As the teal-blue waters of the Nile swirl and eddy upon the rocky shores of Her island; as the daily rebirth of Re fills the horizon with colors of peach and purple and red; as Mother Night smiles at the glory of Her reborn child—every morning, in Her beautiful temple at Philae, the Great Goddess Isis was awakened in Her sacred image.
This morning, She was awakened in Her smaller temple, the shrine I have made for Her in my home, and the lamp I have set for Her in my heart.
My ritual is not the ritual in the ancient temples. But the intent is the same: to call in, renew, and reawaken Her ka, Her ba, and Her akh—at least the sparks of each that reside within Her sacred image on my altar—so that She may be present with me and I may be present with Her. I honor Her, awaken Her in peace, and place before Her the Offering of the Morning.
As I enter Her shrine, my hands crossed upon my breast, I bow to Her veiled image. I light the charcoal, prepare the incense, a special blend made for Her by artisans of sacred scent. I pour pure Nile water into the libation cup and ready the libation bowl.
And then I sing to Her. “Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Morning. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Night. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Morning. Isis is the wisdom that is given in the Boat of the Night. Isis, Isis, Isis.” I continue to sing until the chant seems complete.
Now, I make the gesture of Opening the Shrine, flinging wide for Her the doors of Her shrine. I vibrate Her name, “Isis!” I unveil Her beautiful image and look upon it.
I kneel before Her, then sit.
I open my awareness. As I breathe deeply, the lamp in my heart grows brighter.
I open my awareness. I sense the ka of the Goddess’ living power like a bright tingle on the nape of my neck.
I open my awareness. I turn my face upward and envision Her ba—in the form of Her sacred raptor, the black kite—swoop down from above, fast and sure. It alights upon Her sacred image and nestles softly into Her lap. All the while, I am chanting Her name in my mind, in my heart, in my mouth.
I open my awareness again. Her spirit, Her akh is coming. It is like the welcome light of dawn after a long, dark night. It is like water to those who thirst. It is like a needed, deep breath that makes my chest shudder as I take it in.
I say aloud to Her: “A spark from Your Mysterious Heart, Isis, resides within this sacred image. I honor that spark as I honor You Yourself, Great Goddess.”
Quietly, and with my awareness opened to the ends of the earth, I vibrate Her name three more times. I feel Her ka. I see Her ba. I sense Her akh.
And I say aloud to Her, “Awaken, O Isis Within, to this beautiful day. Be welcomed into morning! Awaken, O Isis Within, to the joy of the day. Be welcomed into today!”
I take up the incense and place it upon the charcoal. The resins and herbs and flowers burn, releasing their scent. Taking up the censer, I elevate it toward Her image. “May Your eyes be opened to the beauty of the day,” I say. “May Your nostrils be opened to the sweet scent of this spice. May Your ears be opened always to the voices of Your children.”
I replace the censer and take up the libation cup of pure Nile water. I elevate it toward Her image, then pour it, very slowly, into the waiting libation bowl. “May Your lips be opened to the sweetness of this cool water,” I say. “May Your heart be opened to Your people this day. May Your body, O image of Isis, be opened to the beautiful energy of Isis the Goddess, Ever-Living.”
I am seated once more. I become aware of my heart. I breathe and let the lamp burn brighter. And brighter. I am aware of the sacred image of Isis before me. I feel Her presence. I sense Her heart. I breathe my fire into Her heart. She returns it to mine. I know Her image breathes. I breath Her breath. I am illumined in Her dawning fire. I speak Her words for Her: “I am that Golden morning that arises and shines each day. Splendid are the ornaments upon My brilliant brow. I am the One Who glows in the Sun. I am the Eye of Awakening. I am the Greening of the Earth. I am the Joy of the Day.”
I let myself sit in Her Presence for a while, enfolded in Her wings. When I am ready, I stand and say to Her, “Awaken in joy, Isis, awaken in joy. Amma, Iset.”
Do you remember the first time Isis made Herself—reallyimportant—in your life?
Copper repousée Winged Isis by Raya
For me, it’s been a long time. In fact, I can tell you that I have been Her devotee for most of my life now. And I have been Her dedicated priestess for decades.
Of course, even before any formal declarations, I’d been dancing with Her for a while. I would often find myself reading about Her, looking at images of Her, wondering about Her.
And the crazy thing was that, at the time, I was actually looking for a Divine relationship; I was looking for my Goddess. But in my youthful rebelliousness, I thought a more obscure Goddess would be more appropriate for the uniqueness—okay, weirdness—that is me. Isis, I thought, was way too ordinary; everybody knows Isis. At least Her more mysterious Dark Sister Nephthys should be my Goddess. I must have closed the door in Isis’ face half a dozen different times. You’re cringing; so am I.
But Isis is a Goddess and I am only a thick-skulled human. My lack of commitment did not put Her off at all. She simply kept coming back and tapping on my shoulder (this is Her way; please see Isis the Ass-Kicker for more on that).
Alas, the story I’m telling now has no riveting suspense. Eventually, She just wore me down and I began preparing to dedicate myself to Her.
I did my research. I wrote my ritual. I made my purifications and prayers. On the appointed day, I began the rite. But about halfway through, I began to feel very faint. VERY faint. (You see, in those long ago days, this often happened to me in the presence of magical energy; I’d go very pale and start to pass out. Many is the time when my fellow ritualists had to stop mid-rite and prop me up for a while.)
Isis of Coptos, now in the Turin Egyptian Museum
Nonetheless, I was determined to finish the ritual and did so while sitting on the floor in front of the altar. Part of the rite involved formally asking the Goddess to accept me as Her priestess. The short answer I got was, “No.” But the longer answer was, “Go study and come back in a year.”
So, that’s exactly what I did. A year later, I reworked the same ritual, didn’t faint, and was accepted. Not long after that, I got a strange and wonderful confirmation of Her acceptance, too. A woman I barely knew came to me on a mission from the Goddess. I think she was as confused by it as I was. She’d had a dream of Isis that was so strong that she simply had to act on it. In the dream, Isis told her to come to me and give me a gift of earrings in the form of a Winged Isis. She did—and I knew that Isis had truly claimed me.
The path of devotion to Isis isn’t always what we expect. In fact, I don’t think it should always be what we expect. When things take an odd turn, I usually consider it a sign that I’m in contact with true Divine energy. If things go exactly as I thought they would, it can mean that I’m merely fulfilling my own expectations. While that’s not always true, it is indeed something to be aware of—a warning that we may be talking to ourselves rather than talking to Isis.
Isis’ name in hieroglyphs, from Abydos
It is good to remember how it was on that First Day. To remember the circumstances again. To feel the feelings again. As you likely know, the idea of the First Day was extremely important to the ancient Egyptians. The renewal and re-creation of the First Day, the First Time, the First Occasion, the Zep Tepi in Egyptian, was the magic they were continually Working. Every temple was the place of the First Day, every day. Every ritual reenacted the First Day, every time.
I don’t know about you, but I am feeling the need for the renewal of that First Day right now. And so, I will do as the ancients did. I will tend the shrine. I will work the rituals. I will make offering. I will go back to the beginning and do the rites and meditations I did when I was first coming to know Her—the ones you will find in Isis Magic and Offering to Isis. I know they will different for me this time. And yet, I know they will still take me back to that First Day. And I will hope to be, like Osiris, renewed and reborn under the Wings of Isis. Amma, Iset. Grant that it be so.
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 their 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.
For some of us, poetry is one of the ways in which we can express our feelings or experiences with the Divine. Whether we compose it ourselves or discover a poem that has the perfect words to touch our hearts and say what we’d want to say.
Hesiod Listening to the Inspiration of the Muse; Edmond-François Aman-Jean, French, 1890
It isn’t easy to be a poet. You can wrestle with words for days and still come up empty-handed. I find that if I just sit down with the intention of writing a poem about Isis, I get—well—pretty much nothing.
The way it works best for me, is to poise my fingers over the keyboard, clear my mind, close my eyes, invoke the Goddess…and start typing. (The trick is keeping your fingers over the right keys. Otherwise you get rhwewosqeonger.)
What comes out is by no means finished. It’s more like notes for a poem. Then I work with it and shape it, making it into something, and in that process discover its meaning—for me, for now.
The value of this for me is that I often get images that I would not have come up with in my normal state of consciousness. Sometimes, they don’t even make logical sense, but they do make a kind of poetic sense. They can be odd and beautiful. Sometimes I edit out the strangenesses. Sometimes I just leave them in, hoping that they’ll communicate what the Goddess intended.
To show you what I mean, I’m going to do a little experiment right now. [NOTE: This is a repost. But when I first wrote it, it was done “live” and in real time.]
So here we go. Fingers poised over keyboard…opening…invoking…and typing this:
long black wings against a blue white sky clouds bending into circles interpenetrating the blackness of feather of feature of faith clean sharp shriek of light coming into my mind clearing feathered fog leaving its own breath I am hearing you now
That’s what it looks like first out of my brain, and inspired in whispered hints from some Muse-form of Isis. It sort of reminds me of Symbolist poetry from the late 19th/early 20th century.
Now, I’ll break it up into phrases and add punctuation as remembered from my mental “hearing” of it:
Long black wings against a blue-white sky. Clouds bend into circles, interpenetrating the blackness of feather, of feature, of faith. A clean, sharp shriek of light comes into my mind, clearing feathered fog and leaving its own breath. I am hearing you now.
I’m starting to understand what this is about. It’s about the subject of this post—receiving poetic inspiration from the Goddess. So it is an image of what that inspiration can be like.
Now, working with it a bit more, I get this:
Long, dark wings flash against a purified sky. Blue-white ghost clouds move and spiral, interpenetrated by the blackness of feather, of feature, of faith. In my mind, a clean, sharp shriek of light clears feathered fog, leaves its own breath. I am hearing you now.
Diego y yo, Frida Kahlo; Frida and Diego served as muses for each other
I’ll leave this as it is for now. If I had intended to keep this, I would probably work with it a bit more. It’s not quite there yet, but it’s just a quick example of what the Goddess might inspire.
Now, art of any kind isn’t quick and easy. In fact, it takes time and practice. But if you are at all inclined, I’d urge you to try it. In your own way, of course. And in your own medium. Maybe you’ll paint instead. Maybe you’ll sing. But however it comes to you, don’t be concerned with the perfection of your results. She doesn’t care about that. Isis will always gladly take your work as an offering of devotion and love.
(I have a question about this little bit of Isis poetry: That final phrase, “I am hearing you now.” Is that the poet hearing the Goddess, or the Goddess hearing the poet? What do you think?)
The worship of Isis is one of the most important examples of religious syncretism in the world. Whenever the topic of syncretism arises, you will inevitably find a discussion of Isis included.
When it comes to religion, talking about syncretism often centers on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing.
But maybe, syncretism just is—unless a culture or religion is completely isolated. Because anytime peoples and cultures and religions encounter each other, there has always been—among at least some of those peoples and cultures and religions—some form of syncretism.
The Isis keystone on the Egyptian Museum in Cairo
And yes, of course, you’re right; it’s time for a definition. So, what is syncretism?
When we look at the various definitions, we see that it is usually said to be the combining, attempting to unify, assimilating, blending, fusing, reconciling, harmonizing, mixing, and other similar terms, the various aspects of two or more religions or Deities. Sometimes, religious syncretism is called theocrasia, Greek for “God-mixing.”
At the time of the rise in the popularity of the worship of Isis, interchanges between Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures— trade, technologies, philosophies, and yes, spiritualities—were also flourishing.
The influence of those cultures upon each other is often given as a primary example of syncretism on a broader scale. The ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria is an example of a highly syncretic—or we might say, multicultural or diverse—city. Christianity, also developing at about the same time as the spread of Isis’ worship, is another example of a syncretic worship, both in its origins and in its much later expressions, as it absorbed and transformed many of the Pagan traditions it encountered, forcibly or not.
Anubis in Roman garb
Those who consider religious syncretism bad generally point to a “watering down” of the original tradition; there is also a legitimate concern with appropriation. Those who say religious syncretism is good generally associate it with positive innovation in religion rather than corruption. Others suggest that we retire the term entirely, because this kind of mixing is simply inevitable. Yet others prefer to retain the term since studying how it happens is valuable in researching the development of many of the world’s religions.
Interestingly, it may have been the Greek priest Plutarch—who wrote down a Greek narrative version of the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris—who coined the term syncretism. He used it to describe how the various Cretan tribes came together as one when faced with external threats. So, for him, it was positive mixing toward a greater good for Crete.
Isis of Coptos, wearing the Horns & Disk crown associated with Hathor
Syncretism was one of the ways Isis gained many of Her 10,000 names. Yet this all started within Egypt itself.
Those of you who have been following along with this blog already know how the Egyptian Deities are liable, at most any time, to morph into each other, to combine with each other, or to appear as each other. It is—as I have said so many times that you’re tired of reading it—one of my favorite things about the ancient Egyptian conception of the Divine. It is fluid. It can change. It can show Itself to us in myriad forms. For me, this fluidity is a genuine reflection of the Divine nature.
Egyptian combinations of Deities could demonstrate similarity: Isis-Hathor. Another might enable a Deity to express power in a specific way: Isis-Sakhmet. Mostly, in Egypt, Goddesses could flow only into other Goddesses, Gods into other Gods. Isis is unusual in that She could combine with Gods as well. We find an Isis-Anubis in the later mythological texts, as well as an Isis-Horus.
An image of Demeter, but with the tiny horns of Isis-Io upon Her forehead
In this way, Isis could be almost any other Egyptian Goddess as well as some Gods. We discover many of Her names in the Oxyrhynchus hymn, which gives us Her names and epithets, first within Egypt, then throughout the Mediterranean.
Outside of Egypt, one of the first important Deities Isis is syncretized with is the Greek Great Goddess Demeter. This went as far back as the 5th century BCE when the historian Herodotus declared that Isis IS Demeter and that Isis and Osiris were the only Deities worshiped throughout all of Egypt. (This wasn’t strictly true, but that was his impression.)
The Isis myth, as recorded and interpreted by Plutarch, gives us the perfect example of a syncretic myth.
As Plutarch tells it, the wanderings of Isis include episodes similar to those in Demeter’s story of wandering in search of Persephone. Like Demeter, Isis (in disguise as a human woman) weeps at a spring (in Demeter’s case, a well) and is invited into the royal house to be the nurse of a royal infant. At night, She tempers the child in a fire, making him immortal.
Demeter immortalizing Demophon
One night, the queen sees this process and, quite understandably, screams bloody murder, thus interrupting the magic and prohibiting her child from gaining immortality.
But let’s go one step further into this particular syncretism. Some Egyptologists believe that this “burning baby” episode may actually have originated in Egypt—with what they call the “burning Horus” formula—and from there it was imported into Demeter’s myth. So, in this case, both cultures were inspired by the other and each added a detail from the other Great Goddess’ myth to their own story.
Isis-Aphrodite
There are numerous images that show Isis combined with Goddesses other than Demeter from throughout the Mediterranean region. We find Isis-Aphrodite, Isis-Astarte, Isis-Selene, Isis-Sophia, Isis-Artemis, Isis-Rhea, Isis-Fortuna, and many more. Just as She had within Egypt, now Isis flowed into Goddesses far beyond Egypt. So much so that She eventually became THE Goddess to many people, both within and without Her native land.
The human pathos of Isis’ story, Her fierceness in defending both Her husband and Her child, Her powers of resurrection and rebirth, and the magic that always clings to Isis like a potent perfume—all contributed to the spread of Her religion in the Greco-Roman world. People saw Her in their own Goddesses and they saw their own Goddesses in Her, eventually adopting Her as their own. Syncretism.
For today, I’d like to leave you with a syncretic hymn to Isis. It is one of four written in Greek and carved on the temple of Isis-Hermouthis (Hermouthis is a Hellenized form of the Cobra Goddess Renenutet) in the Egyptian Faiyum, where She was paired with the Crocodile God Sobek. The hymn was written by a man named Isidorus; judging by his name, he was at least a devotee. He may have been a native Egyptian who was either given or adopted a Greek name. Some researchers even think he could have been a priest of Isis, but we just don’t know.
Here is one of his four Faiyum hymns to Isis:
Isis-Hermouthis
O wealth-giver, Queen of the Gods, Hermouthis, Lady, Omnipotent Agathē Tychē [“Good Fortune”], greatly renowned Isis, Dēo, highest Discoverer [generally, this means “creator”] of All Life, Manifold miracles were Your care that You might bring livelihood to mankind and morality to all.
You taught customs that justice might in some measure prevail; You gave skills that men’s life might be comfortable, And You discovered the blossoms that produce edible vegetation. Because of You, heaven and the whole earth have their being; and the gusts of the winds and the sun with its sweet light.
By Your power the channels of Nile are filled, every one, At the harvest season and its most turbulent water is poured On the whole land that produce may be unfailing. All mortals who live on the boundless earth, Thracians, Greeks, and Barbarians, Express Your fair Name, a Name greatly honored among all, but Each speaks in his own language, in his own land.
Isis-Demeter-Selene
The Syrians call You: Astarte, Artemis, Nanaia [Mesopotamian Love Goddess closely associated with Inanna]; The Lycian tribes call You: Leto, the Lady; The Thracians also name You as Mother of the Gods; And the Greeks call You Hera of the Great Throne, Aphrodite, Hestia the Goodly, Rheia and Demeter. But the Egyptians call You Thiouis [from Egyptian Ta Uaet, “the Only One”] because they know that You, being One, are all other Goddesses Invoked by the races of men.
Mighty One, I shall not cease to sing of Your great Power. Deathless Savior, many-named, mightiest Isis, Saving from war cities and all their citizens: men, their wives, possessions, and children. As many as are bound fast in prison, in the power of death; As many as are in pain through long, anguished, sleepless nights, All who are wanderers in a foreign land, And as many as sail on the Great Sea in winter When men may be destroyed and their ships wrecked and sunk, All these are saved if they pray that You be present to help.
Hear my prayers, O One whose Name has great Power; prove Yourself merciful to me and free me from all distress. —Isidorus wrote it*
If you would like to hear a poetic and profound piece on syncretic Deities, I invite you to listen to this episode of the wonderful podcast The Emerald: Let Us Sing of Syncretic Gods, of Outcasts and Wanderers. Yes, of course, Isis is mentioned.
*Translation from Vera Vanderlip, The Four Greek Hymns of Isidorus & the Cult of Isis.
Last night, we held our All-Hallows Eve rite (a bit early, I know). As we welcomed our Honored Dead in the presence of the Dark Ones, many of us were very aware of the bright moon shining above, just two days past a full Hunters’ Moon.
The moon, the moon, the moon. And I am thinking now of the moon and Our Lady Isis.
When we first encounter Isis, we often first discover Her as a lunar Goddess, a Goddess of the Moon. But is She?
Well, that really kind of depends on when you ask.
If we’re asking for today, for now, then yes, She is. And She has been for more than a millennium. But She took a rather circuitous route to get there. So let’s follow that trail a bit and see how it happened.
Early in Egyptian history, Isis was firmly associated with the heavens—with the star Sirius in particular, and with the sun, too—but She was not considered a Moon Goddess.
Moon Gods were the norm for Egypt—Iah, Thoth, Khonsu, and Osiris are among the most prominent and the moon’s phases were quite important to the ancient Egyptians. Scholars generally agree that the first Egyptian calendars, like those of so many ancient people, were lunar based. The temples marked the moon’s changes and especially celebrated its waxing and full phases. But the face the Egyptians saw in the moon was masculine rather than feminine.
The horns of the Moon Goddess rising
For example, the waning and waxing of the moon could be associated with the wounding and healing of the Eye of Horus. So, perhaps we can think of Isis as the Mother of the Moon. Indeed, She was called “Isis, Who Creates the Moon Eye of Horus by Her Heart.” In some myths, Isis is the one Who heals Horus’ Eye, in others, it is Thoth or Hathor and we see this reflected in Isis’ epithet as She “Who Heals the Left Eye.”
By the time of the New Kingdom, the beloved of Isis, Osiris, becomes prominent as a lunar God. We have a number of examples of statuettes of Osiris-Iah—Osiris assimilated with Iah, a Moon God—or simply as Osiris the Moon. So in this case, Isis is married to the Moon. But She’s not really a Moon Goddess Herself.
On the other hand, the Greeks and the Romans were all about the Moon Goddess. In fact, the moon itself was simply called “the Goddess.” People spoke of doing something “when the Goddess rises.” They would kiss their hands, extending them toward the rising moon, “to greet the Goddess.” Magical texts give instructions for performing a certain ritual “on the first of the Goddess,” meaning at the new moon. When they saw Isis with Her horns-and-disk crown, they saw a Moon Goddess.
The lunar Eye of Horus
And because we have so much information about Isis from these Moon Goddess-loving people, today when many people think of Isis, the moon is one of the first things they associate with Her. Yet, interestingly, it seems to have been a third century BCE Egyptian priest named Manetho who first connected Isis with the moon. By the following century, when Plutarch recorded the most complete version of the Isis-Osiris myth we have, the tradition of Isis as a Goddess of the Moon was firmly established—even in Egypt.
Of course, it was easy to associate the fertility-bringing moon with the fertile Mother Isis. The ancient world also associated love affairs with the moon (the romance of moonlight, you know) and, in Her passion for Osiris, Isis was a famous lover.
A Roman Isis with lunar crescent
Of course, the moon and the obscuring darkness of night were connected with magic, too—and Isis was one of Egypt’s Mightiest Magicians from the beginning. She was called Lady of the Night. One Egyptian story told how a particular magical scroll—which the tale calls a “mystery of the Goddess Isis”—was discovered when a moonbeam fell upon its hiding place, enabling a lector priest in Isis’ temple to find it.
Today, we also connect the moon with emotions, the deep, the waters, the feminine (taking our cue from the ancient Greeks and Romans), the home, Mystery, and change (to name but a few). And Isis can definitely be associated with all of these things—from the emotional passion of Her myths to Her ancient Mysteries and Her enduring role as the Goddess of Regeneration and Transformation.
So is Isis a Moon Goddess? She certainly has been for a very, very long time. Whether we choose to honor Her in this form has more to do with us than with Her. Many contemporary Pagans will probably be quite comfortable working with Isis as a Moon Goddess; a strict Kemetic Reconstructionist, not so much. But Isis is a Great Goddess; She is All, and so, for me, She is unquestionably to be found in the deep and holy Mysteries of the Moon.
And yet, and just for myself, while I do find Her in the moon, I resonate most strongly with Isis of the Stars and Isis of the Eternities of Space and Isis the Radiant Sun Goddess. Nevertheless, I still feel the call to explore Her important lunar aspects. What about you?
We are not immune to the charms of a beautiful head of hair—and the ancient Egyptians weren’t either.
But they took appreciation for hair, especially feminine hair, to a whole new level of magnitude. For them, hair was magical. And, of course, Who would have the most magical hair of all? The Goddess of Magic: Isis Herself.
The charm of beautiful hair
I have always understood that the long hair of Isis in Egyptian tradition—disarrayed and covering Her face in mourning or falling in heavy, dark locks over Her shoulders—to be the predecessor of the famous Veil of Isis of later tradition. Ah, but there is so much more.
In ancient Egypt, it was a mourning custom for Egyptian women to dishevel their hair. They wore it long and unkempt, letting it fall across their tear-stained faces, blinding them in sympathy with the blindness first experienced by the dead. As the Ultimate Divine Mourner, this was particularly true of Isis. At Koptos, where Isis was notably worshipped as a Mourning Goddess, a healing prayer made “near the hair at Koptos” is recorded. Scholars consider this a reference to Mourning Isis with Her disheveled and powerfully magical hair.
Mourners use various mourning gestures and dishevel their hair
It is in Her disheveled, mourning state, that Isis finally finds Osiris. She reassembles Him, fans life into Him, and makes love with Him. As She mounts His prone form, Her long hair falls over Their faces, concealing Them like a veil and providing at least some perceived privacy for Their final lovemaking. As the Goddess and God make love, the meaning of Isis’ hair turns from death to life. It becomes sexy—remember those big-haired “paddle doll” fertility symbols?
A mourning woman with her hair over her face from the tomb of Minnakht
This pairing of love and death is both natural and eternal. How many stories have you heard—or perhaps you have a personal one—about couples making love after a funeral? It’s so common that it’s cliché. But it makes perfect sense: in the face of death, we human beings must affirm life. We do so through the mutual pleasure of sex and, for some couples, the possibility of engendering new life that sex provides. The lovemaking of Isis and Osiris is the ultimate expression of this. Chapter 17 of the Book of Coming Forth by Day (aka the Book of the Dead), describes the disheveled hair of Isis when She comes to Osiris:
“I am Isis, you found me when I had my hair disordered over my face, and my crown was disheveled. I have conceived as Isis, I have procreated as Nephthys.” (Chapter 17; translation by Rosa Valdesogo Martín, who has extensively studied the connection of hair to funerary customs in ancient Egypt.)
There is also a variant of this chapter that has Isis apparently straightening up Her “bed head” following lovemaking:
“Isis dispels my bothers (?) [The Allen translation has “Isis does away with my guard; Nephthys puts an end to my troubles.]. My crown is disheveled; Isis has been over her secret, she has stood up and has cleaned her hair.” (Chapter 17 variant, translation by Martín, above.)
This lovemaking of Goddess and God has cosmic implications for its result is a powerful and important new life: Horus. As the new pharaoh, Horus restores order to both kingdom and cosmos following the chaos brought on by the death of the old pharaoh, Osiris.
Not only is hair symbolic of the blindness of death and the new life of lovemaking; the hair of the Goddesses is actually part of the magic of rebirth. Isis and Her sister, Nephthys, are specifically called the Two Long Haired Ones. The long hair of the Goddesses is associated with the knotting, tying, wrapping, weaving, knitting, and general assembling necessary to bring about the great Mystery of rebirth. Hair-like threads of magic are woven about the deceased who has returned to the womb of the Great Mother. The Coffin Texts give the name of part of the sacred boat of the deceased (itself a symbolic womb) as the Braided Tress of Isis.
Mourners, probably Isis and Nephthys, throw Their hair over the Osiris
In some Egyptian iconography, we see mourning women, as well as the Goddesses Isis and Nephthys, with hair thrown forward in what is known as the nwn gesture. Sometimes they/They actually pull a lock of hair forward, especially toward the deceased, which is called the nwn m gesture. It may be that this gesture, especially when done by Goddesses, is meant to transfer new life to the deceased, just as Isis’ bed-head hair brought new life to Osiris. It is interesting to note that the Egyptians called vegetation “the hair of the earth” and that bare land was called “bald” land, which simply reiterates the idea of hair is an expression of life.
Spell 562 of the Coffin Texts notes the ability of the hair of Isis and Nephthys to unite things, saying that the hair of the Goddesses is knotted together and that the deceased wishes to “be joined to the Two Sisters and be merged in the Two Sisters, for they will never die.”
Isis and Nephthys pull a lock of hair toward the deceased
The Pyramid Texts instruct the resurrected dead to loosen their bonds, “for they are not bonds, they are the tresses of Nephthys.” Thus the magical hair of the Goddesses is only an illusory bond. Their hair is not a bond of restraint but rather the bonding agent needed for rebirth. Like the placenta that contains and feeds the child but is no longer necessary when the child is born, the reborn one throws off the tresses of the Goddesses that had previously wrapped her or him in safety.
The Egyptian idea of Isis as the Long-Haired One carried over into Her later Roman cult, too. In Apuleius’ account of the Mysteries of Isis, he describes the Goddess as having long and beautiful hair. Her statues often show Her with long hair, and Her priestesses were known to wear their hair long in honor of their Goddess.
This is sketched from a coffin from Gebelein, 13th dynasty where either a long-haired female image or a long-haired female is spreading her hair over the deceased.
This little bit of research has inspired me to want experiment with the magic of hair in ritual. In Isis Magic, the binding and unbinding of the hair is part of the “Lamentations of Isis” rite (where it is very powerful, I can tell you from experience), but I want to try using it in some solitary ritual, too. I have longish hair, so that will work, but if you don’t and are, like me, inspired to experiment, try using a veil. It is most certainly in Her tradition. (See “Veil” in my Offering to Isis.)
Turquoise and carnelian—perfect Egyptian colors for fall.
Here at the 45th parallel on the west coast of the US, we are perfectly situated to experience the turning of the seasons in a nearly archetypal form. Very often, the first day of autumn or winter or spring or summer turns out to be a ideal expression of the forthcoming season. Today, the first day of fall, is sunny, warmish but not hot, and the air shines with the gold that only autumn can bring. And it’s harvest time.
The crops are a bit late this year due to our weather; nonetheless, winter squash are in the farmer’s market and we’re just a few weeks away from our annual Dionysian Grape Stomp and Bacchanal, when we harvest the grapes in our own vineyard, dance them to juice, then feast and trance the night away.
Yet here, halfway from the equator to the top of the world, the seasons bear no relation to the seasons in ancient Egypt. For them, this would have been the second month of Inundation, when the Nile rose to cover the land, bringing its rich silt to Egyptian fields. Harvest time wasn’t until early Spring.
What’s an Isiac to do?
The Two Sisters, here with symbols of the Two Lands
For me, the answer is simple: when it comes to seasonal things, I celebrate locally. I am not trying to recreate the worship of Isis as it was in ancient Egypt; instead, I am inspired by those ancient roots of Her worship and yet feel perfectly free to grow from those beautiful, deep, and ancient roots new living plants. The seasons of the ancient Egyptians are not my seasons. And though this Egyptian Goddess is my Goddess, I cannot help but experience Her through my own modern cultural—and seasonal—lenses.
Thus, while the rite I will be participating in tonight, on this equinoctial evening, is not an ancient Egyptian rite, it honors one of the most important themes in ancient Egyptian life and spirit: duality. For tonight I shall make offering to the Two Sisters. Bright Isis and Dark Nephthys Who, when joined hand in hand, are an expression of the sacred magic of the equinox—the harmonious balance of light and dark, day and night.
Isis & Nephthys as sisters. See more illustrations of this artist’s work here.
The two Goddesses compliment each other in the light and dark children They bear to the same God. Osiris fathered the bright God, Horus, with Isis while with Nephthys, He fathered the dark God, Anubis. The Two Goddesses also manifest their Divine power differently. While Isis guides and sheds light on the hidden paths of the Otherworld, the Coffin Texts tell us that Nephthys speaks and they are obscured: “Hidden are the ways for those who pass by; light is perished and darkness comes into being, so says Nephthys.” While Isis summons the Barque of the Day, Nephthys is “a possessor of life in the Night-barque.”
The Twins
And yet, Isis and Nephthys are also and importantly twins. They are the Two Ladies, the Two Women, the Two Goddesses of the Hall of Truth, the Two Long-Haired Ones, the Two Uraeus Serpents, the Two Spirits, the Two Nurses, the Two Weavers, the Two Feathers, the Two Birds, the Two Cows, the Two Kites, the Two Divine Mothers, the Two Eyes of God, the Two Women, the Two Wise Ones, the Two Weepers, the Two Great, Great Ones, and ultimately, the Two Uniters. The essential balance and unity of Isis and Nephthys is expressed in the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri by the name Isenephthys or Isis-Nephthys.
And so, in this time of perfect balance, I dance between the equal poles of night and day, teetering on the scales of Libra, and I honor the Two Ladies.
In ancient Egyptian, there was a phrase that expressed the all-encompassing nature of Isis: Iset em Renus Nebu, “Isis in All Her Names.” By later periods of Her worship—within Egypt as well as throughout the Mediterranean world—Isis was understood as an All-Goddess Who could be seen in many other Goddesses. Her multi-faceted nature was expressed in a vast array of epithets attesting to Her Divine powers.
Isis, the Myriad-Named One
When we enter into a relationship with a Deity, that Deity will inevitably expand for us as we learn more about Them and develop our understanding of Them. Perhaps we first greet Isis as protectress of Osiris and mother of Horus. But then we discover that Her power to do those things is because She is, first and foremost, Great of Magic. As we grow our relationship, She reveals more of Herself to us, She opens more doors to Her Divinity for us.
The same thing happened in ancient times. As She revealed ever more of Her Divinity to Her devotees, She became known, in Greek, as Myrionymos, “Myriad Named,” an almost precise echo of Her earlier Egyptian epithet.
So what I have for you today is an invocation of Isis in some of those myriad names and epithets. It is from one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, which date roughly to the beginning of the 2nd century CE. For those who might like to look it up, this specific invocation is in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus XI.1380.
But first, let me tell you a bit about the papyri found in Oxyrhynchus, an ancient Egyptian city about ten days journey by water or five by land south of Memphis. The city was once quite beautiful, with colonnaded streets, temples, docks, and irrigated land out into the countryside. Outside of town were the city dumps. In the dumps, an enormous cache of ancient papyri was discovered. And because it never rains in this part of Egypt, everything that was above ground-water level was preserved, long after the city itself had crumbled to dust or been dismantled and reused as building materials. You’ll find more on the papyri here.
The town of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt in ruins
The garbage dumps of Oxyrhynchus, where the papyri were found
In these papyri, we have everything from tax documents to personal letters to books to magical workings and invocations. Blessedly, we have an amazing Invocation of Isis in which She is invoked by Her names and epithets, first in the nomes and cities of Egypt, and then in other parts of the Mediterranean world. The Invocation goes on to offer praises to the Goddess. Scholars think it was written by an initiate of Isis, possibly a priest at Memphis. It was composed in Greek and it ranks as one of the most important Isiac documents ever found. And, of course, a great deal of it is missing. Sigh.
To make it easier to read, I’m going to leave out most of the triple dots (. . .) that indicate places where the papyrus was too damaged to read (except where that doesn’t make sense or is just too intriguing to leave out). Also, I’ll italicize the name or epithet, while leaving the place names un-italicized and break it into paragraphs, something the original does not do. The original was written in Greek, the lingua franca of the time.
The Oxyrhynchus Invocation of Isis the Many-Named Goddess
The first names are from towns in Egypt
I invoke Thee, Who at Aphroditopolis art called One; Who art called Bubastis; at Letopolis Magna, One; at Aphroditopolis in the Prosopite Nome, Fleet-Commanding, Many-Shaped, Aphrodite; at Delta, Giver of Favors; at Calamisis, Gentle; at Carene, Affectionate; at Niciu, Immortal, Giver; at Momemphis, Ruler, at Psochemis, Bringer To Harbor; at Mylon, Ruler; at Hermopolis, Of Beautiful Form, Sacred; at Naucratis, Fatherless, Joy, Savior, Almighty, Most Great; at Nithine in the Gynaecopolite Nome, Aphrodite; at Pephremis, Isis, Ruler, Hestia, Lady of Every Country; at Es, Hera, Divine; at Buto, Skilled in Calculation; at Thonis, Love; in the Saite Nome, Victorious, Athena, Nymph; at Caene, Joy; at Sais, Hera, Ruler, Perfect; at Iseum, Isis; at Sebennytus, Inventiveness, Mistress, Hera, Holy…
More Greek names for Egyptian towns
At Hermopolis, Aphrodite, Queen, Holy; at Diospolis Parva, Ruler; at Bubastus of Old, at Heliopolis, Aphrodite, at Aithribis, Maia, Supporter; at Hiera in the Phthemphuthite Nome, Lotus-Bearing; at Teouchis, Sacred, Mistress; among the Bucoli, Maia; at Xois of Old, Oracular; at Apis, Understanding; at Leuce Acte, Aphrodite, Mouchis [probably “She of Mouchis;” Mouchis was near Aphroditopolis], Eseremphis [Greek version of Egyptian name meaning “Isis the Year”]; at Choatine, Victorious; at …, Skilled in Writing; at Cynopolis in the Busirite Nome, Praxidice [a justice-bringing Goddess]; at Busiris, Fortune, Good; at Hermopolis in the Mendesian Nome, Leader; at Pharbaethus, Of Beautiful Form; at Isidium in the Sethroite Nome, Saviour of Men; at Heracleopolis in the Sethroite Nome, Mistress…
A beautiful image by the artist Zingaia. You can find her on Deviant Art.
At Phernouphis, Ruler of Cities; at Leontopolis, Serpent, Good; at Tanis, Of Gracious Form, Hera; at Schedia, Inventiveness; at Heracleum, Lady of the Sea; at Canopus, Leader of the Muses; at Menouthis, Truth; at Meniouis, Seated Before Io in Whose Honor . . . Is Founded; at M…Enestium, Most Great, Vulture-Sharped, Aphrodite; at Taposiris, Thauestis [unsure, but may be related to a popular Egyptian name, Thaues or Thauesis, meaning “Of Isis”]Hera, Giver; in the Island, Swiftly Victorious; at Peucestis, Pilot; at Melais, Many-Formed; at Menouphis, Warlike; in the Metelite Nome, Kore; at Charax, Athena; at Plinthine, Hestia; at Pelusium, Bringer To Harbor; in the Casian District Tachnepsis; at the Outlet, Isis, Preserver;
In Arabia, Great Goddess; in the Island, Giver of Victory in Sacred Games; in Lycia, Leto; at Myra in Lycia, Sage, Freedom; at Cnidus, Dispeller of Attack, Discoverer; at Cyrene, Isis; in Crete, Dictynnis; at Chalcedon, Themis; at Rome, Warlike; in the Cyclades Islands, Of Threefold Nature, Artemis; at Patmos, Young; at Paphos, Hallowed, Divine, Gentle; in Chios, Marching; in Salamis, Observer; in Cyprus, All-Bounteous; in Chalcidice, Holy; in Pieria, Youthful; in Asia, Worshipped at the Three Ways; at Petra, Savior; at Hypsele, Most Great; at Rhinocolura, All-Seeing; at Dora, Friendship; at Stratonos Pyrgos Hellas, Good; at Ascalon, Mightiest; at Sinope, Many-Named; at Raphis, Mistress; at Tripolis, Supporter; at Gaza, Abundant…
Sacred image of Isis from Brexiza, Greece, near Marathon
At Delphi, Best, Fairest; at Bambyce, Atargatis; among the Thracians and in Delos, Many-Named; among the Amazons, Warlike; among the Indians, Maia; among the Thessalians, Moon; among the Persians, Latina; among the Magi, Kore, Thapseusis [this name is hard to make out; possibly a specifically Persian name, possibly a magical name]; at Susa, Nania [possibly a syncretic Isis-Innana]; in Syrophoenicia, Goddess; in Samothrace, Bull-Faced; at Pergamum, Mistress; in Pontus, Immaculate; in Italy, Love of the Gods; in Samos, Sacred; at the Hellespont, Mystic; at Myndus, Divine; in Bithynia, Helen; in Tenedos, Name of the Sun; in Caria, Hekate; in the Troad and at Dindyma, Palentra [also unknown], Unapproachable, Isis; at Berytus, Maia; at Sidon, Astarte; at Ptolemais, Understanding; at Susa in the District of the Red Sea, Sarkounis[unknown]…
Thou Who interpretest first of all by the Fifteen Commandments [the word used in Greek is thesmoi, laws;I really want to know what these 15 Commandments or Laws of Isis are—so far, no one does know], Ruler of the World; Guardian and Guide, and Lady of the Mouths and Rivers and of Seas; Skilled in Writing and Calculations, Understanding; Who Also Bringest Back the Nile Over Every Country; the Beautiful Animal [probably, the Cow] of All the Gods; the Glad Face in Lethe; the Leader of the Muses; the Many-Eyed; the Comely Goddess in Olympus; Ornament of the Female Sex and Affectionate; Providing Sweetness in Assemblies; the “Lock of Hair” in Festivals; the Prosperity of Observers of Lucky Days; Harpocratis [possibly an expression meaning something like the “darling”] of the Gods; All-Ruling in the Procession of the Gods, Emnity-Hating, True Jewel of the Wind and Diadem of Life; By Whose Command Images and Animals of All the Gods, Having … of Thy Name, are Worshiped; O Lady Isis, Greatest of the Gods, First of Names, Io Sothis…
Roman Isis, from the 2nd century CE, in the Farnese Collection in Naples
Thou rulest over the Mid-Air and the Immeasurable; Thou devisest the weaving of . . . ; it is also Thy will that women in health come to anchor with men; all the elders sacrifice; all the maidens at Heracleopolis turn to Thee and dedicated the country to Thee; Thou art seen by those who invoke Thee faithfully; from Whom … in virtue of the 365 combined days; gentle and placable is the favor of Thy Two Ordinances [like the Commandments, I want to know!]; Thou bringest the Sun from rising unto setting, and all the Gods are glad; at the rising of the stars the people of the country worship Thee unceasingly and the other sacred animals in the sanctuary of Osiris; they become joyful when they name Thee; the spirits become Thy subjects; [the next few lines are very fragmentary] and Thou bringest decay on what Thou wilt and to the destroyed bringest increase, and Thou purifiest all things; every day Thou didst appoint for joy; Thou … having discovered all the … of wine providest it first in the Festivals of the Gods.
Isis with Horus upon Her lion throne
Thou becamest the discoverer of all things wet and dry and cold and hot, of which all things are composed; Thou broughtest back alone Thy Brother, piloting Him safely and burying Him fittingly; Leader of Diadems; Lady of Increase and Decay, Thou didst establish shrines of Isis in all cities for all time; and didst deliver to all human beings observances and a perfect year; and to all human beings in every place, Thou didst show . . . in order that all might know that Thou . . .
Thou didst establish Thy son Horus Apollon everywhere, the youthful Lord of the Whole World and for all time; Thou didst make the power of women equal to that of men; and in the sanctuary Thou didst . . . ; Thou, Lady of the Land, bringest the flood of rivers—in Egypt, the Nile, in Tripolis, the Eleutherus, in India, the Ganges; owing to Whom the whole exists through all rain, every spring, all dew, and snow and all the land and sea; Thou art also the Mistress of All Things Forever; Thou madest the . . . of the Dioscuri; Thou hast dominion over winds and thunders and lightnings and snows; Thou, the Lady of War and Rule, easily destroyest tyrants by trusty counsels; Thou madest great Osiris immortal and delivered to every country religious observances; likewise Thou madest immortal Horus who showed Himself a benefactor and good; Thou art the Lady of Light and Flames… [then the Invocation moves to a praise of Horus, and then it breaks off]
There is much to meditate on here. Perhaps you will be inspired, as I am, to call upon Her in some of these many names—and maybe even add your own to the list. “In Portland, Great of Magic, Queen Isis, Mysterious One…”
I think I mentioned that Isis took, as an offering from me, a silver Knot of Isis when I visited Her Philae temple earlier this year. I had it on a chain around my neck when we took the boat over to the temple…and it was simply gone when we came back. It made me smile.
The Knot of Isis is often of red material, but here’s a green one, the color of all good things in ancient Egypt
Knots are important symbols for Isis and of Her. Most of us are very familiar with the Knot of Isis, the knot amulet that resembles an ankh, but with the “arms” folded down. Learn more about it here. But there’s another reason Isis is connected with knots. And that’s because She is the Goddess of Magic—heka, in Egyptian—and very often, heka was and still is worked by the tying of knots.
Ancient Egyptian texts often describe working heka as weaving or knitting, which is just another form of knotting. The deceased person is said to be “knit together in the egg” prior to rebirth. Some texts say that the head of the deceased is “knit on.” The concept of weaving, knitting, or knotting magic—bringing the strands of magic together to create or preserve or repel—makes complete and utter sense to me. There is a delicacy and precision that the many types of knotting require that speaks to me as a very viable way to work magic.
Note the knots in the straps of the Goddess’ garment as well as the little loop between Her breasts.
The basic idea is simple enough: tied knots bind and untied knots release. Beyond that, knots can unite opposites and—since a knot secures things—protect.
Knot magic was well known in Egypt from an early period; an inscription in one of the pyramids says that Isis and Nephthys work magic for Osiris “with knotted cords.”
The Book of Coming Forth by Day (aka Book of the Dead) also gives several examples of the magical power of the knot. In one, knots are tied around the deceased to help them come into the presence of the Deities: “The four knots are tied about me by the guardian of the sky [. . .] the knot was tied about me by Nuet, when I first saw Ma’et, when the gods and the sacred images had not yet been born. I am heaven born, I am in the presence of the Great Gods.”
A tjes knot as part of a necklace and the Goddess Bat or Hathor; surely this beautiful piece of jewelry was also protective
In addition to these four knots, another text talks about seven knots, or tesut, that were tied about the deceased to protect them.
The power of the magical knot is in its ability to both unite and “surround” things. The tied knot is a symbol of the coming together of two things in perfect wholeness, a condition that promotes a positive outcome.
A passage in the Coffin Texts says that when the hair of Isis is knotted to the hair of Nephthys, the Two River Banks (that is, the land of the living and the land of the dead) are united. Tying a knot could also refer to sexuality; the perfect coming together of two people in an act of creation. We still “tie the knot” when we get married.
Hapi “tying the knot” to unite the Two Lands
Furthermore, because the two ends of the cord used in tying a magical knot symbolically go all the way around something, they “surround” that thing. Thus knot magic could be used to surround” or bind an enemy—or even tie a curse to them.
In Spell 42 in Budge’s translation of the Book of the Dead, the knot appears as a kind of seed. The deceased is said to be “the knot within the tamarisk tree, beautiful of splendor more than yesterday.” This surely refers to Osiris within the tree prior to His resurrection.
And, of course, as you already know, the famous Knot of Isis is a very magical knot. In most cases, it is protective and associated with renewal and resurrection. As time passed, it became a must-have amulet for all mummies and was usually placed on the upper torso.
A tjes knot used to secure a belt
If you’d like to work some protective knot magic for yourself, here’s a ritual, slightly adapted, from my Isis Magic (new edition coming in spring of 2026 from REDFeather Publishing!! Yay!) that you can use to do so.
In this rite, we are using the knots to surround with protection. We call upon Isis primarily, but also Nephthys, Neith, and Selket as the four Goddesses often found guarding the four corners of a shrine as well as the four Sons of Horus, Who in turn protect the canopic jars.
The Rite of the Tiet (the Knot of Isis)
Isis protects!
About the Rite: In this ritual, you will magically tie a protective knot around yourself, or around anything or anyone you wish to protect. The ritual draws upon sources in the Book of Coming Forth by Day and is, in part, adapted from an ancient rite for consecrating the Tiet amulet.
Temple Arrangement: Altar at center; all tools on altar.
Ritual Tools: Nile water in Lotus Cup; flower petals from lotus, lily, or rose; Isis incense in censer; six pieces of fairly substantial red cord, each approximately one foot long (if you can’t find red cord that is thick enough, use white rope).
Opening
Purify and consecrate the temple and yourself according to the formulae of the House of Isis or any method you prefer. Return to the altar, take up the lotus (lily or rose) petals and elevate them.
Ritualist: O, you Souls of Life, Lotus Dwellers, Breathers, you of the Pure Air from the Wings of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within these petals. (Vibrating onto petals) ISET NEF!
Place some of the petals in the chalice.
Ritualist: (Addressing petals) I know you, you shining flowers. Your name is “Life Is In It”. Your name is “Protection”. Your name is “Peace Bringer”.
A beautiful Egyptian lotus cup
Place the pieces of cord upon the altar and anoint each of them with the Nile water with flower petals in it.
Ritualist: (Touching each piece of cord) Isis protects!
Invocation of the Powers of Isis
Next, invoke the Goddess, raising your arms in Adoration.
Ritualist: I call the power of my Mighty Mother Isis. I call Her strength to me. I call upon the Power and the Peace of Isis, for I shall knot the cord, the Knot of Isis.
O Isis, my Mother, I call You!
I call You with the breath of my body (breathing out).
I call You with the beat of my heart (touching your chest).
I call You with the pulse of my life (touching your wrists).
I call You with the words of my mouth (touching your mouth).
I call You with the thoughts of my mind (touching your forehead).
I call You Power. I call You Life. I call You Protection.
I call You, Isis!
Tying the Knots
Take up one of the pieces of red cord and move to the southeast corner of your ritual space. Holding the two ends of the cord in your hands, say:
Ritualist: You have Your Blood, O Isis. You have Your Power, O Isis. You have Your Magic, O Isis. The Blood of Isis and the Strength of Isis and the Words of Power of Isis shall be mighty to (state what you wish to protect) against all that would cause harm.
With strength and intention, tie a knot in the cord and set it in the southeast corner of the ritual space.
Ritualist: By the Power of Isis, I have knotted the cord.
Repeat this same procedure in the southwest, northwest, and northeast of the temple, above your head (leaving the cord on top of the altar), and upon the ground (leave the cord at the foot of the altar).
Stand west of the altar, facing east. Make the Sign of the Wings of Isis (raise and open your arms like wings).
Ritualist: O Isis and all You mighty Goddesses of Protection, I call upon You to guard (state what you wish to protect) as You did guard Osiris Himself, as You did guard Horus the Child.
An exceptionally beautiful gold and amethyst necklace, secured by a clasp in the form of a knot
Isis, Mighty Magician; Nephthys, Lady of Life; Neith, Primal Mother; Selket, Powerful One—tie the Knot of Isis against all harm. Keep it away! Restrain it! Let it not come near! O, Isis and all You Goddesses of Protection, grant Your peace and protection.
If you wish to meditate or do other work, this is an excellent time to do so.
Closing
If this is a ritual for protection from some outside threat, leave the tied knots in your ritual space for as long as desired or needed and conclude the rite by making the Sign of the Wings of Isis at the altar and speaking the last line.
If this rite is worked simply to create peace for meditation, you may untie the knots when you are finished by simply going to each knot in the order you tied it and untying it, then returning each one to the altar.
Use a simple, overhand knot in this ritual
Ritualist: I have untied the knot. Be in peace, O You Blood and Power and Magic of Isis. Be in peace.
At the altar, make Sign of the Wings of Isis.
Ritualist: I thank You, Isis, in all Thy names of Protection. Hold me ever near You, bound by Your protective knots.
Sunrise at the “castle” at the summit of Rocky Butte, our Sirius Rising viewpoint
Well, once again, Portland weather foiled my plans for watching the Star of Isis rise last Thursday.
But I have some amazing folks coming today to talk about our summer solstice festival for next year: The Return of the Wandering Goddess—so I need to get ready for them.
For today then, instead of a new post, I’m reposting a report from a time when Portland did not foil my Sirius rising plans.
There’s always next year!
Wonderful, wonderful.
That’s not what I was thinking when the alarm went off at 3:20 this morning, but it is exactly what I’m thinking now.
I have just come back from witnessing the rising of Sirius, the Star of Isis, in the morning skies over the city of Portland, Oregon. And it was glorious. A fellow priestess of Isis and I traveled to one of the high places in the city to watch Her be born from between the thighs of Her mother Nuet.
Our vantage point is known as Rocky Butte. It is an extinct volcanic cinder cone that rises to an elevation of 612 ft. within the city limits and is a less-than-ten-minute drive from my house. At its summit, there’s a city park surrounded by castle-like walls, which is a popular viewpoint for visitors and natives alike. From Rocky Butte, you can see the slow serpent of the Columbia river that forms the border between Oregon and Washington and the layered silhouettes of the ranges of the eastern mountains, including the archetypal, snow-capped presence of Mt. Hood (though I prefer its Native American name, Wy’east).
When we arrived shortly after 4 am, we could see Orion-Osiris clearly, so we seated ourselves before Him to await Her Rising. We brought stargazer lilies, bread, and milk to offer to Her at Her Appearance, and we each also had that wonder-working wand of modern priestesses, a phone equipped with Google Sky so we could check Her progress toward the horizon. Even though the morning was clear enough, with the haze of the city lights on the horizon, we weren’t certain we’d be able to see Her, but we settled in to wait.
This is what we saw in the pre-dawn sky
Then, to the far left of where the Goddess’ star would rise, we noticed something strange and beautiful. It turns out that this was the one and only morning to see another pre-dawn cosmic wonder: a perfect triangle in the indigo sky of Jupiter, Venus, and the slimmest crescent of the waning Moon. As the triad rose higher in the sky, the crescent turned from ruddy orange to milk white and, from our viewpoint, framed a small stand of fir trees before us on the Butte. It was spectacular. I’ll take that as a portent for the New Year anytime.
At just about 5 am, Google Sky told us Iset-Sopdet should be above the horizon, but we still couldn’t see Her for the city lights, haze, and mountains.
Then—wait, what’s that? Yes, we could see something flashing through the haze, shooting off sparks of red and white and blue-green: Iset-Sopdet appeared. She scintillated. She glittered. She sparkled.
Iset-Sopdet
We watched Her Rising in silence, but for the sounds of the night and the coming dawn.
We meditated, each in our own way. Then, after a time, we poured the milk, offered the bread, and placed the vase of stargazers on the surrounding wall so that they were in alignment with Her star. I really hope someone finds them later today and takes them home to enjoy the incredible fragrance of those lilies. She, I am sure, has already enjoyed them.
The heliacal rising of Sirius, August 23, 2014, was for me, quite simply, a perfect experience.
Starting in the late-Ptolemaic period, we begin to hear of a Goddess called Neotera or TheaNeotera, the “Younger One” or the “Younger Goddess.” She’s a bit enigmatic because researchers aren’t sure exactly Who (or even who) She (or she) is.
Egyptologists have made a number of suggestions as to Her identity. Some identify Her as a Goddess, while others say she is a deified queen. (Hence my earlier capitalization ambiguity.)
A coin with Kleopatra Thea Neotera
Let’s look at the deified queen part first. Because that deified queen was most likely to have been Kleopatra VII; yes, THAT Kleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, last ruler of an independent Egypt.
The Ptolemaic queens were into identification with Goddesses, Isis and Aphrodite being their top picks. Kleopatra, as mother of baby pharaoh Ceasarion, claimed for herself the title Nea Isis, “the New Isis.” What’s more, there actually were coins of the time bearing her image and the title of Thea Neotera. These were made by Kleopatra and Marcus Antonius for places outside of Egypt and meant to bolster her image in the greater world.
Isis-Kore-Persephone with Hades and His hound Kerberos/Cerberus
In Egypt, as you know, it was not unusual for there to be funerary cult maintained for rulers after their death and so we learn of a “great Kleopatreion” surviving at Rosetta (40 miles east of Alexandria, where the Rosetta Stone was found) into the 4th or 5th century CE. Alexandria was particularly resistant to Roman rule and it seems likely that, as Egypt’s last ruler, Kleopatra would have become popular with the people and her cult kept for long after her death. So Neotera certainly was Kleopatra VII in some instances.
Close up of Isis Kore with sistrum
But that is by no means the end of this quest.
Let’s move over to the Goddess side of the ledger. When Demeter and Persephone (also called Kore, “the Girl”) are named together, Kore is sometimes given the title Thea Neotera. She is the Younger Goddess in comparison with Her mother Demeter. Alexandria had a very famous festival of Kore, duly groused about by the Christian polemicist Ephiphanius. You can read his grouse here; you’ll need to scroll down. At Her temple at Denderah, the Great Goddess Hathor is called Aphrodite Thea Neotera (recall that this is a mostly Ptolemaic temple).
Isis Tyche with Isis knot, rudder, and cornucopia
Yet we also find all these Goddesses as separate Beings. In one of the many papyri found preserved in the trash dump in the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, we have a document that records the return of certain temple properties in which we learn that Oxyrhynchus had separate temples to Kore and to Neotera. Among the Neotera temple goods was a bronze statuette of Neotera as well as a rudder that was one of Her symbols.
So that’s a bit of a clue about Neotera’s nature. The rudder makes Her a guiding Goddess. We also have a small gemstone with an inscription on both sides. On the obverse, the inscription refers to Sarapis. On the reverse, the inscription is “Great Fortune of the Invincible Neotera.” And so Neotera is also associated with good fortune. Since Fate and Fortune were considered to be “invincible” powers, our Goddess Neotera must be even more invincibly powerful as the one Who rules them.
Now, since the gem also has Sarapis on it, Isis would be a good candidate for Neotera; Sarapis is Her consort in this period. And one of Isis’ sacred symbols is indeed the rudder. Plus, as Isis-Tyche and Agathetyche, She is well known as the Lady of Fate and Good Fortune. But, Isis is not usually considered the younger one. In the Egyptian myth, She is, in fact, the older sister.
Isis Demeter
From Gerasa, modern Jordan, we have an inscription that accompanies an image of Zeus-Helios-Great Sarapis, Isis, and Neotera. The article I’m reading wonders whether Neotera here is Hathor-Aphrodite or Nephthys, but then rejects both options. Yet, it seems to me that Nephthys is a good option here. The combined God Zeus-Helios-Sarapis is common at that time and the God Sarapis is a later development from Osiris. It would be natural to have Isis and Neotera-Nephthys with Him.
A later grousing Christian, Athanasius, complains that Isis, Kore, and Neotera were human women who became deified “among the Egyptians.” So, for Athanasius at least, Neotera is known to be Egyptian, though Her name/epithet is Greek. And She is separate from Isis and Kore. An Italian Egyptologist, L. Moretti, (and some others, but I’m still looking for those) has indeed suggested that Neotera was a Greek interpretation of Nephthys. And while I like the idea that Gerasa’s Neotera might be Nephthys, it would have been quite unusual for Nephthys to be among the exported “Egyptian Gods” at that time. When people outside of Egypt referred to the Egyptian Gods then, they meant specifically Isis, Sarapis, Anubis, and Harpokrates.
Isis, Nephthys, and the Osiris (the dead person)
A scholar of Hebrew texts notes that a cult of Neotera-Isis was practiced in Roman Palestine—and the people there would also have been exposed to the prior Kleopatra Thea Neotera coins. He further notes that the worship of Isis was to be found in Israel at Raphia, Gaza, and Ashkelon. According to a rabbinical text, however, if you should happen to find evidence of that worship—such as an image of a breastfeeding woman, a ring with a moon or Sarapis on it—you were supposed to take it and toss it into the Dead Sea. (Let’s excavate!)
Isis Tyche with Isis Knot, rudder, and cornucopia
So, now I must come to the disappointing conclusion that, except where we see the epithet Neotera with another name—Kore Neotera or Kleopatra Thea Neotera, for example—we have no definitive answer as to Who the Goddess Neotera is. I thought I was going to be able to identify Her with Isis’ Younger Goddess sister. But so far, there’s just not enough evidence. Some scholars have suggested that, over time, the epithet Neotera got separated from (perhaps) Kleopatra’s Thea Neotera epithet and eventually became a separate Goddess; an egregore Goddess, we might say?
Yet our best clue as to Her nature still comes from the rudder symbol and the gemstone naming Her as Fortune. Thus, we can invoke Neotera for Good Fortune and for steering our lives in the right direction with Her wise rudder.
But, of course, we already have a Goddess Who just happens to also cover those areas: Isis, She of the Rudder, Giver of Good Fortune, Ruler of Fate.
I enter Her shrine, light the candles, ignite the charcoal in the censer, pour Nile Water into the cup. The stillness of the morning settles in the shrine and in me. I sit on the floor before Her sacred image, looking up at Her.
“Hello, Isis,” I think to Her. No response. But I do not really expect one. Not yet.
I breathe, slowly, deeply. I focus on my own consciousness, which I sense centered in my head. Then, on a breath, I let my consciousness roll out and out and out, expanding into the unseen world, where She Is, where I can greet Her.
“I am open unto Isis, only Isis,” I whisper into the stillness. I breathe, opening my mind and body and Self to Her.
The water vessel filled with Nile Water
I take up the cup with Nile Water, elevate it. I call out to the Souls—the Bau—of Night asking Them to imbue this water with Their purifying powers in Her name. I envision blue light flowing into the cup. I sense starlight. I feel a slight heaviness in the cup.
I sprinkle water throughout the shrine. East, south, west, north. I sprinkle myself with this ensouled water. I speak the purifying formula, adapted from ancient texts. “Isis is pure, I am pure…” As I breathe in, blue light spirals into my core. As I breathe out, it reverses direction, carrying impurities out with it. I do this until I feel balanced and ready to come before Her in worship.
A hand-painted censer with lotus flowers
I take up the censer, place incense on the coal. Scented smoke rises. I call out to the Bau of Day asking Them, in Her name, to fill the censer with Their consecrating powers. Red light settles around the censer; its heat increases. I waft the smoke throughout the shrine as before. “Isis is consecrated, I am consecrated…” I coax the scent over my body. I breathe in the red consecration until I am replete, consecrated to Her worship.
I sit. Breathe. Open my consciousness again. I sense Her waiting on the edges of that consciousness.
I raise my hands, beckoning. I speak the very simplest of all the Egyptian invocations I know. “Iu en-i (Eeoouu-en-ee). Iu en-i, Iset,” I say. “Come to me, come to me, Isis.” I repeat this, softly, letting my words, my desire flow out to Her.
And suddenly the shrine is full of wings. Now it feels a bit crowded in here, but I let my ka relax, that it may better touch Hers. She shows Her beautiful face to me. Large, dark, almond eyes. Wide mouth. Long, wide nose. The shrine is full of wings and feathers, impossibly multi-hued. And it is full of Her.
She has serpents and sistra
I have come to worship, so I ask what She desires. “Your thoughts and offerings help Us abide in Our images [She means the sacred images we obtain and consecrate for Her and for all our Divine Ones] and in your hearts,” She says. “Spend time, make offering.”
She is before/around me now. She begins to breathe through my being. She is concentrating on the shenu—the energy centers—of my third eye and my heart. [I think this means either those centers are the most sensitive in me right now, or perhaps the least sensitive and they need work. I am not sure.] She breathes out, I breathe Her into my centers. Hold. I breathe out, She breathes into Her shenu and holds the power. We do this again and again. “What do you feel?” She asks. “Expansion. Excitement. Connection to You,” I say. “Worshiping is communion,” She says. “Your thoughts of Me are the flowers I choose for My garden.”
She, with Harpokrates, Werethekau, and the Goddess with Upraised Arms
I think blue lotuses for Her.
She takes them.
“Look into My eyes,” She says, “into the Black of the Kore.” [She is referring to this.] I do. “Worship begins at the Origin and ends there, too,” She says. “Worship is exchange, energy, offering, love. Worship is being in harmony with. Worship is rising in the Boat of the Morning and setting in the Boat of the Night. Worship is surrender that I may uplift you. Worship is vulnerability before Me, a release of fear. Worship is just love; you for Me, Me for you,” She says.
I sit then, in worship, as I do whenever I enter Her shrine, and whenever I think of Her. I am content. She, I think, is also content.
Look down from Orion’s belt; the bright star near the horizon is Sopdet.
I’ve written a lot on this blog about the heliacal (“before the sun”) rising of the Star of Isis—Sirius in Latin, Sothis in Greek, Sopdet in ancient Egyptian—which marked the beginning of the Egyptian New Year and the return of the life-giving Inundation flood. (You’ll find the basic information on Isis and Her holy star here. For more, just search “Sirius” on this blog.)
When Sirius rises in your area depends on your latitude. For me, in 2024, Her rising is August 22, in the hour before dawn. 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. (To use the linked calculator and find out when Sirius rises in your area, 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.)
But for the ancient Egyptians, and for those of us who honor the Ancient Egyptian Deities today, something else happens prior to the rising of Our Lady’s star: the “Five Days Upon the Year” or the epagomenal days. These were five days outside of time that marked the transition from the Old Year to the New Year. These five days, added to the Egyptian 360-day year, brought them up to the requisite 365 (or almost; they were short a quarter-day).
On these five days, the birthdays of Osiris, Horus (or Horus the Elder), Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. But this time wasn’t just a happy birthday party for the Deities. This time-outside-of-time, this liminal period, was also a period of great danger. This was the period before the coming of the yearly flood that fertilized Egypt’s fields along the Nile. It was the time of the lowest water; in some places, boats could no longer navigate. All along the Nile banks, everything was drying out. The food stores from last year’s harvests were running low. People were beginning to anticipate—and be anxious about—how high the waters would rise this year. Would there be famine or feast?
To those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this may feel quite familiar in August. The foliage that used to be lush green has started to look dried out and dusty. Heat sits heavy upon the land. In some places, people are bracing for the possibility of their own high waters from hurricanes. And though my local farmers’ markets are brimming with harvest produce, my social feeds are filling up with people canning and preserving—for we still feel the need to conserve today’s harvest against the coming darker months.
Our epagomenal Deities, plus (I presume) young Anubis with Nephthys
For the ancient Egyptians, the epagomenal days were also the time that Sakhmet sent out Her plague demons to infect the people. Known as the Messengers, Slaughterers, or Arrows of Sakhmet, these frightful Beings struck people down, sickening or evening killing them. There is new research showing that the infamous bubonic plague or Black Death may have originated in Egypt—and indeed that it, or something like it, had been plaguing Egypt for centuries. The Ebers medical papyrus, dated to about 1500 BCE, lists a disease that includes the description of a bubo, an infected lymph node that was characteristic of the bubonic plague.
An example of the protective amulet with 12 destructive Arrows of Sakhmet shown.
All this is to say that Sakhmet’s Arrows were not to be taken lightly. And people did not. The king and the temples worked to protect Egypt during this time with the rituals of Sehotep Sakhmet, “pacifying” or “satisfying” Sakhmet, for She Who could bring plague could also protect against it. The people themselves wore special amulets and used particular spells to avert the plague, or other calamity, at this time of year.
One amulet listed 12 of Sakhmet’s Messengers “who bring slaughtering about, who create uproar, who hurry though the land.” To make the amulet, you draw Them on a piece of linen, knot it 12 times, and wear it around your neck (one of our most vulnerable spots). Then you repeat a particular prayer regularly from the time you put it on until the New Year. You were also to make offerings of bread, beer, and incense as part of activating the amulet. Archeologists have even found some examples of these linen amulets.
As a great Magician Goddess, Isis is particularly associated with magical knots, especially in relation to protective magic. When an ancient Egyptian referred to a “knot amulet,” what they usually meant was the famous Knot of Isis, one of the amulets that protected the dead. Isis and Nephthys are said to work protective magic for Osiris with knotted cords. Knot magic continues to be a popular form of spellwork today.
A linen strip with the image of Isis drawn on it. It’s pretty faded, so a sketch of the image is included in the lower left corner.
In addition to this overall protection, there were particular spells and amulets associated with each of the five epagomenal days. Linen amulets, similar to the one already mentioned, featured the image of the Deity Whose birthday was celebrated that particular day. We also have a few examples of these, but not a complete set. On the right is a picture of the one we have for Isis’ birthday; the other two existing ones are for Nephthys and Osiris.
Another reason that the epagomenals were an apprehensive time of year was that normal cyclical time, neheh-time—the yearly changes and renewals, came to a stop. The old year had ended and the new one had not yet begun. Djet-time, perfected unchanging time, took over. Now, you might think perfected time would be good. And it is. Eventually. But not for life on earth. Life here needs the changes of the seasons and the development of the years to survive. For more about neheh and djet time, go here and here.
For me, with the rising of the Star of Isis on the 22nd, the epagomenal days begin on the 17th of August. I plan to honor each of these Great Deities on Their birthdays, perhaps with similar amulets and prayers, and certainly with bread, beer, and incense.
This year, I am definitely feeling the unsettled liminality of the approaching epagomenal days. It has much to do with the political situation here. I have renewed hope that with the rising of the Star of Isis later this month—and with Her even more brilliant position in the night sky in…oh, let’s say, November…that Ma’et will prevail. But we don’t yet know how high the river will rise. And so we work toward Ma’et, we do our civic duty—perhaps do some protective magic with Isis as well—and we wait.
I’ve been working on some new material for the new edition of Isis Magic (yay!). But that means I didn’t get to the post I was planning for today—some juicy tidbits about Isis in Rome (She’s still there, of course).
Instead I’m reposting the story of when I knew Isis had accepted me. I’d love to hear you story, too. Please do share in the comments, if you’d like.
Wings and lotuses, always
I am terrible with memories. I don’t mean my memory is bad. I mean I don’t honor ‘things past’ enough. I don’t take many pictures (and certainly not of myself). I tend not to care for traditional souvenirs. And I definitely have the “get rid of it” gene (which my beloved does not). In my defense, I don’t generally dwell on past wrongs either.
Earlier this week, this post was going to be on an entirely different topic. But then I came across an old magical journal. And there were memories in it.
Not my magical journal, but I like…
I do keep magical journals. I don’t record everything all the time (good Goddess, the paper trail would never end!). Usually, I keep them during periods when I’m doing a lot of magical work. This particular journal, as I have said, is old. I mean really old. Like “before the fire” old. Yes, of course, you don’t know what I mean.
Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest, we lived in an apartment in Tennessee. One night the complex caught on fire. Neighbors knocked on neighbors’ doors, telling them to get up and get out. We grabbed the cat and the insurance papers and got out. The next day, with the fire quenched, we were able to go back to survey the damage. It had been a weird fire. Things like our stereo system were completely and utterly incinerated. Things like our irreplaceable magical papers (papers!) were saved. This journal was among them. I can tell from the singed edges.
So I thought I’d sit down and read it. There was lots of visionary work pertaining to a magical system I was training in. But every now and then, there were entries about Isis. This was before I knew very much about Her, before I became Her priestess, and way before Isis Magic. Yet I clearly had been working with Her (or She was working with me).
A magical, glowing blue lotus
One entry reads, “I have had a very strong Isis connection since my dream the other night.” That dream was not recorded, but a vision was. I was working on love and acceptance. For the vision, I called on Isis to touch me and help me let Her love of humanity come through me. I sensed Her great, but gentle hand descend from above. She placed it on top of my head. Waves of Her not-quite-orgasmic love passed though me and out into the world. I describe that flow of energy, then write, “I again saw the bright, bright, blue glowing lotus.” It had been so bright that I couldn’t tell one petal from another; eventually, the lotus-light enveloped me. I conclude, “I am feeling very worshipful of Great Isis.”
I see myself falling in love with Her through this journal.
Another entry says, “A most wondrous dream! A prayer answered!” Apparently, my beloved was snoring, so I took my bedding and went into our temple room to sleep. I was overcome with a desire to know, truly know, that Isis was with me. I write that it was “a demanding, revealing need” for Her presence. I prayed to Her “more emotionally than ever before” to send a dream to let me know She was with me. I chanted Her name for a while, then slept.
This art 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.
“A few hours later,” I write, “I came from a full, deep sleep to awake with loud sobbing from happiness and amazement.” (My sobbing.) Due to the abrupt awakening, I lost part of the dream. But the actual content of the dream wasn’t the point. The point was that, in the dream, the resolution to a dream-problem happened by a miracle. By Her miracle. And it made me so happy that I woke up crying with joy. And I again saw the blue lotus flower.
Woman picking blue lotus
I remember this event. The details are a bit fuzzy now, but I vividly remember the visionary blue lotus. I could see it anytime I closed my eyes with crystal clarity instead of the vague dreaminess that vision often has. “I must look up lotus symbolism and I must make a blue lotus talisman,” I wrote. See how much I didn’t know then? Another entry says simply, “I love Her.” And now you know why the Isis temple in my backyard is called the Lotus Temple.
Next, I found an entry that I had marked IMPORTANT with a drawing of a star, a lotus, and a sickle on top. I wrote, “In the dark month of February, on the 15th of the month, with the moon waning in Capricorn, I have taken and been taken by Isis in Her Black Aspect as my Lady, my personal Goddess.” But this wasn’t when I became Her priestess; that was long in the future then. This was my forming a true bond with Her, a bond that will last my entire life. She became “my” Goddess, I became Her devotee. This is when I really began learning about Her.
There is, of course, more in this journal. I see my own inner struggles, doubts, fears, angers, and depression. But this particular record is incomplete. These are loose-leaf pages without a binder…and it seems that some are missing. After we moved to Portland, I began buying blank-but-bound books for my journals. The next one—which I am still writing in—starts with the time when I actually did become Isis’ priestess. In this journal, I can see that I am working out the magic part for what will eventually become Isis Magic.
But I think I have regaled you with quite enough of my journal entries for now. And I have learned my lesson that I should better value memories and keepsakes. Perhaps you will do some magical work with Isis yourself today? After all, your story will be a much better tale—because it will be yours. Just don’t forget to write in your journal.
As I look to the night sky, I cannot see the star of Isis, Sirius, for She remains hidden now. Yet I anticipate Her rising late next month. But in the meantime, I contemplate the vastnesses of Her mother, Nuet, the Sky Goddess, Who is filled with the Indestructible Stars that Are in Her, and within Whom Her daughter now rests.
A most beautiful Nuet
I am not Nuet’s priestess, but O, the Secret One draws me. I am awed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her. And right now, in the northern hemisphere at least, Our Lady Isis is Herself lost within the beautiful body of Her mother Nuet.
Right now, the star of Isis, Sirius, is hidden. Here in Portland, Oregon, She will not be seen again until pre-dawn in late August. Astronomically, that’s because the star is in conjunction with the sun. As the sun rises, its greater light makes the light of Sirius invisible to us. By late August, Sirius and the sun will move further away from each other so that, just before dawn, we can once more see the brilliance of the star in the twilight sky.
But that’s just astronomically. Mythically, Isis sojourns within the body of Her powerful mother Nuet. She Who is called the Mistress of All and the One Who bears the Gods and Goddesses. She is the Splendid and Mighty One in the House of Her Creation. She is the Great One in Heaven and the Indestructible Stars, that is, the circumpolar stars that are always visible, are within Her, just as Her mighty daughter Isis is within Her.
Nuet embraces the deceased king and each of us “in Her name of Sarcophagus” and “in Her name of Tomb.” She is the Mistress of the Secret Duat (the Otherworld). She is the Glowing One (perhaps as the Milky Way) and in Her we are joined to our stars, Becoming Divine. She is the one Who gives birth to us and Who welcomes us back into Her starry body at our deaths. She is Heaven and She is the Otherworld. She gives birth to the Sun God Re each day and receives him back into Her body, by swallowing, each night. She is the one Who is “Amid the Iset Temple in Dendera” for She is over Her daughter and Her daughter is in Her.
But now, while Isis is in Her mother’s body, She is also in the Underworld—for Nuet is the Lady of the Duat and Her body is both the Heavens and the Underworld. So now in the heat of the year, our Goddess is in the cool depths of Eternity. Perhaps this is the time for us, as Her devotees, to enter the Otherworld as well.
Nuet, the Circle of Eternity, encompassing All
Sopdet (Sirius), the Star of Isis
We usually think of symbolically going into the Underworld during the dark part of the year rather than the light part. Yet now, in the light of summer, it may be a particularly safe time to take that Underworld journey, for now we have the support of Isis Who awaits us there.
If we have scary things to face in our own personal Underworlds, now is a more supportive time to do so. The light of dawn comes more quickly now and the sunlight of Isis the Radiant One is more readily available to us after we have faced those inner darknesses that we must face in order to grow.
This may also be a good time to explore our relationships with our mothers. A strong priestess of my acquaintance, who was serving as a Priestess of Nuet at a festival a while ago, told me an interesting thing about how she perceived the relationship between Nuet and Isis. It was her distinct impression that Nuet did not get along with Her daughter. Of course, in the human realm, this is far from an uncommon thing. Mothers and daughters (and mothers and all their children, for that matter) can have issues. Now—in the light of summer and with the help of the Goddesses available to us—now might be a time to shed some light on those issues.
Sarcophagus lid with Nuet opening Her protective wings over the deceased
But even if we don’t have mom stresses, this can be a time to honor and remember our mothers, both human and Divine—perhaps under a star-filled sky. Since my own mother has already been enfolded in the wings of Isis, I shall plan to honor my Divine Mother Nuet and Her Starry Daughter Isis as I look up into the next clear and star-filled night.
With our hot weather, the night skies are clear now, so when I look up, I can see the body of beautiful, star-filled Nuet, the mother of Isis. A little while ago, a friend of this blog asked a very interesting question about Her…and Her. “How we can reconcile the idea that Isis is both Mother of All with the idea that Isis has a mother Herself,” they asked.
Isis the Mother
It’s a very interesting question because it has to do with our conception of the nature of the Divine and Divine Beings in general.
So how do we start to look at this?
For me, history is always a good place to begin. It gives us a useful foothold to know what our ancestors thought about these things; after all, when it comes to Divinity and Divine Beings, we human beings have been thinking about this for a very long time indeed.
Erik Hornung’s Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt, the One and the Many is one key text for understanding the nature of the Divine in terms of ancient Egypt. Hornung writes that the Egyptians had a multiplicity of approaches to the Divine and only when taken together can we see the whole picture. For them, he says, everything came from One because the non-existent is One, Undifferentiated Thing. Once something becomes existent, it also becomes multiple.
Atum arises from the Nun, the primordial waters of No-Thing-Ness
We see this in the Heliopolitan myth in which Atum comes forth from the Nun, the non-existent, the inert, and immediately begins generating other Deities through an act of masturbation: first Shu and Tefnut, Who beget Nuet and Geb, Who beget Isis, Osiris, Set, and Nephthys.
And so we meet Isis, Her mother Nuet, and Her mother’s mother Tefnut. And there may even be a great grandmother present, for when Atum came into existence, He was both masculine and feminine; His “shadow” or “hand” (the one He used to masturbate) is the Goddess Iusaaset or Iusâas. She is usually represented anthropomorphically, through, and not as a disembodied hand, and She is said to be the Grandmother of All the Gods.
The Ennead of Heliopolis
Another important characteristic of the Divine in ancient Egypt is Its fluidity. Hornung says of the Egyptian Deities, “They are formulas rather than forms, and in their world, one is sometimes as if displaced into the world of elementary particles.” Deities may be combined with one another or split off from one another; one Deity can be the ba—soul or manifestation—of another; They can even be assimilated with foreign Deities without losing Their essence. “But wherever one turns to the divine in worship, addresses it and tends to it in cult” Hornung writes, “it appears as a single, well-defined figure that can for a moment unite all divinity within itself and does not share it with any other god.”
Isis protected by the Vulture Mother
The primordiality and uniqueness of Isis is attested on the Great Pylon of Her graceful temple at Philæ. The Ptolemaic passage states that Isis “is the one who was in the beginning; the one who first came into existence on earth.” In the Coffin Texts, Isis is invoked with a group of Deities considered to be the most ancient: “O Re, Atum, Nu, Old One, Isis the Divine…” (Formula 1140). She is called Great Goddess Existing from the Beginning, Great One Who Initiated Existence, and Great One Who Is From the Beginning. Her very name, Iset or Throne, speaks to Her ancient nature.
By the time of the New Kingdom, Isis is routinely called Mother of All the Gods. Then, with Her worship spreading throughout the Mediterranean and beyond, Apuleius can write that Isis “brings the sweet love of a mother to the trials of the unfortunate,” while a Latin dedicatory inscription sums up Her all-encompassing nature: Tibi, Una Quae es Omnia, Dea Isis, “Thou, Being One, Art All, Goddess Isis.”
So now we have ancient attestations both of Isis’ ancient and original one-ness and of Her generation from Her parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. How do we resolve it?
Which came first? It’s a paradox.
If we are among those who are uncomfortable with paradox, I’m afraid there may be no satisfying reconciliation between these two ideas. If it has been deeply ingrained that there can only be one right answer—especially when it comes to spiritual questions—then it may seem impossible for both these things to be true. After all, they contradict each other. At the very least, we should be able to pick one as the “right” answer. At the very most, we may decide the contradiction means both things must be false.
And yet we have already seen that, at least to the ancient worshipers of Isis, both things were indeed true.
This is what paradox is; and religion is absolutely rife with it. Why? Because most religions, or spiritualities, involve Mystery. Mystery is at the very core of the Divine and paradox is one of Its favorite languages. Yet this is not to say we should simply throw up our hands up and say, “Goddess works in mysterious ways” and quit thinking about it.
Quite the opposite in fact. Paradox invites thought. It is intended to teach. So what can we learn from our paradox: Isis is Mother of All, yet She Herself has a mother…and a mother’s mother…and?
Originally an illustration for a book of pseudo-Indian love poetry called The Garden of Kama, this lovely illustration by Byam Shaw, 1914, captures something of Nuet caring for one of Her Holy Children
Let’s look at it through that ancient Egyptian lens that shows us a multiplicity of approaches to the Divine.
One way we can approach is through the Heliopolitan myth does: Isis is part of a Divine family. By being so, perhaps She is better able to understand human beings when we come to Her with our own familial problems. Her family relations make Her more suited to be a Soteira, a Savior Goddess, as She was known throughout the Mediterranean world.
We can also learn some important things about Isis through Her family relations. Isis is the daughter of Heaven (Nuet) and Earth (Geb). She is married to the Underworld God, Osiris, and is Herself a Goddess of the Underworld. Thus Isis is intimately connected to All That Is; She walks in all the Worlds.
Another approach to our paradox is through the fluidity of the Egyptian Deities that we talked about. If They can combine or split at will, or if one can become the ba of another, why can’t Isis be at once a Great Mother Herself and the daughter of a Great Mother?
Yet another approach is to open our hearts toward Isis in worship and experience Her for ourselves. Then, as Erik Hornung explained, Isis “appears as a single, well-defined figure that can for a moment unite all divinity” within Herself; She is the One Who is All, and She is the Mother of All.
By combining these approaches, and tolerating a little paradox, we learn more about Isis than we ever would have by restricting ourselves to a single position alone and Isis reveals Herself ever more as the Great Goddess She is.
It’s hot here, as it is in so much of the US and across the middle latitudes. But in the often-cloudy pacific northwest, there is a benefit. It’s the night. O, in the night, the sky is clear and we can finally see the brightly shining stars. And so today, whether you can see the stars at night or not, I offer you this meditation on your own unique star, the Star of Your Soul, the Star of Your Self. If you want to know more about the background of this star, have a look at this post.
The Rite of Touching Your Star
Contemplate the image of the stars above or remember how the night sky looked the last time you stargazed. Purify and consecrate yourself using the formulae of the House of Isis, or use any method that you usually use to prepare yourself for ritual.
Facing east, raise your arms in the Sign of the Wings of Isis and say:
Ritualist: Iset Sopdet, Daughter of the Stars, Queen of Souls, I have come to You that You may help me to find and to touch the light of my own Beautiful Star, my own Divine Light. Amma, Iset, let it be so.
Continuing to face east, be seated comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe deeply and slowly for several minutes. When you are ready, visualize the following:
Imagine that you stand before the great pylon gates of an ancient Egyptian temple of Isis. It is late evening. The sky is a luminous indigo color and the stars are beginning to show themselves. As you stand there, the doors of the temple swing open and you enter. It is quiet and no one else seems to be here, though someone has clearly lit the torches that illuminate the interior of the temple.
If you look to your right, you see that stone stairs have been carved into the wall of the temple and a torch burns near the first step. You approach the steps and begin to climb. If you look at the walls beside you, you will see many Egyptian five-pointed stars carved into the walls, with hieroglyphs in neat columns beside them.
Continue climbing and you will soon emerge on the roof of the temple. Here, it is completely dark. No torches illuminate this place—only the light of the millions and millions of stars that fill the night sky above you. Walk to the very center of the roof and you will find that someone has made a place for you. Soft rugs and cushions have been placed there for you. Take your seat there and make yourself comfortable.
Let one star catch your attention.
The voice of the Goddess speaks in your mind and says, “Gaze at the beautiful belly of My Mother, Nuet. Narrow your eyes slightly and scan the sky, to the right, to the left, above, below, and behind you. Continue to scan the sky until one star catches your attention.”
Let this take as long as it takes. Continue to look at the sky until one star seems to jump out at you. When you have found this star, kiss your hand and extend it toward the star and say:
Ritualist: I greet You, O Star of my Soul. I welcome You. Come to me, come to me, O Star of my Self. Come to me that I may be joined to your light.
And indeed, the Beautiful Star does come. It moves gently through the sky until it is just before and above you in the night.
As you watch, the star flashes and a beam of starlight extends from the star to touch the top of your head. You feel a tingling and a warmth there. You will now draw the light of your star into the shenu, or energy centers, of your body.
Breathe in and the starlight fills your mind. Take note of any image that arises as the starlight is in your head.
Breathe in and draw the starlight into the shen at your throat. Once more take note of any image or thought that comes to you.
Breathe in and bring the starlight into your heart. Knowing the importance the Egyptians placed on the heart as a center of the self, let the light linger there a bit longer.
Breathe in and bring the starlight into the shen at your genitals and note your feelings, thoughts, and any images.
Breathe in and let the starlight fill the area between your knees. Once more, make mental note of your experience.
Breathe in and bring the starlight all the way through your body, into the area just beneath your body.
Become aware of the channel of starlight that flows from the star above you and all the way through your body. Then open yourself even more. Breathe deeply once more and open yourself yet more. Breathe and feel the light of the star breathing with you, moving through and within your body.
Do this until you feel complete, at least for the time being. When you are ready, stand, and thank your star by making the Sign of the Wings of Isis.
Ritualist: I thank You, O Star of my Soul. I thank you. May your light continue to guide me until I come to you again. In the name of my mother Isis, may it be so. Amma, Iset.
Watch as your star withdraws and returns to its normal place in the beautiful night belly of Nuet. Kiss your hand and extend it toward the star in thanks. When you are ready, walk back down the steps and out the temple doors.
Let your consciousness return to the here and now. Thank Isis in your own words. The rite is ended.
This meditative rite should be done many, many times over the course of your lifetime. Different things will happen at different points in your life and you will discover new things each time. The more you do it, the more you will weave the connection between yourself and your star, a connection that can serve as a guide in this world…and the next.
NASA says this is a nebula. It looks to me like the astral hand of the soul reaching for its star.
Several posts ago, I mentioned a particular type of graffiti found at Isis temples in Egypt and in other locations throughout the Mediterranean. These are the images of a foot or feet or footprints that were sometimes scratched on or near Her temple or shrine. Similar feet have also been found carved on separate stone slabs and placed within temples. In Egypt, we find these feet images associated with Isis in Abydos and Philae. Outside of Egypt, we find them in Delos, Chaeronea, Thessaloniki, Maroneia, Rome, and more.
A knot of Isis like the one She took as offering
If you’ve ever traveled to a sacred place, you may have been tempted to leave behind an offering or token of some kind to mark your journey. On my own recent pilgrimage to Isis’ temple at Philae in Egypt, it seems I left such a token—if inadvertently. On the boat ride to Her temple island, I was wearing two pieces of jewelry: a knot of Isis and a tiny sistrum. I paid no attention to them at all while we explored Her sacred temple. But on the boat ride back, I had only the tiny sistrum. The knot of Isis must have fallen off sometime during our visit.
Yet the loss made me happy. Why? Because I had had a premonition that something would happen while I was there. I believe that what happened was that Isis accepted the offering that I had unconsciously brought Her. I have since wondered if the Goddess re-gifted it to some other visiting priestess and absolutely made her day, week, and month. I hope so; that’s my fantasy, anyway.
A votive footprint from a temple in the Egyptian Faiyum
Of course, I would never have etched my footprints or left graffiti on Her temple as some ancient visitors before me had done. I mean, what were they thinking!?! And, in fact, that’s exactly what I’d like to explore today: what were they thinking, and what are those footprints about anyway?
In a general sense, footprints are tangible proof that someone was here; right here—and substantial enough to leave a print. Remember the Ice Age footprints discovered in New Mexico several years ago? They are of a woman and child and they’re the longest continual track of fossilized footprints found to date; they continue for almost a mile. Because of the pace of the footprints and the changing depth of the imprints, researchers can tell something about what may have been happening to those people at that time. Or remember how affecting seeing Buzz Aldrin’s human footprint in the dust of the moon was? Or perhaps you’ve been intrigued by the celebrity footprints (and handprints) outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood? Like a fingerprint, a footprint uniquely represents the one who made it.
Etched footprints of (probably) priests of Khonsu on the roof of His temple at Karnak
Footprints can often have a spiritual significance, too. Across the world, people have always pointed out what they say are footprints of Deities, heroes, and supernatural beings. Some are natural footprint-shaped indentations in rock, while others are human-created, like the giant God-footprints in Syria’s ‘Ain Dara temple. Such physical evidence is meant to clearly demonstrate the Deity’s Presence. These God-sized footprints may be meant to commemorate a human being’s experience of Divine epiphany. Or their permanence, especially in a temple, may be meant to say, “the Deity is always here.” However we interpret them, there is magic in them.
The “walking” footprints from Isis’ Baelo Claudia temple; you can see Her name in Latin in the upper left of the photo
Isis is, of course, one of the Deities Who left such evidence of Her Divine Presence in Her temples. We have a limestone slab from Alexandria, Egypt that shows a single, large footprint that has been conveniently labeled for us in Greek: Isidos Podas, “Foot of Isis.” Separate stone slabs like this, incised with a Divine foot or feet, seem to have been an Egyptian thing and is attested for Egypt from at least the 5th century BCE. Similar carved slabs are also found throughout the Mediterranean, and often in temples of “The Egyptian Deities.” During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, “the Egyptian Deities” meant specifically Isis, Serapis, Harpokrates, and Anubis. Sometimes, other symbols related to the Deity are carved along with the foot or feet, or the dedication informs us that it was given to fulfill a vow or “by order of” the Deity.
We sometimes also find votive footprints carved in stone that would then be set into the floor of the temple. In the Isis temple in Baelo Claudia, Spain, the footprints are offset, as if in movement, and seem to lead toward the altar. (I love this.) In this case, the footprints have been interpreted as the path walked by Isis’ priests as they served Her or as the steps of the Goddess Herself as She attends the ceremonies at Her temple. Another small Isis sanctuary near Seville shows similar treatment with the footprints approaching the sanctuary entrance.
Votive “footsteps” dedicated to Isis Dykaiosyne from the sacred island of Delos
From the sacred island of Delos in Greece, we have a pair of footprints, labeled as “footsteps” and dedicated to Isis Dikaiosyne, “Isis of Justice,” by “order of the Goddess.” Another set of Goddess-sized footprints from Delos were dedicated to Isis and Anubis by at least three women. From Chaeronea, we have sandalled feet dedicated “following the command of Isis.” We have similar dedicated footprints from the acropolis in Athens and from Thessalonike.
While oversized footprints usually represent Deities, smaller, human-sized ones represent Their human worshipers. The footprint demonstrates the worshiper’s presence before the Deity at Their temple. Some of the earliest examples come from Egypt. We find them not only in temple complexes, but also in hilltop locations, perhaps putting the human closer to the Divine in this elevated position. In Egypt, there are hundreds of examples and they date from as far back as the Old Kingdom. Some were made by visitors to the temples, but many were made in areas—such as the roof—that were inaccessible to anyone but the clergy. Thus it seems to have been a privilege of the priests to be able to put themselves in continual proximity to the Deity of the temple. In fact, the four instances of footprint graffiti found at Isis’ Philae temple come from a single family that served there as priests of Isis. (Researchers also note that some of the footprints from Egypt are found in secular contexts, often made by soldiers, and simply say, “I was here.” Because. Humans.)
Footprints of the Goddess and Her devotee from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece
Sometimes we find a larger footprint beside a smaller one, perhaps to represent the Deity and Their worshiper. An example of a set of footprints like these comes from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece. They may be meant to show that the devotee is walking beside her Goddess. Since Isis Locheia is a protector of women in childbirth and of children, we can surmise that the footprints represent a pregnant woman asking protection from her Goddess.
We also find a number of these footprint dedications given by now-free, formerly enslaved people. Both Isis and Serapis were known to help manumit slaves through a fictitious “sale” to the Goddess and God.
Later, during the Roman Imperial period, a new kind of “foot” comes into vogue. It is a gigantic 3D sculpture of a Divine foot. A famous example is the Piè di Marmo (“Marble Foot”) that now resides on Via del Piè di Marmo in Rome and which is believed to be a large foot of Isis (or possibly Serapis) from the temple of Isis Campense or the Serapium. These feet are free-standing and not part of a large, lost statue. In other words, the whole Deity is represented by the foot. Scholars believe that this trend, too, first developed in Egypt and was exported to other sanctuaries in the Mediterranean.
The Piè di Marmo in Rome
The concept of representing ourselves or our Deities by footprints—by the traces left behind by our presence or Their Presence—is found worldwide. People everywhere do it and have done so for thousands of years. The many “footprints of Buddha” are just one example from outside the Mediterranean region. They are, I believe, similar in meaning to the prehistoric handprints found in caves from Indonesia to France.
In Egypt, we have Old Kingdom evidence of the idea that “my footprint means I was here” in both secular and sacred contexts. By the New Kingdom, oversized Divine footprints begin to appear. But instead of being etched into temple walls or roofs, they are often carved on separate slabs of stone and dedicated in temples. We begin to see this trend outside of Egypt, too, especially in temples of Isis and Serapis, but also in temples of other Deities in sanctuaries throughout the Mediterranean. Remember the ones at Hekate’s temple in Karia?
For the Isis shrine in my backyard, we purchased two slabs of rock that we intend to have sandblasted with a pair of votive feet, right foot on one, left on the other. This is a project yet to be done, but after looking into this interesting little chapter in the worship of Isis, I’m gonna have to get on that. She needs some footsteps of Her votary—me—leading into Her temple.
In my own work with Isis over the years, I have come to settle on four qualities that seem to me to capture much of Her “flavor” for me. They are power, wisdom, love, and magic.
When we first come to Isis, we often immediately perceive Her love, flowing out to us, enfolding us in Her sheltering wings. We are warmed in Her love. We rest in Her wings.
Her power reveals itself later.
The “Isis of Coptos”
First, there is Her metaphysical power. This is the power that blows my hair back, makes we want to “kiss the ground before Your beautiful face,” as the ancient texts put it. This power makes me gasp, thrills my body and makes me shiver. Before this power, I can say only, “yes, Goddess.” And rejoice. Sometimes there’s a stupid grin on my face in Her powerful Presence. Sometimes Her power kicks open all my doors, both physical and spiritual and I have no idea what sort of expression might be on my face. Isis often hides this metaphysical power behind Her famous veil, for without the shielding of the veil, Her full Presence could overwhelm us.
But there is another, more earthly, kind of power that She shows us as well. And this is the power of persistence. Plutarch, in his essay On Isis and Osiris, says that Isis serves as an example to those enduring suffering in life. And so She does. As Her myths instruct, each time the Goddess suffers a tragedy, She uses Her power to pick Herself up and go on; and ultimately, to succeed.
Perhaps this seems a boring power? I don’t think so. For human beings, I believe this power of the Goddess is one of the keys to living. We will all experience pain, failure, death; indeed, some will suffer more than others. But we can all look to the stories of our Goddess passing through these things Herself to find our own power. What’s more, in our times of trouble, we can borrow some of Her strength. She will lend it to us in abundance. She is the fount of power, both mystical and persistent, and She never, ever runs dry. When we are in pain, She will take our hands and She will make us stronger, filling us with Her holy power.
What qualities does Isis manifest in your experience?
I am thrilled to let you know that both Isis Magic and Offering to Isis WILL be back.
Offering to Isis: Knowing the Goddess Through Her Sacred Symbols is being published with updated text and new illustrations of the offerings later this year (2024). It is from Azoth Press and will be available from Miskatonic Books. I’ll share more information as soon as I have it.
Isis Magic: Cultivating a Relationship with the Goddess of 10,000 Names, 25th Anniversary Edition will be available in spring of 2026. It will be published by REDFeather, Mind, Body, Spirit, which is known for its beautiful oracle decks and other topics in personal transformation and empowerment.
Oh, you saw that “25th Anniversary Edition” thing, too? Woof. I can’t believe it’s been that long. On the other hand, when I think of the tiny Mac computer with the floppy disks that I first started writing Isis Magic on while seated at our kitchen table, I actually can believe it.
As those of you who have been following along with this blog know, I don’t talk much about myself here. I prefer to keep the focus on Her. She’s the reason you’re here. She’s the reason I’m here. And She’s the reason both of these books are here. But I thought I’d break my rule just a little bit to share with you something about me and how these books came to be…
The earliest I can remember writing stories was in the sixth grade. Influenced by the spy TV shows that were popular at the time, I wrote about secret agent cats and their clandestine organization, P.U.R.R. Yeah, you don’t want to know what that stood for.
Next, I graduated to monster and horror stories inspired by the Creepy and Eerie graphic novels (we called them comic books then, but they were graphic novels).
I never really thought of myself as a capital-w Writer, though I made my living from marketing writing. During this time, I learned how to research. I found The Goddess and connected with my local Pagan communities. I studied magic and psychism, both on my own and through training in a Hermetic magical tradition. And of course—I’m sure I share this with many of you—I never lost my deep interest in ancient Egypt.
With all that in the background, it isn’t really surprising that, when I did find Isis—or She found me—that the task She wanted me to do was to write books for Her.
As I worked on that little Mac on the kitchen table, I researched to discover everything about Isis that I could find in order to bring it all together in one book. (There was no Google when I began. I know; shocking.) The devotions, meditations, and rituals in both books were inspired by what I learned about ancient Egypt and by Her. In fact, She used many of them to train me as Her priestess. One piece of UPG (unverified personal gnosis) that She gave me during the writing of these books, is that these books would bring seven important devotees to Her service. They would be leaders and would help more people come to know Her.
I hope this has already happened. I hope you’re one of them.
So. Those are the bare bones of the story of Isis Magic and Offering to Isis. I’ll keep you up to date on when the new editions will be available and share with you any new information as it comes along. Thank you all for your devotion to—and if you’re new here, interest in—Isis. She is the most wonderful and magical of Goddesses. She is Divine Magic, Divine Wisdom, Divine Power, and Divine Love. And She IS.
The House of Isis is open unto you. It always has been. Come.
One of Isis’ most powerful epithets is “Great of Magic,” which you may also see translated as Great One of Magic, Great Sorceress, or Great Enchantress. In Egyptian, it is Weret Hekau or Werethekau. (“Wer” is “great” and “et” is the feminine ending. “Hekau” is the plural of “magic,” so you could also translate it as Great of Magics.)
Isis is not the only Goddess Who is called Great of Magic. Indeed, many of the Great Goddesses bear that epithet: Hathor, Sakhmet, Mut, Wadjet, among others. Gods are also Great of Magic, notably Set in the Pyramid Texts.
Werethekau from Karnak
There is also a Werethekau Who is a Goddess in Her own right, rather than an epithet. As so many Deities were, She was associated with the king, and especially during his coronation. There had been some doubt among Egyptologists about whether Werethekau was indeed a separate Goddess. But recently, Ahmed Mekawy Ouda of Cairo University has been doing a lot of work tracking Her down. He’s gathered references to a priesthood and temples for Her that seem quite clear. More on all that in a moment.
In addition to the Great of Magic Deities, there are objects called Great of Magic, especially objects associated with the king, such as the royal crowns. In the Pyramid Texts, the king goes before a very personified Red Crown:
“The Akhet’s door has been opened, its doorbolts have drawn back. He has come to you, Red Crown; he has come to you, Fiery One; he has come to you, Great One; he has come to you, Great of Magic—clean for you and fearful because of you . . . He has come to you, Great of Magic: he is Horus, encircled by the aegis of his eye, the Great of Magic.”
—Pyramid Texts of Unis, 153
A lioness-headed Werethekau from Karnak
Some amulets, including a vulture amulet, a cobra amulet, and, as in the example above, the Eye of Horus amulet are also called Great of Magic. So is the adze used in the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.
With all this great magic going for him or her, the king or queen becomes Great of Magic, too. King Pepi Neferkare is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic” (Pyramid Texts of Pepi, 315). Queen Neith is told, “Horus has made your magic great in your identity of Great of Magic. You are the Great God” (Pyramid Texts of Neith, 225).
I wonder whether there might be some primordial connection between the Great of Magic royal crowns and the Great of Magic royal throne—Who is Iset, the Goddess Throne. There is a votive stele that shows Werethekau and gives Her the epithet Lady of the Throne of the Two Lands. Perhaps we can understand the accouterments of kingship as personified extensions of the Power, Divinity, and Magic of the Living Great Goddesses, which were empowered by Them in order to bestow upon the king his own power, divinity, and magic.
A cobra-headed Werethekau…also from Karnak. Lots of Great of Magics at Karnak, eh? Or should that be Greats of Magic?
The magic of the crowns is enhanced by the protective uraeus serpents often shown upon them. They’re not just snakes, of course; They’re Goddesses. Most often, the Uraeus Goddesses are Wadjet and Nekhbet or Isis and Nephthys, representing Lower and Upper Egypt. But Werethekau is a Uraeus Goddess, too. The uraei are also known as “Eyes” due to the similarity between the Egyptian word for “eye” (iret) and the word for “the doer” (iret)—because it is the Eyes of the Deities that are the Divine Powers which go out to do things. (Very similar to the active and feminine Shakti power in Hinduism.)
The Pyramid Texts of King Merenre associate the Eyes with the crowns:
“You are the god who controls all the Gods, for the Eye has emerged in your head as the Nile Valley Great-of-Magic Crown, the Eye has emerged in your head as the Delta Great-of-Magic Crown, Horus has followed you and desired you, and you are apparent as the Dual King, in control of all the Gods and Their kas as well.”
—Pyramid Texts of Merenre, 52
The human-headed Cobra Goddess Werethekau nursing Tutankhamum
The Uraeus Goddesses or Eyes are powerful, holy cobras Who emit Light and spit Fire against the enemies of the king and the Deities. Learn more about Isis as Uraeus Goddess here.
When Werethekau is an independent Goddess, She may have the body of a woman and head of a cobra, be in full cobra form, and we even have a few instances of the Goddess in full human form. Among Tutankhamun’s grave goods is a figure of Werethekau with a human head and cobra body nursing a child Tut.
She also has a lioness form. We know of a lionine Isis-Werethekau from the hypostyle hall at Karnak. A number of the Goddesses with a feline form—Sakhmet, Mut, Pakhet—were also known as Great of Magic, so we can understand that powerful magic has not only a protective and nurturing side, but also a fierce and raging one. Which seems about right if you ask me; magic can be very positive and healing or, if used unwisely, a real mess.
Isis-Werethekau from the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. You can read Her name in the hieroglyphs above Her. Click to enlarge.
So far, I haven’t tracked down the oldest reference to Isis as Great of Magic. Since She has always been a Goddess of great magical power, the association is ancient. Perhaps it has always been. Perhaps there’s something to my guess about The Great-of-Magic Throne. Or perhaps Professor Ouda will come to my rescue if I can ever get a copy of his thesis about this.
In Ouda’s article outlining some of the references to Werethekau’s priesthood and temples, several of the extant references to Werethekau also tie-in Isis and Her Divine family.
For instance, on a stele of a chantress of Isis, the chantress is shown playing the sistrum and adoring Isis-Werethekau. The inscription reads, “adoring Werethekau, may They [Isis and Werethekau?] give life and health to the ka of the chantress of Isis, Ta-mut-neferet (Isis the Beautiful Mother).” In fact, on the less-than-a-dozen votive stele we have and on which Werethekau is named or depicted, many of them are stele for people who served Isis in some priestly capacity; they may have also served Osiris and Horus, too.
Ta-mut-neferet holds the hand of a man identified as “the servant of Osiris.” Another stele calls Werethekau “Lady of the Palace” and is dedicated by a chantress of Osiris, Horus, and Isis. A man who was Second God’s Servant of Osiris, God’s Servant of Horus, and God’s Servant of Isis was also God’s Servant of Werethekau, Lady of the Palace.
Iset Werethekau in hieroglyphs…three different ways
Ouda also notes that Lady of the Palace may be Werethekau’s most common epithet. That is quite interesting in light of the fact that Lady of the Palace (or House or Temple) is the very meaning of Nephthys’ name. (Learn more about that here.) And of course, She, too, is called Great of Magic. Together, Isis and Nephthys are the Two Uraeus Goddesses and the Two Greats of Magic.
So if the question is, “is Werethekau an independent Goddess, a personified object, or an epithet of other Deities?”, the answer is, “yes”. With the beautiful and, to my mind, admirable fluidity of the Egyptian Divine, She is all these things…and most especially, a powerful aspect of Isis, the Great Enchantress.
Last time, we wondered how it was that the ancient Egyptians and Greeks could see a harmony, or even an equivalence, between Isis and Hekate. So, as promised, let’s look at some of the correspondences between these two Goddesses so we can understand a bit better what they were thinking.
A Roman image of Isis from Hadrian’s villa
Goddesses of Magic
Let’s start with the most obvious one: magic. Isis is arguably the most powerful Egyptian Goddess of Magic, or heka in Egyptian (later, hik in Coptic). In Egypt, heka is the power that underlies and empowers all of Creation. So naturally, all the Egyptian Deities have the power of heka. Yet, as time went on, it was Isis and Thoth Who stood out as Goddess and God of Magic, both for the strength of Their magical powers and the depth of Their magical knowledge.
Hekate is the Hellenic Goddess of magic and witchcraft. Sometimes, Hekate’s magic has a bit of a darker flavor than that of Isis for She is often associated with pharmaka, magical arts and spells, but which can also be drugs, both beneficial and poisonous.
Both Goddesses are also known to teach the magical arts to Their devotees.
While traveling the wilds of the internet, you may have seen some people saying that Hekate’s name may be derived from a.) the Egyptian Frog Goddess of Fertility Heqet or Heket, or b.) from the Egyptian word for magic, heka. For the connection with Heqet, we have this speculation from Martin Bernal (author of the Black Athena series):
Heqet
“The crone goddess Hekate [note: Hekate was never a crone] was central to the Eleusinian Mysteries, whose name, like that of nearly all Greek divinities, has no Indo-European etymology. Her name almost certainly derives from the Egyptian frog goddess Hkt or Hqt. Both were versed in magic—ḥk3 in Egyptian—and fertility. There is, to my knowledge, only one connection drawn between Hekate and frogs. This comes in Aristophanes’ parody of the Eleusinian initiation, “The Frogs,” where the chorus condemns those who defile Hekate’s shrine. The chorus of frogs appears while the travellers are crossing to Hades on Kharon’s ferry. In the Egyptian Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom, Sokar’s ferry to the Underworld is reported to have “her bailers . . . [as] the frog goddess Hqt at the mouth of her lake.” (Martin Bernal, “Egyptians in the Hellenistic Woodpile” in Ptolemy Philadelphus II and His World)
Isis works Her magic on Re
While Bernal has been heavily criticized for making these kinds of leaps (e.g. “almost certainly”), I do find his work very valuable in helping trace connections between the you-simply-couldn’t-ignore-it ancient Egyptian civilization and that of the ancient Greeks. Nevertheless, this one looks like quite the stretch to me. The frog connection is pretty tenuous and Heqet was never well known enough outside of Egypt to be that influential. A better correspondence might be between Isis’ title of Hekaiet, “Magician,” and Hekate, but I can’t offer further speculation on that as I’m no linguist.
Universal Goddesses
Both Goddesses are powerful in every sphere of life, on every level of reality. Isis is said to be queen of earth, heaven, and underworld. Hesiod, in the Theogony tells us that Hekate has power in earth, sea, and sky. And while Hesiod doesn’t specifically list the underworld as one of Hekate’s realms, it is clear that Her connections with the dead make Her an underworld Goddess, too. Both Isis and Hekate serve as psychopomps. Hekate guides Persephone back to the land of the living and Isis initiates the newly dead into their new lives.
Green Isis spreads Her wings over the deceased
Protective Goddesses
With Her widespread wings, Isis is the protective Goddess par excellence. She not only protects Her child Horus, Her husband Osiris, and the land of Egypt, but each of Her devotees as well. With Her magical power, Hekate is also a protective Goddess, Her image placed before each household to keep its inhabitants safe.
Child Nurturing Goddesses
Both Isis and Hekate bear the Greek epithet Kourotrophos, “Child Nurturing.” Of course we see Isis nurturing Her own child, Horus, but human children were often placed under Her protection as were young people in general. People often made offering to Hekate asking Her to protect their young as well.
Goddesses of Many Names
Hekate with guiding torches
With Isis’ astonishing number of syncretizations with Goddesses (and some Gods) both inside and outside of Egypt, as well as Her power in every area of life, She truly earned the title of Myriad-Named. Yet Hekate is also many named and connected with many other Goddesses. I’m going to give Isis the edge in this category, however, because the extent to which this happened with Her was and is simply unprecedented.
Fiery Goddesses
Hekate is strongly associated with burning torches while Isis is a fire-spitting Uraeus Goddess and burning Eye of the Sun.
Goddesses of the Moon
Isis with lunar crescent
In this category, I’ll give Hekate the edge. With Her prominent triplicity, Hekate has an easy connection with the triple visible phases of the moon, as well as Her association with the mysteries of the dark moon and the offerings of Hekate’s suppers. But Isis is not without Her lunar connections. In fact, many modern people first think of Isis as a Moon Goddess. In later periods of Her worship, She was indeed associated with the moon, particularly when Egypt came under Greek rule. For the whole story on Isis as a Moon Goddess, go here.
Savior Goddesses
Both Isis and Hekate are specifically called Savior (Soteira in Greek). Isis was called Soteira as She became universalized in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Hekate became Soteira through Her role in the Chaldean Oracles as the World Soul. Many of us are used to thinking of “salvation” in Christian terms—believe, and the Deity will forgive your sins, saving your soul for eternal life. But the ancients had a broader definition. Savior Deities could save you from earthly troubles as well as caring for your soul in the afterlife. The Savior Deities also saved people from their fear of death. By being initiated into knowledge of the afterlife and being assured of the favor of their Goddess, people could face their end of life in peace.
Scary Goddesses
A very scary, demon-like Hecate from the TV show “Charmed”
With Her connection to the dead, especially the restless and unhappy dead who can accompany Her, Hekate can be a frightening Goddess. She might be called upon in necromantic rites—raising the dead for information—which is naturally unsettling. Frightening aspects of the Goddess are called upon in some of the magical spells we have left to us. The Goddess Herself might appear in a frightening form with rattling chains and animalistic moans and roars. But Isis is never scary, is She? Welp. Yes, She can be. Isis’ own connections with Mysteries, death, and the underworld could make Her a Dread Goddess, too. After all, if She can create, She can destroy. The Pyramid Texts include a passage that says, “If Isis comes to you in Her evil coming, do not open your arms to Her.” Other tales tell of Isis killing a prince with an angry glance and that a rash man who tried to sneak into Her sanctuary without an invitation expired on the spot.
Animals of the Goddesses
A tomb painting of Isis and Anubis
The Goddesses also share some connections though the animals that are sacred to both. For instance, both are associated with dogs. Hekate has Her accompanying hounds, whose howls proceed Her arrival. Isis is closely connected with canine Anubis, sometimes even as His foster mother. She is also associated with “the dog star,” Sirius. In one of Her aretalogies, Isis says of Herself, “I am She who rises in the Dog Star.” Both Goddesses are connected with snakes. Hekatean imagery often includes serpents, while Isis Herself is a Cobra Goddess.
Animal-headed Hekate
Hekate is connected with bulls and cows, which were/are considered lunar animals due to the crescent-like horns they bear. Hekate Herself sometimes has the head of a bull as one of Her three animal-form heads. In later periods, Isis shares the crescent-horns-moon association, but She is also a Cow Goddess in Her own right, from very early on. She also is assimilated with Hathor, the most prominent Egyptian Cow Goddess. Like many Asia Minor Goddesses, Hekate is often associated with lions. Sometimes, one of Her animal-form heads is that of a lioness. Isis IS a Lioness Goddess. As the Eye of the Sun, She also takes the form of a fierce lioness and we have a number of portrayals of Isis with the head of a lion, looking quite a bit like Sakhmet. And yes, you guessed it, She is often syncretized with Lioness Sakhmet.
Pilgrim feet at Philae
Temple Footprints for the Goddesses
There is one last correspondence I want to mention, but not dwell on. That’s because it’s interesting enough to deserve it’s own blog post. One of the things pilgrims traveling to temples might do is leave a certain type of graffito scratched into the stones of the temple. The graffito was a foot or pair of feet, often along with a written dedication. They were meant to symbolize the person permanently standing at the temple. We find these pilgrim feet at a number of Isis temples and shrines as well as at Hekate’s temple at Lagina in modern Turkey. Click for info on the sacred graffiti at Isis’ temple at Philae.
Pilgrim feet from Hekate’s Lagina temple
No doubt there are other connections that can be made between these two Great Goddesses. But I think this is sufficient for us to understand why the ancient Egyptians and Greeks might have been inclined to associate Them.
So, are Isis and Hekate “the same?” No, not exactly. But are They connected? Yes, They are indeed.
I love this Hekate by Talia Took. Buy her artwork here. She is an amazing artist. I am the delighted owner of several pieces by her.
Enough people have asked me about the connection between Isis and Hekate that I guess it’s time to do some pondering about that. So let’s.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting both these Goddesses in ritual over the years. As you know, I have been a devotee of Isis for, well by now I can round up to “forever.” Hekate has always been in my Dark Goddess mix, but I had an opportunity to serve as Hekate’s oracle at our last community fall equinox celebration—which meant that I spent a lot of time invoking and experiencing Her over an extended period of time in preparation for the rite.
The question before us is often asked as to whether Isis “is the same as” Hekate—as She is so decidedly said to be in several ancient texts that we have left to us. (Specifically, Apuleius’ Golden Ass and the aretalogy of Isis in Oxyrhynchus papyrus 1380, to name two.)
I have this beautiful Isis from Thalia. I also have a Hekate, interestingly enough.
As is so often the case, for me, the answer is both yes and no.
Let’s look at the “no” side of the answer first.
From my personal experience, I can say that the two Goddesses feel quite different. That said, for the festival rite above, I was working very hard to psychically tune into Hekate specifically. I needed to separate myself from my easy connection with Isis and come to a place where I could “hear,” then speak aloud, the words of Hekate. For our ritual, we were invoking both the “witchy” Hekate that so many people are familiar with today, as well as the Theurgic Hekate of the Chaldean Oracles and from Whom at least some of the Oracles were channeled.
How you might answer this question for yourself depends in part on your own experiences and what variety of Pagan (I am using “Pagan” in its broadest, modern sense) you consider yourself to be. If you’re a ‘hard’ polytheist, then your answer is likely to be that They are two quite separate Goddesses and never the twain shall meet. They come from different lands, are part of different pantheons, and are separate personalities with Their own individual needs, wants, and agendas. (All of this is true, of course.)
In this case, the answer to our question is a simple no; Hekate is not the same as Isis nor vice versa. The two Goddesses are quite distinct.
The “yes” side of the answer is, well, a bit more complicated.
And it again depends on what you think about the structure of the Divine Reality and how it works. Here are two posts on some of the various ways we could think about that Divine Reality and how Isis might look through those various lenses: Isis, the One & the Many; and Isis, the One & the Many More.
Your answer might also depend on what you think about syncretism or theocrasia, the mixing of Deities, in this case, Isis-Hekate. This is not a modern invention; the ancients did it all the time. It was common throughout the Hellenic and Roman worlds. But it was especially true in Egypt. Egyptian Deities can become one another, take up each other’s traits, or be the ba, or manifestation, of each other. Isis-Hathor is a very Egyptian example.
Isis and Hathor also feel different to me on Their own, and yet They are intimately connected, each residing in the other’s temples and having harmonious attributes and powers. When syncretism was done cross-culturally, I’ve always believed it was a way for people to understand each other’s Deities. “Oh, you’ll like Isis, She’s sorta like Demeter, but different and Egyptian.”
The image you see to the right is identified by the National Archeological Museum of Athens as “Isis the Magician.” She is portrayed like most Hellenistic Isis images: Isis knot between the breasts, Egyptian wig, uraeus crown-base on Her head (the rest of the headdress may be missing). The missing arm probably held a sistrum or a serpent. But She has three faces. This is a very unusual portrayal of Isis. Some Egyptian Deities are shown with multiple heads, but it is usually two or four (the Two Lands frequently prefer even numbers), though triplicities were important in Egyptian symbolism, too.
Hekate plaque, now in Prague’s Kinsky Palace museum
However, triple faces/heads/bodies are not at all unusual for Hekate. So, are we looking at a syncretic Isis-Hekate in the statuette now in Athens? Is that why the museum has identified the image as “Isis the Magician”? I think so. In Sorita d’Este’s book, Circle for Hekate, she notes another Isis-Hekate on Roman-period coins from Memphis, Egypt. It shows a triple-faced Goddess standing next to the Apis bull, which was considered the ba of Osiris in Memphis. The Apis’ connection with Osiris would argue for the triple-faced Goddess’ identity as Isis, Isis the Magician, or even Isis-Hekate.
Now, I’d like to return to the texts mentioned above, the ones that equate Isis and Hekate—just so you know what they say. The first one is from Apuleius’ ostensibly fictional tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. It is from the speech that the Goddess Herself makes when She comes to rescue the protagonist, Lucius, from having been magically turned into an ass. She lists all the many different names that She is called by people throughout the Mediterranean. She says that She is called Venus and Diana and Ceres and Proserpine (Apuleius is writing in Latin, so the Goddesses are the Roman ones) and Juno and Bellona and Hekate and Rhamnusia (aka Nemesis), but that Her true name is Queen Isis.
An interesting AI Isis, though the algoes never get the jewelry or crowns right; Her headdress reminds me of my beloved Egyptian Rocket Goddess by Audrey Flack.
The second one is found in one of the papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The text gives the names by which Isis is known in cities throughout Egypt and the Mediterranean. It tells us that in Caria (in Asia Minor), Isis is called Hekate. Some of you may know of Hekate’s great temple at Lagina, Caria. Surely, the author is thinking of this Hekate and naming Her as Isis. Hekate also had a shrine at the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, also in Caria. Who else did? Yep, it was Isis. You can read the whole Oxyrhynchus aretalogy of Isis here.
Why was it so easy for these authors, writing in about the second century CE, to identify Isis with Hekate? Well, once you start looking into it, turns out that there are quite a few rather solid connections between the two Goddesses. But since this post has already gotten fairly long already, we’ll detail those next time in Part 2.
The last few weeks have led me to several new connections with Isis that I hadn’t known about previously. I’m sharing the second one with you today. Admittedly, the associations do get a bit obscure, but that’s okay with me. I love teasing out those threads of connection to and for Her.
Today we meet a Goddess named Aperetiset, Aperet-Iset, or Aperet-Isis. She is, apparently, a local Goddess from Akhmim, aka Khemmis, aka Panopolis, in Upper Egypt. There, Her consort is the God of the Upright Phallus, Min, and Their child is Horus the Child. She is also in evidence in Osiris’ cult center of Abydos and at Athribis in Upper Egypt near the edge of the western desert. Great Isis was worshiped with Min at Koptos, not too far from both Upper Egyptian locations. Aperet-Isis is known as far back as the New Kingdom, and then we find Her more frequently throughout the Ptolemaic and later periods.
We have maybe a couple dozen references to Her, and the ones we do have seem rather colorless. She is called the Lady of Akhmim, Mother of the God, Lady of the Two Lands, and The Great—fairly common epithets. But there are two other, more interesting, epithets that I’ll get to in a moment.
This map shows all the locations we’re discussing
First, let’s see if we can color outside the lines a bit and bring some additional tinting to our Lady Aperet-Isis.
Aperet Iset
First of all, Her name. The word “aper” means “to equip.” Aper-et is just “aper” with the feminine ending appropriate for a Goddess or a woman. And so, in the article I’m reading, it is translated as “She Who Equips the Throne,” (remembering that Iset means Throne). With what does She equip the throne? We don’t know. The article doesn’t speculate on that.
Perhaps with sovereignty? Sovereignty is always part of the discussion when it comes to the name of Isis Herself. If Isis IS the Goddess Throne, then to rightly rule, the king must sit in Her lap, on the throne, as Her child. That’s okay, as far as it goes. But Isis is far too expansive a Goddess to be confined to such a limited role. And, as all of you who have been reading along with this blog well know, She never was so confined. In fact, She eventually became The Goddess, the Encompassing All-Goddess, for so many, many of Her worshipers.
The king offering to Horus the Child, Min, and Aperet-Iset
I happen to be studying something right now that I believe can shed some light on Aperet-Isis.
You might be familiar with some of the forms of the human being, especially prominent after death, such as the ka and the ba. There’s another one called the akh. The dead “become akh” when they have successfully passed through the weighing of the heart during the Judgment of Osiris. You might see them described as “transfigured spirits.” When you’re akh, you have, in essence, become divine. You have all your powers and may travel between the worlds—heaven, earth, or underworld—at will, dwelling with the Goddesses and Gods. Naturally, the Deities are Akh, too, and have even more akh-power than humans who are akh.
There are two adjectives that are almost always used to describe akhs: iqer and aper. In the briefest of definitions, iqer is “effective” and aper is “equipped.”
The king offering to Min, Aperet-Iset, and Repyt
And with what are the divine akhs equipped? This we do know specifically. They are equipped with magical knowledge and power. Because they are aper—equipped—they are also iqer—effective—in doing whatever it is they wish to accomplish.
So, I think Aperet-Iset is not “She Who Equips the Throne,” but is instead the “Equipped Throne” or—taking Iset as a name rather than an object—”Equipped Isis.” To confirm that, some scholars have indeed understood Aperet-Isis as a form of Great Isis. As we know, being equipped with powerful magic is entirely within the natural purview of the Great Magician Goddess Isis. As Great of Magic, Our Goddess is incredibly competent and fully equipped with all Her magic. In tombs, we sometimes see human akhs describe themselves as “a lector priest who knows his spells.” And we know that Isis the Magician is perfect in casting Her spells, never hesitating or stumbling over a word. So I think we can take Aperet-Isis as a form of Isis that focuses particularly on Her magical strengths.
Isis the Mother of the God
Equipped Isis may use Her magic in service to “the throne,” that is, the kingship. Under Her epithet of Lady of the Two Lands, this makes sense. And Great Isis was always concerned with maintaining the legitimate rule of Her son Horus over Egypt.
While usually shown in woman-form with horns-and-disk crown, vulture headdress, and sometimes two plumes, Aperet-Isis is also occasionally shown as a lioness-headed Goddess. She is usually in the company of other Deities, such as Min, Osiris, Horus, Isis, and Nephthys. In the mammisi, or birthhouse, at Edfu, She is shown with 13 other Goddesses, including two Isises and three Hathors. In Egyptian theology, it is no contradiction to have duplicates of the same Deities shown together, nor is it a contradiction to have a minor form of Isis, Aperet-Isis, shown with other forms of Isis.
Isis magically reviving Osiris
We also find Aperet-Isis at Abydos, where Her powerful magic would be needed to resurrect and maintain Osiris. In the area around Akhmim, Her name is listed on funerary stelae, as well as being included in the offering formulae for tombs. This again connects Equipped Isis with the afterlife, where Her magic is required for renewal. And this is where the first of those more interesting epithets come in. One says, “Aperet-Isis, Her Face Coming Forth from the Land of God.” The Land of God, in this case, is the otherworld, the land of the dead, as well as the land of the Deities. As She emerges from this place, She is able to assist the dead in their transition to the next life. It is very valuable to have a Goddess Who is equipped with magic and knowledge available to help us in that great change.
The second of our more interesting epithets is “Aperet-Isis in the Temple of the Moon.” This is through Her connection to Min, Who is considered a Moon God. He is called Defender of the Moon and He Who Dwells in the Temple of the Moon. Generally, His sanctuaries were known as the Hwt I’ah, the House or Temple of the Moon—and this included Akhmim. As the Lady of Akhmim then, Aperet-Isis is also a Moon Goddess. So if you’re looking for a particularly lunar (and magical) form of Isis, Aperet-Isis may be the one for you. (More on Isis as a Moon Goddess here.)
At Athribis and Akhmim, Aperet-Isis is connected with the Goddess Repyt, known to the Greeks as Triphis (which sounds like an epithet of Hekate, but isn’t). More likely, this Greek rendition comes from combining the Egyptian feminine article, ta, with the Egyptian term rpyt, meaning “lady” and adding the Greek grammatical ending. So, the Goddess Repyt is simply The Lady. Repyt is often lioness-headed, too, and is paired with Min as consort. All three Deities, Min, Aperet-Isis, and Repyt, might be represented together. If Repyt is The Lady and Aperet-Isis is The Lady of Akhmim—and both are mothers of a Child God, Horus or Kolanthes (the Greek version of a little-known Child God)—we begin to see how the Goddesses come together. Ah, the glorious mess that is Egyptian Deities and how They refuse to have impermeable borders!
But now, I think we have at least a bit more color for our Goddess, “Equipped Isis.” She is a magically powerful Mother Goddess, a Queenly Goddess of the Two Lands, a Goddess of Magical Renewal, and a mystic Goddess of the Moon. She is most known from the New Kingdom onward, which is the same period when the worship of Great Isis was growing and spreading throughout the Mediterranean and further. It was, no doubt, inevitable that these two Goddesses would meet and unite.
I am always delighted when I find out something new about Isis. Yes, even after all this time, I still occasionally find new things. This new thing is small, but interesting enough to share with you. It’s about one of Isis’ syncretisms that I hadn’t previously known about.
Living on or near the Nile, ancient Egyptians naturally ate a lot of fish. The varieties are beautifully and naturalistically depicted in tombs and on stelae. Tilapia, catfish, eel, mullet, and Nile perch were often on the menu and we find their bones in archeological digs. Fish were grilled, salted, and dried. Fishy extracts might also be used in medicines. A modern Egyptian spring celebratory dish consists of mullet, packed whole in salt for 45 days, then consumed raw with lime and bread. Many modern Egyptians believe this tradition is inherited from ancient times.
The oxyrhynchus fish with solar disk and horns crown
When it comes to Isis’ story, we have a bit of a fish problem. The oxyrhynchus fish, a Nile freshwater fish and a species of elephantfish, is usually identified as the fish that ate Osiris’ phallus after it got tossed in the Nile after His dismemberment. (Though sometimes, the Nile carp or the lepidotes fish is named as the culprit.) Due to this loss, Isis had to fashion a new phallus for Osiris’ mummification and resurrection. He had to be whole.
It may have been this myth that led to Egyptian priests not being allowed to eat fish during their service, a taboo recorded by the Greek historian Herodotus. Plutarch, in his rendition of the Isis-Osiris tale, calls the fishes who ate the phallus of Osiris “impious” and says they were cursed ever after, and that Egyptians wouldn’t eat fish because of it. (Which, of course, we know is not true; they ate plenty of fish.) What’s more, the oxyrhynchus fish wasn’t cursed everywhere. It fact, it was sacred in the town of Oxyrhynchus. Learn more about Oxyrhynchus here. Though Fish Deities were rare in Egypt, there were a few other fish that were considered sacred in different areas, and so were not eaten. And there may have been other occasional taboos on eating certain fish at certain times.
Hatmehyt
In addition to having this particular complication with the phallus-eating fish, our Goddess Isis has another interesting connection with the fishes.
From the New Kingdom on, Isis was assimilated with a Fish Goddess named Hatmehyt, meaning “Foremost of the Fishes.”(Or perhaps we should say that the Fish Goddess was assimilated with Her.) Hatmehyt was the chief Goddess of the delta city of Djedet (Mendes to the Greeks) where the Ram God Banebdjedet was Her consort. Banebdjedet means “Ram Lord of Djedet” or “Ba of the Lord of Djedet.” Banebdjedet came to be associated with Osiris. In the Book of the Heavenly Cow (the one that has the story of Sakhmet’s near destruction of humankind), it says specifically that the Ram of Mendes is the Ba (soul or manifestation) of Osiris.
Hatmehyt
If Banebdjedet is associated with Osiris, then Hatmehyt must be associated with Isis. Although we find a few traces of Her much earlier, Hatmehyt was most prominent during the New Kingdom and the later periods. It was because of Her growing prominence that we begin to see Her connected to more dominant Deities like Isis. Hatmehyt is usually shown as a woman with a fish emblem on Her head. Sometimes, She is fully a fish. Her fish-form is commonly identified as the schilbe, which is a kind of catfish native to Egypt. But some researchers have identified Her fish as the Nile carp, the tilapia, or even the dolphin, which were known to travel up the Nile. As Foremost of the Fishes, it may be that She can change Her fish-form at will.
Edward Butler of Henadology notes that “mehyt,” meaning “fish” can also mean “drowned,” which is how Osiris is killed in some texts. On a Ptolemaic stele from the city of Djedet/Mendes, we find the king and queen making offering to the Deities of Djedet. Banebdjedet, in full ram-form, is there. Next to Him is a ram-headed God identified as “Ba, life of, Ba life of Wsir (?).” The question mark is a scholarly note because the name is too damaged to fully read. However, the reconstruction of the name as Usir/Osiris is based on the very clear identification of the Goddess Who stands behind Him.
She is Iset Weret Hatmehyt or “Isis the Great-Hatmehyt.” So, here is our syncretic Goddess Iset-Hatmehyt. She is Isis, Foremost of the Fishes. From an inscription on the Temple of Denderah, we learn that Hatmehyt is She Who “searches [for the members of] Her brother upon the flow.”
A Turkana, Kenyan woman carrying a fish on her head and looking similar to some depictions of Hatmehyt
Perhaps as a Fish Goddess, She is particularly adept at finding His body parts in the waters or “upon the flow.” In fact, Denderah records a handful of such references to Hatmehyt searching for Osiris’ members, protecting Him in His sarcophagus, and even being His sister—just like Isis. What’s more, the son of Hatmehyt and Banebdjedet is Horus the Child. Each mythological strand weaves the connection between the two Goddesses closer.
While I never really thought about Isis as a Fish Goddess, I do recall a shapeshifting exercise with Nephthys wherein I am a fish. So perhaps, I have some meditation to do with Iset-Hatmehyt. I’m thinking there may be some wet and watery connections between the Fish Goddess and the lost-in-the-waters phallus of Osiris. The Egyptians, surrounded by desert, always thought of the waters as kinda sexy. Heqet, the fertile Frog Goddess, was no doubt rather moist and slippery, just like our perhaps-equally-moist-and-slippery Fish Goddess, Iset-Hatmehyt.
As you might guess, I’m always on the lookout for articles about Isis. Recently, I came across a Master’s thesis that—while it didn’t tell me much new—did remind me of the charming Isis temple in Pompeii, which is the only Italian Isis temple left standing today. I had a chance to visit it, lo those many years ago now. So I thought I’d tell you a bit about Her temple there.
One thing we know about Pompeii is that, in a city of about 20,000, about 10% of the population considered themselves Isiacs. So about 2,000 Isiacs were in Pompeii at the time it was buried in volcanic ash. Assuming you didn’t have to get them all in the sanctuary at one time (the temple grounds are not huge), that would have worked pretty well. Out of a group of about 2,000 Pagans, how many of them would actually show up for the rituals at any given time? About as many as would fit in that modest temple…a hundred, maybe 200 at most.
Temple fresco with Isis and Serapis, and Isis in Her boat
But being buried in volcanic ash wasn’t the first blow suffered by that lovely temple. Pompeii had ALSO had a recent earthquake, in 62 CE, with the Vesuvial eruption following in 79 CE. The earthquake had rattled down a lot of Pompeiian structures. In fact, one of the reasons that the Isis Temple was so well preserved (it is considered the most well preserved building in Pompeii) was that it had been rebuilt following the earthquake…and not all the other public buildings had.
Numerius’ dedication of the temple in the name of his son
A wealthy Pompeiian, Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, had had the temple rebuilt in the name of his six-year-old son, Numerius Popidius Celsinus, so that Numerius Junior would have a free ride to the Senate. (Politics never change.) But what’s of interest to us is not the political machinations of Dad Numerius, but the fact that rebuilding the Isis temple would have conferred that much status. Clearly, Isis was popular; connections with Her and the support of Her religion were politically expedient.
One of the amazing frescoes unearthed at the temple
The temple was located behind the city’s main theatre building, which emphasizes the close relationship between Isis and the God of the Theatre, Dionysos or Bacchus. Dionysos was identified with Osiris; and so, He was a natural partner for Isis. In fact, a sacred image of Dionysos, along with His requisite panther, was located in a special niche on the backside of the main Isis shrine.
On either side of the Dionysos image was a pair of large, stuccoed ears. The existence of these ears shows a direct connection between the Italian temple and Egyptian tradition. Egyptian temples often had God-sized ears carved on the back of the temple, just behind the innermost shrine. The common folk, who could not enter the holy of holies, could—by virtue of these Divine ears—speak directly to the Goddess or God of the temple. A hole drilled through the back of the temple, and a priest or priestess on the other side, served to transmit the concerns of the suppliant to the Deity. No doubt the same thing was intended in Pompeii.
This next photo is the main shrine, the naos and pronaos, of the Isis temple. The sacred images of Isis and Osiris would have stood here.
There was a mosaic floor in this area, which has now been lost. Lost where? I don’t know. Perhaps stolen from the site. On either side of the main entrance (the central opening you see here), were two niches, perhaps intended for images of Anubis and Harpocrates, to Whom two altars within the sanctuary were dedicated.
The small building where the sacred water for the Isis rites was kept
The low structure on the left is the main altar; the remains of a sacrificial fire and burnt offerings were found there.
Just to the left of the main altar is a small building where they kept the sacred water for purification. Likely, this would have been Nile water. Roman satirists mocked female Isis devotees for making pilgrimage to Egypt to bring back the sacred waters of the Nile. (We cannot be sure whether the satirists were more interested in mocking Isiacs or women by such statements, but either way, nice, huh?) The sacred water was kept in an underground chamber.
You can see a little way into the building, which is about the size of one of those pre-fab garden sheds. The main altar is on the right, in front of the building.
The thing we can’t really imagine from any of these pictures is how the living temple would have looked. Paintings covered most all the walls; colorful mosaics decorated both walls and floors; shaven-headed priests and veiled priestesses moved to and fro in service to the Goddess.
This one isn’t from Pompeii, but from Herculaneum; you can see that they were indeed trying to keep the “Egyptian” in temples of Egyptian Deities
Behind the main shrine, there was a large-ish room in which, I subsequently learned, the initiates of Isis met. I didn’t take a picture of it because the site really didn’t look like anything much. But that was because they took all the good stuff to the museum. The walls had been covered with images evocative of Egypt. Near the entrance, archeologists found a beautiful marble head of Isis. The body of the image was of wood and was dressed in garments of real fabric and would have been cared for on a daily basis by the temple personnel.
This is not that image. But it IS one of the statues rescued from the temple. I didn’t get to see it in person because the Naples Museum had that wing of the museum closed the day we were there. Dang. From what I’m reading, it looks like they may have made a replica and put it in place in the sanctuary. I hope so. Let me know if you’ve seen it.
At any rate, this is one of my favorite non-Egyptian Isis images, and I leave you with Her graceful Self:
I’m recovering today from a bit of surgery, so I will leave you with this photo of some Isis statuettes we were privileged to see at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Isis, Isis everywhere!
So many folks I know are going through something right now. I’m not talking about The State of the World. (That’s a whole other difficult story.) I’m talking about personal things that loom large in our own lives. Health. Family. Huge decisions. Scary changes.
Maybe it’s just spring?
Because as beautiful and as welcome as each spring is, there’s also something unsettling about it. Everything is roaring to get going. But we’re not quite there yet. And we can’t quite move yet. Do you feel it, too? I know I do.
So you may be wondering, “Where is Isis in all this?”
She is here.
As She has always been.
An Egyptian votive stela asking for the Deity to hear.
And She is listening.
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. Whatever we are going through, these are our problems to solve. And we will solve them—with a little help from our friends.
Isis reminds us that we are each a feather in Her Wings, the blood in Her veins, an extension of the magic in Her heart and 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.
Hello, Isiacs! I’m off celebrating the equinox today. Yes, it’s Portland and it’s overcast and chilly. But the daffodils are blooming and all the little green shoots are coming up.
So, no post today, but I’ll leave you with some images of Our Lady that I had the privilege to see at the Egyptian Museum.
Isis in a somewhat unusual squatting postion
A classic mourning Isis
An Isis aegis; these busts of the Deities were sometimes used to decorate the sacred boats in which They were carried among the people during festivals
An Isis-Aphrodite with Her bare vulva and show-girl hat
Not Isis, but Her son Horus; this is a cippi of Horus used for healing. You pour water over the image and magical words. It gathers in the basin below…and you drink that as your cure.
