"I am the queen: of every hive"

"Holy Mother, in Whom we live, move and have our being, from You all things emerge and unto You all things return." ~Victor Anderson

Mary the Virgin Mother of God.
Image from Cyberbrethren blog.

Though Mother's Day is a "greeting card holiday" invented by the greeting card companies and flower companies to sell their goods (*NOTE: Not accurate. See comments), motherhood is holy and important to life.  I have big issues with people who say women's only worth is in being a mother.  You should have that choice, and there is power is the non-maternal feminine as well as the maternal feminine.  But there is something special about motherhood, for life ceases without birth, and there's not birth without the mother.  And obviously no birth without the feminine.  There's power in the masculine, but life comes from the feminine (Unless you're Krana, "He who creates for himself").

The Faery Star Goddess
w/Winged Serpent
by Storm Faerywolf.
Image from his website.

There are various versions of the creation myth in Feri, but they all begin with the Star Goddess, God Herself, the Holy Mother.  From Her Womb comes the worlds.  Or all of creation is Her Womb.  In some versions, the Divine Twins are her first born.  In others, the Blue God.  In others, Nimue, who is the Black Heart of Innocence.  The 72 Bright Spirits are her children.  The gods are her reflections, but they are her children.  They are her and they are her offspring.  And we are one with the gods.

Miriam watching Pharaoh's
daughter taking baby Moses
from  reeds.  Image from
Sathyaveda Ministries.

Mari is the purest form of the Star Goddess as Mother.  Mari who became Miriam to the Hebrews and the Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother, to the Christians, especially to the Catholics.  Especially in Mexico, Mary, the Blessed Mother, is more than just the mother of Jesus, but the mother of all, at least spiritually.  Which makes sense if Christians are adopted as co-heirs with Christ.  Go to Mexico and observe the rituals and worship of Mary, and you will see she truly is Queen of Heaven to them.

Maiden, Mother, Crone
by Ithilyen on DeviantArt.

The feminine is often seen in witchcraft traditions, and other traditions, in threes, the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.  This is seen in many religions and myths, though how much of it is us applying a modern model to understand ancient myths that may or may not be that simple, who knows?  In Feri, we have Nimue, the Maiden, Mari, the Mother, and the Anna, the Crone, but they are a continuum, not all there is.  Their ages aren't constant and they bleed into each other.  Isn't Nimue with a sword protecting children from abuse a Mother role?  Isn't the Anna as grandma teaching her grand children just a continuation of the role of Mother?  It's like the Sephiroth in Kabbalah.  Each Sephirah can be seen and considered separately, but in reality, each contains all the others.  All separation is an illusion.  Motherhood can be found in all things.

Splitting the Atom
by zy0rg on DeviantArt.

One version of the Feri creation story, God Herself is the proton, giving birth to the first electron and dark neutrino, the Divine Twins.  This is the "Big Bang", the process that starts the universe.  Even in the splitting of an atom, we can see Motherhood.


Robert Cochrane said the following in his sixth letter to Joe Wilson:

The feminine Mysteries are the deeper - connected with the slow tides of creation and destruction, of the cycle of life and death. they are best expressed in the pentagram - Life/Birth, Love, Maternity, Wisdom, Death/Resurrection. They are connected with all things that grow - all creatures of flesh - fertility and sterility - the mystery of the woman who is Virgin/Mother/Hag in one person. They are in essence the cycle of life, and the universality of life - and they express themselves in deep intuition and feelings - in other world terms they control the unconscious, as the male controls the conscious.

In RC's version of the Pentagram, the third point is Maternity, Motherhood.  The pentagram here is the cycle of life.  Birth, Life, the first point, comes into the world through Motherhood.  The five points are connected and can't be separated.  In his fifth letter, he said:

I found your interpretation of the five Queen lines of Amergin of great interest, since it shows you are well on the road. Basically, they follow the Pentagram, that is Life, Love, Maternity, Wisdom, Death. Obviously, since the interpretation of the Faith is deeply personal, we differ somewhat in our approaches but basically we seem to be traveling in the same direction.

This is discussing the Song of Amergin, based on Robert Graves' version in the White Goddess.  The relevant lines are:

I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hive,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the tomb: of every hope.

Queen bee.  Image from Connections.

Maternity, Motherhood, is the Queen, who rules over every hive.  The symbolism is the queen bee, which is of course the mother of the whole hive.  The hive is one, each bee part of the whole.  The queen's pheromones dictate what happens in the hive.  So too the mother in a household is a guiding force, whether actively or passively.  And the Great Mother of us all influences our actions, "Old Fate, the major deity of all true witches."

In the first quote from RC, you can once again see the Maiden/Mother/Crone, or in his words, Virgin/Mother/Hag.

There is one more place he talks about the pentagram.  I'll include it here for completeness, but let you digest it and come to your own conclusions to his challenge.  In his third letter to Norman Gill, he said:

Above the head of the Moon, as shewn in the diagram lies five (seven) other stars, known as the Goddesses, that is they are to be seen in The Plough or Haywain. They fall into this sequence: Life, Love, Maternity, Wisdom, and Death. Since I maintain that knowledge is understood more fully if one has to work for it, I leave you to fit your own interpretation upon the five (seven) Stars, and how they fit as Queens within the Castles. By looking at the diagrams of both the Moat and the Mill, it is possible to see how they become Queens, and also why in ancient mythology, why the Queen was always considered to play a harlot, or fallen woman. In other words, by the juxtaposition of King and Queens, it is possible to work out a magical formula concerned with (a) aspects within the Mask, as one would use a Qabbalistic tree, and (b) an insight into the control of the four basic elements.

Sarah holding Isaac.
Image from Jesusfootprints blog.

I've talked before about the Partzufim, the Faces of G-d in Kabbalah.  One of these is Imma, Mother.  She is Binah, the upper sea, Understanding.  Imma is the Earth Above, and Abba, Father, is the Heaven Above.  Imma gives birth to the Heaven Below and the Earth Below, Ze'ir Anpin and his Nukva respectively, the Son and the Daughter.  Imma is represented as Sarah and Rebecca in Genesis.  Sarah was Abraham's wife and the mother of Isaac.  Sarah can been seen in the Crone role if you like, but even though she as in her 90s and had gone through menopause, she still conceived and gave birth to Isaac.  Rebecca was Isaac's wife and the mother of Esau and Jacob.  Not much is said about her, except that she favoured Jacob over Esau and helped Jacob, the Trickster, to trick Esau out of his birth right, then trick Isaac into giving Esau's blessing to Jacob.

Venus of Willendorf,
female figure, 22,000-21,000 BCE.
Image from Eris' Wish blog.

Though there's a decrease in the respect younger generations are giving to mothers (and fathers for that matter), and though there is a growing trend of women choosing not to be mothers, started with the feminist movement with women seeking careers instead of family, over all Western culture still revers and respects Motherhood.  It's symbolic of life, in a culture that fears death.

Birth of Stars
(NASA, Chandra, 10/7/08)
Image from NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center Flickr page.

From Her Mother's Sacred Skirts
By Muninn's Kiss

There she stands,
In the midst of Space,
God Herself is here.
Great Mother of all,
The sacred Womb,
From whom we all have come.
Robes of Darkness,
Deepest Night,
All stars shine from it.
A thousand suns,
A million lights,
Upon Her sacred skirts.
In Her Pleasure,
Life conceived,
A child is born today.
A baby girl,
A wild one,
Young Nimue coming forth.
In the midst,
Of darkest Night,
A little girl comes forth.
Nimue's seen,
Beneath the skirts,
Peaking out at us.
Slowly stepping,
Out to us,
From her Mother's sacred skirts.

Drawing of Saint Zita,

a servant who lived

the Rule of 1221.

Image from

The Confraternity of Penitents

The Children of My Soul
By Muninn's Kiss

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I help,
The helpless ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I teach,
The seeking ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I heal,
The sickly ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I feed,
The hungry ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I free,
The hopeful ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I bless,
The hurting ones,
Are the children of my soul.

I am a mother,
Though my womb has born no child.
The ones I comfort,
The fearful ones,
Are the children of my soul.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss