JUNO

Juno is the Roman Great Mother. She had dozens of attributes, and a different name for each, which are sometimes incorrectly viewed as different goddesses.

• Juno Fortuna - Goddess of Fate
• Juno Sospita - Labor Goddess, Preserver
• Juno Regina - Queen of Heaven
• Juno Lucina - Birth Goddess, Goddess of Celestial Lights, Leader of the child to Light
• Juno Moneta - Advisor and Admonisher
• Juno Martialis - Virgin mother of Mars
• Juno Caprotina (or Februa) - Goddess of erotic love
• Juno Populonia - Goddess of conception, Mother of the People
• Juno Pronuba - Arranger of appropriate matches
• Juno Cioxia - Ruler of the first undressing by the husband
• Juno Ossipago - Strengthener of fetal bones
• Juno Viriplaca - Settler of arguments between spouses

Every woman embodies a bit of the goddess's spirit, her own soul a juno, which corresponded to the genius of a man. To the Romans, genius was the spirit that made him alive and sexually active; in the same way, each woman had her juno, not so much a guardian spirit as an enlivening inner force of femaleness. Later patriarchal vocabularies dropped the word juno but retained genius, thus depriving women of their souls - which may be why church councils of the early Middle Ages sometimes maintained that women are soulless.

Her sacred month of June honored her as patroness of marriages and the family, which is why June is still the traditional time for weddings. She had many feast-days: one for each woman's birthday, when Natalis, her own special Juno, was celebrated.

Most importantly, Juno is the goddess of time. Daughter of Saturn, she is a symbol of the menstrual cycle as time's indicator; goddess of the new moon, she was worshiped by Roman women on the Calends, or first, of each lunar month. In addition to these monthly celebrations, Juno was honored in two festivals: the unrestrained Nonae Caprotinae on July 7, when serving girls staged mock fights under a wild fig tree; and the more sedate Matronalia on March 1, when married women demanded money from their husbands to offer to the goddess of womanhood.

Chelone

Chelone is a nymph who objected to the marriage of Zeus and Hera, and was turned into a turtle in punishment, left speechless, and forced to take her home with her everywhere. This story may have been a veiled threat to those who objected to the enforced religious change of a joining of a pre-Hellenic goddess with the male-centered theology of the Indo-European tribes. Chelone may have also memorialized the priestesses who were silenced during that era of social upheaval.

Cailleach

Cailleach is an Old Celtic name for Kali-the-Crone, the goddess in her Destroyer aspect. She is vastly ancient, and a black Mother who founded many races of people and outlived many husbands as she endlessly renewed her youth. She is also a creator - making the world by building mountain ranges of the boulders that drop from her apron.

She controls the seasons and the weather; she is the cosmic goddess of earth and sky, moon and sun. Her most mysterious manifestation is as the Future, Fate, and Death - ever veiled from the sight of men, since no man could know the manner of his own death.