Luna: Goddess of the Moon 🌕

            🌕Moon goddesses 🌕           

The moon has captivated humans since the beginning of time.

Every culture in every corner of the globe has some myth or legend regarding it's origin or the god or goddess's that represents it.

Luna the Roman Goddess of the Moon.

Luna is the Roman goddesses of the moon, and her Greek counterparts we're often formed in a triadic manner hence Luna was associated with two further goddesses, Diana and Hecate. Luna was the goddess in heaven and of the full moon (Greek counterpart being Selene), Diana was the goddess on earth and of the halfmoon (Greek Artemis) and Hecate (or Hekate) was the goddess in the underworld and of the dark moon.

Diana was originally a goddess of fertility and was worshipped by women as the giver of fertility and easy births.

 She was also the goddess of nature and of hunting. 

Hecate was the underworld goddess of magic and witchcraf, she is often linked with Luna and  Diana but is also further association with other goddesses linked to chastity and childbirth such as Prosperina and Juno Lucina, an ancient maternal character. The latter may even have been a more central figure within the triad of moon goddesses with Hecate being a later addition.

The multiple facets of women, femininity and childbirth were believed to be associated with the phases of the moon: the new moon represented the maiden goddess, Diana, always new, virginal, reborn and ready for the hunt whereas the waxing moon increasing in size represented the fertile mother goddess, pregnant with life. 

The darkening moon reflected the wise crone or witch, Hecate, with power to heal and transform.and Luna being a literal representation of the moon and sky in all it's beauty.

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HEKATE (Hecate) was the guardian of the crossways and goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts and necromancy. She was the only child of the Titanes Perses and Asteria from whom she received her power over heaven, earth, and sea. She also represents the Maiden, Mother and Croon with statues often showing three faces.

The Romans believed that the moon controlled many other facets of  life including the wind, rain, tides, animal life, mineral growth and earthquakes. Suetonius (Roman historian AD69 - AD122) wrote ‘The moon is a great magnet of vapour and all substances characterised by moisture. When the moon grows so do all fruits, and as it was, so they also shrink’. 

Luna was also believed to have the power to mask reality, to pierce illusion, to awaken intuition and to spark visions. This latter arising from association of the night and the moon with dreams.

 She was also known as a patron of solutions which came to people in dreams, when the subconscious mind processes information.

🌕Other Moon Goddess's 🌕

Rhiannona A Welsh, Celtic Goddess of the moon, horse's fertility rebirth and forgiveness.

Devana, A Slavic Moon Goddess also associate with nature, forests and hunting. She the equivalent of the Greek goddess Artemis and the Roman goddess Diana.

Selene Titan goddess and personification of the moon. She was depicted as a woman riding sidesaddle on a horse or driving a chariot drawn by a pair of winged horse's 

 

Goddess Myeongwol; Korean goddess of the moon her beauty shins brightest during the full moon.

Chang'e Originally known as Heng'e, is the goddess of the Moon and wife of Yi, the great archer. Renowned by her beauty, Chang'e is also known for her ascending to the moon with her pet Yu Tu, the Moon Rabbit and living in the Moon

These are only a few of the more well known goddess's. But there are So many more. I will do separate posts on some of the other later.

Cupid:God of passion and lust.

Cupid, The cherub of love and passion.

Cupid is the Roman equivalent to Eros the  Greek of Lust.

Cupid (lust or desire) and Amor (affectionate love) are to  different names for the same Roman love-god, ( in some versions cupid is a set of twins) erith was he is the son of Venus, fathered by Mercury, Vulcan or Mars (depending on which version of the story you read.) is young Childlike figure with  wings  who accompany Venus and has also been  identified as Amores, Cupids, Erotes or other forms of  Eros.

The oldest version of cupid   is Eros, whom Hesiod categories as a primordial deity, emerging from Chaos as a generative power with neither mother nor father. Eros was the patron deity of Thespiae, where he was embodied as an aniconic stone as late as the 2nd century AD. From at least the 5th century BC he also had the form of an adolescent or pre-adolescent male, at Elis (on the Peloponnese) and elsewhere in Greece,  acquiring wings, bow and arrows, and eventually divine parents in the love-goddess Aphrodite and the war-god Ares. He had temples of his own, and shared others with Aphrodite.


Fragmentary base for an altar of Venus and Mars, showing cupids or erotes playing with the war-god's weapons and chariot. From the reign of Trajan (98–117 AD)

 

 

 

 In Elis, and  Athens, Eros shared a cult with a twin, named Anteros. Xenophon's Socratic Symposion 8. 1, features a dinner-guest with eros (love) for his wife; in return, she has anteros (reciprocal love) for him. Some sources suggest Anteros as the  avenger of "slighted love".

In Servius' 4th century commentary on Virgil's Aeneas, Cupid is a deceptive agent of Venus, impersonating Aeneas' son and making Dido, queen of Carthage, forget her husband. When Aeneas rejects her love, and covertly leaves Carthage to fulfill his destiny as ancestor of the Roman people, Dido is said to invoke Anteros as "contrary to Cupid". She falls into hatred and despair, curses Rome, and when Aeneas leaves, commits suicide.

Ovid's Fasti, Book 4, invokes Venus not by name but as "Mother of the Twin Loves", the gemini amores. "Amor" is the Latin name preferred by Roman poets and literati for the personification of "kindly" love. Where Cupid (lust) can be imperious, cruel, prone to mischief or even war-like, Amor softly persuades. Cato the Elder, having a Stoic's outlook, sees Cupid as a deity of greed and blind passion, morally inferior to Amor. The Roman playwright Plautus, however, has Venus, Cupid and Amor working together.

In Roman cult inscriptions and theology, "Amor" is rare, and "Cupido" relatively common. No Roman temples seem dedicated to Cupid alone but the joint dedication formula Venus Cupidoque ("Venus and Cupid") is evidence of his cult, shared with Venus at her Temple just outside the Colline Gate and elsewhere. He would also have featured in many private household cults. In private and public areas alike, statues of Venus and Mars attended by Cupid, or Venus, Cupid and minor erotes were sometimes donated by wealthy sponsors, to serve both religious and artistic purposes.

 Cupid's roles in literary myth are usually limited to actions on behalf of Venus; in Cupid and Psyche, one of the stories within the Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)  by the Roman author Apuleius, the plot and its resolution are driven by Cupid's love for Psyche ("soul"), his filial disobedience, and his mother's envy.