Further Explorations of the Word MA

Prior post on the topic: "Ma." Hola darlings! On this Good Friday, I'm going to write what Barbara Walker had to say about Maat in "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends": Maat Egyptian Goddess as personification of "Truth" or "Justice"; the original name based on the universal Indo-European mother-syllable meant simply "Mother." Maat's symbol was the feather against which she weighed each man's heart-soul (ab) in her underground Hall of Judgment. Thus the Plume of Maat itself became a hieroglyph for "truth."(1) The same feathers of Truth were worn by other aspects of the Goddess, such as Isis, who was the same lawgiving Mother. The gods themselves were constrained to "live by Maat." Her law governed all three worlds ruled by her trinity as "Lady of heaven, queen of the earth, and mistress of the underworld."(2) As the lawgiver of archaic Egypt, Maat was comparable to Babylonian Tiamat who gave the sacred tablets to the first king of gods. Maat's laws were notably benevolent, compared to the harsh commands of later patriarchal gods, backed up by savage threats like those of Deuteronomy 28:15-68. An Egyptian was expected to recite the famous Negative Confession in the presence of Maat and Thoth (or Anubis) to show he had obeyed Maat's rules of behavior: I have not been a man of anger. I have done no evil to mankind. I have not inflicted pain. I have made none to weep. I have done violence to no man. I have not done harm unto animals. I have not robbed the poor. I have not fouled water. I have not trampled fields. I have not behaved with insolence. I have not judged hastily. I have not stirred up strife. I have not made any man to commit murder for me. I have not insisted that excessive work be done for me daily. I have not borne false witness. I have not stolen land. I have not cheated in measuring the bushel. I have allowed no man to suffer hunger. I have not increased my wealth except with such things as are my own possessions. I have not seized wrongfully the property of others. I have not taken milk from the mouths of babes.(3) Those who lived by the laws of Maat took a sacramental drink, comparable to the Hindus' Soma or its Persian counterpart Haoma, which conferred ritual purity in the same sense as the Christian "washing in the blood of the Lamb." Egyptian scribes of the 3rd millenium B.C. wrote: "My inward parts have been washed in the liquor of Maat." Like baptismal water of life, Maat's potion brought life after-death to the peaceful, but death overtook violent persons.(4) Egyptian moral precepts were of a high order, many of them turning up centuries later in the Bible: Take heed not to rob the poor, and be not cruel to the destitute.... If thou canst answer the man who attacks thee, do him no injury. Let the evildoer alone; he will destroy himself. We must help the sinner, for may we not become like him?...Crusts of bread and a loving heart are better than rich food and contention.... Learn to be content with what thou hast. Treasure obtained by fraud will not stay with thee; thou hast it today, tomorrow it has departed.... The approval of man is better than riches.(5) Under the feudal disorders of the 12th dynasty [c. 1991 - 1783 BCE], old rules began to break down along with the matrilineal clan system that supported them, and educated Egyptians deplored the disruptions of society. A Heliopolitan priest wrote: "Maat is cast out, iniquity is in the midst of the council hall.... [T]he poor man has no strength to save hmself from him that is stronger than he."(6) Sometimes kinsman murdered kinsman, in violation of the clan's most sacred rule. One writer unfavorably compared his countrymen to the Maat-worshipping tribes of Nubia: "The Matoi, who are friendly towards Egypt, say: 'How could there be a man that would slay his brother?'"(7) Maat was more than a judge of the dead. She was a stand-in for all Egyptian Goddesses, including Hathor, Mut, Isis, Neith, Nekhbet, etc. The sun god was told: "The goddess Maat embraceth thee both at morn and at eve." As a birth-giver, she was sometimes Metet, the Morning Boat of the Sun, translated "becoming strong" and corresponding to the Greco-Roman mother of the dawn, Mater Matuta.(8) She was worshipped in lands other than Egypt. Northern Syria was called by the Hittites, Mat Hatti: that is, Mother of Hatti.(9) Egyptian priests drew the Feather of Maat on their tongues in green dye, to give their words a Logos-like power of Truth so their verbal magic could create reality.(1) Similarly in northern Europe the divine bard Bragi had this power because of the runes engraved on his tongue by the Goddess Idun. African Pygmies still know Maat by the name she bore in Sumeria as "womb" and "underworld": Matu. She was the first woman, and the mother of God. Like her Egyptian counterpart she was sometimes cat-headed.(11) Notes: (1) Budge, E.L., 68. (2) Budge, G.E 1, 418. (3) Budge, D.N., 254; Hallet, 411. (4) H. Smith, 49-51. (5) Budge, D.N., 258-60. (6) H. Smith, 50. (7) Erman, 43, 107. (8) Budge, G.E. 1, 323, 417. (9) Mendenhall, 157. (10) Seligmann, 39. (11) Hallet, 95. **************************************************************************** Wow! Where do I even start to comment? How about this: THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, the movie which I remember from earliest times watching every Easter Sunday, will be on commercial television TOMORROW NIGHT, instead of Sunday Night! Darlings, this is absolutely, positively the END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. Watching THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, with Charleton Heston as Moses, Anne Baxter as the best Neferteri I ever saw, and that incredibly sexy, magnetic Yul Brynner as Rameses, is a must see for everyone. Indeed, there's something in this movie for everyone, which is why so many people continue to watch it year after year. Anyway, tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. will find me comfortably ensconced in my recliner (yes, I have one - go suck Easter Eggs if you're laughing) with a large supply of Wine and Fritos close to hand, to once again watch the Grand Epic and laugh at Charleton Heston's really bad acting. But I have to give it to the man, he was a hunk back in his day. Whoa! From THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, we now turn to THE TEN COMMANDMENTS - the real ones (allegedly), which were passed to Moses by Yahweh himself. While I certainly believe that anyone and everyone can experience supernatural events/happenings/revelations, or whatever one wishes to call such an event, I do not believe how THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (I think they were originally referred to as THE TEN WORDS) mysteriously multipled whilst residing in the Ark of the Covenant and turned into several thousand burdensome and petty rules, governing the minutest part of life. As a consequence, the followers of Yahweh became a people of rules rather than what Yahweh intended them to be, a people guided by a short list of principles to live by. Rules come and go, but principles are forever. Perhaps this is a lesson we need to revisit these days in the USA. I am pretty sure that if we had been a people of principles rather than legalistic rules, the CRASH OF 2008 would not have happened. Well, be that as it may, anyone who reads Abovethelaw.com these days and who absolutely HATES lawyers or wannabe lawyers is laughing their butts off! If you thought Wall Street types were totally self-absorbed, you haven't yet been introduced to the world of the 3L. Goddess, to think that I was once in that world - but thank Goddess, I wasn't like that - Maat, I've got a positive negative confession to make! That's why I got the hell out of the profession after five years. Overall, I haven't regretted it, but I sure wish I could figure out a way to make a lot of money without selling my soul to SATAN. Ha! That's not gonna happen, darlings. And just as well. I think I have a Napoleonic Complex... So glad the Goddess thumped me on the head one day and said - ENOUGH! And, cutting things short here because I've been at work all day and it's nearly 8 PM and I'm hungry and I want to make a casserole and TOP MODEL is coming on, I am SO glad I finally know where that famous saying came from - about taking the milk out of the mouth of babes. We STILL use it today. WOW! Ancient Egypt - the Negative Confessions - the Goddess Maat! ROCK ON MAAT!

Our Lady of Kazan: Another Black Madonna

I read about this Marian icon of Kazan earlier this evening in Katherine Neville's "The Fire." This image is from Wikipedia - see entry below. She is one of the "black" Madonnas - so-called both because of the often dusky color of their skin (in some cases, after cleaning, attributed to the accumulation of generations of soot from candles burnt under the images) and because in many cases they were either excavated from underground ruins or were originally worshipped in underground caverns, perhaps due to Marian persecutions. A famous Black Madonna around these parts is "Our Lady of 'Chestakowa' (spelled phonetically), revered by generations of Polish Catholic immigrants - Milwaukee's south side was originally settled by Polish immigrants and the grand basilica of St. Josephat's on South 6th Street and West Lincoln Avenue stands as a testimony to their dedication to the Roman Catholic Church. There is a Roman Catholic Church on the corner of South 6th Street and West Mitchell Street (don't know the name), with a large mosaic representation of Our Lady of 'Chestakowa' on its south side, just around the corner from the main entranceway stairs. Here is information from Wikipedia on the Black Madonna of Kazan: Our Lady of Kazan, also called Theotokos of Kazan (Russian: Казанская Богоматерь), is a holy icon of the highest stature within the Russian Orthodox Church. It has been considered a palladium of Russia for centuries. Two major Kazan Cathedrals, in Moscow and in St Petersburg, are consecrated in her name, as are numerous churches throughout the land. Her feast days are July 21 and November 4, (which is also the Day of National Unity). The icon was credited by the Russian commanders - Dmitry Pozharsky and Mikhail Kutuzov - with helping the country to repel the Polish invasion of 1612, the Swedish invasion of 1709, and Napoleon's invasion of 1812. The icon was discovered on July 8, 1579, underground in the city of Kazan, after the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in a Marian apparition revealed its location to a little girl, Matrona. The original icon was kept in one of the monasteries in Kazan, whereas its ancient and venerated copies [my emphasis added] have been displayed at the Kazan Cathedral of Moscow, at Yaroslavl, and at St. Petersburg. In the night on June 29, 1904 the icon was stolen from a cathedral in Kazan where it had been kept for centuries. Thieves apparently coveted the icon's golden setting, which featured many jewels of highest value. When several years later Russian police finally apprehended the thieves and recovered the precious setting, they declared that the icon itself had been cut to pieces and burnt. The Orthodox church interpreted the disappearance of the icon as a sign of tragedies that would plague Russia after the Holy Protectress of Russia had been lost. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, there were plenty of theories speculating that the original icon was in fact preserved in St. Petersburg and later sold by the Bolsheviks abroad. Although such theories were not credited by the Russian Orthodox church, one of several reputed originals [this should be - copy] (dated by experts to ca. 1730) was acquired by the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima and enshrined in Fátima, Portugal in the 1970s. In 1993, the icon was given to Pope John Paul II, who took it to the Vatican and had it installed in his study, where it was venerated by him for eleven years. In his own words, "...it has found a home with me and has accompanied my daily service to the Church with its motherly gaze."[1] John Paul II wished to visit Moscow or Kazan in order to return the icon to the Russian Orthodox Church. When these efforts were blocked by the Moscow Patriarchate, the icon was presented to the Russian Church unconditionally in August 2004. On August 26, 2004 it was exhibited for veneration on the altar of St. Peter's Basilica and then delivered to Moscow. On the next feast day of the holy icon, July 21, 2005, Patriarch Alexius II and Mintimer Shaymiev, the President of Tatarstan, placed it in the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan Kremlin. The icon is enshrined in the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, the site where the original icon of Our Lady of Kazan was found. Plans are underway to make the monastery where the icon was found into an international pilgrimage center. References "Liturgy of the Word in honour of the Icon of the Mother of God of Kazan - August 25, 2004". Retrieved on 2008-10-13. External links John Paul delivers Our Lady of Kazan to the russian church, july 18 2005 (English) Rediscovered Holy Treasure. (English) Ikons: Windows into Heaven. (English) The Miraculous Icons—an entry on Our Lady of Kazan at OrthodoxWorld.ru. (English) OrthodoxWiki entry on Our Lady of Kazan.

Goddess Kanyakumari

Undated article/editorial. This isn't a rant on Tibet. I only copied out the part dealing with this interesting Goddess, Kanyakumari. Notice the last part of her name - MARI. That is the same as the Latin root for sea - "mare" - and obviously, Kanyakumari is a Goddess looking out to the sea, and the same word "kanyakumari" also means "land's end." The Latin word "mare" comes from an older Indo-European language that gave rise to Latin as well as many other languages. As I understand it, Sanskrit is the oldest and most pure form of language that can be directly linked to the original Indo-European language. Editorial Road To Liberation Laxmi Bahadur Vaidya Both for the Hindus and the Buddhist, India is very popular, prominent and famous tourist destination all over the world. It possesses several sacred pilgrimage places. Kanyakumari, the land’s end, is a charming, popular and unique religious as well as recreational tourist centre at the confluence of the three seas-the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. A large number of tourists are attracted by the serene beauty of this place and the spectacles of sunrise and sunset. The sunset and the moonrise can be seen almost simultaneously on full-moon days from the same spot. The temple of the virgin goddess Kanyakumari, which is overlooking the sea, is situated at the tip of the land. Posture The goddess stands above the pedestal in a lovely pose. She has a crown on her head in which valuable gems and diamonds are embedded. She also is adorned with gold ornaments containing various gems and jewels including brilliant earrings on her ears. The goddess is holding a rosary in her right hand and touches the garland by her left hand. A sparkling nose jewel too sheds lustrous radiance. The image, made of blue stone, is believed to have been installed by sage Parasurama. According to folktales and mythological stories, the goddess Parasakti in her reincarnation came down to earth as a virgin to annihilate Banasura (king of demons) who has harassed the Gods and tortured the saints, sages and hermits causing them endless misery.

Goddess Mari (known by many names)

From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." Mari Basic name of the Goddess known to the Chaldeans as Marratu, to the Jews as Marah, to the Persians as Mariham, to the Christians as Mary; as well as Marian, Miriam, Mariamne, Myrrhine, Myrtea, Myrrha, Maria, and Marina. Her blue robe and pearl necklace wre classic symbols of the sea, edged with pearly foam.(1) Many place names evolved from Marian shrines. Among them were Amari or Ay-Mari, the Cyrprian home of Aphrodite Marina; Marib, City of the Moon, seat of the queens of Sheba; Marea in western Egypt; Maronea near Lake Ismaris; Maru, mother-city of the Medes; Sa-Maria, a country whose name meant literally "holy blood of Mary." (2) One of the entrances to her underworld womb, a sacred cave accessible only by sea, was Mar-Mari, "Mother Sea."(3) The Goddess's Amorite city of Mari was one of the wonders of the ancient world. Its six-acre temple-palace astonished archeologists who uncovered i in the 1930s. Mari dominated the area now known as the Holy Land until it fell to the armies of Hammurabi in 1700 B.C.(4) Semites worshipped an adrogynous combination of Goddess and God called Mari-El [biblical Mariel] (Mary-God) corresponding to the Egyptian Meri-Ra which combined the feminine principle of water with the masculine principle of the sun.(5) Sometimes the deity was named simply Mere, an Egyptian word for both "waers" and "mother-love."(6) Mer was also a component of the names of Egyptian queens in the first dynasty. One of Egypt's oldest names was Ta-Mera, Land of the Waters, which could also be interpreted as Land of the Great Mothers.(7) The Syrian version of Mari or Meri was worshipped in combination with her serpent-consort Yamm, derived from Yama, the Hindu Lord of Death. Yamm alternated with Baal, "the Lord," as the Goddess' favorite and a sovereign over heaven and the abyss. Indian Yama was one of the consorts of Kel-Mari, as Kali was called in the south.(8) Tantric Buddhists still speak of the "Slayer of the Death King," Yama-Mari, who was identified with the Dalai Lama.(9) [The Dalai Lama is currently in the news because of the riots in Tibet and environs peopled by ethnic Tibetans in China, and the brutal Chinese suppression of the "unrest."] Jews and early Christians used the smae combinatin of names, Mari-Yamm or Mariam, for the mother of Jesus.(1) The spirit of the archaic Mari entered into Bablonian diviners known as mare baruti, sea-mothers, who operated in the bit mummu or womb-chamber, where statues of the gods were said to be "born" (made animate).(11) In similar womb-chambers the Hindu goddess was worshipped as Kau-Mari or Kel-Mari.(12) She is still invoked as Marici-Tara, the Diamond Sow on the lotus Throne, "Glorious One, the sun of happiness." She is the Goddess "whose mayik vesture is the sun," forerunner of the Gospels' "woman clothed with the sun' (Revelation 12:1), who was identified with the virgin Mary.(13) Northern Europe knew the same Goddess as Maerin, wedded to Thor at her shrine in Trondheim.(14) To the Saxons she was Wudo-Maer: literally, a Wood-Mary, or Goddess of the Grove. To the Celts she was Maid Marian, beloved by Robin, the witches' Horned God. Their greenwood cult caused church authorities considerable trouble in the 14th century.(15) Mari was the same Merian or Merjan worshipped in Persia as Queen of the Peris (Fairies).(16) Iran had its mother goddess Mariana from very ancient times.(17) She might be traced to the land of Akkad, created by a Goddess called the Lady Marri, Mother of the World.(18) A king of Mari in 2500 B.C., united with the Goddess, took the royal name of Lamki-Mari.(19) She was also the Great Fish who gave birth to the gods, later the Mermaid, Mare-mynd, mareminde, marraminde, maraeman, or mereminne.(20) [Also the "Great Fish" that symbolically swallowed Jonah in the biblical account, where he stayed for parts of 3 days and nights, just as Christ spent parts of 3 days and nights in Hell talking with the lost souls after his death]. In short, she was always Mother Sea. Her Latin name was Maria, "the Seas." ["Mare" - "sea of" - was used extensively in naming various sections of the Moon, a rather appropriate usage, I must say.] St. Peter Chrysologus [Peter Golden-word, 5th century bishop of Revenna, friend of Pope Leo the Great] called her Christian incarnation, the virgin Mary, "the gathering together of the waters."(21) But she was also the earth ahd heavens, since her earliest form was a trinity. She was worshipped in pre-Roman Latium as Marica, mother of the first king Latinus, who was also her priapic goat-footed consort Faunus. She was probably the same Goddess worshipped by the Slavs under the name of Marzanna (Mari-Anna), who "fostered the growth of fruits."(22) Mari and her pagan consort were incongruously canonized as a pair of Christian saints, Addai and Mari (Adonis and Aphrodite-Mari). Their legends called them "bishops" dispatched to Aphrodite's cult center at Edessa, probably because their portraits appered there, and it was easier to Christianize them than to destroy them. Their cult began with Nestorian Christians who called them "Holy Apostles Addai and Mari."(23) Another Christianization was St. Maura, from the Goddesses' Fate-name Moera, "older than Time."(24) As the Fate-spinner who held men's denstines in her hand, she generated a taboo: on St. Maura's day, women were forbidden to spin or sew.(25) [My guess is that Moera, Fate-spinner, is a direct link to the old proto-Indo-European and later Hindu belief about an astral Spider spinning out the creation of the Universe and its fate. I believe this concept is directly related to the "ashtapada" (eight limbs) game board on which some say proto-chess was first invented]. Medieval Spain knew the Goddess Mari as a "Lady" or "Mistress" who lived in a magic cave and rode through the night sky as a ball of fire.(26) This may have meant the red harvest moon, or possibly the moon in eclipse - always a dire omen. [Or possibly literal balls of fire - meteors, or the more mysterious "light balls" that appear hovering above the horizon, similar to but not satisfactorily explained as "St. Elmo's Fire."] The Goddess Mari was said to give gifts of fairy gold and precious stones, which might turn into worthless lumps of coal by the light of day.(27) In later centuries, the same worthless gifts were given to "bad" children by St. Nicholas at Christmas. The island of Inis Maree had a ruined temple, sacred to a certain "St. Mourie" - none other than the Goddess Mari for whom the island was named. In 1678 the Presbytery of Dingwall "disciplined" some people who sacrificed bulls to the divinity of Loch Maree on the 25th of August, a day dedicated to Aphrodite-Mari for more than 1500 years.(28). Notes: (1) Graves, W.G., 438. (2) Graves, W.G., 410-11; Assyr. & Bab. Lit., 179; Herodotus, 41, 400. (3) Hughes, 159. (4) Keller, 46-49. (5) Budge, G.E., 1, 86; Book of the Dead, 602. (6) Budge, E.L., 76. (7) Budge, D.N. 160. (8) Briffault, 1, 474. (9) Waddell, 364. (10) Ashe, 48. (11) Lindsay, O.A., 41. (12) Mahanirvanatantra, 149. (13) Waddell, 218, 361; Mahanirvanatantra, x1. (14) Turville-Petre, 91. (15) Graves, W.G., 441. (16) Keightley, 22. (17) Thomson, 135. (18) Assyr. & Bab. Lit., 287. (19) Albright, 98. (20) Steenstrup, 105. (21) Ashe, 147. (22) Larousee, 208, 291. (23) Attwater, 31. (24) Bachofen, 57. (25) Lawson, 175. (26) Lederer, 210. (27) Baorja, 238. (28) Spence, 37.