The Goddess
The Goddess, the universal mother, is the source of fertility, endless wisdom and loving caresses. Wiccans know Her as of three aspects: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. These three aspects are symbolised by the waxing, full and waning moon cycle.
The Maiden signifies youth, the excitement of the chase, and the newness of life and magick. She is the unploughed field. In human age between puberty and her twenties. She does not have a mate. Her colours are soft and light, white, soft pink, or light yellow.
The Mother stands for nurturing, caring, fertility. She represents the full harvest. She is in the prime of life and at the peak of her power. She protects her own and ensures that justice is done and done well. She is usually mated. In human age she would be a woman in her thirties and forties. Her colours are warmer than those of the maiden, being green, copper, red, light purple or royal blue.
The Crone is a being of age-old wisdom. She is shrewd and counsels well. She looks after the Maiden and Mother and their off-spring. She is logical and can be terrible in her vengeance. She stands at the door to the dimension of death. In human years she is very late forties and over. Her traditional colours are black, grey, purple, brown or midnight blue.
Life is the Gift of the Goddess but she lends it with the promise of death. This is not darkness and oblivion, but rest from the toils of physical existence. It is human existence between incarnations. Since the Goddess is nature, all nature, She is both the Temptress and the Crone, the tornado and the fresh spring rain, the cradle and the grave. She is possessed of both natures, but the Wiccan revere Her as the giver of fertility, love and abundance, though they acknowledge Her darker side as well. We see her in the Moon, the soundless, ever-moving sea, and in the green growth of the first spring. She is the embodiment of fertility and love.
Many symbols are used in Wicca to honour Her, such as the cauldron, cup, five-petalled flowers, the mirror, necklace, seashell, pearl, silver, emerald...... to name a few. As She has dominion over the Earth, sea and Moon Her "sacred" creatures are many and varied.
A few are the rabbit, bear, owl, cat, dog, bat, goose, cow, dolphin, lion, horse, wren, scorpion, spider and bee.
The Goddess is depicted in many forms: a huntress running with Her hounds; a celestial deity striding across the sky with stardust falling from Her heels. the eternal Mother heavy with child; the weaver of our lives and deaths; a Crone walking by waning moonlight seeking out the weak and forlorn, to name a few.
But no matter how we envision Her, She is omnipresent, changeless, eternal.
