Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

“bright” or “brilliant.” This is seen in the Canaanite

Ba’al; the Celtic Belenos; and Balor of the Flaming

Eye. Bale-fires are still lit

throughout Ireland at his

great festival of Beltaine

(May Day), marking the

beginning of Summer.

Hail to the Sun God,

He’s a really fun God!

Ra! Ra! Ra Ra Ra!

Sister Moon (Luna)

Luna is the Roman name for the Lady in the Moon.

From the earliest times, most human cultures have

considered the Moon to be feminine. In ancient Greece

she was called Artemis, Diana, or Selene. She is Hina

in Hawaii and Ixchel in old Mexico. She was

Arianrhod to the Welsh and Heng-O in Taoist China.

She is often said to be either the sister or the wife of

the Sun God.

Luna has three faces, corresponding to the three

phases of the Moon—waxing, full, and waning. She

is thus identified as the Triple Goddess—Maiden,

Mother, and Crone, corresponding to the ages of

women. And as the Moon controls both the tides of

the sea and the tides of

women’s bodies, she is

seen as a goddess of

Magick and mystery,

and worshipped by

Witches everywhere,

who gather in her

name at the full

Moons (and some-

times in the dark of the

Moon).

The Moon was born

from the Earth four billion years ago, before there were

any living creatures on our world. A Mars-sized plan-

etoid smashed into the early molten Earth, knocking a

great mass out of the opposite side, which coalesced

into the Moon. Her birthplace is now the basin of the

Pacific Ocean. Thus Luna, though airless, dry, and

lifeless, is truly Earth’s sister world.

When I gaze upon the full Moon, I think of all the

people I know and love throughout the world, and

know that they too are looking up at her face at the

same time. I visualize the full Moon as a great mirror in

the sky (which, in fact, she is), and I send my love

reflecting from her to all those I care about.

Pray to the Moon when she is round

Good luck with you will then abound

And what you seek for shall be found

On land, or sea, or underground.

Lesson 3. Mother Earth

& Her Children

Mother Earth (Gaea)

“Of Earth I sing, eldest of all

And Mother of the Gods...”

So begins the Homeric Hymn to Gaea, the Earth

Mother. Gaea (Latin Gaia) is the name given by the

ancient Greeks to the primordial planetary goddess

worshipped by humanity since the dawn of the Stone

Age. In Hesiod’s Theogony (the ancient Greek cre-

ation story) Gaea was created by Light and Love from

the primal cosmic Chaos. Her first offspring was

Ouranos, the Heavens. Fertilized by the cometary ar-

rows of Eros (Love), Gaea gave birth to all the world’s

plants, animals, Titans, Gods, Goddesses, and, of

course, humanity. So Gaea is the Mother of us all. The

Romans called her Terra, from which we get words like

terrestrial and terra-forming. Every culture on Earth

has had a name for her, and many of them—such as

the Peruvian Pachamama—are a variant of “mama,”

the first word of most human babies.

Throughout the world, even small children intu-

itively recognize Mother Earth. She is the oldest and

most universally acknowledged religious archetype

in all of human experience. In the few images of Gaea

that come down to us from ancient Greece, she ap-

pears enthroned, or as a beautiful and mature woman

with wild hair, emerging from the opening Earth. The

very rocks and stones were called “the bones of Gaea.”

Photos taken from space since the 1960s have

awakened people the world over to our Earth as a

whole entity. This awareness has caused the name of

Gaea to re-emerge, this time into natural science, in

the form of “The Gaia Thesis,” which asserts

that our planet is a single living organism.

“Gaia”

by Susan

Seddon-Boulet

62 Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard

Corrected pages 3rd printing.1.p65 24 6/10/2004, 2:59 PM