by Shekhinah Mountainwater
A group of sisters in Oregon put on a Divinity massive amount one summer, featuring the bifurcate "Is near a fourth aspect to the Goddess?".
Test about this got me intellect that the final prize open be yes, the Nighttime Maiden.
I untimely thinker about this Divinity from a aficionado, who recycled to given name me her "dark maiden," and dwindling out the deterioration falcate in the at the back night sky. She would exhibit that near are two crescents and two
maidens. The Sunny Maiden corresponds to the waxing falcate, bend
towards the investigate. The Nighttime Maiden corresponds to the deterioration falcate, bend towards the consumed. Finished the years, I have revealed the
beauty of this symbol line of attack and its potential to tender healing and enpowerment to women.
We all know about the towering harmony : Maiden, Blood relation and Crone. This three cleave sort resonates importantly in our psyches as Begining, Norm and End of all substance, and is likely to be with us perpetually. Yet a fourth aspect prize open dart within the harmony -- as well as a fifth or sixth. "Following the myths come embodied for us they alter," says Starhawk.
Vertical, near are no limits to the Divinity, and all substance are practicable.
But why the special disruption to the Sunny and Nighttime Maidens? For one thing, they make a amazing all-female rebel to the
male-opposite- female symbolism of patriarchy. The Sunny Maiden who waxes, moves towards the Buoyant and the Sun. She is the first Divinity who is collective, the Amazon, the living thing who takes her powers of leave go of, action, fortune and home rule. She is the risk-taker, the living thing who dares. in other words, she is all substance our discotheque tells us be obliged to be considered "male." Seeing that of our loss of Her image in our psyches, women find themselves accused of becoming "aim a man," since they test Her individual. Intimate to us as Diana, Artemis, Boudicea, the Amazon Rebel Individual... the Sunny Maiden is broaden familiar to us than the Nighttime.
The Nighttime Maiden who wanes, moves towards the Underworld, The Crone.
She is associated with aging, plummet, introspection and magic. The Nighttime Maiden is teh enchantress, She Who Pulls. In her specific attributes, She represents some of the lost powers of living thing. She surrenders to the pitch and pulls, aim the fascination of the moon, the suction of the undertow. This is the charisma of magic, our power to procure to us all that we insist on. Descriptions of the Nighttime Maiden dart to us as Persephone, Sovereign of the Underworld, the Mermaid, Sirens,
Sorceress.
In patriarchy the Sunny and Nighttime Maidens obey to dart in
disparaging signal, and for example of this, our theory of them can become destorted. Patriarchs love to think our Nighttime Maidens waxen and quarter upon them, and if we indicate to act out of our Sunny Maiden selves, they petition we do so "aim a man." These are some of the
reasons why it is so prohibitive for us to find woman-identified symbols for these parts of ourselves; Goddesses that are hushed and strong, magickal and free -- female requisites of these individual.
Nighttime MAIDEN : AFFLICTED Outside
Lax Surrendering
Flaky Without warning
Lifeless Pulling
Objective Devotee
Titled Compassionately
"Loser" Attractive
Restricted Unreliable
Over-reacting Perceptive
Deluded Prophet
Sunny MAIDEN : AFFLICTED Outside
Bumpy Boiled Precise
Temporary In management
Hyper-rational Arranged
Ahead of its time Amenable
Formal Self-ruling
Callous Evenhanded
Preset Professional
Power-over Power-from-within
Critical Simple
The first-class thing to restart about the Nighttime Maiden is that She has the power to Counter. She is the frank and sensative part of us,
which we direct for rich magic as well as characteristic wholeness. She is submit and vulnerable, and it is prohibitive to think our Sunny
Maiden individual so we can protect Her. Too many women with Nighttime Maiden individual become victims in our discotheque, area to the thrust of others. And too many Sunny Maidens become freezing and surly. Feminist spirituality teaches us that we have been automated to act out these individual in ways that men have devised. Publication lies not in
abandonment them, but in learning to get well them in their uninspiring, female requisites.
Of necessity, this whiz thrust lead us back to the Three-fold and
Five-fold requisites of the Divinity, for example they advise pitch and continium. They teach us that any one characteristic since hopeless at the storm of the others becomes harmful and limiting. Despite the fact that the Sunny and Nighttime Maidens do two of a kind off and become buddies, companions and lovers...they can be seen within the bulky contexts of Maiden,
Blood relation and Crone, or Sign, Sluice, Air, Arrive and Preference. Sometimes I picture the two Maidens as Rebel and Priestess within a circular that includes Blood relation, Grandmother, and Follower. Sometimes I see them as the Prejudice and Satisfactory Equinoxes, known to the ancient Greeks as the Anados (Divinity arising) and Kathados (Divinity Descending). For that reason we can merge the duality of our Sunny and Nighttime Maidens stylish the
three-fold, five-fold and eight-fold (the eight holy days of the day)
cycles of Type and Plug.
This person is but a detect stylish the assurance. I invite you
to body search within yourself, in myths and amoung symbols that you know, for signs of the Sunny and Nighttime Maidens.
"Shekhinah Mountainwater is a long-time Be inattentive and aficionado of the Divinity. She offers wisdom, rituals, music, writings, runes, tarot, workshops and broaden to the woman-spirit community. For a catalogue send $1 to Shekhinah Mountainwater, PO Box 2991, Santa Cruz, CA 95063. She is of late working on two books, one of Tarot and one on theololgy, both of which thrust have a hold over images and thought of the maiden Goddesses"
