Course Two: Nature 63
Task: Make an Ice-Age Matrika
Matrikas, or “little mothers,” were
made for more than 20,000 years dur-
ing the last Ice Age. Found across
the Eurasian continent from Spain
to Siberia, they are so similar in
style that they could have all been
made by the same artist. When I
decided to become a sculptor in
1973, the first image I set out to
reproduce was the oldest of these
(30,000 years!), the “Venus of
Willendorf,” shown here. Try mak-
ing one yourself for your altar. First,
of course, you will need clay. If you have access to a
kiln (like at school) and can have it fired, you can use
regular ceramic clay. Otherwise, I recommend air-dry-
ing clay, like “Mexi-Clay.” I prefer red clay, in either
case. These figures don’t usually have lower arms,
and the faces are generally featureless. Dry her or fire
her, and you will astound future archaeologists!The First Children of Gaea
The first Children of Gaea are what we call the
three great “Kingdoms (or Queendoms) of Life.”
These are Plants, Animals, and Fungi, the basic divi-
sions of all multi-cellular organisms. From the point
of view of our magickal personifications, these mani-
fest as five: two sets of twins—the Green and the
Red—and one loner, the Grey.
The crucial difference between plants and ani-
mals resolves to a single atom in a complex mol-
ecule of the circulatory fluids. In plants, that atom is
magnesium, making the molecule appear green. We
call it chlorophyll, and it conveys the power of pho-
tosynthesis—turning light and water into sugar. In
animals, the equivalent atom is iron, making the mol-
ecule appear red. We call it hemoglobin, and it al-
lows our blood to extract oxygen from the air. So the
Spirits of vegetation are green, and those of animals
are red. Having neither chlorophyll nor hemoglobin,
the color of the Spirit of fungi, like some mushrooms,
is a pale grey. All of these are intimately inter-related
and interdependent upon each other
The cycle of the turning seasons is called the
Wheel of the Year. Mythically, the main characters in
this annual drama are Mother Earth, Father Sun, and
their children: the leafy Green Man and flowery Maid,
and the hornéd Red Man and furry Maid. (NOTE:
When we say “Red Man,” this has nothing to do with
Native Americans....) The seasonal round is the story
of their births, courtship, marriage, pregnancy, matu-
ration, death, and rebirth—all enacted as a great dance
in the Circle of Life. (See “The Wheel of the Year,”
Course 4, Class VI.)The Green Maid (Flora)
For she will bring the buds in Spring
And laugh among the flowers.
In Summer’s heat her kisses are sweet;
She sings in leafy bowers.
She cuts the cane and gathers the grain
When fruits of Fall surround her.
Her bones grow old in Wint’ry cold;
She wraps her cloak around her.
—Hope Athern, “The Lady’s Bransle”Green Goddess is more
than a salad dressing!
She is by far the eldest
daughter of Gaea, for
the first green algae ap-
peared in the oceanic
womb of Mother Earth
more than 2½ billion
years ago. Her Latin
name, Flora, has been
given by scientists to
the entire Queendom of plants. She is usually shown
with a face of flowers. Spilling forth from her boun-
teous cornucopia, flowers, fruits, and vegetables are
especially associated with the Green Goddess, as they
are the ova (eggs) of plants.
Like the Green Man, the Green Maid also under-
goes the annual vegetation cycle of birth, life, death,
and rebirth—from the planting through the harvest,
and back again to the season of planting. In the
Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece, the Maiden
Goddess of Spring flowers was called Kore (“daugh-
ter”), and her Mother, Demeter, was goddess of all
the vegetative world—especially the grains. The Ro-
man name for her, Ceres, gives us our word cereal.
As the embodiment of the flowering of all Na-
ture, Flora was called the secret patron of Rome, with-
out whose help the city would die. Her festival was
the Floralia—April 28–May 3.The Green Man (Florus)
Oh, he will call the leaves in the Fall,
To fly their colors brightly!
When warmth is lost he paints with frost,
His silver touches lightly!
He greets the day in the dance of the May,
With ribbons wound about him!
We eat his corn and drink from the horn—
We would not be without him!
—Artemisia, “The Lord’s Bransle”Florus, the Green Man, is the masculine aspect of the
vegetable kingdom. He came into being with the first
sexual differentiation of plants into male and femaleFlora
by Katlyn- Nature.p65 63 1/14/2004, 3:33 PM