posted November 10, 2011 10:15 PM            

I'm out of sorts right now...
things don't make much sense..
senseless. ...

I feel I'm wasting my time
here!

posted November 11, 2011 03:56 PM            

we need to bring some
fun back in here!

Learning and Growing
Laughing and Giggling!

Little Girl Lost...

posted November 11, 2011 08:18 PM            

Upper Paleolithic, Venus von Willendorf, estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BCEMother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.

Many different goddesses have represented motherhood in one way or another, and some have been associated with the birth of humanity as a whole. Others have represented the fertility of the earth.

Contents
1 Old Europe model
2 Paleolithic figures
3 Neolithic figures
4 Deity examples
4.1 Egyptian
4.2 Indigenous people of the Americas
4.3 In Aztec mythology
4.4 Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and Greek
4.5 Anatolia – Çatalhöyük
4.6 Cucuteni-Trypillian culture
4.7 Greek
4.8 Roman
4.9 Celtic
4.10 Germanic
4.11 Turkic Siberians
5 Hinduism
5.1 Shaktism
6 Christianity
6.1 Depictions in the Church
6.2 Blessed Virgin Mary
6.3 Sophia
6.4 Mormonism
7 Neopaganism
8 Earth Mother
8.1 In various cultures
9 In fiction
10 See also
10.1 Figures
10.2 Other
11 Notes
12 Further reading
13 External links

[edit] Old Europe modelJames Frazer (author of The Golden Bough) and those he influenced (such as Robert Graves and Marija Gimbutas) advance the theory that all worship in Europe and the Aegean that involved any kind of mother goddess had originated in Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies, and that their diverse goddesses were equivalent to or derived from that concept. Gimbutas argued that the all images of motherhood from the period represented a universal conception of motherhood.

Although the type described by Gimbutas has been well accepted as a useful category for mythography, the idea that all such goddesses were believed in ancient times to be interchangeable was countered in 1968 by the archaeologist Peter Ucko, who proposed instead that the many images found in graves and archaeological sites of these ancient cultures were toys.[1]

[edit] Paleolithic figures
The Venus of Dolní Věstonice, one of the earliest known depictions of the human body, dates to approximately 29,000–25,000 BC (Gravettian culture of the Upper Paleolithic era)Several small, corpulent figures have been found during archaeological excavations of the Upper Paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf, perhaps, being the most famous.[2] It is estimated to have been carved 24,000–22,000 BCE. Some archaeologists believe they were intended to represent goddesses, while others believe that they could have served some other purpose. These figurines predate the available records of the goddesses listed below as examples by many thousands of years, so although they seem to conform to the same generic type, it is not clear whether they, indeed, were representations of a goddess or that, if they are, there was any continuity of religion that connects them with Middle Eastern and Classical deities.

The Paleolithic period extends from 2.5 million years ago to the introduction of agriculture around 10,000 BCE. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans migrated to the Western Hemisphere before the end of the Paleolithic. It is the prehistoric era distinguished by the development of stone tools, and covers the greatest portion of humanity's time on Earth.

[edit] Neolithic figures This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010)

Diverse images of what are believed to be Mother Goddesses also have been discovered that date from the Neolithic period, the New Stone Age, which ranges from approximately 10,000 BCE when the use of wild cereals led to the beginning of farming, and eventually, to agriculture. The end of this Neolithic period is characterized by the introduction of metal tools as the skill appeared to spread from one culture to another, or arise independently as a new phase in an existing tool culture, and eventually became widespread among humans. Regional differences in the development of this stage of tool development are quite varied. In other parts of the world, such as Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, independent domestication events led to their own patterns of development, while distinctive Neolithic cultures arose independently in Europe and Southwest Asia. During this time, native cultures appear in the Western Hemisphere, arising out of older traditions that were carried during migration. Regular seasonal occupation or permanent settlements begin to be seen in excavations. Herding and keeping of cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs is evidenced along with the presence of dogs. Almost without exception, images of what are interpreted as Mother Goddesses have been discovered in all of these cultures.

[edit] Deity examplesMany ancient cultures worshiped female deities who match the modern conception of a "mother goddess".

[edit] Egyptian
Dendera Temple, showing Hathor on the capitals of a column
Statuette of Mut, mother, often interpreted as representing one of the earliest mother goddesses of Egypt
Roman View of IsisMother goddesses are present in the earliest images discovered among the archaeological finds in Ancient Egypt. An association with animals seen as good mothers—the lioness, cow, hippopotamus, white vulture, cobra, scorpion, and cat—as well as the life-giving primordial waters, the sun, and the night sky and the earth herself—is drawn to the early goddesses of Egypt.

Even through the transition to a paired pantheon of male deities matched or "married" to each goddess, reached a later male deity dominated pantheon that arose much later, the mother goddesses persisted into historical times (such as Hathor and Isis). Advice from the oracles associated with these goddesses guided the rulers of Egypt.

The image of Isis nursing her son was worshiped into the sixth century A.D. and has been resurrected by contemporary "cults" of an Earth Mother.

A figure often interpreted as a depiction of a mother goddess from Samarra, ca 6000 BCE (Louvre Museum)[edit] Indigenous people of the Americas
PachamamaThe indigenous peoples of the Andes worship the fertility goddess Pachamama. In Inca mythology, Pachamama presides over planting and harvesting and causes earthquakes. After conquest by Catholic Spain her image was masked by the Virgin Mary, behind whom she is invoked and worshiped in the Aboriginal ritual in some parts of Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru.[3] The religion centered in the Pachamama is practiced currently in parallel form to Christianity, to the point that many families are simultaneously Christian and pachamamistas.[4] Pachamama is sometimes syncretized the Virgin of Candelaria.[5]

The Hopi people of North America (Turtle Island), Arizona, USA, refer to the Earth as Tuuwaqatsi-Earth Mother. According to the knowledge they have carefully preserved down the ages, the Earth is our "Land and our Life," which is remembered in their first law: Tutskwa I'qatsi - Land and Life are one. The Goddess-Earth has a male counterpart representing the inner life or core of the Earth. This inner life/soul/mind/womb is sometimes referred to as Maski, or spirit-home, the place people go following death. This place is sometimes referred to as the "underworld."

[edit] In Aztec mythologyIn Aztec mythology, Toci is the "Mother of the Gods". She is often associated with Tlazolteotl, a central Mesoamerican goddess of both purification and filth, healing, and midwifery.

[edit] Sumerian, Mesopotamian, and GreekNinsun is the Mother Goddess in general Mesopotamian mythology, Asherah in Canaan and `Ashtart in Syria. The Sumerians wrote erotic poetry about their mother goddess Ninhursag.[6] In Greece she is Gaia; a Homeric Hymn (7-6 century BC) is dedicated to "Gaia, Mother of All".

[edit] Anatolia – ÇatalhöyükIn Anatolia, the Neolithic settlement from 7500 BC, Çatalhöyük, was at first thought to have provided evidence of worship of a mother goddess. A striking feature of Çatalhöyük are its female figurines. James Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these well-formed, carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity of the Great Goddess type. Although a male deity existed as well, “…statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover, does not appear to be represented at all after Level VI”.[7] To date, eighteen levels have been identified. These careful figurines were found primarily in areas Mellaart believed to be shrines. One, however – a stately goddess seated on a throne flanked by two female lions – was found in a grain bin, which Mellaart suggests might have been a means of ensuring the harvest or protecting the food supply.[8]

Whereas Mellaart excavated nearly two hundred buildings in four seasons, the current excavator, Ian Hodder, spent an entire season excavating one building alone.[9] Hodder and his team, in 2004 and 2005, began to believe that the patterns suggested by Mellaart were false. They found one similar figurine, but the vast majority did not imitate the Mother Goddess style that Mellaart suggested. Instead of a Mother Goddess culture, Hodder points out that the site gives little indication of a matriarchy or patriarchy. <needs citation>

"There are full breasts on which the hands rest, and the stomach is extended in the central part... As one turns the figurine around one notices that the arms are very thin, and then on the back of the figurine one sees a depiction of either a skeleton or the bones of a very thin and depleted human. The ribs and vertebrae are clear, as are the scapulae and the main pelvic bones... [T]his is a unique piece that may force us to change our views of the nature of Catalhoyuk society and imagery."[10]
In an article in the Turkish Daily News Hodder is reported as denying that Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society and quoted as saying "When we look at what they eat and drink and at their social statues, we see that men and women had the same social status. There was a balance of power. Another example is the skulls found. If one's social status was of high importance in Çatalhöyük, the body and head were separated after death. The number of female and male skulls found during the excavations is almost equal."[11]

In a report in September 2009 on the discovery of around 2000 figurines Hodder is quoted as saying:

“Çatalhöyük was excavated in the 1960s in a methodical way, but not using the full range of natural science techniques that are available to us today. Sir James Mellaart who excavated the site in the 1960s came up with all sorts of ideas about the way the site was organised and how it was lived in and so on,” he said. “We’ve now started working there since the mid 1990s and come up with very different ideas about the site. One of the most obvious examples of that is that Çatalhöyük is perhaps best known for the idea of the mother goddess. But our work more recently has tended to show that in fact there is very little evidence of a mother goddess and very little evidence of some sort of female-based matriarchy. That’s just one of the many myths that the modern scientific work is undermining.”[12]

Another archaeologist, Lynn Meskell, explained that while the original excavations had found only 200 figures, the new excavations had uncovered 2000 figurines of which most were animals, with less than 5% of the figurines women.[12]

[edit] Cucuteni-Trypillian cultureFrom 5500 to 2750 BC the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture flourished in the region of modern-day Romania, Moldova, and southwestern Ukraine, leaving behind ruins of settlements of up to 15,000 residents who practiced agriculture, domesticated livestock, and many ceramic remains of pottery and clay figurines. Some of these figurines appear to represent the mother goddess (see images in this article).

[edit] Greek
Cybele
Rhea
JunoIn the Aegean, Anatolian, and ancient Near Eastern culture zones, a mother goddess was worshipped in the forms of Cybele (revered in Rome as Magna Mater, the 'Great Mother'), of Gaia, and of Rhea.

Gaia is a primordial deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess.

The Olympian goddesses of classical Greece had many characters with mother goddess attributes, including Hera and Demeter.[13]

The Minoan goddess represented in seals and other remains many of whose attributes were later also absorbed by Artemis, seems to have been a mother goddess type, for in some representations she suckles the animals that she holds.

The archaic local goddess worshiped at Ephesus, whose cult statue was adorned with necklaces and stomachers hung with rounded protuberances[14] who was later also identified by Hellenes with Artemis, was probably also a mother goddess.

The Anna Perenna Festival of the Greeks and Romans for the New Year, around March 15, near the Vernal Equinox, may have been a mother goddess festival. Since the Sun is considered the source of life and food, this festival was also equated with the Mother Goddess.

[edit] RomanGaia's equivalent in the Roman mythology was Terra Mater or Tellus Mater, sometimes worshiped in association with Demeter's Roman equivalent, Ceres, goddess of grain, agriculture and fertility, and mothering.[15]

Venus (Greek Aphrodite's equivalent), was mother of the Trojan Aeneas and ancestor of Romulus, Rome's mythical founder. In effect, she was the mother of Rome itself, and various Romans, including Julius Caesar, claimed her favour. In this capacity she was given cult as Venus Genetrix (Ancestor Venus). She was eventually included among the many manifestations of a syncretised Magna Dea (Great Goddess), who could be manifested as any goddess at the head of a pantheon, such as Juno or Minerva, or a goddess worshipped monotheistically.

[edit] CelticThe Irish goddess Anu, sometimes known as Danu, has an impact as a mother goddess, judging from the Dá Chích Anann near Killarney, County Kerry. Irish literature names the last and most favored generation of deities as "the people of Danu" (Tuatha De Danann). The Welsh have a similar figure called Dôn who is often equated with Danu and identified as a mother goddess. Sources for this character date from the Christian period however so she is referred to simply as a mother of heroes in the Mabinogion. The character's (assumed) origins as a goddess are obscured.

The Celts of Gaul worshipped a goddess known as Dea Matrona ("divine mother goddess") who was associated with the Marne River. Similar figures known as the Matres (Latin for "mothers") are found on altars in Celtic as well as Germanic areas of Europe.

[edit] GermanicIn the 1st century BC, Tacitus recorded rites amongst the Germanic tribes focused on the goddess Nerthus, whom he calls Terra Mater, 'Mother Earth'. Prominent in these rites was the procession of the goddess in a wheeled vehicle through the countryside. Among the seven or eight tribes said to worship her, Tacitus lists the Anglii and the Longobardi.[16]

Among the later Anglo-Saxons, a Christianized charm known as Æcerbot survives from records from the 10th century. The charm involves a procession through the fields while calling upon the Christian God for a good harvest, invokes 'eorþan modor' (Earth Mother) and 'folde, fira modor,' (Earth, mother of men).

In skaldic poetry, the kenning "Odin's wife" is a common designation for the Earth. Bynames of the Earth in Icelandic poetry include Jörð, Fjörgyn, Hlóðyn and Hlín. Hlín is used as a byname of both Jörð and Frigg. Fjörgynn (a masculine form of Fjörgyn) is said to be Frigg's father, while the name Hlóðyn is most commonly linked to Frau Holle, as well as to a goddess, Hludana, whose name is found etched in several votive inscriptions from the Roman era.[17]

Connections have been proposed between the figure of Nerthus and various figures (particularly figures counted amongst the Vanir) recorded in 13th century Icelandic records of Norse mythology, including Frigg. Due to potential etymological connections, the Norse god Njörðr has been proposed as the consort of Nerthus.[18] In the Poetic Edda poem Lokasenna, Njörðr is said to have fathered his famous children by his own sister. This sister remains unnamed.

Due to specific terms used to describe the figure of Grendel's mother from the poem Beowulf, some scholars have proposed that the figure of Grendel's mother, like the poem itself, may have derived from earlier traditions originating from Germanic paganism.

[edit] Turkic SiberiansYer Tanrı is the mother of Umai, also known as Ymai or Mai, the mother goddess of the Turkic Siberians. She is depicted as having sixty golden tresses, that resemble the rays of the sun. She is thought to have once been identical with Ot of the Mongols.

[edit] Hinduism
Goddess Durga is seen as the supreme mother goddess by some HindusIn Hinduism, Durga represents the empowering and protective nature of motherhood. From her forehead sprang Kali, who defeated Durga's enemy, Mahishasura). The divine Mother, Devi Adi parashakti, manifests herself in various forms, representing the universal creative force. She also gives rise to [Maya (illusion)|Maya]] (the illusory world) and to prakriti, the force that galvanizes the divine ground of existence into self-projection as the cosmos. The Earth itself is manifested by Parvati, Durga's previous incarnation. Hindu worship of the divine Mother can be traced back to early Vedic culture.

[edit] Shaktism
The Tridevi – the conjoined forms of Lakshmi , Parvati and Saraswati – considered Shaktis of the Trimurti- Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma respectivelyThe form of Hinduism known as Shaktism is strongly associated with Vedanta, Samkhya, and Tantra Hindu philosophies and is ultimately monist. The feminine energy, Shakti, is considered to be the motive force behind all action and existence in the phenomenal cosmos. The cosmos itself is Shiva, the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality that is the Divine Ground of all being, the "world soul". Masculine potential is actualized by feminine dynamism, embodied in multitudinous goddesses who are ultimately reconciled in one. Mother Maya, Shakti, herself, can free the individual from demons of ego, ignorance, and desire that bind the soul in maya (illusion). Practitioners of the Tantric tradition focus on Shakti to free themselves from the cycle of karma.

[edit] Christianity[edit] Depictions in the Church
Sheela na Gig at SS Mary and David's Church, Kilpeck, EnglandThe Normans had a major influence on English Romanesque architecture when they built a large numbers of Christian monasteries, abbeys, churches and cathedrals. These Romanesque styles originated in Normandy and became widespread in north western Europe, particularly in England, which has the largest number of surviving examples.

Sheela na Gig is a common stone carving found in Romanesque Christian churches scattered throughout Europe. The figures are found in Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium and in the Czech Republic. Their meaning is not clearly identifiable as Christian, and may be a concept that survived from ancient forms of yoni worship and sacred prostitution practiced in the goddess temples. Other common motifs on Christian churches of the same time period are spirals and ouroboros or dragons swallowing their tails, which is a reference to rebirth and regeneration, a concept well known in pantheism. Other creatures including the succubus make an appearance in the sculptural reliefs of the church that have a long history in the oral tradition of previous civilizations that preceded Christianity.

[edit] Blessed Virgin MaryMain articles: Theotokos, Queen of Heaven, and Blessed Virgin Mary (Roman Catholic)
Some Christians regard the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Theotokos (or Mother of God) for many believers, as a "spiritual mother," since she not only fulfills a maternal role, but is often viewed as a protective and intercessory force, a divinely established mediator for humanity, but she is not worshiped as a divine "mother goddess". The Roman Catholic, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox, and Eastern Orthodox churches identify "the woman" described in Revelation 12 as the Virgin Mary because in verse 5 this woman is said to have given "birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod" whom they identify as Jesus Christ. Then, in verse 17 of Revelation 12, the Bible describes "the rest of her offspring" as "those who keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus." These Christians believe themselves to be the other "offspring" because they try to "keep God's commandments and bear witness to Jesus," and thus they embrace Mary as their "mother". They also cite John 19:26–27 where Jesus entrusts his mother to the Apostle John as evidence that Mary is the mother of all Christians, taking the command "behold your mother" to apply generally.

In 300 A.D., the Blessed Virgin Mary was worshipped as a Mother Goddess in the Christian sect Collyridianism, which was found throughout Saudi Arabia. Collyridianism was made up mostly of women followers and female priests. Followers of Collyridianism were known to make bread and wheat offerings to the Virgin Mary, along with other sacrificial practices. The cult was heavily condemned as heretical and schismatic by the Roman Catholic Church and was preached against by Epiphanius of Salamis, who exposed the group in his recollective writings titled Panarion.

As motherhood is a common recurring concept in all religions, The Blessed Virgin Mary receives many titles in the Roman Catholic Church, such as Queen of Heaven and Star of the Sea, that are familiar from earlier Near Eastern traditions. Due to this correlation, some Protestants often accuse Catholics of viewing Mary as a goddess, but the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox churches always has condemned "worship as adoration" of the Virgin Mary. Part of this accusation is due to the Catholic practice of prayer as a means of communication rather than as a means of worship. Catholics believe that the dead who followed their God, have eternal life and can hear prayers in heaven from people here on earth. Concepts of Mother Goddess worshipped is heavily condemned by the Holy See as it had been suppressed and condemned among the Collyridianism sect in 300 A.D.

[edit] SophiaMain article: Sophia (wisdom)
The Bible refers to the personified Heavenly Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) in feminine terms. Sophia is venerated as the Virgin Sophia in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy, as well as in Christian Mysticism.

In many languages, such as Syriac, the word translated "spirit" takes the feminine gender. In early Christian literature in these languages, the Holy Spirit is therefore discussed in feminine terms, especially before c. A.D. 400.[19]

Traditionally, God is referred to by masculine titles and pronouns in Christianity, but the Bible occasionally does use feminine and maternal imagery in describing God. Christian beliefs about God and gender in Christianity vary widely. Most modern denominations officially teach that God transcends gender, but still use almost exclusively masculine language to refer to God; some officially discourage the use of feminine language, either on grounds of tradition or because they regard God as masculine in some important metaphorical way. However, some denominations including the United Church of Christ accept or even encourage language that sometimes describes God in feminine terms.

[edit] MormonismMain article: Heavenly Mother (Mormonism)
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe in, but do not worship, a Heavenly Mother, the wife and female counterpart—and equal of the Heavenly Father.[20] This belief is not emphasized, however, and adherents pray to the "Father in Heaven."

[edit] NeopaganismFurther information: Goddess (Wicca)
The Mother Goddess, amalgamated and combined with various feminine figures from world cultures of both the past and present, is worshipped by modern Wicca and others (see Triple Goddess). The mother goddess is usually viewed as Mother Earth by these groups. More broadly, She is worshipped as Mother Nature, the Creatress of all life.

Wicca and some other Neo-Pagans worship the Mother Goddess. Most commonly she is worshiped as a Triple Goddess; usually envisioned as the Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes. She is associated with the full moon and stars, as well as the Earth and sea. Many ancient Pagan religions had mother goddesses; it has been argued that the figure of Mary the mother of Jesus is patterned on these.

The term "Great Goddess" refers to a mother goddess in some contemporary Neopagan and Wiccan religions.

Even among those who are not Pagan, expressions such as Mother Earth and Mother Nature are in common usage, personifying the Earth's ecology as a fertile and sustaining mother.

Nature and Her Followers by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, c. 1615[edit] Earth MotherThe Earth Mother is a motif that appears in many mythologies. The Earth Mother is a fertile goddess embodying the fertile earth and typically the mother of other deities, and so, also are seen as patronesses of motherhood. This is generally thought of as being because the earth was seen as being the mother from whom all life sprang.

The Rigveda calls the Female power, Mahimata (R.V. 1.164.33), a term which literally means Great Mother.

In South America, contemporary Andean Indian peoples like Quechua and aymara believe in the Mother Earth Pachamama, whose worship cult is found in rural areas and towns at Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Northern Chile and Northwestern Argentina. Andean migrants carried the Pachamama cult to cities and many other extra-Andean places, including the Metropolitan Buenos Aires.

[edit] In various culturesThe idea that the fertile earth itself is female, nurturing mankind, was not limited to the Greco-Roman world. These traditions themselves were greatly influenced by earlier cultures in the ancient Middle East.In Sumerian mythology Ki is the earth goddess.In Akkadian orthography she has the syllabic values gi,ge,qi,qe (for toponyms).Some scholars identify her with Ninhursag (lady of the mountains),the earth and fertility Mother Goddess,who had the surnames Nintu (lady of birth), Mamma and Aruru.[21] The relevant Egyptian earth and fertility god Geb was male and he was considered as father of all snakes. The title "The mother of life" was later given to the Akkadian Goddess Kubau, and hence to Hurrian Hepa, emerging as Hebrew Eve (Heva) and Phygian Kubala (Cybele). In Norse mythology the earth is personified as Jörð, Hlöðyn, and Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn. In Germanic paganism, the Earth Goddess is referred to as Nertha.[22] The Irish Celts worshipped Danu, whilst the Welsh Celts worshipped Dôn. Hints of their names occur throughout Europe, such as the Don river, the Danube River, the Dnestr and Dnepr, suggest that they stemmed from an ancient Proto-Indo-European goddess.[23] In Lithuanian mythology Gaia - Žemė (Lithuanian for "Earth") is daughter of Sun and Moon. Also she is wife of Dangus (Lithuanian for "Sky") (Varuna). In Pacific cultures, the Earth Mother was known under as many names and with as many attributes as cultures who revered her, such as the Māori, whose creation myth included Papatuanuku, partner to Ranginui, the Sky Father. In South America in the Andes a cult of the Pachamama still survives (in regions of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile). The name comes from Pacha (Quechua for change, epoch) and Mama (mother). While ancient Mexican cultures referred to Mother Earth as Tonantzin Tlalli that means "Revered Mother Earth".

In Hinduism, the Mother of all creation is called "Gayatri". Gayatri is the name of one of the most important Vedic hymns consisting of twenty-four syllables. One of the sacred texts says, "The Gayatri is Brahma, Gayatri is Vishnu, Gayatri is Shiva, the Gayatri is Vedas" Gayatri later came to be personified as a Goddess. She is shown as having five heads and is usually seated within a lotus. The four heads of Gayatri represent the four Vedas and the fifth one represents almighty God. In her ten hands, she holds all the symbols of Lord Vishnu. She is another consort of Lord Brahma.

In Hinduism and Buddhism the specific local indwelling mother deity of Earth (as opposed to the mother deity of all creation) is called Bhūmi. Gautama Buddha called upon Bhumi as his witness when he achieved Enlightenment.

Phra Mae Thorani is recognized as the Goddess of the earth in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries.

Only in Egyptian Mythology is the reverse true - Geb is the Earth Father while Nut is the Sky Mother.

In Mormonism, the Earth Goddess is called the Earth Spirit and according to Mormon theologian John A. Widstoe the Earth is a living being ensouled by the "Earth Spirit" and Widstoe states that in the Pearl of Great Price, the "Earth Spirit" is the being that spoke to Moses.[24]

In Theosophy, the Earth Goddess is called the "Planetary Logos of Earth".

In Wicca, the Earth Goddess is called Gaia. [25]

Carl Gustav Jung suggested that the archetypal mother was a part of the collective unconscious of all humans, and various Jungian students, e.g. Erich Neumann and Ernst Whitmont have argued that such mother imagery underpins many mythologies, and precedes the image of the paternal "father", in such religious systems. Such speculations help explain the universality of such mother goddess imagery around the world.

The Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines have been sometimes explained as depictions of an Earth Goddess similar to Gaia[26]

In Native American Indian storytelling, "The Earth Goddess" is one of several Creator-based titles and names given to the Spider Grandmother.

[edit] In fictionIn Gore Vidal's ironic dystopia "Messiah", a new death-worshipping religion sweeps the world and wipes out Christianity. Yet at the conclusion of the book, a woman named Iris, who was among the new religion's founders, starts to be worshipped as a new manifestation of the Mother Goddess, though there was no such concept when the religion was founded. Vidal's point was clearly to show that worship of the Mother Goddess is an immemorial institute and would find a manifestation within whatever religion emerges.

In Robert Graves' 1949 novel Seven Days in New Crete, a mother goddess is central to the religion of a quasi-matriarchal future society.

The Mother Goddess is referred to throughout the novel The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

In the 2009 movie Avatar, the indigenous species at the center of the drama, the Na'vi, worship a mother goddess called Eywa.

[edit] See also
A statue of Isis nursing Horus, housed in the Louvre[edit] FiguresAnanke
Aphrodite
Blessed Virgin Mary
Brigid
Cybele
Demeter
Devi
Durga
Eve
Freyja
Frigg
Gaia
Hathor
Hecate
Ishtar
Isis
Jord
Kali
Kamakhya
Laxmi
Mut
Nerthus
Ops
Pachamama
Potnia Theron
Radha
Rhea
Shakti
Tawaret
Triple Goddess
Yashoda
[edit] OtherBreast shaped hill
Çatalhöyük
Dodona
Father God
God (male deity)
God and gender
Goddess
Heavenly Mother
Goddess movement
Great Goddess, a disambiguation page
Great Mother, a disambiguation page
Mother
Petrosomatoglyph
Shitala Devi
Sky father
The Hebrew Goddess, by Raphael Patai
The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory
Thealogy
Venus figurines
When God Was a Woman, by Merlin Stone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess

posted November 11, 2011 08:44 PM            

The Great Sphinx, which stands guardian to the pyramids at Giza in Egypt, is as inscrutable as the Pyramids themselves. Keeping watch over the necropolis attributed to Khafre (alleged builder of the second pyramid), it gazes into the path of the rising sun in the east, and has done so for thousands of years.

Conventional wisdom states that this massive limestone beast - 240' long, 65' high and 46' wide - was built by Khafre around 4500 years ago, but many investigators of the more mystical and alternative history of Egypt claim it could be as much as 9000, or even 12,000, years old. The dating of the Sphinx has been a notorious hotbed of alternative speculation for years, since Professor Robert Schoch lent credence to the theory by stating categorically that it shows clear signs of water weathering - something which cannot possibly have happened in Egypt for at least 7000 years.

In their analysis of many ancient sites around the globe, alternative researchers such as Robert Bauval and Graham Hancock suggest that the Sphinx and Pyramids could be part of a lost civilisation dating to the 11th millennium BCE, with monuments being globally constructed in around 10,500BCE in honour of some kind of stellar cult, possibly a survival from sunken Atlantis. This is incredible stuff, whether true or not, and will certainly keep the archaeologists busy for the foreseeable future, attempting to find evidence to refute such claims.

What do we know categorically to be true about the Sphinx? We know that it is made of fairly soft limestone, and was, when originally built (whenever that was!), encased in tougher limestone blocks much as the Pyramids were. These in time were lost or stolen to build the houses of the growing city of Cairo.

The word 'sphinx' is Greek, and comes from the Egyptian word 'shespankh' meaning living statue. Its Arabic name is Abu el Hol, or Father of Terror. It is widely accepted as being a combination of lion's body and man's head, with many suggestions over the years as to whose head it might be. Khafre, say those who believe that Sphinx and Pyramids were built by the same man. Several studies have been undertaken to find the identity of the Sphinx, including comparisons with known statues of Khafre, and some leading archaeological figures and other specialists in anatomy have stated quite categorically that Khafre and the Sphinx are structurally incompatible - they cannot be the same face. Suffice it to say that, thanks to Science's control over what people read and learn, the assumption that its head sits on a lion's body has universally been accepted for centuries.

The history of the Sphinx is peppered with mysterious tales. The Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmoses IV (fl.c.1400-1390BCE) apparently had a dream in which the Sphinx appeared to him begging to be released from the sand which covered it. It was certainly neck deep in sand when Napoleon came to Egypt in 1798, and in 1925 the French archaeologist Émile Baraize had to clear away the sand in order to study the animal in all its finery.

Since then, weather, pollution and botched attempts at restoration have taken their toll on the beast, and it is not almost always covered in scaffolding. The fabled story of how the Sphinx lost its nose - that it was shot at during target practice by one of Napoleon's men - is utter myth. It is reported that a 14th century Mameluke took offence at it, and decided to wipe the 'pagan smile' from its face by hacking away its nose.

The so-called 'Sleeping Prophet', Edgar Cayce, prophesied that in the last decade of the 20th century a secret chamber would be discovered between the Sphinx's paws which would contain sacred scrolls from the long lost island of Atlantis. There is a chamber beneath the Sphinx whose purpose is as yet unknown, and the authorities are being very cagey about letting anyone near enough to speculate. Since 1999, most of the 'heretical' Egyptologists - Hancock, Bauval, Alan Alford et al - have reputedly been banned from even entering the country!

These then are the very few facts which pertain to this most mysterious of Egyptian symbols; what of the speculation which has been rife for thousands of years as to the identity and meaning of the guardian beast?

As stated above, it has been widely accepted for many centuries that the Sphinx is a human face atop a lion's body. This ties in nicely with Bauval and Hancock's ideas of a global community around 10,500BCE, as at this time the sun would have appeared in the east (the direction the Sphinx faces) in the constellation of Leo, the Lion. However, it should be noted that though Hancock subscribes to an earlier than accepted date for the Sphinx's building, Bauval merely speculates that it could have been designed around 10,500BCE, and not built until around 2500BCE, which is a far more acceptable date to most Egyptologists.

And of course if it was built at the time of the sun being in Leo, then it makes perfect sense for it to be modelled on a lion. But, despite the lion's reputation in our times as the king of the jungle, it will have been noted by even the stubbornest of archaeologists that there is no jungle, and indeed no indigenous lion population in Egypt, and that there is no particular reason why the lion should have been venerated to any especial degree in ancient times.

There are lion-like deities in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon, but these are to the best of my knowledge all female (making the Sphinx's Arabic name something of a misnomer!), and not of the kind of temperament that one would normally associate with a guardian. In her fierce form of Pasht, the cat goddess Bast is sometimes depicted as a lion, but the more familiar form of a lion is given to Sekhmet, the fearsome warrior daughter of the sun god Re who slaughters men to drink their blood, and to appease whom the custom began of sacrificing a member of the family over the crop fields at the time of sowing to ensure a bountiful harvest, free from Sekhmet's fierce and crop-withering gaze.

Now it doesn't take much imagination to see that such fierce cats would make singularly poor guardians of the dead. And who ever heard of a 'guard cat' anyway? It seems more logical to us now, and no doubt would also have done to the Egyptians of the past, to use a tamer, more passive animal to protect the bodies of their dead. Yes, you guessed it, a guard dog.

Now who out of the Egyptian deities best typifies this notion of a guard dog? Why, it's our old friend Anubis, jackal-headed god of mummification and the Underworld. In a move bound to upset the fragile balance of Egyptology even further, Alan Alford - fresh from distressing Biblical scholars - wrote a further tome in which he proclaimed the all too evident concept that the Sphinx is a representation of Anubis.

Let's just refresh our memories a bit here: Anubis the god of burial sites, the guardian of the Underworld, the vital link between the soul of the dead man and his eternal life in the realm of the dead, the god who sacrificed himself so that the slain and dismembered Osiris could be reborn as King of the Dead. Anubis who is most often to be found (in statuary) lying on his belly staring forwards into the middle distance! D'oh!

Anubis can be seen as the most important of the Egyptian deities. Re rose and fell out of favour with new developments in religion, Osiris and Isis became part of a holy family and were honoured by all for a time, but the one constant figure to whom all Egyptians looked at the point of their death was Anubis. For a society obsessed more with the life to come than the present life, being able to pass through the trials of death was vital, and as the guardian of the gates of the Underworld, Anubis was responsible for leading the dead man into the hall of Ma'at to receive divine judgement. He is seen in many temple inscriptions aiding Thoth and Ma'at in the Ceremony of the Weighing of the Heart, in which the dead man's purity of soul was tested.

If there is one certain thing in life, it is death - and at the point of death, Anubis was the guy you wanted on your side! Who better then to look after the many dead souls in the necropolis beneath the Pyramids? Anubis really is the best dog for the job! It is said that he was the son of the priestess/goddess Erishkigal in Ancient Mesopotamia, but since the Mesopotamian theocracy and priesthood were solely for women, he sought his fame elsewhere. He settled in Egypt, and quickly established himself as a vital link between the living and the dead, knowing as he did the secrets of mummification and rituals for the preservation of dead tissue.

In Egypt, this Cult of the Dead rose to pre-eminence early and maintained its hold over the popular imagination for centuries. The part he played in the mythical cycle of Osiris made him the ultimate protector and faithful servant of all those who are pure of heart; the perfect symbol of justice and honourable defence. It is said that Anubis even shed his own skin to wrap around the dismembered parts of Osiris to bring him back to life, thus sacrificing his own life for his King. For his loyalty he was rewarded with deification himself.

Anubis is not strictly speaking a dog, but nor is he really a jackal, though he is most often referred to as the jackal-headed god because of portrayals of him in ancient statuary and sacred texts. It is truer to say that it was the semi-wild dogs of Ancient Egypt that provided his birth as an Egyptian totemic deity. These dogs are certainly related to the jackal, but are not entirely the same species. Jackals are not particularly renowned for their care for humanity, but the dog, the domesticated form of proto-jackal and semi-wild dogs, certainly is. Anubis' position as divine guard dog becomes more established the more you look into this.

For the Sphinx to be a representation of Anubis certainly makes more cultural sense for Egypt, because of his role with protection and guidance after death, and because of his importance in the divine hierarchy. Lions, when they appear in Egyptian cultural references, tend to be a dualistic concept, and it must be said that there is no evidence of a second Sphinx being built on the Giza site to such a grand scale, something we would expect if it was supposed to be a lion. There are many sphinxes in Ancient Egyptian statuary, and almost always they will be found in pairs, lining the causeway to a temple, e.g. Karnak (ram-headed sphinxes).

If we return to the notion of a stellar cult, it will be remembered that the assumption of the Sphinx being a lion fits in well with the idea of an 11th millennium BCE culture, because of the rising sun in Leo. So if we now assume that the Sphinx is Anubis, how does this fit into the astrological scene?

As well as their obsession with death and the afterlife, the Egyptians were on a more practical level entirely dependent on the annual flooding of the Nile, without which the water could not reach the fields and crops could not grow nor animals be able to graze and fatten. It is perhaps telling in the light of all this 'doggie' talk that the Ancient Egyptians used the rising of one particular star to mark the point in the year when they knew the Nile was about to rise and provide sustenance for the land. And the modern name of that star? Of course, it is Sirius, the 'Dog Star'!

And when you consider also that the start of the Egyptian year was the period knows as Thoth, the association with Anubis and the Cult of the Dead becomes even more unavoidable. The astrological significance of the Nile floods, the rising of Sirius, and the complex divine hierarchy which developed in Ancient Egypt largely dictated the placement of towns along the river, many of which became cult centres to the worship of various animal totems. Whilst each centre might have its special figure - the Apis bulls, the cats of Bubastis etc - the presiding animal god was always Anubis.

Death and life were seen as intrinsically linked to the Ancient Egyptians, and Anubis' role - the part he played in the Osirian mythology, and his own part in the Thoth/Ma'at triumvirate - was that of the way to life through death.

So could the Sphinx at Giza really be Anubis? It gazes east into the rising sun, symbol of renewed light/life after the darkness of night/death; it supervises a vast necropolis; and protects the Pyramids, the ultimate symbols of Pharaonic power. Perhaps that 'pagan smile' the Mameluke lord wanted to destroy was really a long, dog-like muzzle, the last remaining evidence of Ancient Egypt's animalistic deism.

posted November 12, 2011 01:32 AM            

© By Robert Temple

There has never been a satisfactory answer to what the Sphinx actually is or was. Anyone who goes to Giza can see for himself or herself that there is something ‘wrong’ with the Sphinx. It only takes an instant. The body is gigantic and the head is just a pimple. The Egyptians never did anything like that, they were always meticulous about proportions in their art. So how is it that we have this monster with a tiny head sitting there in the sand, then?

There are several other things wrong with the Sphinx. They are:
* The back is flat. Who ever saw a lion with a flat back, no big chest, and no mane?
* The Sphinx is sitting in a deep hole in the ground. Why is that? Why is it not sitting somewhere high up so that it can show off?
* There is a ruined temple right in front of the Sphinx, with a wall practically up against its nose, and no door in that wall. Why obstruct the view of the Sphinx from the front like that? And if the temple was for worshipping the Sphinx, why is there no access from the temple to the Sphinx, so that you can’t even get to it?
* The pit in which the Sphinx sits seems to be deeply eroded, as if by flows of water. What caused all that? It looks as if water has poured down the sides. On the other hand, there are no such vertical erosion patterns on the Sphinx itself, which instead has clear horizontal erosion patterns. How can these two different patterns at right angles to each other be reconciled? And what could possibly have caused either of them?
None of this makes any sense if you think about it. Of course, many people don’t think. They just gawp and move on, their brains in neutral.
But when my wife Olivia and I first saw the Sphinx many years ago, we just stood there in astonishment and both agreed that the whole thing was wrong, wrong, wrong.
So now after many years of work, we think we have found some answers. Naturally, any new idea about anything that ‘everybody knows’ makes (1) conventionally thinking people enraged, and (2) makes anti-establishment people delighted. No prizes for guessing which side I’m on.
Let me first declare my position on what has become something of an entrenched notion amongst my fellow anti-Establishmentarians. I do not believe that the Sphinx is 12,500 years old. Nor do I believe in ‘ancient rain’.
I do believe that the Sphinx is older than conventionally believed. But I do not believe it is thousands of years older, or anything of that kind.
I do believe there is water erosion at the Sphinx site, but I do not believe it had anything to do with ‘ancient rain’, nor do I believe there was anything there to be eroded at the time any ‘ancient rain’ fell.
So what is the answer, then?

Sphinx Island & Moat

The water of the Nile in those days, at the time of inundation once a year (which no longer happens because of the Aswan dam), came right up to the edge of the Sphinx Temple, where there are even quays in front. So what I believe happened was that the water of the Nile was let into the Sphinx Pit, which I now call the Sphinx Moat, by some simple water-raising devices, led along the narrow channel between the Sphinx Temple and the Valley Temple (the two structures in front of the Sphinx), and its flow was controlled by a series of sluices and water gates. The signs of these sluices and gates, with their many bolt holes and so forth, no longer exist, because new stones and cement have been laid over them. But not to worry! I took plenty of photographs of them before they disappeared, and those are all reproduced in our book. Everyone can then see it all very clearly. The reason why the temple wall is in front of the Sphinx is to act as the fourth barrier to the water. The reason why there is no door in the wall is that it would have let the water out.
The horizontal erosion on the side of the Sphinx (where it is not covered by ‘restoration stones’) is because the Sphinx was sitting in the middle of a moat filled with water. The vertical erosion on the sides of the pit, especially the south side, is because of the continual dredging of the Moat due to the windblown sand accumulating there. Every time the Moat was dredged, water poured down in torrents onto the sides, leading to vertical erosion, accentuated by the natural cavities in the limestone bedrock.
So I think the Sphinx was, amongst other things, an island!
This immediately solves the puzzle of the evidence recorded by the fifth century BCE Greek historian Herodotus, who said that King Cheops let water in from the Nile to surround an island at Giza. Here it is!

Whose Head is on the Sphinx?

So we have got an island. Now what do we do with it? And why is King Cheops’s head the size of a pimple on the front of this large flat-backed lion, surrounded by water? What’s going on?
But wait! Who says that is King Cheops’s head? Some say it is King Chephren’s head, but if you have ever seen Chephren’s head on that huge statue in the Cairo Museum, you know they look nothing alike at all, since Chephren has a long face and the Sphinx has a round face, just for starters, and there’s plenty else that’s not the same too.
At this point of my wonderings, I began to feel really uncomfortable. I generally know when something doesn’t fit. I may not know what does fit, but I more often know what does not.
And that face is neither Cheops (not that we know what he really looked like anyway, as the only likeness of him that survives is a three inch-high ivory statuette, which could be your Uncle Tony or even your Auntie Madge for that matter) nor old Chephren Long-Face. So who is it?
It was at this point that I discovered one of those forgotten sources which keep falling into my lap, and in this case it was an article written by a German archaeologist named Ludwig Borchardt long before the Sphinx was excavated, when only its head and neck were sticking above the sand. Borchardt used to go and stand there and look at it. In those days, you could look the Sphinx in the eye and he wouldn’t even flinch, in fact he smiled back. Nowadays, he’s very stuck up, with his head high above us if we stand at his feet, so you can’t make out the details of his head all that well.
Borchardt got to thinking. He noticed that the Sphinx was wearing eye-paint stripes (no comment, pharaohs have the right to do what they like as consenting adults in the privacy of their own Sphinx Pits), and he knew that those were not worn in the period known as the Old Kingdom, when Cheops and Chephren lived. He noticed the details of the stripe patterns in the strange headdress worn by the Sphinx. The face had to be that of a pharaoh, since this headdress was the sacred religious headdress of the pharaoh known as a nemes. But Borchardt, who was head of the German Institute at Cairo and therefore knew a thing or two, realised that those stripe patterns were also not used in the Old Kingdom.
He started to do some research on nemesheaddresses, and he discovered that those particular stripe patterns were only used in the Middle Kingdom period, hundreds of years later than Cheops and Chephren. He wrote this all up in technical form and published it in a distinguished scholarly periodical (in German of course, but I have translated it and it appears as an appendix to our book), and concluded that the Sphinx had been carved in the Middle Kingdom Period, not in the Old Kingdom period.
But everybody laughed at poor old Borchardt. Who ever heard of such a thing? The Middle Kingdom! Borchardt must have gone crazy! And then the Sphinx was excavated in 1926, and finally completely excavated in 1936, and it was perfectly clear to everyone that the Sphinx was much older than the Middle Kingdom. But everybody forgot that Borchardt had never seen the Sphinx’s body at the time he wrote the article, he was only talking about the head.
So I have reopened the case and concluded that the head was recarved in the Middle Kingdom, just as Borchardt said, and what is more, I believe I can even identify precisely which pharaoh’s face that is. Of course, to find that out, you really need to see the book.
However, it is all very well identifying the face on the Sphinx. Some people might be satisfied just doing that. But no, it’s like watching a film noir without knowing the ending. Even if you know whodunnit, you still want to know the motive.

“Everybody knows” Herd Mentality

So what was the Sphinx before it had that guy’s face carved on it? Well, to figure that one out you have to try to figure out what the Sphinx was before that pharaoh got his chisels on it. This draws one’s attention to the flat back. “Everybody knows” that the Sphinx has the body of a lion. As soon as I hear that “everybody knows” something, I know that it must be wrong. I have a pathologically anti-herd mentality. All you have to do is tell me “everybody knows” something, and I will instantly disbelieve it. That is because crowds are always wrong. Crowds have about as much sense as a mollusc.
I started from the premise that the Sphinx was not a lion at all. Millions of people see it every year, from all over the world, and they all “know” that it is a lion. So that means that it cannot possibly be one. They “know” it is a lion because they have been told that it is a lion. The Germans were told that Hitler was their saviour and so they “knew” it, the Russians all “knew” that Stalin was like a gentle father, who would look after them. Yes, everybody, or at least everybody they knew, “knew” these things. And people also all once “knew” that the Earth was flat, and that the Sun went round the Earth. Those things were all “known.” But were they true?
If it wasn’t a lion, what was it? Well, it had to be an animal with a straight back, with no huge chest, and no mane. It also had to be an animal that crouched like that with its legs stuck out in front of it. (There is no use looking too closely at the paws, as they are completely covered in restoration stones, and have been shaped to look like “what everybody knows,” in order to re-confirm the consensus falsehood which everybody has agreed to believe in.)

Anubis – Guardian of the Necropolis

The Sphinx is crouching there at the entrance to the Necropolis like a guardian. Well, there it is! It is a guard dog! The ancient Egyptians had a god called Anubis, who was a crouching wild dog, generally referred to as a jackal (although strictly speaking there were no jackals in Egypt, and Anubis was really a wild dog species which is now extinct). Anubis was the guardian of the Necropolis, the guardian of the dead, and he was often depicted in the precise position of the Sphinx – and famously in a statue found in the Tomb of Tutankhamun as well – so that his image is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an interest in ancient Egypt.
In Figure 1 I show the drawing I commissioned which shows how the recarved head of the Sphinx was carved out of the neck stump which remained on the Sphinx after the original statue was mutilated by the rampaging mobs who smashed up everything they could on the Giza Plateau during the period of chaos known as the First Intermediate Period, between 2200 and 2000 BCE.

It was the easiest thing in the world to knock the ears and nose off the Sphinx when the Sphinx was Anubis. You couldn’t put them back because the Sphinx was carved out of the solid bedrock, and the pieces must have been smashed to bits anyway. So the later exhibitionist pharaoh could even tell himself he was doing a pious act and ‘restoring’ the statue by flaunting himself, just as, say, Madonna helps the world, doesn’t she? Tom Cruise is also saving the world, remember? Yes, we all know that all celebrities are getting their pictures in the papers only for noble causes, and it has nothing to do with wanting people to look at them, or with such a low thing as vanity.
Speaking of movie stars, the Sphinx is now so botoxed and has had so much plastic surgery from crazy ‘restoration’ (which is all shown in great detail in our book) that he could easily get a lead part in a blockbuster. But his ‘nose job’ didn’t go so well, as it is still missing. It was hacked off in the 13th century by a fanatical imam named Sheikh Mohammed, who wished to purge Egypt of non-Islamic influences. He got as far as the nose, at least. (The story that the nose was shot off by Napoleon’s soldiers is false.)
So now we have a crouching Anubis as an island, surrounded by a little lake. And at last we have something which students of the ancient texts can suddenly recognise. For the most ancient surviving Egyptian texts, known as the Pyramid Texts, often speak of a sacred place associated with the Giza Necropolis called Jackal Lake. And here it is!
Now we are getting somewhere. It is all beginning to make sense. In our book we gather together the many ancient texts which refer to Anubis guarding the Necropolis, situated at Giza, being beside a causeway, and being very large. We also reproduce Fourth Dynasty Giza tomb reliefs showing a giant Anubis, which may be intended as actual depictions of the Sphinx.

Secret Chamber Beneath the Sphinx

Most people who are intrigued by Egyptian mysteries have been wondering for a long time whether there might be any secret chamber beneath the Sphinx. I have crawled around inside the Sphinx, and I describe the tunnel which exists in the rear portion of the Sphinx’s body, as well as the vertical tunnel carved out of the bedrock beneath the Sphinx’s rump, and reproduce photos of these. In Figure 2 you see a photo which Olivia took of me with my head sticking out of the Sphinx’s ass, which perhaps proves how well I know him.

Then an amazing thing happened. I came across a passage in one of the old books which I collect, in this case one published in 1715, which described a chamber beneath the Sphinx and gave an eyewitness account of it! I was astounded. The book referred to earlier accounts of this chamber, but neglected to say who had written them or when they had been published. Slight problem! How was I to find these books?
If you went into the British Library and told a librarian you needed a book published before 1715 which described a chamber beneath the Sphinx, you would be told to come back when you had the author’s name or the title of the book. All I had to go on was ‘a book mentioning the Sphinx before 1715’, so how did I do it?
That is where my special abilities come in, which enable me to obtain information which others seem not able to obtain. I am what you might call an information retrieval expert, and I do not need to know anything about the field in order to obtain its ‘concealed’ information. There is no such thing as concealed or destroyed information: it is all there in Information Space if you have access. Everyone knows about the emails which people think they have deleted from our computers, but which can be recovered by computer data recovery experts (as part of a criminal investigation, for instance). Well, there is a higher version of that, which enables all information which has ever existed in any material form to be accessed from the wholly non-material realm of Information Space.
Unfortunately, I have never met anyone who seems to be able to access this material methodically and systematically. Most human beings can access it in a feeble and flickering fashion, by means of what is called ‘intuition’ or ‘hunches’. Perhaps it is just as well that proper access to all this information is limited. After all, the purpose of our being here in the material world is to see how we cope without information. That is why people like myself find it so difficult to communicate what we know when we somehow, in a way we do not understand, acquire information from Information Space. It is mostly not intended for circulation, and maybe I should not even be doing it. When I reveal such information to people, they never believe me anyway, so I generally do not bother.
I cannot explain how I access it. I seem to ‘see through matter’ in some way which is difficult to describe, and I see the Information behind it on the other side. Matter becomes increasingly transparent to me every day anyway, and I no longer believe in it. On only one occasion was I so desperate that I ‘raped’ Information Space. That was when our beloved dog Kim was mistakenly locked in a room with a digital security code. Because she was old and ill and needed water, and might otherwise die before I could get someone with the code to come, I ‘accessed’ the numerical code, punched it in, the door opened, and I released her. I didn’t do it instantly. I first made two or three hysterical wrong attempts and wasted precious minutes through being over-stressed. I made myself try to remain calm and then got it right. This meant that I actually had to access the whole number of several digits, none of which was known to me. Really, we are not supposed to do this sort of thing, but my dog was more important to me than protocol.
Also important to me is a Larger Dog, the Sphinx! I feel almost as affectionate towards him as I did… well, no, that would not be fair to Kim. But I also like the Dog Star. In fact, I am a sucker for dogs, I really am. I am not a cat person, even though I am a great fan of the original version of the film ‘Cat People’ (1942). Watch it sometime! See my review of it on my website.
I was eventually able to find 281 years’ worth of published eyewitness accounts of the chamber beneath the Sphinx, including detailed information about exactly where it was, its size, and the fact that it contained the remains of a wooden coffin. Because the chamber was described as having hieroglyphics on the walls, I am certain that it was what archaeologists call ‘an intruded burial’, but it must have been a royal one, as a shaft was carefully constructed and a chamber cut in one of the most important monuments in Egypt, within the sacred precincts of the royal Necropolis. The shaft was sealed with cement by Émile Baraize in 1926. A century earlier, Henry Salt also sealed some openings and passages elsewhere at the Sphinx, and was sharply criticised for it by the French Count de Forbin. All of this is described in full detail in our book. So, yes, there is a ‘secret chamber’ beneath the Sphinx. And the information in our book proves this beyond all possibility of doubt. But no, it is not original and does not date from the time of the Sphinx’s carving. Also, it is empty, so there is no gold or treasure. But if we could just read what it says on the walls!
Another thing I was able to demonstrate is that the Sphinx and the three Giza pyramids were part of a single unified design concept of the Giza Plateau. The position and size of the Sphinx is determined precisely in relation to the three pyramids, in a manner never before noticed. This is shown and explained at great length in the book, and it is not really possible to summarise that material, as it is too lengthy and detailed for a brief description. I can say, however, that it was part of a resurrection cult. In the process of explaining this in detail, I even have occasion to explain the true nature of those bizarre reliefs in a crypt at Denderah which have excited a great deal of speculation, the ones with the ‘lightbulbs’, although they are 2,500 years more recent, and their only connection is through the symbolism.
I hope everybody will get a lot out of looking through our book, and, who knows, maybe even reading it. Stranger things have happened.
Oh yes, I almost forgot: ‘Woof! Woof!’

posted November 12, 2011 04:25 AM            

The word 'sphinx' is Greek, and comes from the Egyptian word 'shespankh' meaning living statue.

posted November 12, 2011 03:41 PM            

it's time for TRUTH!

posted November 13, 2011 04:31 PM            

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/anubis.htm

Anubis (Inpew, Yinepu, Anpu) was an ancient Egyptian god of the underworld who guided and protected the spirits of the dead. He was known as the 'Lord of the Hallowed Land' - the necropolis - and Khenty Amentiu, 'Foremost of the Westerners' - the Land of the Dead was thought to be to the west, where the Egyptians buried their dead. (Khenty Amentiu was the name of a previous canine deity who was superseded by Anubis.) The worship of Anubis was an ancient one - it was probably even older than the worship of Osiris. In the pyramid texts of Unas, his role was already very clear - he was associated with the Eye of Horus and he was already thought to be the guide of the dead in the afterlife, showing them the way to Osiris. In the text, it was written that "Unas standeth with the Spirits, get thee onwards, Anubis, into Amenti, onwards, onwards to Osiris."

He was generally depicted as a black jackal-headed man, or as a black jackal. The Egyptians would have noticed the jackals prowling around the graveyards, and so the link between the animal and the dead was formed in their minds. (It has been noticed by Flinders Petrie that the best guides to Egyptian tombs are the jackal-trails.) Anubis was painted black to further link him with the deceased - a body that has been embalmed became a pitch black color. Black was also the color of fertility, and thus linked to death and rebirth in the afterlife. Anubis was also seen as the deity of embalming, as well as a god of the dead. To the Egyptians, Anubis was the protector of embalming and guardian of both the mummy and the necropolis.

Anubis was often identified by the word sab, 'jackal' rather than 'dog' (iwiw). Though to the Egyptians there was not a great deal of difference between the two canines, so there is some confusion over which animal Anubis actually was. The animal is sometimes referred to as the 'Anubis animal' as it is unknown which exact species of canine that Anubis actually was based on.

When the Osiris worship came to power, Osiris took over many of Anubis' jobs as caretaker and protector of the dead. As this happened, Anubis became 'He Who is Before the Divine Booth', the god of embalming who presided over the funerary rituals. The funerary stm priests would wear a mask of the jackal god during the mummification process, symbolically becoming the god for the rituals.

The preliminary stages of mummification involved the opening - the violation - of the body, an action that only Anubis himself would have been allowed to perform. The priest who took on this role was called the 'Overseer of the Mysteries' (hery seshta). It was thought that he would be magically become the funerary god himself and so be able to legitimately cut open the corpse for the mummification process.

He is sometimes called the son of Nephthys and Set or of Nephthys and Osiris. In one train of thought, it was believed that Isis raised him, as Set might murder his wife's illegitimate son, and so he grew up a friend and follower of Osiris. He was thought to have a daughter known as Kebechet (Kabechet, Kebehut), who was depicted as a snake or ostrich carrying water. She was the goddess of freshness and purification through water who washed the entrails of the deceased and brought the sacred water to Anubis for his tasks. She was thought to give water to the spirits of the dead while they waited for the mummification process to be complete. She was probably related to mummification where she would fortify the body against corruption, so it would stay fresh for reanimation by the deceased's ka.

It was believed that Anubis was the one who invented the process of mummification. Anubis helped Isis bring her husband back to life again after Set had killed him. He embalmed the body of the god, swathed it in the linen cloths that had been woven by the twin goddesses, Isis and Nephthys, making sure that the body would never decay or rot.

The wakening of the dead was also thought to be a function of Anubis. He would appear by the mummy, and awaken the soul. The mummy was removed from the sarcophagus when it arrived at the door of the tomb and was placed upright against the wall by a priest wearing the mask of Anubis, thought to have become the god himself. The 'Opening of the Mouth' ceremony was then performed. It consisted of a number of rituals that would turn the mummy (or a statue of the dead) into an inhabitable vessel for the deceased's ka. The ceremonies involved purification, sensing and anointing of the mummy along with incantations. The mummy was touched by ritual objects on various body parts to restore the senses - the spirit would then be able to see, hear, speak and eat as a living being. Some of the tools for this ritual have been found in predynastic Amratian graves, so it is probable that at least some of the rituals involved in the 'Opening of the Mouth' had evolved from this early time.

After the deceased had been placed into the tomb and sealed up, it was thought that Anubis would lead the deceased to the afterlife, along with another god, Wepwawet (Upuaut). The two are very similar, though Wepwawet was also another ancient jackal or wolf god, appearing on the Narmer palette. He was not just a god of the dead, but he was a warrior god who opened the way to victory for the pharaoh. The 'Opener of the Ways' helped Anubis to guide the dead to the Halls of Ma'ati. It was here that Anubis, as 'He Who Counts the Hearts', watched over of the weighing of the heart and the judging of the deceased. Here it was his duty to see that the beam of the scales was in its proper place, and that the weighing was done correctly. He would then pass judgment on the deceased and Thoth would record the pronouncement. Anubis would protect the innocent from the jaws of Ammut, but would give the guilty to her to meet the final death.

According to E.A. Wallis Budge in The Gods of the Egyptians Anubis shared the duty of guiding the dead through the afterlife with another jackal-headed god ... "Opener of the Ways"). These two gods both "opened the ways", although Anubis was the opener of the roads of the North and Wapwawet the opener of the roads to the South. Budge goes on to say that Anubis was the personification of the summer solstice, and Wapwawet of the winter solstice.

A strange fetish, known as the imiut fetish, was linked to Anubis. It was a headless stuffed skin (usually of a great feline), tied by its tail to a pole which was planted in a pot. Known as the 'Son of the hesat-Cow' (the cow that produced the Mnevis bull was linked to the cow goddess Hesat), another title of Anubis, they is evidence of this fetish as early as the 1st Dynasty. They were linked to the funerary cult, depicted in the Chapel of Anubis at Hatshepsut's mortuary temple and actual golden fetishes being left in the tomb of Tutankhamen. These emblems of Anubis were placed at the western ends of the corridors, one on each side of the outermost shrine at Tutankhamen's tomb. The pots were made of Egyptian 'alabaster' and the poles represented the water lily water lily (lotus) stem and bud while the tip of the skin's tail had a papyrus flower attached and the pole and fetish itself were gilded. Other fetishes have been found made of real animal skin that have been wrapped in bandages. In early times there was a god, Imiut, who was known as 'He Who is in His Wrappings' who became a form of Anubis. The fetish was probably linked with mummy wrappings though it also appears to have been related to the royal jubilee festival.

Anubis the Dweller in the Mummy Chamber, Governor of the Divine House ... saith:- Homage to thee, thou happy one, lord! Thou seest the Utchat. Ptah-Seker hath bound thee up. Anubis hath exalted thee. Shu hath raised thee up, O Beautiful Face, thou governor of eternity. Thou hast thine eye, O scribe Nebseni, lord of fealty, and it is beautiful. Thy right eye is like the Sektet Boat, thy left eye is like the Atet Boat. Thine eyebrows are fair to see in the presence of the Company of the Gods. Thy brow is under the protection of Anubis, and thy head and face, O beautiful one, are before the holy Hawk. Thy fingers have been stablished by thy scribe's craft in the presence of the Lord of Khemenu, Thoth, who hath bestowed upon thee the knowledge of the speech of the holy books. Thy beard is beautiful in the sight of Ptah-Seker, and thou, O scribe Nebseni, thou lord of fealty, art beautiful before the Great Company of the Gods. The Great God looketh upon thee, and he leadeth thee along the path of happiness. Sepulchral meals are bestowed upon thee, and he overthroweth for thee thine enemies, setting them under thy feet in the presence of the Great Company of the Gods who dwell in the House of the Great Aged One which is in Anu.

-- The Speech of Anubis from the Papyrus of Nu and the Papyrus of Nebseni

To the east of Ankh-Tawy (Saqqara) there was a place known as Anubeion, one of Anubis' cult centers. The burials of mummified dogs and jackals took place there. Although he was worshiped all over Egypt, he had other cult centers at Abt, the 12th Nome, Zawty (Asyut) and the city of Hardai (Cynopolis) in the 17th Nome where a vast number of dog mummies were buried at dog cemeteries.

As protector of the necropolis, Anubis was known as 'He Who is Upon the Mountain'. The Egyptians believed that the god would keep watch over the tombs and graves from a high vantage point in the desert, ready to rush down to protect the deceased from desecration. Images of Anubis as a seated jackal above nine prisoners were stamped on many of the seals to tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They symbolize Anubis' protection against thieves and evil doers who entered the necropolis. He protected not only the souls of the dead, but their eternal resting place, too.

posted November 22, 2011 02:43 AM            

"we spoke on the phone of the hideous practice
of those who in-breed Dobermans

deliberately training them, as well as breeding them
to posses the killer instinct -- and to "go for the throat"
eventually causing them to even turn against their own masters

and breeding this carefully into ... their small
puppies
fat-tummy puppies

you told me this need not be so
for you once owned a Doberman yourself

a Dobermnan ? .. a snake ?

and you said you trained your Doberman
to be gentle and loving to smaller creatures
really .. to all creatures .. including humans

when I doubted this, you mailed me a polaroid photograph
of your Doberman .. a picture you took yourself
seated on his head were two pet pigeons
doves of peace
who were his best friends .. timid birds

sitting trustingly on the head

of a "vicious" Doberman

.. and tears stung in my eyes
when I looked at the photograph you sent

for I knew ..

you were trying to teach me
that anything -- or anyone -- like Anubis-Dobermans
can learn to love

if anything or anyone
is forgiven
even Set even Satan
even all of us
on Earth" Pages 842-843

posted November 27, 2011 11:26 PM            

For you and I are Silly Women...
Who dream the Impossible dream..
Which is Possible!

While Others joke, perhaps
the joke is on them

posted November 30, 2011 11:39 PM            

I'm not gonna be here..
so..
if you wish to contact me...

posted January 18, 2012 11:11 AM            

As protector of the necropolis, Anubis was known as 'He Who is Upon the Mountain'. The Egyptians believed that the god would keep watch over the tombs and graves from a high vantage point in the desert, ready to rush down to protect the deceased from desecration. Images of Anubis as a seated jackal above nine prisoners were stamped on many of the seals to tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They symbolize Anubis' protection against thieves and evil doers who entered the necropolis. He protected not only the souls of the dead, but their eternal resting place, too.

Images of Anubis as a seated jackal above nine prisoners

...ANUBIS
...156213 = 18 = 9
he is seated above 9 prisoners..
Who are they?

posted February 03, 2012 05:03 PM            

Gaia gives Cronus a great stone
sickle that she has created..
reminding me of the tarot card
Death, number 13. In numerology
it's Re-Generation and Change..
..which makes all the pieces fit,
in my mind...
Lord of the UnderWorld..
Hades,
and so on...

Earth is Hell, Tartarus... .

mind swirling
HELL
5533=16 The Tower
King and Queen falling off...

13 = 4 Uranus

Mother Earth Gaia
and Father Sky Uranus

are replaced by
Mother Earth Rhea-Isis
Father Time Cronus-Osiris

the next Hera and Zues ? ??

EARTH RHEA HERA

a new Era
age Golden

~~~~~~~~~~~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cronus

posted February 04, 2012 12:20 PM            

Where are you?

Love,
me

posted March 06, 2012 10:20 AM            

So, what do you think?

posted March 07, 2012 11:25 AM            

Also read the dragon is actually the sign of Capricorn.. the 10th sign.

posted March 07, 2012 12:15 PM            

hmmm, dragon with Capricorn
lightbulb!!!

you see, for Saturn and
Earth were paired up...
the planets work in pairs
on the wheel I have created..

for were they not all born
from the Sun's Fire Desire!?

13 is in your chart so well

and the black hole..
is it not the womb of the Universe?

will it give birth to a new Sun?

each an extention

getting closer

to the core

Center

so many layers

Onion

Orion

pointing to the center of
this Uni-Verse

Milky Way
above

Nile = Line
below

we made the Star Map
on the Earth
to show
The Way. ...

the missing sign... .

posted March 07, 2012 12:28 PM            

this channel might be of interest to you: http://www.youtube.com/user/AkashaAsun

I was reading 'the secret doctrine' she speaks plenty about the dragon. it is actually capricorn according to many texts. which compels me to conclude people with strong capricorn resonate with these qualities of the dragon. I have moon conjunct neptune exact in capricorn and I do see myelf as a 'dragon' because of my inclination towards truth. And also because I have always danced to the tune of my own music in life.