Art by Kris Waldherr




Dakini

Dakini

Dakini is Goddess of Life's Turning Points. She is the supreme embodiment of highest wisdom and the most potent manifestation of feminine divinity in Tibetan Buddhism. Her name means "Sky Dancer", sky being a womb-symbol connoting emptiness, creativity, potentiality. Dakini serves as instigator, inspirer, messenger, even trickster, pushing the tantrika (aspirant) across the barriers to enlightenment. Her wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls, her peaceful aspect by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation.







Danu

Danu was the mother of the "Tuatha De Danann", the most important race of people in Celtic mythology.



Demeter

Demeter Shown in 'The Return of Persephone' by Lord Frederick Leighton

As the Greek Goddess of Earth and grain, Demeter's most well-known myth is of the loss of her daughter Persephone, who was abducted into the underworld. (Stolen by Hades, Persephone was mown down and torn from her mother exactly as the sheaf in grain goddess Demeter's hand is reaped from the bosom of Mother Earth). In a rage of grief, Demeter withdrew her energy from the earth, and autumn and winter came to the land. Demeter wandered through the dying earth, searching for her daughter. Eventually, Persephone was restored to her mother for part of each year, and with Demeter's joy, spring came again. The Eleusinian Mysteries, a reenactment of this seasonal story, were the most profound and sacred festivals of the Greeks. Demeter symbolizes fierce mother love and devotion, as well as the power of the Goddess over life and death of the earth itself. Demeter's Roman name was Ceres.










Dhanvantari

Dhanvantari

Dhanvantari was Lord of Ayurvedic Healing. According to the Puranas this incarnation of Vishnu was a ruler of Benares who originated a universally effective system of traditional herbal medicine. He holds a golden leech (symbolic of blood purification) and a medicinal plant in his right hands, and the conch of wisdom and pot of rejuvenating nectar in his left. The tulsi-seed mala around his neck (plant-wreath halo), and his sometimes blue-tinted skin emphasize his connection to Vishnu the Preserver.










Diana
Bust of Diana

Diana was, in Roman mythology, goddess of the moon and of the hunt. The Latin counterpart of the Greek virgin goddess Artemis, Diana was the guardian of springs and streams and the protector of wild animals. She was, in addition, especially revered by women, and was believed to grant an easy childbirth to her favorites. In art she is typically shown as a young hunter, often carrying bow and arrows. The most celebrated shrine to Diana was on Lake Nemi, near Aricia. Diana was the equivalent in Roman mythology of the Greek Artemis. She was the daughter of Jupiter and Latona, and the twin sister of Apollo. Both were born on the island "Delos".

Diana was the perpetual virgin goddess of the hunt, associated with wild animals and forests. She was also a moon goddess, and an emblem of chastity. Oak groves were especially sacred to her. She was praised for her strength, athletic grace, beauty and her hunting skills. With two other Roman deities she made up a trinity: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.

Diana was worshipped in a temple on the Aventine Hill and at the city of Ephesus where stood the Temple of Artemis. Diana was regarded with great reverence by lower-class citizens and slaves. Slaves could receive asylum in her temples. She was worshipped at a festival on August 13.

Diana remains an important figure in some modern mythologies. In Freemasonry, she is considered a symbol of imagination, sensibility, and the creative insanity of poets and artists. Those who believe that prehistoric peoples lived in matriarchal societies consider Diana to have originated in a mother goddess worshipped at that time, and she is still worshiped today by women practicing the religion known as Dianic Wicca.



Dijon

Dijon Greenman

Foliate Head images were central to the ancient Celtic cultures of pre-Christian Europe and symbolized fertility, prophecy, inspiration and regeneration. By 400 BCE such heads were being carved in stone, showing leaf foliage sprouting from the mouth. This art form spread into the Romanesque and Gothic chapels and cathedrals, and is viewed by scholars as the resurfacing of Druidic tree worship and Dionysiac mystery themes originally suppressed by the church. Green Man is the husbandman/caretaker of nature, the male counterpart of the Great Mother Goddess venerated since neolithic times. (Also see: Aulnay)






Dionysos

Dionysos

Lord of Grain, Leaf and Vine. Partaking of his symbolic flesh and blood (bread and wine) was central to the Eleusinian mystery cult. His annual worship is far more ancient, however, and probably involved actual human blood sacrifice to insure crop fertility. He carries the thyrsus or phallic wand, is escorted by maenad priestesses (often in wine-induced frenzy) and rides upon the beast associated with Pan , the panther, or wears a panther skin. Many of his facets (son of Zeus, virgin-born, died then resurrected, etc.) predate and were subsumed by Christianity. Reverenced especially in Crete, Greece and Jerusalem, he is the primal archetype of self-sacrificing masculine divinity. Here he is depicted as standing kouros, or Divine Youth. As Dionysos triumphant he rides upon a lion, libation cup held aloft and accompanied by frolicking satyr. Bacchus was the Roman name for the Greek god Dionysos.













Durga Jagadhatri

Durga Jagadhatri

Durga Jagadhatri is the Great Mother Goddess for Hindus. She is identical with the western Juno, Queen of Mothers. This most powerful ancient goddess archetype, inheritor of the attributes of the Sumerian goddess Inanna, has been portrayed in mid-east iconography riding upon her lion (or tiger: both are symbols of queenly power) since prehistoric times. She is the personification of Shakti, the creative force. She offers the blessing mudra (sacred gesture) of protection to all mothers and children as she defeats the destructive elephant demon Mahisa.








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