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Hsi-Wang-Mu, Queen-Mother-of-the-West.
$E-W0Ñ-MW
[to Whom the sixteenth day of June, day 167, is dedicated in Her Cycle of Transformations]


Geography/Culture: Chinese, especially Taoist.
Linguistic Note: Wang appears to mean West or Western, Mu, 'mother, lady'.
Description: Originally fearful Goddess of plague, pestilence and death; She Whose home was on a jade mountain to the north of Khun-lun where She dwelt in a cave sitting on a stool with Her hair flowing round Her; three green (sometimes three-footed) birds brought Her food.
She became: Gracious and beautiful Goddess of immortals and immortality; Gaurdian of 'the herb of immorality'; Royal Mother; Ruler of the Western Paradise; Essence of female energy -- Yin; Queen of individual female beings.
On Khun-lun She has a golden ramparted palace on the edge of 'the lake of gems' (also called 'the green jade lake'). There in Her peach orchard, the trees of which take 3000 years to come into leaf and the fruit 3000 years to ripen, close beside a magic fountain, Her birthday feast, is held when the peaches are ripe.
On the Net: The story of Chango-O and Yi, and their visit to Hsi-Wang-Mu's Mountain.
To Whom Sacred: peach ('the herb of immortality'); mulberry-tree, fruit, its wood and wood-ash; ling-chih fungus; green birds; tiger; leopard; deer; jade; phoenix; pestle-and-mortar (with which She grinds the herb of immortality); golden ramparted palace.
Iconography:Orignal form: with human-face, tiger's teeth and leopard's tail. Later form: sometimes She is portrayed as winged.
Festivals: the ; Peach festival, or The Feast of Immorality. (Her birthday).
Male Associates: consort, Tung-wang-kung, Lord-King-of-the-East. {&/or, or perhaps they are the same}, August-Personage-of-Jade'. {His Chinese name -- or one of them -- may be Yu-ti, who is given as the consort of Wang-Mu-Niang-Niang. Mu-Kung is also called Her consort. Heaven and earth are engendered between them compounded of primal vapour.
Source: ACM.AC/62, 65, 72, 78-9, 89, 103; CP.AC; DCM.W/163 (qv for more info.); NLEM/383; BGH/143
Chin-Mu, Golden-Mother.
Description: Goddess of metal; She who was born on the K'un-lun Mountains, of the yin and yang.
To Whom Sacred: hair in a topknot on top of the head (how Her's was when She was born); tiger's teeth (which She had when She was born); jade (of which She was wearing a necklace at Her birth); mulberry leaves (on which Her jade necklace rested).