So I have been reading Drawing Down the Moon and I keep hearing about the triple goddess. Now my question is what is/are the name/names of the triple goddess?
The generic definition is Maiden, Mother, Crone. Depending on your pantheon, there are various Goddesses which can fit into this archetype. The Maiden is a child or young woman prior to having children. She represents innocence, trust, freedom, mutability. The Mother represents maternal love and stability. The Crone is a woman past childbearing age. She represents wisdom, knowledge, satisfaction with a life well lived.
Yeah, what she said, but also remember, that they're just the three main aspect of the cycle of life for a woman. For a man, it would be Youth, Prime, and Elder. Both are one and the same, represented by feminine and masculine sides for the God and the Goddess, both of which go by many names, each with qualities that pertain to an individual to relate easier to the higher power. Peace and blessings to you
Hmm that gives me a lot to think about... I never realized how complicated the Wicca religion can be. I have a lot to learn.
By the way, ... the 'triple goddess' is not by any means exclusive to wicca. The whole basic idea of threefold deitys means to point towards the idea of one thing manifesting in three forms, and further that pantheism .. as one thing manifesting as many forms and those many forms being manifestations of one thing ...ie. 'all is one and one is all'. I've had many dreams of the triple goddess over the years and always at times of transition or change. She may appear in my dreams as any three women of any age .. often women i know but sometimes not, and sometimes as three of the same woman. Always with me she has a book or sheet of paper on which she writes my name but may have some other object with her also. So in my own psyche at least, she's real enough ... prior to these dreams i never had heard of or had any interest in any such thing, it's just like she appeared one day. In my own life it's as if she is a guide and in a sense it is as if she is my own intuition personified. She teaches me to roll with lifes cycles of birth, death and renewal, teaches me to see my own multi faceted nature as a human being and to find wholeness on a human level in diversity and uniqueness,(ie. not to become overly identified with any one particular facet whether it be a young saviour or martyred mother or the epitome of ancient wisdom) and acts as a guiding intuitive force in my everyday life. Yet this is all in the earthly domain. This is all about the world which is all about transiency and impermanence and how this world needs to keep dying in order to keep living ... to stay in form it needs to keep renewing itself... hence all these cycles and different forms. Pure spirit and awareness on the other hand is what gives birth to all this form and variety and change, yet is itself formless and unchanging and eternal. It is the void, the nothing, out of which everything arises and is who/what you are at the deepest level. So learning of the three faces of the triple goddess in their individual forms is all by and by unless you also learn of the unity that unites all three. ie. that they are three but also that they are one.
