Category Archives: Visualization

Neheh, Djet & Isis

I’ve done some more reading and some more meditation and I want to come back to neheh and djet. Why? Because I am very inspired by a 2022 work by Egyptologist Steven Gregory on the subject.

Unless you’re super geeky on this subject like me, I don’t think you’ll want to read all his arguments for how he thinks neheh and djet should be defined and translated.* (Translating is the trickier part, tbh.) So I’ll summarize and then we can discover some things we might do with these insights.

As we saw last time, Egyptologists have tried translating these two Egyptian concepts in a variety of ways, all of which, I think, add to our understanding. Their interpretations usually have to do with a repetitive time cycle for neheh and a perfected and unchanging time cycle for djet. But rather frequently, when translating the ancient texts, Egyptologists will translate the two terms as if they were synonyms. That’s when we get translations of neheh djet as “forever and ever.” This is Gregory’s big bugaboo.

He argues, persuasively as far as I am concerned, that they are very much not synonyms and that we miss an important part of what the texts are telling us if we so translate. In the book, he takes a while to get to his point because he gives lots of examples, but the point itself is actually fairly easy to home in on. It is simply this: that neheh is physical and temporal, like the cycles of sun and moon in our “real world;” djet is metaphysical and atemporal. In other words, they are not really types of time (though they are sort of), but conditions. Neheh is the condition of the existing world. It is imperfect and changing, providing for natural cycles and regeneration. Djet is the condition of the ideal world; it is the state of the Deities. Djet is outside of time. It is, or contains, the ideal Forms of everything.

Art by Bill Bounard, “Open Your Heart”

And if that makes you think of Plato and his Forms/Ideas/Ideals, yes indeed, Gregory suggests that Plato may have been inspired by the ancient Egyptian concepts of neheh and djet. The Greek philosopher is, after all, said to have studied in Egypt.

If we were to apply those terms to Plato’s philosophy, neheh would be his world of appearances, which is a shadow of the more-real World of Forms. Djet is the realm of the Forms/Ideas/Ideals, which are “abstract, perfect, unchanging concepts or ideals that transcend time or space.”

As I said, I think all the translators’ translations are helpful in understanding these key concepts. And sometimes, thinking of them as variations on time is quite useful. But layering on Gregory’s physical-metaphysical definitions just opened the doors wider for me. It’s funny how sometimes a little thing like a new avenue for looking at things can blossom and unfold and burst into galaxies in your head. This was one of those for me. And it just reinforced for me how much the ancient Egyptian scribes and priests knew what the hell they were doing. They KNEW they were writing about different levels of reality. Always. Because our examples of this go back all the way to the earliest writings. In funerary texts, temple texts, and ritual documents of all kinds, they were very much aware of the different Worlds and they addressed those Worlds in their works, calling them out as neheh and djet. What’s more, thinking of djet as the metaphysical realm, we get additional hints as to how the ancient Egyptians may of conceived of the Divine realms.

I still do like the idea of neheh-time and djet-time, as well as neheh-eternity and djet-eternity, even though my guy Gregory doesn’t so much. But with his insights, we can now add new layers to our own definitions. We can think about the neheh-realm and the djet-realm—Neheh World and Djet World—so that we have levels or planes of reality as well as different dimensions of time and eternity. Of course, we’ve always known about the realness of the heavenly and underworlds in Egyptian thought, but adding the extra mystery of djet-time-eternity to it just adds to the complexity of Reality, which for me reveals a little bit more of what is true, what is right, what is Ma’et.

If you would like to experience these concepts for yourself, try the following visualization and meditation. This one focuses on djet, but you can do something similar for neheh.

Purify and consecrate yourself in any manner you wish. If you’d like an Isiac version, you could use the first part of this, up to “Entering.”

In your vision, imagine yourself in the Temple of Isis. It is night. The temple is illuminated by wall torches, burning in startling colors of blue and orange. As you enter in, you smell the smoke of incense, dark, sweet, and musky. You feel the cool stone floor on your bare feet. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you begin to make out the designs of wall paintings. In the flickers of torchlight, their colors are muted. The low, rumbling sound of soft chanting comes to your ears. You hear Her name being chanted over and again with devotion, with love. Join in, if you wish.

Ahead there is a doorway, and beyond it, another. And another, and again. A long passageway stretches before you. Impossibly, it seems you can see into forever. A soft, deep voice whispers in your mind, “Enter the Chamber of Secrets.”

You enter the passageway, moving through each doorway. In a little while, the path begins to angle upward. Then you see a stairway that you somehow know will take you to the roof of the temple.

Walk up the stairs and you emerge on the temple roof. Look up. And you look into the infinite belly of Nuet, full of stars. Stars and space, moving slowly in their infinity, envelop you. Your eyes can see into the depths of space, opening, opening, opening. Your eyes, your heart, your mind, opening, opening, opening.

And when you let your attention fall back to the roof of the temple, you see the Boat of Millions of Years docked near the edge of the roof. It floats on darkness and stars. Thoth, the master of this vessel, motions you aboard. As you step upon the deck, the boat rocks and dips as if it were floating in water. You take your place, facing the prow, facing the night.

In a moment, the ship begins to move. First, slowly. Then faster. And faster. Moving upward into the depths of space and time. Starlight streaks by you. Your hair is blown back as the Boat of Millions of Years sails and sails.

Then suddenly, it stops.

The soft voice in your head, the one you know is the voice of Isis, says, “Call to Her.” And you do. You call to the Great Goddess Djet, asking Her to come to you, come to you.

Do this now.

In an unknown period of time, the Great Goddess Djet answers. “I am all around you and I am in you. The threads of My Magic knit you together. You are born from Me, but do not live in Me.” And you ask Her how you can better experience Her. She says, “Imagine yourself perfected.”

And you do. Allow as much time as you need for this thought experiment. What would you be like? Who would you be? How would you feel? How would you be?

When you are complete with this, thank the Goddess. The soft, deep voice of Isis speaks in your mind. “Come now,” She says. And you are once more aware of the Boat of Millions of Years. It once more begins to move, this time backwards. In time, you arrive at the roof of the Temple of Isis, thank Great Thoth, and disembark. Move down the stairs, through the many doorways. Thank Wise Isis and let your consciousness return to the here and now, to neheh.

*If you are super geeky and want to read the whole thing for yourself, get Tutankhamun Knew the Names of the Two Great Gods: dt and nhh as Fundamental Concepts of Pharaonic Idealology by Steven R. W. Gregory.

Talking with Isis

A meditation on beautiful Sirius, the Star of Isis

I was talking, not with Isis, but with a couple priestess friends of mine, last evening at a lovely party we were having. We were talking about our upcoming, local Fall Equinox festival, this year dedicated to Hekate. While I’m not among the main folks in charge, I do have one significant role that includes “talking with Hekate.” I wanted their take on how Hekate “feels” and/or “sounds” when my fellow priestesses connect with Her.

It’s always enlightening and interesting to hear the experiences of others with our Divine Ones. For myself, I will just briefly say that, so far, Hekate feels a bit “heavier” than Isis and has a deeper voice. During one of my first meditations with Her, Isis was there with me, handing me off for a brief time, for this Magical Work with Hekate.

All that said, today I’m cleaning up from last night’s party, so this is a repost about talking with Our Lady Isis. Feel free to add your own experiences in the comments. I’d love to hear them.

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When we connect with Isis, how do we do that? Prayer? Meditation? Invocation? Visualization? Can we talk with Her, actually have a back-and-forth conversation? Can we ask Her questions? Can we request Her help?

Yes, we can. But how it happens exactly is different for different people.

My own boundaries between prayer, meditation, and visualization tend to be rather soft. Very often, I find that meditation flows into visualization flows into prayer flows into an offering chant flows back into meditation. Sometimes I visualize the whole time, sometimes I don’t “see” anything, but just feel Her presence. Sometimes I can “hear” Her voice, sometimes I just sense in some way what She is communicating with me.

Here’s a perfect image for ‘ascending’ in your visualizations…indeed, the pillars in Egyptian temples were meant to be holding up the sky.

But why do we talk with the Goddess, why do we strive to “see” Her? There is a point and it’s not just an ego boost.

The point of this sort of talking with the Goddess is communion—sharing with Her in one way or another and asking Her to share with us. Sometimes we just need the reassurance that She is there, so we invoke and try to sense Her. Sometimes we need help, so we ask for it. Sometimes we are so full of love for Her that we simply must express it.

An excellent posture for meditation

Talking with Goddess is good for our souls and spirits, too. I think that Iamblichus, my favorite Neoplatonic theurgist, had it right: invocation of the Deities lifts up the soul of the theurgist (or Isis devotee, in this case) and brings us closer to the Divine. By repeatedly connecting with Isis—whether through prayer or ritual or devotions, meditations or visualizations, dance or chanting, or any number of other ways—we make ongoing contact with the Divine.

The more we come into the presence of Holy Isis, the more we become infused with Her holiness. In the same way that we tend to mirror the people with whom we spend the most time, spending more time with the Divine can help us better mirror that Divinity, and can help to make us better people.

This classic scribe’s posture is perfect for meditation, too

Of course there are ways we can make some serious missteps in this process. The most problematic is when we think we’re talking to Isis, but we’re actually talking to ourselves; when it’s not Isis Who we hear in our heads, but only our own subconscious echoes.

That’s what I think happens with some of the mega-church preachers who always seem to hear God asking for more money or with church-based hate groups who think they hear God condemning everyone but themselves. They’re not talking to the Divine; they’re getting feedback from their own interior bullshit. This can happen to people with even the best of intentions. I know it’s happened to me; chances are, if you’re talking with Isis, it will or already has happened to you, too.

So what do we do about it?

Sometimes, vision looks like this

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, no perfect solution, no quick fix. The only partial answer that I know of is to develop spiritual maturity. A spiritually mature person will be better able to recognize their own internal “stuff,” and so be better able to separate it from true Divine contact with Isis. Did Isis really say that so-and-so with whom I had a fight yesterday deserved a big, fat comeuppance? Nope; pretty sure that was me and not Her. She, on the other hand, might offer advice on how I can get over it or She might even point out that I need to make an apology.

The other tricky thing about all this is that while we live in these bodies, we will never—I repeat, never—receive pure and unadulterated contact with the Divine. It comes to us though our own perceptions of body, soul, mind, and spirit. There is no other path the Divine can use to reach us. While we are incarnate beings, the Goddess must come to us through our perceptions—and our perceptions are always, always, always tinged by our own psychological makeup. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, getting to know our own psychology is very valuable in sorting all this out. It’s just something that is and we have to be aware of it if we hope to hear—in the clearest voice possible—what Isis has to say.

Or like this…

The one clue I can offer, after many years of wrestling with my own head and heart, is that when it is truly Her—as opposed to just my echo chamber—the thought-impression-feeling-intuition I get seems to come suddenly and without precedent. I can recognize it as “not-me” (or not just me). Sometimes the words are strange or the images are not ones I would normally choose. Yes, it’s all very subjective—which is my point exactly. That’s why the more you know about yourself, the more you can move yourself out of the way so that you can better know when it is Isis Who is doing the talking.

Talking with Isis

A meditation on beautiful Sirius, the Star of Isis

When we connect with Isis, how do we do that? Prayer? Meditation? Invocation? Visualization? Can we talk with Her, actually have a back-and-forth conversation? Can we ask Her questions? Can we request Her help?

Yes, we can. How exactly you do it is up to you. And perhaps, with this required downtime we’re all going through right now, you’ve discovered (or rediscovered) the ways that work best for you.

My own boundaries between prayer, meditation, and visualization tend to be rather soft. Very often, I find that meditation flows into visualization flows into prayer flows into an offering chant flows back into meditation. Sometimes I visualize the whole time, sometimes I don’t “see” anything, but just feel Her presence. Sometimes I can “hear” Her voice, sometimes I just sense in some way what She is communicating with me.

Here’s a perfect image for ‘ascending’ in your visualizations…indeed, the pillars in Egyptian temples were meant to be holding up the sky.

But why do we talk with the Goddess, why do we strive to “see” Her? There is a point and it’s not just an ego boost.

The point of this sort of talking with the Goddess is communion—sharing with Her in one way or another and asking Her to share with us. Sometimes we just need the reassurance that She is there, so we invoke and try to sense Her. Sometimes we need help, so we ask for it. Sometimes we are so full of love for Her that we simply must express it.

An excellent posture for meditation

Talking with Goddess is good for our souls and spirits, too. I think that Iamblichus, my favorite Neoplatonic theurgist, had it right: invocation of the Deities lifts up the soul of the theurgist (or Isis devotee, in this case) and brings us closer to the Divine. By repeatedly connecting with Isis—whether through prayer or ritual or devotions, meditations or visualizations, dance or chanting, or any number of other ways—we make ongoing contact with the Divine.

The more we come into the presence of Holy Isis, the more we become infused with Her holiness. In the same way that we tend to mirror the people with whom we spend the most time, spending more time with the Divine can help us better mirror that Divinity, and can help to make us better people.

This classic scribe’s posture is perfect for meditation, too

Of course there are ways we can make some serious missteps in this process. The most problematic is when we think we’re talking to Isis, but we’re actually talking to ourselves; when it’s not Isis Who we hear in our heads, but only our own subconscious echoes.

That’s what I think happens with some of the mega-church preachers who always seem to hear God asking for more money or with church-based hate groups who think they hear God condemning everyone but themselves. They’re not talking to the Divine; they’re getting feedback from their own interior bullshit. This can happen to people with even the best of intentions. I know it’s happened to me; chances are, if you’re talking with Isis, it will or already has happened to you, too.

So what do we do about it?

Sometimes, vision looks like this

Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, no perfect solution, no quick fix. The only partial answer that I know of is to develop spiritual maturity. A spiritually mature person will be better able to recognize their own internal “stuff,” and so be better able to separate it from true Divine contact with Isis. Did Isis really say that so-and-so with whom I had a fight yesterday deserved a big, fat comeuppance? Nope; pretty sure that was me and not Her. She, on the other hand, might offer advice on how I can get over it or She might even point out that I need to make an apology.

The other tricky thing about all this is that while we live in these bodies, we will never—I repeat, never—receive pure and unadulterated contact with the Divine. It comes to us though our own perceptions of body and mind. There is no other path the Divine can use. While we are incarnate beings, the Goddess must come to us through our perceptions—and our perceptions are always, always, always tinged by our own psychological makeup. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, getting to know our own psychology is very valuable in sorting all this out. It’s just something that is and we have to be aware of it if we hope to hear—in the clearest voice possible—what Isis has to say.

Or like this…

The one clue I can offer, after many years of wrestling with my own head and heart, is that when it is truly Her—as opposed to just my echo chamber—the thought-impression-feeling-intuition I get seems to come suddenly and without precedent. I can recognize it as “not-me” (or not just me). Sometimes the words are strange or the images are not ones I would normally choose. Yes, it’s all very subjective—which is my point exactly. That’s why the more you know about yourself, the more you can move yourself out of the way so that you can better know when it is Isis Who is doing the talking.