. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
824:I've never been obsessed with celebrity or star-struck or anything. I met Penelope Cruz when we were in Toronto, who I think is a goddess and an unbelievable actress, and she introduced herself. As she walked away from the table I had to take a deep breath, which was strange because I've never had that with anyone. ~ Carey Mulligan, #NFDB
825:I am mean; I'm nasty at times. I don't feel like talking to people at times. When I am in a bad mood and have had a really awful day, don't come in my face because I am not tolerant and I am not a goddess; I can't handle it after a point. I am going to get up, and I am going to scream, and I am going to say bad things to you. ~ Kajol, #NFDB
826:Josie’s chestnut hair is pulled back on one side with some sort of tropical flower pinned at her temple; it ought to look ridiculous, but it doesn’t. Instead, she reminds me of some 1940s movie goddess—sultry and luminous. Conley’s arm is linked with hers, and he gazes at her like she’s the brightest light in the room. ~ Claudia Gray, #NFDB
827:Simi. Return to me. (Acheron)
'Return to me, Simi.’ Don’t go frying the goddess. Don’t go frying Thanatos. I am not a yo-yo, akri. I am a Simi. I hate it when you get me all excited about going to kill something and then tell me no. I don’t like that. It boring. You don’t ever let me have any fun anymore. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
828:A Fish Commissioner
Great Joseph D. Redding-illustrious name!
Considered a fish-horn the trumpet of Fame.
That goddess was angry, and what do you think?
Her trumpet she filled with a gallon of ink,
And all through the Press, with a devilish glee,
She sputtered and spattered the name of J.D.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
829:To Witches, the cosmos is the living body of the Goddess, in whose being we all partake, who encompasses us and is immanent within us. We call her Goddess not to narrowly define her gender, but as a continual reminder that what we value is life brought into the world ... She has infinite names and guises, many of them male. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
830:What are you doing?”
“Kneeling before a goddess.”
“I’m not a goddess.”
“You are. A goddess, a princess, a queen. As a soldier, I pledge myself to your service. As a prince, I grant you any boon within my power. As a man, I ask to sit at your feet and worship you. Ask me to do anything for you and I will do it. ~ Colleen Houck,#NFDB
831:I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women -- at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
832:Moon is associated with, astrologically speaking: feelings, emotions, mothers, parenting, memories, femininity, the Goddess, witches, women, childhood, cycles, nourishment, heritage, habits, sensitivity, moods, fluctuations, subconscious, receptivity, domestic life, the public, feeding, nurturing, home, needs, and more. ~ Yasmin Boland, #NFDB
833:Now, suppose we consider our trades and businesses. Is it not natural if we conclude a profitable transaction to consider it not good luck but a just reward for our efforts? I am inclined to think we may be overlooking the gifts of the goddess. Perhaps she really does assist us when we do not appreciate her generosity. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
834:is usually summarized in ancient philosophy as a combination of four qualities: wisdom (or moral insight), courage, self-control and justice (or upright dealing). It enables a man to be ‘self-sufficient’, immune to suffering, superior to the wounds and upsets of life (often personalized as Fortuna, the goddess of fortune). Even a ~ Seneca, #NFDB
835:Kwan Yin is the goddess depicted on the front. It is said that when she died and reached the gates of paradise, she paused and heard the cries of anguish from the human world below and could not leave it. She remained to give aid to mortals, when they cannot aid themselves. She is the comfort of all suffering hearts.” “A ~ Cassandra Clare, #NFDB
836:Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back!
Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce
as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down.
Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one -
and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess,
with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle! ~ Homer,#NFDB
837:For all the Gods are one God,” she said to me then, as she had said many times before, and as I have said to my own novices many times, and as every priestess who comes after me will say again, “and all the Goddesses are one Goddess, and there is only one Initiator. And to every man his own truth, and the God within. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
838:I’m saying Mary’s an ideal homemaker,” I said. “But I’m not asking you to become a domestic goddess—that’s not my point. My point is that I don’t want to expect that from you anymore. I’m trying to change myself here, not you. Tonight was just a setback.” “Whatever,” Kristen said, leaning in for a kiss. “It’s fine. Good night. ~ David Finch, #NFDB
839:[From a New York Times biography from May 27, 2010 entitled Introduction to Simone de Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex']
Beauvoir herself was as devout an atheist as she had once been a Catholic, and she dismisses religions — even when they worship a goddess — as the inventions of men to perpetuate their dominion. ~ Simone de Beauvoir,#NFDB
840:Izanami - over the long years that she had handed out death - had become a true goddess, and not just that: the quintessential destroyer […] she was the goddess who invited our desire and also our defilement; she bore the weight of the past and lived on into the future for ever. The realisation filled me with overwhelming awe. ~ Natsuo Kirino, #NFDB
841:Has anybody ever told you you're an evil woman?" -Reece
"Who, me?" -Erin
"Yes, you." -Reece
"Li'l ole me?" -Erin
"Sadistic goddess you, yes." -Reece
"Do you want me to stop?" -Erin
"Do you want me to hold you down and bang you like a screen door?" -Reece
"Don't threaten the sadistic
goddess, Reece." -Erin ~ Angela Knight,#NFDB
842:When I look at Mari now, it’s like I see her in layers—the burning blonde with the ribbon over her mouth, the princess tearing apart a screwed-up tea party, the goddess wrapped in burning chains, and the girl who is somehow all those things yet isn’t aware of it. Who doesn’t even see the cliff she’s running toward at full speed. ~ Erica Cameron, #NFDB
843:Alas," said Aslan, shaking his head. "It will. Things always work according to their nature. She has won her heart's desire; she has unwearying strength and endless days like a goddess. But length of days with an evil heart is only length of misery and already she begins to know it. All get what they want; they do not always like it. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
844:It was if the city knew about Percy's dream of Gaea. It knew that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood for thousands if years, was saying back at her: You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot. In other words, it was the Coach Hedge of mortal cities- only taller. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
845: Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting 5 of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished ~ Homer, #NFDB
846:The absurdly neurotic role you and the rest of your kind have always attributed to me Erato, the Goddess Muse of Erotic Poetry bears no relation at all to reality. As a matter of fact, I was trained as a clinical psychologist. Who simply happens to have specialized in the mental illness that you, in your ignorance, call literature. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
847:The people come from everywhere, from five hundred miles, to find their fortunes. By fortune is an ugly, two-faced goddess. When you have lived with her handiwork for half a generation, you hardly notice anymore. You forget that this is not the way life has to be. You cease to marvel at just how much evil man con conjure by existing. ~ Glen Cook, #NFDB
848:baptized her into Christianity as Our Lady of Guadalupe. What they didn’t realize was that Tonantzin was a goddess who could take away sins through secret rituals performed by her priestesses—the brujería. The missionaries, basically, made it perfectly fine for Catholic Indians to go to Mass, but also visit a witch. My mother was a ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
849:Chaska looked like he was fighting not to laugh. “Well, it sounds like you’ve tried everything.” “I respect the snake’s energy. I really do. They’re a symbol of the Goddess, a symbol of rebirth, but most of my customers aren’t as evolved as I am. It scares them. I don’t want to call an exterminator, but it’s hurting my bottom line. ~ Pamela Clare, #NFDB
850:I recalled my encounter with the sea goddess Ran, who had described her husband as a hipster who liked microbrewing. At the time, the description had been too weird to comprehend. Afterward, it had seemed funny. Now it seemed a little too real, because I was pretty sure the hipster god in question was standing right in front of me. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
851:Somebody’s killing the moon, the goddess; some woman has apparently taken on the—what would the word be—goddess-hood and somebody’s killing her. I think it’s too late for her, and I don’t know the circumstances, but she’s got a child, a little girl. An infant, in fact, to judge by how close Venus was to the moon when we saw it.” Here ~ Tim Powers, #NFDB
852:ALTAR (A'LTAR) n.s.[altare, Lat. It is observed by Junius, that the word altar is received, with christianity, in all the European languages; and that altare is used by one of the Fathers, as appropriated to the Christian worship, in opposition to the aræ of gentilism.]1. The place where offerings to heaven are laid. The goddess ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
853:It was if the city knew about Percy's dream of Gaea. It knew that the earth goddess intended on razing all human civilization, and this city, which had stood for thousands if years, was saying back at her: You wanna dissolve this city, Dirt Face? Give it a shot.
In other words, it was the Coach Hedge of mortal cities- only taller. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
854:Wisdom is neither good nor bad, male nor female, Christian or pagan: she is no one's personal possession. The Goddess of Wisdom reaches down to the depths of our need. Her simple being is so vastly present that we have not noticed it. Indeed, we have not known the depths of our need nor that any assuaging wisdom was near at hand. ~ Caitl n Matthews, #NFDB
855:The rite of marriage derives from the part played by the king in the old fertility ritual. The union of the Earth Goddess with the god-king becomes the prototype of marriage, and only with the institution of this symbolic ritual did the act of sexual union, endlessly repeated for millions of years, begin to be understood consciously. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
856:I didn't have time to tell Bracken to care for her. I didn't have time to tell Arturo that I knew why he was hard on me, and it was okay. I didn't have time to tell Green that he was the sun and the moon and the stars. The Goddess gave me just enough time to feel her pain, to let her know I loved her. I had just long enough to say goodbye. ~ Amy Lane, #NFDB
857:The goddess Artemis had a twin brother, Apollo, the many-faceted god of the Sun. He was her male counterpart: his domain was the city, hers the wilderness; his was the sun, hers the moon; his the domesticated flocks, hers the wild, untamed animals; he was the god of music, she was the inspiration for round dances on the mountains. ~ Jean Shinoda Bolen, #NFDB
858:Asleep he’d been more of a temptation than she wanted. He’d looked relaxed and gentle.
Inviting.
Awake he looked dangerous.
And still inviting.
She would give the goddess credit, Artemis had exquisite taste in men; and to Tabitha’s knowledge, and according to Amanda’s words, there was no such thing as an ugly Dark-Hunter. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
859:Astronomers do not commonly use Venereal, in favor of the less contagious-sounding Venutian. Blame the medical community, who snatched the word long before astronomers had any good use for it. I suppose you can't blame the doctors. Venus is the goddess of beauty and love, so she ought to be the goddess of its medical consequences. ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson, #NFDB
860:You observe her rites and rules in the dealing of a hand or the shuffling of cards. You worship her, sure as a ballplayer sixty years ago worshipped the Twins or Ili of the Bright Sails or Qet Sea-Lord or Exchitli. For you, at least, the card game never ends. You’re an occasional priest—pledged to a goddess who only exists occasionally. ~ Max Gladstone, #NFDB
861:I can never acknowledge the right of slavery. I will bow down to no deity however worshipped by professing Christians - however dignified by the name of the Goddess of Liberty, whose footstool is the crushed necks of the groaning millions, and who rejoices in the resoundings of the tyrant's lash, and the cries of his tortured victims. ~ Thaddeus Stevens, #NFDB
862:Then one day she spotted a herd of deer. You’re thinking, Wow, deer. That fills me with excitement. But this herd of deer included five huge hinds – adult females the size of bulls, with hooves and antlers made of solid gold. How did Artemis know it was real gold and not spray-paint? She’s the goddess of wild animals. She could just tell. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
863:Vedic science, the ancient wisdom tradition of India, says that unless you can get in touch with that embryo of a god or goddess incubating inside you, unless you can let that embryo be fully born, then your life will always be mundane. But once that god or goddess expresses itself through you, then you will do grand and wondrous things. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
864:All who seek to know Me, know this... All your seeking and yearning will be in vain unless you understand the Mystery that if what you seek is not found within, you will never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I will gather you to my breast at the end.” -Doreen Valiente, from “Charge of the Goddess ~ Trista Hendren, #NFDB
865:Her jagged breathing gave her away. She stood, a dark silhouette pressed against the trunk of a cottonwood tree. She was cornered in the yard. No place to go.
Sweet goddess, he traced across her mind. I've only come to seal our destiny. You shouldn't feel so afraid of me. And yet her fear was what he enjoyed. He savored it. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
866:I’m not the whore here, Acheron. You are. Bought and sold to anyone who could pay your fee. How dare you think for one minute you were ever worthy of a goddess. (Artemis)
You’re right, my lady. I’m not worthy of you or anyone else. I’m just a piece of shit to be dumped naked in the street. Forgive me for ever sullying you. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
867:Oh, please, Mr. B thinks, not a human. Not another human. He is filled with despair. God's passion for humans always leads to catastrophe, to meteorological upset on an epic scale. What is wrong with the boy that he can't get it up for some nice goddess? Why, oh why, can't he pursue a sensible relationship, one that will not end in disaster? ~ Meg Rosoff, #NFDB
868:How will it ever be bearable, Priestess?” His voice was rough. He sounded completely broken. “You’ll see her again. She’s with Nyx now. She’ll either wait for you in the Goddess’s meadow, or she’ll be reborn and her soul will find you again during this lifetime. You can bear it because you know that spirit never really ends-we never really end. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
869:Art is a window to The Infinite, and opening to the goddess, a portal through which you and I, with the help of the artist, may discover depths and heights of our soul undreamed of by the vulgar world. Art is the eye of the spirit, through which the sublime can reach down to us, and we up to it, and be transformed, transfigured in the process. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
870:I find men victims of illusions in all parts oflife. Children, youths, adults and old men, all are led by one bauble or another. Yoganidra, the goddess of illusion, is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, In his essay Illusions, quoted in Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind India in the American mind Bombay: PopularPrakashan, 1992., #NFDB
871:No no, Ivan, I love it!” I laugh and wrap my arms around him, blushing half out of embarrassment and half out of how absurdly cute this otherwise terrifying man was trying to be. It was like he was studying romance movies just to figure out how to surprise me. Me! The girl that is technically his sex slave, but who he treats like a Goddess. ~ Alexis Abbott, #NFDB
872:She swore she loved and her love fulfilled itself in death and many a mysterious way. Yet it was hard to believe that this passion of hers was more than a spoken part, for how can the star seek the moth although the moth may seek the star? Though the man may worship the goddess, for all her smiles divine, how can the goddess love the man? ~ H Rider Haggard, #NFDB
873:The Chamber is only a room, though a magical one, and you will enter it when the time comes. Duke Roger is only a man, for all he wields sorcery. He can be met and defeated. But you, my daughter - learn to love. You have been given a hard road to walk. Love will ease it. Much depends on you, Alanna of Trebond. Do not fail me!" - The Goddess ~ Tamora Pierce, #NFDB
874:But all I could see was her. No skill of mine, no artist anywhere, could’ve immortalized how gorgeous she was. It was impossible to believe she’d ever had any doubts about her body. The firelight shone on her skin, golden and perfect, making her look like some radiant goddess of legend. I wanted to kneel before her and offer eternal obedience. ~ Richelle Mead, #NFDB
875:She’s a heroine, don’t you know?” said Aphrodite. The goddess started fluttering her eyelashes. “We can’t all be helpless waifs, waiting in high white towers for men to rescue us. We can’t all be Helens of Troy with men fighting for us! We women need powerful symbols of steel and fire to put us right up there with those arrogant guys!” “I ~ Martin H Greenberg, #NFDB
876:forever, but so long as he kept it, misfortunes would fall on all those he loved one after another in unending rain.” “Live forever?” “But if the keeper threw the diamond into the sea, thereby delivering it to its rightful recipient, the goddess would lift the curse. So the prince, now sultan, thought for three days and three nights and finally ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
877:God, she looked adorable. She was clad in a loose-fitting morning gown covered by a pretty, frilled house apron, her luxurious hair flowing long and unbound over her shoulders in a most fetching state of dishabille. This was his beloved as he remembered her best, not the terrifyingly beautiful goddess in white from the ballroom the night before. ~ Gaelen Foley, #NFDB
878:Know this, you can start over, every morning.
Know that every day you have an opportunity to respond.
Be educated, rather than angered.
Be wise in your walk, rather than wounded, or wicked.
Your intellect is the sharpest tool in your Goddess kit. Use it. Wisely.
Know your value. Know your worth. Know your contribution. Know this. ~ Emma Mildon,#NFDB
879:What is more transformative than the female form? What is more of a symbol of eternal growth and change than the Goddess? The eternal spiral of cre- ation. Coiled like a serpent, our shakti energy sits, waiting to be awakened within all of us. What our bodies and beings were built for. What we were created to do. Change. Create. Create the change. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
880:How will it ever be bearable, Priestess?” His voice was rough. He sounded completely broken.
“You’ll see her again. She’s with Nyx now. She’ll either wait for you in the Goddess’s meadow, or she’ll be reborn and her soul will find you again during this lifetime. You can bear it because you know that spirit never really ends-we never really end. ~ P C Cast,#NFDB
881:You deserve to be treated like the fucking warrior goddess you are—beautiful, strong, perfect. You deserve a man that can worship your body all night softly, then pull your hair back and fuck you till you scream out in release, over and over. You deserve an equal in life, but a man to dominate you in bed. You deserve the flowers and the fucks. ~ Jessica Florence, #NFDB
882:I’d heard so much about this new recruit being a monster that I half expected him to turn into a living corpse like the goddess Hel, or a miniature version of the sea serpent Jormungand. Instead, the animal grew into a regular human teen, long and lanky, with a swirl of dyed green hair, black at the roots, like a plug of weeds pulled out of a lawn. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
883:She was beautiful in combat. I know that’s a crazy thing to say, especially after we’d just climbed a sewage waterfall, but her gray eyes sparkled when she was fighting for her life. Her face shone like a goddess’s, and believe me, I’ve seen goddesses. The way her Camp Half-Blood beads rested against her throat—Okay, sorry. Got a little distracted. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
884:The Aryan/Hurrian mother-of-all-living goddess Heba is another evidence of the Aryans adopting the ancient Egyptian god Hathor (i.e. Yahweh) as we also witness in Genesis 3:20. This explains the alliance of Abdi-Heba whose name means, the servant of Yahweh, with Egypt; he pitifully appealed to Pharaoh for help after being attacked by the Semites ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
885:The new goddess contingency could not be erected until the God of heaven was utterly despoiled of his dominion over the sons of men, and in the room thereof a home-bred idol of self-sufficiency set up, and the world persuaded to worship it. But that the building climb no higher, let all men observe how the word of God overthrows this babylonian tower. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
886:In the celebration of these anniversaries, the priestesses of Aphrodite worked themselves up into a wild state of frenzy, and the term Hysteria became identified with the state of emotional derangement associated with such orgies…. The word Hysteria was used in the same sense as Aphro-disia, that is, as a synonym for the festivals of the goddess.86 ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
887:The Goddess doesn't enter us from outside; she emerges from deep within. She is not held back by what happened in the past. She is conceived in consciousness, born in love, and nurtured by higher thinking. She is integrity and value, created and sustained by the hard work of personal growth and the discipline of a life lived actively in hope. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
888:... you are a microcosm of Me - the Divine All, the Holy Everything, the Sum and Substance. .. the Alpha and the Omega. .. Yes, I am God, as you now understand Him. I am Goddess as you now comprehend Her, I am the Conceiver and the Creator of Everything you now know and experience, and you are My children. .. even as I am the child of another. ~ Neale Donald Walsch, #NFDB
889:Once man loses his faculty of indifference he becomes a potential murderer; once he transforms his idea into a god the consequences are incalculable. We kill only in the name of a god or of his counterfeits: the excesses provoked by the goddess Reason, by the concept of nation, class, or race are akin to those of the Inquisition or of the Reformation ~ Emil M Cioran, #NFDB
890:Those eager to grasp opportunities for their betterment, do attract the interest of the good goddess. She is ever anxious to aid those who please her. Men of action please her best . "Action will lead thee forward to the successes thou dost desire." MEN OF ACTION ARE FAVORED BY THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
891:The Goddess falls in love with Herself, drawing forth her own emanation, which takes on a life of its own. Love of self for self is the creative force of the universe. Desire is the primal energy, and that energy is erotic: the attraction of lover to beloved, of planet to star, the lust of electron for proton. Love is the glue that holds the world together. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
892:Goddess,” he said, his breath on my mouth, “have me, please. I was wrong. You’re not the sea under my sky. You are the sun I revolve around, the stars that mark me, the moon rising through me. I’m lost without you. If you won’t have me, I’ll break, I swear to God. I know it’s selfish, and I’m sorry. Let me serve you. Have me as yours. Let me live under you. ~ C D Reiss, #NFDB
893:The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
894:The Hopi tribe of North America had a goddess called Spider Woman. In their creation myth she teamed up with Tawa the sun god, and they sang the First Magic Song as a duet. This song brought the Earth, and life, into being. Spider Woman then took the threads of Tawa’s thoughts and wove them into solid form, creating fish, birds, and all other animals. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
895:The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
896:Few words are so revealing of western sexual prejudice as the word Goddess, in contrast to the word God. Modern connotations vastly differ from those of the ancients, to whom the Goddess was a full-fledged cosmic parent figure who created the universe and its laws, ruler of Nature, Fate, Time, Eternity, Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Love. Birth, Death, etc. ~ Barbara G Walker, #NFDB
897:It was your body....that danced at your first drum circle; it was your body that gave birth to your child; it was your body that got down and dirty in the back seat of your dad's station wagon; it was your body that shivered, sweated, clasped its hands, fell to its knees, wept, and laughed the first time you felt the presence of the goddess in your life. ~ Dianne Sylvan, #NFDB
898:You call yourself some kind of goddess and you know nothing, madam, nothing. What don’t die can’t live. What don’t live can’t change. What don’t change can’t learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than you. You’re right. I’m older. You’ve lived longer than me but I’m older than you. And better’n you. And, madam, that ain’t hard. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
899:Can’t you flash us out?” – Abigail
“My powers were strangled by a bitch-goddess as punishment for my gross stupidity. I’m lucky I can still flash myself, never mind other people. All I have is raw power and sexy, fighting prowess. Well, okay, if I had to, I might teleport one, maybe two others. But I wouldn’t bet my better body parts on it.” – Sasha ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
900:Phoebe, your name means Radiant One, and that is also part of the calling you have from the Goddess. Your radiance will light the way for us and reveal the darkness among us. With your gifts, things hidden for too long will be exposed and eradicated. Your unction with Malm will bring about a change in the foundations of government and life as we know it, ~ Mychal Daniels, #NFDB
901:Yes, I’m Delia Maddox,” she said, taking his hand in a quick, firm shake. “Grace’s sister-in-law and--”
“--the ravishing goddess responsible for creating Delia’s delectable. The most amazing food in the Americas.”
Her pretty eyes twinkled at his nickname for her food, but she folded her arms and said, “Only in the Americas? Hmm, I must be slipping. ~ Donna Kauffman,#NFDB
902:Everywhere the female is “terrible”; she is the seducer, the instrument of castration, cause of the two tree-fellings and of the death of the bull. But, despite everything, she is not terrible only; she is also the fruitful mother goddess, who is impregnated by the splinter of wood in order to bring forth the seduced, slain, and sacrificed Bata as her son. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
903:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave.
Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
904:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When they had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving them an order.
Apollo was telling them to be brave.
Athena was telling them to be in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
905:He knows she’s his daughter, twit. (Artemis)
Twit? Moi? The Simi? Why, I do believe the bitch-goddess has done gone and gotten herself confused. She thinks she’s me, not that I blame her. All women want to be me because of my beautoneousness and the fact that I have such stylish clothing and sparklies. But believe me, I ain’t no heifer-goddess. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
906:The house swallowed them. Dylan put his hands on Kim's and Liam's shoulders. "The Goddess bless you both." He kissed Kim's forehead. "Thank you Kim."
He smiled and walked away. Liam watched him, his heart full.
"Is he thanking me for getting pregnant?" Kim asked. "It wasn't difficult, with all the sex we kept having. You did as much as I did. ~ Jennifer Ashley,#NFDB
907:Thus while Ganesha helps devotees move from south to north, Kartikeya himself moves from north to south for the benefi t of devotees. While as Ganesha tempers materialistic cravings with spiritual insight, Murugan tempers his martial attitude with divine grace and romantic emotions. Thus the Goddess helps Shiva connect with humanity through her two sons. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
908:I surveyed my surroundings. The hill was covered with sweet-smelling wildflowers and dancing butterflies awash in warm, glowing light—the power of Freya, goddess and ruler of Vanaheim, washing over the realm. On the hilltop, Freya’s handpicked warriors lounged on blankets, laughing and sipping chai.
I scowled. Peace, butterflies, chai: this world was awful. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
909:High on a stag the Goddess held her seat,
And there were little hounds about her feet;
Below her feet there was a sickle moon,
Waxing it seemed, but would be waning soon.
Her statue bore a mantle of bright green,
Her hand a bow with arrows cased and keen;
Her eyes were lowered, gazing as she rode
Down to where Pluto has his dark abode. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,#NFDB
910:Don't let me die. Not now, he begged.
Why? she demanded to know.
Because I deserve to live.
A hand suddenly gripped his wrist.
He wondered if the hold came from the realms of the gods. But he didn't care. All he knew was what the Goddess was whispering to him, He'll never let you go. How could you have ever doubted him? ~ Melina Marchetta,#NFDB
911:She was a daughter of the Virgin of Montserrat, and she felt instinctively and of course heretically that the Virgin herself was only a symbol of a yet greater sister-mother who was carefree and sorrowful all at once, a goddess who didn't guide you or shield you but only went with you from place to place and added her tangible presence to your own when required. ~ Helen Oyeyemi, #NFDB
912:The difference of the English and Irish character is nowhere more plainly discerned than in their respective kitchens. With the former, this apartment is probably the cleanest, and certainly the most orderly, in the house.... An Irish kitchenis usually a temple dedicated to the goddess of disorder; and, too often, joined with her, is the potent deity of dirt. ~ Anthony Trollope, #NFDB
913:Don’t push me, Savitar.(Apollymi)
And don’t push me. You may be a goddess by birth, but I’m a lot more than just a Chthonian and you know that. I survived a hell you can’t even imagine and its fires forged a core of steel within me. You want to battle, pick up your sword. But remember the number of gods before you who sought to kill me and failed. (Savitar) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
914:If Ayurveda were a religion Nature would be its Goddess, and overindulgence would be the sole sin She would punish. Ayurveda is meant to allow you to enjoy the pleasures of life up to the point that such enjoyment interferes with your health. Full-time gratification is in fact bondage, because the more we consume the more we become captives of our consumption. ~ Robert E Svoboda, #NFDB
915:The fungi became, or is for some mysterious reason still to be discovered, a pipeline into a mind, an entelechy, which we can only image as feminine and can only associate somehow to the environment, to the ecosystem. This is the Gaian mind. This is what the goddess really is. The goddess is a network of connective intelligence that is operating on this planet. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
916:Arrgh!” Hadleigh flung up an arm to shield her eyes but the damage had been done. She’d seen a lot of ugly things in her time and generally ended up killing them but this … this thing defied description. It mocked the word ugly as pithy and stomped on an array of descriptive words such as loathsome, skin crawling and hideous. “Good Goddess, what in the Hell is that? ~ Jane Cousins, #NFDB
917:Only as he shut the door behind him, barricading Gwen inside lest she decide to risk bumping into one of his friends to explore, spy or even search for a phone to call the Hunters—she’s not working for them, damn it!—did he realize he was about to knowingly pair a Harpy with the goddess of Anarchy. Great. He’d be lucky if his head was still attached in the morning. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
918:Viradecthis is an obscure (possibly Germanic) goddess, the meaning of whose name is uncertain. The name may be derived from the words wiro meaning “truth” and dekos meaning “honour”, giving a possible meaning of something like “She who honours truth”. An inscription to her was found at Birrens set up by the Condrusi, a Germanic tribe serving in the Roman army.[605] ~ David Rankine, #NFDB
919:He kissed me silent. There was longing in that kiss, tangy and bittersweet. Was that my own longing, or his? Then I understood, finally: it didn't matter.
But oh gods, oh goddess, it was so good. He tasted like cool dew. He made me thirsty. Just before I began to want more, he pulled back. I fought not to feel disappointment, for fear of what it would do to us both. ~ N K Jemisin,#NFDB
920:Golf is the Great Mystery. Like some capricous goddess, it bestows its favours with what would appear an almost fat-headed lack of method and discrimination. On every side we see big two-fisted he-men floundering round in three figures, stopping every few minutes to let through little shrimps with knock-knees and hollow cheeks, who are tearing up snappy seventy-fours. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
921:Throughout the years, I have found people are confused about my love for both Christianity and Paganism. I tell them what was revealed to me while I lay sleeping in the hospital. The All, whether perceived as a God, or a Goddess, or as one being, or even as an energy field, cares only about one thing: Love. Absolute and unconditional love. --High Priestess Enoch ~ Arin Murphy Hiscock, #NFDB
922:I think that what we need is a balance between men and women. I don't believe in the value of the matriarchy as a model for human organizations any more than I believe in the value of patriarchy as a successful model. I think that what we need is a balance of male and female, the yin and the yang, the tantric union of god and goddess, enlightenment of the individual. ~ James Wasserman, #NFDB
923:Well,” I said, “you obviously have some power. You chased off those hooligans with rotten fruit. Perhaps you have banana-kinesis? Or you can control garbage? I once knew a Roman goddess, Cloacina, who presided over the city’s sewer system. Perhaps you’re related…?”
Meg pouted. I got the impression I might have said something wrong, though I couldn’t imagine what. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
924:Barbara said to herself: Oh, please, please, please! Please let nothing go wrong with this—this wildly improbable, impossible, but gorgeous thing. She was not sure to whom to address this invocation. To Venus, perhaps? If the goddess of love were listening, she would surely cherish such an invocation and understand the urgency, the yearning, that lay behind it. ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
925:Kali is the goddess of destruction, the Clawed Hands, the Blood Drinker... And that's one side of her, as it is for any god. If you knew her for thousands of years you'd know she could be all colors. The sky is black at night, but if your eyes were good enough, they could see the different lights of a million stars. Death is part of her because death is part of life. ~ Martin Cruz Smith, #NFDB
926:On every full moon, rituals ... take place on hilltops, beaches, in open fields and in ordinary houses. Writers, teachers, nurses, computer programmers, artists, lawyers, poets, plumbers, and auto mechanics -- women and men from many backgrounds come together to celebrate the mysteries of the Triple Goddess of the Dance of Life. The religion they practice is called Witchcraft. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
927:I know how Gods begin, Roger. We start as Dreams. Then we walk out of Dreams into the Land. We are worshiped and loved, and take power to ourselves.
And then, one day, there's no one left to worship us.
And in the end, each little God and Goddess takes its last journey back into Dreams... and what comes after, not even WE know.
I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid. ~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
928:I know how Gods begin, Roger. We start as Dreams. Then we walk out of Dreams into the Land. We are worshiped and loved, and take power to ourselves.
And then, one day, there's no one left to worship us.
And in the end, each little God and Goddess takes its last journey back into Dreams... and what comes after, not even WE know.
I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid.
~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
929:I hope progressive ways of thinking will permeate the "mainstream" more and more in the coming years. Goddess knows we have endured a very long spell (thirty plus years) of regressive thinking and hyper conservativism dominating our culture and national discourse. It necessitates risk taking and rule breaking by people in all walks of life to swing that pendulum back though. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
930:I want to stick my cock into your pussy. Don’t worry—I’ll get you nice and ready first. Open you up with my fingers, make sure you’re so wet and hot that when you wrap around me, it’ll feel like I’m fucking a goddess because you’re goddamn perfect, London. I can’t wait to feel your cunt squeezing me. Lick your clit, taste you . . . It’ll be good between us. You know it will. ~ Joanna Wylde, #NFDB
931:That was a long time ago. And, my lady, old I may be, and hag I may be, but stupid I ain’t. You’re no kind of goddess. I ain’t against gods and goddesses, in their place. But they’ve got to be the ones we make ourselves. Then we can take ’em to bits for the parts when we don’t need ’em any more, see? And elves far away in fairyland, well, maybe that’s something people need ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
932:I've seen it before, what mothers and daughters can do to one another during those terrible adolescent years. Grief must be at the bottom of it, for what is sadder for a parent than seeing her daughter shedding girlhood drop by precious drop? And what is more terrifying for a child than to doubt her mother, to begin to see her as a human with faults instead of as a goddess? ~ Chantel Acevedo, #NFDB
933:Nature triumphs ultimately. The triumph is impersonal, nonjudgmental. Nature kills everybody, not just the “bad.” To call the goddess “Mother” is to acknowledge only one half of her personality. She is also a “killer.” She is the source of joy and sorrow, of hope and despair, life and death. Nature (prakriti), delusion (maya), energy (shakti)—she is the world we react to. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
934:The pool and the miniature vale that contained it, always dark, grew darker still. Looking up after countless kisses, he saw idling fish of mottled gold and silver, black, white, and red, hanging in air above the goddess’s upraised hand, and for the first time noticed light streaming from a lamp of silver filigree in the branches of a stunted tree. “Where did they go?” he asked. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
935:Piper was maybe the most impressive. She fenced with the giantess Periboia, sword against sword. Despite the fact that her opponent was five times larger, Piper seemed to be holding her own. The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess's eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. 'Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
936:Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway? ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
937:You never know!” Neith snapped. “The point is, I’ll survive the apocalypse. I can live off the land!” She jabbed a finger at me. “Did you know the palm tree has six different edible parts?” “Um—” “And I’ll never be bored,” Neith continued, “since I’m also the goddess of weaving. I have enough twine for a millennium of macramé!” I had no reply, as I wasn’t sure what macramé was. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
938:To A Painting Of Echo
Foolish artist, why must you sketch my face
And hound a goddess eyes cannot detect?
I am the daughter born of Speech and Space,
Babble's mother, a voiceless intellect.
I snatch a word before it disappears
Then mimic mindlessly what I have found.
I am Echo--I live within your ears.
If you believe you can paint me, paint sound.
~ AM Juster,#NFDB
939:Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to lie at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined. ~ James Russell Lowell, #NFDB
940:Clinch's efforts in love were always of a mothering sort, for it is a feature of human nature to give what we most wish to receive, and it was a mother that Edgar Clinch most craved - his own having died in his infancy, and since then been resurrected as a goddess of shining virtue in his mind, a goddess whose face was as a blurred shape, seen through a window on a night of fog. ~ Eleanor Catton, #NFDB
941:MEN OF ACTION ARE FAVORED BY THE GODDESS OF GOOD LUCK The Five Laws of Gold "A bag heavy with gold or a clay tablet carved with words of wisdom; if thou hadst thy choice, which wouldst thou choose?" By the flickering light from the fire of desert shrubs, the sun-tanned faces of the listeners gleamed with interest. "The gold, the gold," chorused the twenty-seven. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
942:Who is She? She is your power, your Feminine source. Big Mama. The Goddess. The Great Mystery. The web-weaver. The life force. The first time, the twentieth time you may not recognize her. Or pretend not to hear. As she fills your body with ripples of terror and delight.
But when she calls you will know you’ve been called. Then it is up to you to decide if you will answer. ~ Lucy H Pearce,#NFDB
943:According to the Greek myth, Narcissus was a hunter who was exceptionally beautiful and proud. He was so proud, in fact, that he rejected anyone who tried to love him. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, decided to punish Narcissus. She lured him to a pool of water where he was able to see his own reflection. He fell madly in love with himself and stared at his reflection until he died. ~ Wendy Walker, #NFDB
944:Brassa,' she whispered, 'what is the moon? Why does it grow in the sky?'
'Because the moon is the goddess Tor,' answered Brassa softly, smiling down at Larka, 'looking down on us all. As some say the fury of the sun is the hunter Fenris snarling at the Varg, so they say the moon is the wolf goddess, opening her eyes wider and wider and stroking the world with her kindness. ~ David Clement Davies,#NFDB
945:She sprang from Zeus’s forehead and, right in front of their eyes, grew until she was a fully formed adult goddess, dressed in gray robes and battle armor, wearing a bronze helmet and holding a spear and shield. I’m not sure where she got the outfit. Maybe Athena magically created it, or maybe Zeus ate clothing and weaponry for snacks. At any rate, the goddess made quite an entrance. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
946:As comes a goddess to a mortal's breast
And fills his days with her celestial clasp,
She stooped to make her home in transient shapes;
In Matter's womb she cast the Immortal's fire,
In the unfeeling Vast woke thought and hope,
Smote with her charm and beauty flesh and nerve
And forced delight on earth's insensible frame.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Glory and the Fall of Life,#NFDB
947:The Dark Goddess emphasized that change and rebirth were always inherent in the present moment. She had forgotten that. That all life was change. Perhaps she never connected with deeper truths unless she relaxed and was still. Her life had galloped out of control, and perhaps she was trying too hard to think about it, force it into patterns she knew, instead of learning new patterns. ~ Robin D Owens, #NFDB
948:The Goddess is the Encircler, the Ground of Being; the God is That-Which-Is-Brought-Forth, her mirror image, her other pole. She is the earth; He is the grain. She is the all encompassing sky; He is the sun, her fireball. She is the Wheel; He is the traveler. He is the sacrifice of life to death that life may go on. She is the Mother and Destroyer; He is all that is born and is destroyed. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
949:Sycamore trees were held to be sacred in ancient Egypt and are the first trees represented in ancient art. The sycamore, also, was sacred. Peasants gather around them in rituals. In the Land of the Dead there was a sycamore in whose branches the goddess Hathor lived; she leaned out of it giving sustenance and water to deceased souls. In Memphis, Hathor's epithet was Lady of the Sycamore. ~ Larry Gates, #NFDB
950:Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world. ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
951:You never know!” Neith snapped. “The point is, I’ll survive the apocalypse. I can live off the land!” She jabbed a finger at me. “Did you know the palm tree has six different edible parts?”
“Um—”
“And I’ll never be bored,” Neith continued, “since I’m also the goddess of weaving. I have enough twine for a millennium of macramé!”
I had no reply, as I wasn’t sure what macramé was. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
952:Suddenly the hall rang with Theseus’s laughter. He held his sides, threw back his head, and brayed. “Ah, Lady Helen, the gods have been more than good to you. The three Graces gave you a face to outshine the sun, then filled your lovely mouth with these bursts of comical nonsense. We should be grateful to them. It’s all that keeps us poor mortal men from mistaking you for a goddess. ~ Esther M Friesner, #NFDB
953:In the temple, I sit on the cool floor next to Grandfather, beneath the stern benevolence of the goddess's glance. Grandfather is clad in only a traditional silk dhoti--no fancy modern clothes for him. That's one of the things I admire about him, how he is always unapologetically, uncompromisingly himself. His spine is erect and impatient; white hairs blaze across his chest. ~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, #NFDB
954:Eroticism releases, ever so slightly, great lightning flashes that, on occasion, reveal to us the true nature of a given organ, suddenly restoring both its whole reality and its hallucinatory force, while simultaneously installing as sovereign goddess the abolition of hierarchies- those hierarchies within which we habitually grade, for better or for worse, the different parts of the body. ~ Michel Leiris, #NFDB
955:Finnikin met her eyes, wanting desperately to make sense of her request. Why Pietrodore? But in a moment the realization hit, and he smiled in wonder. “It’s not chance, Trevanion,” he said, kicking the golden carpet of leaves at his feet. He ran back toward her, sliding part of the way until he could grab her by the waist and swing her around. “You are a goddess, Evanjalin of the Monts. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
956:Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. ~ Homer, #NFDB
957:This I have known since first I trod the path—a time comes when there is only despair, when you seek to tear the veil from the shrine, and you cry out to her and know that she will not answer because she is not there, because she was never there, there is no Goddess but only yourself, and you are alone in the mockery of echoes from an empty shrine. . . . There is no one there, there ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
958:The renowned astronomer Carl Sagan once said, "We are made of star stuff." And it is true. The same elements that make up the stars are also inside us. We are a part of a huge, amazing universe, a tiny speck of magick amidst a world full of marvels. So every once in a while, take the time to look at the stars and remember that you have star stuff (and goddess stuff and god stuff) inside you. ~ Deborah Blake, #NFDB
959:She ascends from the ocean in a way that is nothing short of celestial. The water follows her in a throne, elevating her to the height of my ship. Ocean-soaked hair runs down the length of her body, and she retains the otherworldly glow that always seems to illuminate her moony skin. Only now she is something more than just a siren, or a girl masquerading as a pirate.
She is a goddess. ~ Alexandra Christo,#NFDB
960:Lions were also frequently associated with Asherah, she was often depicted standing on the back of a lion, or seated on a lion throne. This was common for a number of Middle Eastern goddesses of the time, including Inanna, Astarte and Qudshu. Indeed there is “a mass of inscriptional evidence from the Levantine Iron Age showing that a frequent epithet of the goddess Asherah was ‘the Lion Lady’. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
961:Little do the devout worshippers of the Vatican suspect, when they lift up their eyes in mute adoration upon the head of their God on Earth, the Pope, that what they admire, is after all, but the caricatured head-dress, the Amazon-like helmet of Pallas Athene, the heathen goddess Minerva! In fact, there is scarcely a rite or ceremony of the christian Church that does not descend from Occultism. ~ H P Blavatsky, #NFDB
962:The Grand Canyon...” Jason recalled that day on the Skywalk, when one of his jerk classmates turned out to be a wind spirit. “Dylan? Are you kidding me? I’m breathing Dylan?” “Yes,” Kym said. “That seems to be his name.” Jason shuddered. “I’ll let him go as soon as I reach the surface. No worries.” “Farewell, then,” said the goddess. “And may the Fates smile upon you...assuming the Fates survive. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
963:They are girls to whom things happen, and they take it hard. But I bear myself as more than a silly girl. I am the daughter of a water goddess. I am a woman with water in her veins and power in her breeding. I am a woman who makes things happen, and I am not defeated yet. I am not defeated by a boy with a newly won crown, and no man will ever walk away from me certain that he won’t walk back. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
964:This baby is a daughter of the goddess, and so she’s a T-H-R-E-A-T to them, you bet. A big threat. She could bounce the King, if she grows up, which…certain persons…would like her not to do. And there’s other people who want her to grow up but would want to, what, be her manager, you know? Boss her, use her. Climb into the tower by means of her Rapunzel hair, yes, sir. Right into that tower.” Scott ~ Tim Powers, #NFDB
965:I can look to Hanuman for energy, Varuna (the God of water) if I want rain, Lakshmi (Vishnu's consort, the goddess of wealth) if I need money and Saraswathi (Brahma's consort, the goddess of knowledge) ifI have an exam coming up. Ganesh the elephant god and the child of Shiva and Parvati) can be called on when starting a new journey or venture and Vishnu, Ram or Krishna if I want purity of spirit. ~ Sarah Macdonald, #NFDB
966:Maybe love was no match for ice...but Piper had used it to wake a metal dragon. Mortals did superhuman feats in the name of love all the time. Mothers lifted cars to save their children. And Piper was more than just a mortal. She was a demigod. A hero. The ice melted on her blade. Her arm steamed under Khione's grip. 'Still underestimating me,' Piper told the goddess. 'You really need to work on that. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
967:Sahasrara is not really a chakra; it’s a stage, a state, an outcome. It is your portal to infinite possibilities. You are no longer just one person struggling through life or trying to attain a goal. Instead, you become an embodiment of divinity, of the Goddess. The momentum, focus and power of your every thought grow in multiples of thousands. It’s like you have thousands of hands to assist you. Reaching ~ Om Swami, #NFDB
968:The door was closed to men. It was a sanctuary where women could be themselves—smelly, wanton, mystic, conceited, truthful, and interested. The whalebone corsets came off at Dessie’s, the sacred corsets that molded and warped woman-flesh into goddess-flesh. At Dessie’s they were women who went to the toilet and overate and scratched and farted. And from this freedom came laughter, roars of laughter. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
969:I’ll only ever worship these lips. I’ll only ever worship this body.” Gripping the back of her neck tighter, Gavin deepened the kiss. “When I look at you, I feel like I’m looking at the other half of myself. You’ve filled the empty space in my soul, and because of that, you’re a goddess to me. That’s the way I’m always going to treat you. For the rest of your life. I promise you that. I fucking promise. ~ Gail McHugh, #NFDB
970:I’ve met gibbering horrors from other universes, been psychically entangled with a serial killer fish goddess, stalked by zombies, imprisoned by a megalomaniac billionaire, and I’ve even survived the attention of the Auditors (when I was young, foolish, and didn’t know any better). But I’ve never lost a classified file before, and I don’t ever want there to be a first time. I force myself to sit down ~ Charles Stross, #NFDB
971:Ryan Miller. My gaze snapped back to Ryan, and when we made eye contact, the look on his face changed from concern to one that turned my stomach inside out. He stared at me as if I were the goddess Aphrodite and I had just magically enslaved his heart for all eternity. The longing in his expression was truly startling. “Hi,” he breathed. He sounded as if he’d had the air knocked out of his lungs. “Um…hi? ~ Kelly Oram, #NFDB
972:He holds out his hand, and in his palm are two shiny silver balls linked with a thick black thread … Inside me! I gasp, and all the muscles deep in my belly clench. My inner goddess is doing the dance of the seven veils … Oh my … It’s a curious feeling. Once they’re inside me, I can’t really feel them—but then again I know they’re there … Oh my … I may have to keep these. They make me needy, needy for sex. ~ E L James, #NFDB
973:It seems that the very wise have neglected to take notice of one rather important goddess... Pipina, the lady with the apple of Discord. She knows that the universe, while it requires rules and stability, also needs just a tincture of chaos, the unexpected, the surprising. Otherwiseit would just be a mechanism -- a wonderful mechanism, ticking away the centuries, but with nothing different happening. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
974:In the stories of the founding of Mecca, the patriarch Abraham was guided on his journey by the Shekinah, who directed him where to build. Significantly the Shekinah was said to have marked the spot for Abraham by curling up like a serpent.[191] The serpent imagery here is reminiscent of the Egyptian Goddess Qudshu, the Gnostic Edem as well as the serpent of wisdom or temptation in the Garden of Eden. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
975:Let me ask you something first. Do you want a regular vanilla relationship with no kinky fuckery at all?"
My mouth drops open. "Kinky fuckery?" I squeak.
"Kinky fuckery."
"I can't believe you said that.'
"Well, I did. Answer me," he says calmly.
I flush. My inner goddess is down on bended knee with her hands clasped in supplication begging me.
"I like your kinky fuckery," I whisper. ~ E L James,#NFDB
976:The first book ever written in an alphabet was the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. And the most important passage was the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is the most revolutionary sentence ever written. It states: "I am the Lord thy God there is no other." The second prohibits us from making images. Thus, there is a profound rejection of any goddess influence and a ban of representative art. ~ Leonard Shlain, #NFDB
977:Pain flared in his lower back—so sharp and cold he thought Khione the snow goddess had touched him. Next to his ear, Michael Varus snarled, “Born a Roman, die a Roman.” The tip of a golden sword jutted through the front of Jason’s shirt, just below his rib cage. Jason fell to his knees. Piper’s scream sounded miles away. He felt like he’d been immersed in salty water—his body weightless, his head swaying. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
978:There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
979:Among my greatest loves is the act of being pinned and invaded – not by one, or two or three, but by many, one after the other. What it is to lose yourself among many, so that your identity exists only as ‘woman’: a goddess of flesh and desire. No names, no promises, no social niceties, no conversational conventions: only lust and fulfillment.”
Mademoiselle Noire - in The Gentlemen's Club ~ Emmanuelle de Maupassant,#NFDB
980:I would that our farmers when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans did when they came to thin, or letin the light to, a consecrated grove (lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my family, and children, etc. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
981:Hmm … I pull him deeper into my mouth so I can feel him at the back of my throat and then to the front again. My tongue swirls around the end. He’s my very own Christian Grey–flavored popsicle. I suck harder and harder, pushing him deeper and deeper, swirling my tongue around and around. Hmm … I had no idea giving pleasure could be such a turn-on, watching him writhe subtly with carnal longing. My inner goddess ~ E L James, #NFDB
982:Maybe love was no match for ice...but Piper had used it to wake a metal dragon. Mortals did superhuman feats in the name of love all the time. Mothers lifted cars to save their children. And Piper was more than just a mortal. She was a demigod. A hero.
The ice melted on her blade. Her arm steamed under Khione's grip.
'Still underestimating me,' Piper told the goddess. 'You really need to work on that. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
983:Sylvan held her as tightly as he dared, breathing in her scent and feeling his heart burn. Goddess, how he wanted her! He’d never felt this way for any female before. The urgent need to protect, to shelter, to comfort and love and care for her swelled inside him until he could barely breathe. But he didn’t want to scare her again, not even if all the urlich in the Scourge Fathership were after them. At ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
984:Do you have any idea how high you reach for one such as her?”
In fact, he was well acquainted with that idea. Though Kaderin abhorred what he was, he couldn’t be more pleased with her. When she’d hopped up onto this altar next to Riora, he’d seen that the goddess had nothing over his Bride.
Still, he raised his chin. “I have wealth to spoil her and strength to protect her. She could do worse for a husband. ~ Kresley Cole,#NFDB
985:Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. ~ Homer,#NFDB
986:The Aztec gods and goddesses are, as far as we have known anything about them, an unlovely and unlovable lot. In their myths there is no grace or charm, no poetry. Only this perpetual grudge, grudge, grudging, one god grudging another, the gods grudging men their existence, and men grudging the animals. The goddess of love is goddess of dirt and prostitution, a dirt-eater, a horror, without a touch of tenderness. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
987:Science "works", of course, but from an aesthetic point of view, was it really a great improvement over mythology? Why do we insist that theories "work", when they might just as well sit around and look pretty?
I couldn't help observing that for every advance in science...some perfectly competent goddess or demiurge is put out of work, a hypothesized spirit dies, or a living thing surrenders its autonomy. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich,#NFDB
988:The first dance will be with me, okay? And it won't be on the dance floor," he murmurs lasciviously into my ear. My giggles subside as anticipation fans the flames of my need. Oh, yes! My inner goddess performs a perfect triple Salchow in her ice skates.
"I look forward to it." I lean over and plant a soft, chaste kiss on his mouth. Glancing around, I realize that our fellow guests at the table are astonished. ~ E L James,#NFDB
989:I had a really small role (playing goddess Aphrodite), and I was only working for just over a week with Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson. I'd done a few short films before and thought acting was really creative, but when I worked with those guys, I was just like: "Wow!" They had such fun and freedom. They were trying things and stretching themselves. It was so inspiring that I was like: "I definitely want to do this!" ~ Agyness Deyn, #NFDB
990:He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn’t answer that one.) If Annabeth’s mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn’t Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
991:Who was he to be so patient, while I spilled my blood? I was a woman grown. I was a goddess, and his elder by a thousand generations. I did not need his pity, his attention, anything. “Well?” I would demand. “Why don’t you say something?” “I am listening,” he would answer. “You see?” I said, when I was finished with the tale. “Gods are ugly things.” “We are not our blood,” he answered. “A witch once told me that. ~ Madeline Miller, #NFDB
992:In the beginning there was Isis: Oldest of the Old, She was the Goddess from whom all Becoming Arose. She was the Great Lady, Mistress of the two Lands of Egypt, Mistress of Shelter, Mistress of Heaven, Mistress of the House of Life, Mistress of the word of God. She was the Unique. In all Her great and wonderful works She was a wiser magician and more excellent than any other God. Thebes, Egypt, Fourteenth Century BC ~ Merlin Stone, #NFDB
993:Carter wagged the Yankees cap at me. ‘Nekhbet wants Percy to be her host. That’s one way the Egyptian gods maintain a presence in the mortal world. They can inhabit mortals’ bodies.’
My stomach jackknifed. ‘You want her –’ I pointed at the frazzled old vulture goddess – ‘to inhabit me? That sounds …’
I tried to think of a word that would convey my complete disgust without offending the goddess. I failed. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
994:The symbol of Goddess gives us permission. She teaches us to embrace the holiness of every natural, ordinary, sensual dying moment. Patriarchy may try to negate body & flee earth with its constant heartbeat of death, but Goddess forces us back to embrace them, to take our human life in our arms & clasp it for the divine life it is - the nice, sanitary, harmonious moment as well as the painful, dark, splintered ones. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
995:Your way of knowing is a private herb garden. Enclose it with a hedge of meditation, and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others. Then everything you've done before will be brought as a sacrifice to the mother goddess. And each day, as you eat the herbs, your garden grows more bare and empty. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Naked Song, by Lalla / Translated by Coleman Barks
~ Lalla, Your way of knowing is a private herb garden
,#NFDB
996:We need a very potent hybrid attack, an abomination even Ptolemy would approve of.’
‘Why are you looking at me?’ I asked. ‘I’m not abominable.’
‘You are a son of Poseidon,’ the goddess noted. ‘That would be a most unexpected combination.’
‘Combination? What –’
‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Sadie raised her hands. She looked horrified, and anything that could scare that girl I did not want to know about. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
997:A Hamburger is warm and fragrant and juicy. A hamburger is soft and nonthreatening. It personifies the Great Mother herself who has nourished us from the beginning. A hamburger is an icon of layered circles, the circle being at once the most spiritual and the most sensual of shapes. A hamburger is companionable and faintly erotic. The nipple of the Goddess, the bountiful belly-ball of Eve. You are what you think you eat. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
998:The Earth Goddess is a parasite,” said Diya. “Her roots burrow deep into the earth, and her branches seek the heavens as she sucks the life out of the environment and atmosphere around her. That is what she has done to create the desert that covers this peninsula.” “Abomination of desolation,” blurted Enoch. “Someone should destroy it,” offered Lamech. “That would be very difficult,” said Diya. “It would take a gibborim. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
999:We’re so alone, she thought. We touch one another too firmly and wound or break, or else we pull away. We tell stories in which we are lone noble heroes, until we stand face-to-face with a goddess and see something older and bigger than each of us because it is each of us, our souls touching, the subtle interaction at a distance of minds with minds, when we reach the edge of loneliness and teeter uncertain at the brink. ~ Max Gladstone, #NFDB
1000:Translation Of A Prayer Of Brutus
Goddess of woods, tremendous in the chase,
To mountain wolves and all the savage race,
Wide o'er the aerial vault extend thy sway,
And o'er the infernal regions void of day.
On thy third reign look down; disclose our fate,
In what new station shall we fix our seat?
When shall we next thy hallow'd altars raise,
And choirs of virgins celebrate thy praise?
~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
1001:You've a right to believe that we're governed by Nature and the hidden Force within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope. ~ Andrzej Sapkowski, #NFDB
1002:There are three known planets in the PSR B1257 system, which have been named Draugr, Poltergeist and Phobetor. Poltergeist was the first to be discovered. I know, I was curious about their names as well. Poletrgeist means "pounding ghost". The draugr are the unded in Norse legends who live in their graves. And Phobetor is the personification of nightmares, and the son of Nyx, Greek goddess of the night.
Astronomers are goths. ~ Brian Cox,#NFDB
1003:Earth may be alive: not as the ancients saw her--a sentient Goddess with a purpose and foresight--but alive like a tree. A tree that quietly exists, never moving except to sway in the wind, yet endlessly conversing with the sunlight and the soil. Using sunlight and water and nutrient minerals to grow and change. But all done so imperceptibly, that to me the old oak tree on the green is the same as it was when I was a child. ~ James E Lovelock, #NFDB
1004:I built a global brand Mugler, and we did things that inspired so many people. I'm proud to have helped some amazing people express themselves in new ways. What I appreciate most in the world is to have met and befriended incredible geniuses, like David Bowie and Cyd Charisse and Celia Cruz, who was the goddess of salsa. I saw people kneeling on the streets for her. Which they did for me in Japan. That was really embarrassing. ~ Thierry Mugler, #NFDB
1005:What reason have we to feel the good goddess would take that much interest in any man’s bet upon a horse race? To me she is a goddess of love and dignity whose pleasure it is to aid those who are in need and to reward those who are deserving. I look to find her, not at the gaming tables or the races where men lose more gold than they win but in other places where the doings of men are more worthwhile and more worthy of reward. ~ George S Clason, #NFDB
1006:Teenage girls are extremists who see the world in black-and- white terms, missing shades of gray. Life is either marvelous or notworth living. School is either pure torment or is going fantastically. Other people are either great or horrible, and they themselves are wonderful or pathetic failures. One day a girl will refer to herself as "the goddess of social life" and the next day she'll regret that she's the "ultimate in nerdosity. ~ Mary Pipher, #NFDB
1007:Generally, when a woman is kissed by her husband, her face becomes more beautiful. In Vaikuṇṭha also, although the goddess of fortune is naturally as beautiful as can be imagined, she nevertheless awaits the kissing of the Lord to make her face more beautiful. The beautiful face of the goddess of fortune appears in ponds of transcendental crystal water when she worships the Lord with tulasī leaves in her garden. ~ A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhup da, #NFDB
1008:Both Matilda and Lavender were enthralled. It was quite clear to them that they were at this moment standing in the presence of a master. Here was somebody who had brought the art of skulduggery to the highest point of perfection, somebody, moreover, who was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her calling. They gazed in wonder at this goddess, and suddenly even the boil on her nose was no longer a blemish but a badge of courage. ~ Roald Dahl, #NFDB
1009:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest. ~ Chuck Palahniuk, #NFDB
1010:The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male, and it is no accident that the goddess of Love is older and stronger than the god. To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith, but to desire the enjoying of her own beauty is the obedience of Eve, and to both it is in the lover that the beloved tastes her own delightfulness. As obedience is the stairway of pleasure, so humility is the— ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1011:It struck me just how young he was—no more than seventeen. Older than my mortal form, yes, but not by much. This young man had lost his mother. He had survived the harsh training of Lupa the wolf goddess. He’d grown up with the discipline of the Twelfth Legion at Camp Jupiter. He’d fought Titans and giants. He’d helped save the world at least twice. But by mortal standards, he was barely an adult. He wasn’t old enough to vote or drink. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1012:Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her...long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break someone's heart. Piper had long ago decided to change that rule. Percy and Annabeth were a perfect example of why. You should have to make someone`s heart whole; that was a much better test. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1013:The so-called 'Sleeping Lady' statues found in the Hypogeum and numerous 'Venus' figurines found throughout Malta's megalithic temples leave little doubt that a form of Mother Goddess was the supreme deity worshipped in these mysterious places. But these artifacts 'have all been attributed arbitrarily to the Neolithic', even though they are distinctly characteristic of European Palaeolithic art forms, dating as far back at 30,000 BP. ~ Graham Hancock, #NFDB
1014:This Egyptian deity [Isis] under many names appears as the principle of natural fecundity among nearly all the religions of the ancient world. She was known as the goddess with ten thousand appellations and was metamorphosed by Christianity into the Virgin Mary, for Isis, although she gave birth to all living things--chief among them the Sun--still remained a virgin, according to the legendary accounts. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
1015:Felicity ignores us. She walks out to them, an apparition in white and blue velvet, her head held high as they stare in awe at her, the goddess. I don't know yet what power feels like. But this is surely what it looks like, and I think I'm beginning to understand why those ancient women had to hide in caves. Why our parents and suitors want us to behave properly and predictably. It's not that they want to protect us; it's that they fear us. ~ Libba Bray, #NFDB
1016:Oh, you mustn’t think of it,’ Miss Ward exclaimed. ‘First love is far too precious. It’s not of this world. It asks nothing and gives all. It has nothing to do with the trade and barter of marriage – the dreary practicalities of rent and children and dirty dishes and all that.’ ‘But that’s exactly what we want.’ ‘Would you lead a goddess to the kitchen sink? First love is divine. It belongs in the realm of the soul. Keep it there, young ~ Marius Gabriel, #NFDB
1017:That’s what meditation is all about, to be capable of being alone. And remember, aloneness is not loneliness. Loneliness is the state of the person who cannot live alone; loneliness means you are dependent on the crowd, on the other. Aloneness means you are happy with yourself, you are not dependent on anybody. The moment you are not dependent you are an emperor, you are a god, a goddess. Now you have something to share, you can go into the world. ~ Osho, #NFDB
1018:The hero, whether god or goddess, man or woman, the figure in a myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his opposite (his own unsuspecting self) either by swallowing it or by being swallowed. one by one the resistences are broken. he must put aside his pride, his virtue, beauty, and life, and bow or submit to the absolutely intolerable. Then he finds that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1019:Don't die on me," she whispered when the clock struck midnight and he still had not moved. "It's only a little shoulder wound. Goddess, George-don't die on me."
His eyes flickered open and he smiled. "I didn't know you cared," he whispered. "And why insult me? I won't die for a wee nick like this; I've had worse in my day."
Alanna wiped her wet cheeks. "Of course I care, you unprincipled pickpocket!" she whispered. "Of course I care. ~ Tamora Pierce,#NFDB
1020:Do you know this Sanskrit Shloka: "Let those who are versed in the ethical codes praise or blame, let Lakshmi, the goddess of Fortune, come or go wherever she wisheth, let death overtake him today or after a century, the wise man never swerves from the path of rectitude." Let people praise you or blame you, let fortune smile or frown upon you, let your body fall today or after a Yuga, see that you do not deviate from the path of Truth. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1021:To all my friends, readers, and students: I apologize for not being able to write you directly, however the God and Goddess have given me new challenges to face. Upon hearing of all the support you are giving me, I am unimaginably grateful. I have no doubt that while there will be challenges to come, the God and Goddess will not be bringing me to the Summerland anytime soon. In perfect love and in perfect trust, Donald Michael Kraig ~ Donald Michael Kraig, #NFDB
1022:I can see her clearly, standing on the rock beside Peg Gratton, unflinching before Eaton and the rest of the race committee. I can't remember when I've been that brave, and it shames me. The truth is, I feel myself being fascinated and repelled by her; She's both a mirror of myself and a door to part of the island that i'm not. It's like when the mare goddess looked into my eye; I felt that there was a part of myself that I didn't know. ~ Maggie Stiefvater, #NFDB
1023:There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded, Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, Where millions of Brahmâs are reading the Vedas, Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky, Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina— There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
1024:The Truth! The one we seek throughout our life, without realizing that it is inside...in here, father...in here, where I am pointing to, in my chest, in a genetic junction of stories, in the violet and golden tones of a sky that hides nothing more than its beauty. While the goddess waves at me, I see the exact half of each one of us, the one that we'll tirelessly search for every year of our lives without letting us realize that the dream is crazy. ~ Pat R, #NFDB
1025:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.
~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
1026:There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded, Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, Where millions of Brahmâs are reading the Vedas, Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky, Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the vina— There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, #NFDB
1027:As long as there is happiness, there will be sadness. As long as there is fortune, there will be misfortune.
“…What’s real is something that not even the strength of the Goddess can change. The only one who can change it is me. If I don’t change my destiny, if I don’t cut through the obstacles in my path, then no matter where I go, I’ll always be standing in the same place, doing the same thing over and over again, for the rest of my life. ~ Miyuki Miyabe,#NFDB
1028:The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
1029:Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love.
Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will.
At least the ancient Greeks were being honest. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,#NFDB
1030:Goddess powers endlessly weave the strands of our personal and planetary destiny through space and time, and into the timeless and spaceless. Sacred feminism sees and loves the world as a sacred dance. Sacred feminism wants to embrace everything that is beautiful in the feminine, as well as everything that is terrifying. It wants you, whether you’re a man or a woman, to learn to see and embody all these qualities in yourself. The most immediate ~ Sally Kempton, #NFDB
1031:She'd been conceived as a goddess of justice. But this wasn't just.
It wasn't right.
And her husband's wrongful death would not go unavenged.
Kissing cold lips Bathymaas laid him on the ground and covered his body with her cloak.
Artemis gasped and shrank away from her as she rose to her feet and turned towards Apollo and his mother.
For this, there would be hell to pay.
And hers would be the hand that gathered the payment. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1032:Sha na tay, sha na tay,” he said, his voice becoming more sure as he chanted it, seeking the attention of the Goddess that he was reluctantly beginning to believe in. He’d seen too much not to. His pulse quickened, an awareness seemed to touch on him— one eye among thousands idly turning his way. The line was all around him, and dizzy with it, he let it fill his chi. And when he was sure he had the Goddess’s attention, he reached for Rachel’s chi. ~ Kim Harrison, #NFDB
1033:In our time, the Goddess has come roaring out of her hiding places—for it is also the nature of the feminine to roar—and we are beginning to recognize uniquely feminine kinds of power. We sense that something profoundly important is missing from a world in which the power of the divine feminine is not understood and in which women themselves are out of touch with their own Shakti, the force of feminine strength and the flavors of feminine love. Many ~ Sally Kempton, #NFDB
1034:I picked up Pandora's jar. The spirit of Hope fluttered inside, trying to warm the cold container. "Hestia," I said, "I give this to you as an offering." The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?" "You're the last Olympian," I said. "And the most important." "And why is that, Percy Jackson?" "Because Hope survives best at the hearth," I said. "Guard it for me, and I won't be tempted to give up again." ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1035:Call it "womb awe" or even "womb worship" but it's not simple envy. I don't remember even wanting to be a woman. But each of the three times I have been present at the birth of one of my children, I have been overwhelmed by a sense of reverence... It was quite suddenly, the first day of creation; the Goddess giving birth to a world... Like men since the beginning of time I wondered: What can I ever create that will equal the magnificence of this new life? ~ Sam Keen, #NFDB
1036:We usually know a lover is on the way well before he gets here. As often as we hear stories like "I met my partner when I least expected to meet anyone," on some level, we know that's nonsense. A woman in touch with herself can sense the coming of things, and the come of love is like a deer running through a forest on the way to your door. We can feel a love approaching; and when we are in touch with the Goddess, we prepare ourselves in advance. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
1037:Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so? Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you. And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am? The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life-- A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you, Death and the strong force of fate are waiting. There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon When a man will take my life in battle too-- flinging a spear perhaps Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow. ~ Homer, #NFDB
1038:Men want to conquer the world, but with you, they need to be built up, supported, adored, and made to feel manly. If you do that, then they will worship you like the goddess you are. If you beat them down and refuse to build them up, if you nag at them constantly for everything they do to disappoint you and never show them how much you appreciate what they do that you love, they will eventually drift away from you—if not physically, then emotionally. ~ Bethenny Frankel, #NFDB
1039:Not a passing phenomenon nor an external force, the companies had become a way of life, a part of society itself, used and joined by its rulers even as they struggled to throw them off. They ate at society from within like Erysichthon, the “tearer up of earth,” who, having destroyed the trees in the sacred grove of Demeter, was cursed by the goddess with an insatiable appetite and finally devoured himself attempting to satisfy his hunger. Discipline ~ Barbara W Tuchman, #NFDB
1040:Bint-Anath was approaching, her many-pleated, floor-length sheath floating scarlet around her, her slim shoulders visible under a billowing white flounced cloak, and the long black ringlets of her wig already glistening with melted wax... She was like a goddess, like Hathor herself, moving lightly in the circle of reverence the guests had provided, her pair of massive Shardana guards towering beside her and her exquisitely gowned and painted retinue behind. ~ Pauline Gedge, #NFDB
1041:When you begin to read a poem you are entering a foreign country whose laws and language and life are a kind of translation of your own; but to accept it because its stews taste exactly like your old mother's hash, or to reject it because the owl-headed goddess of wisdom in its temple is fatter than the Statue of Liberty, is an equal mark of that want of imagination, that inaccessibility to experience, of which each of us who dies a natural death will die. ~ Randall Jarrell, #NFDB
1042:In the older view the goddess Universe was alive, herself organically the Earth, the horizon, and the heavens. Now she is dead, and the universe is not an organism, but a building, with gods at rest in it in luxury: not as personifications of the energies in their manners of operation, but as luxury tenants, requiring service. And Man, accordingly, is not as a child born to flower in the knowledge of his own eternal portion but as a robot fashioned to serve. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1043:Gib bit his bottom lip, taking a moment to plead in silence to the Goddess of Light. If ever she were to listen to the requests of a poor farm boy, this would be an ideal time. Daya, be merciful. We’ll lose half the field if there is a hard freeze tonight. This would surely spell disaster for his family as it had already been a rough year on the crops. With too little warmth and so much excess rain, the fields had resembled a bog for the better part of the season. ~ Shiriluna Nott, #NFDB
1044:I see that in the future, things that we have lost in the past will be recovered. There's a search for those things, a search for spirituality, for nature, for the goddess religions, for family and human bonding. All that has been lost in this industrial era. People are in desperate need of those things. I don't think the world will destroy itself in a nuclear cataclysm. On the contrary, we have the capacity to save ourselves and save the planet, and we will use it. ~ Isabel Allende, #NFDB
1045:Mankind . . . possesses two supreme blessings. First of these is the goddess Demeter, or Earth whichever name you choose to call her by. It was she who gave to man his nourishment of grain. But after her there came the son of Semele, who matched her present by inventing liquid wine as his gift to man. For filled with that good gift, suffering mankind forgets its grief; from it comes sleep; with it oblivion of the troubles of the day. There is no other medicine for misery. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
1046:We the daughters of Melusina,' she corrects me. 'Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age I didn't know whether she could summon up a storm or whatever it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1047:I imagine that the goddess of Love has come down from Olympus to visit a mortal. So as not to die of cold in this modern world of ours, she wraps her sublime body in great heavy furs and warms her feet on the prostrate body of her lover. I imagine the favorite of this beautiful despot, who is whipped when his mistress grows tired of kissing him, and whose love only grows more intense the more he is trampled underfoot. I shall call the picture "Venus in Furs ~ Leopold von Sacher Masoch, #NFDB
1048:I picked up Pandora's jar. The spirit of Hope fluttered inside, trying to warm the cold container.
"Hestia," I said, "I give this to you as an offering."
The goddess tilted her head. "I am the least of the gods. Why would
you trust me with this?"
"You're the last Olympian," I said. "And the most important."
"And why is that, Percy Jackson?"
"Because Hope survives best at the hearth," I said. "Guard it for me,
and I won't be tempted to give up again. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1049:We, the daughters of Melusina,” she corrects me. “Your grandmother was a daughter of the water goddess of the royal house of Burgundy and she never forgot that she was both royal and magical. When I was your age, I didn’t know whether she could summon up a storm or whether it was all just luck and pretence to get her own way. But she taught me that there is nothing in the world more powerful than a woman who knows what she wants and walks a straight road towards it. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1050:His thoughts became as scattered and aimless as the rivulets sluicing down her lush curves. She was a goddess rising from the water. Like Botticelli's Birth of Venus, except with heavy silvery hair darkened by her bath that, unlike Venus, she didn't use to hide her feminine secrets. She stood with her chin held at an obstinate angle, her shoulders straight in an observance of good posture, those soft gray eyes staring at him with a mixture of resolution and expectation. ~ Kerrigan Byrne, #NFDB
1051:She looked at a silver birch: it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty, old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his fact and hands, with hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah! --she would be the best of all. She would be a gracious goddess, smooth and stately, the Lady of the Wood. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1052:How to dispense with Padma? How give up her ignorance and superstition, necessary counterweights to my miracle-laden omniscience? How to do without her paradoxical earthiness of spirit, which keeps—kept!—my feet on the ground? I have become, it seems to me, the apex of an isosceles triangle, supported equally by twin deities, the wild god of memory and the lotus-goddess of the present … but must I now become reconciled to the narrow one-dimensionality of a straight line? ~ Salman Rushdie, #NFDB
1053:Pride measures prosperity not by her own advantages but by the disadvantages of others. She would not even wish to be a goddess unless there were some wretches left whom she could order about and lord it over, whose misery would make her happiness seem all the more extraordinary, whose poverty can be tormented and exacerbated by a display of her wealth. This infernal serpent, pervading the human heart, keeps men from reforming their lives, holding them back like a suckfish. ~ Thomas More, #NFDB
1054:Calypso, Goddess of the Sea. your request has been granted. You shall keep Hades within your Kingdom for the nest fortnight. He cannot be allowed into the Above for any reason while we follow the evidentiary trail toward the true culprit. Should he escape, he will be lashed a thousand times by Athena's whip, chained to a rock, and have his eyes picked on by vultures for the next thousand years."
"Oh, is that all?" Hades growled.
My lips twitched. He was funny. ~ Jovee Winters,#NFDB
1055:Both the mythical and archaeological evidence indicate that perhaps the most notable quality of the pre-dominator mind was its recognition of our oneness with all of nature,which lies at the heart of both Neolithic and the Cretan worship of the Goddess. Increasingly, the work of modern ecologists indicates that this earlier quality of mind, in our time often associated with some types of Eastern spirituality, was far advanced beyond today's environmentally destructive ideology. ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
1056:The image of the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, our anger as purifying, and our power to nurture and create, but also to limit and destroy when necessary, as the very force that sustains all life. Through the Goddess we can discover our strength, enlighten our minds, own our bodies, and celebrate our emotions. We can move beyond narrow, constricting roles and become whole. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
1057:Above me I feel your love
my Goddess
Full of the promise that through you
my Goddess
All things ripen and come to fruition
my Goddess
As the diaphanous boundary between worlds
my Goddess
Is illuminated by the white light of your sign
my Goddess
I ask that some small ray of your love descend
my Goddess
Fill this seaborne chalice
my Goddess
So that I might pour it over me
my Goddess
And take your gentle touch to the children of the night ~ P C Cast,#NFDB
1058:Imperturbability could be depended upon. And from her great and humble position in the family she had taken dignity and a clean calm beauty. From her position as healer, her hands had grown sure and cool and quiet; from her position as arbiter she had become as remote and faultless in judgment as a goddess. She seemed to know that if she swayed the family shook, and if she ever really deeply wavered or despaired the family would fall, the family will to function would be gone. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1059:Of course, interspersed with the visions of heaven and hell were more “extras” from Anya. These happened to be portraits of naked men. To everyone’s consternation, she’d managed to save them from the Hunters’ bomb blast. Only once had Sabin attempted to take one down. The next day, he’d found a naked portrait of himself in its place. How the goddess had had it painted so quickly—and so accurately—he would never know. He would also never take down another of her pictures. Sabin ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1060:Truth is, there comes a time when turning a new page in your life is the most liberating and empowering feeling you can experience. It is that sweet moment of fruition, when you realize there’s so much more to the book of life. That the power of birthing the life you wish for lays in your hands to turn over, and cast out what doesn’t feed your soul, add to your life, help you grow, or consciously challenge you. Keep turning pages Goddess. You are allowed and encouraged to change. ~ Emma Mildon, #NFDB
1061:Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May. It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess. Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight. ~ Selena Fox, #NFDB
1062:Come, Friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?
Even Patroclus died, a far, far better man than you.
And look, you see how handsome and powerful I am?
The son of a great man, the mother who gave me life--
A deathless goddess. But even for me, I tell you,
Death and the strong force of fate are waiting.
There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon
When a man will take my life in battle too--
flinging a spear perhaps
Or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow. ~ Homer,#NFDB
1063:In ancient times when Pandora's box was opened-"
"Pandora?" Kendra interrupted. "Are you talking about the myth?"
Catty nodded solemnly. "It isn't a myth," she stated firmly and continued, "The last thing to leave the box was hope. Only Selene, the goddess of the moon, saw the creature that had been sent by the Atrox to devour hope. Selene took pity on the people of earth and gave her Daughters, like guardian angels, to perpetuate hope. I'm one of those Daughters. A goddess. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1064:In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. I ~ Sarah Hepola, #NFDB
1065:No one religion is right for everyone, and no religion—whether it be Wicca, Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism—is more valid than any other. Religious diversity is something that needs not only to be tolerated, but also celebrated. The good that religion was designed to teach and maintain inevitably turns to harm when one religious group claims superiority over another or tries to deny others of their constitutional right to believe in and worship the god or goddess of their choice. ~ Gerina Dunwich, #NFDB
1066:Selene, the goddess of the moon-"
"She's real, too?" Tianna knew at once that Selene was the mysterious force who had directed her to run. That also explained why her internal guide was strongest during the full moon and weakest during the dark of the moon.
"Selene saw the creature that had been sent by the Atrox to devour hope," Serena said. "She took pity on the people of earth and gave her daughters, like guardian angels, to guard hope. We're those daughters. We're goddesses. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1067:Besides, I don't really wear much makeup."
"Yeah, well, that's because you got the good-skin gene in the family," Gretchen complained. "You got Mom's golden skin. You're like the perfect Norwegian goddess."
"Excuse me?" No one had ever called me a goddess before, and I was pretty sure no one would ever do it again, either. Could she at least do it while Sean was still hanging around? And in a very loud voice, with the door wide open? Just shout it: Kirsten is a goddess! ~ Catherine Clark,#NFDB
1068:Beyond the typhoon shelters, ships slid past them, lighted buildings on the march, and the junks hobbled in their wakes. Inland, the Island whined and clanged and throbbed, and the huge slums twinkled like jewel boxes opened by the deceptive beauty of the night. Presiding over them, glimpsed between the dipping finger of the masts, sat the black Peak, Victoria, her sodden face shrouded with moonlit skeins; the goddess, the freedom, the lure of all that wild striving in the valley. They ~ John le Carr, #NFDB
1069:Leo!” Jason was shaking his shoulder. “Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?”
Leo’s eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena’s hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.)
He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “We were just cuddling. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1070:Oh, mother! since thy son To early death by destiny is doom'd, I might have hop'd the Thunderer on high, Olympian Jove, with honour would have crown'd My little space; but now disgrace is mine; Since Agamemnon, the wide-ruling King, Hath wrested from me, and still holds, my prize." Weeping, he spoke; his Goddess-mother heard, Beside her aged father where she sat In the deep ocean-caves: ascending quick Through the dark waves, like to a misty cloud, Beside her son she stood; and as he wept, She ~ Homer, #NFDB
1071:Wherever you have come from,” she continued, “whatever you did, whoever you were . . . forget. Kill your past and bury it deep in the earth of your heart. It will not help you here. It will only shackle you. This place is a sisterhood. These girls are your family. The Lady Achillea, the lanista of this place, is your goddess. And I am your new mother.” “Couldn’t be any worse than my old mother,” Elka shrugged. Thalestris shot her a look that plainly said, Don’t be too sure of that. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1072:Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for this flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes. Because no harm could come to it he endowed it with power. He kept near, as if it could be a saver of lives, and an imploring cry went from his mind. ~ Stephen Crane, #NFDB
1073:Yeah, but– (Sunshine)
There are no buts, Sunshine. I am the goddess of souls and soulmates. Unlike the other Olympian gods, I know when I see two people who were created for each other. If both you and Talon died tonight and were later reborn at polar ends of the earth, sooner or later the two of you would reunite. That’s the schtick with soulmates. Alone you can survive, hell, you can even be with other people, but neither of you will ever be complete without the other. (Psyche) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1074:Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing you; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you; both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill. ~ Lundy Bancroft, #NFDB
1075:On December 9, 1531, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian named Juan Diego. A carpet of roses blossoming in the dead of winter and a Madonna with a coffee-colored face appearing on Juan Diego’s robe were enough further evidence to convince the local bishop to erect a shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are those who say Guadalupe is Tonantzin, an Aztec goddess who existed years before Juan Diego came along. The Spanish missionaries, knowing that she had quite a local following, ~ Jodi Picoult, #NFDB
1076:Kundalini means, according to Zeena ‘She Who is Hidden,’ and points to the dormant goddess in every human being’s body. While the kundalini force is found in muladharachakra, she hypnotizes humans, like maya herself, and renders them slaves to the illusory. Kundalini can only awaken people if she travels up along the spine.'
--About Zeena Schreck by Malin Fitger 'Contemporary notions of Kundalini, its background and role within new Western religiosity,' University of Stockholm, 2004 ~ Zeena Schreck,#NFDB
1077:Oh.” Annabeth felt her face flush. She didn’t want to get into the details of Athena’s children—how they were born straight from the mind of the goddess, just as Athena herself had sprung from the head of Zeus. Talking about that always made Annabeth feel self-conscious, like she was some sort of freak. People usually asked her whether or not she had a belly button, since she had been born magically. Of course she had a belly button. She couldn’t explain how. She didn’t really want to know. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1078:Over the proof that someone can be both certain and wrong. In my mind, I began to reserve judgment even on the revelations of the goddess. I cultivated the word probably. Was the temple swept? Yes, probably. But perhaps not. The goddess was eternal and just and immune to all lies, probably. We were her beloved and chosen, probably. But perhaps we weren’t. I became very aware of the division between truth and certainty. I began to doubt. And once I was on that path, there was no hiding it. ~ Daniel Abraham, #NFDB
1079:The king died last. They made him watch and what he did to those princesses and his queen I will never repeat as long as I live. But Isaboe knows, for she walked the sleep of a monster who was witness to it, and if I could have one wish in my life," he said through gritted teeth, "it would be that I could tear from her mind the memory such depravity. Sweet Goddess, that I would have such a gift. I would give my life for it." And then he was sobbing, despairing at his uselessness. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
1080:Women are powerful, and I see them stifle this every. single. day. Stop looking to be saved and hiding your magic. Stop tossing aside your voice and valid emotions. Stop wasting your time with fake friends and chasing men like they're cures.
Material things, better jobs, and other people- they won't fill your gap. Only you can do that. Life is short. Rise up and step back into your awesome, innate power. You are compassion and creative force and divine life itself. You are a Goddess. ~ Victoria Erickson,#NFDB
1081:Yes there were two great groups of dogs wrangling for the bitching-goddess: the group of the flatterers, those who offered her amusement, stories, films, plays: and the other, much less showy, much more savage breed, those who gave her meat, the real substance of money. The well-groomed showy dogs of amusement wrangled and snarled among themselves for the favors of the bitch-goddess. But it was nothing to the silent fight-to-the-death that went on among the indispensables, the bone-bringers. ~ D H Lawrence, #NFDB
1082:He saw virus particles shaped like snakes, in negative images. They were white cobras tangled among themselves, like the hair of Medusa. They were the face of nature herself, the obscene goddess revealed naked. This life form thing was breathtakingly beautiful. As he stared at it, he found himself being pulled out of the human world into a world where moral boundaries blur and finally dissolve completely. He was lost in wonder and admiration, even though he knew that he was the prey. (149) ~ Richard Preston, #NFDB
1083:I was twelve years old. I remember it clearly because a wondrous feeling came over me. As if I was melting into the souls of others, and I felt a wave of such peace that I truly believed I was in the heavens with our goddess. That night, I walked my first sleep with a bundle in my arms. A baby.” “The baby spoke to you?” one of the men asked. Evanjalin looked confused. “How can a baby speak?” “The same way someone can walk through another’s sleep. With very little credibility,” Perri said. ~ Melina Marchetta, #NFDB
1084:Jones? Christian interrupts my train of thought. “I want you to kneel up on this,” he says when we’re at the table. Oh, okay. What does he have in mind? My inner goddess can’t wait to find out—she’s already scissor-kicked onto the table and is watching him with adoration. He gently lifts me onto the table, and I fold my legs beneath me and kneel in front of him, surprised by my own grace. Now we are eye to eye. He runs his hands down my thighs, grasps my knees, and pulls my legs apart and stands ~ E L James, #NFDB
1085:It's beautiful," I said for what had to be the third time. "It's just awfully...elaborate."
Lysander made a disgusted sound and threw up his hands. "It should be elaborate! You're meant to be a goddess!"
I had no idea how to reply to that, but Nick saved me. Leaping to his feet, he said, "And you do look like a goddess, Sophie." He took my hand and pulled me off the platform, spinning me. "See? Embrace your goddessness."
Nick may have been a weirdo and a half, but I chuckled. ~ Rachel Hawkins,#NFDB
1086:A film called Jai Santoshi Ma about a goddess nobody had heard of till the film came out created a new cult. The film told the story of an unhappy woman who was tortured and starved by her husband’s family while he was away working in some distant city. What keeps her alive in the film is her enduring faith in the goddess Santoshi, for whom she fasts every Friday and practises other austerities. The film became a runaway hit but nobody noticed that this was a new goddess invented in Bollywood. ~ Tavleen Singh, #NFDB
1087:There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, 'I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman.' ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1088:Isn't your mom the goddess of inventors?" I asked.
Annabeth glared at me. "Yes, but this is different. I'm good with ideas. Not Mechanics."
If I was going to pick one person in the world to reattach my head," I said "I'd pick you."
I just blurted it out - to give her confidence, I guess - but immediately I realized it sounded pretty stupid.
Awww..." Silena sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Percy that is so sweet! ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1089:Young man, two are the forces most precious to mankind. The first is Demeter, the Goddess. She is the Earth -- or any name you wish to call her -- and she sustains humanity with solid food. Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin, bringing the counterpart to bread: wine and the blessings of life's flowing juices. His blood, the blood of the grape, lightens the burden of our mortal misery. Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed. ~ Euripides, #NFDB
1090:There are two goddesses in your heart,” he told them. “The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
1091:...if pride, that plague of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences, as by the misery of others; and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons; that by displaying its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly. ~ Thomas More, #NFDB
1092:The Realization of the Nondual traditions is uncompromising: There is only Spirit, there is only God, there is only Emptiness in all its radiant wonder. All the good and all the evil, the very best and the very worst, the upright and the degenerate- each and all are radically perfect manifestations of Spirit precisely as they are. There is nothing but God, nothing but the Goddess, nothing but Spirit in all directions, and not a grain of sand, not a speck of dust, is more or less Spirit than any other. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
1093:Quitting Again
The hero of
Affairs of love
By far too numerous to be mentioned,
And scarred as I'm,
It seemeth time
That I were mustered out and pensioned.
So on this wall
My lute and all
I hang, and dedicate to Venus;
And I implore
But one thing more
Ere all is at an end between us.
O goddess fair
Who reignest where
The weather's seldom bleak and snowy,
This boon I urge:
In anger scourge
My old cantankerous sweetheart, Chloe!
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
1094:Tell me, enigmatical man, whom do you love best, your father, Your mother, your sister, or your brother? I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother. Your friends? Now you use a word whose meaning I have never known. Your country? I do not know in what latitude it lies. Beauty? I could indeed love her, Goddess and Immortal. Gold? I hate it as you hate God. Then, what do you love, extraordinary stranger? I love the clouds the clouds that pass up there Up there the wonderful clouds! ~ Charles Baudelaire, #NFDB
1095:The Birth Of Virtue
When, long ago, the young world circling flew
Through wider reaches of a richer blue,
New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest,
The thoughts untold in one another's breast:
Each wish displayed, and every passion learned
A look revealed them as a look discerned.
But sating Time with clouds o'ercast their eyes;
Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies.
A goddess then, emerging from the dust,
Fair Virtue rose, the daughter of Distrust.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
1096:Even the gods took fright at the Deluge,
they left and went up to the heaven of Anu,
lying like dogs curled up in the open.
The goddess cried out like a woman in childbirth,
Belet-ili wailed, whose voice is so sweet:
"The olden times have turned to clay,
because I spoke evil in the gods' assembly.
How could I speak evil in the gods' assembly,
and declare a war to destroy my people?
"It is I who give birth, these people are mine!
And now, like fish, they fill the ocean! ~ Anonymous,#NFDB
1097:Under this tremendous dawn of power and freedom, under a sky ablaze with promise, in the very presence of science standing like some bountiful goddess over all the squat darknesses of human life, holding patiently in her strong arms, until men chose to take them, security, plenty, the solution of riddles, the key of the bravest adventures, in her very presence, and with the earnest of her gifts in court, the world was to witness such things as the squalid spectacle of the Dass-Tata patent litigation. There ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
1098:Faeries, like the djinn, preceded humanity as a sentient race that inhabited the earth. In Irish lore, the original fairies were the Tu-atha De Danaan ("the people of the goddess Danu"), said in some accounts to be directly descended from the gods. The fairies took up residency in Ireland, and possessed supernatural and magical powers. Over time, they lost battles to invaders and used their powers to retreat into the earth, into a parallel world where they could remain invisible and undisturbed. ~ Rosemary Ellen Guiley, #NFDB
1099:I conjure the boy I knew. Achilles, grinning as the figs blur in his hands. His green eyes laughing into mine. Catch, he says. Achilles, outlined against the sky, hanging from a branch over the river. The thick warmth of his sleepy breath against my ear. If you have to go, I will go with you. My fears forgotten in the golden harbor of his arms.
The memories come, and come. She listens, staring into the grain of the stone. We are all there, goddess and mortal and the boy who was both. ~ Madeline Miller,#NFDB
1100:Persephone is just a name for a spirit of beauty at a certain time in history. I'm sure we could argue a biblical place for her if it matters. Your wife has the name of that pagan goddess, but the fact remains that she's your mortal bride in the Year of Our Lord 1888- and she's Catholic, so pray for her, damn it, I don't care how confusing it is. And pray for us, to anyone. If the dead are about to flood Athens, divine goodwill couldn't hurt. Your prayers can be in Hindu, if you like. Now go home. ~ Leanna Renee Hieber, #NFDB
1101:I’m just glad you planned to have your honeymoon away from the castle,” he replied as he smirked knowingly. “Gods know when you two go at it, the entire power grid and magical field around the castle is high voltage.”
“You can feel it?” I gasped.
“What did you expect, Flower? You’re a Goddess of Faery; your mother is a fertility Goddess. When you two fuck, even the flowers feel it. Last night, they bloomed. You know, the ones that only open once a year were awakened by the power you two gave off. ~ Amelia Hutchins,#NFDB
1102:I’m a goddess of destruction. Tell me honestly that you find nothing exciting about the idea of a billion people screaming out for mercy when there’s no one left who cares what befalls them. Of the entire earth being rained on by all manner of demons bent on ultimate torture and sacrifice. Them ripping and shredding human flesh as they claw in a drunken frenzy fueled by their hatred of everything. Drinking blood in an orgy of terror...ahhh, the beauty of annihilation. There’s nothing like it.(Apollymi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1103:Laura described the remnants of snake devotion still found in rural villages of the Black and Adriatic Seas. There, people believed black or green snakes bore guardian spirits who protected their cattle and their homes. In her travels Laura saw ornamental snakes carved to decorate the roofs and windows for protection. Great good fortune came to anyone who met a big white snake wearing a crown,; the crowned snake was the sister of the waterbird goddess, owner and guardian of life water and life milk. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko, #NFDB
1104:Banish play and laughter from the bed of love and you may let in a false goddess. She will be even falser than the Aphrodite of the Greeks; for they, even while they worshipped her, knew that she was "laughter-loving." The mass of the people are perfectly right in their conviction that Venus is a partly comic spirit. We are under no obligation at all to sing all our love-duets in the throbbing, world-without-end, heart-breaking manner of Tristan and Isolde; let us often sing like Papageno and Papagena instead. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1105:Oh no, that’s for you. Presents make people happy. The Simi wants you to be happy. (Simi) Thank you, Simi. (Gallagher) No need to thank me. See, that’s what families do. They take care of each other. (Simi) I no longer have a family. I had to give them up. (Gallagher) Of course you have a family. Everyone has family. I’m your family. Akri your family. Even that smelly old goddess is your family. She’s that creepy old aunt who comes around but nobody likes her so they make fun of her when she’s gone. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1106:The legend used in the Lesser rites is that of the abduction of the goddess Persephone, the daughter of Ceres, by Pluto, the lord of the underworld, or Hades. While Persephone is picking flowers in a beautiful meadow, the earth suddenly opens and the gloomy lord of death, riding in a magnificent chariot, emerges from its somber depths and, grasping her in his arms, carries the screaming and struggling goddess to his subterranean palace, where he forces her to become his queen. ~ Manly P Hall, The Secret Teachings of all Ages, #NFDB
1107:The carved images on the early Minoan sealstones are tantalising, inscrutable. The Nature Goddess is yanked from the soil like a snake or a sheaf of barley; the Mistress of the Animals suckles goats and gazelles. There are male Adorants certainly - up on tiptoe, their outstretched arms hoisted in a kind of heil, their bodies arched suggestively, pelvis forward, before the Goddess - but there are no masculine deities, not a single one in sight. No woman worth her salt, one might think, could fail to be intrigued. ~ Alison Fell, #NFDB
1108:The dark breaks wide in fragile rays. Dawn on Ithiss-Tor is more subtle than other sunrises. I have lost count of the worlds where I have stood and watched the light rise, peeling away the sky, sometimes in quiet colors, and sometimes in raw, violent slashes, as if the goddess I don't believe in has cut her veins. And sometimes, as on Gehenna, the sky changes not at all, just endless night, or endless brilliance--and after a time, the constant uniformity makes you feel as if you are the thing that must give way. ~ Ann Aguirre, #NFDB
1109:Who is the object of homage?
You, whose face is very white, lovely and beautiful, glowing with light like an array of a hundred full autumn moons, all together, without the dust from earth and water, You are adorned with completely open, immeasurable twofold knowledge like the hosts of a thousand stars, The brilliant light of your clear wisdom manifesting the four correct analytical knowledges shines forth, Noble Lady Tara, Goddess Vajra Sarasvati, I pay homage to you. ~ Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche, Smile Of Sun And Moon,#NFDB
1110:At dusk, on the last day of April, I hear a calling noise, like a white-winged barn owl, and I go to my window and push open the shutters and look out. There is a waning moon rising off the horizon, white against a white sky; it too is wasting away, and in its cold light I can hear a calling, like a choir, and I know it is not the music of owls, nor singers nor nightingales, but Melusina. Our ancestor goddess is calling around the roof of the house, for her daughter Jacquetta of the House of Burgundy is dying. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1111:But a man's life breath cannot come back again-no raiders in force, no trading brings it back, once it slips through a man's clenched teeth.
Mother tells me, the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies...true, but the life that's left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly. ~ Homer,#NFDB
1112:When the boy was grown and out hunting, the goddess brought Callisto before him, intending to have him shoot his mother, in ignorance, of course. But Zeus snatched the bear away and placed her among the stars, where she is called the Great Bear. Later, her son Arcas was placed beside her and called the Lesser Bear. Hera, enraged at this honor to her rival, persuaded the God of the Sea to forbid the Bears to descend into the ocean like the other stars. They alone of the constellations never set below the horizon. ~ Edith Hamilton, #NFDB
1113:A common question asked of writers is "When did you decide to become a writer?" The answer, of course, is that we didn't decide anything. It was decided for us. I firmly believe that mythical godmothers make appearances at our cradles, and bestow their gifts. The godmother who might have blessed me with a singing voice did not show up; the goddess of dance was nowhere in sight; the chef-to-the-angels was otherwise engaged. Only one made the journey to my cradle, and she whispered, "You will be a storyteller." ~ Mary Higgins Clark, #NFDB
1114:1212Forget what they told you. You are love child of a passionate affair between goddess and universe. You were born of a steamy forbidden heat and you were made for the cyclone of unadulterated wholeness. You are a daughter of delight. You are the unconstrained mother of all. A fierce warrior. A wicked priestess. Your roots twist into this earth. Your spirit rises in glorious asana. You let loose with the howl of the wilderness you’ve held tight all these years.
You are the wild. Untethered. Gloriously free. ~ Jeanette LeBlanc,#NFDB
1115:I have seen the Virgin
in an appletree at Chartres
And Saint Joan burn
at the Bella Union.
I have seen giraffes in junglejims
their necks like love
wound around the iron circumstances
of the world.
I have seen the Venus Aphrodite
armless in her drafty corridor.
I have heard a siren sing
at One Fifth Avenue.
I have seen the White Goddess dancing
in the Rue des Beaux Arts
on the Fourteenth of July
and the Beautiful Dame Without Mercy
picking her nose in Chumley's. ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti,#NFDB
1116:e never fall twice into the same abyss. But we always fall the same way, in a mixture of ridicule and dread. We so desperately want not to fall that we grapple for a handhold, screaming. With their heels they crush our fingers, with their beaks they smash our teeth and peck out our eyes. The abyss is bordered by tall mansions. And there stands History, a reasonable goddess, a frozen statue in the middle of the town square. Dried bunches of peonies are her annual tribute; her daily gratuity, bread crumbs for the birds. ~ ric Vuillard, #NFDB
1117:In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: is this not yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float quietly across the sky, is this not your own limitless Being, waving back at you? ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
1118:Tianna felt happy. Since she had lost her family, she had wanted to belong somewhere.
"That mysterious voice that seemed like an inner guide," Tianna asked. "Was that Selene?"
Maggie nodded. "Selene was always guiding you. She looked down on you that first night and felt pity for what the Followers had done and for what you were going to endure. And now because you have proved yourself, she is allowing you to become-"
"A goddess," Tianna whispered.
"A Daughter of the Moon." Maggie corrected her with a smile. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1119:The Tuatha De Danann, the people of the Goddess Danu, were one of the great ancient tribes of Ireland. They were also known as the Shining Ones, or the Fae. According to a significant manuscript, the Annals of the Four Masters, it states that they ruled Ireland from 1897 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Although, many believe they dwelled within the land thousands of years before the first recorded evidence was documented.
Over time, the race vanished. Many believe they descended within the hills, streams, and mountains of Ireland. ~ Mary Morgan,#NFDB
1120:The Tuatha De Danann, the people of the Goddess Danu, were one of the great ancient tribes of Ireland. They were also known as the Shining Ones, or the Fae. According to a significant manuscript, the Annals of the Four Masters, it states that they ruled Ireland from 1897 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Although, many believe they dwelled within the land thousands of years before the first recorded evidence was documented.
Over time, the race vanished. Many believe they descended within the hills, streams, and mountains of Ireland. ~ Mary Morgan,#NFDB
1121:Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake.
All the vines are ripening
And the trees come into bud,
For my love's footsteps passing by
Are summoning the spring.
Rian's stars in the night
Shine more brightly over her,
The god's moon and the goddess's
Guard her with their light.
Even the birds above the lake
Are singing of my love,
And even the flowers along the shore
Are growing for her sake ~ Guy Gavriel Kay,#NFDB
1122:It’s time to stop hiding. It’s time to know your power, claim your voice, and tip the balance back toward a feminine future. To restore balance. It’s not about man vs. woman. Rulers vs. religion. Command and conquer. This is about harmony. Unity. Removing what has defined and divided us. It’s time to become activated Goddesses.
Understand. These shifts are going to make your earth move. So if you know one thing, know this, that if you hold your Goddess energy, your truthful emotion, in your soul, nothing can shake you. ~ Emma Mildon,#NFDB
1123:The man was dead and being judged in the afterlife by the gods. A scale held his heart on one side and a feather—the symbol of Maat, the goddess of truth and justice–on the other. If the man’s heart was weighed down by guilt, it would be heavier than the feather, and the scale would tip toward his damnation. A monster stood by the scale, ready to devour the man’s heart if it proved unworthy. The words of one of the heart scarabs came to my mind, and I murmured them out loud. “Let not my heart bear witness against me. ~ Janette Rallison, #NFDB
1124:Oh no, that’s for you. Presents make people happy. The Simi wants you to be happy. (Simi)
Thank you, Simi. (Gallagher)
No need to thank me. See, that’s what families do. They take care of each other. (Simi)
I no longer have a family. I had to give them up. (Gallagher)
Of course you have a family. Everyone has family. I’m your family. Akri your family. Even that smelly old goddess is your family. She’s that creepy old aunt who comes around but nobody likes her so they make fun of her when she’s gone. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1125:You know about the Mother Goddess - the first female god, a fat woman with a lion on one side and a child between her legs. She was the first god of humankind.
Do you know why than ancient people of Anatolia chose her as their god? Because men were not aware of their roles as impregnators. They thought that it was the wind, the rain, the rivers, in short, nature, that impregnated women. And this was not at all a strange idea at the time. People viewed themselves as part of nature. They thought birth was magic, a miracle. ~ Ahmet mit,#NFDB
1126:And in all shalt thou create the Infinite Bliss and the next link of the Infinite Chain. This chain reaches from Eternity to Eternity, ever in triangles—is not my symbol a triangle?—ever in circles—is not the symbol of the Beloved a circle? Therein is all progress base illusion, for every circle is alike and every triangle alike! But the progress is progress, and progress is rapture, constant, dazzling, showers of light, waves of dew, flames of the hair of the Great Goddess, flowers of the roses that are about her neck, Amen! ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1127:In ancient Greece, they did it to pay tribute to the goddess Artemis. They made a round cake to represent the shape of the moon and added candles to represent the moonlight. Later, people believed that, when the candle was blown out, your wish would go to the gods to grant. Some people believe the smoke from the candles will chase away evil spirits for another year. There is tradition in everything, every event, every holiday, and this is one tradition I want to share with you and, someday, share with our children. ~ Aurora Rose Reynolds, #NFDB
1128:Katy was neither a Methodist nor a Masochist. She was a goddess and the silence of goddesses is genuinely golden. None of your superficial plating. A solid, twenty-two-carat silence all the way through. The Olympian's trap is kept shut, not by an act of willed discretion, but because there's really nothing to say. Goddesses are all of one piece. There's no internal conflict in them. Whereas the lives of people like you and me are one long argument. Desires on one side, woodpeckers on the other. Never a moment of real silence. ~ Aldous Huxley, #NFDB
1129:The goddess of death visited me in a dream. “A job well done, son of Tyr,” she said. “Your mother is safe. I may even grant you permission to visit her from time to time.”
Warring emotions bubbled up in my gut then—anger at how my mother had been treated, and elation that one day I might get to see her again. Elation won out.
“I look forward to that,” I said. “And I’m glad your dog is back home, even though he’s destined to kill my dad. But right now, do me a favor.” I rolled over and pulled up the covers. “Go to Helheim. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1130:I would like to barbecue those Olympian gods. They are very tasty. One day, I’m going to eat that redheaded goddess, too. (Simi) She doesn’t like Artemis. (Astrid) The Simi hates her, but akri says, ‘No, Simi, you can’t kill Artemis. Behave, Simi, don’t shoot fire at her, don’t make her bald, Simi.’ No, no, no. It’s all I hear. I don’t like that word. ‘No.’ It even sounds evil. The Simi tends to barbecue anyone dumb enough to say it to her. But not akri. He’s allowed to say no to me; I just don’t like it when he does. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1131:O Mother, who really Knows Your magic? You're a crazy girl Driving us all crazy with these tricks. No one knows anyone else In a world of Your illusions. Kali's tricks are so deft, We act on what we see. And what suffering -- All because of a crazy girl! Who knows What She truly is? Ramprasad says: If She decides To be kind, this misery will pass. [1480.jpg] -- from Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Ramprasad Sen - Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Translated by Leonard Nathan / Clinton Seely
~ Ramprasad, O Mother, who really
,#NFDB
1132:We need Goddess consciousness to reveal earth's holiness. Divine feminine imagery opens up the notion that the earth is the body of the Divine, and when that happens, the Divine cannot be contained solely in a book, church, dogma, liturgy, theological system, or transcendent spirituality. The earth is no longer a mere backdrop until we get to heaven, something secondary and expendable. Mater becomes inspirited; it breathes divinity. Earth comes alive and sacred. And we find ourselves alive in the midst of her and forever altered. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
1133:When every tree can suddenly speak as a nymph, when a god in the shape of a bull can drag away maidens, when even the goddess Athena herself is suddenly seen in the company of Peisastratus driving through the market place of Athens with a beautiful team of horses - and this is what the honest Athenian believed - then, as in a dream, anything is possible at each moment, and all of nature swarms around man as it were nothing but a masquerade of the gods, who were merely amusing themselves by deceiving men in all these shapes. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1134:Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so? (Hermes) What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites? (Apollo) I don’t think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything she comes into contact with. And in case you’re curious, she’s headed straight for us. I could be really wrong here, but I’m guessing the woman’s extremely pissed. (Hermes) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1135:I have you – a god of mixed heritage – on an expedition that could unleash the Destroyer from her hole. Arikos, another god, on the same team who is masquerading as a human. The demigod Solin, who I have to ride herd on constantly anyway, who gave them their permits. Megeara, a human who is sensitive and subjective to the voices of the gods. And the pissed-off goddess, Apollymi, who will do anything to be free, and once free wouldn’t hesitate to destroy every one of us. I can’t imagine why I’m concerned over this, can you? (ZT) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1136:I think ‘Pretty Polly’ is an attempt to speak to these same nature spirits. It is a ritual of bloodletting, an appeal to invisible forces, a cry to the goddess to come embrace us with her thorny arms. Polly’s murder works as Joseph Campbell believed all myth worked—as a secret opening, a knife slashed in the veil of experience through which deep knowledge may seep. To those not gifted enough to hear the bean plants talk or to see the fairies dancing, myth may be our only access to places outside our conscious perception of reality. ~ Rennie Sparks, #NFDB
1137:WE HAVE, if we’re lucky, about thirty thousand days to play the game of life. How we play it will be determined by what we value. Or, as David Foster Wallace put it, “Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritualtype thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.” We now ~ Arianna Huffington, #NFDB
1138:Young man,
two are the forces most precious to mankind.
The first is Demeter, the Goddess.
She is the Earth -- or any name you wish to call her --
and she sustains humanity with solid food.
Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin,
bringing the counterpart to bread: wine
and the blessings of life's flowing juices.
His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed. ~ Euripides,#NFDB
1139:But in truth that Golden Age of Woman is only a myth. To say that woman was the Other is to say that there did not exist between the sexes a reciprocal relation: Earth, Mother, Goddess—she was no fellow creature in man's eyes; it was beyond the human realm that her power was afiirmed, and she was therefore outside of that realm. Society has always been male ; political power has always been in the hands of men. 'Pubhc or simply social authority always belongs to men,' declares Lévi-Strauss at the end of his study of primitive societies. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1140:Pounce had it easier than any of us. No one noticed a black cat in the street. He stopped here and there to sniff aught of interest. Wherever our Rat stopped, Pounce was there, close enough to see up the Rat's nose. I was so proud. Now there was a proper god, making himself useful!
Since my thought might be deemed blasphemy, I said silent prayers to the Goddess and to Mithros. I begged forgiveness and asked them not to misunderstand. Since I wasn't blasted where I stood, I guess they forgave me, or they hadn't heard my blasphemy. ~ Tamora Pierce,#NFDB
1141:I would like to barbecue those Olympian gods. They are very tasty. One day, I’m going to eat that redheaded goddess, too. (Simi)
She doesn’t like Artemis. (Astrid)
The Simi hates her, but akri says, ‘No, Simi, you can’t kill Artemis. Behave, Simi, don’t shoot fire at her, don’t make her bald, Simi.’ No, no, no. It’s all I hear. I don’t like that word. ‘No.’ It even sounds evil. The Simi tends to barbecue anyone dumb enough to say it to her. But not akri. He’s allowed to say no to me; I just don’t like it when he does. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1142:You have no idea how many times in my life I've wanted to publicly bitch-slap my brother. Thank you for the amusement." Athena
"I thought you were going to choke me for it." Bethany
"Not for this. But don't think for even one heartbeat that we're friends." Athena
"I know. But I am a goddess of justice, and while I have no problem tearing open someone who deserves it, I cannot stand to see anyone, even a Greek, wrongfully tortured." Bethany
"Now can I have my body back? No offense, but I don't wear old man well." Athena ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1143:]Sardis
often turning her thoughts here
]
you like a goddess
and in your song most of all she rejoiced.
But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women
as sometimes at sunset
the rosyfingered moon
surpasses all the stars. And her light
stretches over salt sea
equally and flowerdeep fields.
And the beautiful dew is poured out
and roses bloom and frail
chervil and flowering sweetclover.
But she goes back and forth remembering
gentle Atthis and in longing
she bites her tender mind ~ Sappho,#NFDB
1144:Yet now they call her goddess. Now, we are to kneel before her, and know her face as Dark’s own, her presence as the elemental force itself. What has become of us that we should so descend into superstition? Treasonous thoughts – she knew that. The philosopher’s game of separating governance from faith was a lie. Beliefs ran the gamut, from worshipping vast spirits in the sky down to professing love for a man. From listening to the voice of a god’s will to accepting an officer’s right to command. The only distinction was one of scale. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
1145:Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so? (Hermes)
What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites? (Apollo)
I don’t think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything she comes into contact with. And in case you’re curious, she’s headed straight for us. I could be really wrong here, but I’m guessing the woman’s extremely pissed. (Hermes) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1146: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 tonight. there are no flocks out on the mountains; and it is well, for to-night she welcomes Aeolus. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
1147:Tell me, enigmatical man, whom do you love best, your father,
Your mother, your sister, or your brother?
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
Now you use a word whose meaning I have never known.
Your country?
I do not know in what latitude it lies.
Beauty?
I could indeed love her, Goddess and Immortal.
Gold?
I hate it as you hate God.
Then, what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
I love the clouds the clouds that pass up there
Up there the wonderful clouds! ~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
1148:What happened in his village that Artemis doesn’t want Zarek to know about? (Astrid)
I don’t know. She’s all paranoid all the time anyway. Afraid akri is going to leave and not come back, which I keep telling him to do. But does he listen? No. ‘She’s not your concern, Simi. You don’t understand, Simi.’ I understand, all right. I understand the bitch-goddess needs the Simi to barbecue her until she learns to be nice to people. I think she’d be rather attractive on fire. I could make her look like that old sea hag or something. (Simi) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1149:In the stillness of the night, the Goddess whispers. In the brightness of the day, dear God roars. Life pulses, mind imagines, emotions wave, thoughts wander. What are all these but the endless movements of One Taste, forever at play with its own gestures, whispering quietly to all who would listen: is this not yourself? When the thunder roars, do you not hear your Self? When the lightning cracks, do you not see your Self? When clouds float quietly across the sky, is this not your own limitless Being, waving back at you? ~ Ken Wilber, One Taste, page 279, #NFDB
1150:You should’ve seen her talking to Neith about Jelly Babies. She was like…I don’t know, a verbal freight train. The goddess never stood a chance.” “Yes, I saw,” Anubis said. “It was endearing, in an annoying sort of way.” “I beg your pardon?” I wasn’t sure which of them to slap first. “And when she turns red like that,” Anubis added, as if I were some interesting specimen. “Cute,” Walt agreed. “So have you decided?” Anubis asked him. “This is our last chance.” “Yes. I can’t leave her.” Anubis nodded and squeezed his shoulder. “Neither can I. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1151:Tell me, enigmatical man, whom do you love best, your father,
Your mother, your sister, or your brother?
I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother.
Your friends?
Now you use a word whose meaning I have never known.
Your country?
I do not know in what latitude it lies.
Beauty?
I could indeed love her, Goddess and Immortal.
Gold?
I hate it as you hate God.
Then, what do you love, extraordinary stranger?
I love the clouds the clouds that pass up there
Up there the wonderful clouds!
~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
1152:Then you my goddess with your immortal lips smiling
Would ask what now afflicts me, why again
I am calling and what now I with my restive heart
Desired:
Whom now shall I beguile
To bring you to her love?
Who now injures you, Sappho?
For if she flees, soon shall she chase
And, rejecting gifts, soon shall she give.
If she does not love you, she shall do so soon
Whatsoever is her will.
Come to me now to end this consuming pain
Bringing what my heart desires to be brought:
Be yourself my ally in this fight. ~ Sappho,#NFDB
1153:I love him. (Artemis) How can you say that? You don’t even understand what love means. Love isn’t being ashamed to be seen with the one you care about. It isn’t about punishment or hurt. Love is what gives you the strength you need to face anything no matter how brutal or frightening. It’s what allowed Ash to be beaten rather than tell his father about you. It’s what allowed him to be gutted on the floor at your feet rather than publicly shame you. And you spat on him for that love and tore him apart. For a goddess, you’re pathetic. (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon, #NFDB
1154:One rendering of the Septuagint (LXX) version of Psalm 95:5-6 reaffirms this reality of national gods being demons whose deity was less than the Creator, “For great is the Lord, and praiseworthy exceedingly. More awesome he is than all the gods. For all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens.”[4] Another LXX verse, Isa. 65:11, speaks of Israel’s idolatry: “But ye are they that have left me, and forget my holy mountain, and prepare a table for [a demon], and fill up the drink-offering to Fortune [a foreign goddess].[5] ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1155:I love him. (Artemis)
How can you say that? You don’t even understand what love means. Love isn’t being ashamed to be seen with the one you care about. It isn’t about punishment or hurt. Love is what gives you the strength you need to face anything no matter how brutal or frightening. It’s what allowed Ash to be beaten rather than tell his father about you. It’s what allowed him to be gutted on the floor at your feet rather than publicly shame you. And you spat on him for that love and tore him apart. For a goddess, you’re pathetic. (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1156:Nadiah, what does Talana mean?” Nadiah’s eyes went wide. “Goddess, you heard him calling her that?” “No. That’s what he calls me. He told me it was just a nickname like ‘baby’ or ‘sweetheart.’ Is it?” Nadiah gave a long, low whistle. “No, not at all. Tell me, how many times has he called you that?” “A lot,” Sophie admitted. “He started before we ever came here. Why, what does it mean?” “Blood of my blood. It’s what Blood Kindred call their bonded brides. If he’s calling you that, Sophia, I don’t think you have to worry about Feenah.” “Yes, ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1157:Great Goddess, Great God, I come before you at the end of another day and thank you for the many blessings in my life. For friends and family and pets, for home and health and good food. I thank you for (the names of whichever people crossed my path that day in meaningful ways) and for (whatever good things happened or whichever not-so-great things they helped me survive.). Please help me to get a good night's sleep so I might wake in the morning refreshed and energized and ready to face another day. Watch over me and those I love. So mote it be. ~ Deborah Blake, #NFDB
1158:HE WAS KNOWN AS THE Dark One. Malach ha-Maet. Yama. Azreal. Shadow Walker. Mairya. King of the Dead. He was all of those things and more, for he was a Lord of the Underworld. Long ago he had opened dimOuniak, a powerful box made from the bones of a goddess, unleashing a horde of demons upon the earth. As punishment, he and the warriors who aided him were forced to house those demons inside themselves, melding light and darkness, order and chaos, until they were barely able to retain any tether on the disciplined warriors they’d once been. Because ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1159:Can you surf really well, then?" I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh. "Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried." He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.) ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1160:Cold as winter, strong as stone;
She faced the darkness all alone.
A silver goddess; a reflection.
A mirage; a recollection.
No return; no turning back.
The past is gone, the future, black.
Serpents gather in their nest,
And she stands above the rest.
Shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow.
The moon is risen; she stands below.
She views her world through the eyes of others.
Black and white; there are no colors,
As she looks down upon a shattered youth.
A shattered mirror shows a shattered truth. ~ Amelia Atwater Rhodes,#NFDB
1161:[Dessie's] shop was a unique institution in Salinas. It was a woman's world. Here all the rules, and the fears that created the iron rules, went down. The door was closed to men. It was a sanctuary where women could be themselves- smelly, wanton, mystic, conceited, truthful, and interested. The whalebone corsets came off at Dessie's, the sacred corsets that moulded and warped woman-flesh into goddess-flesh. At Dessie's they were women who went to the toilet and overate and scratched and farted. And from this freedom came laughter, roars of laughter. ~ John Steinbeck, #NFDB
1162:You wouldn’t think so, but . . . well. You were . . . amazing, throwing that fire like some kind of ancient warrior goddess.”
Annoyed, I turned away. “Stop making fun of me.”
He caught my arm and pulled me back toward him. “I am absolutely serious.”
I swallowed, speechless for a moment. All I was aware of was how close we were, that he was holding me to him with only a few inches between us. Almost as close as at the sorority. “I’m not a warrior or a goddess,” I managed at last.
Adrian leaned closer. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re both. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
1163:Herlia, goddess of justice, weeping as she passes her first judgement (...) She fell in love with a mortal man, but his passion for her drove him to commit a terrible crime and so she judged him, consigning him to the depths of the earth, chained to a rock, where his flesh is eternally eaten by vermin (...) Indeed, he stole a magic sword and with it slew a god, thinking him a rival for her affections. In fact he was her brother, Ixtus, god of dreams. now, whenever we suffer nightmares it is the shade of the fallen god taking his revenge on mortal kind. ~ Anthony Ryan, #NFDB
1164:Ash sighed. "Don't say anything, Goodfellow."
"What? Me?" I grinned at him. "Say something? I'm not the type who would point out that, for once, this absurd situation isn't my fault. Of Course, I know better than to make deals with crazy Exile Queens with goddess complexes. And if I did, I would expect them to call in the favor at the worst possible time. But I'm certainly not one to rub it in. That would just be wrong."
Ash pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm beginning to regret inviting you."
"You wound me deeply Prince." --- Puck ~ Julie Kagawa,#NFDB
1165:The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream. "Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?" Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.) He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face. "Nothing," he muttered. "we were just cuddling. Um, what's going on? ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1166:
EARLY one day, the Muse, when eagerly bent on adornment,
Follow'd a swift-running streamlet, the quietest nook by it seeking.
Quickly and noisily flowing, the changeful surface distorted
Ever her moving form; the goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call'd mockingly after her, saying: "What, truly!
Wilt thou not view, then, the truth, in my mirror so clearly depicted?"
But she already was far away, on the brink of the ocean,
In her figure rejoicing, and duly arranging her garland.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Muses Mirror
,#NFDB
1167:Sorry,” she said after a few minutes. Her voice was still a bit raspy, and she cleared her throat. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” she said, and she sounded nearly human again. “So I had a few shots of dark rum.” She shrugged. “Okay, more than a few. Anyway, it didn’t work. So I took a couple of sleeping pills.” Jackie closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “Boy, oh, boy, did that work,” she said. “I think I almost pulled a Marilyn.” “A what?” I said. “Monroe,” she said with a very small smile. “You know, screen goddess takes fatal overdose. Oh, my head. ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
1168:Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as love. Love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1169:Can you surf really well, then?"
I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
"Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."
He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.) ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1170:A beautiful woman approached them with two young daughters by her side, about the same age as Arisha. She was stunning to Arisha. If Izbaxl’s music tranquilized her fears, this woman’s raven black hair, sensuous movement and penetrating eyes sedated her soul. Her voice expressed motherly assurance. “Welcome, Izbaxl. I see you have brought someone new to the goddess. A maiden. Sedated.” How did this phantom-like beauty know anything about me? thought Arisha. “Arisha,” said Izbaxl, “This is Lilith and her daughters Lili and Lilu. They are the guardians of Gaia. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1171:Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as "love." "Love" is abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-increasing. ~ Erich Fromm, #NFDB
1172:One of the girls blew a silver dog whistle, and a dozen white wolves appeared out of the woods. They began circling the camp like guard dogs. The Hunters walked among them and fed them treats, completely unafraid, but I decided I would stick close to the tents. Falcons watched us from the trees, their eyes flashing in the firelight, and I got the feeling they were on guard duty, too. Even the weather seemed to bend to the goddess’s will. The air was still cold, but the wind died down and the snow stopped falling, so it was almost pleasant sitting by the fire. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1173:A huge tree, hundreds of feet around had grown up into the clouds high above her. Its roots at the ground level were serpentine, twisted around like a tangled pile of, well, the only thing she could think of was snakes. She wondered if the mushrooms were distorting her vision, but she was not sure. She was surprised that she had not seen this tree from a distance and wondered why it was the only living thing in this little valley of deadness. “That, my dear Arisha,” said Izbaxl, “is Gaia, the Mother Earth Goddess. The World Tree. And those are her worshippers. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1174:The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech. All great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses; they are not the lemonade-like outpourings of the literary aesthetes and drawing-room heroes.55 ~ William L Shirer, #NFDB
1175:Uh, yeah,” Percy said. “The Romans aren’t big on navies. They had, like, one rowboat. Which I sank. Speaking of violent storms, you’re doing a first-rate job upstairs.” “Thank you,” said Kym. “Thing is, our ship is caught in it, and it’s kind of being ripped apart. I’m sure you didn’t mean to—” “Oh, yes, I did.” “You did.” Percy grimaced. “Well...that sucks. I don’t suppose you’d cut it out, then, if we asked nicely?” “No,” the goddess agreed. “Even now, the ship is close to sinking. I’m rather amazed it’s held together this long. Excellent workmanship.” Sparks ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1176:You must be mistaken," Isabel said, unconcerned by the insult that the words carried.
"I assure you i am not. Voluptas is nearly always portrayed wrapped in roses. If that were not enough, her faces confirms her identity."
"You cannot tell a goddess from a face carved in marble," she scoffed.
"You can tell Voluptas by her face."
"I've never even heard of this goddess, and you know what she looks like?"
"She is the goddess of sensual pleasure."
Isabel's mouth fell open at the words. She could not think of a single thing to say in response. "Oh ~ Sarah MacLean,#NFDB
1177:According to Annabeth, our family, the Chases, had some sort of special appeal to the ancient gods. Maybe it was our winning personalities. Maybe it was our brand of shampoo. Annabeth’s mom, the Greek goddess Athena, had fallen in love with her dad, Frederick. My dad, Frey, had fallen in love with my mother, Natalie. If somebody came up to me tomorrow and told me—surprise!—the Aztec gods were alive and well in Houston and my second cousin was the granddaughter of Quetzalcoatl, I would totally believe them. Then I would run screaming off a cliff into Ginnungagap. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1178:As I said, your view on religion is known to me, it's never particularly bothered me and, no doubt, it won't bother me in the future. I’m not a fanatic. You've a right to believe that we're governed by Nature and the Force hidden within her. You can think that the gods, including my Melitele, are merely a personification of this power invented for simpletons so they can understand it better, accept its existence. According to you, that power is blind. But for me, Geralt, faith allows you to expect what my goddess personifies from nature: order, law, goodness. And hope. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1179:Mount Hermon and Bashan have important lore behind them. The name means place of the Serpent.” Jabal nodded. “It is the Cosmic Mountain,” he said. “The Gateway of the Gods. Some people say the mountain is also the gateway to Sheol.” “They are not wrong,” Uriel said. “It is in the foothill village of Kur, guarded by the goddess of the underworld, Ereshkigal, sister of Inanna. If one makes it through the Seven Gates of Ganzir, they have access to the waters of the Abyss, which leads to the netherworld of Sheol.” Noah took note of the connection of Ereshkigal to Inanna. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1180:She marched upon him and stood respectfully a few feet away. The two knights he was speaking to caught sight of her but Jax did not until their lack of attention to his conversation forced him to look and see what had them so intrigued. He wasn’t surprised to see Kellington standing there, looking like a goddess with her dark blue gown and sweet face. But he was surprised at the surge of jealousy that coursed through him, so much so that he stood up from where he was perched on the edge of the table and moved towards her as if to lay his claim then and there. ~ Kathryn Le Veque, #NFDB
1181:Despite his frightening exterior, he too, like king Sihon, was still in subjection. His superior was Ashtart, the goddess ruler of the region, and personal escort of Ba’al, the most high god. Ashtart’s hairdo distracted Molech’s attention. It consisted of a massive amount of hair twirled and piled into the form of two large horns that accented her heavily made up face. Horns were symbols of deity, so she was tickled by the ability to combine the symbolic with an outrageous style. It would be a bit comical if she were not the most frightening of all warrior divinities. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1182:Do I know you?” Her voice was muffled but understandable through the thick glass. “No, but I know you. Or I know of you, anyway.” Kat turned to Xairn. “Please let me in to talk to her. I’m not armed—you can pat me down if you want.” “No, he can’t!” Deep’s black eyes flashed possessively. “He won’t touch you or I swear to the Goddess—” “I will take her word that she isn’t armed,” Xairn interrupted coolly. “And I will allow her into the cell with Lauren. She has been missing human companionship. Perhaps seeing another of her kind will make her feel better.” “Thank ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1183:Percy pulled Annabeth close and kissed her... long enough for it to get really awkward for Piper, though she said nothing. She thought about the old rule of Aphrodite's cabin: that to be recognized as a daughter of the love goddess, you had to break someone's heart. Piper had long ago decided to change that rule. Percy and Annabeth were a perfect example of why. You should have to make someone's heart whole. That was a much better test.
When Percy pulled away, Annabeth looked like a fish gasping for air.
'The Rivalry end here,' Percy said. 'I love you, Wise Girl. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1184:remove the veil of maya is to uncover the secret of creation. He who thus denudes the universe is the only true monotheist. All others are worshipping heathen images. So long as man remains subject to the dualistic illusions of Nature, the Janus-faced Maya is his goddess; he cannot know the one true God. The world illusion, maya, manifests in men as avidya, literally, “not-knowledge,” ignorance, delusion. Maya or avidya can never be destroyed through intellectual conviction or analysis, but solely through attaining the interior state of nirbikalpa samadhi. The ~ Paramahansa Yogananda, #NFDB
1185:The Ephesians believed that the image of the goddess Artemis had fallen from heaven. Some scholars assume they were describing a meteor that hit Ephesus, which the people imagined to look like a multi-breasted woman. I am sometimes amazed at the things people believe. I’m no rocket scientist, but I find Paul’s message of a Messiah sent from God who offers eternal life to everyone who believes much more plausible than that. Yes, God requires faith, but not as much as a number of belief systems falling out of the skies today. Go ahead and believe Him. He’s very believable. ~ Beth Moore, #NFDB
1186:The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream.
"Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?"
Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.)
He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.
"Nothing," he muttered. "we were just cuddling. Um, what's going on? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1187:then we would enter what he called his “study,” a room whose walls were hung with prints which showed, against a dark background, a pink and fleshy goddess driving a chariot, or standing upon a globe, or wearing a star on her brow—pictures which were popular under the Second Empire because there was thought to be something about them that suggested Pompeii, which were then generally despised, and which are now becoming fashionable again for one single and consistent reason (notwithstanding all the others that are advanced), namely, that they suggest the Second Empire. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1188:The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks. ~ Laura Whitcomb, #NFDB
1189:The novel, he was saying, was a flabby old whore.
A flabby old whore! the older man said looking delighted.
She was serviceable, roomy, warm and familiar, the younger was saying, but really a bit used up, really a bit too slack and loose.
Slack and loose! the older said laughing.
Whereas the short story, by comparison, was a nimble goddess, a slim nymph. Because so few people had mastered the short story she was still in very good shape.
...I idly wondered how many of the books in my house were fuckable and how good they'd be in bed. ~ Ali Smith,#NFDB
1190:All these years I thought I had been protecting a space alien from the government." She laughed and it was dry and filled with sadness. "And now I find out that I've been protecting something evil."
Catty started shaking. "What did you read?"
Kendra looked down at the manuscript. Her finger ran across a line as she translated it. "The child of a fallen goddess and an evil spirit will take possession of the Secret Scroll without fear of its curse."
"You think that's me?" Catty asked nervously. Could she be the daughter of a fallen goddess and an evil spirit? ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1191:She told us about the goddess called Persephone, who was forced to spend half a year in the darkness deep underground. Winter happened when she was trapped inside the earth. The days shrank, they became cold and short and dark. Living things hid themselves away. Spring came when she was released and made her slow way up to the world again. The world became brighter and bolder in order to welcome her back. It began to be filled with warmth and light. The animals dared to wake, they dared to have their young. Plants dared to send out buds and shoots. Life dared to come back. ~ David Almond, #NFDB
1192:The library smells like old books - a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.
~ Laura Whitcomb,#NFDB
1193:Rahab exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I said! The people in Jericho, they go to the temples to ask for things. Always asking! But I always wanted to know what the god or goddess was like.” “Well, Jehovah is hard to understand. For one thing, nobody’s ever seen Him.” “Nobody? Not even Abraham?” “Not even Moses, really. Moses was our leader who led us out of Egypt. You may have heard about him.” “Yes. Everyone knows about Moses. Did you know him?” “Yes, of course. He only died a short time ago. He was a hundred twenty years old, but he was as strong as if he were a young man. ~ Gilbert Morris, #NFDB
1194:She is Melusina, the water goddess, and she is found in hidden springs and waterfalls in any forest in Christendom, even in those as far away as Greece. (...) A man may love her if he keeps her secret and lets her alone when she wants to bathe, and she may love him in return until he breaks his word, as men always do, and she sweeps him into the depths with her fishy tail, and turns his faithless blood to water. The tragedy of Melusina, whatever language tells it, whatever tune it sings, is that a man will always promise more than he can do to a woman he cannot understand. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1195:She is not my ex,” he said smartly. “Whatever, you know what I mean.” “Uhuh, I do. That you are particularly intriguing when you’re jealous.” “Well, it’s a little disconcerting…the whole a-goddess-wants-my-boyfriend thing.” He laughed again and hooked his fingers in my front pockets to pull me to him. “You are one cute human.” He tipped my chin with a crooked finger. “Did you not see the whole me-choosing-you-over-her thing,” he said mockingly. I tried to scowl, tried to frown, bit my lip to stop the smile, but it won, hands down. “Yeah, that was pretty sweet,” I agreed. “Yeah. ~ Shelly Crane, #NFDB
1196:Diana and Her Companions Completed by 1656, this is the only known mythological painting by Vermeer, which is housed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague. Diana, goddess of the moon and the hunt, is depicted with a crescent moon on her head. The painting is set at dusk, when Diana is resting after a long hunt. She is attended by her trusty nymphs, who wash her feet and look on, except for one nymph that is turned away, displaying a bare shoulder. Vermeer may have been influenced by Jacob van Loo’s painting that bears the same title and was completed seven years previously. ~ Johannes Vermeer, #NFDB
1197:I was created a warrior, meant to guard the king of gods. For many years, I served him well, helping to keep him in power, protecting him even from his own family. But he did not think me strong enough to guard his most precious possession, a box formed from the bones of the dead goddess of oppression. No, he commanded a woman to do it. She was known as the greatest female warrior, true, but my pride was stung.” Thankfully, Ashlyn remained relaxed. “Thinking to prove a mistake had been made, I helped release the demons inside upon the world. And in punishment, I was bonded to one. ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1198:Like the octopi, our destiny is to become what we think, to have our thoughts become our bodies and our bodies become our thoughts. This is the essence of the more perfect Logos envisioned by the Hellenistic polymath Philo Judaeus—a Logos, an indwelling of the Goddess, not heard but beheld. Hans Jonas explains Philo Judaeus's concept as follows:
A more perfect archetypal logos, exempt from the human duality of sign and thing, and therefore not bound by the forms of speech, would not require the mediation of hearing, but is immediately beheld by the mind as the truth of things. ~ Terence McKenna,#NFDB
1199:Midland City had a goddess of discord all its own. This was a goddess who could not dance, would not dance, and hated everybody at the high school. She would like to claw away her face, she told us, so that people would stop seeing things in it that had nothing to do with what she was like inside. She was ready to die at any time, she said, because what men and boys thought about her and tried to do to her made her so ashamed. One of the first things she was going to do when she got to heaven, she said, was to ask somebody what was written on her face and why had it been put there. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1200:Morris wondered what domestic catastrophe would make a man sell even the plaster gnomes from his garden.It was a horrid piece of evidence for mutability; Mutability, goddess of the auction room, dusty-fingered Mutability, the old-age pensioner goddess. And she ruled over the casserole containing the half-empty packet of sugar no one would ever finish, now; and the dropsical white tea-pot with the brown tidemark left in by years of the-making by dead women in flowered aprons ( withered and dead, all the chintz flowers); over all the odd, disjointed fragments of other people's lives. ~ Angela Carter, #NFDB
1201:The archaic pantheons—Norse, Egyptian, Greek—all have a god dedicated to the dark art of gossip. The book of Proverbs treats the topic thoroughly; one verse from many cautions that “a man who lacks judgment derides his neighbor, but a man of understanding holds his tongue.” “Judge not lest you be judged” is one of the most famous phrases in the whole Bible. Several sources maintain that the Romans enshrined a goddess named “Rumor”—a winged demon with a hundred eyes and a hundred mouths who spoke only the most hurtful side of the truth. Appropriately enough, I can’t seem to confirm this. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1202:You’re mine,” she said, coming closer. “Don’t try to fight me, Kit: I’ve outlived kings and outwitted princes, and bent the noblest of knights to my will. In the end, they all did as I bid or they died: I was a goddess before I became as you see me now. Although-“ her fingers cool on his throat- “even Lancelot never fought me as you do.”
“Lancelot?” A froggy crack, clogged as the troll’s.
“You’re worth three of him,” she answered with a storied smile. “Except on the battlefield. Where he was unstoppable. But that’s the sort of swordsman I need least in this new world. ~ Elizabeth Bear,#NFDB
1203:Vigil could smell the apocalypse coming, and he’d tried hard to warn his runners. “There are two goddesses in your heart,” he told them. “The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you.” Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined. Vigil ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
1204:Moon, that against the lintel of the west
Your forehead lean until the gate be swung,
Longing to leave the world and be at rest,
Being worn with faring and no longer young,
Do you recall at all the Carian hill
Where worn with loving, loving late you lay,
Halting the sun because you lingered still,
While wondering candles lit the Carian day?
Ah, if indeed this memory to your mind
Recall some sweet employment, pity me,
That even now the dawn's dim herald see!
I charge you, goddess, in the name of one
You loved as well: endure, hold off the sun. ~ Edna St Vincent Millay,#NFDB
1205:The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Mother With Letters On The Mother, [T4], #NFDB
1206:I think I snapped a wheel at some point tonight. Or at the very least stepped over into the realm of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. (Cassandra)
How do you mean? (Wulf)
Well, let’s see…It’s only eleven o’clock and tonight I have gone to a club that seems to be owned by shape-shifting panthers, where a group of vampire hit men and one possible god attacked me. Went home only to be attacked again by said hit men, god, and then a dragon. Had a Dark-Hunter save me. My bodyguard my or may not be in the service of a goddess and now I just met a sleep spirit. Hell of a day, huh? (Cassandra) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1207:Laurel: Hello, ever hear of the Olympics?
Holly: Or the Panathenaia?
Laurel: Sand courts were everywhere back then. Ancient Greeks wrestled and boxed in them.
Holly: Called them palaestrae. Singular: palaestra
Laurel: After Palaestra, the goddess who invented wrestling.
Holly: Hear that, boys? The goddess of wrestling.
Laurel: Girl power!
Holly: They wrestled naked.
Laurel: So no place to hide weapons.
Holly: Palaestra ruled the ring
Laurel: Like we ruled the court. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1208:Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a mistress should be needed for Prometheus. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
1209:In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana's waves unborn, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible. Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of samadhi? From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love's lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud! [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Swami Vivekananda, In dense darkness, O Mother
,#NFDB
1210:I have of sorrow so great wound That joy get I never none, Now that I see my lady bright, That I have loved with all my might, Is from me dead, and is agone. Alas, Death, what aileth thee, That thou should’st not have taken me, When thou took my lady sweet, That was so fair, so fresh, so free, So good, that men may well say Of all goodness she had no meet! Right on this same, as I have said Was wholly all my love laid For certes she was, that sweet wife, My suffisaunce, my lust, my life, Mine hap, mine health and all my bless, My world’s welfare and my goddess, And I wholly hers, and everydel. ~ Anya Seton, #NFDB
1211:No longer was she merely the dancing-girl who extorts a cry of lust and concupiscence from an old man by the lascivious contortions of her body; who breaks the will, masters the mind of a King by the spectacle of her quivering bosoms, heaving belly and tossing thighs; she was now revealed in a sense as the symbolic incarnation of world-old Vice, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the Curse of Beauty supreme above all other beauties by the cataleptic spasm that stirs her flesh and steels her muscles, - a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning. ~ Joris Karl Huysmans, #NFDB
1212:And you, Tacitus,
observe how I make my grove
on an old crannog
piled by the fearful dead:
a desolate peace.
Our mother ground
in sour with the blood
of her faithful,
they lie gargling
in her sacred heart
as the legions stare
from the ramparts.
Come back to this
'island of the ocean'
where nothing will suffice.
Read the inhumed faces
of casualty and victim;
report us fairly,
how we slaughter
for the common good
and shave the heads
of the notorious,
how the goddess swallows
our love and terror.
- Kinship ~ Seamus Heaney,#NFDB
1213:The bond between us was like fire- it burned and consumed, almost painful in its intensity. Almost unbearable in its pleasure. We clung to each other, mouths pressed against skin, body against body. All I could feel was Stark. All I could hear was the pounding of our hearts beating in time together. I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. I couldn't tell which pleasure was mine, and which was his. Afterward while I lay in his arms, our legs twined together, our bodies slick with sweat, I sent a silent prayer to my Goddess: Nyx, thank you for giving Stark to me. Thank you for letting him love me. ~ P C Cast, #NFDB
1214:Nyx’s quasar eyes burned. “Of course not. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!”
Annabeth didn’t feel particularly witty or courageous, but her instincts told her to take the initiative, or this would be a very short conversation.
“Oh, don’t kill yourself!” she cried. “We’re not that scary.”
The goddess lowered her whip. “What? No, I didn’t mean—”
“Well, I hope not!” Annabeth looked at Percy and forced a laugh. “We wouldn’t want to scare her, would we?”
“Ha, ha,” Percy said weakly. “No, we wouldn’t. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1215:Sing, O Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned, aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades. Yet even so he saved not his comrades, though he desired it sore, for through their own blind folly they perished—fools, who devoured the kine of Helios Hyperion; but he took from them the day of their returning. Of these things, goddess, daughter of Zeus, beginning where thou wilt, tell thou even unto us. ~ Homer, #NFDB
1216:Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose,
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver,
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breath, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night-
Goddess excellently bright. ~ Ben Jonson,#NFDB
1217:Her skin is cold, and clammy; her eyes are the color of sky, on the grey, wet days that leach the world of color and meaning; her voice is little more than a whisper; and while she has no odor, her shadow smells mucky, and pungent, like the skin of a snake. Many years gone, a sect in what is now Afghanistan declared her a goddess, and proclaimed all empty rooms her sacred places. The sect, whose members called themselves The Unforgiven, persisted for two years, until its last adherent finally killed himself, having survived the other members by almost seven months. Despair says little, and is patient. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1218:The costume is great," I said to Lysander, "but a crown? Really?"
He glared at me, his black wings beating. I'd only been in his shop for thirty minutes, but I was pretty sure the guy already hated me. "It was my understanding that you were to go dressed as the goddess of witchcraft, and Hecate wears a crown."
"It's not really a crown, Soph," Jenna offered from her spot on a nearby white satin settee. "It's more like a tiara." She had her chin in her hand, and there was practically a little black rain cloud over her head. We had taken Vix to the airport, so Jenna was Sulky McSulkerton. ~ Rachel Hawkins,#NFDB
1219:spirits in the trees and plants. He explained that the earth with all its forests, lakes and rivers, and all the living things upon it was like one connected being and that being was the goddess. And it was man that ruined that harmony by raping Mother Earth. Man was like a plague on the earth that had to be cured, just like the plague that killed her uncle last year. He lay on his bed rotting away like a living corpse. It was a hideous memory, but it painted a picture she could understand. Humanity must be sacrificed for the benefit of the whole balance of life on Mother Earth. Gaia was well pleased. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1220:The goddess is not an out-there force among the far stars or beyond death, but is here and now and living. In philosopher Mary Daly's concept of active creation, she is a verb rather than none and is women's Be-ing. Since the goddess is everyone within and all around us, the powers of divinity and creation are both individual and shared by all. She is the power to make of women's lives what women will. With the tenant, "Thou Art Goddess", free of choice is a central issue; women take charge of who they are and what they do, not with blame or guilt, but with responsibility for their actions and choices. ~ Diane Stein, #NFDB
1221:THE SCRIBE
Under the wings
Of the feathered Goddess
And in the middle
Of the three dancing women,
The scribe comes alive
To reveal mysteries hidden
Through divine gifts given
The scribe is driven
On his mission
To wake up
All the universe's
Men, women and
Heavenly children.
Under the seven rays of Aten,
And from the age of just ten,
The scribe comes alive
With the ink
Of his luminous pen.
Below the spectacle of the moon,
And in the smile of the sun,
The scribe is here to show us
How we are all one.
THE SCRIBE by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem,#NFDB
1222:The ufo is nothing more than an assertion of herself by the Goddess into history, saying to science and paternalistically governed and driven organizations: You have gone far enough. We are going to turn the world upside down. Your science is going to be shown up for what it is, nothing more than a pleasant metaphor usefully extrapolated into the production of toys for healthy children. That's what science is good for.
It is not some meta-theory at whose feet every point of view from astrology to acupressure to channeling need be laid to have the hand of science announce thumbs up or thumbs down. ~ Terence McKenna,#NFDB
1223:God and Goddess, I greet you at the start of another day and ask that you send me the best day possible. Help me to feel my best so I might do my best for myself and for others. Send me the strength and energy to do the things I need to do, and the focus and creativity to do them well. Help me to let go of all those things that no longer work for my benefit so I might move in the direction of perfect health and perfect balance. Help the world move in a better direction, and watch over me and those I love. Please send me prosperity and healing, patience and wisdom, serenity and faith. ... So mote it be. ~ Deborah Blake, #NFDB
1224:was the sort, and perhaps got by on very little, save for what he obviously bartered for. “I know everyone in the area and most of West Cork, too, it seems,” he said. “Hear they believe they found some kind of faerie spear on this particular dig.” “Allegedly. The spear of Lugh. It’s connected to the Tuatha Dé Danaan.” “The tribe of the goddess Danu. I know the story. Don’t know much about the spear.” “One of four magical gifts brought by the Danaan from four island cities of Tír na nÓg. It’s supposed to never miss its target and always return to the hand that threw it.” He nodded, and shrugged. “Me mum’s ~ Alex Archer, #NFDB
1225:O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good and bad, while his heart, through all the sea-faring, ached with an agony to redeem himself and bring his company safe home. Vain hope – for them. The fools! Their own witlessness cast them aside. To destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun, wherefore the Sun-god blotted out the day of their return. Make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, O Muse. ~ Homer, #NFDB
1226:The expansion of Roman power raised big debates and paradoxes about Rome’s place in the world, about what counted as ‘Roman’ when so much of the Mediterranean was under Roman control and about where the boundary between barbarism and civilisation now lay, and which side of that boundary Rome was on. When, for example, at the end of the third century BCE the Roman authorities welcomed the Great Mother goddess from the highlands of what is now Turkey and solemnly installed her in a temple on the Palatine, complete with her retinue of self-castrated, self-flagellating, long-haired priests – how Roman was that? ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
1227:He opened the car door. She followed him and started to climb into the car but stopped. She saw her image in the car window. A goddess. Her breath caught, heartbeat quickened. She couldn't pull away from her reflection. It was as if the warrior goddess had emerged, and she looked less human, more dangerously beautiful. Stanton seemed to know what had stopped her.
"That's how I've always seen you," he said. "Since the first night."
Her head jerked around and she caught something in his eyes before they turned hard again. It wasn't her imagination this time. She definitely saw something gentle and caring. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1228:When he arrived in Calicut on India’s Malabar coast, he re-established contact with Europe via the familiar Middle Eastern route used by travellers and merchants. It was a feat of seamanship, but in other respects his visit was not entirely auspicious. When he was taken to a temple by the local Brahmins, Vasco assumed that they were long-lost Christians. He fell on his knees in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary. It turned out to be the Hindu goddess Parvati. Meanwhile the Muslim merchants in the port were distinctly unfriendly, and, after a scuffle, Vasco decided to beat an early retreat and sail off home. ~ John Darwin, #NFDB
1229:He looked at Abby. “Do I get a kiss?”
“From the monkey?” Abby shrugged. “You can ask him.”
“I’d prefer a kiss from an Italian goddess.”
“Yeah? I’ll take you to meet Zia Sophia. If she likes you, then maybe we’ll talk.”
“Talk? Doesn’t a knight-errant deserve a reward?”
“See, that’s what we’re going to talk about. I don’t give any parts of this package”—she motioned the length of her body—“out as rewards. I’m not saying there won’t be any rewarding. I’m just saying it will be mutual if there is.”
“Mu-tu-al.” Jing pressed his hand to his heart. “I swear to give as good as I get. ~ Kersten Hamilton,#NFDB
1230:I drink no ordinary wine, but Wine of Everlasting Bliss, As I repeat my Mother Kali's name; It so intoxicates my mind that people take me to be drunk! First my guru gives molasses for the making of the Wine; My longing is the ferment to transform it. Knowledge, the maker of the Wine, prepares it for me then; And when it is done, my mind imbibes it from the bottle of the mantra, Taking the Mother's name to make it pure. Drink of this Wine, says Ramprasad, and the four fruits of life are yours. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, I drink no ordinary wine
,#NFDB
1231:I feared that you were the destined heir to the Secret Scroll because of the prophecy."
"What prophecy?" Catty hated the tremor that had crept into her voice.
"Only the child of a fallen goddess and an evil spirit will inherit the Scroll, Zoe recited.
Catty's heart sunk. Her mother was a Follower, her father an evil member of the Inner Circle. She suddenly felt damned. How could she overcome such a birthright?
Zoe took Catty's hand. "You must never worry that you are evil because of your heritage. The manuscript can only be given to someone with a pure heart and the strength to fight the Atrox. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1232:Their first goal was to eradicate Elohim from the minds of men and replace him with their own pantheon. They disseminated myths that supported their hierarchy of the four high gods reigning over the earth. The four were: Anu, father god of the heavens; his vice-regent Enlil, lord of the air, wind, and storm; Enki, god of water and Abyss; and Ninhursag, the earth goddess. Below them were the three that completed the “Seven who Decreed Fate”: Nanna the moon god; Utu the sun god; and Inanna, goddess of sex and war. The Sumerians called these and the other gods of the cities Anunnaki, which means “gods of royal seed. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1233:Jim Crow repeated the old strategies of the reptilian powers of the air: to convince human beings simultaneously and paradoxically that they are gods and animals. In the Garden, after all, the snake approached God's image-bearer, directing her as though he had dominion over her (when it was, in fact, the other way around). He treated her as an animal, and she didn't even see it. At the same time, the old dragon appealed to her to transcend the limits of her dignity. If she would reach for the forbidden, she would be "like God, knowing good and evil." He suggested that she was more than a human; she was a goddess. ~ Russell D Moore, #NFDB
1234:she was a water goddess who came out of the river to marry the first duke, but she couldn’t be a mortal woman. She comes back to cry for the loss of her children.” “And when have you heard her?” “The night that my baby sister died. I heard something. And I knew at once that it was Melusina.” “But how did you know it was her?” the other maid whispers, afraid of being excluded from the conversation. I shrug, and Joan smiles in recognition of truths that cannot be explained. “I just knew,” I say. “It was as if I recognized her voice. As if I had always known it.” “That’s true. You just know,” Joan nods. “But how do ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1235:The earliest of these dates to around the eighth century BCE and was found in Jerusalem, and is the earliest known image of the god Yahweh, dating to the period when he was part of a pantheon rather than the sole god of the post-Deuteronomic-Jews.[84] As with other images of Yahweh, his gender is not emphasised and he is depicted without genitalia, and in this instant it is a simple figure with the face being an inverted triangle and stick-like legs.[85] Thus we can see that Asherah was the first divine wife of Yahweh, replaced by the Wisdom Goddess, and then at a later date by the Shekinah as the bride of Yahweh. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
1236:We find here the final application of the doctrine of objective immortality. Throughout the perishing occasions in the life of each temporal Creature, the inward source of distaste or of refreshment, the judge arising out of the very nature of things, redeemer or goddess of mischief, is the transformation of Itself, everlasting in the Being of God. In this way, the insistent craving is justified — the insistent craving that zest for existence be refreshed by the ever-present, unfading importance of our immediate actions, which perish and yet live for evermore. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), #NFDB
1237:Presently comfort came to him, and he thought the she had always given him of her strength though he had never quite realised it until now.
Glory had passed him by; fame too perhaps would not endure; it might well be that the incalculable goddess would decree ill fame as his due. Perhaps there might not be included in his epitah the one tribute to his knighthood the he knew he deserved "Ii fut toujours bon et loyal chevalier" (He was always good and loyal knight)
But whatever the shadowed years might bring, as long as life should last, he knew that he had here at his side one sure recompense and one abiding loyalty. ~ Anya Seton,#NFDB
1238:Anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers,” said the woman. “Pleased to meet you.” She took another puff at the flaming cigarette, and there were more sparks. Some of them dropped on the floor but didn’t seem to do any damage. “There’s a goddess just for that?” said Tiffany. “Well, I find lost corkscrews and things that roll under furniture,” said Anoia offhandedly. “Sometimes things that get lost under sofa cushions, too. They want me to do stuck zippers, and I’m thinking about that. But mostly I manifest whensoever people rattle stuck drawers and call upon the gods.” She puffed on her cigarette. “Got any tea? ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1239:Baby Witch
Baby-witch,
my daughter,
my worship of the Goddess
alone
condemns you to the fire. . .
I blow upon
your least fingernail
& it flares cyclamen & rose.
I suck flames from your ears.
I touch your perfect nostrils
& they, too, flame gently
like that pale rose
called 'sweetheart'.
Your eyelids are tender purple
like the base of the flame
before it blues.
O child of fire,
O tiny devotee of the GoddessI wished for you
to be born a daughter
though we know
that daughters
cannot but be
born for burning
like the fatal
tree.
~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1240:The goddess smiled. "You are a good hero, Percy Jackson. Not too proud. I like that. But you have much to learn. When Dionysus was made a god, I gave up my throne for him. It was the only way to avoid a civil war among the gods."
"It unbalanced the Council," I remembered. "Suddenly there were seven guys and five girls."
Hestia shrugged. "It was the best solution, not a perfect one. Now I tend the fire. I fade slowly into the background. No one will ever write epic poems about the deeds of Hestia. Most demigods don't even stop to talk to me. But that is no matter. I keep the peace. I yield when necessary. Can you do this? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1241:Chicago Weather
To-day, fair Thisbe, winsome girl!
Strays o'er the meads where daisies blow,
Or, ling'ring where the brooklets purl,
Laves in the cool, refreshing flow.
To-morrow, Thisbe, with a host
Of amorous suitors in her train,
Comes like a goddess forth to coast
Or skate upon the frozen main.
To-day, sweet posies mark her track,
While birds sing gayly in the trees;
To-morrow morn, her sealskin sack
Defies the piping polar breeze.
So Doris is to-day enthused
By Thisbe's soft, responsive sighs,
And on the morrow is confused
By Thisbe's cold, repellent eyes.
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
1242:Song To Diana
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
~ Ben Jonson,#NFDB
1243:Gaia,” said Jesus. A huge tree stood in the middle of the valley, hundreds of feet in diameter and stretching into the sky high above them. The ground around it was dry, cracked, and without life. Everything was dead. The tree appeared to be drawing the very life out of the soil, transforming it into the desert of death like the encroaching desert in the east. Mary knew that Pan was hiding somewhere in the tangled knot of roots along with a very dangerous demoness, one she knew all too well. Mary had visited the goddess Gaia many times. She had secret passageways in the folds of her bark that led down into her bowels below the soil. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1244:Queen And Huntress
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
~ Ben Jonson,#NFDB
1245:13. The Magic Flight:If the hero in his triumph wins the blessing of the goddess or the god and is then explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir for the restoration of society, the final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. On the other hand, if the trophy has been attained against the opposition of its guardian, or if the hero's wish to return to the world has been resented by the gods or demons, then the last stage of the mythological round becomes a lively, often comical, pursuit. This flight may be complicated by marvels of magical obstruction and evasion. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1246:It is my fault,” he said forcefully, looking up. “I was the one who insisted we cut the bond between us. I was the one who pretended I didn’t…didn’t love you so that you would agree to our separation.” Kat’s breath caught in her chest. “What are you saying?” “That I do love you. Oh, Kat…I’ve been such a fool. Such a Goddess damned fool when it comes to you.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “Deep—” “I’ve always loved you,” he went on, taking her hand. “From the moment Lock and I first laid eyes on you. He was male enough to admit how he felt but I…I was afraid. So afraid that what had happened once before might happen again.” “I ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1247:Come, fly with me!" cried the goddess, as she sped ahead of them, her extremities flaming with a comet tail of sparks in the supernatural wind. Her bubbling voice again echoed, her laughter bounced in the crystalline void, and she flew onward, unto eternity....
"Stop!" cried Elasirr. "Come back with us to the true world, O Tilirreh!"
At which the orange one laughed, throwing her head back, saying, "Oh, but don’t you know this is the one true world? It is but yours that is a pale specter, that is the dying place of dwindling truth?"
"Then come back with us, lady," whispered Ranhé, "and restore the truth as it once was. ~ Vera Nazarian,#NFDB
1248:Truth came home one day, naked and wounded, having been beaten and cursed by the people who did not wish to hear, while his brother Falsehood went dressed in the brightest garments and feasted with every household.
“What shall I do?” cried Truth to the gods. “No man wishes to hear me and all beat me and throw things at me; look, I am covered with dung.”
“You are naked” said the goddess Maat, sympathetically. “No naked one can command respect. Therefore take these robes and you will walk without fear and all men will sit at your feet to hear your stories.” And she dressed Truth in Fable’s garments, and he was welcome at every house. ~ Kerry Greenwood,#NFDB
1249:When I tell other Christians of my time with the goddess, I think they expect me to characterize it as a period in my life when I was misguided, and that I have now thankfully come back to both Jesus and my senses. But it's not like that. I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't imagine that God doesn't reveal God’s self in countless ways outside of the symbol system of Christianity. In a way, I need a God who is bigger and more nimble and mysterious than what I could understand and contrive. Otherwise it can feel like I am worshipping nothing more than my own ability to understand the divine. ~ Nadia Bolz Weber, #NFDB
1250:She falls back like a dead weight. The red hair loosens from the hair band and spreads in the colorful surface of the pillows, her white body is in sharp contrast, the gleam in her bloodshot eyes becomes intense and shines. My aunt, lying like this, looks like a goddess in an orgasm, only that, inside, she is suffering. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The same is happening to us, we're really disappearing. I think of the matter of our bodies, changeable, disappearing in the particles of the air while we breathe. In this room, everywhere, we are printed on the walls, in the air that settles on things. I breathe and look at her. I'm stuck in her. ~ Pat R, #NFDB
1251:Where is Edna?” The beauty glared at him with incredulity, exotic make up accentuating her every breath-taking feature. “Are you mocking me?” “I am sorry, what?” he replied. “Are you that thickheaded? It is me, silly,” said the girl. It hit him like a ton of mud bricks. This gorgeous vision of feminine transcendence frowning at him was none other than the transformed presentation of his immature scrawny little boyish girl Edna. His little Pedna. How could he have never seen her this way before? He stumbled back a step and almost fainted. He knew at that very moment that he would never be happy in this life again until he married this goddess. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1252:Still, hypocrisy — the practice of professing an ideal while consciously violating it — is rarely an adequate explanation for social ideologies. The blatant contradiction between flowery word painting about domestic goddess and the obstructions women faced every day is, rather, a clue to besetting problems below the threshold of awareness. The notion of female power radiating out from the hearth to the world, of recessive, modest mothers and wives determining the careers of men, was an obscure recognition of a fact in male lives. It exhibited, in distorted, almost unrecognizable form, men’s buried dependence on women, beginning with their mothers. ~ Peter Gay, #NFDB
1253:Leisure
Leisure, thou goddess of a bygone age,
When hours were long and days sufficed to hold
Wide-eyed delights and pleasures uncontrolled
By shortening moments, when no gaunt presage
Of undone duties, modern heritage,
Haunted our happy minds; must thou withhold
Thy presence from this over-busy world,
And bearing silence with thee disengage
Our twined fortunes? Deeps of unhewn woods
Alone can cherish thee, alone possess
Thy quiet, teeming vigor. This our crime:
Not to have worshipped, marred by alien moods
That sole condition of all loveliness,
The dreaming lapse of slow, unmeasured time.
~ Amy Lowell,#NFDB
1254:My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1255:already had a goddess, and no matter what trials she saw fit to put me through, I would not forsake her for someone who thought fighting for the sport of the masses was the least bit honorable. Achillea was no true warrior. And yet, even as I watched, I had to admit that she certainly fought like one. There was something thrilling about the way the Lanista fought, something unique and undeniably compelling to watch in the way she angled her body in defense, the way her head craned sharply to one side when she attacked. It was like nothing I’d ever seen. I wondered where she’d learned her technique, but it could have been anywhere, from anyone. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1256:Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets—pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself. Sometimes you keep falling; you don’t catch anything. ~ Francesca Lia Block, #NFDB
1257:Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away! ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1258:He would have admired one of those fantastic visions, those magic apparitions one sometimes sees in the great theaters of Europe, in which the deafening melodies of an orchestra are made to appear among a deluge of light, a torrent of oriental diamonds and gold surrounded by a diaphanous mist, from which a deity, a sylph comes forward, her feet barely touching the floor encircled and accompanied by a luminous cloud. In her wake flowers shoot forth, a dance bursts out, harmonies awaken, and choirs of devils, nymphs, satyrs, spirits, country maidens, angels, and shepherds dance, shake tambourines gesticulate wildly, and lay tribute at the goddess’s feet. ~ Jos Rizal, #NFDB
1259:Sun When Celeste was born on March 7, the Sun was in Pisces. That means her Sun card is paired with the Moon, the card that corresponds to the sign of Pisces. Oddly enough, Celeste has always been a night owl. She feels most alive after dark, when the Sun sets and the Moon rises. Her emotions ebb and flow like the tide, and she cycles through life like a living lunar goddess. She even looks like a creature of the night, with pale skin and wide-set, luminous eyes. “It’s true,” she exclaimed, when she saw the two cards side by side. “I am the Moon! That explains so much. I like the Sun as much as anyone, but I’d much rather live my life by moonlight. ~ Corrine Kenner, #NFDB
1260:He writes: The pacification of the untamed forces in the beast of prey, as we see it in the magical taming of the injurious powers of “poisonous” nature deities, and above all in the conquest of the Uraeus serpent as the royal diadem of Buto, is a very characteristic contribution of human thought in the historical epoch. Actually the taming of terrible deities goes back to the prehistoric age of mythology, as when the Egyptian Hathor is mollified and her “wrath” averted with the help of dancing, music, and intoxicating liquor; or when Bast, the friendly form of the lion goddess Sekhmet, becomes the goddess of healing, and her priests become physicians. ~ Erich Neumann, #NFDB
1261: The Hill-top Temple
After unnumbered steps of a hill-stair
I saw upon earth's head brilliant with sun
The immobile Goddess in her house of stone
In a loneliness of meditating air.
Wise were the human hands that set her there
Above the world and Time's dominion;
The Soul of all that lives, calm, pure, alone,
Revealed its boundless self mystic and bare.
Our body is an epitome of some Vast
That masks its presence by our humanness.
In us the secret Spirit can indite
A page and summary of the Infinite,
A nodus of Eternity expressed
Live in an image and a sculptured face.
~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Hill-top Temple
,#NFDB
1262:In Ithaca
'Tis thought Odysseus when the strife was o'er
With all the waves and wars, a weary while,
Grew restless in his disenchanted isle,
And still would watch the sunset, from the shore,
Go down the ways of gold, and evermore
His sad heart followed after, mile on mile,
Back to the Goddess of the magic wile,
Calypso, and the love that was of yore.
Thou too, thy haven gained, must turn thee yet
To look across the sad and stormy space,
Years of a youth as bitter as the sea,
Ah, with a heavy heart, and eyelids wet,
Because, within a fair forsaken place
The life that might have been is lost to thee.
~ Andrew Lang,#NFDB
1263:Zia gasped, her face beading with sweat. “When the people needed to stop Sekhmet, they got huge vats of beer and colored them bright red with pomegranate juice.”
“Yeah, I remember now,” I interrupted. “They told Sekhmet it was blood, and she drank until she passed out. Then Ra was able to recall her into the heavens. They transformed her into something gentler. A cow goddess or something.”
“Hathor,” Zia said. “That is Sekhmet’s other form. The flip side of her personality.”
Sadie shook her head in disbelief. “So you’re saying we offer to buy Sekhmet a few pints, and she’ll turn into a cow.”
“Not exactly,” Zia said. “But salsa is red, is it not? ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1264:Kali Goddess of Radical Transformation Isaac spent all his time reading in a dark house, refusing to go out into the sunshine. His next-door neighbor was a hidden spiritual master, who periodically dropped by to say to Isaac, “Don’t spend your whole life hunched over your desk in this dark room. Get out and look at the sky!” Isaac would nod and keep on reading. Then one day his house caught fire. Grabbing what possessions he could, he ran outside. There, he saw the master, pointing upwards. “Look,” said the master, “Sky!” In this story, there are three elements that represent the process of awakening: the fire, the master, and the sky. Kali is all of them. ~ Sally Kempton, #NFDB
1265:but the older priestesses had explained to her, as they gathered in the courtyard, that the Moon God was effacing the brightness of the Goddess, and she ran out with them joyously to join in the shrieks of the women to frighten him away. Later it had been explained to her how the sun and moon moved, and why, now and again, one of them crossed the face of the other; that it was in the way of nature, and the common people’s beliefs about the face of the Gods were symbols which these people, at the current state of their evolution, needed to visualize the great truths. Some day all men and women would know the inner truths, but now they needed them not. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
1266:Ersken gathered the dice, put them in the cup they had used for play, and tucked it inside one bound Rat's shirt.
"Let that be a lesson to you not to gamble," he told the Rat soberly. "The trickster asks you pay for any luck you may have, one way or another."
"Bless the boy, he's a priest with it," one of the Goddess warriors said with a grin. "After this, laddie, what's say I take you home and rub some of that off yez?"
Ersken actually winked at her! "Forgive me, gracious warrior, but my woman would turn me into something unnatural if I took you up on your kind offer," he replied as if he truly regretted it. "She's a mage and I'd best stay devoted. ~ Tamora Pierce,#NFDB
1267:This landscape of abomination is in a state of flux. Gilles now sees that the trunks are covered in frightful tumours and goitres. He observes exostosis and ulcers, pustulent sores the size of rocks, tubercular chancres, atrocious caries. It is a vegetal leper house, an aboreal venereal clinic in which, at a turn in the path, there stands a copper beech.
And as he stands beneath those crimson leaves, he feels that he is being drenched in a shower of blood; and imagining that a wood nymph lives under the bark, he becomes enraged; he wants to fumble in the flesh of a goddess, massacre the Dryad, violate her in a place unknown to the follies of men. ~ Joris Karl Huysmans,#NFDB
1268:A Low Temple
A low temple keeps its gods in the dark.
You lend a matchbox to the priest.
One by one the gods come to light.
Amused bronze. Smiling stone. Unsurprised.
For a moment the length of a matchstick
gesture after gesture revives and dies.
Stance after lost stance is found
and lost again.
Who was that, you ask.
The eight-arm goddess, the priest replies.
A sceptic match coughs.
You can count.
But she has eighteen, you protest.
All the same she is still an eight-arm goddess to the priest.
You come out in the sun and light a charminar.
Children play on the back of the twenty-foot tortoise.
~ Arun Kolatkar,#NFDB
1269:To Archimedes once a scholar came,
"Teach me," he said, "the art that won thy fame;
The godlike art which gives such boons to toil,
And showers such fruit upon thy native soil;
The godlike art that girt the town when all
Rome's vengeance burst in thunder on the wall!"
"Thou call'st art godlikeit is so, in truth,
And was," replied the master to the youth,
"Ere yet its secrets were applied to use
Ere yet it served beleaguered Syracuse:
Ask'st thou from art, but what the art is worth?
The fruit?for fruit go cultivate the earth.
He who the goddess would aspire unto,
Must not the goddess as the woman woo!"
~ Friedrich Schiller, Archimedes
,#NFDB
1270:My goddess! My queen!'
'Oh, no, no, no!'
He raised his head, smiling a little crookedly down at her. 'Do you dislike to hear yourself called so? There is nothing I would not do to please you, but you cannot help but be my goddess! You have been so these seven years!'
'Only a goddess could dislike it! You see by that how wretchedly short of the mark I fall. I have a little honesty - enough to tell you *now* that you must not worship me.'
He only laughed, and kissed her again. She protested no more, too much a woman not to be deeply moved by such idolatry, and awed by the constancy which, though it might have been to a false image, could not be doubted. ~ Georgette Heyer,#NFDB
1271:Song: To Cynthia
From
'Cynthia's Revels'
Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair,
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.
Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear, when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.
Lay thy bow of pearl apart,
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.
~ Ben Jonson,#NFDB
1272:Amoretti Xxii: This Holy Season
This holy season, fit to fast and pray,
Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd:
Therefore I likewise on so holy day,
For my sweet saint some service fit will find.
Her temple fair is built within my mind,
In which her glorious image placed is,
On which my thoughts do day and night attend,
Like sacred priests that never think amiss.
There I to her as th' author of my bliss,
Will build an altar to appease her ire:
And on the same my heart will sacrifice,
Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire:
The which vouchsafe, O goddess, to accept,
Amongst thy dearest relics to be kept.
~ Edmund Spenser,#NFDB
1273:My goal that morning was as simple as it was impossible: successfully execute a chariot maneuver called the Morrigan’s Flight, named after the fearsome winged war goddess who flew over battlefields collecting the souls of the worthy dead. I’d watched my older sister, Sorcha, attempt it time after time. The idea was to run out along the narrow pole between the horses of a careening chariot, throw a spear, hit a target, balance for as long as it took for the spear to stay lodged, and then run back to the safety of the chariot deck. It was dangerous. It was thrilling. It was the supreme act of a true Cantii warrior. And I’d never seen anyone do it. Not even Sorcha. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1274:If you shirk the responsibility of confronting the unexpected, even when it appears in manageable doses, reality itself will become unsustainably disorganized and chaotic. Then it will grow bigger and swallow all order, all sense, and all predictability. Ignored reality transforms itself (reverts back) into the great Goddess of Chaos, the great reptilian Monster of the Unknown—the great predatory beast against which mankind has struggled since the dawn of time. If the gap between pretence and reality goes unmentioned, it will widen, you will fall into it, and the consequences will not be good. Ignored reality manifests itself in an abyss of confusion and suffering. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1275:she felt that there was a tide within her, moving with the power of the moon and the ocean and the goddess, who had bound them together, rising, cresting within her heart untill she thought that she must weep, or laugh, or both. she felt her world shifting, remaking itself; holding on to all she was and all she known, but creating a space within these things for this man she was holding in her arms, so that he might share it with her, bringing to it all that he was and all that he had known. And in that instant, in the eternity of that kiss, Alayna knew, with a joy that she found frightening even as it encompassed her, that her life would never again be as it had been. ~ David B Coe, #NFDB
1276:If you shirk the responsibility of confronting the unexpected, even when it appears in manageable doses, reality itself will become unsustainably disorganized and chaotic. Then it will grow bigger and swallow all order, all sense, and all predictability. Ignored reality transforms itself (reverts back) into the great Goddess of Chaos, the great reptilian Monster of the Unknown—the great predatory beast against which mankind has struggled since the dawn of time. If the gap between pretence and reality goes unmentioned, it will widen, you will fall into it, and the consequences will not be good. Ignored reality manifests itself in an abyss of confusion and suffering. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1277:I.
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
II.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish these young flowers
Till they grow, in scent and hue,
Fairest children of the Hours,
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
Published by Mrs. Shelley, Poetical Works, 1839, 1st edition. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song Of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers On The Plain Of Enna
,#NFDB
1278:Inspired by these tiny sculptures, a few hyperfeminist mystics deduced a delightfully satisfying ideological fantasy—that an Earth-Mother religion preceded every other spiritual belief system, all over the planet. This ubiquitous Neolithic creed must obviously have worshipped a goddess! One whose top traits were fecundity and serene maternal kindliness. That is, till gentle Gaia was toppled by violent bands of macho Jehovah-Zeus-Shiva followers, spurred by an abrupt wave of vile new technologies—metallurgy, agriculture, and literacy—that arrived with concurrent and destabilizing suddenness, all at once shaking the tranquil old ways and toppling the pastoral mother goddess. ~ David Brin, #NFDB
1279:Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1280:Without a sound, Scarlet kicked out her legs and sent the whore to her ass. A second later, Scarlet had again closed the distance between them. She fisted the goddess’s robe, momentum giving her strength as she flung the goddess around and around before releasing her and sending her soaring. Like Scarlet had done, NeeMah slammed into nothing. She wasn’t as quick to get up, though, and Scarlet used that to her advantage, rushing forward and elbow-diving for all she was worth. Smack. Bone cracked. Gideon couldn’t help himself. He whooped, slinging popcorn in every direction. Cronus leveled him with a glare. What? he silently mouthed, then turned back to the massacre. Blood ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1281:Sweet Goddess! she thought suddenly. I have never even spoken to him. I know nothing about the man, nothing at all.
What if he tries to get me into some sordid little room and force himself on me, like an animal? How will I fight him off? All alone, not able to cry for help?
No, it will not be like that, it could not be. I would have known if he were that kind of man, and felt repelled. He could not sing and write such beautiful verses, and look so fine if he were not the man I want him to be. Yes, when we meet, it will be as it is in his songs. He will obey, do exactly what I tell him and no more. Oh, I have hoped so long for this. Goddess of Love, let it be beautiful. ~ Robert Shea,#NFDB
1282:My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare. ~ William Shakespeare,#NFDB
1283:Memory
O camp of flowers, with poplars girdled round,
The guardians of life's soft and purple bud!
O silver spring, beside whose brimming flood
My dreaming childhood its Elysium found!
O happy hours with love and fancy crowned,
Whose horn of plenty flatteringly subdued
My heart into a trance, whence, with a rude
And horrid blast, fate came my soul to hound:
Who was the goddess who empowered you all
Thus to bewitch me? Out of wasting snow
And lily-leaves her headdress should be made!
Weep, my poor lute! nor on Astræa call.
She will not smile, nor I, who mourn below,
Till I, a shade in heaven, clasp her, a shade.
~ Erik Johan Stagnelius,#NFDB
1284:Once upon a time there was a wicked witch and her name was
Lilith
Eve
Hagar
Jezebel
Delilah
Pandora
Jahi
Tamar
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called goddess and her name was
Kali
Fatima
Artemis
Hera
Isis
Mary
Ishtar
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called queen and her name was
Bathsheba
Vashti
Cleopatra
Helen
Salome
Elizabeth
Clytemnestra
Medea
and there was a wicked witch and she was also called witch and her name was
Joan
Circe
Morgan le Fay
Tiamat
Maria Leonza
Medusa
and they had this in common: that they were feared, hated, desired, and worshiped. ~ Andrea Dworkin,#NFDB
1285:Peace, Salma, and peace
to those who halt awhile
at al-Hima. It is right
for one like me to greet you.
Would it have hurt her
to return the greeting?
Ah, but a statuette
goddess is beyond control.
They left as night
let its curtains down in folds.
I told them of a lover
strange and lost,
Surrounded by yearnings,
struck by their arrows
on target always,
wherever he goes.
She smiled, showing her side teeth.
Lightning flashed.
I couldn't tell which of the two
split the darkness.
Isn't it enough she said
I am in his heart
where each moment he sees me,
isn't it, no?
~ Ibn Arabi, At Night Lets Its Curtains Down In Folds
,#NFDB
1286:This is my brother we’re talking about, Maximus.” “You’ll take his part before mine?” Oh, he knew it was a mistake even before the words left his lips. Her shoulders squared. “If I must. We shared a womb. We’re flesh and blood, tied together forever, both physically and spiritually. I love my brother.” “As you don’t me?” She stopped, her chemise in her hands before her. For a moment her shoulders slumped and then she raised her head. His goddess. His Diana. “When you’ve tired of me,” she said softly, precisely, “Apollo will still be my brother. Will still be there for me.” “I’ll never tire of you,” he said, knowing with every thread of his soul that he spoke the absolute truth. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
1287:It is difficult to know what to make of the Good Goddess affair. AS far as one can tell, there were no political overtones. But a house crowded with visitors was hardly a convenient rendezvous point for clandestine lovers. Probably all that Clodius had in mind was a dare. It was exactly the kind of practical joke that would amuse Rome’s fashionable younger generation. These young men and women had plenty of money and were socially and sexually liberated. They turned their backs on the severe tradition of public duty. No longer defining themselves exclusively in terms of community—family, gens, patrician or noble status—and rebelling against authority, they lived for the moment. ~ Anthony Everitt, #NFDB
1288:Who is that Syama woman standing on Bhava? All Her modesty gone, She plays with Him overturning sexual custom by being on top. Choked up, waves of bliss sweeping over Her, She hangs Her head and smiles -- Love incarnate! The Yamuna, the heavenly Ganges, and between them the honorable Sarasvati -- bathing at their confluence confers great merit. Here the new moon devours the blue moon, like wind extinguishing fire. Poet Ramprasad says, Brahman is merely the radiance of Brahmamayi. Stare at Her and all your sins and pains will vanish. [1770.jpg] -- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
~ Ramprasad, Who is that Syama woman
,#NFDB
1289:If we are like God, we can only be God. Is that what you mean?"
"Oh, I think it is more than that. A robin is like a hawk, but it is also different. The Goddess Mother created us as reflections of herself. God to me is the Great Mother. God to me is the Old One. But it does not really matter; God is God. Life force is life force. God is the creator, the Great Spirit that permeates all of us. Once you truly understand that, Catherine, you realize that we are all part of one another, that we are in agreement on this wonderful, green earth, and that we live in a state of duality, a state of separateness that is not real. We are separated by an agreement called space and time. ~ Lynn V Andrews,#NFDB
1290: The Stone Goddess
In a town of gods, housed in a little shrine,
From sculptured limbs the Godhead looked at me, -
A living Presence deathless and divine,
A Form that harboured all infinity.
The great World-Mother and her mighty will
Inhabited the earth's abysmal sleep,
Voiceless, omnipotent, inscrutable,
Mute in the desert and the sky and deep.
Now veiled with mind she dwells and speaks no word,
Voiceless, inscrutable, omniscient,
Hiding until our soul has seen, has heard
The secret of her strange embodiment,
One in the worshipper and the immobile shape,
A beauty and mystery flesh or stone can drape.
~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Stone Goddess
,#NFDB
1291:Where spring, the lord of seasons reigneth, there the unstruck music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions, few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, where millions of Saraswatis, goddess of music play the vina,
There is my Lord self-revealed, and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps. ~ Kabir, II.57, Translated by Rabindranath Tagore[26],#NFDB
1292:When you're washing up, pray. Be thankful that there are plates to be washed; that means there was food, that you fed someone, that you're lavished care on one or more people, that you cooked and laid the table. ...
There are women who say: "I'm not going to do the washing up let the men do it." Fine, let the men do it if they want to, but that has nothing to do with equality ... I'd be accused of working against the feminist cause. Nonsense! As if washing up or wearing a bra or having someone open or close a door could be humiliating to me as a woman. The fact is, I love it when a man opens the door for me. ... in my soul is written: "I'm being treated like a goddess. I'm a queen. ~ Paulo Coelho,#NFDB
1293:Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman. Had it been possible for the earth and mankind to be entirely in her grasp for a while, she had handled the distaff, the spindle, and the shears at her own free will, few in the world would have noticed the change of government. There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favors here, of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alteration of caresses and blows that we endure now. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
1294:O Divine Poesy, goddess, daughter of Zeus, sustain for me this song of the various-minded man who, after he had plundered the innermost citadel of hallowed Troy, was made to stay grievously about the coasts of men, the sport of their customs, good and bad, while his heart, through all the sea-faring, ached with an agony to redeem himself and bring his company safe home. Vain hope – for them. The fools! Their own witlessness cast them aside. To destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun, wherefore the Sun-god blotted out the day of their return. Make this tale live for us in all its many bearings, O Muse.” – from Homer’s Odyssey, translation by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) ~ Steven Pressfield, #NFDB
1295:Art And Love
For many long uninterrupted years
She was the friend and confidant of Art;
They walked together, heart communed with heart
In that sweet comradeship that so endears.
Her fondest hope, her sorrows and her fears
She told her mate; who would in turn impart
Important truths and secrets. But a dart,
Shot by that unskilled, mischevous boy, who peers
From ambush on us, struck one day in her breast,
And Love sprang forth to kiss away her tears.
She thought his brow shone with a wonderous grace;
But, when she turned to introduce her guest
To Art, behold, she found an empty place,
The goddess fled, with sad, averted face.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
1296:O Camp Of Flowers
O camp of flowers, with poplars girdled round,
Gray guardians of life's soft and purple bud!
O silver spring, beside whose brimming flood
My pensive childhood its Elysium found!
O happy hours by love and fancy crowned,
Whose horn of plenty flatteringly subdued
My heart into a trance, whence, with a rude
And horrid blast, fate came my soul to hound!
Who was the goddess that empowered you all
Thus to bewitch me? Out of wasting snow
And lily-leaves her head-dress should be made!
Weep, my poor lute! nor on Astraea call,
She will not smile, nor I, who mourn below,
Till I, a shade in heaven, clasp her, a shade.
~ Erik Johan Stagnelius,#NFDB
1297:All over the ancient world populations were now set against populations, as men were set against women and against other men. Wandering over the width and breadth of this disintegrating world, masses of refugees were everywhere fleeing their homelands, desperately searching for a haven, for a safe place to go.
But there was no such place left in their new world. For this was now a world where, having violently deprived the Goddess and the female half of humanity of all power, gods and men of war ruled. It was a world in which the Blade, and not the Chalice, would henceforth be supreme, a world in which peace and harmony would be found only in the myths and legends of a long lost past. ~ Riane Eisler,#NFDB
1298:Our bodies don't just feel as though they melt, they do melt; and our spirits don't just feel as though they merge, they do merge.
We enter a divine room when the Goddess meets her consort and beckons him to enter. Her joyful hello is often "Hello again!" for in that place we can remember that we've known each other before. How glad we are to be back whenever we find ourselves in love together. How lonely we have felt at times, and how ecstatic we are to spend some time at home.
How important it is to know that he is as tender as we are and just as lost and just as scared. Until we know this, we miss the point. We think he's such a monster, until we see he's such a boy. ~ Marianne Williamson,#NFDB
1299:Rabi-’ah’s achievement built on a tradition of female literacy, scholarship and intellectual creativity reaching back to the dawn of thought. Countless ancient myths ascribe the birth of language to women or goddesses, in a ritual formulation of the primeval truth that the first words any human being hears are the mother’s. In Indian mythology the Vedic goddess Vac means “language”; she personifies the birth of speech, and is represented as a maternal mouth-cavity open to give birth to the living word. The Hindu prayer to Devaki, mother of Krishna, begins, “Goddess of the Logos, Mother of the Gods, One with Creation, thou art Intelligence, the Mother of Science, the Mother of Courage . . . ~ Rosalind Miles, #NFDB
1300:There sat Iduna in the golden house that opened on her garden, Had she been in the world of men, every one who saw her would have remembered their own innocence, seeing one who was so fair and good. She had eyes blue as the blue sky, and she smiled as if she were remembering lovely things she had seen or heard. The basket of shining apples was beside her.
To each God and Goddess Iduna gave a shining apple. Each one ate the apple given, rejoicing to think that they would never become a day older. Then Odin, the Father of the Gods, said the runes that were always said in praise of Iduna, and the Dwellers in Asgard went out of Iduna's garden, each one going to his or her own shining house. ~ Padraic Colum,#NFDB
1301:Years ago, Re had raged against humans for violating Ma’at, so he had sent Hathor to destroy mankind. She transformed into the lion goddess Sekhmet and Egypt’s fields ran red with the blood of her rampage. Seeing this, Re realized his mistake and ordered Sekhmet to stop, but she was too gone with bloodlust to listen. Knowing he had to halt her some other way, Re stained seven thousand jugs of beer with pomegranate juice and poured the red liquid into her path. Believing the beer to be blood, Sekhmet gorged herself and passed out in a drunken stupor. When she awoke, her bloodlust had passed and she returned to being Hathor. Thus the goddesses of love and violence shared a common history. ~ Stephanie Thornton, #NFDB
1302:Scowling, Scarlet grabbed her aunt by the neck and twisted with one brutal slash. The woman’s spine was instantly broken, her body flopping lifeless to the ground. But she could recover from that, and Scarlet had to know. Gideon opened his mouth to tell her she would have to find a way to remove the head from the body, but she beat him to it. She found a way. With her bare hands. That’s my girl. “That won’t kill her for good, will it?” he asked Cronus, just wanting assurance. Worked for immortals, but he’d never delivered the deathblow to a straight-up god or goddess. “Time will tell,” Cronus replied cryptically. Gideon would just go ahead and take that as “bitch was wasted forever.” Panting ~ Gena Showalter, #NFDB
1303:In parts of Libya, where the Goddess Neith was highly esteemed, accounts of Amazon women still lingered even in Roman times. Diodorus described a nation in Libya as follows: All authority was vested in the woman, who discharged every kind of public duty. The men looked after domestic affairs just as the women do among ourselves and did as they were told by their wives. They were not allowed to undertake war service or to exercise any functions of government, or to fill any public office, such as might have given them more spirit to set themselves up against the women. The children were handed over immediately after birth to the men, who reared them on milk and other foods suitable to their age. ~ Merlin Stone, #NFDB
1304:didn’t know what else to do, so I whispered a prayer to the Morrigan, the triple goddess of blood and battles. Maybe not the most appropriate deity, under the circumstances, but the one to whom I most often prayed. My throat was parched, and my voice, when I tried to say the first of the three names of the Raven Goddess, came out as a crow’s rasp. “Macha . . .” I licked my lips and tried again. “Macha. Red Nemain. Badb Catha . . . hear me. Wind, carry my words. Shadows and darkness, see my plight. Let the Morrigan hear my plea. Give me strength to vanquish my enemies and wreak my vengeance . . .” I whispered the prayer over and over again until finally I slipped into a deep, exhausted sleep. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1305:This is an organic religion. A religion of the people from heart to heart; a faith that finds the presence of the Divine within life, and nature, and ourselves. We don't have teachers and books because we are our own teachers, and our book is the sacred book of the Earth. We believe that we can connect with the God and Goddess and hear their voices, receive their inspiration directly and take responsibility for our own actions, without the intermediary of a pope or rabbi. We have a loose set of beliefs and morals and a ritual structure that is common to all Wiccans, but there is room for creativity and deep mystical experiences. This is a faith with roots as old as the earth. --Meri Fowler ~ Arin Murphy Hiscock, #NFDB
1306:Preparing myself for the ritual, dressing myself in beautiful things in white, blue and gold, and arriving at the doors of the temple, I am always thinking about what I am about to do, the role I am about to step into, and preparing a space in my thoughts for that. When I hear the ritual begin, a deep calm enters me and any thoughts I had of who I am and what I may be doing in my everyday life leave me, making that space for the Goddess. Entering the temple and seeing the assembled congregation sets up a dialogue with them in my actions, it is their presence that elevates me from being a magician seeking a connection with the divine, to a Priestess seeking that connection in the service of others. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
1307:Vida Winter's appearance was not calculated for concealment. She was an ancient queen, sorceress or goddess. Her stiff figure rose regally out of a profusion of fat purple and red cushions. Draped around her shoulders, the folds of the turquoise-and-green cloth that had cloaked her body did not soften the rigidity of her frame. Her bright copper hair had been arranged into an elaborate confection of twists, curls and coils. Her face, as intricately lined as a map, was powdered white and finished with bold scarlet lipstick. In her lap, her hands were a cluster of rubies, emeralds and white, bony knuckles; only her nails, unvarnished, cut short and square like my own, struck an incongruous tone. ~ Diane Setterfield, #NFDB
1308:A Song Of The Pen
Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
Not for the people's praise;
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
Claiming us all our days,
Claiming our best endeavour -- body and heart and brain
Given with no reserve -Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain:
Still, we are proud to serve.
Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
Gathering grain or chaff;
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
One, that a child may laugh.
Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place,
Freely she doth accord
Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace,
Work is its own reward!
~ Banjo Paterson,#NFDB
1309:Ma, You're inside me; who says You keep Your distance, Syama? You're a stony girl, terrible illusion, dressing in many guises. For different methods of prayer You put on the five chief forms. But once someone realizes the five are one, there'll be no escape for You! Understanding the truth, he won't encumber You with false worship and You'll have to stop as if You'd sneezed to take his burdens. Once he knows the value of gold will he welcome glass by mistake? Prasad says, My heart is shaped like a flawless lotus. I place You there, my mental Goddess: Now dance! [1770.jpg] -- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
~ Ramprasad, Ma, Youre inside me
,#NFDB
1310:Sometimes you have to recycle celebrities to make them interesting, and they can be even better the second time around. Case in point: the fabulous and talented Miss Joey Heatherton, star of stage, screen, Vegas and mattress commercials. Close your eyes and imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and be Joey Heatherton. On July 8, 1985, it must not have felt so hot. Joey, goddess, was detained in the U.S. passport office at Rockefeller Center for allegedly becoming abusive at not receiving special treatment in the passport line. Supposedly, she threw a tantrum, grabbed passport-office clerk, Mary Polik, tore her hair out and smashed her head against the Formica counter. Oh, well, nobody's perfect. ~ John Waters, #NFDB
1311:WHERE Spring, the lord of the seasons, reigneth, there the Unstruck Music sounds of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions;
Few are the men who can cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads,
Where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation,
Where millions of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered,
Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the veena
There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps.
Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
~ Kabir, Poem 9
,#NFDB
1312:Catty had the freakiest power. She could actually go back and forth in time. She missed a lot of school because she was always twisting time. But her mother didn't care, because she knew that Catty was different. She wasn't Catty's biological mother. She'd found Catty walking along the side of the road in the Arizona desert when Catty was six years old. She was going to turn her over to the authorities in Yuma, but when she saw Catty make time change, she decided Catty was an extraterrestrial, and that it was her duty to protect her from government officials who would probably dissect her. She still didn't know that Catty was a goddess. Somehow it was easier for people to believe in space aliens than in goddesses. ~ Lynne Ewing, #NFDB
1313:Peace, Salma, and peace to those who halt awhile at al-Hima. It is right for one like me to greet you. Would it have hurt her to return the greeting? Ah, but a statuette goddess is beyond control. They left as night let its curtains down in folds. I told them of a lover strange and lost, Surrounded by yearnings, struck by their arrows on target always, wherever he goes. She smiled, showing her side teeth. Lightning flashed. I couldn't tell which of the two split the darkness. Isn't it enough she said I am in his heart where each moment he sees me, isn't it, no? [2240.jpg] -- from Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn 'Arabi and New Poems, by Michael A. Sells
~ Ibn Arabi, As Night Let its Curtains Down in Folds
,#NFDB
1314:O Death! Get away; what canst thou do? I have imprisoned Mother Kali. I have bound Her feet with my mind and imprisoned Her in my heart I have unfolded my heart lotus and fixed my mind at the sahasrara. I have entrusted my heart to Kulakundalini. Such contraption have I made that She can't escape! Devotion guards Her always as a watchman; my two eyes have I made gatekeepers. I predicted: fateful fever would attack me; So I have taken my Master's drug -- remedy for all diseases. Death! I have humbled thy pride, says Ramprasad, I am ready to start on my journey, uttering, Kali, Kali!' [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, O Death! Get away- what canst thou do?
,#NFDB
1315:Sonnet Lxxix. To The Goddess Of Botany
OF Folly weary, shrinking from the view
Of Violence and Fraud, allow'd to take
All peace from humble life; I would forsake
Their haunts for ever, and, sweet Nymph! with you
Find shelter; where my tired, and tear-swollen eyes
Among your silent shades of soothing hue,
Your 'bells and florrets of unnumber'd dyes'
Might rest--And learn the bright varieties
That from your lovely hands are fed with dew;
And every veined leaf, that trembling sighs
In mead or woodland; or in wilds remote,
Or lurk with mosses in the humid caves,
Mantle the cliffs, on dimpling rivers float,
Or stream from coral rocks beneath the ocean's waves.
~ Charlotte Smith,#NFDB
1316:Tell me, brother, what happens after death? The whole world is arguing about it -- Some say you become a ghost, Others that you go to heaven, And some that you get close to God, And the Vedas insist you're a bit of sky Reflected in a jar fated to shatter. When you look for sin and virtue in nothing, You end up with nothing. The elements live in the body together But go their own ways at death. Prasad says: you end, brother, Where you began, a reflection Rising in water, mixing with water, Finally one with water. [1480.jpg] -- from Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Ramprasad Sen - Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Translated by Leonard Nathan / Clinton Seely
~ Ramprasad, Tell me, brother, what happens after death?
,#NFDB
1317:The Least Possible
DEAR goddess of the shining shrine
Where all my votive tapers burn,
Where every gold-embroidered thought
And all my flowers of life are brought
--With many, alas! that are not mine-What will you give me in return?
The bow in Bond Street--in the Park
The smile all worship on your lips,
The courteous word at dinner--dance-But never a blush--a conscious glance;
At most, at Henley, in the dark,
Your fleet mistaken finger-tips?
Ah, just for once, once only, be
An altar-server--stoop and set me
Upon the altar richly wrought
Of your most secret flower-sweet thought:
One nightlight's flicker burn for me
Before you sleep and quite forget me.
~ Edith Nesbit,#NFDB
1318:ERANNA TO SAPPHO
O You wild adept at throwing!
Like a spear by other things, I'd lain
there beside my next of kin. Your strain
flung me far. To where's beyond my knowing.
None can bring me back again.
Sisters think upon me as they twine,
and the house is full of warm relation.
I alone am out of the design,
and I tremble like a supplication;
for the lovely goddess all creation
bowers in legend lives this life of mine.
SAPPHO TO ERANNA
With unrest I want to inundate you,
want to brandish you, you vine-wreathed stave.
Want, like death itself, to penetrate you
and to pass you onwards like the grave
to the All: to all these things that wait you. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,#NFDB
1319:That thing you’re afraid of? That label you shy away from? That word that seems too bold? That audacious goal? The life you think you don’t deserve? Aren’t talented enough to have? Aren’t brave enough to claim? Fuck. That. Shit. None of that baggage you’ve been carrying around has a place this year. Kick to the the curb. Now. This year only has space for the bold and the audacious and the brave. Don’t try to convince me you are not those things. I know better and your excuses hold no weight here. You are brave and bold and audacious and one hell of a goddess. Always have been. Always will be. So fill every step you take with intention. Then remember that intention is worthless without action—so get a move on, sugar ~ Jeanette LeBlanc, #NFDB
1320:Venus's Looking-Glass
I marked where lovely Venus and her court
With song and dance and merry laugh went by;
Weightless, their wingless feet seemed made to fly,
Bound from the ground and in mid air to sport.
Left far behind I heard the dolphins snort,
Tracking their goddess with a wistful eye,
Around whose head white doves rose, wheeling high
Or low, and cooed after their tender sort.
All this I saw in Spring. Through Summer heat
I saw the lovely Queen of Love no more.
But when flushed Autumn through the woodlands went
I spied sweet Venus walk amid the wheat:
Whom seeing, every harvester gave o'er
His toil, and laughed and hoped and was content.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
1321:Nimrod and Marduk had planned for this eleventh day celebration for over a generation. All seven planets were aligned in a heavenly convergence. The cusp of the Age of Aries had arrived. All the high gods of the pantheon were present, as well as a dozen others. Anu, the father god of heaven, Enlil, the Lord of the Air, Enki, god of water, Ninhursag, goddess of the earth, Sin the moon god, and Shamash the sun god. The only one of the Seven Who Decree the Fates absent was Ishtar. Thank the gods, thought Nimrod. She would have made a catastrophe out of it. with her lime-lighting for attention and her tendency to hijack such ceremonies for her own exaltation. She might have ruined their bacchanalia with her violent extremes. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1322:She
smiled with a newfound optimism. "The one thing I've learned most out of
all this is that it's not over until all the cards are played. She laid down
her ace, thinking we can't beat it. But there are fifty-one other cards in the
deck and the game isn't over yet. We'll figure something out. Her little fit
right now just shows that she's played her best hand. That was all she's
capable of doing to hurt you which is exactly why she did it. Don't let her
ruin your day, baby, and don't let her take from us what we have. We've gotten
this far together. What's another bitter goddess to us? Like my papou always
says, over, under, around or through. There's always a way and we'll find it."- Tory ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1323:It is not as cruel as it appears, Arisha.” “But all animals are the sacred creatures of Mother Earth,” she repeated back to him. His teaching flooded her memory. He had always stressed the holiness of animal life, even plants and insects. This seemed to be a violation of that sacred truth. “Yes, that is true. But some creatures are more sacred than others. Do you remember how we have talked about the nature of evil men?” “Yes.” She was realizing that not all of life was good and that some people wished to hurt others. “Well, many human beings are bad to Mother Earth. They cut down trees, kill and eat other animals and spoil the land. This is the price we must pay to appease the goddess Gaia. In a way it is really—justice. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1324:Sonnet Xxxiii: Venus Victrix
Could Juno's self more sovereign presence wear
Than thou, 'mid other ladies throned in grace?—
Or Pallas, when thou bend'st with soul-stilled face
O'er poet's page gold-shadowed in thy hair?
Dost thou than Venus seem less heavenly fair
When o'er the sea of love's tumultuous trance
Hovers thy smile, and mingles with thy glance
That sweet voice like the last wave murmuring there?
Before such triune loveliness divine
Awestruck I ask, which goddess here most claims
The prize that, howsoe'er adjudged, is thine?
Then Love breathes low the sweetest of thy names;
And Venus Victrix to my heart doth bring
Herself, the Helen of her guerdoning.
~ Dante Gabriel Rossetti,#NFDB
1325:Mo Shang Sang
Driving a rainbow,
Riding crimson clouds,
I ascend the Nine Peaks to the Gates of Jade.
Crossing Heaven's River ,
Reaching Mount Kunlun ,
I meet the Western Goddess, pay my respects to the Sun.
Chisong's my companion,
With Xianmen I am friends
I learn to nurture my spirit with the Tao that transcends.
My food's the immortal's lingzhi ,
My drink's from fragrant springs,
My staff is made of laurel, and on my head an orchid ring.
No mortal affairs or troubles,
No limits to where I go,
As swift as the wind blows in the universe I travel.
Though the shadow has moved not,
A thousand miles I've passed
Ageless as the mountains but forgetting not the past.
~ Cao Cao,#NFDB
1326:David detested the goddesses. Though they were popular throughout Israel, he didn’t like it when Michal prayed to them and sought their help. He seemed quite mean-spirited about it to her. He would call them both “Ashtoreth,” which was an insulting compilation of the word for “shame,” bosheth, with the name Astarte. He would recite the Shema, “Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our Elohim, Yahweh is one.” Then he would say that the Ten Words, written by Yahweh’s own finger, forbid the worship of any gods before him. That was fine with Michal; she would not put the goddess before Yahweh, but after him. Asherah was only his consort. She even had an image that she kept hidden from David with the inscription, “For Yahweh of Gibeah and his Asherah. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1327:A DOZEN PHALLACIES WOMEN BUY
Phallacy 2.
I need a man to feel whole.
Truth
You don't need a man as much as a man needs you. Women are the self-sufficient sex. Men are the dependent sex. Women reproduce the species; they create life within themselves (or the Mother Goddess does, through them). Men know this and in their inadequacy have created a world which cripples and demeans every female accomplishment -- from the glory of childbirth itself to women's work in every creative and professional field. You many not be able to change the world -- yet -- but you don't have to buy this lie. You are powerful, strong, self-sufficient. The more you know this, the happier you'll be with or without a man. ~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1328:Mother, am I Thine eight-months child? Thy red eyes cannot frighten me! My riches are Thy Lotus Feet, which Shiva holds upon His breast; Yet, when I seek my heritage, I meet with excuses and delays. A deed of gift I hold in my heart, attested by Thy Husband Shiva; I shall sue Thee, if I must, and with a single point shall win. If Thou dost oppose me, Thou wilt learn what sort of mother's son I am. This bitterly contested suit between the Mother and Her son -- What sport it is! says Ramprasad. I shall not cease tormenting Thee Till Thou Thyself shalt yield the fight and take me in Thine arms at last. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, Mother, am I Thine eight-months child?
,#NFDB
1329:Ritual Version
—for Kate Middleton
humself, shamself, hymnself, shameself—.
lameself, lambself, numbself, unself—.
sing anger, goddess, of—. many devices—.
sing anger godless—. tell me who—.
sacred in the sea suffered so many woes—.
bookshelf, doubtshelf, debtshelf, riftshelf—.
driftshelf, truthshelf, foolshelf, rueshelf—.
sing less the many souls sent—. they perished—.
sing spoils for the dogs—. who swallowed down
the foolish song—. the soul and its companions—.
nounself, nonceself, nonself, lashself—.
ashself, lawself, thoughtself, aughtself—.
tell me, muse, from any point—. and birds—.
sing less the wrath of—. a man’s cleverness—.
tell also us—. of recklessness—. of home—. ~ Dan Beachy Quick,#NFDB
1330:Brahma had decreed that demon Daruka would not die at the hands of a man, beast, or god. This left him vulnerable only to attacks by women. The devas, tormented by Daruka, sought the aid of the goddess Parvati, who immersed herself in the poison locked in Shiva’s throat and transformed into Kali, the dark one. When she returned to Mount Kailas after killing the demon, her skin was black, her eyes red, her teeth like fangs, her tongue blood smeared. She hardly looked like a wife. Shiva laughed. Hurt, the goddess performed austerities, bathed in a river, and transformed into Gauri, the bright one. Her golden skin, shapely eyes, pearllike teeth, and smile aroused Shiva. He embraced her and they made love. Shiva Purana, Linga Purana ~ Devdutt Pattanaik, #NFDB
1331:I want you, Anastasia,” he murmurs. “I love and I hate, and I love arguing with you. It’s very new. I need to know that we’re okay. It’s the only way I know how.”
“My feelings for you haven’t changed,” I whisper.
His proximity is overwhelming, exhilarating. The familiar pull is there, all my synapses goading me toward him, my inner goddess at her most libidinous. Staring at the patch of hair in the V of his shirt, I bite my lip, helpless, driven by desire—I want to taste him there.
He’s so close, but he doesn’t touch me. His heat is warming my skin.
“I’m not going to touch you until you say yes,” he says softly. “But right now, after a really shitty morning, I want to bury myself in you and just forget everything but us. ~ E L James,#NFDB
1332:I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess (Bendis, the Thracian Artemis.); and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants; but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed the spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city; and at that instant Polemarchus the son of Cephalus chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him. The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said: Polemarchus desires you to wait. ~ Plato, #NFDB
1333:Victoria Something New
she is absolutely positively beautiful
a dancing lady
singing baby
in all aspects of respect
she is the bomb
the eyes of a goddess
body of a model
made to be on bottles
covers, and calendars
tap her way through the stars
and of course be on top
of the world smart
and beautiful what
more could you do
what more could you say
what more would you like
so Victoria Victoria
here is the crush I had on you
written in this poem I made
from my heart
if it wasn’t clear from the start
ill make it obvious now
you are the best
just to make you smile I could be serious or I might be joking but once you read
it I’ll let you know
~ david bailey,#NFDB
1334:eight thousand Republicans crammed into Crosby’s Opera House for a veritable coronation of Ulysses S. Grant. To play on wartime memories, General John “Black Jack” Logan was designated to place his name in nomination. His speech was followed by a well-staged extravaganza: hats and handkerchiefs fluttered, rounds of applause rippled across the house, and a pigeon, dyed red, white, and blue, flapped through the cavernous space. As a huge ovation for his son gathered strength, Jesse Grant stood before the speaker’s platform in “mute astonishment,” said a reporter.8 Then a curtain rose to reveal huge images drawn by Thomas Nast of the Goddess of Liberty, juxtaposed with Grant. To no one’s surprise, Grant won by acclamation on the first ballot. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1335:Faith in an afterlife was important to Egyptians: they deliberately made their tombs the most permanent part of their built environment, and we find them in their literature very much concerned with what they could know about life after death, judgement and individual survival. Certainly they preserved their religion for most of the lifespan of their language, and they no more actively preached it abroad than they attempted to spread their language when they enlarged the boundaries of their power. But aspects of their faith did spread without the language none the less: their mother-goddess Isis became one of the most widely revered deities in the Roman empire, and has been seen as a root of the Christian cult of Mary as Mother of God. ~ Nicholas Ostler, #NFDB
1336:She stood in profile across the green, her back straight, her stance that of some long ago warrior maiden. As he walked toward her, Miss Greaves drew back her bow briskly, aiming a tad high to account for the wind, and let her arrow fly. Before it had hit the target, she’d notched another and shot it. A third followed just as rapidly. He glanced to the target. All three of her arrows were clustered together at the center of the red circle. Miss Greaves, who “did not shoot,” was a better shot than all the other ladies—and probably the men as well. He glanced from the target to her and saw that she stared back, proud and unsmiling. Artemis. She was named for the goddess of the hunt—a goddess who had slain without remorse her only admirer. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt, #NFDB
1337:After four hundred years in the land of Canaan, the giant descendants of the Nephilim, the Seed of the Serpent, had spread out upon that land. The Jordan River ran north and south, splitting the country in half. The Anakim dominated the Cisjordan, which included the desert hills and valleys east of the Jordan River. The Rephaim controlled the Transjordan, which included the fertile hills and valleys west of that same river. They were both called by the generic term Amorite, and they worshipped the pantheon of Canaanite gods led by Ba’al the most high, Ashtart, goddess of sex and war, Molech of the underworld, and other patron deities of the region. The land of Canaan was filled with abomination. The iniquity of the Amorites was complete. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1338:She designed the cakes and I worked out the recipes. The first year we each created a signature cake. Genie's was called the Goddess: really tall, all white on the outside, wrapped in mountains of coconut and whipped cream, with a passion-fruit heart."
"And yours was called the Shrinking Violet. Unassuming on the outside but pretty special once you worked your way in." She reached over and squeezed my wrist.
"Wish I'd thought of that. You'd understand if you knew my sister." By now I was a little drunk. "One year Genie came up with Melting Cakes. You know, like flourless chocolate, the kind that are melted in the middle? They were gorgeous neon colors, and I made the flavors intense- blood orange, blueberry, lime, hibiscus, and caramel. ~ Ruth Reichl,#NFDB
1339:When it got to be time to design the week—a period of time, unlike the day, month, and year, with no intrinsic astronomical significance—it was assigned seven days, each named after one of the seven anomalous lights in the night sky. We can readily make out the remnants of this convention. In English, Saturday is Saturn’s day. Sunday and Mo[o]nday are clear enough. Tuesday through Friday are named after the gods of the Saxon and kindred Teutonic invaders of Celtic/Roman Britain: Wednesday, for example, is Odin’s (or Wodin’s) day, which would be more apparent if we pronounced it as it’s spelled, “Wedn’s Day”; Thursday is Thor’s day; Friday is the day of Freya, goddess of love. The last day of the week stayed Roman, the rest of it became German. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
1340:Goddess,” he rasped, running his hands over her hips, up her legs.
“Lover,” she whispered back, threading the fingers of her right hand through the fingers of his left and moving his hand to her breast. It was heavy and swollen and ripe with desire. He scraped his thumb over her nipple, loving the way she closed her eyes and hummed in appreciation. He loved that she was in charge. He loved how she took pleasure from his body with such confident leisure. He loved how she squeezed her innermost muscles in pulse after deliberate, exquisite pulse as she rode his length. He loved how he was just that to her, her lover, not Nick Blackthorne rock star, but just the man she gave her body, her heart, her soul to. He loved her. Everything about her. ~ Lexxie Couper,#NFDB
1341:In my time I have been called many things: sister, lover, priestess, wise-woman, queen. Now in truth I have come to be wise-woman, and a time may come when these things may need to be known. But in sober truth, I think it is the Christians who will tell the last tale. For ever the world of Fairy drifts further from the world in which the Christ holds sway. I have no quarrel with the Christ, only with his priests, who call the Great Goddess a demon and deny that she ever held power in this world. At best, they say that her power was of Satan. Or else they clothe her in the blue robe of the Lady of Nazareth—who indeed had power in her way, too—and say that she was ever virgin. But what can a virgin know of the sorrows and travail of mankind? ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley, #NFDB
1342:I want you to tattoo me."
"Tattoo? I don't know how."
"You draw," Jimena explained. "That's all you need to know to do a jailhouse tattoo. I'll tell you the rest."
An hour later the tattoo of a crescent moon and star was bleeding on Jimena's arm.
"It looks good," Catty said with pride.
"Yeah." Jimena stood in front of the mirror and admired Catty's work. Excitement ran through her when she looked at herself. She glanced at Catty and knew she was feeling the same. They stared at each other's reflections.
"You look... like a goddess," Catty said, smiling.
Jimena remembered she no longer had her gift. Could she even call herself a goddess now? With rising self-assurance, she knew it was her rightful title. The power was inside her. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1343:The library smells like old books—a thousand leather doorways into other worlds.” Mr. Brown paused and glanced up at the room, but especially at James for one moment. “I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers.” Mr. Brown paused as he stared at the page, and then read, “Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like—” Here Mr. Brown paused again. “Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I’ll say this is just a place where you can’t play music or eat. She’s gone. The library sucks. ~ Laura Whitcomb, #NFDB
1344:When kindled was the fire, with sober face
Unto Diana spoke she in that place.
“O thou chaste goddess of the wildwood green,
By whom all heaven and earth and sea are seen,
Queen of the realm of Pluto, dark and low,
Goddess of maidens, that my heart dost know
For all my years, and knowest what I desire,
Oh, save me from thy vengeance and thine ire
That on Actaeon fell so cruelly.
Chaste goddess, well indeed thou knowest that I
Desire to be a virgin all my life,
Nor ever wish to be man’s love or wife.
I am, thou know’st, yet of thy company,
A maid, who loves the hunt and venery,
And to go rambling in the greenwood wild,
And not to be a wife and be with child.
I do not crave the company of man. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer,#NFDB
1345:I want the honest truth about something. Could you really fight with someone who did as much damage to you as my father has done to me? (Urian)
I subjected myself to the goddess who drugged me to the point I couldn’t protect my sister and nephew the night they were brutally slaughtered, and they were the only two people in the universe who’d ever given two shits about me. Later that same day, she stood back and let her twin brother butcher me on the floor like an animal, yet within hours after that I sold myself to her to protect mankind. For the sake of the Dark-Hunters, I subjected myself to her cruel whims for eleven thousand years. So, yeah, Urian, I think I could manage to suck it up for an hour to protect the rest of the world. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1346:When Athena was a young goddess, fresh out of Zeus’s forehead, her dad sent her to live with the nymphs of Lake Tritones in Libya on the North African coast. ‘You’ll like them,’ Zeus promised. ‘They’re warlike women, just like you. They might even teach you a few combat tricks!’ ‘I doubt that,’ Athena said. ‘Why are you sending me away?’ Zeus tried for a smile, which wasn’t easy, since his forehead still hurt. ‘Look, my little war-muffin –’ ‘Don’t call me that!’ ‘You’ve been stuck inside my guts your whole life,’ Zeus said. ‘This’ll give you a chance to learn about the wide world. And it’ll give the other Olympians time to get used to the idea of you being on the gods’ council. Honestly, you’re a little intimidating to them. You’re smart and powerful. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1347:You Kongori do not believe in magic and spirits.” “I am not Kongori, but you speak true, I do not believe. Some people believe the goddess speaks to leaves so they grow, and whisper in a spell to coax a flower to open wide. Others believe that if they just feed it sun and water, both will make them grow. There are only two things, Tracker: that which men of wisdom can explain, and that which they will explain. Of course you do not agree.” “Just like all you men of learning. Everything in the world cooks down to two. Either-or, if-then, yes-no, night-day, good-bad. You all believe in twos so much I wonder if any of you can count to three.” “Harsh. But you are no believer either.” “Maybe I have no love for sides.” “Maybe you have no love for commitment. ~ Marlon James, #NFDB
1348:You look so beautiful in that gown... didn't you once tell me that blue was McKenna's favorite color?"
"I don't remember."
It had indeed been blue. Tonight Aline had not been able to prevent herself from reaching for a silk gown the color of Russian lapis. It was a simple gown with no flounces or overskirt, just a demi-train in the back and a low, square-cut bodice. A string of pearls was wrapped twice around her throat, with the lower loop hanging almost to her waist. Another strand had been artfully entwined in her pinned-up curls.
"You're a goddess," her sister proclaimed cheerfully, raising her wineglass in tribute. "Good luck, dear. Because once McKenna sees you in that gown, I predict that you'll have a difficult time keeping him at bay. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1349:Come on,” I said. “Let’s reconnect this bad boy.” Getting the dragon’s head to the bottom was easy. It tumbled right down the slope and hit the neck with a loud, metallic BONK! Reconnecting it was harder. We had no tools and no experience. Annabeth fiddled with the wires and cursed in Ancient Greek. “We need Beckendorf. He could do this in seconds.” “Isn’t your mom the goddess of inventors?” I asked. Annabeth glared at me. “Yes, but this is different. I’m good with ideas. Not mechanics.” “If I was going to pick one person in the world to reattach my head,” I said, “I’d pick you.” I just blurted it out—to give her confidence, I guess— but immediately I realized it sounded pretty stupid. “Awww. . .” Silena sniffled and wiped her eyes. “Percy, that is so sweet! ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1350:How would I know? I don’t hold with prophecies and predictions and long-lost kings. I don’t have giants in my family tree, like you Nevilles. I don’t have three suns in the sky like you Yorks. I am not descended from a water goddess who comes out of a river to mate with mortals! When your family was founded, no one had ever heard of us. When your uncles were on the throne, mine were quiet City men. I don’t know what you might have, what you might have kept from those times—a banner or a standard, a bead-roll or letter. Anything that shows your descent, anything that shows your royal blood, any prophecy that you once had the throne and will have it again. But whatever you have, your ladyship, clear it out and burn it. Nothing is worth the risk of keeping. ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
1351:I began to understand how so many of the ancient myths recast the Goddess, and her symbols such as the snake and the apple, in negative terms. […] Violence enforced theology; stoning and other brutal deaths were inflicted on women who worshipped the Goddess, who refused arranged marriages, who were not virgins at marriage, who had sexual relations outside of marriage, or who were raped! In contrast to the increasing restrictions placed on women, the Bible simultaneously chronicled the rampant practice of polygamy in men. […] The roots of women’s inequality and the destruction of the earth are to be found in this early religious shift away from the mother Goddess, who was immanent and present in the world, to the father God, who was transcendent and removed. ~ Phyllis Curott, #NFDB
1352:What kind of ‘loving god’ allows untold thousands of poor innocent women and children to suffer the ravages of disease and poverty?” The Accuser was an actor of the highest caliber. He actually looked as if he meant what he was saying. Tears flowed from his crocodile eyes down his glistening scaly face. He did not care a whit for women and children. He actually thought poverty and disease were good ways to keep the population from expanding to unmanageable numbers that would threaten the earth’s ecosystem of life. To the Accuser, humans were in fact parasites of Mother Earth, grubworms of the Great Goddess. Disease was the Earth’s balancing revenge. But that belief would not stop him from using rhetoric to appeal to the sympathies and compassion of his enemy. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1353:He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees... ~ Megan Whalen Turner,#NFDB
1354:I have just drunk the waters of Changsha
And come to eat the fish of Wuchang.
Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze,
Looking afar to the open sky of Chu.
Let the wind blow and waves beat,
Better far than idly strolling in a courtyard.
Today I am at ease.
"It was by a stream that the Master said--
'Thus do things flow away!' "
Sails move with the wind.
Tortoise and Snake are still.
Great plans are afoot:
A bridge will fly to span the north and south,
Turning a deep chasm into a thoroughfare;
Walls of stone will stand upstream to the west
To hold back Wushan's clouds and rain
Till a smooth lake rises in the narrow gorges.
The mountain goddess if she is still there
Will marvel at a world so changed. ~ Mao Zedong,#NFDB
1355:It is written in the Bible that Mary, the wife of Joseph, received a vision in which it was foretold that a son would be born to her; she should call him Jesus, and he would deliver Israel from sin. It is most significant that the name of the Virgin should be Mary. There are important phonetic associations. The Latin word mare means the sea. Of course, the word virgin also means pure - and virgin mare means pure sea. In pagan symbolism the sea is the natural symbol of illusion, because of the reflecting quality of water. Mary is Isis, the Egyptian goddess of the Mysteries whose veil no man might lift. She is the virgin Sophia, the Mother of Adepts; she is Diana of the Ephesians, the mater deorum of the Romans; she is Istar, Astarte, Mylitt. ~ Manly P Hall, How to Understand Your Bible, #NFDB
1356:I want you, Anastasia,” he murmurs. “I love and I hate, and I love arguing with you. It’s very new. I need to know that we’re okay. It’s the only way I know how.”
“My feelings for you haven’t changed,” I whisper.
His proximity is overwhelming, exhilarating. The familiar pull is there, all my synapses goading me toward him, my inner goddess at her most libidinous. Staring at the patch of hair in the V of his shirt, I bite my lip, helpless, driven by desire—I want to taste him there.
He’s so close, but he doesn’t touch me. His heat is warming my skin.
“I’m not going to touch you until you say yes,” he says softly. “But right now, after a really shitty morning, I want to bury myself in you and just forget everything but us.”
― E.L. James, Fifty Shades Darker ~ E L James,#NFDB
1357:Kurma Purana is that in which Janardhana, in the form of a tortoise, in the regions under the earth, explained the objects of life – duty, wealth, pleasure, and liberation - in communication with Indradyumna and the Rishis in the proximity of Sakra, which refers to the Lakshmi Kalpa, and contains seventeen thousand stanzas. The first chapter of the Purana gives an account of itself. Suta the narrator says: “This most excellent Kurma Purana is the fifteenth. Samhitas are fourfold, from the variety of the collections. The Brahmi, Bhagavathi, Sauri, and Vaishnavi (Matrika goddess, are well known to the four Sanhitas [religious character] which confer virtue, wealth, pleasure, and liberation…]]. ~ H.H.Wilson, in "Oriental Translation Fund, Volume 52 (Google eBook), Volume 52 (1840)}, p. xlix., #NFDB
1358:If you promise to be good Paul you can have a piece of birthday cake but you won’t have to eat any of the special candle so he promised to be good because he didn’t want to be forced to eat any of the special candle but also because mostly because surely because Annie was great Annie was good let us thank her for our food including that we don’t have to eat girls just wanna have fun but something wicked this way comes please don’t make me eat my thumb Annie the mom Annie the goddess when Annie’s around you better stay honest she knows when you’ve been sleeping she knows when you’re awake she knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goddess’ sake you better not cry you better not pout but most of all you better not scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream don’t He ~ Stephen King, #NFDB
1359:On that topic, how are things going with Jared?” Holly inquired.
“I want to interfere horribly in my friends’ love lives and keep my own embarrassing and pathetic one private, is that so much to ask?”
“Mmm,” said Holly, and gave Kami a grin that reminded Kami of when Holly had been the sunny confident school goddess she had barely known and envied a little. “Now that you know that I’m not at all interested in Jared, is it inappropriate to say that I did get the impression that he might channel all those simmering repressed emotions in a useful way. I mean being explosively good in bed.”
“Viking tiger in the sack, I have no doubt,” Kami said lightly, and felt a blush stage a hostile takeover of her neck and march up to claim the territory of her face ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,#NFDB
1360:After his initial excitement wore down, Lot began to see that all was not well in the “Cities of Love.” The government promoted tolerance of all religious devotion. They maintained shrines for gods from all over Canaan. Ashtart was the supreme goddess of the pentapolis and resided in Sodom, entertaining visiting deities like Molech, Asherah and Dagon. There was tolerance for all the gods — except one: El Shaddai, the Creator God of all things, the god that Lot worshipped. El Shaddai was burned in effigy, mocked and criticized as being, ironically, an intolerant tyrant who demanded exclusive devotion and was thus unworthy of anything but ridicule. If anyone was discovered to have any kind of personal devotion to El Shaddai, they were imprisoned, tortured and made an example of. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1361:Oh! thou bright-beaming god, the plains are thirsting,
Thirsting for freshening dew, and man is pining;
Wearily move on thy horses
Let, then, thy chariot descend!
Seest thou her who, from ocean's crystal billows,
Lovingly nods and smiles?Thy heart must know her!
Joyously speed on thy horses,
Tethys, the goddess, 'tis nods!
Swiftly from out his flaming chariot leaping,
Into her arms he springs,the reins takes Cupid,
Quietly stand the horses,
Drinking the cooling flood.
Now from the heavens with gentle step descending,
Balmy night appears, by sweet love followed;
Mortals, rest ye, and love ye,
Phoebus, the loving one, rests!
~ Friedrich Schiller, Evening
,#NFDB
1362:Yet only minutes before, on the roof, a cold Havana between his lips, he had been silent, both he and his wife bundled in winter coats and hats as if about to set out on a journey. Dark against the sky. A statuesque couple. For a while the Brandenburg Gate was only a black mass, scanned off and on by police searchlights. But then the torchlight procession arrived, spreading like a stream of lava which, separated for a short time by the pylons, eventually flowed together again, unremitting, unstoppable, solemn, portentous, lighting up the night, lighting up the Gate to the quadriga of stallions, to the goddess's sign of victory. We too on the roof of Liebermann's house were lit by that fatal glow, even as we were hit with the smoke and stench of a hundred thousand and more torches. ~ G nter Grass, #NFDB
1363:You could be my goddess queen. Together, we’d build the largest settlement on earth! With your crops and my sun, we’d feed thousands. Between your thorns and my Bagmen, we’d maintain order.”
Order. Jack had wanted the same thing. I absently said, “That is something to think about. Well, except for the goddess queen part.”
“Don’t knock that part, pequeña. It’s my favorite detail about our future. We would do our duty and repopulate the world. Because we are givers. I, myself, would be devoted to giving.”
I quirked a brow at him. “No kids for me. Would you really bring children into a world like this?”
Eyes alight with playfulness, he said, “No. It was just an excuse to get in your pants.”
“Ugh. Behave. Or you’ll get a vine where the sun don’t shine. ~ Kresley Cole,#NFDB
1364:A Statue In The Garden
I was a goddess ere the marble found me.
Wind, wind, delay not!
Waft my spirit where the laurel crowned me!
Will the wind stay not?
Then tarry, tarry, listen, little swallow!
An old glory feeds me
I lay upon the bosom of Apollo!
Not a bird heeds me.
For here the days are alien. Oh, to waken
Mine, mine, with calling!
But on my shoulders bare, like hopes forsaken,
The dead leaves are falling.
The sky is gray and full of unshed weeping
As dim down the garden
I wait and watch the early autumn sweeping.
The stalks fade and harden.
The souls of all the flowers afar have rallied.
The trees, gaunt, appalling,
Attest the gloom, and on my shoulders pallid
The dead leaves are falling.
~ Eleanor Agnes Lee,#NFDB
1365:Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts ~~ Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
1366:Kali comes from the Sanskrit word ‘kal’, meaning time. She is a Hindu goddess, who is greatly misunderstood by the Western world as being associated with sex, death and violence, but in the Hindu text she kills only demons. For humankind, she represents the death of the ego and the will to overcome the ‘I am the body’ idea. She reminds us that the body is only temporary, and through this realisation she provides liberation to her children. To the soul who aspires to greater spiritual endeavours, Kali is receptive, supportive and loving. It is only a person filled with ego who will perceive Kali in a fearsome form. Her black skin represents the womb of the quantum darkness, the great non-manifest from which all of creation arises and into which all of creation will eventually dissolve. ~ Traci Harding, #NFDB
1367:Lucy's eyes began to grow accustomed to the light, and she saw the trees that were nearest her more distinctly. A great longing for the old days when the trees could talk in Narnia came over her. She knew exactly how each of these trees would talk if only she could wake them, and what sort of human form it would put on. She looked at a silver birch; it would have a soft, showery voice and would look like a slender girl, with hair blown all about her face, and fond of dancing. She looked at the oak: he would be a wizened, but hearty old man with a frizzled beard and warts on his face and hands, and hair growing out of the warts. She looked at the beech under which she was standing. Ah!- she would be the best of all. She would be a precious goddess, smooth and stately, the lady of the wood. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1368:Leah,” he said, his deep voice slightly hoarse. “Your blood is more precious to me than my own—I will spill all of mine willingly before a drop of yours is shed. Your flesh is my flesh—may I be pierced a thousand times before the blade shall even scratch your skin.” He looked into my eyes and his voice dropped even lower. “If you are fearful, I will protect you. In danger, I will shield your body with my own. I will stay by your side and never leave you. This oath I swear by the Goddess of Mercy and by all that is in me.” “Oh, Grav…” I shook my head, hardly able to take it in. “That…that’s beautiful.” “I mean it, darlin’. Every word.” He brought my hands to his face and kissed both my palms with a tenderness that made my heart race. What had I done to deserve such devotion? “Grav… ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1369:Once for all, this time, I have thoroughly understood; From One who knows it well, I have learnt the secret of bhava. A man has come to me from a country where there is no night, And now I cannot distinguish day from night any longer; Rituals and devotions have all grown profitless for me. My sleep is broken; how can I slumber any more? For now I am wide awake in the sleeplessness of yoga. O Divine Mother, made one with Thee in yoga-sleep at last, My slumber I have lulled asleep for evermore. I bow my head, says Prasad, before desire and liberation; Knowing the secret that Kali is one with the highest Brahman, I have discarded, once for all, both righteousness and sin. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, Once for all, this time
,#NFDB
1370:Meditate on Kali! Why be anxious? The night of delusion is over; it's almost dawn. The sun is rising, dispelling thick nets of darkness, and lotuses are blooming thanks to Siva at the top of your head. The Vedas throw dust in your eyes; blind too the six philosophies. If even the planets can't fathom Her who will break up these fun and games? There are no lessons between teacher and student in a market of bliss. Since She owns the actors, the stage, and the play itself who can grasp the truth of the drama? A valiant devotee who knows the essence -- he enters that city. Ramprasad says, My delusion is broken; who can bundle up fire? [1770.jpg] -- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
~ Ramprasad, Meditate on Kali! Why be anxious?
,#NFDB
1371:In time-honoured fashion, this is really the eldest daughter-in-law’s investiture as the earthly, domestic symbol of the goddess. It is she who channels Lakshmi’s blessings on the family. In her is vested, by an understanding of priestly transference, the household’s economic prosperity, well-being and harmonious daily life. Beside it, her other daily chores as eldest daughter-in-law –supervising the cook and cleaners and servants and household accounts, caring for her elderly parents-in-law, looking after their meals and medication, deciding which tasks can be ceded to the wives of her three brothers-in-law, keeping a family of twenty (including the servants) ticking over without hiccups or mishaps –all these appear as milk-and-rice, as uncomplicated, bland and digestible as infant fare. ~ Neel Mukherjee, #NFDB
1372:I was hunted once.'
Elena looked up to where she could see Raphael and Michaela talking on a high balcony overlooking the lawn, and wondered if either angel would mind if she simply coldcocked the idiot at her side—she didn’t have time to deal with this kind of shit. 'Can’t have been too bad if you’re still here.'
'My mistress flayed the skin off my back and made it into a purse.'
She wondered how well that info would go down with the faction who ascribed heavenly origins to the angels. 'Yet you serve her even now.' It sounded like something the bitch goddess would do.
The vampire smiled, showed teeth. “It was a very nice purse.” Then he finally walked away...
'Immortality has way too many drawbacks,' she muttered, adding the possibility of becoming a purse to her mental list. ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
1373:One need not believe in Pallas Athena, the virgin goddess, to be overwhelmed by the Parthenon. Similarly, a man who rejects all dogmas, all theologies and all religious formulations of beliefs may still find Genesis the sublime book par excellence. Experiences and aspirations of which intimations may be found in Plato, Nietzsche, and Spinoza have found their most evocative expression in some sacred books. Since the Renaissance, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Mozart, and a host of others have shown that this religious dimension can be experienced and communicated apart from any religious context. But that is no reason for closing my heart to Job's cry, or to Jeremiah's, or to the Second Isaiah. I do not read them as mere literature; rather, I read Sophocles and Shakespeare with all my being, too. ~ Walter Kaufmann, #NFDB
1374:In the world's busy market-place, O Shyama, Thou art flying kites; High up they soar on the wind of hope, held fast by maya's string. Their frames are human skeletons, their sails of the the three gunas made; But all their curious workmanship is merely for ornament. Upon the kite-strings Thou hast rubbed the manja-paste of worldliness, So as to make each straining strand all the more sharp and strong. Out of a hundred thousand kites, at best but one or two break free; And thou dost laugh and clap Thy hands, O Mother, watching them! On favoring winds, says Ramprasad, the kites set loose will speedily Be borne away to the Infinite, across the sea of the world. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, In the worlds busy market-place, O Shyama
,#NFDB
1375:Although the stories of the Cailleach are essentially British, her origins are not. Exploring the earliest literary references to the Cailleach takes us to the classics of ancient Greece and Rome. References in writings by Herodotus, Strabo and Pliny suggest her worship as a Celtic tutelary goddess on the Iberian peninsula of Spain two and a half thousand years ago. Moving beyond literature and focusing on the similarities in motifs, such as her giant size and stone-carrying, leads us to Neolithic Malta. There are distinct similarities between the Cailleach and the Maltese giantess Sansuna, credited by legend with building the Ggantija temples on the island of Gozo. These impressive buildings are the oldest religious structures in the world, predating monuments like the Pyramids and Stonehenge. ~ Sorita d Este, #NFDB
1376:A deep sorrow came over Mary for all the child sacrifices she presided over at the base of this monstrosity. The deaths of the innocent gave Gaia life and sustenance, and enslaved women to the illusion of empowerment. The goddess feasted on the flesh and blood of the offering of their wombs. They believed that somehow they were helping their community and saving Mother Earth in giving up their offspring. And every human offered up was absorbed into the tree. When she was up close to it, Mary could see in the grain of the wood the twisted agonized forms of the sacrificial victims melded into the bark so as to become one with it. She had formerly believed that this tree of death was the Tree of Life. But this was not the only false narrative that had held her in its grip of deceit for so many years. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1377:Her long hair curled strangely around her body. Suddenly, he realized it wasn't her hair. A large black snake coiled about her waist. It slithered over her shoulders, its tongue flicking the air. Yellow eyes studied Stanton.
"You're-" he started to speak, but felt too stunned to continue. He raised himself up on one elbow, ignoring the dizzy feeling inside him, and studied her elegant face. He had heard rumors about the Dark Goddess, but he had never believed they were true. People once loved the Goddess of the Dark Moon and called upon her near the end of their time on earth to lead their soul through the passageway back to birth. But because the goddess was called upon only when people were dying, she became an omen of doom. Soon after people feared saying her name for fear of conjuring death. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1378:The Fall, so often considered a terrible thing, is a fall into experience; like falling of the epileptic to earth, it may also have its other face, for then we fall into the embrace of our dreams and fears and know them for what they are, face to face.
[...]the fearful face of the Black Goddess is really the veiled Sophia. The rebirth of the mystery initiation brings us into contact with our own power, which we have failed to take in our own time. Part of the reason for this is that we live in the shadow of the Judeo-Christian Fall for which Woman bears the blame. The experience of Psyche and Kore shows the vulnerable face of Sophia, who is not afraid to fall, to learn by seeming mistakes. They show that the descent into death is the only possible pathway to ascent or spiritual rebirth. ~ Caitl n Matthews,#NFDB
1379:The symbol of Goddess gives us permission. She teaches us to embrace the holiness of every natural, ordinary, sensual dying moment. Patriarchy may try to negate body and flee earth with its constant heartbeat of death, but Goddess forces us back to embrace them, to take our human life in our arms and clasp it for the divine life it is - the nice, sanitary, harmonious moment as well as the painful, dark, splintered ones.
If such a consciousness truly is set loose in the world, nothing will be the same. It will free us to be in a sacred body, on a sacred planet, in sacred communion with all of it. It will infect the universe with holiness. We will discover the Divine deep within the earth and the cells of our bodies, and we will lover her there with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds. ~ Sue Monk Kidd,#NFDB
1380:Spring Mcmxl
London Bridge is falling down, Rome's burnt and Babylon
The Great is now but dust; yet still Spring must
Swing back through Time's continual arc to earth.
Though every land become as a black field
Dunged with the dead, drenched by the dying's blood,
Still must a punctual goddess waken and ascend
The rocky stairs, up into earth's chilled air,
And pass upon her mission through those carrion ranks,
Picking her way among a maze of broken brick
To quicken with her footsteps the short sooty grass between;
While now once more their futile matchwood empires flare and blaze
And through the smoke men gaze with bloodshot eyes
At the translucent apparition, clad in trembling nascent green
Of one they still can recognize, though scarcely understand.
~ David Gascoyne,#NFDB
1381:Every woman is a priestess,” she said abruptly. “Every single one.” She turned to Marianne, her eyes clear as water. “The major religions and their shepherds have assigned to women a position that isn’t ours making us second class citizens. The goddess became God, priestesses where whores, and any woman who put up resistance was branded a witch. And the special quality of each woman – her intelligence, her capacity for augury, healing, and sensuality – was, and still is, debased.” She brushed off the soil that was hardening on her trousers. “Every woman is a priestess if she loves life and can work magic on herself and those who are sacred to her. It’s time for women to remind themselves of the powers they have inside. The goddess hates to see abilities go to waste, and women waste their abilities far too often. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
1382:Demeter At Dusk
At dusk Demeter
becomes afraid
for baby Persephone
lost in that hell
which she herself created
with her love.
Excess of lovethe woman's curse,
the curse of loving
that which causes pain,
the curse of bringing forth
in pain,
the curse of bearing,
bearing always pain.
Demeter pauses, listening for her childthis fertile goddess
with her golden hair, bringing forth
wheat and fruit and wildflowers
knee-high.
This apple-breasted goddess
whose sad eyes
will bless the frozen world,
bring spring againall because she once
walked through the night
and loved a man, half-demon,
angel tongued,
who gave her
everything she needed to be wise:
a daughter,
hell's black night,
then endless
spring.
~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1383:Her mother looked at the window over the sink. The moon shone huge and ivory yellow through the kitchen window. "You've always loved the moonlight. It seems to relax you."
Vanessa looked outside at the moon. "Do you think there is a goddess of the moon?"
"Oh, several," her mother answered.
"No, I mean for real."
"I was answering for real." Her mother pushed back her chair, then walked over to the sliding glass door, opened it, and stepped out on the patio. The night jasmine filled the cool air with its sweet fragrance. "God must have many spirits to help. We call them angels because that's what we learned to call them when we were little. But there must be many divine beings who act as God's messengers. I think there's room for a goddess or more. When you look at the beauty of the moon it's easy to believe. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1384:Jacob Godbey
How did you feel, you libertarians,
Who spent your talents rallying noble reasons
Around the saloon, as if Liberty
Was not to be found anywhere except at the bar
Or at a table, guzzling?
How did you feel, Ben Pantier, and the rest of you,
Who almost stoned me for a tyrant,
Garbed as a moralist,
And as a wry-faced ascetic frowning upon Yorkshire pudding,
Roast beef and ale and good will and rosy cheer -Things you never saw in a grog-shop in your life?
How did you feel after I was dead and gone,
And your goddess, Liberty, unmasked as a strumpet,
Selling out the streets of Spoon River
To the insolent giants
Who manned the saloons from afar?
Did it occur to you that personal liberty
Is liberty of the mind,
Rather than of the belly?
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
1385:In Greek mythology, Pallas Athena was celebrated as the goddess of reason and justice.1 To end the cycle of violence that began with Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, Athena created a court of justice to try Orestes, thereby installing the rule of law in lieu of the reign of vengeance.2 Recall also the biblical Deborah (from the Book of Judges).3 She was at the same time prophet, judge, and military leader. This triple-headed authority was exercised by only two other Israelites, both men: Moses and Samuel. People came from far and wide to seek Deborah’s judgment. According to the rabbis, Deborah was independently wealthy; thus she could afford to work pro bono.4 Even if its members knew nothing of Athena and Deborah, the U.S. legal establishment resisted admitting women into its ranks far too long. ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, #NFDB
1386:In what I have come to name a Goddess-oriented spirituality, the attitude toward the body is opposite to that in the mainstream Judeo-Christian tradition. Dirt, blood, sex, soul, earth, death, animal are not destined to be transcended; as direct embodiments of the immanent sacred, they by extension are sacred. The traditions of Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions may tell us mystically that God is present in everything (“I draw water, I carry wood; that is my prayer,” says the monk in one of my earliest favorite stories,) but the notion of the Goddess actually constitutes a physical presence. Not only is the Goddess of the world; the world is her manifestation. Though the transcendent god and the immanent goddess are complementary sides of the same human spiritual coin, their resonances are fundamentally different. ~ Annie Finch, #NFDB
1387:The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of what is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home. ~ Paul Auster, #NFDB
1388:The travellers crossed, beyond Milligaum, the fatal country so often stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali. Not far off rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad, capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway. These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when this part of the country could scarcely be travelled over without corpses being found in every direction. The English Government has succeeded in greatly diminishing these murders, though the Thuggees still exist, and pursue the exercise of their horrible rites. ~ Jules Verne, #NFDB
1389:Anubis the god of funerals and death Apophis the god of chaos Babi the baboon god Bast the cat goddess Bes the dwarf god Geb the earth god Heket the frog goddess Horus the war god, son of Isis and Osiris Isis the goddess of magic, wife of her brother Osiris and mother of Horus Khepri the scarab god, Ra’s aspect in the morning Khnum the ram-headed god, Ra’s aspect at sunset in the underworld Khonsu the moon god Mekhit minor lion goddess, married to Onuris Nekhbet the vulture goddess Nephthys the river goddess Nut the sky goddess Osiris the god of the underworld, husband of his sister Isis and father of Horus Ptah the god of craftsmen Ra the sun god, the god of order. Also known as Amun-Ra. Sekhmet the lion goddess Set the god of evil Shu the air god Sobek the crocodile god Tawaret the hippo goddess Thoth the god of knowledge ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1390:Love was the greatest of enchantments; if Echidna and her children succeeded in killing Kypris, Thelxiepeia would no doubt, would doubtless … Become the goddess of love in a century or less, said the Outsider, standing not behind Silk as he had in the ball court, but before him—standing on the still water of the pool, tall and wise and kind, with a face that nearly came into focus. I would claim her in that case, long before the end. As I have so many others. As I am claiming Kypris even now because love always proceeds from me, real love, true love. First romance. The Outsider was the dancing man on a toy, and the water the polished toy-top on which he danced with Kypris, who was Hyacinth and Mother, too. First romance, sang the Outsider with the music box. First romance. It was why he was called the Outsider. He was outside— ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
1391:Tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'
'Worship?'
'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray to at dawn and at dusk?'
'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'
'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'
'She's the goddess within us all. She doesn't need a name.'
'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the seafoam, chanting ecstactically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards? ~ Neil Gaiman,#NFDB
1392:Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you on this earth. Sometimes you catch them. They can be the hands of the people you love. They can be your pets- pups with funny names, cats with ferocious old souls. The thing that keeps you here can be your art. It can be things you have collected and invested with a certain sense of meaning. A flowered, buckled treasure chest of secrets. Shoes that make you taller and, therefore, closer to the heavens. A suit that belonged to your fairy godmother. A dress that makes you feel a little like the Goddess herself.
Sometimes you keep falling; you don't catch anything.
Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't.
Sometimes they catch you. ~ Francesca Lia Block,#NFDB
1393:There was nothing negative about the whore in the ancient world; Her title Hierodule of Heaven means sacred work or servant of the holy in Greek. The word prostitute means to stand on behalf of (the Goddess) in Hebrew the word zona is used for both Prophetess and Priestess. Even that wonderful word harlot (rhymes with scarlet) means priestess of Hathoor. It is essential that the Goddess-hating negativity of Christianity is washed away from these words. Even the term virgin means ever creative receptive potential, it is definitely not a physical state. In many cultures virgin simply meant un-married, and children born out of wedlock were called virgin-born – that puts rather a different slant on the story of Joseph and Mary. More often than not virgin was used to contrast with married, and the Holy Whore is very much her own woman. ~ Peter Grey, #NFDB
1394:These facts have led to the supposition that in primitive times a veritable reign of women existed: the matriarchy. It was this hypothesis, proposed by Bachofen, that Engels adopted, regarding the passage f r om the matriarchate to the patriarchate as 'the great historical defeat of the feminine sex'. But in truth that Golden Age of Woman is only a myth. To say that woman was the Other is to say that there did not exist between the sexes a reciprocal relation: Earth, Mother, Goddess—she was no fellow creature in man's eyes; it was beyond the human realm that her power was afiirmed, and she was therefore outside of that realm. Society has always been male ; political power has always been in the hands of men. 'Pubhc or simply social authority always belongs to men,' declares Lévi-Strauss at the end of his study of primitive societies. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1395:King Saul stood opposite him staring at his sworn enemy, now held in chains in the prison outside the royal palace. They were alone. He noticed a restlessness and a slight tremor in the arms and head of his captive, accompanied by a perpetual grin that looked more painful than humorous and resulted in occasional blurts of maniacal laughter. These Amalekites were not merely evil, they were stricken with a madness because of their diet of human flesh. They were cannibals. They were also very hard to kill. They engaged in dark rituals and howled when they fought because they were known to be possessed by the siyyim and iyyim, howling desert demons. They worshipped the satyr goat god Azazel and the goddess Lilith, connected with their Edomite and Seirim past. Saul was king of Israel and Yahweh had commanded him to wipe out the Amalekites. They ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1396:Girls, be good to these spirits of music and poetry
that breast your threshold with their scented gifts.
Lift the lyre, clear and sweet, they leave with you.
As for me, this body is now so arthritic
I cannot play, hardly even hold the instrument.
Can you believe my white hair was once black?
And oh, the soul grows heavy with the body.
Complaining knee-joints creak at every move.
To think I danced as delicate as a deer!
Some gloomy poems came from these thoughts:
useless: we are all born to lose life,
and what is worse, girls, to lose youth.
The legend of the goddess of the dawn
I’m sure you know: how rosy Eos
madly in love with gorgeous young Tithonus
swept him like booty to her hiding-place
but then forgot he would grow old and grey
while she in despair pursued her immortal way. ~ Sappho,#NFDB
1397:Hey, can I see that sword you were using?"
I showed him Riptide, and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it.
"Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?"
"Um, well, I don't actually write with it."
"Are you really the son of Poseidon?"
"Well, yeah."
"Can you surf really well, then?"
I looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.
"Jeez, Nico," I said. "I've never really tried."
He went on asking questions. Did I fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (I didn't answer that one.) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to fall off a cliff? (I tried not to strangle Nico for asking that one.) Was Annabeth my girlfriend? (At this point, I was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves.) ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1398:Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair - the idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief.
Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth.
More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty. ~ Terry Pratchett,#NFDB
1399:Okay, where’s the camera icon?” Setne fumbled with his phone. “We have to get a picture together before I destroy you.” “Destroy me?” demanded the cobra goddess. She lashed out at Setne, but a sudden gust of rain and wind pushed her back. I was ten feet away from Annabeth. Riptide’s blade glowed as I dragged it through the mud. “Let’s see.” Setne tapped his phone. “Sorry, this is new to me. I’m from the Nineteenth Dynasty. Ah, okay. No. Darn it. Where did the screen go? Ah! Right! So what do modern folks call this…a snappie?” He leaned in toward the cobra goddess, held out his phone at arm’s length, and took a picture. “Got it!” “WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Wadjet roared. “YOU DARE TAKE A SELFIE WITH THE COBRA GODDESS?” “Selfie!” said the magician. “That’s right! Thanks. And now I’ll take your crown and consume your essence. Hope you don’t mind. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1400:Slade lowered his head to kiss her lips once, very gently. “They will love you because you’re the only woman in the world who can complete me. They will love your kind heart and gentle ways. Your fierce courage and Goddess-given magic. How could they not, when I love you with all my being? They’ll see what I see when I look at you.” He kissed her again, this time with more passion. “They will see a bright and loving future for not only us, but for the Clan. Great-grandmother will especially love the fact that you are a priestess.” “I hope you’re right.” She bit her lip nervously, but Slade kissed her again, taking her lip between his own teeth for a quick, painless nip before letting her go again. “Trust me, kitten. I know them as well as I know myself. Eventually, you will too. Snowcats live a very long time. You’ll have centuries to get used to them. ~ Bianca D Arc, #NFDB
1401:Bienvenu,” the king said. “Je suis Boreas le Roi. Et vous?” Khione the snow goddess was about to speak, but Piper stepped forward and curtsied. “Votre Majesté,” she said, “ je suis Piper McLean. Et c’est Jason, fils de Zeus.” The king smiled with pleasant surprise. “Vous parlez français? Très bien!” “Piper, you speak French?” Jason asked. Piper frowned. “No. Why?” “You just spoke French.” Piper blinked. “I did?” The king said something else, and Piper nodded. “Oui, Votre Majesté.” The king laughed and clapped his hands, obviously delighted. He said a few more sentences then swept his hand toward his daughter as if shooing her away. Khione looked miffed. “The king says—” “He says I’m a daughter of Aphrodite,” Piper interrupted, “so naturally I can speak French, which is the language of love. I had no idea. His Majesty says Khione won’t have to translate now. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1402:On The Countess Of Burlington Cutting Paper
Pallas grew vapourish once, and odd,
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and, 'Use,' he cried, 'those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise -'
She bow'd, obey'd him, - and cut paper.
This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.
Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Saville and of Boyle.
Alas! one bad example shown;
How quickly all the sex pursue!
See, madam, see the arts o'erthrown,
Between John Overton and you!
~ Alexander Pope,#NFDB
1403:On the ninth day of the festival, Abram and Mikael positioned themselves to watch the grand parade of the gods. It proceeded down the Processional Way from Esagila all the way past the temple of Ishtar in the north of the city. A large flock of white doves, the bird of the goddess, was released from Ishtar’s temple as they passed, creating a spectacle of peaceful liberation. The parade continued out through the vainglorious Ishtar Gate on to another temple by the river, where they held a banquet of the gods. This was the most public of events. Throngs of people crowded the lanes of the Processional Way, trying to get a glimpse of the gods in their glorious chariots covered with dazzling jewels. Cultic musicians, dancers, and singers accompanied the parade through the city. Priests, royalty and visiting dignitaries received front row seats to the spectacle. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1404:Bianca, camp is cool! It's got a pegasus stable and a sword-fighting arena and… I mean, what do you get by joining the Hunters?"
To begin with," Zoe said, "immortality."
I stared at her, then at Artemis. "She's kidding, right?"
Zoe rarely kids about anything," Artemis said. "My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal… unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath."
What oath?" I said.
To foreswear romantic love forever," Artemis said.
To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally."
Like you?"
The goddess nodded.
I tried to imagine what she was saying. Being immortal. Hanging out with only middle-school girls forever. I couldn't get my mind around it. ~ Rick Riordan,#NFDB
1405:She was said to have been tenderly attached to a youth of remarkable beauty, named Atys, who, to her grief and indignation, proved faithless to her. He was about to unite himself to a nymph called Sagaris, when, in the midst of the wedding feast, the rage of the incensed goddess suddenly burst forth upon all present. A panic seized the assembled guests, and Atys, becoming afflicted with temporary madness, fled to the mountains and destroyed himself. Cybele, moved with sorrow and regret, instituted a yearly mourning for his loss, when her priests, the Corybantes, with their usual noisy accompaniments, marched into the mountains to seek the lost youth. Having discovered him[6] they gave full vent to their ecstatic delight by indulging in the most violent gesticulations, dancing, shouting, and, at the same time, wounding and gashing themselves in a frightful manner. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1406:sophisticated reader that he is simply referring to magical aspects of sexual activity that were bound to be misunderstood by the general public anyway. His attitude being: if only a handful of individuals will ever understand what is being written, write it in such a way that it will never go out of print. The modern reader must also bear in mind that the transcendent nature of spiritual subject matter often can only be represented by images terrible and strange. Language is not representative of reality. That Crowley was a master of metaphor is unarguable. But what is more significant is his ability to utilize words and images in the same manner as the Zen Master's Koan; expressing what appears technically to be a logical formula of language in such a way as to force the mind of the reader to deal with realities that transcend logic. The Hindu Goddess ~ Christopher S Hyatt, #NFDB
1407:Love Her, Mind; She can ferry you across the sea of birth and death. Taxes must be paid in this worthless marketplace, but it's stupid to trust in wealth and family. Have you forgotten your past? Where were you? Where have you come to? Where are you going? You wear nothing but a costume in the world. The Enchantress makes illusion dance, so you dance. And you sit on Her lap in Her prison. Egotism, hatred, love, attachment to pleasing things -- why did you share your kingdom with these? Tell me that! What you've done can't be helped; the day is almost over. On a jeweled island Siva sits in Siva's house. Contemplate Her always. Prasad says, Durga's ambrosial name liberates. Repeat it without ceasing; drench your tongue in nectar. [1770.jpg] -- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
~ Ramprasad, Love Her, Mind
,#NFDB
1408:In contrast, Bella Vista was lush and seductive, the landscape filled with colors from deep-green to submerged-gold. Gardeners, construction workers and farm workers swarmed the property. Isabel Johansen was in charge; that had been clear from the start. Yet when she'd shown him to Erik's room, she'd seemed vulnerable, uncertain. Some might regard the room as a mausoleum, filled with the depressing weight of things left behind by the departed. To Mac, it was a treasure trove. He was here to learn the story of this place, this family, and every detail, from the baseball card collection to the dog-eared books about faro places, would turn into clues for him.
And holy crap, had Isabel looked different when she'd given him the nickel tour. Unlike the virago in the beekeeper's getup, the cleaned-up Isabel was a Roman goddess in a flowy outfit, sandals and curly dark hair. ~ Susan Wiggs,#NFDB
1409:The hill between the manor and forest displayed layers of Lady Croft's prized gardens. Paved pathways wove through a formal Italian garden, rose garden, water garden, lily pond, and a tulip garden built around Roman ruins.
Maggie stood beside a statue of the goddess Hemera and a row of yew bushes that had been neatly pruned into a wall to form the perimeter of the Croft family maze. Walter sat nearby on a picnic blanket as she scanned the hillside above the maze to see if she could find Libby's copper-streaked hair among the immaculate gardens and all the people dressed in their finest for this entree into Ladenbrooke's gardens.
The Croft family opened the front gate to the public once each summer. Hundreds of people from around the Cotswolds came to peruse Lady Croft's magnificent displays- the golden heather, purple dahlias, peach lilies floating on the pond. ~ Melanie Dobson,#NFDB
1410:Apophis the god of Chaos Anubis the god of funerals and death Babi the baboon god Bast the cat goddess Bes the dwarf god Disturber a god of judgement who works for Osiris Geb the earth god Gengen-Wer the goose god Hapi the god of the Nile Heket the frog goddess Horus the war god, son of Isis and Osiris Isis the goddess of magic, wife of her brother Osiris and mother of Horus Khepri the scarab god, Ra’s aspect in the morning Khonsu the moon god Mekhit minor lion goddess, married to Onuris Neith the hunting goddess Nekhbet the vulture goddess Nut the sky goddess Osiris the god of the Underworld, husband of Isis and father of Horus Ra the sun god, the god of order; also known as Amun-Ra Sekhmet the lion goddess Serqet the scorpion goddess Set the god of evil Shu the air god, great-grandfather of Anubis Sobek the crocodile god Tawaret the hippo goddess Thoth the god of knowledge ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1411:The stars are blotted out, The clouds are covering clouds It is darkness vibrant, sonant. In the roaring, whirling wind Are the souls of a million lunatics Just loosed from the prison-house, Wrenching trees by the roots, Sweeping all from the path. The sea has joined the fray, And swirls up mountain-waves, To reach the pitchy sky. The flash of lurid light Reveals on every side A thousand, thousand shades Of Death begrimed and black Scattering plagues and sorrows, Dancing mad with joy, Come, Mother, come! For Terror is Thy name, Death is in Thy breath. And every shaking step Destroys a world for e'er. Thou 'Time', the All-destroyer! Come, O Mother, come! Who dares misery love, And hug the form of Death, Dance in Destruction's dance, To him the Mother comes. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Swami Vivekananda, Kali the Mother
,#NFDB
1412:When I stepped outside, the Wiccans stopped, turning as one body and bestowing beatific smiles on me...
"Sister Winterbourne" the first one said. She threw open her arms, embrace me, planted a kiss on my lips, then another on my left breast. I yelped...
I grabbed the nearest discarded robe. "Could you please put this-- Could you all put these-- Could you get dressed, please?" The woman only bestowed a serene smile on me. "We are as the Goddess requires." "The Goddess requires you to be naked on my lawn?" "We aren't naked child, we're skyclad."...
"That's --uh--very-- I mean--" I stammered. Be polite, I reminded myself. Witches should respect Wiccans, even if we didn't quite get the whole Goddesss-Worship thing. I knew some Wiccans, and they were very nice people, though I must admit they'd never arrived in my backyard naked and kissed my tits before. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1413:The Goddess-centered art we have been examining, with its striking absence of images of male domination or warfare, seems to have reflected a social order in which women, first as heads of clans and priestesses and later on in other important roles, played a central part, and in which both men and women worked together in equal partnership for the common good. If there was here no glorification of wrathful male deities or rulers carrying thunderbolts or arms, or of great conquerors dragging abject slaves about in chains, it is not unreasonable to infer it was because there were no counterparts for those images in real life.10 And if the central religious image was a woman giving birth and not, as in our time, a man dying on a cross, it would not be unreasonable to infer that life and the love of life—rather than death and the fear of death—were dominant in society as well as art. ~ Riane Eisler, #NFDB
1414:Why did Acheron tell you not to talk to Zarek? (Astrid)
I don’t know. That redheaded bitch-goddess got all angry when he told me to come protect you. It went like this. (She flashed to Acheron’s form.) Protect Zarek and Astrid. Now. (She flashed to Artemis’s form.) No! You can’t let her go, she’ll tell Zarek everything. (Simi, looking like Artemis, put her hand against her cheek and whispered loudly to Astrid.) This the part where the redheaded goddess went on and on about what happened in Zarek’s village and akri got all upset at her. Don’t know why he won’t let me kill her and get it over with, but finally he say…(She flashed to Acheron’s form.) Simi, don’t speak to Zarek but make sure Thanatos doesn’t kill either one of them. (She flashed into her own form.) So I said okay and here I am not talking to Zarek. (Simi)
Wow. She’s a camcorder, too. How convenient. (Zarek) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1415:Worship me, she says, worship the mistery of the bleeding goddess, and you do it. You stop at nothing. You lick it. You consume it. You digest it. She penetrates you.
What next, David? A glass of her urine. How long before you would have begged for her feces? I'm not against it because it's unhygienic.
I'm not against it because it's disgusting. I'm against it because it's falling in love. The only obession everybody wants: 'love'. People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open. She was a foreign body introduced into your wholeness. And for a year and a half you struggled to incorporate it. But you'll never be whole until you expel it. You either get rid of it or incorporate it through self-distortion. ~ Philip Roth,#NFDB
1416:Lady Harris's Fool is a cornucopia of sacred images, many of which reveal themselves only after long meditation (and the aid of a magnifying glass). He bursts into midair of existence from behind three swirling rings that issue from and return to his heart. These are the three veils of negativity (Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur)23 that Qabalists teach gave birth to the singularity of creation. His satchel is filled with the entire universe in the form of planetary and zodiacal coins. The Fool is the Holy Spirit itself. The dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit; the butterfly, symbol of transformation; winged globe, symbol of Mercurial air; and the Egyptian vulture-goddess Mauf24 pour from the Holy Grail in the Fool's right hand. Like the Virgin Mary, Maut became impregnated by the spirit (breath) of the wind. “The whole picture,” Crowley tells us, “is a glyph of the creative light. ~ Lon Milo DuQuette, #NFDB
1417:Can I stay here?"
In response, Mary smiled and opened the door wide. Tianna walked inside. Flames flickered in the hearth, and the smell of popcorn wrapped around her.
Shannon and Todd looked up in surprise when they saw her. Shannon ran to her with arms spread as wide as wings, and Todd did happy wheelies around the room.
Hours later, stomach filled with popcorn and Pepsi, Tianna crawled onto the soft cotton-flowered sheet and pulled the comforter over her head. Her bed smelled fresh and new, and she had a cozy feeling that she hadn't felt for a long time. Tears stung her eyes. She missed her parents and Jamie, but now at least she had a chance to start to live a normal life after so many years of running and living on the street.
She stared out the window at the dark night sky and touched the amulet hanging around her neck.
"Goddess," she murmured. The word felt so right. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1418:She began to take exercise far too late, embarking on tiny cycling tours to music festivals, or flower shows, or doing the rounds of churches – there were so many spires in her uninspiring adopted home. Three kids, one episiotomy, two continents, many phobias, lots of depressions. Old fat lady's underwear. It was all a curse upon cycling, which she'd taken up for what reason? Believe it or not, not even the bulbous seventies there were still bulbous, middle-aged women such as she, who thought that the principle of cycling meant something. They cycled and they ate in health-food restaurants like Cranks or Ceres, their cussedness aimed at appeasing the Earth Goddess herself. They almost fucking overdosed on grated carrot; while sipping fucking prune juice. They invented being environmentally-conscious, with their vegetable-buying co-operatives which gave them an excuse to put gumboots on in town. ~ Will Self, #NFDB
1419:On sentry duty with Hazel, he would try to take his mind off it. He loved spending time with her. He asked her about growing up in New Orleans, but she got edgy at his questions, so they made small talk instead. Just for fun, they tried to speak French to each other. Hazel had some Creole blood on her mother’s side. Frank had taken French in school. Neither of them was very fluent, and Louisiana French was so different from Canadian French it was almost impossible to converse. When Frank asked Hazel how her beef was feeling today, and she replied that his shoe was green, they decided to give up. Then Percy Jackson had arrived. Sure, Frank had seen kids fight monsters before. He’d fought plenty of them himself on his journey from Vancouver. But he’d never seen gorgons. He’d never seen a goddess in person. And the way Percy had controlled the Little Tiber—wow. Frank wished he had powers like that. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
1420:Smoke
Smoke, it is all smoke
in the throat of eternity. . . .
For centuries, the air was full of witches
Whistling up chimneys
on their spiky brooms
cackling or singing more sweetly than Circe,
as they flew over rooftops
blessing & cursing their
kind.
We banished & burned them
making them smoke in the throat of god;
we declared ourselves
"enlightened."
"The dark age of horrors is past,"
said my mother to me in 1952,
seven years after our people went up in smoke,
leaving a few teeth, a pile of bones.
The smoke curls and beckons.
It is blue & lavender
& green as the undersea world.
It will take us, too.
O let us not go sheepishly
clinging to our nakedness.
But let us go like witches sucked heavenward
by the Goddess' powerful breath
& whistling, whistling, whistling
on our beautiful brooms.
~ Erica Jong,#NFDB
1421:The River God circled around me as I stood shrouded in darkness and, not knowing what had happened, searched all around the hollow cloud. Twice, unwittingly, he walked around the place where the goddess had hidden me and twice he called: ‘Ho there, Arethusa! Hallo, Arethusa!’ Alas what feelings did I have then! Assuredly I was like a lamb when it hears the wolves howling around the high sheepfold, or like a hare, hiding in the branches, watching the jaws of hostile hounds, and not daring to move. Still Achelous did not depart; for he did not see any footsteps leading further on. He kept watch on the spot where the mist was. A cold sweat broke out on my limbs, when I was just trapped, and dark drops fell from my whole body. Wherever I moved my foot, a pool flowed out, moisture dripped from my hair. More quickly than I can tell of, I was changed into a stream. OVID, METAMORPHOSES, BOOK 5 (TRANS. ~ Elizabeth Speller, #NFDB
1422:This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali! For I was born under an evil star, And one so born becomes, they say, the eater of his mother. Thou must devour me first, or I myself shall eat Thee up; One or the other it must be. I shall besmear my hands with black and with black my face; With black I shall besmear the whole of my body. And when Death seizes me, with black I shall besmear his face. O Mother, I shall eat Thee up but not digest Thee; I shall install Thee in my heart And make Thee offerings with my mind. You may say that by eating Kali I shall embroil myself with Kala, Her Husband, but I am not afraid; Braving His anger, I shall chant my Mother's name. Come what may, I shall eat Thee up Thee and Thy retinue Or lose my life attempting it. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali!
,#NFDB
1423:Some people say that love itself is the most powerful magic,” Caitlyn said.
“But would true love make a man go against every principle that had guided his life, and make him break vows he had made to God?” Raphael
shook his head. “Simon brought Eshael here, to the château, but she would not give up her goddess and so he could not marry her. The local men
were frightened of Eshael and her strange ways. There were stories of firelight in the caves that pierce the cliffs beneath the château, and the
dancing shadows of local women that Eshael had converted to worship of her goddess.
“Simon’s love for Eshael began to fade; he started to see evil in all she did and all she was. The final straw came after Eshael bore him their first
child, a daughter. When Simon discovered Eshael consecrating their child to her goddess, the last vestiges of his love turned to hatred. In his rage,
he killed her. ~ Lisa Cach,#NFDB
1424:Only women could bleed without injury or death; only they rose from the gore each month like a phoenix; only their bodies were in tune with the ululations of the universe and the timing of the tides. Without this innate lunar cycle, how could men have a sense of time, tides, space, seasons, movement of the universe, or the ability to measure anything at all? How could men mistress the skills of measurement necessary for mathematics, engineering, architecture, surveying—and so many other professions? In Christian churches, how could males, lacking monthly evidence of Her death and resurrection, serve the Daughter of the Goddess? In Judaism, how could they honor the Matriarch without the symbol of Her sacrifices recorded in the Old Ovariment? Thus insensible to the movements of the planets and the turning of the universe, how could men become astronomers, naturalists, scientists—or much of anything at all? ~ Gloria Steinem, #NFDB
1425:To Poetry
Don’t desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.
I know I’ve spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.
I’ve stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.
Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.
I’m sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don’t let me suffer in silence.
Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?
Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,
I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are
or how—please help me—to find you.
~ Edward Hirsch,#NFDB
1426:Dreaming The Breasts
Mother,
strange goddess face
above my milk home,
that delicate asylum,
I ate you up.
All my need took
you down like a meal.
What you gave
I remember in a dream:
the freckled arms binding me,
the laugh somewhere over my woolly hat,
the blood fingers tying my shoe,
the breasts hanging like two bats
and then darting at me,
bending me down.
The breasts I knew at midnight
beat like the sea in me now.
Mother, I put bees in my mouth
to keep from eating
yet it did no good.
In the end they cut off your breasts
and milk poured from them
into the surgeon's hand
and he embraced them.
I took them from him
and planted them.
I have put a padlock
on you, Mother, dear dead human,
so that your great bells,
those dear white ponies,
can go galloping, galloping,
wherever you are.
~ Anne Sexton,#NFDB
1427:I dreamed about you sometimes.
In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn’t been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.
In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled. You kissed me one more time.
In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.
You said it had to be this way.
You said you were a goddess of fire.
Life went on. It always did, and that summer was no exception. ~ Joe Schreiber,#NFDB
1428:To Poetry"
Don’t desert me
just because I stayed up last night
watching The Lost Weekend.
I know I’ve spent too much time
praising your naked body to strangers
and gossiping about lovers you betrayed.
I’ve stalked you in foreign cities
and followed your far-flung movements,
pretending I could describe you.
Forgive me for getting jacked on coffee
and obsessing over your features
year after jittery year.
I’m sorry for handing you a line
and typing you on a screen,
but don’t let me suffer in silence.
Does anyone still invoke the Muse,
string a wooden lyre for Apollo,
or try to saddle up Pegasus?
Winged horse, heavenly god or goddess,
indifferent entity, secret code, stored magic,
pleasance and half wonder, hell,
I have loved you my entire life
without even knowing what you are
or how—please help me—to find you. ~ Edward Hirsch,#NFDB
1429:The Indians are the Italians of Asia", Didier pronounced with a sage and mischievous grin. "It can be said, certainly, with equal justice, that the Italians are the Indians of Europe, but you do understand me, I think. There is so much Italian in the Indians, and so much Indians in the Italians. They are both people of the Madonna - they demand a goddess, even if the religion does not provide one. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is music inside the body, and music is food inside the heart. The Language of India and the language of Italy, they make every man a poet, and make something beautiful from every banalite. They are nations where love - amore, pyaar - makes a cavalier of a Borsalino on a street corner, and makes a princess of a peasant girl, if only for the second that her eyes meet yours. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
1430:O Moon that rid'st the night to wake
Before the dawn is pale,
The hamadryad in the brake,
The Satyr in the vale,
Caught in thy net of shadows
What dreams hast thou to show?
Who treads the silent meadows
To worship thee below?
The patter of the rain is hushed,
The wind's wild dance is done,
Cloud-mountains ruby-red were flushed
About the setting sun:
And now beneath thy argent beam
The wildwood standeth still,
Some spirit of an ancient dream
Breathes from the silent hill.
Witch-Goddess Moon, thy spell invokes
The Ancient Ones of night,
Once more the old stone altar smokes,
The fire is glimmering bright.
Scattered and few thy children be,
Yet gather we unknown
To dance the old round merrily
About the time-worn stone.
We ask no Heaven, we fear no Hell,
Nor mourn our outcast lot,
Treading the mazes of a spell
By priests and men forgot. ~ Gerald B Gardner,#NFDB
1431:The day of the full moon, when the moon is neither increasing nor decreasing, the Babylonians called Sa-bat, meaning "heart-rest." It was believed that on this day, the woman in the moon, Ishtar, as the moon goddess was known in Babylon, was menstruating, for in Babylon, as in virtually every ancient and primitive society, there had been since the earliest times a taboo against a woman working, preparing food, or traveling when she was passing her monthly blood. On Sa-bat, from which comes our Sabbath, men as well as women were commanded to rest, for when the moon menstruated, the taboo was on everyone. Originally (and naturally) observed once a month, the Sabbath was later to be incorporated by the Christians into their Creation myth and made conveniently weekly. So nowadays hard-minded men with hard muscles and hard hats are relieved from their jobs on Sundays because of an archetypal psychological response to menstruation. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
1432:Woman, in the picture language of mythology, represents the totality of what can be known. The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending. She lures, she guides, she bids him burst his fetters. If he can match her import, the two, the knower and the known, will be released from every limitation. Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. By deficient eyes she is reduced to inferior states; by evil eyes of ignorance, she is reduced to banality and ugliness. But she is redeemed by the eyes of understanding. The hero who can taker her as she is, without undue commotion but with the kindness and assurance she requires, is potentially the king, the incarnate god, of her created world. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1433:And across the trench he drove the purebred team with a rough exultant laugh as comrades cheered, crowding in his wake.
And once they reached Tydides' sturdy lodge they tethered the horses there with well-cut reins, hitching them by the trough where Diomedes' stallions pawed the ground, champing their sweet barley.
Then away in his ship's stem Odysseus stowed the bloody gear of Dolon, in pledge of the gift they'd sworn to give Athena. The men themselves, wading into the sea, washed off the crusted sweat from shins and necks and thighs.
And once the surf had scoured the thick caked sweat from their limbs
and the two fighters cooled,
their hearts revived and into the polished tubs they climbed and bathed.
And rinsing off, their skin sleek with an olive oil rub, they sat down to their meal and dipping up their cups from an overflowing bowl, they poured them forth -
honeyed, mellow wine
to the great goddess Athena. ~ Homer,#NFDB
1434:I say no wealth is worth my life! Not all they claim
was stored in the depths of Troy, that city built on riches,
in the old days of peace before the sons of Achaea came-
not all the gold held fast in the Archer's rocky vaults,
in Phoebus Apollo's house on Pytho's sheer cliffs!
Cattle and fat sheep can all be had for the raiding,
tripods all for the trading, and tawny-headed stallions.
But a man's life breath cannot come back again-
no raiders in force, no trading brings it back,
once it slips through a man's clenched teeth.
Mother tells me,
the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet,
that two fates bear me on to the day of death.
If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,
my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.
If I voyage back to the fatherland I love,
my pride, my glory dies...
true, but the life that's left me will be long,
the stroke of death will not come on me quickly. ~ Homer,#NFDB
1435:Part 3 - Return
12. Refusal of the Return:When the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet or the ten thousand worlds. But the responsibility has been frequently refused. Even Gautama Buddha, after his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated, and saints are reported to have died while in the supernal ecstasy. Numerous indeed are the heroes fabled to have taken up residence forever in the blessed isle of the unaging Goddess of Immortal Being. ~ Joseph Campbell,#NFDB
1436:You wish to hear the origin story?” “Uh, yes.” I passed him the bottle. “Very well.” He drank, handing it to Jack, starting another round. “A goddess of magic devised a contest to the death for select mortals. She invited deities of other realms to send a representative from their most prestigious house, all youths. Each one bore their god’s emblem upon his or her right hand.” My heart raced . . . I had been one of those youths. “These players would fight inside Tar Ro, a sacred realm as large as a thousand kingdoms, harvesting their victims’ emblems; only the player who’d collected them all would leave Tar Ro alive. Naturally, the gods cheated, gifting their own representative with superhuman abilities, making them more than mortal. Secret abilities. That’s why we’re called Arcana.” “Hail Tar Ro,” I murmured. “The High Priestess told me that.” “An old-fashioned greeting. She’s quite knowledgeable about the games. Very respectful of the old ways. ~ Kresley Cole, #NFDB
1437:The Art Of Alma-Tadema
There is no song his colours cannot sing,
For all his art breathes melody, and tunes
The fine, keen beauty that his brushes bring
To murmuring marbles and to golden Junes.
The music of those marbles you can hear
In every crevice, where the deep green stains
Have sunken when the grey days of the year
Spilled leisurely their warm, incessant rains
That, lingering, forget to leave the ledge,
But drenched into the seams, amid the hush
Of ages, leaving but the silent pledge
To waken to the wonder of his brush.
And at the Master's touch the marbles leap
To life, the creamy onyx and the skins
Of copper-coloured leopards, and the deep,
Cool basins where the whispering water wins
Reflections from the gold and glowing sun,
And tints from warm, sweet human flesh, for fair
And subtly lithe and beautiful, leans one-A goddess with a wealth of tawny hair.
~ Emily Pauline Johnson,#NFDB
1438:… Communities repeat their central myths, the stories that make them a “cult” and give them an identity, in order to provide them a sense of social continuity. And so Americans tell themselves their “founding” stories over and over again, even though some of them are quite deranged and self-destructive: how the Founding Fathers were the homogenous embodiment of wisdom (when in fact the hated one another, mostly along Federalist and Republican lines); how these wise fathers created a Christian nation “under god” (when in fact many of them - Jefferson, Paine, Franklin - were Deistic skeptics) ; how the Second Amendment means that we all have the right to carry assault rifles; how everyone should strive for the American Dream understood as “success,” that “American bitch goddess” (William James), and so on. Deranged though they may be, these stories are comforting for many Americans, and so to challenge them is to invite vigorous debate if not a fistfight. ~ Curtis White, #NFDB
1439:You're the key. The goddess who can change the balance between good and evil. I don't know the plan, but I know they will be coming for you."
As Serena considered what he was saying, he twisted inside her mind to read her thoughts. She had struggled between good and evil before, and knew the seductiveness of the Atrox. It had promised her the world, but once she had become pure evil she had only wanted to destroy with a hunger that even surpassed the one Stanton felt growing inside him now.
His hand rose to her chin and lifted her face to his. It would be so easy to take her now. She was too trusting. His evil side paced at the edge of his control. Then with a shock he realized that if he did something to Serena, he could destroy the balance. With rising dread, he wondered if it was possible that the Atrox had kidnapped him not to stop his father's crusade, but because it knew his love for Serena could one day be a catalyst for the transition. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1440:I’ll tell you what was the first division of Ireland. It came from the time the people who worshipped the goddess Danu was hammered by the Milesians—d’you know about the Milesians?” “A race of mighty men taller than Roman spears,” quoted Ronan. “Hah! You’re not as green as you’re cabbage-looking. Up from Spain they came thousands of years ago, thousands. And they had spears, whereas the Danu people only had spells. And a spell is like your arse—it has its uses, but not in a fight.” “I said you came to the right house,” said Myrtle. “And when the Spanish defeated them, they made a treaty, and the Milesians took all of Ireland above the ground, and the Danu took all below the ground, where they are living still—that was the first political division of Ireland. Did you know that?” “We were taught it at school,” said Ronan. “And did you never think to question that you were taught as a historical fact that people live like sprites under the ground of Ireland? ~ Frank Delaney, #NFDB
1441:Termite, you're young, and I'm not sure if you're going to understand what I'm about to say, but here's the nugget: Without the heart, nothing else matters. She could be the Goddess of Love, you could have all the mind-blowing sex you could physically handle, but when the shooting is over, and you're starting to think about getting a bite to eat, smoking a cigarette, or what you do with her now, you're just lying in bed with a woman who means little more to you than the remote control for your TV. Love is not tool; neither is a woman's heart. What I'm talking about, you won't find in that magazine."
"How would you know? You just said you've only loved one woman. I think you need to test-drive a few cars before you buy one."
"You can buy that lie if you want, but if you're working for a bank, you don't study the counterfeit to know the real thing. You study the real thing to know the counterfeit."
Reese talking to Termite, pg. 109-110 ~ Charles Martin,#NFDB
1442:The Lucky Man
Luck had a favor to bestow
And wondered where to let it go.
'No lazy man on earth,' said she,
'Shall get this happy gift from me.
'I will not pass it to the man
Who will not do the best he can.
'I will not make this splendid gift
To one who has not practiced thrift.
'It shall not benefit deceit,
Nor help the man who's played the cheat.
'He that has failed to fight with pluck
Shall never know the Goddess Luck.
'I'll look around a bit to see
What man has earned some help from me.'
She found a man whose hands were soiled
Because from day to day he'd toiled.
He'd dreamed by night and worked by day
To make life's contest go his way.
He'd kept his post and daily slaved,
And something of his wage he'd saved.
He'd clutched at every circumstance
Which might have been his golden chance.
The goddess smiled and then, kerslap!
She dropped her favor in his lap.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1443:The White Goddess
All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean -
In scorn of which we sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom we desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.
It was a virtue not to stay,
To go our headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano's head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper's,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.
The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate with green the Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for her;
But we are gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall. ~ Robert Graves,#NFDB
1444:You were born from a winking star," he begins. "You're a goddess of devotion and neon light. You see beauty in passion and tragedy, but you romanticize them to a fault. You can't get enough of blueberry lemonade and vanilla gelato--so much that you don't care if either stains your dress or your tongue. You fall asleep to records, and your favorite constellation is Sagittarius. You've made a skateboard into a weapon."
He grins to himself. "You're afraid of the dark, but not afraid of your superiors. You play arcade hostess to mortals who can't see you. You have beautiful, fidgety hands covered in fishnet. You talk too much, but when you're silent, the world becomes a desolate place. Your greatest wish isn't to be loved--it's to give love."
He bows his head, clasps his hands. "You've put up with a stubborn archer. You've put him in his place. You've given him solace. You've given him a home. You've given him back his heart. And all he wants is to deserve you. ~ Natalia Jaster,#NFDB
1445:A GODDESS SHOULD never have to beg. It was the one thought, clear and simple, that ran through Maximus’s mind. Everything else—his rank, the party,their conflict, seemed to fall away from that one truth. She should never have to beg.
He still tasted her mouth on his tongue, still wanted to crush her breasts against his chest and bend her until she bared her throat to him, but he made himself let her go.
“Very well.”
Artemis blinked, her sweet lips parting as if she didn’t believe what she’d heard. “What?”
“I’ll do it.”
He turned to go, his mind already making plans, when he felt her fingers clutch at his sleeve. “You’ll take him from Bedlam?”
“Yes.”
Perhaps his decision had already been made from the moment he’d seen tears in her eyes. He had a weakness, it seemed, a fault more terrible than any Achilles’s heel: he couldn’t stand the sight of her tears.
But her eyes shone as if he’d placed the moon itself into her hands. “Thank you. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,#NFDB
1446:Maya—goddess of confusion and misdirection—is back in the chair opposite me. “So who are the priests of all religions?” she asks me. “They are your shepherds,” I respond, “keeping the sheep in the fold, away from the cliffs.” I know this. I know that the religions with their promises of an afterlife form an interior layer of containment and that the eternal rewards and punishments they speak of are as finite as the one in which they speak. Bubbles within bubbles. Turtles on top of turtles. “And who are the saints and sages of the great spiritual traditions?” she asks. “They are your final level of containment. They are the weavers of the final web, masters of subtle misdirection; convincing because they are convinced. For every million that get near the edge, perhaps only one steps over.” She smiles. “And where do I dwell?” “In the heart,” I respond. “In fear.” “Fear of what?” she asks. “Fear of being haunted by meddlesome Hindu deities?” I ask, but she’s already gone. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
1447:You're going to the ball?" Luc asked. "Need an escort?"
"I appreciate the offer, but I hear it's all the rage to go stag."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Besides, I think your brother might take it amiss."
"I thought you two were... taking a break?"
"I'd like to wait and see. He's only gone for a couple of weeks."
"I'll take you," Aidan interrupted again. "I was planning on going, myself."
"Dude, I'll take you," echoed Conrad from his seat at the counter.
"Thanks guys." I had to smile. This for a witch who was quite literally banned from any and all high school dances. "But, really, I sort of like the idea of going solo."
Just then we all looked around as the bell on the front door tinkled again, this time announcing the arrival of Inspector Carlos Romero.
"Blessed goddess!" Bronwyn exclaimed, throwing up her hands. "Don't tell me you're here to ask Lily out as well? I'm beginning to feel like a dueña."
"No," Carlos said, looking puzzled. ~ Juliet Blackwell,#NFDB
1448:Dawn
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothing moved. The water
lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rose
soundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was a
flower who told me its name.
I laughted at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On the
silvered summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the cock. In the heart of town she
fled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggar
on marble wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils, And
smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together at the
bottom of the wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
~ Arthur Rimbaud,#NFDB
1449:The analysis of the last age, the 'dark age' or Kali Yuga, brings to light two essential features. The first is that mankind living in this age is strictly connected to the body and cannot prescind from it; therefore, the only way open is not that of pure detachment (as in early Buddhism and in the many varieties of yoga) but rather that of knowledge, awakening, and mastery over secret energies trapped in the body. The second characteristic is that of the dissolution typical of this age. During the Kali Yuga, the bull of dharma stands on only one foot (it lost the other three during the previous three ages). This means that the traditional law (dharma) is wavering, is reduced to a shadow of its former self, and seems to be almost succumbing. During Kali Yuga, however, the goddess Kali, who was asleep in the previous ages, is now fully awake. . . . let us say that this symbolism implies that during the last age elementary, infernal, and even abyssal forces are untrammeled. ~ Julius Evola, #NFDB
1450:She spun to face him. “Listen, Hellboy, we need to make this quick. I have garage sales to hit and naughty souls to claim. Decide.” “I do not understand.” Was this goddess tormenting him for sport? Why did she call him “Hellboy?” How very rude! She poked at his bare chest with a razor sharp fingernail. “You hate taking orders.” Sì, true. After all, I am vampire. “And even if you decided to listen like a good little boy, the odds of pulling this off are slim to none.” I happen to excel at all things impossible. I am a vampire! “So don’t come crying if you end up in your queen’s dungeon…” Vampires do not cry, silly woman. “Tortured three times a day for all eternity, which is where you have a ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine percent chance of landing if you don’t do exactly as I say.” Actually, those numbers are quite encouraging. He thought his odds were somewhere between pigs flying and hell freezing over. “Buon. I understand. Tell me what you saw, what I must do. ~ Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, #NFDB
1451:The same thing happened to me that, according to legend, happened to Parmeniscus, who in the Trophonean cave lost the ability to laugh but acquired it again on the island of Delos upon seeing a shapeless block that was said to be the image of the goddess Leto. When I was very young, I forgot in the Trophonean cave how to laugh; when I became an adult, when I opened my eyes and saw actuality, then I started to laugh and have never stopped laughing since that time. I saw that the meaning of life was to make a living, its goal to be- come a councilor, that the rich delight oflove was to acquire a well-to-do girl, that the blessedness of friendship was to help each other in financial difficulties, that wisdom was whatever the majority assumed it to be, that enthusiasm was to give a speech, that courage was to risk being fined ten dollars, that cordiality was to say "May it do you good" after a meal, that piety was to go to communion once a year. This I saw, and I laughed. ~ S ren Kierkegaard, #NFDB
1452:ISIS Like Osiris, Isis was privy to the mysteries of perpetual birth. We know her image: a mother goddess breastfeeding her son Horus, as the Virgin Mary suckled Jesus much later on. But Isis was never what we might call a virgin. She began making love to Osiris when they were growing together inside their mother’s womb. And she practiced the world’s oldest profession for ten years in the city of Tyre. In the thousands of years that followed, Isis traveled the world resuscitating whores, slaves, and others among the damned. In Rome, she founded temples for the poor alongside bordellos. The temples were razed by imperial order, their priests crucified, but like stubborn mules they came back to life again and again. And when Emperor Justinian’s soldiers demolished the sanctuary of Isis on the island of Philae in the Nile, and built the very Catholic church of Saint Stephen on the ruins, Isis’s pilgrims continued paying homage to their errant goddess at the Christian altar. ~ Eduardo Galeano, #NFDB
1453:Soli Cantare Periti Arcades
Oh, I would live in a dairy,
And its Colin I would be,
And many a rustic fairy
Should churn the milk with me.
Or the fields should be my pleasure,
And my flocks should follow me,
Piping a frolic measure
For Joan or Marjorie.
For the town is black and weary,
And I hate the London street;
But the country ways are cheery,
And country lanes are sweet.
Good luck to you, Paris ladies!
Ye are over fine and nice
I know where the country maid is,
Who needs not asking twice.
Ye are brave in your silks and satins,
As ye mince about the Town;
But her feet go free in pattens,
If she wear a russet gown.
If she be not queen nor goddess
She shall milk my brown-eyed herds,
And the breasts beneath her bodice
Are whiter than her curds.
So I will live in a dairy,
And its Colin I will be,
And its Joan that I will marry,
Or, haply, Marjorie.
~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,#NFDB
1454:I believe she is Selene, goddess of the moon."
"She looks so content."
"You sound surprised."
"Well," Callie said tentatively, "Selene is not the happiest of stories. After all, she is doomed to love a mortal in eternal sleep."
St. John turned at her words, obviously impressed. "Her own fault. She should have known better than to ask favors of Zeus. That particular course of action never ends well."
"A truth of which Selene was likely acutely aware upon receiving her favor. I assume that this statue depicts a happy Selene before Zeus meddled."
"You forget," St. John said, a teasing gleam in his eye, "she and Endymion did have twenty children despite his somnolence, so she couldn't have been so very unhappy with her situation."
"With due respect, my lord," Callie said, "bearing and raising twenty children alone does not sound like the happiest of circumstances. I hardly think she would appear so very rested were this a statue depicting her maternal bliss. ~ Sarah MacLean,#NFDB
1455:Lucien saw all heads turn curiously toward the entrance; then his jaw dropped as a graceful beauty in white walked in, her chin high, a strand of pearls draped artfully over her strawberry-blond hair.
'Alice!'
He stared, flabbergasted, transfixed.
'What the hell is she doing here?' He couldn't believe his eyes. Joy and panic crashed in on him from opposite directions. Oh, God, how he had missed her. 'What the hell is she doing in London?'
Caro sidled into the ballroom beside her. The baroness was dressed in a tight black velvet dress, but Alice commanded the room, poised, slender, and cool. With her airy evening gown of white silk wafting sensually against her skin, she was an aloof marble goddess who had just stepped down to life from atop her pedestal. She seemed an entirely different creature than the serious, shy young thing who had ventured into his library last week and had been so easily charmed by a bit of Donne poetry. Now she was a force to be reckoned with. ~ Gaelen Foley,#NFDB
1456:In antiquity, Hekate was loved and revered as the goddess of the dark moon. People looked to her as a guardian against unseen dangers and spiritual foes.
All was well until Persephone, the goddess of spring, was kidnapped by Hades and ordered to live in the underworld for three months each year. Persephone was afraid to make the journey down to the land of the dead alone, so year after year Hekate lovingly guided her through the dark passageway and back. Over time Hekate became known as Persephone's attendant. But because Persephone was also the queen of the lower world, who ruled over the dead with her husband, Hades, Hekate's role as a guardian goddess soon became twisted and distorted until she was known as the evil witch goddess who stalked the night, looking for innocent people to bewitch and carry off to the underworld.
Today few know the great goddess Hekate. Those who do are blessed with her compassion for a soul lost in the realm of evil. Some are given a key. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1457:Hel-lo, gorgeous.”
Phoebe looked around as she stepped out of Zane’s truck. Standing next to the passenger door was a tall teenager with bright, inquisitive eyes and a welcoming smile. He looked enough like Adam Levine to make it easy for her to guess his identity.
“You must be Chase,” she said.
“In the flesh. And you’re Phoebe.” He looked her over from head to toe, then sighed. “Maya said a lot of great things about you, but she never mentioned you were a goddess.”
The outrageous compliment made Phoebe laugh. “Hardly,” she protested, knowing that with her brown hair, brown eyes and unspectacular features she was little more than average.
“My heart is pounding a mile a minute,” Chase said, moving closer. “Want to feel?”
The driver’s side door slammed shut. “Don’t you have chores?” Zane growled.
Chase took a step back, and his smile cranked down about 50 percent.
“All done. Even the extra ones you gave me. I got started early so I could be finished to welcome Phoebe. ~ Susan Mallery,#NFDB
1458:There will never be another Dark-Hunter who goes free. Your happiness comes at the expense of their freedom because there’s no one else I want to barter with. No one else to pay the fee you set up centuries ago. Knowing that, I hope you sleep well at night. (Artemis)
(Artemis leaves.)
But what about the Dark-Hunters? (Acheron)
The one thing I’ve learned most out of all this is that it’s not over until all the cards are played. She laid down her ace, thinking we can’t beat it. But there are fifty-one other cards in the deck and the game isn’t over yet. We’ll figure something out. Her little fit fight now just shows that she’s played her best hand. That was all she’s capable of doing to hurt you, which is exactly why she did it. Don’t let her ruin your day, baby, and don’t let her take from us what we have. We’ve gotten this far together. What’s another bitter goddess to us? Like my papou always says, over, under, around, or through. There’s always a way and we’ll find it. (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
1459:Diodorus wrote at great length of the worship of the Goddess Isis (the Greek translation for Au Set), who had incorporated the aspects of both Ua Zit and Hathor. Isis was also closely associated with the Goddess as Nut, who was mythologically recorded as Her mother; in paintings Isis wore the wings of Nekhebt. Diodorus explained that, according to Egyptian religion, Isis was revered as the inventor of agriculture, as a great healer and physician and as the one who first established the laws of justice in the land. He then recorded what we today may find a most startling description of the laws of Egypt, explaining that they were the result of the reverence paid to this mighty Goddess. He wrote, “It is for these reasons, in fact, that it was ordained that the queen should have greater power and honour than the king and that among private persons the wife should enjoy authority over the husband, husbands agreeing in the marriage contract that they will be obedient in all things to their wives. ~ Merlin Stone, #NFDB
1460:Certainly, we can no longer look upon the canon of Western art - Greco-Roman as revived, extended, and graced by the Renaissance - as -the- tradition in art, or even any longer as distinctly and uniquely -ours-. That canon is in fact only one tradition among many, and indeed in its strict adherence to representational form is rather the exception in the whole gallery of -human- art. Such an extension of the resources of the past, for the modern artist, implies a different and more comprehensive understanding of the term "human" itself: a Sumerian figure of a fertility goddess is as "human" to us as a Greek Aphrodite. When the sensibility of an age can accommodate the alien "inhuman" forms of primitive art side by side with the classic "human" figures of Greece or the Renaissance, it should be obvious that the attitude toward man that we call classical humanism - which is the intellectual expression of the spirit that informs the classical canon of Western art - has also gone by the boards. ~ William Barrett, #NFDB
1461:Magellan’s sudden identification of millions of land forms fomented a crisis in nomenclature. The International Astronomical Union responded with an all-female naming scheme that evoked a goddess or giantess from every heritage and era, along with heroines real or invented. Thus the Venusian highlands, the counterparts to Earth’s continents, took the names of love goddesses — Aphrodite Terra, Ishtar Terra, Lada Terra, with hundreds of their hills and dales christened for fertility goddesses and sea goddesses. Large craters commemorate notable women (including American astronomer Maria Mitchell, who photographed the 1882 transit of Venus from the Vassar College Observatory), while small craters bear common first names for girls. Venus’s scarps hail seven goddesses of the hearth, small hills the goddesses of the sea, ridges the goddesses of the sky, and so on across low plains named from myth and legend for the likes of Helen and Guinevere, down canyons called after Moon goddesses and huntresses. ~ Dava Sobel, #NFDB
1462:But I forgot you were a vegetarian,” Nick repeated to me. “I offered you nachos exactly like that in seventh grade, at this very table. You said you were a vegetarian and I nearly died of embarrassment for offering you meat.”
“And meat products,” Gavin couldn’t help chiming in.
But after Gavin’s comment, conversation stopped, and everyone stared at Nick. Nick? Dying of embarrassment?
He must have realized he’d blown his suave cover, because his face turned bright red.
Nick? Turning red?
“Excuse me,” I said, sliding off the bench. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.” I was a peeless goddess no longer. That was so seventh grade. Now I was in eleventh grade and I peed. Though of course I didn’t need to at the moment. I needed to confer with my girlfriends.
“Me, too!” Chloe and Liz both said. The boys stood to let them out. Gavin and Davis grumbled about girls always having to go to the bathroom together. Nick never took his eyes off me. He knew my need to pee was a total put-on. ~ Jennifer Echols,#NFDB
1463:Diana was the goddess of the hunt and of all newborn creatures. Women prayed to her for happiness in marriage and childbirth, but her strength was so great that even the warlike Amazons worshipped her.
No man was worthy of her love, until powerful Orion won her affection. She was about to marry him, but her twin brother, Apollo, was angered that she had fallen in love. One day, Apollo saw Orion in the sea with only his head above the water. Apollo tricked Diana by challenging her to hit the mark bobbing in the distant sea. Diana shot her arrow with deadly aim. Later, the waves rolled dead Orion to shore.
Lamenting her fatal blunder, Diana placed Orion in the starry sky. Every night, she would lift her torch in the dark to see her beloved. Her light gave comfort to all, and soon she became known as a goddess of the moon.
It was whispered that if a girl-childwas born in the wilderness, delivered by the great goddess Diana, she would be known for her fierce protection of the innocent. ~ Lynne Ewing,#NFDB
1464:Dagon smiled. It was all a balance of power. Each display of potency by an individual in their unholy trinity would require an equal display of potency in the other two. And Ba’alzebul’s favored form of potency was sexual conquest. Ba’alzebul grabbed Asherah’s leather corset in his hands and with one yank, ripped her outfit completely off her body, leaving her naked before the ravenous eyes of the two gods. The muscle-bound deity said with a jackal-like grin, “I do believe I am hungry.” Dagon drooled. Her sensuous female figure was ironically juxtaposed with her male sexual member. She was, after all, a male Watcher in goddess disguise. Though he artificially modified his body to appear female, he would not go so far as to mutilate his own source of debauched pleasure. Asherah knew she had to fight to make her attackers feel superior. She was strong, but not nearly as strong as Ba’alzebul. So she fought them on that fortuitous evening, but her attackers overpowered her and raped her until morning. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1465:reached beneath the folds of her cloak and brought forth a lamp, a delicate thing hanging on a slender chain. “To light your way in the darkness,” I heard her murmur. She let the chain slide through her fingers, and the lantern dropped gently into the pit on top of the other things. Then she raised her voice and said, “Her name was Ismene. Let it be known. She was a sister of our familia. A gladiatrix of House Achillea. She fought as we fight, with bravery and with skill. Five days ago, she fought to win honor in a match with a warrior maid of the House Amazona. She won, but Ismene was grievously wounded in that fight. Our surgeons did what they could for her. Last night the goddess Nemesis, she of the midnight brow, in her great wisdom called Ismene to the realm of heroes and sent forth Mercury to guide her there. She feasts now in the halls of Dis, she spars with Minerva, and she waits for all of us to join her there, and we mourn her absence even as others have this very day joined our ranks here. ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1466:Of what use is my going to Kasi any more? At Mother's feet lie Gaya, Ganga and Kasi. I swim in the ocean of bliss while I meditate on Her in my heart lotus. O Kali's feet are red lotuses wherein lie heaps of holy places. All sins are destroyed by Kali's name as heaps of cotton are burnt by fire. How can a headless man have a headache? People think, they will discharge their debts to forefathers by offering them pinda at Gaya! But, O! I laugh at him who meditates on Kali and still goes to Gaya! Shiva assures: Death at Kasi leads to salvation. But devotion is the root of all; O mind! Salvation is its maid. Of what use is nirvana? Water mingles in water. O mind! becoming sugar is not desirable; I am fond of eating sugar. Bemused, Ramprasad says, By the strength of gracious Mother, O! Meditation on Her, the wearer of disheveled hair, puts four goods into the palm of our hands. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, Of what use is my going to Kasi any more?
,#NFDB
1467:The questions of God – meaning in Milton’s phrase “The god who hung the stars like lamps in heaven” – I don’t think psychedelics can address that definitively, but there is another god, a goddess, the goddess of biology, the goddess of the coherent animal human world, the world of the oceans, the atmosphere, and the planet. In short, our world! The world that we were born into, that we evolved into, and that we came from. That world, the psychedelics want to connect us up to… Our individuality, as people and as a species, is an illusion of bad language that the psychedelics dissolve into the greater feeling of connectedness that underlies our being here, and to my mind that’s the religious impulse. It’s not a laundry list of moral dos and don’ts, or a set of dietary prescriptions or practices: it’s a sense of connectedness, responsibility for our fellow human beings and for the earth you walking around on, and because these psychedelics come out of that plant vegetable matrix they are the way back into it. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1468:I Must Have Wanton Poets
MUST have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I'll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay;
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive-tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transform'd,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pull'd down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty.
~ Christopher Marlowe,#NFDB
1469:THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DEITY MEDITATION On a personal, psychological level, deity meditation gives us access to a power that works on a deeper level than is available through conventional psychology. The transformative power of the goddess energies can untangle psychic knots, calling forth specific transformative forces within the mind and heart. It can cleanse our mental and emotional bodies, put us in touch with the protective powers within us, and deeply change the way we see the world. More than that, it can shift the way we see ourselves, giving us the power to see the divine qualities we already hold. For women especially, tuning in to the goddesses is a way of homing in on aspects of our own life-energy that we may never have understood or owned. Celebrating the goddesses has the potential not only to tune us to our own sacred capacities, but also to help us work with the hidden and secret forces at play in our lives. When we can do that, we can literally harness these forces for our own transformation. GODDESS ~ Sally Kempton, #NFDB
1470:There's this mental illness, right? It's called 'anhedonia.' It means 'without pleasure.' You can look it up, though all you really need to do is look around." She motioned to the door the other women had disappeared through, and to the world at large. "A good deal of people, mostly women, spend their entire lives in this state. It's a sort of half-death. But if you recognize this, you can fix it...You focus on bliss. Small pleasures. Fill your day with as many as you can fit into twenty-four hours. You devote every possible moment not to fulfilling another person-a man-but yourself."-Suzanne
"Sounds hedonistic"- Joanna
"But once you can do this, you start attracting everyone to you. You dont need compare yourself to some other girl, no matter how young or firm or perky she is.....Trust me. A woman like this, one at her best? We're the color of the world. We're the light and the beauty. So focus on your pleasure, and the man you want can't help but realize...that he may be a prince...but your a goddess.-Suzanne ~ Vicki Pettersson,#NFDB
1471:Ashtart, the goddess of sex and war, who tread through rivers of blood and bizarre sexual perversity had the gall to call him detestable. Ba’al, the most high bully and mightiest ego of the pantheon, treated him like a retarded child. Dagon, that fish of the Philistines, didn’t let him build any temples in Philistia. And that bitch Asherah ignored him, even though her Phoenician people had a distinct liking for his practices. All of these divinities scoffed, spurned and spit on him from their arrogant lofty high places of privilege and bigotry. And yet all of them, every single one of them, were gone. Bound in their pride in Tartarus by the archangels. Molech alone was left. He had played his game with craftiness and savvy. He had survived them all. The fools. Now, I spit on you. He hocked with his throat to gather a clump of mucus, saliva and worms, and spit on the ground as if on their graves. He lifted his chin with pride of status and took in a deep whiff of the pleasant scent of child sacrifice now burning on his altar. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1472:7. The Meeting with the Goddess:The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have been overcome, is commonly represented as a mystical marriage of the triumphant hero-soul with the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, at the central point of the cosmos, in the tabernacle of the temple, or within the darkness of the deepest chamber of the heart. The meeting with the goddess (who is incarnate in every woman) is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love (charity: amor fati), which is life itself enjoyed as the encasement of eternity. And when the adventurer, in this context, is not a youth but a maid, she is the one who, by her qualities, her beauty, or her yearning, is fit to become the consort of an immortal. Then the heavenly husband descends to her and conducts her to his bed-whether she will or not. And if she has shunned him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she has sought him, her desire finds its peace. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
1473:We get to the end of the block of shops. Here the street opens into a grand plaza. Right in the center of it is a sculpture of a winged couple holding each other in a tight embrace. Only this sculpture floats several feet in the air.
I pause in front of it.
“Who are they?” I ask, staring at the couple. The woman seems to be made of the same dark stone my beads are, her skin drawing in the light. The man she embraces is made of some shimmering sandstone, his skin seeming to glow from within.
“The Lovers,” Des replies. “Two of our ancient gods.” He points to the man. “He’s Fierion, God of Light, and she’s Nyxos, Goddess of Darkness.”
Nyxos … why does that name sound familiar?
“In the myths,” Des continues, “Fierion was married to Gaya, Goddess of Nature, but his true love was Nyxos, the woman he was forbidden from ever being with. Their love for each other is what causes day to chase night and night to chase day.
“Here in the Land of Dreams they’re finally allowed to be with each other. ~ Laura Thalassa,#NFDB
1474:The archangels were well acquainted with the Mother Earth Goddess and her protective parasites. Her evil was ancient. Before the Flood, she had resided in the land now called Arabia. It had been a vast fertile continent in antediluvian days. But Gaia sucked the soul out of the environment and turned it into a lifeless desert. She had the ability to manifest herself between heaven and earth, unseen by mortal eyes from a distance behind a veil of illusion. The area around her was like being in a world between worlds. It was there, but not there. Before the Flood, Enoch and his band of giant killers had encountered her within a Shaitan, a supernatural sandstorm. After the Flood, the great King Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu had cut down the great tree with their mighty axes. But Gaia’s seed always finds new earth and she had planted herself in these foothills of the sacred mountain of Baal-Hermon. Protected in the shadow of the assembly of gods, by the cult of Pan and the idol worship of the tribe of Dan nearby, Gaia flourished. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1475:Aeneas' mother is a star?"
"No; a goddess."
I said cautiously, "Venus is the power that we invoke in spring, in the garden, when things begin growing. And we call the evening star Venus."
He thought it over. Perhaps having grown up in the country, among pagans like me, helped him understand my bewilderment. "So do we, he said. "But Venus also became more...With the help of the Greeks. They call her Aphrodite...There was a great poet who praised her in Latin. Delight of men and gods, he called her, dear nurturer. Under the sliding star signs she fills the ship-laden sea and the fruitful earth with her being; through her the generations are conceived and rise up to see the sun; from her the storm clouds flee; to her the earth, the skillful maker, offers flowers. The wide levels of the sea smile at her, and all the quiet sky shines and streams with light..."
It was the Venus I had prayed to, it was my prayer, though I had no such words. They filled my eyes with tears and my heart with inexpressible joy. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,#NFDB
1476:Shortly after he had dispatched his “letter of tears,” Paul’s fortunes plummeted to a new low. Claudius’s last years had been clouded by court intrigues, and in October 54, he was poisoned by his wife and succeeded by Nero, his adopted seventeen-year-old son. The accession of the new emperor was hailed with relief and joy and an empire-wide resurgence of the imperial cult. But Rome was in trouble: The Parthians threatened the eastern frontier and there were uprisings in Judea. Scapegoats were needed, and Marcus Junius Silanus, governor of Asia, was murdered by Nero’s agents on suspicion of treason and, in a roundup of local malcontents, Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus. Luke, always the champion of Rome and reluctant to admit that Paul was ever regarded as an enemy of the empire, tells us nothing of this. Instead, he claims that Paul’s mission in Ephesus came to an end after a riot in the Temple of Artemis, when the silversmiths who crafted figurines of the goddess accused him of putting them out of business by undermining the cult.24 ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1477:Demons first. We don't know how Athena's dream compares to reality. It could have already happened or might not happen for another few days."
"Who the hell is Athena?" Cillian asks.
I raise my hand.
"Oh, that makes so much more sense. I had questioned your mother's intelligence, naming one of you Artemis and the other Nina. The whole point to having twins is to give them matching names."
"Yes," Artemis deadpans. "That's why our parents had us."
Artemis was the goddess of the hunt; a protector. It fits my sister perfectly. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and war. It's never escape my notice that everyone thought Nina fit me better than my real name.
Everyone except Leo.
"If we have twins someday," Rhys says, "we'll give them matching names."
Cillian nods in agreement, then claps his hands together. "Little Sonny and Cher will be so adorable."
"Jane and Austen," Rhys says.
"Meryl and Streep," Leo offers without looking back.
"That's the one!" Rhys shouts.
"You can be their godfather." Cilllian beams. ~ Kiersten White,#NFDB
1478:She waits. For what I do not know. It may be for her worshippers to return again. Or for us to become her new worshippers, as we well may. Or perhaps merely for death. She shaped herself, I believe, a woman of the Vanished People so that they would love her. We are here now, and so she shaped for me a woman of my own race—a woman beside whom Chenille would stand like a child—who could sing and speak to me. Beneath it the old sea goddess waited, and was not of our human race, nor of the race of the Vanished People, whom I was to come to know. I once had a toy, a little wooden man in a blue coat who was moved by strings. When I played with him, I made him walk and bow, and spoke for him. I practiced until I thought myself very clever. One day I saw my mother holding the two sticks that held his strings, and my little wooden man saluting my youngest sister much more cleverly than I could have made him do it, and laughing with his head thrown back, then mourning with his face in his hands. I never spoke of it to my mother, but I was angry and ashamed. * ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
1479:There is a small wooden viewing tower, and pamphlets from the State of Ohio, but they focus on facts—for instance, the Serpent Mound is as long as four football fields—not on meaning. In The Sacred Hoop, Paula Gunn Allen, a Native poet, mythologist, and scholar, explains that Serpent Woman was one of the names of the quintessential original spirit “that pervades everything, that is capable of powerful song and radiant movement, and that moves in and out of the mind…she is both Mother and Father to all people and all creatures. She is the only creator of thought, and thought precedes creation.”
In Western mythology, she might be compared to Medusa, the serpent-haired Greek goddess whose name means Knowing Woman or Protectress. She once was all-powerful—until patriarchy came along in the form of a mythic young man who chopped off her head. He was told to do this by Athena, who sprang full-blown from the mind of her father, Zeus—a goddess thought up by patriarchy and therefore motherless. There is history in what is dismissed as prehistory. ~ Gloria Steinem,#NFDB
1480:Ever since he saw the swarming of the multitudes and recognized the flow of the cosmic current, the petty well-being of his own person has ceased to appear to him the central concern of the universe, and is no longer of paramount importance to him. He no longer believes now that he is the only person in the world, there to enjoy himself and grow greater. Countless others, all around him, also have the right to be happy and successful. He sees them struggling on all sides; and he can discern, infinitely more important than any private undertakings, the development of a vast work that calls for all his good will and fills him with enthusiasm. He has, quite literally, shifted the axis of his life outside himself; he has, one might say, de-centred himself; in some way it is no longer himself that he cherishes in himself, but the great thing of which he is a constituent particle and an active element; it is the immanent Goddess of the World that rests her foot on him for a moment, to rise, with his support, a little higher still. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Cosmic Life, #NFDB
1481:The Accuser scoffed with derision. He was so loud, he turned heads. “I knew he would pull this.” Enoch continued, “The purpose of blood sacrifice is to place the penalty of the guilty upon an unblemished innocent. The shed blood satisfies divine wrath for justice, which makes forgiveness of the repentant covenant-breaker possible.” “Barbaric!” barked the Accuser. “Slaughtering innocent precious animals for the bloodlust of divinity. This animal cruelty is despicable and disgusting.” In truth, it was not despicable or disgusting to the Accuser or the rest of the rebel Watchers. They had set up their own religion of blood sacrifice that would substitute humans for animals. Children seemed to please them the most. Children in great numbers. Cutting their hearts out and piling their bodies into a pit. The Great Goddess Earth Mother was the most voracious, with a ravenous appetite like Sheol. Her tree rings consisted of the corpses of human vermin, the virus of the planet. But the Accuser did not have the luxury of consistency, he was trying to win a case. ~ Brian Godawa, #NFDB
1482:Toward Accuracy
We’re high enough that what I call fog might be cloud.
Not Everest high, or Chomuolungma, “Mother Goddess
of the World.” If we named things what they are,
our sentences would be monsoons, long rains of sound.
Morning is “the time I suspect I am a horse,” dusk
“the light which treats our shadows like taffy.”
The number of times my name changes in a day,
from “looking at the world with eyes of wood rasps”
to “feathers have replaced my bones,” rules out
the wearing of name tags: I wear a chalk board,
thesaurus, that book of whispers, of meaning sex.
“There’s a woman who smokes a cigarette
now and then, who picks tobacco off her tongue
as something moves along the fault line
of the horizon, knees pulled to her chest,
her breath wearing a dress of smoke”
is one way I think of you when I think of you.
And when I think of you, “wants to be a candle”
isn’t romantic but accurate, wicked light
leans in, away, writhes to get out of, to leap harder
into what it is.
~ Bob Hicok,#NFDB
1483:The exotic fragrance was hers, too. Incense. Goddess scent.
'Mr. Carsington, you must speak to me,' she said.
He'd rather not speak. He'd rather stay exactly where he was, pillowed against her soft bosom and inhaling her scent while she gently stroked his cheek.
'Mr. Carsington.' The hand left off stroking to pat his cheek, with growing impatience.
Remembering the lady had a short temper, he knew the gentle pats would shortly escalate to slaps. He opened his eyes and met her green gaze, where anxiety mingled with vexation.
'Where am I?' he said, though he knew the answer perfectly well. It was a delaying tactic. Her bosom made a perfect pillow. He did not want to leave it.
'On the floor of Anaz's storeroom,' she said. 'You seem to have fainted.'
'Fainted?' he echoed incredulously. 'I was knocked in the head. I ought to know. It's happened often enough.'
'That would explain a great deal,' she said. She started to rise. Aware she would have no compunction about letting his poor, battered head thump to the floor, he quickly sat up. ~ Loretta Chase,#NFDB
1484:He kissed her lingeringly, right there, in front of his people and hers. Without looking, he heard everything around them grow quiet. She sucked in a breath, but she didn’t pull away. In fact, rather uncertainly, she kissed him back, and he counted that as a win too. “Bold choice,” she murmured against his lips. “Unexpected.” “Advance communiques are effective at disseminating new policy to a populace,” he whispered, letting his fingertips linger on the soft curve of her cheek. “Oh dear goddess, did you just say that to me?” Pulling back, she eyed him askance. “Was that remarkable sentence your way of flirting?” He narrowed his eyes. “Of course not. The chocolate and the terrible orange food were my way of flirting. This was me making a public statement of intent. You’ll know when I’m flirting again.” “Will I?” One corner of her lips tilted up. “What were you doing when you climbed my tower?” He paused to consider. “Yes, that was flirting too.” “Re-eally. I thought that was you looking for an argument.” “It was an arguing kind of flirting,” he told her. ~ Thea Harrison, #NFDB
1485:Who is this unique warrior woman? Her terrifying war cry pervades the universal battleground. Who is this incomparable feminine principle? Contemplating her limitless nature, the passion to possess and be gratified dissolves. Who is this elusive wisdom woman? Her smooth and fragrant body of intense awareness is like the petal of a dark blue lotus. A single eye of knowledge shines from her noble forehead like a moon so full its light engulfs the sun. This mysterious Goddess, eternally sixteen, is naked brilliance, transparent insight. Cascades of black hair stream down her back to touch her dancing feet. Perfect in the art of wisdom warfare she is the treasury of every excellence, the reservoir of all that is good. Her poet sings with unshakable assurance: "Anyone who lives consciously in the presence of this resplendent savioress can conquer Death with the drumbeat Ma! Ma! Ma!" [1898.jpg] -- from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, Translated by Lex Hixon
~ Ramprasad, Conquer Death with the drumbeat Ma! Ma! Ma!
,#NFDB
1486:He tried again and again to have you killed or to usurp your power. If it was up to me, he would die for his treachery. But the final decision must be yours, my Lady,” he sent through our bond. “I don’t believe the bastard deserves to be healed but I know how compassionate you are.” First do no harm, I told myself. With a sigh, I placed my glowing hands gently on Morbain’s shoulders. He reacted with a gasp and tried to shake off my grip. But he couldn’t—again I felt the Goddess’s energy flow through me and again she spoke, using my mouth as her own. “For the sins you have committed against your own mother, Sundalla the 999th and for the attempts you have made against my new scion, Sundalla the 1000th, I condemn you,” the Goddess boomed. “You shall carry the wounds and pain of your time in the Garden of Death with you for the rest of your immortal life, Morbain. Never healing, never scarring—always fresh and weeping—your wounds will serve as a reminder to those that come after. This is your punishment from which you may not escape, even into death.” Then ~ Evangeline Anderson, #NFDB
1487:It Is the Rising That I Love"
As long as I struggle to float above the ground
and fail, there is reason for this poetry.
On the stone back of the Ludovici throne, Venus
is rising from the water. Her face and arms
are raised, and two women trained in the ways
of the world help her rise, covering her
nakedness with a cloth at the same time.
If this continues, she, goddess of beauty
and love will have accomplished the earth
where I stand. She from water to land,
me from earth to air as if I had a soul.
It is the rising I love, in no matter what
element, to the one above. As I ascend, helped
by prayers and not by women, I say in all my
sexual glamor, see my body bathed in light and air.
See me rise like a flame, like the sun, moon,
stars, birds, wind. In light. In dark.
But I never achieve it. I get down on my knees
this grey April to see if open crocuses have a smell.
I must live in the suffering and desire of what
rises and falls. The terrible blind grinding
of gears against our bodies and lives. ~ Linda Gregg,#NFDB
1488:One can even find the trident (as big as, El Candelabro, which is a well-known prehistoric geoglyph found on the northern face of the Paracas Peninsula) as a pre-Incan ritual object which were created by the Sun-worshipping priests of Paracas. In India, it is linked to the Hindu "trident-bearer" Shiva, spouse of the skull-bearing (skull-topped staff, khatvanga) goddess Kali. The Egyptians (according to Plutarch) even offered incense to the Sun three times every day marking thereby the perpetuity of the Sun worship religion among them. All this points to a major unified Sun religion across the globe which were physically expressed on royalty through elongated skulls. This is a rebel-religion that breaks loose from the mandate imposed on it from the higher authority. Even the [form of the Buddhist khatvanga was derived from the emblematic staff of the early Indian Shaivite yogins, known as kapalikas or 'skull-bearers'. The kapalikas were originally miscreants who had been sentenced to a twelve-year term of penance for the crime of inadvertently killing a Brahmin]. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1489:Mother, this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart, That even with Thee for Mother, and though I am wide awake, There should be robbery in my house. Many and many a time I vow to call on Thee, Yet when the time for prayer comes round, I have forgotten. Now I see it is all Thy trick. As Thou hast never given, so Thou receivest naught; Am I to blame for this, O Mother? Hadst Thou but given, Surely then Thou hadst received; Out of Thine own gifts I should have given to Thee. Glory and shame, bitter and sweet, are Thine alone; This world is nothing but Thy play. Then why, O Blissful One, dost Thou cause a rift in it? Says Ramprasad: Thou hast bestowed on me this mind, And with a knowing wink of Thine eyes Bidden it, at the same time, to go and enjoy the world. And so I wander here forlorn through Thy creation, Blasted, as it were, by someone's evil glance, Taking the bitter for the sweet, Taking the unreal for the Real. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
~ Ramprasad, Mother this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart
,#NFDB
1490:The Three Witnesses
Musing I met, in no strange land,
What meet thou must to understand:
An Angel. There was none but he,
Yet 'twas a glorious company.
God, Youth, and Goddess, one, twain, trine,
In altering wedlock flamed benign.
The Youth i' the midst did shadowy seem,
Till merged in either blest extreme,
But could, by choosing, each way turn,
And, with God, for the Goddess burn,
Or vanish in the Goddess quite,
To be, with her, the God's delight;
And, whether he chose Hers or His,
He glow'd at once with either's bliss.
The head was Godhead without guile,
A solar force, an infant's smile;
Breasted the Wonder was and loin'd
With Man and Woman's beauties join'd;
And thence, O, moonlike and most sweet,
The Goddess brighten'd to the feet,
Which, when they felt the one the other,
Felt each like Cupid and his Mother.
Unwearying, since I caught that sight,
Him have I praised by whose word's might
The Heavens and the Earth did breathe
And the gay Waters underneath.
~ Coventry Patmore,#NFDB
1491:Another indication -which we have in the tampered Scripture- of the Jew's plagiarization is in Exodus 15:20 where the Egyptian women started using Hathor's Sistrum in glorification of Yahweh the cow god. The sistrum was a sacred instrument in ancient Egypt used in dances in the worship of the goddess Hathor. The ceremonial instrument shows up in two forms, either with Hathor's head or with Hathor's name (i.e. hwt hor: House of Horus) on it. Therefore, it is very obvious that Exodus 15:20 is portraying an Egyptian scenery and religion instead of a Semitic one which the Jew is trying to attribute to the Israelites. The goddess Bast is often depicted holding a sistrum, symbolizing her role as a goddess of festivity. However, we also know that this musical instrument was used from the New Kingdom on to pacify and appease the gods who turn into rebellious deities; this proves that in the New Kingdom an inverted role started taking place for the symbolism of the Lion and a process of reclaiming that deity from the Osirians (i.e. the progenitors of the Jews) was unfolding. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1492:The idea that everyone should have a house of his own is based on an ancient custom of the Japanese race, Shinto superstition ordaining that every dwelling should be evacuated on the death of its chief occupant. Perhaps there may have been some unrealized sanitary reason for this practice. Another early custom was that a newly built house should be provided for each couple that married. It is on account of such customs that we find the Imperial capitals so frequently removed from one site to another in ancient days. The rebuilding, every twenty years, of Ise Temple, the supreme shrine of the Sun-Goddess, is an example of one of these ancient rites which still obtain at the present day. The observance of these customs was only possible with some form of construction as that furnished by our system of wooden architecture, easily pulled down, easily built up. A more lasting style, employing brick and stone, would have rendered migrations impracticable, as indeed they became when the more stable and massive wooden construction of China was adopted by us after the Nara period. ~ Kakuz Okakura, #NFDB
1493:She wept, and Lazlo drew her into an embrace as though it were the most natural thing in the world that he should draw a mournful goddess against his shoulder, enfold her in his arms, breathe the scent of the flowers in her hair, and even lightly stroke her temple with the edge of his thumb. And though there was a layer of his mind that knew this was a dream, it was momentarily shuffled under by other, more compelling layers, and he experienced the moment as though it were absolutely real. All the emotion, all the sensation. The texture of her skin, the scent of her hair, the heat of her breath through his linen shirt, and even the moisture of tears seeping through it. But far more intense was the utter, ineffable tenderness he felt, and the solemnity. As though he had been entrusted with something infinitely precious. As though he had taken an oath, and his very life stood surety to it. He would recognize this later as the moment his center of gravity shifted: from being one of one—a pillar alone, apart—to being half of something that would fall if either side were cut away. ~ Laini Taylor, #NFDB
1494:Do you ever think?
What?
They were lying together on the sofa that had always been there, the crappy beat-up biscuit-colored sofa that was managing, as best it could, its promotion from threadbare junk to holy artifact.
You know.
What if I don't know?
You fucking do.
Okay, yeah. Yes. I, too, wonder if Dad worried so much about every single little goddamned thing . . .
That he summoned it.
Thanks. I couldn't say it.
That some god or goddess heard him, one time too many, getting panicky about whether she'd been carjacked at the mall, or had, like, hair cancer . . .
That they delivered the think even he couldn't imagine worrying about.
It's not true.
I know.
But we're both thinking about it.
That may have been their betrothal. That may have been when they took their vows: We are no longer siblings, we are mates, starship survivors, a two-man crew wandering the crags and crevices of a planet that may not be inhabited by anyone but us. We no longer need, or want, a father.
Still, they really have to call him. It's been way too long. ~ Michael Cunningham,#NFDB
1495:Pierson glanced up at the steps, seeing not the Marquess of Ilford, but the lady standing silhouetted in the doorway. Melliscent.
She looked down at him with something akin to feral pleasure. A dangerous admiration that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The look in her eyes was an offer and a promise.
In that moment, he realized how little he knew her. Had known her. The woman he once thought to marry. The woman he'd been mad to possess.
Then he glanced over at Louisa and he was struck by the contrast of the two- Melliscent, a cool, cold goddess, demanding of admiration and conquest. And Louisa, her quiet beauty asking for nothing, but giving everything in return.
Which left him considering how little he knew of Louisa.
How well could any man know the mysteries inside a woman?
But one thing he couldn't shake was the sense that Louisa, unlike the woman on the steps, wouldn't have left him broken and tormented.
She'd have persevered out of loyalty. And love. For she would never agree to wed unless her heart was engaged.
Deeply and thoroughly. ~ Elizabeth Boyle,#NFDB
1496:Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. ~ David Foster Wallace, #NFDB
1497:The child starts out by being attached to his mother as "the ground of all being." He feels helpless and needs the all-enveloping love of mother. He then turns to father as the new center of his affections, father being a guiding principle for thought and action; in this stage he is motivated by the need to acquire father's praise, and to avoid his displeasure. In the stage of full maturity he has freed himself from the person of mother and of father as protecting and commanding powers; he has established the motherly and fatherly principles in himself. He has become his own father and mother; he is father and mother.
In the history of the human race we see—and can anticipate—the same development: from the beginning of the love for God as the helpless attachment to a mother Goddess, through the obedient attachment to a fatherly God, to a mature stage where God ceases to be an outside power, where man has incorporated the principles of love and justice into himself, where he has become one with God, and eventually, to a point where he speaks of God only in a poetic, symbolic sense. ~ Erich Fromm,#NFDB
1498:commencement address at Kenyon College: In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap real meaning in life—then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you….Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. The ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1499:It seems [...] that the Native American 'brain smasher' and the ancient Egyptian goddess in the vignette from the Fifth Hour of the Duat both serve exactly the same function, namely, the annihilation and permanent destruction of unworthy souls on the afterlife journey. There are differences in the traditions, to be sure, as one would expect if they descended from a remote common ancestor many millennia ago and then evolved separately, but the fundamental similarities of the role are unmissable.
A further point arising from this material has to do with the more general issue of the trials and tribulations faced by the soul on its postmortem journey. That the precise character of these obstacles should vary between ancient Egypt and ancient Native America is only to be expected. Even so, the striking similarities in the core structure of the 'story'--physical death, a journey of the soul on land, a leap to the sky involving Orion followed by a further journey with perils and challenges to be faced, through the valley of the Milky Way--all argue for some as yet unexplained connection. ~ Graham Hancock,#NFDB
1500:While the Eternal Feminine in Faust II still appears in personalized form as the Madonna, she works her effects in The Magic Flute as an invisible spiritual power, as music. But this music is the expression of divine love itself, which unites law and freedom, above and below, in the wisdom of the heart and of love. As harmony, it grants humankind divine peace and rules the world as the highest divinity.
From the earliest times, magic and music have stood under the rule of the Archetypal Feminine, which in myth and fairy tale is also the mistress of transformation, intoxication, and enchanting sound. Thus it is quite understandable that it is precisely this feminine principle that bestows the magical instruments. The Orpheus motif of the magical taming of the animal energies through music belongs to her, for as mistress of the animals the Great Goddess rules the world of wild as well as tame creatures. She can transform things and people into animal form, tame the animal, and enchant it because, like music, she is able to make the tame wild and the wild tame with the power of her magic. ~ Erich Neumann,#NFDB
102 Poetry
102 Integral Yoga
64 Occultism
28 Yoga
24 Psychology
18 Philosophy
16 Mythology
15 Christianity
12 Fiction
5 Hinduism
4 Mysticism
4 Buddhism
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Alchemy
78 Sri Aurobindo
53 Nolini Kanta Gupta
35 James George Frazer
28 Sri Ramakrishna
22 The Mother
21 Carl Jung
18 Ramprasad
13 Ovid
12 Satprem
12 Saint Augustine of Hippo
11 Friedrich Schiller
11 Aleister Crowley
8 John Keats
7 William Wordsworth
7 Plato
7 H P Lovecraft
5 Vyasa
5 Percy Bysshe Shelley
5 A B Purani
4 Bokar Rinpoche
3 Plotinus
3 Lucretius
3 Joseph Campbell
3 Jordan Peterson
2 Swami Vivekananda
2 Rabindranath Tagore
2 Nirodbaran
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 Ken Wilber
2 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2 Aristotle
2 Anonymous
35 The Golden Bough
26 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
22 Savitri
13 Metamorphoses
12 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
12 City of God
11 Schiller - Poems
11 Collected Poems
10 Mysterium Coniunctionis
10 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05
8 Vedic and Philological Studies
8 The Secret Of The Veda
8 Keats - Poems
8 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
7 Wordsworth - Poems
7 Lovecraft - Poems
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
5 Vishnu Purana
5 Shelley - Poems
5 Magick Without Tears
5 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
5 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
5 5.1.01 - Ilion
4 The Mother With Letters On The Mother
4 Tara - The Feminine Divine
4 Liber ABA
4 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
4 Agenda Vol 03
3 The Hero with a Thousand Faces
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 02
3 Of The Nature Of Things
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 Aion
2 Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit
2 Words Of Long Ago
2 Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo
2 The Synthesis Of Yoga
2 The Practice of Psycho therapy
2 Tagore - Poems
2 Symposium
2 Sex Ecology Spirituality
2 Questions And Answers 1954
2 Poetics
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 Kena and Other Upanishads
2 Goethe - Poems
2 Essays On The Gita
2 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
2 Anonymous - Poems
2 Agenda Vol 11
2 Agenda Vol 01
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
About his parents Sri Ramakrishna once said: "My mother was the personification of rectitude and gentleness. She did not know much about the ways of the world; innocent of the art of concealment, she would say what was in her mind. People loved her for her open-heartedness. My father, an orthodox brahmin, never accepted gifts from the sudras. He spent much of his time in worship and meditation, and in repeating God's name and chanting His glories. Whenever in his daily prayers he invoked the Goddess Gayatri, his chest flushed and tears rolled down his cheeks. He spent his leisure hours making garlands for the Family Deity, Raghuvir."
Khudiram Chattopadhyaya and Chandra Devi, the parents of Sri Ramakrishna, were married in 1799. At that time Khudiram was living in his ancestral village of Dereypore, not far from Kamarpukur. Their first son, Ramkumar, was born in 1805, and their first daughter, Katyayani, in 1810. In 1814 Khudiram was ordered by his landlord to bear false witness in court against a neighbour. When he refused to do so, the landlord brought a false case against him and deprived him of his ancestral property. Thus dispossessed, he arrived, at the invitation of another landlord, in the quiet village of Kamarpukur, where he was given a dwelling and about an acre of fertile land. The crops from this little property were enough to meet his family's simple needs. Here he lived in simplicity, dignity, and contentment.
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Gadadhar grew up into a healthy and restless boy, full of fun and sweet mischief. He was intelligent and precocious and endowed with a prodigious memory. On his father's lap he learnt by heart the names of his ancestors and the hymns to the gods and Goddesses, and at the village school he was taught to read and write. But his greatest delight was to listen to recitations of stories from Hindu mythology and the epics. These he would afterwards recount from memory, to the great joy of the villagers. Painting he enjoyed; the art of moulding images of the gods and Goddesses he learnt from the potters. But arithmetic was his great aversion.
At the age of six or seven Gadadhar had his first experience of spiritual ecstasy. One day in June or July, when he was walking along a narrow path between paddy-fields, eating the puffed rice that he carried in a basket, he looked up at the sky and saw a beautiful, dark thunder-cloud. As it spread, rapidly enveloping the whole sky, a flight of snow-white cranes passed in front of it. The beauty of the contrast overwhelmed the boy. He fell to the ground, unconscious, and the puffed rice went in all directions. Some villagers found him and carried him home in their arms. Gadadhar said later that in that state he had experienced an indescribable joy.
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The main temple is dedicated to Kali, the Divine Mother, here worshipped as Bhavatarini, the Saviour of the Universe. The floor of this temple also is paved with marble. The basalt image of the Mother, dressed in gorgeous gold brocade, stands on a white marble image of the prostrate body of Her Divine Consort, Siva, the symbol of the Absolute. On the feet of the Goddess are, among other ornaments, anklets of gold. Her arms are decked with jewelled ornaments of gold. She wears necklaces of gold and pearls, a golden garland of human heads, and a girdle of human arms. She wears a golden crown, golden ear-rings, and a golden nose-ring with a pearl-drop. She has four arms. The lower left hand holds a severed human head and the upper grips a blood-stained sabre. One right hand offers boons to Her children; the other allays their fear. The majesty of Her posture can hardly be described. It combines the terror of destruction with the reassurance of motherly tenderness. For She is the Cosmic Power, the totality of the universe, a glorious harmony of the pairs of opposites. She deals out death, as She creates and preserves. She has three eyes, the third being the symbol of Divine Wisdom; they strike dismay into the wicked, yet pour out affection for Her devotees.
The whole symbolic world is represented in the temple garden — the Trinity of the Nature Mother (Kali), the Absolute (Siva), and Love (Radhakanta), the Arch spanning heaven and earth. The terrific Goddess of the Tantra, the soul-enthralling Flute-Player of the Bhagavata, and the Self-absorbed Absolute of the Vedas live together, creating the greatest synthesis of religions. All aspects of Reality are represented there. But of this divine household, Kali is the pivot, the sovereign Mistress. She is Prakriti, the Procreatrix, Nature, the Destroyer, the Creator. Nay, She is something greater and deeper still for those who have eyes to see. She is the Universal Mother, "my Mother" as Ramakrishna would say, the All-powerful, who reveals Herself to Her children under different aspects and Divine Incarnations, the Visible God, who leads the elect to the Invisible Reality; and if it so pleases Her, She takes away the last trace of ego from created beings and merges it in the consciousness of the Absolute, the undifferentiated God. Through Her grace "the finite ego loses itself in the illimitable Ego — Atman — Brahman". (Romain Holland, Prophets of the New India, p. 11.)
Rani Rasmani spent a fortune for the construction of the temple garden and another fortune for its dedication ceremony, which took place on May 31, 1855.
Sri Ramakrishna — henceforth we shall call Gadadhar by this familiar name —1 came to the temple garden with his elder brother Ramkumar, who was appointed priest of the Kali temple. Sri Ramakrishna did not at first approve of Ramkumar's working for the sudra Rasmani. The example of their orthodox father was still fresh in Sri Ramakrishna's mind. He objected also to the eating of the cooked offerings of the temple, since, according to orthodox Hindu custom, such food can be offered to the Deity only in the house of a brahmin. But the holy atmosphere of the temple grounds, the solitude of the surrounding wood, the loving care of his brother, the respect shown him by Rani Rasmani and Mathur Babu, the living presence of the Goddess Kali in the temple, and; above all, the proximity of the sacred Ganges, which Sri Ramakrishna always held in the highest respect, gradually overcame his disapproval, and he began to feel at home.
Within a very short time Sri Ramakrishna attracted the notice of Mathur Babu, who was impressed by the young man's religious fervour and wanted him to participate in the worship in the Kali temple. But Sri Ramakrishna loved his freedom and was indifferent to any worldly career. The profession of the priesthood in a temple founded by a rich woman did not appeal to his mind. Further, he hesitated to take upon himself the responsibility for the ornaments and jewelry of the temple. Mathur had to wait for a suitable occasion.
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Born in an orthodox brahmin family, Sri Ramakrishna knew the formalities of worship, its rites and rituals. The innumerable gods and Goddesses of the Hindu religion are the human aspects of the indescribable and incomprehensible Spirit, as conceived by the finite human mind. They understand and appreciate human love and emotion, help men to realize their secular and spiritual ideals, and ultimately enable men to attain liberation from the miseries of phenomenal life. The Source of light, intelligence, wisdom, and strength is the One alone from whom comes the fulfilment of desire. Yet, as long as a man is bound by his human limitations, he cannot but worship God through human forms. He must use human symbols. Therefore Hinduism asks the devotees to look on God as the ideal father, the ideal mother, the ideal husband, the ideal son, or the ideal friend. But the name ultimately leads to the Nameless, the form to the Formless, the word to the Silence, the emotion to the serene realization of Peace in Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute. The gods gradually merge in the one God. But until that realization is achieved, the devotee cannot dissociate human factors from his worship. Therefore the Deity is bathed and clothed and decked with ornaments. He is fed and put to sleep. He is propitiated with hymns, songs, and prayers. And there are appropriate rites connected with all these functions. For instance, to secure for himself external purity, the priest bathes himself in holy water and puts on a holy cloth. He purifies the mind and the sense-organs by appropriate meditations. He fortifies the place of worship against evil forces by drawing around it circles of fire and water. He awakens the different spiritual centres of the body and invokes the Supreme Spirit in his heart. Then he transfers the Supreme Spirit to the image before him and worships the image, regarding it no longer as clay or stone, but as the embodiment of Spirit, throbbing with Life and Consciousness. After the worship the Supreme Spirit is recalled from the image to Its true sanctuary, the heart of the priest. The real devotee knows the absurdity of worshipping the Transcendental Reality with material articles — clothing That which pervades the whole universe and the beyond, putting on a pedestal That which cannot be limited by space, feeding That which is disembodied and incorporeal, singing before That whose glory the music of the spheres tries vainly to proclaim. But through these rites the devotee aspires to go ultimately beyond rites and rituals, forms and names, words and praise, and to realize God as the All-pervading Consciousness.
Hindu priests are thoroughly acquainted with the rites of worship, but few of them are aware of their underlying significance. They move their hands and limbs mechanically, in obedience to the letter of the scriptures, and repeat the holy mantras like parrots. But from the very beginning the inner meaning of these rites was revealed to Sri Ramakrishna. As he sat facing the image, a strange transformation came over his mind. While going through the prescribed ceremonies, he would actually find himself encircled by a wall of fire protecting him and the place of worship from unspiritual vibrations, or he would feel the rising of the mystic Kundalini through the different centres of the body. The glow on his face, his deep absorption, and the intense atmosphere of the temple impressed everyone who saw him worship the Deity.
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And, indeed, he soon discovered what a strange Goddess he had chosen to serve. He became gradually enmeshed in the web of Her all-pervading presence. To the ignorant She is, to be sure, the image of destruction; but he found in Her the benign, all-loving Mother. Her neck is encircled with a garland of heads, and Her waist with a girdle of human arms, and two of Her hands hold weapons of death, and Her eyes dart a glance of fire; but, strangely enough, Ramakrishna felt in Her breath the soothing touch of tender love and saw in Her the Seed of Immortality. She stands on the bosom of Her Consort, Siva; it is because She is the Sakti, the Power, inseparable from the Absolute. She is surrounded by jackals and other unholy creatures, the denizens of the cremation ground. But is not the Ultimate Reality above holiness and unholiness? She appears to be reeling under the spell of wine. But who would create this mad world unless under the influence of a divine drunkenness? She is the highest symbol of all the forces of nature, the synthesis of their antinomies, the Ultimate Divine in the form of woman. She now became to Sri Ramakrishna the only Reality, and the world became an unsubstantial shadow. Into Her worship he poured his soul. Before him She stood as the transparent portal to the shrine of Ineffable Reality.
The worship in the temple intensified Sri Ramakrishna's yearning for a living vision of the Mother of the Universe. He began to spend in meditation the time not actually employed in the temple service; and for this purpose he selected an extremely solitary place. A deep jungle, thick with underbrush and prickly plants, lay to the north of the temples. Used at one time as a burial ground, it was shunned by people even during the day-time for fear of ghosts. There Sri Ramakrishna began to spend the whole night in meditation, returning to his room only in the morning with eyes swollen as though from much weeping. While meditating, he would lay aside his cloth and his brahminical thread. Explaining this strange conduct, he once said to Hriday: "Don't you know that when one thinks of God one should be freed from all ties? From our very birth we have the eight fetters of hatred, shame, lineage, pride of good conduct, fear, secretiveness, caste, and grief. The sacred thread reminds me that I am a brahmin and therefore superior to all. When calling on the Mother one has to set aside all such ideas." Hriday thought his uncle was becoming insane.
--
Yet this was only a foretaste of the intense experiences to come. The first glimpse of the Divine Mother made him the more eager for Her uninterrupted vision. He wanted to see Her both in meditation and with eyes open. But the Mother began to play a teasing game of hide-and-seek with him, intensifying both his joy and his suffering. Weeping bitterly during the moments of separation from Her, he would pass into a trance and then find Her standing before him, smiling, talking, consoling, bidding him be of good cheer, and instructing him. During this period of spiritual practice he had many uncommon experiences. When he sat to meditate, he would hear strange clicking sounds in the joints of his legs, as if someone were locking them up, one after the other, to keep him motionless; and at the conclusion of his meditation he would again hear the same sounds, this time unlocking them and leaving him free to move about. He would see flashes like a swarm of fire-flies floating before his eyes, or a sea of deep mist around him, with luminous waves of molten silver. Again, from a sea of translucent mist he would behold the Mother rising, first Her feet, then Her waist, body, face, and head, finally Her whole person; he would feel Her breath and hear Her voice. Worshipping in the temple, sometimes he would become exalted, sometimes he would remain motionless as stone, sometimes he would almost collapse from excessive emotion. Many of his actions, contrary to all tradition, seemed sacrilegious to the people. He would take a flower and touch it to his own head, body, and feet, and then offer it to the Goddess. Or, like a drunkard, he would reel to the throne of the Mother, touch Her chin by way of showing his affection for Her, and sing, talk, joke, laugh, and dance. Or he would take a morsel of food from the plate and hold it to Her mouth, begging Her to eat it, and would not be satisfied till he was convinced that She had really eaten. After the Mother had been put to sleep at night, from his own room he would hear Her ascending to the upper storey of the temple with the light steps of a happy girl, Her anklets jingling. Then he would discover Her standing with flowing hair. Her black form silhouetted against the sky of the night, looking at the Ganges or at the distant lights of Calcutta.
Naturally the temple officials took him for an insane person. His worldly well-wishers brought him to skilled physicians; but no-medicine could cure his malady. Many a time he doubted his sanity himself. For he had been sailing across an uncharted sea, with no earthly guide to direct him. His only haven of security was the Divine Mother Herself. To Her he would pray: "I do not know what these things are. I am ignorant of mantras and the scriptures. Teach me, Mother, how to realize Thee. Who else can help me? Art Thou not my only refuge and guide?" And the sustaining presence of the Mother never failed him in his distress or doubt. Even those who criticized his conduct were greatly impressed with his purity, guilelessness, truthfulness, integrity, and holiness. They felt an uplifting influence in his presence.
--
On a certain occasion Mathur Babu stealthily entered the temple to watch the worship. He was profoundly moved by the young priest's devotion and sincerity. He realized that Sri Ramakrishna had transformed the stone image into the living Goddess.
Sri Ramakrishna one day fed a cat with the food that was to be offered to Kali. This was too much for the manager of the temple garden, who considered himself responsible for the proper conduct of the worship. He reported Sri Ramakrishna's insane behaviour to Mathur Babu.
--
A garbled report of Sri Ramakrishna's failing health, indifference to worldly life, and various abnormal activities reached Kamarpukur and filled the heart of his poor mother with anguish. At her repeated request he returned to his village for a change of air. But his boyhood friends did not interest him any more. A divine fever was consuming him. He spent a great part of the day and night in one of the cremation grounds, in meditation. The place reminded him of the impermanence of the human body, of human hopes and achievements. It also reminded him of Kali, the Goddess of destruction.
--- MARRIAGE AND AFTER
--
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees. Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and "divine" outlooks. Certain of the rites require the presence of members of the opposite sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the Universe. The very basis of Tantra is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of a woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely necessary. An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of depravity.
According to the Tantra, Sakti is the active creative force in the universe. Siva, the Absolute, is a more or less passive principle. Further, Sakti is as inseparable from Siva as fire's power to burn is from fire itself. Sakti, the Creative Power, contains in Its womb the universe, and therefore is the Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols. Kali is one of Her several forms. The meditation on Kali, the Creative Power, is the central discipline of the Tantra. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself as one with the Absolute and then thinks that out of that Impersonal Consciousness emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the Goddess. He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and worships it as the Divine Mother.
Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines of Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four principal Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few preliminary rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased to exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He beheld held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit, Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
--
Totapuri arrived at the Dakshineswar temple garden toward the end of 1864. Perhaps born in the Punjab, he was the head of a monastery in that province of India and claimed leadership of seven hundred sannyasis. Trained from early youth in the disciplines of the Advaita Vedanta, he looked upon the world as an illusion. The gods and Goddesses of the dualistic worship were to him mere fantasies of the deluded mind. Prayers, ceremonies, rites, and rituals had nothing to do with true religion, and about these he was utterly indifferent. Exercising self-exertion and unshakable will-power, he had liberated himself from attachment to the sense-objects of the relative universe. For forty years he had practised austere discipline on the bank of the sacred Narmada and had finally realized his identity with the Absolute. Thenceforward he roamed in the world as an unfettered soul, a lion free from the cage. Clad in a loin-cloth, he spent his days under the canopy of the sky alike in storm and sunshine, feeding his body on the slender pittance of alms. He had been visiting the estuary of the Ganges. On his return journey along the bank of the sacred river, led by the inscrutable Divine Will, he stopped at Dakshineswar.
Totapuri, discovering at once that Sri Ramakrishna was prepared to be a student of Vedanta, asked to initiate him into its mysteries. With the permission of the Divine Mother, Sri Ramakrishna agreed to the proposal. But Totapuri explained that only a sannyasi could receive the teaching of Vedanta. Sri Ramakrishna agreed to renounce the world, but with the stipulation that the ceremony of his initiation into the monastic order be performed in secret, to spare the feelings of his old mother, who had been living with him at Dakshineswar.
--
Totapuri asked the disciple to withdraw his mind from all objects of the relative world, including the gods and Goddesses, and to concentrate on the Absolute. But the task was not easy even for Sri Ramakrishna. He found it impossible to take his mind beyond Kali, the Divine Mother of the Universe. "After the initiation", Sri Ramakrishna once said, describing the event, "Nangta began to teach me the various conclusions of the Advaita Vedanta and asked me to withdraw the mind completely from all objects and dive deep into the Atman. But in spite of all my attempts I could not altogether cross the realm of name and form and bring my mind to the unconditioned state. I had no difficulty in taking the mind from all the objects of the world. But the radiant and too familiar figure of the Blissful Mother, the Embodiment of the essence of Pure Consciousness, appeared before me as a living reality. Her bewitching smile prevented me from passing into the Great Beyond. Again and again I tried, but She stood in my way every time. In despair I said to Nangta: 'It is hopeless. I cannot raise my mind to the unconditioned state and come face to face with Atman.' He grew excited and sharply said: 'What? You can't do it? But you have to.' He cast his eyes around. Finding a piece of glass he took it up and stuck it between my eyebrows. 'Concentrate the mind on this point!' he thundered. Then with stern determination I again sat to meditate. As soon as the gracious form of the Divine Mother appeared before me, I used my discrimination as a sword and with it clove Her in two. The last barrier fell. My spirit at once soared beyond the relative plane and I lost myself in samadhi."
Sri Ramakrishna remained completely absorbed in samadhi for three days. "Is it really true?" Totapuri cried out in astonishment. "Is it possible that he has attained in a single day what it took me forty years of strenuous practice to achieve? Great God! It is nothing short of a miracle!" With the help of Totapuri, Sri Ramakrishna's mind finally came down to the relative plane.
--
Toward the end of 1866 he began to practise the disciplines of Islam. Under the direction of his Mussalman guru he abandoned himself to his new sadhana. He dressed as a Mussalman and repeated the name of Allah. His prayers took the form of the Islamic devotions. He forgot the Hindu gods and Goddesses — even Kali — and gave up visiting the temples. He took up his residence outside the temple precincts. After three days he saw the vision of a radiant figure, perhaps Mohammed. This figure gently approached him and finally lost himself in Sri Ramakrishna. Thus he realized the Mussalman God. Thence he passed into communion with Brahman. The mighty river of Islam also led him back to the Ocean of the Absolute.
--- CHRISTIANITY
--
Totapuri, coming to know of the Master's marriage, had once remarked: "What does it matter? He alone is firmly established in the Knowledge of Brahman who can adhere to his spirit of discrimination and renunciation even while living with his wife. He alone has attained the supreme illumination who can look on man and woman alike as Brahman. A man with the idea of sex may be a good aspirant, but he is still far from the goal." Sri Ramakrishna and his wife lived together at Dakshineswar, but their minds always soared above the worldly plane. A few months after Sarada Devi's arrival Sri Ramakrishna arranged, on an auspicious day, a special worship of Kali, the Divine Mother. Instead of an image of the Deity, he placed on the seat the living image, Sarada Devi herself. The worshipper and the worshipped went into deep samadhi and in the transcendental plane their souls were united. After several hours Sri Ramakrishna came down again to the relative plane, sang a hymn to the Great Goddess, and surrendered, at the feet of the living image, himself, his rosary, and the fruit of his life-long sadhana. This is known in Tantra as the Shorasi Puja, the "Adoration of Woman". Sri Ramakrishna realized the significance of the great statement of the Upanishad: "O Lord, Thou art the woman. Thou art the man; Thou art the boy. Thou art the girl; Thou art the old, tottering on their crutches. Thou pervadest the universe in its multiple forms."
By his marriage Sri Ramakrishna admitted the great value of marriage in man's spiritual evolution, and by adhering to his monastic vows he demonstrated the imperative necessity of self-control, purity, and continence, in the realization of God. By this unique spiritual relationship with his wife he proved that husband and wife can live together as spiritual companions. Thus his life is a synthesis of the ways of life of the householder and the monk.
--
Keshab possessed a complex nature. When passing through a great moral crisis, he spent much of his time in solitude and felt that he heard the voice of God, When a devotional form of worship was introduced into the Brahmo Samaj, he spent hours in singing kirtan with his followers. He visited England land in 1870 and impressed the English people with his musical voice, his simple English, and his spiritual fervour. He was entertained by Queen Victoria. Returning to India, he founded centres of the Brahmo Samaj in various parts of the country. Not unlike a professor of comparative religion in a European university, he began to discover, about the time of his first contact with Sri Ramakrishna, the harmony of religions. He became sympathetic toward the Hindu gods and Goddesses, explaining them in a liberal fashion. Further, he believed that he was called by God to dictate to the world God's newly revealed law, the New Dispensation, the Navavidhan.
In 1878 a schism divided Keshab's Samaj. Some of his influential followers accused him of infringing the Brahmo principles by marrying his daughter to a wealthy man before she had attained the marriageable age approved by the Samaj. This group seceded and established the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Keshab remaining the leader of the Navavidhan. Keshab now began to be drawn more and more toward the Christ ideal, though under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna his devotion to the Divine Mother also deepened. His mental oscillation between Christ and the Divine Mother of Hinduism found no position of rest. In Bengal and some other parts of India the Brahmo movement took the form of unitarian Christianity, scoffed at Hindu rituals, and preached a crusade against image worship. Influenced by Western culture, it declared the supremacy of reason, advocated the ideals of the French Revolution, abolished the caste-system among its own members, stood for the emancipation of women, agitated for the abolition of early marriage, sanctioned the remarriage of widows, and encouraged various educational and social-reform movements. The immediate effect of the Brahmo movement in Bengal was the checking of the proselytizing activities of the Christian missionaries. It also raised Indian culture in the estimation of its English masters. But it was an intellectual and eclectic religious ferment born of the necessity of the time. Unlike Hinduism, it was not founded on the deep inner experiences of sages and prophets. Its influence was confined to a comparatively few educated men and women of the country, and the vast masses of the Hindus remained outside it. It sounded monotonously only one of the notes in the rich gamut of the Eternal Religion of the Hindus.
--
Sri Ramakrishna never taught his disciples to hate any woman, or womankind in general. This can be seen clearly by going through all his teachings under this head and judging them collectively. The Master looked on all women as so many images of the Divine Mother of the Universe. He paid the highest homage to womankind by accepting a woman as his guide while practising the very profound spiritual disciplines of Tantra. His wife, known and revered as the Holy Mother, was his constant companion and first disciple. At the end of his spiritual practice he literally worshipped his wife as the embodiment of the Goddess Kali, the Divine Mother. After his passing away the Holy Mother became the spiritual guide not only of a large number of householders, but also of many monastic members of the Ramakrishna Order.
--- THE MASTER'S YEARNING FOR HIS OWN DEVOTEES
--
Kedarnath Chatterji was endowed with a spiritual temperament and had tried various paths of religion, some not very commendable. When he met the Master at Dakshineswar he understood the true meaning of religion. It is said that the Master, weary of instructing devotees who were coming to him in great numbers for guidance, once prayed to the Goddess Kali: "Mother, I am tired of speaking to people. Please give power to Kedar, Girish, Ram, Vijay, and Mahendra to give them the preliminary instruction, so that just a little teaching from me will be enough." He was aware, however, of Kedar's lingering attachment to worldly things and often warned him about it.
--- HARISH
--
Even before Rakhal's coming to Dakshineswar, the Master had had visions of him as his spiritual son and as a playmate of Krishna at Vrindavan. Rakhal was born of wealthy parents. During his childhood he developed wonderful spiritual traits and used to play at worshipping gods and Goddesses. In his teens he was married to a sister of Manomohan Mitra, from whom he first heard of the Master. His father objected to his association with Sri Ramakrishna but afterwards was reassured to find that many celebrated people were visitors at Dakshineswar. The relationship between the Master and this beloved disciple was that of mother and child. Sri Ramakrishna allowed Rakhal many liberties denied to others. But he would not hesitate to chastise the boy for improper actions. At one time Rakhal felt a childlike jealousy because he found that other boys were receiving the Master's affection. He soon got over it and realized his guru as the Guru of the whole universe. The Master was worried to hear of his marriage, but was relieved to find that his wife was a spiritual soul who would not be a hindrance to his progress.
--- THE ELDER GOPAL
--
One day, soon after, Narendra requested Sri Ramakrishna to pray to the Divine Mother to remove his poverty. Sri Ramakrishna bade him pray to Her himself, for She would certainly listen to his prayer. Narendra entered the shrine of Kali. As he stood before the image of the Mother, he beheld Her as a living Goddess, ready to give wisdom and liberation. Unable to ask Her for petty worldly things, he prayed only for knowledge and renunciation, love and liberation. The Master rebuked him for his failure to ask the Divine Mother to remove his poverty and sent him back to the temple. But Narendra, standing in Her presence, again forgot the purpose of his coming. Thrice he went to the temple at the bidding of the Master, and thrice he returned, having forgotten in Her presence why he had come. He was wondering about it when it suddenly flashed in his mind that this was all the work of Sri Ramakrishna; so now he asked the Master himself to remove his poverty, and was assured that his family would not lack simple food and clothing.
This was a very rich and significant experience for Narendra. It taught him that Sakti, the Divine Power, cannot be ignored in the world and that in the relative plane the need of worshipping a Personal God is imperative. Sri Ramakrishna was overjoyed with the conversion. The next day, sitting almost on Narendra's lap, he said to a devotee, pointing first to himself, then to Narendra: "I see I am this, and again that. Really I feel no difference. A stick floating in the Ganges seems to divide the water; But in reality the water is one. Do you see my point? Well, whatever is, is the Mother — isn't that so?" In later years Narendra would say: "Sri Ramakrishna was the only person who, from the time he met me, believed in me uniformly throughout. Even my mother and brothers did not. It was his unwavering trust and love for me that bound me to him for ever. He alone knew how to love. Worldly people, only make a show of love for selfish ends.
--
Kaliprasad visited the Master toward the end of 1883. Given to the practice of meditation and the study of the scriptures. Kali was particularly interested in yoga. Feeling the need of a guru in spiritual life, he came to the Master and was accepted as a disciple. The young boy possessed a rational mind and often felt sceptical about the Personal God. The Master said to him: "Your doubts will soon disappear. Others, too, have passed through such a state of mind. Look at Naren. He now weeps at the names of Radha and Krishna." Kali began to see visions of gods and Goddesses. Very soon these disappeared and in meditation he experienced vastness, infinity, and the other attributes of the Impersonal Brahman.
--- SUBODH
--
The more the body was devastated by illness, the more it became the habitation of the Divine Spirit. Through its transparency the gods and Goddesses began to shine with ever increasing luminosity. On the day of the Kali Puja the devotees clearly saw in him the manifestation of the Divine Mother.
It was noticed at this time that some of the devotees were making an unbridled display of their emotions. A number of them, particularly among the householders, began to cultivate, though at first unconsciously, the art of shedding tears, shaking the body, contorting the face, and going into trances, attempting thereby to imitate the Master. They began openly to declare Sri Ramakrishna a Divine Incarnation and to regard themselves as his chosen people, who could neglect religious disciplines with impunity. Narendra's penetrating eye soon sized up the situation. He found out that some of these external manifestations were being carefully practised at home, while some were the outcome of malnutrition, mental weakness, or nervous debility. He mercilessly exposed the devotees who were pretending to have visions, and asked all to develop a healthy religious spirit. Narendra sang inspiring songs for the younger devotees, read with them the Imitation of Christ and the Gita, and held before them the positive ideals of spirituality.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Each called moreover on the Goddess NINA,(26) for
Her number is An Hundred and Eleven.
0.00 - THE GOSPEL PREFACE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Though his children received proper attention from him, his real family, both during the Master's lifetime and after, consisted of saints, devotees, Sannysins and spiritual aspirants. His life exemplifies the Master's teaching that an ideal householder must be like a good maidservant of a family, loving and caring properly for the children of the house, but knowing always that her real home and children are elsewhere. During the Master's lifetime he spent all his Sundays and other holidays with him and his devotees, and besides listening to the holy talks and devotional music, practised meditation both on the Personal and the Impersonal aspects of God under the direct guidance of the Master. In the pages of the Gospel the reader gets a picture of M.'s spiritual relationship with the Master how from a hazy belief in the Impersonal God of the Brahmos, he was step by step brought to accept both Personality and Impersonality as the two aspects of the same Non-dual Being, how he was convinced of the manifestation of that Being as Gods, Goddesses and as Incarnations, and how he was established in a life that was both of a Jnni and of a Bhakta. This Jnni-Bhakta outlook and way of living became so dominant a feature of his life that Swami Raghavananda, who was very closely associated with him during his last six years, remarks: "Among those who lived with M. in latter days, some felt that he always lived in this constant and conscious union with God even with open eyes (i.e., even in waking consciousness)." (Swami Raghavananda's article on M. in Prabuddha Bharata vol. XXXVII. P. 442.)
Besides undergoing spiritual disciplines at the feet of the Master, M. used to go to holy places during the Master's lifetime itself and afterwards too as a part of his Sdhan.
01.01 - The Symbol Dawn, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The omniscient Goddess leaned across the breadths
That wrap the fated journeyings of the stars
01.03 - Mystic Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is not merely by addressing the beloved as your Goddess that you can attain this mysticism; the Elizabethan did that in merry abundance,ad nauseam.A finer temper, a more delicate touch, a more subtle sensitiveness and a kind of artistic wizardry are necessary to tune the body into a rhythm of the spirit. The other line of mysticism is common enough, viz., to express the spirit in terms and rhythms of the flesh. Tagore did that liberally, the Vaishnava poets did nothing but that, the Song of Solomon is an exquisite example of that procedure. There is here, however, a difference in degrees which is an interesting feature worth noting. Thus in Tagore the reference to the spirit is evident, that is the major or central chord; the earthly and the sensuous are meant as the name and form, as the body to render concrete, living and vibrant, near and intimate what otherwise would perhaps be vague and abstract, afar, aloof. But this mundane or human appearance has a value in so far as it is a support, a pointer or symbol of the spiritual import. And the mysticism lies precisely in the play of the two, a hide-and-seek between them. On the other hand, as I said, the greater portion of Vaishnava poetry, like a precious and beautiful casket, no doubt, hides the spiritual import: not the pure significance but the sign and symbol are luxuriously elaborated, they are placed in the foreground in all magnificence: as if it was their very purpose to conceal the real meaning. When the Vaishnava poet says,
O love, what more shall I, shall Radha speak,
--
The earliest preoccupation of man was religious; even when he concerned himself with the world and worldly things, he referred all that to the other world, thought of gods and Goddesses, of after-death and other where. That also will be his last and ultimate preoccupation though in a somewhat different way, when he has passed through a process of purification and growth, a "sea-change". For although religion is an aspiration towards the truth and reality beyond or behind the world, it is married too much to man's actual worldly nature and carries always with it the shadow of profanity.
The religious poet seeks to tone down or cover up the mundane taint, since he does not know how to transcend it totally, in two ways: (1) by a strong thought-element, the metaphysical way, as it may be called and (2) by a strong symbolism, the occult way. Donne takes to the first course, Blake the second. And it is the alchemy brought to bear in either of these processes that transforms the merely religious into the mystic poet. The truly spiritual, as I have said, is still a higher grade of consciousness: what I call Spirit's own poetry has its own matter and mannerswabhava and swadharma. A nearest approach to it is echoed in those famous lines of Blake:
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The inspiring Goddess entered a mortal's breast,
Made there her study of divining thought
01.04 - The Poetry in the Making, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Artists themselves, almost invariably, speak of their inspiration: they look upon themselves more or less as mere instruments of something or some Power that is beyond them, beyond their normal consciousness attached to the brain-mind, that controls them and which they cannot control. This perception has been given shape in myths and legends. Goddess Saraswati or the Muses are, however, for them not a mere metaphor but concrete realities. To what extent a poet may feel himself to be a mere passive, almost inanimate, instrumentnothing more than a mirror or a sensitive photographic plateis illustrated in the famous case of Coleridge. His Kubla Khan, as is well known, he heard in sleep and it was a long poem very distinctly recited to him, but when he woke up and wanted to write it down he could remember only the opening lines, the rest having gone completely out of his memory; in other words, the poem was ready-composed somewhere else, but the transmitting or recording instrument was faulty and failed him. Indeed, it is a common experience to hear in sleep verses or musical tunes and what seem then to be very beautiful things, but which leave no trace on the brain and are not recalled in memory.
Still, it must be noted that Coleridge is a rare example, for the recording apparatus is not usually so faithful but puts up its own formations that disturb and alter the perfection of the original. The passivity or neutrality of the intermediary is relative, and there are infinite grades of it. Even when the larger waves that play in it in the normal waking state are quieted down, smaller ripples of unconscious or half-conscious habitual formations are thrown up and they are sufficient to cause the scattering and dispersal of the pure light from above.
0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
a masterpiece came to light - a dancing Goddess instead
of a block of stone stood there in front of the sculptor.
0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
The story narrated in the film went like this: Narada, as usual, was having fun. (Narada is a demigod with a divine position that is, he can communicate with man and with the gods as he pleases, and he serves as an intermediary, but then he likes to have fun!) So he was quarrelling with one of the Goddesses, I no longer recall which one, and he told her (Ah, yes! The quarrel was with Saraswati.) Saraswati was telling him that knowledge is much greater than love (much greater in that it is much more powerful than love), and he replied to her, You dont know what youre talking about! (Mother laughs) Love is much more powerful than knowledge. So she challenged him, saying, Well then, prove it to me.I shall prove it to you, he replied. And the whole story starts there. He began creating a whole imbroglio on earth just to prove his point.
It was only a film story, but anyway, the Goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shivajoined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the story Oh yes, the story begins like this: one of the three I believe it was Shivas consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!)was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out because she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, What is it, Devi? (laughter) She answered, I burned my foot! Then Narada said, Arent you ashamed of what you have done?to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply because you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal! She became furious and snapped at him, Show me that it can be otherwise! Narada replied, I am going to show you what it is to really love ones husbandyou dont know anything about it!
Then comes the story of Anusuya and her husb and (who is truly a husb and a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon Anusuyas knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on Anusuyas knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw Anusuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, This is a good occasion! Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto Anusuyas feetwhich startled her because it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing because she didnt want to awaken her husband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And because she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the story), because she invoked Shiva, Shivas foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: Look what you are doing; you are burning your husbands foot! So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.
0 1960-10-19, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
(The day before 'Kali Puja,' the ritual festival devoted each year in India to the Goddess Kali, the warrior aspect of the universal Mother)
She has already been here for two days and Oh, yesterday especially, she was so in such a mood!like a warrior. I said to her, But why not change them through through an excess of love?
0 1961-08-02, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I had a VERY interesting experienceit was last year or the year before, I dont recall, but after I retired to my room upstairs.6 You know that during pujas these Goddesses come all the timethey dont enter the body and tie themselves to it, but they do come and manifest. Well, this time I think it must have been for last years pujaDurga came (she always arrives a few days in advance and remains in the atmosphere; she is present, like thisgesture as if Durga were walking up and down with Mother). I was in touch with her during my meditations upstairs, and this new Power in the body was in me then as it is in me now, and (how to put it?) I made her participate in this concept of surrender. What an experience she had, mon petit! An extraordinary experience of the joy of being connected with That. And she declared, From now on, I am a bhakta of the Lord.
It was beautiful.
0 1962-02-06, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In Sri Aurobindo's play, Andromeda, daughter of the King of Syria, is condemned by her own people to be devoured by Poseidon, the Sea-god, for some impiety she had committed against him. The story is actually about the passage of a half-primitive tribe, living in terror of the old dark and cruel gods, to a more evolved and sunlit stage. Perseus, son of Diana and Zeus, and protected by Pallas Athene, Goddess of wisdom and intelligence, comes to deliver Andromeda from the rock she is chained to (the rock symbolizes the Inconscient for the Rishis), and founds the religion of Athene, "... the Omnipotent / Made from His being to lead and discipline / The immortal spirit of man, till it attain / To order and magnificent mastery / Of all his outward world" (in the words of Sri Aurobindo). It is the force of progress pitted against the old priests of the old religions, symbolized by the cruel and ambitious Polydaon. Here Mother is scrutinizing an old problem"Always the same problem"that she must have encountered in many existences (Egypt included) and would encounter again eleven years later: the acceptance of the death she is forced into as the Supreme's Will, and then this "love of Life" she twice mentions here.
***
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Yantram: Tantric symbol used to invoke or evoke gods, Goddesses, or beings from worlds beyond.
Siddhi: realization (sometimes also occult powers).
0 1962-06-27, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But this one [the tall white Being] is not of human origin; it was not formed in a human life: it is a being that had already incarnated, and is one of those who presided over the formation of this present being [Mother]. But, as I said, I saw it: it was sexless, neither male nor female, and as intrepid as the vital can be, with a calm but absolute power. Ah, I found a very good description of it in one of Sri Aurobindos plays, when he speaks of the Goddess Athena (I think its in Perseus, but I am not sure); she has that kind of its an almighty calm, and with such authority! Yes, its in Perseuswhen she appears to the Sea-God and forces him to retreat to his own domain. Theres a description there that fits this Being quite well.3
Besides, all the Greek gods are various aspects of a single thing: you see it this way, that way, that way, this way (turning her hand, Mother seems to show several facets of a single prism). But its simply one and the same thing.4
--
A whiteness and a strength is in the skies... Virgin formidable In beauty, disturber of the ancient world!... How art thou white and beautiful and calm, Yet clothed in tumult! Heaven above thee shakes Wounded with lightnings, Goddess, and the sea Flees from thy dreadful tranquil feet.
Perseus the Deliverer, Cent. Ed., VI. 6.
0 1962-09-08, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Dont let this visit ruffle you. Essentially, his approach has always seemed peripheral to me, just one part of an immense whole. It represents ONE aspect of the quest for the Divine on earth,2 and it is part of an entire line, like all the sannyasins, all the saddhus, and so on. X happens to have come closer because he has worshipped the Goddess of Love so much, the Shaktis aspect of Love, and that naturally led him here, brought him close, but. I see it as part of a whole worldamong many other things. You know, theres that festival celebrated every ten years, I think, when all the saddhus go to ba the in the Ganges3; Ive seen all the photosits painful. Its its painful. It is no more beautiful or harmonious than a stampeding mob in a revolution. Its there is no special grace.
Now, do you remember the story of that man who has been living at the source of the Ganges for twenty-five years? Here he is (Mother shows his photo). He was in his cave and V. said to him, Id like to take your picture. All right, he answered, and came out and sat down in the snowstark naked.
0 1963-12-31, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A march of Goddess figures dark and nude
Alarmed the air with grandiose unease;
0 1964-09-30, #Agenda Vol 05, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
W told me that over there, during one of his moments of struggle, as he really didnt feel well at night, someone came up to him and ran her hand over his head, and he felt quite well, it put him right again. So he asked X (as for me, I had gone to him consciously, because I received an S.O.S. from him and I went there consciously and brought him relief), but he told X what had happened, and (laughing) X answered him, Its a Goddess! I laughed and said to him, What does he call a Goddess? Probably whatever isnt in a body is a Goddess!
But in this case, it had taken place consciously, I had gone to him consciously, you see, to bring him relief. I asked him, Didnt you see who it was? He said, No, I only saw part of an arm and a sari.
0 1969-01-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Tirupathi or Sripathi: the master of wealth (or husb and of Lakshmi the Goddess of wealth that is to say, Vishnu).
***
0 1970-04-01, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
428What is the use of admiring Nature or worshipping her as a Power, a Presence and a Goddess? What is the use, either, of appreciating her aesthetically or artistically? The secret is to enjoy her with the soul as one enjoys a woman with the body.
Have you seen my answer?
0 1970-04-22, #Agenda Vol 11, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And curiously, I have the sensation of a force of Do you know the Ganges, the Goddess Ganga? I feel an affinity with her.
With the river?
With that Goddess.
Well, thats strange!
02.03 - The Glory and the Fall of Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The worlds, the forms her Goddess fancy makes
Have lost their origin on unseen heights:
--
A Dionysian Goddess of delight,
A Bacchant of creative ecstasy.
--
As comes a Goddess to a mortal's breast
And fills his days with her celestial clasp,
02.05 - Robert Graves, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Like the poet his idol also is of a lower rank or of a plebeian status. He keeps away from such high gods as Indra and Agni and Varuna and Mitra: great poets will sing their praises. He will take care of the lesser ones, those who are moving in the shadow of the great ones and are hardly noticed. Even in these modern days, Goddess Shitala, the healing Goddess of epidemics, lives side by side with Durga.
But really it does not matter if the deity is small. For, if the worship is sincere and the offering pure, they ultimately reach the Divine. Did not Sri Krishna say in the Gita that whom-soever you may worship and in whatever way, that in the end' reaches him? The importance and significance of worship do not depend upon their size and scale: a little water, a leaf, a flower may more than do.
The small gods are small, but do not slight themthey are powerful. They are powerful because they are deities of the earth. In fact, like gods and Goddesses in heaven, there are gods and Goddesses on earth also. The gods in heaven are high and far away, but these unobtrusive deities are near to our hearth and home. The Greeks referred to the Olympian gods, of high caste and rank as it were,like Jupiter and Apollo and to those others who dwelt on the lowly earth and embraced its water and land, its rivers and trees and fields the nymph, the satyr, and Pan and dryad and naiad. What are the powers and functions of these unearthly beings? They on their part are guarding the gate to heaven, questioning the pilgrim of their divine destination. Well, the sentinels have to be appeased first, satisfied and convinced. Surely the sands burn hotter than the sun!
We may ask in this connection which deity does our poet invoke here, to whom does he raise his offerings, to whomkasmai devya? One need not be startled at the answer: it is the toadstool. But the mushroom growth assumes a respectable figure in the guise of its Sanskrit name,chatraka. Kalidasa did one better. His magic touch gave the insignificant flora a luminousrobeilndhra, a charming name. The great poet tells us that the earth is not barren or sterilekartum yat camahmucchilndhrmabandhym. The next pertinent question is: why does the poet worship a toadstool? What is his purpose? Does a toadstool possess any special power? This leads us to a hidden world, to the 'mysteries' spoken of by the poet himself.
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An exiled Goddess building mimic heavens,
A Sphinx whose eyes look up to a hidden Sun.
02.07 - The Descent into Night, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A march of Goddess figures dark and nude
Alarmed the air with grandiose unease;
--
A strong and fallen Goddess without hope,
Obscured, deformed by some dire Gorgon spell,
02.11 - Hymn to Darkness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The poet has not perhaps the spiritual sense as we in India understand it. He speaks in effect of a dark Goddess, he calls her
Douve profonde et noire3
--
A modern English poetRobert Graves -worships a White Goddess. But from the description he gives of the lady, she would appear to be more black than white; for she seems to be intimately connected with the affairs that is to say the mysteries of Hades and Hecate, underground worlds and midnight rites. She incarnates as the sow, although a white sow, she flows as the sap within plants and rises as passion and lust in man.
We in India have a dark god and a dark GoddessKrishna and Kali. Krishna is dark, his is the deep blue of the sky. Kali is dark, hers is the blackness of the earthly night. The Vaishnava poet and saint sang:
Oh, I love black,
--
Here, for example, is a hymn from the Rig Veda, a whole hymn addressed by Rishi Kushika to Night. Listen how the Rishi invokes his black Goddess: Night and Light are unified almost one -in his consciousness. The Vedic Rishis considered Night as only another form or function of Daynaktoasa samans *virpeNight and Dawn have the same mind although the forms are different.
Ode to Darkness
--
(I) Night spreads wide, she comes everywhere, a Goddess with shining eyesshe looms over these glories as their overlord.
(II) The Immortal Goddess fills up the Vast, above and below. She compels the darkness with her light.
(III) The Goddess comes and veils her sister, the Dawn and glows through the blackness.
(IV) She is now that to us wherein we shall rest even as birds do on a tree.
--
(VI) O Ocean-born Goddess! Smite the wolf, he or she, smite the robber! Carry us safely through.
(VII) Black darkness clings to me all around; it stands here firm. Dawn! clear it even as you do my debts.
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
His worshipped changeless Goddess through all time.
Or else, a faithful consort of his mind
--
The great and boundless Goddess feigned to yield
The sunlit sweetness of her secrecies.
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As we have said, a normally healthy society is a harmonious welding of these four elements. A society becomes diseased when only one member gets inflated and all-powerful at the expense of others or whenever there is an unholy alliance of some against the rest. Priest-craft, the Church militant, Fanaticism (religious or ideological), Inquisition are corruptions that show themselves when the first principle, the principle of Brahminhood, becomes exclusive and brings in arrogance and ignorance. Similarly colonisation and imperialism of the type only too familiar to us are aberrations of the spirit that the second principle embodies the spirit of the Kshattriya. Likewise financial cartels, the industrial magnates, the profiteer, the arriviste are diseased growths in the economic body of a modern society which has forgotten the true Vaishya spirit that seeks to produce wealth in order to share and distribute fairly and equitably. The remedy of these ills society has suffered from is not the introduction of a fourth evil, the tyranny of the Fourth Estate of the proletariate. The Fourth was reduced, it is true, to a state of slavery and serfdom, of untouchability, at its reductio ad absurdum. The cure, we say, is not in blind revolt and an inauguration of the same evil under a new name and form, which means its perpetuation, but in the creation of a new life and soul, that can happen only with the creation of a new head and front Zeus-like that would give birth to the Goddess of light and knowledge, inspirer of a true Brahminhood.
We repeat a fair and sure economic basis has to be found for the down-trodden, proletarian or other. For the proletariate is not the only unfortunate in the human society. There are whole groups of the unfortunate in the three other Estates also. Or perhaps if we like we can extend the meaning of the term "proletariate" and include in it all the less favoured sections of all the Four Orders.
02.14 - The World-Soul, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The sole omnipotent Goddess ever-veiled
Of whom the world is the inscrutable mask;
03.03 - The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The eternal Goddess moved in her cosmic house
Sporting with God as a Mother with her child:
03.08 - The Spiritual Outlook, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
When the Divine acts, it acts always in and through this transcendental and innermost truth of things. When it helps the seeker, it touches and inspires the secret soul in himhis truthnot like the human teacher or reformer who addresses himself to the outer personality, to laws and codes, prohibitions and injunctions, reward and punishment, for the education and instruction of his pupil. Indeed, the Divine chastises also in the same way. The Asura or the anti-divine he does not kill with one blow nor even with many blows of his thunderbolt or burn away with his red wrath. The image of Zeus or Jehovah is a human figuration: it depicts the human way of dealing with one's enemies. The Divine deals with the undivine in the divine way, for the undivine too is not something outside the Divine. The Asura also has; his truth, his truth in the Divine, only it has been degraded and deformed under circumstances. The Divine simply disengages, picks up that core of truth and takes it away so that it can no longer be appropriated and deformed by the Asura who now losing the secret support of his truth automatically crumbles to pieces as mere husk and chaff. If there is something more than the merely human in the image of Durga, the Goddess transfixing her lance right into the heart of the Asura may be taken as indicative of this occult truth.
There is then this singular and utter harmony in the divine consciousness resolving all contraries and incompatibles. Neha nnsti kicana, there is no division or disparity here. Established in this consciousness, the spiritual man naturally and inevitably finds that he is in all and all are in him and that he is all and all are he, for all and he are indivisibly that single (yet multiple) reality. The brotherhood of man is only a derivative from the more fundamental truth of the universal selfhood of man.
03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is this characteristic that struck the European mind in its first contact with the Indian artistic world and called forth the criticism that Indian culture lacks in humanism. It is true, a very sublimated humanism finds remarkable expression in Ajanta, and perhaps it is here that the Western eye began to learn and appreciate the Indian style of beauty; even in Ajanta, however, in the pieces where the art reaches its very height, mere humanism seems to be at its minimum. And if we go beyond these productions that reflect the mellowness and humaneness of the Buddhist Compassion, if we go into the sanctuary of the Brahmanic art, we find that the experiences embodied there and the method of expression become more and more "anonymous"; they have not, that is to say, the local colour of humanity, which alone makes the European mind feel entirely at home. Europe's revulsion of feeling against Indian art came chiefly from her first meeting with the multiple-headed, multiple-armed, expressionless, strangely poised Hindu gods and Goddesses, so different in every way from ordinary human types.
Indian art had to be non-human, because its aim was to be supra-human, unnatural, because its very atmosphere was the supra-natural.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Whatever the immediate necessity of such drastic negative procedures, true and abiding social welfare depends upon a deeper and wider planning. The aim should not be merely to look for grievances and deal with them piecemeal, but to create conditions in which such grievances do not arise at all, or are reduced to a minimum. For the economic well-being of the society, a just and equitable distribution of wealth is a sound policy, no doubt, but before that one must have wealth and enough of it. The stress should therefore be on increased production, "grow-more-food". The workers must consider themselves ministers to the Goddess Lakshmi. To bring prosperity to the commonwealth, to discover and marshal the resources, increase the output and thus help to raise the standard of life that is the true role of loyal workers. But as it is, in the way they behave and act, at present they are consumers more than producers. To concentrate all attention and energy upon solely decreasing the hours of work and increasing the wages can have no other meaning. Leisure, rest, recreation are necessary, but that should not mean laziness, unwillingness to work, dissipation. One should be decently paid for one's labour, one must not be overworked, yes, but one must look to the other side also, one must bear in mind the capacity of the payer and the needs of the others in the society. Necessity is one thing, greed or selfishness is another. The greed to possess all the golden eggs at once sometimes leads to a disastrous procedure.
The farmer proprietor, the bourgeois, the capitalist in a modern society, whatever charges of exploitation may be brought against them, are, each in his own way, precisely centres of production, of wealth increment. They are not merely and not always blood-suckers, and heartless profiteers. One need not rob, burn, kill them in a mad rush; they too can be utilised, their services placed at the disposal of the commonwealth. These are names which we may not like because of unhappy associations in the past, but the realities, the types of forces they represent are, many of them, permanent features of Nature's economy. They come up in other forms and names. They have suppressed bourgeois bureaucracy in Russia, but it has reappeared in what is termed nowadays as the "managerial" system.
04.01 - The Birth and Childhood of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ideal Goddess in her house of gold.
Aware of forms to which our eyes are closed,
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This episode links up with the inner story of mankind, its spiritual history. The growing or evolving consciousness of man was not only an outgoing and widening movement: it was also a heightening, an ascent into ranges that are not normally perceived, towards summits of our true reality. We have spoken of the Grco-Roman culture as the source and foundation of European civilisation; but apart from that there was a secret vein of life that truly vivified it, led it by an occult but constant influence along channels and achievements that are meant to serve the final goal and purpose. The Mysteries prevalent and practised in Greece itself and Crete and the occult rites of Egyptian priests, the tradition of a secret knowledge and discipline found in the Kabbalah, the legendary worship of gods and Goddesses sometimes confused, sometimes identified with Nature forcesall point to the existence of a line of culture which is known in India as Yoga. If all other culture means knowledge, Yoga is the knowledge of knowledge. As the Upanishad says, there are two categories of knowledge, the superior and-the inferior. The development of the mind and life and body belongs to the domain of Inferior Knowledge: the development of the soul, the discovery of the Spirit means the Superior Knowledge.
This knowledge remained at the outset scattered, hidden, confined to a few, a company of adepts: it had almost no direct contact with the main current of life. Its religious aspect too was so altered and popularised as to represent and serve the secular life. The systematisation and propagation of that knowledgeat least the aspiration for that knowledgewas attempted on an effective scale in the Hebrew Old Testament. But then a good amount of externalities, of the Inferior Knowledge was mixed up with the inner urge and the soul perception. The Christ with his New Testament came precisely with the mission of cleaning the Augean stables, in place of the dross and coverings, the false and deformed godheads, to instal something of the purest ray of the inner consciousness, the unalloyed urge of the soul, the demand of our spiritual personality. The Church sought to build up society on that basis, attempting a fusion of the spiritual and the temporal power, so that instead of a profane secular world, a mundane or worldly world, there maybe established God's own world, the City of God.
04.02 - The Growth of the Flame, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Divined the Goddess in the woman's shape
04.03 - The Call to the Quest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A Goddess in a net of transience caught,
Self-bound in the pastures of death she dreams of life,
04.03 - To the Heights III, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Is it the awakening of the sleeping Goddess?
Is it the resurrection of the self-immolated One?
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Brahmin is he who represents in his nature and character the principle and movement of knowledge, of comprehension and inclusion, of peace and harmonyall the qualities that are termed sttwic. A Brahmin does not fight, the very build of his consciousness prevents him from wounding and hurting; he has no enemy; even if he is attacked or killed, he does not raise his arm to protect himself (although Ramakrishna would prescribe even for him a modified or mollified mode of resisting the evil, hissing at least if not biting). The Biblical injunction, we know, is to present the other cheek too to the smiter. This is for those who follow the Brahminical discipline. But a Kshatriya, who in his nature and consciousness is a warrior, has another dharma; he is the armed guard of knowledge and truth, he is strength and force. He has to resist the evil in the name of the Lord, he has to raise his arm to strike. He is the instrument of Rudra and Mahakali. Does not the mighty Goddess declare I draw the bow for Rudra, I hurl the arrow to slay the hater of the truth?4 If the Kshatriya does not follow his own dharma, but seeks to imitate the Brahmin, he brings about a confusion liable to disintegrate the society, he is then un-Aryan, inglorious, unworthy of heaven, deserving all the epithets which Sri Krishna heaped upon the dejected, depressed and confused Arjuna. So long as the world is held by brute force, so long as there is the sway of evil power over the material earth and the physical body, there will be the need to resist it physically: if I do not do it, other instruments will be found. I may say like Arjuna, overwhelmed with pity and grief, I shall not fight, but God and the cosmic deities may refuse my refusal and compel me to do what in my ignorance and wrong headedness I would not like to do.
Rig Veda, IX. 126
05.03 - Satyavan and Savitri, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And led the uncertain Goddess from his side.
Outcast from empire of the outer light,
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the old world, before Science was born, sufficient distinction or discrimination was not made between the observer and the observed. The observer mixed himself up or identified himself with what he observed and the result was not a scientific statement but a poetic description. Personal feelings, ideas, judgments entered into the presentation of facts and the whole mass passed as truth, the process often being given the high-sounding name of Intuition, Vision or Revelation but whose real name is fancy. And if there happened to be truth off act somewhere, it was almost by chance. Once we thought of the eclipse being due to the greed of a demon, and pestilence due to the evil eye of a wicked Goddess. The universe was born out of an egg, the cosmos consisted of concentric circles of worlds that were meant to reward the virtuous and punish the sinner in graded degrees. These are some of the very well-known instances of pathetic fallacy, that is to say, introducing the element of personal sentiment in our appreciation of events and objects. Even today Nazi race history and Soviet Genetics carry that unscientific prescientific tradition.
Science was born the day when the observer cut himself aloof from the observed. Not only so, not only he is to stand aside, outside the field of observation and be a bare recorder, but that he must let the observed record itself, that is, be its own observer. Modern Science means not so much the observer narrating the story of the observed but the observed telling its own story. The first step is well exemplified in the story of Galileo. When hot discussion was going on and people insisted on sayingas Aristotle decided and common sense declared that heavier bodies most naturally fall quicker from a height, it was this prince of experimenters who straightaway took two different weights, went up the tower of Pisa and let them drop and astounded the people by showing that both travel with equal speed and fall to the ground at the same time.
05.20 - The Urge for Progression, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the process of the expression and embodiment of this innermost truth, the first necessary condition is, as we have said, sincerity, that is to say, a constant reference to the demand of that truth, putting everything and judging everything in the light of that truth, a vigilant wakefulness to it. The second condition is progression. It is the law of the Truth that it is expressing itself, seeking to express itself continually and continuously in the march of life; it is always unfolding new norms and forms of its light and power, ever new degrees of realisation. The individual human consciousness has to recognise that progressive flux and march along with it. Human consciousness, the complex of external mind and life and body consciousness, has the habit of halting, clinging to the forms, experiences and gains of the past, storing them in memory, agreeing to a minimum change only just to be able to pour the new into the old. But this conservatism, which is another name for tamasis fatal to the living truth within. Even like the lan vitalso gloriously hymned by Bergson, the inmost consciousness, the central truth of being, the soul lanhas always a forward-looking reference. And it is precisely because the normal instrument of the body and life and mind has always a backward reference, because it slings ,back and cannot keep pace with the march of the soul-consciousness that these members stagnate, wear away, decay and death ends it all. The past has its utility: it marks the stages of progress. It means assimilation, but must not mean stagnation. It may supply the present basis but must always open out to what is coming or may come. If one arrives at a striking realisation, a light is revealed, a Voice, a mantra heard, a norm disclosed, it is simply to be noted, taken in the stuff of the being, made part and parcel of the consciousness; you leave it at that and pass and press on. You must not linger at wayside illuminations however beautiful or even useful some may be. The ideal of the paryataka the wanderermay be taken as a concrete symbol of this principle. The Brahmanas described it graphically in the famous phrase, caraivete, "move on". The Vedic Rishi sang of it in the memorable hymn to Dawn, the Goddess who comes today the last of a succession of countless dawns in the immemorial past and the first of a never-ending series of the future. The soul is strung with a golden chain to the Great Fulfilment that moves ahead: even when fulfilled the soul does not rest or come to the end of its mission, it continues to be an ever new expression or instrumentation of the Infinite.
***
07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Strange Goddesses with deep-pooled magical eyes,
Strong wind-haired gods carrying the harps of hope,
07.04 - The Triple Soul-Forces, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I am Durga, Goddess of the proud and strong,
And Lakshmi, queen of the fair and fortunate;
07.05 - The Finding of the Soul, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These Gods and Goddesses were he and she:
The Mother was she of Beauty and Delight,
07.30 - Sincerity is Victory, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
How to Feel that we Belong to the Divine Images of Gods and Goddesses
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SevenSincerity is Victory
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How to Feel that we Belong to the Divine Images of Gods and Goddesses
07.31 - Images of Gods and Goddesses, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:07.31 - Images of Gods and Goddesses
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
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Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part Seven Images of Gods and Goddesses
Images of Gods and Goddesses
Are the usual images of gods and Goddesses true to reality?
Well when a little child draws a picture of an object, is there any likeness? It is about the same or even worse here. For the child is simple and sincere, while the image-maker is full of prejudices and preconceived ideas, stuffed with things he has heard or read. And he is tied to his constructions. But at times, here and there, very rarely indeed, artists appear with an inner vision, with a great aspiration and a great purity of soul; they do things that are acceptable. But they are exceptions, the contrary is the rule.
07.32 - The Yogic Centres, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Images of Gods and Goddesses The Inner and the Outer
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta Part SevenThe Yogic Centres
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Images of Gods and Goddesses The Inner and the Outer
08.03 - Death in the Forest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Bowed down to the great Goddess simply carved
By Satyavan upon a forest stone.
--
I hold thee for a strong Goddess who has come
Pitying our barren days; so dost thou serve
09.01 - Towards the Black Void, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Let not the dreadful Goddess move thy soul
To enlarge thy vehement trespass into worlds
09.02 - The Journey in Eternal Night and the Voice of the Darkness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What shall the ancient Goddess give to thee
Who helps thy heart-beats? Only she prolongs
10.01 - The Dream Twilight of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
As when a Goddess' bosom dimly moves
To first desire and her white soul transfigured,
10.04 - The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Mighty art thou with the dread Goddess filled,
To whom thou criedst at dawn in the dim woods.
--
Her Goddess self grew visible in her eyes,
Light came, a dream of heaven, into her face.
10.04 - Transfiguration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
As of the Brahman, even so of the Brahman's qualities. They are various aspects, living aspects or personalities of the One Divine. The Vedas therefore consider them as Gods and Goddesses and give each one a name and a form. They are adored and worshipped as such so that they may enter into the worshipper and transmute him into something of His image. The Gods bring riches to man. But these riches are they themselves. Vasu is the richness of their substance, Ratna is the wealth of their delight.
Agni is the energy of consciousness, Varuna is the vastness of consciousness, Mitra is the harmony. Ila is the revelation, Saraswati inspiration, Bharati is the Goddess of the Divine Word.
In the mental world we meet abstractions, lifeless ideas, forms without a soul. In reality, however, all movements in man, all forces in nature are more than mere movements and forces, they are personalities, embodiments of conscious beings. Indeed the Puranic tradition has elaborated this conception almost to its extreme limit. Those people crowded the world with an infinite number of Gods and Goddesses. They speak of 33 crores of Gods. The earth is the playfield of all godlings.
In this way we come very far from the Supreme Brahman, the Mayavadin's inane Unity. The Puranic multiplicity is perhaps a corrective of the Vedantin's empty Absolute.
10.11 - Savitri, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Dharadham see the Goddess looking back
Returning to the hope of the sun, thoughtful motion
10.12 - Awake Mother, #Writings In Bengali and Sanskrit, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Wiping off with Her mighty breath the whole kingdom of the titans and the violent Goddess comes smiling
Then shall we know the Mother.
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
flights. To the men of antiquity the anima appeared as a Goddess
or a witch, while for medieval man the Goddess was replaced by
the Queen of Heaven and Mother Church. The desymbolized
--
as a Goddess, but, it may be, as an intimately personal misad-
venture, or perhaps as our best venture. When, for instance, a
1.01 - BOOK THE FIRST, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Then thus the gracious Goddess, nodding, said;
Depart, and with your vestments veil your head:
--
The cautious Goddess, of her gift possest,
Yet harbour'd anxious thoughts within her breast;
--
But that the Goddess bore a golden bow:
Distinguish'd thus, the sight she cheated too.
--
The Goddess was appeas'd; and at the word
Was Io to her former shape restor'd.
--
A Goddess now, through all th' Aegyptian State:
And serv'd by priests, who in white linnen wait.
1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That was the general aspect of the ancient worship in Greece, Rome, India and among other ancient peoples. But in all these countries these gods began to assume a higher, a psychological function; Pallas Athene who may have been originally a Dawn- Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God, Dyaus of the Veda, has in classical Greece a higher function and was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom; similarly, Saraswati, a river Goddess, becomes in India the Goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts: all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction - Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a god of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, god of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahma - developing from the Vedic Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, - Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete, the earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon and this was largely due to the survival of the Rig Veda in which their psychological and their external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis; there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features of the Gods of Greece and Rome.
This change was evidently due to a cultural development in these early peoples who became progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilisation and needed to read into their religion and their deities finer and subtler aspects which would support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests and find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction.
--
He is not thinking of the Nature-Power presiding over the outer element of fire or of the fire of the ceremonial sacrifice. Or he speaks of Saraswati as one who impels the words of Truth and awakes to right thinkings or as one opulent with the thought: Saraswati awakes to consciousness or makes us conscious of the "Great Ocean and illumines all our thoughts." It is surely not the River Goddess whom he is thus hymning but the Power, theRiver if you will, of inspiration, the word of the Truth, bringing its light into our thoughts, building up in us that Truth, an inner knowledge. The Gods constantly stand out in their psychological functions; the sacrifice is the outer symbol of an inner work, an inner interchange between the gods and men, - man givingwhat he has, the gods giving in return the horses of power, the herds of light, the heroes of Strength to be his retinue, winning for him victory in his battle with the hosts of Darkness, Vritras, Dasyus, Panis. When the Rishi says, "Let us become conscious whether by the War-Horse or by the Word of a Strength beyond men", his words have either a mystic significance or they have no coherent meaning at all. In the portions translated in this book we have many mystic verses and whole hymns which, however mystic, tear the veil off the outer sacrificial images covering the real sense of the Veda. "Thought", says the Rishi, "has nourished for us human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens; it is the milch-cow which milks of itself the wealth of many forms" - the many kinds of wealth, cows, horses and the rest for which the sacrificer prays; evidently this is no material wealth, it is something which Thought, the Thought embodied in the Mantra, can give and it is the result of the same Thought that nourishes our human things in the Immortals, in the Great Heavens. A process of divinisation, and of a bringing down of great and luminous riches, treasures won from the Gods by the inner work of sacrifice, is hinted at in terms necessarily covert but still for one who knows how to read these secret words, nin.ya vacamsi, sufficiently expressive, kavaye nivacana. Again, Night and Dawn the eternal sisters are like "joyful weaving women weaving the weft of our perfected works into the form of a sacrifice."
Again, words with a mystic form and meaning, but there
1.01 - MAPS OF EXPERIENCE - OBJECT AND MEANING, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
reconstruct the decisive moments of creation, as the Sumerians conceived it. The Goddess Nammu
(whose name is written with the pictograph representing the primordial sea) is presented as the mother
1.01 - Proem, #Of The Nature Of Things, #Lucretius, #Poetry
Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on,
Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away,
--
Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee,
Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath
1.01 - Tara the Divine, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
appearance, they are called Goddesses.
From a relative point of view, however, some
--
truth. Having become a Goddess, she has placed
millions of beings on the path of awakening each day.
1.01 - The King of the Wood, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Bronze statuettes found in her precinct represent the Goddess
herself holding a torch in her raised right hand; and women whose
--
festival of the Goddess, hunting dogs were crowned and wild beasts
were not molested; young people went through a purificatory ceremony
--
legend with other tales of the loves of Goddesses for mortal men,
such as the love of Cybele and the Moon for the fair youths Attis
--
the Goddess, in accordance with a custom which is still observed in
many parts of Europe. To this day it would seem that the spring
--
Artemis was originally a great Goddess of fertility, and, on the
principles of early religion, she who fertilises nature must herself
--
the Goddess, and so to promote the fruitfulness of the earth, of
cattle, and of mankind. It is some confirmation of this view that
--
lives for the brief rapture of the love of an immortal Goddess.
These hapless lovers were probably not always mere myths, and the
--
of the Gods. For Diana, like Artemis, was a Goddess of fertility in
general, and of childbirth in particular. As such she, like her
--
conjecture that they stood to the Goddess of the grove in the same
relation in which Virbius stood to her; in short, that the mortal
--
only have worshipped it as his Goddess but embraced it as his wife.
There is at least nothing absurd in the supposition, since even in
--
on its trunk. Apparently he took the tree for the Goddess. The
custom of physically marrying men and women to trees is still
--
immemorial antiquity; that she was revered as the Goddess of
woodlands and of wild creatures, probably also of domestic cattle
1.01 - The Rape of the Lock, #The Rape of the Lock, #unset, #Zen
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle?
--
And decks the Goddess with the glitt'ring spoil.
This casket India's glowing gems unlocks,
1.01 - Two Powers Alone, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
0:The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the Goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
1: There are two powers that alone can effect in their conjunction the great and difficult thing which is the aim of our endeavour, a fixed and unfailing aspiration that calls from below and a supreme Grace from above that answers.
10.24 - Savitri, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus a crisis very similar to that which Ashwapati had to face now confronts Savitri also. Both of them were at the crossroads away from the earth in the pure delights of the heavens or in the world labouring on earth's soil. Savitri's soul was now revealed to her in its fullness. She viewed the mighty destiny for which she had come down and the great work she had to achieve here upon earth, not any personal or individual human satisfaction or achievement but a cosmic fulfilment, a global human realisation. The godhead in Savitri is now fully awake, established in its plenitude the Divinity incarnate in the human frame. All the godheads, all the Goddess-emanations now entered into her and moulded the totality of her mighty stature.
Here begins then the second stage of her mission,her work and achievement, the conquest of Death. Only the Divine human being can conquer Death. Savitri follows Death step by step revealing gradually the mystery of death, his personality and his true mission, although the dark God thinks that it is he who is taking away Satyavan and Savitri along with him, to his own home, his black annihilation. For Death is that in its first appearance, it is utter destruction, nothing-ness, non-existence. So the mighty Godhead declares in an imperious tone to the mortal woman Savitri:
--
But man in the strength of his ignorance and arrogance does not recognise this Goddess. Human power, we have said, is a reflection, a shadow of the Divine Power but most often it is a deformed, a perverted Divine Power. Man is full of his egoistic vital self-confidence: he believes it is his own will that is realising all, all which is achieved here; whatever he has creater it is through the might of his own merit and whatever new creations will be done in the future will be through the Grace of his own genius. A mighty vital selfhood obscures his consciousness and he sees nothing else, understands nothing else beyond the reach of that limited vision. This is the Rakshasa, this is the Asura in man. Here is his philosophy of life:
I climb, a claimant to the throne of heaven.||123.33||
--
So this vital being in man in his Rakshasic hunger and Asuric self-conceit rejects the Divine Power that is in fact behind him too, supporting him. The Goddess, in the wake of her predecessor, goes back from where she came, leaving however a consoling word, assuring that one day she will return; she will bide her time. For one day,
The cry of the ego shall be hushed within,
--
Thus, this Goddess too, is rejected like her previous comrades, the Mother of Light, the Deity who is properly the guide and ruler of man's own destiny. Even she is refused but hers is not to complain, in tranquil quietness she brings comfort and hope to the troubled human mind and says she goes to come back in the fullness of her incarnation. She utters divinely:
One day I shall return, His hands in mine,||124.71||
1.02 - BOOK THE SECOND, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
And Gods and Goddesses the waters grac'd.
Aegeon here a mighty whale bestrode;
--
Nor lightly tripp'd, nor by the Goddess ran,
As once she us'd, the foremost of the train.
--
That sure the virgin Goddess (had she been
Aught but a virgin) must the guilt have seen.
--
The Goddess prais'd: "And now no spies are near
Let's strip, my gentle maids, and wash," she cries.
--
"Begone!" the Goddess cries with stern disdain,
"Begone! nor dare the hallow'd stream to stain":
--
The Goddess cast a furious look, and cry'd,
"It is enough! I'm fully satisfy'd!
--
Jove to a Goddess has transform'd the beast;
This, this was all my weak revenge could do:
--
The Goddess ended, and her wish was giv'n.
Back she return'd in triumph up to Heav'n;
--
The frowning Goddess drove me from her sight,
And for her fav'rite chose the bird of night.
--
A virgin Goddess heard a virgin's pray'r.
For, as my arms I lifted to the skies,
--
Soon as she saw the Goddess gay and bright,
She fetch'd a groan at such a chearful sight.
--
The Goddess gave (for she abhorr'd her sight)
A short command: "To Athens speed thy flight;
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
the feminine dragon of chaos, primordial Goddess of creation (the uroboros and the Great Mother are
conflated, as is frequently the case, in this myth); Apsu, Tiamats husb and and consort; the elder gods,
--
reconstruct the decisive moments of creation, as the Sumerians conceived it. The Goddess Nammu
(whose name is written with the pictograph representing the primordial sea) is presented as the mother
--
became parents of the god Geb (the Earth) and of the Goddess Nut (the Sky). The demiurge performed
the act of creation by masturbating himself or by spitting. The expressions are naively coarse, but their
--
was killed and his widow Tiamat, Goddess of the bitter or salt waters, threatened the gods with
destruction. Marduk, the champion of the gods, killed her and split her in two, creating heaven out of
--
elish, it is clear that he is the masculine consort of Tiamat. The masculine consort of the Goddess of the
unknown is inevitably the god of the known (or his progenitor and dependent, the knower). It is the
--
hierodule [ritual slave/prostitute] personifying the Goddess; and (5) the determination of destinies by the
gods.252
--
marriage of the king, and the queen or Goddess. This marriage provides dramatic representation of the
union of the exploratory tendency (incarnated by the king) with the positive aspect of the unknown,
--
the Uroboros. In the incarnation depicted, the Great Mother is Venus, Goddess of fertility and love. As the
winged mother bird and matter she is spirit and earth at once; the wings might just as easily be
--
Hathor, the good cow Goddess, who in the form of a hippopotamus is the Goddess of the underworld.
She has a positive aspect, and at the same time she is the Goddess of war and death....
In the course of the later307 development of patriarchal values, i.e., of the male deities of the sun and
--
The Terrible Mother challenges and threatens the individual, absolutely. She is Goddess of anxiety,
depression, and psychological chaos Goddess of the possibility of pain and death. She is horror, insofar as
horror can be imagined, and is the ground of that horror, beyond. She exposes and turns to her advantage
--
above all, are her helpers, and among all peoples the Goddesses of war and the hunt express mans
experience of life as a female exacting blood. This Terrible Mother is the hungry earth, which devours
--
composed of skulls, the Terrible Mother was Goddess of death and dismemberment, object of sacrificial
homage. As Goddess of the Snake, she was sacred in ancient Crete, and worshipped by the Romans. Her
modern equivalents remain extant in Bali and India. Kali, Hindu Goddess portrayed in Figure 34:
Unexplored Territory as Destructive Mother 312 is eight-armed, like a spider, and sits within a web of fire.
--
This gorgon is a late vestigial remnant, so to speak, of an early Goddess, who simultaneously
embodied natures incredible productive fecundity and callous disregard for life. A neuropsychological
--
many-breasted Greco-Roman Goddess Diana, or Artemis mistress of the animals is portrayed in Figure
35: Unexplored Territory as Creative Mother.316
--
representations statuettes of nude Goddesses, among the most ancient objects of art known318 appear to
represent fecundity and the productive countenance of nature, in anthropomorphic form. The creation and
--
In her hideous aspect (ghora-rupa) the Goddess, as Kali, the dark one, raises the skull full of
seething blood to her lips; her devotional image shows her dressed in blood red, standing in a boat
--
most favored thing) constituted a necessary precondition (1) for the emergence of the beneficial Goddess
and (2) for continued successful adaptation. Incorporation of the sacrificial individual, in actuality (in ritual
--
of the heroic sacrifice then came to portray the emergence of the beneficient Goddess, capable of
showering reward upon man, her eternal lover and child.
--
which is to say, whether her behavior invokes the Goddess of love or the god of fear will depend on
her current position in a given social hierarchy. If she is single, and acting in context, she may be
1.02 - Taras Tantra, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
the Goddess, played an important role in the
propagation of the practice in Tibet.
--
As soon as Atisha was born, the Goddess clearly
4Ldicated that she would protect the child. Atisha was
1.02 - THE QUATERNIO AND THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERCURIUS, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
[5] The arrangement of the opposites in a quaternity is shown in an interesting illustration in Stolcenbergs Viridarium chymicum (Fig. XLII), which can also be found in the Philosophia reformata of Mylius (1622, p. 117). The Goddesses represent the four seasons of the sun in the circle of the Zodiac (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) and at the same time the four degrees of heating,22 as well as the four elements combined around the circular table.23 The synthesis of the elements is effected by means of the circular movement in time (circulatio, rota) of the sun through the houses of the Zodiac. As I have shown elsewhere,24 the aim of the circulatio is the production (or rather, reproduction) of the Original Man, who was a sphere. Perhaps I may mention in this connection a remarkable quotation from Ostanes in Abul-Qasim, describing the intermediate position between two pairs of opposites constituting a quaternio:
Ostanes said, Save me, O my God, for I stand between two exalted brilliancies known for their wickedness, and between two dim lights; each of them has reached me and I know not how to save myself from them. And it was said to me, Go up to Agathodaimon the Great and ask aid of him, and know that there is in thee somewhat of his nature, which will never be corrupted. . . . And when I ascended into the air he said to me, Take the child of the bird which is mixed with redness and spread for the gold its bed which comes forth from the glass, and place it in its vessel whence it has no power to come out except when thou desirest, and leave it until its moistness has departed.25
1.02 - The Recovery, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The Darshan day at last! In the morning, the Mother arrived in his room with a flower, probably a red lotus, knelt before the Lord, placed the lotus on his bed and bowed down to receive his blessings and his sweet smile. This was the second time I saw her doing pranam to him. The first time was on her birthday, February 21. It was a revelation to me, for I did not expect her to bow down in the Indian way. On every Darshan day since then I enjoyed the sight. On other days she used to take his hand and lightly kiss it. With her customary drive, she chalked out the Darshan programme, the time for Sri Aurobindo's lunch and of her coming for the Darshan. We had to be ready and keep the Master ready too. From the early morning time began to move fast, the Mother was seen rushing about, she had so many things to attend to! Everything finished, clad in a lovely sari, a crown adorning her shapely head, looking like a veritable Goddess, she entered Sri Aurobindo's room with brisk steps, earlier than the appointed time, as was her wont. She gave a quick glance at us. We were all attention. The entire group was present, it being the first Darshan after the accident. She was pleased to find us ready. Sri Aurobindo was dressed in an immaculate white dhoti, its border daintily creased, as is the custom in Bengal; a silk chaddar across his chest and his long shining hair flowing down a picture that reminded us of Shiva and Shakti going out to give darshan to their bhaktas; Sri Aurobindo was in front and the Mother behind. They sat together as on other Darshan days, she on his right, a glorious view, and the ceremony began.
It was, however, a simple Darshan. One by one the sadhaks stood for a brief moment before the One-in-Two, and passed on quietly thrilled and exalted by their silent look and gracious smile. The feelings of the sadhaks can be imagined when they saw their beloved Master restored to his normal health! The Darshan was over within an hour, and when Sri Aurobindo was back in his room Dr. Rao remarked in his childlike manner, "Sir, you looked grand at the Darshan!" Sri Aurobindo smiled and we retorted, just to tease him, "At other times he doesn't?" Rao, nonplussed, replied, "No, no, I did not mean that." Truly, Rao had expressed the sentiments of hundreds of devotees who had a glimpse of him during the Darshan. What a grandeur and majesty in his simple silent pose! What a power, as if he held the whole world in the palm of his hand! If ever a human being could attain the stature of a god, he was there for all to see and be blessed by. Many have had a deep change after just one touch of his God-like magnificence. "A touch can alter the fixed front of Fate." Many had visions and boons they had long been seeking for, and for the sadhaks each Darshan was a step to a further milestone towards the Eternal. Sri Aurobindo had said: "Darshans are periods of great descents!" It was not for nothing that Hitler chose the 15th of August for his royal ascension in Buckingham Palace and got the first heavy blow. Nor was it for nothing that India gained her independence on that immortal day.
1.02 - The Virtues, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
One day a festival was held there, not for men but for very different beings, gods and Goddesses great and small, who on earth are honoured by the name of Virtues.
The vestibule of the palace was a great hall, where the walls, the floor, the ceiling, luminous in themselves, were resplendent with a myriad glittering fires.
1.02 - Where I Lived, and What I Lived For, #Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, #Henry David Thoreau, #Philosophy
Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a Goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.
Olympus is but the outside of the earth every where.
1.03 - BOOK THE THIRD, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Here the bright Goddess, toil'd and chaf'd with heat,
Was wont to ba the her in the cool retreat.
--
Now all undrest the shining Goddess stood,
When young Actaeon, wilder'd in the wood,
--
Then in a huddle round their Goddess prest:
She, proudly eminent above the rest,
--
A Goddess naked to thy view expos'd."
This said, the man begun to disappear
--
Fit for a virgin Goddess to impose.
The hearers into diff'rent parts divide,
--
Nor would condemn the Goddess, nor excuse:
She heeded not the justice of the deed,
--
Thus terribly incens'd, the Goddess broke
To sudden fury, and abruptly spoke.
--
The Goddess, thus disguis'd in age, beguil'd
With pleasing stories her false foster-child.
--
Full often when the Goddess might have caught
Jove and her rivals in the very fault,
--
The Goddess found out the deceit in time,
And then she cry'd, "That tongue, for this thy crime,
1.03 - Hymns of Gritsamada, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3. O Fire, thou art Indra the Bull of all that are and thou art wide-moving2 Vishnu, one to be worshipped with obeisance. O Master of the Word, thou art Brahma, the finder of the Riches: O Fire who sustainest each and all, closely thou companionest the Goddess of the many thoughts.3
1 Or, thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite:
--
5. O Fire, thou art Twashtri and fashionest fullness of force for thy worshipper; thine, O friendly Light, are the Goddess-Energies and all oneness of natural kind. Thou art the swift galloper and lavishest good power of the Horse; thou art the host of the gods and great is the multitude of thy riches.
6. O Fire, thou art Rudra, the mighty one of the great Heaven and thou art the army of the Life-Gods and hast power over all that fills desire. Thou journeyest with dawn-red winds to bear thee and thine is the house of bliss; thou art Pushan and thou guardest with thyself thy worshippers.
--
3 Or, the Goddess tenant of the city.
8. O Fire, men turn to thee the master of the human being in his house; thee they crown, the king perfect in knowledge. O strong force of Fire, thou masterest all things; thou movest to the thousands and the hundreds and the tens.
--
8. May Saraswati effecting our thought and Goddess Ila and Bharati who carries all to their goal, the three Goddesses, sit on our altar-seat and guard by the self-law of things our gapless house of refuge.
9. Soon there is born a Hero of golden-red form, an aspirant to the Godheads, a mighty bringer of riches and founder of our growth to wideness. Let the Maker of forms loosen the knot of the navel in us, let him set free the issue of our works; then let him walk on the way of the Gods.9
1.03 - Sympathetic Magic, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
persuaded his jealous wife Hera to adopt Hercules, the Goddess got
into bed, and clasping the burly hero to her bosom, pushed him
--
honour of the Goddess of maize, or "the long-haired mother," as she
was called. It began at the time "when the plant had attained its
--
Greeks and Romans sacrificed pregnant victims to the Goddesses of
the corn and of the earth, doubtless in order that the earth might
1.03 - Tara, Liberator from the Eight Dangers, #How to Free Your Mind - Tara the Liberator, #Thubten Chodron, #unset
Please protect us from this danger! we do not expect a green Goddess to
swoop down from the sky and rescue us by taking us to another place. Rather,
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
In another very important system, this idea is very picturesquely and graphically represented as the Goddess
Nuit, the Queen of Absolute Space and the naked brilliance of the night sky blue- the Woman " jetting forth the milk of the stars (cosmic dust) from her paps ".
--
Tahuti or Thoth is attri buted to this Sephirah of Wisdom, for he was the god of writing, learning, and magick. Thoth is represented as an Ibis-headed God, and occasionally has an ape or baboon in attendance. Pallas Athena, insofar as she is the giver of intellectual gifts and one in whom power and wisdom were harmoniously blended, the Goddess of
Wisdom who sprang full-armed from the brain of Zeus, is attri buted to Chokmah. In Greek mythology, she appeared as the preserver of human life, and instituted the ancient court of the Areopagus at Athens. She is also Minerva in
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the Roman system, whose name is considered by philolo- gists to contain the root of mens, to think ; she is accord- ingly the thinking power personified. Maat, the Goddess of
Truth, linked with Thoth, is another Egyptian corres- pondence. Uranus, as the starry heavens, and Hermes as the Logos and the Transmitter of the influence from Keser, also are attri butions. In Taoism, the positive Yang would correspond to this Sephirah.
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1 bought Divine, which is Chokmah. Binah is Maya, the universal power of Illusion, Kwan Yin of Chinese Budd- hism, the Ym of Taoism, the Goddess Kali of the orthodox
Hindu religions and the Great Sea wherefrom we are sprung.
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Astrologieally its planet is Venus $. It should follow in consequence from this that the gods and qualities of Net- sach relate to Love, Victory, and to the harvest. Aphro- dite (Venus) is the Lady of Love and Beauty, with the power of bestowing her beauty and charms to others. The whole implication of this Sephirah is of love - albeit a love of a sexual nature. Hathor is the Egyptian equivalent and is a lesser aspect of the Mother Isis. She is depicted as a cow Goddess, representing the generative forces of Nature, and she was the protectress of agriculture and the fruits of the earth. Bhavani is the Hindu Goddess of Netsach.
Rose is the flower appurtenant, and Red Sandal is the perfume. It is common knowledge that in some diseases of a venereal ( $ ) origin oils of sandalwood are employed.
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Ganesha, the elephant God who breaks down all obstacles, and supports the universe while himself standing on a tortoise. Diana was the Goddess of Light and in the
Roman Temples represented the moon. The general conception of Yesod is of change with stability. Some writers have referred to the Astral Light which is the sphere of Yesod as the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World. The psycho-analyst Jung has a very similar concept which he terms the Collective Unconscious which, as I see it, differs in no wise from the Qabalistic idea.
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Five. Persephone is the virgin Earth and her legends indicate the adventures of the unredeemed soul ; and Ceres is the maiden Goddess of the Earth, too. Other deities are
Lakshmi and the Sphinx, all attri buted as representing the fertility of the earth and of all creatures.
1.03 - The Syzygy - Anima and Animus, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
the heavenly Goddess, and the chthonic Baubo. Every mother
and every beloved is forced to become the carrier and embodi-
1.03 - VISIT TO VIDYASAGAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
In silent wonder they all sat listening to the Master's words. It seemed to them that the Goddess of Wisdom Herself, seated on Sri Ramakrishna's tongue was addressing these words not merely to Vidyasagar, but to all humanity for its good.
It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening. The Master was about to leave.
1.04 - ADVICE TO HOUSEHOLDERS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
At dawn some of the devotees were up. They saw the Master, naked as a child, pacing up and down the room, repeating the names of the various gods and Goddesses. His voice was sweet as nectar. Now he would look at the Ganges, now stop in front of the pictures hanging on the wall and bow down before them, chanting all the while the holy names in his sweet voice. He chanted: "Veda, Purana, Tantra; Gita, Gayatri; Bhagavata, Bhakta, Bhagavan." Referring to the Gita, he repeated many times, "Tagi, tagi, tagi."
Now and then he would say: "O Mother, Thou art verily Brahman, and Thou art verily akti. Thou art Purusha and Thou art Prakriti. Thou art Virat. Thou art the Absolute, and Thou dost manifest Thyself as the Relative. Thou art verily the twenty-four cosmic principles."
1.04 - BOOK THE FOURTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The Goddess, and her God gallant betray'd,
And told the cuckold, where their pranks were play'd.
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The Goddess swift precipitates her flight.
At Hell arriv'd, the noise Hell's porter heard,
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What caus'd her hate, the Goddess thus confest,
What caus'd her journey now was more than guest.
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She spoke: the Goddess, darting upwards, flies,
And joyous re-ascends her native skies:
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A Goddess never for insults was meant.
She, who lov'd most, and who most lov'd had been,
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The bashful Goddess turn'd her eyes away,
Nor durst such bold impurity survey;
1.04 - Narayana appearance, in the beginning of the Kalpa, as the Varaha (boar), #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
At the close of the past (or Pādma) Kalpa, the divine Brahmā, endowed with the quality of goodness, awoke from his night of sleep, and beheld the universe void. He, the supreme Nārāyaṇa, the incomprehensible, the sovereign of all creatures, invested with the form of Brahmā, the god without beginning, the creator of all things; of whom, with respect to his name Nārāyaṇa, the god who has the form of Brahmā, the imperishable origin of the world, this verse is repeated, "The waters are called Nārā, because they were the offspring of Nara (the supreme spirit); and as in them his first (Ayana) progress (in the character of Brahmā) took place, he is thence named Nārāyaṇa (he whose place of moving was the waters)[2]." He, the lord, concluding that within the waters lay the earth, and being desirous to raise it up, created another form for that purpose; and as in preceding Kalpas he had assumed the shape of a fish or a tortoise, so in this he took the figure of a boar. Having adopted a form composed of the sacrifices of the Vedas[3], for the preservation of the whole earth, the eternal, supreme, and universal soul, the great progenitor of created beings, eulogized by Sanaka and the other saints who dwell in the sphere of holy men (Janaloka); he, the supporter of spiritual and material being, plunged into the ocean. The Goddess Earth, beholding him thus descending to the subterrene regions, bowed in devout adoration, and thus glorified the god:-
Prīthivī (Earth).-Hail to thee, who art all creatures; to thee, the holder of the mace and shell: elevate me now from this place, as thou hast upraised me in days of old. From thee have I proceeded; of thee do I consist; as do the skies, and all other existing things. Hail to thee, spirit of the supreme spirit; to thee, soul of soul; to thee, who art discrete and indiscrete matter; who art one with the elements and with time. Thou art the creator of all things, their preserver, and their destroyer, in the forms, oh lord, of Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Rudra, at the seasons of creation, duration, and dissolution. When thou hast devoured all things, thou reposest on the ocean that sweeps over the world, meditated upon, oh Govinda, by the wise. No one knoweth thy true nature, and the gods adore thee only in the forms it bath pleased thee to assume. They who are desirous of final liberation, worship thee as the supreme Brahmā; and who that adores not Vāsudeva, shall obtain emancipation? Whatever may be apprehended by the mind, whatever may be perceived by the senses, whatever may he discerned by the intellect, all is but a form of thee. I am of thee, upheld by thee; thou art my creator, and to thee I fly for refuge: hence, in this universe, Mādhavī (the bride of Mādhava or Viṣṇu) is my designation. Triumph to the essence of all wisdom, to the unchangeable, the imperishable: triumph to the eternal; to the indiscrete, to the essence of discrete things: to him who is both cause and effect; who is the universe; the sinless lord of sacrifice[4]; triumph. Thou art sacrifice; thou art the oblation; thou art the mystic Omkāra; thou art the sacrificial fires; thou art the Vedas, and their dependent sciences; thou art, Hari, the object of all worship[5]. The sun, the stars, the planets, the whole world; all that is formless, or that has form; all that is visible, or invisible; all, Puruṣottama, that I have said, or left unsaid; all this, Supreme, thou art. Hail to thee, again and again! hail! all hail!
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
struggles against Tiamat, monstrous Goddess of death and the night; is Horus, who fights against evil, and
redeems the father; is Christ, who transcends the past, and extends to all individuals identity with the divine
1.04 - The Divine Mother - This Is She, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
I shall relate an interesting account of the Mother's diplomacy in this field of tennis. There used to be friendly tournaments under the Mother's supervision. Once my partner and I had reached the finals and were to face a younger pair who were known to be the Mother's favourites. Gods, Goddesses especially, have their chosen ones, if the Puranas are to be believed, and they always win. Of course we are to assume that there are larger purposes which we cannot guess, behind the seeming partialities. The Mother broached the topic of the game to Sri Aurobindo and asked me naively how we were going to fare, what would be our tactics, etc., etc. I would not be caught so easily. Then she employed a familiar strategy, "You know they are a very good pair; you have no chance against them." Thus she went on battering me. Sri Aurobindo listened to it with an amused smile. When, finishing my duty, I was going for the game, I asked Champaklal to plead to Sri Aurobindo on our behalf. The play started, there was quite a crowd. The Mother was watching with keen interest. The upshot was that we lost sadly and badly. Curiously enough, we missed even simple shots. On my return in the evening, I told Champaklal of our ignoble defeat. Later on, Sri Aurobindo himself enquired and learning from Champaklal about the result, he enjoyed the joke and laughed aloud. I did not know what gave him so much amusement. Failure of his own force? Did he give force at all? Success of the Mother's favourites? The Mother, however, in her turn, gave a long report of the game. She said, "Oh, they became so nervous! I tried all the while to make them steady, but of no use. They missed even simple shots!" I made no outer comment but was inwardly muttering, "What chance could we have if you had already decided our doom as Krishna that of the Kauravas?" Doom is the word, in a deeper sense too, for as I have hinted, I became inordinately attached to tennis and neglected even my duty. It was like an old love that had revived with all its insensate passion and I had to receive persistent psychological beating from the Mother before I could get rid of this folly. Sri Aurobindo once wrote to me, "Never! [forsake you] But beat a lot." The beating came mostly from the Mother.
Let me illustrate. I shall restrict myself to the field of tennis. After Sri Aurobindo's passing I thought of giving up tennis for good. The Mother said, "Why? You will play with me." Every day I went to the tennis ground and she called me for a game. This led to the revival of my old passion which had been arrested due to Sri Aurobindo's illness. I was not satisfied with merely playing a few games with the Mother. Besides, as I had no regular duty to bind me, I began to indulge in it with abandon. Suddenly the Mother stopped playing with me and for many days at a stretch, I was mystified. Every day I waited, hoping to be called; she would call many others, but ignore me. The contrast was too flagrant. I felt rather humiliated. Curiously enough, whenever I had stopped playing at other times, she gave me a chance. The apparent connection between the two made me suspect that she wanted me to give up playing with others except with herself. As to how she knew which day I had played or abstained from playing, that was no riddle to anyone who knew her well. But I could not give up the game so easily. Also, I thought, "Why should I give it up? What's wrong with it? It is a good pleasant exercise!" Moreover, I wanted to be quite sure of my suspicion and continued playing till I found that there was a clear connection. She called me only when I had not played with others. This "cutting" became so painful to me and palpable to others that I thought of not going to the courts while she played, but some force dragged me there, not exactly in expectation of a game but so as not to give in to my sense of pride and prestige. I observed that she took note of my presence and I was one of the referees during her play. I also thought, "If she had some accident while playing (an accident did happen later) and I was not there? What account should I give to Sri Aurobindo in my inner communion with him? I must swallow my amour-propre."
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As usual, the time began to shift gradually till it reached 11 p.m., then twelve, then one and meditation was substituted by Pranam. What an unearthly hour for Pranam! This happened particularly when she was passing through a period of trance. Many people would go to sleep in the courtyard, especially young boys and girls. Then Haradhan, an old sadhak, would announce, "Mother has come, Mother has come!" All would wake up and in a flurry stand in the queue to see the Mother who was often in a state of trance her eyes closed, head bent, flower in hand. Suddenly the trance would break and a few would pass in quick succession, again a lapse into trance. We would watch from our terrace above, while Sri Aurobindo was taking rest, the queue moving on and suddenly a halt for a long time, then moving fast, again a halt! The Mother used to look like a veritable Goddess, superb in all her majesty and glory, in the deep hush of the midnight. Some would sit in front of her and meditate, or feast their eyes on that marvellous scene!
At this time a nephew of mine was staying with me. He was of a very independent nature; he used to come some late at night, get up late, was very untidy in his habits due probably to his artistic temperament. I tried to mend his ways but failed. I complained to the Mother; her answer baffled me. She said, "Why, he comes to me!" I did not see how it answered the problem which continued all the same with the result that one day I gave him a very mild slap, and reported the fact to the Mother. She said, "That is why he doesn't listen to you." The reply surprised me, as she put the cause as the effect. I could not, however, argue with her. Then looking steadily into my eyes, she said, "Look here! I will tell you a story. You know I had a brother. Both of us were very fond of each other. He used to come home late for which my father would beat him. One day I told my father, 'Beat him once more and I will leave the house immediately.' That stern threat stopped his beating. I was very young then." Since then, I left the boy to his own fate. Even today the Mother holds this attitude and has standing instructions that guardians, teachers, captains must not inflict punishment of any kind on children.
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Here is another small instance, gathered from the private diary of a young sadhika, to show how the Mother in the midst of her crammed activities found time to push individuals or groups on the path of their soul's aspiration. She used to see ten or twelve young girls in the evening at about 8 p.m. before she came down for meditation. But many a day they had to wait for hours, even up to 10 p.m. They would feel hungry or sleepy and had to go without their dinner, for the meditation followed immediately after their meeting. One day one of them lost patience and went away, leaving her flowers in a dish for the Mother. Just then, the Mother came. The girls were very much struck by this coincidence. What a test, they thought! As soon as one girl approached the Mother, the Mother asked, "Who has left this dish of flowers here? Oh, is it X? You really surprise me! You can't wait even a little while for me, you get so impatient? Do you know how the gods and Goddesses yearn to have my darshan, and the saints and sages consider themselves most blessed when they see me in their meditation even for a minute?"
"But, Mother," replied the girl, "we look upon you as our friend. When we stand under the shelter of a tree, do we think of it giving us a cool shade?" That sweet answer disarmed the Mother completely and she immediately took her into her arms.
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These are negative and a priori considerations, but they are supported by more positive indications. The other Aryan religions which are most akin in conception to the Vedic and seem originally to have used the same names for their deities, present themselves to us even at their earliest vaguely historic stage as moralised religions. Their gods had not only distinct moral attri butes, but represented moral & subjective functions. Apollo is not only the god of the sun or of pestilencein Homer indeed Haelios (Saurya) & not Apollo is the Sun God but the divine master of prophecy and poetry; Athene has lost any naturalistic significance she may ever have had and is a pure moral force, the Goddess of strong intelligence, force guided by brain; Ares is the lord of battles, not a storm wind; Artemis, if she is the Moon, is also Goddess of the free hunting life and of virginity; Aphrodite is only the Goddess of Love & Beauty There is therefore a strong moral element in the cult & there are clear subjective notions attached to the divine personalities. But this is not all. There was not only a moral element in the Greek religion as known & practised by the layman, there was also a mystic element and an esoteric belief & practice practised by the initiated. The mysteries of Eleusis, the Thracian rites connected with the name of Orpheus, the Phrygian worship of Cybele, even the Bacchic rites rested on a mystic symbolism which gave a deep internal meaning to the exterior circumstances of creed & cult. Nor was this a modern excrescence; for its origins were lost to the Greeks in a legendary antiquity. Indeed, if we took the trouble to understand alien & primitive mentalities instead of judging & interpreting them by our own standards, I think we should find an element of mysticism even in savage rites & beliefs. The question at any rate may fairly be put, Were the Vedic Rishis, thinkers of a race which has shown itself otherwise the greatest & earliest mystics & moralisers in historical times, the most obstinately spiritual, theosophic & metaphysical of nations, so far behind the Orphic & Homeric Greeks as to be wholly Pagan & naturalistic in their creed, or was their religion too moralised & subjective, were their ceremonies too supported by an esoteric symbolism?
The immediate or at any rate the earliest known successors of the Rishis, the compilers of the Brahmanas, the writers of theUpanishads give a clear & definite answer to this question.The Upanishads everywhere rest their highly spiritual & deeply mystic doctrines on the Veda.We read in the Isha Upanishad of Surya as the Sun God, but it is the Sun of spiritual illumination, of Agni as the Fire, but it is the inner fire that burns up all sin & crookedness. In the Kena Indra, Agni & Vayu seek to know the supreme Brahman and their greatness is estimated by the nearness with which they touched him,nedistham pasparsha. Uma the daughter of Himavan, the Woman, who reveals the truth to them is clearly enough no natural phenomenon. In the Brihadaranyaka, the most profound, subtle & mystical of human scriptures, the gods & Titans are the masters, respectively, of good and of evil. In the Upanishads generally the word devah is used as almost synonymous with the forces & functions of sense, mind & intellect. The element of symbolism is equally clear. To the terms of the Vedic ritual, to their very syllables a profound significance is everywhere attached; several incidents related in the Upanishads show the deep sense then & before entertained that the sacrifices had a spiritual meaning which must be known if they were to be conducted with full profit or even with perfect safety. The Brahmanas everywhere are at pains to bring out a minute symbolism in the least circumstances of the ritual, in the clarified butter, the sacred grass, the dish, the ladle. Moreover, we see even in the earliest Upanishads already developed the firm outlines and minute details of an extraordinary psychology, physics, cosmology which demand an ancient development and centuries of Yogic practice and mystic speculation to account for their perfect form & clearness. This psychology, this physics, this cosmology persist almost unchanged through the whole history of Hinduism. We meet them in the Puranas; they are the foundation of the Tantra; they are still obscurely practised in various systems of Yoga. And throughout, they have rested on a declared Vedic foundation. The Pranava, the Gayatri, the three Vyahritis, the five sheaths, the five (or seven) psychological strata, (bhumi, kshiti of the Vedas), the worlds that await us, the gods who help & the demons who hinder go back to Vedic origins.All this may be a later mystic misconception of the hymns & their ritual, but the other hypothesis of direct & genuine derivation is also possible. If there was no common origin, if Greek & Indian separated during the naturalistic period of the common religion supposed to be recorded in the Vedas it is surprising that even the little we know of Greek rites & mysteries should show us ideas coincident with those of Indian Tantra & Yoga.
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One of the greatest deities of the Vedic Pantheon is a woman, Gna,a feminine power whether of material or moral nature,whether her functions work in the subjective or the objective. The Hindu religion has always laid an overpowering stress on this idea of the woman in Nature. It is not only in the Purana that the Woman looms so large, not only in the Shakta cult that she becomes a supreme Name. In the Upanishads it is only when Indra, in his search for the mysterious and ill-understood Mastering Brahman, meets with the Woman in the heaven of thingstasminn evakashe striyam ajagama UmamHaimavatim, In that same sky he came to the Woman, Uma, daughter of Himavan,that he is able to learn the thing which he seeks. The Stri, the Aja or unborn Female Energy, is the executive Divinity of the universe, the womb, the mother, the bride, the mould & instrument of all joy & being. The Veda also speaks of the gnah, the Women,feminine powers without whom the masculine are not effective for work & formation; for when the gods are to be satisfied who support the sacrifice & effect it, vahnayah, yajatrah, then Medhatithi of the Kanwas calls on Agni to yoke them with female mates, patnivatas kridhi, in their activity and enjoyment. In one of his greatest hymns, the twenty-second of the first Mandala, he speaks expressly of the patnir devanam, the brides of the Strong Ones, who are to be called to extend protection, to brea the a mighty peace, to have their share the joy of the Soma wine. Indrani, Varunani, Agnayi,we can recognise these Goddesses and their mastering gods; but there are threein addition to Mother Earthwho seem to stand on a different level and are mentioned without the names of their mates if they have any and seem to enjoy an independent power and activity. They are Ila,Mahi&Saraswati, the three Goddesses born of Love or born of Bliss, Tisro devir mayobhuvah.
Saraswati is known to us in the Purana,the Muse with her feet on the thousand leaved lotus of the mind, the Goddess of thought, learning, poetry, of all that is high in mind and its knowledge. But, so far as we can understand from the Purana, she is the Goddess of mind only, of intellect & imagination and their perceptions & inspirations. Things spiritual & the mightier supra-mental energies & illuminations belong not to her, but to other powers. Well, we meet Saraswati in the Vedas;and if she is the same Goddess as our Puranic & modern protectress of learning & the arts, the Personality of the Intellect, then we have a starting pointwe know that the Vedic Rishis had other than naturalistic conceptions & could call to higher powers than the thunder-flash & the storm-wind. But there is a difficultySaraswati is the name of a river, of several rivers in India, for the very name means flowing, gliding or streaming, and the Europeans identify it with a river in the Punjab. We must be careful therefore, whenever we come across the name, to be sure which of these two is mentioned or invoked, the sweet-streaming Muse or the material river.
The first passage in which Saraswati is mentioned, is the third hymn of the first Mandala, the hymn of Madhuchchhanda Vaisvamitra, in which the Aswins, Indra, the Visve devah and Saraswati are successively invokedapparently in order to conduct an ordinary material sacrifice? That is the thing that has to be seen,to be understood. What is Saraswati, whether as a Muse or a river, doing at the Soma-offering? Or is she there as the architect of the hymn, the weaver of the Riks?
The passage devoted to her occupies the three final & culminating verses of the sacred poem. Pavaka nah Saraswati vajebhir vajinivati Yajnam vashtu dhiyavasuh. Chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam Yajnam dadhe Saraswati. Maho arnas Saraswati prachetayati ketuna Dhiyo visva vi rajati. Now there is here mention in the last verse of a flowing water, arnas, whether sea or river, but this can be no material stream, since plainly the rest of the passage can only refer to a Goddess whose functions are subjective. She is dhiyavasuh, stored or rich with understanding, she is the impelling power of truths, she is the awakener of or to right thoughts. She awakens something or brings it forward into consciousness (pra-chetayati) by the perceptive intelligence and she governs or shines through all the movements of the fixing & discerning mind. There are too many words here that do ordinarily & ought here to bear a purely subjective sense for any avoidance of the clear import of the passage. We start then with the conception of Saraswati as a Goddess of mind, if not the Goddess of mind and we have then to determine what are her functions or activities as indicated in this important passage and for what purpose she has been summoned by the son of Visvamitra to this sacrifice.
What exact sense are we to apply to vajebhir vajinivati when it is spoken of a subjective Power? It is a suggestion I shall make and work out hereafter by application to all the hundreds of passages in which the word occurs that vaja in the Veda means a substantial, firm & copious condition of being, well-grounded & sufficient plenty in anything material, mental or spiritual, any substance, wealth, chattels, qualities, psychological conditions.
Saraswati has the power of firm plenty, vajini, by means of or consisting in many kinds of plenty, copious stores of mental material for any mental activity or sacrifice. But first of all she is purifying, pavaka. Therefore she is not merely or not essentially a Goddess of mental force, but of enlightenment; for enlightenment is the mental force that purifies. And she is dhiyavasu, richly stored with understanding, buddhi, the discerning intellect, which holds firmly in their place, fixes, establishes all mental conceptions. First, therefore she has the purifying power of enlightenment, secondly, she has plenty of mental material, great wealth of mental being; thirdly, she is powerful in intellect, in that which holds, discerns, places. Therefore she is asked, as I take it, to control the Yajnavashtu from Root vash, which bore the idea of control as is evident from its derivatives vasha,vashya & vashin.
But greater capacities, mightier functions are demanded of Saraswati.Mind and discerning intelligence, however active and well-stored, may give false interpretation and mistaken counsel. But Saraswati at the sacrifice is chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam. It is she who gives the impulsion to the truths that appear in the mind, it is she who, herself conscious of right thoughts and just processes of thinking, awakens to them the mental faculties. Therefore, because she is the impelling force behind intellectual Truth, and our awakener to right thinking, she is present at the sacrifice; she has established and upholds it, yajnam dadhe. This sacrifice, whatever else it may be, is controlled by mental enlightenment and rich understanding and confirmed in & by truth and right-thinking. Therefore is Saraswati its directing power & presiding Goddess.
But by what power of Saraswatis are falsehood & error excluded and the mind and discerning reason held to truth & right-thinking? This, if I mistake not, is what the Rishi Madhuchchhanda, the drashta of Veda has seen for us in his last and culminating verse. I have said that arnas is a flowing water whether river or sea; for the word expresses either a flowing continuity or a flowing expanse. We may translate it then as the river of Mah or Mahas, and place arnas in apposition with Saraswati. This Goddess will then be in our subjective being some principle to which the Vedic thinkers gave the names of Mah and Mahas for it is clear, if the rest of our interpretation is at all correct, that there can be no question of a material stream & arnas must refer to some stream or storehouse of subjective faculty. But there are strong objections to such a collocation. We shall find later that the Goddess Mahi and not Saraswati is the objectivising feminine power and divine representative of this Vedic principle Mahas; prachetayati besides demands an object and maho arnas is the only object which the structure of the sentence and the rhythm of the verse will allow. I translate therefore Saraswati awakens by the perceptive intelligence the ocean (or, flowing expanse) of Mahas and governs diversely all the movements (or, all the faculties) of the understanding.
What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, mahi, mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
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Saraswati is not even here the Goddess of speech whose sole function is to inspire & guide the singer in his hymn. In other passages she may be merely Bharati,theMuse. But here there are greater depths of thought & soul-experience. She has to do things which mere speech cannot do. And even if we were to take her here as the divine Muse, still the functions asked of her are too great, there is too little need of all these high intellectual motions, for a mere invitation to Rain&Star Gods to share in a pouring of the Soma-wine. She could do that without all this high intellectual & spiritual labour. Even, therefore, if it be a material sacrifice whichMadhuchchhanda is offering, its material aspects can be no more than symbolical. Unless indeed the rest of the hymn contradicts the intellectual & spiritual purport which we have discovered in these closing verses, fullon the face of them & accepting the plainest & most ordinary meaning for each single word in themof deep psychological knowledge, moral & spiritual aspiration & a supreme poetical art.
I do not propose to study the earlier verses of the hymn with the same care as we have expended on the closing dedication to Saraswati,that would lead me beyond my immediate purpose. A rapid glance through them to see whether they confirm or contradict our first results will be sufficient. There are three passages, also of three verses each, consecrated successively to the Aswins, Indra & the Visve Devah. I shall give briefly my own view of these three passages and the gods they invoke.
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But he is not content with the inner sacrifice. He wishes to pour out this strength & joy in action on the world, on his fellows, on the peoples, therefore he calls to the Visve Devah to come, A gata!all the gods in general who help man and busy themselves in supporting his multitudinous & manifold action. They are kindly, omasas, they are charshanidhrito, holders or supporters of all our actions, especially actions that require effort, (it is in this sense that I take charshani, again on good philological grounds), they are to distribute this nectar to all or to divide it among themselves for the action,dasvanso may have either force,for Madhuchchhanda wishes not only to possess, but to give, to distribute, he is dashush. Omasas charshanidhrito visve devasa a gata, daswanso dashushah sutam. He goes on, Visve devaso apturah sutam a ganta turnayah Usra iva swasarani. Visve devaso asridha ehimayaso adruhah, Medham jushanta vahnayah. O you all-gods who are energetic in works, come to the nectar distilled, ye swift ones, (or, come swiftly), like calves to their own stalls,(so at least we must translate this last phrase, till we can get the real meaning, for I do not believe this is the real or, at any rate, the only meaning). O you all-gods unfaltering, with wide capacity of strength, ye who harm not, attach yourselves to the offering as its supporters. And then come the lines about Saraswati. For although Indra can sustain for a moment or for a time he is at present a mental, not an ideal force; it is Saraswati full of the vijnana, of mahas, guiding by it the understanding in all its ways who can give to all these gods the supporting knowledge, light and truth which will confirm and uphold the delight, the mental strength & supply inexhaustibly from the Ocean of Mahas the beneficent & joy-giving action,Saraswati, Goddess of inspiration, the flowing Goddess who is the intermediary & channel by which divine truth, divine joy, divine being descend through the door of knowledge into this human receptacle. In a word, she is our inspirer, our awakener, our lurer towards Immortality. It is immortality that Madhuchchhandas prepares for himself & the people who do sacrifice to Heaven, devayantah. The Soma-streams he speaks of are evidently no intoxicating vegetable juices; he calls them ayavah, life-forces; & elsewhere amritam, nectar of immortality; somasah, wine-draughts of bliss & internal well being. It is the clear Yogic idea of the amritam, the divine nectar which flows into the system at a certain stage of Yogic practice & gives pure health, pure strength & pure physical joy to the body as a basis for a pure mental & spiritual vigour and activity.
We have therefore as a result of a long and careful examination the clear conviction that certainly in this poem of Madhuchchhanda, probably in others of his hymns, perhaps in all we have an invocation to subjective Nature powers, a symbolic sacrifice, a spiritual, moral & subjective effort & purpose. And if many other suktas in this & other Mandalas confirm the evidence of this third hymn of the Rigveda, shall we not say that here we have the true Veda as the Rishis understood it and that this was the reason why all the ancient thinkers looked on the hymns with so deep-seated a reverence that even after they came to be used merely as ceremonial liturgies at a material sacrifice, even after the Buddha impatiently flung them aside, the writer of the Gita had to look beyond them & Shankara respectfully put them on the shelf of neglect as useless for spiritual purposes, even after they have ceased to be used and almost to be read, the most spiritual nation on the face of the earth still tenaciously, by a sort of divine instinct, clings to them as its supreme Scriptures & refers back all its spirituality and higher knowledge to the Vedas? Let us proceed and see whether this is not the truest as well as the noblest reading of the riddle the real root of Gods purpose in maintaining this our ancient faith and millennial tradition.
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Artemis, Hecate, Chomse, and Chandra are the deities attri buted, all of them being lunar Goddesses. Its colour is Silver, the glistening colour of the Moon ; Camphor and
Aloes are its perfumes ; the Moonstone and Pearl being its jewels. The Dog is sacred to Gimel, probably because the huntress Artemis always had hounds in attendance. The
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"The Aphrodite of Euripides' actual belief, if one may venture to dogmatize on such a subject, was almost cer- tainly not what we should call a Goddess, but rather a force of Nature, or a Spirit working in the world. To deny her existence you would have to say not merely : ' There is no such person ', but ' there is no such thing ' ; and such a denial would be a defiance of obvious facts."
The Goddess of Love in the Norse myths was Freyja, the daughter of Njord - a Jupiterian tutelary deity.
The Tarot card is III. - The Empress, who bears in her right hand a sceptre, being a globe surmounting a cross, the astrological sigil of Venus, $. Her robe repeats this symbol, and at the side of her throne is a heart-shaped shield bearing also the sign of Venus. Facing her, is a field of corn, emphasizing the fact that she is a Goddess not only of Love but of Agriculture. She wears a green garl and upon her head, and a necklace of pearls.
For some slight explanation as to how agriculture could be associated with the Goddess of Love, I must refer my
74
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In India we see the sacred bull revered as typifying Shiva in his creative aspect ; also as glyphed in their temples by an erect Lingam. Here, the Goddess of Marriage, and
Hymen, the god carrying the nuptial veil, are also corres- pondences.
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Leo, the Lion. Pasht, Sekket, and Mau, are attri buted because they are eat Goddesses. Ra-Hoor-Khuit is another correspondence, representing the Sun which rules Leo.
Demeter and Venus as Agricultural Goddesses, are also attri buted to Tes.
Its animal is, of course, the Lion ; its flower the Sun- flower ; its jewel the Cat's Eye ; and its perfume Olibanum.
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Olympus. Its Egyptian God bears out the idea of Justice for she is Maat, the Goddess of Truth, who in the Book of the Dead appears in the judgment scene of the weighing of the heart of the deceased. Nemesis, too, is a correspon- dence, as she measured out to mortals happiness and misery ; and here, too, is the Hindu concept of Yama, the personification of death and Hell where men had to expiate their evil deeds.
The plant of Lamed is Aloe ; its animals the Spider and
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Kundalini is the Hindu Goddess representing the creative force (libido), coiled up as a serpent at the base of the spine, in the so-called lotus of the Muladhara Chakra.
Its magical formula is Regeneration through Putrefac- tion. The alchemists of old used this formula mainly. The first common matter of their operations was base, and had to pass through several stages of corruptions or putrefac- tion (or chemical change, as it would be styled to-day), when it was called the black dragon - but from this putrid stage, the pure gold was derived.
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Moon, both feminine influences; and Juno, the Greek Goddess who watches over the female sex and was regarded as the Genius of womanhood, is its main attri bution.
Athena as the patroness of both useful and elegant arts (the arts are the astrological characteristics of the native of
1.04 - The Praise, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
deities called Goddesses of the earth, and secondly to
the kings ruling huma n beings.
1.04 - The Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Hearken to the tidings of my Goddess,
Hearken to the Sovereign, and adore! 8
1.04 - Wake-Up Sermon, #The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma, #Bodhidharma, #Buddhism
poor. When the Goddess realized the Way, she didn't change her
sex. When the stable boy69 awakened to the Truth, he didn't change
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appearance. The Goddess searched twelve years for her womanhood
without success. To search twelve years for one's manhood would
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
name of the Goddess of the Earth, proposed by his friend
William Golding Lovelock wanted to make his readers
1.05 - BOOK THE FIFTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Then Polydaemon fell, a Goddess-born;
Phlegias, and Elycen with locks unshorn
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So great a Goddess to this mansion draws;
Our shades are happy with so bright a guest,
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Then one replies: O Goddess, fit to guide
Our humble works, and in our choir preside,
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All honours that to Goddesses are due.
Stop, stop, ye Muses, 'tis your friend who calls,
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The Goddess wonder'd, and inquir'd from whence
That tongue was heard, that spoke so plainly sense
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The sister to the wondring Goddess said,
These, foil'd by us, by us were thus repaid.
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The Goddess cry'd, your ever-grateful verse.
Beneath a chequer'd shade she takes her seat,
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The frighted Goddess to her mother cries,
But all in vain, for now far off she flies;
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The Goddess knew, and thus to Pluto said:
Farther thou shalt not with the virgin run;
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And with the Goddess' wrongs laments her own;
For the stoln maid, and for her injur'd spring,
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Of which she late immortal Goddess was;
Her varied members to a fluid melt,
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The Goddess knocking at the little door,
'Twas open'd by a woman old and poor,
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The Goddess drank; a chuffy lad was by,
Who saw the liquor with a grutching eye,
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What lands, what seas the Goddess wander'd o'er,
Were long to tell; for there remain'd no more.
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The plough for this the vengeful Goddess broke,
And with one death the ox, and owner struck,
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And this my seat, o gracious Goddess, bless:
This island why I love, and why I crost
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This heard, the Goddess like a statue stood,
Stupid with grief; and in that musing mood
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The Goddess now, resolving to succeed,
Down to the gloomy shades descends with speed;
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Since Pluto in his carr the Goddess caught,
Have you not for her in each climate sought?
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The Goddess now in either empire sways,
Six moons in Hell, and six with Ceres stays.
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The Goddess heard; my pious pray'r prevail'd;
In muffling clouds my virgin head was veil'd,
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By me, the Goddess who the fields befriends,
These gifts, the greatest of all blessings, sends.
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Him strait a lynx's shape the Goddess gives,
And home the youth her sacred dragons drives.
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And give the Heliconian Goddesses the praise.
Then, far from vain that we shou'd thus prevail,
1.05 - Buddhism and Women, #Tara - The Feminine Divine, #unset, #Zen
who has become a Goddess.
The status of women in buddhism often appears to
1.05 - Ritam, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Now in the 18th hymn, a hymn of Medhatithi to Brahmanaspati, I have passed over designedly a verse in which we have a direct reference to that Goddess Dakshina whom I suppose to be the female energy of Daksha, the divine master of the viveka
Twam tam Brahmanaspate Soma Indrascha martyam
1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Next from Brahmā, in a form composed of the quality of foulness, was produced hunger, of whom anger was born: and the god put forth in darkness beings emaciate with hunger, of hideous aspects, and with long beards. Those beings hastened to the deity. Such of them as exclaimed, Oh preserve us! were thence called Rākṣasas[16]: others, who cried out, Let us eat, were denominated from that expression Yakṣas[17]. Beholding them so disgusting, the hairs of Brahmā were shrivelled up, and first falling from his head, were again renewed upon it: from their falling they became serpents, called Sarpa from their creeping, and Ahi because they had deserted the head[18]. The creator of the world, being incensed, then created fierce beings, who were denominated goblins, Bhūtas, malignant fiends and eaters of flesh. The Gandharvas were next born, imbibing melody: drinking of the Goddess of speech, they were born, and thence their appellation[19]. The divine Brahmā, influenced by their material energies, having created these beings, made others of his own will. Birds he formed from his vital vigour; sheep from his breast; goats from his mouth; kine from his belly and sides; and horses, elephants, Sarabhas, Gayals, deer, camels, mules, antelopes, and other animals, from his feet: whilst from the hairs of his body sprang herbs, roots, and fruits.
Brahmā having created, in the commencement of the Kalpa, various plants, employed them in sacrifices, in the beginning of the Tretā age. Animals were distinguished into two classes, domestic (village) and wild (forest): the first class contained the cow, the goat, the hog, the sheep, the horse, the ass, the mule: the latter, all beasts of prey, and many animals with cloven hoofs, the elephant, and the monkey. The fifth order were the birds; the sixth, aquatic animals; and the seventh, reptiles and insects[20].
1.06 - BOOK THE SIXTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
That to the Goddess she refus'd to yield.
Low was her birth, and small her native town,
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And ev'n the Goddess at her work defies;
Disowns her heav'nly mistress ev'ry hour,
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The Goddess then a beldame's form put on,
With silver hairs her hoary temples shone;
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But to the Goddess yield, and humbly meek
A pardon for your bold presumption seek;
The Goddess will forgive. At this the maid,
With passion fir'd, her gliding shuttle stay'd;
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And, if your skilful Goddess better knows,
Let her accept the tryal I propose.
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The awful Goddess, and confess her pow'r;
The maid alone stood unappall'd; yet show'd
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The Goddess now the challenge waves no more,
Nor, kindly good, advises as before.
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Nor cou'd the mare the yellow Goddess hide.
Next, to a fowl transform'd, you won by force
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This the bright Goddess passionately mov'd,
With envy saw, yet inwardly approv'd.
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Live; but depend, vile wretch, the Goddess cry'd,
Doom'd in suspence for ever to be ty'd;
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And due submission to the Goddess paid:
Graceful, with laurel chaplets dress'd, they came,
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A Goddess, founded meerly on report?
Dare ye a poor pretended Pow'r invoke,
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Would grant your out-law'd Goddess any ease:
'Till pitying hers, from his own wand'ring case,
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With grief the Goddess saw the base affront;
And, the abuse revolving in her breast,
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When to urge more the Goddess was prepar'd,
Phoebus in haste replies, Too much we've heard,
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Provok'd the Goddess to exert her pow'r.
The thing indeed the meanness of the place
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For this, o youth, to that fam'd Goddess stands,
Whom, at th' imperial Juno's rough commands,
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With thirst the Goddess languishing, no more
Her empty'd breast would yield its milky store;
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The Goddess came, and kneeling on the brink,
Stoop'd at the fresh repast, prepar'd to drink.
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Yet they the Goddess's request refuse,
And with rude words reproachfully abuse:
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Bent on revenge, the Goddess stood confess'd.
Her suppliant hands uplifting to the skies,
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The Goddess has her wish; for now they chuse
To plunge, and dive among the watry ooze;
1.06 - The Four Powers of the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
1:The four Powers of the Mother are four of her outstanding Personalities, portions and embodiments of her divinity through whom she acts on her creatures, orders and harmonises her creations in the worlds and directs the working out of her thousand forces. For the Mother is one but she comes before us with differing aspects; many are her powers and personalities, many her emanations and Vibhutis that do her work in the universe. The One whom we adore as the Mother is the divine Conscious Force that dominates all existence, one and yet so many-sided that to follow her movement is impossible even for the quickest mind and for the freest and most vast intelligence. The Mother is the consciousness and force of the Supreme and far above all she creates. But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the Goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
2:There are three ways of being of the Mother of which you can become aware when you enter into touch of oneness with the Conscious Force that upholds us and the universe. Transcendent, the original supreme Shakti, she stands above the worlds and links the creation to the ever unmanifest mystery of the Supreme. Universal, the cosmic Mahashakti, she creates all these beings and contains and enters, supports and conducts all these million processes and forces. Individual, she embodies the power of these two vaster ways of her existence, makes them living and near to us and mediates between the human personality and the divine Nature.
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11:And yet it is not easy to meet the demand of this enchanting Power or to keep her presence. Harmony and beauty of the mind and soul, harmony and beauty of the thoughts and feelings, harmony and beauty in every outward act and movement, harmony and beauty of the life and surroundings, this is the demand of Mahalakshmi. Where there is affinity to the rhythms of the secret world-bliss and response to the call of the AllBeautiful and concord and unity and the glad flow of many lives turned towards the Divine, in that atmosphere she consents to abide. But all that is ugly and mean and base, all that is poor and sordid and squalid, all that is brutal and coarse repels her advent. Where love and beauty are not or are reluctant to be born, she does not come; where they are mixed and disfigured with baser things, she turns soon to depart or cares little to pour her riches. If she finds herself in men's hearts surrounded with selfishness and hatred and jealousy and malignance and envy and strife, if treachery and greed and ingratitude are mixed in the sacred chalice, if grossness of passion and unrefined desire degrade devotion, in such hearts the gracious and beautiful Goddess will not linger. A divine disgust seizes upon her and she withdraws, for she is not one who insists or strives; or, veiling her face, she waits for this bitter and poisonous devil's stuff to be rejected and disappear before she will found anew her happy influence. Ascetic bareness and harshness are not pleasing to her nor the suppression of the heart's deeper emotions and the rigid repression of the soul's and the life's parts of beauty. For it is through love and beauty that she lays on men the yoke of the Divine. Life is turned in her supreme creations into a rich work of celestial art and all existence into a poem of sacred delight; the world's riches are brought together and concerted for a supreme order and even the simplest and commonest things are made wonderful by her intuition of unity and the breath of her spirit. Admitted to the heart she lifts wisdom to pinnacles of wonder and reveals to it the mystic secrets of the ecstasy that surpasses all knowledge, meets devotion with the passionate attraction of the Divine, teaches to strength and force the rhythm that keeps the might of their acts harmonious and in measure and casts on perfection the charm that makes it endure for ever.
12:MAHASARASWATI is the Mother s Power of Work and her spirit of perfection and order. The youngest of the Four, she is the most skilful in executive faculty and the nearest to physical Nature. Maheshwari lays down the large lines of the worldforces, Mahakali drives their energy and impetus, Mahalakshmi discovers their rhythms and measures, but Mahasaraswati presides over their detail of organisation and execution, relation of parts and effective combination of forces and unfailing exactitude of result and fulfilment. The science and craft and technique of things are Mahasaraswati's province. Always she holds in her nature and can give to those whom she has chosen the intimate and precise knowledge, the subtlety and patience, the accuracy of intuitive mind and conscious hand and discerning eye of the perfect worker. This Power is the strong, the tireless, the careful and efficient builder, organiser, administrator, technician, artisan and classifier of the worlds. When she takes up the transformation and new-building of the nature, her action is laborious and minute and often seems to our impatience slow and interminable, but it is persistent, integral and flawless. For the will in her works is scrupulous, unsleeping, indefatigable; leaning over us she notes and touches every little detail, finds out every minute defect, gap, twist or incompleteness, considers and weighs accurately all that has been done and all that remains still to be done hereafter. Nothing is too small or apparently trivial for her attention; nothing however impalpable or disguised or latent can escape her. Moulding and remoulding she labours each part till it has attained its true form, is put in its exact place in the whole and fulfils its precise purpose. In her constant and diligent arrangement and rearrangement of things her eye is on all needs at once and the way to meet them and her intuition knows what is to be chosen and what rejected and successfully determines the right instrument, the right time, the right conditions and the right process. Carelessness and negligence and indolence she abhors; all scamped and hasty and shuffling work, all clumsiness and a peu pres and misfire, all false adaptation and misuse of instruments and faculties and leaving of things undone or half done is offensive and foreign to her temper. When her work is finished, nothing has been forgotten, no part has been misplaced or omitted or left in a faulty condition; all is solid, accurate, complete, admirable. Nothing short of a perfect perfection satisfies her and she is ready to face an eternity of toil if that is needed for the fullness of her creation. Therefore of all the Mother s powers she is the most long-suffering with man and his thousand imperfections. Kind, smiling, close and helpful, not easily turned away or discouraged, insistent even after repeated failure, her hand sustains our every step on condition that we are single in our will and straightforward and sincere; for a double mind she will not tolerate and her revealing irony is merciless to drama and histrionics and self-deceit and pretence. A mother to our wants, a friend in our difficulties, a persistent and tranquil counsellor and mentor, chasing away with her radiant smile the clouds of gloom and fretfulness and depression, reminding always of the ever-present help, pointing to the eternal sunshine, she is firm, quiet and persevering in the deep and continuous urge that drives us towards the integrality of the higher nature. All the work of the other Powers leans on her for its completeness; for she assures the material foundation, elaborates the stuff of detail and erects and rivets the armour of the structure.
1.06 - The Sign of the Fishes, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Phoenician Goddess Derceto-Atargatis and the obscurities of the
Abercius inscription. 4 The symbol ranges from the redeemer-
1.07 - BOOK THE SEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
A Goddess, and a Vestal's bosom warm.
Her ravish'd eyes survey him o'er and o'er,
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Provided that the triple Goddess join
A strong confed'rate in my bold design.
--
With rev'rence to the Goddess, I must say,
Against my will, for Procris had my heart,
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What those expressions of the Goddess meant,
A thousand jealous fears possess me now,
--
Yet I was absent long, the Goddess too
Taught me how far a woman cou'd be true.
--
What gifts the Goddess had bestow'd on her;
The fleetest grey-hound, with this lovely dart,
1.07 - Incarnate Human Gods, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
bird-catchers and beggars in Southern India, the Goddess Kali is
believed to descend upon the priest, and he gives oracular replies
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further, and they worshipped women as true and living Goddesses. For
example, in the reign of Vespasian a certain Veleda, of the tribe of
1.07 - Note on the word Go, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The word Go in the Vedas appears to bear two ordinary meanings, first, cow, secondly, ray, light or lustre. In the hymns of Madhuchchhanda it occurs 6 times, in five hymns. It occurs twice in the fourth hymn addressed to Indra in the first three verses which are all of them important for the discovery of the proper sense of the word as it is used in this passage. In the third verse which is the key to the passage, we find the prayer Then may we know (of) thy ultimate good thoughts. Then may we know. When? as a consequence to what? Obviously as a consequence to the result of the second verse, which I translate Come to us, O bringer out of the nectar (savana), thou the Soma-drinker; drink of the ecstatic Soma wine, a giver of illumination, enraptured or in better English bringing out the sense & association of the words, Come to us, O thou who art a distiller of the nectar, thou, the Soma-drinker, drink of the impetuously ecstatic Soma wine & be in the rapture of its intoxication our giver of illuminating light. Then may we know thy ultimate perceptions of the intellect. Pass us not byO come! Id lays emphasis on goda as the capacity in which, the purpose for which Indra is to drink. Revato and madah give the conditions under which Indra becomes a giver of illumination, the rushing & impetuous ecstasy produced by the Soma wine. It is then that men know the ultimate perceptions of mind, the highest realisations that can be given by the intellect when Indra, lord of mental force & power, is full of the ecstasy of the immortalising juice. This clear & easy sense being fixed for these two verses, we can return to the first & discover its connection with what follows. From sky to sky, its Rishi says to Indra, thou callest forth for uti, (for favour or kindness, as the ordinary interpretation would have it or for manifestation, expansion in being, as I suggest), the maker of beautiful forms, (who, being compared with a cow, must be some Goddess), who is like one that gives milk freely to the milker of the cows, or, as I suggest, who milks freely to the milker of the rays. Undoubtedly, sudugham goduhe may be translated, a good milch cow to the milker of the cows; undoubtedly the poet had this idea in his mind when he wrote. The Goddess is in the simile a milch cow, Indra is the milker. In each of the skies (the lower, middle & higher) he calls to her & makes her bring out the beautiful forms which she reveals to the drinker of the Soma. But it is impossible, when we take the connection with the two following verses, to avoid seeing that he is taking advantage of the double sense of go, and that while in the simile Indra is goduh the cow-milker, in the subject of the comparison he is goduh, the bringer out of the illumination, the flashes of higher light which produce the beautiful forms by the power of the Goddess. The Goddess herself must be one who is habitually associated with illumination, either Ila or Mahi. To anyone acquainted with the processes of Yoga, the whole passage at once becomes perfectly clear & true. The forms are those beautiful & myriad images of things in all the three worlds, the three akashas, dyavi dyavi, which appear to the eye of the Yogin when mental force in the Yoga is at its height, the impetuous & joyous activity (revato madah) of the mingled Ananda and Mahas fills the brain with Ojas and the highest intellectual perceptions, those akin to the supra-rational revelation, become not only possible, but easy, common & multitudinous. The passage describes the condition in which the mind, whether by drinking the material wine, the Karanajal of the Tantrics, or, as I hold, by feeding on the internal amrita, is raised to its highest exalted condition, before it is taken up into mahas or karanam, (whether in the state of Samadhi or in the waking state of the man who has realised his mahan atma, his ideal self), a state in which it is full of revealing thoughts & revealing visions which descend to it from the supra-rational level of the mahat, luminous & unerring, sunrita gomati mahi, where all is Truth & Light. Uti is the state of manifestation in Sat, in being, when that conscious existence which we are is stimulated into intensity & produces easily to the waking consciousness states of existence, movements of knowledge, outpourings of bliss which ordinarily it holds guha, in the secret parts of being.
The next passage to which I shall turn is the eighth verse of the eighth hymn, also to Indra, in which occurs the expression , a passage which when taken in the plain and ordinary sense of the epithets sheds a great light on the nature of Mahi. Sunrita means really true and is opposed to anrita, false for in the early Aryan speech su and s would equally signify, well, good, very; and the euphonic n is of a very ancient type of sandhioriginally, it was probably no more than a strong anuswartraces of which can still be found in Tamil; in the case of su this n euphonic seems to have been dropped after the movement of the literary Aryan tongue towards the modern principle of Sandhi,a movement the imperfect progress of which we see in the Vedas; but by that time the form an, composed of privative a and the euphonic n, had become a recognised alternative form to a and the omission of the n would have left the meaning of words very ambiguous; therefore n was preserved in the negative form, omitted from the affirmative where its omission caused no inconvenience,for to write gni instead of anagni would be confusing, but to write svagni instead of sunagni would create no confusion. In the pair sunrita and anrita it is probable that the usage had become so confirmed, so much of an almost technical phraseology, that confirmed habit prevailed over new rule. The second meaning of the word is auspicious, derived from the idea good or beneficent in its regular action. The Vedic scholars give a third sense, quick, active; but this is probably due to confusion with an originally distinct word derived from the root , to move on rapidly, to be strong, swift, active from which we have to dance, & strong and a number of other derivatives, for although ri means to go, it does not appear that rita was used in the sense of motion or swiftness. In any case our choice (apart from unnecessary ingenuities) lies here between auspicious and true. If we take Mahi in the sense of earth, the first is its simplest & most natural significance.We shall have then to translate the earth auspicious (or might it mean true in the sense observing the law of the seasons), wide-watered, full of cows becomes like a ripe branch to the giver. This gives a clear connected sense, although gross and pedestrian and open to the objection that it has no natural and inevitable connection with the preceding verses. My objection is that sunrita and gomati seem to me to have in the Veda a different and deeper sense and that the whole passage becomes not only ennobled in sense, but clearer & more connected in sense if we give them that deeper significance. Gomatir ushasah in Kutsas hymn to the Dawn is certainly the luminous dawns; Saraswati in the third hymn who as chodayitri sunritanam chetanti sumatinam shines pervading all the actions of the understanding, certainly does so because she is the impeller to high truths, the awakener to right thoughts, clear perceptions and not because she is the impeller of things auspiciousa phrase which would have no sense or appropriateness to the context. Mahi is one of the three Goddesses Ila, Saraswati and Mahi who are described as tisro devir mayobhuvah, the three Goddesses born of delight or Ananda, and her companions being Goddesses of knowledge, children of Mahas, she also must be a Goddess of knowledge, not the earth; the word mahi also bears the sense of knowledge, intellect, and Mahas undoubtedly refers in many passages to the vijnana or supra-rational level of consciousness, the fourth Vyahriti of the Taittiriya Upanishad. What then prevents us from taking Mahi, here as there, in the sense of the Goddess of suprarational knowledge or, if taken objectively, the world of Mahat? Nothing, except a tradition born in classical times when mahi was the earth and the new Nature-worship theory. In this sense I shall take it. I translate the line For thus Mahi the true, manifest in action, luminous becomes like a ripe branch to the giveror, again in better English, For thus Mahi the perfect in truth, manifesting herself in action, full of illumination, becomes as a ripe branch to the giver. For the Yogin again the sense is clear. All things are contained in the Mahat, derived from the Mahat, depend on theMahat, but we here in the movement of the alpam, have not our desire, are blinded & confined, enjoy an imperfect, erroneous & usually baffled & futile activity. It is only when we regain the movement of the Mahat, the large & uncontracted consciousness that comes from rising to the infinite,it is only then that we escape from this limitation. She is perfect in truth, full of illumination; error and ignorance disappear; she manifests herself virapshi in a wide & various activity; our activities are enlarged, our desires are fulfilled. The connection with the preceding stanzas becomes clear. The Vritras, the great obstructors & upholders of limitation, are slain by the help of Indra, by the result of the yajnartham karma, by alliance with the armed gods in mighty internal battle; Indra, the god within our mental force, manifests himself as supreme and full of the nature of ideal truth from which his greatness weaponed with the vajra, vidyut or electric principle, derives (mahitwam astu vajrine). The mind, instinct with amrita, is then full of equality, samata; it drinks in the flood of activity of all kinds as the sea takes in the rivers. For the condition then results in which the ideal consciousness Mahi is like a ripe branch to the giver, when all powers & expansions of being at once (without obstacle as the Vritras are slain) become active in consciousness as masterful and effective knowledge or awareness (chit). This is the process prayed for by the poet. The whole hymn becomes a consecutive & intelligible whole, a single thought worked out logically & coherently and relating with perfect accuracy of ensemble & detail to one of the commonest experiences of Yogic fulfilment. In both these passages the faithful adherence to the intimations of language, Vedantic idea & Yogic experience have shed a flood of light, illuminating the obscurity of the Vedas, bringing coherence into the incoherence of the naturalistic explanation, close & strict logic, great depth of meaning with great simplicity of expression, and, as I shall show when I take up the final interpretation of the separate hymns, a rational meaning & reason of existence in that particular place for each word & phrase and a faultless & inevitable connection with what goes before & with what goes after. It is worth noticing that by the naturalistic interpretation one can indeed generally make out a meaning, often a clear or fluent sense for the separate verses of the Veda, but the ensemble of the hymn has almost always about it an air bizarre, artificial, incoherent, almost purposeless, frequently illogical and self-contradictoryas in Max Mullers translation of the 39th hymn, Kanwas to the Maruts,never straightforward, self-assured & easy. One would expect in these primitive writers,if they are primitive,crudeness of belief perhaps, but still plainness of expression and a simple development of thought. One finds instead everything tortuous, rugged, gnarled, obscure, great emptiness with great pretentiousness of mind, a labour of diction & development which seems to be striving towards great things & effecting a nullity. The Vedic singers, in the modern version, have nothing to say and do not know how to say it. I sacrifice, you drink, you are fine fellows, dont hurt me or let others hurt me, hurt my enemies, make me safe & comfortablethis is practically all that the ten Mandalas have to say to the gods & it is astonishing that they should be utterly at a loss how to say it intelligibly. A system which yields such results must have at its root some radical falsity, some cardinal error.
I pass now to a third passage, also instructive, also full of that depth and fine knowledge of the movements of the higher consciousness which every Yogin must find in the Veda. It is in the 9th hymn of the Mandala and forms the seventh verse of that hymn. Sam gomad Indra vajavad asme prithu sravo brihat, visvayur dhehi akshitam. The only crucial question in this verse is the signification of sravas.With our modern ideas the sentence seems to us to demand that sravas should be translated here fame. Sravas is undoubtedly the same word as the Greek xo (originally xFo); it means a thing heard, rumour, report, & thence fame. If we take it in that sense, we shall have to translate Arrange for us, O universal life, a luminous and solid, wide & great fame unimpaired. I dismiss at once the idea that go & vaja can here signify cattle and food or wealth. A herded & fooded or wealthy fame to express a fame for wealth of cattle & food is a forceful turn of expression we might expect to find in Aeschylus or in Shakespeare; but I should hesitate, except in case of clear necessity, to admit it in the Veda or in any Sanscrit style of composition; for such expressions have always been alien to the Indian intellect. Our stylistic vagaries have been of another kind. But is luminous & solid fame much better? I shall suggest another meaning for sravas which will give as usual a deeper sense to the whole passage without our needing to depart by a hairs breadth from the etymological significance of the words. Sruti in Sanscrit is a technical term, originally, for the means by which Vedic knowledge is acquired, inspiration in the suprarational mind; srutam is the knowledge of Veda. Similarly, we have in Vedic Sanscrit the forms srut and sravas. I take srut to mean inspired knowledge in the act of reception, sravas the thing acquired by the reception, inspired knowledge. Gomad immediately assumes its usual meaning illuminated, full of illumination. Vaja I take throughout the Veda as a technical Vedic expression for that substantiality of being-consciousness which is the basis of all special manifestation of being & power, all utayah & vibhutayahit means by etymology extended being in force, va or v to exist or move in extension and the vocable j which always gives the idea of force or brilliance or decisiveness in action or manifestation or contact. I shall accept no meaning which is inconsistent with this fundamental significance. Moreover the tendency of the old commentators to make all possible words, vaja, ritam etc mean sacrifice or food, must be rejected,although a justification in etymology might always be made out for the effort. Vaja means substance in being, substance, plenty, strength, solidity, steadfastness. Here it obviously means full of substance, just as gomad full of luminousness,not in the sense arthavat, but with another & psychological connotation. I translate then, O Indra, life of all, order for us an inspired knowledge full of illumination & substance, wide & great and unimpaired. Anyone acquainted with Yoga will at once be struck by the peculiar & exact appropriateness of all these epithets; they will admit him at once by sympathy into the very heart of Madhuchchhandas experience & unite him in soul with that ancient son of Visvamitra. When Mahas, the supra-rational principle, begins with some clearness to work in Yoga, not on its own level, not swe dame, but in the mind, it works at first through the principle of Srutinot Smriti or Drishti, but this Sruti is feeble & limited in its range, it is not prithu; broken & scattered in its working even when the range is wide, not unlimited in continuity, not brihat; not pouring in a flood of light, not gomat, but coming as a flash in the darkness, often with a pale glimmer like the first feebleness of dawn; not supported by a strong steady force & foundation of being, Sat, in manifestation, not vajavad, but working without foundation, in a void, like secondh and glimpses of Sat in nothingness, in vacuum, in Asat; and, therefore, easily impaired, easily lost hold of, easily stolen by the Panis or the Vritras. All these defects Madhuchchhanda has noticed in his own experience; his prayer is for an inspired knowledge which shall be full & free & perfect, not marred even in a small degree by these deficiencies.
1.07 - The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
A profound existential malaise can set in-the characteristic pathology of this stage (fulcrum six). No longer protected by anthropocentric gods and Goddesses, reason gone flat in its happy capacity to explain away the Mystery, not yet delivered into the hands of the superconscious-we stare out blankly into that dark and gloomy night, which will very shortly swallow us up as surely as it once spat us forth. Tolstoy:
The question, which in my fiftieth year had brought me to the notion of suicide, was the simplest of all questions, lying in the soul of every man: "What will come from what I am doing now, and may do tomorrow? What will come from my whole life?" Otherwise expressed-"Why should I live? Why should I wish for anything?" Again, in other words, "Is there any meaning in my life which will not be destroyed by the inevitable death awaiting me?"
1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"One must admit the existence of tendencies inherited from previous births. There is a story about a man who practised the sava-sadhana.l He worshipped the Divine Mother in a deep forest. First he saw many terrible visions. Finally a tiger attacked and killed him. Another man, happening to pass and seeing the approach of the tiger, had climbed a tree. Afterwards he got down and found all the arrangements for worship at hand. He performed some purifying ceremonies and seated himself on the corpse. No sooner had he done a little japa than the Divine Mother appeared before him and said: 'My child, I am very much pleased with you. Accept a boon from Me.' He bowed low at the Lotus Feet of the Goddess and said: 'May I ask You one question, Mother? I am speechless with amazement at Your action. The other man worked so hard to get the ingredients for Your worship and tried to propitiate You for such a long time, but You didn't condescend to show him Your favour. And I, who don't know anything of worship, who have done nothing, who have neither devotion nor knowledge nor love, and who haven't practised any austerities, am receiving so much of Your grace.' The Divine Mother said with a laugh: 'My child, you don't remember your previous births. For many births you tried to propitiate Me through austerities. As a result of those austerities all these things have come to hand, and you have been blessed with My Vision. Now ask Me your boon.'
Suicide after the vision of God
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PRANKRISHNA: "Yes, sir. It is said in the Mahanirvana Tantra: 'O Goddess, this religion enjoins it upon one to be truthful, self-controlled, devoted to the welfare of others, unagitated, and compassionate.'"
MASTER: "Yes. But these ideas must be assimilated."
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Regaining partial consciousness, the Master said: "Why is my spiritual feeling kindled at the sight of Rakhal? The more you advance toward God, the less you will see of His glories and grandeur. The aspirant at first has a vision of the Goddess with ten arms;8
there is a great display of power in that image. The next vision is that of the Deity with two arms; there are no longer ten arms holding various weapons and missiles. Then the aspirant has a vision of Gopala, in which there is no trace of power. It is the form of a tender child. Beyond that there are other visions also. The aspirant then sees only Light.
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
We may complete the whole tradition of the Indian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, we have only to add the Tantras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as it may sound the Tantrics are in reality the most advanced of the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a primitive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of the Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites of Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by the will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun out of existence; but at least it is not impossible. In other words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition that existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential postulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which the universal sorrow (apparent indeed to all ordinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory rite of Isis in the ancient days of Khem. There, a Neophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the pouting buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed by the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at the base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted her veil.
The basis of the Black philosophy is not impossibly mere climate, with its resulting etiolation of the native, its languid, bilious, anaemic, fever-prostrated, emasculation of the soul of man. We accordingly find few true equivalents of this School in Europe. In Greek philosophy there is no trace of any such doctrine. The poison in its foulest and most virulent form only entered with Christianity.*[AC17] But even so, few men of any real eminence were found to take the axioms of pessimism seriously. Huxley, for all of his harping on the minor key, was an eupeptic Tory. The culmination of the Black philosophy is only found in Schopenhauer, and we may regard him as having been obsessed, on the one hand, by the despair born of that false scepticism which he learnt from the bankruptcy of Hume and Kant; on the other, by the direct obsession of the Buddhist documents to which he was one of the earliest Europeans to obtain access. He was, so to speak, driven to suicide by his own vanity, a curious parallel to Kiriloff in The Possessed of Dostoiewsky.
1.083 - Choosing an Object for Concentration, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
The fixing of the mind on the point also implies the choosing of the point. What is the point on which we are concentrating? We have the traditional concept of the ishta devata, a term designating the nature of the object of meditation, which gives a clue as to what sort of object it should be. It should be ishta and it should be our devata. Only then we can allow the mind to move towards it entirely. We must worship that object as our god or Goddess, our deity, our alter-ego, our centre of affection, our love, our everything; that should be the object. And, it is the dearest conceivable. There is nothing in this world so dear to us as that such a thing is called the ishta devata. What is there in this world which is so dear to us, which we worship as God Himself? Is there anything like that? If there was no such thing as that, it would have to be there; otherwise, the mind will not move towards the object. How can the mind move towards an object which it does not regard as the highest ideal, which it regards as only one among the many? If the idea is that there is a possibility of other objects also, equally valuable as the one here presented, why should not the mind turn to other directions?
When there is an equal reality or value recognised in the other objects of the world, then there is every chance of the mind moving towards other objects also, because of an equal reality and value present there. Then there is no question of ishta or devata here. If there can be another ideal which is equal to this, this cannot be called ishta. The ishta is the highest conceivable object of affection and, therefore, it is necessary to feel the presence of the highest values in this object of meditation. Here the difficulty that one feels is really insurmountable, because there is no conceivable object in this world which can be regarded as the dearest, with nothing equal to it. How is it possible to imagine such an object? There are other things also equal to it; and as long as this feeling is there that other things are equal to it, there is a fallibility of concentration, a coming down of the aspiration and a lessening of the intensity of the process.
1.08 - BOOK THE EIGHTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
And, as the Goddess spreads her sable wings,
The virgin's fears decay, and courage springs.
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The Goddess, who th' ingenious still befriends,
On this occasion her asssistance lends;
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The beauteous Goddess with a graceful air
Bow'd in consent, and nodded to their pray'r.
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The fiend obey'd the Goddess' comm and
(Tho' their effects in opposition stand),
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
It is commonly said that the Goddess Śrī was born from the sea of milk, when it was churned for ambrosia; how then can you say that she was the daughter of Bhrigu by Khyāti.
Parāśara said:-
Śrī, the bride of Viṣṇu, the mother of the world, is eternal, imperishable; in like manner as he is all-pervading, so also is she, oh best of Brahmans, omnipresent. Viṣṇu is meaning; she is speech. Hari is polity (Naya); she is prudence (Nīti). Viṣṇu is understanding; she is intellect. He is righteousness; she is devotion. He is the creator; she is creation. Śrī is the earth; Hari the support of it. The deity is content; the eternal Lakṣmī is resignation. He is desire; Śrī is wish. He is sacrifice; she is sacrificial donation (Dakṣinā). The Goddess is the invocation which attends the oblation; Janārddana is the oblation. Lakṣmī is the chamber where the females are present (at a religious ceremony); Madhusūdana the apartment of the males of the family. Lakṣmī is the altar; Hari the stake (to which the victim is bound). Śrī is the fuel; Hari the holy grass (Kuśa). He is the personified Sāma veda; the Goddess, lotus-throned, is the tone of its chanting. Lakṣmī is the prayer of oblation (Svāhā); Vāsudeva, the lord of the world, is the sacrificial fire. Saurī (Viṣṇu) is Śa
kara (Śiva); and Śrī is the bride of Śiva (Gaurī). Keśava, oh Maitreya, is the sun; and his radiance is the lotus-seated Goddess. Viṣṇu is the tribe of progenitors (Pitrigana); Padma. is their bride (Swadhā), the eternal bestower of nutriment. Śrī is the heavens; Viṣṇu, who is one with all things, is wide extended space. The lord of Śrī is the moon; she is his unfading light. She is called the moving principle of the world; he, the wind which bloweth every where. Govinda is the ocean; Lakṣmī its shore. Lakṣmī is the consort of Indra (Indrānī); Madhusūdana is Devendra. The holder of the discus (Viṣṇu) is Yama (the regent of Tartarus); the lotus-throned Goddess is his dusky spouse (Dhūmornā). Śrī is wealth; Śridhara (Viṣṇu) is himself the god of riches (Kuvera). Lakṣmī, illustrious Brahman, is Gaurī; and Keśava, is the deity of ocean (Varuna). Śrī is the host of heaven (Devasenā); the deity of war, her lord, is Hari. The wielder of the mace is resistance; the power to oppose is Śrī. Lakṣmī is the Kāṣṭhā and the Kalā; Hari the Nimeṣa and the Muhūrtta. Lakṣmī is the light; and Hari, who is all, and lord of all, the lamp. She, the mother of the world, is the creeping vine; and Viṣṇu the tree round which she clings. She is the night; the god who is armed with the mace and discus is the day. He, the bestower of blessings, is the bridegroom; the lotus-throned Goddess is the bride.
The god is one with all male-the Goddess one with all female, rivers. The lotus-eyed deity is the standard; the Goddess seated on a lotus the banner. Lakṣmī is cupidity; Nārāyaṇa, the master of the world, is covetousness. Oh thou who knowest what righteousness is, Govinda is love; and Lakṣmī, his gentle spouse, is pleasure. But why thus diffusely enumerate their presence: it is enough to say, in a word, that of gods, animals, and men, Hari is all that is called male; Lakṣmī is all that is termed female: there is nothing else than they.
Footnotes and references:
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[7]: The family of Bhrigu is more particularly described in the tenth chapter: it is here mentioned merely to introduce the story of the birth of the Goddess of prosperity, Śrī.
Sacrifice of Dakṣa (From the Vāyu Purāṇa)
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"In the meanwhile, the virtuous daughter of the mountain king, observing the departure of the divinities, addressed her lord, the god of living beings, and said-Umā spake-'Whither, oh lord, have the gods, preceded by Indra, this day departed? Tell me truly, oh thou who knowest all truth, for a great doubt perplexes me.' Maheśvara spake; Illustrious Goddess, the excellent patriarch Dakṣa celebrates the sacrifice of a horse, and thither the gods repair.' Devī spake; Why then, most mighty god, dost thou also not proceed to this solemnity? by what hinderance is thy progress thither impeded?' Maheśvara spake; 'This is the contrivance, mighty queen, of all the gods, that in all sacrifices no portion should be assigned to me. In consequence of an arrangement formerly devised, the gods allow me, of right, no participation of sacrificial offerings.' Devī spake; 'The lord god lives in all bodily forms, and his might is eminent through his superior faculties; he is unsurpassable, he is unapproachable, in splendour and glory and power. That such as he should be excluded from his share of oblations, fills me with deep sorrow, and a trembling, oh sinless, seizes upon my frame. Shall I now practise bounty, restraint, or penance, so that my lord, who is inconceivable, may obtain a share, a half or a third portion, of the sacrifice[4]?'
"Then the mighty and incomprehensible deity, being pleased, said to his bride, thus agitated; and speaking; 'Slender-waisted queen of the gods, thou knowest not the purport of what thou sayest; but I know it, oh thou with large eyes, for the holy declare all things by meditation. By thy perplexity this day are all the gods, with Mahendra and all the three worlds, utterly confounded. In my sacrifice, those who worship me, repeat my praises, and chant the Rathantara song of the Sāma veda; my priests worship me in the sacrifice of true wisdom, where no officiating Brahman is needed; and in this they offer me my portion.' Devī spake; 'The lord is the root of all, and assuredly, in every assemblage of the female world, praises or hides himself at will.' Mahādeva spake; 'Queen of the gods, I praise not myself: approach, and behold whom I shall create for the purpose of claiming my share of the rite.'
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"This being, then, knelt down upon the ground, and raising his hands respectfully to his head, said to Mahādeva, 'Sovereign of the gods, command what it is that I must do for thee.' To which Maheśvara replied, Spoil the sacrifice of Dakṣa.' Then the mighty Vīrabhadra, having heard the pleasure of his lord, bowed down his head to the feet of Prajāpati; and starting like a lion loosed from bonds, despoiled the sacrifice of Dakṣa, knowing that the had been created by the displeasure of Devī. She too in her wrath, as the fearful Goddess Rudrakālī, accompanied him, with all her train, to witness his deeds. Vīrabhadra the fierce, abiding in the region of ghosts, is the minister of the anger of Devī. And he then created, from the pores of his skin, powerful demigods, the mighty attendants upon Rudra, of equal valour and strength, who started by hundreds and thousands into existence. Then a loud and confused clamour filled all the expanse of ether, and inspired the denizens of heaven with dread. The mountains tottered, and earth shook; the winds roared, and the depths of the sea were disturbed; the fires lost their radiance, and the sun grew pale; the planets of the firmament shone not, neither did the stars give light; the Ṛṣis ceased their hymns, and gods and demons were mute; and thick darkness eclipsed the chariots of the skies[5].
"Then from the gloom emerged fearful and numerous forms, shouting the cry of battle; who instantly broke or overturned the sacrificial columns, trampled upon the altars, and danced amidst the oblations. Running wildly hither and thither, with the speed of wind, they tossed about the implements and vessels of sacrifice, which looked like stars precipitated from the heavens. The piles of food and beverage for the gods, which had been heaped up like mountains; the rivers of milk; the banks of curds and butter; the sands of honey and butter-milk and sugar; the mounds of condiments and spices of every flavour; the undulating knolls of flesh and other viands; the celestial liquors, pastes, and confections, which had been prepared; these the spirits of wrath devoured or defiled or scattered abroad. Then falling upon the host of the gods, these vast and resistless Rudras beat or terrified them, mocked and insulted the nymphs and Goddesses, and quickly put an end to the rite, although defended by all the gods; being the ministers of Rudra's wrath, and similar to himself[6]. Some then made a hideous clamour, whilst others fearfully shouted, when Yajña was decapitated. For the divine Yajña, the lord of sacrifice, then began to fly up to heaven, in the shape of a deer; and Vīrabhadra, of immeasurable spirit, apprehending his power, cut off his vast head, after he had mounted into the sky[7]. Dakṣa the patriarch, his sacrifice being destroyed, overcome with terror, and utterly broken in spirit, fell then upon the ground, where his head was spurned by the feet of the cruel Vīrabhadra[8]. The thirty scores of sacred divinities were all presently bound, with a band of fire, by their lion-like foe; and they all then addressed him, crying, 'Oh Rudra, have mercy upon thy servants: oh lord, dismiss thine anger.' Thus spake Brahmā and the other gods, and the patriarch Dakṣa; and raising their hands, they said, 'Declare, mighty being, who thou art.' Vīrabhadra said, 'I am not a god, nor an Āditya; nor am I come hither for enjoyment, nor curious to behold the chiefs of the divinities: know that I am come to destroy the sacrifice of Dakṣa, and that I am called Vīrabhadra, the issue of the wrath of Rudra. Bhadrakālī also, who has sprung from the anger of Devī, is sent here by the god of gods to destroy this rite. Take refuge, king of kings, with him who is the lord of Umā; for better is the anger of Rudra than the blessings of other gods.'
"Having heard the words of Vīrabhadra, the righteous Dakṣa propitiated the mighty god, the holder of the trident, Maheśvara. The hearth of sacrifice, deserted by the Brahmans, had been consumed; Yajña had been metamorphosed to an antelope; the fires of Rudra's wrath had been kindled; the attendants, wounded by the tridents of the servants of the god, were groaning with pain; the pieces of the uprooted sacrificial posts were scattered here and there; and the fragments of the meat-offerings were carried off by flights of hungry vultures, and herds of howling jackals. Suppressing his vital airs, and taking up a posture of meditation, the many-sighted victor of his foes, Dakṣa fixed his eyes every where upon his thoughts. Then the god of gods appeared from the altar, resplendent as a thousand suns, and smiled upon him, and said, 'Dakṣa, thy sacrifice has been destroyed through sacred knowledge: I am well pleased with thee:' and then he smiled again, and said, 'What shall I do for thee; declare, together with the preceptor of the gods.'
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If the Veda is a great religious and psychological document and not an early hymnal of savage ceremonies, there must be in the long procession of the sacred chants passages which preserve, in spite of the unavoidable difficulties of an archaic language, their ancient truth on their surface. The totality of the Veda is so closely knit in its mentality, constant in its ideas and unchanging in its terms that we may hope from even one such text a help considerably beyond the measure of its actual length & scope in fixing the nature of theVedic outlook and helping us to some clue to the secret of its characteristic expressions. Our desideratum is a passage in which the god of the Riks must be a mental or moral Power, the thoughts religious, intellectual or psychological in their substance, the expressions insistent in their clear superphysical intention.We will begin with a striking passage in a hymn, put by Vyasa very early in the order of his collection.It is the third sukta of the first Mandala. Madhuchchhanda, son of the famous Visvamitra, is the seer; Saraswati is the Goddess; the three closing riks of the hymn are the indicative passage
Saraswati, a name familiar to the religious conceptions of the race from our earliest eras, & of incessant occurrence in poetic phraseology and image, is worshipped yearly even at the present day in all provinces of the peninsula no less than those many millenniums ago in the prehistoric dawn of our religion and literature. Consistently, subsequent to the Vedic times, she has been worshipped everywhere & is named in all passages as a Goddess of speech, poetry, learning and eloquence. Epic, Purana and the popular imagination know her solely as this deity of speech & knowledge. She ranks therefore in the order of religious ideas with the old Hellenic conceptions of Pallas, Aphrodite or the Muses; nor does any least shadow of the material Nature-power linger to lower the clear intellectuality of her powers and functions. But there is also a river Saraswati or several rivers of that name. Therefore, the doubt suggests itself: In any given passage may it not be the Aryan river, Saraswati, which the bards are chanting? even if they sing of her or cry to her as a Goddess, may it not still be the River, so dear, sacred & beneficent to them, that they worship? Or even where she is clearly a Goddess of speech and thought, may it not be that the Aryans, having had originally no intellectual or moral conceptions and therefore no gods of the mind and heart, converted, when they did feel the need, this sacred flowing River into a Goddess of sacred flowing song? In that case we are likely to find in her epithets & activities the traces of this double capacity.
For the rest, Sayana in this particular passage lends some support [to] this suggestion of Saraswatis etymological good luck; for he tells us that Saraswati has two aspects, the embodied Goddess of Speech and the figure of a river. He distributes, indeed, these two capacities with a strange inconsistency and in his interpretation, as in so many of these harsh & twisted scholastic renderings, European & Indian, of the old melodious subtleties of thought & language, the sages of the Veda come before us only to be convicted of a baffling incoherence of sense and a pointless inaptness of language. But possibly, after all, it is the knowledge of the scholar that is at fault, not the intellect of the Vedic singers that was confused, stupid and clumsy! Nevertheless we must consider the possibility that Sayanas distribution of the sense may be ill-guided, & yet his suggestion about the double role of the Goddess may in itself be well-founded. There are few passages of the ancient Sanhita, into which these ingenuities of the ritualistic & naturalistic interpretations do not pursue us. Our inquiry would protract itself into an intolerable length, if we had at every step to clear away from the path either the heavy ancient lumber or the brilliant modern rubbish. It is necessary to determine, once for all, whether the Vedic scholars, prve ntan uta, are guides worthy of trustwhe ther they are as sure in taste & insight as they are painstaking and diligent in their labour,whether, in a word, these ingenuities are the outcome of an imaginative licence of speculation or a sound & keen intuition of the true substance of Veda. Here is a crucial passage. Let us settle at least one side of the account the ledger of the great Indian scholiast.
Madhuchchhanda turns to Saraswati at the close of his hymn after successively calling to the Aswins, Indra & the Visvadevas. To each of these deities he has addressed three riks of praise & invocation; the last three of the twelve reiterate in each verse the name, epithets & functions of Saraswati. The Sukta falls therefore into four equal parts of which the last alone immediately concerns us.
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On the strength of Sayanas commentary these lines would have to bear in English the following astounding significance. Let the purifying Goddess of Speech, equipped by means of food offerings with a ritual full of food, desire (that is to say, up-bear) the sacrifice, she who is the cause of wealth as a result of the ritual. Sender of pleasant & true sayings and explainer (of this sacrifice) to the performers of the ritual who have a good intelligence, the Goddess of Speech upholds the sacrifice. The river Saraswati makes known by her action (that is, her stream) much water, she (the Muse) illumines all the ideas of the sacrificer. Truly, whatever Saraswati may do for the sacrificer,who does not appear at all in the lines except to the second sight of Sayana,the great scholar does not succeed in illumining our ideas about the sense of the Sukta. The astonishing transition from the Muse to the river & the river to the Muse in a single rik is flagrantly impossible. How does Saraswatis thoughtful provision of much water lead to her illumination of the sacrificers evidently confused intellect?Why should dhiy in dhiyvasu mean ritual act, and dhiyo in dhiyo vsv ideas? How can desire mean upbear, ritual act mean wealth or action mean a stream of water? What sense can we extract from arnah prachetayati in Sayanas extraordinary combination? If s nritnm expresses speech or thought, why should the parallel expression sumatnm in defiance of rhythm of sound & rhythm of sense, refer to the sacrificers? I have offered these criticisms not for any pleasure in carping at the great Southern scholar, but to establish by a clear, decisive & typical instance the defects which justify my total rejection of his once supreme authority in Vedic scholarship. Sayana is learned in ritualism, loaded with grammatical lore, a scholar of vast diligence and enormous erudition, but in his mentality literary perception & taste seem either to have been non-existent or else oppressed under the heavy weight of his learning. This and other defects common enough in men of vast learning whose very curiosity of erudition only lead them to prefer a strained to a simple explanation, the isolated suggestions of single words to a regard for the total form & coherence, & recondite, antiquarian or ceremonial allusions to a plain meaning, render his guidance less than useful in the higher matters of interpretation and far from safe in questions of verbal rendering.
The effectual motive for Sayanas admission of Saraswatis double rle in this Sukta is the expression maho arnas, the great water, of the third rik. Only in her capacity as a river- Goddess has Saraswati anything to do with material water; an abundance of liquid matter is entirely irrelevant to her intellectual functions. If therefore we accept arnah in a material sense, the entrance of the river into the total physiognomy of Saraswati is imposed upon us by hard necessity in spite of the resultant incoherence. But if on the other hand, arnah can be shown to bear other than a material significance or intention, then no other necessity exists for the introduction of a deified Aryan river. On the contrary, there is an extraordinary accumulation of expressions clearly intellectual in sense. Pvak, dhiyvasuh, chodayitr snritnm, chetant sumatnm, prachetayati ketun, dhiyo vsv vi rjati are all expressions of this stamp; for they mean respectively purifying, rich in understanding, impeller of truths, awakening to good thoughts, perceives or makes conscious by perception, governs variously all the ideas or mental activities. Even yajnam vashtu and yajnam dadhe refer, plainly, to a figurative moral upholding,if, indeed, upholding be at all the Rishis intention in vashtu. What is left? Only the name Saraswati thrice repeated, the pronoun nah, and the two expressions vjebhir vjinvat and maho arnah. The rest is clearly the substance of a passage full of strong intellectual and moral conceptions. I shall suggest that these two expressions vjebhir vjin vat and maho arnah are no exception to the intellectuality of the rest of the passage. They, too, are words expressing moral or intellectual qualities or entities.
The word vja, usually rendered by Sayana, food or ghee,a sense which he is swift to foist upon any word which will at all admit that construction, as well as on some which will not admit it,has in other passages another sense assigned to it, strength, bala. It is the latter significance or its basis of substance & solidity which I propose to attach to vja in every line of the Rigveda where it occursand it occurs with an abundant frequency. There are a number of words in the Veda which have to be rendered by the English strength,bala, taras, vja, sahas, avas, to mention only the most common expressions. Can it be supposed that all these vocables rejoice in one identical connotation as commentators and lexicographers would lead us to conclude, and are used in the Veda promiscuously & indifferently to express the same idea of strength? The psychology of human language is more rich and delicate. In English the words strength, force, vigour, robustness differ in their mental values; force can be used in offices of expression to which strength and vigour are ineligible. In Vedic Sanscrit, as in every living tongue, the same law holds and a literary and thoughtful appreciation of its documents, whatever may be the way of the schools, must take account of these distinctions. In the brief list I have given, bala answers to the English strength, taras gives a shade of speed and impetuosity, sahas of violence or force, avas of flame and brilliance, vja of substance and solidity. In the philological appendix to this work there will be found detailed reasons for concluding that strength is in the history of the word vja only a secondary sense, like its other meanings, wealth and food; the basic idea is a strong sufficiency of substance or substantial energy. Vja is one of the great standing terms of the Vedic psychology. All states of being, whether matter, mind or life and all material, mental & vital activities depend upon an original flowing mass of Energy which is in the vivid phraseology of the Vedas called a flood or sea, samudra, sindhu or arnas. Our power or activity in any direction depends first on the amount & substantiality of this stream as it flows into, through or within our own limits of consciousness, secondly, on our largeness of being constituted by the wideness of those limits, thirdly, on our power of holding the divine flow and fourthly on the force and delight which enter into the use of our available Energy. The result is the self-expression, ansa or vyakti, which is the objective of Vedic Yoga. In the language of the Rishis whatever we can make permanently ours is called our holding or wealth, dhanam or in the plural dhanni; the powers which assist us in the getting, keeping or increasing of our dhanni, the yoga, s ti & vriddhi, are the gods; the powers which oppose & labour to rob us of this wealth are our enemies & plunderers, dasyus, and appear under various names, Vritras, Panis, Daityas, Rakshasas, Yatudhanas. The wealth itself may be the substance of mental light and knowledge or of vital health, delight & longevity or of material strength & beauty or it may be external possessions, cattle, progeny, empire, women. A close, symbolic and to modern ideas mystic parallelism stood established in the Vedic mind between the external & the internal wealth, as between the outer sacrifice which earned from the gods the external wealth & the inner sacrifice which brought by the aid of the gods the internal riches. In this system the word vja represents that amount & substantial energy of the stuff of force in the dhanam brought to the service of the sacrificer for the great Jivayaja, our daily & continual life-sacrifice. It is a substantial wealth, vjavad dhanam that the gods are asked to bring with them. We see then in what sense Saraswati, a Goddess purely mental in her functions of speech and knowledge, can be vjebhir vjinvat. Vjin is that which is composed of vja, substantial energy; the plural vj h or vj ni the particular substantialities of various composed. For the rest, to no other purpose can a deity of speech & knowledge be vjebhir vjinvat. In what appropriateness or coherent conceivable sense can the Goddess of knowledge be possessed of material wealth or full-stored with material food, ghee & butter, beef & mutton? If it be suggested that Speech of the mantras was believed by these old superstitious barbarians to bring them their ghee & butter, beef & mutton, the answer is that this is not what the language of the hymns expresses. Saraswati herself is said to be vjinvat, possessed of substance of food; she is not spoken of as being the cause of fullness of food or wealth to others.
This explanation of vjebhir vjinvat leads at once to the figurative sense of maho arnas. Arnas or samudra is the image of the sea, flood or stream in which the Vedic seers saw the substance of being and its different states. Sometimes one great sea, sometimes seven streams of being are spoken of by the Rishis; they are the origin of the seven seas of the Purana. It cannot be doubted that the minds of the old thinkers were possessed with this image of ocean or water as the very type & nature of the flux of existence, for it occurs with a constant insistence in the Upanishads. The sole doubt is whether the image was already present to the minds of the primitive Vedic Rishis. The Europeans hold that these were the workings of a later imagination transfiguring the straightforward material expressions & physical ideas of the Veda; they admit no real parentage of Vedantic ideas in the preexistent Vedic notions, but only a fictitious derivation. I hold, on the contrary, that Vedantic ideas have a direct & true origin & even a previous existence in the religion & psychology of the Vedas. If, indeed, there were no stuff of high thinking or moral sensibility in the hymns of the Vedic sages, then I should have no foundation to stand upon and no right to see this figure in the Vedic arnas or samudra. But when these early minds,early to us, but not perhaps really so primitive in human history as we imagine,were capable of such high thoughts & perceptions as these three Riks bear on their surface, it would be ridiculous to deny them the capacity of conceiving these great philosophical images & symbols. A rich poetic imagery expressing a clear, direct & virgin perception of the facts of mind and being, is not by any means impossible, but rather natural in these bright-eyed sons of the morning not yet dominated in their vision by the dry light of the intellect or in their speech & thought by the abstractions & formalities of metaphysical thinking. Water was to them, let us hold in our hypothesis, the symbol of unformed substance of being, earth of the formed substance. They even saw a mystic identity between the thing symbolised & the symbol.
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What then is it that Madhuchchhanda, son of Viswamitra, has to say in this Sukta of the Goddess of inspiration, speech and knowledge? He does not directly address her, but he assigns to this deity the general control, support and illumination of the sacrifice he is performing. Let Saraswati he says control our Yajna. The epithets which fill the Rik must express either the permanent & characteristic qualities in her which fit her for this high office of control or the possible & suitable qualities with which he wishes her to be equipped in the performance of that office. First, pvak. She is the great purifier. It is as we shall see not a literary inspiration he invokes, but a divine inspiration, an inspiration of truths and right thoughts and, it may be, right feelings. Saraswati by this inspiration, by this inspired truth & knowledge & right feeling, is asked to purify, first, the mental state of the Yogin; for a mind unpurified cannot hold the light from on high. Knowledge purifies, says the Gita, meaning the higher spiritual knowledge which comes by ruti, divine inspiration; there is nothing in the whole world so pure as knowledge: Saraswati who purifies, Pvak Saraswat. Vjebhir vjin vat. She is full of substantial energy, stored with a great variety in substance of knowledge, chitraravastama, as is said in another hymn of the strong god Agni. The inspiration & resultant knowledge prayed for is not that of any isolated truth or slight awakening, but a great substance of knowledge & a high plenty of inspiration; the mental state has to be filled with this strong & copious substance of Saraswati.Dhiyvasuh. She is rich in understanding. Dh in the Veda is the buddhi, the faculty of reason that understands, discerns & holds knowledge. This inspiration has to be based on a great intellectual capacity which supports & holds the flood of the inspiration. Thus rich, thus strong & plenteous, thus purifying the divine inspiration has to hold & govern the Sacrifice.
The thought passes on in the eleventh Rik from the prayer to the fulfilment. Yajnam dadhe Saraswat. Saraswati upholds the Yajna; she has accepted the office of governance & already upbears in her strength the action of the sacrifice. In that action she is Chodayitr unritnm, chetant sumatnm. That great luminous impulse of inspiration in which the truths of being start to light of themselves and are captured and possessed by the mind, that spiritual enlightenment and awakening in which right thoughts & right seeing become spontaneously the substance of our purified mental state, proceed from Saraswati & are already being poured by her into the system, like the Aryan stream into the Indus. Mati means any activity of the mind; right thoughts in the intellect, right feelings in the heart, right perceptions in the sensational mind, sumati may embrace any or all of these associations; in another context, by a different turn of the prefix, it may express kindly thoughts, friendly feelings, happy perceptions.
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Greatly has this short passage helped us. It has shown us the true physiognomy of Saraswati as the Goddess of inspiration & inspired knowledge & the true nature of the Vedic Yajna; it has fixed the great Vedic terms, vja, dh & ketu; but above all it has given us a firm foundation for a religious & spiritual interpretation of Veda, a brilliant starting point for an inquiry into its truth & its ancient secret. We can now hope to be delivered from the obscuration of Veda by the ritualists & its modern degradation into the document of a primitive & barbarous religion. Its higher & truer sense shows itself in this brief passage like the dim line of land seen on the far horizon.
The metre of the Vedic hymns depends as in English on the number of syllables in the line, quantity only entering in [as] an element of rhythmic variation. The sign marks a naturally long a, i, u,to which e & o must be added. Vowels followed by a double consonant are long as in Latin & Greek. V & y are often interpreted as separate short syllables as if they were u and i.
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If the Vedas have a deep religious and psychological significance such as I have attributed to them, if they are not, as the disciples of the Europeans suppose, an early hymnal of savage ceremonies, there must be in the long procession of the sacred chants, in the fixed formulae and individual variations of these voluminous songs to a small number of strongly characterised deities, some individual riks, some occasional passages, some entire hymns, even, which, in spite of the difficulties of an archaic diction & the concealing veil of a changed vocabulary, still bear the ancient truth on their very surface. The totality of the Rig Veda is so closely knit in its mentality, so constant in its common terms, so fixed & unchanging in its principal ideas that even one such rik, passage or hymn ought to exceed the limits of its single text & shed a wide light over the whole surface of Vedic thought & phraseology. Is there any such passage easily discoverable? There is one, I think, which occurs very early in the collection and by the nature of its presiding deity, its strongly subjective purport & its clear and striking language seems to fulfil our desideratum. It occurs in the third sukta of the first Mandala. Madhuchchhandas, son of the famous Visvamitra, is the seer; Saraswati is the Goddess; the last three riks of the hymn constitute the indicative passage.
In Saraswati we have a deity with subjective functions the first desideratum in our enquiry. Still, there is a doubt, a difficulty. Saraswati of the Epics & Puranas, Saraswati, as she is worshipped today throughout India is, no doubt, a purely subjective Goddess and presides only over intellectual and immaterial functions. She is our Lady of Speech, the Muse, the Goddess of Poetry, Art and Learning. Saraswati, the flowing, is also the name of more than one river in modern India, but especially of the sacred stream in upper India supposed to join secretly in their confluence the waters of theGanges and Yamuna and form with them the holy Triveni or triple braid of waters in which the ceremonial ablution of the devotee is more potent than at almost any other Indian place of pilgrimage and gives the richest spiritual fruit to the believing pilgrim. But in our modern religious ideas there is no real connexion, except of name, between the Goddess and the river. In the Veda also there is a Saraswati who is the Goddess of speech; in the Veda also there seems to be an ancient river Saraswati, although this stream is placed by Vedic scholars in the Panjab and not in the vicinity of Prayaga and Ayodhya. Were these two deities,for every river and indeed every natural object was to the Vedic Rishis a divine being,the same Goddess Saraswati? Sayana accepts, even in this passage, their identity; she is, he tells us, [].1 If this identity were accepted, we would have to ask ourselves by what process of subjective metamorphosis a material Panjab river came to be the deity of Speech, the female power of Brahma, the Muse and tutelar Goddess of scholar and poet. Or was not rather the Goddess of speech eponymous of the river and subsequently imaged in it by the Vedic symbolists? But before we descend to these ulterior questions, we must first know for certain whether Sayana is right in his identification of the river and the Muse. First of all, are they the same in this passage? secondly, are they the same in any passage of the Veda? It is to the first question alone that we need address ourselves for the present; for on its solution depends the whole purport, value and helpfulness of these three Riks for the purposes of our enquiry into the sense and secret of the Vedas.
Blank in MS; in his commentary on the passage under discussion, Sayana describes Saraswati as: dvividh . . . vigrahavaddevat nadrp ca.Ed.
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If we are right, as we must now assume, in our interpretation of these three riks, then the conclusion is irresistible that the whole of this third Sukta in the Veda, & not only its closing verses, relates to an activity of moral & mental sacrifice and the other gods invoked by Madhuchchhandas are equally with Saraswati Powers of subjectiveNature, Indra not the god of rain, but a mental deity, the Aswins not twin stars, or, if stars, then lights of a sublimer heaven, the Visvadevas, gods not of general physical Nature, but supraphysical and in charge of our general subjective or subjective-objective activity. The supposition is inadmissible that the hymn is purely ritual in its body and only in-grafted with a spiritual tail. The physical functions of the gods in the Veda need not be denied; but they must be alien to the thought of Madhuchchhandas in this Sukta,unless as in some hymns of the Veda, there is the slesha or double application to subjective & objective activities. But this is improbable; for in the lines of which Saraswati is the Goddess, we have found no reference either open or covert to any material form or function. She is purely the Muse and not at all the material river.
We must examine, then, the rest of the hymn and by an impartial scrutiny discover whether it yields naturally, without forcing or straining, a subjective significance. If we find that no such subjective significance exists & it is the gods of rain & of stars & of material activities who are invoked, a serious if not a fatal doubt will be cast on the validity of the first step we have gained in our second chapter. Here, too, we must follow the clue by which we arrived at the subjective physiognomy of Saraswati. We must see what is the evidence of the epithets & activities assigned to the several deities of the Sukta.
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There are two epithets yet left which we have to fix to their right significance, before we sum up the evidence of this passage and determine the subjective physiognomy of the Aswins,purudansas & nsaty. Sayana interprets dansas as active,the Aswins are gods of a great activity; I suggest fashioning or forming activity,they are abundant fashioners. Sayanas interpretation suits better with the idea of the Aswins as gods full of strength, speed and delight, purudansas, full of a rich activity. But the sense of fashioning is also possible; we have in I.30.16 the expression sa no hiranyaratham dansanvn sa nah sanit sanaye sa no adt, where the meaning may be he gave a car, but would run better he fashioned for us a brilliant car, unless with Sayana we are to disregard the whole structure & rhythmic movement of unahepas sentence. The other epithet Nsaty has long been a puzzle for the grammarians; for the ingenious traditional rendering of Yaska & Sayana, na asaty, not untruthful, is too evidently a desperate shift of entire ignorance. The word by its formation must be either a patronymic, Sons of Nasata, or an adjective formed by the termination tya from the old Aryan noun Nsa, which still exists in the Greek o, an island. The physical significance of n in the Aryan tongues is a gliding or floating motion; we find it in the Latin, nare, to swim or float, the Greek Nais, a river Goddess, nama, a stream, nxis, swimming, floating, naros, water, (S. nra, water), necho, I swim, float or sail; but in Sanscrit, except in nra, water, and nga, a snake, elephant, this signification of the long root n, shared by it originally with na, ni, n, nu & n, has disappeared. Nevertheless, the word Nsa, in some sense of motion, floating, gliding, sailing, voyaging, must have existed among the more ancient Sanscrit vocables. But in what sense can it be applied to the Aswins? It seems to me that we get the clue in the seventh sloka of Praskanwas Hymn to the Aswins which I have already quoted. For immediately after he has spoken of the jyotishmat ish, the luminous force which has carried him over to the other shore of the Ignorance, Praskanwa proceeds,
no nv matnm, ytam prya gantave,
1.09 - BOOK THE NINTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The seated Goddess; on her close-press'd knees
Her fast-knit hands she leans; with chearful voice
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Swift from her seat the startled Goddess springs,
No more conceal'd, her hands abroad she flings;
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Fame says, the Goddess dragg'd the laughing maid
Fast by the hair; in vain her force essay'd
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Believe a Goddess shrin'd in ev'ry tree.
My sire, my sister, and my spouse farewel!
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O sea-born Goddess! with thy wanton boy!
Was ever such a charming scene of joy?
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This promise made, with night the Goddess fled;
With joy the woman wakes, and leaves her bed;
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Thou, Goddess, thou wert present to my sight;
Reveal'd I saw thee by thy own fair light:
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The Goddess nodded, and her altar shook:
The temple doors, as with a blast of wind,
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Iphis the man, has to the Goddess paid
The vows, that Iphis offer'd when a maid.
1.09 - Legend of Lakshmi, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
Thus prayed to, the supreme deity, the mighty holder of the conch and discus, shewed himself to them: and beholding the lord of gods, bearing a shell, a discus, and a mace, the assemblage of primeval form, and radiant with embodied light, Pitāmahā and the other deities, their eyes moistened with rapture, first paid him homage, and then thus addressed him: "Repeated salutation to thee, who art indefinable: thou art Brahmā; thou art the wielder of the Pināka bow (Śiva); thou art Indra; thou art fire, air, the god of waters, the sun, the king of death (Yama), the Vasus, the Māruts (the winds), the Sādhyas, and Viśvadevas. This assembly of divinities, that now has come before thee, thou art; for, the creator of the world, thou art every where. Thou art the sacrifice, the prayer of oblation, the mystic syllable Om, the sovereign of all creatures: thou art all that is to be known, or to be unknown: oh universal soul, the whole world consists of thee. We, discomfited by the Daityas, have fled to thee, oh Viṣṇu, for refuge. Spirit of all, have compassion upon us; defend us with thy mighty power. There will be affliction, desire, trouble, and grief, until thy protection is obtained: but thou art the remover of all sins. Do thou then, oh pure of spirit, shew favour unto us, who have fled to thee: oh lord of all, protect us with thy great power, in union with the Goddess who is thy strength[6]." Hari, the creator of the universe, being thus prayed to by the prostrate divinities, smiled, and thus spake: "With renovated energy, oh gods, I will restore your strength. Do you act as I enjoin. Let all the gods, associated with the Asuras, cast all sorts of medicinal herbs into the sea of milk; and then taking the mountain Mandara for the churning-stick, the serpent Vāsuki for the rope, churn the ocean together for ambrosia; depending upon my aid. To secure the assistance of the Daityas, you must be at peace with them, and engage to give them an equal portion of the fruit of your associated toil; promising them, that by drinking the Amrita that shall be produced from the agitated ocean, they shall become mighty and immortal. I will take care that the enemies of the gods shall not partake of the precious draught; that they shall share in the labour alone."
Being thus instructed by the god of gods, the divinities entered into alliance with the demons, and they jointly undertook the acquirement of the beverage of immortality. They collected various kinds of medicinal herbs, and cast them into the sea of milk, the waters of which were radiant as the thin and shining clouds of autumn. They then took the mountain Mandara for the staff; the serpent Vāsuki for the cord; and commenced to churn the ocean for the Amrita. The assembled gods were stationed by Kṛṣṇa at the tail of the serpent; the Daityas and Dānavas at its head and neck. Scorched by the flames emitted from his inflated hood, the demons were shorn of their glory; whilst the clouds driven towards his tail by the breath of his mouth, refreshed the gods with revivifying showers. In the midst of the milky sea, Hari himself, in the form of a tortoise, served as a pivot for the mountain, as it was whirled around. The holder of the mace and discus was present in other forms amongst the gods and demons, and assisted to drag the monarch of the serpent race: and in another vast body he sat upon the summit of the mountain. With one portion of his energy, unseen by gods or demons, he sustained the serpent king; and with another, infused vigour into the gods.
From the ocean, thus churned by the gods and Dānavas, first uprose the cow Surabhi, the fountain of milk and curds, worshipped by the divinities, and beheld by them and their associates with minds disturbed, and eyes glistening with delight. Then, as the holy Siddhas in the sky wondered what this could be, appeared the Goddess Vārunī (the deity of wine), her eyes rolling with intoxication. Next, from the whirlpool of the deep, sprang the celestial Pārijāta tree, the delight of the nymphs of heaven, perfuming the world with its blossoms. The troop of Āpsarasas, the nymphs of heaven, were then produced, of surprising loveliness, endowed with beauty and with taste. The cool-rayed moon next rose, and was seized by Mahādeva: and then poison was engendered from the sea, of which the snake gods (Nāgas) took possession. Dhanwantari, robed in white, and bearing in his hand the cup of Amrita, next came forth: beholding which, the sons of Diti and of Danu, as well as the Munis, were filled with satisfaction and delight. Then, seated on a full-blown lotus, and holding a water-lily in her hand, the Goddess Śrī, radiant with beauty, rose from the waves. The great sages, enraptured, hymned her with the song dedicated to her praise[7]. Viśvavasu and other heavenly quiristers sang, and Ghritācī and other celestial nymphs danced before her. Ga
gā and other holy streams attended for her ablutions; and the elephants of the skies, taking up their pure waters in vases of gold, poured them over the Goddess, the queen of the universal world. The sea of milk in person presented her with a wreath of never-fading flowers; and the artist of the gods (Viswakermā) decorated her person with heavenly ornaments. Thus bathed, attired, and adorned, the Goddess, in the view of the celestials, cast herself upon the breast of Hari; and there reclining, turned her eyes upon the deities, who were inspired with rapture by her gaze. Not so the Daityas, who, with Viprachitti at their head, were filled with indignation, as Viṣṇu turned away from them, and they were abandoned by the Goddess of prosperity (Lakṣmī.)
The powerful and indignant Daityas then forcibly seized the Amrita-cup, that was in the hand of Dhanwantari: but Viṣṇu, assuming a female form, fascinated and deluded them; and recovering the Amrita from them, delivered it to the gods. Śakra and the other deities quaffed the ambrosia. The incensed demons, grasping their weapons, fell upon them; but the gods, into whom the ambrosial draught had infused new vigour, defeated and put their host to flight, and they fled through the regions of space, and plunged into the subterraneous realms of Pātāla. The gods thereat greatly rejoiced, did homage to the holder of the discus and mace, and resumed their reign in heaven. The sun shone with renovated splendour, and again discharged his appointed task; and the celestial luminaries again circled, oh best of Munis, in their respective orbits. Fire once more blazed aloft, beautiful in splendour; and the minds of all beings were animated by devotion. The three worlds again were rendered happy by prosperity; and Indra, the chief of the gods, was restored to power[8]. Seated upon his throne, and once more in heaven, exercising sovereignty over the gods, Śakra thus eulogized the Goddess who bears a lotus in her hand:-
"I bow down to Śrī, the mother of all beings, seated on her lotus throne, with eyes like full-blown lotuses, reclining on the breast of Viṣṇu. Thou art Siddhi (superhuman power): thou art Swadhā and Svāhā: thou art ambrosia (Sudhā), the purifier of the universe: thou art evening, night, and dawn: thou art power, faith, intellect: thou art the Goddess of letters (Sarasvatī). Thou, beautiful Goddess, art knowledge of devotion, great knowledge, mystic knowledge, and spiritual knowledge[9]; which confers eternal liberation. Thou art the science of reasoning, the three Vedas, the arts and sciences[10]: thou art moral and political science. The world is peopled by thee with pleasing or displeasing forms. Who else than thou, oh Goddess, is seated on that person of the god of gods, the wielder of the mace, which is made up of sacrifice, and contemplated by holy ascetics? Abandoned by thee, the three worlds were on the brink of ruin; but they have been reanimated by thee. From thy propitious gaze, oh mighty Goddess, men obtain wives, children, dwellings, friends, harvests, wealth. Health and strength, power, victory, happiness, are easy of attainment to those upon whom thou smilest. Thou art the mother of all beings, as the god of gods, Hari, is their father; and this world, whether animate or inanimate, is pervaded by thee and Viṣṇu. Oh thou who purifiest all things, forsake not our treasures, our granaries, our dwellings, our dependants, our persons, our wives: abandon not our children, our friends, our lineage, our jewels, oh thou who abidest on the bosom of the god of gods. They whom thou desertest are forsaken by truth, by purity, and goodness, by every amiable and excellent quality; whilst the base and worthless upon whom thou lookest favourably become immediately endowed with all excellent qualifications, with families, and with power. He on whom thy countenance is turned is honourable, amiable, prosperous, wise, and of exalted birth; a hero of irresistible prowess: but all his merits and his advantages are converted into worthlessness from whom, beloved of Viṣṇu, mother of the world, thou avertest thy face. The tongues of Brahmā, are unequal to celebrate thy excellence. Be propitious to me, oh Goddess, lotus-eyed, and never forsake me more." Being thus praised, the gratified Śrī, abiding in all creatures, and heard by all beings, replied to the god of a hundred rites (Śatakratu); "I am pleased, monarch of the gods, by thine adoration. Demand from me what thou desirest: I have come to fulfil thy wishes." "If, Goddess," replied Indra, "thou wilt grant my prayers; if I am worthy of thy bounty; be this my first request, that the three worlds may never again be deprived of thy presence. My second supplication, daughter of ocean, is, that thou wilt not forsake him who shall celebrate thy praises in the words I have addressed to thee." "I will not abandon," the Goddess answered, "the three worlds again: this thy first boon is granted; for I am gratified by thy praises: and further, I will never turn my face away from that mortal who morning and evening shall repeat the hymn with which thou hast addressed me."
Parāśara proceeded:-
Thus, Maitreya, in former times the Goddess Śrī conferred these boons upon the king of the gods, being pleased by his adorations; but her first birth was as the daughter of Bhrigu by Khyāti: it was at a subsequent period that she was produced from the sea, at the churning of the ocean by the demons and the gods, to obtain ambrosia[11]. For in like manner as the lord of the world, the god of gods, Janārddana, descends amongst mankind (in various shapes), so does his coadjutrix Śrī. Thus when Hari was born as a dwarf, the son of Aditī, Lakṣmī appeared from a lotus (as Padmā, or Kamalā); when he was born as Rāma, of the race of Bhrigu (or Paraśurāma), she was Dharaṇī; when he was Rāghava (Rāmacandra), she was Sītā; and when he was Kṛṣṇa, she became Rukminī. In the other descents of Viṣṇu, she is his associate. If he takes a celestial form, she appears as divine; if a mortal, she becomes a mortal too, transforming her own person agreeably to whatever character it pleases Viṣṇu to put on. Whosoever hears this account of the birth of Lakṣmī, whosoever reads it, shall never lose the Goddess Fortune from his dwelling for three generations; and misfortune, the fountain of strife, shall never enter into those houses in which the hymns to Śrī are repeated.
Thus, Brahman, have I narrated to thee, in answer to thy question, how Lakṣmī, formerly the daughter of Bhrigu, sprang from the sea of milk; and misfortune shall never visit those amongst mankind who daily recite the praises of Lakṣmī uttered by Indra, which are the origin and cause of all prosperity.
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[6]: With thy Śakti, or the Goddess Śrī or Lakṣmī.
[7]: Or with the Sūkta, or hymn of the Vedas, commencing, "Hiranya vernām," &c.
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ga, and Kūrma Purāṇas. The Vāyu and Padma have much the same narrative as that of our text; and so have the Agni and Bhāgavata, except that they refer only briefly to the anger of Durvāsas, without narrating the circumstances; indicating their being posterior, therefore, to the original tale. The part, however, assigned to Durvāsas appears to be an embellishment added to the original, for no mention of him occurs in the Matsya P. nor even in the Hari Vaṃśa, neither does it occur in what may be considered the oldest extant versions of the story, those of the Rāmāyana and Mahābhārata: both these ascribe the occurrence to the desire of the gods and Daityas to become immortal. The Matsya assigns a similar motive to the gods, instigated by observing that the Daityas slain by them in battle were restored to life by Śukra with the Sañjīvinī, or herb of immortality, which he had discovered. The account in the Hari Vaṃśa is brief and obscure, and is explained by the commentator as an allegory, in which the churning of the ocean typifies ascetic penance, and the ambrosia is final liberation: but this is mere mystification. The legend of the Rāmāyana is translated, vol. I. p. 410. of the Serampore edition; and that of the Mahābhārata by Sir C. Wilkins, in the notes to his translation of the Bhāgavata Gītā. See also the original text, Cal. ed. p. 40. It has been presented to general readers in a more attractive form by my friend H. M. Parker, in his Draught of Immortality, printed with other poems, Lond. 1827. The Matsya P. has many of the stanzas of the Mahābhārata interspersed with others. There is some variety in the order and number of articles produced from the ocean. As I have observed elsewhere (Hindu Theatre, I. 59. Lond. ed.), the popular enumeration is fourteen; but the Rāmāyana specifies but nine; the Mahābhārata, nine; the Bhāgavata, ten; the Padma, nine; the Vāyu, twelve; the p. 78 Matsya, perhaps, gives the whole number. Those in which most agree, are, 1. the Hālāhala or Kālakūta poison, swallowed by Śiva: 2. Vārunī or Surā, the Goddess of wine, who being taken by the gods, and rejected by the Daityas, the former were termed Suras, and the latter Asuras: 3. the horse Uccaiśśravas, taken by Indra: 4. Kaustubha, the jewel worn by Viṣṇu: 5. the moon: 6. Dhanwantari, with the Amrita in his Kamaṇḍalu, or vase; and these two articles are in the Vāyu considered as distinct products: 7. the Goddess Padmā or Śrī: 8. the Apsarasas, or nymphs of heaven: 9. Surabhi, or the cow of plenty: 10. the Pārijāta tree, or tree of heaven: 11. Airāvata, the elephant taken by Indra. The Matsya adds, 12. the umbrella taken by Varuna: 13. the earrings taken by Indra, and given to Aditī: and apparently another horse, the white horse of the sun: or the number may be completed by counting the Amrita separately from Dhanwantari. The number is made up in the popular lists by adding the bow and the conch of Viṣṇu; but there does not seem to be any good authority for this, and the addition is a sectarial one: so is that of the Tulaśī tree, a plant sacred to Kṛṣṇa, which is one of the twelve specified by the Vāyu P. The Uttara Khanda of the Padma P. has a peculiar enumeration, or, Poison; Jyeṣṭhā or Alakṣmī, the Goddess of misfortune, the elder born to fortune; the Goddess of wine; Nidrā, or sloth; the Apsarasas; the elephant of Indra; Lakṣmī; the moon; and the Tulaśī plant. The reference to Mohinī, the female form assumed by Viṣṇu, is very brief in our text; and no notice is taken of the story told in the Mahābhārata and some of the Purāṇas, of the Daitya Rāhu's insinuating himself amongst the gods, and obtaining a portion of the Amrita: being beheaded for this by Viṣṇu, the head became immortal, in consequence of the Amrita having reached the throat, and was transferred as a constellation to the skies; and as the sun and moon detected his presence amongst the gods, Rāhu pursues them with implacable hatred, and his efforts to seize them are the causes of eclipses; Rāhu typifying the ascending and descending nodes. This seems to be the simplest and oldest form of the legend. The equal immortality of the body, under the name Ketu, and his being the cause of meteorical phenomena, seems to have been an after-thought. In the Padma and Bhāgavata, Rāhu and Ketu are the sons of Sinhikā, the wife of the Dānava Viprachitti.
[9]: The four Vidyās, or branches of knowledge, are said to be, Yajña vidyā, knowledge or performance of religious rites; Mahā vidyā, great knowledge, the worship of the female principle, or Tāntrika worship; Guhya vidyā, knowledge of mantras, mystical prayers, and incantations; and Ātma vidyā, knowledge of soul, true wisdom.
1.09 - Saraswati and Her Consorts, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HE SYMBOLISM of the Veda betrays itself with the greatest clearness in the figure of the Goddess Saraswati.
In many of the other gods the balance of the internal sense and the external figure is carefully preserved. The veil sometimes becomes transparent or its corners are lifted even for the ordinary hearer of the Word; but it is never entirely removed.
--
But Saraswati will submit to no such treatment. She is, plainly and clearly, the Goddess of the Word, the Goddess of a divine
Inspiration.
--
spiritual, from a purely naturalistic to an increasingly ethical and psychological view of Nature and the world and the gods - and this, though by no means certain, is for the present the accepted view,1 - we must suppose that the Vedic poets were at least already advancing from the physical and naturalistic conception of the Gods to the ethical and the spiritual. But Saraswati is not only the Goddess of Inspiration, she is at one and the same time one of the seven rivers of the early Aryan world. The question at once arises, whence came this extraordinary identification? And how does the connection of the two ideas present itself in the
Vedic hymns? And there is more; for Saraswati is important not only in herself but by her connections. Before proceeding farther let us cast a rapid and cursory glance at them to see what they can teach us.
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Saraswati means, "she of the stream, the flowing movement", and is therefore a natural name both for a river and for the Goddess of inspiration. But by what process of thought or association does the general idea of the river of inspiration come to be associated with a particular earthly stream? And in the Veda it is not a question of one river which by its surroundings, natural and legendary, might seem more fitly associated with the idea of sacred inspiration than any other. For here it is a question not of one, but of seven rivers always associated together in the minds of the Rishis and all of them released together by
The Secret of the Veda
--
Saraswati is not only connected with other rivers but with other Goddesses who are plainly psychological symbols and especially with Bharati and Ila. In the later Puranic forms of worship Saraswati is the Goddess of speech, of learning and of poetry and Bharati is one of her names, but in the Veda Bharati and Saraswati are different deities. Bharati is also called Mahi, the Large, Great or Vast. The three, Ila, Mahi or Bharati and
Saraswati are associated together in a constant formula in those hymns of invocation in which the gods are called by Agni to the
--
"May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi, three Goddesses who give birth to the bliss, take their place on the sacrificial seat, they who stumble not," or "who come not to hurt" or "do no hurt." The epithet means, I think, they in whom there is no false movement with its evil consequences, duritam, no stumbling into pitfalls of sin and error. The formula is expanded in Hymn 110 of the tenth Mandala:
A no yajnam bharat tuyam etu, il.a manus.vad iha cetayant;
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"May Bharati come speeding to our sacrifice and Ila hither awakening our consciousness (or, knowledge or perceptions) in human wise, and Saraswati, - three Goddesses sit on this blissful seat, doing well the Work."
It is clear and will become yet clearer that these three Goddesses have closely connected functions akin to the inspirational power of Saraswati. Saraswati is the Word, the inspiration, as
I suggest, that comes from the Ritam, the Truth-consciousness.
--
The rays in the Veda are the rays of Surya, the Sun. Are we to suppose that the Goddess is a deity of the physical Light or are we to translate "go" by cow and suppose that Mahi is full of cows for the sacrificer? The psychological character of
Saraswati comes to our rescue against the last absurd supposition, but it negatives equally the naturalistic interpretation. This characterisation of Mahi, Saraswati's companion in the sacrifice, the sister of the Goddess of inspiration, entirely identified with her in the later mythology, is one proof among a hundred others that light in the Veda is a symbol of knowledge, of spiritual illumination. Surya is the Lord of the supreme Sight, the vast
Light, br.haj jyotih., or, as it is sometimes called, the true Light, r.tam jyotih.. And the connection between the words r.tam and br.hat is constant in the Veda.
--
We may note also that these three Goddesses are said to
Saraswati and Her Consorts
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Indra and Saraswati's close cousin the Goddess Sarama. For it is necessary to define these relations before we can progress with the scrutiny of Madhuchchhandas' other hymns addressed without exception to the great Vedic deity, King of Heaven, who, according to our hypothesis, symbolises the Power of Mind and especially the divine or self-luminous Mind in the human being.
1.09 - The Worship of Trees, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
festival of all the gods and Goddesses. Different from this true and
fruitful marriage of the palm are the false and barren marriages of
--
called Sriphala, or the fruit of Sri, the Goddess of prosperity. It
is the symbol of fertility, and all through Upper India is kept in
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The golden-bosomed Apsara Goddesses,
In groves flooded from an argent disk of bliss
11.06 - The Mounting Fire, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus, the head, the brain, must be built wholly of fire particles. The cranium will hold, as it were, a golden ball, rounded and fully formed, the golden egg, hirayagarbha, out of which the new physical creation will emerge something in the manner of the legendary Greek Goddess Minerva, whole and entire, complete in arms and panoply, out of the head of Father Jupiter.
***
1.10 - BOOK THE TENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
Her face to vye with Goddesses compar'd:
Once join'd by love, they stand united still,
--
The golden Goddess, present at the pray'r,
Well knew he meant th' inanimated fair,
--
The Goddess, present at the match she made,
So bless'd the bed, such fruitfulness convey'd,
--
The Goddess felt it, and with fury stung,
The wanton mischief from her bosom flung:
--
Be thou, O Goddess, author of my aid!
Then of the shining fruit the last he drew,
--
The tow'ry Goddess, blushing, veil'd her eyes;
And the lewd pair to Stygian sounds had sent,
--
While with yok'd swans the Goddess cuts the skies.
His faithful hounds, led by the tainted wind,
1.10 - GRACE AND FREE WILL, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Significantly enough, it is to this second aspect of Reality that primitive minds seem to have been most receptive. The formidable God, to whom Job at last submits, is an unknown mode of Being, whose most characteristic creations are Behemoth and Leviathan. He is the sort of God who calls, in Kierkegaards phrase, for teleological suspensions of morality, chiefly in the form of blood sacrifices, even human sacrifices. The Hindu Goddess, Kali, in her more frightful aspects, is another manifestation of the same unknown mode of Being. And by many contemporary savages the underlying Ground is apprehended and theologically rationalized as sheer, unmitigated Power, which has to be propitiatively worshipped and, if possible, turned to profitable use by means of a compulsive magic.
To think of God as mere Power, and not also, at the same time as Power, Love and Wisdom, comes quite naturally to the ordinary, unregenerate human mind. Only the totally selfless are in a position to know experimentally that, in spite of everything, all will be well and, in some way, already is well. The philosopher who denies divine providence, says Rumi, is a stranger to the perception of the saints. Only those who have the perception of the saints can know all the time and by immediate experience that divine Reality manifests itself as a Power that is loving, compassionate and wise. The rest of us are not yet in a spiritual position to do more than accept their findings on faith. If it were not for the records they have left behind, we should be more inclined to agree with Job and the primitives.
1.10 - Relics of Tree Worship in Modern Europe, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Bridget, is an old hea then Goddess of fertility, disguised in a
threadbare Christian cloak. Probably she is no other than Brigit,
the Celtic Goddess of fire and apparently of the crops.
Often the marriage of the spirit of vegetation in spring, though not
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The substance of modern philological discovery about the Vedas consists, first, in the picture of an Aryan civilisation introduced by northern invaders and, secondly, in the interpretation of the Vedic religion as a worship of Nature-powers & Vedic myths as allegorical legends of sun & moon & star & the visible phenomena of Nature. The latter generalisation rests partly on new philological renderings of Vedic words, partly on the Science of Comparative Mythology. The method of this Science can be judged from one or two examples. The Greek story of the demigod Heracles is supposed to be an evident sun myth. The two scientific proofs offered for this discovery are first that Hercules performed twelve labours and the solar year is divided into twelve months and, secondly, that Hercules burnt himself on a pyre on Mount Oeta and the sun also sets in a glory of flame behind the mountains. Such proofs seem hardly substantial enough for so strong a conclusion. By the same reasoning one could prove the emperor Napoleon a sun myth, because he was beaten & shorn of his glory by the forces of winter and because his brilliant career set in the western ocean and he passed there a long night of captivity. With the same light confidence the siege of Troy is turned by the scholars into a sun myth because the name of the Greek Helena, sister of the two Greek Aswins, Castor & Pollux, is philologically identical with the Vedic Sarama and that of her abductor Paris is not so very different from the Vedic Pani. It may be noted that in the Vedic story Sarama is not the sister of the Aswins and is not abducted by the Panis and that there is no other resemblance between the Vedic legend & the Greek tradition. So by more recent speculation even Yudhishthira and his brothers and the famous dog of theMahabharat are raised into the skies & vanish in a starry apotheosis,one knows not well upon what grounds except that sometimes the Dog Star rages in heaven. It is evident that these combinations are merely an ingenious play of fancy & prove absolutely nothing. Hercules may be the Sun but it is not proved. Helen & Paris may be Sarama & one of the Panis, but itis not proved. Yudhishthira & his brothers may be an astronomical myth, but it is not proved. For the rest, the unsubstantiality & rash presumption of the Sun myth theory has not failed to give rise in Europe to a hostile school of Comparative Mythologists who adopt other methods & seek the origins of early religious legend & tradition in a more careful and flexible study of the mentality, customs, traditions & symbolisms of primitive races. The theory of Vedic Nature-worship is better founded than these astronomical fancies. Agni is plainly the God of Fire, Surya of the Sun, Usha of the Dawn, Vayu of the Wind; Indra for Sayana is obviously the god of rain; Varuna seems to be the sky, the Greek Ouranos,et cetera. But when we have accepted these identities, the question of Vedic interpretation & the sense of Vedic worship is not settled. In the Greek religion Apollo was the god of the sun, but he was also the god of poetry & prophecy; Athene is identified with Ahana, a Vedic name of the Dawn, but for the Greeks she is the Goddess of purity & wisdom; Artemis is the divinity of the moon, but also the Goddess of free life & of chastity. It is therefore evident that in early Greek religion, previous to the historic or even the literary period, at an epoch therefore that might conceivably correspond with the Vedic period, many of the deities of the Greek heavens had a double character, the aspect of physical Nature-powers and the aspect of moral Nature-powers. The indications, therefore,for they are not proofs,even of Comparative Mythology would justify us in inquiring whether a similar double character did not attach to the Vedic gods in the Vedic hymns.
The real basis of both the Aryan theory of Vedic civilisation and the astronomical theory of Aryan myth is the new interpretation given to a host of Vedic vocables by the comparative philologists. The Aryan theory rests on the ingenious assumption that anarya, dasyu or dasa in the Veda refer to the unfortunate indigenous races who by a familiar modern device were dubbed robbers & dacoits because they were guilty of defending their country against the invaders & Arya is a national term for the invaders who called themselves, according to Max Muller, the Ploughmen, and according to others, the Noble Race. The elaborate picture of an early culture & history that accompanies and supports this theory rests equally on new interpretations of Vedic words and riks in which with the progress of scholarship the authority of Sayana and Yaska has been more & more set at nought and discredited. My contention is that anarya, dasa and dasyu do not for a moment refer to the Dravidian races,I am, indeed, disposed to doubt whether there was ever any such entity in India as a separate Aryan or a separate Dravidian race,but always to Vritra, Vala & the Panis and other, primarily non-human, opponents of the gods and their worshippers. The new interpretations given to Vedic words & riks seem to me sometimes right & well grounded, often arbitrary & unfounded, but always conjectural. The whole European theory & European interpretation of the Vedas may be [not] unjustly described as a huge conjectural & uncertain generalisation built on an inadequate & shifting mass of conjectural particulars.
1.11 - BOOK THE ELEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
For Peleus, with a Goddess-bride, was more
Proud of his spouse, than of his birth before:
--
But he the Goddess had enjoy'd alone.
The Story of Thetis and Peleus
--
Fair Goddess of the waves, consent to wed,
And take some spritely lover to your bed.
--
And bless'd his grandson in the Goddess' arms:
A silent creek Thessalia's coast can show;
--
Her taunts the Goddess with resentment fill;
My face you like not, you shall try my skill.
--
But she, the Goddess of the nuptial bed,
Tir'd with her vain devotions for the dead,
--
To whom the Goddess thus: O sacred rest,
Sweet pleasing sleep, of all the Pow'rs the best!
1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
"He moved everywhere about the Mighty Ones of Heaven, and they devoured not, neither were overcome, - they were not clothed, neither were they naked. Here the eternal and ever young Goddesses from one womb held the one Child, they the
Seven Words. (6)
--
Earth the Goddess of Delight now gave birth in many forms, she of the utter felicity. The gods united in him by the mind and they set him to his working who was born full of strength and mighty for the labour. (13)
"Those vast shinings clove to Agni straight in his lustre and were like bright lightnings; from him increasing in the secret places of existence in his own seat within the shoreless Vast they milked out Immortality." (14)
--
We see that these Waters are the same as those of Vamadeva's hymn, of Vasishtha's, closely connected with the clarity and the honey, - ghr.tasya yonau srava the madhunam, scotanti dhara madhuno ghr.tasya; they lead to the Truth, they are themselves the source of the Truth, they flow in the unobstructed and shoreless Vast as well as here upon the earth. They are figured as fostering cows (dhenavah.), mares (asvah.), they are called sapta van.h., the seven Words of the creative Goddess Vak, - Speech, the expressive power of Aditi, of the supreme Prakriti who is spoken of as the Cow just as the Deva or Purusha is described in the Veda as Vrishabha or Vrishan, the Bull. They are therefore the seven strands of all being, the seven streams or currents or forms of movement of the one conscious existence.
We shall find that in the light of the ideas which we have discovered from the very opening of the Veda in Madhuchchhandas' hymns and in the light of the symbolic interpretations which are now becoming clear to us, this passage apparently so figured, mysterious, enigmatical becomes perfectly straightforward and coherent, as indeed do all the passages of the Veda which seem now almost unintelligible when once their right clue is found. We have only to fix the psychological function of Agni, the priest, the fighter, the worker, the truth-finder, the winner of beatitude for man; and that has already been fixed for us in the first hymn of the Rig Veda by Madhuchchhandas' description of him, - "the Will in works of the Seer true and most rich in
--
This also is his own new and last birth. He who was born as the Son of Force from the growths of earth, he who was born as the child of the Waters, is now born in many forms to the Goddess of bliss, she who has the entire felicity, that is to say to the divine conscious beatitude, in the shoreless infinite. The gods or divine powers in man using the mind as an instrument reach him there, unite around him, set him to the great work of the world in this new, mighty and effective birth. They, the outshinings of that vast consciousness, cleave to this divine Force as its bright lightnings and from him in the super-conscient, the shoreless vast, his own home, they draw for man the Immortality.
Such then, profound, coherent, luminous behind the veil of figures is the sense of the Vedic symbol of the seven rivers, of the Waters, of the five worlds, of the birth and ascent of
1.12 - BOOK THE TWELFTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The Goddess gives th' alarm; and soon is known
The Grecian fleet descending on the town.
--
At this the seed of Neptune: Goddess-born,
For ornament, not use, these arms are worn;
--
Nor Goddess-born; nor of Ixion's seed
We seem (a lover built for Juno's bed);
1.12 - THE FESTIVAL AT PNIHTI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Ramakrishna had enjoyed a little rest after his midday meal. The room had an atmosphere of purity and holiness. On the walls hung pictures of gods and Goddesses, among them one of Christ rescuing the drowning Peter. Outside the room were plants laden with fragrant flowers, and the Ganges could be seen flowing toward the south.
The Master was seated on the small couch, facing the north, and the devotees sat on mats and carpets spread on the floor. All eyes were directed toward him. Mani Mallick, an old Brahmo devotee about sixty-five years of age, came to pay his respects to the Master. He had returned a few months earlier from a pilgrimage to Benares and was recounting his experiences to Sri Ramakrishna.
--
It was dusk. The evening service began in the temples. Sri Ramakrishna was chanting the names of the gods and Goddesses. He was seated on the small couch, with folded hands, and became absorbed in contemplation of the Divine Mother. The world outside was flooded with moonlight, and the devotees inside the Master's room sat in silence and looked at his serene face.
In the mean time Govinda of Belgharia and some of his friends had entered the room.
1.12 - The Left-Hand Path - The Black Brothers, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
And the voice says: These are they that grasped love and clung thereto, praying ever at the knees of the great Goddess. These are they that have shut themselves up in fortresses of Love.
(Ibid. 7th thyr.)
1.12 - The Sacred Marriage, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
1. Diana as a Goddess of Fertility
WE have seen that according to a widespread belief, which is not
--
Nemi had for his mate the Goddess of the grove, Diana herself. May
not he and she, as King and Queen of the Wood, have been serious
--
divine marriage? Such dramatic weddings of gods and Goddesses, as we
shall see presently, were carried out as solemn religious rites in
--
Diana was essentially a Goddess of the woodlands, as Ceres was a
Goddess of the corn and Bacchus a god of the vine. Her sanctuaries
--
the patron Goddess both of hunters and herdsmen, just as Silvanus
was the god not only of woods, but of cattle. Similarly in Finland
--
beasts belonged to the Goddess, and that she must be compensated for
their slaughter.
--
seen, she was especially worshipped as a Goddess of childbirth, who
bestowed offspring on men and women. Thus Diana, like the Greek
--
as a Goddess of nature in general and of fertility in particular. We
need not wonder, therefore, that in her sanctuary on the Aventine
--
atonement for the offence should be made to the Goddess of
fertility.
Now on the principle that the Goddess of fertility must herself be
fertile, it behoved Diana to have a male partner. Her mate, if the
--
and Goddess. But their intercourse was only dramatic or symbolical,
for the hierophant had temporarily deprived himself of his virility
--
Eleusinian plain with a plenteous harvest by wedding the Goddess of
the corn to the sky-god, who fertilised the bare earth with genial
--
Bengal, a wooden image of a god is made and married to the Goddess
of water.
--
The Oraons of Bengal worship the Earth as a Goddess, and annually
celebrate her marriage with the Sun-god Dharme at the time when the
1.13 - BOOK THE THIRTEENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
O Goddess-born! resist not Heav'n's decree,
The fall of Ilium is reserv'd for thee;
--
The weeping Goddess passionately cries,
Tho' I the meanest of immortals am,
--
Yet still a Goddess, I presume to come
Within the verge of your etherial dome:
--
My dearest Goddess, let thy Scylla know,
(For I am faithful) whence these sorrows flow.
1.13 - Dawn and the Truth, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
"encompassing the worlds immediately with horses yoked by the Truth," r.tayugbhir asvaih. (cf. VI.65.2) but he speaks of them as bhadra r.tajatasatyah., "happy, and true because born from the Truth"; and in another verse he describes them as "the Goddesses who awake from the seat of the Truth."
This close connection of bhadra and r.ta reminds us of the same connection of ideas in Madhuchchhandas' Hymn to Agni.
--
Dawn is constantly represented as awakening to vision, perception, right movement. "The Goddess," says Gotama Rahugana,
"fronts and looks upon all the worlds, the eye of vision shines with an utter wideness; awakening all life for movement she discovers speech for all that thinks," visvasya vacam avidan manayoh. (I.92.9). We have here a Dawn that releases life and mind into their fullest wideness and we ignore the whole force of the words and phrases chosen by the Rishi if we limit the suggestion to a mere picture of the reawakening of earthly life in the physical dawning. And even if here the word used for the vision brought by the Dawn, caks.uh., is capable of indicating only physical sight, yet in other passages it is ketuh. which means perception, a perceptive vision in the mental consciousness, a faculty of knowledge. Usha is pracetah., she who has this perceptive knowledge. Mother of the radiances, she has created this perceptive vision of the mind; gavam janitr akr.ta pra ketum
--
Immortality, amr.tasya ketuh. (III.61.3); it is the light, in other words, of the Truth and the Bliss which constitute the higher or immortal consciousness. Night in the Veda is the symbol of our obscure consciousness full of ignorance in knowledge and of stumblings in will and act, therefore of all evil, sin and suffering; light is the coming of the illuminated higher consciousness which leads to truth and happiness. We find constantly the opposition of the two words duritam and suvitam. Duritam means literally stumbling or wrong going, figuratively all that is wrong and evil, all sin, error, calamity; suvitam means literally right or good going and expresses all that is good and happy, it means especially the felicity that comes by following the right path. Thus Vasishtha says of the Goddess (VII.78.2), "Dawn
Dawn and the Truth
--
comes divine repelling by the Light all darknesses and evils," visva tamamsi durita; and in a number of verses the Goddess is described as awakening, impelling or leading men to right going, to the happiness, suvitaya.
Therefore she is the leader not only of happy truths, but of our spiritual wealth and joy, bringer of the felicity which is reached by man or brought to him by the Truth, es.a netr radhasah. sunr.tanam (VII.76.7). This wealth for which the Rishis pray is described under the figure of material riches; it is gomad asvavad vravad or it is gomad asvavad rathavac ca radhah.. Go, the cow, asva, the horse, praja or apatya, the offspring, nr. or vra, the man or hero, hiran.ya, gold, ratha, the chariot, sravas, - food or fame, according to the ritualist interpretation, - these are the constituents of the wealth desired by the Vedic sages.
1.13 - The Kings of Rome and Alba, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
oak-grove; for, while Diana was a Goddess of the woodlands in
general, she appears to have been intimately associated with oaks in
--
of the Goddess might be played either by an image or a woman, and if
by a woman, probably by the Queen. If there is any truth in this
--
masqueraded as god and Goddess at their marriage, exactly as the
King and Queen of Egypt appear to have done. The legend of Numa and
--
or embodiments of a god, and that as such they mated with a Goddess,
and had to prove their fitness from time to time to discharge their
--
had his consort with him, the Goddess Juno, who was worshipped here
under the same title, Moneta, as on the Capitol at Rome. As the oak
--
the Goddess, the midsummer month of June.
If at any time of the year the Romans celebrated the sacred marriage
1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The conversation turned to the Goddess Simhavahini.
MASTER: "Yes, I visited the Goddess. She is worshipped by one of the branches of the Mallick family of Calcutta. This branch of the family is now in straitened circumstances, and the house they live in is dilapidated. The walls and floor are spotted with moss and pigeon-droppings, and the cement and plaster are crumbling. But other branches of the Mallick family are well off. This branch has no signs of prosperity. (To M.) Well, what does that signify?"
M. remained silent.
MASTER: "The thing is that everyone must reap the result of his past-karma. One must admit the influence of tendencies inherited from past births and the result of the prarabdha karma. Nevertheless, in that dilapidated house I saw the face of the Goddess radiating a divine light. One must believe in the Divine Presence in the image.
"Once I went to Vishnupur. The raja of that place has several fine temples. In one of them there is an image of the Divine Mother, called Mrinmayi. There are several lakes near the temple, known as the Lalbandh, Krishnabandh, and so on. In the water of one of the lakes I could smell the ointments that women use for their hair. How do you explain that? I didn't know at that time that the woman devotees offer ointments to the Goddess Mrinmayi while visiting Her temple. Near the lake I went into samdhi, though I had not yet seen the image in the temple. In that state I saw the divine form from the waist up, rising from the water."
In the mean time other devotees had arrived. Someone referred to the political revolution and civil war in Kabul. A devotee said that Yakub Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan, had been deposed. He told the Master that the Amir was a great devotee of God.
1.14 - The Succesion to the Kingdom in Ancient Latium, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
merely a local form of Diana in her character of a Goddess of woods,
of waters, and of child-birth. All these conclusions, which we have
--
Fortuna, the Goddess who loved Servius as Egeria loved Numa. The
popular merrymakings at this season included foot-races and
--
a god and Goddess at a sacred marriage designed to ensure the
fertility of the earth by homoeopathic magic. If I am right in
1.15 - LAST VISIT TO KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Mathur Babu and I went to the temple to see what was the matter. Addressing the image, Mathur said bitterly: 'What a shame, Lord! You are so worthless! The thief took all the ornaments from Your body, and You couldn't do a thing about it.' Thereupon I said to Mathur: 'Shame on you! How improper your words are! To God, the jewels you talk so much about are only lumps of clay. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, is His Consort. Do you mean to say that He should spend sleepless nights because a thief has taken your few rupees? You mustn't say such things.'
"Can one ever bring God under control through wealth? He can be tamed only through love. What does He want? Certainly not wealth! He wants from His devotees love, devotion, feeling, discrimination, and renunciation.
1.15 - The Worship of the Oak, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
marriage of Zeus and Hera, the oak god and the oak Goddess, appears
to have been celebrated with much pomp by a religious federation of
1.16 - Dianus and Diana, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
general, she was at Nemi a Goddess of the oak in particular. In the
first place, she bore the title of Vesta, and as such presided over
--
oak wood. But a Goddess of fire is not far removed from a Goddess of
the fuel which burns in the fire; primitive thought perhaps drew no
--
a temple. Here Sulla thanked the Goddess for his victory over the
Marians in the plain below, attesting his gratitude by inscriptions
--
functions, Juno and Diana were both Goddesses of fecundity and
childbirth, and both were sooner or later identified with the moon.
1.16 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Completely satisfied with his own Ideal Deity, he never directed his attention to any other god or Goddess. One of the inflexible rules of his devotions was to worship the Deity daily till almost midday. He would never deviate from this practice, even at the risk of his wealth or his kingdom. Learning this secret, an enemy king invaded the kingdom during the morning hours. Jayamal's soldiers could not fight without his command; so they watched the invasion silently. Slowly the enemy surrounded the moat of the capital; yet Jayamal did not come out of his shrine room. His mother came to him and wept bitterly, trying to persuade the king to fight. He said to her calmly: "Why are you worried? Syamalasundara gave me this kingdom. What can I do if He has decided to take it away? On the other hand, none will be able to do me harm if He protects me. Our own efforts are vain! "
And actually, in the mean time, Syamalasundara, the Deity Himself, had taken the king's horse from the stable and had ridden fully armed to the field. Alone He faced the hostile king and alone destroyed his army. Having crushed the enemy forces, the Deity returned to the temple and fastened the horse near by.
1.17 - Practical rules for the Tragic Poet., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. The general plan may be illustrated by the Iphigenia. A young girl is sacrificed; she disappears mysteriously from the eyes of those who sacrificed her; She is transported to another country, where the custom is to offer up all strangers to the Goddess. To this ministry she is appointed. Some time later her own brother chances to arrive. The fact that the oracle for some reason ordered him to go there, is outside the general plan of the play. The purpose, again, of his coming is outside the action proper.
However, he comes, he is seized, and, when on the point of being sacrificed, reveals who he is. The mode of recognition may be either that of Euripides or of Polyidus, in whose play he exclaims very naturally:--'So it was not my sister only, but I too, who was doomed to be sacrificed'; and by that remark he is saved.
1.17 - The Burden of Royalty, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
incarnation of the sun Goddess, the deity who rules the universe,
gods and men included; once a year all the gods wait upon him and
1.18 - The Divine Worker, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Outwardly the liberated man seems to undertake works of all kinds like other men, on a larger scale perhaps with a more powerful will and driving-force, for the might of the divine will works in his active nature; but from all his inceptions and undertakings the inferior concept and nether will of desire is entirely banished, sarve samarambhah. kamasankalpavarjitah.. He has abandoned all attachment to the fruits of his works, and where one does not work for the fruit, but solely as an impersonal instrument of the Master of works, desire can find no place, - not even the desire to serve successfully, for the fruit is the Lord's and determined by him and not by the personal will and effort, or to serve with credit and to the Master's satisfaction, for the real doer is the Lord himself and all glory belongs to a form of his Shakti missioned in the nature and not to the limited human personality. The human mind and soul of the liberated man does nothing, na kincit karoti; even though through his nature he engages in action, it is the Nature, the executive Shakti, it is the conscious Goddess governed by the divine Inhabitant who does the work.
It does not follow that the work is not to be done perfectly,
1.18 - The Human Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
We have here a clue to the sense of this Goddess Dakshina who seems in some passages to be a form or epithet of the Dawn and in others that which distributes the offerings in the sacrifice.
Usha is the divine illumination and Dakshina is the discerning knowledge that comes with the dawn and enables the Power in the mind, Indra, to know aright and separate the light from the darkness, the truth from the falsehood, the straight from the crooked, vr.n.ta vijanan. The right and left hand of Indra are his two powers of action in knowledge; for his two arms are called gabhasti, a word which means ordinarily a ray of the sun but also forearm, and they correspond to his two perceptive powers, his two bright horses, har, which are described as suneyed, suracaks.asa and as vision-powers of the Sun, suryasya ketu. Dakshina presides over the right-hand power, daks.in.a, and therefore we have the collocation daks.in.e daks.in.avan. It is this discernment which presides over the right action of the sacrifice and the right distribution of the offerings and it is this which enables Indra to hold the herded wealth of the Panis securely, in his right hand. And finally we are told what is this secret thing
1.19 - Dialogue between Prahlada and his father, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
On hearing this, Hiraṇyakaśipu started up from his throne in a fury, and spurned his son on the breast with his foot. Burning with rage, he wrung his hands, and exclaimed, "Ho Viprachitti! ho Rāhu! ho Bali[2]! bind him with strong bands[3], and cast him into the ocean, or all the regions, the Daityas and Dānavas, will become converts to the doctrines of this silly wretch. Repeatedly prohibited by us, he still persists in the praise of our enemies. Death is the just retribution of the disobedient." The Daityas accordingly bound the prince with strong bands, as their lord had commanded, and threw him into the sea. As he floated on the waters, the ocean was convulsed throughout its whole extent, and rose in mighty undulations, threatening to submerge the earth. This when Hiraṇyakaśipu observed, he commanded the Daityas to hurl rocks into the sea, and pile them closely on one another, burying beneath their iñcumbent mass him whom fire would not burn, nor weapons pierce, nor serpents bite; whom the pestilential gale could not blast, nor poison nor magic spirits nor incantations destroy; who fell from the loftiest heights unhurt; who foiled the elephants of the spheres: a son of depraved heart, whose life was a perpetual curse. "Here," he cried, "since he cannot die, here let him live for thousands of years at the bottom of the ocean, overwhelmed by mountains. Accordingly the Daityas and Dānavas hurled upon Prahlāda, whilst in the great ocean, ponderous rocks, and piled them over him for many thousand miles: but he, still with mind undisturbed, thus offered daily praise to Viṣṇu, lying at the bottom of the sea, under the mountain heap. "Glory to thee, god of the lotus eye: glory to thee, most excellent of spiritual things: glory to thee, soul of all worlds: glory to thee, wielder of the sharp discus: glory to the best of Brahmans; to the friend of Brahmans and of kine; to Kṛṣṇa, the preserver of the world: to Govinda be glory. To him who, as Brahmā, creates the universe; who in its existence is its preserver; be praise. To thee, who at the end of the Kalpa takest the form of Rudra; to thee, who art triform; be adoration. Thou, Achyuta, art the gods, Yakṣas, demons, saints, serpents, choristers and dancers of heaven, goblins, evil spirits, men, animals, birds, insects, reptiles, plants, and stones, earth, water, fire, sky, wind, sound, touch, taste, colour, flavour, mind, intellect, soul, time, and the qualities of nature: thou art all these, and the chief object of them all. Thou art knowledge and ignorance, truth and falsehood, poison and ambrosia. Thou art the performance and discontinuance of acts[4]: thou art the acts which the Vedas enjoin: thou art the enjoyer of the fruit of all acts, and the means by which they are accomplished. Thou, Viṣṇu, who art the soul of all, art the fruit of all acts of piety. Thy universal diffusion, indicating might and goodness, is in me, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. Holy ascetics meditate on thee: pious priests sacrifice to thee. Thou alone, identical with the gods and the fathers of mankind, receivest burnt-offerings and oblations[5]. The universe is thy intellectual form[6]; whence proceeded thy subtile form, this world: thence art thou all subtile elements and elementary beings, and the subtile principle, that is called soul, within them. Hence the supreme soul of all objects, distinguished as subtile or gross, which is imperceptible, and which cannot be conceived, is even a form of thee. Glory be to thee, Puruṣottama; and glory to that imperishable form which, soul of all, is another manifestation[7] of thy might, the asylum of all qualities, existing in all creatures. I salute her, the supreme Goddess, who is beyond the senses; whom the mind, the tongue, cannot define; who is to be distinguished alone by the wisdom of the truly wise. Om! salutation to Vāsudeva: to him who is the eternal lord; he from whom nothing is distinct; he who is distinct from all. Glory be to the great spirit again and again: to him who is without name or shape; who sole is to be known by adoration; whom, in the forms manifested in his descents upon earth, the dwellers in heaven adore; for they behold not his inscrutable nature. I glorify the supreme deity Viṣṇu, the universal witness, who seated internally, beholds the good and ill of all. Glory to that Viṣṇu from whom this world is not distinct. May he, ever to be meditated upon as the beginning of the universe, have compassion upon me: may he, the supporter of all, in whom every thing is warped and woven[8], undecaying, imperishable, have compassion upon me. Glory, again and again, to that being to whom all returns, from whom all proceeds; who is all, and in whom all things are: to him whom I also am; for he is every where; and through whom all things are from me. I am all things: all things are in me, who am everlasting. I am undecayable, ever enduring, the receptacle of the spirit of the supreme. Brahma is my name; the supreme soul, that is before all things, that is after the end of all. ootnotes and references:
[1]: These are the four Upāyas, 'means of success,' specified in the Amera-koṣa.
1.19 - THE MASTER AND HIS INJURED ARM, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Koar Singh once said to me, 'You still worry about your body.' But it is my nature to believe that my Mother knows everything. It was She who would speak at Rajendra Mitra's house. Hers are the only effective words. One ray of light from the Goddess of Wisdom stuns a thousand scholars.
"The Mother has kept me in the state of a bhakta, a vijnni. That is why I joke with Rkhl and the others. Had I been in the condition of a Jnni I couldn't do that.
1.19 - The Victory of the Fathers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sarama found the fastness, the wideness of the luminous cows; thereby the human creature enjoys the bliss," svadhyo diva a sapta yahv, rayo duro vi r.tajna ajanan; vidad gavyam sarama dr.d.ham urvam, yena nu kam manus. bhojate vit.. These are evidently not the waters of the Punjab, but the rivers of Heaven, the streams of the Truth,2 Goddesses like Saraswati, who possess the Truth in knowledge and open by it the doors of the beatitude to the human creature. We see here too what I have already insisted on, that there is a close connection between the finding of the Cows and the outflowing of the Rivers; they are parts
Note that in I.32 Hiranyastupa Angirasa describes the waters released from Vritra as "ascending the mind", mano ruhan.ah., and elsewhere they are called the waters that have the knowledge, apo vicetasah. (I.83.1).
1.19 - Thought, or the Intellectual element, and Diction in Tragedy., #Poetics, #Aristotle, #Philosophy
Next, as regards Diction. One branch of the inquiry treats of the Modes of Utterance. But this province of knowledge belongs to the art of Delivery and to the masters of that science. It includes, for instance,--what is a command, a prayer, a statement, a threat, a question, an answer, and so forth. To know or not to know these things involves no serious censure upon the poet's art. For who can admit the fault imputed to Homer by Protagoras,--that in the words, 'Sing, Goddess, of the wrath,' he gives a comm and under the idea that he utters a prayer? For to tell some one to do a thing or not to do it is, he says, a command. We may, therefore, pass this over as an inquiry that belongs to another art, not to poetry.
author class:Aristotle
1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Once before Goddess Parvati practised austerities for realising the
Supreme. She saw some kinds of light. She rejected them because they emanated from the Self, leaving the Self as it was ever before.
1.201 - Socrates, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
The first wife of Zeus and mother of Athena, the Goddess of wisdom.
204b
--
The Goddess of childbirth.
state all beasts are in, birds as well as four-footed animals, when they feel the desire to procreate? All sick and in the grip of love, they are concerned first for copulation and then for rearing the offspring, and they are ready to fight it out on their behalf, the weakest against the strongest, even to the death, worn out themselves by hunger in the attempt to feed them, yet ready to do whatever else is necessary. One might suppose that humans do these things because they reason about it. But animals what cause is there for them to be so affected by love?
12.01 - The Return to Earth, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Ever thou wast, a Goddess still and pure,
Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts
1.20 - The Hound of Heaven, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Neither is she the plenary word of the revelation, the Teacher of man like the Goddess Ila; for even when what she seeks is found, she does not take possession but only gives the message to the seers and their divine helpers who have still to fight for the possession of the light that has been discovered.
Let us see, however, what the Veda itself says of Sarama.
--
"embassy" of Sarama, it is the colloquy of Sarama and the Panis; but it adds nothing essential to what we already know about her and its chief importance lies in the help it gives us in forming our conception of the masters of the cavern treasure. We may note, however, that neither in this hymn, nor in the others we have noticed is there the least indication of the figure of the divine hound which was attri buted to Sarama in a possibly later development of the Vedic imagery. It is surely the shining fairfooted Goddess by whom the Panis are attracted and whom they desire as their sister, - not as a dog to guard their cattle, but as one who will share in the possession of their riches. The image of the hound of heaven is, however, exceedingly apt and striking and was bound to develop out of the legend. In one of the earlier hymns we have mention indeed of a son for whom Sarama "got food" according to an ancient interpretation which accounts for the phrase by a story that the hound Sarama demanded food for her offspring in the sacrifice as a condition of her search for the lost cows. But this is obviously an explanatory invention
The Hound of Heaven
--
(ks.etra) of the luminous and imperishable herds. Sarama brings us to the truth, to the sun-vision which is the way to the bliss; these dogs bring the weal to man in this world of suffering so that he shall have the vision of the Sun. Whether Sarama figures as the fair-footed Goddess speeding on the path or the heavenly hound, mother of these wide-ranging guardians of the path, the idea is the same, a power of the Truth that seeks and discovers, that finds by a divine faculty of insight the hidden Light and the denied Immortality. But it is to this seeking and finding that her function is limited.
1.21 - A DAY AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Is it because Sri Ramakrishna believes in gods and Goddesses with form? I don't know anything about God, nor do I understand Him. The Master believes in images; then why shouldn't I too, who am so insignificant a creature, accept them?"
M. looked at the image of Kli. He saw that the Divine Mother holds in Her two left hands a man's severed head and a sword. With Her two right hands She offers boons and reassurance to Her devotees. In one aspect She is terrible, and in another She is the ever affectionate Mother of Her devotees. The two ideals are harmonized in Her.
--
M. remembered this interpretation of Kli given by the Master. He said to himself, "I have heard that Keshab accepted Kli in Sri Ramakrishna's presence. Is this, as Keshab used to say, the Goddess, all Spirit and Consciousness; manifesting Herself through a clay image?"
M. returned to the Master's room and sat on the floor. Sri Ramakrishna offered him some fruit and sweets to eat. On account of trouble in the family, M. had recently rented a house in another section of Calcutta near his school, his father and brothers continuing to live in the ancestral home. But Sri Ramakrishna wanted him to return to his own home, since a joint family affords many advantages to one leading a religious life. Once or twice the Master had spoken to M. to this effect, but unfortunately he had not yet returned to his family. Sri Ramakrishna referred to the matter again.
--
"After attaining Knowledge you will regard that very wife as the manifestation of the Divine Mother Herself. It is written in the Chandi, 'The Goddess dwells in all beings as the Mother.' It is She who has become your mother.
"All the women you see are only She, the Divine Mother. That is why I cannot rebuke even Brinde, the maidservant. There are people who spout verses from the scriptures and talk big, but in their conduct they are quite different. Ramprasanna is constantly busy procuring opium and milk for the hathayogi. He says that Manu enjoins it upon man to serve the Sdhu. But his old mother hasn't enough to eat. She walks to the market to buy her own groceries. It makes me very angry.
--
MASTER: (interrupting): "Adhar simply didn't remember to invite you. He is absent-minded. The other day he went with me to Jadu Mallick's house. As we took our leave, I said to him, 'You haven't offered anything to the Goddess in the chapel' 'Sir,' he said, 'I didn't know one should.'
(To Ram) "Suppose he didn't invite you to his house. Why such a fuss about going to a place where the name of the Lord was sung? One may go unasked to participate in religious music. One doesn't have to be invited."
1.21 - Tabooed Things, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
days and seven nights, because the Goddess Lucina sat in front of
the house with clasped hands and crossed legs, and the child could
not be born until the Goddess had been beguiled into changing her
attitude. It is a Bulgarian superstition that if a pregnant woman is
1.22 - Tabooed Words, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
name of Ra make myself a Goddess and reign like him in heaven and
earth?" For Ra had many names, but the great name which gave him all
1.23 - FESTIVAL AT SURENDRAS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
In a vision I saw Baburam as a Goddess with a necklace around her neck and with woman companions about her.
He has received something in a dream. His body is pure. Only a very little effort will awaken his spiritual consciousness.
1.24 - PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Nobody can confound a preacher who teaches people after having received the comm and of God. Getting a ray of light from the Goddess of learning, a man becomes so powerful that before him big scholars seem mere earthworms.
"When the lamp is lighted the moths come in swarms. They don't have to be invited. In the same way, the preacher who has a commission from God need not invite people to hear him. He doesn't have to announce the time of his lectures. He possesses such irresistible attraction that people come to him of their own accord. People of all classes, even kings and aristocrats, gather around him. They say to him: 'Revered sir, what can we offer you? Here are mangoes, sweets, money, shawls, and other things. What will you be pleased to accept?' In that case I say to them: 'Go away. I don't care, for these. I don't want anything.'
1.28 - The Killing of the Tree-Spirit, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Polish districts it is called Dziewanna, the Goddess of spring.
At Eisenach on the fourth Sunday in Lent young people used to fasten
1.29 - The Myth of Adonis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
waning strength of divine beings, of gods and Goddesses, who were
born and died, who married and begot children, on the pattern of
--
mother Goddess, the embodiment of the reproductive energies of
nature. The references to their connexion with each other in myth
--
up with the Goddess were the sexual functions of the whole animal
kingdom that without her presence they could not be discharged. A
--
the Goddess on whom so much depended. The stern queen of the
infernal regions, Allatu or Eresh-Kigal by name, reluctantly allowed
--
Aphrodite. In his infancy the Goddess hid him in a chest, which she
gave in charge to Persephone, queen of the nether world. But when
--
refused to give him back to Aphrodite, though the Goddess of love
went down herself to hell to ransom her dear one from the power of
the grave. The dispute between the two Goddesses of love and death
was settled by Zeus, who decreed that Adonis should abide with
13.08 - The Return, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Ever thou wast, a Goddess still and pure,
Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts
1.30 - Adonis in Syria, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
or obelisk, the holy image of the Goddess. In this sanctuary the
rites of Adonis were celebrated. Indeed the whole city was sacred to
1.31 - Adonis in Cyprus, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Ascalon; but it is possible that a native Goddess of fertility was
worshipped on the spot before the arrival of the Phoenicians, and
--
emblem of Astarte at Byblus, of the native Goddess whom the Greeks
called Artemis at Perga in Pamphylia, and of the sun-god
--
sanctuary of the Goddess, whether she went by the name of Aphrodite,
Astarte, or what not. Similar customs prevailed in many parts of
--
performed in the service of that great Mother Goddess of Western
Asia whose name varied, while her type remained constant, from place
--
the Goddess the wages earned by this sanctified harlotry. The sacred
precinct was crowded with women waiting to observe the custom. Some
--
as maids testified their devotion to the Goddess in the same manner.
The emperor Constantine abolished the custom, destroyed the temple,
--
believing that by this conduct they propitiated the Goddess and won
her favour. "It was a law of the Amorites, that she who was about to
--
they thus earned was devoted to the Goddess. A Greek inscription
found at Tralles in Lydia proves that the practice of religious
--
to the service of the Goddess Anaitis in her temple of Acilisena,
where the damsels acted as prostitutes for a long time before they
--
to wife when her period of service was over. Again, the Goddess Ma
was served by a multitude of sacred harlots at Comana in Pontus, and
--
to pay their vows to the Goddess.
If we survey the whole of the evidence on this subject, some of
--
great Mother Goddess, the personification of all the reproductive
energies of nature, was worshipped under different names but with a
--
the sanctuary of the Goddess for the sake of thereby ensuring the
fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast.
--
princes with the Goddess of love make it probable that they claimed
the divine nature as well as the human dignity of Adonis. The story
--
and would in time become the parents of gods and Goddesses, like
their fathers and mothers before them. In this manner Paphos, and
perhaps all sanctuaries of the great Asiatic Goddess where sacred
prostitution was practised, might be well stocked with human
1.33 - The Gardens of Adonis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
honour of Gouri, or Isani, the Goddess of abundance. The rites begin
when the sun enters the sign of the Ram, the opening of the Hindoo
year. An image of the Goddess Gouri is made of earth, and a smaller
one of her husb and Iswara, and the two are placed together. A small
--
sorrowful Goddess with her dying lover in her arms, resembles and
may have been the model of the _Piet_ of Christian art, the Virgin
--
interpreted as the descent of the amorous Goddess to the arms of her
lover. At Antioch and elsewhere the appearance of the Morning Star
--
the coming of the Goddess of love to wake her dead leman from his
earthy bed. If that were so, we may surmise that it was the Morning
1.34 - The Myth and Ritual of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Mother of the Gods, a great Asiatic Goddess of fertility, who had
her chief home in Phrygia. Some held that Attis was her son. His
--
themselves on entering the service of the Goddess. The story of his
death by the boar may have been told to explain why his worshippers,
--
driven from Italy if the great Oriental Goddess were brought to
Rome. Accordingly ambassadors were despatched to her sacred city
--
on the Palatine Hill. It was the middle of April when the Goddess
arrived, and she went to work at once. For the harvest that year was
--
procession, carrying the image of the Goddess and chanting their
hymns to the music of cymbals and tambourines, flutes and horns,
--
portions of themselves against the image of the cruel Goddess. These
broken instruments of fertility were afterwards reverently wrapt up
--
we can readily understand why other Asiatic Goddesses of fertility
were served in like manner by eunuch priests. These feminine deities
--
before they could transmit it to the world. Goddesses thus
ministered to by eunuch priests were the great Artemis of Ephesus
--
priests of this Syrian Goddess resembled those of Cybele so closely
that some people took them to be the same. And the mode in which
--
the Day of Blood at the vernal rites of the Goddess, when the
violets, supposed to spring from the red drops of her wounded lover,
--
silver image of the Goddess, with its face of jagged black stone,
sat in a waggon drawn by oxen. Preceded by the nobles walking
--
Phrygian Goddess on the Vatican Hill, at or near the spot where the
great basilica of St. Peter's now stands; for many inscriptions
1.35 - Attis as a God of Vegetation, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
of corn. Cybele in like manner was conceived as a Goddess of
fertility who could make or mar the fruits of the earth; for the
--
Great Mother. The bathing of the image of the Goddess in a river may
well have been a rain-charm to ensure an abundant supply of moisture
1.36 - Human Representatives of Attis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Great Mother Goddess, was attributed to him by the people of
Celaenae in Phrygia. Vain of his skill, he challenged Apollo to a
--
herdsman of the Goddess, who is himself described as a piper, is
said to have perished under a pine-tree, and was annually
--
In Greece the great Goddess Artemis herself appears to have been
annually hanged in effigy in her sacred grove of Condylea among the
--
compassionate Goddess in her own divine garb and called by the name
of Hecate. Similarly, at Melite in Phthia, a story was told of a
--
Far-shooter, one of the regular epithets of the Goddess. Every year
the virgins sacrificed a young goat to the image by hanging it,
1.37 - Oriential Religions in the West, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Asiatic Goddess and her consort appear to have found little favour.
The barbarous and cruel character of the worship, with its frantic
--
twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental Goddess whom the
Semites called the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess;
in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte. Now Mithra was regularly
1.38 - The Myth of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
called Typhon, on the fourth to the Goddess Isis, and on the fifth
to the Goddess Nephthys. Afterwards Set married his sister Nephthys,
and Osiris married his sister Isis.
--
that is, the child Horus. Him Buto, the Goddess of the north, hid
from the wrath of his wicked uncle Set. Yet she could not guard him
--
hindered him from becoming immortal. Then the Goddess revealed
herself and begged for the pillar of the roof, and they gave it her,
--
the Goddess. And that is the reason, too, why there are many graves
of Osiris in Egypt, for she buried each limb as she found it. But
1.39 - The Ritual of Osiris, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
A USEFUL clue to the original nature of a god or Goddess is often
furnished by the season at which his or her festival is celebrated.
--
began to rise. They believed that the Goddess was then mourning for
the lost Osiris, and that the tears which dropped from her eyes
--
the Goddess at the death of the beneficent corn-god her husband.
And the sign of the rising waters on earth was accompanied by a sign
--
symbolised the Goddess searching for the dead body of Osiris; for
this was the native Egyptian interpretation of a similar ceremony
1.41 - Isis, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
THE ORIGINAL meaning of the Goddess Isis is still more difficult to
determine than that of her brother and husb and Osiris. Her
--
are "Creatress of green things," "Green Goddess, whose green colour
is like unto the greenness of the earth," "Lady of Bread," "Lady of
--
personified as a Goddess." This is confirmed by her epithet _Sochit_
or _Sochet,_ meaning "a corn-field," a sense which the word still
--
homely features of the clownish Goddess could hardly be traced in
the refined, the saintly form which, spiritualised by ages of
--
whom the bloody and licentious rites of other Oriental Goddesses
only shocked and repelled. We need not wonder, then, that in a
1.43 - The Holy Guardian Angel is not the Higher Self but an Objective Individual, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be especially careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent one one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have picked up the elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves. I want you to understand that a Goddess like Astarte, Astaroth, Cotytto, Aphrodite, Hathoor, Venus, are not merely aspects of the planet;*[AC41] they are separate individuals who have been identified with each other, and attri buted to Venus merely because the salient feature in their character approximates to this ideal.
Now then, it is simple to answer the question of their development, their growing old and dying; for, being of the same order of Nature as we are ourselves, almost anything which is true of us is true also of them.
1.44 - Demeter and Persephone, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
counterparts, a Goddess mourns the loss of a loved one, who
personifies the vegetation, more especially the corn, which dies in
--
functions of the two Goddesses; their natural shapes stand out
sharply enough under the thin veil of poetical imagery. The youthful
--
her bereavement the Goddess suffered not the seed to grow in the
earth but kept it hidden under ground, and she vowed that never
--
the grave. So the two Goddesses departed to dwell in bliss with the
gods on Olympus; and the bard ends the hymn with a pious prayer to
--
the Eleusinian mysteries by the Goddess Demeter. The whole poem
leads up to the transformation scene in which the bare leafless
--
the Goddess, into a vast sheet of ruddy corn; the beneficent deity
takes the princes of Eleusis, shows them what she has done, teaches
--
the riddle is not hard to read; the figures of the two Goddesses,
the mother and the daughter, resolve themselves into
--
certain for the daughter Persephone. The Goddess who spends three
or, according to another version of the myth, six months of every
--
earth is heavy with leaves and blossoms--this Goddess can surely be
nothing else than a mythical embodiment of the vegetation, and
--
Persephone seems possible. And if the daughter Goddess was a
personification of the young corn of the present year, may not the
mother Goddess be a personification of the old corn of last year,
which has given birth to the new crops? The only alternative to this
--
tempted the young Goddess to stray far beyond the reach of help in
the lush meadow. Thus Demeter of the hymn, far from being identical
--
Demeter and Persephone are alike characterised as Goddesses of the
corn by the crowns of corn which they wear on their heads and by the
--
and wheat harvests as thank-offerings to the Two Goddesses, Demeter
and Persephone, at Eleusis, where subterranean granaries were built
--
faith in Demeter as Goddess of the corn may be judged by the
circumstance that the faith actually persisted among their Christian
--
assured me, has disappeared." Thus we see the Corn Goddess Demeter
standing on the threshing-floor of Eleusis and dispensing corn to
--
worship of the two Corn Goddesses, lamented that the crops of many
towns had perished because the unscrupulous Roman governor Verres
--
indeed the Goddess of the corn than this belief, held by the Greeks
down to modern times, that the corn-crops depended on her presence
--
the Goddesses. And if Demeter did not personify the earth, can there
be any reasonable doubt that, like her daughter, she personified the
--
types, but also by the official title of "the Two Goddesses" which
was regularly applied to them in the great sanctuary at Eleusis
--
conclude that in the mind of the ordinary Greek the two Goddesses
were essentially personifications of the corn, and that in this germ
--
sufficient to explain the association of the Corn Goddess at Eleusis
with the mystery of death and the hope of a blissful immortality.
1.46 - The Corn-Mother in Many Lands, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
personifying the corn as a mother Goddess. The same simple idea has
suggested itself to other agricultural races in distant parts of the
--
representative of the Goddess are worshipped, and the intention of
the whole ceremony appears to be to ensure a good crop of rice.
1.47 - Lityerses, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
incident which, coupled with the nature of the Goddess as a deity of
vegetation, links the myth with the cults of Adonis, Attis, Osiris,
--
cut, invoking Isis as the Goddess to whom they owed the discovery of
corn. To the plaintive song or cry sung or uttered by Egyptian
--
Oraons or Uraons of Chota Nagpur worship a Goddess called Anna
Kuari, who can give good crops and make a man rich, but to induce
--
of the ring finger and the nose. The Goddess takes up her abode in
the house of any man who has offered her a sacrifice, and from that
--
unhusked rice, he takes the Goddess and rolls her over the heap to
double its size. But she soon grows restless and can only be
--
sacrifices were offered to the Earth Goddess. Tari Pennu or Bera
Pennu, and were believed to ensure good crops and immunity from all
--
victim or Meriah, as he was called, was acceptable to the Goddess
only if he had been purchased, or had been born a victim--that is,
--
all the world may live, and the Earth Goddess herself will wipe that
spittle from your face." The victims were often kept for years
--
offered to the Earth Goddess by tribes, branches of tribes, or
villages, both at periodical festivals and on extraordinary
--
it into two portions, one of which he offered to the Earth Goddess
by burying it in a hole in the ground with his back turned, and
--
authorities as victims offered to propitiate the Earth Goddess. But
from the treatment of the victims both before and after death it
--
the Earth Goddess or, perhaps, a deity of vegetation; though in
later times he came to be regarded rather as a victim offered to a
--
festival of the Goddess of the White Maize the Mexicans sacrificed
lepers. The Romans sacrificed red-haired puppies in spring to avert
1.49 - Ancient Deities of Vegetation as Animals, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
associated with Demeter, may not have been originally the Goddess
herself in animal form. The pig was sacred to her; in art she was
--
anthropomorphic Goddess. A trace of the older conception survived in
the legend that when the sad mother was searching for traces of the
--
horse on the body of a woman. Between the portraits of a Goddess as
a pig, and the portrait of her as a woman with a horse's head, there
--
soothed the angry Goddess and persuaded her to quit the cave. In
memory of this event, the Phigalians set up an image of the Black
--
representing the Goddess clad in a goat-skin (_aegis_). Yet the goat
was neither sacrificed to her as a rule, nor allowed to enter her
--
animal was placed on the statue of the Goddess and formed the
_aegis,_ which would thus be renewed annually. Similarly at Thebes
1.50 - Eating the God, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
good. The Goddess of fire will be glad, and we also shall rejoice
greatly. O thou god, O thou divine cereal, do thou nourish the
--
gods and Goddesses whom they worshipped, of diverse figures, attired
in the same livery; then putting themselves in order about those
1.52 - Killing the Divine Animal, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
men in costume, who personate gods and Goddesses. "After the
ceremonial the tortoises are taken home by those who caught them and
1.59 - Killing the God in Mexico, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
Goddesses--the Goddess of Flowers, the Goddess of the Young Maize,
the Goddess "Our Mother among the Water," and the Goddess of
Salt--were given him to be his brides, and with them he consorted.
--
glory and to share the doom as representatives of Goddesses. Thus at
a great festival in September, which was preceded by a strict fast
--
Maize Goddess Chicomecohuatl. They invested her with the ornaments
of the Goddess, putting a mitre on her head and maize-cobs round her
neck and in her hands, and fastening a green feather upright on the
--
of tender years to play the part of the Maize Goddess. The whole
long day they led the poor child in all her finery, with the green
--
image of the Goddess stood. Now the chamber was adorned and
wreathed, both outside and inside, with wreaths of maize-cobs,
--
of the Goddess. Then they made her mount the framework, where she
stood upright on the maize and peppers and pumpkins with which it
--
of the Goddess with great solemnity and elaborate ceremonies,
weeping and giving her thanks for the fruits of the earth and the
--
the costume of the Goddess, with the mitre on her head and the cobs
of maize about her neck. Again she mounted the portable framework or
--
the chamber, where stood the wooden image of the Maize Goddess, whom
the girl personated. There they caused the damsel to descend from
--
embodiment of the Maize Goddess, had conferred upon them. When the
men had thus humbly offered their blood to the human representative
of the Goddess, the women, forming a long line, did so likewise,
each of them dropping on her hams before the girl and scraping her
--
the girl who personated the Goddess; then they threw her on her back
on the heap of corn and seeds, cut off her head, caught the gushing
--
the Maize Goddess appears to be complete. The golden maize-cobs
which she wore round her neck, the artificial maize-cobs which she
--
the Maize Goddess, but on the piles of maize, peppers, pumpkins,
seeds, and vegetables, can seemingly have had no other object but to
--
Corn Goddess herself. The analogy of this Mexican sacrifice, the
meaning of which appears to be indisputable, may be allowed to
--
was sprinkled on the maize, indeed personated the Maize Goddess, it
becomes more than ever probable that the girl whose blood the
--
the dead Maize Goddess was flayed and her skin worn, together with
all her sacred insignia, by a man who danced before the people in
1.61 - The Myth of Balder, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
secure against every danger. So the Goddess Frigg took an oath from
fire and water, iron and all metals, stones and earth, from trees,
1.68 - The God-Letters, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The next sound-group to be considered may conveniently be N. Here at once we have innumberable Gods and Goddesses flocking up: Nu, Nuit, Ann, Noah, John, Oannes, On, Jonah, et al. With the exception of On, a special case, all these divine or semi-divine Beings refer to the Night, the Starry Heavens, the Element of Water, the North, the Mother- Goddess, as appears when we consider their legends and rituals. N, Nun, means a fish and refers to the water sign of Scorpio. (Note, later when we reach Sh, that Joshua was the Son of Nun.) To me the sound gives the idea of a continuum, an eternal movement; and this is of course our Thelemic conception of the Universe, the "Star Sponge," of which I have elsewhere written at such length.
But at the moment I am especially desirous that you should compare and contrast this letter with the S Sound. (S or Sh combined with T is discussed rather fully in Magick, pp. 336-8)[135] You should find it child's play to determine the significance of the sibilant. It is the one letter which necessitates the exposure of the skeleton! (I.e., the Subconscious). Hence "Hush!" it is the hiss of the snake, great Lord of Life and Death (life? yes, the spermatozoon, child!) "Silence! Danger! There is a man somewhere about." The savage reaction. And, sure enough, Ish is the Hebrew for man (Mankind is ADM, Adam, Sanskrit Admi, the Father and Mother conjoined. "Male and Female created They Man.")
1.68 - The Golden Bough, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
which contained the god's life and his own. The Goddess whom he
served and married was herself, if I am right, no other than the
1.69 - Farewell to Nemi, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
temple of the sylvan Goddess, indeed, has vanished and the King of
the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. But Nemi's
17.01 - Hymn to Dawn, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
O Goddess of Plenty: you are there for our wide
enjoyment, for our right impulsion, for our felicity.
--
Goddess Dawn appeared always of yore:
even so, O Queen of Plenty, manifest all this here today.
--
the Goddess has discarded her dark robes.
Awakening all, Dawn comes with rosy steeds
--
Appear this day, O Goddess of Plenty, to him who expresses
Thee, in me illumine a life rich with its fruitfulness. [17]
17.05 - Hymn to Hiranyagarbha, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hymn to the Purusha Hymn of the Supreme Goddess
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta TranslationsSanskritHymn to Hiranyagarbha
--
Hymn to the Purusha Hymn of the Supreme Goddess
17.06 - Hymn of the Supreme Goddess, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
object:17.06 - Hymn of the Supreme Goddess
author class:Nolini Kanta Gupta
--
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta TranslationsSanskritHymn of the Supreme Goddess
Hymn of the Supreme Goddess
(Rig-VedaMandala X, Sukta 125)
17.07 - Ode to Darkness, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Hymn of the Supreme Goddess Last Hymn
Other Authors Nolini Kanta Gupta TranslationsSanskritOde to Darkness
--
Night spreads wide, she comes everywhere, a Goddess with shining eyesshe looms over these glories as their overlord. [1]
The Immortal Goddess fills up the Vast above and below. She compels the darkness with her light. [2]
The Goddess comes and veils her sister, the Dawn, and glows through the blackness. [3]
She is now that to us wherein we shall rest even as birds do on a tree. [4]
--
O Ocean-born Goddess! Smite the wolf, he or she, smite the robber! Carry us safely through. [6]
Black darkness clings to me all around, it stands here firm. O Dawn! clear it even as you do my debts. [7]
--
Hymn of the Supreme Goddess Last Hymn
17.11 - A Prayer, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Sweats of passion flow in streams down his temples, Their fragrance draws swarms of bees that swirl about driven by his fanning ears. Gods and angels and seraphs sing to Him. He is Shiva's son, Shiva who bears the Goddess Ganges on his head. In Him I take refuge.
He dwells in the thousand-petalled lotus, luminous cool like the full orb of the moon, his lotus-hands carry grace and protection. He wears a robe of pure sweet-scented flowers, ever-smiling and gracious-looking. He embodies all the gods. He is the Spirit, the soaring Bird on the crown of the head. Remember Him and worship Him in any fair form. He is the Guru.
--
O Goddess, protect us by your spontaneous Grace, forgive all our offences, against the supreme Light of all lights. It is he who assumes a multitude of forms; he dwells in the lotus heart of the universe, he makes the laws that upbear the status and dynamism of the cosmos, he alone is able to awaken all to knowledge. O Goddess, remove all evil forthwith and for ever, be constantly present in us.
May the divine Master, Guru Bhaskara, protect us from every evil and danger. May he manifest himself to reveal the essential mystery of his path of worship and to spread the true tradition of Knowledge.
--
"May the Goddess Kundalini, luminous as the new-risen sun, rise up from her abode, in her graceful movement to open the centres (lotuses) in succession on her way upwards and kindle the spiritual light by the nectarous rays of the Abode of Shiva."
"The Kundalini Power rises up with all her immortal sweetness and through various processes that consolidate the vehicle, by worshipping Shiva, the seed of the three status; may She, Shiva's consort, bring the supreme good.
--
She is Shiva's Consort. She shines like a Bandhuka-flower, may She manifest in my heart. She graces all quarters of the sky with her wide eye-lotuses, her lotus-feet are swept by the crests on the crowns of Gods, as they humbly bow down to her; she is heavy with her rounded breasts. She bears a newly risen crescent. May she the Supreme Goddess of the three worlds create bliss in the inner instruments of my consciousness. May she pierce and open the six centres that are now closed and inhabited by ghouls and goblins; and may she open them in an intimacy with the gods, Brahma and others, through the the action of the mystical letters [numbered four, six, ten, twelve, sixteen and two respectively, beginning with 'sa' to which 'ksha' and 'ha' are also added.]
"The sadhaka, whose body is graced in quality and movement should contemplate on Parvati. She will swiftly pierce the three knots from the lowermost centre (Muladhara) upward, open the lotuses and awaken the dense intense bliss laden with consciousness, she will come forth from the fountain of nectar that flows from the nectared home of the vibrating heaven and shine like the impetuous lightning.
18.04 - Modern Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
O Goddess, Vendor of Liberty
O Goddess, vendor of liberty!
Bind me not in thy boundlessness;
--
Goddess, veiling the Love Eternal,
Come to our mortal land, here bring Heaven's nectar,
18.05 - Ashram Poets, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Goddess Supreme, Mira! Creator of the Worlds,
Nourisher of the Worlds, Benefactor of the Worlds! Mother!
Goddess Supreme, Mira! The infinite mother of the Gods,
the universal Goddess!
The Home of the Worlds, thy gracious feet!
--
Sun Goddess, O Mother Mira!
Origin that has no origin and no end!
--
Goddess Mira, Mother of the Worlds,
Without thy upholding strength
--
Goddess That Hast Dawned
Goddess that hast dawned upon the horizon!
Hast thou crossed the infinitude of Darkness
--
Goddess of dream, hast thou shed upon the Night
The hue of thy perfect vision of creative might?
--
The glorious dust of thy feet, my Goddess, O Word divine!
Sahana Devi
1.81 - Method of Training, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
"Being furnished with complete armour and armed, he is similar to the Goddess.[161]
Of other writers, you have The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, and any of the works of Eliphaz Lvi. But that's all.
1929-04-21 - Visions, seeing and interpretation - Dreams and dreaml and - Dreamless sleep - Visions and formulation - Surrender, passive and of the will - Meditation and progress - Entering the spiritual life, a plunge into the Divine, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The two beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne dArc would, if seen by an Indian, have a quite different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of ones mind. To what you see you give the form of that which you expect to see. If the same being appeared simultaneously in a group where there were Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Shintoists, it would be named by absolutely different names. Each would say, in reference to the appearance of the being, that he was like this or like that, all differing and yet it would be one and the same manifestation. You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother, the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, and others would give other names. It is the same Force, the same Power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths.
What is the place of training or discipline in surrender? If one surrenders, can he not be without discipline? Does not discipline sometimes hamper?
1953-04-29, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The beings who were always appearing and speaking to Jeanne dArc would, if seen by an Indian, have quite a different appearance; for when one sees, one projects the forms of ones mind. You have the vision of one in India whom you call the Divine Mother; the Catholics say it is the Virgin Mary, and the Japanese call it Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy; and others would give other names. It is the same force, the same power, but the images made of it are different in different faiths.
Questions and Answers 1929-1931 (21 April 1929)
1954-08-11 - Division and creation - The gods and human formations - People carry their desires around them, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sweet Mother, here I do not understand this: But something of her ways can be seen and felt through her embodiments and the more seizable because more defined and limited temperament and action of the Goddess forms in whom she consents to be manifest to her creatures.
This means, you see, that precisely there are different qualities, different ways of being which manifest in different forms and that each of these forms is one of the godheads whom men have worshipped and whom they understand because of the limitation. When something is limited it is more easily understandable for man than when it is unlimited, for man has a limited nature and he naturally understands what is limited. And so, to be comprehensible, things must be divided and limited. Otherwise the Power in its essence, which is indivisible and unlimited, is absolutely above human comprehension for man as he now is, in his present state.
1954-08-18 - Mahalakshmi - Maheshwari - Mahasaraswati - Determinism and freedom - Suffering and knowledge - Aspects of the Mother, #Questions And Answers 1954, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Mahasaraswati. Yes, because she is (silence) precisely the Goddess of perfection. For her everything must be done down to the last detail, and done in an absolutely perfect way. And she wants, she insists that it should be done physically, totally, materially, that it should not remain in the air, you see, like a mental or vital action, but that it should be a physical realisation in all its details, and all the details be perfect, that nothing be neglected. So all that the others undertake in the other domains she concretises and brings to its material perfection.
I have a question from the last lesson. Here Sri Aurobindo has written: All the scenes of the earth-play have been like a drama arranged and planned and staged by her [the Mother as the Mahashakti] with the cosmic Gods for her assistants and herself as a veiled actor. So this means that everything that happens here has already been staged on a higher plane. So everything is predestined Mother. Then there is no free-will?
1955-05-18 - The Problem of Woman - Men and women - The Supreme Mother, the new creation - Gods and goddesses - A story of Creation, earth - Psychic being only on earth, beings everywhere - Going to other worlds by occult means, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
object:1955-05-18 - The Problem of Woman - Men and women - The Supreme Mother, the new creation - Gods and Goddesses - A story of Creation, earth - Psychic being only on earth, beings everywhere - Going to other worlds by occult means
class:chapter
--
The genders of the gods and Goddesses are also human formations?
No, no! Why should they be human formations? I have never said that they were of human formation. The gods and Goddesses of the Overmind are gods and Goddesses differentiated in their form. It is not man who has created the gods of the Overmind, the gods of the Overmind come of a direct creation. I dont know if they preceded men, but I think so. I think terrestrial creation, the terrestrial formation was made by the godheads of the Overmind, and that in fact there are many godheads of the Overmind who were fashioners upon earth, not incarnated upon earth but fashioners of what occurred upon earth, who gave the ideas, the forms. Sri Aurobindo always used to say that what was formerly called god was a being of the Overmind, that the supreme godhead was a being of the Overmind.
Mother, if there is a differentiation between the forms of the gods and Goddesses, does the same problem come up for them also?
Ah! This, my child, you may ask them; but if we are to believe the stories we have been told, between them there are disputes and difficulties and quarrels and all kinds of things, things like that and even jealousies. There are times when they are not much wiser than men.
Sweet Mother, how were the gods and Goddesses born?
But it is precisely it is part of the creation. What we call Aditi here, that is, the Creative Consciousness, well, the Creative Consciousness
1956-08-01 - Value of worship - Spiritual realisation and the integral yoga - Symbols, translation of experience into form - Sincerity, fundamental virtue - Intensity of aspiration, with anguish or joy - The divine Grace, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sweet Mother, does the worship offered to the Goddess Durga and to Kali have any spiritual value?
That depends on who offers the worship.
1969 09 26, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Once one has taken the path of Sri Aurobindos yoga, should not one stop worshipping all other gods and Goddesses?
One who truly follows the path given by Sri Aurobindo, as soon as he begins to have the experience of this path, will find it impossible to confine his consciousness to the worship of any god or Goddess or even of all of them together.
26 September 1969
1970 03 30, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
429What is the use of admiring Nature or worshipping her as a Power, a Presence and a Goddess? What is the use, either, of appreciating her aesthetically or artistically? The secret is to enjoy her with the soul as one enjoys a woman with the body.
430When one has the vision in the heart, everything, Nature and Thought and Action, ideas and occupations and tastes and objects become the Beloved and are a source of ecstasy.
1.ac - The Wizard Way, #Crowley - Poems, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Of a Goddess and a god!
Spell by spell and pace by pace!
1.anon - Enuma Elish (When on high), #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The breast of Goddesses did she suck.
The nurse that nursed him filled him with awesomeness.
1.anon - Others have told me, #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The Great Goddess [Aruru] designed(?) the model for his body,
she prepared his form
1f.lovecraft - Facts concerning the Late, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
beings, had carried off the stuffed Goddess which had been the object
of their quest; the white ape- Goddess which the strange beings
--
of the stuffed Goddess.
The ape-princess, it was said, became the consort of a great white god
--
story nothing further happened save that the stuffed Goddess became a
symbol of supremacy for whatever tribe might possess it. It was for
--
which Sir Wade had mentioned. The white apes and the stuffed Goddess
were discussed with all the native chiefs of the region, but it
--
he could not only locate but obtain the stuffed Goddess, of which he
had vaguely heard; since the once mighty Nbangus were now the
--
finding of the stuffed Goddess. It was, the Belgian averred, a most
extraordinary object; an object quite beyond the power of a layman to
--
the Goddess as a charm. In commenting on the contour of the mummys
face, M. Verhaeren suggested a whimsical comparison; or rather,
--
levity. The stuffed Goddess, he wrote, would arrive duly packed about a
month after receipt of the letter.
--
box. The stuffed Goddess was a nauseous sight, withered and eaten away,
but it was clearly a mummified white ape of some unknown species, less
1f.lovecraft - Medusas Coil, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
of slush about the Goddess he had discovered. If Id only realised his
simplicity I might have done something, but I never thought a puppy
1f.lovecraft - Out of the Aeons, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Inspired by the Mother Goddess, Tyog wrote down a strange formula in
the hieratic Naacal of his order, which he believed would keep the
1f.lovecraft - Poetry and the Gods, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Memnon. To the feet of the Thunderer flew the rosy-fingered Goddess,
and kneeling, cried, Master, it is time I unlocked the gates of the
1f.lovecraft - The Crawling Chaos, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
heard. A god and Goddess they must have been, for such beauty is not
mortal; and they took my hands, saying, Come, child, you have heard
1f.lovecraft - The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
trace of that profound and inviolate sanctity which made their Goddess
great in the temples of Bubastis. They would leap seven strong at the
1f.lovecraft - The Last Test, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
discoverythe worship of the ineffable light. The Goddess Science
demands it. We test a doubtful poison by killing. How else? No thought
1.fs - Archimedes, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
He who the Goddess would aspire unto,
Must not the Goddess as the woman woo!"
1.fs - Evening, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Tethys, the Goddess, 'tis nods!
Swiftly from out his flaming chariot leaping,
1.fs - Fantasie -- To Laura, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Blot the Goddess from the spirit order,
It would sink in death, and ne'er arise.
1.fs - Hero And Leander, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
"A Goddess with a god, to keep
In endless youth, beneath the deep,
--
And guide, O Goddessguide my love
Along the wonted way!"
--
On every Goddess of the deep,
On all the gods in heaven that be,
1.fs - Hymn To Joy, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Joy, thou Goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
1.fs - Naenia, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
See! where all the gods and Goddesses yonder are weeping,
That the beauteous must fade, and that the perfect must die.
1.fs - The Celebrated Woman - An Epistle By A Married Man, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
But, hark! the Goddess stoops to reason:
"The country now is quite in season,
--
Home's Goddessin the name of wife!
Reared by each graceyet but to be
1.fs - The Complaint Of Ceres, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Oh, let the Goddess lose the rights
That shut the mother from the child!
1.fs - The Eleusinian Festival, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Stands she, as a Goddess bright.
There she finds the concourse rude
--
And the Goddess breathes this prayer:
"Father Zeus, who reign'st o'er all
--
At the Goddess' word of might,
While the hours, all gently bound,
--
Now the Goddess queen comes there,
And she leads the fairest hind
1.fs - The Triumph Of Love, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Thou mighty Goddess, now retire,
Love's power thou now must feel!
1.fs - The Words Of Error, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
The veil of the Goddess no earth-born may lift,
And all we can learn isto guess and divine!
1.ia - As Night Let its Curtains Down in Folds, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Michael A. Sells Original Language Arabic Peace, Salma, and peace to those who halt awhile at al-Hima. It is right for one like me to greet you. Would it have hurt her to return the greeting? Ah, but a statuette Goddess is beyond control. They left as night let its curtains down in folds. I told them of a lover strange and lost, Surrounded by yearnings, struck by their arrows on target always, wherever he goes. She smiled, showing her side teeth. Lightning flashed. I couldn't tell which of the two split the darkness. Isn't it enough she said I am in his heart where each moment he sees me, isn't it, no? [2240.jpg] -- from Stations of Desire: Love Elegies from Ibn 'Arabi and New Poems, by Michael A. Sells
1.jk - Endymion - Book II, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Dear Goddess, help! or the wide-gaping air
Will gulph mehelp!"At this with madden'd stare,
--
Young Goddess! let me see my native bowers!
Deliver me from this rapacious deep!"
--
By telling how the sea-born Goddess pin'd
For a mortal youth, and how she strove to bind
--
Thee, gentle Goddess of my pilgrimage,
By our eternal hopes, to soothe, to assuage,
1.jk - Endymion - Book III, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
How his own Goddess was past all things fair,
He saw far in the concave green of the sea
--
In human accent: "Potent Goddess! chief
Of pains resistless! make my being brief,
--
Have mercy, Goddess! Circe, feel my prayer!"
That curst magician's name fell icy numb
--
The ooze-born Goddess beckoned and drew
Fair Scylla and her guides to conference;
--
Thus the fair Goddess: while Endymion
Knelt to receive those accents halcyon.
--
Of Goddess Cytherea!
Yet deign, white Queen of Beauty, thy fair eyes
1.jk - Endymion - Book IV, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
His very Goddess: good-bye earth, and sea,
And air, and pains, and care, and suffering;
--
The Latmian started up: "Bright Goddess, stay!
Search my most hidden breast! By truth's own tongue,
--
His fate most Goddess-like. Help me, I pray,
To lureEndymion, dear brother, say
--
Before his Goddess, in a blissful swoon.
She gave her fair hands to him, and behold,
1.jk - Hyperion, A Vision - Attempted Reconstruction Of The Poem, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Sole Goddess of this desolation."
I had no words to answer, for my tongue,
--
This saw that Goddess, and with sacred hand
Parted the veils. Then saw I a wan face,
--
I mark'd the Goddess, in fair statuary
Surpassing wan Moneta by the head,
--
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet;
Moneta silent. Without stay or prop
--
And that fair kneeling Goddess at his feet.
As the moist scent of flowers, and grass, and leaves,
1.jk - Hyperion. Book I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
She was a Goddess of the infant world;
By her in stature the tall Amazon
--
And the sad Goddess weeping at his feet:
Until at length old Saturn lifted up
--
And that fair kneeling Goddess; and then spake,
As with a palsied tongue, and while his beard
--
Of these, thy brethren and the Goddesses!
There is sad feud among ye, and rebellion
1.jk - Hyperion. Book III, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
With solemn step an awful Goddess came,
And there was purport in her looks for him,
--
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
1.jk - Lamia. Part I, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see
Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!
--
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
--
So threw the Goddess off, and won his heart
More pleasantly by playing womans part,
1.jk - Ode To Psyche, #Keats - Poems, #John Keats, #Poetry
O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,
--
'Under the date 15th of April [1819] Keats writes to his brother George and his wife, of this Ode, "The following poem, the last I have written, is the first and only one with which I have taken even moderate pains; I have, for the most part, dashed off my lines in a hurry; this one I have done leisurely; I think it reads the more richly for it, and it will I hope encourage me to write other things in even a more peaceable and healthy spirit. You must recollect that Psyche was not embodied as a Goddess before the time of Apuleius the Platonist, who lived after the Augustan age, and consequently the Goddess was never worshipped or sacrificed to with any of the ancient fervour, and perhaps never thought of in the old religion: I am more orthodox than to let a heathen Goddess be so neglected."
This is an instance in which Keats seems to have gone beyond Lempriere's Classical Dictionary for his information; but I presume we may not unsafely take the portraiture of Cupid and Psyche in the first stanza as an adapted reminiscence of his other favourite text book, Spence's Polymetis, in Plate VI of which the well known kissing Cupid and Psyche are admirably engraved from the statue at Florence.'
1.jwvg - My Goddess, #Goethe - Poems, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
object:1.jwvg - My Goddess
author class:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1.jwvg - The Muses Mirror, #Goethe - Poems, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
Ever her moving form; the Goddess departed in anger.
Yet the stream call'd mockingly after her, saying: "What, truly!
1.kbr - Poem 9, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
Where millions of Saraswatis, Goddess of Music, play on the veena
There is my Lord self-revealed: and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in those deeps.
1.lla - Your way of knowing is a private herb garden, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Coleman Barks Original Language Kashmiri Your way of knowing is a private herb garden. Enclose it with a hedge of meditation, and self-discipline, and helpfulness to others. Then everything you've done before will be brought as a sacrifice to the mother Goddess. And each day, as you eat the herbs, your garden grows more bare and empty. [bk1sm.gif] -- from Naked Song, by Lalla / Translated by Coleman Barks <
1.mm - Three Golden Apples from the Hesperian grove (from Atalanta Fugiens), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Anonymous Original Language Latin Three Golden Apples from the Hesperian grove. A present Worthy of the Queen of Love. Gave wise Hippomenes Eternal Fame. And Atalanta's cruel Speed O'ercame. In Vain he follows 'till with Radiant Light, One Rolling Apple captivates her Sight. And by its glittering charms retards her flight. She Soon Outruns him but fresh rays of Gold, Her Longing Eyes & Slackened Footsteps Hold, 'Till with disdain She all his Art defies, And Swifter then an Eastern Tempest flies. Then his despair throws his last Hope away, For she must Yield whom Love & Gold betray. What is Hippomenes, true Wisdom knows. And whence the Speed of Atalanta Flows. She with Mercurial Swiftness is Endued, Which Yields by Sulphur's prudent Strength pursued. But when in Cybel's temple they would prove The utmost joys of their Excessive Love, The Matron Goddess thought herself disdained, Her rites Unhallowed & her shrine profaned. Then her Revenge makes Roughness o'er them rise, And Hideous feireenesse Sparkle from their Eyes. Still more Amazed to see themselves look red, Whilst both to Lions changed Each Other dread. He that can Cybell's Mystic change Explain, And those two Lions with true Redness stain, Commands that treasure plenteous Nature gives And free from Pain in Wisdom's Splendor lives. <
1.pbs - Hymn To Mercury, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
The Goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled,
Knew all that he had done being abroad:
1.pbs - Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot The Tyrant, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine
These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [He contemplates himself with satisfaction.
--
Kept to the honour of our Goddess Famine,
Where, for more glory, let the ceremony
--
The interior of the Temple of Famine. The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in parti-coloured rags, seated upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. A number of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. [Solomon, the Court Porkman.] A flourish of trumpets.
Enter Mammon as arch-priest, Swellfoot, Dakry, Purganax, Laoctonos, followed by Iona Taurina guarded. On the other side enter the Swine.
--
Goddess bare, and gaunt, and pale,
Empress of the world, all hail!
1.pbs - Song Of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers On The Plain Of Enna, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
1.pbs - The Cyclops, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
O Pallas, Mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy
1.pbs - The Triumph Of Life, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Iris: classical Goddess of the rainbow.
472.
1.poe - Al Aaraaf- Part 1, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven:
"Spirit! that dwellest where,
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fourth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
God, Goddess, woman, man, the Greek rough-rasps
In crumbling Naples marblemeant to look
1.rmpsd - Conquer Death with the drumbeat Ma! Ma! Ma!, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
This mysterious Goddess, eternally sixteen,
is naked brilliance, transparent insight.
--
-- from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, Translated by Lex Hixon
1.rmpsd - I drink no ordinary wine, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - In the worlds busy market-place, O Shyama, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - Its value beyond assessment by the mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, Translated by Lex Hixon
1.rmpsd - Kulakundalini, Goddess Full of Brahman, Tara, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:1.rmpsd - Kulakundalini, Goddess Full of Brahman, Tara
author class:Ramprasad
--
Kulakundalini, Goddess Full of Brahman, Tara --
You are inside me.
1.rmpsd - Love Her, Mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
1.rmpsd - Ma, Youre inside me, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
I place You there, my mental Goddess:
Now dance!
-- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
1.rmpsd - Meditate on Kali! Why be anxious?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
1.rmpsd - Mother, am I Thine eight-months child?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - Mother this is the grief that sorely grieves my heart, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - O Death! Get away- what canst thou do?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - Of what use is my going to Kasi any more?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - O Mother, who really, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Ramprasad Sen - Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Translated by Leonard Nathan / Clinton Seely
1.rmpsd - Once for all, this time, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - Tell me, brother, what happens after death?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Grace and Mercy in Her Wild Hair: Ramprasad Sen - Selected Poems to the Mother Goddess, Translated by Leonard Nathan / Clinton Seely
1.rmpsd - This time I shall devour Thee utterly, Mother Kali!, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.rmpsd - Who is that Syama woman, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
-- from Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
1.rmpsd - Why disappear into formless trance?, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Become the sublime warrior Goddess Kali,
who moves with graceful power
--
This ardent poet of the Goddess cries:
"Every lover longs only
--
-- from Mother of the Universe: Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment, Translated by Lex Hixon
1.rt - A Dream, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
She descended the stairs like a Goddess
Holding an evening star in her hand.
1.rt - Birth Story, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
In the lap of the Goddess of our family.
When I bloomed like a flower in my youth
1.sk - Is there anyone in the universe, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Lex Hixon Original Language Bengali Is there anyone in the universe, among heavenly or earthly beings, who can understand what Kali is? The systems of all traditions are powerless to describe Her. Is Mother a feminine being or greater than Being itself? Chanting Her transforming Name -- OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI, empowers Lord Shiva, Who is transcendent Knowledge, to drink the negativity of all beings, turning His Throat dark blue. Without Her protection such poison would be deadly, even to the highest Divinity. More than Creator and creation, Mother is sheer Creativity beyond the notion of duality. Universe and Father-God are thrilling glances from Her seductive Eyes. Always pregnant with ecstasy, She gives birth to manifest Being from Her Womb of primal Awareness, nursing it tenderly at Her Breast, then playfully consumes Her Child. The world dissolves instantly upon touching Her white Teeth, attaining the realization of Her brilliant Voidness. The various Divine Forms that manifest throughout history take refuge at Her Lotus Feet. The Essence of Divinity, the Great Ground of Being, lies in ecstatic absorption beneath Her red-soled Feet. Is Mother simply a Goddess? Does She need a male consort to protect or complete Her? The cycle of birth and death bows reverently before Her. Is She simply naked or is She naked Truth? No veil can conceal Her. Her naked radiance slays demons not with weapons but with splendor. If Mother is a conventional wife, why is She dancing fiercely on the breast of Shiva? Her timeless play destroys conventions and conceptions. She is primal purity, Her ecstatic lovers are purity. Purity merges into purity, with no remainder. I am totally inebriated by Her wine of timeless bliss. The wine cup is Her Name -- OM KALI OM KALI OM KALI. Those drunk on ordinary wine assume I am one of them. Not everyone will encounter the dazzling darkness called Goddess Kali. Not everyone can consciously receive the infinite treasure of Her Nature. The foolish mind refuses to perceive and accept that She alone exists. Even the noble Lord Shiva, most enlightened of beings, can barely catch a glimpse of Her flashing crimson Feet. The wealth of world-emperors and the richness of Paradise are but abject poverty to those who meditate on Her. To swim in a single Glance from Her three Cosmic Eyes is to be immersed in an ocean of ecstasy. Not even Shiva, prince of yogis, can focus upon Her dancing Feet without falling into trance. Yet the worthless lover who sings this mad song aspires to conscious union with Her during waking, dream, and deep sleep. [1146.jpg] -- from Great Swan: Meetings with Ramakrishna, by Lex Hixon
1.snk - In Praise of the Goddess, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
object:1.snk - In Praise of the Goddess
author class:Shankara
1.sv - In dense darkness, O Mother, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana's waves unborn, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible. Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of samadhi? From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love's lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud! [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
1.sv - Kali the Mother, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The stars are blotted out, The clouds are covering clouds It is darkness vibrant, sonant. In the roaring, whirling wind Are the souls of a million lunatics Just loosed from the prison-house, Wrenching trees by the roots, Sweeping all from the path. The sea has joined the fray, And swirls up mountain-waves, To reach the pitchy sky. The flash of lurid light Reveals on every side A thousand, thousand shades Of Death begrimed and black Scattering plagues and sorrows, Dancing mad with joy, Come, Mother, come! For Terror is Thy name, Death is in Thy breath. And every shaking step Destroys a world for e'er. Thou 'Time', the All-destroyer! Come, O Mother, come! Who dares misery love, And hug the form of Death, Dance in Destruction's dance, To him the Mother comes. [1008.jpg] -- from Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding <
1.wby - Supernatural Songs, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
A Needle's Eye
1.ww - Artegal And Elidure, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
May the unsullied Goddess of the chase,
Who to this blessed place
1.ww - Book Seventh [Residence in London], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
When Wisdom, like the Goddess from Jove's brain,
Broke forth in armour of resplendent words,
1.ww - Lines Written As A School Exercise At Hawkshead, Anno Aetatis 14, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
When lo! the heavenly Goddess thus began,
hrough all my frame the pleasing accents ran.
1.ww - Look Now On That Adventurer Who Hath Paid, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
By the blind Goddess,--ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous height,
1.ww - The Birth Of Love, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
On the wild Goddess of VOLUPTUOUS JOY.
br>Long undecided lay th' important choice,
--
The Goddess then her lap with sweetmeats filled
And gave, in handfuls gave, the treacherous store:
1.ww - The Excursion- V- Book Fouth- Despondency Corrected, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
And hence, a beaming Goddess with her Nymphs,
Across the lawn and through the darksome grove,
1.ww - With How Sad Steps, O Moon, Thou Climb'st the Sky, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The power of Merlin, Goddess! this should be:
And all the stars, fast as the clouds were riven,
20.01 - Charyapada - Old Bengali Mystic Poems, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Deity dances, the Goddess sings,
the Buddha play is played out.
--
The Goddess of the lotus bears the lotus on the lotus ten:
Th delight of cessation carries no sign, it is all pure.
--
The creation is a stringed musical instrument. Knowledge is its base, the delight is the row of strings tied to the base, the inner silence is the body (rod) on which the strings are laid. The woman is the inspiration of the inner soul, creating the music, she is the mate of the singer, the poet himself. What kind of music is it? It is the music of the Void pouring out the light of compassion all over the creation. The strings are in two layers; the vowels (beginning with aalpha series) are the top series, the consonants the series below (Indian K series, European beta series). That marks the echoing and the re-echoing of the melody, also the right hand and the left hand movements of the consciousness (Knowledge and Power) according to the occultistsit means the total encircling consciousness, the global music. The bridge tightens and maintains the poise of the strings. We may remember here the two subtle nervous lines of 'Ida' and 'Pingala' and the middle one, 'Sushumna' that balances the two. The psychological sense is that the dualities of the world-experience are resolved in the consciousness of the sadhak by a supreme sense of equality. The elephant may mean the strength of physical resolution. The fingers pressing indicate the same thing, the pressure of almost physical consciousness to bring out the vast music that is Nirvana. The Gods and Goddesses are all happy for the curtain is rung down on the play, it is the endNirvana.
You have to cross the three worldsphysical, vital and mental, pass through the three states of consciousness jgrat (waking), swapna (dreaming) and suupta (sleeping)-to enjoy the transcendent delight. It is the ecstasy of union with one's soul, the divine Beloved secreted within our inner heart. This divinity, this beloved deity is utter freedomno mental reservations or restrictions, no vital preferences or prejudices, no physical rules or regulations.
20.02 - The Golden Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
FOUR GODS OR GoddessES
FOUR CHILDREN
2.01 - AT THE STAR THEATRE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"They are very pious souls and show great respect to holy men. The people of upper India are greatly devoted to sdhus. The sons and nephews of the Jung Bahadur of Nepal once visited the temple garden; before me they showed great respect and humility. Once a young girl of Nepal came to see me with Captain. She was a great devotee, and unmarried; she knew the whole of the Gitagovinda by heart. Dwarika Babu and the others wanted to hear her music. When she sang the Gitagovinda, Dwarika Babu was profoundly moved and wiped the tears from his eyes with his handkerchief. She was asked why she was not married. She said: 'I am the handmaid of God. Whom else shall I serve?' Her people respect her as a Goddess, as the scriptures enjoin.
(To Mahendra Mukherji and the others) "I shall feel very happy to know that you are being benefited by your visits here. (To M.) Why do people come here? I don't know much of reading and writing."
2.01 - Mandala One, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(3) He shall come into being in us in our joining to our desire. He for the felicitous treasure, he in the Goddess who holds the city, shall come to us with his plenitudes.
(4) In his meeting and shock the enemy ring not in his two bright steeds in the battles; to that Indra sing.
--
(6) Let the doors swing apart, the Goddesses that conceal the force that grows by Truth, today at least and for the sacrificial act.
(7) To night and dawn in this yajna I call, the clear of eye, I sit beside this our flame.
(8) On them, the bright of tongue I call, the priestesses, Goddesses, seers; may they conduct this yajna of ours.
(9) May Ila, Saraswati and Mahi, the three Goddesses born of the sphere of delight sit unfailingly beside our flame.
(10) I call here Twastha supreme whose shape is the world; may he be to us absolute and pure.
--
(7) Ayasya by the words of light that hymned him uncovered and saw as two the eternal Goddesses who lie in one lair; then Indra, a doer of mighty works, held earth and heaven in the highest ether as the Lord of Joy holds his two wives.
(8) Two young Goddesses of differing forms who are ever reborn, circle eternally to each other by their own motions about earth and heaven, Night with her dark, Dawn with her shining limbs.
(9) An eternal comradeship held with them the Son of Strength, the god of great deeds, labouring in perfect works. Even in the unripe cows of light thou settest, O Indra, by thy thought, a ripe, even in the black and the dun a shining milk.
--
(11) Lo, these two great Goddesses tremble with fear to thy wrath, when, O Indra, O Thunderer, by thy might, having the Maruts in thee, thou hast smitten the Coverer, singing the word of illumination in the law of thy self-empire.
(12) Vritra terrified thee not by his shaking, nor by his thundering; the adamant thousand-lustred thunderbolt sped against himsinging the word of illumination in the law of thy self-empire.
--
(10) Again and again is she born, she, the Ancient Goddess, and she glorifies one equal form. She as the slayer and cleaver of the Animal diminishes its strength and in her deity wears away the being of the Mortal.
(11) She has awakened opening wide the very ends of Heaven and continually she pushes away her sister Night diminishing our mortal periods. Paramour of the Sun, she has her light from her lovers eye of vision.
--
(3) Let our Fathers who spoke the revealing word cherish us and the truth-increasing Goddesses twain; of them the gods are the sons. O bountiful Vasus, carry us beyond out of all evil like a chariot out of a difficult place.
(4) I make richer here with my plenty the master of plenty who gives his self-expression to man. Our desire goes to Pushan the Increaser with his happinesses in whom the heroes have their dwelling place. O bountiful Vasus, carry us beyond out of all the evil like a chariot out of a difficult place.
--
(7) May the Goddess Infinite with the gods protect and the god who saves deliver us nor be careless of us in our need. This let Mitra and Varuna and the Mother Infinite magnify in me and the great River and Earth and Heaven.
***
--
(4) The Goddess Mind longs for the ecstasy, O Agni, O Indra, and she is pressing out with you for her pressing-stones wine of nectar. O twin Aswins, come running to us with your beautiful happy hands and mix the honey in the waters.
(5) O Indra and Agni, I have heard of you that you are mighty to slay the Coverer and apportion a rich substance. O you who see, sit on this seat in the sacrifice and drink the intoxication of the wine that we have made.
--
(3) Because today thou dividest their share to the Strong Ones,Usha Goddess beautiful shining upon the world of mortals, therefore here the god Savitri wide-governing utters us free from sin for the kingdom of the Sun.
(4) To house and house the bright one comes towards us, in sky and sky establishing in their place the names of things; bent on enjoyment ever shining she comes and enjoys always the first fruit of every possession.
(5) The sister of Bhaga, the twin of Varuna, Usha, Goddess of Truth, thou first of the gods cleave to us; afterwards is he to be crushed who is the establisher of sin; him may we conquer by Reason with the speed of her chariot.
(6) May the true lights arise in us, may those that hold this mansion; the forces of the night flaming pure join them; our desirable possessions hidden away by the darkness the wide-shining Dawns reveal.
2.01 - The Road of Trials, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
One of the best known and most charming examples of the "difficult tasks" motif is that of Psyche's quest for her lost lover, Cupid[1]. Here all the principal roles are reversed: instead of the lover trying to win his bride, it is the bride trying to win her lover; and instead of a cruel father withholding his daughter from the lover, it is the jealous mother, Venus, hiding her son, Cupid, from his bride. When Psyche pleaded with Venus, the Goddess grasped her violently by the hair and dashed her head upon the ground, then took a great quantity of wheat, barley, millet, poppy seed, peas, lentils, and beans, mingled these all to gether in a heap, and commanded the girl to sort them before night. Psyche was aided by an army of ants. Venus told her, next, to gather the golden wool of certain dangerous wild sheep, sharp of horn and poisonous of bite, that inhabited an inaccessible valley in a dangerous wood. But a green reed instructed her how to gather from the reeds round about the golden locks shed by the sheep in their passage. The Goddess now required a bottle of water from a freezing spring high on a towering rock beset by sleepless dragons. An eagle approached, and accomplished the marvelous task. Psyche was ordered, finally, to bring from the abyss of the underworld a box full of supernatural beauty. But a high tower told her how to go down to the world below, gave her coins for Charon and sops for Cerberus, and sped her on her way. Psyche's voyage to the underworld is but one of innumerable such adventures undertaken by the heroes of fairy tale and myth. Among the most perilous are those of the shamans of the peo ples of the farthest north (the Lapps, Siberians, Eskimo, and certain American Indian tribes), when they go to seek out and recover the lost or abducted souls of the sick. The shaman of the Siberians is clothed for the adventure in a magical costume representing a bird or reindeer, the shadow principle of the shaman himself, the shape of his soul. His drum is his animalhis eagle, reindeer, or horse; he is said to fly or ride on it. The stick that he carries is another of his aids. And he is attended by a host of invisible familiars.
An early voyager among the Lapps has left a vivid description of the weird performance of one of these strange emissaries into the kingdoms of the dead[2]. Since the yonder world is a place of everlasting night, the ceremonial of the shaman has to take place after dark. The friends and neighbors gather in the flickering, dimly lighted hut of the patient, and follow attentively the gesticulations of the magician. First he summons the helping spirits; these arrive, invisible to all but himself. Two women in ceremonial attire, but without belts and wearing linen hoods, a man without hood or belt, and a girl not as yet adult, are in attendance.
--
The oldest recorded account of the passage through the gates of metamorphosis is the Sumerian myth of the Goddess Inanna's descent to the nether world.
From the "great above" she set her mind toward the "great below, "
The Goddess, from the "great above" she set her mind toward the "great below, "
Ibid., p. 286.
--
governed by her enemy and sister Goddess, Ereshkigal. In fear, lest
her sister should put her to death, Inanna instructed Ninshubur,
--
symbolization, the one Goddess in two aspects; and their con
frontation epitomizes the whole sense of the difficult road of trials.
The hero, whether god or Goddess, man or woman, the figure in a
myth or the dreamer of a dream, discovers and assimilates his op
2.02 - Indra, Giver of Light, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The principle which Indra represents is Mind-Power released from the limits and obscurations of the nervous consciousness. It is this enlightened Intelligence which fashions right or perfect forms of thought or of action not deformed by the nervous impulses, not hampered by the falsehoods of sense. The image presented is that of a cow giving abundantly its yield to the milker of the herds. The word go means in Sanskrit both a cow and a ray of light. This double sense is used by the Vedic symbolists to suggest a double figure which was to them more than a figure; for light, in their view, is not merely an apt poetic image of thought, but is actually its physical form. Thus, the herds that are milked are the Herds of the Sun, - Surya, God of the revelatory and intuitive mind, or else of Dawn, the Goddess who manifests the solar glory. The Rishi desires from Indra a daily increase of this light of Truth by his fuller activity pouring rays in a rich yield upon the receptive mind.
The activity of the pure illuminated Intelligence is sustained and increased by the conscious expression in us of the delight in divine existence and divine activity typified by the Soma wine. As the Intelligence feeds upon it, its action becomes an intoxicated ecstasy of inspiration by which the rays come pouring abundantly and joyously in. "Light-giving indeed is the intoxication of thee in thy rapture."
2.02 - Meeting With the Goddess, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
object:2.02 - Meeting With the Goddess
alt:MWTG
--
The Meeting with the Goddess
The ultimate adventure, when all the barriers and ogres have
--
Actaeon chanced to see the dangerous Goddess at noon; that
fateful moment when the sun breaks in its youthful, strong as
--
seen the Goddess nude."
Antlers sprouted on his head. His neck grew great and long,
--
of the Goddess is called Mani-dvipa, "The Island of Jewels."
Her couch-and-throne is there, in a grove of wish-fulfilling trees.
--
Universal God Shiva and his Goddess Parvati. (They are termed, therefore,
"The Fifth Veda.") These support a mystical tradition known specifically as
--
river of time, the fluidity of life, the Goddess at once creates, pre
serves, and destroys. Her name is Kali, the Black One; her title:
--
the full revelation of the sublimity of this Goddess. For lesser
men she reduces her effulgence and permits herself to appear in
--
form of the Goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigura
tions: she can never be greater than himself, though she can al
--
Such is royal rule? Such is life itself. The Goddess guardian of
the inexhaustible wellwhe ther as Fergus, or as Actaeon, or as
--
The meeting with the Goddess (who is incarnate in every woman)
is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the boon of love
2.02 - The Mother Archetype, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
category belongs the Goddess, and especially the Mother of God,
the Virgin, and Sophia. Mythology offers many variations of the
2.03 - Atomic Forms And Their Combinations, #Of The Nature Of Things, #Lucretius, #Poetry
To panic with terror of the Goddess' might.
And so, when through the mighty cities borne,
--
That she, the Goddess, teaches men to be
Eager with armed valour to defend
2.03 - Indra and the Thought-Forces, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
suppose the worlds to have been created by the Goddess Word and sound as first etheric vibration to have preceded formation. In the Veda itself there are passages which treat the poetic measures of the sacred mantras, - anus.t.ubh, tris.t.ubh, jagat, gayatr, - as symbolic of the rhythms in which the universal movement of things is cast.
By expression then we create and men are even said to create the gods in themselves by the mantra. Again, that which we have created in our consciousness by the Word, we can fix there by the
--
gradually, in the mornings of the human spirit, by the unbroken succession of the Dawns. For Dawn in the Veda is the Goddess symbolic of new openings of divine illumination on man's physical consciousness. She alternates with her sister Night; but that darkness itself is a mother of light and always Dawn comes to reveal what the black-browed Mother has prepared. Here, however, the seer seems to speak of continuous dawns, not broken by these intervals of apparent rest and obscurity. By the brilliant force of that continuity of successive illuminations the mentality of man ascends swiftly into fullest light. But always the force which has governed and made possible the transformation, is the puissance of Indra. It is that supreme Intelligence which through the Dawns, through the Maruts, has been pouring itself into the human being. Indra is the Bull of the radiant herd, the Master of the thought-energies, the Lord of the luminous dawns.
Now also let Indra use the Maruts as his instruments for the illumination. By them let him establish the supramental knowledge of the seer. By their energy his energy will be supported in the human nature and he will give that nature his divine firmness, his divine force, so that it may not stumble under the shock or fail to contain the vaster play of puissant activities too great for our ordinary capacity.
2.03 - THE ENIGMA OF BOLOGNA, #Mysterium Coniunctionis, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
Asked how I was to meet my end, the Goddess replied: By arms;
Mars: On the cross; Phoebus: By water. All were right.
2.03 - The Supreme Divine, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All this bringing out and continual change from state to state is Karma, is action of Nature, is the energy of Prakriti, the worker, the Goddess of processes. It is first a loosing forth of the svabhava into its creative action, visargah.. The creation is of existences in the becoming, bhuta-karah., and of all that they subjectively or otherwise become, bhava-karah.. All taken together, it is a constant birth of things in Time, udbhava, of which the creative energy of Karma is the principle. All this mutable becoming emerges by a combination of the powers and energies of Nature, adhibhuta, which constitutes the world and is the object of the soul's consciousness. In it all the soul is the enjoying and observing Deity in Nature; the divine powers of
294
2.04 - ADVICE TO ISHAN, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
O Goddess, Thou art Savitri; Thou art the Ultimate Mother; All things have their support in Thee, by whom this universe was made.
O Goddess, Thou sustainest all, and all by Thee is devoured!
Thou it is that we call the Creator, when Thou createst the world,
2.04 - Positive Aspects of the Mother-Complex, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
fairy and a wicked fairy, or a benevolent Goddess and one who is
malevolent and dangerous. In Western antiquity and especially
2.05 - Apotheosis, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
Meeting with the Goddess, and the Atonement with the Father.
For in the first the initiate learns that male and female are (as
--
is the fairy Goddess Hsi Wang Mu, "The Golden Mother of the
Tortoise." She dwells in a palace on the K'un-lun Mountain,
--
Comparatively, the Hindu Goddess Kali (supra, p. 105) is shown standing
on the prostrate form of the god Shiva, her spouse. She brandishes the sword
--
but a reflex of the mindas the Goddess herself, though apparently trampling
down the god, is actually his blissful dream.
Beneath the Goddess of the Island of Jewels (see supra, pp. 103-104) two
aspects of the god are represented: the one, face upward, in union with her, is
--
while in his left he holds a bell, symbolizing the Goddess. The
thunderbolt is both the method and eternity, whereas the bell is
--
The Goddess
The Enemy
2.05 - Aspects of Sadhana, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
9. My wife is devoted to Goddess Ambaji. Her heart opens to Her, but she cannot get rid of the worldly attachments. Please help her. May I send her photo?
If you like.
2.05 - On Poetry, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Take the line from the Rig Veda which I have quoted in The Future Poetry: "Raising the living and bringing out the dead." When one reads it, it becomes clear at once that it is written from experience. Usha, the Goddess of Dawn, raises higher and higher whatever is manifested, and brings out all that had remained latent into manifestation. Of course, one has to become familiar with the symbol in order to grasp the truth.
Disciple: But mystic poetry is bound to be a little hazy and vague. Tagore has also written simple and clear poems in his Gitanjali, e.g. mr mth noto kare do. Perhaps one can write that sort of poem mentally also.
2.05 - The Tale of the Vampires Kingdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Everything goes according to the gravedigger's plan: at least this is what we surmise from the way the King's hand rests on the mysterious Arcanum of The Wheel, which can designate the entire whirl of zoomorphous specters, or the trap set up with makeshift materials (the sorceress has fallen into it under the form of a repulsive crowned bat, along with two lemurs, her succubi, spinning in the vortex with no avenue of escape), just as it can also signify the launching ramp where the King has encapsulated his infernal prey to hurl it into an orbit with no return, to expel it from the field of Earth's gravity where everything you throw into the air falls back on your head, perhaps to unload it on the no man's lands of The Moon, which has too long governed the whims of werewolves, the generations of mosquitoes, menstruations, and yet claims to remain uncontaminated, clean, pure. The narrator contemplates with anxious gaze the curve that binds the Two of Coins as if he were examining the Earth-Moon trajectory, the only way that occurs to him for a radical expulsion of the incongruous from his horizon, provided that Selene, fallen from the pomp of Goddess, will resign herself to the rank of celestial garbage can.
A jolt. The night is rent by a flash of lightning, high over the forest, toward the luminous city which at that instant vanishes in the darkness, as if the thunderbolt had fallen on the royal castle, beheading the highest Tower that scrapes the sky of the metropolis, or a sudden change of tension in the overloaded circuits of the Great Power Plant had darkened the world in the blackout.
2.06 - Two Tales of Seeking and Losing, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
"The broth that was at the origin of The World," the stranger may have replied, "whence crystals and plants took their form, and the species of animals and the race of Homo Sapiens!" And what he names then appears in the transparent material boiling in an incandescent crucible, just as we now observe it in Arcanum XXI. In this card, which has the highest number of all the tarots and is the one that counts most in players' scoring, a naked Goddess framed in myrtle is flying, Venus perhaps; the four figures around her can be recognized as more modern devout emblems, but perhaps they are only a prudent disguise of other apparitions less incompatible with the triumph of the Goddess in the middle, perhaps centaurs, sirens, harpies, gorgons, who supported the world before the authority of Olympus had subdued it, or perhaps dinosaurs, mastodons, pterodactyls, mammoths, the attempts nature made before resigning herself-we do not know for how much longer-to human dominion. And there are also those who, in the central figure, see not Venus but the Hermaphrodite, symbol of the souls that reach the center of the world, the culminating point of the itinerary the alchemist must follow.
"And can you then make gold?" the doctor must have asked, to which the other must have replied, "Look!" giving him a brief vision of strongboxes brimming with homemade ingots.
2.06 - WITH VARIOUS DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "Once, sitting on the bank of the Ganges neat the Panchavati, holding a rupee in one hand and clay in the other, I discriminated, 'The rupee is the clay-the clay is verily the rupee, and the rupee is verily the clay', and then threw the rupee into the river. But I was a little frightened. 'How foolish of me to offend the Goddess of fortune!' I thought.
'What shall I do if she doesn't provide me with food any more?' Then, like Hazra, I sought help in a ruse. I said to the Goddess, 'Mother, may you dwell in my heart.' Once the Divine Mother was pleased with a man's austerities and said to him, 'You may ask a favour of Me.' 'O Mother,' said he, 'if You are so pleased. with me, then grant that I may eat from a gold plate with my grandchildren.' Now, in one boon the man got everything: grandchildren, wealth, and gold plate. (All laugh.) "When the mind is freed from 'woman and gold', it can be directed to God and become absorbed in Him. It is the bound alone who can be freed.
The moment the mind 'turns away from God, it is bound. When does the lower needle of a pair of scales move away from the upper one? When one pan is pressed down by a weight. 'Woman and gold' is the weight.
--
At dusk incense was burnt in Sri Ramakrishna's room, and, as usual, he bowed before the pictures of gods and Goddesses on the walls and chanted their names softly. From outside one could hear the murmuring of the Ganges and the music of the evening worship in the temples of Kli, Vishnu, and iva. Through the door one could see the priest at a distance moving from one temple to another, a bell in his left hand and a light in his right, an attendant carrying the gong. The evening melody was in harmony with the spirit of the hour and place and with the innermost thoughts of the worshippers. For the time being the sordid things of daily life were forgotten.
Later Sri Ramakrishna was seated in his room in his usual blissful mood. Ishan had come from Calcutta. He had burning faith in God. He used to say, "If a man leaves the house with the hallowed name of Durga on his lips, then iva Himself protects him with His celestial weapons."
--
Next morning Sri Ramakrishna left his bed very early. As usual, he chanted the holy names of the different gods and Goddesses. Now and then he looked at the sacred river.
The morning worship began in the temples of Radhakanta and Mother Kli. M. had spent the night on the floor of the Master's room. He left his bed and watched the worship in.
2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"But lila is by no means the last word. Passing through all these states, I said to the Divine Mother: 'Mother, in these states there is separation. Give me a state where there is no separation.' Then I remained for some time absorbed in the Indivisible Satchidananda. I removed the pictures of the gods and Goddesses from my room. I began to perceive God in all beings. Formal worship dropped away. You see that bel-tree. I used to go there to pluck its leaves. One day, as I plucked a leaf, a bit of the bark came off. I found the tree full of Consciousness. I felt grieved because I had hurt the tree. One day I tried to pluck some Durva grass, but I found I couldn't do it very well.
Then I forced myself to pluck it.
"I cannot cut a lemon. The other day I managed to cut one only with great difficulty; I chanted the name of Kli and cut the fruit as they slaughter an animal before the Goddess. One day I was about to gather some flowers.
They were everywhere on the trees. At once I had a vision of Virat; it appeared that His worship was just over. The flowers looked like a bouquet placed on the head of the Deity. I could not pluck them.
2.1.02 - Love and Death, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Veiled to his eyes the triple Goddess rose.
She with a sound of waters cried to him,
--
In the dire lands where I, a Goddess, mourn
Hurting my heart with my own cruelty."
21.03 - The Double Ladder, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now this process of devolution has gone on; from the supreme Consciousness, it has entered into the Supramental, then into the Overmental and then into the mental regions, and peopled all of them with gods and divinities. In the lower regions - lower, that is to say, denser, obscurer, and more ignorant forms of consciousness - they have become smaller gods, dwarf gods. Perhaps to these also the Vedic Rishis offered their namasand stoma,their obeisance as blakhilyagods. The gods have come down farther still and proliferated liberally in the earth's atmosphere. The gods and Goddesses of the woodland, of rivers and springs, of mounts and hills, form a whole world of mythology - they are not mere creations of fancy or abstract imagination. The totems of the primitive people continue the same story of proliferation into still darker and denser regions of being and consciousness that may rather be called non-being and unconsciousness. And even, I may say if I am allowed to, the world of rocks and stones is not excluded: they too in their solid material dead body enshrine something of the god in devolution.
There is no question here of any human intervention - of the infusion of man's will and thought-formation. That is another subject altogether. Here I am speaking of the inherent intrinsic spiritual status or even divinity of a material body - Its dravya-guna- that which a lingam or a Kaaba possesses.
--
Ever thou wast, a Goddess still and pure,
Yet dearer to me by thy sweet human parts
2.10 - THE MASTER AND NARENDRA, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Sri Ramakrishna returned to his room accompanied by M. and another devotee carrying the tray of red powder. He offered a little of it to all the pictures of gods and Goddesses in his room, but not to those of Jesus Christ and himself. Then he threw the powder on the bodies of Narendra and the other devotees. They all took the dust of his feet.
In the cool shade of the late afternoon the devotees walked about in the temple garden, leaving the Master and M. in the room. The Master whispered to M.: "All say that they meditate well. But why is it different with Paltu? What do you think of Narendra? He is utterly guileless. Just now he is faced with many difficult family problems and so his spiritual progress is a little checked; but it will not be so for long."
2.12 - THE MASTERS REMINISCENCES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Then a change came over me. The mind left the plane of the Lila and ascended to the Nitya. I found no distinction between the sacred tulsi and the ordinary sajina plant. I no longer enjoyed seeing the forms of God; I said to myself, 'They come and go.' I lifted my mind above them. I removed all the pictures of gods and Goddesses from my room and began to meditate on the Primal Purusha, the Indivisible Satchidananda, regarding myself as His handmaid.
Three kinds of sdhan
2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
He was very much pleased and said: "Good! Good! Om Tat Sat! Kli!" First he fanned the pictures of the gods and Goddesses, and then he fanned himself. He said to M.: "See!
Feel the breeze!" M. Was highly pleased.
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
God and the effluxing movement of the Goddess embrace the entire Circle of Ascent and Descent? Can we not round out the original insights and see that Spirit always manifests in all four quadrants equally? Is not Spirit here and now in all its radiant glory, eternally present as every I and every We and every It? Will not our more adequate interpretations of Spirit facilitate Spirit's rescue of us?
As Plotinus knew: Let the world be quiet. Let the heavens and the earth and the seas be still. Let the world be waiting. Let the self-contraction relax into the empty ground of its own awareness, and let it there quietly die. See how Spirit pours through each and every opening in the turmoil, and bestows new splendor on the setting Sun and its glorious Earth and all its radiant inhabitants. See the Kosmos dance in Emptiness; see the play of light in all creatures great and small; see finite worlds sing and rejoice in the play of the very Divine, floating on a Glory that renders each transparent, flooded by a Joy that refuses time or terror, that undoes the madness of the loveless self and buries it in splendor.
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Better, a Goddess?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Why not? But she may not be a supramental Goddess.
Disciple: Then what else can she be?
2.16 - VISIT TO NANDA BOSES HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Narayan and certain other devotees had remarked to the Master that Nanda Bose, an aristocrat of Baghbazar, had many pictures of gods and Goddesses in his house. Hence Sri Ramakrishna intended to pay a visit to Nanda's house in the afternoon. A Brahmin woman devoted to the Master lived near by. She often came to see him at Dakshineswar. She was extremely sorrowful over the death of her only daughter, and the Master had agreed to go to her house. She had invited him with great earnestness.
From her house the Master was to go to the house of Ganu's mother, another devotee.
--
They entered the gate of Nanda's house, crossed the spacious square and stopped in front of the building. The members of the family greeted the Master. He asked M. to hand him the slippers and then got out of the palanquin and entered the large hall. It was a very spacious room. Pictures of gods and Goddesses were hanging on all sides.
Nanda Bose and his brother Pasupati saluted Sri Ramakrishna. The devotees of the Master also arrived. Girish's brother Atul came, and Prasanna's father, who was a frequent visitor at Nanda's house, was there. Prasanna was a devotee of the Master.
--
Next was Sri Krishna's picture. Then came a picture of Sarasvati, the Goddess of learning and music. It was in a glass case. She was in an ecstatic mood, playing melodies on the Vina.
Master praises his host
--
A little later he said, "I am very happy to see these pictures of gods and Goddesses." He added: "It is not good to keep pictures of the terrible aspects of the Divine Mother. If one does, one should worship them."
PASUPATI (smiling): "Well, things will go on as long as She keeps them going."
2.1.7.07 - On the Verse and Structure of the Poem, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Here is the beginning of the second section which is entitled The Issue that is of course the issue between Savitri and Fate or rather between the incarnate Light, the Sun Goddess, and Death the Creator and Devourer of this world with his Law of darkness, limitation, ignorance.
31 October 1936
2.17 - THE MASTER ON HIMSELF AND HIS EXPERIENCES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
It was dawn. The Master was chanting the name of the Divine Mother. He went to the porch west of his room and looked at the Ganges; then he stopped in front of the pictures of different gods and Goddesses in the room and bowed to them. The devotees left their beds, saluted Sri Ramakrishna, and went out.
The Master was talking to a devotee in the Panchavati. The latter had dreamt of Chaitanyadeva.
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: The Mikado claims to be the descendant of the Sun Goddess. The Mikado named Maigi believed that and used to do what was necessary after feeling the inspiration within him. There are two types of features among the Japanese: tall people with a long nose and a fine aristocratic face; they are said to have come from Australia and Polynesia. It is they who gave the Samurai culture to Japan; I met at Tagore's place a painter of this type, he had magnificent features. The other is the usual Mongolian type.
Disciple: The dictators psychology is an authority-complex. People under the dictator feel that they are great and that the dictator in this case Hitler is fighting for them, not they who fight for him. Perhaps the dictators find a competitor in God and religion. So they try to crush religion.
2.18 - SRI RAMAKRISHNA AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
M: "The author dreamt of the Roman gods and Goddesses."
MASTER: "Do such books really exist? Surely the author was inspired by God. Did you talk of anything else?"
--
"When butter is heated it sizzles and crackles. But all sound comes to a stop when it is thoroughly boiled. As a man's mind is, so is his conception of God. I have seen in rich men's houses portraits of the Queen and other aristocrats. But the devotees keep in their houses pictures of gods and Goddesses.
Go beyond knowledge and ignorance
--
DOCTOR: "You are right, sir. I have seen people bowing down before the image of Kli They seek worldly objects from the Goddess, such as a job, the healing of disease, and so forth.
(To the Master) "The illness you are suffering from does not permit the patient to talk with people. But my case is an exception. You may talk with me when I am here." (All laugh.)
2.19 - Feb-May 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Then there is contact with a place which gives you an experience, and sometimes the experience is appropriate to the place. For instance, the sense of the Infinite I had at the Shankaracharya Hill in Kashmir, and at the Parvati Hills in Poona, and the reality of the Goddess in the Karnali temple near Chandod.
Disciple: I asked Herbert why the Jews are so much persecuted in Germany. He says what you said that they are a rich minority and so they are made the scapegoat. He said the same thing was done in France against the aristocracy during the revolution, and in Spain against the clergy.
2.20 - Nov-Dec 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: The objection is that it speaks of the Hindu Goddess Durga and that is offensive to the Muslims.
Sri Aurobindo: But it is not a religious song! It is a national song and the Durga spoken of is India as the Mother. Why shouldn't the Muslims accept it? It is an image used in poetry. If in the conception of Indian nationality the Hindu viewpoint cannot find a place then the Hindus may as well be asked to give up their culture; it comes to this that we all become Mohammedans. They don't say it now but they will say it later on, because they have begun to object to the worship of Hindu Gods in national institutions. Why shouldn't the Hindu worship his Gods? Otherwise, the Hindus must either become Mohammedans or adopt European culture, or become atheists. The Hindus don't object to their "Allah ho Akbar".
2.20 - THE MASTERS TRAINING OF HIS DISCIPLES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
DOCTOR: "I find that he is a worshipper of the Goddess Kli."
Master's conception of Kli
--- Overview of noun goddess
The noun goddess has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (2) goddess ::: (a female deity)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun goddess
1 sense of goddess
Sense 1
goddess
=> deity, divinity, god, immortal
=> spiritual being, supernatural being
=> belief
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun goddess
1 sense of goddess
Sense 1
goddess
=> earth-goddess, earth goddess
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun goddess
1 sense of goddess
Sense 1
goddess
=> deity, divinity, god, immortal
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun goddess
1 sense of goddess
Sense 1
goddess
-> deity, divinity, god, immortal
HAS INSTANCE=> Demogorgon
HAS INSTANCE=> Hypnos
HAS INSTANCE=> Morpheus
=> daemon, demigod
=> sea god
=> sun god
=> Celtic deity
=> Egyptian deity
=> Semitic deity
=> Hindu deity
=> Persian deity
HAS INSTANCE=> Bodhisattva, Boddhisatva
HAS INSTANCE=> Arhat, Arhant, lohan
=> Chinese deity
=> Japanese deity
=> goddess
=> earth-god, earth god
=> demiurge
=> Greco-Roman deity, Graeco-Roman deity
=> Greek deity
=> Roman deity
=> Norse deity
=> Teutonic deity
=> Anglo-Saxon deity
=> Phrygian deity
HAS INSTANCE=> Quetzalcoatl
=> saint
=> war god, god of war
=> zombi, zombie, snake god
--- Grep of noun goddess
earth-goddess
earth goddess
goddess
green goddess
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Wikipedia - Kale (mythology) -- Greek goddess
Wikipedia - Kali Puja -- Hindu festival dedicated to the goddess Kali
Wikipedia - Kali the Mother (poem) -- Poem by Swami Vivekananda dedicated to Hindu goddess Kali
Wikipedia - Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance -- 1963 film
Wikipedia - KamruM-EM-!epa -- Hittite goddess
Wikipedia - Katyayani -- An avatar of Hindu goddess Parvati
Wikipedia - Kebechet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess of embalming liquid
Wikipedia - Khadgamala -- Mantra that names each of the Devi Hindu goddesses according to their place in the Sri Yantra or in the Maha Meru
Wikipedia - Khodiyar -- Hindu goddess of war
Wikipedia - Kumari (goddess) -- Manifestations of the divine female energy or devi in Hindu religious traditions
Wikipedia - Kushinadahime -- Shinto rice goddess
Wikipedia - Kushmanda -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Lada (mythology) -- Goddess in Slavic and Baltic mythology
Wikipedia - Laetitia (goddess) -- Minor Roman goddess of gaiety
Wikipedia - Laima -- Baltic goddess of fate
Wikipedia - Lakshmi Pujan -- Main festive day during Diwali, dedicated to the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi
Wikipedia - Lakshmi -- A principal Hindu goddess, goddess of fortune, wealth, love and beauty
Wikipedia - Lelwani -- Hattian goddess of the underworld
Wikipedia - Lenormant Athena -- Greek statuette of the goddess Athena..
Wikipedia - Leutogi -- Polynesian goddess
Wikipedia - Liberty (goddess)
Wikipedia - Libya (mythology) -- Goddess in Roman and Greek mythology
Wikipedia - List of Oh My Goddess! characters -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Oh My Goddess! episodes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of The Adventures of Mini-Goddess episodes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - LM-CM-*n M-DM-^QM-aM-;M-^Sng -- Ritual practiced in Vietnamese folk religion and the mother goddess religion M-DM-^PM-aM-:M-!o MM-aM-:M-+u
Wikipedia - Luna (goddess)
Wikipedia - Maa Shoolini -- Hindu goddess of victory
Wikipedia - Mafdet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess of protection against snakes and scorpions
Wikipedia - Mahadevi -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Mahagauri -- Hindu goddess and manifestation of Durga
Wikipedia - Mahakali -- Hindu Goddess
Wikipedia - Mahavidya -- Group of ten Hindu goddesses
Wikipedia - Maheshvari -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Maliya -- Hittite goddess of gardens
Wikipedia - M-aM-8M-*apantali -- Pastoral goddess
Wikipedia - Manat (goddess) -- Pre-Islamic Arabian goddess
Wikipedia - Mandavi -- Female cousin of Goddess Sita
Wikipedia - Mania (deity) -- Goddess of the dead
Wikipedia - Maria Cacao -- Philippine goddess
Wikipedia - Mary Ellen Tracy -- High priestess of the Church of the Most High Goddess
Wikipedia - Matangi -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Matrikas -- Group of Hindu mother goddesses
Wikipedia - Mat Zemlya -- Slavic mother goddess
Wikipedia - Mazu -- Chinese sea goddess of East and Southeast Asia
Wikipedia - M-DM-^@dityas -- Offspring of the goddess Aditi and her husband the sage Kashyapa
Wikipedia - M-DM-^PM-aM-:M-!o MM-aM-:M-+u -- Worship of mother goddesses in Vietnam
Wikipedia - M-DM-^Rostre -- Germanic goddess
Wikipedia - Meenakshi -- Hindu goddess, avatar of Parvati
Wikipedia - Mehet-Weret -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Meng Po -- A goddess in Chinese mythology
Wikipedia - Menhit -- Ancient Egyptian and Nubian war goddess
Wikipedia - Menrva -- Etruscan goddess of war, art, wisdom, and medicine
Wikipedia - Meretseger -- Ancient Egyptian cobra-goddess
Wikipedia - Meskhenet -- Egyptian goddess of childbirth
Wikipedia - Minerva -- Roman goddess of wisdom and sponsor of arts, trade and defense
Wikipedia - Mother Goddess
Wikipedia - Mother goddess -- Goddess who represents, or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation
Wikipedia - Mullissu -- Assyrian goddess
Wikipedia - Muses -- Inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts
Wikipedia - Mut -- Ancient Egyptian mother goddess
Wikipedia - Mysteries of Isis -- Religious initiation rites performed in the cult of the goddess Isis in the Greco-Roman world
Wikipedia - Naria -- Gallo-Roman goddess
Wikipedia - Nebtuwi -- Egyptian goddess of fertility
Wikipedia - Neith -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Nekhbet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Nemesis -- Goddess of retribution in Greek mythology
Wikipedia - Nephele -- Greek goddess of hospitality
Wikipedia - Nephthys -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Nesoi -- Ancient Greek goddesses of islands
Wikipedia - Nike (mythology) -- Goddess of victory in Greek mythology
Wikipedia - Ninhursag -- Sumerian goddess
Wikipedia - NirM-aM-9M-^[ti -- An auspicious Hindu goddess of sorrows Assistance of Lord Mahadeva
Wikipedia - Nut (goddess) -- Egyptian goddess of the sky
Wikipedia - Nuwa -- Mother goddess of Chinese mythology
Wikipedia - Nyai Roro Kidul -- Indonesian goddess of the sea
Wikipedia - Nyx -- Ancient Greek goddess of the night
Wikipedia - Oh My Goddess! -- Japanese media franchise
Wikipedia - Oizys -- Goddess of misery in Greek mythology
Wikipedia - Ops -- Ancient Roman goddess of fertility and the earth
Wikipedia - Pachamama -- Andean fertility goddess
Wikipedia - Pakhet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess of war
Wikipedia - Parvati -- One of principal goddesses in Hinduism
Wikipedia - Pax (goddess) -- Roman goddess of peace
Wikipedia - Perchta -- German Alpine goddess
Wikipedia - Persephone -- Greek goddess of spring and the underworld
Wikipedia - Phosop -- Thai goddess of rice
Wikipedia - Pomona (mythology) -- Nymph and goddess of fruitful abundance
Wikipedia - Pompeii Lakshmi -- Ivory statuette from Pompeii resembling an Indian fertility goddess
Wikipedia - Praxidice -- Goddess of judicial punishment
Wikipedia - Prophasis -- Greek goddess
Wikipedia - Proserpina -- Ancient Roman goddess
Wikipedia - Psyche (mythology) -- Ancient Greek goddess of the soul
Wikipedia - Pyrrha of Thessaly -- Goddess, daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora in Greek mythology
Wikipedia - Qailertetang -- Inuit goddess
Wikipedia - Queen of Heaven (antiquity) -- A title given to a number of ancient sky goddesses worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean and Near East during ancient times
Wikipedia - Radha -- Hindu goddess, consort of Krishna
Wikipedia - Raedieahkka -- Sami goddess
Wikipedia - Raet-Tawy -- Ancient Egyptian solar goddess
Wikipedia - Renenutet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess of nourishment and the harvest
Wikipedia - Rex Nemorensis -- Priest of the goddess Diana at Aricia in Italy
Wikipedia - Rhea (mythology) -- Ancient Greek goddess and Titan
Wikipedia - River deities in Hinduism -- Hindu goddesses of the rivers
Wikipedia - Rock Goddess -- All-female English metal band
Wikipedia - Rohini (goddess) -- A Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Salacia -- Roman goddess of salt water
Wikipedia - Samdzimari -- Goddess in Georgian mythology
Wikipedia - Sammakka Saralamma Jatara -- Festival to honour the Hindu tribal goddesses, celebrated in the state of Telangana, India
Wikipedia - Santoshi Mata -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Sarasvati-rahasya Upanishad -- Goddess related text
Wikipedia - Saraswati -- A principal Hindu goddess, goddess of knowledge, music and speech
Wikipedia - Sati (Hindu goddess) -- First consort of Shiva
Wikipedia - Satis (goddess) -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - SaulM-DM-^W -- Baltic solar goddess
Wikipedia - Sekhmet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Selene -- Ancient Greek goddess of the Moon
Wikipedia - Senuna -- Celtic goddess worshipped in Roman Britain
Wikipedia - Shachi -- Hindu goddess, wife of Indra
Wikipedia - Shantadurga -- Form of the Hindu goddess Durga
Wikipedia - Shashthi -- Hindu folk goddess of children
Wikipedia - Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales -- Manga
Wikipedia - Shrutakirti -- Female cousin of Goddess Sita
Wikipedia - Sirtur -- Mesopotamian pastoral goddess
Wikipedia - Sita -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - SkaM-CM-0i -- Norse goddess associated with bowhunting, skiing, winter, and mountains
Wikipedia - Skandamata -- Hindu goddess of war
Wikipedia - Sun goddess of Arinna -- Chief goddess and wife of the weather god TarM-aM-8M-+unna in Hittite mythology
Wikipedia - Surasa -- Hindu goddess, described as the mother of snakes
Wikipedia - Syn (goddess)
Wikipedia - Tala (goddess) -- Goddess in Tagalog mythology
Wikipedia - Tara (Hindu goddess) -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Tara (Mahavidya) -- Hindu goddess, a form of Durga or Parvati
Wikipedia - Tashmetum -- Akkadian goddess
Wikipedia - Taweret -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Tefnut -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Tellervo -- Finnish goddess of forests
Wikipedia - Temple of Peace, Rome -- Temple dedicated to the goddess Pax in ancient Rome
Wikipedia - Tenma goddesses -- Twelve guardian deities in Tibetan Buddhism
Wikipedia - Thalna -- Etruscan goddess of childbirth
Wikipedia - The Blind Goddess (1948 film) -- 1948 film by Harold French
Wikipedia - The Blind Goddess -- 1926 film
Wikipedia - The Candidate for Goddess -- Manga
Wikipedia - The Genius and the Goddess
Wikipedia - The Gibson Goddess -- 1909 film
Wikipedia - The Goddess (1934 film) -- 1934 Chinese silent film directed by Wu Yonggang
Wikipedia - The Goddess (1958 film) -- 1958 film noir drama film by John Cromwell
Wikipedia - The Goddess of Ganymede -- 1967 book
Wikipedia - The Goddess of Lost Lake -- 1918 film by Wallace Worsley
Wikipedia - The Goddess of Love -- 1957 film
Wikipedia - The Goddess of Rio Beni -- 1950 film directed by Franz Eichhorn
Wikipedia - The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch -- 1912 film
Wikipedia - The Green Goddess (1923 film) -- 1923 film by Sidney Olcott
Wikipedia - The Green Goddess (1930 film) -- 1930 film
Wikipedia - The Kneeling Goddess -- 1947 film by Roberto Gavaldon
Wikipedia - The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses -- Play written by Samuel Daniel
Wikipedia - The White Goddess
Wikipedia - Tjenenyet -- Ancient Egyptian goddess of childbirth
Wikipedia - Tokapcup-kamuy -- Ainu people's solar goddess
Wikipedia - Tonantzin -- Aztec goddess
Wikipedia - Tridevi -- Hindu combining of three goddesses into one
Wikipedia - Tripura Sundari -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Turan (mythology) -- Etruscan goddess of love and fertility
Wikipedia - Tyche -- Greek Goddess of Fortune
Wikipedia - Uni (mythology) -- Etruscan goddess
Wikipedia - Ushas -- Goddess of dawn in Hinduism
Wikipedia - Ushnishasitatapattra -- A special form of the Buddhist goddess Tara
Wikipedia - Vacuna -- Ancient Roman goddess
Wikipedia - Vagdavercustis -- Germanic goddess
Wikipedia - Vaishnavi (Matrika goddess) -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Vaishno Devi -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Valli -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Varahi Deula, Chaurasi -- Hindu temple of goddess Varahi in Chaurasi, India
Wikipedia - Varahi -- Hindu boar-headed mother goddess
Wikipedia - Varuni -- Goddesses associated with Hindu god Varuna
Wikipedia - Vasavi Kanyaka Parameswari -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Vedavati -- An avatar of Hindu goddess Lakshmi
Wikipedia - Venus (goddess)
Wikipedia - Venus (mythology) -- Ancient Roman goddess of love, sex and fertility
Wikipedia - Venus Verticordia -- Epithet of the Roman goddess Venus
Wikipedia - Veritas -- Goddess of truth in Roman mythology
Wikipedia - Vestal Virgin -- Priestesses of the goddess Vesta in ancient Rome
Wikipedia - Vesta (mythology) -- Ancient Roman goddess of the hearth, home, and family
Wikipedia - Victoria (goddess)
Wikipedia - Victoria (mythology) -- Roman goddess of victory
Wikipedia - Vindhyavasini -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Vishalakshi Temple -- Hindu goddess temple in Varanasi, India
Wikipedia - Vishwambhari -- Hindu goddess
Wikipedia - Vac -- Vedic goddess associated with Saraswati
Wikipedia - Wadjet -- Ancient Egyptian snake-headed goddess, symbolizing Lower Egypt
Wikipedia - Waka-ush Kamuy -- Ainu kamuy (goddess) of fresh water
Wikipedia - War Goddess -- Adventure film directed by Terence Young in 1973
Wikipedia - Women Who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons, 1500-1650 -- 2002 exhibition of Renaissance and baroque art
Wikipedia - Wosret -- Ancient Egyptian goddess
Wikipedia - Yamuna in Hinduism -- River goddess of life in Hinduism
Wikipedia - Yoni -- Aniconic representation of the goddess Shakti, the consort of Shiva, also means "womb, origin, abode, vulva, vagina, uterus, female procreative organs"
Wikipedia - Zemyna -- Lithuanian goddess
Wikipedia - Zhinu -- Chinese goddess
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https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Goddesses
https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Intelligence_Goddesses
https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Category:War_Goddesses
https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Goddesses
https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Minor_Goddesses
https://greekmythology.wikia.org/wiki/Ouranos#Goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Aphrodite#Aphrodite_and_foreign_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Artemis#Wooing_the_goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Bastet#From_lion-goddess_to_cat-goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Bat_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Aztec_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Chinese_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Earth_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Egyptian_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Fertility_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Fire_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Fortune_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Hindu_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Love_and_lust_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Mother_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Nature_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Roman_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Sky_and_weather_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category:Solar_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Earth_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Fire_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Fortune_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Category_talk:Goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Celtic_deities#Goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Celtic_deities#Goddesses_2
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Celtic_deities#Mother_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eirene_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eirene_(Greek_goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)#Horae
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)#Legacy
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)#Mythology
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Eunomia_(goddess)#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Bust_of_the_goddess_of_Issa,_Vis_Museum,_Croatia.JPG
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan_(T_Aleto).jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Medicine_Buddha_painted_mandala_with_goddess_Prajnaparamita_in_center,_19th_century,_Rubin.jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Plaque_bee-goddess_BM_GR1860.4-123.4.jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Tetitla_Teotihuacan_Great_Goddess_mural_(Abracapocus).jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Winged_goddess_Cdm_Paris_392.jpg
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Freyja#Relation_to_other_goddesses_and_figures
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Bibliography
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Classic_correspondences
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Functions_in_ancient_almanacs
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Mythological_comparisons
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Name_and_attributes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Goddess_I#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#After_Teotihuacan
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#Discovery_and_interpretation
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#Domain
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#Notes
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#Other_interpretations
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#References
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#Similar_deities
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan#The_Great_Goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Hecate#Goddess_of_the_crossroads
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Hindu_deities#Mother_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Izanami#Goddess_of_Creation
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Jyestha_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Ki_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mami_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Maya_moon_goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Nut_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Oba_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Pax_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Shapash_(Canaanite_goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Sura_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Eirene_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Eunomia_(goddess)
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Goddess_I
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Talk:Great_Goddess_of_Teotihuacan
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Tenma_goddesses
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/The_Hebrew_Goddess
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/User_blog:Sgt.Friso/Ritual_sacrifice_in_Nepal_sees_320,000_animals_slaughtered_to_Hindu_goddess
The Goddess Returns: Deity Mysticism for the 21st Century
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/AhMyGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/TheAdventuresOfMiniGoddess
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanficRecs/AhMyGoddess
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LoveGoddess
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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SexGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShiksaGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WarGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manga/AhMyGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manhua/GoddessCreationSystem
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/DisfiguringTheGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/AthenaGoddessOfWar
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BattleGoddess
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/CyberdimensionNeptunia4GoddessesOnline
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/HyperdevotionNoireGoddessBlackHeart
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/LeatherGoddessesOfPhobos
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebAnimation/ElementalGoddess
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/FontGoddess
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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Tropers/GrecianGoddess
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Goddesses
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Category:Hindu_goddesses
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Athena_-_Goddess_of_Wisdom_and_Just_War,_Patroness_of_Craft.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Bust_of_a_goddess_or_priestess_with_jewellery_and_flower._Limestone,_Cyprus,_550-540_BC,_Rembrandt_Association.JPG
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Goddess_Adi_Parashakthi_at_Parashakthi_Temple.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Goddess_of_Democracy_at_UBC.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Goddess_of_Democracy_front_a.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Goddess_of_Democracy_in_CUHK_2.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Goddess_of_justice.jpg
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Goddess
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Goddesses
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Goddess_Remembered
The Secret Of Isis (1975 - 1976) - Egyptian Queen Hatchupset Was Given An Amulet With This Amulet Empowered Her With The Powers Of The Goddess Isis To Command The Elements Of Sky And Earth, Andera Thomas Found Her Lost Amulet While On An Archaeological Dig, She Found Out That She Was The Heir To The ''Secrets Of Isis'', By Wearing Th...
Oh My Goddess! (1993 - 1994) - Oh My Goddess is a fantasy/comedy/romance OVA series based on the popular manga by Kosuke Fujishima. While at his dorm alone, college student Keiichi Morisato tries to order some take out food but mistakenly calls the Goddess Relief Office. Suddenly a goddess named Belldandy shows up to grant Kosuke...
You're Under Arrest! (1996 - 2008) - Based on the best-selling manga series by creator Kosuke Fujishima (also the creator of Oh My Goddess), You're Under Arrest follows the exploits of two young policewomen in the Traffic Division of Bokuto Station.
Ah! My Goddess (2005 - 2006) - In a world where humans can have their wish granted via the Goddess Help Hotline, a human, Keiichi Morisato, summons the Goddess Belldandy by accident and jokes that she should stay with him forever. Unfortunately for him, his "wish" is granted.
The Candidate for Goddess (2000 - 2002) - a 12-episode anime series directed by Mitsuru Hongo and produced by Xebec, a subsidiary of Production I.G. The adaptation aired on Japan's NHK BS2 satellite channel in early 2000. The anime series, entitled Pilot Candidate for its North American release, was broadcast briefly on Cartoon Network's Ad...
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (2008 - 2009) - A 13-episode anime adaptation produced by A-1 Pictures aired between October and December 2008 in Japan. An original video animation (OVA) episode was released in May 2009. Bandai Entertainment licensed the manga and anime series, including the OVA.The title character in the series, Nagi is a goddes...
Adventures of Mini-Goddess (1998 - 1999) - Adventures of Mini-Goddess, also known as Ah! My Goddess: Being Small is Convenient ( , Aa Megami-sama: Chicchaitte Kotoha Benridane?), is a 48-episode TV series featuring super deformed versions of Urd, Belldandy, and Skuld of Oh My...
Legend of the Three Caballeros (2018 - Current) - This web series from Disney follows Donald, Jos, and Panchito as they learned that they are the new Three Caballeros. Aided by Xandra, Goddess of Adventure, they learn to become heroes in order to defend the world against Lord Felldrake.
Yor, the Hunter from the Future(1983) - Yor, a brave and powerful warrior, is on a quest to discover his origins. He wears a medallion that he thinks might be the answer and finds out there is desert goddess who also shares the same medallion. Along the way he battles ape men, dinosaurs and a technological advanc
Escaflowne: The Movie(2000) - Hitomi Kanzaki is in a very depressed mood. She only wants to sleep and fade away. Her misery summons Lord Folken who sends her to Gaea. The people of Gaea think she is the Wing Goddess, who can call upon the legendary Dragon Armor called Escaflowne. On Gaea, King Van, the sole survior of the White...
Ah! My Goddess: The Movie(2000) - A deity's (Ruby Marlowe) mentor threatens her relationship with the mortal man (Tony Oliver) she loves.
Blood Diner(1987) - Brothers, Michael Tutman and George Tutman are put in charge to resurrect the goddess Sheetar by their Uncle (having also been brought back as a brain in a car). They continue to contribute to the cannibalistic cult by running a health food restaurant in hopes of using the bodies of various women to...
L.A. Goddess(1993) - A stuntwoman on a western picture takes over the lead role when the star's alcohol problems prove too much, and she finds herself gradually falling in love with the film's producer.
Ah! My Goddess: The Movie (2000) ::: 7.0/10 -- Aa! Megamisama! The Movie (original title) -- Ah! My Goddess: The Movie Poster A young man and his Angel bride must stop an angry Archangel from destroying Earth by proving that love is the ultimate force in the universe. Director: Hiroaki Gda Writers: Ksuke Fujishima (manga), Michiko Yokote (screenplay) | 1 more credit
Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious ::: Shinch ysha ~ kono ysha ga ore TUEEE kuse ni shinch sugiru ~ (original tit ::: TV-14 | 23min | Animation, Action, Adventure | TV Series (2019- ) Episode Guide 12 episodes Cautious Hero: The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious Poster The goddess Rista summons a hero to help her hard mode video game-like world. The hero, Seiya, is exceptional in every way, but he is incredibly cautious. He does things like buy three sets... S Stars:
Hercules ::: TV-Y | 30min | Animation, Action, Adventure | TV Series (19981999) This spin-off of Disney's Hercules (1997) follows Hercules' many labors during the years he spent training how to be a hero under the tutelage of satyr Philoctetes. Olympian Gods and Goddesses, as well as Hades and Pegasus, often visit him. Stars: Tate Donovan, French Stewart, Sandra Bernhard
Knights of the Zodiac ::: Seinto Seiya (original tit ::: TV-PG | 24min | Animation, Action, Adventure | TV Series (1986-1989) Episode Guide 114 episodes Knights of the Zodiac Poster -- A group a young warriors known as 'Saints', each in possession of a 'cloth' guarded by a different constellation, must protect the reincarnation of the goddess Athena as she attempts to keep the Earth from being destroyed by evil forces.
Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! ::: Kono subarashii sekai ni shukufuku o! (original tit ::: TV-14 | 24min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy | TV Series (2016-2017) Episode Guide 21 episodes Konosuba: God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! Poster It was a happy day for Kazuma - right up to the moment he died. A goddess intervenes and offers him a second chance in a magical land. Stars: Jun Fukushima, Sora Amamiya, Rie Takahashi
Oh My Goddess! ::: Aa! Megamisama! (original title) Not Rated | 2h 40min | Animation, Comedy, Drama | TV Mini-Series (1993-1994) Episode Guide 5 episodes Oh My Goddess! Poster A college student receives an unexpected wish from a goddess and asks her to stay with him forever, but that brings complications. Stars: Juliet Cesario, Kikuko Inoue, Masami Kikuchi Available on Amazon
Over the Moon (2020) ::: 6.5/10 -- PG | 1h 35min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy | 23 October 2020 (USA) -- In this animated musical, a girl builds a rocket ship and blasts off, hoping to meet a mythical moon goddess. Directors: Glen Keane, John Kahrs (co-director) Writers: Audrey Wells, Jennifer Yee McDevitt (additional screenplay material by)
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (2003) ::: 6.7/10 -- PG | 1h 26min | Animation, Adventure, Family | 2 July 2003 (USA) -- The sailor of legend is framed by the goddess Eris for the theft of the Book of Peace, and must travel to her realm at the end of the world to retrieve it and save the life of his childhood friend Prince Proteus. Directors: Patrick Gilmore, Tim Johnson Writer:
Tumbbad (2018) ::: 8.3/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 44min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror | 12 October 2018 (India) -- A mythological story about a goddess who created the entire universe. The plot revolves around the consequences when humans build a temple for her first-born. Directors: Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi | 1 more credit Writers:
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Aa! Megami-sama! -- -- AIC -- 5 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama! Aa! Megami-sama! -- When college student Keiichi Morisato dials the wrong number while ordering for some food at his dormitory, he accidentally gets connected to the Goddess Hotline and a beautiful goddess named Belldandy appears out of a mirror in front of him. After getting kicked out of the dorm, Keiichi and Belldandy move to an old shrine and soon afterwards, Belldandy's sisters Urd and Skuld move in. -- -- Licensor: -- AnimEigo -- OVA - Feb 21, 1993 -- 47,017 7.32
Aa! Megami-sama! -- -- AIC -- 5 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama! Aa! Megami-sama! -- When college student Keiichi Morisato dials the wrong number while ordering for some food at his dormitory, he accidentally gets connected to the Goddess Hotline and a beautiful goddess named Belldandy appears out of a mirror in front of him. After getting kicked out of the dorm, Keiichi and Belldandy move to an old shrine and soon afterwards, Belldandy's sisters Urd and Skuld move in. -- OVA - Feb 21, 1993 -- 47,017 7.32
Aa! Megami-sama!: Chichaitte Koto wa Benri da ne -- -- OLM -- 48 eps -- 4-koma manga -- Comedy Magic Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Chichaitte Koto wa Benri da ne Aa! Megami-sama!: Chichaitte Koto wa Benri da ne -- A large collection consisting of the adventures of the Goddesses featured in the anime and manga series Ah My Goddess. Parodies of other works, and a large number of jokes pervade this series of shorts in which the Goddesses torture and hang out with their friend Gan the rat. -- 20,210 6.91
Aa! Megami-sama! Movie -- -- AIC -- 1 ep -- Original -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama! Movie Aa! Megami-sama! Movie -- For centuries, a god named Celestin has been imprisoned on the moon for betraying the kingdom of Yggdrasil. Released by the fairy Morgan Le Fey, Celestin travels to Earth to reunite with his former pupil, the goddess Belldandy. Things go awry as Celestin erases Belldandy's memories of her boyfriend Keiichi and uses her as a catalyst to wreak havoc on Earth and Yggdrasil. -- -- Licensor: -- Geneon Entertainment USA -- Movie - Oct 21, 2000 -- 38,393 7.57
Aa! Megami-sama! Movie -- -- AIC -- 1 ep -- Original -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama! Movie Aa! Megami-sama! Movie -- For centuries, a god named Celestin has been imprisoned on the moon for betraying the kingdom of Yggdrasil. Released by the fairy Morgan Le Fey, Celestin travels to Earth to reunite with his former pupil, the goddess Belldandy. Things go awry as Celestin erases Belldandy's memories of her boyfriend Keiichi and uses her as a catalyst to wreak havoc on Earth and Yggdrasil. -- Movie - Oct 21, 2000 -- 38,393 7.57
Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa -- -- AIC -- 22 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa -- One year after goddess Belldandy emerged from Keiichi Morisato's mirror and promised to stay with him forever, a new threat to their happiness emerges, one that could end the contract between Belldandy and Keiichi. -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, Funimation, NYAV Post -- TV - Apr 7, 2006 -- 58,435 7.57
Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa -- -- AIC -- 22 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa Aa! Megami-sama!: Sorezore no Tsubasa -- One year after goddess Belldandy emerged from Keiichi Morisato's mirror and promised to stay with him forever, a new threat to their happiness emerges, one that could end the contract between Belldandy and Keiichi. -- TV - Apr 7, 2006 -- 58,435 7.57
Aa! Megami-sama!: Tatakau Tsubasa -- -- AIC -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Magic Romance Seinen Supernatural -- Aa! Megami-sama!: Tatakau Tsubasa Aa! Megami-sama!: Tatakau Tsubasa -- An Angel Eater has been freed in Heaven. Since Goddesses and Angels share body and soul, losing your angel results in going into shock for the Goddess. Lind goes to Earth to protect Belldandy and the others unknowing that it is a trap. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Special - Dec 9, 2007 -- 24,399 7.59
Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- -- AIC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Magic Romance Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- In a world where humans can have their wish granted via the Goddess Help Hotline, a human, Keiichi Morisato, summons the Goddess Belldandy by accident and jokes that she should stay with him forever. Unfortunately for him, his "wish" is granted. -- -- Suddenly, Keiichi is now living with this gorgeous woman all alone, causing him to be kicked out of the all-male dormitory he was staying in. But soon, after they find lodging in a Buddhist temple, Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship begins to blossom. Although they are both awkward and rather uncomfortable with one another at first, what awaits these two strangers could turn out to be an unexpected romance. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, NYAV Post -- TV - Jan 7, 2005 -- 137,829 7.35
Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- -- AIC -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Supernatural Magic Romance Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) -- In a world where humans can have their wish granted via the Goddess Help Hotline, a human, Keiichi Morisato, summons the Goddess Belldandy by accident and jokes that she should stay with him forever. Unfortunately for him, his "wish" is granted. -- -- Suddenly, Keiichi is now living with this gorgeous woman all alone, causing him to be kicked out of the all-male dormitory he was staying in. But soon, after they find lodging in a Buddhist temple, Keiichi and Belldandy's relationship begins to blossom. Although they are both awkward and rather uncomfortable with one another at first, what awaits these two strangers could turn out to be an unexpected romance. -- -- TV - Jan 7, 2005 -- 137,829 7.35
Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials -- -- - -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Magic Comedy Romance Supernatural Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials -- Due to the recent events that happened on the last episodes of the season, the Goddess have some stability problems with their body systems. The always adult looking Urd becomes a little girl and has a fateful encounter with a boy, whereas little Skuld becomes an adult and wants to experiment adulthood together with Keiichi. -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters, NYAV Post -- Special - Apr 1, 2005 -- 24,663 7.53
Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials -- -- - -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Magic Comedy Romance Supernatural Seinen -- Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials Aa! Megami-sama! (TV) Specials -- Due to the recent events that happened on the last episodes of the season, the Goddess have some stability problems with their body systems. The always adult looking Urd becomes a little girl and has a fateful encounter with a boy, whereas little Skuld becomes an adult and wants to experiment adulthood together with Keiichi. -- Special - Apr 1, 2005 -- 24,663 7.53
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror -- -- Toei Animation -- 11 eps -- Other -- Mystery Historical Horror Fantasy -- Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror -- A collection of three classic Japanese horror stories: "Yotsuya Kaidan", the story of a wife betrayed by her husband who seeks vengeance even in death. "Tenshu Monogatari", the story of forbidden love between a goddess and a human, and "Bakeneko", the story of a mysterious cat monster with a vendetta against a certain family. -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media, Geneon Entertainment USA -- TV - Jan 13, 2006 -- 58,520 7.44
Binbougami ga! -- -- Sunrise -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Parody Shounen Supernatural -- Binbougami ga! Binbougami ga! -- Ichiko Sakura lives life on easy mode. Blessed with good fortune, she has everything she has ever wanted, including beauty, intelligence, and wealth. Momiji Binboda is a goddess of poverty. In stark contrast to Ichiko, she is cursed with misfortune, such as a perpetual cast on her arm, a flat chest, and a box under a bridge for a home. -- -- Their lives collide when Momiji lives up to her title and delivers some unfortunate news to Ichiko: her large amount of luck is due to her subconsciously draining the luck from those around her! Momiji has been tasked with stealing back Ichiko's fortune before she leaves everyone without enough luck to even survive. But Ichiko, with the help of the wandering monk Bobby Statice, manages to fight off the poverty goddess. This defeat forces the goddess to enlist reinforcements in the form of Kumagai, her teddy bear familiar, and the masochistic dog god, Momoo Inugami. -- -- Insanity ensues as Ichiko's quiet life is replaced with daily battles for her fortune. To survive the chaos, Ichiko will need all the luck she can get in Binbougami ga!! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 5, 2012 -- 199,037 7.72
Binbougami ga! -- -- Sunrise -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Parody Shounen Supernatural -- Binbougami ga! Binbougami ga! -- Ichiko Sakura lives life on easy mode. Blessed with good fortune, she has everything she has ever wanted, including beauty, intelligence, and wealth. Momiji Binboda is a goddess of poverty. In stark contrast to Ichiko, she is cursed with misfortune, such as a perpetual cast on her arm, a flat chest, and a box under a bridge for a home. -- -- Their lives collide when Momiji lives up to her title and delivers some unfortunate news to Ichiko: her large amount of luck is due to her subconsciously draining the luck from those around her! Momiji has been tasked with stealing back Ichiko's fortune before she leaves everyone without enough luck to even survive. But Ichiko, with the help of the wandering monk Bobby Statice, manages to fight off the poverty goddess. This defeat forces the goddess to enlist reinforcements in the form of Kumagai, her teddy bear familiar, and the masochistic dog god, Momoo Inugami. -- -- Insanity ensues as Ichiko's quiet life is replaced with daily battles for her fortune. To survive the chaos, Ichiko will need all the luck she can get in Binbougami ga!! -- -- TV - Jul 5, 2012 -- 199,037 7.72
Black Clover Movie -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Black Clover Movie Black Clover Movie -- (No synopsis yet.) -- Movie - ??? ??, ???? -- 43,935 N/A -- -- Kamisama Kazoku -- -- Toei Animation -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Fantasy Romance Comedy Drama -- Kamisama Kazoku Kamisama Kazoku -- Samatarou is not just an average high-school boy, the truth is that he is the son of a god, his mother is a goddess and his sisters are candidates to become goddesses. They are living in the human world, because they want their boy to learn about the human customs and the habits of the creatures that they are protecting, so that in this way Samatarou will become a better god. Tenko is a angel assigned to look after Samatarou. She's born the same day, same year as Samatarou and have been close friends ever since. Life seems normal but things start to change with the appearance of a transfer student named Kumiko. Samatarou falls in love with her and from now on, things will be a lot more different for him. His decision of making her fall in love with him without using his powers will put him in trouble. -- TV - May 18, 2006 -- 43,631 7.14
Brave Story -- -- Gonzo -- 1 ep -- Novel -- Action Adventure Fantasy Kids Magic Supernatural -- Brave Story Brave Story -- When 11-year-old Wataru's father leaves home and his mother is taken ill to the hospital, he decides to change his fate by traveling through the door shown to him by his friend Mitsuru. In a land of magic and monsters, Wataru must summon all his courage and embark on a journey with several comrades to meet the Goddess of Destiny and change this "mistaken fate." -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Jul 8, 2006 -- 37,734 7.45
Chou Henshin Cosprayers -- -- Imagin, Studio Live -- 8 eps -- Original -- Action Ecchi Adventure Fantasy Magic Comedy Super Power Sci-Fi -- Chou Henshin Cosprayers Chou Henshin Cosprayers -- Koto unknowingly seals away the Sun Goddess Amaterasu, and now she is in a different world and can't return. Meeting priestesses who combat the evil in this strange place she learns that Black Towers throughout the land keep Amaterasu sealed away and are guarded by evil monsters. Koto must now find a way to help defeat these monsters and return the world to the way it was. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- TV - Jan 12, 2004 -- 7,481 4.94
Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation -- -- David Production -- 12 eps -- Game -- Action Comedy Fantasy Parody Sci-Fi Supernatural -- Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation -- After years of fruitless war between the four realms of Gamindustri (Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee and Leanbox) over Share energy, the source of their strength based on how much their people have faith in their goddesses, the four CPUs that rule over them have finally signed a friendship treaty. The treaty bans any attempt at claiming Share energy through military force, in hopes of bringing peace and prosperity to their worlds. Yet, a month after the treaty, Neptune, the CPU Goddess of Planeptune, spends her time goofing off and playing games rather than doing her job, leaving her land's Shares plummeting. -- -- Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation follows Neptune and her friends' attempts at raising Shares, while dealing with an external threat that could spell the end of both the Goddesses and Gamindustri itself... -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jul 12, 2013 -- 134,162 6.97
Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation -- -- David Production -- 12 eps -- Game -- Action Comedy Fantasy Parody Sci-Fi Supernatural -- Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation -- After years of fruitless war between the four realms of Gamindustri (Planeptune, Lastation, Lowee and Leanbox) over Share energy, the source of their strength based on how much their people have faith in their goddesses, the four CPUs that rule over them have finally signed a friendship treaty. The treaty bans any attempt at claiming Share energy through military force, in hopes of bringing peace and prosperity to their worlds. Yet, a month after the treaty, Neptune, the CPU Goddess of Planeptune, spends her time goofing off and playing games rather than doing her job, leaving her land's Shares plummeting. -- -- Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation follows Neptune and her friends' attempts at raising Shares, while dealing with an external threat that could spell the end of both the Goddesses and Gamindustri itself... -- TV - Jul 12, 2013 -- 134,162 6.97
Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation: Nep no Natsuyasumi -- -- Okuruto Noboru -- 1 ep -- Game -- Action Comedy Fantasy Sci-Fi -- Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation: Nep no Natsuyasumi Choujigen Game Neptune The Animation: Nep no Natsuyasumi -- The four goddesses alongside their sisters—Nepgear, Uni, Rom, and Ram—meet at a famous mountain resort in Lastation Kingdom seeking that nostalgic "summer vacation" feeling. But their plan to sit back and relax in a hot spring is interrupted when the younger sisters are swept into a portal leading to a parallel universe! The seemingly unfortunate situation takes a comical turn when they are greeted by a familiar face. -- -- OVA - Jul 8, 2019 -- 9,726 7.15
Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. -- -- feel. -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Supernatural Romance Ecchi -- Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. -- NEVER make a deal with a wet goddess you've only just met. That's a lesson Ryosuke Kaga learns the hard way when he foolishly agrees to let Lisara Restole use some of his "essence" to stay in this world. Because despite her smoking hot appearance, Lisara's actually a Shinigami, a Goddess of Death. However, she DOESN'T steal years off his life like any decent Shinigami would do. Oh no, instead she sucks him dry of something much more perverse by leeching off his lecherous spirit and draining his ability to enjoy... er... the things that teenage boys normally spend most of their time thinking about! And now that he's been de-debased and de-debauched by her un-dirty trick, the poor regenerated degenerate's only hope of getting his licentiousness renewed is to join the queen of mental-clean on her quest, since when she leaves our mortal plane he regains his normal immorality! But the termination of the probation of his reprobation isn't guaranteed, because Goddesses of Death can be really harsh mistresses and it's going to be anything but easy to go back to being sleazy! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- 340,456 6.63
Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. -- -- feel. -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Comedy Supernatural Romance Ecchi -- Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. Dakara Boku wa, H ga Dekinai. -- NEVER make a deal with a wet goddess you've only just met. That's a lesson Ryosuke Kaga learns the hard way when he foolishly agrees to let Lisara Restole use some of his "essence" to stay in this world. Because despite her smoking hot appearance, Lisara's actually a Shinigami, a Goddess of Death. However, she DOESN'T steal years off his life like any decent Shinigami would do. Oh no, instead she sucks him dry of something much more perverse by leeching off his lecherous spirit and draining his ability to enjoy... er... the things that teenage boys normally spend most of their time thinking about! And now that he's been de-debased and de-debauched by her un-dirty trick, the poor regenerated degenerate's only hope of getting his licentiousness renewed is to join the queen of mental-clean on her quest, since when she leaves our mortal plane he regains his normal immorality! But the termination of the probation of his reprobation isn't guaranteed, because Goddesses of Death can be really harsh mistresses and it's going to be anything but easy to go back to being sleazy! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 340,456 6.63
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka -- -- J.C.Staff -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Romance Fantasy -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka -- Life in the bustling city of Orario is never dull, especially for Bell Cranel, a naïve young man who hopes to become the greatest adventurer in the land. After a chance encounter with the lonely goddess, Hestia, his dreams become a little closer to reality. With her support, Bell embarks on a fantastic quest as he ventures deep within the city's monster-filled catacombs, known only as the "Dungeon." Death lurks around every corner in the cavernous depths of this terrifying labyrinth, and a mysterious power moves amidst the shadows. -- -- Even on the surface, survival is a hard-earned privilege. Indeed, nothing is ever certain in a world where gods and humans live and work together, especially when they often struggle to get along. One thing is for sure, though: a myriad of blunders, triumphs and friendships awaits the dauntlessly optimistic protagonist of this herculean tale. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 1,138,573 7.61
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II -- -- J.C.Staff -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Romance Fantasy -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II -- It is business as usual in the massive city of Orario, where legions of adventurers gather to explore the monster-infested "Dungeon." Among them is the easily flustered yet brave Bell Cranel, the sole member of the Hestia Familia. With the help of his demi-human supporter Liliruca Arde and competent blacksmith Welf Crozzo, Bell has earned the title of Little Rookie by becoming Orario's fastest-growing adventurer thanks to his endeavors within the deeper levels of the Dungeon. -- -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II continues Bell's adventures as he tries to bring glory to his goddess and protect those he cares about. However, various familias and gods across the city begin to take notice of his achievements and attempt to add him to their ranks. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 537,542 7.23
Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Movie: Orion no Ya -- -- J.C.Staff -- 1 ep -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Romance -- Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Movie: Orion no Ya Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka Movie: Orion no Ya -- Continuing his adventure to get stronger in order to traverse deeper into the "Dungeon," Bell Cranel wanders the Orario city streets with his friends and the goddess Hestia. That evening, the city is filled with stalls and games as it celebrates the Holy Moon Festival. -- -- Hermes, a god, hosts one such activity where participants are asked to pull a spear embedded in a crystal boulder; those who succeed will receive a special gift: a trip around the world and a divine blessing from the gods! Bell and his merry group challenge one another to claim the prize. But behind the facade of an innocent party game lies a preface for a daring quest ahead. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Feb 15, 2019 -- 147,084 7.43
Escaflowne -- -- Bones, Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Drama Fantasy Mecha Romance Sci-Fi Shoujo -- Escaflowne Escaflowne -- Hitomi Kanzaki is in a very depressed mood. She only wants to sleep and fade away. Her misery summons Lord Folken who sends her to Gaea. The people of Gaea think she is the Wing Goddess, who can call upon the legendary Dragon Armor called Escaflowne. On Gaea, King Van, the sole survior of the White Dragon Clan, is also in a depressed state. Swearing an oath to get his revenge on the Black Dragon Clan that obliterated Van's kingdom, he lives by the sword. Now that the Wing Goddess has finally appeared, she posseses Gaea's world fate in her heart. Escaflowne will either lead Gaea to peace or total ruin. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Funimation -- Movie - Jun 24, 2000 -- 58,717 7.08
Escaflowne -- -- Bones, Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Drama Fantasy Mecha Romance Sci-Fi Shoujo -- Escaflowne Escaflowne -- Hitomi Kanzaki is in a very depressed mood. She only wants to sleep and fade away. Her misery summons Lord Folken who sends her to Gaea. The people of Gaea think she is the Wing Goddess, who can call upon the legendary Dragon Armor called Escaflowne. On Gaea, King Van, the sole survior of the White Dragon Clan, is also in a depressed state. Swearing an oath to get his revenge on the Black Dragon Clan that obliterated Van's kingdom, he lives by the sword. Now that the Wing Goddess has finally appeared, she posseses Gaea's world fate in her heart. Escaflowne will either lead Gaea to peace or total ruin. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Jun 24, 2000 -- 58,717 7.08
Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia -- -- CloverWorks -- 21 eps -- Game -- Action Supernatural Magic Fantasy -- Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia -- A.D. 2016, the foundations of humanity have been incinerated by the Mage King Solomon. Chaldea, a secret mages organization with the mission to preserve humanity's future, foresaw mankind's extinction in 2015. Thus commenced the operation to repair the Singularities in history caused by Holy Grails dispersed across time and space—Operation Grand Order. -- -- Using the Rayshift time travel technology, Chaldea's last master Ritsuka Fujimaru and his demi-servant Mash Kyrielight have traveled to and resolved six Singularities. Now, they depart for their most dangerous destination yet: a civilization in the Age of Gods, B.C. 2655 Mesopotamia. Ritsuka and Mash soon discover that Demonic Beasts roam the land, attacking people and towns. Amidst chaos and terror lies humanity's last defense—Uruk, a fortress city that acts as the frontline for the battle against the beasts. The battlefront is commanded by none other than King Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, who sought aid from Heroic Spirits and took on the role of a mage to protect his city. -- -- Along with Gilgamesh and the summoned servants, Ritsuka and Mash must protect Uruk against the magical beasts' onslaught and defeat the Three Goddess Alliance who aims to eradicate humankind; all the while, a greater threat looms over Uruk, preparing for its awakening. -- -- 173,690 7.94
Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia -- -- CloverWorks -- 21 eps -- Game -- Action Supernatural Magic Fantasy -- Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia Fate/Grand Order: Zettai Majuu Sensen Babylonia -- A.D. 2016, the foundations of humanity have been incinerated by the Mage King Solomon. Chaldea, a secret mages organization with the mission to preserve humanity's future, foresaw mankind's extinction in 2015. Thus commenced the operation to repair the Singularities in history caused by Holy Grails dispersed across time and space—Operation Grand Order. -- -- Using the Rayshift time travel technology, Chaldea's last master Ritsuka Fujimaru and his demi-servant Mash Kyrielight have traveled to and resolved six Singularities. Now, they depart for their most dangerous destination yet: a civilization in the Age of Gods, B.C. 2655 Mesopotamia. Ritsuka and Mash soon discover that Demonic Beasts roam the land, attacking people and towns. Amidst chaos and terror lies humanity's last defense—Uruk, a fortress city that acts as the frontline for the battle against the beasts. The battlefront is commanded by none other than King Gilgamesh, the King of Heroes, who sought aid from Heroic Spirits and took on the role of a mage to protect his city. -- -- Along with Gilgamesh and the summoned servants, Ritsuka and Mash must protect Uruk against the magical beasts' onslaught and defeat the Three Goddess Alliance who aims to eradicate humankind; all the while, a greater threat looms over Uruk, preparing for its awakening. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 173,690 7.94
Girls & Panzer: Saishuushou Part 6 -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Military School -- Girls & Panzer: Saishuushou Part 6 Girls & Panzer: Saishuushou Part 6 -- The sixth and final film in the six-part Girls & Panzer: Saishuushou film series. -- Movie - ??? ??, ???? -- 4,362 N/A -- -- Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Action Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum -- A retelling of the TV series from the point of view of one of the Goddess Pilots. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- OVA - May 25, 2002 -- 4,339 6.29
Glass no Kamen (2005) -- -- Tokyo Movie Shinsha -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Drama Shoujo -- Glass no Kamen (2005) Glass no Kamen (2005) -- Two Girls. One Dream. And the entire world for a stage. -- -- At 13 years old, Maya Kitajima seems destined to spend the rest of her life toiling in a crowded restaurant alongside her bitter and unstable mother. But when her incredible acting talent is discovered by the legendary diva Chigusa Tsukikage, Maya finds a new future filled with both golden opportunities and terrifying risks. -- -- For Ayumi Himekawa, success has always been assured, yet she longs to be recognized for her own talents and skills, not her famous parents' connections. -- -- For both, the ultimate prize is the role of The Crimson Goddess in the play of the same name, a part created by Chigusa. To achieve this goal, both Maya and Ayumi must seek out and conquer every acting challenge, pushing the limits of their talent and endurance to the utmost, until they are worthy of the part… -- -- But for one to win, the other must fail! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Apr 6, 2005 -- 31,711 8.08
Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. -- -- Production IMS -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance School Seinen Supernatural -- Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. -- Frazzle-haired middle schooler Inari Fushimi is less than average; she's painfully shy and horribly clumsy, but despite all this, she is undeniably kind. Running about the winding streets of her hometown, she takes a shortcut through the local shrine and stumbles upon a small fox pup in a river. After rescuing him, she continues on, but from this moment on, her life takes a drastic turn. -- -- Grateful for rescuing the pup, the shrine goddess Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, "Uka-sama," grants Inari a fragment of her power. Now, Inari has the ability to transform into anyone by shouting the magical phrase "Inari, konkon." Could this power also grant her the courage to convey her feelings to her crush, Kouji Tanbabashi? With her new heavenly ability and the fox spirit Kon, Inari forms a sincere friendship with Uka-sama, encounters more of the supernatural world, and learns that true love knows no bounds. -- -- 131,046 7.21
Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. -- -- Production IMS -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Romance School Seinen Supernatural -- Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. -- Frazzle-haired middle schooler Inari Fushimi is less than average; she's painfully shy and horribly clumsy, but despite all this, she is undeniably kind. Running about the winding streets of her hometown, she takes a shortcut through the local shrine and stumbles upon a small fox pup in a river. After rescuing him, she continues on, but from this moment on, her life takes a drastic turn. -- -- Grateful for rescuing the pup, the shrine goddess Uka-no-Mitama-no-Kami, "Uka-sama," grants Inari a fragment of her power. Now, Inari has the ability to transform into anyone by shouting the magical phrase "Inari, konkon." Could this power also grant her the courage to convey her feelings to her crush, Kouji Tanbabashi? With her new heavenly ability and the fox spirit Kon, Inari forms a sincere friendship with Uka-sama, encounters more of the supernatural world, and learns that true love knows no bounds. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 131,046 7.21
Kamichama Karin -- -- Satelight -- 26 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Fantasy Magic Romance School Shoujo -- Kamichama Karin Kamichama Karin -- Thirteen-year-old Karin Hanazono feels like her life can't get any worse, Her parents died when she was younger, leaving her with an aunt who doesn't hesitate to call her stupid and useless over her poor grades. Her only friend, her cat named Shii-chan, passed away recently, leaving her completely alone. All she has left of her parents is a ring given to her by her mother, which she treasures dearly as the sole thing left of her past. -- -- Kamichama Karin begins the moment her life takes a turn for the better, when she is approached by Himeka Kuujou, a cute girl who has also lost her parents, and Kazune Kuujou, her cousin who finds girls to be troublesome, both of whom are searching for a goddess. Her mother's memento ring shines brightly in their presence and fills her with its radiance, making her smarter, faster, and capable of granting wishes. It turns out that her ring allows her to become the very goddess they were looking for, and now that she has awakened that power, others will come after her for it… -- TV - Apr 6, 2007 -- 44,707 7.25
Kamichu! -- -- Brain's Base -- 12 eps -- Original -- Comedy Drama Slice of Life Supernatural -- Kamichu! Kamichu! -- Yurie Hitotsubashi was just an average middle school student living in the city of Onomichi on Japan's inland sea in the easygoing times of the 1980s. She spent her days worrying about exams and trying to get Kenji, the clueless boy she likes, to notice her. Then during lunch one day she suddenly announces to her friend Mitsue that the night before she had become a goddess. Their classmate Matsuri quickly latches on to Yurie's newfound divinity as a way to promote her family's bankrupt Shinto shrine. She hopes that replacing their hapless local god, Yashima-sama, with Yurie will make the shrine more popular (and profitable). Now, with Matsuri as her manager, Yurie has to grant wishes, cure curses, meet aliens, and attend god conventions. All the while attending school and working-up the courage to confess to Kenji. -- -- The DVD/BD box set includes the Kamichu! Specials episodes. For a complete list of episodes and the order they're included in the box set, see the More Info tab. -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, Geneon Entertainment USA -- TV - Jun 29, 2005 -- 51,494 7.39
Kamichu! -- -- Brain's Base -- 12 eps -- Original -- Comedy Drama Slice of Life Supernatural -- Kamichu! Kamichu! -- Yurie Hitotsubashi was just an average middle school student living in the city of Onomichi on Japan's inland sea in the easygoing times of the 1980s. She spent her days worrying about exams and trying to get Kenji, the clueless boy she likes, to notice her. Then during lunch one day she suddenly announces to her friend Mitsue that the night before she had become a goddess. Their classmate Matsuri quickly latches on to Yurie's newfound divinity as a way to promote her family's bankrupt Shinto shrine. She hopes that replacing their hapless local god, Yashima-sama, with Yurie will make the shrine more popular (and profitable). Now, with Matsuri as her manager, Yurie has to grant wishes, cure curses, meet aliens, and attend god conventions. All the while attending school and working-up the courage to confess to Kenji. -- -- The DVD/BD box set includes the Kamichu! Specials episodes. For a complete list of episodes and the order they're included in the box set, see the More Info tab. -- TV - Jun 29, 2005 -- 51,494 7.39
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- Having freed a myriad of women from the runaway spirits possessing their hearts, the "God of Conquest" Keima Katsuragi is confronted with a new task: find the Jupiter Sisters, the goddesses that sealed Old Hell in the past. Diana, the goddess that resides inside his childhood friend Tenri Ayukawa, explains that they have taken shelter in the hearts of the girls he had assisted previously. Moreover, once Diana and her sisters are reunited, their power can seal the runaway spirits away for good and relieve Keima of his exorcising duties. Though he is initially reluctant to get involved in yet another chore, everything changes when tragedy befalls one of the hosts. -- -- Discovering that the goddesses are being targeted by a mysterious organization known as Vintage, Keima is caught in a race against time to reunite the sisters and rescue the girl who has already fallen prey. With deeper resolve than ever before, Keima works together with demons Elsie and Haqua to recapture the hearts of the girls he had charmed in the past. However, the road ahead is a difficult one, as he is soon met with the consequences of his previous conquests. -- -- 281,799 8.07
Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- -- Manglobe -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Supernatural Romance Shounen -- Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen Kami nomi zo Shiru Sekai: Megami-hen -- Having freed a myriad of women from the runaway spirits possessing their hearts, the "God of Conquest" Keima Katsuragi is confronted with a new task: find the Jupiter Sisters, the goddesses that sealed Old Hell in the past. Diana, the goddess that resides inside his childhood friend Tenri Ayukawa, explains that they have taken shelter in the hearts of the girls he had assisted previously. Moreover, once Diana and her sisters are reunited, their power can seal the runaway spirits away for good and relieve Keima of his exorcising duties. Though he is initially reluctant to get involved in yet another chore, everything changes when tragedy befalls one of the hosts. -- -- Discovering that the goddesses are being targeted by a mysterious organization known as Vintage, Keima is caught in a race against time to reunite the sisters and rescue the girl who has already fallen prey. With deeper resolve than ever before, Keima works together with demons Elsie and Haqua to recapture the hearts of the girls he had charmed in the past. However, the road ahead is a difficult one, as he is soon met with the consequences of his previous conquests. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 281,799 8.07
Kamisama Kazoku -- -- Toei Animation -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Fantasy Romance Comedy Drama -- Kamisama Kazoku Kamisama Kazoku -- Samatarou is not just an average high-school boy, the truth is that he is the son of a god, his mother is a goddess and his sisters are candidates to become goddesses. They are living in the human world, because they want their boy to learn about the human customs and the habits of the creatures that they are protecting, so that in this way Samatarou will become a better god. Tenko is a angel assigned to look after Samatarou. She's born the same day, same year as Samatarou and have been close friends ever since. Life seems normal but things start to change with the appearance of a transfer student named Kumiko. Samatarou falls in love with her and from now on, things will be a lot more different for him. His decision of making her fall in love with him without using his powers will put him in trouble. -- TV - May 18, 2006 -- 43,631 7.14
Kanamewo -- -- - -- 1 ep -- Original -- Romance Supernatural Drama Shoujo Ai -- Kanamewo Kanamewo -- A young, unnamed woman, while biking home from the bank she works at, happens upon a weakened tree goddess whose native shrine is being demolished for construction work. She rescues her and brings the goddess home with her. The two form a relationship, but what will happen to the goddess as the construction progresses? -- ONA - Nov 4, 2015 -- 13,169 6.66
Kishin Douji Zenki -- -- Studio Deen -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Drama Ecchi Fantasy Horror Magic Shounen -- Kishin Douji Zenki Kishin Douji Zenki -- In ancient times, a great battle was waged between a master mage, Enno Ozuno, and an evil demon goddess, Karuma. Unfortunately, Enno didn't have the strength to defeat her alone and was forced to call upon Zenki, a powerful protector demon. After Karuma was defeated, Enno sealed Zenki away in a pillar located inside his temple. -- -- 1,200 years after this epic battle, Enno's descendant, Chiaki, spends her days showing tourists around her hometown of Shikigami-cho and doing exorcisms to pay the bills. One day, two thieves enter the town in hopes of opening a seal in the Ozuno temple and releasing the hidden treasure from within. However, what actually pops out is a dark entity that attaches itself to the henchmen, transforming them into demonic beings. After this transformation, they begin a rampage through the temple, terrorizing poor Chiaki. -- -- It is now up to this young progeny to unleash her family's powers to summon Zenki and save Shikigami-cho from these demons, as well as the evil entities sure to follow in their footsteps. -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- 11,177 6.97
Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Fantasy Shounen -- Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya -- Zeus had a daughter named Athena, the goddess of war. A group of youths flocked to Athena fighting to protect her amidst heroic battles as her "Saints". Their proof of being a Saint laid with the battle protector known as Sacred Cloth. -- -- After a virtual eternity, a new struggle is about to unfold now again over the Cloth. A boy named Seiya has crossed way over to Greece to undergo the training to become a Saint and obtained the Cloth, Bronze cloth, the lowest position among Saints. Every Saint takes a constellation as their tutelary god. And Seiya's guardian star is Pegasus. Now, the saints gather together from all over the world to participate in the "Galatic War" - championship of Saints, aiming at the Gold Cloth, the symbol of ruler of the Saints. The curtain for Galatic War has been cut open. During the death battle between the Saints, Phoenix, the Black Saint, suddenly appeared on the scene and runs off with Gold Cloth in front of a full house in his ambition to become ruler of the world. Seiya and his fellow bronze cloth warriors go after Phoenix and his "Shadow Army" to retrieve the lost Gold Cloth... -- -- The battles waged among the saints, the strongest young men on earth, begin now! -- -- (Source: Toei Animation) -- ONA - Jul 19, 2019 -- 13,627 5.11
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 -- -- Studio Deen -- 10 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Parody Supernatural Magic Fantasy -- Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 -- When Kazuma Satou died, he was given two choices: pass on to heaven or be revived in a fantasy world. After choosing the new world, the goddess Aqua tasked him with defeating the Demon King, and let him choose any weapon to aid him. Unfortunately, Kazuma chose to bring Aqua herself and has regretted the decision ever since then. -- -- Not only is he stuck with a useless deity turned party archpriest, the pair also has to make enough money for living expenses. To add to their problems, their group continued to grow as more problematic adventurers joined their ranks. Their token spellcaster, Megumin, is an explosion magic specialist who can only cast one spell once per day and refuses to learn anything else. There is also their stalwart crusader, Lalatina "Darkness" Dustiness Ford, a helpless masochist who makes Kazuma look pure in comparison. -- -- Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 continues to follow Kazuma and the rest of his party through countless more adventures as they struggle to earn money and have to deal with one another's problematic personalities. However, things rarely go as planned, and they are often sidetracked by their own idiotic tendencies. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- 1,062,426 8.30
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! -- -- Studio Deen -- 10 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Comedy Fantasy Magic Parody Supernatural -- Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! -- After dying a laughable and pathetic death on his way back from buying a game, high school student and recluse Kazuma Satou finds himself sitting before a beautiful but obnoxious goddess named Aqua. She provides the NEET with two options: continue on to heaven or reincarnate in every gamer's dream—a real fantasy world! Choosing to start a new life, Kazuma is quickly tasked with defeating a Demon King who is terrorizing villages. But before he goes, he can choose one item of any kind to aid him in his quest, and the future hero selects Aqua. But Kazuma has made a grave mistake—Aqua is completely useless! -- -- Unfortunately, their troubles don't end here; it turns out that living in such a world is far different from how it plays out in a game. Instead of going on a thrilling adventure, the duo must first work to pay for their living expenses. Indeed, their misfortunes have only just begun! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Discotek Media -- 1,372,961 8.15
Kuroinu: Kedakaki Seijo wa Hakudaku ni Somaru -- -- Majin -- 6 eps -- Visual novel -- Action Hentai Fantasy -- Kuroinu: Kedakaki Seijo wa Hakudaku ni Somaru Kuroinu: Kedakaki Seijo wa Hakudaku ni Somaru -- In the land of Eostia, humans and dark elves have fought for supremacy for over a century. The dark elves rule over a race of monsters that has raided human lands for generations, capturing and defiling their women. Aided by powerful bands of mercenaries, the human kingdoms have gradually pushed back their old rivals. -- -- But the mercenaries would not settle for these victories. Led by the cruel general Volt, the sellswords declare independence. With the support of the savage orcs, their new nation attacks human and dark elf alike, carving out a kingdom where men reign supreme and women are little more than slaves. Even the dark elves' castle is conquered and their queen taken prisoner. -- -- The sole hope for peace in these lands rests with a fellowship of seven princess knights, handpicked by the goddess of the high elves. But is their power enough to cleanse the evil from their world? -- OVA - Jan 27, 2012 -- 28,428 7.39
Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den -- -- AIC -- 27 eps -- Novel -- Action Adventure Drama Magic Romance Fantasy -- Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den -- Five years after the death of the Emperor of Marmo in the War of Heroes, Parn is now the Free Knight of Lodoss, he and his old allies now famous through the land. However, the Emperor's right-hand man, Ashram, seeks the scepter of domination to re-unify Lodoss under his former leader's banner. Meanwhile, beyond his attempts at conquest lies a more sinister force beginning to set the stage for the resurrection of the goddess of death and destruction... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- 25,887 7.15
Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den -- -- AIC -- 27 eps -- Novel -- Action Adventure Drama Magic Romance Fantasy -- Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den Lodoss-tou Senki: Eiyuu Kishi Den -- Five years after the death of the Emperor of Marmo in the War of Heroes, Parn is now the Free Knight of Lodoss, he and his old allies now famous through the land. However, the Emperor's right-hand man, Ashram, seeks the scepter of domination to re-unify Lodoss under his former leader's banner. Meanwhile, beyond his attempts at conquest lies a more sinister force beginning to set the stage for the resurrection of the goddess of death and destruction... -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Funimation -- 25,887 7.15
Luck & Logic -- -- Doga Kobo -- 12 eps -- Card game -- Action Fantasy -- Luck & Logic Luck & Logic -- "Logic" is the concept that governs emotions, abilities, ideals, memories, and all other abstract properties that make up life in various worlds. With its power, however, alien "Foreigners" are able to pass through portals imbued with their respective world's Logic and pose a threat to other worlds. To counter this problem, the Another Logic Counter Agency (ALCA) from the human world of Septpia employs "Logicalists," people with the power to form bonds with the Foreigners who seek peace and share their Logic, tasked with dealing with all possible dangers. -- -- After overloading his powers two years prior, Yoshichika Tsurugi has lost the ability to use Logic in combat, making him no different from a regular citizen. However, his life soon returns to the battlefield when he meets Athena, a Foreigner goddess from the world of Tetra-Heaven. She brings Yoshichika his missing Logic Card, allowing him to become a Logicalist once again. Soon after, Yoshichika forms a contract with Athena and joins ALCA. There, he meets other Logicalists, and only by working with them can he hope to bring an end to the threats once and for all. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 93,549 6.09
Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- -- Studio Kafka -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Magic Fantasy Shounen -- Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi Mahoutsukai no Yome: Nishi no Shounen to Seiran no Kishi -- The story takes place shortly before Cartaphilus took a nap and Chise became an auditor at the academy. -- -- Elias and his friends help Chise prepare for the academy, where in the middle of everyday life, Spriggan visits the mansion on a spooky horse with the words, "The appearance of the ghost hunting association is unusual this time." -- -- Gabriel, an ordinary boy who just moved from London, was bored of his environment of parting with friends, being in an unfamiliar location, and everything else. Sitting by the window and glancing beyond, he spotted a purple smoke and decided to chase after it, looking to escape his boredom. Though it should not, the world of the boy begins to converge with the wizards, who live on the other side behind a thick veil. -- -- (Source: MAL News) -- OVA - Sep 10, 2021 -- 18,799 N/A -- -- Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach -- -- OLM -- 51 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Magic Comedy Romance Shoujo -- Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach -- There are three known worlds—the human world, the angel world, and the devil world. The evil queen Raindevilla yearns to destroy the angel world with help or her many devil minions. The goddess Aphrodite sends an angel to the human world, Limone, to summon three love angels in the form of three school girls, Momoko Hanasaki, Yuri Tanima, and Hinagiku Tamano, who together become Angel Lilly, Angel Daisy, and Wedding Peach. The three girls must fight to overcome the evils of the devils, as well as their own lives, and restore peace to the angel world by gathering all pieces of the Sacred Four Somethings (or Saint Something Four) and defeat the evil queen once and for all. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- 18,769 6.68
Mamotte Shugogetten! -- -- Toei Animation -- 22 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Fantasy Magic Romance Shounen -- Mamotte Shugogetten! Mamotte Shugogetten! -- Tasuke Shichiri is the envy of his friends because since his parents are always traveling he can do as he pleases. It's a surprise present from his father that keeps him from being lonely: an odd ring known as the shitenrin. From it comes a moon goddess named Shaorin, dedicated to protecting her "master" -- no matter how much of a mess she makes doing it! -- 7,228 6.66
Megachu! -- -- - -- 3 eps -- Visual novel -- Hentai Supernatural -- Megachu! Megachu! -- Based on an adult game by Front Wing. -- -- Kousuke is an everyday nice-guy college kid who suffers from a reoccurring nightmare where he's a rampaging sex demon. He just can't figure out why that is, as he sits down to play his favorite video games like Magical Girl Lape-chan. One day a beautiful Goddess named Fauna appears before him, not to grant wishes, but to destroy him! It seems Kousuke has the power of an evil demon sleeping inside of him. Luckily, Fauna decides on an alternate means of stopping the demon, which involves lots of sex with her and sexy older sister (and love potion maker) Jordh. Unluckily, there's Natsuki, a little devil with plans of her own for Kousuke. -- -- (Source: AniDB) -- OVA - Jul 25, 2007 -- 6,682 6.52
Megami Kouhosei -- -- Xebec -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Megami Kouhosei Megami Kouhosei -- In the future humankind has expanded and colonized other planets. Then an alien species, Victim, attacks the human colonies leaving only one planet, Zion. In an effort to stop Victim from destroying the last planet a training school, GOA, is set up to gather boys from the Zion colonies and train them to become pilots of the Ingrids AKA The Goddesses, five fighting robots that protect Zion. The boys must possess a rare blood type, EO, as well as a special ability, or EX. Zero (Candidate 88) has just arrived in GOA when he falls into the cockpit of the Ingrid Eeva-Leena. Since the synch between pilot and Ingrid are very sensitive everyone believes the Goddess will kill Zero in an attempt to synch. Just before Zero passes out he makes a full synch with the Goddess. Before he can find out more about the incident, his pilot training begins. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Discotek Media -- 19,526 6.39
Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum -- -- - -- 1 ep -- - -- Action Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum Megami Kouhosei Special Curriculum -- A retelling of the TV series from the point of view of one of the Goddess Pilots. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- OVA - May 25, 2002 -- 4,339 6.29
Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte -- -- Kyoto Animation, Tatsunoko Production -- 5 eps -- Original -- Comedy Magic Parody -- Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte Nurse Witch Komugi-chan Magikarte -- Ungrar, the King of Viruses, has escaped from his prison cell in Vaccine World. Maya, the Goddess of Vaccine World sends Mugimaru down to Earth to find a human to accept the powers of Vaccine World and become the Magical Nurse. He finds the best (and the only willing) person for the job when he meets Komugi Nakahara. Komugi is a playful, lazy, and easily distracted (typical) teenager whose dream is to become a cosplay idol. Balancing her career with the Kiri-Pro Promotion Company and her new job battling Ungrar's loyal henchman, the Magical Maid Koyori, Komugi delights audiences in this parody anime series. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films -- OVA - Aug 23, 2002 -- 14,236 6.62
Ookami to Koushinryou II -- -- Brain's Base, Marvy Jack -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Historical Romance Fantasy -- Ookami to Koushinryou II Ookami to Koushinryou II -- Traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence continues his northward journey with wolf goddess Holo, in search of her lost home of Yoitsu. Lawrence and his sharp-witted partner continue to make some small profits along the way, while slowly uncovering more information about Holo's hometown. However, the road to Yoitsu is a bumpy one filled with many troubles—Lawrence runs into a charming young fellow merchant who has his eyes set on the female wolf companion, and he begins to doubt if Holo will remain by his side; he and the goddess will also have to consider precarious and risky business deals as Lawrence strives to achieve his dream of becoming a shopowner. All the while, with his determination tested at every turn during his journey, Lawrence must question his relationship with Holo, take on business ventures, and ask himself whether it is time for him and Holo to go their separate ways. -- -- TV - Jul 9, 2009 -- 405,242 8.36
RDG: Red Data Girl -- -- P.A. Works -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Fantasy Magic -- RDG: Red Data Girl RDG: Red Data Girl -- Fifteen-year-old Izumiko Suzuhara just wants to be a normal girl, but that is easier said than done. Raised in a shrine deep in the mountains, she grew up extremely sheltered and painfully shy. She also has the unfortunate tendency to destroy any electronic device simply by touching it. -- -- Despite this, she still wants to try and change her life. To mark her determination to follow through on this transformation, Izumiko begins by cutting her bangs, which shocks both her classmates and protectors. And that's only the start! Her guardian, Yukimasa Sagara, forces his son, Miyuki, to come to the mountain shrine and become Izumiko's lifelong servant and protector. Too bad Izumiko and Miyuki cannot stand each other. They have known each other since they were children, and Miyuki bullied her terribly. He simply does not understand what is so special about Izumiko. His father calls Izumiko a goddess, but that cannot be true…can it? Will Izumiko and Miyuki work past their differences? Is she actually a literal goddess? Find out in RDG: Red Data Girl! -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Apr 4, 2013 -- 97,924 6.58
RDG: Red Data Girl -- -- P.A. Works -- 12 eps -- Novel -- Fantasy Magic -- RDG: Red Data Girl RDG: Red Data Girl -- Fifteen-year-old Izumiko Suzuhara just wants to be a normal girl, but that is easier said than done. Raised in a shrine deep in the mountains, she grew up extremely sheltered and painfully shy. She also has the unfortunate tendency to destroy any electronic device simply by touching it. -- -- Despite this, she still wants to try and change her life. To mark her determination to follow through on this transformation, Izumiko begins by cutting her bangs, which shocks both her classmates and protectors. And that's only the start! Her guardian, Yukimasa Sagara, forces his son, Miyuki, to come to the mountain shrine and become Izumiko's lifelong servant and protector. Too bad Izumiko and Miyuki cannot stand each other. They have known each other since they were children, and Miyuki bullied her terribly. He simply does not understand what is so special about Izumiko. His father calls Izumiko a goddess, but that cannot be true…can it? Will Izumiko and Miyuki work past their differences? Is she actually a literal goddess? Find out in RDG: Red Data Girl! -- TV - Apr 4, 2013 -- 97,924 6.58
Rio: Rainbow Gate! -- -- Xebec -- 13 eps -- Other -- Game Comedy Ecchi -- Rio: Rainbow Gate! Rio: Rainbow Gate! -- The "Howard Resort Hotel" is an entertainment destination where people gather from around the world to grab huge fortunes. In the casino is a beautiful female dealer named Rio Rollins, known far and wide as the "Goddess of Victory". -- -- In order to approach closer to her mother, one of history's greatest dealers, she does battle to gather up the legendary cards called "gates". Those who gather all 13 gate cards are presented with the title MVCD (Most Valuable Casino Dealer), proof that they are a top dealer. -- -- Set in a vast resort, an exciting battle begins with rival dealers that'll take your breath away! Throw in some "supreme comedy" and a story that makes you cry when you least expect it, these cute and sexy girls will explode off your screen! With everyone's cheer of "Leave it to Rio!", Lady Luck'll be with you, too! -- -- Licensor: -- Media Blasters -- TV - Jan 4, 2011 -- 34,687 5.89
Rokka no Yuusha -- -- Passione -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Fantasy Magic Mystery -- Rokka no Yuusha Rokka no Yuusha -- An ancient legend states that with the revival of the Demon God, six heroes—the Braves of the Six Flowers—will be chosen by the Goddess of Fate, granting them power to rise up against the fiends attempting to turn the world into a living hell. Adlet Mayer, self-proclaimed "Strongest Man in the World," has arrived at the continent of Piena in hopes of becoming a Brave. Although it doesn't go as smoothly as he had planned, Adlet is ultimately chosen as one of the six heroes shortly after being greeted by Nashetania Loei Piena Augustra, crown princess and fellow Brave. -- -- Rokka no Yuusha follows the two as they embark upon their destined journey to fight the Demon God, intending to meet up with their fellow heroes at a small temple outside of the Land of the Howling Demons, the fiends' domain. However, when they finally unite, seven heroes are present, and soon the others begin to suspect Adlet to be a fraud. Now on the run, Adlet must utilize his unique skill set and wit in a fight for his life to identify which member of the group is the true impostor before it's too late! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Ponycan USA -- 501,210 7.34
Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 114 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Fantasy Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya Saint Seiya -- In ancient times, a group of young men devoted their lives to protecting Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. These men were capable of fighting without weapons—a swing of their fist alone was powerful enough to rip the very sky apart and shatter the earth beneath them. These brave heroes became known as Saints, as they could summon up the power of the Cosmos from within themselves. -- -- Now, in present day, a new generation of Saints is about to come forth. The young and spirited Seiya is fighting a tough battle for the Sacred Armor of Pegasus, and he isn't about to let anyone get in the way of him and his prize. Six years of hard work and training pay off with his victory and new title as one of Athena's Saints. -- -- But Seiya's endeavor doesn't end there. In fact, plenty of perils and dangerous enemies face him and the rest of the Saints throughout the series. What new quests await the heroes of the epic Saint Seiya saga? -- -- Licensor: -- ADV Films, DiC Entertainment, Flatiron Film Company -- TV - Oct 11, 1986 -- 149,298 7.76
Saint Seiya -- -- Toei Animation -- 114 eps -- Manga -- Adventure Fantasy Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya Saint Seiya -- In ancient times, a group of young men devoted their lives to protecting Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. These men were capable of fighting without weapons—a swing of their fist alone was powerful enough to rip the very sky apart and shatter the earth beneath them. These brave heroes became known as Saints, as they could summon up the power of the Cosmos from within themselves. -- -- Now, in present day, a new generation of Saints is about to come forth. The young and spirited Seiya is fighting a tough battle for the Sacred Armor of Pegasus, and he isn't about to let anyone get in the way of him and his prize. Six years of hard work and training pay off with his victory and new title as one of Athena's Saints. -- -- But Seiya's endeavor doesn't end there. In fact, plenty of perils and dangerous enemies face him and the rest of the Saints throughout the series. What new quests await the heroes of the epic Saint Seiya saga? -- TV - Oct 11, 1986 -- 149,298 7.76
Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Fantasy Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary -- From the dawn of time, there have been warriors who protected the Goddess Athena. Once forces of evil appear, these warriors, called the Saints will present themselves. -- -- A young woman, Saori Kido, learns about this force known as "Cosmos" and that she is the reincarnation of Athena, protector of love and peace on Earth. However, the Pope of the Sanctuary, who is in the charge of all the Saints, does not take kindly to Saori, and targets her for usurping the identity of Athena. An assassin is sent out to kill her. Fortunately, one of the Bronze Saints, Seiya, manages to protect her. But will Seiya be able to protect Saori through to the end in the gripping saga of Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary? -- Movie - Jun 21, 2014 -- 22,689 6.24
Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Josou - Overture -- After the Saints' victory against Hades, Seiya is left wounded and motionless in a wheel chair with no possible chance of recovery. Athena's sister Artemis, the Virgin Goddess of the Moon and twin sister of Apollo, makes an elaborate proposal - to restore Seiya's physical health in exchange for the supremacy of Sanctuary. Athena accepts and Artemis and her "Knights of the Sky" swiftly take control of Sanctuary. Now Seiya and his fellow Bronze Saints combat the forces of Zeus to regain their homeland but it will not be so easy. Bronze Saints Hydra Ichi and Unicorn Jabu, and Silver Saint Ophiuchus Shaina have join forces with Artemis and Apollo. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Feb 14, 2004 -- 19,915 7.22
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Martial Arts Shounen Super Power Supernatural -- Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa -- A Holy War, from ancient mythology, where the Goddess Athena and Hades have fought against each other while defending the earth repeatedly over the span of 200 years. The story takes place in 18th century Europe, 243 years prior to the original "Saint Seiya" Three small children, Tenma, Alone, and Sasha have all shared a very happy childhood together. Tenma who is quite aggressive but upstanding has moved to Sanctuary to become a saint. It is there that he is reunited with Sasha who is the sister of Alone and learns that she is the reincarnation of Goddess Athena. Alone, who is kind, gentle and loves painting was chosen for the body of enemy King Hades. Tenma eventually becomes a saint of Pegasus and engages in a fierce battle with his best friend Alone, the King of Hades. Pegasus Tenma, King Hades, and the Goddess Athena and through the twist of their 3 fates merge together which unfolds a prologue to the original Saint Seiya. -- -- (Source: TMS Entertaiment) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- OVA - Jun 24, 2009 -- 86,701 7.99
Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Adventure Martial Arts Shounen Super Power Supernatural -- Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meiou Shinwa -- A Holy War, from ancient mythology, where the Goddess Athena and Hades have fought against each other while defending the earth repeatedly over the span of 200 years. The story takes place in 18th century Europe, 243 years prior to the original "Saint Seiya" Three small children, Tenma, Alone, and Sasha have all shared a very happy childhood together. Tenma who is quite aggressive but upstanding has moved to Sanctuary to become a saint. It is there that he is reunited with Sasha who is the sister of Alone and learns that she is the reincarnation of Goddess Athena. Alone, who is kind, gentle and loves painting was chosen for the body of enemy King Hades. Tenma eventually becomes a saint of Pegasus and engages in a fierce battle with his best friend Alone, the King of Hades. Pegasus Tenma, King Hades, and the Goddess Athena and through the twist of their 3 fates merge together which unfolds a prologue to the original Saint Seiya. -- -- (Source: TMS Entertaiment) -- OVA - Jun 24, 2009 -- 86,701 7.99
Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru -- -- SILVER LINK., Studio Palette -- ? eps -- Light novel -- Action Fantasy -- Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru -- "I'm going to live for myself!" -- -- The greatest assassin on Earth knew only how to live as a tool for his employers—until they stopped letting him live. Reborn by the grace of a goddess into a world of swords and sorcery, he's offered a chance to do things differently this time around, but there's a catch...He has to eliminate a super-powerful hero who will bring about the end of the world unless he is stopped. -- -- Now known as Lugh Tuatha Dé, the master assassin certainly has his hands full, particularly because of all the beautiful girls who constantly surround him. Lugh may have been an incomparable killer, but how will he fare against foes with powerful magic? -- -- (Source: Yen Press) -- TV - Jul ??, 2021 -- 10,570 N/A -- -- Karen Senki -- -- Next Media Animation -- 11 eps -- Original -- Action Sci-Fi -- Karen Senki Karen Senki -- In the post-apocalyptic aftermath of a war between machines and their creators, machines rule while humans exist in a state of servitude. Titular character Karen leads Resistance Group 11, an eclectic group of humans who find themselves fighting for their lives as they are hunted by the robots in each episode. Is this the end of humanity? Are they fighting a losing battle? -- -- Through Karen, we delve into a struggle between right and wrong, between indifference and love that explores some of the deepest questions about humanity. What is the difference between a thinking machine and a human being? What is a soul? -- -- (Source: Crunchyroll) -- ONA - Sep 27, 2014 -- 10,550 5.78
Shachou, Battle no Jikan Desu! -- -- C2C -- 12 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Fantasy -- Shachou, Battle no Jikan Desu! Shachou, Battle no Jikan Desu! -- Long ago, a goddess descended from Heaven and blessed the desolate land of Gatepia. As a result, gigantic gates appeared, leading to dungeons abundant in "kirakuri," crystals containing the energy needed for the foundation of the world. This led to the formation of various companies of adventurers who would harvest kirakuri from the dungeons. -- -- Following his father's disappearance inside one of the biggest gates in Gatepia, Minato is urged by his childhood friend Yutoria to become the president of his father's treasure-hunting company—the Kibou Company. He reluctantly agrees and meets with the other employees: the priest Makoto, the soldier Akari, and the accountant Guide. -- -- Thus, Makoto begins his tenure as president. As he and his comrades strive to fulfill various missions and other assorted tasks in order to keep their small company alive, they will uncover the mystery behind their former leader's sudden departure. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 28,167 5.86
Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru -- -- White Fox -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy -- Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru -- There is a popular saying: "you can never be too careful." It is very important to prepare for every situation you may face, even if it seems like an unnecessary waste of time. Also, in games like RPGs, it is good to exceed the level of your enemies to achieve total victory. -- -- These words describe Seiya Ryuuguuin a little too perfectly. After being summoned by the goddess Ristarte to save the world of Gaeabrande from destruction, the hero prepares himself for his noble journey. While this might be normal, he spends a very long time training himself, despite having overpowered stats. He fights weak enemies using his strongest skills and buys excessive amounts of supplies and potions—all to stay safe. -- -- While his attitude may be a bit annoying, it might just be the saving grace of Gaeabrande, especially considering that it is a world where the forces of evil dominate each and every expectation. -- -- 383,578 7.53
Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru -- -- White Fox -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy -- Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru Shinchou Yuusha: Kono Yuusha ga Ore Tueee Kuse ni Shinchou Sugiru -- There is a popular saying: "you can never be too careful." It is very important to prepare for every situation you may face, even if it seems like an unnecessary waste of time. Also, in games like RPGs, it is good to exceed the level of your enemies to achieve total victory. -- -- These words describe Seiya Ryuuguuin a little too perfectly. After being summoned by the goddess Ristarte to save the world of Gaeabrande from destruction, the hero prepares himself for his noble journey. While this might be normal, he spends a very long time training himself, despite having overpowered stats. He fights weak enemies using his strongest skills and buys excessive amounts of supplies and potions—all to stay safe. -- -- While his attitude may be a bit annoying, it might just be the saving grace of Gaeabrande, especially considering that it is a world where the forces of evil dominate each and every expectation. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 383,578 7.53
Starry Tales: Seiza wa Toki wo Koete -- -- KAGAYA Studio -- 1 ep -- Original -- Fantasy Space -- Starry Tales: Seiza wa Toki wo Koete Starry Tales: Seiza wa Toki wo Koete -- Constellations were created thousands years ago and they have been handed down generation after generation up to now. This show focuses on this great fact. In the show, you will see instruction on constellations and movement of the sun, moon and planets against constellations. An associated story from Greek myths is provided with beautiful CG including the tale of Astraea, the goddess of justice, who is closely related to the constellation Libra. -- Movie - Mar 19, 2011 -- 881 5.51
Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity -- -- SILVER LINK. -- 12 eps -- Visual novel -- Harem Romance Supernatural -- Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity Tayutama: Kiss on My Deity -- Yuuri Mito is a typical, normal Japanese teenager. He goes to school, works on people's motorcycles and performs exorcisms. Okay, that last part's a little bit unusual, but his family lives in a shrine and they do that sort of thing. Still, you would think he'd know enough to be careful with an ancient relic he finds in the woods, especially when a mysterious goddess appears and tells him to leave it alone. Unfortunately, despite Mito's best efforts, the seal gets broken anyway and a number of dangerous "tayuti" that it held in stasis get loose. This is bad. Mito also ends up with a beautiful goddess girl who decides that she's going to marry him. This might not be so bad. if he wasn't already caught up in the middle of a war between the entities he's released. The flesh may be weak but the spirit's more than willing to compensate. -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- 61,922 6.77
Tenshi no Tamago -- -- Studio Deen -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Drama Fantasy -- Tenshi no Tamago Tenshi no Tamago -- The surrealist world of Tenshi no Tamago is desolate and devoid of the bustle of traditional everyday life. Instead, the world is filled with ominous phenomena, including floating orbs populated with statues of goddesses, gargantuan army tanks that seem to move unmanned, armies of fishermen who chase after the shadows of nonexistent fish, and caverns solely decorated with glass vessels of water. -- -- In this run-down world, a young girl takes care of a large egg and scavenges for food and drink. She encounters a mysterious man with a cross over his shoulder, who soon becomes curious about who she is and what her egg contains. They decide to explore the lost and broken landscape together, questioning each other about the nature of faith, the purpose of the world, and the origins of their lives. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Anchor Bay Films -- OVA - Dec 22, 1985 -- 95,684 7.69
Tenshi no Tamago -- -- Studio Deen -- 1 ep -- Original -- Dementia Drama Fantasy -- Tenshi no Tamago Tenshi no Tamago -- The surrealist world of Tenshi no Tamago is desolate and devoid of the bustle of traditional everyday life. Instead, the world is filled with ominous phenomena, including floating orbs populated with statues of goddesses, gargantuan army tanks that seem to move unmanned, armies of fishermen who chase after the shadows of nonexistent fish, and caverns solely decorated with glass vessels of water. -- -- In this run-down world, a young girl takes care of a large egg and scavenges for food and drink. She encounters a mysterious man with a cross over his shoulder, who soon becomes curious about who she is and what her egg contains. They decide to explore the lost and broken landscape together, questioning each other about the nature of faith, the purpose of the world, and the origins of their lives. -- -- OVA - Dec 22, 1985 -- 95,684 7.69
Tiger & Bunny Movie 2: The Rising -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Mystery Comedy Super Power -- Tiger & Bunny Movie 2: The Rising Tiger & Bunny Movie 2: The Rising -- The film will revolve around a mystery that happens on the day of the "Justice Day" festival that celebrates Sternbild's legendary goddess. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- Movie - Feb 8, 2014 -- 24,229 7.80
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi -- -- Xebec -- 26 eps -- Original -- Action Drama Military Sci-Fi Space -- Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi -- Three years since the return of the legendary Space Battleship Yamato, Earth has begun rebuilding itself and has made peace with the Gamilans. However, this recovery comes at the cost of utilizing the forbidden Wave Motion technology. -- -- Meanwhile, the notorious former crew members of the Yamato, who have each gone their separate ways, receive a psychic message from the mysterious Goddess Teresa. She urges them to return to their beloved ship and travel to the distant planet Terezart. They are promised a revolutionary power to combat the unprecedented threat of the relentless Gatlantis Empire, who are approaching Earth with all but innocent intentions. -- -- Unable to resist her plea, the crew reassembles and sets sail on another perilous intergalactic voyage, one that will test their sheer courage and versatility in the face of an even greater foe. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- OVA - Feb 25, 2017 -- 18,035 7.69
World Trigger 3rd Season -- -- - -- ? eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Supernatural School Shounen -- World Trigger 3rd Season World Trigger 3rd Season -- Third season of World Trigger. -- -- TV - Oct ??, 2021 -- 16,156 N/ASaint Seiya: Jashin Eris -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- - -- Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Jashin Eris Saint Seiya: Jashin Eris -- Eris is the goddess of chaos and uses the body of Elien, who is a friend of Hyoga, to revive herself. She obtains the golden apple to drain Athena's life energy to make her ressurection complete and to be able to turn the world in a place filled with chaos. But to be able to attack Eris, Seiya and his friends will first have to defeat the Ghost Knights. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Discotek Media -- Movie - Jul 18, 1987 -- 16,133 6.82
World Trigger 3rd Season -- -- - -- ? eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Supernatural School Shounen -- World Trigger 3rd Season World Trigger 3rd Season -- Third season of World Trigger. -- -- TV - Oct ??, 2021 -- 16,156 N/ASaint Seiya: Jashin Eris -- -- Toei Animation -- 1 ep -- - -- Adventure Sci-Fi Shounen -- Saint Seiya: Jashin Eris Saint Seiya: Jashin Eris -- Eris is the goddess of chaos and uses the body of Elien, who is a friend of Hyoga, to revive herself. She obtains the golden apple to drain Athena's life energy to make her ressurection complete and to be able to turn the world in a place filled with chaos. But to be able to attack Eris, Seiya and his friends will first have to defeat the Ghost Knights. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Movie - Jul 18, 1987 -- 16,133 6.82
Xiong Bing Lian -- -- - -- 33 eps -- Original -- Action Military Sci-Fi Mystery Space Supernatural Mecha -- Xiong Bing Lian Xiong Bing Lian -- Sun Goddess of the Solari, Leona came to Earth in 2014. The genetics of God hidden on Earth has started to awaken. The first few awakenings include the Power of the Galaxy and God of War. An invasion by the alien Tao Tie, just to entertain Death God Karthus, are on the way to Earth. -- -- The Angels, the Devils and God seminary groups that have been monitoring the genetics of God on Earth make their moves. The God Seminary assembled the scattered warriors across Earth who carry the genetics of God to form the Black Troops. Radiant Dawn, Leona, lead the team and train them combat techniques to fight against the invasion. -- -- Morgana, the Fallen Angel came to Earth to sow the seed of darkness and plot to destroy the Holy Kayle. Angel Yan was send to Earth, informing the invasion of Styx galaxy by Tao Tie. -- -- Earth has just become the battlefield for the war of different civilizations. As the disasters continue, the Black Troops will realize they are fighting more than what they are asked for. -- -- (Source: HaxTalks) -- ONA - Jun 1, 2017 -- 887 6.09
Yaoguai Mingdan -- -- Haoliners Animation League -- 18 eps -- Web manga -- Action Comedy Fantasy Romance -- Yaoguai Mingdan Yaoguai Mingdan -- A foxy temptress. A strange misty tree demon. A girl with the power of the goddess Xianjia! Being caught between these women is a feat in it of itself, but our hero Feng Xi must fight in order to protect the peace and save the world! -- -- (Source: EIH Scans) -- -- Licensor: -- bilibili -- ONA - Dec 13, 2014 -- 21,765 6.92
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Aegean Goddess
Ah! My Goddess: The Movie
Amalfi: Rewards of the Goddess
American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking
Andalucia: Revenge of the Goddess
Annapurna (goddess)
Antu (goddess)
Anu (Irish goddess)
Asikni (goddess)
Athena: Goddess of War
Aya (goddess)
Bat (goddess)
Beer goddess
Bellona (goddess)
Black Goddess
Bombaby the Screen Goddess
Brigantia (goddess)
Cel (goddess)
Charge of the Goddess
Cha (goddess)
Column of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
Dali (goddess)
Danu (Irish goddess)
Domestic Goddess
Earth goddess
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Faro, Goddess of the Waters
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Goddess
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Green Goddess
Green Goddess (disambiguation)
Hell Hath No Fury (Rock Goddess album)
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Hittite nursery and midwifery goddesses
Horse goddess
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Hyperdevotion Noire: Goddess Black Heart
Iana (goddess)
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Ipy (goddess)
Jade Goddess of Mercy
Jyoti (goddess)
Kali Yug: Goddess of Vengeance
Kalma (goddess)
Ki (goddess)
Kumari (goddess)
Laetitia (goddess)
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X!
List of Oh My Goddess! chapters
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List of Oh My Goddess! soundtracks
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Living Goddess (film)
Lua (goddess)
Luna (goddess)
Ma (goddess)
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Mara (Hindu goddess)
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Minoan snake goddess figurines
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Mother goddess
My Goddess
Nana (Bactrian goddess)
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Nut (goddess)
Oh My Goddess!
On the Syrian Goddess
Papaya, Love Goddess of the Cannibals
Pax (goddess)
Portrait of the Goddess
Rice goddess
Rita Hayworth: The Love Goddess
Rock Goddess
Rock Goddess (album)
Rohini (goddess)
Rulah, Jungle Goddess
Sati (Hindu goddess)
Satis (goddess)
Scorpion goddess
Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales
Siris (goddess)
Skuld (Oh My Goddess!)
Snake goddess
Sovereignty goddess
Sun Goddess (album)
Sun goddess of Arinna
Syn (goddess)
Tala (goddess)
Tara (Hindu goddess)
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess
The Candidate for Goddess
The Genius and the Goddess
The Goddess (1934 film)
The Goddess: A Demon
The Goddess Music for the Ancient of Days
The Goddess of Fortune
The Goddess of Love
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The Goddess of Sagebrush Gulch
The Goddess of Spring
The Green Goddess (play)
The Kneeling Goddess
The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses
The Moon Goddess and the Son
The Rain Goddess
The Undomestic Goddess
The White Goddess
Tia (goddess)
To the Goddess Electricity
Triple Goddess (Neopaganism)
Tsovinar (goddess)
Urd (Oh My Goddess!)
Vaishnavi (Matrika goddess)
Vinyl Goddess from Mars
Wala (goddess)
War Goddess
Women and Spirituality: The Goddess Trilogy
Women Who Ruled: Queens, Goddesses, Amazons, 15001650
Zhang Jiang Goddess
Zisa (goddess)
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