Daily Signet

In this month in celebration of the mystery of Eternal Woman, we begin a series of contemplations on the Ten Mahavidyas (Maha—great and Vidyas—Wisdoms) of whom we speak in our Prayer to the Mystery of the Eternal Feminine High Service this month.

The Mahavidyas are the powers that in India are said to live in every woman in the world. Joseph Campbell says that when he lived in India he learned that all women were considered divinities. The  greatest crimes in India, he noted, were killing a cow, killing a Brahmin and killing a woman because they all represent the sacred powers. When we talk of the Mahavidyas in our service, we’re reminding ourselves of the great mythologies of all time—of the Navajo stories where each detail of the desert is deified and the land becomes a holy place because it reveals mythological entities and forces.  It is as if Mother Nature herself is an icon, so that wherever you go, you’re getting a message that the divine power is working for you.  We think that we must go to the holy land on pilgrimages, but the Navajo might remind us that, “This is it and, furthermore—you are it as well!”  

Teri Martin

From the Eternal Woman High Service:

O Woman Eternal, you draw us on. 
The goddess is red with the fire of life:
Mountain matron, cavernous rock, mounded green, dank caves.
the earth, the solar system, the galaxy of far-extending space
And from her mountain--nourishment, healing, white milk, unwearied protection.
All swell within her womb.                                        
And from her cave—
a labyrinth of quietude and oneness 
where only one can be born and where only one can die.
For she is the world creatrix,
From mountain base to girth to mound,
Ever mother, ever virgin
She nurtures what is to remain. From womb of cave and canyon,
She encompasses the encompassing, 
desert and shore, 
nourishes the nourishing
She births what is to change. —Benjamin H. Martin
And is the life of everything that lives. —Joseph Campbell