And here's another...

And now... here's Mari: 

http://www.faerywolf.com/art_mari.html

Mari is the Great Mother; the soul of nature that gives rise to all life. She is the spirit of the Earth, Moon, Sea, and Sky, the embodiment of all manifestation. She is an “Earth Goddess” in the sense that it is She who gives form. She gives birth to us, sustains us in life, and receives us again at our death. She is the fecund energy of the Universe as it manifests on this planet. The entire Earth is Her body. She is also the spirit of every woman; mother, sister, daughter, lover… and witch. She is the quintessential Goddess. Virgin, Mother, Harlot; She is Three and She is One.

Victor Anderson was reportedly quite adamant that Mari was “the same person as the Star Goddess” and the celestial imagery that is associated with Mari clearly illustrates this. She is the Star God/dess when She becomes pregnant with the divine child, the Dian y Glas, giving birth to the splendor of the world. In this, like the Biblical Mary, She becomes “the Mother of God”.

She is also a Moon Goddess and is the same deity as Diana, Queen of the Witches where her connection to freedom, and to the faerie folk are both firmly established.

I was taught that she had a crown of twelve stars but that sometimes this would actually be thirteen, based on Victor Anderson's poem Quakoralina, the Star Goddess in which the Goddess is described as wearing a crown of "six and seven" blue stars. Here Her crown has twelve stars while a 13th --a seven-pointed faery star-- rests upon Her brow.

New Art!

I have been working on handouts for my BlueRose F(a)eri(e) classes and finally got around to making a couple new pieces of art. My Mari is almost finished, but right now I am happy to unveil: Black Ana of the Forbidden Mysteries.

What we have come to know as Ana is a very ancient power. She has been known by many, many names. Anna, or Annys… The Winter Queen. Hecate. The Morrigu. As the Cailleach we know that She was already ancient when the pre-Christian settlers arrived in Ireland.  She is a primal Dark Goddess. She is the Crone; the Hag. The Queen of the Dead. She is the Spirit of Nighttime; the body of the sleeping Earth in Winter. She is the archetypal witch and all who practice the Craft are of Her order.

She may appear as a very old woman wrapped in a hooded black cloak. Her skin and Her hair are pure white. She holds a great curved silver sickle, and She is crowned with nine (or, sometimes strangely, “9 plus”) stars. Her emblem is a black raven, or the vulture.

Here she is shown spinning the golden threads of fate, Her scythe ready to make the fatal cut. She can also be seen in ‘Grandmother Spider’, the Native American Goddess of creation who steals the sun and fire for the world. As an otherworldy Goddess she is shown here with both belladonna (deadly nightshade) and with fly agaric, the mushroom that grants visions and was an ingredient in many recipes for ‘flying ointment’; a traditional hallucinatory assistant for astral travel.