Are There Chakras In Wicca?
Are there chakras in Wicca? Some Wiccans do work with chakras. Others insist that chakras aren't Wiccan. Are they or aren't they? And why does it matter?...
Breathing the Breath of Isis
Deep breath. In and out.
It helps when we are angry. Or can’t sleep. Or tired…as many of us are right now.
So today, we take a deep, cleansing breath and honor Isis as Lady of the element of Air—of Breath, of Wind, and thus of Spirit.
It’s quite true that many cultures associate breath, air, and wind with Spirit. For while these things are invisible, they are invisible Powers, and we are intimately touched by their influence. We breathe the air and we live. The wind fills a sail and we move. Wind, air, and breath thus can be seen as manifestations of the invisible powers of the Deities.
Perhaps that is why my favorite title for an Egyptian book of the dead is the Book of Breathings. It is the book “which Isis made for her brother Osiris, to make his ba live, to make his body live, to make young all his members” and it especially emphasizes the importance of breath for resurrection. The Lady of the Breath of Life fans Her wings and puts “wind” into Osiris’ nose. The God lives and His Divine Spirit revives when He “smells the air of Isis.”
In Isis, breath, air, and wind are one.
In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, Isis declares that She comes “with the north wind.” The Goddess and the wind were associated because both were known to bring the cooling, life-giving waters of the Inundation. It was thought that the north wind “dammed up” the Inundation, which flowed from the south, enabling the water to flood and nourish Egyptian fields. Thus, Isis is the one Who heralds the Inundation and causes it to flow (as Iset-Sopdet), but also Her northerly winds keep it in place so that it will water and fertilize the fields.
A fanciful Italian mosaic, from the Hellenistic period, showing Egypt during the Inundation
As Iset Mehit, Isis of the North and Lady of the North Wind, the Goddess brings the sweet-smelling north wind and all good things. Temple texts at Edfu identify Her with the “good north wind.” In the Book of Hours, She is the “living north wind.” Isis is especially found whenever air is active, whether in beating wings or gusting winds. Some stories describe Her mourning cries for Osiris as the wailing and moaning of the winds.
Isis can be a controller of the winds, too, for it is She Who promises the king in the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 669), “the south wind shall be your wet nurse and the north wind shall be your dry nurse.” The wind or breath of Isis can also purify. In the Pyramid Texts (Utterance 510), the deceased is cleansed with a vessel “which possesses the breath of Isis the Great.” In a work by the Roman writer Lucian, Isis is invoked to send the winds.
In the myth of the Contendings of Horus and Set, when the Ennead finally rules in favor of Horus to succeed His father Osiris, Isis sends the north wind—which She both controls and personifies—to bring the good news to Osiris in the underworld.
Isis can also be connected to other directional winds. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day (Chapter 161), the four winds are attributed this way: Osiris is the north wind, Re is the south wind, Isis is the west wind, and Nephthys is the east wind. As the winds, these Deities enter the noses of the dead and bring them to life.
Isis is not the only Deity associated with the winds and air, of course. Wind is also the manifestation of Amun, the Hidden One, of Shu, the God of Air and Light, and of Atum, the Creator. In the Book of Coming Forth by Day, an otherwise unidentified “Great Goddess, Mistress of Winds” brings benefits to the deceased. In the Coffin Texts, the deceased calls himself “Mistress of the Winds in the Island of Joy.” Another tells us that the deceased receives the breath of life from four primordial Maidens associated with the four winds and Who existed “before men were born or the gods existed” (Formula 162).
The Book of Coming Forth by Day sometimes shows the deceased holding a sail to catch the breath of life. Since the dead are identified with Osiris, it would make sense that the sail is intended to help them magically catch the air fanned into the dead by the powerful wings of Isis.
In a later period, images of Isis Pharia show the Goddess Herself holding a sail. The billowing sail of Isis Pharia ensures smooth sailing on the seas as in life. Perhaps this later image harks back to Isis’ more ancient attribution as She Who fills the sails of the dead with breath and life.
In Graeco-Roman texts of about the same period as the Isis Pharia images, Isis “hast dominion over winds and thunders and lightnings and snows” and She declares in one of Her aretalogies, “I am the Queen of rivers and winds and sea.”
A second-century-CE papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt calls Isis the “true jewel of the wind and diadem of life.” A hymn at the Goddess’ Faiyum temple connects Her with the winds, too: “Whether you have journeyed to Libya or to the south wind, or whether you are dwelling the outermost regions of the north wind ever sweetly blowing, or whether you dwell in the blasts of the east wind where are the risings of the sun…”
In whichever wind She dwells, Isis is always the ancient Lady of the Living Air, Queen of the Winds, Winged Goddess of the Spirit Revivified. From Her we receive our breath and our life.
Fierce Isis
When everything is all stirred up, when things are changing, when things are moving—like right now—that’s when heka, magic, can be very effective. Even surprisingly so. With things in flux, a magical push can move things along more quickly than having to move them from a dead stop.
As Weret Hekau, Great of Magic, Isis’ magical “push” can be powerful indeed. If you are inclined to your own magical pushing (as I am), let me suggest one thing first: connection to Great Isis before any other Work. Commune with Her about your purpose. Ask Her advice. Many of us are angry right now, and while anger is not necessarily out of place in magic (as you will see in the upcoming tale), it can be blinding and cause us to make mistakes. Centering in Her Divinity will always help us see more clearly.
That said, as you know, Isis is not all sweet motherhood. So today, we have an Isis story that shows Her fierce and fiery aspect and which you may not have heard before.
This is a tale of Isis the Avenger and it is from the Papyrus Jumilhac. The only publication of the papyrus has been in French (which is why English readers probably haven’t heard the tale). Via the blessings of interlibrary loan, I was able to borrow the French text.
The Papyrus Jumilac is about 23 “pages” long. It is a Ptolemaic text (approximately 2nd century BCE) but it was found in Upper Egypt and records some thoroughly Egyptian myths. It may have been a sort of training manual for the priesthood of the 17th and 18th nomes and tells stories connected with the local landmarks. Our Isis story from it is a tale of transformations, and in it, Isis changes Herself into a hound, a uraeus serpent, Hathor, and Sakhmet—all in Her pursuit of and revenge upon the murderer of Her husband.
Herewith is the tale of Isis the Fierce:
Set once more regrouped His allies, but Isis marched against them. She concealed Herself in Gebal which is south of Dunanwi, after having made Her transformation into Her Mother Sakhmet. She sent out a flame against them all, seeing to it that they were burned and devoured by Her flame. (It is said to Her, “Hathor, Mistress of the Two Braziers.”) She [Isis] created for Herself there, a place to observe the preparations of the Evil One and His allies. (It is said to Her, “The Temple of the Mistress of the Two Braziers,” and the wab priest of this Goddess is called Ouroumem [the Great Devourer].) Then Set, seeing Isis at Her observation point, transformed Himself into a bull to chase Her, but She made Herself unrecognizable and put on the form of a bitch with a knife at the end of Her tail. Then She began to chase Him, and Set couldn’t trap Her again. So He scattered His semen upon the earth, and Isis said, “It is an abomination to have scattered Your semen like this, O Bull.” His semen grew, in Gebal, in the plants which we call bdd-k3w.
Then the Goddess entered into the mountain which we call Hout-Kâhet, and settled Herself there. After which, She went to the north and, having transformed Herself into a serpent, She entered into that mountain which is north of this nome to spy on the allies of Set as they arrived in the evening. (It is said to Her, “Hathor, Mistress of Geheset.”) The Goddess [Isis] watched the allies of Set as they arrived in the Oxyrhynchite Nome and as they crossed the country to reach Gebal, the City in the East. She pierced them all [with Her fangs since She was in the form of a serpent], and She made Her venom penetrate into their flesh, so that they perished, all together; their blood poured out upon the mountain, and this is why this mountain is called the prsh of Geheset.
The story bears a little commentary to explain some of the features. Isis is pursuing Set in revenge for His having murdered Osiris. It is interesting to note that it’s not Horus the Avenger Who is going after Set, but Isis the Avenger. I’m not sure exactly where the local Gebal is; but we are told that it is south of Dunanwi. Dunanwi is a local God of the 18th Upper Egyptian nome, so perhaps the direction refers to a temple or shrine of the God or the text is using the Deity’s name as a name for the nome itself.
Although Isis’ first transformation is into “Her Mother” Sakhmet, Isis is repeatedly called by the name and epithets of Hathor, a local Goddess of Geheset. Geheset is a mythically powerful place; it hasn’t been conclusively identified with any real place in Egypt, but some scholars believe it may be at modern Komir, on the westbank of the Nile, south of Esna. (Interestingly, Komir was a center of the worship of Nephthys and a temple dedicated to Her has been found there. It is in the 3rd nome, however, south of the 17th and 18th nomes.) The Jumilhac papyrus does contain more information on Geheset. In another passage it says:
“Regarding Geheset, it is the temple of Hathor of Geheset, the house of the Chief of the Two Lands. House of Uraeus is the name of the Divine Booth of Hathor in this place. Isis transformed Herself into the uraeus. She hid from the companions of Set, Nephthys was there at Her side. The companions of Set passed by Her without their knowing. And then She bit them all. She threw Her two lances at their limbs. Their blood fell on this mountain, flowing, and their death happened immediately.”
Now, in the 4th nome, there was a famous Hathor cult center in Pathyris or Aphroditopolis, modern Gebelein. It is reasonably near to the Komir Nephthys temple. If this is the mythical Geheset, then Nephthys being at Isis’ (as Hathor) side makes some geographic sense.
In the encounter between Isis and Set, in the form of a bull, Set attempts to rape Isis. We know this because He eventually ejaculates on the ground and Isis castigates Him for having wasted His semen like that. This reminds me of the myth in which Hephaestus tries to rape Athena, but His semen either falls on the ground or on Her leg, which She then wipes off in disgust and tosses it on the ground. The semen fertilizes Gaia and the Earth gives birth to Erichthonius, a mythical ruler of Athens who may have been part serpent. In this case, the semen of Set becomes an unidentified local plant called beded kau; the kau part is the plural of ka or vital essence.
For the final part of the tale, Isis Herself takes the form of the holy cobra, the uraeus serpent. As a great serpent, She kills all of Set’s companions with Her venom. Their blood pours out on the mountain and becomes juniper berries (prsh); there is an Egyptian pun here on juniper berries and the flowing out of blood. In another part of the Jumilhac papyrus, Isis “cut up Set, sinking Her teeth into His back” and in yet another She first transforms into Anubis, “and having seized Seth, cut Him up, sinking Her teeth into His back.” (Is there some connection between Isis transforming Herself into a dog with a knife in Her tail and later into Anubis?)
The myths recorded in the Papyrus Jumilhac are surely much earlier Egyptian stories that the priesthood used to teach their tradition in the temples of the 17th and 18th nomes. There were almost certainly other tales like these, from other nomes, in which it is Fierce Isis Herself Who takes revenge upon the murderer of Her beloved Osiris. I hope someday we will find more of them.
May the Fierce Goddess always protect you and guide your heka.
The Adma Iset: A Ritual of Offering to Isis
Are you finding it harder or easier to do your practice these days? Honestly, I go back and forth. Sometimes it seems harder, sometimes easier. But whatever the case, I know I have been needing my practice more than ever right now. We don’t have to social distance from Isis.
I often find it easier to keep up my spiritual practice when I have something “set,” something specific to do. You, too? If so, then today I’d like to offer you a simple offering ritual. (If you have my Offering to Isis, a version of it is in there. But since I hear those are going for stupid out-of-print prices, here’s a version you can use, and of course, adapt, as you choose.)
The Adma Iset
Ritual Tools: A cup or other vessel of pure water; a censer with charcoal and incense; fire starter for incense; an offering (this can be anything you choose: milk, beer, flowers, a poem, a dance); a small reed mat (such as a table placemat); a shallow tray of sand large enough to place one foot in; a bundle of fresh plants for sweeping the sand. These last two are optional, but are adapted from things they actually did in Egyptian temples. You can do this rite at your altar; I will assume you have a sacred image of Isis on your altar.
Ritual Preparation: Prepare your offering as needed; set the small reed mat on the floor before the altar; place the tray with sand and the fresh plants conveniently to the side.
Purification & Consecration
Sit comfortably before your altar, breathing slowly, clearing your mind. When you are ready, rise, approach the altar of Isis, and bow politely.
Ritualist: (Raising your hands in a gesture of adoration) Isis is all things and all things are Isis.
Take up the cup and elevate it.
Ritualist: (To the Purifying Powers) O, You Souls of Night, Water Dwellers, Purifiers, You of the Pure Water from the Sycamore Tree of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within this vessel!
Lower the cup to heart level. Visualize blue light coming into your body from above, let it move through your body into the earth, then bring it back up into your heart, then into the cup as you vibrate.
Ritualist: (Vibrating) ISET MU!
Circle your ritual space, sprinkling water, then sprinkle yourself.
Ritualist: (Speaking while walking) Isis is pure. The temple is pure. The temple is pure. I am pure. I am pure with the Purity of Isis. I am pure with the Purity of the Goddess. (Repeating until you return to the altar; then repeat as needed until you feel it to be so.)
Ritualist: By the Magic of Isis, it is so!
Return cup to altar, take up censer and elevate it.
Ritualist: (To the Consecrating Powers) O, You Souls of Day, Fire Dwellers, Consecrators, You of the Pure Breath from the Mouth of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within this censer!
Lower the censer to heart level. Visualize red light coming into your body from above, let it move through your body into the earth, then bring it back up into your heart, then into the censer as you vibrate.
Ritualist: (Vibrating) ISET ASH!
Circle your ritual space, censing it and then yourself.
Ritualist: (Speaking while walking) Isis is consecrated. The temple is consecrated. The temple is consecrated. I am consecrated. I am consecrated with the Fire of Isis. I am consecrated with the Flame of the Goddess. (Repeating until you return to the altar; then repeat as needed until you feel it to be so.)
Ritualist: By the Magic of Isis, it is so!
Entering
Face the altar and make the Gesture of Adoration.
Ritualist: Isis is upon Her Throne. The spirits awaken! They awaken in peace for they know that I have come to make offering unto this Great Goddess.
Put your palms together and extend your arms straight out in front of you. Slowly open your arms as if opening a heavy curtain. This is the gesture of Opening the Shrine. Place the tray of sand before the sacred image and step in it to leave a footprint in the sand.
Ritualist: The sacred doors are opened to me. The light goes forth. It guides me on a fair path to the place where the Great Goddess is. I approach Your shrine, O Isis.
Offering to the Uraeus Goddess
Take up the censer and elevate it.
Ritualist: (Addressing the Uraeus serpent form of Isis) The Sacred Eye is powerful. Lady of Flame, Great One Who is between the horns of the Sunshine Goddess, accept this perfume and let me enter in peace.
Place the censer in your dominant hand, resting on your upturned palm. Bring that hand to your heart. Breathe in and visualize light glowing around the censer. Slowly swing your arm outward toward the image of the Goddess. Visualize the light flowing from the incense smoke to Her sacred image. This is the Gesture of Giving. Return the censer to its place.
Invoking the Goddess
Stand before the sacred image. Place your palms together in front of you. Bring them apart to a comfortable distance, remaining thumbs up. To make the Gesture of Invocation, move the tips of your fingers towards you in a ‘come to me’ gesture. Do this slowly and gently as you speak the invocation below.
Ritualist: Iu en-i. Iu en-i (Eeoou-en-EE). Come to me, come to me, Beautiful, Great One—Isis of Many Names, Lady of Sacred Magic, Great Mother, Great Goddess, come to me, come to me! (Vibrating) ISIS. ISIS. ISIS.
See within your heart the light of the Goddess. Feel it glowing with sun-bright warmth and beauty.
(Speaking to the Goddess) Fair is Your coming to Your temple, Isis. Beautiful is Your appearance in my heart.
Place your hand upon your heart, breathe in, and on the out-breath, move your hand toward the altar and send that light into the sacred image of Isis.
Making Offering
You may wish to be seated at this time.
Ritualist: My body being on Earth, my heart being awake, my magic being in my mouth, O Isis, I make offering unto You.
Take up your offering. With open heart, speak aloud why you have chosen to give that particular offering to the Goddess.
If your offering is physical, use the Gesture of Giving (above) to offer it to Isis. If it is not, visualize a symbol representing it in your palm as if it were physical. Breathe in, visualize light around the offering, then on the out-breath, move your hand toward the altar and see that light transfer to the sacred image of Isis. Then, if your offering is performative, perform the offering (e.g. read the poem, dance the dance).
Closing the Temple
Once again, take some time to see the light of what you have given glowing around the sacred image of Isis. Let yourself KNOW that She has accepted your offering. Feel Her blessing upon you in return.
When you are ready, take up the bundle of plants and sweep away the footprint in the sand. Make the Gesture of the Closing of the Shrine (the opposite of Opening the Shrine above).
Ritualist: I have flourished on water. I have grown on incense. I have climbed up on sunbeams. O Isis, give me Your hand for I have made offering unto You.
Be in peace, Isis, be in peace. Amma, Iset (AH-ma, EE-set; Egyptian: “Grant that it be so, Isis”).
The Adma is finished. Exit the ritual space or remain in meditation as desired.
Meta-Addiction: The Issue Underlying Self-Sabotage
Meta-addiction is the most insidious and destructive of addictions: the subconscious motivation for other addictions, & the way we punish ourselves constantly…
Meta-Addiction: The Issue Underlying Self-Sabotage
Meta-addiction is the most insidious and destructive of addictions: the subconscious motivation for other addictions, & the way we punish ourselves constantly…
What IS An Earth Healer?
What really IS an Earth Healer? Are You a Healer of the Earth? If you're reading this, you are most likely one yourself, as are most of my readers...
What IS An Earth Healer?
What really IS an Earth Healer? Are You a Healer of the Earth? If you're reading this, you are most likely one yourself, as are most of my readers...
Talking with Isis
When we connect with Isis, how do we do that? Prayer? Meditation? Invocation? Visualization? Can we talk with Her, actually have a back-and-forth conversation? Can we ask Her questions? Can we request Her help?
Yes, we can. How exactly you do it is up to you. And perhaps, with this required downtime we’re all going through right now, you’ve discovered (or rediscovered) the ways that work best for you.
My own boundaries between prayer, meditation, and visualization tend to be rather soft. Very often, I find that meditation flows into visualization flows into prayer flows into an offering chant flows back into meditation. Sometimes I visualize the whole time, sometimes I don’t “see” anything, but just feel Her presence. Sometimes I can “hear” Her voice, sometimes I just sense in some way what She is communicating with me.
Here’s a perfect image for ‘ascending’ in your visualizations…indeed, the pillars in Egyptian temples were meant to be holding up the sky.
But why do we talk with the Goddess, why do we strive to “see” Her? There is a point and it’s not just an ego boost.
The point of this sort of talking with the Goddess is communion—sharing with Her in one way or another and asking Her to share with us. Sometimes we just need the reassurance that She is there, so we invoke and try to sense Her. Sometimes we need help, so we ask for it. Sometimes we are so full of love for Her that we simply must express it.
Talking with Goddess is good for our souls and spirits, too. I think that Iamblichus, my favorite Neoplatonic theurgist, had it right: invocation of the Deities lifts up the soul of the theurgist (or Isis devotee, in this case) and brings us closer to the Divine. By repeatedly connecting with Isis—whether through prayer or ritual or devotions, meditations or visualizations, dance or chanting, or any number of other ways—we make ongoing contact with the Divine.
The more we come into the presence of Holy Isis, the more we become infused with Her holiness. In the same way that we tend to mirror the people with whom we spend the most time, spending more time with the Divine can help us better mirror that Divinity, and can help to make us better people.
Of course there are ways we can make some serious missteps in this process. The most problematic is when we think we’re talking to Isis, but we’re actually talking to ourselves; when it’s not Isis Who we hear in our heads, but only our own subconscious echoes.
That’s what I think happens with some of the mega-church preachers who always seem to hear God asking for more money or with church-based hate groups who think they hear God condemning everyone but themselves. They’re not talking to the Divine; they’re getting feedback from their own interior bullshit. This can happen to people with even the best of intentions. I know it’s happened to me; chances are, if you’re talking with Isis, it will or already has happened to you, too.
So what do we do about it?
Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer, no perfect solution, no quick fix. The only partial answer that I know of is to develop spiritual maturity. A spiritually mature person will be better able to recognize their own internal “stuff,” and so be better able to separate it from true Divine contact with Isis. Did Isis really say that so-and-so with whom I had a fight yesterday deserved a big, fat comeuppance? Nope; pretty sure that was me and not Her. She, on the other hand, might offer advice on how I can get over it or She might even point out that I need to make an apology.
The other tricky thing about all this is that while we live in these bodies, we will never—I repeat, never—receive pure and unadulterated contact with the Divine. It comes to us though our own perceptions of body and mind. There is no other path the Divine can use. While we are incarnate beings, the Goddess must come to us through our perceptions—and our perceptions are always, always, always tinged by our own psychological makeup. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, getting to know our own psychology is very valuable in sorting all this out. It’s just something that is and we have to be aware of it if we hope to hear—in the clearest voice possible—what Isis has to say.
The one clue I can offer, after many years of wrestling with my own head and heart, is that when it is truly Her—as opposed to just my echo chamber—the thought-impression-feeling-intuition I get seems to come suddenly and without precedent. I can recognize it as “not-me” (or not just me). Sometimes the words are strange or the images are not ones I would normally choose. Yes, it’s all very subjective—which is my point exactly. That’s why the more you know about yourself, the more you can move yourself out of the way so that you can better know when it is Isis Who is doing the talking.
eLOVEation with erin Dragonsong
eLOVEation with erin Dragonsong: Serving You, Serving the Transformation of the Earth and the Elevation of Humanity
eLOVEation with erin Dragonsong
eLOVEation with erin Dragonsong: Serving You, Serving the Transformation of the Earth and the Elevation of Humanity
Do You Dream of Isis?
In this strange stay-home-and-stay-isolated world right now, many people are reporting changes in their dreaming patterns. More dreams, odd dreams, dreams that are not like their normal dreaming life. Are you dreaming more, dreaming weird? I know I am.
Our Lady is a Goddess of Dreams. People slept in Her temples, hoping for dreams of healing or divination. Interestingly, the most common Egyptian term for dream was rsw.t, from a root meaning “to awaken.” So in dream, we awaken in our sleep…
Does Isis communicate with you in your dreams?
In Egypt, as in most of the ancient world, people definitely paid attention to their dreams. Kings and commoners alike regularly acted on messages received in dream. Sometimes the dreams were clear, the message needing no interpretation. Or a dream might be prophetic, providing information or warnings about the future. Some dreams instructed the dreamer to carry out certain actions; the temples were full of dedicatory plaques to the Deities stating that some action was taken “in accordance with a dream.” Yet these types of dreams were rare—as they are today. Most often, people dreamed in symbols and images that had to be interpreted in order to understand the meaning. For this, one needed a dream interpreter.
(The artwork above was inspired by a dream the artist had of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. See what her dream was and more of her work here.)
The dream interpreter might be a village wise woman like the one of whom we have evidence from Deir el-Medina. Dream interpreters would set up shop outside the temples—especially during festival days. But most often the dream interpreter would have been one of the priests or priestesses of the Houses of Life at the great temples. Dream Books cataloged dream symbols and their meanings and may have served as resources for the temple interpreters. We have several surviving examples of these dream books.
In addition to bringing one’s dream to the temples for interpretation, one might also seek a special dream by sleeping in the temple. This sacred sleep is known to scholars using the Latin term incubatio (Greek enkoimesis) and was particularly associated with healing temples and healing Deities, such as Isis, Hathor, and Asclepius. It was a frequent practice in temples of Isis. In fact, the temples of Isis at Memphis and Canopus were quite famous for incubation. The Goddess was known to provide accurate diagnoses and effective prescriptions to those who appealed to Her. Diodorus Siculus records that She
gives assistance in their sleep to those seeking it, visibly revealing her very own presence and her beneficence towards those in need. As proof of these claims they say that they themselves offer not myths akin to those of the Greeks, but visible results: for nearly all of the inhabited world serves as witness for them, seeking to add to her honors because of her manifestation through healings. For appearing in their sleep she gives aid to the sick against their diseases, and those who heed her regain their health contrary to all expectation.
An example of an Isis incubation dream survives from a Greek orator named Aristides. Aristides spent a great deal of time visiting healing shrines due to his chronic illness. (Some have even called him a hypochondriac.) In one of his books, he describes a number of synchronicities surrounding a sacrifice of geese to Isis that was surely part of his pre-incubation rite. Then he gives a hint about his dream, writing that a light came from Isis relating to his salvation.
Another interesting example of incubation in an Isis temple comes from a letter written from Aspasia (470-410 BCE), the hetaira who was so beloved by the Athenian statesman Pericles, to Pericles telling him of her journey to several temples of healing to seek relief for (perhaps) a skin irritation of some kind. On the advice of her physician, she first visited the temple of Isis in Memphis. She writes, “I beheld the statue of Isis and her son Orus, seated on a throne supported by two lions” and says that sebestus (a species of Egyptian date) grew about Her shrine and describes the burning of incense in the morning, myrrh during the day, and cyplis [kyphi?] in the evening.”
Aspasia slept in the temple, but says she found no relief. The problem, according to the temple attendants, was Aspasia’s “incredulity.”
Next she went to the temple of Hygieia at Patras where the Goddess “appeared to me in the form of a mysterious pentagon.” Finally it was Aphrodite Who, in in the form of a dove, cured Aspasia.
I include this interesting anecdote for several reasons: first, to demonstrate that then, as now, the hoped for dream communication may not always come to us; second, that “mysterious pentagon” form in which Hygieia appeared to Aspasia. It is likely that the “mysterious pentagon” was the Pythagorean pentagram associated with Hygieia and used as a symbol of recognition among the Pythagoreans. As an educated woman, Aspasia conversed with philosophers, was a philosopher herself, even being described as “a female Socrates” by one ancient writer. And finally, Who better than Aphrodite to heal a hetaira? For me, Aspasia’s experiences ring true and reflect some of the many and varied ways the Deities can interact—or not—with us.
Isis is also known to call to Her initiates and devotees in dream. In Apuleius’ tale that culminates with his protagonist’s initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, we learn that Lucius must remain in the temple of the Goddess—waiting patiently—until he receives a summons from Isis Herself. Only then, when he knew for certain that Isis had invited him, could he undergo the ceremony of his initiation and further cultivate his relationship with the Goddess.
Dream invitation is part of modern devotion to Isis as well. Many are the modern priestesses and priests of Isis who were called to Her service in dream or in vision, which we may think of as a waking dream.
Yet, as always, there are cautions that go along with all this dreaming and visioning. We cannot forget that any information that comes from Her comes through us. The dream or vision-seed of information may come from Isis, but it passes through our human minds and souls, as well as our physical brains and bodies. It’s easy for that seed to be affected by what’s going on with us, in our daily lives and in our spiritual lives. There’s no way to avoid this. The best we can do is to try to develop wisdom and self-knowledge so that we don’t fool ourselves into thinking Isis told us something when we were really just hearing our internal echo chamber. Yet, as long as we can recognize it as our own stuff, this too can be a valuable learning experience.
If we can be honest with ourselves, then when we do have an important dream or vision, we will more easily be able to recognize it. The dream or vision will be more vivid—in our minds, hearts, and memories. We will have a sense of its importance and, at least for us, truth. (Never, ever rely on memory alone; write it down, please. I speak from experience.)
Once Isis has made Herself known to us in our dreams or visions, then it is up to us to take Her up on Her invitation or take up any tasks She may have given us.
Why Does Isis Have Wings?
Well, dang it. It appears our Oregon stay at home rules have been extended through September…which means no Isia Festival this year. It had been planned for this September. So we will just postpone a year and pick things up next time. Sigh. My many thanks to the over 20 people who so graciously and enthusiastically joined the Isia Crewe. We shall meet again next time!
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THE most popular post on this blog is the one I’m reposting today: Why Does Isis Have Wings? Please read on for my answer, but I would love to hear about your experiences with Her wings in the comments. They are indeed magical and powerful.
So why DOES Isis have wings? Or perhaps it would be more accurate to ask why images of Isis have wings. As a Goddess, Isis takes whatever form She likes, of course. So the question is, what do the wings mean to us that makes them important in images of Her?
The first and easiest answer is that Isis is a Bird Goddess. Her most important sacred animal is a bird of prey. The Goddess often takes the form of Her sacred raptor; the kestrel (the most common falcon in Egypt) or the black kite.
In Egyptian art, when Isis and Nephthys are not shown as women, They are shown in full bird-form or sometimes as woman-headed kites or kestrels sitting or hovering by the bier of Osiris. As birds, Isis and Nephthys mourn Osiris, screeching Their shrill bird cries to express Their sorrow. Even quite late, Isis and Nephthys were shown with wings attached to Their arms—which is the way we are most used to seeing Isis’ wings portrayed—or wearing a garment of stylized wings that wrap gracefully around Their bodies.
Kites were connected with funeral customs from at least the beginning of the Old Kingdom, if not earlier. Texts speak of a woman called The Kite who was the Pharaoh’s chief female funerary attendant. She was supposed to remove poisons from the deceased, magically purifying him.
Soon there are two Kites—specifically identified as Isis and Nephthys in the Pyramid Texts. The Kites not only lamented and purified Osiris, but also were responsible for ferrying Him to the Otherworld. It is not until the New Kingdom that we find illustrations of Isis and Nephthys as kestrels.
Black kites are fairly large, dark-plumed birds that feed on both live prey and scavenge for carrion. They are sociable, intelligent, and aggressive birds—and would even attack wounded human beings. It may have been the bird’s fierceness that inspired one of the earliest Pharaohs to take the name Kite.
Isis is fierce in protecting Osiris. And both Sisters are fierce in Their lamentations for the God. The black kite’s cry—a shrill, plaintive, screeching—may have sounded to the ancient Egyptians like wailing, lamenting women. It may have been that the ancients saw a correspondence between the kite’s scavenging for carrion and Isis’s scavenging for the scattered pieces of Her husband Osiris’ body in order to assemble them for renewal. Or perhaps in the cleverness of the black kite the Egyptians saw a reflection of the cleverness of the Goddess Isis as She tricked the enemy Set time and again.
On a magical level, Isis’ wings are the means by which She fans renewed life into Osiris. They are the protection spread out over the deceased in the tomb. Their shadow is our shelter in this life and the next. For human beings, wings have always exerted a strong fascination and engendered intense longing. We are in awe of the ability of winged creatures to fly under their own power. Even today when flight is available through mechanical means, many, many people still have “the flying dream.” In the dream, we fly on our own, our arms held out to our sides like huge wings, soaring like great, wild birds. Yet beyond physical flight, wings also commonly symbolize spiritual flight—ascent to the Heavens. And since feelings of rising, floating, or flying upwards can accompany spiritual experience, it is quite natural for cultures throughout the world to conceive of spirit beings—from angels to faeries—as winged.
In Egypt, a very ancient conception of the cosmos envisioned the Heavens as the enormous wings of the great falcon God Horus. These heavenly wings, attached to the disk of the Sun, were a common Egyptian protective motif. In fact, the image of the winged disk of Egypt was so powerful that other peoples, such as the Babylonians and the Hittites, adopted it. Some scholars believe that the beautiful Hebrew biblical phrase “the sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings” may have been inspired by the Egyptian symbol of the winged solar disk.
This protective aspect of the symbol of wings was key in Egyptian thought; so almost invariably, when you see the open wings of a Deity, the wings are intended to protect—and Isis is the protective Goddess par excellence.
Furthermore, the Egyptian word for “to fold the wings,” sekhen, also means to embrace. An Egyptian mourning posture mimicked the protective embrace of Osiris by Isis. And surely, it was Isis’ protecting, enfolding, winged arms that the Egyptian mother had in mind when she recited this protective charm for her child: “My arms are over this child—the arms of Isis are over him, as she put her arms over her son Horus.” Nevertheless, the wings of Isis could also be aggressive, one text tells us that Isis “struck with Her wing” and closed the mouth of a river.
The open wings of Isis can also be related to a posture seen in images of the ancient Egyptian Bird Goddess. This is the posture of the famous Neolithic statuette of a so-called dancing woman with her arms raised in an open curve above her head, and which has become a popular amulet among modern Goddess worshippers. The same posture can be seen in the Goddess figures that ride in the curved boats that were a favorite theme of pre-dynastic Egyptian pottery and petroglyphs.
According to Egyptologist Louis Breasted, the posture is typical of Egypt. And although these ancient figures do not have obvious wings, their unwinged but upraised arms foreshadow the winged, upraised arms of Goddesses seen in later Egyptian art. These beak-faced figures are often identified as Bird Goddesses, so perhaps the wings are implied—or they may indicate that the figures represent human priestesses who are imitating their Bird Goddess. Whatever the case, the “wing” stance is a posture of great antiquity and numenosity and many researchers consider it to be characteristic of the Divine Feminine. Read more about these ancient images here.
If you wish to experiment with the power of Isis’ wings for yourself, try The Wings & Breath of Isis on page 268 of the new edition of Isis Magic.
The Return of the Goddess * Wicca-Spirituality.com
The key aspect of the Shift of the Ages -- this Transition point in humanity's evolution -- is what I call the Return of the Goddess. About 5000 years ago...
The Return of the Goddess * Wicca-Spirituality.com
The key aspect of the Shift of the Ages -- this Transition point in humanity's evolution -- is what I call the Return of the Goddess. About 5000 years ago...
WHAT–If Anything–Could Ascension Mean to Wiccans? * Wicca-Spirituality
As a Wiccan, I disagree that Earth is lower, dirtier, more sinful, or in any way less sacred and glorious than the Spirit realm....so how does Ascension fit in?
WHAT–If Anything–Could Ascension Mean to Wiccans? * Wicca-Spirituality
As a Wiccan, I disagree that Earth is lower, dirtier, more sinful, or in any way less sacred and glorious than the Spirit realm....so how does Ascension fit in?
The Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven
The final festival of the Easter cycle, falling half-way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, celebrates the Daughter as Queen of Heaven. This ancient title reflecting Archetypal Reality has resurfaced in many times and places. This image depicts a garlanded icon of the Queen of Heaven from eastern Europe.
Read more about the Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven The Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven
The final festival of the Easter cycle, falling half-way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, celebrates the Daughter as Queen of Heaven. This ancient title reflecting Archetypal Reality has resurfaced in many times and places. This image depicts a garlanded icon of the Queen of Heaven from eastern Europe.
Read more about the Exaltation of the Queen of Heaven The Awe-full-ness of the Goddess
I recently came across a collection of epithets of Isis in which the author translated the core concept as “awful.” In the original sense of the word— “full of awe” —awful makes complete sense as a Divine epithet. In our common understanding of the word today, it’s…oh, let’s say…uncomfortable.
So you can get a full taste of the strangeness of it, here are some of Isis’ awful epithets: She is “The Lady of Awfulness,” “The Lady of Awfulness More than the Divine Powers,” “She Whose Awfulness is Great,” and “She Whose Awfulness is Greater than the Gods.” She is awful on earth, in the heavens, among the Deities, in Egypt. She is “Great of Trembling” and “Hundreds of Thousands Tremble at Her Sight.”
Oooh, scary.
And, She is. Scary. Sometimes.
So today, let’s talk about the awfulness of Isis.
The ancient Egyptian word translated as “awful” is transliterated nrw. To be able to pronounce it, we go with neru. It is associated with the vulture and with Isis and Nephthys as two Vulture Goddesses, the Nerti. (And you recall that the word for vulture in Egyptian is mut, that is, mother.) The ner root means to be strong, to be mighty, to terrify, to strike awe, to be victorious. Neru can be The Terrible One…or the concept of strength, might, or victory. It can also be fear or dread. Neri can be to over-awe. There is a Goddess of Strength called Nerit. And ner also can have connotations of protection because of the Awful One’s strength and might and power to protect. So, I guess, “awful” may be a pretty good translation of the idea.
Iset Nerit is Isis Who Strikes Awe.*
An awe-some Isis by Ugo Sirius. Find more of his work here.
If you are just beginning your relationship with Isis, it is likely that you haven’t met Iset Nerit yet. Most often, we first meet kindly Isis, the Great Mother, the protectress. Ah, but Nerit is always there. For instance, She may come to you disguised as Isis the Ass Kicker. Or She may give you a glimpse of Her fierceness or Her fire.
But it is when Isis is at Her Most Primordial, Most Ancient, Most—ENORMOUS—that is when we are truly greeting Iset Nerit. In Her presence, my belly thrills, my spine shivers, my hair stands on end. The numinous, the holy, the strange, and the powerful is with me, before me, around me. I kneel and kiss the ground before Her beautiful face.
For some, this experience may be somewhat unsettling. I am reminded of some folks of my acquaintance who apparently thought we were playing at magic, pretending about the Goddesses and Gods. Then magic actually happened and the Goddess was really there and they were done.
If you are in the early days of your relationship with Isis, I suggest that you not seek out Iset Nerit. Not yet. Unless, of course, you like the feeling of sacred fright before the Divine. Some of us do (she admits sheepishly).
What about you? Do you know the awe-full-ness of Isis?
*For Coptic fans, Nerit is Noure (noor-ray), which is rather beautiful in the same soft way that Coptic Ise (Ee-say) is: Ise Noure.
She Will Hear You
It has now been about a month that we’ve been under a stay-at-home directive here in Oregon. And it’s working. Even though the Pacific NW had the first case of Covid-19 in the US, total cases here put us in the lower half of affected states. May that continue to be the case.
But perhaps you are wondering, “where is Isis in all this?”
She is here.
As She has always been.
And She is listening.
In fact, Isis is one of the Deities particularly known to hear our human cries, to hear our prayers. She is called the One Who Listens. In ancient texts and on temple walls, Isis is She Who Hears Petitions; Who Hears the Petitions of Millions. She is particularly known to come at the invocation of Her devotees: Isis is She Who Comes to the Calling; people Call to Her in Every Place. A graffito from Thebes says, “O you of all lands, call to Isis, the Great Goddess, She listens at every moment!”
Why then does She not snap Her magical fingers and make it all go away? Because that’s not how it works. This is our problem to solve and we will solve it. But She reminds us that we are each a feather in Her Wings, the blood in Her veins, the extension of the magic in Her hands.
This is a time not to neglect our connection with Her. Meditate, make offerings, chant. She invites us to let our souls fly to Her and be enfolded in Her Wings. “Bring your heart to Me,” She says. “Speak pain. Speak truth.” She will take us as we are right now.
For She listens. And She hears.
Isis & Sakhmet or Isis-Sakhmet?
A friend was asking about Sakhmet today, and so here’s a little something about Isis and Sakhmet…
Many are the modern devotees who are attracted to Sakhmet, ancient Egypt’s fierce Lioness Goddess. Her name means The Powerful One, the Mighty One, or the Female Power. And She is powerful indeed.
Quite a few images of the Goddess remain to us, for hundreds of them were set up at the Temple of Mut at Karnak. The Vatican Museum has about a half dozen of these and has created a semi-circle of the bigger-than-human-sized Sakhmet images in an outdoor area that is part of the “profane” section of the museum. (Yes, of course, I headed straight to the profane section.) I have also been fortunate to have seen several of these beautiful statues here in Portland as part of traveling museum shows.
But it was a smaller image of Sakhmet in one of these shows that literally blew my astral hair back. All that was left was the head, about eight inches high. It was made of a yellow, semi-translucent stone and it quite simply hummed with magical power. After all these years. Still. Powerful. I was mesmerized. It’s probably a good thing the image was behind glass because I certainly would have touched it—and probably gotten tossed out on my tushie as I had already been tut-tutted at for almost touching one of the larger Sakhmets. Such is Her power.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll already have noted that Isis has Her fierce aspects, too. And in the typical fluid way of the ancient Egyptian Deities, Isis and Sakhmet can become One. One of the places where this is true is in the Isis temple at Philae where Isis and Sakhmet are specifically identified. Here’s one of the hymns to Isis from that temple, translated by Louis Zabkar:
Giver of Life, Lady of the Sacred Mound,
Lady and Mistress of Philae,
August and mighty one,
Lady of the southern lands;
Sakhmet, the fiery one, who destroys the enemies of her brother,
Those disaffected of heart, the enemies of Hor-ankhti;
Princess, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Mighty one, foremost of the Goddesses;
Ruler in Heaven, queen on earth,
Sun-goddess in the circuit of the sun-disc;
Mistress of battle, Montu of combat,
One to whom one cries out on the day of encounter;
Mighty protectress without her equal,
Who saves all those she loves on the battlefield;
Whatever comes forth from her mouth is accomplished immediately,
All the gods are under her command;
Great of magic, when she is in the palace,
Great one upon whose command the king gloriously appears on the throne.
As we see here, Isis is specifically called Sakhmet, as well as being described as “mighty,” and “the mighty one,” the very meaning of Sakhmet’s name. You’ll also recall that in the Jumilhac papyrus, Isis is said to have transformed Herself “into Her mother Sakhmet.”
In this hymn, Isis appears as a strong battle leader, destroying enemies, protecting Her people and their king through Her powerful magic. For the Egyptians, this type of power was often expressed using fiery imagery. Thus, in the hymn above, Isis-Sakhmet is “the fiery one.” Elsewhere at Philae, Isis is called Lady of Flame. She is also the fiery Sun Goddess. And She is one of the fire-spitting Uraeus Goddesses Who sits on the brow of Re as one of His Eyes. As the Eye of Re, She is the fiery Power That Goes Forth and “slays Apophis in an instant,” according to another Philae hymn.
At Her great temple at Philae, we see many sides of the Great Goddess Isis. She is at once the beautiful Cow Mother, watering the sarcophagus of Osiris so that new life sprouts from His dead body, and the fierce-faced Isis-Sakhmet, Isis the Powerful One, the Great Female Power. May Her strength always protect you.
The Lamentations of Isis
One of the rituals that will be part of our local (Pacific NW) 2020 Fall Equinox Isia Festival is the “Lamentations of Isis.”
This rite is an adaptation of the lamentations ritual in Isis Magic.
Our festival version is non-gendered and changes have been made to allow for a larger group of participants.
If you think that you’d like to be a part of this rite, please read on so you’ll know how to prepare. For additional reading, here’s a post about Isis and lamentation.
About the Rite: Lamentation has always been a part of the honoring of Isis. We even have some of the actual scripts of the laments for Osiris that were performed in the temples, though all the surviving records date from the later Ptolemaic period. They are evocative and, in some cases, quite heartbreaking. In Imperial Rome, where Isis became enormously popular, the Isis religion was notorious for its large, highly emotional, public enactments of the lamentations of the Goddess. The cathartic value of this emotional release was one of the attractive features of the religion for worshippers who found the Roman state religion too sterile.
I have not felt the need for this rite for many years. But that has changed. And I have the feeling that I am not alone. If you would like to not be alone in your own laments, please join us for this afternoon ritual. Know that if you participate in this rite, you may face your innermost pain. Be sure that you are ready and that your heart fully consents to this Work.
This rite of lamentation allows for an emotional release that is intended to ease the pain in our souls, freeing us from that pain so that we are able, once again, to take action. During the course of the rite, we lament societal, personal, and spiritual wounds, each followed by a cleansing with water to make the catharsis tangible.
The “Lamentations of Isis” are just one part of the greater Isia Festival. This rite takes place on Friday afternoon, giving us time to lament, but also giving us time to move into a place of rebirth and renewal through the other rites and activities of The Isia.
Ritual Preparation: Sometime before you arrive at the Festival, take time to read or remember the myth of Isis and Osiris. Attempt to identify with the sufferings of Isis as She endures the murder of Her Beloved and searches for His dismembered body. Let your own sufferings rise in your mind in response to reading about the sufferings of Isis. Feel them, but do not try to analyze them to any extent.
Please arrive for the rite wearing blue or white, the colors often worn by Egyptian mourners, or come in black, the Hellenistic color of mourning and a color also worn often here in the US. Black robes came to be particularly associated with Isis as Her religion spread throughout the Greco-Roman world; She was called Melanophoros, the “Wearer of the Black,” and in at least one place, Her devotees were also called Melanophoroi. (You may wear a full-length robe or simply blue, white, or black clothing, as you see fit.) You should also bind your hair tightly to your head. If you have short hair or no hair, bind your head with cloth or scarves, turban-style. The point is to arrive at the ritual with a feeling of tightness about your head. We will be unbinding ourselves as part of the rite.
In addition, bring with you a chalice and a black Isis band (a blindfold; i.e. a strip of black cloth; it would be ideal to bless this cloth in the name of Isis before you come). Finally, also bring a white votive candle or tealight in a container.
The lamentations are guided by nine ritualists. There are three Priestesses or Priests of the Circle, who facilitate the first lament, three Priest/esses of the Triangle, who facilitate the second lament, and three Priest/esses of the Point, who facilitate the third lament. In addition to other ritual responsibilities, the Priest/esses of the Circle 3, Triangle 3, and Point 3 lead the purifications with water and the Priest/ess of the Point 1 will take on the kheper or Goddessform of Isis for the resolution of the third lament.
If you have questions about this ritual, please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer. May She keep you well and Under Her Wings, as always.
Easter and the Coming of Spring
Happy Easter, everybody! Mother and Daughter are reunited and the spring is here.
The world is renewed in springtime and the egg has for long ages been associated with this time. Ancient cultures including the Chinese, the Egyptians and the Romans decorated eggs to celebrate the coming of spring.
Read about the High Feast of Easter and about the origin of the Easter Egg. Easter and the Coming of Spring
Happy Easter, everybody! Mother and Daughter are reunited and the spring is here.
The world is renewed in springtime and the egg has for long ages been associated with this time. Ancient cultures including the Chinese, the Egyptians and the Romans decorated eggs to celebrate the coming of spring.
Read about the High Feast of Easter and about the origin of the Easter Egg. Are You there, Isis? It’s me, Isidora.
In these days of “self-isolating,” are you perhaps feeling a bit disconnected; not only from others, but from Her?
It’s pretty weird out there right now, folks. For one thing, I’m in Portland Oregon and it’s snowing. In mid-March. Politics? Don’t get me started. Oh, and then there’s the fact that every grocery store in town is out of just about everything because people are preparing to be “self-isolating” at home for a good long while. Of course, it’s not that we shouldn’t be taking this pandemic seriously. We should. And we are.
But all the crazy out there can make us feel a little, well, crazy. Which is not very conducive to experiencing our connection with Isis. It might even make us panic. Is She still there? Was She ever there? Am I “losing my faith”? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with Her?
If you’ve been missing Isis (or perhaps She’s been missing you?) there are things you can do about it. Without adding to your crazy.
First, give yourself a break. Have you been trying too hard, pushing too much? While having a daily practice is wonderful, if you’re doing the same thing every day, that once-lovely little ritual can become routine, even boring. Consider taking a break. If you do a daily rite, cut back to once a week. Or try a different ritual. It could be that a rite that hadn’t caught your attention before would be just right now.
On the other hand (hey, these aren’t one-size-fits-all suggestions), a boring ritual might be just what you need. If you haven’t been doing ritual, pick one and do it. At least once a week. Pour a libation. Offer flowers. Perform the “Lotus Wand of Isis” or the “Opening of the Ways” (both in Isis Magic). Oh, and don’t expect any spiritual fireworks. You might get them. Or you might not. Either way, it’s okay.
Take a trip down memory lane. Think back on what first got you excited about Isis. What was that like for you? Reminisce. Perhaps there was a particular book that inspired you? Re-read it. Was there an experience you could recreate?
Give yourself a magical task. You can define this any way you wish. You might try something like this: every time you pass through a doorway/see a hawk/wake up in the morning, say to yourself, “Isis is all things, and all things are Isis” or “I open myself to Isis” or whatever seems right to you. By thinking of Her and speaking Her name, you will reweave your connection with Her.
Don’t feel guilty about it. This happens to every person who has ever been on a spiritual journey. If it has never happened to you before, you’ve beaten the odds. But it has now, and chances are, it will happen again. And that’s okay, too. That’s why we have to be kind to ourselves during these times of spiritual emptiness. We haven’t failed because we have doubts or have fallen away from awareness or practice. We’re just a normal human person and this is just part of the path. And She will be waiting there for us when we’re ready.
Nevertheless, persist. Always take the next step on that path. Sometimes a spiritual project is a great way to reconnect with Isis. If you’re solitary, you might create an artwork for Her/of Her. Write an invocation. Choreograph a dance. Cook an Isis feast and invite Pagan friendlies to join you in eating it and honoring Her. Are you a ritualist? Create a new rite for Her. If you’re fortunate enough to have a community, gather some fellow Isiacs and come up with something together.
Pick any one of these things to try. You’ll see. Oh. And now the sun’s out here in Portland. The snow is melting. And spring is coming.
Join Us for the Isia Festival, Fall Equinox, 2020
Well. We have a date, so that’s official.
We have a dozen incredible ritualists—so far—so that’s official.
I shall begin losing my mind any minute now, so that’s decidedly official.
What am I talking about? The Pacific NW Fall Equinox Festival at Ffynnon, Oregon.
If you are within reasonable distance of the area, do mark your calendars for Sept. 17-20, 2020. We will be celebrating the Festival of the Isia, a festival of the Lamentations of Isis and the Renewal of Osiris Beneath Her Wings. (And the renewal of all of us as well. I know I could use a little renewal right now. And more so as we get closer to November. You, too?)
If you are in the Portland area and would like to help, get in touch with me. Comment here, message on FB, or email me if you already have my address.
Fall equinox is (roughly) the time of the ancient festival of Khoiak, from Egyptian ka-her-ka, “sustenance upon sustenance.” It is one of the best-attested ancient Egyptian festivals. The festival revolved around the most well-known of the myths of Isis and Osiris: the story of His death, Her mourning, and Her resurrection of Him—along with the resurrection of the grain that would be the next year’s food stores, hence “sustenance.”
The 2020 Isia Festival will be our version of these ancient rites.
We will participate in the Lamentations of Isis—and have the opportunity to make our own personal laments. We will join the Goddesses and Gods in the Search for Osiris. We will participate in the Raising of Osiris and, with Him, be renewed Under Her Wings. Each day we will open Her shrine with beautiful rites, each night we will close it. There will will be meditations, offerings, and workshops throughout the festival that we can all take part in.
This blog started 10 years ago when we celebrated the Radiant Isis festival. I am so pleased to be able to celebrate another community-wide festival for Her this year. I hope you will join me Under Her Wings.
Perfumes for Isis
At this present moment, our home is filled with flowers. Yes, I know. It’s February. That’s why it’s filled with flowers. And since oriental lilies are some of our favorites, right now, I’m smelling the sweet-dark scent of those wonderful lilies throughout the living room.
And all this leads me to think of the perfumes of ancient Egypt and, of course, the perfumes of Isis particularly. For the Goddesses and Gods of Egypt were always associated with scent. Beautiful scents have always been connected with the Divine, but in Egypt particularly, you knew that a Deity had arrived when you smelled Her or His perfume in the temple air.
The Egyptians apparently blended scents appropriate for their Deities; for instance, there is a record of an unguent called “Aroma of Horus.” Surely, there was an “Aroma of Isis,” too, but alas, we have no record of it to date. Today’s magical perfumers, on the other hand, almost always have a scent for Her. Isis’ association with scent remained part of Her manifestation even after Her worship spread beyond Egypt. In Apuleius’ account of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, his protagonist sees Isis in a vision and remarks that She breathed forth the “blessed fragrance of Arabia.”
My personal favorite scent for Isis is stargazer lily. With its deep pink, engorged-looking blossoms, stargazers are downright sexual in their showiness. Of course that is exactly what any flower is; sexual. As you may know, flowers are the sex organs of plants, which they display for all the world to see, marvel at, and enjoy. No wonder we have always given flowers as a love gift.
I like the blatant, vulva-pink sexual display of the stargazer to be sure. And the flower’s name reminds me of Isis’ own starry connections. But the main reason I associate them with Isis, and give them in offering to Her, is the scent. The stargazer’s soft, sweet perfume is deepened with a dark, funky musk that is almost animal-like in its pungency. The stargazer is my “jitterbug perfume.” (If you have not read Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume, oh please do!) The mixture of sweet and strange all wrapped up in an audacious package seems to me a perfect floral resumé for Isis. She offers us the sweet love of a mother one moment, then freaks us out completely with some weirdly magical happening the next. Like the flower, She is not shy; never shy. She will always tell you what you need to hear even when you don’t particularly want to hear it. Thus do I offer unto Isis that which is Hers: the beautiful stargazer lily.
The ancient Egyptians had no stargazers, alas. But they did associate a variety of other scents with Isis as well as with other Deities.
Expeditions to Punt for cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, and other precious resins, were common throughout Egyptian history. The huge gardens attached to the temple complexes also supplied vast quantities of herbs and flowers for the creation of the gallons of scent, pounds of incense, and thousands of bouquets offered in Egyptian temples. Many temples, such as those at Edfu and Denderah, even had special laboratories for making perfume and incense. Perfume was, after all, one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.
Cleopatra VII, the queen who styled herself “the New Isis,” was reputed to use a different perfume for every part of her body and was credited with writing a book on the subject. But Cleo’s perfumes would not have been the clear, alcohol-based liquids we think of as perfume today. Egyptian perfumes were oil and fat-based; similar to our solid perfumes that liquefy as they are rubbed into the skin. A number of Egyptian perfumes were quite famous, the name brands of their day.
Lily was the dominant scent in Susinon, a perfume that seems to have been made exclusively by women. Perhaps this was because the lily was connected with female sensuality and spirituality and lily oil was a common treatment for “female complaints.” Lotus oil, from the sacred blue lotus (actually a blue water lily), was a favorite essential oil and associated with rebirth. It was the fragrance most favored by Egyptian priestesses. Other Egyptian perfumes include Magaleion, a complicated, difficult-to-make scent; Mendesian, known simply as “The Egyptian,” which was a spicy, resinous perfume; Metopion, a mixture of resins, herbs, sweet wine, and honey; and Sampsuchum, a marjoram-based scent sweetened with herbs and nasturtium flowers.
And then there was Kyphi, both an incense and perfume.
Recipes for Kyphi perfume are engraved on the walls of the temple of Isis’ son, Horus, at Edfu and at Philae, Isis’ own great temple in Upper Egypt. Kyphi was used especially to welcome the Deities to Their temples. Wine-based, Kyphi also includes sweet flag, rushes, cinnamon, juniper, raisins, myrrh, frankincense, cardamom, and gum mastic. In his essay “On Isis and Osiris,” Plutarch reports 16 ingredients and says that Kyphi calms, soothes, and can lull to sleep. It is also said to sharpen the intuition and promote dreams.
A priestess friend and I once made a ridiculously huge batch of Kyphi from Plutarch’s recipe, bits of which I am still burning to this day. It has a warm smell; like spicy raisin cookies. In fact, you could eat it without harm—and I believe the Egyptians did, medicinally. Luckily for me, it seems to get better with age.
What scents do you associate with Isis? There are no wrong answers. This is a personal thing. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Goddess in the present tense…dammit
I do not often rant on this blog, as those of you who have been reading along well know. But you are about to read one. Okay, a tiny one. Sorry. Every now and then, this little rant gets kicked off by reading other writers…people who actually DO have a relationship with their Deities and who yet often do not use the present tense when speaking or writing about their Deities. So now you see where this is going…
If you’ve read Isis Magic or Offering to Isis, you may have noticed that—except when something actually is in the past—I always refer to the Goddess in present tense. In fact, I have been very, very, very, very conscious of doing so.
Because, you see, She IS.
She’s is not a Being Who was but is no more. She is not “just a myth,” some silly old story deserving of the past tense. Indeed, She is All that Is, and Was, and Ever Shall Be. She existed then, She exists now, and She will exist when the rugged, snowcapped mountain that, on a clear day, I can see from my rooftop has become a gentle, green hill.
And I know you know that. Which is why I am so puzzled when I sometimes see modern Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, Witches, and insert-your-self-definition-of-choice-here using the past tense about their Deities. The most recent one I saw, and which kicked off this rant, was a witch writing that “Hekate was…”
It happens most often when telling Their sacred stories, trying to offer a brief “definition” (as if that could be done!) of the Deity, or describing Their relationships with other Deities: “Isis was the Goddess of Magic.” Osiris was the husband of Isis.” Isn’t She still the Goddess of Magic? Isn’t He still Her husband? Now if you said, “To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the Goddess of Magic and Osiris was Her husband,” that would work. No more ancient Egyptians around today, so what they considered is indeed history. To me, however, Isis IS the Goddess of Magic and Osiris IS Her beloved husband.
In writing of the history of the Isis religion and the many aspects in which She has appeared to humanity, I have always kept in mind that, to the people who worshipped Her then, as well as to those of us who do so today, Isis was and is a Living Goddess. She is not a historical curiosity. She is not a metaphor for our times. She is not feminist wish fulfillment. She is not merely a psychological archetype. She is Divine Love, Life, Magic, Mystery. She is Goddess and She is.
— Isis Magic
And speaking of myths, a myth isn’t something that is false— “oh, that’s just a myth.” No. A myth is a sacred story meant to tell us something about the Deity or Deities of the myth. Myths are “things that never happened but always are,” in the words of the 4th century CE Roman writer Sallustius. Or maybe myths are things that never happened historically, but are eternally true. Ask Joseph Campbell. Or Jean Huston. Or the many others who are doing Work with myths. And remember, just because it belongs to the corpus of the dominant monotheisms doesn’t mean it’s not mythology. Egyptian mythology is. Christian mythology is. Jewish mythology is. They are all sacred stories and they are all mythology.
Most of this, I think, comes from early and ongoing conditioning. Except for those of you young enough to have been born of Pagan parents, most of us were taught in school, from early on, that the ancient Deities were and mythology was. But let’s get over that. May we all just mind our tenses and our mythologies, please?
The Is-ness of Isis
But how do we know that Isis is? How do we know that She’s “real”? Must we simply “have faith”? Do we just choose to “believe in” Her? Can we prove Her is-ness?
We can prove Isis’ is-ness, Her reality, exactly as much as any human being can prove the reality of any Deity, which is to say, we cannot. There is no scientific proof for the Divine. There is no infallible book or teacher that holds all the answers to all the questions. Yet this—happily—means exactly nothing when it comes to the truth of Isis’ existence.
This question of belief and faith is much more vexed for those of us in non-mainstream (O how I dislike that designation!) religions. How often have you been asked by some friend or family member or (hopefully) well-meaning stranger, “Well, then, what do Isians—or Pagans or Polytheists or Wiccans or Witches or insert-your-self-definition-of-choice-here—believe?”
And how have you answered?
Many of us involved in alternative spirituality today were reared in one monotheistic religion or the other, most often, Christianity. From early on, we were taught to “believe in” God and Jesus. We were told that a particular book was the Word of God, “proved” that God was real, and explained precisely what He wanted us to do with our lives. In terms of religion, the clergy were to be our role models, the ones whose faith was strong, whose belief was true; we should have faith and believe as they do.
We got used to using those words, faith and belief, when speaking about religion. But perhaps those are not the right words.
For me, what proves that Isis is real is my experience of Her, not my faith or belief in Her. No single book is the touchstone for my spirituality, though I find spiritual truths in many, many books written by many, many wise human beings. I can’t transfer my deep knowing of Her reality to anyone else (though I admit that the exercises and rituals I share with others are attempts to at least set up the conditions that will enable others to discover their own experiences of Her). Nevertheless, experience of the Divine is an individual thing; each one of us must experience Isis for ourselves—even if we do so in a group. Clergy can facilitate. Books can show us a way. The experiences of others can strengthen us in our desire for our own experience of the Goddess. But, in the end, we will not truly know Isis for ourselves until we have our own experience of Her.
When that experience comes for the first time, it may bring awe, tears, joy, pain. When it comes again and again, throughout the many years, I can tell you that it may still bring all those things. But repeated and ongoing experience of the Goddess will also bring a true knowing, a personal gnosis, of Her. No longer operating just “on faith,” now we know Her reality because we have experienced it. No longer just believing, we have discovered Her truth for ourselves and it has become our truth.
The Sistrum of Isis
Hello, Isiacs! I’d like to share with you a beautiful double sistrum that one of our sisters discovered in a market in Baja. It is lovely and I’ll bet it sounds wonderful. Here’s the pic:
Why didn’t I think of that? A double sistrum! Thank you, Agnes. Here’s a repeat post about the sistrum and how this magical musical instrument can shake things up.
In Isis Magic, one of the key elemental implements of the priestess of Isis is the sistrum. It is one of several types of ancient Egyptian rattles that were used in the worship of the Goddesses and Gods. But it isn’t simply a musical instrument; it is also a magical instrument.
As you may already suspect, sistrum is a Latin word. In turn, it derives from a Greek term for the Egyptian rattle: seistron “that which is shaken.” The Egyptian terms are a bit more interesting. One of them is onomatopoeic, that is, the word sounds like the thing it represents. That one is sesheshet (say it out loud and you’ll see what I mean). The other is sekhem. And that one is quite interesting, for it means “power,” as in the name of the Goddess Sekhmet, the Powerful One. It is, of course, among the names of Isis as well.
The sistrum is an instrument of power. Even better, the term for “to play the sistrum” also derives from the sekhem root, so when you’re playing the sistrum, you’re “doing power.” That’s why the sistrum is the elemental Fire implement of the priestess or priest in the House of Isis.
Plutarch seems to be echoing the true Egyptian tradition when he explains in his essay “On Isis & Osiris”:
The sistrum also makes it clear that all things in existence need to be shaken, or rattled about, and never to cease from motion but, as it were, to be waked up and agitated when they grow drowsy and torpid. They say that they avert and repel Typhon by means of the sistrums, indicating thereby that when destruction constricts and checks Nature, generation releases and arouses it by means of motion. (Plutarch, Moralia, Book 5, “On Isis & Osiris,” section 63)
The vibration of the rattling sistrum is as the constant vibration of the atoms that make up all things and the activity of all living things.
Like many modern priestesses and priests of Isis, I have a collection of sistra (which is the plural of sistrum), including both handmade and purchased versions. Since the Coptic and Ethiopian Christian churches today still use sistra, you can actually purchase sistra that flow from the ancient Egyptian religious tradition. Naturally, I wanted to add one to my collection. So I ordered an inexpensive one online and when it came, it was, as expected, not super-high quality, but kinda sweet…except for the fact that the handle appeared to have been made out of ammunition casing. Eeewww. But the rattle sounded wonderful, nice and tinkly. I purified the sistrum and began using it.
Now here’s the part I like. Not too long after that—with no hard use of any kind—I picked up the sistrum one day to discover that the bullet-casing handle had split near where it was joined to the head of the sistrum. While I was disappointed that my new sistrum had broken, I was also somewhat relieved. Happily, I know artists—and an artist friend replaced the handle for me with copper tubing. My repristinated copper and brass Coptic sistrum has been rattling up power for Isis ever since.
In ancient Egypt, while the sistrum was used in the musical worship of all Egyptian Deities, it was especially associated with the worship of the Great Goddesses Hathor, Bast, and Isis. Generally, more priestesses than priests played the sistrum. Yet the archetypal sistrum player is Hathor’s son, Ihy, often called simply the Sistrum Player.
The creation of the sistrum is said to have developed from the polite habit of rattling the papyrus stalks before entering into the papyrus marshes. The marshes, you see, were often the dwelling places of fierce Wild Cow Goddesses, such as Hathor, and poisonous Cobra Goddesses, such as Wadjet. It was considered the wiser course of action to let Them know you were coming. (Never sneak up on a Goddess; all the myths tell us so.)
If we think of it as a polite knock on the door before coming into the presence of the Goddess, we can consider the rattling of the sistrum as an Opening of the Ways from the mundane to the sacred. It can also be used to stir up energy, in ourselves or our temple space, as well as to add emphasis and power to certain parts of a ritual. Softer rattling can be used meditatively and to bring down and sustain energy as the ancients did when they used it to “pacify” an angry Deity.
The sistrum became inextricably tied to Isis when Her worship spread into Greece and Rome. In fact, it was so commonly associated with Her in Rome that when ancient Romans saw a sistrum, they immediately thought of Isis and no one else. Even as late as the 4th century CE, Maurus Servius Honoratus, a grammarian with the contemporary reputation of being the most learned man of his generation, noted that
Isis is the genius [the spirit] of the Nile, who by the movement of her sistrum, which she carries in her right hand, signifies the access and recess [that is, the rising and falling] of the Nile… (Servius, Observations on the Aeneid, 1.8)
There were two types of ancient sistra, which we know as the naos sistrum and the hoop sistrum. In a naos sistrum, the top of the rattle is shaped like a small shrine (naos in Greek); in a hoop sistrum, the top is an elongated hoop. Holes were made in the sides of the naos or hoop and metal rods were inserted horizontally so that when the sistrum was shaken, the rods rattled in the holes. Sometimes additional pieces of metal were pierced and strung on the rods to amplify the sound. (Many modern sistra have this feature.)
If you’d like to Do Power for Isis, you may purchase a variety of ready made sistra. DeTraci Regula’s Isiscraft Catalog offers a number of lovely ones. You can find versions of sistra in music stores that specialize in ethic instruments. You can also order the Coptic ones online (but they will probably come with the bullet-casing handles). And, of course, you can also make your own.
An Isis devotee of my acquaintance made some wonderful small sistra by splitting a piece of bamboo (about 1/4 inch in diameter) 2/3 of the way down. She glued ribbon around the un-split part to keep the sistrum from splitting all the way and to create a handle. Then she glued a small piece of wood between the split bamboo as a wedge to hold the two sides apart, forming a “Y.”
Finally, she strung flattened and pierced bottle caps on wire and attached the wire to both sides of the split bamboo. While I have sistra in my collection on which I’ve spent quite a bit of money, these homemade ones remain some of my favorites.
If you have made your own sistrum, I’d love to hear about it.
