The Wiccan Triple Goddess

The Wiccan Triple Goddess

Written By: Wicca Magazine

The Wiccan Triple Goddess

One of the most prominent aspects of the Wiccan religion is that of the Triple Goddess. Before we venture into the meaning and into the various goddesses who encompass this aspect in full, we must understand that the triple goddess is something that takes place in each of us, male or female, every single day. The Wiccan way is about balance. Every human being, regardless of their gender specification must find balance within themselves to find the enlightenment that they seek. The triple goddess is an aspect that is found within the feminine side of the human being. The triple aspect is broken into the maiden, the mother and the crone. This can also be equated as, research, creation and reflection.

The Maiden aspect of The Wiccan Triple Goddess

The maiden is the youthful aspect of the triple goddess. She is also the dawn before the sunrise. She is the inquisitive, playful, hopeful face of existence. The one who is hungry for knowledge and for knowing all that there is about a subject. She is also equated to the new moon that is found at 1% illumination on the lunar calendar. She shares the waxing (growing) moon with the aspect of the mother. The maiden is the first buds of Spring, she is seen in the rituals of Imbolc and of Ostara. She is the colour of white and lime green.

The Maiden reminds us of the youthful enthusiasm and wonder of promise. She is the energy that we find when we begin a new project. She is the idea and she is the excitement that skips a heartbeat when we have those light bulb moments. She is also the very innocence that we find in the eyes of a young child. It is speculated that the maiden aspect of the goddess is aged between 7 years old 18 years old. The Wiccan Goddesses that we see associated with the maiden are as follows:

Freya (Norse Goddess of beauty and prosperity – also governing the rune Fehu)Athena (Greek Goddess of war, wisdom, and literature)Artemis (Greek Goddess of the hunt)Cerridwen (Goddess of transformation, Goddess of Awen – the cauldron and life force and inspiration of the druids)Brighid (Goddess of poetry, arts and crafts and healing)Eos (Greek Goddess of the dawn)Hekate (Greek Goddess of the Witches and of the underworld)Nut (Egyptian Goddess of the celestial bodies and of the night sky)Selene (Greek Goddess of the moon)The Mother aspect of The Wiccan Triple Goddess

The mother aspect of the triple Goddess is everything that you would imagine the mother to be. The mother aspect is also the waxing moon that she shares with the maiden, the full moon in her peak of birthing and the waning moon that she shares with the crone. She is in a constant state of creation, and she is also the birthing process of any project, idea, or task in the mundane world. She is the caretaker and the caregiver. She mothers her younglings and provides useful information and much needed wisdom. Both the mother and the crone aspect of the Wiccan Goddesses are invoked or evoked when performing any form of divination. The mother is far wiser and less carefree than the maiden, she has matured a great deal and her presence is warm and stable. She is still full of life and she assists where she can as long as her practitioners deliver respect and listen to what she has to say. The Wiccan Goddesses associated with the triple goddess are as follows:

Morrighan (The Celtic Goddess of war, strategy and shapeshifting)Maca (A sister of the Morrighan associated more with war than that of shapeshifting)Durga (A great Hindu goddess of protection and motherhood)Cerridwen (Goddess of transformation, Goddess of Awen – the cauldron and life force and inspiration of the druids)Hera (Roman Goddess of motherhood, childbirth and protector of the home and hearth and of women and children.) (Grandmother of the Titans and Greek Goddess of the earth personified.)Isis (Egyptian Goddess of women, fertility, childbirth, female mysteries and of magic)Frigg (Norse Goddess of the hearth, of marriage, of love and of the Nordic heavens)Danu (Irish creator Goddess)Anu (Sumerian creator Goddess)The Crone aspect of the Wiccan Triple Goddess

The Crone Goddess is the divine personification of the female that has passed her stage of menopause. She is beyond childbearing years and she has now collected all the research and done all the creating that she needed to do. She is the waning moon and the dark moon which is found at 0% illumination on the lunar calendar. The Crone is the stage of reflection, introspection and of teaching. She is the wise woman, the bone woman, the medicine woman. She provides warmth but only with the cold promise of death. She also teaches great mystery of magic and her bosom is the pathway into the underworld and into the very depths of our own souls. She is the core of the darkness and she is the wisdom of the ages. Her knowledge of the afterlife is concrete, and she knows that the entire existence of the universe is only a spiral. She knows that we return again and again. To work with the Wiccan Goddess in the Crone aspect is a brave thing. Not that the Maiden and Mother Goddess need not to be respected, but their compassion is light years greater than that of the Crone. Some of the Wiccan Goddesses that fit into the Crone image are as follows:

The Cailleach (Celtic Hag Goddess who governs magic, death and weather magic.)Hekate (Greek Goddess of the Witches and of the underworld)Baba Yaga (Hag Goddess of the wild woods, of poison paths and of the wild woods and nightmares)Badb (One of the sisters of the Celtic Goddess Morrighan, she is the banshee who screams around the home and is the warning of death to come)Ereshkigal (Sumerian Goddess of death and the underworld)

The Wiccan Goddesses listed above are only a few of the millions of faces or archetypes of the Great Feminine that we fit into the aspects of the human feminine cycle. The entire process fits perfectly into what Wiccans refer to as the diamond theory. The reason behind the need for the triple goddess is for the practitioner to find their own divine self through these aspects of the divine deities. Not all Goddesses are able to fit into more than one aspect, but there are a few who share two or in the odd instance, two or three. It is also very common for Wiccan circles to simply refer to the aspect as in Maiden Goddess, Mother Goddess and Crone Goddess. One does not always need to present a personality and fable behind the working with any of the aspects of the Triple Goddess.

When working with each aspect of the Goddess, please make sure to always find the correlation of her aspect within your own life. Always document these continuous shifts between maiden, mother and crone in your Book of Mirrors. The similarities that Wiccans find with the divine is one of the most beautiful aspects of the Wiccan religion.