I admit, I don’t spend as much time in Her shrine as I would like. (My guilty conscience says, “as I should.”) Yet, since Her shrine and my office are in the same room, She is always there with me, even if I’m not in active communion.
And I will further admit that, even when I am in active communion, I am often seeking inspiration from Her about how to better communicate Her love, power, wisdom, and magic to others who seek Her.
But it’s important for me—as I suggest it may be for you—to just to be with Her, to feel Her presence, to sense Her Being, to drink Her sunlight, to taste Her magic. With no other agenda.
So, I’d like to share a little of what She’s like for me in such times, and invite you to share what She’s like for you, if you wish.
Something I’ve found very interesting over the years is that the experiences people have with Her are so harmonious. Certainly many discover Her as a loving Divine Mother. It’s a form many Goddesses take for us human beings. But I was really struck, one time in particular, when someone I was talking with described Her as “noble,” a word that I have often used to describe Her to myself. Though we are all so very different people, harmonies like that let me know that, yes indeed, we are all touching the same Goddess. We are all feeling Isis. We are all intuiting beneath Her wings.
So what is She like?
As She arrives, Isis is like the rumble of thunder just after the lightning flash. I feel Her move in the sky above me, in the earth beneath me. I feel Her thunder deep in my belly, in my womb.
Isis is like the face I can’t quite see beneath an obscuring veil. For a moment—a bright moment—She shows Herself to me. And for that instant, I think I know something about Her. And then Her veil is drawn back into place, endarkening Her aspect once more. O, I love that about Her. She makes me want Her.
Sometimes, Isis is like the earth after rain, when the sun comes out suddenly and mist wisps through the grasses in the unexpected heat. Then Isis is like the late-summer sun warming the heart in my naked body. She claims Her Iset Ib, Her Isis-Heart, that is within me.
Isis is like the tears shed for me, shed for the Lost One, shed for all of us. I place myself in Her hands when I am in sorrow and She hears me.
O yes, Isis is noble, Her head uplifted. In turn, She uplifts my face in Her hands that I may look into the profound depths of Her eyes. I see there unending strength and wisdom and love and magic. She makes me aspire to all those things, though I know I am ever-so human.
Isis is sun-golden. Isis is underworld-black. Isis is star-white. Isis is serpent-green. Isis is lapis lazuli-blue. Isis is blood-red.
Isis is like the Mystery that can never be fully described. Her great wings encircle, enfold, illuminate. Each feather is a teaching. Each feather is a world. I feel Her wings brush me softly and I swoon. Her Mystery upholds me, shows me, seduces me.
Isis is the most ancient, ancient. Unknown and untouched are Her depths. She calls me. She captures me. She floods me. She fills me.
And sometimes, just sometimes, that is what Isis is like for me. What is She like for you?
Many of you who read this blog may have a special relationship with Isis; you may be Her priestess or priest. And perhaps you, like me, have also been searching for a gender-neutral term for that special relationship. Some in our community have adopted “priestex” based on other contemporary gender-neutral endings.
I can offer you an option from ancient Egypt as well.
Now, ancient Egyptian was a highly gendered language: Goddess—Nudjeret; God—Nudjer. As in English, where we might add -ess to feminize a word, they added “t” to the end of the word to indicate the feminine. Most Goddess’ names, in Egyptian, end in “t.” (We usually add an “e” before the “t” to make it pronounceable as in Amun/Amunet.) The Egyptian titles that we translate as priest or priestess are hem (masc.) or hemet (fem.) Nudjer/Nudjeret. More literally, these are translated in English as “servant of the God/dess.” Since “servant” has no gender in English, servant of Isis is a perfectly good, gender-neutral term for this special relationship.
Sarcophagus lid of a priestess of Isis from Carthage
Whatever title we may prefer, the relationship itself comes with responsibilities. However, unless we are part of a formal organization that specifies what those responsibilities are, each of us will have to decide for ourselves exactly what serving Isis means to us. For me, there are five main keys, which I’ve written about on this blog—from worship and gaining knowledge about Her to ritual competency and spiritual growth.
When trying to sort out decisions like these, I often look to the past. Is there anything we can learn from the experiences of ancient servants of the Goddess? Of course, we have some information about what was required of them within the temples. But what was going on in their heads and hearts?
Unfortunately, we have little left that tells us what it meant to them inwardly and spiritually. No doubt, some servants were more devout than others. Nonetheless, there is every reason to think that indeed there were inner experiences. The Egyptian reputation for religious and philosophical knowledge was immense. It would only make sense that those who were sincerely following their path would have important personal, spiritual experiences—just as people have always done.
Though records of these inner experiences are few, we do have hints. For instance, from the the reign of Thutmose III we have an inscription that indicates that priestly initiations meant something spiritually as well as professionally. A new royal vizier, who was made Prophet of Ma’et*, says of his experience:
My abilities were not as they had been: my yesterday’s nature had altered itself, since I had come forth in the accouterments of a vizier, having been promoted to be Prophet of Ma’et.
A servant of the God
This man felt truly changed by “coming forth” as a vizier and servant of Ma’et. We can assume that at least some of the servants of Isis had no less an experience than this man. Thoth also seemed to inspire warm feelings in His devotees—and as many of them were scribes, they had the ability to express it. They called Him the Lord of Friendliness and the God of Incomparable Goodness.
As late as the Greek Magical Papyri, this friendliness with Thoth remains. In PGM VIII, 1-63, Thoth is called Hermes, but we can known He is Thoth because the spell says that His images include an ibis and a baboon, that His name is great in Hermopolis (Khmunu; “City of the Eight”) and that even Isis, “the greatest of all the Gods,” calls on Him in every crisis. Part of the spell states, “For You are I, and I am You; Your name is mine, and mine is Yours. For I am Your image.” While the magic here is powerful, the sentiment is gentle and intimate.
In what is today known as the Archive of Hor, we have some records of intimate feelings for the Goddess. Hor was a priest of Isis and Thoth who came from the town of Sebennytos, the town that grew up around the Temple of Isis there, and which the Greeks called Isiopolis. He writes beautifully of Her, has prophetic dreams from Her, and calls Her by what I think is a pet name, “my Tana.” You can read his story here.
Priest of Isis holding Osiris Hydreios
Yet the closest thing we have to a personal account of spiritual experiences related to Isis is in a novel by a North African named Apuleius. They are in his book, The Golden Ass, and he writes about his initiation into the Mysteries of Isis.
It dates to the late second century CE, when Isis’ popularity was most widespread. Because it is novelized, it gives us a glimpse of the protagonist Lucius’ interior state. And while Lucius is an initiate of Isis and not a priest, one could make an argument that he would probably qualify as what we would call a priest of Isis today. He is an initiate, he remains involved with the religion—serving in its special ranks or grades—and he outwardly marks himself as an Isiac by shaving his head.
In the novel, Lucius has had a spiritual crisis. After being magically turned into an ass, he has gone through trials and tribulations and finally throws himself upon the mercy of the Moon Goddess. She reveals Herself as Isis. She says that though She is called by many names, Her true name is Queen Isis.
She tells Lucius not to fear:
But above all things beware thou doubt not nor fear of any of those things as hard or difficult to be brought to pass…
…and know this of certainty, that the residue of thy life until the hour of death shall be bound and subject to Me; and think it not an injury to be always serviceable towards Me whilst thou shalt live, since as by My means and benefit thou shalt return again to be a man. Thou shalt live blessed in this world, thou shalt live glorious by My guide and protection, and when after thy allotted space of life thou decendest to the Underworld, there thou shalt see Me in the subterranean firmament shining (as thou seest Me now) in the darkness of Acheron, and reigning in the deep profundity of Styx and thou shalt worship Me as one that hath been favorable to thee. And if I perceive that thou art obedient to My commandment and hold to my religion, meriting by thy constant chastity My divine grace, know that I alone may prolong thy days above the time that the Fates have appointed and ordained.”
As an initiate of Isis, Lucius’ life is to change. He is to be Hers forever; and in return, She will not only save him from his present difficulty, but prolong his lifespan.
Roman priestess of Isis
The priest who is overseeing his initiation tells Lucius that to take Isis’ holy orders was like a “voluntary death and slow recovery.” Yet, even if someone were on the edge of death, and had but the strength to receive Her Mysteries, that person could be made new-born and healthy once more. He advises Lucius to “accept of your own free will the yoke of service.”
The mental and emotional state of Lucius after his initiation is one of pure love and wonder. He is passionately in love with the Goddess—and he remains so throughout all the days of his life.
I’ve had an experience like that. And I have always remembered it. It is one of the many experiences with Her that has made me passionate in my love of Her and dedication to Her.
Have you had such an experience?
* I’m only looking at a translation here and don’t have the Egyptian. When Egyptologists translate “prophet,” they usually mean a high priest, thus this title may have been Hem Ma’et Tepi or chief servant of Ma’et.
Not Thanksgiving. Not Yule. Not any of the beautiful winter holidays of Light. I am just not feeling festive. I am too deeply concerned about my own country and much of the world. I am too deeply concerned about my community and many of the individual friends and loved ones who are a part of it.
Yet today, out of nowhere—while on a simple errand—I finally felt something. I felt the epagomenal days. I sensed myself existing in a time-out-of-time, in a strange unreality. Sound seemed dampened as a soft quietness fell over everything.
And I realized that my own feeling of unfestive unease may mirror the feelings that many ancient Egyptians would have had during their own epagomenal days.
The Great Mother Nuet; artwork from the Damanhur Community, Italy
For them, the epagomenal days were the five days before the summer rising of the Star of Isis, Sopdet (Sothis in Greek, Sirius in Latin). With the rising of Her Star, the New Year began.
(The Egyptian year had 360 days, but the solar year has 365.25. So the Egyptians made up the difference by adding five epagomenal—intercalary or “inserted into the calendar”—days at the end of the year.)
These days were also considered the birthdays of Osiris, Haroeris (Horus the Elder), Set, Isis, and Nephthys. So, you would think these would have been positive days for the Egyptians. But without the protection of the confines of the calendar, the Egyptian epagomenal days were thought to be a quite dangerous time. People wore special amulets and priests might perform the ritual of Sehotep Sakhmet, or “Pacifying/Satisfying Sakhmet,” because the demonic, disease-bringing hoards of the fierce Goddess were particularly rampant at the end of the year. (See more about epagomenal amulets here.)
The beautiful Star of Isis, Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek) is directly overhead at the New Year
Our December is most definitely not the time of the ancient Egyptian end-of-the-year epagomenal days. However, from winter solstice to the New Year is the time I consider to be my epagomenal days, for they are the end-of-year days in our modern calendar. And they, too, are the lead-in to a little miracle that involves the Star of Isis. More on that below.
So let’s talk a bit about the epagomenal days, including some ways to celebrate our own end of the year with Isis.
Epagomenal days as birthdays of the Deities
As early as the Middle Kingdom (2050-1650 BCE), these five extra days were associated with the Divine birthdays. Birthday festivals for each of these Deities were duly celebrated during each epagomenal day. The time between the winter solstice and our New Year is longer than the Egyptian period, but if you’d like to celebrate the birthdays of the Deities, one every other day rather than one per day would work out fairly well.
An ancient Egyptian calendar from the temple of Karnak
On the other hand, if you wish to be more Isis-centric in your worship, you could consider the entire period as holy days of the Goddess as the miracle of Her star approaches.
We can look to some ancient calendrical inscriptions for the day of Isis’ birthday to give us clues about options for honoring Her at this time. In a papyrus known as Leyden I, She is called “The Great One, Daughter of Nuet.” She is said to be “in Khemmis,” that is, in a particular city in the delta, and She is invoked particularly for protection.
In another papyrus, Leyden II, the fourth day is said to be named “the Pure One Who is in His Field.” The masculine pronoun would seem to exclude Isis. It could allude to Osiris—or it could be a scribal error. If it should have been the Pure One Who is in Her Field, it would make a good deal of sense in connection with Isis since She was closely associated with the pure new plants that would soon be coming forth from the Egyptian fields in the New Year.
In 1943, a papyrus was purchased by the Cairo museum from an antiquities dealer. It turned out to be three ‘books’ about the Egyptian calendar. Two were extremely damaged and hard to read. The third has become known as the Cairo Calendar and includes information on which days of the year were considered auspicious and which were not. Of course, it includes the epagomenal days. In it, the fourth epagomenal day, Isis’ birthday, is said to be named “He Who Makes Terror.” It includes a formula to be recited on that day:
“O, this Isis, Daughter of Nuet, the Eldest, Mistress of Magic, Provider of the Book, Mistress Who Appeases the Two Lords, Her Face is Glorious. I am the brother and the sister. The name of this day is He Who Makes Terror.”
Another calendar notes that the fourth day is called, “the Child Who is in His Nest; the Birth of Isis.” And you’ll remember from several weeks ago that at Denderah, the child in His nest is Re, Whose rising, after the rising of Isis’ star, marks the first day of the New Year. In fact, the Denderah temples include numerous references to Isis’ connection with the New Year and the important renewal it brings. There is some evidence that Isis’ temple at Philae may have been dedicated to Her on the 4th epagomenal day as a birthday present. We also have evidence of a lamp festival for Isis on Her birthday, which you can read about here.
Thoth purifying the pharaoh from Isis’ temple at Philae
Despite its preceding dangers, the ancient Egyptian New Year itself was a time of joy, rebirth, and renewal. Our own New Year can be the same for us. The ancient Egyptian themes are, after all, entirely in harmony with our modern New Year celebrations.
Like they did, we begin again.
We start over. We rededicate ourselves. We make resolutions to do things better. Purification is often associated with such reboots and so the epagomenal days would be a perfect time for purification prior to entering into the New Year. People participating in “Dry January” are undertaking a purification from alcohol. Lots of people start New Year’s diets then, too. We might also purify ourselves by bathing, fasting, purchasing new clothing, or purifying our sacred spaces by cleaning and straightening up our shrines—all the while invoking Isis to surround us with Her mighty wings, encircling us with Her protection.
Epagomenal days as the time of the Star of Isis
During our winter epagomenal days, we don’t witness the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis as the ancient Egyptians did. However, there is something very special that happens at this time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere: Sirius reaches its zenith, its highest point in the night sky.
The beautiful, glittering star of Isis ascends high into the starry belly of Her mother Nuet at the stroke of midnight on January 1st—and She can be seen shimmering in that position for about the first week of January. And this year, there’s a bonus: we’ll also see Jupiter and Mars nearby and shining extra brilliantly as well.
So, just as the heliacal rising of Sirius heralded the ancient Egyptian New Year, the beautiful Star of Isis reaching its highest point in the sky can serve as a marker for our own modern New Year’s celebrations. You’ll find a small rite for celebrating here.
For me, here in Portland, it is likely that our cloudy skies will obscure the brilliance of the celestial show above, as they so often do. Nevertheless, I will be purifying myself, asking Isis for protection and growth, and using the small ritual at the link above to welcome in the renewal of the New Year.
Parsifal by Jean Delville, but it definitely gives ‘mysteries’
Most of you reading this blog are well aware of the many epithets of Isis, Our Lady of 10,000 Names. In general, epithets are descriptions attached to the Goddess’ name that help us know more about Her. Very often, you’ll see people note that epithets are especially important in Deity invocations because they help us tune into the specific aspect of Their natures that we wish to connect with.
And that’s true.
Yet, I like to think of epithets as little Mysteries.
Each epithet of the Goddess has the possibility of revealing to us a Mystery—something about Isis we might not have known, or might not have known as deeply. In a post a couple weeks ago, one of the things we learned from the ancient Greek novel Aitheopika was that initiates of Her Mysteries called Isis the Earth and Osiris the Nile. I would not be at all surprised to learn that the revealing of additional epithets of the Goddess was a regular part of Her—and other Deities’—Mysteries. A Mystery initiation gave you insider knowledge about the Mystery Deity. Discovering new aspects of the Goddess through additional names and epithets would be some pretty solid insider information.
You’ll find epithets of Isis scattered throughout this blog. For instance, here are names and epithets honoring Isis from all over the Mediterranean world. Here are some of Her secret names from the magical papyri. There are about two hundred of Isis’ epithets listed in the appendix in Isis Magic. And Offering to Isis includes several epithets appropriate to each of the offerings—sacred symbols of the Goddess—as part of the invocation offerings.
Today, I’d like to share a few more epithets of Isis, some of which may be new to you. If you’d like to delve into the little Mysteries of these epithets for yourself, try this: Pick out a few that call to you. Open your shrine or temple in whatever manner you usually do. Invoke Isis using the epithet you chose. You can sing or chant the epithet as you call out to Her. When you sense Her presence, ask Her to reveal to you some of the Mysteries of that epithet. Then open your heart, open yourself, as you experience/intuit what She communicates to you. (Even better, jot down the things that come to your mind about that epithet for later reference. Visionary work sometimes fades rather quickly.)
In no particular order, here are some epithets of our Goddess from various parts of Egypt:
Isis in red, leading Nefertari
Isis, She Who Loves the Red Cloth; IsetMeret Ines—this epithet of Isis is found at Dendara. Interestingly enough, in representations of Isis, red is the most common color of Her clothing. The famous Knot of Isis is also usually made of red stone or painted red—and it may be meant to represent a knot tied in cloth. The ancient Egyptians associated red with fire, blood, and the sun. It could be a color of destructive power and associated with anger as well. We are used to Sakhmet being associated with red, but it turns out Isis is a Red Goddess, too.
Isis the Great Golden One; Iset Nebut Weret—while we are familiar with Isis being called, like Hathor, the Golden One, here She is the Great Golden One, an epithet She shares only with the Creator Goddess Neith. Gold is associated with the sun and Divinity. What does it mean that She is not only the Golden One, but the Great Golden One?
Isis, She of the Beautiful/Good/Perfect Face in the Barque of Eternity; IsetNoferet Hor em Wia Heh—the Barque of Eternity if the boat that travels into the Otherworld, both the underworld and the heavens. What does it mean that Isis is the beautiful-good-perfect face in that holy boat?
Isis with golden yellow skin
Isis the Lady of Awfulness; Iset Nebet Neru—this is the literal meaning of awful, as in “full of awe,” but also a designation of Her great, and sometimes scary, power. See more about this one here.
Isis the Great One in the Beginning; Iset Weret em Hat—this epithet is from Her temple at Philae and is another epithet Isis shares only with the Creator Goddess Neith. This is Isis as a Primeval Goddess, the First Goddess. Similarly, She is called the Great Goddess “of the coming into being” and is the Great Goddess “in the First Time,” the Zep Tepi. We also have inscriptions calling Isis Sha’et, “She Who Was First,” from a number of places, including Philae, Dendara, and Edfu.
The Perfect Musician
Isis the Great in the Place of Her Heart; Iset Weret em Set Ib-Es—this one is from the Horus temple at Edfu. What do you think ‘the place of Her heart’ is?
Isis, Her Years are Eternity and Everlastingness; Iset, Renput-s Neheh Djet—learn more about Neheh and Djet here and here.
Isis the Perfect Musician; Iset Khunet Noferet—from Dendara. Isis is also called “the Musician of the Spoken Words” and the Shemayet, the “Chantress.” The Chantress was a high-ranking priestess in ancient Egypt. Read more about AE priestesses and the Chantress here.
Isis and the pharaoh raising the djed pillar
Isis, She Who Makes Shadow with Her Feathers; Iset Iret Shut em Shuut-Es—from a stele now in the Louvre. We know about Her wing symbolism, but what about the shadow of Her wings?
Isis the Djed Pillar; Iset Djedet—now isn’t this interesting? Osiris is usually associated with the djed pillar. But here we have Isis as the female djed pillar. The djed represents stability, so that is likely the meaning here: Isis is strong, stable, dependable.
On the other hand, She also personifies Her own symbol, and is called Isis the Excellent Isis Knot (Iset Tiet Menkhet)…for Isis is All Things and All Things are Isis.
There are so many more, but that’s enough for now.
If, in your connections with Isis, you discover any of the Mysteries of these epithets, I hope you’ll share them here, on Facebook, or on BlueSky.
It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.
Not long ago, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.
Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.
We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)
So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?
Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.
Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Also among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.
No text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi papyri. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least they think that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Clearly, Isis is syncretized with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?
The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women or young men be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity was demanded—especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh—especially for women.
The Two Sisters
This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.
This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.
Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun
The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses, usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the lifetime position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Rameses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.
Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the inscriptions from the Isis Chapel in Seti I’s mortuary temple at Abydos. In Egyptian, this is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the Egyptian name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmouhere, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. (A young boy or youth is hunu.) And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young.
Parthenogenesis was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves alone. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God. Just like Mary and the Holy Spirit of the Christian God.
So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. In this holy season and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.
The Aethiopika is an ancient Greek novel and the only known work by a writer named Heliodorus. It was written in the second or third centuries CE. It is a tale of love and adventure, and yes of course, Isis is involved. So I thought I’d summarize this tale today, focusing on the part Isis and Her cult play in the story.
The eternal lovers
The reason this came up was that I was looking at a book about the interactions between the Greek and Egyptian cultures and their influence on each other. It seems that the more researchers look into it, the more they come to the conclusion that, while the influence went both ways, the Egyptian culture seemed to have more weight behind it—if for no other reason than it was the older, more established, and richer culture.
Roman-period Isis
Scholars have long suggested that the Greek “romances” owed at least some debt to Egyptian sources. And yes, these books are romance novels in the classic sense: lovers fall in love, are parted by circumstances, adventure ensues, lovers are finally reunited.
Scholars such as the Classics professor Reinhold Merkelbach suggested that all ancient Greek novels (there are only five complete ones extant, with references to about 20 more) were informed by myth—but most especially by the Isis-Osiris complex of myths. Interesting, no? At the time of the Aethiopika, the myths of Isis and Osiris certainly would have been the ones most well known to Hellenes. Merkelbach further suggested that such tales were meant for the initiates of the Greco-Roman Mysteries, who would have understood the deeper meaning behind all the hidden clues. This theory has not generally been accepted, however.
Yet, at the very least, we can easily see the overall structure of the classic romance novel in the story of Isis and Osiris: lovers are in love, are parted by murder, the adventure of picking up the pieces ensues, and lovers are finally reunited, though one of Them is transformed.
The story of the Aethiopika reached far beyond the borders and time of the ancient Hellenistic and Roman worlds. The tale was influential all the way into the 17th and 18th centuries. That’s why all the illustrations I found for this article do not look remotely ancient Greek, Egyptian, or Ethiopian.
The Aethiopika is the love story of Theagenes and Chariklea. We meet Chariklea at the very beginning of the tale as a gang of Egyptian thieves approaches the scene of a beached pirate ship, with its crew slain, while they were in the midst of a celebratory banquet. As the robbers approach to scavenge, they see the beautiful Chariklea among the living. In sorrow, she is looking at a handsome young man who is wounded and perhaps dying. They exchange words and she tells him that, should he die, she will kill herself with the knife she bears.
Chariklea looks upon the wounded Theogenes
She rises to go to him—and the brigands step back, afraid. They think she is a Goddess, either “Artemis or Isis, the divine patroness of Egypt.” Others think she may have caused the slaughter as a frenzied priestess. Finally, they gain the courage to approach. Chariklea sees them, but continues to tend to Theagenes. Then, more thieves arrive, chase off the first group, and capture Chariklea and Theagenes. The prisoners are taken to the house of Thyamis, the chief thief, and given another prisoner as Greek interpreter. The interpreter, Cnemon, begins to treat Theagenes’ wounds with a healing herb.
We learn that Chariklea believes that Apollo is punishing the two of them because she and Theagenes fell in love with each other during the Pythian Games at Delphi and ran away together (she had been promised to another man). Chariklea had been abandoned by her Ethiopian parents, but was raised by a priest of Apollo at Delphi, becoming a priestess of Artemis. The pair of lovers fled Delphi, assisted by Kalasiris, an Egyptian priest of Isis.
It’s complicated.
Chariklea captured by brigands
Anyway, during the night, Thyamis has a dream. He dreams he is in Egyptian Memphis, his home town, and there visits a temple of Isis. The Goddess entrusts the care of Chariklea to him, but Her commands come as a riddle, which he decides to interpret as telling him that he should take her as a wife.
But now a group of warriors come to attack the thieves. Chariklea is taken to a cave, while Theagenes must fight with the thieves. During battle, Thyamis realizes the true meaning of Isis’ dream message: that he will lose the battle and lose Chariklea. Pissed off at Isis, he goes to Chariklea’s cave to kill her—since he can’t have her; you know how it is—but in the dark mistakenly kills another woman.
Theagenes and Cnemon escape the battle, but believe that Chariklea is dead. Thyamis is captured alive, for it turns out this group of warriors was sent by Thyamis’ younger brother, who had earlier stolen his rightful priesthood from him. But Theagenes and Cnemon find Chariklea alive. The group decides to go south, further into Egypt, to find Thyamis and seek revenge for his killing of the other woman, who Cnemon knew.
Rhodopis
When they get to Khemmis, they are reunited with Kalisiris, the priest of Isis who helped them escape Delphi. He had believed Theagenes and Chariklea were dead and is thrilled to find them alive. We learn that, as a pious priest, Kalisiris drinks only water and never neglects to pour libations to the Deities. He is also a vegetarian, eating only nuts and fruits. In the course of events, Kalisiris tells how he came to be in Delphi.
A Thracian woman named Rhodopis came to Egypt, settled in Memphis, and set up shop as a courtesan. She would visit the temple of Isis where Kalisiris was high priest, where she made abundant offerings to the Goddess, for her business was thriving. Though Kalisiris practiced all types of priestly austerities, he could not resist Rhodopis’ charms and he fell hard for her (apparently after merely seeing her). His answer to escaping Rhodopis’ fatal allure was to leave his priesthood and his native Egypt to wander.
We further learn that Kalisiris is skilled in divination and had divined that his two sons were destined to battle each other. (Can you guess yet who Kalisiris’ sons might be?) Having heard of Delphi as a refuge for wise men, Kalisiris traveled there, arriving just at the time that the Pythia was prophesying. He received an oracle from the God telling him to take heart for he will be able to return to Egypt, but in the meantime to be the friend of Apollo.
Chariklea awarding the prize to Theagenes at the Delphic Games
The status of “friend of Apollo” greatly enhanced Kalisiris’ reputation and he joined a group of philosophers who peppered him with questions about Egypt and its Deities. Through Chariklea’s foster-father, Kalisiris meets her and witnesses as she and Theagenes fall in love instantly. And so, he is determined to help them.
So now our lovers, their companion, and Kalisiris are back in Egypt. There, they are involved in a number of adventures in which one or the other of the lovers gets entangled with other characters. A Persian governor’s wife falls for Theagenes, so she makes showy offerings at the temple of Isis, all the while lusting for Theagenes. At the same time, Kalisiris is devoutly praying before Isis about his sons and his own future. Previously, he had been reunited with his elder son Thyamis, the former chief thief, and even better, the two warring brothers were reconciled. Kalisiris declares that the eldest son, Thyamis, should inherit his Isiac priesthood for Kalisiris’ senses his own death approaching. The governor’s wife tries to frame Chariklea for poisoning, so she can have Theagenes. This, of course, fails. More adventures eventually find both Chariklea and Theagenes captured by the Ethiopian king—who is Chariklea’s real father, but who does not yet know her.
As sexual virgins, Chariklea and Theagenes are perfect sacrifices and are about to be sacrificed to the Sun and Moon, Deities of the Ethiopians. But wait! Due to a necklace that Chariklea’s mother had placed about her neck when she abandoned Chariklea, the Ethiopian king finally recognizes his true daughter. All is well. Chariklea and Theagenes are married and live happily ever after.
To be honest, the Aethiopika is a bit of a tedious tale. Yet, the reason I was reading this story was for the Isis lore.
Hellenistic Isis
For example, we’ve learned about the pure-water-and-vegetarian diet of Kalisiris, a high priest of the Goddess. We know he is always pouring libations for the Goddess and any other Deities he encounters. We find that he is subject to visions and is a good diviner. We know that he must keep himself chaste—and so removes himself from Rhodopis’ disturbing presence.
From Thyamis’ dream, we see that Isis can send dreams, even in Loxian riddles, that can be misinterpreted by the dreamer. From the story of the Persian governor’s wife, we learn that not all rich offerings are sincere. In another part of the tale, we discover that offerings might be made to Isis if one has a bad dream. In yet another, the text tells us that initiates of the Mysteries call Isis the Earth and Osiris the Nile (but our speaker would reveal nothing more of those Mysteries). Oh, and we also learned that the love story of Isis and Osiris may well be the prototype for ancient Greek romances, and thus the roots of our modern romance novels, too.
Our Goddess can for found everywhere—for Isis is all things, and all things are Isis.
I love it when I find out new things—or new things about an old thing. This one is sort of an expansion on a previous thing.
Many of you may already be familiar with what are known as “black Isis bands,” which are needed in a number of rites in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri (aka Papyri Graecae Magicae or PGM).
Roman Isis in Her black robes
We can’t be sure, but I’ve theorized that these were made from the black cloth that had previously been used to clothe the sacred images of Isis, once the older robes had been replaced. Since the fabric was black, it would have been from Hellenized images of the Goddess. Egyptians did use cloth, both as offerings and to adorn their sacred images, but black cloth was not among the colors they generally favored.
What I’d like to share with you today is a different type of Isis band, an entirely Egyptian one. This band was given to Isis as an offering (see Offering to Isis, “Black Isis Bands”), and it was also worn by Her as part of one of Her various crowns. The information I’m working from is a dissertation by Barbara Ann Richter on The Theology of Hathor of Dendera. At Dendera, Isis is almost as prominent as Hathor. (And you’ll recall that Isis’ sanctuary at Philae also has a Temple of Hathor. Sisters!)
Isis from Dendera with Double Crown and seshed (the black squiggle at the base of the crown)
On the walls at Dendera, we see scenes with Isis wearing this particular crown, which consists of the Egyptian red and white Double Crown, one or two ostrich feathers, and the “seshed” band, which is wrapped around the base of the red crown—or sometimes around the headdress of Isis.
We even have a 3D image of what this crown with its seshed band may have been like. Near the sacred lake at the Dendera temple, archeologists found a cache of ritual items including a cult statue of Isis with the double crown and seshed band—except in this case, the seshed is around the Goddess’ wig rather than around the base of the crown. (Although, in this picture, it looks to me like there is something—possibly multiple serpents?—around the base of the crown.) There are also two holes in the white crown, which Richter suggests may have been meant to hold real (or separate) ostrich feathers.
Isis with the Double Crown and seshed band with serpent, holes possibly held real or separate ostrich feathers
The crowns and headdresses that the Egyptians represented the Deities wearing have specific meanings. The Double Crown represents rulership over the Two Lands, that is, Lower and Upper Egypt. The ostrich feather is the shut, the symbol of Ma’et—that which is Right, True, and Just. The seshed band is entwined by a uraeus serpent that is both protective and unifying, like the Double Crown.
In the Temple of Birth at Dendera (which I think is the Temple of the Birth of Isis), the king presents this crown to Isis and says, “Take for Yourself the seshed band. It has encircled Your forehead. The uraeus is united with Your head. The red crown and the white crown—they join together on Your forehead, the two feathers united beside them.” This crown emphasizes the unification of the land of Egypt as well as the powerful protection of the uraeus serpent. Since the crown is united with the Goddess, She embodies these qualities. And, of course, the Goddess bestows these same powers on the king in return, so we find the king wearing the seshed band at times, too.
A picture of the whole statue of Isis with crown and seshed
The feathers “united beside them” allude to Isis’ description as “Lady of Ma’et, the uraeus on Her forehead, appearing with Ma’et every day.” In this inscription, however, the word translated as “uraeus” isn’t “uraeus.” It’s Mehenet, which is the feminine version of the protective serpent Mehen, meaning “the Coiled One.” Mehen protects the God Re by encircling Him as He travels through the underworld; He also protects Osiris. Since Isis is a Goddess, She is united with the feminine serpent Mehenet. As a fiery Uraeus Goddess Herself, Isis protects Re and She is also the foremost protectress of Her husband Osiris as well as Her son Horus (and thus, the king). Mehen and Mehenet are sometimes shown with Their tails in Their mouths, making Them the prototype of the ‘serpent biting its own tail’ and later known as the oroboros.
In some of the Coffin Texts spells, Mehen is closely connected to Re. Coffin Text 760 tells us that after Isis brings Mehen, the Coiled One, to Her son Horus, Horus becomes “the double of the Lord of All,” that is, the Sun God Re. The serpents Mehen and Mehenet are solar powers and Their coiling and encircling protects.
Osiris protected by the Coiled One biting His tail
There was a tradition at Dendera that Dendera is the birthplace of Isis. An inscription in the sanctuary there says that Isis’ “mother bore Her on earth in Iatdi [that is, the Temple of the Birth of Isis at Dendera; also another name for Dendera as a whole] the day of the night of the infant in His nest.* She is the Unique Uraeus . . . Sothis in the Sky, [female] Ruler of the Stars, Who Decrees Words in the Circuit of the Sun Disk.” Since Isis is also Sopdet/Sothis/Sirius, the heliacal rising of the Goddess in Her star, just before sunrise, is Her “birth.” Her birth precedes the rebirth of the falcon Re—”the infant in His nest”—as He rises in the sun on the first day of the New Year.
Sirius, the star of Isis
The birth of Isis is also connected with the seshed band. We learn that the “Ritual of Presenting the Seshed Band” takes place on “the Day of the Night of the Child in His Nest.” These seshed bands, presented to Isis for a happy New Year, included inscriptions like “A beautiful year—a million and a hundred-thousand times” and “A happy year, year of joy, year of health, eternal year, infinite year.” In addition to offering the seshed band on Isis’ birthday, it was also given on the first day of the New Year.
The seshed band must have been—at least originally—a fabric band, for it was tied around the head and knotted with the two long ends of the band hanging down in back. The knot at the back was surely intended to be magical, emphasizing the ability of magical knots to secure and protect, while the band itself surrounds and protects like Mehenet.
I don’t know whether this is actually a seshed, but the metal headband with streamers down the back looks like it may have been intended to mimic knotted fabric. This was on the head of Tutankhamun’s mummy.
The Pyramid Texts mention a powerful red headband with which the deceased identifies. Another Pyramid Text mentions a red and green headband that was woven from the Eye of Horus. While some Egyptologists connect these headbands with the seshed, I can’t be sure because I’m only looking at the English translation of the texts.
However, from Dendera, we do have an inscription that specifically describes a seshed band made of electrum. It is also possible that the fabric headbands had metal pieces, suitable for engraving with blessings, attached to them. It seems likely that the serpent that entwined the seshed would have been made of metal.
Egyptian Egyptologist Zeinab El-Kordy suggests that the word seshed is the active participle of shed, meaning “to draw or pull out” or “to cause to come.” She therefore connects it with drawing the Inundation out from its source and causing the flood to come. This could mean that the seshed band, especially when offered at the birth of Isis and the New Year, is a magical tool for helping to bring the much-desired Nile flood.
The seshed band protects and unifies. It is given as a talisman for New Year’s prosperity—which I think we can easily extend to good luck and blessings in general. And it is associated with rebirth and renewal. We also have scenes that connect it with birth as well as rebirth. They show the birthing mother, her midwives, and protective Birth Goddesses like Isis, Taweret, and Hathor, all wearing seshed bands.
Egyptian woman giving birth assisted by Hathoru; crowns, but no seshed bands
Given this, I would suggest that if we are working with Isis in any of these areas—protection, unification, birth, rebirth, renewal, and even good fortune and good outcomes in general—we would be eligible to wear the seshed as part of our ritual gear. Although a custom-made uraeus serpent is probably out of reach for most of us, a fabric band in red (power and protection) or green (growth, change, benevolence) with a piece of inexpensive serpent jewelry attached to it, would be a perfectly serviceable seshed band for our work with Isis.
* Sources such as the Cairo Calendar connect the Night of the Child in His Nest with the 5th epagomenal day and the birth of Nephthys, while Isis’ birth is on the 4th epagomenal day. But at Dendera, Isis must have been considered to have been born on the 5th and last epagomenal day, rising as Sothis just before the sun. When the sun rises, the 5th epagomenal day officially ends and the new day and New Year begins. As is so often the case with Egypt, the myths and traditions could vary from place to place.
I’m very—very!—excited to let you know that Offering to Isis, Knowing the Goddess through Her Sacred Symbols is available for pre-order from Azoth Press at the Miskatonic Books website right now. If you’d like to go directly there, here’s the link.
I know a lot of you are familiar with Isis Magic, but maybe you haven’t yet come across Offering to Isis. I may be a tad bit partial, but I really like this book a lot, too.
Offering to Isis is about how we can connect with, honor, and grow our relationship with Isis through the ancient and eternal practice of making offering. Offering is one of the most important ways we human beings have always communicated with our Deities. It was vitally important in ancient Egypt and it’s just as important for those of us interested in or devoted to Isis today.
If you’ve ever wondered exactly what sort of things to offer to Isis, Offering to Isis includes in-depth explanations of 72 sacred symbols associated with Isis—symbols that make ideal offerings to Her.
We’ll also talk about the how and why of Egyptian offering practices, including the important and genuinely ancient Egyptian technique of “Invocation Offering.” There’s information on exactly how the ka energy inherent in every offering is given to and received by Isis—and what to do with offerings once they’ve been received. You’ll also find a selection of offering rituals, from simple to complex, for a variety of purposes. Most rites are for solitary devotees, so I think you’ll find one that works just right for you.
If you’re curious and want to know exactly what’s in the book, you can download a PDF copy of the full Table of Contents by clicking on the caption under the “Contents” image.
The largest section of the book details the 72 sacred symbols of Isis. You’ll add to your knowledge of Isis and Her ancient worship by learning more about Her through Her important sacred symbols. You’ll see how each one is intimately connected with Her and how they may be used in offering rites for Her. Every entry also includes an Invocation Offering that you can use for your own offerings to Isis.
One of the things I especially like about this book is that you can just open it at random and you’ll likely find something you hadn’t known about Her, something that I hope will inspire you in your own devotions. For instance, how did the Knot of Isis come to be Her knot? What stones are associated with Her? What animals are connected with Her? Why are dreams especially important when it comes to Isis?
As it’s been a few years since this book was first published, the text has been thoroughly updated. All the hieroglyphs associated with the offerings have been re-illustrated and are much more accurate—and much more beautiful, if I may say so—in this new edition, too. There’s also a handy appendix in the back for quick reference in finding any offering you may need.
This is what a typical page in the sacred symbols section looks like.
This new Azoth Press edition can be purchased only through the Miskatonic Books website. (If you go to Amazon, you will be ordering a 20-year-old paperback edition published by Llewellyn in 2005, which people are trying to sell at very inflated prices.) Oh yes, and if you’d like, you can take advantage of Miskatonic’s installment plan that lets you pay over several months so it doesn’t take a big bite out of your budget. Plus, the new hardback edition is priced A LOT lower than those overpriced, out-of-print first editions that I’ve seen out there.
When you go to the Miskatonic site, you’ll see two different Azoth Press Offering to Isis editions. For the high rollers, there will be 36 copies in a gorgeous leather-bound and numbered collector’s edition. For the rest of us, there will be 650 numbered, limited edition copies in a cloth-bound hardcover. Both editions are two-color throughout, and more than 400 pages.
Thank you so much for letting me tell you about this new edition. And would you please do me a favor and share this information with anyone who you think might be interested? And please feel free to ask me any questions about Offering to Isis that you’d like.
I’m looking forward to getting my own copy of this beautiful, new edition of Offering to Isis. And while you might think it’s strange, even though I wrote the book, I still use it for reference when I’m making offering to Isis. I hope this new edition will serve you well, too.
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 breathe 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.”
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?)
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.
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.
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.
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!
We can pretend this is Ahwere, who tells the tale in Part 1
I went down a rabbit hole yesterday morning that—after some exciting twists and turns—led me back to an older blog post here on Isiopolis. And I realized that I hadn’t finished the story of Ahwere, Naneferkaptah, and their child, Merib.
This story has been called the pinnacle of ancient Egyptian literature (though we don’t have that much ancient Egyptian literature). It was written down in the Ptolemaic period and is usually called Setne and the Magic Book. It’s a classic type of ancient tale and involves Isis, Thoth, and dead Egyptians having effect in the living world. In it, the son of Rameses the Great, Setne Kaemweset, learns that a previous prince, Naneferkaptah, had acquired vast magical knowledge and an amazing magical book locked inside a series of chests and sunk in the bottom of the river. Now, the son of Rameses, also a glutton for magical knowledge, wants it for himself. (The real Kaemweset became a Sem-Priest of Ptah at Memphis and was responsible for new buildings at the temple of Ptah as well as restorations of ancient tombs and pyramids. He became a kind of folk hero with fantastical tales attached to his name.)
I’m going to back up a just a bit to tell you a little more about the contests between Setne and Naneferkaptah over the magic book. Remember, Setne wants its magical power and Naneferkaptah, who is deceased, wants to keep it hidden because of the great tragedies that befall anyone who uses the book.
So Ahwere and Naneferkaptah, wife and husband, are in Naneferkaptah’s tomb warning Setne not to lust after this dangerous book. Setne threatens to take it by force if they don’t hand it over to him. So Naneferkaptah says he can only get the book by being able to best Naneferkaptah at a game a droughts (perhaps the game of Senet, the equipment for which was found in a number of tombs). Setne is up for the challenge. But Naneferkaptah wins the first game. By his magic, Naneferkaptah sinks Setne into the earth up to his lower legs. After losing the second game, Setne is sunk to his crotch, and on losing the third, he is sunk to his ears. Setne was down, but not out. He gives Naneferkaptah a whack and sends the spirit of his deceased brother to Setne’s father, the pharaoh, to tell of everything that happened and ask for help. This the spirit does—and pharaoh sends some powerful magic to Setne.
Setne is up to his ears in trouble
A few formidable amulets later, Setne is out of the earth, has snatched the magical book from Ahwere and Naneferkaptah, and runs out of the tomb. As he goes, Ahwere laments that all power has left the tomb. But Naneferkaptah comforts her and vows to make him return the book.
Setne locks the tomb behind him and goes to his father. Dad advises Setne to be smart and put the dang book back, but Setne refuses. In fact, like an idiot, he proceeds to read the magic book to everyone. (The story doesn’t tell us how this came out.)
Now we have a change of scene. Sometime after Setne gets the book, he finds himself walking in the temple of Ptah and sees an incredibly beautiful and alluring woman there, too. He cannot take his eyes off her and has his servant go find out who she is. Turns out she is the daughter of the High Priest of Bastet and her name is Tabubu. Setne, prince that he is, somehow thinks it would be a good idea to send his servant to offer her 10 pieces of gold to spend a hour with him. Not only that, but his invitation includes a veiled threat demanding her compliance. She is insulted and highly pissed.
Tabubu, Bastet priestess, looking like Ozma of Oz
So, she sends word to Setne that if he wants to do as he wishes with her, he has to come to her house, she being of priestly rank. Setne was okay with that, but everyone around him thought it was a Very Bad Idea.
So off to Bubastis he goes and he finds that Tabubu lives in a very rich house upon very rich grounds. Tabubu greets him and has him come inside with her. She serves him food and drink and they fool around for a while. Finally, Setne is ready to do the deed. Ah no, says Tabubu. She is of priestly rank and if he wants her he must sign over all his possessions. Somehow, Setne thinks this is a good idea and has a legal paper drawn up and signs it. Then Tabubu tells him that his children are here. Setne says to bring them to him. As Tabubu stands to go get the children, the transparent gown she is wearing makes Setne ever hotter and he begs to have sex with her. Nope, she says, not until your children sign off on the paperwork you just signed. Which they do. He begs again. Nope. Not until your children are killed. Setne—clearly madder than a hatter by this time—agrees. Their bodies are thrown out the window to be devoured by cats and dogs. Yeesh.
Finally, Tabubu leads him to a couch. They lay down together and just as he reaches out to touch her…
Statue of Khaemweset, prince of Egypt
He wakes up with a huge erection and nothing to do with it.
Then he realizes that it was Naneferkaptah who sent him this evil dream (perhaps to show him how much of a monster could be?). When Setne goes out into the street, still naked, he comes upon the pharaoh. I am imagining the pharaoh rolling his eyes to the heavens as he advises his wayward son to go to Memphis and see his children, who are indeed alive. Pharaoh again advises Setne to get rid of the book. This time Setne listens and takes the book back to the tomb of Naneferkaptah where Naneferkaptah and the ka of Ahwere remain. Now remember that Ahwere and their child Merib are buried in Koptos in the vicinity of the temple of Isis and Harpokrates. She is in Naneferkaptah’s tomb just in ka-form. In order make amends, Naneferkaptah tells Setne go find the tombs of Ahwere and Merib and bring their bodies back to be buried in Memphis with him.
So prince Setne takes pharaoh’s boat and goes to Koptos. He makes offering to Isis and Harpokrates when he arrives. Then Setne and the priests of Isis spend three days searching for Ahwere and Merib, with no success. Meanwhile, Naneferkaptah had been keeping tabs on Setne and has seen his lack of success. So he changes himself into the likeness of an old priest. When Setne sees him, he thinks that such an old man just might remember where they were buried. As the old man was really Naneferkaptah, he most certainly did and told Setne they were under part of the small town of Pehemato (another translation says under the house of the chief of police). Digging there, Ahwere and Merib were found. And the now-reformed prince restores everything that had been destroyed during their digging just as it had been.
Ahwere and Merib’s bodies were taken to Memphis and buried with Naneferkaptah. The family was reunited and Setne learned his lesson. And so our the story is complete and you have now heard one of ancient Egypt’s greatest tales.
And on another note, a blessed and happy Easter to all who celebrate.
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.
One of the questions I regularly receive from folks who email me is, “how can I tell if Isis is calling me?” It’s a very good question, if a somewhat difficult one to answer.
Sometimes, people have had dreams with what they think could be Isiac imagery. Sometimes they’ve had a vision or some other experience during a ritual. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes a wish or a hope.
To try to unravel this, the first thing we need to figure out is what we mean by “calling?” In other words, if She were calling us, what would that mean? What kind of obligation, if any, comes with that calling? Because so many of us have Christianity in our personal backgrounds as well as Christianity being so prominent in our societies, we might automatically associate “a calling” with a vocation for the ministry or priesthood. It’s certainly possible. But there are other possibilities, too.
What calling means to us can also depend on where we are in our spiritual journey, as well as what we’ve been studying or reading or thinking.
For instance, let’s say you’re very interested in ancient Egypt, you’ve been reading about it, and you’re in a spiritual circle of some kind that regularly invokes Deities. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. She might, indeed. She could also be one of any number of Egyptian Goddesses, which you would know about from your reading. What you intuit from your own dream will be very helpful here. If you think She’s Isis, you can follow that thread. We’ll talk about that shortly.
For another instance, let’s say you’ve never had any particular connection with ancient Egypt and you’re not on any specific spiritual path. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. This may be just a dream. But if you find it exceptionally powerful, keep looking. A dream like that might be pointing out that your soul is yearning for some positive Mother or Divine Feminine energy in your life. That knowledge, in and of itself, is very valuable information. On the other hand, such a dream could be the impetus to set you on a spiritual journey as you seek to learn more.
And for a third instance, let’s say you have that same dream. But you don’t feel that you’re ready—or that you even want to—do anything about it. You absolutely don’t have to. If it’s an important knock on your spiritual door, She’ll knock again. And it’s okay to say no. You won’t hurt Her feelings and there are no negative consequences.
So. Dreams are one way to hear Isis if She’s calling you. But if you, like me, are a crappy dreamer and neither remember them nor write them down, there are other ways to hear Her. There are usually signs. Signs can be tricky. In most cases, a sign is something unusual that catches your attention and relates to the particular Deity involved, in our case, Isis. Because She is a Bird Goddess, it might be wings and feathers. You may hear the sound of wings at an odd time. Or a bird swoops down immediately in your line of sight, startling you. Or a feather drops from the sky. Her symbols—like the Knot of Isis or a throne—might show up unexpectedly. Perhaps you overhear Her name in a passing conversation between strangers. This will happen, not just once, but many times. Be patient. Wait. And look and listen for the signs.
Now, if you’re actively wanting Her to be calling you, signs and synchronicities can ramp up. Does a breeze rustle the leaves of a tree as you pass, thinking of Her? It is Her breath. Have you found a piece of jewelry engraved with Her image? She confirms your Path. Did that hawk circle above you as you drive your car down a country road with Her name on your lips? She is guiding you.
Is it foolish to see these signs everywhere? Is it “just my imagination?” In some cases, sure, there will be a kind of confirmation bias. But that doesn’t matter; She’s on your mind. You’re thinking of Her. It has begun.
Sometimes, there are other ways to tell. You might have an intuition of Her presence about you. Or something weird might happen. I’ve had incense burn and disappear all by itself, strangers have given me unexpected Isis gifts, very loud disembodied voices have spoken my name. What your weird thing might be, I can’t say.
Now. There’s also an important secret about all this that I’d like to share with you. Two, really. The first is that if you want to connect with Isis, you don’t have to wait for Her to call you. You can call Her, too. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Ask Her to come into your life. If you like ritual, use the Opening of the Ways here.
The second is that being called by Isis doesn’t necessarily mean you are being called to a lifelong relationship with Her. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being called to serve as Her priestess or priest. It might mean you’re being called to learn more about Her—right now and perhaps only for a while. Perhaps you’re being called to relationship. And like any relationship, that means investing time. Spend time with Her, in meditation and prayer. Read about Her in anything and everything you can get your hands on. Get to know Her. See how She feels to you. Do you like Her energy? Does it fit with yours? That’s what I mean by following the thread…and just see where it leads you.
And if you find, after time, that this is not the relationship for you, that’s perfectly okay. You will have learned. You will have grown and your spiritual world will have been expanded.
But if you find that, like me, you are a lifetime (or at least longterm) devotee of Isis, then I know you will discover for yourself Her deep love, wisdom, power, and magic.
This is an important Isis myth. It almost always gets overshadowed by the main Isis and Osiris myth, the murder of Osiris and Isis’ search for Him. But this is the Isis myth that is, for many, the most unsettling when we are first learning our Isis lore; and that is the tale of how Isis tricked the Sun God Re into revealing His most secret name and thereby gained additional power for Herself and for Her son, Horus. Know that story? If not, you can read a translation here.
On the basis of this tale, some have decided that Isis is an evil magician. I have even seen the story used as an argument to show how naturally underhanded all women are! And, on the face of it, the tale is troubling. Isis decides to gain power. She deliberately poisons Re, then cures Him only after He reveals to Her His most secret, hidden, and powerful name. Although Isis’ Divine knowledge is already equal to Re’s, knowing His name gives Her even more power. What’s more, She will be able to share Re’s name with Horus, once He is oath-bound to keep it secret, and Horus will receive the sun and moon as His Two Eyes.
So what are we to make of this? Is Isis just another tricky female? Perhaps we should consider Her as one of the Trickster Deities. She’s a Divine Magician, after all, and magicians are always tricky. Or maybe Isis was forced to resort to magical artifice to break through a Divine glass ceiling. Think of royal women in the Egyptian court. Because they did not have outright power equal to men’s, they would have used tricks, subterfuge, perhaps even poison, as a path to power. We must remember that it is always human beings who tell these stories, thus all stories come through a human filter.
As you might guess, none of these explanations satisfy me. I do have one that does, but it will take me a little while to get to my point, so I hope you’ll bear with me.
Background Info
There are several things you should know about this story. First, the version of the tale that has come down to us is from a papyrus known as the Turin Papyrus (along with a few other sources). It has been dated to Egypt’s 20th dynasty, about 1186-1169 BCE. No doubt, the story itself is much, much older, but the version we have comes from the later time. Second, the story is part of a healing formula to cure snakebite. Egyptian medicine almost always had a magical prescription as well as whatever herbal or surgical therapy was given. Such prescriptions often included a myth that related to the problem, followed by a statement that just as so-and-so was cured in the myth, so shall the sufferer be cured. In this case, just as Re was cured by Isis, so shall the snakebite sufferer be cured. Instruction is given at the end of the formula to recite the story over images of the main characters in the tale.
Elements of the Myth: the old king
The papyrus tells us that Re was so old that He drooled. In a time when the pharaoh was considered a God, and therefore should be the epitome of physical, mental and spiritual perfection, it would hardly be acceptable to have a ruler so old He drooled. Myths such as the death of the Holly King in Celtic countries, ritual combat to the death between the outgoing priest of Diana at the grove of Nemi and an incoming hopeful, and Arthurian legends of the Wounded King of the Wasteland—all point to the archetypal nature of this theme.
Lady of Renewal
Elements of the Myth: the Goddess of Renewal
If you know anything about Isis, you know that one of Her key powers is the ability to renew and resurrect. The Turin papyrus tells us that Isis came to Re with Her magic and that Her “speech was as the breath of life.” When the Star of Isis, Sirius, rose in summer, it signaled the beginning of the New Year and the renewal of all things. Her magic brought Osiris back to life enough to conceive Horus and then gave Him a new existence as Lord of the Dead. As some of you may know, I believe Isis is the ancient Bird of Prey Goddess. Thus She is the Lady of Death and Regeneration, an identity that She has never lost, even to this day. Since the failing Re does not willingly give up His power, Isis must create the conditions that force the old ruler to the point of renewal.
Elements of the Myth: the saliva of the God
In Egypt, magic might be worked by means of bodily fluids. Saliva, semen, blood, sweat, milk, and other such fluids were a means of creation. If it was the blood, sweat, and tears of the Deities, it was even more creative and powerful. Since Re drooled, rather than purposefully spitting (for example, when Atum creatively spit to give birth to the Goddess Tefnut), He was wasting His power.
Elements of the Myth: the holy serpent
Yet, the Goddess does not let it go to waste. Instead, She mixes Re’s drool with earth, the place of renewal from which new life grows, to create a holy cobra (or “noble snake” as in the linked translation). The cobra is a mixture of life—in that it is made partly of earth and will ultimately cause Re to be healed—and death—in that it is made from the wasted generative power of Re and is a symbol of His unfitness for His throne. And of course, the serpent is an almost universal symbol of renewal due to the snake’s ability to shed its skin and emerge new from the experience.
In the form of the holy cobra, Re’s own weakness strikes Him and brings Him more pain than He has ever before experienced. He quakes with cold and burns with fire.
Re
Elements of the Myth: name magic
In Egyptian magical theory, to know someone or something’s name is to be able to access its essence at the time of Creation, when all heka was at its more pure and potent. In this story, Re is considered the most powerful Deity in the universe (the tale also contains a litany of Re’s great powers). Knowing His secret name confers ultimate power; including the power to heal. As Isis tells Re, “the person who hath declared his name shall live.”
If this story is very ancient, it may be that its original form, in which Isis renews Re simply because that’s what the Goddess does, was lost. Perhaps later scribes tried to explain the Mystery to themselves and their audiences by framing it as a trick to gain power. Thus what may seem like simple blackmail is actually much more profound. Re is being forced to reveal a most secret and inner part of Himself to the Goddess. To be healed, He must make Himself vulnerable to the Lady of Renewal. He must accept both Her help and Her very real power.
Isis heals the ailing Re
Once Re gives Himself over to Isis, He is healed, renewed in strength and power. He learns that He must give up in order to gain. He learns to trust the Goddess Whom He has been forced to trust. And the Goddess proves Herself worthy. In no successive myth do we ever find any evidence that Isis abuses the ultimate power She has gained.
But Wait, There’s More
In the very same papyrus in which this story is found, there is a parallel story involving Horus and Set. It, too, is a magical snakebite cure. Here’s that story:
Horus and Set were voyaging together on Horus’ golden barque. Suddenly, Set cried out, “Come to me Horus, I have been bitten!”
And Horus turned to Set and said, “Tell Me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”
Set replied, “I am Yesterday, I am Today, I am Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come.”
But Horus said, “No, Thou art not Yesterday, Today, or Tomorrow That Has Not Yet Come. Tell me Thy name, that I may work magic for Thee. One works magic for a man through his name, and a God is greater than His reputation.”
So Set said, “I am a Quiver of Arrows, I am a Cauldron of Disturbance.”
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated what He had said before.
“I am a Man of a Thousand Cubits, Whose Reputation is Not Known.”
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus and repeated again what He had said.
“I am a Threshing Floor; I am a Jug of Milk, Milked from the Breast of Bastet.
“No, Thou art not,” said Horus again.
Finally, Set replied with His True Name, “I am a Man of a Million Cubits Whose Name is Evil Day. As for the Day of Giving Birth or of Conceiving, There is No Giving Birth and Trees Bear No Fruit.”
The formula concludes with the promise that the sufferer will be made as sound as Horus was by Isis, so even though in this story Horus is one Who is pushing Set to reveal His true name, the cure is attributed to Isis.
Horus and Set as sphinxes flanking a Cow Goddess
What the Trickster Teaches
It seems clear to me that a key to both of these myths is vulnerability to the Divine that precedes healing. We must reveal our innermost selves, symbolized by our true name, to Goddess, to God. We must do so even if, like Set, it is a name with which we are not entirely comfortable. We must give ourselves over to the Divine, as we are, right now, with no masks. Only in this state of radical openness can we receive the renewing gifts that Divinity has for us. Like Re and like Set, we must—at least eventually—be willing to acknowledge and trust the Divine in order to bring Its power into our lives. This vulnerability and revelation of truth can be painful, like poison; and yet the truth always frees us.
Like Re especially, we must acknowledge the power of Goddess and make ourselves open to Her. If we don’t, She will find a way—perhaps a rather difficult way—to bring that lack to our attention. But when we do reveal ourselves to Her, we can know Her and be known by Her. We can enter into mystical communion with Her as we move through the natural cycle of death and renewal that is guided by Her hand.
The Milky Way arching through the night sky; Nuet, the Secret One
While I have no declared priestesshood for Nuet, She draws me. A lot. In fact, almost anytime I do spiritual work with Her, I am overawed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her.
Nuet is the mother of Isis. And She is also the One Who Bears All the Gods and Goddesses, and so She is called the Mistress of All. 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 said to be in Her.
The Sky Goddess Nuet, full of stars, swallowing the Sun (my image, too, whoohoo!)
She embraces the deceased “in Her name of Sarcophagus” and “in Her name of Tomb.” She is the Mistress of the Duat (the Otherworld). She is the Glowing One (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 is the one Who is “Amid the Iset Temple in Denderah” for She is over Her daughter Isis and Her daughter is both in and of Her.
A most beautiful Nuet
As Nuet gives birth every day, She is the quintessential Mother Goddess. She births the Sun God Re each day and receives him back into Her body, by swallowing Him, each night. She also gives birth to Him yearly at the winter solstice. A cycle within a cycle within the Mother.
The decan stars, by which the ancient Egyptians kept time throughout the night, rise and set within Her heavenly body and so She is also a keeper and regulator of time. In one instance of what Egyptologists refer to as a “shadow clock,” the Hours of the Night are counted off in relation to where the sun is on/in Nuet’s body: First Hour, “hand,” Second Hour, “lip.” Third Hour, “tooth,” Fourth Hour, “throat,” and so on.
Nuet on the interior of a coffin, facing the deceased
Most ancient Egyptian painted representations of Deities show Them in profile. Yet there are a few Who come to us face-forward. The Great Goddess Hathor is famously depicted that way, as is Bes, the God Who is a protector of households, children, and mothers. Interestingly, we also find Nuet shown in this way. Like Hathor, She is a Mother Goddess and like Bes, She is a mighty protectress.
We often find Her on the inside of a coffin, stretched out over the deceased person like the sky, positioned face-to-face with them. This face-forward, face-to-face position is particularly intimate, particularly appropriate for the close relationship with a mother…or a Mother Goddess. Yet facing forward is also a protective stance. We see some of these face-forward Deities holding dangerous beasties (scorpions, snakes, crocodiles) harmlessly in Their hands, demonstrating how They can protect us from real as well as metaphorical beasties. Isis’ son, Horus the Child or Harpokrates, is often shown in this way on what are known as Cippi of Horus.
Nuet has another interesting epithet that is found in the Otherworld books known as The Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth. Just like the more-famous Book of the Dead, these are magical texts to assist the dead in the Otherworld.
The Secret One with serpents, crocodiles, sun disk, and ram in Her hands facing Geb/Re/Osiris
In these books, there is an important Goddess known as the Secret One, the Shetait. Egyptologists generally believe that this is an epithet of Nuet. As the Secret One, Nuet can be seen, not face-forward, but standing between serpents and crocodiles that She has tamed on behalf of the Sun God (and thus the deceased). Her power over them is in the form of heat or fire. They “stay in their place due to the fire, the heat which is in this Goddess,” says the Book of the Earth. The Book of Caverns says that the Goddess “is secret of form, being in their darkness as a flame to which the gods cannot ascend.” She is thus a fiery Light in the Darkness, a flame that protects and illuminates.
And now, back from Egypt, I’m excited to have my very own photos of the illustration above. You should have heard me squeal when I recognized it in the tomb! Here it is:
The Secret One and Geb
A closer image of Himself
A closer image of Herself
The Secret One holds in Her hands a sun disk and, in this case, a ram-headed God, or sometimes a ba-bird. Either represents the Sun God, Who is in the process of being regenerated and reborn. Thus, the Secret One holds this process in Her hands.
The Book of Caverns tells us that the Secret One’s head is in the upper Duat while Her feet are in the lower Duat. The Sun God travels upon Her arms, but at the same time is hidden by Her from the Gods, the akhu (the transfigured, light-filled, potent spirits), and the dead. The process of rebirth is delicate and must be hidden until the proper time. In the Book of the Earth, it is said that “the Double Ba, He travels Her body.” The Double Ba is the conjunction of Re and Osiris—something that must also happen in the Duat in order for the sun to be reborn.
In Her Name of Sarcophagus, Nuet spreads Herself out over the deceased and then She is called Shet Pet. Shet Pet is a common epithet of Nuet’s and means “Coverer of the Sky.” With a little bit of the word play for which the ancient Egyptians were so well known, this epithet can also be interpreted as the Secrecy of the Sky (Sheta Pet) reinforcing Nuet’s identification as the Secret One.
The sun disk about to enter the Secret Place and the Secret One
With Her doubled snakes and containing the Double Ba, Nuet can also split Herself in two and become manifest as Her two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Just as Nuet unites the east and west with the arch or Her body across the sky, so Her daughters form a unity as They position Themselves to the right and left of Osiris or They are to be found framing either side of one of the illustrated scenes in the Otherworld books.
The Secret One is, for me, a particularly potent epithet of the Goddess. It tastes of Her Mystery, the great Mystery of Life and Death and Rebirth. It speaks of Her Eternity. It breaths forth Her Depth and Her Power.
If you missed getting an Isiopolis post during the last couple of weeks, I have a very good excuse.
I was in Egypt. Finally.
And yes, it was amazing. On multiple levels.
Those of you who have already visited Our Lady’s homeland know. Those of you who haven’t yet, I hope you’ll be able to make the journey someday.
Imagine driving down a major road in your city and seeing this
Now, if you’ve been reading along with this blog, you might know that I’ve never been overly interested in the kings and queens of ancient Egypt. For me, it’s always been about the Deities. And one in particular.
Given that, I’ve never been super-fascinated with the pyramids—other than by the sheer fact of their ancient eminence. But if one goes to Egypt, one must, of course, visit the very impressive pyramids.
But I hoped to make this pyramid trek special because of something I learned about years ago and now would have the opportunity to see for myself.
The map we sent to our guide to show him where we had to go
You see, what I’d learned was that there are the remains of a small Isis temple behind one of the queen’s pyramids, behind the Great Pyramid.
The temple is at the pyramid of Henutsen, who was probably the second or third wife of Khufu, and who lived during the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom.
The famous Inventory Stele
There is some confusion over whether Henutsen was a wife or daughter of kings due to an important artifact found in the Giza plateau known as the Inventory Stele. The Stele calls her “king’s daughter” (some Egyptologists think she might have been a daughter of Sneferu). But other than the Stele, the only title we have a record of for her is “king’s wife.” Either way, Henutsen was royalty, bore at least two princes, and got her own smaller pyramid. For our trip, we arranged a private tour in order to be able to include the Isis temple (and forego the camel ride).
Yet, before we talk further, I’d like to quote the Inventory Stele for you, so you can see what is so interesting about it. The Stele has caused a lot of excitement, especially among those who believe that the Sphinx and Pyramids are older than the fourth dynasty period to which Egyptologists usually attribute their construction.
Here’s what it says (my capitalization of Divine pronouns):
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He made for his mother Isis, the Divine Mother, Mistress of the Western Mountain [i.e. the necropolis], a decree made on a stele, he gave to Her a divine offering, and he built Her a temple of stone, renewing what he had found, namely the Gods in Her place.
Live Horus, the Mezer, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Khufu, given life. He found the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, by the side of the cavity of the Sphinx, on the northwest side of the House of Osiris, Lord of Rostau, and he built his pyramid beside the temple of this Goddess, and he built a pyramid for the king’s daughter, Henutsen, beside this temple. The place of Hwran-Hor-em-akhet [that is, the Sphinx] is on the south of the House of Isis, Mistress of the Pyramid, and on the north of Osiris, Lord of Rostau. The plans of the Image of Hor-em-akhet were brought in order to bring to revision the sayings of the disposition of the Image of the Very Redoubtable. He restored the statue all covered in painting, of the Guardian of the Atmosphere, who guides the winds with his gaze.
He made to quarry the hind part of the nemes headdress, which was lacking, from gilded stone, and which had a length of about 7 ells [3.7 meters]. He came to make a tour, in order to see the thunderbolt, which stands in the Place of the Sycamore, so named because of a great sycamore, whose branches were struck when the Lord of Heaven descended upon the place of Hor-em-akhet, and also this Image, retracing the erasure according to the above-mentioned disposition, which is written {…} of all the animals killed at Rostau. It is a table for the vases full of these animals which, except for the thighs, were eaten near these seven gods, demanding {…} (The God gave) the thought in his heart, of putting a written decree on the side of this Sphinx, in an hour of the night. [That is, the pharaoh had a dream from the Sphinx that he should do this.] The figure of this God, being cut in stone, is solid, and will exist to eternity, having always its face regarding the Orient.
Translation from The Sphinx: Its History in Light of Recent Excavations, Selim Hassan (1949). Hassan takes it from French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero’s original translation.
The rest of the stele is taken up with a list of the sacred images of the Deities that Khufu restored within the Temple of Isis. The largest part of the stele is an inventory of these images, which is why it is known as the Inventory Stele.
Pretty cool, huh?
Part of the Temple of Isis at Giza; I sat here for a while
What excited me, of course, were the Isis references and the (new-to-me) title “Mistress of the Pyramid.” What excites most of those who get excited about this stele is that it—supposed to have been carved by Khufu’s fourth-dynasty sculptors on the king’s orders—tells us that the Sphinx was already there by that time! Not only that, but apparently the Temple of Isis was there even before Khufu built his Great Pyramid. So wow, right?
The Giza big three
Alas, most Egyptologists agree that the Stele is an archaized work, probably created sometime between the 25th and 26th dynasties, during a period when Nubian kings were trying to revitalize Egypt by harking back to its Old Kingdom glory days. The style of art and writing point most clearly to the 26th dynasty. Key to the evidence is that we have no reference to “Hwran” and “Hor-em-akhet” as names for the Sphinx until the 18th dynasty.
As for the Temple of Isis, it was probably originally a funerary chapel associated with the pyramid of Henutsen, Khufu’s wife, or as the Inventory Stele says, “king’s daughter.” The temple had been “found” by the pharaoh Pasebekhanu in the 21st dynasty and either converted into a small Temple of Isis at that time or, because the pharaoh either had or believed he had found the remains of an earlier Isis temple, had it refurbished as one. There, Isis was worshiped as Lady of the Pyramid until the Roman period. We even have evidence that Her cult had its own priesthood.
Stele C from the Sphinx temple at Giza
Prior to the Inventory Stele, we find Isis on a Giza stele of Prince Amenomopet, a prince of the 18th dynasty. This is on the so-called Stele C found in the Sphinx Temple and which shows the Sphinx and Isis, wearing the Horns and Disk Crown and within a shrine, receiving offerings from the prince. The image is captioned, “Isis, the Great, the Divine Mother, Queen of the Gods, One in Heaven, Who Has No Equal, the Elder [daughter of] Atum.” Dating on the stele is controversial (so what else is new in Egyptology?), but if the 18th dynasty dating is accurate, then Isis and the Sphinx are being worshiped together at Giza by at least that time.
After this period, we have a number of other Giza inscriptions that include Isis. Some that list Her with other Deities, notably Osiris and Horus, some that indicate that She was being worshiped alone. So it would seem that there was an active cult of Isis at Giza from at least the 18th dynasty. There is also evidence of private devotion at the Temple of Isis; a number of votive plaques were found there as well. (By the way, this info has been gathered together by Christiane M. Zivie-Coche in her book Giza Au Premier Millenaire Autour du Temple D’Isis, Dames des Pyramides.)
We also have several fragments of columns, probably from the Ramessid era, but which were reused in the Third Intermediate Period by Pharaoh Amenemope, on which the king offers wine to Osiris and Isis, Who is identified specifically as Lady of the Pyramids. Because the column was reused, we can’t be sure whether that epithet goes back to the Ramessid period or is from the 21st dynasty. Either way, we have another attestation that one of the Goddess’ epithets is Mistress or Lady of the Pyramid (or Pyramids). This likely refers to Her function of protecting the pyramids and the Osiris-kings in them, and surely to Her power to safeguard their rebirths as well.
Interestingly, a graffito on Henutsen’s pyramid from (probably) Egypt’s late period says that the pyramid is the burial place of Isis. Oriented to the south, it faced the symbolic burial place of Osiris, Lord of Rostau.
Another view of the Giza Temple of Isis with Henutsen’s pyramid in the background
I’m looking at another article about all this that leans toward taking the Inventory Stele more seriously as fact than previously thought. If there’s anything of interest there, I’ll let you know. But I think this is enough for now.
I am privileged to have been able to sit at Her Giza temple. There’s not much left, either in temple structure or (unfortunately) residual magical buzz. But that’s okay. For I’ll use what I experienced in Giza in my meditations in Her shrine here. I’ll add Her epithet of Mistress of the Pyramid to Her names honored here. In time, Her pyramidal Mysteries will unfurl once more.
An illustration of an ivory carving depicting the Egyptian city of Alexandria, personified as Isis; originally from Egypt, but now in the Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Note Her Isis knot.
When the Christian Empire forcibly forbade the worship of the Pagan Deities, the Goddesses and Gods did not die. But They did go underground. Yet Isis was one of the ones Who retained Her presence among the western world perhaps more than any other.
One of the underground lairs of the Deities was euhemerism. It’s the idea that the old Pagan Deities are merely historical mortals who, because of their special talents or moral worth, eventually came to be worshiped as Goddesses and Gods as Their stories became exaggerated over time. The concept is named after Euhemerus, a 3rd century BCE Greek mythographer. It wasn’t his original concept, though, yet it is his name that became associated with it and here we are.
A photo of the same carving
Euhemerism turned out to be not such a great look because ascending Christianity could use it to ridicule Pagans for being stupid in worshiping mere human beings. On the other hand, it preserved the stories of the Goddesses and Gods far into the West’s Christian-ruled centuries. You see, since these stories were not really about Deities, they could be told and retold without being a genuine threat to Christianity.
Churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages were often decorated equally with images of Pagan Deities and Biblical characters. The sibyls of the Pagans and the prophets of the Bible were both considered people of wisdom from whom the churchgoer could learn. And while the Church wasn’t completely comfortable with this arrangement (and sometimes even railed against it) still the practice continued throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
In these stories, Isis is often seen as a culture-bearer and philosopher. In 1508, John Trithemius, the Abbot of Spanheim, lists Isis among the “men” who devoted themselves to the study of wisdom.
Verily in these times, as it evidently appears from the Histories of the Ancients, men more earnestly applied themselves to the study of wisdom, amongst whom the last learned and most eminent men, were Mercurius, Bacchus, Omogyius, Isis, Ianachus, Argus, Apollo, Cecrops, and many more, who by their admirable inventions, both profited the world then, and posterity since.
John Trithemius, De Septem Secundeis, A0-6
Christine de Pisan
Allegory was another refuge of the Pagan Deities. Allegory interprets the myths or attributes of the Pagan Deities as moral tales or philosophical concepts. Again, it was a method created by Pagans themselves to find additional meaning in their myths. The Neoplatonists of the late Pagan period used allegory as a method to refute the arguments of Christians who claimed moral superiority for their religion. Pagans could point to allegorical interpretations of the myths to show how Pagan myths taught honor, chastity, fidelity, and other virtues. Eventually, the myths of the Pagan Deities came to be used at least as often as Biblical stories to teach “Christian” values.
Christine in her studio working
Today I’d like to introduce you to one of the writers who learned from the story of Isis and used it to teach moral virtues. Her name was Christine de Pisan (1364—1430 CE). De Pisan was born in Venice, but spent her life in France. Writing in the Late Middle Ages, de Pisan was an early feminist (some say the first feminist, some prefer proto-feminist); her work challenged misogyny and the gender stereotypes of her day. De Pisan was a fortunate medieval woman in that she had a lot of support from the men in her life. Her father, astrologer and secretary to King Charles V of France, taught her classical languages. She studied literature, mythology, history, and the Bible. She was married at 14 to Etienne du Castel, a nobleman from Picardy. He, too, supported his wife’s educational and writing endeavors.
When du Castel died of plague at age 25, Christine took to writing full time to support her three children and mother (who had not been as happy as her father with her work). She became the first woman writer to be able to support her family through her writing.
In much of her work, she wrote about the virtues of women as told in classical tales. She wrote poetry and prose, the biography of the King of France, she debated the anti-woman views in the Romance of the Rose as well as those coming from the pulpit, she wrote about the early victories of Joan of Arc when no one else had. Like Dante, she wrote about her visions; for instance, one in which Nature instructed her to write.
Ysys (Isis) descends from heaven to graft new branches on old trees. The Goddess cultivates trees and fields just as the knight should cultivate virtues in himself.
So where does Isis come into it? In two of her most famous works: the Epistle of Othea to Hector and the Book of the City of Women.
As the Goddess Othea, a Goddess she created to represent the “Wisdom of Women,” de Pisan writes to the young Trojan hero Hector, who represented the ideal knight. The Epistle consists of 100 stories meant to teach values to the young. All the stories are derived from Pagan texts and authors like Homer and Ovid. In Othea, de Pisan describes Isis (Ysys) as a planter and cultivator.
An illustration accompanying the text shows Isis grafting new branches on old trees. The knight is advised to follow the example of the Goddess and plant virtues in himself. The planting of these virtues is to be understood as similar to the conception of Jesus by the Blessed Virgin Mary, Whose “great bounties may be neither imagined nor said.” As was so frequently the case, here Isis is assimilated with Mary.
De Pisan speaking to the Sibyl in her vision
De Pisan’s Book of the City of Women starts with three Goddesses visiting Christine: Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. They tell her she must create a place where “ladies and valiant women may have a refuge and a defense against the various assailants.” Her book is that place, where she tells the tales of such valiant women in history, Isis among them, of course. In this entry, Isis is still the planting Goddess, but also the “a woman of such great learning acquired through labor that she was not only named the Queen of Egypt but also the most singular and special goddess of the Egyptians.”
She also conflates the story of Isis with Io and has Isis married to Apis rather than Serapis or Osiris, presumably wishing to keep any hint of the Isis and Osiris sibling marriage out of it. (For the story of Isis and Io, go here. ) De Pisan also tells us that Isis invented a shortform (hieratic or Coptic?) of writing, which helped the Egyptians manage “their excessively involved script.” (As I writer, this was important to her.) De Pisan also names Isis as a lawgiver and extremely just ruler, causing Her to be worshiped all through the world.
The manuscript for Epistle of Othea to Hector showing Ceres planting and Ysis grafting.
And so, while we cannot claim that the worship of our Lady Isis is an uninterrupted tradition, I think we can rightfully claim that Isis never left human awareness. From the time when Her worship was forbidden to modern times when so many have returned to be sheltered in Her loving wings, Ysis-Isis-Iset-Auset, as you wish, continued to live in myth, in allegory, in stories, in poems by first-feminist poets, in wisdom teachings, in alchemy, and in so many of the flowing streams of the Western Esoteric Tradition.
Isis is alive. The Goddess is alive. And yes, She always has been.
It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.
Recently, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.
Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.
We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)
So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?
Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.
Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.
Perhaps no text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi texts. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least they think that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Clearly, Isis is syncretized with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?
The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women, or young men for that matter, be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity with demanded, especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh, especially for women.
The Two Sisters
This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.
This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.
Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun
The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses and usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Ramesses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.
Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the inscriptions from the Isis Chapel at Abydos. In Egyptian, this is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the Egyptian name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young. A young boy or youth is hunu.
Parthenogenesis was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves alone. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God.
So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. On this holy day and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.
It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.
Recently, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.
Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.
We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)
So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?
Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.
Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.
Perhaps no text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi texts. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Clearly, Isis is identified with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?
The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women, or young men for that matter, be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity with demanded, especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh, especially for women.
The Two Sisters
This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.
This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.
Ankhnesneferibre, God’s Wife of Amun
The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses and usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Ramesses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.
Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the Egyptian hymns to Osiris (I believe it is from the Isis Chapel at Abydos; still checking into it.) In Egyptian, this would is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young. A young boy or youth is hunu.
Parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction), was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God.
So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. On this holy day and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.
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.
But I do keep magical journals. And semi-recently came across an old one. There were memories in it.
Not my magical journal, but I like…
When I keep 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 intensive 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, mind you!) 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.
If we look to ancient Egypt, we definitely find a concept of fate or destiny. It is shai (or shau). Like so many ancient concepts, Fate was personified, in this case as the God Shai. Shai comes from a root word meaning to ordain; as in that which is ordained. Often in ancient Egypt, what they thought was ordained was the length of one’s life. And, also often, this was connected with one or another of the Deities. People prayed that the Deities would lengthen their time on earth.
Shai and Meshkhenet at the Weighing of the Heart
In some of the Egyptian folk tales we have left to us, the time and sometimes the manner of death is decreed at birth by the Seven Hathors. In the story of the birth of the three kings, the Birth Goddess Meshkhenet is the one Who declares the destiny of the newborn kinglets. The Goddess Renenutet (or Renenet) is also a Destiny Goddess and could decree the prosperity a person might have in life. Shai and Renenutet are sometimes paired as Fate and Fortune or Fate and Destiny.
A wonderful Renenutet…couldn’t find the artist. Anyone?
Those of you who have been following along with this blog won’t be surprised to find that Our Lady of Ten Thousand Names was syncretized with each of these Fate-connected Goddesses.
We already know Her as as Lady Luck. But there is an even more important Isis-Fate connection. And that is, that She is the Ruler of Fate. In Her 1st century CE aretalogy from Kyme in Asia Minor, Isis says, “I overcome Fate. Fate obeys me.” In Egypt, She is called Mistress of Fate (Nebet Shai), Who Creates Destiny; She is Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. At Aswan, She is “the One under Whose command fate and destiny is.”
Iset-Renenutet or Isis Thermouthis
Interestingly, sometimes the hieroglyphs for shai were determined (that is, they have another glyph at the end that gives the overall sense of the word) with the sign for either “death” or “time.” Surely this is because of the Egyptian connection between one’s fate and the time of one’s death. We already know Isis is connected with death and the otherworld. But She is also a Goddess of Time.
This is most easily seen when She is Iset-Sopdet or Isis-Sothis. As I write this, it is summer and the star of Isis, Sirius, is absent from the night sky. It will be some time before I can see Her rise before the sun in the dawning light.
As Isis Sothis, Isis controlled the time of the seasonal, all-important Nile Inundation by the rising of Her star. She is also connected with the timekeeping Egyptian decans, which are 36 stars or smaller groups of stars (asterisms). As the earth turns, each decan is visible for a period of about ten days (or 10 degrees of a 360-degree circle), after which another one rises, marking 360 days of the year. To get to 365, the Egyptians added the five epagomenal days that were “outside” of the year—and during which the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. In addition to their yearly timekeeping, tracking the decanal stars and asterisms through the night sky served as a star clock for the Egyptians as they counted off the twelve Hours of the Night.
Isis-Sothis & Sah (Osiris) as stars
I’ve seen two different Egyptian names for the decans (decan is Greek for “a tenth”): baktiu and ankhiu. Baktiu, means “those who work” because, when it rose, each decan was said to be “working.” Ankhiu, as you might guess, means “living ones” because, as it rises, each decan is considered to be born. Iset-Sopdet is the first of the decans. Her heliacal rising just before the sun marks the beginning of the New Year. She leads and rules them all.
The Queen of the Decans is also the year as a whole, including what happens within that year. In Memphis, Isis-Hathor is called Renpet, the Year. One of the Oxyrhynchus papyri records one of the names of Isis in the Greek port city of Leuce Acte as Eseremphis, which is a Hellenized version of Iset Renpet. As the Year Itself, Isis decrees what fate each year brings. Horapollon, writing a late work on the meaning of hieroglyphs, says,
When the Egyptians want to represent the year they draw Isis, that is, a woman. And they signify the goddess in the same way. And among them, Isis is a star, called Sothis by the Egyptians, by the Greeks the Dog Star, which appears to rule over the other stars. Now greater, now less as it rises, and now brighter, now dimmer. And according to the rising of this star, we note how everything during the year is going to happen. Wherefore it is not unreasonable to call the year Isis.
Horapollon, book 1, entry 3
Isis-Sopdet (second from left) and the Star Deities from Seti I’s tomb
The temple of Ptah at Memphis was known (among other names) as “the Balance of the Two Lands.” The devotees who inscribed the Isis aretalogy at Kyme, in which Isis declares that She overcomes fate, wrote that they had copied it from a stele that stood in front of the Memphis temple of Hephaestos, that is, Ptah. German Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch commented in his thesaurus of Egyptian inscriptions that the Egyptian New Year’s festival was “the great festival at which the whole world is brought into balance, when the birth of Isis takes place.”
During the period of Roman rule in Egypt and across the Roman empire, people were feeling particularly pressured or bound by Fate. Astrology had gained general popularity, yet people felt constrained, not enlightened, by “their stars.” So we can easily understand the appeal of a Goddess Who, as the Kyme aretalogy says, regulates the pathways of the stars and orders the course of the sun and moon—and Who also frees those who are in chains.
A Roman image of Isis Fortuna
We find all these themes in Apuleius’ story of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. When he comes into Her service, Lucius is freed from his asinine state (he had been turned into a donkey). Isis, a Goddess of Fortune Who sees, replaces the Blind Fortune that had been tossing Lucius to and fro. Instead of implacable Fate, he is now allied with Invincible Isis, Victorious Isis, Triumphant Isis—Isis Who is Providence Itself.
As She always has been, Isis is Nebet Ankh, Henut Shai yt Renenet, Mistress of Life, Ruler of Fate and Destiny. And perhaps in these unsettling times, we too need a Goddess Who can overcome Fate…or help us to do so ourselves.
And so, let us commune with Isis—invoke and make offering to Her. Let us work magic under Her wings and then work in the world toward a better destiny for us all.
Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? Only at festivals?
And no matter what you do, do you sometimes feel guilty that you’re not doing enough? Do you worry that Isis may be displeased because you’re “not doing it right?”
If so, you’re not alone. Many of us feel like that from time to time (or even more often).
But let me tell you a secret.
It’s not a deep, dark secret. In fact, I think we all know it in our hearts. But we are human and we forget.
The first part of this secret is that Isis knows. She knows what we’re going through and what’s hard for us right now. She has Divine patience and compassion. And while we might not have infinite time in our lives, She does. If we drift away, She will always, always welcome us back. Even if it’s with a sly smile and a wry comment.
Kissing the ground before Her beautiful face
The other part of the secret is that—very often—our way of relating has to do with where we are in our lives. Now, mind you, my next comments are very generalized. Your path may—absolutely will, in fact—vary.
Some of us find Her early in life, some of us at later points. Some find Her, leave for a while, then come back. Some come to Her only for a specific period in our lives. Whatever the situation, it’s important to take into account where we are in our individual lives and what’s going on with us in general before we start getting all guilty and worried. And by “where we are in our lives,” I mean what stage of life we’re in as we grow and change over the decades.
Isis ritual on a fresco from Herculaneum
In our teen years, we’re exploring. Everything is new and can be confusing. Will the Goddess be angry if I don’t have an altar? What if I don’t say or do the right thing? And there are so many people online who are willing to tell us exactly-what-we-should-be-doing for Isis or Hekate or Dionysos. Who do I listen to? Depending on what our home lives are like, in our teens, we may also have to hide our interest in Isis. (Btw, She won’t care if you don’t have an altar.)
The orant posture, standing in awe of Her
In our 20s, we find new freedoms. We might discover like-minded others with whom to explore an interest in Isis. This is when many people start their personal practice and begin to develop the habits that will become a key part of their ongoing relationship with Isis. And because we’re more in control of our own schedule, this is when we might find we have more time to spend with Her and to learn more about Her. At this stage, we’re trying to figure out Who We Are and Who She Is. We might discover that She is an important part of our identity.
Do what you can do
In our 30s, we are coming into our power. But that also means that we’re coming into Peak Responsibility. Kids. Career. And everything that goes along with that. Our late 20s and early 30s are also a time when we may find we have some personal healing to do. We discover that what we learned earlier no longer serves us (or never served us, for that matter).
Such healing that takes time, patience, and extraordinary effort. For most of us, the 30s, early 40s, is a crazy-busy time of life. If the personal practice we started in our 20s starts to slip, it’s no wonder. We need to know that it’s okay to scale back our spiritual work in order to handle the things we need to handle. And yet, for some people, this is also the time of life when they first come to Isis. So, they’re starting that exciting journey along with everything else. Whew!
In our 40s and 50s, we still have everything that was going on in our 30s, but it’s at a different level. We know a lot more about what we’re doing. We also have the ability to focus more on the tasks we choose. If we have Work To Do in the World, we’re busy doing it. We lead our covens, make our art, write our books. Or, if our Work is private, we deepen our practice. We might find that it gets easier to make contact with Isis when we invoke Her—even if we can’t do it as often as we would wish. What’s more, if we’re Doing Our Work (groups, art, writing), that IS our Work. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. Remember, She knows our hearts.
Priestesses making offering
In our 60s, we still feel our power—and we still have our power. But to navigate these years, we shift our focus. For most of us, there’s less time ahead than there is behind. Peak Responsibilities are lessening; we’re handling them, or have even handled them. Now we may find that we have more time for our personal relationship with Isis. We find new and different ways to be present in the world and our own lives, and to be of service to and in harmony with Her.
In the later decades of our lives, we may, once again, turn within. We assess our lives. We think about our legacy. And make whatever adjustments are needed. We plan for transition. Who am I now? If we are fortunate enough to be able to retire, our time is—finally, blessedly—our own. If we wish, we can be a full-time Servant of the Goddess and no one can say us nay. Isis will welcome us home and She will continue to teach us new things about ourselves and about Her.
Priests making offering
The inspiration behind today’s post is that I’ve seen too many good folks beating up on themselves for not living up to whatever high spiritual standard they have decided to subscribe to. Let’s not do that. We don’t deserve that. None of us do. Especially you.
The point is simply this: at whatever point in your life you are, just do what you can do. None of us who love Isis today live in an ancient Egyptian temple where we can devote ourselves fully to Her service. We always have many other aspects of life we have to take care of. Responsibilities wax and wane throughout our lives.
Of course I’m not saying that our spiritual lives aren’t important. They are. Sometimes it is our spiritual lives that make the other aspects of life manageable. All this is to say, whatever it is that you can do, just do that—and don’t feel guilty or worried about what you can’t do. Isis is wise and loving, magical and powerful. She will be there. Always. I know She will be there for me. Always. And I know She will be there for you. Always.
The awesome scene from “The Mummy” when the statue of Isis raises the ankh to save Her reincarnated priestess from a lovestruck but murderous mummy
Of all the emblems of ancient Egypt, the hieroglyphic symbol of the ankh is probably the most familiar. Many people still wear it as an amulet and know that, in Egyptian, ankh means life.
Every Deity has an ankh
The ankh was extremely popular in ancient Egypt, too. Egyptians made ankh-shaped vessels, fan bases, sistra, unguent jars, jewelry, mirror cases—in addition to wearing the symbol itself as an amulet. Special bouquets of flowers, formed into the shapes of ankhs and simply called Ankhs, were given as offerings to Deities and as sustenance to the dead. The ankh was carved into temple walls and used to decorate furniture.
In later times, the Coptic Christian church used it as the crux ansata, the handled or “eyed” cross, because of its resemblance to the Christian cross.
Egyptologists still aren’t sure what the familiar oval-and-cross shape originally represented. Some believe it has sexual symbolism because some ankhs have what appears to be a female pubic triangle painted just beneath the cross bar. Others believe it represents a sandal strap. Still others see it as a type of magical knot or bow—similar to the Isis Knot or Tyet, which it closely resembles. Since Egyptian magic frequently employed knots, this idea is not at all far-fetched. Indeed, in some examples of the symbol, you can see what could be folds in the fabric or rope used to tie the knot.
My favorite bumper sticker
Yet another interpretation combines the knot concept with an idea that may have some merit since it actually connects with the meaning of the symbol itself: life. In this interpretation, the ankh is an umbilical cord that has been looped and tied to a short stick (the cross bar) to create the ankh-shaped amulet. Thus the ankh represents the way Life flows from the Divine to the human in the same way that life flows from the mother to the child through the umbilical cord. There are numerous references to Isis “cutting the navel string” of the reborn Horus. And there is even a myth that Horus recovers the birth cord of His murdered father, Osiris, in order to bury it safely. In a tale about the birth of three kings, the children’s birth cords are cut off, wrapped, and preserved. Clearly, the birth cord had significance.
Isis giving ankh to Queen Nefertari
Yet the life symbolized by the ankh is more than simple daily existence. It is also the sacred and ever-renewing principle of Life. It is the Eternal Life with which the Goddesses and Gods imbue humanity. It is the Life that is renewed after death. In funerary art, Deities such as Anubis and Horus pour streams of ankhs over the deceased to symbolize this eternal, regenerating life that flows from the Divine. Goddesses and Gods hold the ankh to the nose of the deceased to revive her or him in the Otherworld.
While the ankh is rightfully a symbol of every Deity, it is also especially appropriate to Isis. On an earthly level, Isis is the Great Divine Mother, the generatrix of all life on Earth. Isis is intimately connected with the fields that bring forth food, the waters that nourish and regenerate the land, and the life-giving air that fills our lungs.
Isis is a Green Goddess of Life, daughter of Earth and Sky. The Coffin Texts call Her She of Vegetation and Mistress of Herbage Who Makes the Two Lands Green. She is a Water Goddess for Her yearly tears for Osiris caused the Nile to overflow its banks, vivifying the land. She is the Queen of the Sea and the Lady Who brings rain. As a Bird Goddess, Isis is Mistress of the Skies and a Lady of Air.
Isis and Nephthys flanking the ankh, which upholds the solar disk and is supported by the djed column
On a spiritual level, Isis gives the gift of renewed life after death. Beating Her magical wings, the Goddess fans air—and ankh—into the nose and lungs of Her beloved Osiris. It is Isis’ vital breath that fills the nemset jars with which the deceased is dried after a purifying bath. And it is Isis Who brings the spiritual water that helps regenerate the dead.
As She is the Lady of Life, Isis is the Lady of Life Everlasting. She is the Green Goddess of life on Earth and She is the Divine Mother of each of us Who cuts our navel-string when we are transformed and reborn into Eternal Life.
Oops. I totally forgot to post yesterday. We had a divination party on Saturday, so was cleaning up and resting after that.
But in honor of that and in the spirit of the veil-thin-between-the-worlds season, I offer you an ancient method of divination that is specifically connected with our magical Lady Isis. It is (a bit) new in that it is a new translation of the ancient text in which the divination is found. The new translation doesn’t really change things much but it does, perhaps, give us a slightly better understanding of the original. And that’s always good.
A Coptic (not Demotic) magical papyrus
The other new thing is that we can try it for ourselves.
This Isiac divination is found in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. You’ll usually see them just called the Greek Magical Papyri (Latin: Papyri Graecae Magicae, abbreviated PGM) because they are written in Greek, but the scholars who worked on them tell us that they reflect, in large part, Egyptian magical techniques, so I prefer Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri. What’s more, we also have a cache of similar magical texts written in Demotic, which is a late, cursive version of the hieroglyphs. Demotic is derived from hieratic, which was an earlier, priestly version of cursive hieroglyphs. So those are unarguably Egyptian. Here’s some background on these fascinating texts.
The particular text I want to discuss is listed on the linked page above, but for easy reference, here it is again:
Great is the Lady Isis! Copy of a holy book found in the archives of Hermes: the method is that concerning the 29 letters through which letters Hermes and Isis, who was seeking Osiris, her brother and husband, found him. Call upon Helios and all the gods in the deep concerning those things for which you want to receive an omen. Take 29 leaves of a male date palm and write on each of the leaves the names of the gods. Pray and then pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf and you will find your omen, how things are, and you will be answered clearly.
PGM XXIVa
Male date palm leaves; big enough to write on
This seems like a simple, easy, and fairly quick divination method.
It is likely that the 29 letters refer to the 29 letters of the Coptic alphabet. Coptic is the latest form of ancient Egyptian. The letters are adaptations of Greek, but with additional letters that incorporate Egyptian-language sounds that Greek didn’t have. It developed under the all-pervading influence of Hellenism in the Mediterranean region. Because the text instructs us to write the names of the Deities on the 29 palm leaves, I would assume that each of the Deity names written on the leaves had one of the Coptic letters as the initial letter of the name.
But that’s just a guess, not a certainty, and we simply have no other information. On the other hand, the Egyptians may have had tables of correspondences that connected the Deities to the Coptic alphabet like many modern magical systems do and which may or may not have been based on the spelling of the Deity name.
The Coptic alphabet
Oh, and just to be clear, this particular text WAS written originally in Greek, not Coptic or Demotic. But because the “29 letters” probably refers to the Coptic alphabet, we may understand this as likely to be a genuine Egyptian method of divination, but recorded in Greek.
Those of you who looked at the Coptic alphabet here may have noticed something: that it has more than 29 letters. (And, in fact, you will see some variations in the letters included, depending on dialect as well as the time period in which it was in use.)
That’s why I want to share with you a new translation of that same passage by David Jordan, head of the Canadian Archeological Institute in Athens, an Egyptologist and expert in the ancient magical texts. I won’t bore you with all the details, but it seems pretty reasonable to my definitely-not-an-expert self.
Great Isis the Lady. Copy of a sacred book found in the archives of Hermes. The method is the odd number of letters [i.e. 29; the number was actually a marginal note in the text rather than a number found inside the text itself], through which Hermes received omens and Isis, searching, found her own brother and husband Osiris. Say: ‘I invoke the sun and all the gods in the deep’—about whatever you wish to receive an omen. Taking 29 leaves of a male palm, write on each of the leaves (one of) the names of the gods and, when you have said a prayer, pick them up two by two. Read the last remaining leaf, and you will find wherein your omen consists, and you will receive an omen lucidly.
PGM XXIVa, revised translation
So you see, it’s not much different and certainly not in terms of how to actually do the divination. It’s just always interesting to me to see the graceful art of translation in action. The translator makes note that the initial phrase, “Great Isis the Lady,” appears in one other place that we know of: a graffito found in Rome. (There’s another well known Roman graffito related to Isis that I’ve written about before, which was found on one of the walls of the Temple of Isis in Rome. It says, Una, quae es omnia, Dea Isis, “Being one, You are all, Goddess Isis.”)
The fact that the phrase “Great Isis the Lady” was well known enough to be a graffito adds weight to Jordan’s translation. In this case, the phrase may be intended as the title of the divination method. It gains power and prestige from being the method the Great Magician Goddess Isis used to find Osiris and Thoth (Hermes) the Great Magician God used to receive omens.
So let’s give it a try.
Because I am sometimes lazy and didn’t have access to male palm leaves, I did it the cheap-and-easy way just to see how it worked on the quickie. It will definitely be worth following up on the more authentic track, too.
Some of the cards from the Book of Doors by Alison Davidson and Athon Veggi.
Instead of palm leaves with Deity names on them, I used 29 cards from an Egyptian-themed divination deck that I like. It’s called the Book of Doors. (If it appeals to you, you can get it from Inner Traditions or used on eBay.) It’s not a tarot deck with the traditional Arcana. Instead, it has an Egyptian Deity associated with each card and groups Them into families like Sun, Moon, Air, or Fire. The authors call it an “alchemical oracle.” I like the art.
Anyway, for this first attempt, I didn’t choose the 29 Deities based on Coptic alphabet initial letters, I just picked 29 of the most well known Goddesses and Gods, including Set and Apophis, because there have to be options in a divination.
First, we invoke…
We could follow the text and simply say, “I invoke Helios and all the gods of the deep about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could choose Egyptian names: “I invoke Re and the Primordial Ogdoad, the Great Infinities, about [stating the subject of the divination].” Or we could go All-Isis-All-the-Time: “I invoke Isis, the Radiant Goddess, Isis-Re-et, Great of Magic, in Her Name of Lady of the Depths about [stating the subject of the divination].” Take your pick.
The benevolent Hathor
Then we shuffle the 29 cards and spread them out, face down. In our hearts, we speak a prayer to Great Isis the Lady to reveal the true omen and send the Goddess, send the God Who will help us discover the answer. We pick up the cards, two by two, leaving them face down until there is only one left. That card, we turn over.
The question I asked was whether this divination method was truly an Isis divination. When revealed, the singleton card was Hathor. In this particular deck, Hathor is in the transformational family of Fire and She is shown emerging from the Otherworld.
How shall we interpret?
First reaction: Hathor is a strongly positive Goddess and, in this card, She is not in Her raging-Sakhmet aspect. If I had to give a quick yes/no answer, I’d definitely say yes, this IS a legit Isis divination. Or, since this card is part of a divination deck, we could use the interpretation provided by the authors. Their short-form answer for Hathor is “love, pleasure, beauty.” So again, I’d take that as a yes.
A stunning image of Beyonce as Hathor from her film, Black is King. This is absolutely wonderful!
We could also go deeper into what we might know about Hathor Herself. She is a Great Goddess associated with the heavens, the earth, and the underworld. She is the all-containing sky Whose name means “House of Horus;” She is the greater sky in which He flies.
Because She is so all-containing, Hathor indicates that this is a divination method that contains all omens and is thus appropriate for receiving a wide range of Divine counsel. As a Lady of the earth, nature, and fertility, we may understand that the oracle can also provide earth-plane practical advice. Hathor is also a Goddess of the Otherworld and, in this card, is specifically shown emerging from it. Thus we can expect the emergence of revelations—as well as Mysteries—from this divination method.
If we choose, we could understand the divination on a more personal level, too. For instance, in another area of my magical life, I have a connection with Hathor, specifically with Her late-period form and Her Egyptian Coptic name of Ahathoor. So perhaps I could say that this could be a particularly good method of divination for me.
And, of course, Isis and Hathor were more and more closely connected as time time passed in Egyptian history; so much so that They shared many of each others’ epithets and symbols.
In sum, I’d say the answer to my question is definitely yes; this is a divination that could be very useful for those of us who honor Isis. Personally, I am looking forward to using it a lot more, learning more about it, and perhaps I can find some of those male palm leaves.
Here’s a great graphic showing how Demotic evolved from the hieroglyphs.
Did you do a specific ritual? Did it slowly gain its living quality over time?
Following the inspirations of ancient Egyptian cult, for me, the ones that are alive are so because of ritual. I’ve used versions of “Enlivening the Divine Image” from Isis Magic on several of them. But my main image—my BIG Isis—was enlivened long before Isis Magic existed.
To enliven Her, I invited a circle of friends to come over for an Isis birthday party. There was ritual around everything, of course, but the main event was that each participant cradled the image in their arms, as if holding a baby, and breathed their living breath into the sacred image…then passed Her to the next person. And it worked; She has been quite lively ever since.
But what exactly do I mean by “is alive,” anyway?
Let me give you an example. Several years ago, one of the traveling Egyptian museum shows came to our local museum and a group of us went. Of course, there were many wonderful things. But one image—smallish, broken, a head of Sakhmet in yellow alabaster—hummed with magical power. I felt Something in its presence. Mind you, not everything in the show felt like that. But this piece did. I think what I felt was the magic of the ritual that had “opened the mouth and eyes” of this sacred image of Sakhmet so that something of the Goddess was still within the image. The priests who worked that rite, those guys were good. This Sakhmet had power; it had life.
That’s what I want from my sacred images of Isis, too. When someone visits my Isis shrine, I hope they feel Something. A little buzz. A little hum. A little magic that says, “yes, I’m here.”
From the very start of the artistic process of making such a sacred image, the ancient Egyptians knew they were creating something that would be alive. Sculptors sometimes referred to their work as “giving birth.”
We are used to thinking of Egyptian statuary are gargantuan. But the main cult image in each temple—the one kept in the holy of holies and cared for each day—was likely no more than about a foot in height for anthropomorphic images. We know this due to the size of the shrines that enclosed these images. So this means that the size of the images many of us have on our own home altars are very much in harmony with the most important Egyptian temple images. I like that. A lot.
The oldest texts we have that provide information on what the ancients thought about their divine images come from the New Kingdom (1570-1069 BCE), but the ideas in them are likely much older. We find this information in ritual texts for the Daily Ritual, which cared for and fed the Deity and the Opening of the Mouth rite used to enliven the images, as well as some additional temple texts that mention the relationship between the Deities and Their images.
At core, what these texts make apparent is that some part of the essence of the Deity was considered to be alive in the sacred image. In the Daily Ritual, the sacred image is awakened, clothed, praised, and anointed as a living being. Each step in the ritual re-enlivens the statue each time the ritual is performed. Toward the end of the rite, the priest can finally say to the Deity in the image, “oh living ba who smites His enemies, Your ba is with You and Your sekhem is with You.” In this case, the ba of the Deity is Their manifestation (ba also has connotations of power) and sekhem is the word for power. The priest then says that he, too, is a ba and embraces the sacred image.
So at this point, the ba of the Deity is in the image. Ba is a complicated term and I won’t go into all its complications here. (Besides, I’m still learning about some of them.) For our purposes here, we can think of the ba of a Deity as Their Presence or Manifestation. In this way, the sacred image of the Deity IS the outward manifestation of the Deity. But that’s not all that it is. For we have other texts that tell us that the ba of the Deity swoops down like a great hawk to alight upon the image and indwell it.
But back to the Daily Ritual…
Next, food is presented and now the emphasis shifts to the ka of the Deity. The ritual says that Ma’et embraces the Deity “so that your ka will exist through Her.” The simplest definition for ka is “vital essence;” it’s the difference between alive and dead. And since I am, at this moment, into simplification, we’ll let that do for now.
The hieroglyph for the word ka is two upraised arms, perhaps intended to be read as an embrace. For it is through an embrace that ka may be passed, for example, from Atum to His children Shu and Tefnut to protect Them and give Them Their kas. The royal ka—the ancestral power that makes the pharaoh a pharaoh—is passed by an embrace from the old king as Osiris to his heir as Horus.
So we have two aspects of the Deity present in the sacred image during the Daily Rituals: ba and ka. The ba is the Presence and the ka is Life. It is through the ka that the Deity Who is alive in the sacred image receives offerings. You can read more about that here.
These sacred images were taken out in procession during certain festivals. On such occasions, the Deity would also be present in the image—present enough to give oracular responses, and we even have one instance of a man claiming that he was cured of blindness during such a procession. Unfortunately, we don’t have texts of any of the rituals that might re-enliven or “charge up” the image before going out, but we know they existed because the library at Edfu was supposed to contain a book of “all ritual relating to the exodus of the God from His temple on feast days.”
From another temple text, we know that the Opening of the Mouth ritual was performed on statues. The full name of the text is “Performing the Opening of the Mouth in the workshop for the statue (tut) of (Name of person or Deity).” The key part of that ritual was known as netjerty, when the mouth of the image was touched with the adze, a specific craftsman’s tool. Netjerty is formed from the root Netjer (also Nutjer, Neter)—Deity—so we can understand that this part of the rite was a god-ifying part. Much of the rest of the ritual is very similar to the Daily Ritual and its magic, with both ba and ka present.
Other than these references in the Daily Ritual and Opening of the Mouth, there are a few scattered references about the relationship between Deity and image. In the Hibis temple of Amun-Re, all the other Deities are considered aspects of Him as Creator. And, as Creator, He is also the one Who creates His own image. He made it “according to His desire, He having graced it with the grace of His breath…” In the Daily Ritual text that we have for Amun, He is said to be “the tut Who made Their [all the Deities] kas.”
In several similar passages, the creation of the sacred image is attributed to the Deity Who’s image it was. This reminds me of why all the books of Egypt could be said to have been written by Thoth: the scribe, in the act of writing, is in the Godform of Thoth, so the book is written by Thoth. Perhaps the sculptors and artists were supposed to be in the Deityform of the Deity they were sculpting, too. I am imagining an artist, in the Goddessform of Isis, crafting Her image by channeling inspiration from Her.
In what is known as the Memphite Theology, Ptah the Craftsman is the Creator and He creates the bodies—statues—of all the Deities according to Their desire, so that They willingly “enter into” Their bodies and Their kas are satisfied.
At Isis’ temple at Philae, a text says that Isis’ son Horus is the one who established all the temples and made all the sacred images. Horus and Hathor were known to “go out as Their statues” during one of Their festivals. Edfu temple also has passages that say the Deities “unite with Their bas in the horizon—the akhet, that most liminal of liminal places and a very reasonable place to work this transitional magic.
From these and similar clues, we can be sure that a Deity’s ba and ka were understood to be present in Their sacred images. What’s more, Their presence in one temple neither precluded nor diminished Their presence or power in another. Both ka and ba are in divinely infinite supply.
Thus Isis can be alive and present in my shine, on your altar, and on the altars and in the shrines of all those who love Her.
May She bless and be alive in your sacred image always.
