Author Archives: Isidora

Video Game Isis to Become Eset

I am not a fan of comicbooky-videogamey over-sexualized depictions of the Deities. I am especially not a fan of images of Goddesses with huge, spherical boobs that would hurt like heck in real combat (oh, it’s always about combat; you know that.) Personally, I like my Deity images to be either historical or, if they are art, to capture something of the awe of the Divine. But that’s just me.

Nevertheless, I was amused, or perhaps bemused, when the popular video game Smite introduced a new fightin’ Deity back in 2013: Isis, Goddess of Magic. They even have a halfway decent version of Her myth in the game’s character information.

Then, earlier this week, the company that makes Smite announced that they will rename the character Isis as Eset, to be pronounced “Ee-set.” The idea is to be able to avoid being caught in YouTube’s “ISIS is a terrorist group” algorithms. Sigh. I wish we had been able to get people to call them ISIL or Daesh (or, really, anything else), but “ISIS” is just too easy, just too familiar, for people.

Smite’s Isis, soon to be Eset, doing Her magic-casting thing

Which is precisely why I continue to use it in my blog and books; it’s the familiar name by which She is known to more people throughout the world. Yes, I can be stubborn. Of course, as many of you know, “Eye-sis” is the Anglicized version of what the ancient Greeks called Her: Ἶσις (EES-Ees).

I represent Her Egyptian name as Iset. Here’s why:

These are the most common hieroglyphs for Isis’ name in Egyptian.

In Egyptian, Isis’ name was most often spelled with the hieroglyphs throne, semi-circle (possibly a bread loaf), Goddess, although during the thousands of years of Her worship there were a number of variant spellings. Egyptian artists commonly designated Isis by painting the throne hieroglyph on Her crown. Thus it is possible to identify the shortest version of Isis’ name with the throne itself. The Goddess Isis is the Goddess Throne.

Similar to Hebrew, the Egyptian hieroglyphs don’t represent the vowels. They had vowels, of course. You were just expected to know where to put them to pronounce the words, plus some of the glyphs function as semi-vowels. As a result, we don’t know precisely how the ancient Egyptians would have pronounced Isis’ name. (Not only that; the pronunciation of words changes over time and Egyptians had regional accents.)

The throne hieroglyph is a biliteral symbol (*it could sometimes even be a triliteral), that is, a single symbol representing several sounds. The semi-circle is a single-sound glyph and represents our letter t. In this case, it provides the feminine ending of the word just as in English we might add -ess to feminize a word. The Goddess symbol is a determinative and provides the overall concept of the word, but has no sound. (And just to complicate things, the throne glyph itself can be used as a determinative.)

The first of the two sounds comprising the biliteral throne symbol is a consonant similar to the Hebrew yod** and is represented by modern Egyptologists as ı͗ . The yod sound is similar to English y or i, but remember that it’s not really a vowel. In hieroglyphs, the yod is represented by the reed flower glyph. The initial sound may also be referred to as another Hebrew letter, aleph, the vulture glyph. It’s a glottal stop, but for convenience is sometimes given as an a. The second of the two sounds in the throne is an s. Between the yod or aleph and the s, any vowel could have been inserted. Similarly, a vowel could be inserted between the throne and the semi-circle.

So how can we know which vowels were used? We do have some clues, at least from a later period, in ancient Coptic and Greek.

Coptic is a late form of Egyptian (today, very late as it still survives in the Coptic church) that uses Greek letters plus some special letters to represent Egyptian sounds. By the time Egyptian had changed into Coptic, Isis is Ese (Aay-seh or Ee-seh) or Esi (Aay-see or Ee-see) (the final t was dropped in Coptic, and likely in pronunciation earlier).*** From their earliest encounter with Egyptian religion, the Greeks—and Egyptians who wrote Greek—spelled Her name asἾσις, which they would have pronounced as EES-ees. In Late Antiquity, they sometimes added an epsilon at the beginning so that an alternative pronunciation would have been Aay-sis. So from examples of Her name in Coptic and Greek—contemporary pronunciations that were actually being used by the people who recorded them—we can narrow the search for initial vowels down to either an ee sound or an ay sound. In earlier times, then, the first syllable of the Goddess’ name was probably Ees and in the late period may have changed to Aays. (How could that happen? In the same way that modern English no longer sounds like Chaucer’s English. Ancient Egyptian was spoken for thousands of years and naturally changed during that long time period.)

Between the throne and the semi-circle, Egyptologists usually insert a generic e before the final t to create the feminine ending in line with the Egyptological convention of representing the feminine ending as et as in Amunet, the feminine form of Amun. (It is entirely possible that this e could have been another vowel, for example, i.) Nonetheless, by combining the information we have about Her name as pronounced in Coptic and Greek with current scholarly opinion, it is most likely that Isis in Egyptian would have been pronounced Ee-seh (or Ee-set with the t) and in Late Antiquity also as Aay-seh (or Aay-set with the t). Either of these could have been Hellenized to Isis by replacing the ending with the Greek –is ending. I prefer Iset (Ee-set) to Eset (Ee-set) because it looks closer to Her most well-known name, but Eset works as does Aset (Aay-set).

Look! Giant spherical boobs on a Ptolemaic queen dressed as Isis; does this mean I have to retract my objection? Nah.

Of course, all this is just for the sticklers among us. Isis will know those who call upon Her no matter what pronunciation we use. She’s a Goddess. She knows. Yet, the various pronunciations of Her name are of interest because of the emphasis that the Egyptians themselves placed on knowing the true name of a Deity, person, or thing in order to know its essential nature.

We can use the various pronunciations of the Goddess’ name to touch different aspects of Her nature. For example, to contact a very Egyptian form of the Goddess, we might invoke Her by the name Iset or Ise. For a more Hellenized aspect, we might call upon Isis using the Greek pronunciation, Ees-ees. Many people will call upon Her using the Anglicized version of Her name, Eye-sis. In any and all of these names, we will still be contacting the energy of the Goddess Isis, She of the 10,000 Names. The difference will be not in the essence of the Goddess, but in the particular “flavor” of Her energy that we touch. Personally, right now I’m using Coptic Ese (Aay-seh) a lot lately. It chants beautifully.

In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, better known as the Book of the Dead, Isis is called Iset Nudjerit em Renus Nebu, “Isis, Goddess in All Names.” Perhaps, we can see Her not only as the Goddess of All Names, but of All Pronunciations as well.

*In some uses, the multi-literal throne hieroglyph includes the t consonant; in that case the loaf t indicates the feminine ending.

**A century ago, in his hugely influential books (which are still so because Dover keeps them readily available), Sir E.A. Wallis Budge used a peculiar set of symbols to transliterate the hieroglyphs, and one of them in particular continues to confuse readers to this day. Instead of the ı͗ used by other Egyptologists and often called yod, Budge represents the reed flower as å (that’s not quite it; the dot should be solid, but it was all I could get WordPress to do.) Most people look at it and read it as “a” rather than a “yod.“

***There are several forms of Coptic with different spellings and pronunciations of Her name.

Horus’ Twin Sister

Warning: this post refers to rape in myth.

Boy and girl Divine Children, enwrapped in the protective coils of Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon

During the excavation of Hathor’s temple at Denderah, an interesting statue, now in the Cairo Museum, came to light. It shows two children, one male, one female, standing within the protective coils of two serpents. On the boy’s head is a solar disk with an Eye of Horus on it. The girl has a lunar disk with an Eye of Horus.

The statue appears to be a votive gift, and may have originally come from the shrine of Isis-Thermouthis, believed to be not far from Denderah. According to experts, the serpents are most likely Isis-Thermouthis and Serapis Agathos Daimon.

Isis as Agathe Tyche and Osiris as Agathos Daimon in serpent form

In the Ptolemaic period, Isis and Serapis/Osiris were frequently depicted as Divine Serpents. The Isis serpent can sometimes be the combined Goddesses Isis and Renenutet as Isis-Thermouthis. Other times, She can be Isis Agathe Tyche, Good Fortune. In both forms, She is partnered with Serapis/Osiris Agathos Daimon, or Good Spirit.

Unfortunately, there is no writing on the statue to help with the identification of the Divine Children. One possibility is that They are the well-known twins, Shu and Tefnut. There are things in myth and at the site that could support this interpretation. But as you might guess, I like a different possibility.

Harpokrates with Mom Isis and Dad Serapis

The male child has the Horus lock, so He is probably Harpokrates, in Egyptian Hor-pa-khred, Horus the Child. Harpokrates was very popular during this time period. He is the child of Isis and Serapis and is frequently shown with a sun disk on His head. The fact that the Child God is protected by Isis and Osiris serpents, strengthens the identification. But if the boy is Harpokrates, Who is the little girl?

We don’t know of a twin sister of Harpokrates from either Egyptian or Greek sources. Some have wondered whether the lunar girl is supposed to be a form of Isis. Indeed Isis is called the Female Horus (Hor-et or Horit) in Egyptian sources. Several other Goddesses and a number of queens are called by the name as well. The Oxyrhynchus Hymn to Isis, written in Greek, calls Her Harpokratin, which is just Harpokrates with the Greek feminine ending. Translators have taken this to mean something like “the darling-girl of the Gods,” but it can just as easily be simply “Horet the [Girl] Child.” What’s more, by Ptolemaic times, Isis was indeed connected to the moon, even though She was not in earlier Egyptian sources.

Nevertheless, I stubbornly like the idea that the Divine Girl could be Horus’ twin sister, Horet. While this is the only statue we know of that shows the Harpokrates Twins together, during the Ptolemaic period, there are a few other baby girl statues that have been identified as Girl Harpokrates. We have no evidence of Her before this time, but we know that the Egyptians always did have a penchant for name-sharing male-female pairs of Deities, such as the Deities of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis.

Horus or Horit? Love this image? Buy a copy from the artist here.

Now, there is a Goddess Horit Who shows up in late Egyptian sources, specifically in what is known as the Delta Mythological Manual. Scholars aren’t sure where the manual came from, but they date it to about the 26th dynasty—though the material may be much older. It contains myths having to do with 12 of the nomes in the Egyptian delta. It could have come from a temple cache or been in the possession of a priest or maybe even a priestess. In this manual, we meet Horit. She is a daughter of Osiris, but we do not know Who Her mother is.

And…then things get bad.

You see, Horit bears sons fathered by Her father Osiris. The Delta Manual is pretty darned cryptic, but we learn that when Her father raped Her, it was Her “first time” and that when She learned She was pregnant, She “sat down and mourned.” What’s more, there was something wrong or unusual about the birth of the resulting child. The text isn’t super clear, but Horit may have either chosen abortion or miscarried. The child, being Divine, did not die, but instead left the premises immediately.

After this, Horit functions as a wife to Osiris and bears four more children, the last one after suffering a rape by Set. The manual (again very cryptically) tells stories about each of these sons of Horit—all forms of Horus. Strangely, there is even one called The Child of Isis. Of the third of these sons, the manual tells us that after Set murders Osiris, Horit raises Their son to be His father’s avenger; very Isis-like indeed. There is even an incident of decapitation just as there is in the story where Isis grants mercy to Set, which so enrages Horus (the two Gods are battling at the time) that He decapitates Isis, a state of affairs that wise Thoth fixes right away.

In the Delta Manual, the identities of all the Goddesses are very fluid; quite confusingly so. They are associated, joined, or become each other frequently. Horit is identified with Hathor and it is said that “She is the Divine hand of Re,” which is specifically a vagina. (In this version of the story, Re replaces Atum Who uses His Goddess-Hand to masturbate, producing Shu and Tefnut.)

Many of the myths in the Delta Manual, and most of Horit’s, have to do with boundary-crossing sex among Deities, consensual or not. In addition to Hathor, Horit is associated with Bast, Who is said to “come forth as Horit.” At Sebennytos and Behbeit (Isiopolis!), Horit is joined with Tefnut and the myth of the Raging/Distant/Returning Goddess (which is an important myth for another day.) Sebennytos and Behbeit are in the 12th delta nome. There, the myths relate that Tefnut-Horit is raped by Her son Geb and imprisoned. The rapist is eventually punished and the Goddess freed, which becomes a cause for festival in the nome. So now, in addition to the rape of Horit the daughter by Her father Osiris, we also have the rape of Horit-Tefnut the mother by Her son. Some of you may know that there is similar tale in which Horus rapes His mother Isis and Her tears fall into the water.

WTF? Is it any wonder that Horit is among the raging Goddesses? And what the heck are we to supposed to make of all this anyway? We certainly do not approve. But neither did the ancient Egyptians. After all, Geb (and Set in other tales) is punished for His rape. And yet, the Egyptians retained these stories and, no doubt, tried to make sense of them.

I have speculated, in Isis Magic, about the possible meaning of the rape of Isis by Her son. What if that story, and others like it, are merely the very misunderstood remnants of a different and very ancient story; indeed, perhaps the oldest story? The Goddess Comes Into Being; of Herself, by Herself. She gives birth to a Child, a son. He grows to maturity. Then, in order to start the multiplication of life on earth, Divine Mother and Divine Son mate, not in a rape, but because They are All That Is. Could the same be said of the Divine Father and Divine Daughter? Obviously, I don’t know the answer to these questions. But it’s a way I can make it make some sense in my own head.

As for Harpokrates and His twin sister, I doubt we can make a direct connection between Horit and the Girl Harpokrates of the votive statue. And yet, and yet, and yet. Osiris has a son, Hor, and a daughter, Horit. (Different mothers? Same mother?) Hor and Horit make a perfect Egyptian name-sharing male-female pair. Horit’s myths come from the delta, including from Behbeit, where Isis’ great delta temple once stood.

I wonder whether we will some day find stories about Horit and Her mother? And if we do, what will Her name be?

Horus’ Twin Sister

Warning: this post refers to rape in myth.

And…then things get bad.

Many of the myths in the Delta Manual, and most of Horit’s, have to do with boundary-crossing sex among Deities, consensual or not. In addition to Hathor, Horit is associated with Bast, Who is said to “come forth as Horit.” At Sebennytos and Behbeit (Isiopolis!), Horit is joined with Tefnut and the myth of the Raging/Distant/Returning Goddess (which is an important myth for another day). Sebennytos and Behbeit are in the 12th delta nome. There, the myths relate that Tefnut-Horit is raped by Her son Geb and imprisoned. The rapist is eventually punished and the Goddess freed, which becomes a cause for festival in the nome. So now, in addition to the rape of Horit the daughter by Her father Osiris, we also have the rape of Horit-Tefnut the mother by Her son. Some of you may know that there is similar tale in which Horus rapes His mother Isis and Her tears fall into the water.

I have speculated, in Isis Magic, about the possible meaning of the rape of Isis by Her son. It goes like this: What if that story, and others like it, are merely the very misunderstood remnants of a different and very ancient story; indeed, perhaps the oldest story? The Goddess Comes Into Being; of Herself, by Herself. She gives birth to a Child, a son. He grows to maturity. Then, in order to start the multiplication of life on earth, Divine Mother and Divine Son mate, not in a rape, but because They are All That Is. Could the same be said of the Divine Father and Divine Daughter? Obviously, I don’t know the answer to these questions. But it’s a way I can try to make it make some sense in my own head.

I wonder whether we will some day find stories about Horit and Her mother? And if we do, what will Her name be?

Isis, the Only One

I very much like this Cosmic Isis by artist Dahlia Khodur. Here’s a link to her Instagram.

In Egypt, She was called T3 w’t (Tah Uwah-et), “The Only One.” In Greek, this same epithet of the Goddess became Thiouis (Thee-oou-iss). (For some reason, I really like “Thiouis;” I have a chant I like to use with that epithet for Her.) The way some Romans expressed this concept may be summed up in a graffito found on one of the walls of the Temple of Isis in Rome: Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis, “Being one, Thou art all, Goddess Isis.”

Strange in a polytheistic world, isn’t it?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

It could be confusing to those of us who have been born into a culture steeped in the singularity of the one male Deity. But that was very far from the experience of the ancient world. They were used to dealing with any number of Deities—as well as other Divine beings. The face of the Divine could be seen and sensed in many ways and many places and be known by many names…as we are seeing again today, even though cultural elements struggle against it.

In ancient Egypt, Isis is the Only One and the Unique One; but so are other Deities. Re is the Only One and the Unique One…and so are Atum and Ptah and more.

Erik Hornung in Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt explains this as each Deity being considered unique in Her or His own way. But it may be more than that. There are Egyptian texts, especially the wisdom literature, that simply refer to “God.” This may have been purposely vague so that the student of wisdom could “insert your God here.” Or it may have been an expression of what is today know as henotheism (the term was only coined in the 1800s) which is devotion to one particular Deity without denying the reality of all the rest of Them. We also know that multiple Egyptian Deities could form a unity—and even be referred to with a singular pronoun. For example, in some mortuary literature, Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris is invoked “that He may give…” Atum, when He brought forth Shu and Tefnut was said to have been “One Who became Three.”

Jan Assman, in The Price of Monotheism, discusses what he calls “the Mosaic distinction,” the concept that my God is the One True God and every other Deity is a “false god” and he names the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaton as its first known practitioner. Assman also makes the interesting observation that following Akhenaton’s “revolution,” as the old Deities were restored to worship, Akhenaton’s influence nevertheless continued to be felt as the idea of a Hidden Deity Who existed behind and was expressed in all the other Deities came into prominence. He calls this development “evolutionary monotheism” and notes it in the mature stages of polytheism not only in Egypt, but in Mesopotamia, Greece, and India as well.

Thinking through the complexities of poly-mono-heno-pan-and-all-the-other-theisms out there is a worthy meditation for today’s devotees of Isis. For if we look back to the traditions of ancient Isiacism to instruct or inspire our modern devotion at all, then we will inevitably find ourselves confronted with the puzzle. How is Isis The Only One and yet part of a pantheon? What does that mean to my personal devotion to the Goddess? If I am a priestess or priest of Isis, must I also serve other Egyptian Deities—or should I specifically not serve others in order to serve just Her? In what way is Isis a Divine Unity and thus All?

As we meditate on these things, we will likely find our own answers…at least for now. Personal answers to questions like these can change over time as we discover, experience, and learn more about ourselves and about our relationship with Her.

Iset Demdjet, the Bone Collector

Bone Woman, Crone Woman by Joan Riise. Find her work here.

We know quite a lot about the history of the Great Goddess Isis. For instance, we know that She was already important by the time of the Pyramid Texts (Old Kingdom, 5th-6th dynasties). We know fairly clearly how Her worship spread throughout Egypt. We know how She came into Nubia and the Mediterranean. And we know how She went underground with the rise of Christianity in the Mediterranean and the West…staying alive in the magical traditions. Today there are few who do not at least know Her name.

Yet, what we don’t know for certain is where Her worship originated. So far, it is one of Her Mysteries.

Oh, there are theories. The one I am most seeing lately is that She is originally from some small city in the Egyptian delta of Lower Egypt. But I’ve haven’t seen the arguments to back that up. And strangely, no town in ancient Egypt, Upper or Lower, claimed to be Her “birthplace.” Since She became Egypt’s most famous Goddess, you would think someone would claim Her as their own.

The Egyptian delta. The arrow points to the location of Isiopolis. You can see Heliopolis above Cairo (Caire).

Others attribute Upper Egyptian origins to Her, especially given Her important Upper Egyptian temple at Philae (now on Agilkia island). However, the oldest evidence we have of Isis worship on Philae is from the 26th dynasty.

On the other hand, the consensus of researchers today is that what would become ancient Egypt was first populated by Paleolithic people moving from south to north. So if proto-Isis was already known to these people, perhaps She did come from what would eventually be Upper Egypt. And Abydos, an important Osirian cult center, is in Upper Egypt.

On the other, other hand, Isis and Osiris are incorporated into the Heliopolitan myth cycle. And Heliopolis is about 20 miles north of Cairo and in the delta. What’s more, there was another famous Isis temple right there in the middle of the delta at Isiopolis. We may eventually find that it (or its predecessor on the site) is, in fact, the oldest temple of Isis. (Yes, of course, I asked Her. She told me, “delta.” But that is decidedly UPG, “unverified personal gnosis.”)

Some very pretty skulls and bones from an Egyptian tomb

I recently came across a paper by Dr. Kelly-Anne Diamond, an Egyptologist currently serving as Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department at Villanova University, that makes a new and interesting contribution to the possible origins of Isis. She focuses in on the title of a female funerary ritualist. The title is “demdjet” and she can appear as a human ritualist, but also sometimes as a Divine ritualist. We find her—very infrequently—from the Old Kingdom to the New. Egyptologists used to group this ritualist under the general category of “mourning women,” but it appears the demdjet or Demdjet may have had a more specific function.

The root of the word has to do with collecting or assembling. And since the title is a feminine active participle, the title demdjet is “she who collects or assembles.” If you’re at all familiar with the ancient Egyptian funerary texts, you may recall that there is quite a lot of emphasis on making sure the deceased have all their bones, bits, limbs, heads, etc. collected or assembled for them as well as ensuring none of those things are disassembled or lost. Since Isis is the collector of bits and pieces par excellence, at least when it comes to Osiris (and the deceased), Diamond suggests that this ritual role may play a part in Isis’ origins.

The demdjet (top) and the kenut (bottom) offering nu pots

One of the Pyramid Texts (PT 2283) refers to a Demdjet Vulture. It says, “Osiris Neith, accept Horus’ Eye, which Seth hid—THE HIDDEN VULTURE, which he joined—THE JOINED [Demdjet] VULTURE…” This Demdjet Vulture is involved with stretching or spreading something. We cannot say whether the Demdjet Vulture is supposed to be Isis, but at least we may have an early attestation of a Divine Demdjet. Of course, Isis can take vulture form, but it is not Her most common bird form.

We also find the Demdjet in the pyramid temple of Senwosret III where She gives life and protection. From the Middle Kingdom, there are demdjets in the papyrus Ramesseum E. Some scholars think that the contents of that papyrus may date back to the 3rd dynasty (there are archaisms in the text). If true, it would be the oldest mention of a demdjet.

In this papyrus, we learn that the demdjets are present throughout the funerary rites. At some point, the demdjets move simultaneously, perhaps in ritual motion or dance. They are there when the deceased is summoned to revivification. And they have speaking parts. In the New Kingdom, we have several more instances of demdjets. They are shown as two kneeling women with nu water pots and they are watering “the desert necropolis.” In one case, one woman is labeled menkenu and one demdjet. (Alan Gardiner suggests menkenu is a title of Isis, while demdjet is a title of Nephthys.) In another case, one is called demdjet and one is called kenut (menkenu and kenut may be different versions of the same title).

Same offering, different labels: The Great Kite and the Lesser Kite

But here’s where it gets more interesting for Isiacs. In the last New Kingdom example (tomb of Paheri, if you must know), we find the same scene—women kneeling with nu pots, dressed in the same way—but this time, They are labeled Djeret Weret (Great Kite) and Djeret Nedjeset (Lesser Kite). In this time period, we know Who the Great Kite and the Lesser Kite are; They are Isis and Nephthys. So, the women depicted may be human ritualists portraying the Goddesses, which we know was done in Egyptian ritual. In additional, but very damaged, scenes in two of these tombs, we see the demdjet no longer kneeling, but standing with her/Her right arm raised, elbow bent, and fist clenched while her/Her left clenched fist is placed at her/Her chest. It reminds me of the henu gesture, but standing.

She is labeled Djeret Weret Demdjet, the Great Kite Demdjet. The gesture s/She makes is thought to be associated with transfiguration, the recitation of holy words, and glorifications for the dead.

In the Book of the Amduat, a Goddess named Demdjet appears in the 7th and 8th Hours of the Night where She helps protect Re and the Sun Barque as it journeys through the Otherworld. In the 7th Hour, She is with three other Goddesses: She Who Cuts, She Who Punishes, and She Who Annihilates. In the 8th Hour, Demdjet is with three other mummiform Goddesses: She Who Veils, She Who Decorates (?), and the Dark One. Interestingly, the 7th Hour is the same Hour in which Isis and the Elder Magician work Their powerful magic to subdue Apophis. So in this case, with Isis in Her Great of Magic form, it seems to me it would be a bit of a stretch to consider this Demdjet, a minor Hours Goddess, to be a form of Isis.

The Djeret Weret Demdjet making a gesture of transfiguration; we can see the feet of (probably) another demdjet (the Djeret Nedjeset Demdjet?) above this one, but this part of the tomb is damaged

Nevertheless, with its core meaning of She Who Collects, Assembles, and Puts Together, we can find in the Demdjet an important harmony with one aspect of Great Isis: She Who searches, finds, reassembles, and gives new life to Osiris.

Some researchers have suggested that there may have been a very early Egyptian funerary custom in which important dead persons were disarticulated and then put back together for rejuvenation. It’s a highly controversial topic, but if so, perhaps the original Demdjet may have been the female ritualist who did this reassembly. Perhaps she was serving as a priestess of the Great Renewing Mother. And perhaps, just perhaps, this Great Mother Regeneratrix was the Demdjet Weret—(proto) Iset Demdjet—She Who collects our bones for us that we may be made whole in preparation for our rebirth.

A New Festival of Light for Isis?

The return of the light, here and now—in mid-winter—is always a hopeful time. And I do feel hopeful; more now than in the past year. When more light fills our eyes, breath comes a bit easier and hope may come to our hearts.

Isis is like that: a deep, hopeful, uplifting breath. It is one reason that She is, among so many other things, a Lady of Light. She is found in the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars. She is found in light itself.

In ancient Egypt, they held Festivals of Lights in which the entire town or city would light oil lamps that would burn throughout the night—entirely equivalent to our own stringing of lights at Halloween, Yule, or the Winter Festival of Lights that my own city of Portland puts on every February. In Egyptian homes, it was in the space before the main gate of the house that a lot of a family’s festival activity—from lamp lighting to barbecuing and feasting, would take place. I assume this enabled everyone to celebrate together and to see each other do so. In my imagination, I envision Egyptian neighbors vying with each other over elaborate displays of oil lamps.

The historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) writes about an ancient Festival of Lights at Sais, the city of Neith. He says:

“At the times when they gather together at the city of Sais for their sacrifices, on a certain night they all kindle lamps many in number in the open air round about the houses; now the lamps are saucers full of salt and oil mixed, and the wick floats by itself on the surface, and this burns during the whole night; and to the festival is given the name Lychnocaia (“Lamp Lighting”). Moreover those of the Egyptians who have not come to this solemn assembly observe the night of the festival and themselves also light lamps all of them, and thus not in Sais alone are they lighted, but over all Egypt: and as to the reason why light and honour are allotted to this night, about this there is a sacred story told.”
—Herodotus, Histories, Book II, Chapter 62

An oil lamp from Egypt, Roman period. It shows Isis and Harpocrates.

Sais was one of the sacred cities in which Isis was said to have buried a piece of Osiris’ body. There, possibly at a sacred lake at Neith’s temple, an Osirian passion play was enacted at the same time as one of these festivals of illumination. (Just to be clear, this Egyptian festival was in summer, not at mid-winter…but was a festival of light nonetheless.) And, you may know, that at Sais, Isis and Neith were assimilated, so having Osirian festivals at Neith’s temple would not have been a stretch for the ancients.

I’ve read in a couple places that the “sacred story” attached to the Sais festival to which Herodotus refers was that the lights were to assist Isis in Her search for the body of Osiris. Unfortunately, nobody has footnoted this reference, so I’m not sure if it’s something ancient or simply a modern scholar’s best guess. I love the idea of the whole town assisting Isis in Her search with light…and it makes sense given the passion play and grave of the God at Sais. What’s more, the Egyptians usually did have a mythic model for ritual activity, but I still haven’t found out who originated that explanation. I’ll let you know if I do.

We also know of ancient Egyptian festivals of light at the New Year and on the five epagomenal days that led up to it. On these days, the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated and lights were placed in tombs for the dead. A temple calendar from Edfu tells us of a summertime procession for Isis the Brilliant. That festival is celebrated by modern Kemetics as the Aset Luminous Festival. And so there are more lights for the the Lady of Light.

Now let’s leap forward in time some hundreds of years and move from Egypt to Rome.

The illustration for the month of August from the Calendar of Philocalus

The 4th-century-CE Calendar of Philocalus lists a festival called the Lychnapsia on August 12th. It was, of course, a lamp-lighting festival. The scholars who have studied it seem reasonably certain that it was an Isis festival because a.) the August 12th date of this lamp festival is at roughly the same time as the great Egyptian Festival of Lights at the epagomenal birthdays of the Deities and b.) Isis was so extremely popular in Rome that anything Egyptian would have also been considered Isiac.

Furthermore, the theory is that the August 12th date (due to some calendrical calculations with which I will not bore you) corresponded to the 4th epagomenal day—and the 4th epagomenal day is the birthday of Isis. So, in 354 CE, Isiacs could celebrate the birthday of Isis by the lighting of lamps in Her honor.

But we need not wait for the summer birthday of the Goddess or the procession of Isis the Brilliant to honor the Lady of Lights with light. After all, the Egyptians celebrated illumination festivals at a number of different times during the year.

And so I have a modest proposal: a Festival of Lights for Isis as the light-bringing Lady of the Deep Breath. In this mid-winter time, as Her solar light begins its return and Her warming breath infuses our bodies and stirs our souls, as the Green Goddess’ green shoots struggle to be born even while covered with a silver layer of snow, so let us breathe Her in and celebrate, yet another, new beginning.

Such interpretations and updating of our traditions is precisely what we human beings have always done. It enables us to connect with the richness of the past and also to have traditions that continue to make spiritual and emotional sense to us. No doubt, the festivals for Isis changed over time. No matter how conservative the ancient Egyptians were, still, things change. They changed over time within the borders of Egypt, and then when the worship of Isis came into the wider Mediterranean area, things changed even more. People who came to love Isis celebrated Her in ways rooted in tradition, but which made spiritual sense to them in their day, too.

I therefore invite you to join me in a small, new, mid-winter festival for Isis, Lady of the Dawning Light, Mother of the Deep Breath, Queen of Hope. Light a candle, a torch, a tea light. Watch the flame. Feel the light. And breathe Her breath with me.

An Ancient Isis Method of Divination

I have something old/new for you this time.

It’s old in that it is an ancient method of divination that is specifically connected with our magical Lady Isis. It is (a bit) new in that it is a new translation of the ancient text in which the divination is found. The new translation doesn’t really change things much but it does, perhaps, give us a slightly better understanding of the original. And that’s always good.

The other new thing is that we can try it for ourselves.

This Isiac divination is found in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. You’ll usually see them just called the Greek Magical Papyri (Latin: Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated PGM) because they are written in Greek, but the scholars who worked on them tell us that they reflect, in large part, Egyptian magical techniques, so I prefer Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. What’s more, we also have a cache of similar magical texts written in Demotic, which is a late, cursive version of the hieroglyphs. So those are unarguably Egyptian. Here’s some background on these fascinating texts.

The particular text I want to discuss is listed on the linked page above, but for easy reference, here it is again:

Great is the Lady Isis! Copy of a holy book found in the archives of Hermes: the method is that concerning the 29 letters through which letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, her brother and husband, found him. Call upon Helios and all the gods in the deep concerning those things for which you want to receive an omen. Take 29 leaves of a male date palm and write on each of the leaves the names of the gods. Pray and then pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf and you will find your omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly. (PGM XXIVa)

Male date palm leaves; big enough to write on

This seems like a simple, easy, and fairly quick divination method.

It is likely that the 29 letters refer to the 29 letters of the Coptic alphabet. Coptic is the latest form of ancient Egyptian. The letters are adaptations of Greek, but with additional letters that incorporate Egyptian-language sounds that Greek didn’t have. It developed under the all-pervading influence of Hellenism in the Mediterranean region. Because the text instructs us to write the names of the Deities on the 29 palm leaves, I would assume that each of the Deity names written on the leaves had one of the Coptic letters as the initial letter of the name.

But that’s just a guess, not a certainty, and we simply have no other information. On the other hand, the Egyptians may have had tables of correspondences that connected the Deities to the Coptic alphabet like many modern magical systems do and which may or may not have been based on the spelling of the Deity name.

Oh, and just to be clear, this particular text WAS written originally in Greek, not Coptic. But because the “29 letters” probably refers to the Coptic alphabet, we may understand this as likely to be a genuine Egyptian method of divination, but recorded in Greek.

That’s the old part. Now here’s the new translation of that same passage by David Jordan, head of the Canadian Archeological Institute in Athens, an Egyptologist and expert in the ancient magical texts. I won’t bore you with the details of why he translated as he did, but it seemed pretty reasonable to my definitely-not-an-expert self.

Great Isis the Lady. Copy of a sacred book found in the archives of Hermes. The method is the odd number of letters [i.e. 29; the number was a marginal note in the text], through which Hermes <received omens> and Isis, searching, <found> her own brother and husband Osiris. <Say:> ‘I invoke the sun and all the gods in the deep’—about whatever you wish to receive an omen. Taking 29 leaves of a male palm, write on each of the leaves (one of) the names of the gods and, when you have said a prayer, pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf, and you will find wherein your omen consists, and you will receive an omen lucidly.

So you see, it’s not much different and certainly not in terms of how to actually do the divination. It’s just always interesting to me to see the graceful art of translation in action. The translator makes note that the initial phrase, “Great Isis the Lady,” appears in one other place that we know of: a graffito found in Rome. (There’s another well known Roman graffito related to Isis that I’ve written about before, which was found on one of the walls of the Temple of Isis in Rome. It says, Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis, “Being one, You are all, Goddess Isis.”)

The fact that the phrase “Great Isis the Lady” was well known enough to be a graffito adds weight to Jordan’s translation. In this case, the phrase is almost certainly the title of the divination method. It gains power and prestige from being the method the Great Magician Goddess Isis used to find Osiris and Thoth (Hermes) the Great Magician God used to receive omens.

So let’s give it a try.

Because I am sometimes lazy and didn’t have access to male palm leaves, I did it the cheap-and-easy way just to see how it worked on the quickie. It will definitely be worth following up on the more authentic track, too.

Some of the cards from the Book of Doors by Alison Davidson and Athon Veggi.

Instead of palm leaves with Deity names on them, I used 29 cards from an Egyptian-themed divination deck that I like. It’s called the Book of Doors. (If it appeals to you, you can get it from Inner Traditions or used on eBay.) It’s not a tarot deck with the traditional Arcana. Instead, it has an Egyptian Deity associated with each card and groups Them into families like Sun, Moon, Air, or Fire. The authors call it an “alchemical oracle.” I like the art.

Anyway, for this first attempt, I didn’t choose the 29 Deities based on Coptic alphabet initial letters, I just picked 29 of the most well known Goddesses and Gods, including Set and Apophis, because there have to be options in a divination.

First, we invoke…

We could follow the text and simply say, “I invoke Helios and all the gods of the deep about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could choose Egyptian names: “I invoke Re and the Primordial Ogdoad, the Great Infinities, about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could go All-Isis-All-the-Time: “I invoke Isis, the Radiant Goddess, Isis-Re-et, Great of Magic, in Her Name of Lady of the Depths about [stating the subject of the divination].” Take your pick.

Then we shuffle the 29 cards and spread them out, face down. In our hearts, we speak a prayer to Great Isis the Lady to reveal the true omen and send the Goddess, send the God Who will help us discover the answer. We pick up the cards, two by two, leaving them face down until there is only one left. That card, we turn over.

The question I asked was whether this divination method was truly an Isis divination. When revealed, the singleton card was Hathor. In this particular deck, Hathor is in the transformational family of Fire and She is shown emerging from the Otherworld.

How shall we interpret?

First reaction: Hathor is a strongly positive Goddess and, in this card, She is not in Her raging-Sakhmet aspect. If I had to give a quick yes/no answer, I’d definitely say yes, this IS a legit Isis divination. Or, since this card is part of a divination deck, we could use the interpretation provided by the authors. Their short-form answer for Hathor is “love, pleasure, beauty.” So again, I’d take that as a yes.

A stunning image of Beyonce as Hathor from her film, *Black is King*. This is absolutely wonderful!

We could also go deeper into what we might know about Hathor Herself. She is a Great Goddess associated with the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. She is the all-containing sky Whose name means “House of Horus;” She is the greater sky in which He flies.

Because She is so all-containing, Hathor indicates that this is a divination method that contains all omens and is thus appropriate for receiving a wide range of Divine counsel. As a Lady of the earth, nature, and fertility, we may understand that the oracle can also provide earth-plane practical advice. Hathor is also a Goddess of the Otherworld and, in this card, is specifically shown emerging from it. Thus we can expect the emergence of revelations—as well as Mysteries—from this divination method.

If we choose, we could understand the divination on a more personal level, too. For instance, in another area of my magical life, I have a connection with Hathor, specifically with Her late-period form and Her Egyptian Coptic name of Ahathoor. So perhaps I could say that this could be a particularly good method of divination for me.

And, of course, Isis and Hathor were more and more closely connected as time time passed in Egyptian history; so much so that They shared many of each others’ epithets and symbols.

In sum, I’d say the answer to my question is definitely yes; this is a divination that could be very useful for those of us who honor Isis. Personally, I am looking forward to using it a lot more and learning more about it.

Here’s a great graphic showing how Demotic evolved from the hieroglyphs.

Isis the Trickster

Isis is one of the few Trickster Goddesses and I kinda like that about Her…

Ah, the Trickster Deity. The one Who shakes things up, Who always has creative, boundary-crossing solutions to problems. The Trickster breaks the rules, makes us laugh, often embraces The Other by shapeshifting. The Trickster’s tricky ways can have unintended consequences; often unexpectedly positive, sometimes not so much. The Trickster is clever, of mind and of speech, talking us into doing things we might not normally do. The Trickster is also—usually—a male Deity.

Artist Thalia Took’s rendition of Laverna

There’s Hermes, Who stole Apollo’s cattle while still a toddler; and once Apollo got over Himself, He had to admit it was kinda funny and pretty cute. In Native American myth, we meet Coyote, Whose interference made human death permanent and Who is always angling to sleep with the women. In Welsh myth, there is Gwydion Who tricks His sister Arianrhod multiple times to get Her to accept Her son, Lleu. There’s the Spider God, Anansi of West African lore, Who trickily captured some of the most dangerous beings in all of Africa in order to win His powerful stories from the Creator. And, of course, there’s the troublemaker, Loki of Norse myth. He’s so tricky, on at least one occasion, He changes genders to get the job done.

Trickster Goddesses are fewer and farther between. We have the Greek Eris with Her golden apple tossing, though generally, She’s more the Goddess of troublemaking and disharmony. The Roman Laverna is a true Tricksteress, Who tricked a number of people out of their property then got off on a technicality, thus becoming the Goddess of pickpockets and thieves. Yet these are fairly minor Goddesses. In fact, the only major Goddess I know of Who is a genuine Trickster is Isis.

We already know how Isis tricked the Sun God Re into revealing His True Name. But a lesser-known myth really shows Her Trickster stripes. Here’s the story as told in Isis Magic and which comes from the probably-New Kingdom Chester Beatty papyrus:

Finally, the day came when Horus was old enough to be taken before the Tribunal of the Gods and Goddesses to claim His father’s throne. Almost immediately, Shu the Lord of the Firmament said that Horus’ petition should be granted. Thoth wholeheartedly agreed and He brought out the Holy Eye of Re.

Isis was overjoyed. She called out to the North Wind, “Wind, blow! And carry the news to the Underworld and to Osiris, the father of our new king!”

But Neb-er-Djer, the Lord of the Utmost, was displeased and He grumbled about the quick decision. The Deities of the Ennead of Heliopolis all quickly put down His objections saying that it was useless to object since Horus had already taken the Royal Name and was wearing the White Crown of Osiris.

Now Set spoke up, “Since Horus has already taken what is not rightfully His, I ask that Ye Gods and Goddesses throw Him out to Me. Let Us see if He is worthy of His high office. Let Him fight with Me!”

A great argument now ensued. Thoth spoke for Horus. Re-Horankhti spoke for Set. All the Gods and Goddesses spoke for one or the other. And this contention between the two Gods continued in the Tribunal for 80 years, until all the Deities were tired and bored and cried out, “What can we do? How can we settle this?” But Wise Isis bided Her time.

It was decided that Thoth should write a letter to the Great Goddess Neith on behalf of the Tribunal. She, They believed, would know what to do. So Thoth wrote to Her—a beautiful letter full of praises for Neith and polite concern about the welfare of Her son, Sobek the Lord of Crocodiles. At the very end of the letter, Thoth finally asked what They all wanted to know: to Whom should the throne belong?

The Great Goddess straightaway gave answer to the Tribunal. “Give the throne to Osiris’ son, Horus,” She wrote, “and do not commit any injustice or I shall be angry and the sky will fall upon the earth.” Furthermore, Neith instructed the Deities that They should compensate Set by increasing His property two-fold and offering Him Anat and Astarte, the Goddesses of Phoenicia, as wives.

All the Gods declared that Neith was obviously right; all but Neb-er-Djer who started the whole argument over again. Soon the Deities were fighting once more, some agreeing with Horus, some with Set.

At this, Isis finally became furious. Her anger rose up. Then She Herself rose up, standing at Her full height as fury and flame emanated from Her Divine Form. In the names of Neith and of Ptah-Tanen, the Lord of the Earth, Isis swore a mighty oath. At the words of the Lady of Magic, the Gods were afraid and backed down, placating Her and agreeing that all She had said would be done and that Horus would receive His throne with no more ado.

When Set heard this, it was His turn to be angry. He threatened to take His mighty scepter, which no one could wield but Himself, and kill one of the Deities each day. Further, He said He would no longer negotiate with the Tribunal as long as Isis was a member of it.

So Re-Horankhti secretly said to the Tribunal, “Come over to the island in the river. There We can make Our decision in peace for We shall tell Anti, the ferryman, not to ferry over any woman who even looks like Isis.” The Deities agreed and crossed over to the island where They sat down to eat a meal of barley bread.

Isis learned of Their plan, of course, and She uttered magic words of transformation. Instantly, Isis changed Herself into an old, bent woman, a crone mother. As Anti the ferryman sat on the shore by his boat, he saw what he believed to be an old woman approach him.

“Hail, ferryman,” said the old woman. “Take me across so that I may take this jar of flour to the boy who has been herding cattle there for the past five days. The poor boy will be very hungry by now.”

“No, old mother,” said Anti, “I have been instructed to take no woman across the river.”

The crone laughed, “Surely you were told not to take any woman who looks like Isis across the river. Do I look like Isis?”

Indeed, thought Anti, this old woman did not look like the beautiful Goddess Isis. “All right then. What will you give me to take you across, old mother?”

“I will give you this bread,” said Isis.

Anti laughed, “What is a loaf of bread to me? Do you think that I shall go against the order of the Gods for a loaf of bread?”

“Then I will give you this gold ring,” the disguised Goddess said as She took the ring from Her finger.

To this rich payment, Anti agreed, and he took Isis to the island.

When She arrived, She walked in and out of the trees until She saw the Tribunal eating bread with Neb-er-Djer. Set was there, too, and He caught sight of Her there in the trees, but He did not recognize Her because of the distance between them. Seeing that Set had noticed Her, Isis once more spoke magic words and transformed Herself into a maiden of unearthly beauty.

She moved into the open a little to let Set more clearly see Her beauty, then She turned and walked into the forest. Set’s heart instantly grabbed hold of Him. He could eat no more of the God’s pale bread. He could breath no more unless He could breathe the breath of this maiden. He left the Gods to search for her.

Hiding behind a tree, Set called out to the maiden, “Come to me, O beautiful one, O lovely girl. I am a God and I am waiting for you.”

Isis let Herself be seen fully now, glittering tears trembling upon Her blushing cheeks. She wept, “For me, Thou waitest in vain, Divine Lord. I was the wife of a cattle-keeper and I bore him a man-child. Then my husband died and our son became cattle-herd. But a stranger came and he threatened to beat my son and take his cattle and cast him out. I am distraught, my Lord! O what shall I do, my strong Lord?” The maiden looked up at the God hopefully, “Could it be that Thou wilt act as his deliverer?”

Isis transforms into Her sacred raptor, the Kite

Set’s heart again spoke to Him—as did His loins when He imagined the young woman’s gratitude for His aid. Indignantly, He said, “What! Shall the cattle be given to a stranger when the good son of the farmer lives! This is an outrage! This stranger should be beaten and cast out and the son should be set in his father’s place.”

In an instant—before Set could tell what was happening—the beautiful young woman transformed Herself into the Kite of Isis and flew like the wind to the top of the tree.

“HA!” She screeched in Her kite’s voice. “Now it is Thou who shouldst weep, My Lord! Thine own mouth hath condemned Thee. Thou hast passed judgment upon Thyself. There is nothing Thou canst do to prevent it!”

Then Set knew Who the Kite really was. He knew He was ruined. He burst out in angry weeping and ran to His ally, Re-Horankhti, and related the whole tale. But Re-Horankhti agreed with Isis. “Verily, Thou hast passed judgment upon Thyself, even as She said.”

In His rage, Set had the unfortunate ferryman strung up and beaten upon the soles of his feet until he no longer had any soles.

In this story, we see Isis in full shapeshifting Trickster Mode. Isis tricks the unfortunate, yet greedy, ferryman with Her innocent old lady routine. She tricks Set as a blushing young widow, seducing Him to Her side. In this single story, Isis shows Herself as a maiden (the young widow), as a mother defending Her son in the Tribunal, and as an old woman—as well as in the form of Her sacred bird, the kite.

Yet Isis’ trickery is in service to Mâet, what is Right. She ensures Horus inherits what is rightfully His. She ensures Set does not. And She teaches that greed is, in fact, not good.

Even this does not exhaust the Egyptian myths in which Isis appears as a Trickster. But this post is long enough, so we’ll leave other tales to other times…

Magical Images & Our Lady of Magic

A female image in ivory from the early predynastic period in Badari — A female image in hippopotamus ivory from the early predynastic period from Badari

As with so many things in Egyptology, there’s controversy surrounding the many female figurines that have been found throughout Egypt and spanning its long history.

These figurines take several forms. Some are standing females, usually nude with sexual characteristics emphasized (eyes, breasts, vulva). Some are abstracted into what have been called “paddle dolls”; more on them shortly. Some show a woman lying on a bed, often with a baby or child beside her. Others show a woman nursing a child.

The old gentlemen of early Egyptology initially guessed that the nude females and paddle dolls, a number of them found in tombs, were “spirit concubines” for deceased Egyptian men. (However, the fact that they have been found in the tombs of women and children, too, throws a significant monkey wrench into that interpretation.)

There’s also the more modern controversy about whether ancient female figurines should be interpreted as images of Goddesses or even as representations of an all-encompassing Mother Goddess. In opposition are those who regard the figures as devoid of divinity altogether and more likely to have been toys, ancestor figures, tools for sex instruction, or the ever-popular post mortum concubines.

While the idea of a singular worldwide Goddess cult goes farther than strict interpretation of the evidence can take us (and, in fact, that is not what most proponents of the Goddess interpretation claim), the virulence of the opposition makes me question its objectivity as well. The truth is, we just don’t know. We have no ancient texts explaining these figures for us. Yet, at the very least, the ubiquity of the female figurines as well as their greater numbers in comparison to extant male figurines indicates a keen interest in the feminine by our ancestors.

Female figurines in Egypt

These images are also commonly interpreted as general “fertility symbols.” This makes sense due to the emphasized sexual characteristics of many figurines and the connection with the child in others, as well as the fact that a number of them seem to have been given as votive offerings to the Great Goddess Hathor, one of Whose concerns is fertility. (It should be noted that Hathor also received what one Egyptologist described as “baskets full” of clay phalluses.) Another cache of these images that has received study come from the temple precinct of the Great Mother Mut. Of the small handful of votive images that include inscriptions, all are requests for children. In addition to temples and tombs, these figures have also been found in ancient homes and in domestic shrine settings.

19th dynasty image of a woman and child on a bed

Many modern Egyptologists have come to the consensus that the female figurines are symbols of fertility in its the broadest sense, which includes the ideas of general health and well-being, rebirth and regeneration—in addition to concerns with human reproduction.

There are some other interesting ideas as well. One that I hadn’t come across before is the idea that the paddle dolls are related to a specific type of royal and sacred musicians and dancers.

Paddle dolls

Paddle dolls are flat images with truncated arms, no legs, an emphasized vulva, decorative painting on the body, big hair—and sometimes no head, just an abundance of beaded hair. (See more on the magical importance of Isis’ hair here.) They were first called paddle dolls because of the flat, paddle-like body shape and dolls because they were thought to be toys; some even looked to the archeologists like they had been played with by a child. The largest number of paddle dolls have been excavated from the cemeteries around Thebes in Egypt.

In a paper on the subject, Ellen F. Morris follows a variety of very interesting lines of evidence to conclude that the paddle dolls were meant to be representations of the khener-women. Members of the khener were once thought to be part of the pharaoh’s harim, but now understood to have been skilled and respected musicians and dancers. Married women and men could also be part of a khener. The khener could be connected to the royal household, to temples of the Deities, and to mortuary temples. When associated with the temples, it seems reasonable to think of them as priest/esses of music and dance.

The story of the birth of the three kings told in the Westcar Papyrus indicates that the women of the khener might also serve as midwives. In this tale, Isis, Nephthys, Heqet, Meshkhenet, and Khumn are specifically said to be disguised as a khener when They deliver the three children of Reddjedet. By the time of the New Kingdom, we know that a khener was part of the worship of Isis.

On several of the paddle dolls and on a number of examples of the female figurines, cross-shaped marks were found on the upper body. Some researchers have correlated these cross marks to similar cross marks seen on the bodies of partially nude female mourners in some New Kingdom tomb paintings. In some of these, two of the women are specifically identified as Isis and Nephthys. Some scholars have theorized that the partial nudity may refer to Isis’ use of Her arousing sexuality to help bring Osiris back to life. This strengthens the argument that at least some of the female figurines were tools of resurrection, imbued with the arousing power of Isis. This ability of the nude or partially nude figures to induce (male, heterosexual) arousal may hold a key to the reason why they may be considered fertility figures. For potency—in life or after life—the male must be aroused and the female must arouse him.

A particularly beautiful 12th dynasty image from Thebes

Magical images

There are other possible uses for these figurines as well. Some researchers have suggested that they were purposely generic so that they could be assigned magical roles as need be. Healing seems to have been a common use. We have a ritual text that instructs the sufferer to recite a particular spell “over a woman’s statue of clay.” The spell, in the Leiden Papyrus (3rd century CE), is to cure a bellyache. Once the spell is spoken, the papyrus says that “the affliction will be sent down from him into the Isis-statue until he is healed.”

We also find images of Isis used in relation to healing from snakebite. A spell in the Turin Papyrus (First Intermediate Period) instructs the ritualist to use “this clay of Isis that has come forth from under the armpit of Selket” to ward off a snake. In this case the spellworker is to enclose a knife and a particular herb within the clay. We can’t be completely sure whether the “clay of Isis” was in the form of Isis or used to form an image of the Goddess. Some scholars think so and that the spell in full should read “this clay figure of Isis.”

A Ptolemaic beeswax image of one of the sons or Horus

In addition to clay, magic workers also used beeswax to form their magical images. Figurines made of beeswax are known from the magical papyri and, in specific relation to Isis, from Diodorus Siculus (1.21, 5-6). He says that the Goddess used wax to create multiple figures of Osiris, which She then gave into the keeping of priests throughout Egypt so that Osiris could be buried in locations throughout the land and thus to be widely honored.

A number of the female figurines we’ve found are broken. Originally this was thought to have been accidental. Now scholars are more inclined to think the state is purposeful. Why? Well, if they were being used in healing spells like the one in which the bellyache “went down into” the Isis statue, then to keep the bellyache from returning, it would be reasonable to break the image, permanently obliterating the bellyache with it. Modern magic workers often do the same sort of thing. Once the magic is accomplished, the talisman is dismantled, de-charged, or destroyed.

One of the books I’ve been reading on this conjectures that, given Her role in healing and protection, many of the generic female images may have been used specifically as Isis figures. The image “became” Isis with the recitation of the spell. The crude fashioning of many of the images is to be explained by the fact that, in many cases, they were intended to be disposable. Once broken and disposed, the images were no longer Isis, but simply a container for the affliction.

A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscriptions identifies it as Isis nursing Horus — A copper image from the Middle Kingdom now in Berlin; an inscription identifies it as Isis nursing Horus

Images of the nursing woman

The female figure of a woman nursing an infant is easily seen as Isis nursing Horus. Stephanie Budin argues, however, that we should not understand this specifically as Isis and Horus until the late New Kingdom. Before that time, the image reflected a variety of Divine Wet Nurses nourishing the king.

She also discusses the fascinating idea that images such as the nursing woman—as well as the other female figurines we have been discussing—might have been used to intensify magic and prayers. She refers to them as “potency figures.” (This idea is also discussed by Elizabeth Waraksa, who has studied these images from the Mut temple.) In other words, the images were a kind of magical battery that empowered the ritual. I like this idea very much.

It’s also excellent magical practice. Modern magicians would call it adding “correspondences” to the rite. Colors, stones, herbs, and symbols that relate to the ritual purpose can be used to help the magic worker “tune in” to the divine powers that can assist in accomplishing the magic of the rite. In the case of the nursing woman images, our ancient Egyptian might be tuning in to the nurturing or protective powers of Isis.

Budin also suggests that, alternatively, the nursing-woman images (for example, the one now in Berlin pictured above) may have been used as prayer intensifiers when honoring Isis and Horus. In this case, the image would serve as an offering as well as a magical battery.

All of these are interesting ideas and each makes sense in certain contexts. To me, it seems likely that the answer is “all of the above.” Egypt was an image-intensive society. The images were probably used in a wide variety of ways, some of which we may have deduced, some of which, as yet, we have not.

Beautiful Mourner, Weep with Me

This is something I posted…oh, about four years ago. If you are mourning now—for some reason—I offer it again to you.

Talia Took's new image of Isis mourning. You can get prints of this work here. — Thalia Took’s beautiful image of Isis mourning. You can get prints of this work here.

We need to know that we are not alone in our pain and outrage. And we are not.

For right now, our Goddess hears us. She knows our hearts. She, too, has mourned. She, too, has raged. She, too, has feared. She understands us when we bring our hollow hearts and roiling bellies to Her.

She will hear us, hold us, advise us. In time, She may even heal us.

But before that healing, we must feel what we feel. The God has died and He must be mourned.

We can share the burden of our feelings with others who mourn with us. We can share them with our Deities, with Her.

Yet at some point, the mourning time will pass. And what will we do then?

If we would follow Her, then what we must do is rear the fatherless Child. We must continue taking action. We must continue our Work.

Though we see the enormity of the problems, let us not despair; there is hope; there is opportunity. Instead, let us renew our dedication to our Deities and our spiritual work, for this will strengthen our souls. Let us renew our support of progressive institutions with our dollars. And let us continue to work with others in progressive organizations for the changes we want to see.

Our Goddess is strong and practical; let us follow Her in this wisdom.

But if—right now, at this time—you mourn, it is well. Make an offering to Isis of your mourning. She will receive it from you…

This is a gift I bring before the Beautiful Mourner, Isis the Weeper Who Transforms: an invocation offering of mourning.
I offer You, Isis, my mourning for there is nothing else I can do with it. How is it that something so empty can be called pain-full? I am abandoned in an ocean of pain so deep that there is nothing else. My tears are nothing but more salt for that bitter sea. My grief is nothing but a hole in my belly. I cannot breathe. I have no breath. There is no air. My mind is blank, unable to receive the words that are pushed at me. My heart? I have no heart.
Mourning is what we do when the loss is so great that we can do nothing else. Each of us who mourns has her or his own share of this hollow pain. But it is the pain of one human being at one time, in one place. You, Isis, You hear the cries of the world. You feel each heart breaking, You know every human cruelty.
The sorrows of a Goddess are deep. What then is my mourning compared to Yours?
Listen, O Isis, to the words of Mourning: “I am offered unto Isis for She is the Well of Mourning. She absorbs me and takes me into Her vastness. I am dissolved in infinity. I am mixed with all things. I am reborn as a child. I am the mystery of suffering. I am Mourning.”
Unto You, Isis, I offer my mourning and all things beautiful and pure. M’den, Iset. Accept it, Isis.

Isis, Our Lady of the New Year

This is a revised repost, dear Isiacs…and a little earlier than my usual Sunday posts. But don’t click away. There’s a secret here that all who love our Goddess should know.

In fact, I repost this every year because an amazing stellar event happens worldwide on our modern New Year’s Eve. And I want you to be a part of it.

You see, SHE is visible throughout the world in a striking way at New Year. So for those of us who see Isis in the light of Her beautiful star, every New Year’s Eve is special.

Why?

Because the Star of Isis reaches its highest point in the night sky at midnight on New Year’s Eve. In the Northern Hemisphere, look toward the south, and you’ll easily see Sirius shining there around midnight. In the Southern Hemisphere, look overhead or high to the north at around midnight. She will be there. Glittering and gleaming in the depths of the night sky…

This means that the Star of Isis can be our New Year’s Star just as the heliacal rising of Sirius was the Star of the New Year for the ancient Egyptians. I find this fact to be a small miracle, a gift of the Goddess that we can unwrap every New Year’s Eve. (For some Sirius science, look here.)

While some may see Isis in the pale, magical light of the moon. And others may see Her in the golden, life-giving rays of the sun. (I do find Her in both those places; oh yes, yes, yes.) But for me, the heavenly body in which I most easily see Her is the star, Her star: Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek).

The Star of Isis is at its highest point in the night sky right now

I can’t help it. And it isn’t just because of Her strong ancient connections with the Fair Star of the Waters, the Herald of the Inundation. It’s something about the way my particular spiritual “stuff” fits with Her particular Divine “stuff.” Her diamond starlight draws me, lures me, illuminates my heart and mind.

I fell in love with Her as Lady of the Star the first time I saw Sirius through a telescope (thank you, Alana and John). As I watched, Her brilliant star sparkled with rays of green and blue and pink and white. It was incredibly, unutterably beautiful. It was alive. And pure. And holy.

You may already know why Sirius was important to the ancient Egyptians, so I won’t repeat that here. But I would like to add a few interesting bits about Sirius that you may not know; in particular, the orientation of some Egyptian temples and shrines to Sirius at the time of their construction. For instance, the small Isis temple at Denderah and Isis’ great temple at Philae seem to have been oriented toward the rising of Sirius. Philae may even have a double stellar orientation: one axis to the rising of Sirius, one to the setting of Canopus.

Iset-Sopdet following Sah-Osiris in Their celestial boats

Overall, Egyptian temples have a variety of orientations. A survey team in 2004 to 2008 actually went to all the temples in Egypt and measured their orientations. They showed that most temples were oriented so that the main doorway faced the Nile. But not only that. It seems that the temples were also oriented toward other astronomical events, most especially the winter solstice sunrise, which makes very good sense as a symbol of rebirth.

Orientation to Sirius is rarer and harder to be certain of since the earth’s position in relation to the stars has shifted over the millennia.

A Horus temple, called the “Nest of Horus” on the summit of the highest peak of the Hills of Thebes, seems to have been oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius around 3000-2000 BCE. Nearby, an inscription carved in rock during the 17th dynasty records the observation of just such a rising of Sirius. This high place would have been ideal for Horus in His nest to await the coming of His mother Isis. On the other hand, the archaeo-astronomers who did the survey I mentioned believe that it may also be oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, an event closely associated with Horus.

The ancient Temple of Satet at Elephantine, nestled amid the boulders

Another temple that may have a Sirius orientation is the archaic temple of the Goddess Satet on the island of Elephantine. The original temple was built amidst the great boulders on the island and really is quite simply the coolest temple ever. It seems that when it was built (around 3200 BCE) the rising of Sirius and the rising of the winter solstice sun were at the same place—so it could have been built to accommodate both important astronomical events.

After the initial study, the same team followed up with a survey (in 2008) of some temples in the Fayum that they hadn’t been able to study before as well as temples in Kush. They found generally the same results except for the Nile orientation as many of these temples were built far away from the river. They made note of a son of a Priest of Isis, Wayekiye, son of Hornakhtyotef, who was “hont-priest of Sothis (Sopdet) and wab-priest of the five living stars” (the planets) and “chief magician of the King of Kush;” this according to an inscription on Isis’ temple at Philae dating to about 227 CE. This emphasizes the importance and sacrality of the study of celestial objects and events to the kingdom and it is quite interesting that this was the work of the Chief Magician. This 2008 study revealed that the largest number of Kushite temples and pyramids were oriented to either the winter solstice sunrise or the rise of Sirius.

Sopdet rising — The star Sopdet over the head of the Goddess

Another interesting thing the study found was that by the time of the New Kingdom, in the 34 temples that were unmistakably dedicated to a Goddess—specifically Isis or a Goddess identified with Her—the most important celestial orientation point was the rising of Sirius. But, in addition to Sirius, the star Canopus was also a key orientation point. According to their data, Goddess temples in general were more frequently aligned with these very bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, while God temples were more often oriented to key solar-cycle events.

The New Year has always been a time of reorientation and renewal, of oracles, portents, and purifications. As Sopdet, the Ba or Soul of Isis, shines down on us from its highest vantage point, now is a perfect time to undertake our own personal rites of renewal and reorientation. It is a time of clarity as we bathe in Her pure starlight, a time when we may ask for Her guidance.

Whatever your favorite divination method, why not do a reading for the New Year while She rides high in the sky?

Or, if you like a more ritualized oracle, try “The Rite of Loosing the Eyes” in Isis Magic. It is a winter rite in which you purify yourself and your temple, then ask Isis and Nephthys as the Eye Goddesses Who Go Forth to bring you news of what the New Year has in store. And May They bring us good news for 2021 after the year we have all been through.

Amma, Iset. May it be so, Isis.

From the Northern Hemisphere, look toward the south, and you’ll easily see Sirius shining there at around midnight. From the Southern Hemisphere, look overhead or high to the north at around midnight.

Isis & the Holiday Tree

A priest censes an offering arrangement of onions decorated with floral garlands. The author of one article I read thought this looked amazingly like a Christmas tree; it’s not, but it’s a fun idea.

Do you have a tree in your house right now?

Many of us do.

Each winter, we celebrate the winter holidays by bringing evergreen trees into our homes, decorating them with shiny ornaments and glittering lights. The rather obvious reason for this is to remind ourselves of the green life that exists even in this darkest part of the year when most plant life has either died off or gone into hibernation—as well as to celebrate that ongoing life with our beloved ones and to prepare for the next phase of life in the coming New Year.

Trees, of course, were important to the ancient Egyptians as well—both symbolically and practically—though they were not the type of evergreen conifers we generally have as Yule trees. (There is only one conifer native to Egypt, a type of juniper; but they had access to other conifers and coniferous resins by importing them.)

Men transporting frankincense trees for transplantation in Egypt.

I’m not sure whether ancient Egyptians brought cut or potted trees into their homes during festivals like we do. But we know they brought in branches and flowers for certain festivals. We know that temples, palaces, and well-to-do homes had extensive gardens and that beautiful bouquets of flowers were ubiquitous as offerings to the Deities. We know that the ancient Egyptians transported trees in pots. The image here shows men bringing potted frankincense trees from their native land back to Egypt.

With their blessed shade, precious building material, and in the case of fruit trees, abundant food, trees were vitally important in ancient Egypt. They were, in fact, sacred and under the protection of the Tree Goddess. When we see images of the Tree Goddess, usually in funerary scenes, Her legs often disappear into the trunk of the tree, while Her hands offer food and water. Sometimes we see Her whole body in front of the tree; other times She is abstracted as offering arms or a nurturing breast. The most important of the Egyptian Tree Goddesses are Hathor, Nuet, and Isis.

Isis gives food and water to Djehutihotep and Kayay.

On a funerary stele of an Egyptian official and his wife, Djehutihotep and Kayay, we see a potted, leafless tree. The pot looks decorative, perhaps painted with horizontal stripes or wrapped in offering fillets. Out of its branches arises the Tree Goddess giving food and water. She wears the throne of Isis upon Her head. Behind Her, an inscription reads, “she gives water as is right.” We can see the water flowing to Djehutihotep and Kayay. Interestingly, another inscription on the stele names Hathor while yet another asks Osiris, Horus, and Isis to give the couple bread and beer, air, water, incense, and all things good and pure.

Surely this stele invokes blessings similar to our Yule tree: ongoing life and sustenance in a place of darkness; in this case, the land of the dead. The epithet by which the Tree Goddess is called, Nebet Amentet, Lady of the West, means that She rules the place of the dead, euphemistically called The West, for it is in the west that the sun daily sets and enters the otherworld.

The Tree Goddess, with the sycamore on Her head, nourishes a variety of growing things, including grapevines.

Nebet Amentet is an epithet common to both Isis and Hathor, so perhaps, with its mixed names and symbolism, both Goddesses are intended on this stele. (More often, though, it is Hathor Who is the Goddess of the leafless tree, which other texts identify as the Southern Sycamore, though this particular representation does not look like other sycamores in Egyptian art.)

Still, there are a number of representations of Isis as the Lady of the Sycamore and we know that She, too, is called by that epithet. A pillar in the tomb of Sennefer of Thebes (18th dynasty) shows Sennefer and his wife Meryt as they stand before a leafy tree, as sycamores are usually shown, with a Goddess figure in it Who is identified in the hieroglyphic text as Isis.

A 19th dynasty stele shows “Isis the Great, the God’s Mother” as a Tree Goddess Who extends Her breast toward the souls of the man and woman standing at Her roots.

The Tree Goddess Isis nourishing Pharaoh Thutmose — Another representation of Isis as a Tree Goddess offering Her breast, in this case to nourish Pharaoh Thutmose; you can see Isis’ name as the bottom two glyphs.

The image you see here is another instance of the nourishing Tree Goddess Isis simply represented as a tree with an arm and a breast.

While the sacred tree is most often a sycamore, other Egyptian sacred trees—the acacia, persea, and date palm—could also be associated with Isis. Isis and Nephthys are called the Two Acacia Goddesses; and sometimes, the tree that grew up around the body of Osiris is said to have been an acacia, though other texts name other trees, such as the tamerisk. The Djed pillar of Osiris can also be seen as a stylized tree, sometimes with the two eyes of the God peering out.

According to Plutarch, the persea tree (Egyptian ished) is sacred to Isis “because its fruit is like a heart and its leaf like a tongue.” He explains that this is because no human quality is more Divine than reason, symbolized by the tongue, and that there is no more driving human force than happiness, symbolized by the heart.

The deceased and his ba receive water from the Tree Goddess in the Otherworld

During the Ptolemaic period, we have records of a grove of persea trees and an altar being dedicated to Isis, Osiris, Serapis, and Anubis by a specific thiasos (a private religious group, similar to a coven or circle today). At Isis’ temple at Philae, a graffito from one of the people who worked at the temple noted that he had planted a sacred tree in Her temple there, as well as three others in and around the nearby town.

Isis is associated with the palm tree through Her assimilation with Seshat, the Scribe & Writing Goddess, for one of Seshat’s symbols is the notched palm branch that was used to count time. In a later period, initiates of the Mysteries of Isis used the palm branch as a symbol of their rebirth.

And so this year as you honor the season with your Yule tree, perhaps it would be well to say a prayer to the Tree Goddess Isis and acknowledge Her Divinity in this beautiful symbol of ongoing green life. While the type of tree is not the same, the meaning is: She goes on and we go on—in spite of everything.

Simply a beautiful image of the Tree Goddesses as we approach the Winter Solstice

A beautiful image of the Tree Goddesses in the starry winter night

Here comes the Sun Goddess

Isis, we drink Your sunlight. Radiant One, we breathe You in. Isis, we eat Your magic. Radiant One, take us within, O Isis…
A modern chant celebrating Isis as Goddess of the Sun

As we are in the darkest time of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere, our thoughts turn to the sun and the return of the light, beginning at the winter solstice tomorrow.

And yes, though many people often think first of Isis as a Moon Goddess, Our Lady is full of Fire and Light. In fact, this blog began ten years ago as part of a community summer solstice festival dedicated to Isis, the Radiant Goddess.

(In later periods of Her worship, it’s true, Isis was indeed associated with the moon; in fact, that’s how She entered the Western Esoteric Tradition. You can learn more about about that whole lunar thing here.)

As far back as the Pyramid Texts, Isis was connected with the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius. It was said to be Her ba, Her soul or manifestation. As the influence of Her worship grew, not only in Egypt, but throughout the Mediterranean world, She also became linked with the sun—probably because the sun was such a central symbol to the ancient Egyptians. The sun is the image of one of the most important Gods, Re/Amun-Re, so perhaps it should not be surprising to find that Isis, one of its most important Goddesses, also has strong solar connections. In some places—notably, Her famous temple at Philae—Isis was worshipped specifically as a Sun Goddess. Among Her solar epithets are Female Re (Re-et) and Female Horus (Horet).

A Uraeus Serpent, one of the fiery, light-emitting Divine forms in which Isis is sometimes depicted

Isis’ most common solar manifestation is as the Eye of Re, the Uraeus, the Cobra Goddess Who coils upon the Sun God’s brow to protect Him; and Who fights a constant cosmic battle against His great opponent, Apop (Gr. Apophis). An inscription at Philae calls Isis “Neseret-serpent on the head of Horus-Re, Eye of Re, the Unique Goddess, Uraeus.” A hymn from Philae calls Her “Eye of Re who has no equal in heaven and on earth.” The Eye of Re is His active power. While He maintains His place in the sky, the solar power—the Eye Goddess—goes forth to manifest His Divine will. In this way, Isis and the other Uraeus Goddesses (such as Nephthys and Wadjet) are similar to Shakti, the active, feminine Power related to the God Shiva in some Hindu sects.

Isis is also one of the Deities Who travels with Re in His solar barque as it moves through the Otherworld. Again, She protects Him and helps battle His foes.

Isis guides the Boat of the Sun God as it passes through the Duat

Isis is also associated with the Sun God and the sun in several of Her important myths. In the tale of Isis and Re, Isis gains power equal to Re’s by learning His secret name, first by poisoning, then by healing the ailing God. In another, with Her magical Words of Power, Isis stops the Boat of the Sun in the sky in order to receive aid for Her poisoned child, Horus.

But it was at Isis’ influential temple at Philae that She was most clearly worshipped as a Sun Goddess and as the sun itself. A Philae hymn to Isis praises Her saying, “You are the one who rises and dispels darkness, shining when traversing the primeval ocean, the Brilliant One in the celestial waters, traveling in the barque of Re.” An inscription on the first pylon (gate) at Philae says Isis is the “One Who illumines the Two Lands with Her radiance, and fills the earth with gold-dust.” (I love this.)

Like many other Egyptian Deities, Isis was often envisioned with immortal, golden, solar skin. Some of Her sacred images would have been covered with gold, earning Her, like Hathor, the epithets The Gold and the Golden One. A Philae hymn addresses Her, “O Golden One; Re, the possessor of the Two Lands, will never be far from you.” Some scholars believe that the holy of holies at Philae may have once been gold-leafed so that it always appeared filled with golden, solar light.

At Her Philae temple, Isis is first of those in heaven: “Hail to you, Isis, Great of Magic, eldest in the womb of her mother, Nuet, Mighty in Heaven Before Re.” She is the “Sun Goddess in the circuit of the sun disk” and Her radiance outshines even that of Re.

From Her great temple at Philae, Isis’ identity as a Sun Goddess flowed back up the Nile to Her temples at Memphis and Isiopolis in the delta. From there, it entered into the Graeco-Roman culture in the famous aretalogies (self-statements) of Isis. From a papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, we learn that one of Isis’ many names is Name of the Sun and that She is responsible for the rising of the Sun: “Thou [Isis] bringest the sun from rising unto setting, and all the Gods are glad.” In an aretalogy from Kyme, in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I ordered the course of the sun and the moon.” And later in the same text She says, “I am in the rays of the sun” and “I inspect the courses of the sun.”

Throughout Her worship, Isis has always shown Her life giving, fructifying power in the image of the Sun. She is the Radiant Goddess, the Lady of Sunlight, and with the solstice, She is returning once more.

Isis-Ma’at, Lady of Truth

Ma’at, the Goddess of Truth & Rightness, can be identified by the Feather of Truth upon Her head.

As I am sure you know, Ma’at is the Egyptian Goddess of Truth, Universal Order, and Right. The ideas related to Her form the core of the ancient Egyptian conception of the way things should be. Ma’at was considered to be the very food of the Goddesses and Gods. Ma’at explained the relationships between humanity and the Divine. Ma’at was natural law and social law. Ma’at was not only justice, but also fairness and even kindness toward one another. Ideally, the king who ruled Egypt, the viziers who advised the king, the judges who made decisions that affected the people, and the people themselves all operated under the laws of Ma’at. If they did, peace and plenty and Divine favor would reign in the land.

The curviest Ma'at I've ever seen — A beautifully curvy Ma’at

The quintessential symbol of Ma’at is the shut, the ostrich plume that represents the “lightness” and all-pervading, airy nature of Truth and Right. It is against the Feather of Truth that the heart of the deceased is weighed during the post mortum judgment before Osiris. The 42 Assessors Who witness the judgment each hold a Ma’at feather. Following a successful judgment, and as an attestation of their truthfulness, the deceased were sometimes shown wearing Ma’at feathers upon their heads and suspended from their wrists and arms.

Isis, too, is associated with these ideals and sometimes Ma’at is assimilated with Isis. The Osirian Hall of Judgment is also known as the Hall of the Two Truths. Twin Goddesses, the Ma’ati (the Two Truths), presided over it. Very often, the Ma’ati were specifically identified as Isis and Nephthys. (As an aside, I have always found the idea of the Judgment Hall being the place of Two Truths to be a particularly wise concept; there are always at least two sides to any story and both are likely to be true—from the perspective of each participant.)

Without Her twin, Isis was identified with Ma’at’s singular form. The Coffin Texts tell us that Isis comes before the deceased as Ma’at. An inscription at Denderah says that Isis the Great is not only Mother of the God, but also Ma’at in Denderah. Plutarch records a tradition that points to an identification of Isis with Ma’at (“Justice”) in Hermopolis. He writes, “that is why they call the leader of the muses in the city of Hermes at once Isis and Justice, since she is wise…” One scholar has suggested that this Hermopolitan ennead of Muses might have consisted of Isis-Ma’at, Isis-Hathor, and the Seven Hathors.

The Two Truths in the Judgment Hall weigh the heart of the deceased against Truth, Ma'at. — The Two Truths in the Judgment Hall weigh the heart of the deceased against Truth, Ma’at.

Isis has always been considered a wise Goddess. A Turin papyrus tells us, “Isis was a woman wise in speech, her heart more cunning than the millions of men, her utterance was more excellent than the millions of gods, she was more perceptive than millions of glorified spirits. She was not ignorant of anything in heaven or earth.” In this aspect, Isis is called Rekhiet, “the Wise Woman.” One of the titles of Isis of the star, Isis-Sothis, is Rekhit, “Knowledge.” This easily led to Isis’ later identification with Sophia (Gk. “Wisdom”). From his Egyptian studies, Plutarch concluded that Isis is a Goddess “exceptionally wise and a lover of wisdom.”

As time passed, Isis’ reputation as a Goddess of Truth, Rightness, Justice, Wisdom, and Law increased. The hymns to Isis at Her temple in the Faiyum oasis say that Isis, “taught customs that justice might in some measure prevail” and that She is “a judge with the immortal gods.” The hymn’s author, Isidorus, writes to his Goddess, “You are directing the world of men, looking down on the manifold deeds of the wicked and gazing down on those of the just” and “You witness individual virtue.” Like Demeter, Isis was called Thesmophoros, “Lawgiver.” A number of Greek inscriptions from Delos and one from Athens calls Her Dikaiosyne, “Righteousness” or “Lawfulness.” Others call Her Nemesis, a Greek justice-bringing Goddess. The ancient historian, Diodorus Siculus, records that “Isis also established laws, they say, in accordance with which the people regularly dispense justice to one another and are led to refrain, through fear of punishment, from illegal violence and insolence…”

Green Isis, looking like Ma'at, but you can identify Her by the throne on Her head. She is seated on the glyph for — Green Isis, looking like Ma’at, but you can identify Her by the throne on Her head, though the black paint is partially flaked off.

In almost all of the surviving Isis aretalogies (self-statements), the Goddess affirms Her connection with Ma’at. In the aretalogy from Kyme, Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I made the right to be stronger than gold or silver. I ordained that the true should be thought good. I devised marriage contracts. I ordained that nothing should be more feared than an oath. I have delivered the plotter of evil against other men into the hands of the one he plotted against. I established penalties for those who practice injustice. I decreed mercy to suppliants. I protect righteous guards. With me the right prevails.” Similar statements are included in other aretalogies including one from Maronea in Greece, which says that Isis “established justice, so that each one of us, just as he by nature endures equal death, may also be able to live in conditions of equality.” In the late Hermetic texts, both Isis an Osiris are known as lawgivers. One such text, the Kore Kosmou, tells us that Isis and Osiris learned the secrets of lawgiving from God and so became lawgivers for humankind.

The words of the Lady of Words of Power are not only words of magic, but also words of Truth and Justice.

By the way…what inspired me for this post was an interesting article by Christopher Faraone and Emily Teeter that opines that the Greek Wisdom Goddess Metis was either directly or indirectly derived from the Egyptian Goddess Ma’at. (Zeus married, then swallowed, Metis because She was destined to bear Him a daughter Who would be as powerful as Zeus and as wise as Metis—Metis was already pregnant with Athena—and a son Who would be greater than His father. Zeus was not happy with either of those things, so He decided to take Metis into Himself.)

Faraone and Teeter argue that 1.) both Metis and Ma’at were understood as concepts and personified Goddesses 2.) The fact of Zeus swallowing Metis may derive from the Egyptian idea that the Deities “lived on” and “ate” Truth (Ma’at) 3.) Both Metis and Ma’at legitimate the kingship 4.) Just as Egyptian kings had Ma’at names among their coronation names, so Zeus has a number of epithets that include Metis. Interesting, isn’t it?

Isis, Lady of Crocodiles

We don’t usually think of Isis in relation to crocodiles or to Sobek, the Crocodile God. Ahh, but wait. As with so much in Egyptian religion, it’s complicated. And there are more Isis-croc connections than we might at first think.

Let’s start with a bit about the crocodile itself. A Nile crocodile can reach up to twenty feet in length—and it doesn’t care what it eats. In addition to their usual diet of fish, the Nile crocodile is happy to feed on birds, wild and domestic animals—and human beings. Estimates are that as many as 200 people a year are killed by crocodiles. Crocodiles catch their prey in huge, toothy jaws and drag it underwater until the struggling stops. It is no wonder Egyptians ancient and modern fear the beast. Perhaps that fear explains why the Nile crocodile was hunted nearly to extinction in the 1940s through 60s. Today, however, they have rebounded and are no longer in danger.

The image of the strong, voracious, and fierce crocodile appears in Egyptian art beginning in prehistoric times. Yet, they are shown both as devouring monsters and as protective guardians. Ammut, Who waits to devour the dead who fail the judgment of Osiris, is part crocodile. Yet magic wands designed for protection often include images of crocodiles. A protective amulet called the Cippi of Horus showed the Son of Isis standing upon the backs of two or more crocodiles and holding dangerous serpents harmlessly in His hands. Powerful magicians were fabled to be able to ride across the river on the backs of crocodiles.

Yet most people wanted to repel crocodiles. Numerous magical formulae have been found that were uttered to keep the frightful creatures at bay, many of them including the important words, “Get back, crocodile!” Jokingly or seriously, I have used that spell on the road when another vehicle comes way too close.

Isis standing on a crocodile on a magical gem

The crocodile was a presence in the Egyptian world that simply could not be ignored. And as the God Sobek, the Egyptians gave Him His due. Sobek is a Water God and thus associated with fertility. There was a common folk belief among the ancient Egyptians that when many crocodiles were seen in the Nile, the flood waters of the annual Inundation would be deep and, as a result, the harvest would be abundant.

Sobek is also connected with original creation; for as the crocodile rises up out of the Nile, so the primordial Sun arose from the waters of chaos. Because of this solar connection, Sokek is frequently seen crowned with the solar disk. The God’s major centers of worship were at Kom Ombo, upriver from Philae and Aswan, and in the Faiyum, a large, especially fertile oasis in Lower Egypt, southwest of Cairo. We also have some evidence of His cult in Memphis, perhaps within the Ptah temple complex.

Both Memphis and the Faiyum were places where Sobek and His myth met up with Isis and Hers. The Faiyum was the center of Sobek worship and sacred crocodiles were bred and raised at the God’s temples. The historian Herodotus remarks on the Egyptians’ treatment of these temple crocodiles: “they put ornaments of glass and gold on their ears and bracelets on their forefeet, provide for them special food and offerings and give the creatures the best of treatment while they live; after death the crocodiles are embalmed and buried in sacred coffins.”

A rather destroyed image of Osiris on the back of a crocodile, Isis before them, from Philae

When the Faiyum temple of Medinet Madi was unearthed, some of the first things they found were four lengthy praise hymns to Isis as universal Goddess, in Greek, and written by Her devotee, Isidorus. In these hymns, Isis is understood to be many Goddesses, including Isis-Thermouthis or Hermouthis. This is Isis assimilated with the Cobra Harvest Goddess Renenutet. In the Faiyum She is paired with Sobek.

Further excavation at Medinet Madi revealed a Middle Kingdom temple of Sobek, Renenutet, and Horus, which is the only Middle Kingdom temple discovered to date. You can see why it was easy to connect Isis, Who sometimes takes the form of a cobra, with the Cobra Goddess Whose child is Horus. During the 12th dynasty, when the pharaohs took a particular interest in Sobek and the Faiyum, Sobek came to be assimilated with Horus. A text from Denderah tells us that Horus takes the form of a crocodile to retrieve Osiris’ body from the water. In another tale, Sobek Himself was said to assist Isis during Horus’ birth. On the other hand, it was also said that Sobek was the one Who devoured Osiris’ phallus when it was thrown into the Nile, for which offense Isis cut out His tongue. The tale explains why the crocodile has no tongue. (They do have tongues, but their tongues are not free, being held in place by a membrane.)

Horus-Sobek or Horus in the form of a crocodile

In one of the hymns to Isis from Medinet Madi, Sokonopis (“Sobek of the Nile”) is called “Agathos Daimon (“Good Spirit”),” “mighty,” and “that goodly bestower of wealth, creator of both earth and starry heaven, and of all rivers, and very swift streams.” Two other Isiac consorts, Serapis and Osiris, are also called Agathos Daimon. Like Sobek, both Serapis and Osiris are associated with water and especially rivers. Serapis is connected with a miracle in which pure water is produced from salty. Osiris is the living water of the Nile Inundation itself.

Isis-Thermouthis and Sokonopis were considered healing Deities, an ability that may have accrued to the Crocodile God from His association with Isis, the Healing Goddess. The Crocodile God was said to have assisted Isis in healing Osiris. In fact, there are a number of representations of a crocodile bearing the Osirian mummy on its back. One of these is from Philae, where Isis is shown standing at the feet of the crocodile-carried Osiris. This idea surely came from the fact that mother crocodiles will sometimes carry their young on their backs to protect them from predators. Plutarch relates an Egyptian tradition that, out of fear and respect for the Goddess, crocodiles will not attack people traveling in papyrus boats because Isis traveled in such a boat as She searched for the parts of Osiris’ body.

A statuette with Osiris on the back of a crocodile

Isis’ association with the crocodile continued long after the end of ancient Egypt. There is a famous work called The Faerie Queene, written by the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser. Spenser is writing in support of his monarch, Elizabeth I. In his story, the heroine finds herself in Isis Church and has a vision of the Goddess. At first, she sees herself as a votary of Isis, later she becomes Isis Herself. A crocodile threatens to destroy the Church, but our heroine, as Isis, drives it back. Tamed, the beast now seeks her “grace and love.” And in the vision, the crocodile mates with her/Her and she/She gives birth to a lion. A priest at the Church explains that the crocodile is Osiris and their lion-child will be a just king.

And so we see that Isis and the crocodile are much closer than it might at first seem. Like the Goddess Who, in Her dark and bright aspects, can be both frightening and comforting, the Crocodile God Who is Her Faiyum consort can be fearsome, as well as a protector, healer, and a giver of wealth. When it comes to Goddesses and Gods, it’s definitely complicated.

Chinese Isis?

Welcome to another edition of Weird Places We Find Isis.

This is an odd story and it connects two phenomena of the 17th century: Egyptomania and Chinoiserie. At the time, Europeans were obsessed both with ancient Egypt and China. What’s more, there was a theory going around that the Chinese civilization had Egyptian roots. I know.

The person who initially came up with that theory is also known as “the father of Egyptology.” His name was Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit scholar. He became fascinated with ancient Egypt (and China). He taught himself Coptic and argued, correctly, that Coptic was the last form of the ancient Egyptian language. He also pointed out the connection between Egyptian hieroglyphs and hieratic, a script form of the hieroglyphs that the priests could write more quickly than drawing the glyphs.

The Father of Egyptology

His giant tome on Egyptology—which earned him the Father of Egyptology title and connected Chinese writing with hieroglyphs—was in three volumes and entitled Oedipus Aegyptiacus. Written between 1652 and 1654, it purported to be a decipherment of hieroglyphs, pre-Champollion (who really did unlock the hieroglyphs).

Many-named Isis from *Oedipus Aegyptiacus*

Oedipus Aegyptiacus was not, in fact, a decipherment of the hieroglyphs. What it was is another tale, for another day. The point here is the Egypt-China connection, a story that intrigued Europe for hundreds of years and continues to crop up even later. In 1933, for example, a Japanese scholar connected the hieroglyphs with Chinese ideograms. Then as recently as 2016, a Chinese chemist tried to show that the Shang dynasty had Egyptian connections due to a match of the chemical composition of ancient Chinese and ancient Egyptian bronzes.

In the early 18th century, scholars in France were among those quite interested in the Egypt-China connection. French historian Pierre Daniel Huet said of the Chinese,

One finds among them clear marks of their origin, a great conformity with the habits of the Egyptians, with their ambiguous letters—hieroglyphic and profane—and even affinity between their languages, the doctrine of metempsychosis [reincarnation].

And Huet was not the only one. Other European scholars followed suit. A member of the English Royal Society, Joseph Turberville Needham, who was a biologist, was invited by the Kings of Savoy (who were looking to add scientists to their court) to come to Turin, Italy. In the royal collection, Needham found an intriguing bust that he identified as the Goddess Isis (finally, we get to Isis!) that was carved all over with highly mysterious glyphs, which Needham proposed to study.

A Turin Aside

Today, Turin has a wonderful Egyptian museum, the oldest in the world dedicated to Egyptian antiquities. The museum traces its history to 1630 when an Isis artifact, the Mensa Isiaca, or Tablet of Isis, came to Turin. (Our pal Kircher was involved with this artifact, too.)

The Mensa Isiaca or Tablet of Isis now in the Turin Egyptian Museum

Today, it houses over 30,000 artifacts, with over 6,000 on display. It is one of the largest collections in the world. There was a temple of Isis and Serapis in the Turin area, too, the foundations of which you can see today. The city of Turin has a local legend that Turin actually has Egyptian origins. It’s not strictly true. Yet it did start as a Roman outpost and the Isis-Serapis temple was an important feature of the town from the 1st or 2nd century CE.

Back to Needham

Needham even suggested that the mysterious Bust of Isis must have been acquired at the same time as the Tablet of Isis, providing a secure Isis-basis for his study.

The inscriptions on the bust looked to Needham like Chinese writing, so he sent copies of the inscriptions to a librarian of Chinese books in the Vatican Library. The librarian, Joseph Lucius Wu, confirmed Needham’s suspicions (!?!). Meanwhile, Needham was in Rome copying hieroglyphs from some of the obelisks there, identifying a handful of them as Chinese characters.

His work caused a sensation throughout Europe because by now Europeans could read Chinese…and if Chinese and hieroglyphs were related, perhaps they could finally read the hieroglyphs!

Unfortunately…

As you can see from looking at the copied glyphs, they are not Chinese characters, nor hieratic, nor hieroglyphic. In fact, they look more like some of the magical alphabets, though I can’t identify which one. (Anybody?) Scholars all over Europe began to study the bust in earnest and doubt was cast in voluminous grey clouds over the Chinese-ness of the characters on the Bust of Isis. Champollion himself had occasion to examine the Bust of Isis and declare it a fake.

But a fake what? The Bust of Isis has now been dated to the 17th century and it has been confirmed that it was carved from stone found in the Turin area. But what is it? The image has none of Isis’ characteristic attributes (crown, sistrum, situla), except perhaps for the long curls in the hair and the knotted necklace may have been intended to be some sort of Isis knot.

Some have suggested that the image was an example of the 1700s fad for creating images of people and labeling their faces with zodiacal signs that, I assume, were supposed to be the “cause” of a particular feature and/or to foretell their fate. But the Bust of Isis characters are unlike any zodiacal signs of that period or earlier.

Needham’s attempt at linking the Bust of Isis characters with Chinese characters

Is it a magical image of some kind? A love or curse talisman? If so, it is on a fairly grande scale with a high level of effort. Is it indeed an Egyptian-ish forgery? The base suggests the shape of a canopic jar and maybe the characters are the best the forger could do to simulate hieroglyphs. And if that’s so, and it is an Egyptianizing fake, then the female head is probably supposed to be Isis. No other Egyptian Goddess was so famous throughout Italy; no other personage of any kind would be so valuable as an art forgery.

What do you think?

Are Isis & Iset (Aset) the same Goddess?

This wonderful artwork is by Kaede-chama at Deviant Art. See more work here.

For those of you familiar with the Isis-verse, this is a perennial topic of conversation, discussion, and often, disagreement. There are scholars, as well as practitioners, who come down definitively on the “no” side of the question. They say that once the worship of Isis crossed out of Her native Egypt, it was reinterpreted so much that Isis of Egypt disappeared and became Hellenized Isis, Who was Some Other Goddess.

Yet, I must confess that, with more years of both study and devotion to this particular Goddess under my belt than I sometimes care to admit, I believe that “Iset” and “Isis” are indeed the same Great Goddess.

This, of course, begs several questions. What do I mean by “Goddess?” And what do I mean by “are the same?”

I talk a bit about what I mean by “Goddess” in one of my older posts, which you’ll find here. For me, ultimately, Isis is the Divine. She can express Herself as one among other Divine Beings, as She did in ancient Egypt, or She can show Herself as THE Divine Being, also as She did in ancient Egypt under the epithet Ta Uaet, the Only One (an epithet used of other Egyptian Deities as well). Isis is a flow of conscious Divinity that can dance with other holy currents or subsume them all like a great river. Nonetheless, the current that She is has a particular “flavor” or feeling that is recognizable.

A powerful Isis by Thalia Took.
Like I did, you can purchase a print here.

For me, the flavor of Isis tastes of magic and wisdom, power and love. And yes, it has an Egyptian flavor, too. For that is where people first called Her by the name that has never been forgotten from the first time it was spoken to the present day. I am very fond of Her Egyptian-ness; it was one of the things that first drew me to Her. The culture from which She first emerged as a named Deity is an important part of Her and of my attraction to Her.

But if we believe that a Deity can only be of the culture in which She or He was first honored then, to me, we are positing a rather fragmented polytheism as the Divine reality. Certainly, there are practitioners who prefer and find truth in this kind of separation—perhaps especially those who have been to just one too many rituals in which Odin, Isis, Quan Yin, and the Greenman were all invoked together in one great holy mashup. Believe me, I feel you.

But that’s not what happened with Isis in the ancient world. They weren’t trying to reconstruct the worship of Isis or create Neo-Paganism or work out modern polytheism; they were living the worship of Isis as it existed at the time. More than anything else, the people who carried Isis into lands-other-than-Egypt were translating Her for people in other cultures. That’s why we find Isis assimilating so many other local Goddesses (and some Gods). “O, you’ll like Isis. She’s sorta like your Goddess XYZ, and not only that…” This was happening even inside of Egypt itself.

That’s because the ancient Egyptians, at least the learned priesthood, had a more fluid view of the Divine reality. Deities could be “in” each other. Their names could be joined in order to express certain spiritual concepts. One Deity could be the ba, or soul, of another one. Their polytheism was not fragmented, but interconnected. I believe that this underlying interconnection of the Divine influenced later Neoplatonism, which posits an underlying Divine Oneness, even though that unity expresses Itself in many Divine personalities, from Goddesses and Gods to the personal genius or spirit (or ba or ka) of the human being. That’s much closer to where I find myself on the whole structure-of-the-Divine-reality question.

The River of Isis flows through time. (Photo by Tim Laman.)

Is is possible that this flowing Divine reality could somehow be stopped by national boundaries? Obviously, my answer is no. The Divine current most certainly can cross any such boundaries. The current Itself doesn’t change. It’s the people responding to that current who provide the variables. People will always respond in ways they are used to from their own culture. Yet our perception isn’t Her reality. The River of Isis is the same river, from the same source, whether it flows through the great halls of Egypt or a shrine on the Greek island of Delos or the temple in my backyard in Portland, Oregon.

So what do I mean by “are the same”?

Just as a great river twists, moving its channel to flow around natural features of the land, so the River of Isis turns as It moves into other cultures. Again, it it still the same river flowing from the same source, but it may look different to the casual observer. Yet if the water were chemically analyzed, there is no doubt that its true source could be detected. The River of Isis always has a little Nile mud in Its deep waters.

Often, when trying to differentiate Iset from Isis, people will point to the different personalities that Iset and Isis supposedly present to worshipers. Iset is fierce, a funerary Goddess, mother of Horus/Pharaoh, and Great of Magic; Isis is a sweet and loving Great Mother Goddess. They also point to Isis’ connection with the moon, which the Egyptian Iset did not have. I explain that here.

Yet if you look more closely at the later traditions associated with Isis, you will find that there is a great deal of continuity with Her earlier Egyptian self. I trace the history of Her worship and point out those resonances throughout Isis Magic. Indeed Isis’ Greek and Roman worshipers were concerned with maintaining Her Egyptian-ness; it was one of the things they liked about Her, too. So let’s take a quick look at some of the correspondences:

A badass magic-wielding Isis inspired by the game Smite; this piece is by KalaSketch

Fierceness

In the oldest Egyptian materials, Iset is ruthless in Her quest to ensure that Her son Hor inherits the throne of His father, following Usir’s (Osiris’) death and to ensure the punishment of His usurping uncle Set. She is like a mother lion protecting Her cub. Now here is the sweet Mother Goddess in a much later text from the Greek Magical Papyri:

For Isis raised up a loud cry, and the world was thrown into confusion. She tosses and turns on her holy bed and its bonds and those of the daimon world are smashed to pieces…

These papyri are dated broadly from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE. In other words, they’re pretty late. And She sounds pretty fierce to me. The Greek traveler, Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE—at the height of Isis’ popularity in the Mediterranean region—tells several cautionary tales about those who foolishly pry into the Goddess’ Mysteries:

They say that once a profane man, who was not one of those descending into the shrine, when the pyre began to burn, entered the shrine to satisfy his rash inquisitiveness. It is said that everywhere he saw ghosts, and on returning to Tithorea and telling what he had seen he departed this life.
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 Coptos. 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, Phocus, Ozolian Locri, 32, 10-17

Tithorea was a Greek town with an Isis sanctuary; the Coptos tale is clearly late, from Roman-occupied Egypt. Fierce then. Fierce now; just ask Her priestesses and priests about Isis, the Ass Kicker.

A Funerary Goddess

Isis is strongly associated with the Egyptian funerary and Otherworld tradition from the very beginning. And She most certainly did not lose this important connection, even as She moved into the Greek and Roman worlds. Just as Usir is glad to see Isis when He arrives in the otherworld, so the Roman initiate of the Mysteries of Isis expected to find Her in the afterlife, waiting for him:

…and when you have completed the span of your lifetime, you will pass down to the netherworld, but there also, in the very midst of the subterranean hemisphere, you shall often worship me [Isis] who you now see as one who favors you, shining in the darkness of Acheron and ruling in the Stygian depths, when you the while shall dwell in the Elysian fields.
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, Book XI, chapter 6

Indeed Her Mysteries are an initiation into death; an inoculation so that Her initiates no longer fear, but enter into the mysterious realm of death under Her protection—just as She had always protected Her Egyptian children by wrapping Her great wings about their sarcophagi.

Mother of Hor/Pharoah

The name Iset means “Throne.” Thus the Goddess Iset is the Goddess Throne. She, and just about every Egyptian Deity, was connected with Egyptian royalty in one way or another. (However, I believe the meaning of Iset’s name originally had more to do with sacred place, which is another meaning of “iset,” than it did with its later connection to the kingship.) The non-Egyptian rulers of Egypt—the Greek Ptolemies and, after them, the Romans—did not want to lose this important royal connection, especially since Isis was, in their time, an even more important and universal Goddess. So Isis was one of a handful of Deities Who became personal Ptolemaic matrons and patrons. The last Ptolemy, Kleopatra VII, considered herself an avatar of Isis. The Romans had a somewhat rockier relationship with the Goddess, which I talk a bit about here.

And while it is true that Isis showed a motherly face, even the face of a Savior Goddess, to Her children in the Greek and Roman period, She also retained Her specific identity as the mother of Horus. The images of Isis Lactans, Isis feeding Horus from Her breast with the Holy Child seated (“seat” is another meaning of “iset,” by the way) on Her lap, were extremely common in the Roman period and became one of the models for the images of Mary with Her Holy Child as Christianity took root.

Isis the Magician working Her heka;
art by Bill Bounard, “Open Your Heart”

Great of Magic

In ancient Egypt, heka, usually translated as “magic,” is the great Force that underlies all existence. It is the energy that enables life, the universe, and everything to operate. It is the power of Creation. All the Deities have heka, yet Iset and Djehuty, Isis and Thoth, come down to us as Egypt’s greatest Divine magicians. In the Egyptian texts, Iset uses Her magic to resurrect Usir in order to conceive Their child, to create—bringing forth “what Her mind conceived and Her tongue spoke”—to protect in this world and in the beyond, for dream divination and, perhaps most importantly, to heal.

We find Her magic working in all these same areas in later periods, too. Look through the Greek Magical Papyri and there She is. For instance, here is a divinatory working:

Great is the Lady Isis! Copy of a holy book found in the archives of Hermes: the method is that concerning the 29 letters [perhaps of the Coptic alphabet] through which letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, her brother and husband, found him. Call upon Helios and all the gods in the deep concerning those things for which you want to receive an omen. Take 29 leaves of a male date palm and write on each of the leaves the names of the gods. Pray and then pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf and you will find your omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly.

And a love spell:

The goddess in heaven looked down upon him, and it happened to him according to every wish of his soul… [your name] says: From the day and the hour I, [your name], do this act to you; you will love me, be fond of me, and value me [until] I die. O Lady, goddess Isis … carry out for me this perfect charm.

And a healing formula for curing an infection from a dog bite:

To be said to the bite of a dog: “My mouth being full of blood of a black dog, I spitting out the redness of a dog, I come forth from Alkhah. O this dog who is among the ten dogs which belong to Anubis, the son of his body, extract your venom, remove your saliva from me also! If you do not extract your venom and remove your saliva, I shall take you up to the forecourt of the temple of Osiris, my watchtower. I will do for you … according to the voice of Isis, the magician, the lady of magic, who bewitches everything, who is never bewitched in her name of Isis, the magician.”

Even as late as the Greek Magical Papyri, Isis the Magician, Isis the Great of Magic, is the Goddess Who “bewitches everything,” yet is never Herself compromised.

The Nile River at night

The River of Isis Flows

These examples are enough to demonstrate the continuity of the Divine current that has always existed, and which, all those thousands of years ago, came to be called by the name of Iset, Isis, Eisis, Iside. It is the same current, issuing from the same source from which it has always flowed. We can still taste the Nile mud in the water. A Deity’s worshipers will always contribute to the form that Deity takes; I discuss one of the most obvious manifestations of that phenomenon here. Yet we don’t create that image out of whole cloth. The feeling, the taste, the essence of the Deity always forms the core of our experience. The River of Isis is eternally flowing; what we human beings build along its banks is what changes with the times.

Milk & the Magic of Isis

One of thousands of such beautiful Isis-nursing-Horus image that remain to us — One of thousands of such beautiful Isis-nursing-Horus images that remain to us

Just a note of joy before we start this post: Ahhhhhhhh. Many blessings to those who worked magic, who worked their butts off organizing, calling, and writing, and who worked their powerful, worldly magic by voting. Many thanks to our Divine Ones Who inspired and watched over us. We have a chance again.

And now back to our regularly scheduled post…

You may recall that, to the ancient Egyptians, bodily fluids could be a way of moving magic or heka. Written spells could be licked from the papyrus in order to be taken into the human body. Magic could be eaten or swallowed. Human beings know, deep in our bones, the magic and life-power of both blood and semen.

Multiply the power of these magic-containing fluids to the nth degree when it comes to the Deities. Atum created His children, Shu and Tefnut, by spitting (or ejaculating in His hand in another version). The tears of Re created human beings. The tiet, the Knot or Blood of Isis, protects the dead in the Otherworld.

Isis Lactans, Isis the Milk-Giver — *Isis Lactans*, Isis the Milk-Giver

Yet of all these magical bodily fluids, it may be that milk, especially divine milk, is the queen of them all. To us at least, milk is the most pleasant—and palatable—of the magical body fluids. It is, after all, our first food. In fact, it is the perfect food and it gives us an intimate connection with our mothers. Children nursing at the breasts of their mothers are drinking Life Itself. No death has ever touched this pure milk. It comes from the mother alive. It is drunken alive. It becomes part of a living being.

Milk is indeed magic.

As Great Divine Mother and a Cow Goddess, Isis is also the Egyptian Milk Goddess from a very early period. The Pyramid Texts say to the deceased, “Take the breast of your sister Isis the milk-provider.” Throughout Egyptian history, Isis is the mother and nurse of kings. A scholar who as studied the images of Isis Lactans (“Milk-Giving Isis”) observed that the idea that milk from the breast of the Goddess (Isis as well as other Goddesses) not only gives life, but also longevity, salvation, and even divinity is one that exists “in the mentality of the populations of the Delta from the earliest antiquity, and manifests itself in the official imagery of the Pharaohs.” (Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: Corpus des monuments greco-romains d’lsis allaitant Harpocrate, Leiden: Brill, 1971.)

7766 — The Mother gives Her breast to the Horus Child

Egyptian art shows the king drinking this holy milk of the Goddess three important times: at birth, at his coronation, and at his rebirth. The symbolism is clear. Goddess milk provides life to the babe, royal power—and perhaps wisdom and a touch of divinity—to the new king, and renewal after death for the deceased king.

A daily ritual conducted in the temples at Thebes, Memphis, and Abydos was designed to confirm the power of the king. Pharaoh (or more likely, his representative) received the sa en ankh, life-energy, from his Divine Father, Amun-Re, by means of magical gestures. Then he received the power of the Goddess from his Divine Mother, Amunet, by means of drinking Her milk. Carved on temple walls, the Goddess invites the king to suckle the milk from both Her breasts. In Hatshepsut’s temple, Hathor’s milk gives the young Pharaoh “life, strength, health.” The Pyramid Texts have Isis bring Her milk to the deceased Pharaoh to assist in his rebirth: “Isis comes, she has her breasts prepared for her son Horus, the victorious.”

A charming vessel in which to store "the milk of a woman who has borne a son" — A charming vessel in which to store “the milk of a woman who has borne a son.” Photo by Rob Koopman; wikicommons

But the king wasn’t the only one to benefit from the divine life magic of milk. Milk was also used for healing. The “milk of a woman who has borne a son” was a fairly common ingredient in Egyptian medicines.

Archeologists have recovered a number of small vessels in the shape of a woman pressing her breast to give milk or, as in the case of the vessel shown here, a woman nursing. They were designed to hold human milk, perhaps for making medicine, perhaps for later feeding of a child. The milk of the Divine Mother was also directly invoked for healing. In a formula for the relief of a burn, Isis says that She will extinguish the fire of the burn with Her milk. By applying Goddess-milk to the body of the sufferer, they will be healed and the fire will leave the body. In a New Kingdom myth, the Goddess Hathor uses gazelle’s milk to heal the eyes of Horus, which had been torn out during one of His battles with Set. A spell from the Berlin Magical Papyrus instructs that if one takes milk with honey at sunrise, it “will become something divine in your heart.” Isn’t that just beautiful?

With all its magical properties, milk was common among the supplies buried with the dead and it served as a valuable offering to the Deities. At Isis’ Philae temple, wall carvings attest that milk was offered to all the Deities worshipped there. To help renew Osiris, milk was poured upon His tomb at Biggeh, a small, holy island visible from Philae. Every ten days, Isis Herself was said to have made these libations.

Milk being offered to a sacred image of a Goddess in India

The whiteness of milk also added to its sanctity in the eyes of the ancient Egyptians, for white was a color they associated with purity and joy. In tomb paintings and funerary papyri, Egyptians are usually shown wearing pure, white clothing. This also carried over into the later Isis cult where the wearing of white marked one as an Isiac initiate. Ritual implements were often made of white alabaster. Sacred animals were described as being white; and actual white animals—like the White Buffalo Calf of modern Native Americans—were exceptionally sacred.

The magic of milk was also understood in the wider Mediterranean world. The Greek Kourotrophoi, (“Child-Carrying” and Nurturing Goddesses), could confer hero status on a mortal by feeding him on Their milk. Mysteries, such as the Orphic-Dionysian Mysteries, envisioned a kind of baptism in milk.

It is widely understood that the Isis Lactans images of late Paganism became the models for the mother-and-child images of the Virgin Mary with Baby Jesus. (Although, since I am updating this post, I have since seen some arguments against it…)

Nevertheless, early Christianity, too, had the concept of the blessings bestowed by divine milk. Eventually, it is Christianity’s male God Who becomes the Divine Nurse of worshippers. The Gnostic 19th Ode of Solomon says,

“The Son is the cup; the Father is he who was milked; and the Holy Spirit is she who milked him; because his breasts were full and it was undesirable that his milk should be released without purpose.”

(Sigh. And this is doubly odd since the feminine Holy Spirit (She!) is right there.) Nevertheless this adoption of a Goddess power by a God simply points out, once more, the potency of the symbol of milk—for all of us.

Milk IS magic. It is life, health, healing, resurrection, renewal, and salvation. For me, this holy, holy milk is always the milk of Isis, the Milk Provider, the Great of Magic and the Great of Milk.

It’s not Isis, but wow!

Samhain for Isis Devotees?

Did you see the glorious moon last night on All Hallows Eve?

I was with a few friends as we watched it rise, full and brilliant, coming up over the horizon. Our shadows were long and long in the cool, sweet light of the moon. I hope your remembrances and celebrations last night were meaningful.

As it turns out, there is an Isis festival recorded for just about this time of year, too.

It is called the Isia and is found in a calendar from 354 CE that was commissioned by a wealthy Roman Christian named Valentinus from a prominent, also-Christian scribe named Philocalus. The Calendar of Philocalus is famous because it contains the first known reference to the Christian holiday of Christmas as an annual festival of the birth of the Christ on December 25th. (There are earlier references to that date, but not as an annual festival.)

An illustration of November from Philocalus’ 354 CE calendar

But for Isiacs, the calendar is important for its inclusion of a different festival: the Isia. Philocalus records the dates of the Isia as October 28th-November 1st. Some scholars include the days until November 3rd as part of the Isia. That’s because Philocalus’ calendar has what was known as an “Egyptian Day” on November 2nd and a Hilaria on November 3rd, both of which may have been included in the Isia.

Let me explain: to the Romans, an “Egyptian Day” was a bad luck day. There were three in January and two in every other month. The first Egyptian Day in November fell right after the Isia, on November 2nd. These days were inappropriate for public festivals, sacrifices, and were generally stay-in-your-house-and-do-nothing days. The bad luck of the Egyptian Days continued on into medieval Christian calendars. Why were they called “Egyptian” days? No one knows for sure. However, Egyptian calendars (for example, the famous New Kingdom Cairo Calendar) often list festivals along with auspicious and inauspicious days. So it may well be that Romans simply picked up these genuinely Egyptian bad luck days. Later on, the name was taken to refer to the ten biblical plagues of Egypt to better harmonize these pagan-y days with scripture.

From Pompeii: Making offering before the sarcophagus of Osiris

As for the Hilaria, there are two shown on Philocalus’ calendar, one on March 25th, at the end of a lengthy festival of Magna Mater/Kybele in which the death of Attis is mourned. The preceding day (the 24th) was the Day of Blood, on which flagellation and self-castration might take place, and it was also an Egyptian Day. The Hilaria was what it sounds like: a day of joy. People played games and feasted. Some see the spring Hilaria as the origin of our April Fool’s Day.

So clearly, it was not absolutely unheard of to have a festival on an Egyptian Day…of course in the case of the Kybele festival, it was the (yikes!) Day of Blood. There is nothing else listed in Philocalus’ calendar for the Egyptian Day following the Isia. The November Hilaria is shown as the day after that, on the 3rd.

Yet in both cases, we have a Great Goddess with a partner to be mourned, followed by a Day of Joy. This makes very good sense from a psychological standpoint; we need relief after mourning. So it may be that we should include the Egyptian Day and Hilaria following the Isia as part of the Isia festival after all. Which would mean that we’re in the middle of the festival rather than the end right now. So there’s plenty of time should you choose to celebrate your own Isia.

Artist’s depiction of ceremonies at the Temple of Isis, Pompeii. Click to see it larger.

We know little else about the Roman Isia. On one hand, this frees us to create our own Isia. Given the time of year, we might choose to connect the Isia with the modern festival of Halloween. Isis is, after all, a Goddess of the Dead par excellence. There is much we could do with an Isia in which we remembered our own Honored Dead, for example by speaking their names and making offering in the ancient Egyptian tradition.

On the other hand, there is an appropriate Egyptian option for the celebration of the Isia and—and given the timing and the resonant subject matter—it is a likely candidate for the basis of the Roman Isia.

Though perhaps it should more rightly be called the Osiria. For at about this same time of year, in the Egyptian month of Khoiak, the ancients held a festival for Osiris that remembered His conflict with His brother Set, His death, and His resurrection through the holy magic of Isis. We know of this festival from the period of the Middle Kingdom and have a decent record of it from the great Osirian sanctuary of Abydos. We also know of it from the Osiris chapel in Hathor’s Ptolemaic sanctuary at Denderah.

The festival re-enacted the central Isis-Osiris myth (I won’t recount it here; you all know the story.) The Egyptians moulded images of Osiris from Nile mud, special spices, talismanic stones, and seeds. The images were watered so that the grain sprouted, a fitting symbol of new life. (We should also know that this was about the time of year when the Nile flood was receding so that the fields could be planted with new crops.) The festival ended with the raising of the Djed pillar, symbol of the resurrection of the God Himself as Lord of the Otherworld.

This was, in fact, the Fall Equinox Festival we were planning for 2020. It was to be our own Isia. But. Well. 2020. So at the next opportunity, those of us in the upper left corner WILL make this festival happen.

Watering the grain in the sacred image of Osiris

Nevertheless, if you are so inclined, now is a perfect time to re-enact that core Isiac myth—if on a smaller and more personal scale. And should you do so from Isis’ point of view, it would be a true Isia, indeed.

I have done my own private Isia like this: I shuffle and deal out 14 Tarot cards, representing the 14 parts of the body of Osiris. I place or “hide” the cards in a circle around my temple. Then, during the several days of the festival, I ritually circle the temple, “finding” some of the cards until I have “found” them all. Then I assemble them into a roughly human-shaped, stick-figure Osiris. (This is a fairly large spread, so I place it in the middle of the floor of my temple.) On the last day of the festival, I turn over the cards, revealing them, and read them as an omen for the coming season and coming year. Naturally—to expand the rite and get myself in the proper magical frame of time, I use temple openings and closings of my choice from Isis Magic. (The Opening of the Ways works quite well; if you haven’t got your own copy of Isis Magic, you’ll find the ritual here.)

Should you decide to honor the Isia this year—in this way or some other—I would love to know about your experience. Whether you choose to connect your Isia with the ancient Khoiak festivals of Isis and Osiris, create a Day-of-the-Dead-type Isia, or celebrate some other way entirely, I wish you much depth and beauty in this darkening season of sad, sweet remembrance. May She embrace you always.

Isis and the pharaoh raise the Djed pillar, the symbol of the resurrection of Osiris

Isis the Mother

10_luxor_museum_-_Mut_-_dated_19_dynasty_c_1279_to_1213_BC — The Mother

Here are some lines (though not all of them) from a particularly interesting New Kingdom hymn to the Goddess.

I have simplified some of the lacunae and made the appropriate capitalizations.

See if you can guess which Goddess the hymn praises:

“…great of sunlight, Who illumines [the entire land with] Her rays. She is His Eye, Who causes the land to prosper, the glorious eye of Harakhti, the Ruler of What Exists, the Great and Powerful Mistress, life being in Her possession in this Her name […]
[…] in the circuit. The Gods are in … Great of Might. Her Eye has illumined the horizon. The Ennead, Their hearts are glad because of Her, the Mistress of Their Joy, in this Her name of Heaven.
She is in their hearts, they being glad when She ascends to Her abode, Her temple. She has appeared and has shone as the Woman of Gold […] of best pure silver. All lands give Her their divine property in Her name, and their standards of their places. They rejoice for Her and Her beauty which belongs to Her. Everyone comes into existence through Her when he is created, say the Living in this temple.
There exists no one like Her on earth. She who lives by the might of Her word.
[…] the Great One of the Throne […] She is […] of forms, Great of Property, Mistress of That Which Exists. The papyrus flourishes.”

This Goddess is also called Mistress of the Gods, Queen of Heaven, Great Goddess, Mighty Goddess, Lady of the Two Lands.

The hymn could well be used to praise Isis. Because it seems that all the Great Goddesses, at one time or another, were called by each other’s epithets and even by each other’s names. (See how that applies to Nephthys here.) Louis Zabkar, who has studied the Isis hymns at Philae extensively, traced how a number of the texts at Philae were adapted from preexisting sources to suit both the space they had available at Philae and the Goddess they were praising.

But this particular hymn is in praise of Mut; and it is especially interesting because it is in the form of a crossword. Known as the Crossword Hymn to Mut (obviously enough), the instructions say to read it “three ways.” Indeed, it can be read horizontally and vertically. Scholars guess that the third way might be around the edges, but the artifact is too damaged to be sure that works.

Mut with a phallus from the Book of Doors oracle deck

Mut’s name means simply “Mother.” It is spelled with the vulture hieroglyph, which also connects Her with one of the Two Ladies of Egypt, Nekhebet the Vulture Goddess Who was the protectress of Upper Egypt.

According to Horapollo, supposed to be an Egyptian magician of the fourth century CE, Egyptian tradition had it that there were no male vultures. Female vultures were thought to remain virgin, but to become pregnant by exposing their vulvas to the north wind. Thus Mut is a Virgin Mother. In Her Crossword Hymn, we see Her both as the maiden Daughter of Re and the Great Mother, since everyone comes into existence through Her.

But Mut also has a powerful lioness aspect. In this form, She is one of the Raging and Returning Goddesses, like Sakhmet, Hathor, and Tefnut. In the Book of the Dead, Spell 164, a magical image of Mut is described as having three faces: a vulture, a woman, and a lioness. Not only that, She has a phallus and wings and lion’s claws. The Crossword Hymn shows Her as a fierce and awesome Mother when protecting the dead. Yet it also calls Her Mistress of Joy, Mistress of Peace, and the Beloved One.

Isis with the head of a lioness from the Ombos temple

It almost goes without saying that Isis is a Mother Goddess. Specifically and significantly, She is the mother of Horus, Mut Nutdjer, “Mother of the God.” But She also reveals Herself as Mother of the Gods and as the Great Mother of All. As Great Mother, Isis has inspired the devoted worship of women and men throughout history. During the Græco-Roman period, Her motherliness toward humanity was expressed in the novel The Golden Ass by Her initiate, Lucius, who declared that Isis brings “the sweet love of a mother to the trials of the unfortunate.” This conception of Isis endures today when, for many, Isis is the very model of the Mother Goddess.

Isis from Abydos wearing the Vulture Headdress

It should be no surprise then that Mother Isis and the Goddess Whose name is simply “Mother” would become identified. In Isis’ Roman-era temple at Shenhur, Isis is represented in four forms: as “Isis the Great, Mother of the Gods,” as “The Great Goddess Isis,” as Mut, and as Nephthys Nebet-Ihy (a festive form of Nephthys). In Mut’s Crossword Hymn, Mut is said to be “under the king as the throne,” just as Isis’ very name means “Throne.”

As Isis the Kite protects Osiris by enfolding Him in Her wings, so in one of the Books of the Dead, a vulture-headed Mut is shown enfolding Osiris in the same way. On a pectoral found in Tutankhamon’s funerary equipment, a vulture, labeled “Isis”, guards the king. In the Book of the Dead, the “vulture of gold” to be placed at the neck of the deceased is associated with Isis. Both Isis and Mut wear the Vulture Headdress, though Mut wears over it the combined Red and White Crowns. Both are Eye Goddesses and Uraeus Goddesses and as such are assimilated with Bast and Sakhmet. Both, as Great of Magic, take the prominent place of the divine barque to defend and protect the Sun God. And of course, both are Divine Mothers; Isis of Horus and Mut of Khonsu. Isis and Mut are considered to be the mother of the pharaoh and They ultimately mother those of us devoted to Them.

I started this post because I wanted to share with you the amazing Crossword Hymn of Mut. But now I am being struck by this idea of the correspondences of the Great Goddesses (and the Great Gods, for that matter). The more I study, the more I find that They share mythology, share epithets, and share the ability to appear as each other “in Her name of fill-in-the-blank.” This capacity, along with the ancient Egyptian idea that the Deities could combine Their identities or be the Ba-soul of another Deity points at an underlying unity of the Divine, even in the midst of a thriving polytheism. Works for me.

“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.

A Visit to my Isis Shrine

Here’s a short phone video of the sacred images and other things in my personal Isis shrine and I invite you to take a tour. The audio is low because I was whispering. It was early. I was not quite awake yet. You’ll have to turn it up a bit to hear the narration.

I would love to see photos of your shrines, too!

Isis the Great Re-Enchantress

Golden Isis by Jane Marin. You can buy a copy here. — Golden Isis by Jane Marin. Jane no longer has this art on her site, but see other work here.

I missed a post last week, because like so many of us right now, frankly, I was a bit down. Yet, in times like these, when the glamour is off…well…just about everything, this, this is when we need Her more than ever. Isis, the Great Enchantress.

If you’re like me, your social feeds are filled right now with people wanting, longing—demanding even—to celebrate the magic of sad-sweet-mysterious and beautiful October. Our hearts cry out for magic. We need the re-enchantment of our world.

Yet the heart-cry for re-enchantment is not new. We human beings have long complained about the world’s disenchantment. German sociologist Max Weber famously decried it in the early 1900s and before him Freidrich Schiller in the early 1800s. No doubt the discussion goes back much farther than that, too.

I first read the term in the work of Thomas Moore, a psychotherapist, former monk, and spiritual writer. His books, Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, were best sellers, which tells us that there are many of us longing to bring the enchantment back. As steps toward re-enchantment, Moore calls us to get away from our self-centeredness and experience the Other, to relinquish some of our literalism to become more poetic, to get out in nature, and to seek out Mystery.

The enchantment of everything—the magic in everything, the magic OF everything—is one of the things I most admire about [probably my personal fantasy of] ancient Egypt, as least as far as we understand it. I love Jeremy Nadler’s interpretation in his book, Temple of the Cosmos, when he writes about the “interpenetrating worlds” of the ancient Egyptians. Spiritual realities are immediate and present because the spiritual world interpenetrates the earthly: “for the ancient Egyptian, a metaphysical world poured into the physical, saturating it with meaning.” Yes. Yes. YES!

My own quest for enchantment is one reason why I describe my spiritual path as Sacred Magic. In practice, this encompasses everything from simply chanting for Isis to a wide range of the expressions of modern Hermeticism (which indeed has its oldest roots in ancient Egypt), including the theurgic rites of magic that are intended to grow our souls and spirits. Of course, it also explains, at least in part, my attraction to Isis, Great of Magic and the Great Enchantress.

Who else would be the Goddess of Re-Enchanting the World but the Great Enchantress Herself? Yet when we see the title in older English translations, “Isis the Great Enchantress” usually translates Iset Werethekau, which we have discussed here. It seems to have been preferred by some of the Old Gentlemen of Egyptology who were perhaps a bit uncomfortable with the squirmy idea of magic and wanted a kinder and gentler epithet for the admirable Goddess Isis.

But enchantment has a long magical history. It comes from the idea that acts of magic are often sung or chanted or accompanied by singing or chanting. To be enchanted is to be affected by the magic carried in the chant or song. About 1300 CE, the word enchantment came into English from Old French, which got it from Latin incantare, “to sing into.”

Isis often activates Her magic by voice. The “Hymn to Osiris” in the Book of Coming Forth by Day says of Isis:

She recited formulæ with the magical power of her mouth, being skilled of tongue and never halting for a word, being perfect in command and word, Isis the Magician avenged her brother.

A papyrus in the Louvre says:

Isis. . .who repels the deeds of the enchanters by the spells of her mouth.

And a healing formula in the collection of the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri says the spell will be successful

…according to the voice of Isis, the magician, the lady of magic, who bewitches everything, who is never bewitched in her name of Isis, the magician.”

In the second example above, Professor Robert Ritner, who has studied Egyptian magic and its vocabulary extensively, translated the Egyptian word shed-kheru as “enchanters.” “Shed” means “to enchant” and “kheru” is “coming/going forth” as in peret kheru, an invocation offering, the “going forth of the voice.” Shed-kheru then is something like “those who send forth enchantments by voice.” Shed seems to have been a specialized form of “to recite” and was used both in magical formulae and in temple ritual texts. When the Creatrix Goddess Neith spoke the cosmos into existence, She shed, “recited,” Her akhu, “spells.”

Especially on His healing cippi, Horus is sometimes called Horus-Shed, “Horus the Enchanter.” And yes, you are way ahead of me again. Of course, Isis, too, is called The Enchanter. In Her case (feminized), it is Iset ta Shetyet. In fact, we have a handful of instances of that name being applied to Isis. And so it seems that Isis is indeed The Enchantress and I shall have to retract my previous snark at the Old Gentlemen.

Chanting, singing, and music were a vital part of the worship of the ancient Egyptian Deities. By the time of the New Kingdom, the most common sacred title for women was Chantress or Singer of the Deity. These priestesses served both Goddesses and Gods, providing the songs and music that raised and channeled the energy of the sacred rites.

The Mereti, a dual form of Merit, one for upper and one for lower Egypt

The Divine archetype behind this ritual role was the Goddess Merit or Meret, Whose name means “The Beloved.” With Her song, music, and magical gestures, Merit took part in the Creation. Daily, Her song greets the dawn and in kingship rites Merit encourages the king to bring good things to his kingdom, commanding him to, “Come, bring!” In this role of speaker and singer, Merit and the priestesses who represented Her—and in some cases, bore Her name as a title—were called “Great of Praise.” This was not meant to indicate that the priestess herself was praiseworthy (though she may have been). Instead, it meant that her praise—that is, the hymns she sang and the words she spoke—were words that had effect. Just as the words of Isis, the Lady of Words of Power, are ritually efficacious, so the words of Merit are ritually efficacious.

Much of the magic of the ancient Egyptians was focused on the idea of renewal, rebirth, and reconnecting to the perfection of the First Time. For us today, perhaps we should add a fourth to those three r’s: re-enchantment. As we work to renew and restore the world around us, it may be that our inner work is to renew our own magical perception of the world, re-enchanting ourselves from the inside out. And I’m quite sure that a chanted incantation to Isis the Enchantress wouldn’t hurt either.

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.

Isis and the Waters

A queen’s image in the waters outside of Alexandria

The last time I posted this, it was for the people and the land of the sacred Isis Oasis in California, which was being threatened by fire. This time, it for those of us in Oregon—and the entire West Coast of the US—as wildfires sweep through our climate-change dried forests. (Nah, there’s no problem here.)

At present, we are under no evacuation orders here in Multnomah County (where Portland is). There are many of us who have been Working weather magic; myself included. In fact, once I post this, it’s down to the temple to do it again. I would be so glad to have you join me. Here is the invocation I’m using:

We Call the Waters, the Healing Waters, the Nourishing Waters, the Starry Waters. We Call the Waters, the Blood of Isis.
Isis, Lady of Rain and Dew. Lady of Magic Who Calls Forth the Waters of the Great River. Let the Rain Folk come! Let the Cloud Folk come! Let the Fires die and the Winds be still. Rain, Goddess, rain!
Amma, Iset.

Our air is getting slightly more humid as marine air comes in, but the smoke is choking. We hope for rain early next week. May Our Lady bring it soon!

And so, I offer you this post about Isis’ connection with the life-living Waters…

In Egypt, the waters of the Nile were (and I suspect, are) sacred. The ancients usually called the Nile simply, “the Great River (Iteru)” or by the name of the Nile God Hapy, though they had other terms for it as well: Sweet Waters, The Circler, and Cooling.

Since the annual Inundation flooding of the Nile was The Thing That Made Life Itself Possible in Egypt, many Deities were connected with the Great Flood in addition to Hapy. (You’re way ahead of me, aren’t you?) Yes, Isis is prominent among them.

As early as the Pyramid Texts, Isis is connected to Sopdet, Who, as the star Sirius, is the Herald of the Inundation. As Iset-Sopdet or Isis-Sothis, the Goddess was known to be the bringer of the holy flood because Her beautiful star was seen rising in the pre-dawn sky just before the beginning of the Inundation. In the Coffin Texts, Isis is also the bringer of water, this time to the deceased: “It is Isis who will give me water,” says Spell 473. As a healing Goddess, Isis is called upon the bring cooling water to dampen the heat of inflamed wounds or burns. She was also associated with rain. At Philae, She is “the rain-cloud that makes green the field when it descends.” The calendar in the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus notes “Birth of Isis: the heaven rained.”

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 — 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. And here’s another option.

The Greek travel writer Pausanias relates a story, no doubt told to him by an Egyptian, that it is the mourning tears of Isis that causes the waters of the Nile to rise. As Iset-Meheyet (“Isis the Flood”), Isis is Herself the holy Inundation.

In Isis Magic, you’ll find a number of ways for honoring Isis as Lady of the Waters. For instance, there is a ritual for transforming any water into sacred Nile water for use in your rites, as well as an autumn ritual for celebrating your own “Inundation.”

I recently learned of yet another Nile Goddess Who became assimilated with Isis. She first shows up in Egypt on coins from the last decade BCE and keeps Her place on Alexandrian coinage until 273 CE. She is considered the wife of Hapy. Her name is Euthenia, a Greek name as you can see, and it means “abundance” and “plenty.” In Greece, Euthenia was known as one of the Graces.

The statue of Isis-Euthenia, clearly showing the Knot of Isis

When Euthenia came to Egypt, the Egyptians were not content to leave well enough alone. They started to connect Her with their own abundance-bringing Goddess Isis. We can see this happening in a statue of Euthenia now in the Greco-Roman museum in Alexandria and shown here. Like the famous statues of the Nile in the Vatican and Naples Museums, Euthenia is shown reclining, cup in hand, and surrounded by the child-cherubs known as putti. Like the Nile God, She, too, is leaning on a sphinx. But tied into the front of Euthenia’s robe is—an Isis knot! Just like the ones seen tied into the robes of Isis’ priestesses. So now we clearly have Isis-Euthenia—and an example of the Egyptianizing of a Greek Goddess rather than the Hellenizing of an Egyptian Goddess.

Nile with putti — One of the famous statues of The Nile with His many children; I think this one is in the Naples Museum in Italy

In Greek myth, river Gods often have a plethora of water-nymph daughters. Turns out the Egyptians had a similar idea. The 20th dynasty tomb of Ramesses IX says that “the two daughters of Hapy shatter for you [Re] the Evil Doer.”

And once more we can connect Isis with the Nile, for She, too, is called “Nymph” in the Oxyrhynchus Invocation of Isis.

There is also a famous and sad inscription from a father who lost his daughter Isidora (you see why this caught my attention) in her youth. The inscription is from her tomb wherein her father laments, “Praise Isidora with libations and prayer, the maiden who was abducted by the nymphs. Hail, my child, Nymph is your name…” Scholars are unsure, but this may mean that the girl drowned.

The tradition of the Nile God and Goddess, Hapy and Isis-Euthenia, remained potent far into Pagan-hostile times. In the seventh century CE, under the Emperor Mauricius (who was suspected of having Pagan sympathies), a miracle occurred. From out of the waters of the Nile emerged two gigantic human figures, one male, one female. Some decried this apparition as the work of demons, others took it as a sign that the Great River was both male and female. I don’t know what the rest of this story is, but I will try to find out. I wonder if someone brought up two of the offering statues that were sometimes given to the Nile?

As late as the Medieval Period, a large statue of a woman with a child—surely Isis with Horus—was in the church of El-Mu’llaqa in Old Cairo and was supposed to prevent the area from being submerged in the ongoing annual inundation. I couldn’t find any photos of the statue, but this is a Coptic Church and has quite a few sacred images of Mary throughout the grounds.

And so we call upon Isis Who brings rain, Who fills the rivers with Her tears, Who Calls the Waters. May She surround and protect.

I love these old photos. This one is from the 1890s; the ballerina Vera Karalli in a pose from the ballet, The Pharaoh’s Daughter. She is surrounded by The Nile and His many children.

The Divine Bread of Isis

I offer bread to the Goddess — Offering bread to the Goddess

With so many of us “Covid baking” these days, I write today in honor of bread—both as a worthy offering to Isis and Her Divine family and as a powerful symbol of transformation.

Indeed, the offering tables of ancient Egypt fairly groaned beneath the weight of loaves of offered bread. In tomb paintings you can see them, baked into neat, conical or oval shapes and piled high upon the altars. “Thousands of loaves” were promised to Deities and deceased pharaohs. Excavations have shown that actual loaves of bread were among the grave goods of kings and commoners alike. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased declares he will live on the bread of the Goddesses and Gods.

An offering table with the bread and wine already on it — An offering table with the round loaves of bread and pitchers of wine already and eternally upon it

As in so many places in the world, bread in ancient Egypt was a basic, even archetypal, food and the grain from which it was made, an essential, as well as symbolic, food crop. To the ancient Egyptians, a loaf of bread came to symbolize all types of food offerings and all good things.

Both Isis and Osiris are strongly connected with bread and the grain from which it is made. A number of Isis’ epithets attest to this. She is the Lady of Bread and Beer, Lady of Green Crops, Goddess of the Fertility of the Field, and the Lady of Abundance. (And by “bread and beer” the Egyptians meant more than just a sandwich wrapper and a drink. The phrase meant every good thing; Egyptians would even greet each other by saying, “bread and beer,” thus wishing each other prosperity.)

Lady and Lord of Abundance — Lady and Lord of Green Crops

For Osiris’ part, like so many Gods, He is identified with the cycle of the living and dying grain. The Coffin Texts connect Osiris and grain with immortality: “I am Osiris . . . I live and grow as Neper [“Corn” or “Grain”], whom the august gods bring forth that I may cover Geb [the earth], whether I be alive or dead. I am barley, I am not destroyed.” The texts also tell us that the deceased, identified with Osiris as the Divine grain, nourishes the common people, makes the Gods Divine, and “spiritualizes” the spirits. Thus bread and grain are more than just bodily sustenance; they are spiritual sustenance as well.

I am emmer wheat and I will not die — I live and grow as Grain…

Temple walls show grain growing out of the body of the dead Osiris while His soul hovers above the stalks. But it is not enough that the grain sprouts and grows. It must also be transformed so that Osiris Himself may also be transformed. And, as in the main Isis and Osiris myth, the Goddess is the one Who transforms the God. In the myth, She does this by reassembling His body and fanning life into Him with Her wings. Using the grain metaphor, Isis becomes the Divine Baker Who transforms the raw grain into the risen and nourishing bread. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the deceased person asks for a funeral meal of “the cake that Isis baked in the presence of the Great God.”

Emmer wheat, the most common type from which the ancient Egyptians made bread

As a symbol of transformation and ongoing life, grain has magical properties. Some of the funerary texts have the deceased rubbing her body with barley and emmer wheat in order to partake of these magically transforming properties.

In several temples where important festivals of Osiris were held, the priests made a complex form of bread, called Divine Bread, that was molded in the shape of Osiris. (In fact, the ancient Egyptians were quite adept at using molds to bake bread in a variety of shapes and forms.) The Osirian Divine Bread was made from grain and a special paste consisting of ingredients such as Nile mud, dates, frankincense, fresh myrrh, 12 spices with magical properties, 24 precious gems, and water.

A "corn Osiris" ... perhaps molded like the Divine Bread — A “corn Osiris” … perhaps molded like the larger Divine Bread of Mendes?

At Denderah, this Divine Bread was modeled into the shapes of the pieces of the body of Osiris and sent to the various cities in which Isis was said to have enshrined them.

At Mendes (which is where, we must note, the phallus of Osiris was enshrined), a sacred marriage was part of the Osirian celebrations. It took place between the Goddess Shontet, a form of Isis, and Osiris as the grain. In the Goddess’ holy of holies, Her sacred statue was unclothed and grain was strewn on a special bed before Her. After allowing some time for the Goddess and God to unite, the grain was gathered up, then wrapped in cloth, watered, and used to model a full-body figure of Osiris Khenti-Amenti (“Osiris, Chief of the West,” that is, the Land of the Dead). Finally, Osiris the Divine Bread was buried with full ceremony, including a priestess who took the role of Isis to mourn Him and work the transforming magic of the Goddess.

Several ancient writers describe an entirely different type of bread also associated with Isis. It is lotus bread. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians who lived in the Delta gathered the lotuses that grow profusely there. They dried the centers containing the seeds then pounded them into flour that was made into bread. Lotus-seed bread was made from both the white and the blue water lilies. The lily rhizomes were also used; they were dried, then ground into flour for bread making—though the rhizome version was likely to have been less palatable than the seed bread. In Diodorus’ account of Egyptian prehistory, he mentions that lotus bread was one of the Egyptian subsistence foods and that the “discovery of these is attributed by some to Isis.”

Isis is the Lady of Abundance Who gives us the bread of earthly life; and She is the Divine Baker Who makes the magical bread that gives us eternal life. She is the Goddess Who regenerates the Grain God as She guides the transformation of Her Beloved from the threshed grain into the ever-living Green God Osiris. She is the Goddess of Divine Bread Who feeds our bodies and souls and Her sacred bread is a pleasing offering to Isis, Goddess of Transformation.

Let’s get baking!

Isis & the Faerie Queene

Queen Elizabeth I of England on the cover of The Faerie Queene

Today’s post is a repost. I really just needed to offer something not topical (my brain and soul are a bit ragged right now), but which shows how very topical our Goddess Isis has been throughout Western history.

Have a bit of respite from the news and enjoy…

Did you know that Isis can be connected with Queen Elizabeth I—she for whom the “Elizabethan Age” is named?

It’s an interesting story…

It’s a story that speaks to the influence of Isis’ story throughout the ages. It is also a story that reinforces Isis’ importance as a feminist icon.

So let us start in 1558, the year Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, became queen. Elizabeth never married, thus never shared her throne; she reigned for over 40 years. She was called “Gloriana” and “Good Queen Bess” and “the Virgin Queen”.

Knox's lovely work — Knox’s lovely piece of work

But this whole unmarried-queen-ruling-by-herself thing was problematic. If you think there’s sexism now, imagine 1558. Even queens were not immune. Elizabeth’s advisors were forever pestering her to marry. It was a given that women were inferior in all ways, from moral strength to intellectual strength to physical strength. “Frailty, thy name is woman,” sayeth the Bard in Hamlet to absolutely no one’s surprise. Women had virtually no rights under the law and were subject in all things to first father, then husband.

1558 was also the year that John Knox published his polemic against women rulers called The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regimen [that is, “rule”] of Women. It was specifically against the Catholic queens of Scotland and England (Knox was Protestant), but as Elizabeth came to the throne in the same year, you can be sure it was applied to her as well. Knox summed up the general attitude this way:

For who can denie but it repugneth to nature, that the blind shal be appointed to leade and conduct such as do see? That the weake, the sicke, and impotent persones shall norishe and kepe the hole and strong, and finallie, that the foolishe, madde and phrenetike shal gouerne the discrete, and giue counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be al women, compared unto man in bearing of authoritie. For their sight in ciuile [civil] regiment, is but blindnes: their strength, weaknes: their counsel, foolishenes: and judgement, phrenesie, if it be rightlie considered.

As you might expect, Elizabeth took offense and she opposed Knox, successfully keeping him from being involved in his beloved “Protestant cause” in England. Queens do have some power after all.

What Elizabeth needed was some propaganda of her own. So she carefully constructed her public image, sometimes by portraying herself as the mother of her people, sometimes as a king or prince, and sometimes by having herself compared to various Goddesses—Goddesses Who were thought, by this time, to be safely in the past. This meant that Their myths could now be used to portray queenly and Protestant values without too much consternation.

“Elizabeth I and the Three Goddesses,” by Hans Eworth, 1569; Elizabeth actually owned this painting, which both associates her with the Goddesses and has her besting Them, for she kept the golden “apple” or royal orb for herself.

Sir Walter Raleigh wrote a long poem that helped promote the cult of Elizabeth as the Virgin Moon Goddess Diana. During royal functions as well as in Elizabeth’s raiment, the liberal use of the symbols of the moon and moon-like pearls helped promulgate the idea.

As war leader of her people, Elizabeth would style herself after Minerva, a Goddess capable of war, but more known for Her wisdom and love of peace. While addressing troops who were preparing to repel the Spanish Armada, she wore an Minerva-like plumed helmet and steel cuirass over a white velvet gown. She turned sexism on its head with the most famous line of her speech: “I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too…”

I though Pfeiffer was kinda awesome as Titania — I thought Pfeiffer was awesome as the Faerie Queene, Titania

Then in 1590, Edmund Spenser wrote a long, highly allegorical poem called The Faerie Queene, which he dedicated to Elizabeth and in which he symbolically portrays his queen through various characters in the poem, including Gloriana, the Faerie Queene of the title. The poem is classic sword-and-sorcery, knights-and-damsels; Elizabeth liked it enough to award Spenser a pension for life.

It is in The Faerie Queene that we meet Isis as a symbol of Justice and equitable queenly rule. Spenser wanted to associate Elizabeth’s rule with an ancient Golden Age ruled over by another strong queen: Isis, the Divine Queen of Egypt. Spenser tells us that Isis was “a Goddess of great powre and souerainty” and that justice and equity were among Her blessings. So too are power, sovereignty, justice, and equity hallmarks of Elizabeth’s reign. Elizabeth is further associated with Isis—as well as with the famous Queen Cleopatra—by the fact that the Faerie Queene lives in “Cleopolis.”

In support of his Faerie Queene, Spenser writes that during recent history men had not properly recorded the deeds of women rulers, particularly their deeds of war. However, in ancient days (such as the time of Isis) female rulers were given the credit they deserved. He also explains that men’s jealousy of women caused them to “curb women’s liberty.”

Scholars think that we are seeing the influence of the Hermetica as well as Giordano Bruno’s Egyptian-themed work on Spenser’s choice of an Isis-and-Osiris theme in Book V of the poem. Britomart, the female Knight of Chastity, is Isis-like, while the male Knight of Justice, Artegall, is Osiris-like. They are lovers, separated by various adventures, which require Britomart to search repeatedly for Artegall just as Isis does for Osiris.

We see Britomart at her most Isian in Book V, Canto VII of the poem as she sets out to rescue Artegall from the evil Amazon queen Radigund. (Yes, it’s not all that feminist a poem.) Along the way, Britomart stops to rest at a temple of Isis (also called “Isis Church” in the poem) and is received there by the priests. The long-haired priests, dressed in silver-trimmed linen robes and moon-shaped headdresses, are in the midst of their offering rites. Britomart is amazed by the beauty of the temple, gawking openly.

The priests take her to the sacred image of Isis, which is as beautifully wrought as the temple itself. The image is crowned with gold “to shew that she had powre in things diuine”, carries a wand, and with one foot treads upon a crocodile that represents both “forced guile and open force” and is being suppressed by Isis.

Britomart kneels down and prays at the Goddess’ feet. The wand in the hand of “the Idoll” moves, which Britomart takes as a sign of good fortune and falls asleep: “There did the warlike Maide her selfe repose, Vnder the wings of Isis all that night…” The priests, too, went to sleep and “on their mother Earths deare lap did lie.” They kept strict chastity and eschewed both meat and wine (especially wine).

Britomart sleeping “under the wings of Isis” in Isis Church

Now Britomart dreams a dream that foretells her fate. She sees herself, as a priestess, making sacrifice to Isis. Then her linen robes becomes scarlet and her headdress becomes a crown of gold, like that of the Goddess Herself. She is in wonder, yet pleased by the change as she becomes merged in Isis. Suddenly, a wind arises that fans the altar flames and threatens to set the temple on fire. The crocodile beneath the foot of the sacred image of Isis comes to life, devours the flames and the wind, and starts toward Britomart. The image of Isis raises Her wand and beats him back.

Chastised, the crocodile now humbly comes to Britomart, begging her to love him. Which she does, becoming pregnant with and then giving birth to a great lion that subdues everything. (How’s that for a dream, eh?)

At that, Britomart wakes, confused and upset. The priests are already up, preparing for the day. Their leader notices Sir Knight’s dismay and asks her about it. She tells him the dream.

Immediately, he sees that she is of royal blood. He tells her that the crocodile represents Artegall and also the just “Osyris” Who sleeps forever beneath Isis’ foot, protected from those “cruell doomes of his.” The priest tells her that she and Artegall will have a lion-like son and start a dynasty. (Elizabeth, of course, is of this heroic line.) After rewarding the priests with gold and silver as gifts for their Goddess, the knight continues on her way.

“Prince Arthur and the Faerie Queen” by Henry Fuseli, 1788

According to Spenser’s tale, other heroes are also part of Elizabeth’s heritage, including King Arthur, the British warrior queen Boudicca, and the Anglo Saxon heroine Angela. Yet the story of Isis and Osiris, associated with Spenser’s greatest virtue, Justice, is especially important.

Though Britomart and Artegall reign with great justice for many years, eventually, Artegall is killed—by treachery—and taken from Britomart just as Osiris must eventually leave Isis to rule in the otherworld. Yet before he dies, they conceive a son, a Horus-Child who will begin the dynasty destined to lead to the reign of Elizabeth, the royal virgin who marks the glorious culmination of the Britomart-Isis and Artegall-Osiris line.

She Has Risen

In my area, yesterday was the helical rising of Sirius. Alas, we had cloud cover. BUT. This morning, it was clear, so I got up at quarter to four, coffee-ed up, and headed to my local high place, Rocky Butte, to watch Her rise.

My view wasn’t quite like this, but close. Since I’m in the city, there were other artificial lights on the horizon. It takes a bit longer for Her to rise above those so you can be sure it’s Her.

I waited. I sang purifications.

And She rose in beauty.

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.

Isis Rising 2020

One of my favorite tarot images, Isis as The Star in the Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett — One of my favorite tarot images: Isis as The Star in the Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett

It is getting to be that time. That time when She rises early, early in the dawning light. This is known as the “heliacal rising of Sirius” and it’s the best thing that happens in August as far as I’m concerned. While everything else starts to crisp in the late summer heat, I am refreshed in Her rising power.

Now some of you may be saying, “wait, wait, I thought that happens in July.” It could. When you are able to see Her heliacal (“before the sun”) rising depends on where on this globe you are.

Here in Portland, Oregon in 2020, Sirius rises at 4:34 in the morning of August 22rd. Further south, She rises earlier. It all depends on your latitude, you see. You can calculate Her rising in your area with this online calculator. Then, if you’d like to celebrate Isis’ birthday, it would be two days before the rising of Sirius, in my case, August 20. So Isis is a Leo (at least at this latitude.) And well, She is Isis-Sakhmet, after all.

Of course, some people see Isis in the pale, magical light of the moon. Or in the golden, life-giving rays of the sun. I do find Her there, yes…

But for me, the heavenly body in which I most easily see Her is the star, Her star: Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek). And it isn’t just because of Her strong ancient connections with the Fair Star of the Waters, the Herald of the Inundation. It’s something about the way my particular spiritual “stuff” fits with Her particular Divine “stuff.” Her diamond starlight draws me, lures me, illuminates my heart and mind.

I fell in love with Her as Lady of the Star the first time I saw Sirius through a telescope. As I watched, Her brilliant star sparkled with rays of green and blue and pink and white. It was incredibly, unutterably beautiful. It was alive. And pure.

Likely, you already know why Sirius was important to the ancient Egyptians, so I won’t repeat that here. But I would like to add a few interesting bits about Sirius that you may not know about; in particular, the orientation of some Egyptian temples and shrines to Sirius at the time of their construction. For instance, the small Isis temple at Denderah and Isis’ great temple at Philae seem to have been oriented toward the rising of Sirius. Philae may even have a double stellar orientation: one axis to the rising of Sirius, one to the setting of Canopus.

Overall, Egyptian temples have a variety of orientations. A survey of temples taken between 2004 and 2008—that actually went to the temples in Egypt and measured the orientation—showed that most temples were oriented so that the main entrance faced the Nile. But not only that. It seems that the temples were also oriented toward other astronomical events, most especially the winter solstice sunrise, which of course makes very good sense as a symbol of rebirth.

Orientation to Sirius is rarer and harder to be certain of since the earth’s position in relation to the stars has shifted over the millennia.

A Horus temple, called the “Nest of Horus” on the summit of the highest peak of the Hills of Thebes, seems to have been oriented to the heliacal rising of Sirius around 3000-2000 BCE. Nearby, an inscription carved in rock during the 17th dynasty (1580-1550 BCE) records the observation of just such a rising of Sirius. This high place would have been ideal for Horus in His nest to await the coming of His mother Isis. On the other hand, the archaeoastronomers who did the survey I mentioned believe that it may also be oriented to the winter solstice sunrise, an event closely associated with Horus.

The original temple of Satet on Elephantine; made of mudbrick nestled among the natural boulders

After the initial study, the same team followed up with a survey (in 2008) of some temples in the Fayum that they hadn’t been able to study before as well as temples in Kush. They found generally the same results except for the Nile orientation since many of these temples were built far away from the river. They made note of a son of a Priest of Isis, Wayekiye, son of Hornakhtyotef, who was “hont-priest of Sopdet” and ”wab-priest of the five living stars” (the planets) and “chief magician of the King of Kush.” This is from an inscription on Isis’ temple at Philae dating to about 227 CE. It emphasizes the importance and sacrality of the study of celestial objects and events to the kingdom and it is quite interesting that this was the work of the Chief Magician. This study revealed that most Kushite temples and pyramids were oriented either to the winter solstice sunrise or the rise of Sirius.

Another interesting thing the study found was that by the time of the New Kingdom, in the 34 temples that were unmistakably dedicated to a Goddess—specifically Isis or a Goddess associated with Her—the most important celestial orientation point was the rising of Sirius. But, in addition to Sirius, the star Canopus was also a key orientation point. According to their data, Goddess temples in general were more frequently aligned with these very bright stars, Sirius and Canopus, while God temples were more often oriented to key solar-cycle events. Isn’t that interesting?

On the horizon, She rises, with Orion/Osiris above

If you are, as I am, feeling the anticipation of Her rising later this month, you might like to do some ritual. The Opening of the Ways is always good. You could use it as an invitation to Her. Or try a simple meditation, allowing yourself to yearn for Her coming. Waiting for Her and wanting Her is sometimes a very good exercise. You might set out a vessel of water (a shiny silver one is nice) on the night of Her rising, let it be charged with that rising energy in the dawn, then use it as part of your holy water for purification. I have just such star water that I use waiting in my shrine right now.

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Isis, the Only One

Iset Demdjet, the Bone Collector

A New Festival of Light for Isis?

An Ancient Isis Method of Divination

Isis the Trickster

Magical Images & Our Lady of Magic

Beautiful Mourner, Weep with Me

Isis, Our Lady of the New Year

Isis & the Holiday Tree

Here comes the Sun Goddess

Isis-Ma’at, Lady of Truth

Isis, Lady of Crocodiles

Chinese Isis?

Are Isis & Iset (Aset) the same Goddess?

Milk & the Magic of Isis

Samhain for Isis Devotees?

Isis the Mother

“Isis with the Lapis Lazuli Head”?

A Visit to my Isis Shrine

Isis the Great Re-Enchantress

Isis & the Dark Night of the Soul

Isis and the Waters

The Divine Bread of Isis

Isis & the Faerie Queene

She Has Risen

Hail to Thee, Isis, Lady of the Star

Isis Rising 2020

Simon Magus is coming to