I was recently sent a link to an interesting discussion on an LJ account regarding the number of aspects of the Goddess (that's a simplification: you'll have to follow the original link [which I will seek permission to post] if you to find out more). One comment in that debate took my attention: it was that there are three aspects of the Goddess commonly acknowledged, but four quarters are commonly invoked in circle, so how does three go into four (more or less - I'm rephrasing from memory)?
Well, let's start.
First off, the quarters.
When I began working with magic, I didn't know you were supposed to call one element per quarter, so I drew a pentagram and invoked all five elements (the fifth being spirit; the other four being earth, air, water and fire) from every quarter, and sometimes from above and below as well. Since then, I've been taught to call one element from each quarter, but:
(1) as my teacher has said, does it matter where a radio antenna is placed in a space, so long as it is tuned correctly? In fact, I hve invoked the four energies without moving - and consider that a basic, fundamental aspect of training.
(2) I have seen (and sometimes participated in) debates, not only about the swapping of fire and earth from northern to southern hemisphere (northern correspondences generally having fire where the sun is [in the south], and southern correspondences having the fire where the sun is [in the north]*), but also about swapping water and air (e.g. invoking water in the east if one is working on the west side of Port Phillip Bay).
(3) When I started working magic, I was living in the tropics, so I had the sun both north and south of me in the same year: how do develop an association between elements an quarter under those circumstances? Perhaps change depending on where the sun is?
(4) There are sometimes seasonal associations built into the elements/quarters (earth winter, air spring, fire summer and water autumn). Those don't necessarily fit the places the magic is being worked - for instance, here in Melbourne, a better seasonal association would be to use the local indigenous seasons described here. Of course, one could also consider just calling the energies by name (e.g., inspiration, manifestation, emotion/flow and strength.
(5) With respect to associations with aspects of the Goddess:
- I normally call maiden from east (spring), mother from north (summer) and crone from west (autumn), and from the south I either call Lilith or the God in his aspect as Lord of Time (which governs the flow of the seasons). I feel absolutely no need to have some sort of equality of number of aspects of the Goddess and God: I consider balance to be a long term (as in "many lifetimes") issue anyway.
- the maiden-mother-crone aspects of the Goddess could be reportrayed as: (i) maiden - interacting with the world in a self absorbed way (stereotypically [which means this does not apply to everyone] a child wants to have it all , and have it now); (ii) mother - interacting with the world through focus on nurturing one's family and loved ones; (iii) crone - interacting with the world in a more dispassionate way, with the broader idea of family (clan, tribe, society, Gaia, etc). Taking this a step further, there is a fourth aspect, which is interacting with oneself - perhaps this is the darker face of the Goddess, akin to the self-reflection and learning between lives. This would certainly fit winter, which has associations for many people of being indoors, perhaps slightly isolated, and a bit cut off in that one is less willing (or able, in extreme winters) to go out and spend time with friends and family.
- our histories generally (this is much debated and argued) tell us that Wicca evolved as a fertility religion. In that context, it would tend to have a focus on having children, as that is what the tribe would have needed, along with those who were no longer raising children sharing their wisdom. We are no longer in a struggle to survive in the same way. In fact, population growth is one of the pressures that is directly harming this planet. We have moved on and changed as a world; it is time, in my opinion, for us to embrace the changing circumstances and let go of arguments about whether we are truly pagan or are neopagan: I consider we should embrace making paganism relevant to this world, which needs an earth based awareness (including awareness of how the seasons are passing) to prevent a focus on materialism destroying this world. Part of that is making the faces of the Goddess more relevant to our society - including options other than just mother. Maybe we should start talking about mother / warrior / priestess / ... for the "middle" aspect? Maybe we should acknowledge the introspective face(s) of the Goddess? Of course, this probably ends the debates about pagan vs. neopagan (except, maybe, for the various reconstructionists), but then, I've said (and written) "Christians" should stop calling themselves that and start dealing with the fact that they are - by the means of every argument used to say we are neopagans, neoChristians. At least some of them have discussions about changing to be more relevant in a changing world.
Now, with regard to "fitting" three aspects of the Goddess into four elements, how about we stop thinking in a flat earth viewpoint? There are four elements, which are commonly called from one direction each: how about above and below? Perhaps we could call the four elements from various quarters, then maiden from above, mother from this level of reality, and crone from the underworld?
This is an issue which crops up in other faiths as well, and I currently contemplating how the Norse pagan system (which I am NOT an expert or even skilled in) works:
- all aspects comes from earth
- there are three aspects: yeast (birth), salt (life) and venom (death)
- there are also four elements (fire, ice, earth, water)
- all of which combines to create iron
I've been visualising this a little bit like an hierarchy: above a disk of earth is a disk split into three wedges (yeast, salt and venom - I'll call them humours), above which is a disk split into the four elements (incidentally, a friend who is well versed in rune lore has said it is possible to create all the runes from fire and ice: the two primordial polarities of the cold Nordic world), and above that is a disk of iron.
So ... how do I line up the four elements and the three humours? Well, perhaps I've got that wrong. Perhaps the disk with the three humours should actually be below earth (or the four elements disk)? Perhaps the three humours disk should be at right angles to the elements disk?
We live in a three dimensional world (in the sense that most of us do not have much control over the fourth dimension of time). Let's think that way, instead of just two dimensionally. (Thinking two dimensionally is particularly bad if you are setting up wards or other psychic defences: for those to be effective, you MUST cover above and below also.)
Perhaps we should be thinking more about, say, things two interlocking trigrams, or hexagrams (which fits both the Melbourne seasons, a concept of maiden-mother-crone where each aspect has both an involutionary [self reflective, or internal growth] and evolutionary aspect [interact with the outer world, and an oblique view of the sides a cube).
I like the volknut because it allows three interlocking aspects of three - which is why I use it on the base on my talismanic tetrahedrons (which are talismans created three dimensionally: I'll post about them in due course, probably next year).
The point here is that combinations of three can create more than three things:
- for instance, if we have three energies, A, B and C, we can create A+B, A+C, B+C and A+B+C, r four. Hmmmmm. Could the three aspects of the Goddess be mixed in a way that creates four elements? When I pose this, I am very much aware that the primary colours create many colours. Maybe air is, say, 80% maiden, 10% mother and 10% crone (as a rough, just invented and not based on anything example!)?
In this sense, I can see three going "into" four. I could also three times four creating twelve, so if, say, maiden-mother-crone corresponded to cardinal-mutable-fixed, then combining that with the four elements leads to the twelve signs of the zodiac.
The original debate was interesting. I look forward to more debates in the pagan / neopagan / Wiccan worlds, and hope to be around long enough to see what our belief system evolves into.
I'll leave it at that.
* One comment was to the effect that people in the southern hemisphere should simply follow the northern hemisphere - to the extent of celebrating Yule in the middle of our winter and Litha in the middle of our winter!
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
This post's photo is yet to be posted.
Tags: invocation, correspondences, cross-fertilisation (ideas), rituals, deities, elements, frequencies,
First published: Saturday 12th September, 2009
Last edited: Sunday 13th September, 2009
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