#feminine principle
Lily
Purity; peace; resurrection; royalty.
Sacred to all Virgin Goddesses, the Mother and Maid, the One and the Many.
The lily also represents the fertility of the Earth Goddess and later of the sky gods.
The lily in the West shares the symbolism of the lotus in the East.
A branch of lilies depicts virginity, also regeneration and immortality.
Alchemic: The white lily is the feminine principle
Christian: Purity; innocence; the Virgin Mary; its straight stalk is her godly mind, its pendant leaves her humility, its fragrance is divinity, its whiteness is purity; it is also a symbol of the Annunciation and of virgin saints, as chastity; it is the flower of Easter. Dante calls it the ‘lily of faith’. The lily among thorns depicts the Immaculate Conception as purity in the midst of sins of the world. In art a lily on one side and a sword on the other depict innocence and guilt.
Egyptian: Fruitfulness, but the lotus is more frequently used in Egyptian symbolism.
Graeco-Roman: Purity; it sprang from the milk of Hera and is an emblem of Hera/Juno and of Diana as chastity.
Hebrew: Trust in God; emblem of the tribe of Judah.
Islamic: Its symbolism can be taken by the hyacinth.
Minoan: Chief attribute of the goddess Britomartis.
Sumero-Semitic: Fruitfulness; fecundity.
[Source: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols by J.C. Cooper]
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“The world will be saved by Western Women.” –Dalai Lama
We live in an age of accelerated change and transformation. It is a head-spinning, anxiety-inducing time. We see severe climate change, devastating oil spills, species dying off, and a deadly global pandemic that has affected everything and everyone. We find corruption and stagnation in business, politics and religions around the world. We see worldwide systemic racism, inequality and oppression. We see mass social delusion, extremism and a plethora of misinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories. We witness fear, anger and hopelessness in our communities.
None of the countless issues we face on this planet today can be resolved by our current masculine, left-brain analytical thinking. A functioning, sustainable whole requires the feminine and the masculine to be integrated within the individual and within humanity as a whole, and we are increasingly aware of the dysfunctional results of millennia of human development based almost solely on patriarchal, masculine value systems. The patriarchy has now reached a toxic degenerate phase. After the leak of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito opinion that will most likely overturn Roe v. Wade, we see the true patriarchal hatred of, contempt for, and prejudice against women. With autocrats like Vladimir Putin, we see the twisted rage of the male ego, which turns cruel and psychopathic, given unlimited power over others.
The feminine wasn’t always subordinate to the masculine. According to world mythology, it was the Earth, Nature herself, who provided our oldest ancestral forefathers and mothers with the concept of the Great Mother and with a value system based on Nature’s ways and cycles. The Great Mother was a symbol of life itself, for all life emerged from her womb. She sustained all of life through the nourishment she provided, and all living things returned to her upon death. Therefore, the Great Mother was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, creative and intuitive force.
The feminine principle stems in its origins from this nature-based concept, as the female body exhibits the same patterns and cycles as nature. Consequently, the feminine was seen as the life-giving, nurturing, sustaining and life-embracing force, the creative vessel of life that contained, birthed, nurtured and protected. Not surprising, then, that ancient people respected the feminine. The power of the feminine as a calm receptive energy is the key to bringing balance to the world’s excessively masculine state – in other words, aggressive, extroverted, loud, superficial, materialistic, ego-driven culture.
