Post by lorifiya on Jul 11, 2011 17:54:22 GMT -5
-- The Star Goddess
-- The lemniscate gods (not all lines)
-- The Guardians
-- Other deities
The Star Goddess
The Star Goddess is God Herself, the source of everything in the universe. According to the largely bloodrose-influenced Faery Roads website at www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/5569, "In one sense, all the other deities are but aspects or reflections of Her. And in one sense, She is not female, but, rather, pansexual." Victor called her "the clitorophallic God Herself."
She is variously known as Quakoralina, Sugmad, Sugma'ad, Sugmati, Dryghtyn, Drychtyn, The Great Infinite Darkness, The Black Virgin of the Outer Dark, Mother Night, The Womb of the Universe. One of the prayers to the Star Goddess is an inheritance from the Gardnerian tradition, originally written by Patricia Crowther: "In the name of Dryghtyn, the Ancient Providence, Who was from the beginning and is for eternity, Male and Female, the Original Source of all things; all-knowing, all-pervading, all-powerful; changeless, eternal." This has been adapted and added to by various Feri writers, but the fragment gives a sense of the mighty power of the Great Goddess, reverence for whom is held in common by almost all traditions of the Craft.
The lemniscate gods
The children/reflections/ other selves of the Star Goddess include the lemniscate gods, so called because they are generally illustrated in the form of a lemniscate (the figure eight on its side, Latin for "a pendant ribbon"). As they emerge from and return to the Star Goddess, Dian y Glas and Nimue, the young forms of the gods, are at the bottom of the diagram above. Furthest out from the center are the fertility deities, Krom and Mari; and returning to the center are the Crone and Winter King, Anna and the Arddhu.
The Twins
The concept of the Divine Twins as consorts to the Star Goddess was very important to Victor, and much of the confusion about the relationships among the Feri deities is due to the attempt to superimpose a system based on the triple goddess twinned with a triple god (the lemniscate) upon the twin nature of each of the deities. So we have simultaneous descriptions of Krom, for example, being twinned with his opposite number on the lemniscate, Mari, and also being a set of twins himself, the Red God of the animal kingdom and the Green God of the vegetal. Both are simultaneously true, which yet another example of Feri paradox.
Placement on the lemniscate is not precise, either. Some would separate the Dian y Glas from Melek Taus, even though many Feris conflate the two; Melek and his twin Lemba can be placed on the lemniscate somewhere between the youthful Dian y Glas and the full-grown, adamantly masculine Krom (who Victor declared "is the same person as the Holy Goddess herself.") Each lobe of the lemniscate is actually a full life-cycle, from birth through maturity to old age and death, and an infinity of gods and goddesses can be placed along these paths. Willow told me that the Nimue/Mari/Anna and Dian y Glas/Krom/Arddhu points are convenient "stopping places" at which we can see the characteristics of the deity full-blown.
In her book, Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, Cora says: "In most traditions of the present time the Goddess is pictured as having one single consort. In what is now called Fairy Tradition She is known to have two consorts. These divine Twins are exactly alike and can function as a pair or both at once. They are both Her son and lover.... We could put it this way and say the bright and dark Godhood are the two sides of a chess board with the Divine Twins at play while Mother makes the rules."
The Blue God/Melek Taus/Dian y Glas
The firstborn of the goddess is the Blue God, also known as the Peacock Angel, Lord of the Painted Fan, and by some as Melek Taus. The Blue God is regarded by some lines of Feri as the particular patron deity of Feri. The Dian y Glas is usually pictured as a young, blue-skinned, ithyphallic, yet somewhat androgynous god with a serpent. A beautiful picture of the Blue God can be found at Storm Faerywolf's website at www.faerywolf.com/art_presencebluegod.htm
As Melek Taus, the Blue God is the twin of Lemba, the Lord of the Green Flame, also known as the Living Serpent. He is the main deity of the Yezidi people; an excellent picture of him by Paul Rucker can be found at www.ziarah.net/melek.jpg. Comparing Storm Faerywolf's picture of the Dian y Glas with the Rucker picture of Melek Taus will give some idea of the difference between the two which words are inadequate to describe. There is a wealth of information about Melek online, including:
www.semjaaza.com/azazel.html
echoes.devin.com/watchers/melek.html
www.semjaaza.com/peacock.html
Nimue
source: FRW
source: TJ/WM, phone conversation
Nimue: Also known as the Kymari or the Sun Maiden, she is the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. The Faery Roads website says: "because of her youth, she is somewhat androgynous. Nonetheless, she still embodies the energy which brings all into being, which in humans is sexual energy, a great Passion. Imagine all the power of the Cosmos in the hands of a six-year-old..."
Victor regarded Nimue as the Black Heart of Innocence incarnate. As the prepubescent girl, first emanation of the Star Goddess (cf. Starhawk's creation story), Nimue is the Holy Child, embodiment of forbidden passion. She is the protectress and avenger of abused and mistreated children everywhere, fierce, wild, and innocent. Her priestesses wore two green snakes in their hair, and she was accorded a sacrifice of four red pigs, four white pigs, and one black pig, showing her connection to the love and death aspects of the Star Goddess.
Krom
source: FRW
Also known as Cernunnos, he is the Horned God with whom Witches in general are familiar. "The Harvest Lord: He is the Spirit of Light and Heat, the ripeness of Summer, and the fullness of Manhood. There is nothing androgynous about him. He is often considered the consort of and parallel of the goddess Mari. At the same time, He, too, is a reflection in a dark mirror of the Star Goddess." --Faery Roads
Mari
source: TJ article
The Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess, and the closest form to the Goddess familiar to mainstream Wicca, who mates with /mothers/slays the familiar Horned God. A reflection/ subdivision of the Star Goddess, she can further subdivide into different aspects: "Each of these primary deities show different aspects to the devotee at different times, for example the fecund Green Mari or the fierce protectress Red Mari, etc." --Niklas Gander
The Arddhu
source: Victor Anderson, quoted by TJ/WM
The Winter King: the male (though somewhat androgynous due to his age) crone aspect of the God. The Arddhu (pronounced "ar-thee", Old Welsh for "the Dark One," also sometimes spelled Atho) is the Opener of the Gates of Life and Death, and thus is not to be invoked lightly. The Arddhu and the Ana are the "natural gods of nature" according to Victor.
Anna/The Ana
source: FRW
The Crone. "She represents old age or death, winter, the end of all things, the waning moon, post-menstrual phases of women's lives. All destruction that precedes regeneration through her cauldron of rebirth. Also known as: Anu, Ana, Annys, Anysa (Celtic), Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries, Cerridwen (Welsh), Arianrhod of the Silver Wheel (Welsh), the Morrigu (Irish), Kali (Hindu)".
source: The Ancient British Goddess,
www.kathyjones.co.uk/local/hpages/kathyj/apbritgoddess.html
"The next great recorded arrival in the British Isles was that of the Tuatha de Danann or the People of the Goddess Dana, Danu, Anu, Anu Dana, Ana or Amma. She is the first of the three Fates, a Goddess of Rebirth. She is the Mother of all the Gods and some say She is also Domnu, the Goddess of the Fomoire. Near Killarney two mountains are still called the 'Paps' (breasts) or 'Paps of Anu'. Her people were said to have arrived from the sky, landing on a mountain in Ireland.
Danu was masculinized in later Welsh myth to become Don and the stories of the Tuatha de Danann are equated with the People of the Don in the parallel Welsh mythological cycle of the Mabinogion. In Saxon tales Anu became Black Annis. She was also Ana Our Mother, Morg-Ana the Virgin/Crone and Anna the Grand Mother Goddess." Anna is the Cailleach, the Crone who becomes the Maiden once more at Imbolc, completing the cycle of the year.
The Guardians
source: TJ
source: FRW
The Guardians, also known as the Nephilim, the Watchtowers, the Korylan, or the Grigori, are not so much deities as they are segments of the universe which might include deities. They exist at one and the same time here on earth at the periphery of the circle, and in the vast depths of space. To call them "means to focus their energies in a particular place."--Niklas Gander
The attribution of the elements and ritual tools to each direction is a subject of much discussion. The consensus is that the elements take the directions which seem right depending on where you are. Thus in California, Water would rightly be in the West, and Fire in the South. On the East coast, Water would more correctly be in the East. Not to mention the total reversals required in the southern hemisphere! (There is an interesting article on directional attributions by a Welsh Traditionalist, Mike Nichols, who gives reasons for putting Air in the North, at www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/rethink.html). Feri tools are generally held to be Wand for Air and Knife for Fire, which is the reverse of the way many people are used to regarding them. The slight disconnect involved in using an unfamiliar attribution is interesting and probably salutary.
The English names of the Guardians are:
Air: Star Finder, who represents the power of Knowledge.
Fire: Shining Flame, who represents the power of Truth.
Water: Water Maker, who represents the power of Love.
Earth: Black Mother, who represents the power of Wisdom.
The Guardian of the Zenith (above) is Heaven Shiner, The Guardian of the Nadir (below) is Fire in the Earth, and they represent the power of Pure Consciousness.
The Guardian of the Center is regarded by Reclaiming as the same as the Guardian of the Gates, but by other Feri lines as the Witch Hirself.
The Guardian of the Gates is called when invoking the Mighty Dead.
-- The lemniscate gods (not all lines)
-- The Guardians
-- Other deities
The Star Goddess
The Star Goddess is God Herself, the source of everything in the universe. According to the largely bloodrose-influenced Faery Roads website at www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/5569, "In one sense, all the other deities are but aspects or reflections of Her. And in one sense, She is not female, but, rather, pansexual." Victor called her "the clitorophallic God Herself."
She is variously known as Quakoralina, Sugmad, Sugma'ad, Sugmati, Dryghtyn, Drychtyn, The Great Infinite Darkness, The Black Virgin of the Outer Dark, Mother Night, The Womb of the Universe. One of the prayers to the Star Goddess is an inheritance from the Gardnerian tradition, originally written by Patricia Crowther: "In the name of Dryghtyn, the Ancient Providence, Who was from the beginning and is for eternity, Male and Female, the Original Source of all things; all-knowing, all-pervading, all-powerful; changeless, eternal." This has been adapted and added to by various Feri writers, but the fragment gives a sense of the mighty power of the Great Goddess, reverence for whom is held in common by almost all traditions of the Craft.
The lemniscate gods
The children/reflections/ other selves of the Star Goddess include the lemniscate gods, so called because they are generally illustrated in the form of a lemniscate (the figure eight on its side, Latin for "a pendant ribbon"). As they emerge from and return to the Star Goddess, Dian y Glas and Nimue, the young forms of the gods, are at the bottom of the diagram above. Furthest out from the center are the fertility deities, Krom and Mari; and returning to the center are the Crone and Winter King, Anna and the Arddhu.
The Twins
The concept of the Divine Twins as consorts to the Star Goddess was very important to Victor, and much of the confusion about the relationships among the Feri deities is due to the attempt to superimpose a system based on the triple goddess twinned with a triple god (the lemniscate) upon the twin nature of each of the deities. So we have simultaneous descriptions of Krom, for example, being twinned with his opposite number on the lemniscate, Mari, and also being a set of twins himself, the Red God of the animal kingdom and the Green God of the vegetal. Both are simultaneously true, which yet another example of Feri paradox.
Placement on the lemniscate is not precise, either. Some would separate the Dian y Glas from Melek Taus, even though many Feris conflate the two; Melek and his twin Lemba can be placed on the lemniscate somewhere between the youthful Dian y Glas and the full-grown, adamantly masculine Krom (who Victor declared "is the same person as the Holy Goddess herself.") Each lobe of the lemniscate is actually a full life-cycle, from birth through maturity to old age and death, and an infinity of gods and goddesses can be placed along these paths. Willow told me that the Nimue/Mari/Anna and Dian y Glas/Krom/Arddhu points are convenient "stopping places" at which we can see the characteristics of the deity full-blown.
In her book, Fifty Years in the Feri Tradition, Cora says: "In most traditions of the present time the Goddess is pictured as having one single consort. In what is now called Fairy Tradition She is known to have two consorts. These divine Twins are exactly alike and can function as a pair or both at once. They are both Her son and lover.... We could put it this way and say the bright and dark Godhood are the two sides of a chess board with the Divine Twins at play while Mother makes the rules."
The Blue God/Melek Taus/Dian y Glas
The firstborn of the goddess is the Blue God, also known as the Peacock Angel, Lord of the Painted Fan, and by some as Melek Taus. The Blue God is regarded by some lines of Feri as the particular patron deity of Feri. The Dian y Glas is usually pictured as a young, blue-skinned, ithyphallic, yet somewhat androgynous god with a serpent. A beautiful picture of the Blue God can be found at Storm Faerywolf's website at www.faerywolf.com/art_presencebluegod.htm
As Melek Taus, the Blue God is the twin of Lemba, the Lord of the Green Flame, also known as the Living Serpent. He is the main deity of the Yezidi people; an excellent picture of him by Paul Rucker can be found at www.ziarah.net/melek.jpg. Comparing Storm Faerywolf's picture of the Dian y Glas with the Rucker picture of Melek Taus will give some idea of the difference between the two which words are inadequate to describe. There is a wealth of information about Melek online, including:
www.semjaaza.com/azazel.html
echoes.devin.com/watchers/melek.html
www.semjaaza.com/peacock.html
Nimue
source: FRW
source: TJ/WM, phone conversation
Nimue: Also known as the Kymari or the Sun Maiden, she is the Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. The Faery Roads website says: "because of her youth, she is somewhat androgynous. Nonetheless, she still embodies the energy which brings all into being, which in humans is sexual energy, a great Passion. Imagine all the power of the Cosmos in the hands of a six-year-old..."
Victor regarded Nimue as the Black Heart of Innocence incarnate. As the prepubescent girl, first emanation of the Star Goddess (cf. Starhawk's creation story), Nimue is the Holy Child, embodiment of forbidden passion. She is the protectress and avenger of abused and mistreated children everywhere, fierce, wild, and innocent. Her priestesses wore two green snakes in their hair, and she was accorded a sacrifice of four red pigs, four white pigs, and one black pig, showing her connection to the love and death aspects of the Star Goddess.
Krom
source: FRW
Also known as Cernunnos, he is the Horned God with whom Witches in general are familiar. "The Harvest Lord: He is the Spirit of Light and Heat, the ripeness of Summer, and the fullness of Manhood. There is nothing androgynous about him. He is often considered the consort of and parallel of the goddess Mari. At the same time, He, too, is a reflection in a dark mirror of the Star Goddess." --Faery Roads
Mari
source: TJ article
The Mother aspect of the Triple Goddess, and the closest form to the Goddess familiar to mainstream Wicca, who mates with /mothers/slays the familiar Horned God. A reflection/ subdivision of the Star Goddess, she can further subdivide into different aspects: "Each of these primary deities show different aspects to the devotee at different times, for example the fecund Green Mari or the fierce protectress Red Mari, etc." --Niklas Gander
The Arddhu
source: Victor Anderson, quoted by TJ/WM
The Winter King: the male (though somewhat androgynous due to his age) crone aspect of the God. The Arddhu (pronounced "ar-thee", Old Welsh for "the Dark One," also sometimes spelled Atho) is the Opener of the Gates of Life and Death, and thus is not to be invoked lightly. The Arddhu and the Ana are the "natural gods of nature" according to Victor.
Anna/The Ana
source: FRW
The Crone. "She represents old age or death, winter, the end of all things, the waning moon, post-menstrual phases of women's lives. All destruction that precedes regeneration through her cauldron of rebirth. Also known as: Anu, Ana, Annys, Anysa (Celtic), Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries, Cerridwen (Welsh), Arianrhod of the Silver Wheel (Welsh), the Morrigu (Irish), Kali (Hindu)".
source: The Ancient British Goddess,
www.kathyjones.co.uk/local/hpages/kathyj/apbritgoddess.html
"The next great recorded arrival in the British Isles was that of the Tuatha de Danann or the People of the Goddess Dana, Danu, Anu, Anu Dana, Ana or Amma. She is the first of the three Fates, a Goddess of Rebirth. She is the Mother of all the Gods and some say She is also Domnu, the Goddess of the Fomoire. Near Killarney two mountains are still called the 'Paps' (breasts) or 'Paps of Anu'. Her people were said to have arrived from the sky, landing on a mountain in Ireland.
Danu was masculinized in later Welsh myth to become Don and the stories of the Tuatha de Danann are equated with the People of the Don in the parallel Welsh mythological cycle of the Mabinogion. In Saxon tales Anu became Black Annis. She was also Ana Our Mother, Morg-Ana the Virgin/Crone and Anna the Grand Mother Goddess." Anna is the Cailleach, the Crone who becomes the Maiden once more at Imbolc, completing the cycle of the year.
The Guardians
source: TJ
source: FRW
The Guardians, also known as the Nephilim, the Watchtowers, the Korylan, or the Grigori, are not so much deities as they are segments of the universe which might include deities. They exist at one and the same time here on earth at the periphery of the circle, and in the vast depths of space. To call them "means to focus their energies in a particular place."--Niklas Gander
The attribution of the elements and ritual tools to each direction is a subject of much discussion. The consensus is that the elements take the directions which seem right depending on where you are. Thus in California, Water would rightly be in the West, and Fire in the South. On the East coast, Water would more correctly be in the East. Not to mention the total reversals required in the southern hemisphere! (There is an interesting article on directional attributions by a Welsh Traditionalist, Mike Nichols, who gives reasons for putting Air in the North, at www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/7280/rethink.html). Feri tools are generally held to be Wand for Air and Knife for Fire, which is the reverse of the way many people are used to regarding them. The slight disconnect involved in using an unfamiliar attribution is interesting and probably salutary.
The English names of the Guardians are:
Air: Star Finder, who represents the power of Knowledge.
Fire: Shining Flame, who represents the power of Truth.
Water: Water Maker, who represents the power of Love.
Earth: Black Mother, who represents the power of Wisdom.
The Guardian of the Zenith (above) is Heaven Shiner, The Guardian of the Nadir (below) is Fire in the Earth, and they represent the power of Pure Consciousness.
The Guardian of the Center is regarded by Reclaiming as the same as the Guardian of the Gates, but by other Feri lines as the Witch Hirself.
The Guardian of the Gates is called when invoking the Mighty Dead.