Some people prefer not to give the god and goddess names and just call them either the Lord and Lady or the God and Goddess
If you ever initiate into 3rd degree you will be given the true names of the God and Goddess but whatever you call them for this class they will be the triple goddess and the God.
The Goddess and God move around each other in a dance that follows the seasons We start with Yule, where the God as Sun is reborn from the womb of the Great Mother.
This is at Winter Solstice when the sun reaches its furthermost retreat to the South, and the light is but a spark in the darkness.
This change is also marked in some traditions as the Holly king becomes the Oak king.
The Goddess in her crone aspect mourns in the underworld and will return to earth at Imbolc and bring fertility of the land with her.
Next comes Imbolc. This is a celebration of the Goddess as threefold: Maid, Mother, and Crone.
Lambing season is with us, and the first spring flowers appear.
Mythologically we celebrate the moment where Diana restores her virginity each year in a ritual bath; practically, we celebrate the slow returning of life to the earth after the barren darkness of winter with the delicate Snowdrop and first spring flowers.
The third Sabbat is Ostara, the turning of the eight-spoked wheels, marking the equal point between the lengthening day and shortening night.
The first spring plantings take place and the next year's crop is prepared. This is also a time we celebrate the God Pan and the stirring of the reproductive powers of nature.
The Goddess revels in the beauty as baby animals and spring flowers and signs of the summer fruitfulness to come to take over the land, like the proud mother she is.
The Sexual drive reaches its peak in the Sabbat of Beltane, Mayday, which is still celebrated with the Phallic Maypole and Morris dancing, Stag dances, and Hobby horses of many Folk festivals throughout the UK.
is it also a time when the Goddess is celebrated as Queen and the God as King?
The Goddess and God consummate their union at this time to ensure the return of the Sun King at Yule.
At Litha, the Sun is crowned King and is at the height of his power.
He becomes consort to the Great Mother, who now carries within her the Sun king's son and other-self, who will be born at the next Yule.
It is also the point the Oak king becomes the Holly king; the Sun begins its descent.
At Lammas, the point where God takes on the first aspects of sacrifice.
As John Barleycorn, he sacrifices his life so his people may survive the rigors of the winter.
Lammas celebrates the first loaf of the harvest and the return of God to the dark aspect of the Mother.
In reality, this is his second encounter with sacrifice: the sexual union of Beltane contains within it the sacrifice of God's seed to the Great Mother, a reflection of the greater sacrifice he now makes. September 21st marks the Autumn Equinox and Mabon, both a celebration of the second balance point in the year and a continuation of the celebration of Harvest.
We prepare for the coming dark months as we follow God on his journey towards his second kingship as Lord of Death.
This Sabbat is also marked by an act of contemplation that reminds us that death is within life and life in death.
The final Sabbat is Samhain, October 31st. The God has completed his journey to the underworld, where he has been crowned king.
But as Lord of Death, he isn't something we fear: he is described as "the comforter", and his realm gives us "peace, rest and reunion with those that have gone before".
Witches believe in reincarnation. Death is seen as the other half of life; not something to fear nor something to aspire to, but an aspect of the great cycle to be understood.
In the dark and quiet of Samhain, we await the dawning of the shortest day and Solstice and the next great sweep of the wheel of the seasons.
The Goddess retreats to the underworld to mourn her consort and await his rebirth.
The Goddess
The triple moon is a Goddess symbol that represents the Maiden, Mother, and Crone as the waxing, full, and waning moon.
It is also associated with feminine energy, mystery, and psychic abilities. You often see this symbol on crowns or other head-pieces, particularly worn by High Priestesses
The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the female principle, the promise of new beginnings, youth, excitement, and a carefree erotic aura.
The Maiden in Greek Mythology is Persephone - purity - and a representation of new beginnings.
Other maiden goddesses include Brigid, Nimue, among others.
The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, fulfillment, stability, and power.
The Mother Goddess in Greek mythology is Demeter, representing the wellspring of life, giving, and compassionate.
Other mother goddesses include: Aa, Ambika, Ceres, Astarte, Lakshmi.
The Crone represents wisdom, repose, and compassion.
Crone in Greek mythology is Hecate - wise, knowing, a culmination of a lifetime of experience.
Crone goddesses include: Hel, Maman Brigitte, Oya, Sedna, Skuld, and others.
These aspects may also represent the cycle of birth, life, and death (and rebirth). Wiccans believe that this goddess is the personification of all women everywhere.
Wiccans often work with the Goddess in her triple form but may sometimes look at a particular goddess as Maiden, Mother, and Crone
An example of this would be the goddess Hecate, who was originally depicted as three maidens when in triplicate or as an old woman by herself in later times. Another example is the goddess Morrigan.
The God
The God of the Wicca is the Horned God, the ancient God of Fertility: the God of the forest, flock, and field and also of the hunt.
He is Lord of Life, and the Giver of Life, yet He is also Lord of Death and Resurrection.
For, like the Goddess, the nature of Her Horned Consort is also dual.
For the Horned God is not only the Hunter, but He is also the Hunted; He is the Sun by day, but He is also the Sun at Midnight;
He is the Lord of Light, but He is also the Lord of Darkness: the darkness of night, the darkness of the Shadows,
the darkness of the depths of the forest, the darkness of the depths of the Underworld.
The Horned God is the group soul of the hunted animal, invoked by the primitive shaman and the tribe:
and as such, He is the Sacrificial Victim, the beast who is slain that the tribe might live
a gift from that group soul, who was often revered as the tribal totem or ancestral spirit.
The Celts believed they were the descendants of the God of the Underworld, who was also the God of Fertility:
the Latinized form of His name was Cernunnos, which means simply, the Horned One.
The Horned God is also the spirit of vegetation, of the green and growing things, whether of the vine or of the forest or of the field.
Dionysos, Adonis, and much other vegetation and harvest Gods were all often depicted as horned, wearing the horns of the bull, the goat, the ram, or the stag:
of whichever of the horned beasts was held sacred in that place and time.
This aspect is the Dying and Resurrecting God who dies with the harvest and is rent asunder, as the grain is gathered in the fields; who is buried, as is the seed; who then springs forth anew, fresh and green and young, in the spring, reborn from the Womb of the Great Mother.
The Horned God is Osiris, who was often depicted with the horns of a bull.
Osiris was believed to be incarnate in a succession of sacred bulls and worshipped in that form as the god Apis.
This was yet another form and manifestation of Osiris as the God of Fertility and also of Death and Resurrection.
And Osiris bears the marks of a lunar, rather than a solar god, for Set tears the body of Osiris into fourteen pieces, the number of days of the waning moon; and then Isis, the Great Mother, gathers those pieces together and restores Osiris to life again.
The Horned God is the Great God Pan, the Goat-foot God with a human torso and a human but goat-horned head,
the God whose ecstatic worship was so hated by the Church that they used His description for their "Devil" and called Him the lord of all evil yet, to the ancients who worshipped Him, and to the modern Pagans and Witches that worship Him still, "Pan is greatest, Pan is least. Pan is all, and all is Pan."
The Horned God is not "the Devil", except to those who fear and reject Nature, and the Powers of Life and human sexuality, and the ecstasy of the human spirit. The Horned God is the God of the Wicca.
So we are heading towards the Holly King now the Oak and Holly Kings
The Oak and Holly Kings have come down through the ages from the ancient hunter-gatherer cycle, and as a result, many later ideas have been overlaid and entwined with their cycles, attempting to change them from an interwoven duality of waxing and waning contained within the year to two distinct phases of the year.
The Oak King is born at Yule, and starts waxing from here through Imbolc and Eostra to his peak at Beltane,
after which he starts waning through Litha, Lammas, and Mabon until his death at Samhain.
He is then reborn at Yule and his cycle begins anew.
The Holly King is born at Litha and waxes through Lammas, Mabon, and to his peak at Samhain.
After Samhain, he starts to wane and continues to do so through Yule, Imbolc, and Ostra until his death at Beltane. He is reborn at Litha and his cycle begins anew.
The cycles of the two kings over-lap one are stronger than the other but both are present.
They interweave during the waxing and waning of the sun taking the conjunction of the two Kings, we see that, although at Litha the Oak King is starting to wane, he is still stronger as the Holly King has only just been born.
At Lammas, the Holly King nominally rules, as he is starting to come into his power and the Oak King is waning, though this is in many ways a changeover point between the two.
The Holly King rules Mabon and his power peaks at Samhain, the time when the worlds of life and death are nearest, as is appropriate for the Holly King.
Imbolc is ruled nominally, though in this case by the Oak King, as he starts to wax, and the Holly King wanes.
This is the other cross-over point, as the first snowdrops and signs of Spring emerge from the earth.
The Oak King rules Ostara, and Beltane when he is at his peak. There is an interesting duality of the powers of life and death at Beltane,
as with Samhain, for although the Holly King dies at Beltane, in doing so he returns to his underworld home, where he also is in some ways at the peak of his power.
This is illustrated by Beltane being the time to cut Oak Wands, and also the time to gather Holly Flowers.
If you keep in mind the cycles of the year, you should plant ideas in the unconscious (Holly King) around his birth, to take root and grow forth as the cycle turns.
Likewise, when the Oak King is waning, and the Holly King dominant, it is more a time for looking inward to the unconscious (underworld)
and seeing what crops (ideas, positive changes) need to be planted for the next cycle.
When the Oak King is born (Yule) and starts to wax, we make our New Year`s resolutions and bring our personal energy into the conscious, physical realm of our being.
His cycle of waxing is a time for "doing" and directing our energies outward for healing and creating positive change.
The Green Man
He is the face that stares down at us from the roofs, pillars, and doorways of our great cathedrals and churches, He appears on second-century Roman columns in Turkey and in Jain temples in Rajasthan.
He is found all over England, some parts of Wales and Scotland, and a few rare places in Ireland.
His roots may go back to the shadow hunters who painted the caves of Lascaux and Altimira and may climb through history, in one of his manifestations through Robin Hood and the Morris Dances of Old England to be chiseled in wood and stone even to this day by men and women who no longer know his story but sense that something old and strong and tremendously important lies behind his leafy mask.
One of the earliest English epic poems Gawain and The Green Knight may refer to yet another manifestation of the Green Man as the God that dies and is reborn.
He is the Green Man, Jack in the Green, the Old Man of the Woods, Green George, and many other things to many other men but one common theme runs through all the disparate images and myths, death and rebirth and the Green that is all life.
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Thank you Don, good read and very informative.