Uses a Contraceptive and Abortion
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In understanding the present relatively short series on "Mother Earth," let us note that some prefer to view it as a complexity, while I prefer to see it as a simplicity. (Some Mathematicians claim Nature is complex: (How Imaginary Numbers Were Invented; where the Statement "Nature Likes Complex Numbers" is asserted by the commentator. And on the other side of the road we have those of us who assert a simplicity in that Nature Loves the Number Three.) In other words, some people, some professions like complexity whereby it requires a specialized person or perspective to illustrate and explain it... much like priests and prophetesses of old who claimed they had a particular uniqueness that others need to defer to and provide them with entitlements. Whereas some like to "complexify" the simple, others use over-simplifications and thereby assist in complicating that which needs an alternative analogy. Analogies meant to simplify can be offered as intentional efforts to give the impression of wanting to simplify but actually want to complexify so as to create a complexification out of a proposed simplification... such as this paragraph. In other words a bunch of babbled gobbledygook like in the Tower of Babble analogy.
So called "Mother Earth", like so many born-on-Earth women, was born a virgin; though some may want to consider that the Earth was initially born as a twin or triplet whose individual personalities took on significant changes due to separate up-bringings. As such, the solar system is a family which took up roots in an area of the Milky Way Galaxy like many a homesteader did in the distant past... perhaps much in the manner as a wounded animal who seeks out a place of seclusion to lick its wounds. And while it may be hard for some readers to believe, but Mother Earth was actually not a Mother in the distant past. Like many a young girl she was infertile for quite awhile when she was first conceived billions of years ago. Hence, in the image of the Wiccan appropriated triptych icon of Virgin - Mother- Crone, she was a virgin that became worshipped as a mother and will die as a crone (with no disparagement intended by using the word "crone" and its sometimes implied negative connotations.).
The above prominent and dominant female Trinity which is based on three phases of the Moon, needs to be compared with the Christian Trinity with its prominent and dominant male configuration which is based on previously worshipped triads of gods who originated long ago in nature-based anthropomorphisms which characterized natural events with human formulas such as the three solar phases described as dawn, noon, dusk:
While I view the Christian Trinity as a present day representation of a nature-referenced and reverence to the three phases of the Sun, those who are unfamiliar with mythology and the very many occasions in which humanity disguised or explained natural phenomena in human-like terms in order of having some familiar means of attempting to grasp a natural phenomena by claiming it had a "meaning" or was a "sign" from something larger than humans; may not readily accept that the Christian Trinity has it roots as a simple reference either in direct association with or as a newly garmented illustration of an older idea that had a more direct relationship to Nature. The imagination of humanity is only constrained by the level of human ignorance and those willing to believe in such ignorance... or do not have the imagination to think alternatively. Religion suffices for the ignorant to engage in a practice of -perception, of investigation, and explanation of natural phenomena when they do not use the tools of science or their method of inquiry is a poorly structured philosophy which has appropriated different ideas in order to pursue a selfish or at least self-centered orientation such as personal enlightenment that they have not yet learned to look beyond by paying witness to it as a human behavior and not the assumed path by which they can cast off all human desires an fulfill the promise of that which they may have a sense of as existing, yet are unable to define it adequately.
Those who practice the idea that so called "Mother Earth" is the better religious or philosophical orientation than any current model, needs to look closely at the history of the Earth in order to reveal its past and personality. In as much as a more comprehensive look at "Mother Earth" can provide a better philosophy, it does not do so in its present formula. In setting the stage for such a realization, it should be note that just as many institutions engage in a background check of a potential employee, so should any person seeking to claim a religion or ideology as the "One True Religion" or "One True Philosophy", or "One True Perspective", etc... Far too many people have simply taken the word of those practicing a given religion or philosophy as being factual, when they are not.
All religions, all philosophies, all beliefs are theoretical positions about survival, about the future, about the past and about the current state of affairs... while some appear to be better than others, none appear to be perfect, despite claims to the contrary. In order for the idea of "salvation" to have any merit, conditions must be kept... or at least interpreted in a way suggestive of that which needs to be saving. Laws and beliefs are constructed so as to perpetuate the notion of requiring salvation. Such theories purport to explain the past, the present, and the future for the good of one's sanity, one's soul, one's survival. In some cases there are adherents who practice a divination of things to come, and in order to escape the position of being told they are wrong, their theories are so generalized as to incorporate a flexibility which affords anyone th ability to interpret a situation according to their own inclinations, no matter what age or era or culture one is born into.
If one was brought up in ancient Egypt or Ancient Rome, the idea of a "Mother goddess" or "Earth Mother" would have been viewed in different terms, according to the emotional and intellectual dispositions of a give culture:
Despite how the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and the many other ancient cultures viewed the Earth, many people living today think differently... while some hold similar views dressed in the currency of language being used for a given social setting. Some believe Mother Earth's genesis was such we can describe her as a hot tempered person who spun quickly around in a widdershins (counter-clock wise/left turning) direction. Since so very often is the act of doing something contrary to an established view seen in terms of being rebellious, bad, wrong, or evil; Mother Earth can be said to have been born a witch. However, upon viewing the other planets we must make note that most of them likewise turn counter-clock wise and that only Venus and Uranus turn in a clockwise or so-called 'normal' direction. Indeed, the whole clan of other planets (let us say coven of witches) are left spinning (from west to east) also, with Venus and Uranus to be viewed as either odd balls or humorously viewed as being the children of a different father (if not mother also). However, all the planets orbit the Sun in a counter-clockwise direction, so Venus and Uranus are considered part of the family in spite of their eccentricities.
Curiously, because of the preponderance of left turning activity amongst planets and amino acids, one must wonder why humans have clocks that typically go from left to the right (such as mimicking the course of the Sun as the Earth spins), just as RNA and DNA helixes. Indeed, if doing what is opposite to the majority is to be considered an act of witch craft, then RNA and DNA might be viewed as either witches or having had a spell cast on them by a witch.
If one faces the Sun from where I am standing in the U.S., the Sun appears to go in a clockwise motion, though this is an illusion due to the rotation of the Earth in the opposite direction. The Sun doesn't actually move "across" or "over" or "through" the Sky. If we take, for example, an excerpt from the Britannica on Native American ceremonial dancing and note their direction as if expressing a purity of consciousness that is closer to Nature and their idea of a Mother Earth/Father sky idealism, we find a reference to both clockwise and counter-clockwise movements:
...This religious, nature-oriented concept of space differs from that of Western folk and art dance, which has only geometrical or emotional significance. The geometric ground plans, however, show similarities with Western practices. The circling dances are sunwise in areas of former hunting people and counter-sunwise, or widdershins, among agriculturalists. Serpentine line dances also prevail among agriculturalists, notably among the Iroquois, Pueblo, Meso-American, and Andean peoples. Among the Iroquois, many round dances are open, with a leader, coincidentally resembling dances of the Balkans of southeastern Europe. ("Native American dance." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.)
The reason for bringing up the direction of spin is for those of the present day who conduct Nature-based "Mother Earth" orientations of veneration within an encircling membership that may take place in a presumed secluded spot in Nature. In other words, do they account for their activity in a right or left direction? If it is opposite to Mother Earth, they should ask themselves why. Are they being rebellious, or mimicking the behavior of Mother Earth who has (off and on) been antagonistic to the development of life? And yet, in striving for a greater understanding of Mother Earth, this phrase as been expressed as "Earth Mother":
Earth Mother:
In ancient and modern non-literate religions, an eternally fruitful source of everything. Unlike the variety of female fertility deities called mother goddesses, the Earth Mother is not a specific source of vitality who must periodically undergo sexual intercourse. She is simply the mother; there is nothing separate from her. All things come from her, return to her, and are her.
The most archaic form of the Earth Mother transcends all specificity and sexuality. She simply produces everything, inexhaustibly, from herself. She may manifest herself in any form. In other mythological systems she becomes a more limited figure. She becomes the feminine Earth, consort of the masculine sky; she is fertilized by the sky in the beginning and brings forth terrestrial creation. Even more limited reflections of the Earth Mother occur in those agricultural traditions in which she is simply the Earth and its fertility. ("Earth Mother." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.)
Very often we find those who speak of "Mother Earth" as an Earth Mother, and/or as a "Mother Goddess". Hence, we are seeing three variations. Let us take a look at a Britannic reference to Goddesses so that the distinction is better understood:
Mother Goddess:
Any of a variety of feminine deities and maternal symbols of creativity, birth, fertility, sexual union, nurturing, and the cycle of growth. The term also has been applied to figures as diverse as the so-called Stone Age Venuses and the Virgin Mary. Because motherhood is one of the universal human realities, there is no culture that has not employed some maternal symbolism in depicting its deities. Because of the wide variations concerning maternal figures, there is a pressing, but as yet unmet, need for a more complex and useful typology of mother goddesses and maternal motifs based on meaning, symbolism, and function.
The "more complex" statement in the foregoing is meant to describe the idea of a clearer elucidation which unravels and illustrates other-wise seemingly disparate and/or missing occurrences... much in the manner that Anthropology needs a more comprehensive representation of the human lineage. Using the word "complex" in the foregoing was a poor choice of word since it does not accurately describe what is needed.
Mother goddesses, as a specific type, should be distinguished from the Earth Mother (q.v.), with which they have often been confused. Unlike the mother goddess, who is a specific source of vitality and who must periodically undergo intercourse, the Earth Mother is a cosmogonic figure, the eternally fruitful source of everything. In contrast, mother goddesses are individual, possess distinct characters, are young, are not cosmogonic, and are highly sexual. Although the male plays a relatively less important role, being frequently reduced to a mere fecundator, mother goddesses are usually part of a divine pair, and their mythology narrates the vicissitudes of the goddess and her (frequently human) consort.
The essential moments in the myth of most mother goddesses are her disappearance and reappearance and the celebration of her divine marriage. Her disappearance has cosmic implications. Sexuality and growth decline. Her reappearance, choice of a male partner, and intercourse with him restore and guarantee fertility, after which the male consort is frequently set aside or sent to the underworld to be replaced the next year (this has led to the erroneous postulation of a dying-rising deity).
The other major form of the mother goddess emphasizes her maternity. She is the protector and nourisher of a divine child and, by extension, of all humanity. This form occurs more frequently in iconography—a full-breasted (or many-breasted) figure holding a child in her arms—than in myth. ("mother goddess." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.)
Please note the foregoing sentence which is italicized. My interpretation of it revolves around the Need for modern practitioners in the WW3 (Witches - Wiccans- Pagans) domains, need to comprehensively review their philosophical underpinnings for believing as they do. One aspect of which is the idea of Mother Earth as a nurturing soul, where in fact Mother Earth has a shelf life and is already in and out of her death bed. Like all life forms, Mother Earth has a shelf life and there is little hope of receiving any inheritance because all her resources are being used up... and there is nothing humanity can do about it, except to try to slow down the inevitable. Humanity must grow up and sever the umbilical cord.
Like Mother Earth whose present day name tag is based on a misunderstanding of the Earth's true nature, so too has the rule-of-thumb concerning human sacrifice as once used in fertility rites:
(Giving thanks for a bountiful crop)
One form of thank offering is the offering of the first fruits in agricultural societies. Until the first fruits of the harvest have been presented with homage and thanks (and often with animal sacrifices) to the deity of the harvest (sometimes regarded as embodied in the crop), the whole crop is considered sacred and thus taboo and may not be used as food. The first-fruits sacrifice has the effect of “desacralizing” the crops and making them available for profane consumption. It is a recognition of the divine source and ownership of the harvest and the means by which man is reconciled with the vegetational, chthonic (beneath the earth) powers from whom he takes it.
Fertility
Another distinctive feature of the first-fruits offering is that it serves to replenish the sacred potencies of the earth depleted by the harvest and to ensure thereby the continued regeneration of the crop. Thus, it is one of many sacrificial rites that have as their intention the seasonal renewal and reactivation of the fertility of the earth. Fertility rites usually involve some form of blood sacrifice—in former days especially human sacrifice. In some human sacrifices the victim represented a deity who “in the beginning” allowed himself to be killed so that from his body edible vegetation might grow. The ritual slaying of the human victim amounted to a repetition of the primordial act of creation and thus a renewal of vegetational life. In other human sacrifices the victim was regarded as representing a vegetation spirit that annually died at harvest time so that it might be reborn in a new crop. In still other sacrifices at planting time or in time of famine, the blood of the victim—animal or human—was let upon the ground and its flesh buried in the soil to fertilize the earth and recharge its potencies. ("sacrifice." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.)
The point to be made is that not only did Mother Earth not always provide for a good harvest, but that humans routinely misunderstood what was taking place with Nature... with so-called Mother Earth. Imagine thinking that Mother Earth requested for someone to be killed! What sort of Nurturing Mother does that except for a psychotic individual. And though human sacrifices are not typical, they have no doubt been used before by different types of Paganistic sources, be they called Witches practicing the black arts, high priests, hunters, Shamans, etc...
In addition, the orientation to Nature once practiced in fertility rites, appears to have arisen as part of an agricultural setting, though animals and even human sacrifice may have been used as a 'propitiationary' (votive) offering to some supposed god as a before-hand placation to ward off any potential bad harvest. Those oriented towards a Hunter-Gatherer life style practiced rites and ceremonialisms relative to their dominant interest, which may or may not have involved any dance routine from which might be surveyed an easily seen left or right direction. An obsession with the birthing process appears to be a result of women centralizing themselves as an important and primary participant in the maintenance of a clan's existence, even though it may have been the women and children who were the chief bread winners by way of foraging because the 'boys club" of hunting didn't always return with a prized meal.
The idea that the Earth is a "Mother" needs a bit of referencing so as to grasp it as originating in the past by way of a peculiar type of human mentality; as if people of this day and age are striving to reconstruct some presumed greater ideal philosophy to replace what is felt to be the presence of failed ideologies exerted by Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, if not Buddhism, Hinduism and all other (business, political, religious/philosophical) orientations of a supposed proper, pure, purposeful existence and enlightenment. Indeed, there is a growing sense that the Gods of the Three Desert-born Western Monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism) are false gods... that they are not all powerful, all knowing, or exist everywhere— because (if for no other reason) they are being adopted as tools and sometimes weapons by governments to exploit the people whose sincere belief in such ideologies makes them vulnerable to misuse, abuse, and manipulation. In such a perspective, this speaks of a people, of a nation, if not the Western cultures in toto, as reflecting a gargantuan exercise of spiritual failure, which necessarily embodies all Eastern ideologies as well... since many of their views are schematized replications of ideological currents practiced, promoted, and protected in the West; regardless if they originated in the East or not.
The various crises in politics, education, economics, morality, impoverization, imperialism, etc., are being interpreted as the result of the failings of the various formulas of business, political and religious ideologies unable to proactively serve the people with an honest and accurate realization of truth, justice and methods of providing self-sufficiencies, in many cases... beyond a hand-to-mouth existence. And though some claim it is a failure of humanity to follow a true path, they ask why a supposed one-true god does not intervene in the case of a humanity that obviously is too ignorant, too retarded, too insistent on engaging in wrongful acts... only to be met by more of the same twisted business, political and religious rationales that perpetuates... if not perpetrates a recurring existence of nonsense which is painted over by more of the same language which has plagued humanity since language came into being; and from which various followers retreat into some self-styled hermitage which seeks to insulate believers from external forms of societal madness in this Age of Irrationality.
However, since the present era has not produced a suite of creative thinkers whose perceptions of Nature and the human condition were exceptionally astute for the ancient time and place in which they occurred and that once found their way into practices termed by later historians as Mystery religions, Hidden knowledge (the Occult), Esoteric traditions, Plato's "unwritten doctrines," etc.,; those of the present turn to the past and seek to remake old ideas in the ideological image of their re-interpreters who very often disregard monumental fixtures of information as well as salient points which a scholar might well want to emphasize as an important characteristic of identification. Like their interpretation of the Monotheistic religions, they should come to realize that a homage paid to the idea of a "Mother Earth" can not be supported with any protracted veneration... and in fact humanity, as her supposed children, must come to grow up and severe the umbilical cord.
Let me repeat myself:
Those who practice the idea that so called "Mother Earth" is the better religious or philosophical orientation than any current model, needs to look closely at the history of the Earth in order to reveal its past and personality. Just as many institutions engage in a background check of a potential employee, so should any person seeking to claim a religion or ideology as the "One True Religion". All religions, all philosophies are theoretical positions. Such theories purport to explain the past, the present, and the future. In some cases there are adherents who practice a divination of things to come, and in order to escape the position of being told they are wrong, their theories are so generalized as to incorporate a flexibility which affords anyone th ability to interpret a situation according to their own inclinations, no matter what age or era or culture one is born into.
Believing in Earth as a Mother, is thought to afford humanity no greater salvation than any present day hypocritical religion or philosophy. And when I speak of "salvation" let it be known I am speaking of survival in a biological sense and not survival in a metaphysical sense referenced as the soul. Religions and also Philosophies of spirituality are theoretical positions akin to the biological notion of being a survival mechanism. Religious texts are therefore little more than over-emphasized survival manuals whose instructions for the present day rests on whether or not a person wishes to live in a frame of mind which discounts large amounts of seemingly disparate ideas from multiple subjects. In other words, so long as you want to live in a world where the type and amount of information is limited... if not in content of quality and quantity, then in the manner of application; then the present day Western religions and Eastern philosophies are especially useful for such a level of limited information.
Otherwise, you may well seek some model of salvation in the reinterpreted practice of an old idea such as the fertility rites of ancient eras. When your level of education, experiences and knowledge exceeds that of former eras, the survival methods of ideological consideration are no longer valid. Hence, so many are rightly turning away from all Western religions and Eastern philosophies. All of them reek of an ignorance you no longer share. In some cases a person may seemingly not have a voluminous education, berth of experience or girth of intelligence, and yet for some unfathomable reason they instinctively know that such religions and philosophies of old are false. It's as if they were not born with an Old Soul but a very Ancient Soul which makes such a realization possible.
While turning to some method and measure of practicing a reinterpreted model of worshiping nature may seem the ideal truth because it appeals to someone as being more honest and open, such sentiments must become questioned because they reek of the same ignorance as do all present day religions and philosophies professing some salvation or achievable enlightenment. While those of the past can be forgiven their ignorance, not so those of the present day; and yet, millions of children are taught to be educated idiots by way of public and private schools. Hence, practitioners of Mother Earth orientations can both read and write, yet few of them may engage in any extended efforts in either of these tasks. Hence, their knowledge of "Mother Earth" may be limited to a few trite remarks involving some childish notion of nurturance, when in fact so-called Mother Earth has been actively engaged in the periodic destruction of humanity... as her presumed children, and all things living. To ignore this is no different than overlooking the periodic abuse of a child. Mother Earth is a periodic child abuser, not a child discipliner... because humanity does not learn from her occasional "spankings" and "timeout" periods of restricted access to needed water and foodstuffs. The increase in desertification where nothing grows should be a clue, but humanity is disregarding it.
All "Mother Earth" orientations are just as abusive as are all Western religious ideologies and Eastern philosophies. An inability to recognize their abusiveness is no different than a person accepting the conditions as a fated course of life they think they can do nothing about. If you can not see the abusiveness, it means you are much too close to the abuser because you think that by clinging closely to them you will lessen your chances of being abused... by being overlooked at such a wrathful entity when it characteristically looks for someone to blame for its own deficiencies brought about by an unrecognized model of mental illness. It is a mental illness which goes undiagnosed, because many of its adherents share in the same frame of irrational mindedness... so very similar to the mental illness practiced by the LGBTQ trying to worm its way into any and all holes prevalently unaccounted for in so many areas of society whose construction is due to inherently ignorant historical traditions of Western religion and Eastern philosophy. The LGBTQ is just as manipulatively corrupt as were all Western Religions and Eastern philosophies in their inceptions. While this is not to say that the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Laozi (Master Lao), and other progenitors of a given faith were ill-disposed; but their position and views were a calling to those who were adept at instructively incorporating personal ulterior motivations into a given practice for selfish reasons. What you see today are not the pristine practices but amalgamations of deficits brought on by the deficiencies of leaderships who have wielded the initial ideas as weapons for their own misguided orientations. Those who accept them share in the same distorted thinking because the framework of distortion was already present, despite all the modern day trappings of supposed goodness, grace, kindness, compassion, generosity, wisdom, etc...
Yep, Ole (old) Mother Earth (Gaia, Gaea, Ge) used several attempts to prevent and even abort life in her Earlier (and later) years. (Compare the alternate names and "essences" of Mother Earth to: Chinese "Qi" ("breath," or "vital energies") and Egyptian "ka, ba, akh" (soul)... all of which intimate a type of "centeredness". The idea that the Earth was the Center of the solar system is easy to understand from the perspective of those with limited knowledge. It is little different from the perspective of ancient peoples who thought the Earth had edges you could fall off of, prior to the knowledge gained by sailors who ventured over the horizon. The ideas that the Earth was the center of the solar system and that Earth had an edge you could fall off of, are quite logical to those who have little knowledge or experience with knowledgeable sources.
However, even though Mother Earth engaged in attempts to prevent the development of life, the Sun and Moon (metaphorically speaking) gently coaxed Mother Earth into giving birth to life in many forms; aided by the counseling that the Sun and Moon have had to continually provide her with, because she has had her "moments" of instability; and yet she is not yet finished in exhibiting her "spells," "scoldings," and "scatter-brainedness". It is theses qualities, one might assume... is why she was named "Gaea" by the Ancient Greeks, and not called "Father Earth", which suggests the word "Gaea" was constructed by a male psyche that does not interpret seeing itself as having "spells" or engaging in public "scoldings" or scatterbrained activities. In other words, even though the Earth (and Moon) have previously been interpreted as male figures, the violent antics of Earth were viewed as traits of a woman. Hence, we have multiple occasions where the sky was interpreted as the Father and the Earth as the Mother. Whereas an angry father is an accustomed to occurrence (in not being out of the ordinary behavior), viewing a wrathful vengeance being expressed by the typically gentle nature of women, is enough to incline men to view such occasional "monstrous outbursts" of the Earth (violent weather and geophysical conditions), as being the qualities of a woman. Hence, the old notion of naming the Earth as "Gaia" (a monster creator), could be viewed as a logical fit by ancient creators of ideas we call myths, though they may have been accepted as a reality by those embracing such ideas to explain various perceptions during an era of widespread ignorance which persists today, despite required schooling of every child.
The "counseling" methodology (patterns) of the Sun and Moon can be summed up as those events which promote biological rhythms not only in animals but all life forms according to their physiology.
As already noted, ancient peoples viewed Mother Earth's tempests and turmoils as the birthing of Monsters, Giants and other creatures. According to Greek and Roman mythology, Gaea gave birth to 3 or 4 sets of 3 notable characterizations (sometimes 5 sets if we include her apparent connection with the name Themis, such as the 3 Hesperides); though other accounts simply mention a multiple of three in the form of 12 titans. It should at sometime be referenced by the reader that the writers of the Myths and legends engaged in the usage of quantifying characters. This would not have been the case if number valuations weren't important. (Let me also refresh the memory of those who may have glanced over it, that Gaea instigated a rebellion against her husband Uranus (Heaven) with her children so as to be separated/divorced from him. The situation can give the impression of being an hermaphroditic theme of bisexuality that is sometimes confused in the present era by those who want to find some presumed antecedent rational argument for their promiscuousness occurring with either gender; but actually denotes the ancient idea of humanity having begun as a single creature with both male/female sexual attributes for which the additional idea of "one's soul mate" arises. "Bisexuality" in ancient terms did not mean having sex with both males and females. It simply referred to the idea that humanity arose as a single entity with male and female sexual characteristics. To think otherwise, is the interpretation of a neurotic person who thinks themselves as a creative thinker by having a distorted interpretation. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the silly misconstrued neurotic constructions developed by some attached to the LGBTQ promotions of encouraging the adoption of a Bacchanal-like circus mentality of the Pride-in-festival (Pride infestatedly-) expressed inebriation which discourages rationality and entices the naive and impressionable young to embrace a Janus-faced morality as a true figure of a self-serving irrationality laughingly labeled a just, honest, and enlightened reality.
When speaking of the Earth as a mother, let us not overlook that other cultures had their own flavors. Here is one example:
Zemes mate (Latvian), Lithuanian Žemyna:
The Earth Mother of Baltic religion. Zemes mate represents the female aspect of nature and the source of all life—human, animal, and plant. Interacting with Dievs (the sky), Zemes mate stimulates and protects the power of life. Libations of beer were offered to her at the opening of every festival, and such products of the earth as bread, ale, and herbs were buried in the ground or thrown into rivers and lakes or tied to trees in her honour. The birth of a child was also celebrated with an offering to the Earth Mother. The various functions of Zemes mate were eventually assumed by demi-goddesses of forests, fields, stones, animals, water, and, in the Christian era, by the Virgin Mary.
The male counterpart of Zemes mate is Zemnieks (Latvian), known as Žemininkas, or Žemepatis, among the Lithuanians. Žemepatis was considered the brother of Žemyna and functioned as master of the earth and guardian of farms. ("Zemes ma-te." Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013.)
It is important for all those adhering to the use of the "Gaea" (Mother Earth) theme to fully grasp the Mythological reality in which the word existed, even if the people of a culturally given setting (era) were only partially (or not at all) aware of the attendant views represented by the Greek Writer Hesiod. Just because he left a "threes" account concerning Gaea doesn't mean the average person on the street observed and practiced the same accountability. His account may have been an expressed literary exercise (in using the "three" theme) which other writers copied... like some today do when trying to emulate a writer they like. And while some writers like the value "seven" (with or without an association to religion), we do not see its presence as a prevalent preference being described by many writers and speakers, though it is sometimes used as an advertising gimmick. In other words, for example, though we find the occasion of seven dwarfs in the Sleeping beauty story, patterns-of-three appear to be the more dominant recurrence in fairy tales, despite attempts by writers of today to eschew the pattern... though in actuality I can see many of the so-called "threes" examples as 3 -to- 1 ratios (where the word "many" can sometimes be used as a substitute for the quantity "3"). Here are a few examples of the "three" theme in a 3 -to- 1 ratio context:
- 3 bears and 1 Goldilocks
- 3 pigs and 1 wolf
- 3 fiddlers and 1 king
- 3 tasks to be performed by 1 person
- 3 sisters (Cinderella- Anastasia- Drisella) to 1 prince (and/or 1 mother)
- 3 persons in 1 godhead (Christianity)
- 3 states of matter (solid- liquid- gas) to 1 plasma
- 3 spatial dimensions (length, width, height) to 1 time dimension
- 3 fingers to hold 1 pen/pencil
- 3 regular years to 1 leap year
- 3 the same amino acids (adenosine- cytosine- guanine) to 1 different: thymine(DNA)/ uracil(RNA)
- Buy 3 tires get 1 free (frequent advertisement used by sellers of tires)
- Out of Many, 1 (E Pluribus Unum) (Motto on U.S. Presidential seal)
- 3 male creatures (Scarecrow/intelligence - Tinman/Heart - Lion/courage) and 1 female Dorothy (Wizard of Oz)
- 1, 2, 3... : (1,2,3) to (...) recurring theme of serialization in Mathematics
- Monotheism, Ditheism/Duality, Tritheism, Polytheism (1 - 2- 3, Many)
- Monality, Dichotomy, Trichotomy, "Polyotomy" (Plurality or "poly" is sometimes used to describe quantities of 2 or more, while others use it to describe 3 or more)
- 3 to 1 division of directions: North- South- East (and) West
- 3 to 1 division of arithmetical notation: ones- tens- hundreds (comma) thousands
- etc...
Clearly the notion of "four" can be seen in the idea of one object (Sun) and its three aspects (dawn- noon- night) or the (moon) and its three days of absence or darkness, though in the present day currency of orientation, Wiccans use a pattern-of-three denoted as a 1st quarter- full moon- last quarter ensemble. And that by adding the notion of 3 with a notion of 4 we get a combined 7, and that by subtracting the 3 from the 4 we get 1... hence, the value 1- 3- 4- 7, or 15 through an act of addition.
Date of Origination: Saturday 11th February, 2023... 4:46 AM
Initial Posting Date: Wednesday 10th May, 2023... 6:06 AM