Mother Goddess 

Observing celestial processes and natural phenomena, ancient peoples perceived male and female principles as inseparably harmonious. Male energy was embodied in the idea of seeding, while female energy — in conception and creation. Meanwhile, the image of mother proved to be one of the most impressive and enduring concepts of the goddess. Mother as the enigmatic vessel that gives birth to all flesh. The primordial archetype of birth, beginning of life and Nature's creation subconsciously led to the worshiping of the Mother Earth that sustained all people. With the advent of trades the process of birth started to be associated not only with germination of seeds and ripening of fruits but also with metal melting.
According to ancient rites, Mother Earth was responsible for the fertilization process in both people and animals and controlled all wildlife. In deep antiquity she was also thought of as the Frightening Mother of Terror because she not only gave life but also took it away. Whereas the Great Mother governed the birth and the following life, Mother Terror commanded death and destruction. Indeed, birth and life were connected with death and destruction in many ways, so the image of the life-giving female womb had gradually transformed into the image of the omnivorous mouth of another world. This gradual transformation of images formed a belief that the Mother Goddess was omnipotent and had power over both light and darkness. Caves were the first and the oldest symbols of the Mother Goddess, representing the entrance to the female womb as well as the grave. There was time when the worship of the Mother Goddess was conducted solely in caves and grottos. In pagan times, the Mother was painted as having huge breasts and buttocks which symbolized affluence. Her splendid, plump body showed that food was in abundance, soil was fertile, and portly women bore strong and healthy children. Thus, human history began with matriarchy and the supremacy of the female principle in the beginning of human development generated a grandiose cult of worshipping the Great Goddess virtually among all peoples of the world.
In ancient religion, the first idea of god was embodied in the Great Mother Goddess. A great number of her figurines and pictures appeared in Old Europe between 6500 and 3500 BC, whereas in Western Europe her images appeared between 4500 and 2500 BC and in smaller numbers. The Goddess was embodied as the Three-In-One deity, uniting the aspects of mother, maiden and old woman. Since ancient religion was based on the moon cult, each phase of the moon corresponded to one of the aspects of the Goddess: the mother, the maiden, the old woman, and the enchantress. A new crescent of the moon in the sky symbolized a chaste maiden; the full moon embodied a mother, while the waning moon represented an old woman. The dark moon was perceived as an enchantress or sometimes a temptress.
The first archeological records in the form of stone figurines of female deities were dated back to the early Paleolithic period — some 40-50 thousand BC.
During the Neolithic period, 10-12 thousand BC, there appeared numerous images of the Mother Goddess which embodied different forces of nature. She was the Great Goddess of life, death and rebirth. To emphasize her authority, her embodiments were enhanced with images of certain insects and animals like bees or butterflies that were ancient female symbols of rebirth. For instance, a butterfly was the most popular image of the Minoan civilization, which later transformed into the image of a double-blade axe. Most frequently encountered animals included deer, bear, hare, hedgehog, dog, frog, and turtle. Noteworthy, all her companions were invariably males which should have emphasized the potency of impregnating forces of nature subordinated to the Great Goddess.
The Sumerian counterpart was called Ishtar, the goddess of love, which was associated with Venus and had many epithets — Master of Gods, Queen of Queens, and Warring Maiden. In Asia Minor, the Mother of Gods was known under the name of Kibela. She was worshiped by the entire Mediterranean population and believed to have possessed some secret knowledge. The same qualities were ascribed to the Egyptian Goddess Isida. The Ancient Persians who adopted the teaching of Zoroaster worshiped Anahita, the goddess of purity and chastity. 
As a result of migration to India, the ancient Aryans, who already lived in a patriarchal society, once again found themselves under matriarchy which was preserved in the highly developed culture of the Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa tribes that spoke Dravidian dialects and Sanskrit. Slavic and Indian mythology have common Indo-Aryan roots which is particularly noticeable in the patterns of national costumes wherein one can often see images of the Goddess with her palms turned forward, which is a protective gesture. It was not without reason that one of the Goddess's names in Ukrainian was Berehynia, literally meaning the “Protectress”. This image can be found on costumes in the form of stylized ornamental embroidery called “mokosh”. According to an ancient Indian rite, “moksha” means the “deliverance” of soul by the Maiden Goddess in the process of self-actualization as a result of awakening Kundalini.
The Slavic goddess of Mokosh was a weaver who endlessly spun yarn — the all-penetrating energy of the universe. Later, in the Christian era, this was transformed into the Protecting Veil of the Mother of God. Archetypical ideas about the Goddess of Weaving were retained by the Saamis, Finns, Lithuanians and other Nordic peoples. It stands to reason that the Russian word “makushka”, which means the top, defines the location of the Supreme Goddess in man's astral body — its seventh chakra Sahasrare.
It is from the top of the human head that a tie begins to be formed between man and God. We know from African mythology that the Goddess Minoha, protectress of women and master of fate, was spinning an invisible thread that connected a person with three worlds: this world, the underworld, and heaven. The Evenks imagined the fate, Main, as an invisible cord linking the head with the heavens, the breaking of which resulted in death.
The image of the triple mother was first encountered among the Celts during the Roman period. In her book Symbol and Image, Miranda Green, researcher of Celtic culture and lecturer of the University of Wales, writes that this idea can be traced down to Roman Junos, i.e. female spirits accompanied by a genius and a feeding goddess. The author asserts that the Celtic idea of trinity is nothing more than enhancement of the juno concept that first appeared in the Mediterranean. There are also two male gods associated with the Mother Goddess: a divine child (or a promised child) and the god of the year — the Goddess's lover and her regal husband. 
It was customary for ancient art to depict a child-nursing goddess with a mask on her face. Usually it was the mask of a bear or a snake. The child also looked like a bear-cub or young snake. The divine child symbolized greenery lavishly blossoming in spring or, in a wider sense, inexhaustible forces of nature that each year renewed all living things. A curious aspect is that in many known myths, the divine child is kidnapped soon after his birth and educated — not by his own mother — but by somebody else. This happened to Krishna in Indian mythology: he was left in a strange family where he was educated by milk woman Yashoda. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was taken away from Hera after his birth and was educated by forest nymphs.
The God of the Year was known as the Goddess's lover and as a mournful god. He was both the son and the lover of the Goddess. In the Neolithic period, he was symbolized by a phallus and a mushroom. Usually he was painted with horns, often as a goat or bull, during the Paleolithic period — as a deer. This god was directly associated with fertility and mature masculinity. Writing about this in her book Goddess and Her Languages, Maria Gimbutas mentioned interesting archeological artifacts dating back to 5000 BC. Then she introduced the notion of the “holy marriage”: “Since there are numerous details in Old European art that pertain to the celebration of god of the year, it can be assumed that these celebrations began as far back as Neolithic Europe or even in the Stone Age. Perhaps, the main idea of the ritual show — the “holy marriage” — consisted in ritual unification of the male and female gods.”
Ancient religious images of the god of the year typically appeared as follows: he was embodied either as a sitting young boy with erect phallus or as a very old man with limp genitals. The young figure symbolized nature in its prime, while the old one — in its withering and exhaustion. It is interesting that some of these embodiments were found in burial mounds together with figurines of Great Goddess. These findings are very valuable because many images of the divine pair and the Goddess proper were destroyed or lost during the invasion of nomads.
In southern Europe, the image of the Great Goddess managed to survive the confusion of cultures during Indo-European cultural transformation, then it outlived the Bronze Age and the Classical Greeks until it was finally assimilated by Etruscan culture. The Celts came to know the Great Goddess through their contacts with the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans since in Central Europe this cult ceased to exist long before the coming of Celts.