See also
Grail maidens
The three faces of Eve
Anima mundi
Gaia
Sophia
Christian mysticism
Pistis Sophia
Three women, or three aspects of one woman. In the ways of myth, it’s hard to say, exactly. All three have hazel eyes and wear a silver ring set with three malachite stones.
They could be:
*the Fates
*a Celtic goddess
They are:
*grail guardians
They either call upon Castiel to help them find and tend to the Grail, or he turns to them to help the boys along the way. In the way of the SPN’verse, several mythologies exist together, so we’re going to handwave any rivalry.
They live in an otherworld-house made up of gardens and wells, where people can come to think, rest, and heal. (Kind of a Fiddler’s Green.) They also guard the Grail castle, though they often lose track of it as it has a mind of its own and likes to change location and appearance.
They tell other people they’re daughter, mother and grandmother, but of course it’s not quite that simple.
Bethany Sophie Fisher: She appears to be about sixty, has silver hair and hazel eyes. She is the crone aspect of the triple goddess, the threshold guardian.
Lily Celine Fisher:
The mother aspect of the triple goddess. As the mother, she guides and protects. She appears to be about forty, works as a doctor, and has curly brown hair and hazel eyes.
Maya Fisher:
The maiden aspect of the triple goddess. As the maiden, she challenges and teaches. She shows up as a waitress, and possibly other beginning professions as needed. She has curly brown hair and hazel eyes, and nice gams.
Heh, I named her well:
Maya (Sanskrit माया māyāa[›]), in Indian religions, has multiple meanings. Maya, is the principal deity who creates, perpetuates and governs the illusion and dream of duality in the phenomenal Universe. For some mystics this manifestation is real, but it is a fleeting reality; it is a mistake, although a natural one, to believe that Maya represents a fundamental reality or Truth. [1] Each person, each physical object, from the perspective of eternity is like a brief, disturbed drop of water from an unbounded ocean. The goal of enlightenment is to understand this — more precisely, to experience this: to see intuitively that the distinction between the self and the Universe is a false dichotomy. The distinction between consciousness and physical matter, between mind and body (refer bodymind), is the result of an unenlightened perspective.
Emphasis mine.
Babynamescountry
*The Hindi name Maya means – God’s creative power
*The Greek name Maya means – mother; grandmother
I think I had this in mind all along but didn’t realize it until now: the Fishers are Sophia, the soul of the world. So of course their priority is keeping the Earth and its people safe. They’re also the only authority other demigods would recognize and/or obey, so they ask the Trickster to help the boys and he does (in his own way); and if I remember my incantations correctly, the boys invoke her (spiritus mundi) in the exorcism rituals. Castiel turns to them when he realizes he can’t trust the other angels any longer and that God is unreachable.
The female divinity of gnosticism is Sophia, a being with many aspects and names. She is sometimes identified with the Holy Ghost itself but, according to her various capacities, is also the Universal Mother, the Mother of the Living or Resplendent Mother, the Power on High, She-of-the-left-hand (as opposed to Christ, understood as her husband and he of the Right Hand), as the Luxurious One, the Womb, the Virgin, the Wife of the Male, the Revealer of Perfect Mysteries, the Holy Dove of the Spirit, the Heavenly Mother, the Wandering One, or Elena (that is, Selene, the Moon). She was envisaged as the Psyche of the world and the female aspect of Logos.
She appears to Dean most often as Maya because he responds well to pretty young women.
Note to self: look through Sandman for a quotation about Fiddler’s Green for an epitaph for that chapter.
Should I change their names? Sophie, Elena and Maya? Yes, I think so.
*Names that mean moon: Celene/Selene/Selena, Luna, Phoebe
*Bethany => Sophie
*Lily => Celine
*Maya stays Maya