We need to know that we are not alone in our pain and outrage. And we are not.
For right now, our Goddess hears us. She knows our hearts. She, too, has mourned. She, too, has raged. She, too, has feared. She understands us when we bring our hollow hearts and roiling bellies to Her.
She will hear us, hold us, advise us. In time, She may even heal us.
But before that healing, we must feel what we feel. The God has died and He must be mourned.
We can share the burden of our feelings with others who mourn with us. We can share them with our Deities, with Her.
Yet at some point, the mourning time will pass. And what will we do then?
If we would follow Her, then what we must do is rear the fatherless Child. We must continue taking action. We must continue our Work.
Though we see the enormity of the problems, let us not despair; there is hope; there is opportunity. Instead, let us renew our dedication to our Deities and our spiritual work, for this will strengthen our souls. Let us renew our support of progressive institutions with our dollars. And let us continue to work with others in progressive organizations for the changes we want to see.
Our Goddess is strong and practical; let us follow Her in this wisdom.
But if—right now, at this time—you mourn, it is well. Make an offering to Isis of your mourning. She will receive it from you…
This is a gift I bring before the Beautiful Mourner, Isis the Weeper Who Transforms: an invocation offering of mourning.
I offer You, Isis, my mourning for there is nothing else I can do with it. How is it that something so empty can be called pain-full? I am abandoned in an ocean of pain so deep that there is nothing else. My tears are nothing but more salt for that bitter sea. My grief is nothing but a hole in my belly. I cannot breathe. I have no breath. There is no air. My mind is blank, unable to receive the words that are pushed at me. My heart? I have no heart.
Mourning is what we do when the loss is so great that we can do nothing else. Each of us who mourns has her or his own share of this hollow pain. But it is the pain of one human being at one time, in one place. You, Isis, You hear the cries of the world. You feel each heart breaking, You know every human cruelty.
The sorrows of a Goddess are deep. What then is my mourning compared to Yours?
Listen, O Isis, to the words of Mourning: “I am offered unto Isis for She is the Well of Mourning. She absorbs me and takes me into Her vastness. I am dissolved in infinity. I am mixed with all things. I am reborn as a child. I am the mystery of suffering. I am Mourning.”
Unto You, Isis, I offer my mourning and all things beautiful and pure. M’den, Iset. Accept it, Isis.
One of thousands of such beautiful Isis-nursing-Horus images that remain to us
Just a note of joy before we start this post: Ahhhhhhhh. Many blessings to those who worked magic, who worked their butts off organizing, calling, and writing, and who worked their powerful, worldly magic by voting. Many thanks to our Divine Ones Who inspired and watched over us. We have a chance again.
And now back to our regularly scheduled post…
You may recall that, to the ancient Egyptians, bodily fluids could be a way of moving magic or heka. Written spells could be licked from the papyrus in order to be taken into the human body. Magic could be eaten or swallowed. Human beings know, deep in our bones, the magic and life-power of both blood and semen.
Multiply the power of these magic-containing fluids to the nth degree when it comes to the Deities. Atum created His children, Shu and Tefnut, by spitting (or ejaculating in His hand in another version). The tears of Re created human beings. The tiet, the Knot or Blood of Isis, protects the dead in the Otherworld.
Isis Lactans, Isis the Milk-Giver
Yet of all these magical bodily fluids, it may be that milk, especially divine milk, is the queen of them all. To us at least, milk is the most pleasant—and palatable—of the magical body fluids. It is, after all, our first food. In fact, it is the perfect food and it gives us an intimate connection with our mothers. Children nursing at the breasts of their mothers are drinking Life Itself. No death has ever touched this pure milk. It comes from the mother alive. It is drunken alive. It becomes part of a living being.
Milk is indeed magic.
As Great Divine Mother and a Cow Goddess, Isis is also the Egyptian Milk Goddess from a very early period. The Pyramid Texts say to the deceased, “Take the breast of your sister Isis the milk-provider.” Throughout Egyptian history, Isis is the mother and nurse of kings. A scholar who as studied the images of Isis Lactans (“Milk-Giving Isis”) observed that the idea that milk from the breast of the Goddess (Isis as well as other Goddesses) not only gives life, but also longevity, salvation, and even divinity is one that exists “in the mentality of the populations of the Delta from the earliest antiquity, and manifests itself in the official imagery of the Pharaohs.” (Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments greco-romains d’lsis allaitant Harpocrate, Leiden: Brill, 1971.)
The Mother gives Her breast to the Horus Child
Egyptian art shows the king drinking this holy milk of the Goddess three important times: at birth, at his coronation, and at his rebirth. The symbolism is clear. Goddess milk provides life to the babe, royal power—and perhaps wisdom and a touch of divinity—to the new king, and renewal after death for the deceased king.
A daily ritual conducted in the temples at Thebes, Memphis, and Abydos was designed to confirm the power of the king. Pharaoh (or more likely, his representative) received the sa en ankh, life-energy, from his Divine Father, Amun-Re, by means of magical gestures. Then he received the power of the Goddess from his Divine Mother, Amunet, by means of drinking Her milk. Carved on temple walls, the Goddess invites the king to suckle the milk from both Her breasts. In Hatshepsut’s temple, Hathor’s milk gives the young Pharaoh “life, strength, health.” The Pyramid Texts have Isis bring Her milk to the deceased Pharaoh to assist in his rebirth: “Isis comes, she has her breasts prepared for her son Horus, the victorious.”
A charming vessel in which to store “the milk of a woman who has borne a son.” Photo by Rob Koopman; wikicommons
But the king wasn’t the only one to benefit from the divine life magic of milk. Milk was also used for healing. The “milk of a woman who has borne a son” was a fairly common ingredient in Egyptian medicines.
Archeologists have recovered a number of small vessels in the shape of a woman pressing her breast to give milk or, as in the case of the vessel shown here, a woman nursing. They were designed to hold human milk, perhaps for making medicine, perhaps for later feeding of a child. The milk of the Divine Mother was also directly invoked for healing. In a formula for the relief of a burn, Isis says that She will extinguish the fire of the burn with Her milk. By applying Goddess-milk to the body of the sufferer, they will be healed and the fire will leave the body. In a New Kingdom myth, the Goddess Hathor uses gazelle’s milk to heal the eyes of Horus, which had been torn out during one of His battles with Set. A spell from the Berlin Magical Papyrus instructs that if one takes milk with honey at sunrise, it “will become something divine in your heart.” Isn’t that just beautiful?
With all its magical properties, milk was common among the supplies buried with the dead and it served as a valuable offering to the Deities. At Isis’ Philae temple, wall carvings attest that milk was offered to all the Deities worshipped there. To help renew Osiris, milk was poured upon His tomb at Biggeh, a small, holy island visible from Philae. Every ten days, Isis Herself was said to have made these libations.
Milk being offered to a sacred image of a Goddess in India
The whiteness of milk also added to its sanctity in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, for white was a color they associated with purity and joy. In tomb paintings and funerary papyri, Egyptians are usually shown wearing pure, white clothing. This also carried over into the later Isis cult where the wearing of white marked one as an Isiac initiate. Ritual implements were often made of white alabaster. Sacred animals were described as being white; and actual white animals—like the White Buffalo Calf of modern Native Americans—were exceptionally sacred.
The magic of milk was also understood in the wider Mediterranean world. The Greek Kourotrophoi, (“Child-Carrying” and Nurturing Goddesses), could confer hero status on a mortal by feeding him on Their milk. Mysteries, such as the Orphic-Dionysian Mysteries, envisioned a kind of baptism in milk.
Magical, beautiful milk
It is widely understood that the Isis Lactans images of late Paganism became the models for the mother-and-child images of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus. (Although, since I am updating this post, I have since seen some arguments against it…)
Nevertheless, early Christianity, too, had the concept of the blessings bestowed by divine milk. Eventually, it is Christianity’s male God Who becomes the Divine Nurse of worshippers. The Gnostic 19th Ode of Solomon says,
“The Son is the cup; the Father is he who was milked; and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him; because his breasts were full and it was undesirable that his milk should be released without purpose.”
(Sigh. And this is doubly odd since the feminine Holy Spirit (She!) is right there.) Nevertheless this adoption of a Goddess power by a God simply points out, once more, the potency of the symbol of milk—for all of us.
Milk IS magic. It is life, health, healing, resurrection, renewal, and salvation. For me, this holy, holy milk is always the milk of Isis, the Milk Provider, the Great of Magic and the Great of Milk.
Our view of ourselves and of the world around us can either hinder or facilitate healing.
When you are faced with some kind of challenge in your life, whatever it is, what is your default way of viewing it? Do you quickly respond in fear, anger or sadness? Is there an internal struggle that feels like you are being squeezed and it is difficult to breathe? All of these reactions to challenges perpetuate a cycle that conditions you to a world of stress. You become accustomed to viewing the world as a place of constant tension from multiple sources. This viewpoint is especially emphasized if you are constantly ruminating about all of the problems in your life and how other people or events are the root of the problem. You will find that when you are in your mind you tend to see others as separate. This division becomes internalized and there is a split between your heart (feminine aspect of yourself) and your mind (masculine aspect of yourself). Your mind will continue to see separtation while your heart yearns for connection.
A different perspective can offer a way to respond to life’s challenges that bring greater ease and ultimately an optimal way of engaging in the world.
Whenever you are faced with a challenge, just pause and reflect on what blessings you have in your life. Be in your heart and it will automatically pull all of your systems into alignment like a strong magnet. What results is that all of you becomes revitalized, your immune system is boosted, and your physical heart is strengthened. You literally begin to increase you electro-magnetic field.
When you allow yourself to live again in your heart, you naturally see the world from a more expansive perspective. This invites you to engage the world by participating with this unconditional energy that is your deepest self in ways that then allow greater ease. By viewing the world in this way, instead of seeing the world and others as a problem, you awaken to the understanding that everything around you is this One energy expressing itself in infinite ways.
When you take such a broad vision, then every challenge becomes an opportunity for you to align the ways that you engage yourself with others and the world so that how you act reflects what you deeply value.
When you act in accordance with your deepest beliefs and from a view of the world in the highest, then you are whole. There is no conflict between your mind and heart. This is the foundation for radiant health.
May you continue to choose a life inspired by love rather than driven by fear. May you seek ways to uncover that which blocks and covers a love so deep that it will continue to support you no matter what you may have done in the past. It is a love that keeps on giving.
May you open yourself up to receive that love.
Your are worthy.
Pamela Wells has been working as a fine artist, graphic designer and illustrator for over 20 years specializing in creative work that leads to greater consciousness. Her artwork transforms and awakens others to the healing power of their own unconscious minds by exploring the meaning and power of universal archetypes.
Her current paintings of goddesses are about the transformational and mystical aspects of the Divine Feminine as an integral part of the One God. By creating paintings that resonate deeply with her own experience of the Divine Feminine, Pamela strives to create a shift in the viewers relationship to the feminine aspects of God by awakening them to integrate the love and power within their own mysterious depths. She believes when we learn to live from a place of love (the feminine), we become more compassionate about our own suffering, the suffering of all beings and more engaged in healing ourselves and the planet.
Pamela has pioneered her own unique style of painting and shown her goddess art throughout the country. She authored and illustrated a Collectors Edition guidebook and card set for exploring the divine feminine and the evolution of consciousness titled “Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess – Spiritual Guidebook & 22 Wisdom Cards for Contemplation and Prayer”. This boxed set is available from ArtmagicPublishing.com, New Leaf Distribution, Barnes & Noble, Amazon or DeVorss & Company. She is currently creating original one-of-a-kind soul portraits for women. For more information about your personal portrait painting and sacred contract, email her at Goddessart@att.net.
