The Mother: Three-in-One Goddess of the Witches

There's safety in that.  An instinctual craving to know what's out there and what's close enough to attack.  The predator can't loom during a full moon.  Unless it's a werewolf, contrary beasts.

In the Three-in-One, the Full Moon is the Mother.  Full-bellied with everything leading to this moment.  It's the moon at its zenith, as bright and apparent as it will ever be.  Beyond this fulfillment of the waxing cycle, there is only waning.  Only disappearing into darkness and nothing.

But that is so in the future!  For now, we can bask in what is and feel glad to be alive.

The summer too is the height of everything.  Winter is spent craving for it; spring is enjoyed as the gateway to it; and autumn is tinged with regret because it's over.  In the middle of summer, the sun is warm, the food is plentiful, the daylight erodes so much of the night.

This too is the realm of the Mother Goddess, dancing in cohort with the Horned God. 

It should be fairly obvious where the Mother sits in the life-cycle of a woman.  However, this doesn't begin and end with children.  It might not have anything to do with children at all!  The Mother is there when you have grown to the stage of independence; and ends when you age into physical frailty.

The Mother is Woman in the prime of her life.

In short, I am a Mother, because I'm in the prime of my life.  I can turn to those around me for support, but I habitually look after myself. 

This zenith is no bright spark, which flashes up in one glorious moment and is then extinguished.  It's probably the longest stage of our lives.  No longer children, not yet old.  It's the most useful that we can be in sheer practicality and strength.

The Mother is all about maturity.   If I was a fruit, I'd be ripe and ready for the plucking.  It's an analogy applied to many a Maiden, when she passes puberty and starts looking around herself with certain eyes. 

But it continues to apply right up to the time when I'm past my prime.  I won't say 'best', because who is to judge these things.  This is the Three-in-One, there is no 'best' amongst those triple stages.  Just difference in emphasis.

Because I have attained my maturity, I'm also fertile. In the obvious sense, and in many more ways that are less apparent.  Have you read any of my history articles?  When I was a Maiden, I imbibed the seeds of knowledge.  Now I've passed my exams, now that I'm a Mother, I can pass that information on.

That's fertility.  The seeds you scatter do not have to be living, breathing entities.  The babies that you birth do not have to come from your womb.

Of course, real children are definitely part of the Mother's remit too.  I haven't lingered on actual birth and raising little ones, because I'm assuming that's taken as read.

However, there is one area under the Mother's jurisdiction which really can be marked with the onset and ending of the menstrual cycle.

When a woman enters a state of matrimony, in the original sense of 'being able to have children', then she will be guided by the Mother.  The whole arena of sex and sexuality, for pleasure or for reproduction, is watched over by this aspect of the Triple Goddess.

DiscWorld fans, this is why Nanny Ogg is referred to as being very free with her affections, at least in younger life.  Though given half the chance, she'd be right there now too.  Nanny Ogg is the Mother in the trinity of Lancre witches.

The Mother Goddess in any age is depicted as attractive, flirtatious, sexy and fertile.  They all go hand in hand, though you don't have to tick every box to be there.

If the Mother figure is ripe, then there's no question where those attracted to Her are looking for the hanging fruit.  Man or lesbian, they will all be checking out the breasts.  These appear at puberty and basically signal to the world - hey! I'm physically mature enough to be a sexual being!

Think Mother, think breasts.  They're sexually attractive.  They signify maturity.  They provide sustenance for the babies.  All within the realm of the Mother.

Again don't get me wrong. This is not the end.  Achievement solely means that She now has all of the tools at her disposal to do with as She likes. 

When I was a child, I learned how to read and write.  As I grew, I expanded my reading and writing. As a teenager and young adult, I practiced writing; worked at a newspaper; went into further education; grew and learned; then discovered the ways to teach myself and guide my own learning.

Now I'm a woman and I can use all of those things to write the article that you are reading right now.  It doesn't mean that there will never be another article again.  I've reached a place where I can use those attributes over and over again.

This is fulfillment; or the end goal of the promise that I showed, when I first clutched a pen and scribed a legible word on the paper.

Or what about Ada Lovelace up there?  When she first heard about, then saw, Charles Babbage's 'thinking machine', she looked past his idea for an elaborate calculator.  In her notes, for what would eventually become his Analytic Machine, she envisaged computers; and wrote the first algorithm for one.

You are reading this on the fulfillment of her vision.  She was the first ever computer programmer.

In day to day living, this is perhaps the most instantly recognizable role of the Mother. She rules stability, allowing us a familiar and comfortable place in which to grow to maturity.

As infants, when the world becomes chaotic, or we merely tire, our first reaction is to cling to our parents. They are the safe haven in a rocky place.  We look to them for clues about how to react.  They are the first and most important socializing influences upon our whole lives.

In order to ripen, or focus upon becoming the best that we can be, we need that stabilizing influence.  We need to know that our basic physical and emotional needs are all covered, so that we can expand into things beyond survival. 

Like education.  Like training.  Like attaining puberty and adulthood.

The Mother can watch our backs and cover all that keeps us whole and healthy.  She has already matured.  She knows what to do and how to do it.

She knows just how much stew and bread pudding will feed anywhere up to thirty-odd people.  And she knows that her grand-daughter will fetch the bread.

The Mother is the Big Bang (innuendo intended).  She's the star-dust falling. She's the single cell anatomies dividing. She's the ocean from which we crawled (or not, in the case of marine life). She's the DNA strands that form us and the air that we breathe. She's the food that sustains us and the water that quenches our thirst.

She's fertility. She's life.  She's all that blooms; and the soil which holds their roots.

She's the power that turns dreams into reality, through the sheer energy and will that pushes them into being.  She's the support that allows us to have the stamina to go on.

She's the Mother.