The Black Madonna is this same Earth Mother, whose blackness represents the color of earth's fertility. The yearly renewal of her fecundity is her fundamental miracle. Ancient mysteries, enacted through prehistoric and historic millennia- in caves, cemeteries, temples, and in the open fields- were for the purpose of expressing gratitude to the source of all life and nourishment, and to ritually participate in the secret of the earth's abundance.”

In the older view the goddess Universe was alive, herself organically the Earth, the horizon, and the heavens.

By Hecate, the goddess I worship more than all the others, the one I choose to help me in this work, who lives with me deep inside my home, these people won't bring pain into my heart and laugh about it.”

This deity had a variety of names besides that of Cybele, under which she is most generally known. . . . Her other names, an explanation of which will be found in the course of the alphabet, are Berecynthia Mater, Bona Dea, Dindyme, or Dindymene, Fatua, Fauna, Idaea Mater, Magna Deorum, Mater, Magna Pales, Mygdonia, Ops, Pasithea, Pessinuntia, Rhea, and Vesta"

In the Homeric Hymn to Gaia, she is called "The Mother of All." Gaia, mother of all, I shall sing, the strong foundation, the oldest one. She feeds everything in the world. Whoever walks upon her sacred ground or moves through the sea or flies in the air, it is she who nourishes them from her treasure-store. Queen of Earth, through you beautiful children, beautiful harvests, come. It is you who give life to mortals and who take life away. Blessed is the one you honour with a willing heart. He who has this has everything.

“You know about the Mother Goddess - the first female god, a fat woman with a lion on one side and a child between her legs. She was the first god of humankind. Do you know why than ancient people of Anatolia chose her as their god? Because men were not aware of their roles as impregnators. They thought that it was the wind, the rain, the rivers, in short, nature, that impregnated women. And this was not at all a strange idea at the time. People viewed themselves as part of nature. They thought birth was magic, a miracle.”