A commentator on the Amazon World History Timeline at All Girl Worlds writes the following:

The yugas or ages are concepts of Vedic knowledge. The yuga’s first introduction is in the Mahabharata. According to Vedic knowledge the duration of each yuga is: Satya-yuga 1,728,000 years, Treta-yuga 1,296,000 years, Dvapara-yuga 884,000 years, Kali-yuga 432,000 years. The Vedic knowledge states that in the Satya-yuga there is neither hate, envy, fear, nor care. That there is only one God, one Veda, one law, and one ritual. The following yugas are a decay of this golden yuga.

To which the editors reply as follows:

Thank you for your information. It is indeed correct. The Yugas are indeed found in the Vedas, while the Four Ages (Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron) are found independently in the Hellenic tradition and the same idea is found in many other traditions throughout the world, including the Hebrew, Mayan and Inca. As you correctly state, the movement of the four Ages is one of decline and decay. As to the length of the Cycle or Manvantara, one must realize that there are cycles within, cycles, from the great Cycle of Manifestation itself (ie the "lifetime of the universe") to a single in/out breath of any given being. The cycle of most relevance to the history of the current humanity is of about 60,000 years, though certainly this is only one sub-cycle within the greater cycle you mention (which itself is a sub-cycle of yet greater cycles). For more information on cycles in the primordial feminine tradition, please see the following

Hi..greetings from Malaysia...My name is Tesh recently i have read about the final judgement thingy...and i would add on... in Eastern philosophies...(all the same as Vidya, She is Omnipresent) the Final Dissolution or the "destruction of the world" (as the low intellect of patriarchs put it) is done by Maa Maha Kalika! She is the One True Mother God that absorbs All creation into Her and Begins a new creation altogether...Divine!!! ain't it? t Thanks and my humble apologies is I am wrong in any way... Jai Maha Devi Mangla Kali Saraswathy! No you are not wrong at all. We believe that the Dark Mother outbreathes the world at the dawn of time and inbreathes it at time's ending. And then there will be another cycle, another creation. As we pray:

Glory be to the Holy and Eternal One,
To the Blessed Mother
To the Divine Daughter
And to Dea beyond form
Who was before the beginning
And will be when all the worlds are ended.

While the in-breathing of the world may be seen as "destruction" from a worldly perspective, it is actually the completion of the cycle. It is also why there is no "final judgement" that involves condemning some beings. In the end all creation must return to Dea, even to the last blade of grass, and no single being can be lost.

Hi..greetings from Malaysia...My name is Tesh recently i have read about the final judgement thingy...and i would add on... in Eastern philosophies...(all the same as Vidya, She is Omnipresent) the Final Dissolution or the "destruction of the world" (as the low intellect of patriarchs put it) is done by Maa Maha Kalika! She is the One True Mother God that absorbs All creation into Her and Begins a new creation altogether...Divine!!! ain't it? t Thanks and my humble apologies is I am wrong in any way... Jai Maha Devi Mangla Kali Saraswathy! No you are not wrong at all. We believe that the Dark Mother outbreathes the world at the dawn of time and inbreathes it at time's ending. And then there will be another cycle, another creation. As we pray:

Glory be to the Holy and Eternal One,
To the Blessed Mother
To the Divine Daughter
And to Dea beyond form
Who was before the beginning
And will be when all the worlds are ended.

While the in-breathing of the world may be seen as "destruction" from a worldly perspective, it is actually the completion of the cycle. It is also why there is no "final judgement" that involves condemning some beings. In the end all creation must return to Dea, even to the last blade of grass, and no single being can be lost.

Hi..greetings from Malaysia...My name is Tesh recently i have read about the final judgement thingy...and i would add on... in Eastern philosophies...(all the same as Vidya, She is Omnipresent) the Final Dissolution or the "destruction of the world" (as the low intellect of patriarchs put it) is done by Maa Maha Kalika! She is the One True Mother God that absorbs All creation into Her and Begins a new creation altogether...Divine!!! ain't it? t Thanks and my humble apologies is I am wrong in any way... Jai Maha Devi Mangla Kali Saraswathy! No you are not wrong at all. We believe that the Dark Mother outbreathes the world at the dawn of time and inbreathes it at time's ending. And then there will be another cycle, another creation. As we pray:

Glory be to the Holy and Eternal One,
To the Blessed Mother
To the Divine Daughter
And to Dea beyond form
Who was before the beginning
And will be when all the worlds are ended.

While the in-breathing of the world may be seen as "destruction" from a worldly perspective, it is actually the completion of the cycle. It is also why there is no "final judgement" that involves condemning some beings. In the end all creation must return to Dea, even to the last blade of grass, and no single being can be lost.

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

An exchange fromHeartbook: The so-called "Judgement Day": does it mean anything to Deanists/Filyanists? If not, is there an equivalent in our faith? Just some thoughts! I don't think there is any such thing as a Judgement Day in Filyanic/Deanic faith. Our actions create our werde so if we do bad things they return to us, and if we do good things they return to us. There will be a time when "all the worlds are ended", but I think that is when all beings finally return to Dea. I think that is the difference. We believe that every being, even the demons, will eventually return to the Pure Harmony of Dea. There are no beings that will be eternally lost.

An exchange fromHeartbook: The so-called "Judgement Day": does it mean anything to Deanists/Filyanists? If not, is there an equivalent in our faith? Just some thoughts! I don't think there is any such thing as a Judgement Day in Filyanic/Deanic faith. Our actions create our werde so if we do bad things they return to us, and if we do good things they return to us. There will be a time when "all the worlds are ended", but I think that is when all beings finally return to Dea. I think that is the difference. We believe that every being, even the demons, will eventually return to the Pure Harmony of Dea. There are no beings that will be eternally lost.

Stephen Hawking has described Heaven and the afterlife as a fairy tale. We examine this astonishing declaration of the Faith of the Faithless.

I have ordered and am reading The Gospel of Our Mother God and am pulled to it with something I suppose is faith. It feels right in my hands, I don't know how else to explain it. I was drawn to your site in particular because I honestly thought I was the only one who felt a strong pull to Mary, Isis, Dea and felt that these were all paths to the same place. I've carried rosary beads and meditated with them since I was a kid without really being able to define what it was I was doing but knew I found comfort in it. It's been a relief to finally find out that I'm not the only one. I've tried to do some research on where the mythos in the beginning come from and I'm constantly led to fictional feminism writing sites. I know that google does not know all and thought that perhaps you could lead me in the right direction? I'm trying to define the basis for the creation mythos? Is it a mixture of modern ideas or a mixture of old ideas or neither? I apologize if the answer is somewhere on the site and I just can't find it. I would like to know how to define this book when I share it (and I will be). Is it feminine writing or something older? The various Scriptures (other than the Sanskrit ones) appear to have been written in their current form 30 to 40 years ago. There have been claims that they are much older, but we feel there is little evidence for that (at least in the literal sense of these exact texts being much older). Many of the motifs and archetypes in the Scriptures clearly have analogies in ancient traditions, and we certainly do not believe them to be at all influenced by modern feminism, "new age" beliefs or other modern doctrines. We believe their purity and holiness shines out far beyond anything of that sort. Some people hold them to be a revelation of ancient truth, and others simply regard them as inspired poetry. The only claim we make for them is the one you also have noticed - the fact that they feel so right. They have inspired people and changed lives for over three decades, and for many who find the patriarchal redactions of our ancient traditions unpalatable, these are the Scriptures, putting into words appropriate to the late Kali Yuga (but by no means influenced by its prejudices) the ancient Faith of Our Mother God. We have found these Scriptures to be a wellspring of truth and beauty, and we hope you will too.

In terms of the Wheel of the Year, the Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven represents the final and culminating festival of the quarter-year Eastre Cycle. It is also the final High Feast of the Daughter Half of the year. However, while the Eastre Cycle ends on this day, the Daughter Half continues for another six weeks until the High Feast of Rosa Mundi, the first festival of the Mother Half. Like the period leading up to Nativity (the Festival that ends the Mother Half), this final phase of the Daughter Half is seen as a Mother/Daughter period. The Daughter is now reunited with Heaven (and therefore with Her Mother) after Her descent to Earth at Nativity. The parallel early winter festivals that come at the end of the Mother Half, while centering on the Mother, are concerned with the coming of the Daughter.

May Day is an ancient festival. For devotees of Our Mother God it is the Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven. Learn more about one of the year's most beautiful festivals.

The Flight of the Silver Vixen, reviewed on this site a while back, is now available in a shiny new paperback edition. It first launched as a digital-only book on Amazon Kindle. While this action-adventure story is not primarily a spiritual book, it is written from a Deanic perspective. Don't expect the sort of outright preaching that you find in some "Christian literature", but do expect a characters who, even when they are rebellious young tearaways, fundamentally believe in Our Mother God and base their lives around a Dea-centric philosophy. The book is set in an all-feminine Aristasian-style world (two such worlds, in fact) and has a philosophical thread that will definitely resonate with readers of The Feminine Universe. You can now order the paperback for $15 with free shipping to anywhere in the world, or get the Amazon Kindle version at only $2.99 for instant delivery to your Kindle (or to the free Kindle reader on your personal computer or iPad)

A new article on Sri Durga (the Indian Sai Vikhe) has appeared at the Exotic India site. As usual this is an excellent piece and well worth the attention of those interested in learning more about Sai Vikhe in Indian culture.

Durga, the most highly worshipped goddess of Indian masses held in alike reverence in all sectarian lines, even Buddhist and Jain, in her form as Durga or in one of her many transforms - the ferocious Tara of Buddhists or the nurturing mother Ambika of Jains, is the ultimate of divine power capable of eradicating every evil and every wrong, and nurturing and sustaining life in whichever form it exists.

The article makes it very clear that, despite efforts to "edit" Sri Durga into the later patriarchal scheme, not only does She long predate such attempts, but that Her supremacy continues to be asserted by Her devotees even in the patriarchal period. Of the fifth century Devi Mahatmya it says:

The text is full of expressions that are denotative of the Durga's supreme divinity, such as 'Durgam jayakhyam', that is, victory is her other name, or 'Durgasi Durgabhawasagaranaurasanga', that is, Durga is the boat that takes across the cycle of birth and death; the one, that is, Durga as victory is the ultimate of all worldly acts, and the other, that is, Durga as 'Tarini' - redeemer from the cycle of birth and death is the ultimate of every spiritual endeavour. In the 'Viniyoga', the introductory couplet of the second Canto, the Devi-Mahatmya asserts this supremacy of Durga metaphysically too. . . . As regards her antiquity Durga is an entity beyond time. Even the Markandeya Purana that identifies Mahamaya - Devi's proto form, as Vishnu's 'shakti' contends with specificity that it was her who gave to Vishnu, as also to Brahma and Shiva, their forms. This statement has two implications, one that she preceded not only Vishnu but the great Trinity, and the other, that she was Vishnu's 'shakti' by invocation and by her favour, not by Vishnu's authority. Thus, by whatever name, the Great Goddess preceded all forms, their creator, sustainer and destroyer, the time that spanned them and the space where they evolved.

In this Kali Yuga with its violence and patriarchal domination, it is natural that where Dea was recognized as the one supreme Deity, it should be her Vikhelic form that came to the fore.

The conversation on the idea of Universal Metaphor sheds light in many directions. When we see the things of material life as metaphors for higher things we are able to participate at a much deeper level in our experience of physical creation. Of course the idea is only another approach to an old question. Miss Trent showed in The Feminine Universe how the belief in nature as mere epiphenomena of chemistry and biology popularized by the Darwinist mythos robbed the Romantic movement of the ability to see nature in spiritual ways. The post-modernist movement, despite its self-imagined radicalism and skepticism, is really a logical progression of late-19th century popular Darwinism/scientism. To take a very common example, I recently read someone who was advocating (for the several-millionth time) "deconstructing gender". Leaving aside exactly what such deconstruction might consist of, what strikes one about this is not the radical skepticism, but the absolute, unquestioning faith that underlies such a statement. To believe that it is possible to "deconstruct" gender we have to assume that we know exactly what gender is. And of course all "radicals" do assume that. For them gender has two elements and two only: the biological and the human-cultural. Everything that is not determined by biology was "constructed" by human culture and it is, at least theoretically, possible to strip away our human culture and leave our animal nature. We can then (if we choose to) build our own "constructs". But all this is based on a huge and completely arbitrary hypothesis: namely that biology and human construction are all there is. That the universe has no meaning, and that biological gender is not already a metaphor of something higher. In believing this, they completely contradict the entire wisdom of the human race from the earliest known times to the late 19th century. And, ironically, these "multi-culturalist" haters of Western imperialism, are absolutely unable to consider that anything other than modern Western scientistic ideology even might be true. In "deconstructing" the fundamental metaphors of manifest existence, the modern world is taking a huge gamble that modern Western ideologies about the ultimate nature of life and manifestation are correct. But the "radical" has no doubts whatever. Her blind faith in popular scientism is as absolute as that of any Jehovah's Witness in her creed.

Yesterday's post on the universal nature of metaphor has prompted a very interesting response from Deanic science fiction writer Annalinde Matichei. The authoress of The Flight of the Silver Vixen commented on her blog at the Sun Daughter Press upon how this understanding of metaphor as not purely literary, but inherent in the very nature of being has important implications for science fiction and how it gives a much deeper answer to superficial questions like "why do so many alien species look so much like humans". Miss Matichei whose work we have reviewed on these pages, has made fascinating contributions to a genre of science fiction based on traditional metaphysics rather than materialistic physical-only science. As she says in today's piece:

Of course, I am not proposing [universal metaphor] as a "solution" to some of the problems of current Tellurian science fiction. That genre, going back at least to the days of Jules Verne, has been rooted deeply and exclusively in the "Enlightenment" Tellurian view of science, which is inherently accidentalist. What I am proposing is something far more radical. A new form of science fiction with much deeper ontological roots.

The Aristasian social network, Heartbook, has published a Calendar for this year of Sai Candre 3331. It is labeled an unofficial calendar and certainly has a few unofficial elements - the Princess pictures are charming - though perhaps not to every taste, and there are a few slightly curious additions (most notably "St. Patricia's Day"). There are also some variations in terminology (the Exaltation is called the Coronation and Vois is called Hathor). However, taken as it is - unofficial - it is a charming and excellent guide to the Filianic year, showing all the months with their secular equivalents, and the festivals of the year. Find it here. There is also a more official Aristasian version of the Calendar here, but this is a Perpetual Calendar, and not specific to this year.

As Our Lady emerges from the dark under-world, our souls awaken and the world is reborn. Welcome to this new Year of Sai Candre, a year ruled by purity and imagination. Give praise to the Mother of All Things, and praise to Her Daughter. Rejoice, for the world is renewed.

Easter/Eastre is one of the oldest names of God the Mother. It is also the Great Spring Festival that begins and ends the Wheel of the Year. Learn all about it.

Many of you will have heard that tomorrow, Rhavedi 28th Moura (Saturday 19 Mar), is the day of the "Super Moon" - the brightest and largest-seeming full moon for eighteen years. In the Filianic calendar, this moon falls on the last day of the year 3330 - the Day of Our Lady's Sacrifice. If a "Super Moon" happens only once in 18 years, how rare is a "Super Moon" falling on Eastre Day? The "Super Moon" ends our year, and the New Year, which begins on Monday, will be a Year of Sai Candre - that is, a year ruled by Sai Candre, the Angel of the Moon. Every month of the year begins on Sai Candre's day, Monday (moon-day). Often the end-part of an old year begins to manifest the characteristics of the new, and this "Super Moon" at the very end of the Year of Sai Raya, would seem to presage a very strong Year of Sai Candre beginning on Monday. Sai Candre rules many things - Imagination, Purity, and the psychic domain. How will Sai Candre affect your coming year?

The 28th of Moura (March the 19th) is the last day of the year. In the Filianic tradition it is called Kala, or the Passion of Our Lady. It is the culmination of the month of Moura, when many practice disciplines in preparation for the Passion. The reading for the day is given here: Chapters IV and V. On this day, Our Lady is slain upon the Pillar of the World in the nethermost depths of Hell. It is traditional to cover all statues and images of Dea with a black or dark-coloured cloth on the evening of Kala and throughout the Hiatus. They remain covered until the dawn of the New Year. Hiatus comes after Kala. This day is not part of the old year or the new. It is the day when Our Lady is dead and the world is dead. A day that, in a sense, does not exist. Some practice a full fast on this day, or undertake special austerities. Even for the least religious, it is considered highly inauspicious to begin any new activity on Hiatus, and in general it is best to avoid referring to or acknowledging the future, for this is the end of the world. It is very difficult to do this and it is considered a valuable spiritual exercise. The special reading for Hiatus is Chapter VI, verses 1 - 6. There is also a chant for Hiatus, which is said to be a calling on the Mother to save Her Daughter: the Marianna-Maria chant. This is said to be the chant of Earth's Daughters calling upon the Mother to rescue Her fallen Daughter. Filianists are encouraged to listen to and join in this chant whenever they can during Hiatus.

A correspondent writes: I was fascinated by the part in your article about Moura where you describe it as: " the fifth of four (seasons), and the thirteenth of twelve (months)". The thirteenth of twelve is a powerful idea found throughout history and is associated with eating and being gathered about a table - the Last Supper with the twelve Apostles, and Christ as the thirteenth, the Round Table with the twelve knights and King Arthur as the thirteenth. Another popular twelve/thirteen is the "baker's dozen" where a dozen loaves is actually thirteen, and this is again connected with eating. There have been various attempts to explain this in terms of mediaeval laws, but none of them seem to be actually true. On the other hand, the culmination of the Eastre event in the Scriptures takes place at a table (Altar) and is concerned with bread:

17. And She stood at the great Altar and took up a wheaten loaf, and spoke, saying: 18. Like to the corn, My body was cut down by the scythe of death; and like to the corn did it rise anew. 19. For I am the ear of corn that is reaped in silence. 20. And She said: Like to the grain was my body broken between the stones of death. And saying thus, She broke the bread between Her hands.

All this seems more than coincidence to me!

The Flight of the Silver Vixen may look like a work of feminist science fiction, but it is much more. It is a novel that has an authentic background of devotion to Our Mother God and the Golden Order.

This is a reminder to everyone that tomorrow (Saturday) is Moura Day. Have you decided what you are giving up and/or doing for Moura yet? Tomorrow is a festival wherein it is traditional to indulge freely in whatever you are giving up. Moura lasts from Sunday the First of Moura (19 Feb) to Monday 20th of March (which has no date in the Filianic Calendar – it is the Day out of Time. The new year begins on Monday the First of Culverine (21st March)

I am interested in learning the reasons or symbolisms behind the assignations of the Janyas and the Elements over which they rule, in accordance with the four cardinal directions. For instance, in say, Wicca along with the tarot and other western systems (I believe this originated with the Golden Dawn), Air is East/Spring, Fire is South/Summer (although not considered so in Australia), Water is West/Autumn and Earth is North/Winter. In the Deanic Faith, Water is East under the rule of Sai Sushuri, Fire remains in the South under the rule of Sai Vikhe, Earth is West under the Rule of Sai Thame and Air is North under Sai Mati. Is this a reflection of the Cardinal Directions and the corresponding Elements from an Eastern point of view in general, or the Deanic/Filianic Faith in particular? The Filianic attribution of the cardinal directions to the elements is, we think, fairly unique to the Filianic faith - though someone will probably now find other examples. Water, for example is considered the element of love, hence its attribution to Sai Sushuri. It also has lunar and sacrificial associations, and belongs to Eastre; and again is the sign of new life - both the Resurrection and the natural new life of Spring. The Janyatic attributions are not intended to be absolute. Water and Sai Sushuri are not permanently bonded - indeed, as suggested above, Sai Candre rules water in some aspects. The three/four division of the Janyati, which attributes the quaternity to the four material elements is only one (important) perspective. In the east, Janya attributes tend to be different. One of the most usual is: Water to Sai Mati
Wood to Sai Thamë
Fire to Sai Vikhë
Metal (gold) to Sai Sushuri
Earth to Sai Rhave. As in the Filianic system, the two luminaries (Sai Raya and Sai Candre) are not part of the elemental schema but earth is attributed to Sai Rhave (which is also a Filianic association from some perspectives - the schema not being exclusive) . In the Filianic schema, however, Sai Rhave forms part of the triplicity with the luminaries, and the whole triplicity rules the fifth, non-material, element of aethyr.

Commenting on our new page on The Feast of Lights, La Petite Sorciere writes:

I have often heard the Daughter's Taking on of Fate equated to Quan Yin's Vow. I am sure this is correct, but I have a question. Quan Yin's vow is not to enter Buddhahood (oneness with the Divine) until every being is saved "even to the last blade of grass". However the Daughter, while She goes down unto death, is ultimately raised up as Queen of Heaven. Can you shed more light on this?

Thank you for raising this point. What we must bear in mind here is that Myths, which are far profounder than mere terrestrial history, are in fact four-dimensional snapshots of Realities that lie beyond dimensionality - in other words, Transcendent events presented to our understanding as if they were events in time and space. Since we are space/time-bound creatures this is the only way we can perceive them. The primary difference between the "angle" or "perspective" of the Quan Yin story and the Gospel is that of time. In the first place Quan Yin is seen (at least partially) as a human who attains Buddhahood, but refuses it, while the Daughter is Divine from the beginning. Now in fact, Quan Yin is a Goddess assimilated into Buddhism, but even leaving this aside and speaking purely within the logic, or "economy", of Buddhism, the difference between the two perspectives is illusory. Once a being has attained full and ultimate Buddhahood she is Divine and is (one with) the only God that Buddhism acknowledges (and we accept this as a valid Spiritual perspective, although not ours). So the refusal of Buddhahood and the separation of the Daughter from the Mother are two ways of expressing the same thing: the paradoxical separation of the Divine from the Divine, for the salvation of beings. The Daughter is certainly raised up as Queen of Heaven after Her Resurrection, but She remains the Daughter. She is not assimilated into the Mother. And She is the Preserver of the Worlds. It is only through Her that the Mother's creation may continue in existence. She will continue to sustain the worlds, and to guide Her children, until all beings are reunited with the Mother, "even to the last blade of grass". We may also note that the original perspective is never far from the surface. In folk-tales about Quan Yin, She is indeed killed, descends to Hell, liberates the souls there and rises again. While these may be dismissed by High Buddhism as mere peasant tales (or more likely by arrogant Western scholarly Buddhists - eastern Buddhists tend to have more respect and more understanding of the subtleties of spirituality) - what they show is the ultimate unity of the two perspectives.

The Feast of Lights, or Luciad, is the beginning of the Easter Cycle in the religion of God the Mother.

May we wish all our dear readers a very happy Epiphany (or Epopeia, as it was sometimes called in the pre-Christian faith of Demeter and Her Daughter Persephone). The Showing-Forth of the Daughter is the universal, cosmic darshan or "saving view" of Dea, because it is only in Her form as the "lunar" Daughter that the brightness of the solar Mother can be looked upon by our eyes. Since it is the Daughter who makes possible the Universal Darshan, by which the cosmos is preserved in, the Epiphany Event is fundamental to existence itself. We note that (perhaps more appropriately than he knew) the Pope chose this holy day to speak about the so-called "Big Bang". We wish to commend the wisely measured nature of his comments. He did not say (as some headlines have crudely suggested) "The Big Bang happened and God did it." He very wisely and properly maintained an agnostic position on the current beliefs of modern science. Properly agnostic, because scientific theories are only ever theories and cannot correctly be spoken of on the same level as metaphysical certainties. To do so would have merely been pandering to the popular scientistic (not scientific) beliefs of the Western masses. Whether a "Big Bang" actually happened, and whether it happened in the way that "science" (i.e., a majority of academic scientists at a given snapshot in time) believes, is something we cannot know for certain as long as we are time-bound beings, and when we are not, it will not matter very much. But what we can be certain of is that if it did happen it was only a secondary or mediate cause of (a certain physical level of) material manifestation. The First Principle and the Final Cause is known to us, because She has made Herself known to us.

After a thoughtful and interesting comment on yesterday's post on our Facebook page, we asked Madonna-chei to comment: It is a good essay, but it should be longer, in my opinion. For instance, it doesn't explore why fairy tales are 'naturally' feminine-because they're so old they were constructed under matriarchy? Most were written in patriarchial societies, so why are they 'naturally' feminine? Wouldn't the opposite be true if they were written by patriarchial peoples? Actually it wasn't an essay - just a comment on a comment on a Heartbook blog post. But the points you raise are valid and well worth considering. I should probably have been clearer about what I meant by "natural". Of course we can call patriarchal interpretations "natural to patriarchy", but my view was that feminine religion is natural in a much deeper sense than that. Not natural to one system or another, but natural to humanity. Or to put it another way, simply True. Patriarchal societies and religions have done a huge job of upending the first faith of humanity. Male-modelled "god forms" appear all over the world following "patriarchal revolutions". What I was saying was that, as soon as there is no patriarchal vested interest in keeping the iconography patriarchal (when, for example, folk-tales are considered unimportant) it naturally reverts to its original feminine form. Naturally because that is its true form. In a sense the stories go back to matriarchal times - but only in the sense that all fundamental archetypes are eternal and not the product of any human society. But I certainly would not put forward any literal, historical "matriarchal origin" claim, not only because it is dubiously historical, but also because the claim I would make is much deeper and more fundamental. Feminine religion is not the product of any form of society (unlike masculine religion, which is a product of patriarchy). It is religion in its fundamental, true form.