Editorial note: The original version of Jeanine Miller’s article of the same title was published in the Whitsun 1998 Grail Magazine and  this shortened version was published in the magazine The Liberal Catholic (December 1999).

The Celestial Virgin
In the primeval vision of those "Lords of Meditation" who gave out the Gnosis, the divine wisdom, or Veda, the "Celestial Virgin" was far from human. Her vesture was space, the matrix of all seeds to be, the cradle of starry universes, her being was viewed as the fiery dragon, the dragon of wisdom. Space in those far off days meant not an abstraction as it does for most of us, but an entity, the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the world manifesting as the vast expanse of living, throbbing, virgin, starry mist, called the "Waters" of Space in the Vedas, the "Flame Waters" in the Upanishads and later akasha, the seething, fiery mist that is woven warp and woof on the Word, the Logos, both being one. At the call of that primeval vibration the Celestial Virgin awoke from her aeonic sleep and thrilled into existence for another aeon of manifestation. Do we think that only Christianity knows of the "Word that was in the beginning and the Word was with God and the Word was God"?

Vibration is the very life of the matrix that we call Space, akasha. Space as field of vibration and as substance of life are one. Space is alive with the quickening fire of being, for the word is fire and the soul of fire is the very life of akasha. In course of time the anthropomorphizing bent of the human mind personified this mighty "abyss" of fire-mist which H.P.B. calls in the Secret Doctrine, the Celestial Virgin. It is this Celestial Virgin that found a reflection in all the ancient Mother Goddesses, in one way or another. Some of these had been human and were deified, others we do not know, and this is the case of Aditi.

Aditi, Queen of Cosmic Order
The starry mist that shaped the universes assumed in the minds of the Rishis of ancient India the grand figure of Aditi, "Queen of Cosmic Order", luminous, solar-powered the pure giver of light and protection. Aditi the Mother of those luminous energies called the devas or shining-ones (mistranslated "gods"). Aditi the Infinite is the cosmos for she contains it all and is the sustainer of all its creatures. Apart from representing the vast all, or the substratum of all that is, Aditi is specifically the Mother of seven Gods, the Adityas, the Lords of Righteousness who are the custodians and regents of the Cosmic Order, for they rule in accordance with the law inherent to their being which is one with the Supreme Law. What is that Cosmic Order, that Supreme Law? One little Sanskrit word of three Letters rta (=rita) has a profound meaning including Ultimate TRUTH, Cosmic Order, Law, righteousness. As Cosmic Order it contains three basic elements: activity, order and law. All is subject to the law of becoming, of adjustment and transformation, the rhythms of life and death, breathing in and out, etc, these being the dynamic expression of the settled order: static and dynamic interlock in the rta.

But, the vast vault of seething mist or space was also, in the conception of the Ancients, the devourer of its own offspring who sink back into the womb that produced them; this is the dark but unavoidable side of the Mother Goddesses of former times.

Aditi's grand figure slowly dwindled away from man's cosmic perception - even like the vision of Cosmic Order that the Rishis intuited and of which they sang in their hymns, the vision which in coming down to our human level split into two aspects, karma and dharma, thereby losing that touch of cosmic majesty that had belonged to it. Aditi became more and more identified with Earth, or Prithivi the broad, who herself becomes the Great Mother.

Mother Earth
Prithivi appears in the Rgveda as the inseparable companion of Heaven (Dyaus) both being the immediate parents of all earthly creatures. As a more homely version of the Celestial Virgin that encompasses all, Mother Earth whose compass is our surroundings, is the beneficent mother of humans and animals.

Earth's variegated forms and cycles of recurrence, of nurture and fruitfulness, spell out for all to see and ponder upon, the supreme Law of orderly progression and unfolding, of eternal return. In her is mirrored the higher and the lower, the vast and the small, the gentle and the fiercesome, all the dimensions of terrestrial life, yet the overall feeling is that of beneficence, of nourishing, caring enfoldment. In the darkness of the soil germinate those seeds that will bring forth their fruit and give life to millions of creatures. This is the eternal offering of Earth to all. Note that the germination of the seed in the darkness of the soil has its higher spiritual counterpart in the germination of the "seed" of spiritual insight in the darkness of silent meditation. That which is below mirrors that which is above. So Mother Earth is the very embodiment of the Cosmic Order. "Vast truth, mighty Order, consecration, contemplative-exertion, prayer, sacrificial-offering, these uphold the Earth" (Athv. XII.1.1). A supreme vision of cosmic harmony, of the interlocking of Cosmic Order and human aspiring activity in one vast offering which makes of the Earth the central altar and mirror of the celestial harmony, the holy ground wherein is voiced the call of the Divine to the human and the human response to the Divine.

Neith, Nut, Isis
In Egypt one of the oldest of goddesses, Neith, had an inscription in her temple at Sais which read: "I am all that has been and is and shall be, and my robe no mortal has yet uncovered." (Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride. IX)

A worthy parallel to Aditi's claim to be everything that is and that will be; a saying that was to be ascribed to Isis in later times. Neith, self-sustaining and self-existent, secret, unknown, all pervading personified the primeval Waters, the great abyss, in short the matrix of space in which all is born and to which all returns, the infinite "veil" of Deity. She was to be identified with Nut (pronounced Noot), the sky goddess, and with Isis and indeed most of the later mother goddesses of Egypt. Nut, represented with an elongated body arched like the sky vault over the earth, embodies the whole creation within herself. She is the starry heaven that swallows the sun at dusk marking the 12 hours of the night as the 12 suns in her body, to give birth to them once again at dawn. "She is the ocean of life with its life-and-death-bringing seasons and life is her child", says Erich Neumann ("The Great Mother"). She is the great encompasser who takes back into herself her children as is beautifully depicted on the inside lids of sarcophagi where the dead were laid thus embraced to repose by the heavenly Nut. What should be the fear if such a heavenly mother, as the starry heaven should take us back into her bosom and bring us closer to the constellated tree of life, the state of illumination?

Supreme among the Egyptian mother goddesses Isis emerges as Mother-wife-sister; as the very embodiment of Nature with all her mysteries and uncanny powers; as the rich slime deposits from which new life could spring; and above all as the symbol of the human psyche. As her hieroglyph of the throne implies, she is the basis, hence the vehicle, just as the horse is the support and vehicle of the horseman; in other words, she is the vehicle of that spiritual spark which cannot manifest at this lower level except through such a support. Osiris' hieroglyph is that of the throne plus the eye, sign of insight, or the sun disc, sign of illumination. He represents the Heavenly Man, the purusha of Sankhya philosophy, the divine flame creating through the soul his "son", Horus, the falcon that soars straight to the sun and whose gaze takes in the widest compass. Through Isis that spiritual spark as solar disc or eye that sits upon the throne can manifest here on earth and light the way.

Psychologically, the soul forces her entrance into the spiritual domain through love, devotion, care, perseverance, suffering, and then conceives her fruit, divine man whose task is to make divine will prevalent on earth. Thus does Horus unite the "two lands" the two poles, spirit and matter and to him is given the whole heritage. Divinity, in the human being, however long its trials and tribulations, is predestined to conquer. In Genesis, the statement that the "seed of the woman" -- the soul, later identified with Mary -- shall bruise the head of the serpent (matter) has its equivalent meaning in the Egyptian Horus "avenging" his father Osiris' death at the hands of his disruptive brother Seth through the ministering help of Isis, the soul. The Egyptian Book of the Dead enumerates 21 pylons through which the candidate for initiation must proceed after due purification. These could be grouped thus:

The initiate becomes first Isis through the mastery of Nature; then Osiris through his passage through the gates of death; having conquered death he becomes Horus and comes into his heritage of the splendour of the solar light; he has become the luminous one.

All this could be summed up thus: it is within our deepest self where the Christ child is born and abides in darkness, our innermost soul, that the way of resurrection and ascent is trodden to perfectibility. The whole drama of Isis, Osiris, Horus, the great precursor to the Christian drama bears witness to what was so cryptically expressed by Isaiah: "And I will give thee the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places" (Isiah 45.3) and by St Paul: "thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die" (I. Cor. 15. 36).

Darkness brings forth life, the gateway of death for a more exalted life, for resurrection. All the ancient Mother goddesses, all the ancient mysteries, indeed all the sacrificial rituals proclaim this truth, so little recognised and so little understood.

The Black Virgins and the Madonna
The black Virgins still found in southern France, Spain, Switzerland and Poland, brought back from the Orient by the Crusaders, are also a pointer to this fundamental aspect of Nature and its child, the human psyche. Some have the regal, and sometimes stern or far away look of Isis, but who could have told the difference? The seated virgin, with her son on her lap or in her arms, like Isis with Horus, emerges from the night of time, regal and serene as the queen of that silent darkness wherein the miracle of birth and resurrection is slowly being accomplished. Why black, the colour of mourning and renunciation? Its broader and symbolic meaning points to the dark soil that receives and holds the seed to bring it to fruition its spiritual meaning to the silent recollection wherein the human loses his bearings to follow a star to finally flash forth upon the endless way. It points even to carbon, progenitor of the many faceted diamond, basis of organic substance, hence of living matter. All this, and more, is enshrined in the constantly constellating archetype of Madonna-mother, deeply buried in the soil of the human psyche.

Surreptitiously the fusion between the ancient mother goddesses embodying the wisdom of the ages in their blend of the heavenly and the earthly, and the newly born virgin "Mother of God" was accomplished. A new order now superseded the ancient one. Yet the basis remained the same: The timeless image of the all-nurturing mother and her child imbibing her love, understanding, care and wisdom. The pure, gentle virgin was lifted to the celestial realm without divorcing her from our human plight and our earthly shackles - in spite of certain Church dignitaries who fought hard against this, but had to yield to the pressure of the human heart, only after they had debated, in their arrogance, and conceded the fact that woman, half of humanity, did have a soul after all! How could man be born of a soul-less being? Freed of earthly trammels and made "immaculate" the Madonna links (among Catholics) the terrestrial and the heavenly as the divine intercessor between the divine and the human.

In some villages of southern France, around Perpignan, one can still see some of these age-old statues that escaped from the burning madness of the 15th century as well as from the shameful looting and desecration of the late 20th century, statues of the "vierges ouvrantes", with the "open chest" revealing: the face of God?, or the world? or the Christ? Or, as in the Paris Cluny Museum, holding the infant Christ with the right hand and a rosy ball with the left.