One of Mari's titles is The Goddess of One Thousand Names because people sought to understand and connect with this enormous life-giving power by naming Her in Her aspects, abilities and creative expression. All over the world, people gave Goddess Mari many different names in an attempt to comprehend and connect with specific aspects of the Goddess which had meaning to their lives.
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~Goddess Mari~
Mari Goddess of Justice. Mari could take on many forms, and would severly punish those convicted of lying, thievery or excessive pride. She cannot stand it when people have unfair advantages over others, and her feathers get ruffled when she watches the headlines in the news about people being murdered.
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Mari is the main character of Basque Ancient Pagan History, having, unlike other criatures that share the same imaginary enviroment, a god-like nature. Mari is often witnessed as a woman dressing in red. She is also seen as woman of fire, woman-tree and as thunderbolt. Additionally she is identified with red animals (cow, ram, horse) and with the black he-goat.
Mari lives in the underground, normally in a cave in a high mountain, where she and her consort Sugaar meet every Friday (the night of the Akelarre or witch-meeting), concieving then the storms that will bring fertility (and sometimes disgrace) to the land and the people. Mari is served by a court of sorginak (witches), and is said to feed on the negation and afirmation (that is on falsehood).
Photos of The Temple Of Mari
Occasionally the figure of Mari is linked to kidnappings or stealing of singular pieces of cattle but the presence of Christian priests in those myths may indicate that they are actually Christian fabrications or distrotions. In fact it doesn't seem that any kind of sacrifices were offered, at least normally, to Mari, in contrast to what happened with lesser genies (lamiak, jentilak, etc.) to whom it was given food as payement for their work in the fields.
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In differernt legends, Mari is attributed with sons or daughters but their number and character fluctuates. Maybe the most famous were her two sons, Atxular and Mikelatz, the first one represents largely the Christianized Basque soul, becoming a priest after having learned (and escaped) from the Devil himself in a church of Salamanca. Mikelatz instead seems to have a more negative or wild character and is sometimes assimlated to the genie of storms, Hodei or embodied as young red bull.
Another legend presents Mari as spouse to the Lord of Biscay, Diego López de Haro. This marriage may symbolize the legitimacy of the dynasty, much in the style of the Irish godess marrying the kinds of that Island as a relgious act of legitimacy. In any case, the condition that Mari imposes to her husband is that, while he could keep his Christian faith, he was obligued to keep it outside of the home. Nevertheless, once, apparently after discovering that his wife had a goat-leag instead of a normal human foot, he couldn't avoid to make the sign of the cross. Inmediately after that sacrilege, Mari got her daughter, jumped through the window and dissapeared not to ever come back. This outcome can obviously be seen as a deslegitimization of the de Haro family, who, after all, had been placed as lords by the Castilians conquerors not long before.
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Other legends are much more simple, like that one that says that when one is lost in the wild only has to cry her name loud thrice to get her over his or her head and, that way, find the right path.
There is much confussion over the origin of the name Mari. For some it's just the transposition of the Christian name of the mother of Jesus, Mary, but others prefer to believe it's a deformation of the Emari (gift) or Amari (mother + the suffix of profession) by losing the first vowel. It's actually hard to believe that such an important deity, actually the only known God of pre-Christian Basques (along with her consort), has her name derived of Christian icon. In any case it is quite clear that the closeness in names may have helped to canalize the Pagan veneration of Godess Mari into a Christian one of the Virgin Mary.
There is strong evidence of a previous religion, reflected in countless legends and some enduring traditions. This pre-Christian religion was apparently centered on a superior female genie: Mari. Her consort Sugaar also seems to bear some importance. This chthonic couple seem to bear the superior ethical power and also the power of creation and destruction. It's said that when they gathered in the high caves of the sacred peaks, they engendered the storms. These meetings typically happened on Friday nights, the day of historical akelarre or coven. Mari was said to reside in mount Anboto, periodically she crossed the skies as a bright light to reach her other home at mount Txindoki.
Another divinity seems to be Urtzi (also Ost, Ortzi: sky) but it seems to have been imported, as legends do not speak of him. Nevertheless his name appears in weekdays, months names and metereological events. In medieval times, Aymeric Picaud, a French pilgrim, wrote on the Basques, saying: et Deus vocant Urcia ("and they name God as Urci-a"; the -a being the Basque nominative or suffixed article).
There is also Anbotoko Mari, a goddess whose movements affected the weather. According to one tradition, she travelled every seven years between a cave on mount Anboto and one on another mountain (the stories vary); the weather would be wet when she was in Anboto, dry when she was in Aloña, or Supelegor, or Gorbea. It is hard to say how old this legend is; despite the pagan elements, one of her names, Mari Urraca, ties her to a possibly historical Navarrese princess of the 11th and 12th century and other legends give her a brother or cousin who was a Roman Catholic priest.
Legends also speak of many and abundant genies, like jentilak (equivalent to giants), lamiak (equivalent to nymphs), mairuak (builders of the cromlechs or stone circles, literally Moors), iratxoak (imps), sorginak (witches, priestess of Mari), etc. Basajaun is a Basque version of the wild man. There is a trickster named San Martin Txiki ("St Martin the Lesser"). It has been shown that some of these stories have entered Basque culture in recent centuries or as part of Roman superstitio. It is unclear whether neolithic stone structures called dolmens have a religious significance or were built to house animals or resting shepherds. Some of the dolmens and cromlechs are burial sites serving as well as border markers.
The ancestors of Basques are among the ancient inhabitants of Europe, and their origins are still unknown as are the origins of their language itself. Many scholars have tried to link Basque to Etruscan, African languages, Caucasian languages and so on, but most scholars see Basque as a language isolate. It was spoken long before the Romans brought Latin to the Iberian Peninsula.
The Basque language is thus an isolated language, although the Spanish language has greatly influenced Euskara, particularly in the vowel set. An alternative theory states that it was actually Basque's simplified vowel set that influenced the development of Spanish from Vulgar Latin. This unique and isolated language has attracted the interest of a great many linguists trying to discover its history and origin.The first time we find Basque in writing is the late Middle Ages, which is not, however, evidence of their late arrival, for the Basques were already very well established by this point.
"Encyclopedia of Gods" by Michael Jordan.
Mother goddess. Dravidian (Tamil) [southern India]. See Mari Mari. Mari (2) (queen) Supreme mother goddess. Basque [Pyrenean region]. She is both a sky and chthonic goddess and her consort is Maju. She is depicted dressed in rich clothing and jewels. Her home is within the earth but she also rides through the air in a chariot pulled by four hourse or carried by a ran. She may breathe fire and is symbolized by the rainbow. When she and her consort meet, a thunderstorm forms. Her symbol is the sickle, which is still employed as a device to ward off evil.
Mari predates Sargon himself, given the analogy with the sun goddess Shapash in Ugarit.
Forgotten by most she is Known as Mari, Mariamne, Marian, Miriam, Myrrhine, etc., This particular Goddess seems to have counterparts in every portion of the world. In Egypt, Mer was the Goddess of Water and a symbol of maternal love. In northern Europe, Maerin was the wife of Thor. Please note the similarity to the name Merlin, a mage whose life was closely linked with the Grail, a potent water symbol. In Saxon mythology, Maerin was known as Wudu-Maer.
Mari dominated what is now known as the Holy Land until 1700 BC. Here, her name was often combined with the male aspect of the Sun to become Meri-Ra in Egypt, or Mari-Yamm to the Hindus. She was pictured as a great fish that birthed the Gods. This image was later translated into the mermaid. Mari is also one of the earliest versions of the trinity in that she was not only the Mother of the sea, but also the Earth and Heavens. As the Goddess of the Grove, she was Maid Marian to the Celts,beloved of Robin, an archetype of the Horned God of Witches. In Sumero-Babylonian traditions, Mari closely corresponds to Tiamat, the Goddess Mother whose name means deep or womb.
Even in Israel,Mari was once worshiped in her own right as the consort to Yahweh.
Even Christians continue to unwittingly pay homage to this mighty Pagan Goddess.Like her Hindu counterpart Kali Mari, KELLE was also known as Keli-Mary, one of the Goddess prototypes upon which the figure of the Virgin Mary was later modelled.
In Mangalore Goddess Mari is still Worshiped & in March Mari Pooja is held with great pomp and show. http://www.geocities.com/latha_y/mang_worship.html
Mary represents the femine force within Christianity, and is often a point of controversy. Many Fathers of the church believe the image of Mary is a composite of Mariamne, the Semitic God-Mother and Queen of Heaven; Aphrodite-Mari, the Syrian Version of IShtar and several other Mother-Goddess images. The need of femine form was so crucial to the early church that the Church has continually needed to deal with Mariolatry.
Mary's prayers includes the phrase "Queen of Heaven where she is enthroned in the midst of the angels, queen of earth where she constantly manifests her power, and queen of hell which shed has power over demons." Mary is the repository within Christianity of all women oriented and Pagan Goddess Titles, and this has matured to a movement today, which includes the Pope, of naming Mary Co-Redemptrix with Jesus, raising her equal to her son, Jesus.
Eye Goddess - Found throughout Mesopotamia. In 3500 - 2,000 B.C.Syria, this Sumerian Madonna Goddess was known as Mari, Whose huge eyes searched men's souls.
In India, every village contains a small temple dedicated to various local form of goddess Mari or Mariamma who is worshipped as goddess of fertility and dispeller of epidemics. Goddess Mari or Marika at Sirsi is especially worshipped as the presiding deity of all epidemics like small pox, plague, cholera and natural disasters like floods, famines and cyclones, which take toll of thousands.
In Languedoc and eastern France she is La Reine Blanche (the White Queen) and also La Reine Pedauque (the Goose-footed Queen) who is the Mother Goose of nursery rhyme. In Brittany she is Dahud or Ahès, who appeared as a deer to a Breton king. To the Basques she is the Goddess Mari, in Christianity Mary, in England Maid Marian, in Wales Modron, in Arthurian myth Morgana, Demeter in Greece and so on. In Scotland and Ireland she is the Cailleach and in Ireland there are also well-known fairy queens such as Cliodna in Munster and Aine in Limerick. In the north of England she is the Goddess Brigantia (not to be confused with St Bridgit) whose name means The High One and who gave her name to the Brigantes tribe. There are also numerous 'saints' such as St Bridgit and St Morwenna who are really Goddesses or fairy queens in other guise.
Mari sometimes assumed the form of a male black goat, Akerbeltz. Like Mari, he lives underneath the Earth, is chief over many spirits, creates storms, protects herds and flocks. This deity is quite old, attested in Roman-era inscriptions as A H ERBELSTE. Places sacred to Mari were pointed out as meeting-places of the witches. Her sanctuary at Zugarramurdi had a level meadow leading up to a cavern, one of the most famous of the "goat-meadows." Inside, near the cave floor was an opening in the rock that looked into another stone chamber, said to be where the witches met. Another entrance leads into a different "cave of the witches."
Gracia la Valle was the first known "witch" to be burned by the Spanish Inquisition -- at Zaragoza in 1498. The following year it was Maria Bielsa, and in 1500, Marieta, Nanavina and Estefabrita went to the stake in Zaragoza. [Lison, 41] Meanwhile, bishop Alonso de Burgos disparaged religious movements in Durango for being pagan and idolatrous. Witch hunts there in 1500 focused on Mari of Amboto, the great goddess of the Basques. [Baroja, 144. He aptly compares Mari to Frau Holle and "Bona Sozia," witch goddesses of northern Germany and the western Alps.]
Ancestor veneration and a sense of Aideko -- the supernatural world -- remained deeply embedded in Basque culture. The folklore collected by Barandiaran and Baroja illuminates these themes of the old Euskaldun religion. The caves of Azcondo and Zugarramurdi, sacred to the goddess Mari, were considered to be witches' gathering places, as were dolmens, springs and cliffs. Many animist sanctuaries had place-names as witches' springs, fields, bridges and glens. [Baroja, 239]
Basque folklorists point out that sorguin, "witch," is related to Sorguiñ, an old name for a cave dwelling spirit in Mari's retinue. Sorguiñ comes out at night to collect reparations from those who try to hide their wealth by lying or fraud. [Barandiaran, 86] Proverbially, the sorgiñes have their ways of recognizing each other.
Everyone knew that witches gathered on Ostiral (Friday), the day of Mari, also sacred to the moon. Tradition surrounded this day with religious taboos against undertaking important new projects, getting married, making new hires, taking flocks to the mountains, collecting honey from beehives, cutting fingernails, or going to mass. People often reported seeing lights, music, dancing at crossroads during storms, when Mari was abroad. [Baroja 231-3] Some towns had the custom of going out to eat gruel by the light of the moon. [Barandiaran, 133-4]
Mari and Shakespeare
In sixteenth-century England, veneration of Mary was a central issue in public controvery about the sense of scriptural text, religious images, and religious practices in Christian life. Some leading figures in sixteenth-century England considered pilgrimages to Marian shrines and praying the rosary to be unscriptural, superstitious, and/or idolatrous. From 1535 to 1538, under orders from Henry VIII, all Christian shrines in England were destroyed. Most of these shrines were Marian shrines, and they included the highly popular shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, as well as other popular shrines at Ipswich, Worcester, Doncaster, and Penrise.
At the same time, Mary rose dramatically in popularity as a given name for baby girls in sixteenth-century England. About 1500 in Warwick County, England, perhaps only 1% of baby girls were named Mary. By 1600, the share of baby girls named Mary had risen to about 10%.[2] (http://www.galbithink.org/sense-s8.htm) This change is remarkable in light of extensive government efforts during that same period to extirpate veneration of Marian images and direct Christian worship to the written word.
William Shakespeare had keen appreciation for the controversy over the sense of Mary in Christian life. Concern about the relationship between words and images, and players, shadows, and real persons, pervades Shakespeare's work. His play, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5, includes a dialogue, formally organized as a sonnet, that uses Marian pilgrimage to figure Romeo's wooing of Juliet. His play, Twelfth Night, includes a character named Maria who, as a character who treats other persons as instruments to fulfil her needs, expresses widely recognized corruption in Marian practices. The last scene in The Winter's Tale includes instructions from Paulina that place Perdita in the position of asking the statue of Hermione for intercessory prayer, much as a pilgrim to a Marian shrine might have prayed before an image of Mary. Turmoil about the sense of Mary in sixteenth-century English history is closely related to the development of Shakespeare's theatre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary%2C_the_mother_of_Jesus
Was Romeo and Juliet Esoteric Mythos that our dear Shakespear was leaving behind?
Just Romeo and Juliet or lost History of The God and Goddess? Explore the secret and hidden mystical messages encoded in the ancient tales of the supernatural. Discuss your theories on the anagogical ideas and concepts which lie cloaked in the mystical sagas of the primeval faiths. Once Upon a time they were Known as The Ancients. They wrote Mythos Tales and inside these Tales rested a deep & hidden meaning.
Just as Juliet Loved Romeo Goddess Sophia Chased after her love. As if she was Cursed to the Earth in search for him.
Goddess Sophia... The fallen Goddess The Nag Hammadi Library. The Exegesis on the Soul. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/exe.html
Goddess Sophia and her lost Legends were discovered in 1945. The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. This immensely important discovery includes a large number of primary Gnostic scriptures -- texts once thought to have been entirely destroyed during the early Christian struggle to define "orthodoxy" -- scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.
"And he still cries out for her. Don't leave me now!" Rhiannon....
Just as Juliet and Sophia Isis also chased after her Love Osiris. They long to be together in an never ending Love
Isis would have died for him just as Juliet and Sophia. They did it all for Love.
The Tale of the marriage of God & Earth. Taken from SIRACH, THE ALPHABET OF http://beta.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T8207
What is the Sirach Alphabet? SIRACH, THE ALPHABET OF Usually called The Alphabet of Ben Sira. The compilation so designated consists of two lists of proverbs, 22 in Aramaic and 22 in Hebrew, arranged in each case as alphabet acrostics. Each of these proverbs is followed by a haggadic comm., with legends and tales, many of them indecent. Some of the proverbs in the Alphabets are probably genuine compositions by Ben Sira and are quoted as such in the Talmud, but in their present form the Alphabets are at least as late as the 11th century AD.
The only complete copy of the text to SIRACH known is in the British Museum, the copy in the Bodleian being defective. Steinschneider has published a reprint of this last with critical notes (Alphabeticum Syracidis, Berlin, 1854). Cowley and Neubauer (The Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus), besides giving a general account of this work, add a translation into English of the Aramaic proverbs. In his brief but excellent articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia (Ben Sira, The Alphabet of), Dr. Louis Ginzberg (New York) also gives a translation of the 22 Aramaic proverbs with useful remarks after each. The work has been translated into Latin, Yiddish (often), Judeo-Spanish, French and German, but never, so far, completely into English.
When God Married The Earth... Is when Magic came to life! http://www.halexandria.org/dward455.htm
A beautiful Fictional Story Of Mari...
The Murmillions of Nybelmar have two Gods which are closely related to each other and cannot be discussed but together. One of them is Mari, seen as a feminine figure, reigning over one's mind, dreams and hopes. It is believed that Mari has many "manifestations", as she is present in everything we do or we are. There are as many Murmillion ults as Mari's manifestations, each cult depicting her in what form they think is more important. The only cult that is widely spread throughout the Murmillions (mainly because most of the commoners adhere to it) depicts Mari as a woman with fire wings being embraced by a shadow. Image drawn by Enayla.
http://www.santharia.com/pictures/enayla/mari.htm
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Goddess Mari Yahoo Group Founded March 17th 2002
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