Category Archives: The Goddess

The Disturbing Story of Isis & Re

This is an important Isis myth. It almost always gets overshadowed by the main Isis and Osiris myth, the murder of Osiris and Isis’ search for Him. But this is the Isis myth that is, for many, the most unsettling when we are first learning our Isis lore; and that is the tale of how Isis tricked the Sun God Re into revealing His most secret name and thereby gained additional power for Herself and for Her son, Horus. Know that story? If not, you can read a translation here.

On the basis of this tale, some have decided that Isis is an evil magician. I have even seen the story used as an argument to show how naturally underhanded all women are! And, on the face of it, the tale is troubling. Isis decides to gain power. She deliberately poisons Re, then cures Him only after He reveals to Her His most secret, hidden, and powerful name. Although Isis’ Divine knowledge is already equal to Re’s, knowing His name gives Her even more power. What’s more, She will be able to share Re’s name with Horus, once He is oath-bound to keep it secret, and Horus will receive the sun and moon as His Two Eyes.

So what are we to make of this? Is Isis just another tricky female? Perhaps we should consider Her as one of the Trickster Deities. She’s a Divine Magician, after all, and magicians are always tricky. Or maybe Isis was forced to resort to magical artifice to break through a Divine glass ceiling. Think of royal women in the Egyptian court. Because they did not have outright power equal to men’s, they would have used tricks, subterfuge, perhaps even poison, as a path to power. We must remember that it is always human beings who tell these stories, thus all stories come through a human filter.

As you might guess, none of these explanations satisfy me. I do have one that does, but it will take me a little while to get to my point, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

Background Info

There are several things you should know about this story. First, the version of the tale that has come down to us is from a papyrus known as the Turin Papyrus (along with a few other sources). It has been dated to Egypt’s 20th dynasty, about 1186-1169 BCE. No doubt, the story itself is much, much older, but the version we have comes from the later time. Second, the story is part of a healing formula to cure snakebite. Egyptian medicine almost always had a magical prescription as well as whatever herbal or surgical therapy was given. Such prescriptions often included a myth that related to the problem, followed by a statement that just as so-and-so was cured in the myth, so shall the sufferer be cured. In this case, just as Re was cured by Isis, so shall the snakebite sufferer be cured. Instruction is given at the end of the formula to recite the story over images of the main characters in the tale.

Elements of the Myth: the old king

The papyrus tells us that Re was so old that He drooled. In a time when the pharaoh was considered a God, and therefore should be the epitome of physical, mental and spiritual perfection, it would hardly be acceptable to have a ruler so old He drooled. Myths such as the death of the Holly King in Celtic countries, ritual combat to the death between the outgoing priest of Diana at the grove of Nemi and an incoming hopeful, and Arthurian legends of the Wounded King of the Wasteland—all point to the archetypal nature of this theme.

Elements of the Myth: the Goddess of Renewal

If you know anything about Isis, you know that one of Her key powers is the ability to renew and resurrect. The Turin papyrus tells us that Isis came to Re with Her magic and that Her “speech was as the breath of life.” When the Star of Isis, Sirius, rose in summer, it signaled the beginning of the New Year and the renewal of all things. Her magic brought Osiris back to life enough to conceive Horus and then gave Him a new existence as Lord of the Dead. As some of you may know, I believe Isis is the ancient Bird of Prey Goddess. Thus She is the Lady of Death and Regeneration, an identity that She has never lost, even to this day. Since the failing Re does not willingly give up His power, Isis must create the conditions that force the old ruler to the point of renewal.

Elements of the Myth: the saliva of the God

In Egypt, magic might be worked by means of bodily fluids. Saliva, semen, blood, sweat, milk, and other such fluids were a means of creation. If it was the blood, sweat, and tears of the Deities, it was even more creative and powerful. Since Re drooled, rather than purposefully spitting (for example, when Atum creatively spit to give birth to the Goddess Tefnut), He was wasting His power.

Elements of the Myth: the holy serpent

Yet, the Goddess does not let it go to waste. Instead, She mixes Re’s drool with earth, the place of renewal from which new life grows, to create a holy cobra (or “noble snake” as in the linked translation). The cobra is a mixture of life—in that it is made partly of earth and will ultimately cause Re to be healed—and death—in that it is made from the wasted generative power of Re and is a symbol of His unfitness for His throne. And of course, the serpent is an almost universal symbol of renewal due to the snake’s ability to shed its skin and emerge new from the experience.

In the form of the holy cobra, Re’s own weakness strikes Him and brings Him more pain than He has ever before experienced. He quakes with cold and burns with fire.

Elements of the Myth: name magic

In Egyptian magical theory, to know someone or something’s name is to be able to access its essence at the time of Creation, when all heka was at its more pure and potent. In this story, Re is considered the most powerful Deity in the universe (the tale also contains a litany of Re’s great powers). Knowing His secret name confers ultimate power; including the power to heal. As Isis tells Re, “the person who hath declared his name shall live.”

If this story is very ancient, it may be that its original form, in which Isis renews Re simply because that’s what the Goddess does, was lost. Perhaps later scribes tried to explain the Mystery to themselves and their audiences by framing it as a trick to gain power. Thus what may seem like simple blackmail is actually much more profound. Re is being forced to reveal a most secret and inner part of Himself to the Goddess. To be healed, He must make Himself vulnerable to the Lady of Renewal. He must accept both Her help and Her very real power.

Once Re gives Himself over to Isis, He is healed, renewed in strength and power. He learns that He must give up in order to gain. He learns to trust the Goddess Whom He has been forced to trust. And the Goddess proves Herself worthy. In no successive myth do we ever find any evidence that Isis abuses the ultimate power She has gained.

But Wait, There’s More

In the very same papyrus in which this story is found, there is a parallel story involving Horus and Set. It, too, is a magical snakebite cure. Here’s that story:

Horus and Set were voyaging together on Horus’ golden barque. Suddenly, Set cried out, “Come to me Horus, I have been bitten!”

And Horus turned to Set and said, “Tell Me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”

Set replied, “I am Yesterday, I am Today, I am Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come.”

But Horus said, “No, Thou art not Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come. Tell me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”

So Set said, “I am a Quiver of Arrows, I am a Cauldron of Disturbance.”

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated what He had said before.

“I am a Man of a Thousand Cubits, Whose Reputation is Not Known.”

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated again what He had said.

“I am a Threshing Floor; I am a Jug of Milk, Milked from the Breast of Bastet.

“No, Thou art not,” said Horus again.

Finally, Set replied with His True Name, “I am a Man of a Million Cubits Whose Name is Evil Day. As for the Day of Giving Birth or of Conceiving, There is No Giving Birth and Trees Bear No Fruit.”

The formula concludes with the promise that the sufferer will be made as sound as Horus was by Isis, so even though in this story Horus is one Who is pushing Set to reveal His true name, the cure is attributed to Isis.

images — Horus and Set as sphinxes flanking a Cow Goddess

What the Trickster Teaches

It seems clear to me that a key to both of these myths is vulnerability to the Divine that precedes healing. We must reveal our innermost selves, symbolized by our true name, to Goddess, to God. We must do so even if, like Set, it is a name with which we are not entirely comfortable. We must give ourselves over to the Divine, as we are, right now, with no masks. Only in this state of radical openness can we receive the renewing gifts that Divinity has for us. Like Re and like Set, we must—at least eventually—be willing to acknowledge and trust the Divine in order to bring Its power into our lives. This vulnerability and revelation of truth can be painful, like poison; and yet the truth always frees us.

Like Re especially, we must acknowledge the power of Goddess and make ourselves open to Her. If we don’t, She will find a way—perhaps a rather difficult way—to bring that lack to our attention. But when we do reveal ourselves to Her, we can know Her and be known by Her. We can enter into mystical communion with Her as we move through the natural cycle of death and renewal that is guided by Her hand.

Isis & the Queen — Isis giving life to a queen

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

The festival starts this coming Friday. The weather forecast is perfection. The ritual cast is rehearsed. We are ready to go and can’t wait to see those of you who can make it. Still time to register!

The Pacific Northwest is ON for an Isis-themed Fall Equinox Festival (Sept. 24-26, 2021). This is not the same festival we were planning for 2020. That one was much more…involved…shall we say. This one is a gentle way of coming together once again as a community. So I’d like to share with you the write up for the festival, then I’ll repost something on Making Offering in the Egyptian way that will be related…

Frederick Arthur Bridgman, A Procession in Honor of Isis or An Egyptian Procession, 1902

Offering to Isis: A Fall Equinox Celebration of the Goddess and of Community

If you asked the ancient Egyptians, the act of Making Offering was one of the things that maintained Ma’et, that which is Right and True. Offering helped keep the world in balance. Making Offering is part of the great reciprocal flow between the Divine and the human. It is one of the most important ways we communicate with our Goddesses and Gods. It is hallowed by tradition. It is empowered by magic.

As we turn the wheel at this Fall Equinox, let us come together in rituals of offering. Under the Wings of the Great Goddess Isis, let us gather in a celebration of our reentry into and reconnection with Community. In the presence of Isis Myrionymos, Myriad-Named Isis, Goddess of the Ten Thousand Names, let us gather with open hearts and generous spirits to Make Offering.

As we human beings have always done—from the First Time, the Zep Tepi—we shall give gifts to Isis and we shall receive gifts from Her.

“My body being on earth, my heart being awakened, my magic being in my mouth, O Isis, I Make Offering unto You.”

We are living through extraordinary times. Many of us have gone through intense changes. There have been painful losses. And there have been surprising gains. Through Rites of Offering, we can give thanks, mourn losses, and ask for aid. We can find Divine connection and reawaken our hearts.

The Rites of Offering

Our rituals are inspired by the Daily Offering Rites worked in ancient Egyptian temples. We will come together four times, at the cross-quarters of the Holy Day and Sacred Night, to Make Offering to the Goddess in four of Her myriad names.

Yet, as a Community, we are many different people, on many different paths, who honor many different Deities. And so the Iset Weret— the Great Throne Altar of Isis—will welcome all our Divine Ones. If you wish, you are invited to bring an image or symbol of your own Divine One/s to add to the Great Altar that They may receive Offering as well.

Now, Let’s Celebrate

This festival is intended to give us plenty of open time so that we can be together…for feasting, drumming, dancing, and just relaxing. No formal workshops are planned.

Come join us in this Fall Equinox celebration as, under the Wings of Isis, we come together as a Community once more.

Now here’s a little something about Making Offering…

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Can Isis smell the flowers we place upon Her altar? Does She eat the delicacies we so carefully arrange upon Her offering mat? Does She drink the wine we pour into a beautiful cup and lift to the smiling lips of our sacred image?

Well, no.

And, yes.

Although I have had weird phenomena happen with offerings—for instance, once an entire two-ounce packet of incense (you DO know how much two ounces of powdered incense is, right?) was apparently incinerated without leaving a whiff of scent in the air of our tiny temple space—usually, the flowers wither naturally, the food dries to inedibility, and the wine evaporates.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

For the ancient Egyptians, the sacred images of the Deities were sacred precisely because they were filled with some measure of the Deity Her- or Himself. Offerings to Isis were received by this bit of the Goddess residing in the image, and through it to Her greater Being.

The main spiritual mechanism for the transfer of an offering from offerent to Deity was the ka, or vital, life energy. All living beings—Deities, human beings, animals, fish, plants, stars, mountains, temples—have a ka. The kas of the Goddesses and Gods are extremely powerful. In one Egyptian creation myth, the Creator Atum embraces His children, the God Shu and the Goddess Tefnut, with His ka in order to protect Them from the primordial chaos of the Nun into which They were born—and, importantly, to transfer His ka to Them, giving Them life. Ka energy exists before a being comes to birth, is joined to that being at birth, lives with them throughout life, then travels to the Otherworld after death. The tomb became known as the Place of the Ka (among many other designations) and to die was to “go to one’s ka.”

King Hor’s ka statue; beautiful and haunting

The ka “doubles” the person physically, yet the ka is not essentially personal. It is held in common with all living things—including the Deities. The ka was the ancient Egyptian’s connection to a vast pool of vitality greater than the individual person.

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:

“You yourself also go with your ka.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is behind you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is behind you.”

The ka statue of Amenemhet III — A ka statue of Amenemhet III

You might recognize this formulation. It is a common magical formula for invoking protection on all sides; similar to casting a circle or the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram or part of the so-called Breastplate of St. Patrick (“Christ at my right. Christ at my left, etc.”)

Even though ancient Egyptians could experience the ka as separate from themselves, the ka also connected the person with the long line of humanity—for the ka was associated with the ancestors. In fact, the ancestors were thought to be the keepers of ka energy. Jeremy Nadler suggests that when people died, the Egyptians believed that they returned to the ka-group of ancestral energy to which each person naturally belonged. In other words, after death, the ka returns to its family.

This meant the living had several reasons for making offering to their ancestral dead. As we all do, they wanted to remember loved ones who had died. The offerings provided their ancestors’ kas with the nourishment required to keep the family spirit strong. But since the ancestors had ready access to the greater pool of beneficial ka energy and could bestow it on the living, people could also ask their ancestors to send them a blessing. A blessing of ka energy could nourish human beings, animals, and crops alike.

As usual in Egyptian society, the king was a special case. He could have multiple kas. He also had more intimate contact with the powerful ka energy of his royal ancestors than the average person had with their familial kas. The royal ka was especially connected with the power of the God Horus. By the time of the New Kingdom, the king’s ka was specifically identified as Harsiese, “Horus, son of Isis.”

Modern Balinese food offerings that look remarkably Egyptian

In Egyptian, the word ka is related to numerous words that share its root. Egyptian words for thought, speech, copulation, vagina, testicles, to be pregnant and to impregnate, as well as the Egyptian word for magic (heka), all share the ka root. And all have some bearing on the meaning of ka. Ka is also specifically the word for “bull” and “food.” Connections such as these reveal mysteries. Ka is also the bull because it is a potent, fertile energy that contains the ancestral seeds that connect us with our families. Ka is also food for it is the energy that nourishes life, in both the physical and the spiritual realms. Ka is intimately connected with offering; the plural of ka, kau, was used to mean “food offerings.” Sometimes the ka hieroglyph replaces the images of food inscribed on offering tables.

Offering table piled high with kau and other offerings

Kau, food offerings, provide life-energy for the individual ka. When the Egyptians offered food to their Deities or honored dead, they were offering the ka energy of the food to the ka of the Deities or ancestors. The ka inherent in the kau nourished the ka of the spirit being. Offering thus feeds the kas of the Deities and ancestors and the great pool of ka energy to which all enlivened things are connected. Simultaneously, the great pool of ka energy is the source of the energy found in the offerings by virtue of the ongoing, archetypal connection with it. By making and receiving offering, a great reciprocal power system was set up and could be eternally maintained. No energy was ever lost; it was continually transformed and re-activated by being offered and received, received and offered. Ka energy may be considered the food that fuels the engine of the living universe.

Since offerings are given and received ka to ka, it is no wonder that the Egyptians who made offering before the sacred images in the temples, did not expect the Deity to physically consume the food or drink offered. Instead, they expected the Deity’s ka, residing within the image, to take in the energy from the kas of the offerings. Ancient texts are explicit about this. A text from Abydos says that the pure, Divine offerings are given daily “to the kas” of the temple Deities. Sometimes the Deities are said to have been “united” with Their offerings. It is the ka of the offering and the ka of the Deity that unite. In another text from Abydos, the king asks the Deity to bring His magic, soul, power, and honor to the offering meal. Clearly, the king is not expecting a physical appearance, but a spiritual one.

It is the same with our offerings. We offer the ka of the kau to Isis and Her ka receives it. We can open our awareness to this aspect of offering by envisioning the ka, perhaps as Light, move from the offering to our sacred image of Isis (if we are using one) or to an image of Her we hold in our mind’s eye. In this way, we can know that Isis has indeed received what we offer to Her.

Isis of the Winds

Are Iset and Isis the same Goddess? — Isis, Mistress of Wind

Today, let us take a deep, cleansing breath and honor Isis as Lady of the element of Air—of Breath, of Wind, and thus of Spirit.

Indeed, many cultures associate breath, air, and wind with Spirit. For while these things are invisible, they are invisible Powers, and we are intimately touched by their influence. We breathe the air and we live. The wind fills a sail and we move. Wind, air, and breath thus can be seen as manifestations of the invisible powers of the Deities.

Perhaps that is why my favorite title for an Egyptian book of the dead is the Book of Breathings. It is the book “which Isis made for her brother Osiris, to make his ba live, to make his body live, to make young all his members” and it especially emphasizes the importance of breath for resurrection. The Lady of the Breath of Life fans Her wings and puts “wind” into Osiris’ nose. The God lives and His Divine Spirit revives when He “smells the air of Isis.”

In Isis, breath, air, and wind are one.

In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, Isis declares that She comes “with the north wind.” The Goddess and the wind were associated because both were known to bring the cooling, life-giving waters of the Inundation. It was thought that the north wind “dammed up” the Inundation, which flowed from the south, enabling the water to flood and nourish Egyptian fields. So Isis is not only the one Who heralds the Inundation and causes it to flow (as Iset-Sopdet), but Her northerly winds also keep it in place so that it will water and fertilize the fields.

A fanciful Italian mosaic, from the Hellenistic period, showing Egypt during Inundation

As Iset Mehit, Isis of the North, and Lady of the North Wind, the Goddess brings the sweet-smelling north wind and all good things. Temple texts at Edfu identify Her with the “good north wind.” In the Book of Hours, She is the “living north wind.” Isis is especially found whenever air is active, whether in beating wings or gusting winds. Some stories describe Her mourning cries for Osiris as the wailing and moaning of the winds.

Isis can be a controller of the winds, too, for it is She Who promises the king in the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 669), “the south wind shall be your wet nurse and the north wind shall be your dry nurse.” The wind or breath of Isis can also purify. In the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 510), the deceased is cleansed with a vessel “which possesses the breath of Isis the Great.” In a work by the Roman writer Lucian, Isis is invoked to send the winds.

Today, the wind provides power in Egypt; this is the Zafarana wind farm

In the myth of the Contendings of Horus and Set, when the Ennead finally rules in favor of Horus to succeed His father Osiris, Isis sends the north wind—which She both controls and personifies—to bring the good news to Osiris in the underworld.

Isis can also be connected to other directional winds. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day (Chapter 161), the four winds are attributed this way: Osiris is the north wind, Re is the south wind, Isis is the west wind, and Nephthys is the east wind. All of them enter the noses of the deceased and bring them life.

Elemental de Aire by Ades21 on Deviant Art — *Elemental de Aire* by Ades21 on Deviant Art

Isis is not the only Deity associated with the winds and air, of course. Wind is also the manifestation of Amun, the Hidden One, of Shu, the God of Air and Light, and of Atum, the Creator. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, an otherwise unidentified “Great Goddess, Mistress of Winds” brings benefits to the deceased. In the Coffin Texts, the deceased calls himself “Mistress of the Winds in the Island of Joy.” Another tells us that the deceased receives the breath of life from four primordial Maidens associated with the four winds and Who existed “before men were born or the gods existed.” (Formula 162.)

The deceased holds a sail to catch the breath of life

The Book of Coming Forth by Day sometimes shows the deceased holding a sail to catch the breath of life. Since the dead are identified with Osiris, it would make sense that the sail is intended to help them magically catch the air fanned into the dead by the powerful wings of Isis.

In a later period, images of Isis Pharia show the Goddess Herself holding a sail. The billowing sail of Isis Pharia ensures smooth sailing on the seas as in life. Perhaps this later image harks back to Isis’ more ancient attribution as She Who fills the sails of the dead with breath and life.

In Graeco-Roman texts of about the same period as the Isis Pharia images, Isis “hast dominion over winds and thunders and lightnings and snows” and She declares in one of Her aretalogies, “I am the Queen of rivers and winds and sea.”

Isis Pharia with Her sail and the lighthouse on the right

A second-century-CE papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt calls Isis the “true jewel of the wind and diadem of life.” A hymn at the Goddess’ Faiyum temple connects Her with the winds, too: “Whether you have journeyed to Libya or to the south wind, or whether you are dwelling the outermost regions of the north wind ever sweetly blowing, or whether you dwell in the blasts of the east wind where are the risings of the sun…”

In whichever wind She dwells, Isis is always the ancient Lady of the Living Air, Queen of the Winds, Winged Goddess of the Spirit Revivified. From Her we receive our breath and our life.

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

Yes!

Offering to Isis: A Fall Equinox Celebration of the Goddess and of Community

As we human beings have always done—from the First Time, the Zep Tepi—we shall give gifts to Isis and we shall receive gifts from Her.

The Rites of Offering

Now, Let’s Celebrate

This festival is intended to give us plenty of open time so that we can be together…for feasting, drumming, dancing, and just relaxing. No formal workshops are planned.

Come join us in this Fall Equinox celebration as, under the Wings of Isis, we come together as a Community once more.

Now here’s a little something about Making Offering…

****************************************

Well, no.

And, yes.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:

Isis and the Egg

Spring! So many flowerbeds to weed... — Spring! So many flowerbeds to weed…

Many blessings of the Equinox to you.

Ahhh, light finally balances dark. Things are stirring, stirring, stirring everywhere. The flowerbeds and backyard in general are screaming for my attention.

Even in this weird time of pandemic that we are living through, I am blessed in that my Equinox is full with rituals and people…even if they are still all on zoom.

So this post is a repost about Isis and the egg. It seems right…and I still do get a bit melancholy in the spring. Hopeful, but a little bit melancholy, too.

Do you know what I mean?

Beautiful Robin's egg blue eggs — Beautiful Robin’s egg blue eggs

Sometimes, when I’m feeling like this, I’ve found that it can be a sign that I’ve drifted a bit from my core—from Her—and that what I really I need to do is to reweave our connection. Rather than expanding as the flowers of spring so beautifully urge us to do as they break forth from the dark and muddy womb of the earth, what I need to do is pull in a bit.

Fortunately, in addition to spring’s pink, yellow, and purple floral heralds, there is another springtime symbol that is almost as ubiquitous and which may be more appropriate to my inward-turning state of mind: the egg.

Like human beings always have, the ancient Egyptians knew and valued this important symbol. Indeed, one of the euphemistic names for the innermost sarcophagus (the one right next to the mummy) was “the egg.” For them, the coffin was merely the eggshell protecting human beings until they were ready to break free and be reborn as a Shining One among the Deities.

Geb, father of Isis, with the goose upon His head

As daughter of Geb (the Earth God, one of Whose symbols is the goose), Isis is called “the Egg of the Goose.” Yes, I know. God. Egg. But it is what it was, and, by tradition, Isis is the Divine Egg of Her father.

Yet Isis is a Bird Goddess Herself and has eggs of Her own, most notably Horus and the Horus-king. In the Pyramid Texts, Isis discusses with Nu, the God of the primordial abyss, how the king will be reborn by breaking out of his egg. (Remember that this is the name for the innermost sarcophagus.) First Nu states that Isis has borne and shaped the king within the egg, then asks how the Deities shall break the egg so that he can be reborn.

Isis answers, telling Nu about all the Divine help the king will get and eventually declaring, “Behold, the king is in being; behold, the king is knit together; behold, the king has broken the egg.”

An egg-filled nest from Tutankhamon's tomb — An egg-filled nest from Tutankhamun’s tomb

After breaking out of his egg, the king is reborn, flying up from the nest like a young bird beneath the watchful gaze of his mother Isis. We find these kinds of references to the deceased as a chick in the egg throughout the funerary texts.

As they are for us, eggs were a primary food for the ancient Egyptians. So naturally, eggs were given to both Deities and the dead as food offerings. We also find examples of decorated ostrich eggs in some tombs.

While fire and sulfur are common instruments of purification, some scholars think the egg was added because of the importance of the egg in Egyptian symbolism.

But right now—where we are right now—the egg is not yet cracked. It lies with its spring-colored companions in the grass-filled woven nest. The chick is yet quiescent. Perhaps that chick, that Isis-kite-to-be, is me. If you like, it can be you, too.

For while everything around us seems to be breaking out of its the shell, we are still within ours, humming our pre-birth song, dreaming of our Mother, still feeling Her warmth around us.

Black kite chicks hatching from their eggs; image © Jose Luis Gomez de Francisco / naturepl.com, from Arkive.org

We breathe, slowly and carefully, our eyes closed. We put our left forefingers to our lips and let is rest there. Is this the gesture of a child sucking on its finger? Is it a gesture of silence as later devotees of the Goddess believed? It doesn’t matter. It is a gesture that brings us in and quiets us. We envision the eggshell surrounding us, protecting us, as we prepare for our own true awakening of spring.

But for now, for now, we simply float in our egg, feeling the warmth and the presence of Our Mother Isis. Her feathers cover us. She protects us. She is infinitely patient as She awaits our birth. It will take exactly as long as it takes. She has all the time in the world to wait for us.

And as we feel Her infinite patience, we are also aware of the living cord that connects us to Her, an umbilical woven of magic that is the bond between us. This is the sacred magic of the Knot of Isis, the bond that connects the Great Goddess Isis with all Her children, whether they are within the egg or have already struggled out of their shells and are emerging in all their bewildered beauty.

As we shake off the last bits of shell, Isis cries out for us: “Behold, you are in being; behold, you are knit together; behold, you have broken the egg!”

Isis’ name with the egg determinative that indicates “Goddess”

“Isis with the Lapis Lazuli Head”?

22nd dynasty; Isis and Horus protect Osiris, seated on a lapis lazuli pillar

Weird.

That’s what I thought, too, the first time I saw that description. Why does Isis have a lapis lazuli head? And what does that mean anyway? We will definitely look into that in today’s post, inspired by a friend of this blog who asked about stones associated with Isis…

You may already know about Isis’ connection with carnelian, the red-orange stone from which Her famous Knot amulet was often made.

But another stone associated with Her is the beautiful gold-spangled blue stone called lapis lazuli. The name comes from the Latin for “stone” (lapis) and the Medieval English possessive case version (lazuli) of the Medieval Latin version (lazulum) of the Arabic version of the original Persian name of the stone, “lāžward.” It is also the ultimate origin of our word azure, meaning blue. More than you wanted to know, right? But words are interesting.

And the fact that the stone originally has a Persian name does indeed tell us something about it. Most of the lapis lazuli in the world has always come from what is today Afghanistan, once part of the Persian Empire. There are also deposits in Russia, Chile, Mongolia, Italy, and even the US, but most of it is from Afghanistan. So even back in the day, the ancient Egyptians had to import the pyrite-flecked dark-blue stone they so loved.

Lapis from Afghanistan in its natural state

In fact, of all the semi-precious stones, lapis lazuli was the most highly prized by the ancient Egyptians. Egyptian artists used lapis lazuli in jewelry and amulets, as inlay in sacred statuary, and even ground it fine and mixed it into paint and cosmetics as a coloring agent. Long afterwards—until the 19th century, in fact—lapis lazuli provided the deep-blue pigment in ultramarine paint throughout much of the world.

Apart from its sheer beauty, lapis lazuli was valuable to the ancient Egyptians as an image of the heavens. Its dark-blue coloration was the indigo of the night sky while the white-gold flecks of pyrite represented the imperishable stars. A stone of heaven, lapis lazuli was sacred to the all-encompassing Egyptian Sky Goddess—whether She is Nuet or Her starry daughter, Isis-Sothis. (Hathor is also a Sky Goddess and certainly may be honored with lapis lazuli—in fact, images of Her were also made of lapis lazuli—though She is more closely associated with green turquoise and malachite.)

One of the beautiful ways the Egyptians used lapis lazuli

To the Egyptians, lapis lazuli represented all good things. In later periods, the Egyptian word for lapis lazuli, khesbedj, became a synonym for “joy” and “delight.” In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, lapis lazuli is connected with abundance as in this passage: “O you who sweeten the state of the Two Lands, you with whom are provisions, you with whom is lapis lazuli.” Another text repeats the association then connects the deceased, “the bull of lapis lazuli,” with the Star Goddess, Sothis. “I am the bull of lapis lazuli, unique and exalted, Lord of the Field, Bull of the Gods. Sothis speaks to me in her good time.” Because of its positive associations, lapis lazuli was used in many different types of amulets, but was especially employed for the heart amulet. Egyptian judges were known to wear lapis lazuli stones about their necks inscribed with the word “truth,” that is, ma’et.

This heavenly blue stone may be associated with Isis as Goddess of Heaven. Several Egyptian terms for “heaven” actually incorporate Her name, Throne (Iset ). Heaven was called Iset Weret, the Great Throne, and Iset Hert, the High Throne or High Place. With their love of punning and double meanings, surely the Egyptians would not have missed the opportunity to interpret these terms not only as “Heaven,” but also as “Great Isis” and “High or Heavenly Isis.”

An Isis-Nursing-Horus amulet carved in lapis lazuli

Isis is not only the Throne and Place of Being on Earth (see my post on that here), but the Throne of Heaven, too—as indeed She was considered. The Egyptians frequently reinforced the association of the Throne with the heavens by painting Isis’ throne hieroglyph in lapis-lazuli blue.

The heavens aren’t the only important association with lapis blue; the life-giving waters were also represented as being blue. Like Isis’ throne symbol, the hieroglyphs for water and the ankh of life were frequently colored blue—as was the skin of many of the life-giving Deities associated with the Nile. The association of lapis-lazuli blue with the waters, and thus with fertility, life, rebirth, and regeneration, once again brings it into the sphere of Isis, Lady of the Inundation and Goddess of Rebirth. These same qualities were, in turn, connected with the color black so that the colors blue and black became interchangeable. This is why, in art, the hair of the Deities—which if represented naturalistically would be Egyptian black—can also be colored blue. The Gods and Goddesses were said to have gold skin, silver bones, and lapis-lazuli hair. (You, no doubt, see where we’re going with this now.)

And you are correct. In the early Ptolemaic period, there was a temple and cult of Iset Khesbedjet Tep, Isis with the Lapis-Lazuli Head. The epithet surely refers to the specific sacred image in which the hair of the Goddess was inlaid with precious lapis lazuli.

Ah look! A lapis lazuli head; 19th dynasty. This is supposed to be a wig, but not sure you could wear this...looks more like a wig for a statue — Oh look! A lapis lazuli head; 19th dynasty. This is supposed to be a wig, but I’m not sure you could actually wear it; looks more like a wig for a statue, stranger things….

Today, we still associate lapis lazuli with some of the same qualities that the ancient Egyptians did. We, too, associate the heaven-blue stone with the heavenly qualities of spirituality and psychism. Just as the Egyptians associated it with joy, today’s metaphysicians say that lapis lazuli helps relieve melancholy. And just as the ancient Egyptians connected lapis lazuli with fertility, regeneration, and abundance, so we understand it to give an abundant boost to creativity.

Isis is the Great Throne of Heaven, the Lady of the Life-Giving Waters, and the Goddess of the Lapis-Lazuli Head. Sacred unto Her is the beautiful stone of the heavens and the waters, lapis lazuli.

Isis & the Dark Night of the Soul

A depiction of the Dark Night of the Soul: Ce Que Je Suis by angelitonegro on Deviant Art

With the world seemingly crumbling about our ears, we have very good reasons to be depressed. This is a hard year. A very hard year. And it most certainly can affect our practice. Yet it is just such times as these that we need our practice. We need our Deities. We need one of the key tools of the devotee of Isis: hope. With that in mind, I am republishing this post on the Dark Night of the Soul…

I read a short blog post the other day that made me sad…and sympathetic. It was by a young woman who felt she had lost the mystery of her Pagan path. The power of the rites had flown. She doubted. Her anguish was palpable in what she wrote.

This may have been the first time that had happened to her.

Yet I can guarantee that, if we follow any spiritual path for a sufficient length of time, this same thing will happen to each of us. At some point, the mystery dries up. The excitement dies down. The thrill of discovery is not as thrilling as it once was. Usually, this doesn’t happen all of a sudden and usually not in the early part of our journey with Isis. Rather, it’s a slow erosion that we don’t even notice. We just don’t feel like tending Her shrine or meditating or making offering today. We find we have other things to do. Practice slips away. That wonderful sense of Isis being with us in every step of our lives slips away. But we hardly notice.

Isis giving sustenance to the ba in the Otherworld

Until we do. Notice, that is. Then, we might panic a bit. Especially if we have chosen a priest/essly relationship with Isis. O my Goddess, O my Goddess, O my Goddess! What happened? Where is She? What have I (not!) done?

If we’re not careful—and forget to breathe—thoughts and feelings can quickly escalate from there. Why am I even doing this? What if it’s all a lie? Where is She? Where is She? Where is She? We ask questions, but get no answers. It isn’t like it was before. We don’t seem to be who we were before, either. We may feel like strangers to ourselves just as we feel like strangers to Isis. We feel alone, cut off from the Goddess, perhaps even cut off from other human beings and from other pleasures in our lives.

The first thing we must understand about such periods in the spiritual life is that, though we feel desperately alone, we are not. Spiritual people throughout the ages have had this experience; all the way back to prehistory I’d be willing to wager. There’s even a term for it, a term you probably know. It’s the “dark night of the soul,” which is the title of a poem and a treatise written by the 16th century Christian Mystic known as Saint John of the Cross. He writes of it as a necessary part of the soul’s journey to union with God. The phrase is so perfectly evocative that it has been adopted by many spiritual traditions today.

There’s even an ancient Egyptian precedent. It’s generally known as A Man Tired of Life in Dispute with His Soul (Ba) and is found in Berlin Papyrus 3024. The papyrus itself has no title. What we have left is the last part of the work; the first part is missing. In it, a scribe is arguing with his ba, trying to convince his ba to die with him. The man berates himself and declares the world around him to be a horrible place. The ba argues that the scribe should live and die only when it truly is his time. Egyptologists consider the papyrus very obscure and difficult. As a result, there are many different translations of the papyrus and they differ widely in their interpretation.

We do not know the purpose of the papyrus or the exact period to which it is dated. Most scholars put it in the First Intermediate Period, a time of confusion between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Some have theorized that the author’s despair is a reflection of the chaos of that Intermediate Period. Bika Reed, who is of the Schwaller de Lubicz school of Egyptology, has interpreted it as an initiatic text, essentially dealing with the dark night of the soul.

We don’t know for sure, but the point is, this happens to us—and it has always happened. But what do we do when it happens?

I can tell you that I have had more than one dark night of the ba in my life with Isis. I have learned that patience and persistence are the keys to survival (as they are in so much of life). In these dark and dry places, we must be patient with ourselves and with the Goddess; we must persist in our practice. Even if we don’t feel anything happen when we meditate with Isis or when we place flowers upon Her altar, we must continue to do so. But we must also give ourselves a break. It’s okay if we don’t feel anything right now. It doesn’t mean Isis has abandoned us. It only means we are in a period of transition, even of initiation. Some consider a dark night to be part of the process of ego death that must precede a deeper relationship with the Divine, in our case, with Isis.

We may even give ourselves another type of break. If it had been our practice to meditate daily, perhaps we do so once every few days or once a week. That’s okay, too. The important thing is not to stop altogether, even if the sense of connection isn’t there. We just persist. Eventually—in a month, or even a year—something will change. The shell surrounding our hearts will crack. Like the Child Horus, our hearts will struggle out of the egg and be born. Eventually, we will return to our practice and find that it, too, is transformed. It is deeper, richer, juicier.

Held in Her wings, we are Becoming, even when we don’t know it.

Hail to Thee, Isis, Lady of the Star

If you’ve been following this blog, you know I write a lot about Isis as Lady of the Holy Star. In my area, Portland, Oregon, Her heliacal rising is a week from today.

I will be in my local high place (I am fortunate to have one near my home), awaiting Her reappearance with offerings in hand at 4:30 in the morning. I will watch as the Mystery unfolds and the Goddess emerges once more from the Underworld into the dawning light.

But for now, I watch the morning skies in anticipation of the pre-dawn reappearance of the beautiful and brilliant star of Isis, Sirius.

Thanks to the wonders of modern online astronomical calculators, we can know pretty precisely when the Fair Star of the Waters will rise before the sun in our area. (To use the calculator, just enter your email and the password: softtests. You will need to know the latitude and altitude of wherever you are observing Her rise. This info is easily google-able.)

If you want to know more about Sirius and Isis, here are some links to previous posts, all in one place:

At Denderah, Sothis is a cow with the star between Her horns, and surrounding Her — At Denderah, one image of Sopdet shows Her as a cow with Sirius between Her horns, and stars surrounding Her

The basic information on Isis and Her holy star and why it is called the “dog star”.

Meditations on Isis and Her Mother during this time of waiting.

Why Sirius is appropriately the heavenly marker of our modern New Year, too, and about temples oriented to Sirius.

The experience of my sister priestess and me one year as we watched Her rise.

About the symbol of the star in Egyptian spirituality and being “joined” to yours.

And a ritual for beginning the process of “being joined to your star.”

Sothis from Isis temple at Philae — Sopdet from Isis’ temple at Philae

The rise of the Star of Isis was important in ancient Egypt for it marked coming of the fertilizing Nile Inundation and the day of the New Year. It was also the end of the epigominal days, those days out of time when the the Cairo Calendar tells us that the birthdays of Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated.

Thus, if you wish to celebrate the Birth of Isis, it is two days before New Year’s Day.

There are a number of options for choosing our New Year’s Day.

For instance, perhaps you’ve seen a date of July 19th given for the rising of Sirius? This comes from a 1904 calculation by Eduard Meyer, who was the first modern person to have noticed ancient Egypt’s Sothic Cycle.

Isis-Sothis, Lady of the Dog-Star, riding on Her dog, from an Alexandrian coin

You may recall that the Sothic Cycle is a period of 1,461 ancient Egyptian years during which the 365-day Egyptian year, which is one quarter-day too short, loses enough time so that the Egyptian New Year, once again coincides with the rise of Sirius.

Meyer was trying to calculate the date of the star’s rising from the ancient Egyptian calendar and translate it to the modern Julian so that the reigns of the pharaohs could be more accurately dated. The Sirius rising date he came up with was July 19—but that would have been for 140-142 CE.

You may certainly use that date if you prefer a firm date for planning your celebrations. That would make New Year on July 19th and Isis’ birthday on July 17th.

Personally, I like to use the date when Isis’ star may actually be seen in the morning skies in my area. You can use the calculator link above to find out when She rises in your area.

The jumble of stone blocks that is, today, Isiopolis — You could mark the rise of Isis’ star at Isiopolis…

Another option might be to use the modern rising time at either of Isis’ major sacred temple sites in Egypt.

At Her Lower Egypt temple of Isiopolis in the delta, that was on August 8th this year.

The Temple of Philae; photo by Ivan Marcialis from Quartucciu, Italy and used under Wiki Creative Commons usage guidelines — …or from Her Philae temple; photo by Ivan Marcialis; used under Wiki Creative Commons

At Her Upper Egypt temple of Philae/Agilika, that was on August 2rd.

So you can see that latitude makes a great deal of difference as to when the rising of the Goddess’ star may be actually observed.

If you wish to join me in celebration of Her rising, you’ll need to be at your observation point about an hour before sunrise in order to see Her. We may chant Her name—Iset-Sopdet, Isis-Sothis—as She rises. We may offer Her milk and lotuses. Or we may watch in beautiful silence as She comes, She comes.

Offering to Isis

Well, no.

And, yes.

So did the Goddess receive Her offerings or not?

The main spiritual mechanism for the transfer of an offering from offerent to Deity was the ka, or vital, life energy. All living beings—Deities, human beings, animals, fish, plants, stars, mountains, temples—have a ka. The kas of the Goddesses and Gods are extremely powerful. In one Egyptian creation myth, the Creator Atum embraces His children, the God Shu and the Goddess Tefnut, with His ka in order to protect Them from the primordial chaos of the Nun into which They were born—and, importantly, to transfer His ka to Them, giving Them life. Ka energy exists before a being comes to birth, is joined to that being at birth, lives with her or him throughout life, then travels to the Otherworld after death. The tomb became known as the Place of the Ka (among many other designations) and to die was to “go to one’s ka.”

But that’s not the end of it. One meets one’s ka after death where it can continue to protect.

Utterance 25 of the Pyramid Texts says that the dead king “goes with his ka.” Just as a list of Deities “go with Their kas,” so does the king:

“You yourself also go with your Ka.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the arm of your ka is behind you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is before you.
O Unas, the leg of your ka is behind you.”

This meant the living had several reasons for making offering to their ancestral dead. As we all do, they wanted to remember loved ones who had died. The offerings provided their ancestor’s kas with the nourishment required to keep the family spirit strong. But since the ancestors had ready access to the greater pool of beneficial ka energy and could bestow it on the living, people could also ask their ancestors to send them a blessing. A blessing of ka energy could nourish human beings, animals, and crops alike.

A modern offering table

Breathing the Breath of Isis

Deep breath. In and out.

It helps when we are angry. Or can’t sleep. Or tired…as many of us are right now.

So today, we take a deep, cleansing breath and honor Isis as Lady of the element of Air—of Breath, of Wind, and thus of Spirit.

It’s quite true that many cultures associate breath, air, and wind with Spirit. For while these things are invisible, they are invisible Powers, and we are intimately touched by their influence. We breathe the air and we live. The wind fills a sail and we move. Wind, air, and breath thus can be seen as manifestations of the invisible powers of the Deities.

In Isis, breath, air, and wind are one.

In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, Isis declares that She comes “with the north wind.” The Goddess and the wind were associated because both were known to bring the cooling, life-giving waters of the Inundation. It was thought that the north wind “dammed up” the Inundation, which flowed from the south, enabling the water to flood and nourish Egyptian fields. Thus, Isis is the one Who heralds the Inundation and causes it to flow (as Iset-Sopdet), but also Her northerly winds keep it in place so that it will water and fertilize the fields.

A fanciful Italian mosaic, from the Hellenistic period, showing Egypt during the Inundation

As Iset Mehit, Isis of the North and Lady of the North Wind, the Goddess brings the sweet-smelling north wind and all good things. Temple texts at Edfu identify Her with the “good north wind.” In the Book of Hours, She is the “living north wind.” Isis is especially found whenever air is active, whether in beating wings or gusting winds. Some stories describe Her mourning cries for Osiris as the wailing and moaning of the winds.

Isis can also be connected to other directional winds. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day (Chapter 161), the four winds are attributed this way: Osiris is the north wind, Re is the south wind, Isis is the west wind, and Nephthys is the east wind. As the winds, these Deities enter the noses of the dead and bring them to life.

In whichever wind She dwells, Isis is always the ancient Lady of the Living Air, Queen of the Winds, Winged Goddess of the Spirit Revivified. From Her we receive our breath and our life.

Do You Dream of Isis?

The most common Egyptian term for dream was rsw.t, from a root meaning "to awaken." In dream, we awaken in sleep.

In this strange stay-home-and-stay-isolated world right now, many people are reporting changes in their dreaming patterns. More dreams, odd dreams, dreams that are not like their normal dreaming life. Are you dreaming more, dreaming weird? I know I am.

Our Lady is a Goddess of Dreams. People slept in Her temples, hoping for dreams of healing or divination. Interestingly, the most common Egyptian term for dream was rsw.t, from a root meaning “to awaken.” So in dream, we awaken in our sleep…

Does Isis communicate with you in your dreams?

In Egypt, as in most of the ancient world, people definitely paid attention to their dreams. Kings and commoners alike regularly acted on messages received in dream. Sometimes the dreams were clear, the message needing no interpretation. Or a dream might be prophetic, providing information or warnings about the future. Some dreams instructed the dreamer to carry out certain actions; the temples were full of dedicatory plaques to the Deities stating that some action was taken “in accordance with a dream.” Yet these types of dreams were rare—as they are today. Most often, people dreamed in symbols and images that had to be interpreted in order to understand the meaning. For this, one needed a dream interpreter.

(The artwork above was inspired by a dream the artist had of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. See what her dream was and more of her work here.)

The dream interpreter might be a village wise woman like the one of whom we have evidence from Deir el-Medina. Dream interpreters would set up shop outside the temples—especially during festival days. But most often the dream interpreter would have been one of the priests or priestesses of the Houses of Life at the great temples. Dream Books cataloged dream symbols and their meanings and may have served as resources for the temple interpreters. We have several surviving examples of these dream books.

An artist’s fantasy version of an Egyptian healing temple

In addition to bringing one’s dream to the temples for interpretation, one might also seek a special dream by sleeping in the temple. This sacred sleep is known to scholars using the Latin term incubatio (Greek enkoimesis) and was particularly associated with healing temples and healing Deities, such as Isis, Hathor, and Asclepius. It was a frequent practice in temples of Isis. In fact, the temples of Isis at Memphis and Canopus were quite famous for incubation. The Goddess was known to provide accurate diagnoses and effective prescriptions to those who appealed to Her. Diodorus Siculus records that She

gives assistance in their sleep to those seeking it, visibly revealing her very own presence and her beneficence towards those in need. As proof of these claims they say that they themselves offer not myths akin to those of the Greeks, but visible results: for nearly all of the inhabited world serves as witness for them, seeking to add to her honors because of her manifestation through healings. For appearing in their sleep she gives aid to the sick against their diseases, and those who heed her regain their health contrary to all expectation.

An example of an Isis incubation dream survives from a Greek orator named Aristides. Aristides spent a great deal of time visiting healing shrines due to his chronic illness. (Some have even called him a hypochondriac.) In one of his books, he describes a number of synchronicities surrounding a sacrifice of geese to Isis that was surely part of his pre-incubation rite. Then he gives a hint about his dream, writing that a light came from Isis relating to his salvation.

Another interesting example of incubation in an Isis temple comes from a letter written from Aspasia (470-410 BCE), the hetaira who was so beloved by the Athenian statesman Pericles, to Pericles telling him of her journey to several temples of healing to seek relief for (perhaps) a skin irritation of some kind. On the advice of her physician, she first visited the temple of Isis in Memphis. She writes, “I beheld the statue of Isis and her son Orus, seated on a throne supported by two lions” and says that sebestus (a species of Egyptian date) grew about Her shrine and describes the burning of incense in the morning, myrrh during the day, and cyplis [kyphi?] in the evening.”

Aspasia slept in the temple, but says she found no relief. The problem, according to the temple attendants, was Aspasia’s “incredulity.”

Next she went to the temple of Hygieia at Patras where the Goddess “appeared to me in the form of a mysterious pentagon.” Finally it was Aphrodite Who, in in the form of a dove, cured Aspasia.

I include this interesting anecdote for several reasons: first, to demonstrate that then, as now, the hoped for dream communication may not always come to us; second, that “mysterious pentagon” form in which Hygieia appeared to Aspasia. It is likely that the “mysterious pentagon” was the Pythagorean pentagram associated with Hygieia and used as a symbol of recognition among the Pythagoreans. As an educated woman, Aspasia conversed with philosophers, was a philosopher herself, even being described as “a female Socrates” by one ancient writer. And finally, Who better than Aphrodite to heal a hetaira? For me, Aspasia’s experiences ring true and reflect some of the many and varied ways the Deities can interact—or not—with us.

Isis is also known to call to Her initiates and devotees in dream. In Apuleius’ tale that culminates with his protagonist’s initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, we learn that Lucius must remain in the temple of the Goddess—waiting patiently—until he receives a summons from Isis Herself. Only then, when he knew for certain that Isis had invited him, could he undergo the ceremony of his initiation and further cultivate his relationship with the Goddess.

A Roman image of Isis. Is this what Lucius’ dream Isis looked like to him?

Dream invitation is part of modern devotion to Isis as well. Many are the modern priestesses and priests of Isis who were called to Her service in dream or in vision, which we may think of as a waking dream.

Yet, as always, there are cautions that go along with all this dreaming and visioning. We cannot forget that any information that comes from Her comes through us. The dream or vision-seed of information may come from Isis, but it passes through our human minds and souls, as well as our physical brains and bodies. It’s easy for that seed to be affected by what’s going on with us, in our daily lives and in our spiritual lives. There’s no way to avoid this. The best we can do is to try to develop wisdom and self-knowledge so that we don’t fool ourselves into thinking Isis told us something when we were really just hearing our internal echo chamber. Yet, as long as we can recognize it as our own stuff, this too can be a valuable learning experience.

If we can be honest with ourselves, then when we do have an important dream or vision, we will more easily be able to recognize it. The dream or vision will be more vivid—in our minds, hearts, and memories. We will have a sense of its importance and, at least for us, truth. (Never, ever rely on memory alone; write it down, please. I speak from experience.)

Once Isis has made Herself known to us in our dreams or visions, then it is up to us to take Her up on Her invitation or take up any tasks She may have given us.

Goddess in the present tense…dammit

I do not often rant on this blog, as those of you who have been reading along well know. But you are about to read one. Okay, a tiny one. Sorry. Every now and then, this little rant gets kicked off by reading other writers…people who actually DO have a relationship with their Deities and who yet often do not use the present tense when speaking or writing about their Deities. So now you see where this is going…

If you’ve read Isis Magic or Offering to Isis, you may have noticed that—except when something actually is in the past—I always refer to the Goddess in present tense. In fact, I have been very, very, very, very conscious of doing so.

Because, you see, She IS.

She’s is not a Being Who was but is no more. She is not “just a myth,” some silly old story deserving of the past tense. Indeed, She is All that Is, and Was, and Ever Shall Be. She existed then, She exists now, and She will exist when the rugged, snowcapped mountain that, on a clear day, I can see from my rooftop has become a gentle, green hill.

And I know you know that. Which is why I am so puzzled when I sometimes see modern Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, Witches, and insert-your-self-definition-of-choice-here using the past tense about their Deities. The most recent one I saw, and which kicked off this rant, was a witch writing that “Hekate was…”

I am all that was, that is, that ever shall be... — I am all that was, that is, that ever shall be…

It happens most often when telling Their sacred stories, trying to offer a brief “definition” (as if that could be done!) of the Deity, or describing Their relationships with other Deities: “Isis was the Goddess of Magic.” Osiris was the husband of Isis.” Isn’t She still the Goddess of Magic? Isn’t He still Her husband? Now if you said, “To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the Goddess of Magic and Osiris was Her husband,” that would work. No more ancient Egyptians around today, so what they considered is indeed history. To me, however, Isis IS the Goddess of Magic and Osiris IS Her beloved husband.

In writing of the history of the Isis religion and the many aspects in which She has appeared to humanity, I have always kept in mind that, to the people who worshipped Her then, as well as to those of us who do so today, Isis was and is a Living Goddess. She is not a historical curiosity. She is not a metaphor for our times. She is not feminist wish fulfillment. She is not merely a psychological archetype. She is Divine Love, Life, Magic, Mystery. She is Goddess and She is.
— Isis Magic

And speaking of myths, a myth isn’t something that is false— “oh, that’s just a myth.” No. A myth is a sacred story meant to tell us something about the Deity or Deities of the myth. Myths are “things that never happened but always are,” in the words of the 4th century CE Roman writer Sallustius. Or maybe myths are things that never happened historically, but are eternally true. Ask Joseph Campbell. Or Jean Huston. Or the many others who are doing Work with myths. And remember, just because it belongs to the corpus of the dominant monotheisms doesn’t mean it’s not mythology. Egyptian mythology is. Christian mythology is. Jewish mythology is. They are all sacred stories and they are all mythology.

Most of this, I think, comes from early and ongoing conditioning. Except for those of you young enough to have been born of Pagan parents, most of us were taught in school, from early on, that the ancient Deities were and mythology was. But let’s get over that. May we all just mind our tenses and our mythologies, please?

Can't help it...just found this and kinda love it. — I kinda love this. This was a public dance party in San Francisco, mixed by the Bulgarian artist KINK.

The Is-ness of Isis

But how do we know that Isis is? How do we know that She’s “real”? Must we simply “have faith”? Do we just choose to “believe in” Her? Can we prove Her is-ness?

We can prove Isis’ is-ness, Her reality, exactly as much as any human being can prove the reality of any Deity, which is to say, we cannot. There is no scientific proof for the Divine. There is no infallible book or teacher that holds all the answers to all the questions. Yet this—happily—means exactly nothing when it comes to the truth of Isis’ existence.

This question of belief and faith is much more vexed for those of us in non-mainstream (O how I dislike that designation!) religions. How often have you been asked by some friend or family member or (hopefully) well-meaning stranger, “Well, then, what do Isians—or Pagans or Polytheists or Wiccans or Witches or insert-your-self-definition-of-choice-here—believe?”

And how have you answered?

Many of us involved in alternative spirituality today were reared in one monotheistic religion or the other, most often, Christianity. From early on, we were taught to “believe in” God and Jesus. We were told that a particular book was the Word of God, “proved” that God was real, and explained precisely what He wanted us to do with our lives. In terms of religion, the clergy were to be our role models, the ones whose faith was strong, whose belief was true; we should have faith and believe as they do.

We got used to using those words, faith and belief, when speaking about religion. But perhaps those are not the right words.

For me, what proves that Isis is real is my experience of Her, not my faith or belief in Her. No single book is the touchstone for my spirituality, though I find spiritual truths in many, many books written by many, many wise human beings. I can’t transfer my deep knowing of Her reality to anyone else (though I admit that the exercises and rituals I share with others are attempts to at least set up the conditions that will enable others to discover their own experiences of Her). Nevertheless, experience of the Divine is an individual thing; each one of us must experience Isis for ourselves—even if we do so in a group. Clergy can facilitate. Books can show us a way. The experiences of others can strengthen us in our desire for our own experience of the Goddess. But, in the end, we will not truly know Isis for ourselves until we have our own experience of Her.

When that experience comes for the first time, it may bring awe, tears, joy, pain. When it comes again and again, throughout the many years, I can tell you that it may still bring all those things. But repeated and ongoing experience of the Goddess will also bring a true knowing, a personal gnosis, of Her. No longer operating just “on faith,” now we know Her reality because we have experienced it. No longer just believing, we have discovered Her truth for ourselves and it has become our truth.

Yes, that's it, Goddess, O yes! — Yes, Goddess, O yes!

The Sistrum of Isis

Hello, Isiacs! I’d like to share with you a beautiful double sistrum that one of our sisters discovered in a market in Baja. It is lovely and I’ll bet it sounds wonderful. Here’s the pic:

Why didn’t I think of that? A double sistrum! Thank you, Agnes. Here’s a repeat post about the sistrum and how this magical musical instrument can shake things up.

A priestess with the naos style of sistrum

In Isis Magic, one of the key elemental implements of the priestess of Isis is the sistrum. It is one of several types of ancient Egyptian rattles that were used in the worship of the Goddesses and Gods. But it isn’t simply a musical instrument; it is also a magical instrument.

As you may already suspect, sistrum is a Latin word. In turn, it derives from a Greek term for the Egyptian rattle: seistron “that which is shaken.” The Egyptian terms are a bit more interesting. One of them is onomatopoeic, that is, the word sounds like the thing it represents. That one is sesheshet (say it out loud and you’ll see what I mean). The other is sekhem. And that one is quite interesting, for it means “power,” as in the name of the Goddess Sekhmet, the Powerful One. It is, of course, among the names of Isis as well.

A priestess shakes the sistrum to please the Goddess

The sistrum is an instrument of power. Even better, the term for “to play the sistrum” also derives from the sekhem root, so when you’re playing the sistrum, you’re “doing power.” That’s why the sistrum is the elemental Fire implement of the priestess or priest in the House of Isis.

Plutarch seems to be echoing the true Egyptian tradition when he explains in his essay “On Isis & Osiris”:

The sistrum also makes it clear that all things in existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease from motion but, as it were, to be waked up and agitated when they grow drowsy and torpid. They say that they avert and repel Typhon by means of the sistrums, indicating thereby that when destruction constricts and checks Nature, generation releases and arouses it by means of motion. (Plutarch, Moralia, Book 5, “On Isis & Osiris,” section 63)

The vibration of the rattling sistrum is as the constant vibration of the atoms that make up all things and the activity of all living things.

The bullet casing sistrum; mine used to look just like this — The bullet-casing sistrum; mine used to look just like this

Like many modern priestesses and priests of Isis, I have a collection of sistra (which is the plural of sistrum), including both handmade and purchased versions. Since the Coptic and Ethiopian Christian churches today still use sistra, you can actually purchase sistra that flow from the ancient Egyptian religious tradition. Naturally, I wanted to add one to my collection. So I ordered an inexpensive one online and when it came, it was, as expected, not super-high quality, but kinda sweet…except for the fact that the handle appeared to have been made out of ammunition casing. Eeewww. But the rattle sounded wonderful, nice and tinkly. I purified the sistrum and began using it.

Ihy, the Sistrum Player, son of Hathor — Ihy the Sistrum Player, son of Hathor

Now here’s the part I like. Not too long after that—with no hard use of any kind—I picked up the sistrum one day to discover that the bullet-casing handle had split near where it was joined to the head of the sistrum. While I was disappointed that my new sistrum had broken, I was also somewhat relieved. Happily, I know artists—and an artist friend replaced the handle for me with copper tubing. My repristinated copper and brass Coptic sistrum has been rattling up power for Isis ever since.

In ancient Egypt, while the sistrum was used in the musical worship of all Egyptian Deities, it was especially associated with the worship of the Great Goddesses Hathor, Bast, and Isis. Generally, more priestesses than priests played the sistrum. Yet the archetypal sistrum player is Hathor’s son, Ihy, often called simply the Sistrum Player.

Isis with the sistrum from Abydos — Isis with a naos sistrum from Abydos

The creation of the sistrum is said to have developed from the polite habit of rattling the papyrus stalks before entering into the papyrus marshes. The marshes, you see, were often the dwelling places of fierce Wild Cow Goddesses, such as Hathor, and poisonous Cobra Goddesses, such as Wadjet. It was considered the wiser course of action to let Them know you were coming. (Never sneak up on a Goddess; all the myths tell us so.)

If we think of it as a polite knock on the door before coming into the presence of the Goddess, we can consider the rattling of the sistrum as an Opening of the Ways from the mundane to the sacred. It can also be used to stir up energy, in ourselves or our temple space, as well as to add emphasis and power to certain parts of a ritual. Softer rattling can be used meditatively and to bring down and sustain energy as the ancients did when they used it to “pacify” an angry Deity.

The sistrum became inextricably tied to Isis when Her worship spread into Greece and Rome. In fact, it was so commonly associated with Her in Rome that when ancient Romans saw a sistrum, they immediately thought of Isis and no one else. Even as late as the 4th century CE, Maurus Servius Honoratus, a grammarian with the contemporary reputation of being the most learned man of his generation, noted that

Isis is the genius [the spirit] of the Nile, who by the movement of her sistrum, which she carries in her right hand, signifies the access and recess [that is, the rising and falling] of the Nile… (Servius, Observations on the Aeneid, 1.8)

A naos sistrum now in the Athens Archeological Museum; it's lost most of the naos part — A naos sistrum now in the museum in Athens

There were two types of ancient sistra, which we know as the naos sistrum and the hoop sistrum. In a naos sistrum, the top of the rattle is shaped like a small shrine (naos in Greek); in a hoop sistrum, the top is an elongated hoop. Holes were made in the sides of the naos or hoop and metal rods were inserted horizontally so that when the sistrum was shaken, the rods rattled in the holes. Sometimes additional pieces of metal were pierced and strung on the rods to amplify the sound. (Many modern sistra have this feature.)

If you’d like to Do Power for Isis, you may purchase a variety of ready made sistra. DeTraci Regula’s Isiscraft Catalog offers a number of lovely ones. You can find versions of sistra in music stores that specialize in ethic instruments. You can also order the Coptic ones online (but they will probably come with the bullet-casing handles). And, of course, you can also make your own.

An Isis devotee of my acquaintance made some wonderful small sistra by splitting a piece of bamboo (about 1/4 inch in diameter) 2/3 of the way down. She glued ribbon around the un-split part to keep the sistrum from splitting all the way and to create a handle. Then she glued a small piece of wood between the split bamboo as a wedge to hold the two sides apart, forming a “Y.”

A bottle cap-type sistrum, but with carved wood instead of bamboo — A bottle cap-type sistrum

Finally, she strung flattened and pierced bottle caps on wire and attached the wire to both sides of the split bamboo. While I have sistra in my collection on which I’ve spent quite a bit of money, these homemade ones remain some of my favorites.

If you have made your own sistrum, I’d love to hear about it.

Isis & Min

I’m so used to thinking of Isis with Osiris that I can forget She is also paired with other Gods. Today, we’ll look at one of Them: the God of the Upright Phallus, Min.

ancient-egypt-map1

Isis and Min shared a temple complex at Koptos (Gebtu in ancient Egyptian, Qift in modern). It is in Upper Egypt, near Denderah and Thebes. The site is connected to the Red Sea by the Wadi Hammamat (meaning “Valley of Many Baths), a dry riverbed. The wadi contains important 3,000-year-old petroglyphs; in ancient times, it led to major Egyptian mining areas and was a key trade route.

Koptos is also just across the Nile from Naqada, the site of the pre-dynastic culture that takes its name from the site. What is known as Naqada II (3500-3400 BCE) is the period to which the beautiful statuettes of the “Nile Goddess” or “Dancing Woman” are dated.

These statues are usually identified as Nile Goddesses, but she may be a dancing priestess with her arms upraised...perhaps in the Wings of Isis — The Nile Goddess or dancing woman of Naqada. More on Her here.

Koptos is an ancient, ancient sacred site and probably originally belonged to Min alone. Herodotus reports that the Egyptians considered Him their oldest Deity. Yet by at least the time of the New Kingdom, Isis is prominent there as well and Min becomes assimilated with Osiris. The temple to Isis and Min, the ruins of which we see today, was built under Ptolemy II, with additions made under succeeding pharaohs. There are remains of two more temples on the site. One is the Ptolemaic “middle temple” or “Osiris temple.” The other is a temple dedicated to Geb and Isis, probably begun under Nectanebo II and continued under the Ptolemies. There is literary evidence for a temple of Isis and Harpokrates, but its remains have not yet been found.

One of the interesting things about Koptos is that it was a popular oracular site. You can still see the small chamber to the rear of the Isis and Geb temple in which the entranced priest would sit to deliver the words of the Deity. This oracular chapel was built by Kleopatra VII (the famous one). The tradition of oracles at Koptos did not cease with the coming of Christianity. In a work called Theosophia, we have record of an oracle from Koptos that is ostensibly an Egyptian Pagan oracle, but since it discusses the unity of the Logos and the Father, a number of scholars think it was likely a Christian retrofit. Be that as it may, the point is that the tradition of oracles at Koptos was well established.

The so-called Colossus of Koptos...a predynastic form of Min — The so-called Colossus of Koptos…a predynastic form of Min; they found three of these at Koptos

A particular Isiac relic at Koptos seems to have been a lock of Her hair. A Greek dedication to Her says it is “to the Great Goddess, Isis of the Hair.” We also have a record of a healing prayer made “near the hair at Koptos.” Plutarch explains the tradition for us, relating that when Isis first heard of the death of Osiris, She cut off a lock of Her hair and donned mourning dress. He notes that this is why the city there is called Koptos for some derive the name from Greek koptein, meaning “to deprive.” The cutting of hair is a Greek mourning tradition; Egyptian women simply wore theirs long and unkempt. (Read more about that tradition here.) Nevertheless, among both Greeks and Egyptians, Isis of Koptos was particularly known a Mourning Goddess.

The ancient Greek travel writer, Pausanias, in his Description of Greece, mentions Koptos as the site of a tragedy that befell a man who rashly entered Isis’ sanctuary there without a specific invitation from the Goddess:

I have heard a similar story from a man of Phoenicia that the Egyptians hold the feast for Isis at a time when they say she is mourning for Osiris. At this time the Nile begins to rise, and it is a saying among many of the natives that what makes the river rise and water their fields is the tears of Isis. At that time then, so said my Phoenician, the Roman governor of Egypt bribed a man to go down into the shrine of Isis in Koptos. The man dispatched into the shrine returned indeed out of it, but after relating what he had seen, he too, so I was told, died immediately. So it appears that Homer’s verse speaks the truth when it says that it bodes no good to man to see godhead face to face. (Pausanias, Book X, 32, 10-17.)

Koptos must have had strong magical connections as well. If you recall the story of Setna and the magic book, you may remember that the magic book so coveted by Naneferkaptah was to be found at the bottom of the Nile by Koptos.

At Koptos, Isis is sometimes the mother of Min or Min-Hor, sometimes His consort. When Isis and Min are consorts, Min is the father of Hor-pa-khred, Horus the Child. Min is very much a God of male sexual prowess and thus, of course, fertility. Images of Him almost invariably show Him with an erect penis jutting out at an impressive right angle to His body. In the Coffin Texts, the deceased identified himself with “Woman-Hunting” Min to partake of His potent sexuality.

By the 18th dynasty, Min became associated with Amun and was incorporated into the festivals that were intended to revitalize the king. There is an ancient rite of Min called The Going Forth of Min and sometimes The Going Forth of Min to the Khedju, which may mean a type of ritual garden. During these festivals, the sacred image of the God was carried to a symbolic garden so that the God could bless the fields. This blessing was extended to the pharaoh; he took part in the procession as Horus, while the queen participated as Isis.

Although Min is usually shown in anthropomorphic form as a beautiful black man, at Koptos, He was also worshipped in the form of a white bull. Min is called the Beautiful Bull, the Strong Bull, and the Powerful Bull for the bull has always been a symbol of male strength and fertility.

He, Amun, and Horus are also known by the epithet, Kamutef, Bull of His Mother. The epithet has clear sexual connotations. Originally, it seems to have been an epithet of Horus, which was extended to Min when the two Gods were assimilated. It was further extended to Amun when He and Min were assimilated. It points to a primordial conception of the Divine in which the God is both son and lover of the Goddess. In a hymn to Min, a passage says:

Hail to Thee, Min, fecundating Thy mother; secret are Thy dealings with Her when the heavens are dark.

On a 13th dynasty stela, there is a similar inscription about Horus Kamutef:

Thy heart joins with the king as the heart of Horus joined with His mother Isis when He coupled with Her, flank to flank.

This ancient conception perfectly encapsulates the relationship between Isis and Min at Koptos. They are mother and son (sometimes Min is simply called “Min, Son of Isis” just as Horus is Harsiesis, “Horus, Son of Isis”) and They are lovers.

Min is usually shown with His legs tightly mummy-wrapped together but His penis exposed and ready. A flail is shown over His upraised right arm. The flail forms a “V” over His shoulder into the center of which the God places His upraised hand. Some have seen this as a sexual emblem: the vulva-triangle of the flail penetrated by the God’s penis-forearm. Sure, why not? I like it.

In addition to His bull epithets, Min is also known as Lord of Awe and Great of Love, just as Isis can be called Sweet of Love. (Perhaps She calls Him Lord of Awe at times when He has been particularly Great of Love.) In a hymn to Min from Koptos, He is said to love humankind and therefore He made youths (for fertile sex, of course). He is called Fair of Face and Sweet of Love. He is said to abominate the cutting short of the breath of life. He heals the sick and is “beautiful beyond the Gods.” He is also a Lunar God and Protector of the Moon.

I will admit that I have not, to date, done much to honor Min, perhaps because for me, that type of energy comes from Dionysos, to Whom I am also dedicated. Nevertheless, Isis and Min at Koptos make an intriguing pair. Isis is the Beautiful Mourner, the Goddess of the Disheveled Hair. Min is the Lord of Life Who invigorates human beings and agricultural fields alike. As Death and Life, They make a complete cycle. The Bull of His Mother brings renewal to Her in the form of Their Child. She, in turn, nurtures Him as Min, Son of Isis.

Goddess in the Present Tense

Someone's beautiful Isis altar... if this is yours, please let me know. I love it! — This beautiful Isis altar was created for Her by Michael Butler Smith. I love it! You can see more of his work here.

If you’ve read Isis Magic and Offering to Isis, you may have noticed that—except when something actually is in the past—I always refer to the Goddess in present tense. In fact, I have been very, very, very, very conscious of doing so.

Because, you see, She IS.

She’s is not a Being Who was but is no more. She is not “just a myth,” some silly old story deserving of the past tense. Indeed, She is All that Was, and Is, and Ever Shall Be. She existed then, She exists now, and She will exist when the rugged, snowcapped mountain that, on a clear day, I can see from my rooftop has become a gentle, green hill.

And I know you know that. Which is why I am so puzzled when I sometimes see modern Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, and insert-your-self-definition-of-choice using the past tense about their Deities.

It usually happens when telling Their sacred stories, trying to offer a brief “definition” of the Deity, or describing Their relationships with other Deities: “Isis was the Goddess of Magic.” Osiris was the husband of Isis.” Isn’t She still the Goddess of Magic? Isn’t He still Her husband? Now if you said, “To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the Goddess of Magic and Osiris was Her husband,” that would work. No more ancient Egyptians around today, so what they considered is indeed history. To me, however, Isis IS the Goddess of Magic and Osiris IS Her beloved husband.

I may have had a tiny rant on this subject in Isis Magic:

In writing of the history of the Isis religion and the many aspects in which She has appeared to humanity, I have always kept in mind that, to the people who worshipped Her then, as well as to those of us who do so today, Isis was and is a Living Goddess. She is not a historical curiosity. She is not a metaphor for our times. She is not feminist wish fulfillment. She is not merely a psychological archetype. She is Divine Love, Life, Magic, Mystery. She is Goddess and She is.

And speaking of myths, a myth isn’t something that is false—”oh, that’s just a myth.” No. A myth is a sacred story meant to tell us something about the Deity or Deities of the myth. Myths are “things that never happened but always are,” in the words of the 4th century CE Roman writer Sallustius. Or maybe myths are things that never happened historically, but are eternally true. Or ask Joseph Campbell. Or Jean Huston. And remember, just because it belongs to the corpus of the dominant monotheisms doesn’t mean it’s not mythology. Egyptian mythology is. Christian mythology is. Jewish mythology is. They are all sacred stories and they are all mythology.

Okay. I’m done. Enough said. And may we all mind our tenses and our mythologies.

The Is-ness of Isis

But how do we know that Isis is? How do we know that She’s “real”? Must we simply have faith? Do we just choose to “believe in” Her? Can we prove Her is-ness?

This question of belief and faith is much more vexed for those of us in non-mainstream (O how I dislike that designation!) religions. How often have you been asked by some friend or family member or (hopefully) well-meaning stranger, “Well, then, what do Isians—or Pagans or Polytheists or Wiccans or insert-your-self-definition-of-choice—believe?”

And how have you answered?

We got used to using those words, faith and belief, when speaking about religion. But perhaps those are not the right words.

For me, what proves that Isis is real is my experience of Her, not my faith or belief in Her. No single book is the touchstone for my spirituality, though I find spiritual truths in many, many books written by many, many wise human beings. I can’t transfer my deep knowing of Her reality to anyone else (though I do admit that the exercises and rituals I share with others are attempts to at least set up the conditions that will enable others to open up to their own experiences of Her). Nevertheless, experience of the Divine is an individual thing; each one of us must experience Isis for ourselves—even if we do so in a group. Clergy can facilitate. Books can show us a way. The experiences of others can strengthen us in our desire for our own experience of the Goddess. But, in the end, we will not truly know Isis for ourselves until we have our own experience of Her.

Isis & the Dark Night of the Soul

With so many of us feeling a bit hopeless these days, I am reposting this small essay on the Dark Night of the Soul.

This may have been the first time that had happened to her.

The first thing we must understand about such periods in the spiritual life is that, though we feel desperately alone, we are not. Spiritual people throughout the ages have had this experience. Prehistoric shamans probably had it. There’s even a term for it, a term you probably know. It’s the “dark night of the soul,” which is the title of a poem and a treatise written by the 16th century Christian Mystic known as Saint John of the Cross. He writes of it as a necessary part of the soul’s journey to union with God. The phrase is so perfectly evocative that it has been adopted by many spiritual traditions today.

We do not know the purpose of the papyrus or the period to which it is dated. Most scholars put it in the First Intermediate Period, a time of confusion between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Some have theorized that the author’s despair is a reflection of the chaos of that Intermediate Period. Bika Reed, who is of the Schwaller de Lubicz school of Egyptology, has interpreted it as an initiatic text, essentially dealing with the dark night of the soul.

We don’t know for sure, but the point is, this happens—and it has always happened. But what do we do when it happens?

Held in Her wings, we are Becoming, even when we don’t know it.

Isis & the Egg

The equinox has come and gone. Light now overbalances dark. Things are stirring, stirring, stirring everywhere. The flowerbeds beg (or is that screaming, I hear?) to be weeded and about a million springtime chores fill my ever-burgeoning To Do List.

Yet I’m feeling a little melancholy.

You, too?

Even in the later period of Isis worship, eggs continued to play their part. When Apuleius describes the purification of the Isis ship during the Navigium Isidis, he says that fire, sulfur, and an egg were used. While fire and sulfur are common instruments of purification, some scholars think the egg was added because of the importance of the egg in Egyptian symbolism.

For while everything around us seems to be breaking out of its the shell, we are still within ours, humming our pre-birth song, dreaming of our Mother, still feeling Her warmth around us.

But for now, we simply float in our egg, feeling the warmth and the presence of Our Mother Isis. Her feathers cover us. She protects us. She is infinitely patient as She awaits our birth. It will take exactly as long as it takes. She has all the time in the world to wait for us.

But at some point, for us, the time comes. We are at last ready. We shift and try to spread our wings. We peck at the eggshell about us, cracking it. Light comes forth as we break free, emerging from the warm confinement of the egg into the pale, damp-bright, flower-scented air of spring. As we shake off the last bits of shell, Isis cries out for us: “Behold, she is in being; behold, she is knit together; behold, she has broken the egg!”

Sacred vessels of the Goddess Isis

"To London, at the Temple of Isis" — “To London, at the temple of Isis”

It is finally spring. And here in the Pacific Northwest, we are having a classic one. Last weekend sunny and 70, this one wet and 50. For some reason (probably as I have been planting), this reminds me of vessels. So I hope you will enjoy this little excursion into some of the sacred and sacred-ish vessels associated with the Isis…

There is a very famous jug found in what is now Tooley Street in the Southwark borough of London. It doesn’t look like much; it’s about a foot high, just terracotta, with a graffito scratched on its surface. The jug is dated to the latter part of the 1st century CE.

It’s important because of what that graffito says. It says,”LONDINI AD FANVM ISIDIS,” that is, “To London at the temple of Isis”. Thus it confirms the existence of a temple of Isis in ancient London. One more reference to the temple has been uncovered locally as well. It’s a 3rd century CE altar (which had been used as part of a wall) with an inscription that states that the Isis temple had fallen down due to age, but had now been restored.

Together, these finds are the only certain evidence of an actual Isis temple anywhere in Roman Britain. (There are other artifacts—figurines, hairpins with Her image—that indicate Her presence in London, but nothing else about a temple.)

An Italian terracotta showing Isis with Harpocrates and Anubis. Her London devotees may have owned similar votive images.

The jug has been presumed to be a wine jug that may have belonged to a tavern near the temple, perhaps even a tavern dedicated to Isis. There is archeological precedent for taverns being located near temples as well as for being dedicated to Deities.

Other scholars have wondered whether the jug may have belonged to the temple itself. In particular, some have suggested that it may have been part of the feasting that would take place at temples by the religious associations who tended them. There is precedent for this, too.

Back in Egypt, demotic texts speak of “Days of Drinking” that became a term for the meetings of such groups. In Egypt, the groups were probably influenced by Greek symposia, meaning “drinking together,” and thiasoi, which were voluntary religious associations like our modern covens as well as larger organizations like the Fellowship of Isis. Yet there was native tradition, too. A scholar who studied this believes that the demotic name, Days of Drinking, may derive from one of the ancient Egyptian lunar festivals, which would no doubt include feasting and drinking as well.

A model of Londinium in the 1st century CE, from the London Museum

Such an association of Isiacs would not have been out of place in Roman London. We find them throughout the Empire. Archeologists have also found several other jugs inscribed with Isis’ name from other parts of the Empire.

I haven’t been able to find out whether anyone has actually tested residue from the Southwark jug to discover if it ever contained wine, but it sure looks like a classic wine jug—whether for use as part of the religious festivals at the temple or by the tavern next door.

The Southwark jug is, of course, not the only vessel with which Isis is connected. By the Late Period, She is especially associated with what is usually referred to as a situla, a container for sacred liquids. Many representations of Her show a sistrum in one hand and a situla in the other, some of these situlae conspicuously breast-shaped.

The situla is not exclusive to the religion of Isis. From approximately the 19th dynasty onward, these small ritual buckets, washeb in Egyptian, were used to carry offerings of Nile water or milk in the cults of many Egyptian Deities. A text from Denderah that describes rites for Osiris specifically mentions a “situla of gold.” Situlae were usually decorated with scenes involving fertility, nourishment, or the cult of the specific Deity for Whom there were being used.

Scenes on the situale might include images of the nurturing Cow Goddess, images that suggest fertility, such as the plump Nile God or a Child God on a lotus, or sexual images such as the ithyphallic God Min. It seems clear that the breast or womb-like vessel was associated with the nurturing, fertile, and sexual aspects of the Divine—and thus very appropriate to Isis.

While the situla is spoutless, a different type of spouted vessel is also connected with Isis. It is the urnula or hydreion. It is from a later period and found in Isiac representations outside of Egypt.

Roman priestesses and priests of Isis, the urnula is carried by the priestess on the far right — Roman priestesses and priests of Isis; urnulas are carried by the priestesses on the right and left, situlae are carried by the priests

Nonetheless, it was always made to look Egyptian, decorated with Egyptian scenes and hieroglyphs and usually with a rearing cobra on the handle. The urnula was specifically for carrying sacred water, especially sacred Nile water. We don’t know for certain, but it most likely was used to pour libation offerings to the Goddess. In Apuleius’ novelized account of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, he says that the vessel “represented the Highest Deity.”

A charming vessel in which to store "the milk of a woman who has borne a son" — A charming vessel in the shape of mother and child; it held human milk, which was used in healing medicines

I have argued in Isis Magic, that Isis is one of the Great “Container” Goddesses, that is, one of the Great Mother Goddesses Who Contain All Things.

The concept of the Mother as Great Container is easy to understand. Like the human mother who contains the child and, once born, the milk to nourish it, the Great Mother contains all creatures and provides sustenance for them through the blessings of nature. Judging by the numerous gynomorphic vessels that have been found throughout all regions of the world, the concept of Great Mother as Container of All appears to have been common throughout the prehistoric world.

So, from a specific Isiac vessel, we can take our exploration of Isis to an expanded and more symbolic level. She is at once the Goddess celebrated in feasting and drinking together and She is the Lady of the Vessel and the Great Vessel Herself. She is the All-Containing One Who gives us life and nourishment, in life and in death.

The Goddess of Willendorf

In Search of the Feminine Divine

Category Archives: The Goddess

The Disturbing Story of Isis & Re

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

Isis of the Winds

Offering to Isis: Fall EQ 2021

Isis and the Egg

“Isis with the Lapis Lazuli Head”?

Isis & the Dark Night of the Soul

Hail to Thee, Isis, Lady of the Star

Offering to Isis

Breathing the Breath of Isis

Do You Dream of Isis?

Goddess in the present tense…dammit

The Sistrum of Isis

Isis & Min

Goddess in the Present Tense

Isis & the Dark Night of the Soul

Isis & the Egg

Sacred vessels of the Goddess Isis

Simon Magus is coming to