Turquoise and carnelian—perfect Egyptian colors for fall.
Here at the 45th parallel on the west coast of the US, we are perfectly situated to experience the turning of the seasons in a nearly archetypal form. Very often, the first day of autumn or winter or spring or summer turns out to be a ideal expression of the forthcoming season. Today, the first day of fall, is sunny, warmish but not hot, and the air shines with the gold that only autumn can bring. And it’s harvest time.
The crops are a bit late this year due to our weather; nonetheless, winter squash are in the farmer’s market and we’re just a few weeks away from our annual Dionysian Grape Stomp and Bacchanal, when we harvest the grapes in our own vineyard, dance them to juice, then feast and trance the night away.
Yet here, halfway from the equator to the top of the world, the seasons bear no relation to the seasons in ancient Egypt. For them, this would have been the second month of Inundation, when the Nile rose to cover the land, bringing its rich silt to Egyptian fields. Harvest time wasn’t until early Spring.
What’s an Isiac to do?
The Two Sisters, here with symbols of the Two Lands
For me, the answer is simple: when it comes to seasonal things, I celebrate locally. I am not trying to recreate the worship of Isis as it was in ancient Egypt; instead, I am inspired by those ancient roots of Her worship and yet feel perfectly free to grow from those beautiful, deep, and ancient roots new living plants. The seasons of the ancient Egyptians are not my seasons. And though this Egyptian Goddess is my Goddess, I cannot help but experience Her through my own modern cultural—and seasonal—lenses.
Thus, while the rite I will be participating in tonight, on this equinoctial evening, is not an ancient Egyptian rite, it honors one of the most important themes in ancient Egyptian life and spirit: duality. For tonight I shall make offering to the Two Sisters. Bright Isis and Dark Nephthys Who, when joined hand in hand, are an expression of the sacred magic of the equinox—the harmonious balance of light and dark, day and night.
Isis & Nephthys as sisters. See more illustrations of this artist’s work here.
The two Goddesses compliment each other in the light and dark children They bear to the same God. Osiris fathered the bright God, Horus, with Isis while with Nephthys, He fathered the dark God, Anubis. The Two Goddesses also manifest their Divine power differently. While Isis guides and sheds light on the hidden paths of the Otherworld, the Coffin Texts tell us that Nephthys speaks and they are obscured: “Hidden are the ways for those who pass by; light is perished and darkness comes into being, so says Nephthys.” While Isis summons the Barque of the Day, Nephthys is “a possessor of life in the Night-barque.”
The Twins
And yet, Isis and Nephthys are also and importantly twins. They are the Two Ladies, the Two Women, the Two Goddesses of the Hall of Truth, the Two Long-Haired Ones, the Two Uraeus Serpents, the Two Spirits, the Two Nurses, the Two Weavers, the Two Feathers, the Two Birds, the Two Cows, the Two Kites, the Two Divine Mothers, the Two Eyes of God, the Two Women, the Two Wise Ones, the Two Weepers, the Two Great, Great Ones, and ultimately, the Two Uniters. The essential balance and unity of Isis and Nephthys is expressed in the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri by the name Isenephthys or Isis-Nephthys.
And so, in this time of perfect balance, I dance between the equal poles of night and day, teetering on the scales of Libra, and I honor the Two Ladies.
In ancient Egyptian, there was a phrase that expressed the all-encompassing nature of Isis: Iset em Renus Nebu, “Isis in All Her Names.” By later periods of Her worship—within Egypt as well as throughout the Mediterranean world—Isis was understood as an All-Goddess Who could be seen in many other Goddesses. Her multi-faceted nature was expressed in a vast array of epithets attesting to Her Divine powers.
Isis, the Myriad-Named One
When we enter into a relationship with a Deity, that Deity will inevitably expand for us as we learn more about Them and develop our understanding of Them. Perhaps we first greet Isis as protectress of Osiris and mother of Horus. But then we discover that Her power to do those things is because She is, first and foremost, Great of Magic. As we grow our relationship, She reveals more of Herself to us, She opens more doors to Her Divinity for us.
The same thing happened in ancient times. As She revealed ever more of Her Divinity to Her devotees, She became known, in Greek, as Myrionymos, “Myriad Named,” an almost precise echo of Her earlier Egyptian epithet.
So what I have for you today is an invocation of Isis in some of those myriad names and epithets. It is from one of the Oxyrhynchus papyri, which date roughly to the beginning of the 2nd century CE. For those who might like to look it up, this specific invocation is in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus XI.1380.
But first, let me tell you a bit about the papyri found in Oxyrhynchus, an ancient Egyptian city about ten days journey by water or five by land south of Memphis. The city was once quite beautiful, with colonnaded streets, temples, docks, and irrigated land out into the countryside. Outside of town were the city dumps. In the dumps, an enormous cache of ancient papyri was discovered. And because it never rains in this part of Egypt, everything that was above ground-water level was preserved, long after the city itself had crumbled to dust or been dismantled and reused as building materials. You’ll find more on the papyri here.
The town of Oxyrhynchus in Egypt in ruins
The garbage dumps of Oxyrhynchus, where the papyri were found
In these papyri, we have everything from tax documents to personal letters to books to magical workings and invocations. Blessedly, we have an amazing Invocation of Isis in which She is invoked by Her names and epithets, first in the nomes and cities of Egypt, and then in other parts of the Mediterranean world. The Invocation goes on to offer praises to the Goddess. Scholars think it was written by an initiate of Isis, possibly a priest at Memphis. It was composed in Greek and it ranks as one of the most important Isiac documents ever found. And, of course, a great deal of it is missing. Sigh.
To make it easier to read, I’m going to leave out most of the triple dots (. . .) that indicate places where the papyrus was too damaged to read (except where that doesn’t make sense or is just too intriguing to leave out). Also, I’ll italicize the name or epithet, while leaving the place names un-italicized and break it into paragraphs, something the original does not do. The original was written in Greek, the lingua franca of the time.
The Oxyrhynchus Invocation of Isis the Many-Named Goddess
The first names are from towns in Egypt
I invoke Thee, Who at Aphroditopolis art called One; Who art called Bubastis; at Letopolis Magna, One; at Aphroditopolis in the Prosopite Nome, Fleet-Commanding, Many-Shaped, Aphrodite; at Delta, Giver of Favors; at Calamisis, Gentle; at Carene, Affectionate; at Niciu, Immortal, Giver; at Momemphis, Ruler, at Psochemis, Bringer To Harbor; at Mylon, Ruler; at Hermopolis, Of Beautiful Form, Sacred; at Naucratis, Fatherless, Joy, Savior, Almighty, Most Great; at Nithine in the Gynaecopolite Nome, Aphrodite; at Pephremis, Isis, Ruler, Hestia, Lady of Every Country; at Es, Hera, Divine; at Buto, Skilled in Calculation; at Thonis, Love; in the Saite Nome, Victorious, Athena, Nymph; at Caene, Joy; at Sais, Hera, Ruler, Perfect; at Iseum, Isis; at Sebennytus, Inventiveness, Mistress, Hera, Holy…
More Greek names for Egyptian towns
At Hermopolis, Aphrodite, Queen, Holy; at Diospolis Parva, Ruler; at Bubastus of Old, at Heliopolis, Aphrodite, at Aithribis, Maia, Supporter; at Hiera in the Phthemphuthite Nome, Lotus-Bearing; at Teouchis, Sacred, Mistress; among the Bucoli, Maia; at Xois of Old, Oracular; at Apis, Understanding; at Leuce Acte, Aphrodite, Mouchis [probably “She of Mouchis;” Mouchis was near Aphroditopolis], Eseremphis [Greek version of Egyptian name meaning “Isis the Year”]; at Choatine, Victorious; at …, Skilled in Writing; at Cynopolis in the Busirite Nome, Praxidice [a justice-bringing Goddess]; at Busiris, Fortune, Good; at Hermopolis in the Mendesian Nome, Leader; at Pharbaethus, Of Beautiful Form; at Isidium in the Sethroite Nome, Saviour of Men; at Heracleopolis in the Sethroite Nome, Mistress…
A beautiful image by the artist Zingaia. You can find her on Deviant Art.
At Phernouphis, Ruler of Cities; at Leontopolis, Serpent, Good; at Tanis, Of Gracious Form, Hera; at Schedia, Inventiveness; at Heracleum, Lady of the Sea; at Canopus, Leader of the Muses; at Menouthis, Truth; at Meniouis, Seated Before Io in Whose Honor . . . Is Founded; at M…Enestium, Most Great, Vulture-Sharped, Aphrodite; at Taposiris, Thauestis [unsure, but may be related to a popular Egyptian name, Thaues or Thauesis, meaning “Of Isis”]Hera, Giver; in the Island, Swiftly Victorious; at Peucestis, Pilot; at Melais, Many-Formed; at Menouphis, Warlike; in the Metelite Nome, Kore; at Charax, Athena; at Plinthine, Hestia; at Pelusium, Bringer To Harbor; in the Casian District Tachnepsis; at the Outlet, Isis, Preserver;
In Arabia, Great Goddess; in the Island, Giver of Victory in Sacred Games; in Lycia, Leto; at Myra in Lycia, Sage, Freedom; at Cnidus, Dispeller of Attack, Discoverer; at Cyrene, Isis; in Crete, Dictynnis; at Chalcedon, Themis; at Rome, Warlike; in the Cyclades Islands, Of Threefold Nature, Artemis; at Patmos, Young; at Paphos, Hallowed, Divine, Gentle; in Chios, Marching; in Salamis, Observer; in Cyprus, All-Bounteous; in Chalcidice, Holy; in Pieria, Youthful; in Asia, Worshipped at the Three Ways; at Petra, Savior; at Hypsele, Most Great; at Rhinocolura, All-Seeing; at Dora, Friendship; at Stratonos Pyrgos Hellas, Good; at Ascalon, Mightiest; at Sinope, Many-Named; at Raphis, Mistress; at Tripolis, Supporter; at Gaza, Abundant…
Sacred image of Isis from Brexiza, Greece, near Marathon
At Delphi, Best, Fairest; at Bambyce, Atargatis; among the Thracians and in Delos, Many-Named; among the Amazons, Warlike; among the Indians, Maia; among the Thessalians, Moon; among the Persians, Latina; among the Magi, Kore, Thapseusis [this name is hard to make out; possibly a specifically Persian name, possibly a magical name]; at Susa, Nania [possibly a syncretic Isis-Innana]; in Syrophoenicia, Goddess; in Samothrace, Bull-Faced; at Pergamum, Mistress; in Pontus, Immaculate; in Italy, Love of the Gods; in Samos, Sacred; at the Hellespont, Mystic; at Myndus, Divine; in Bithynia, Helen; in Tenedos, Name of the Sun; in Caria, Hekate; in the Troad and at Dindyma, Palentra [also unknown], Unapproachable, Isis; at Berytus, Maia; at Sidon, Astarte; at Ptolemais, Understanding; at Susa in the District of the Red Sea, Sarkounis[unknown]…
Thou Who interpretest first of all by the Fifteen Commandments [the word used in Greek is thesmoi, laws;I really want to know what these 15 Commandments or Laws of Isis are—so far, no one does know], Ruler of the World; Guardian and Guide, and Lady of the Mouths and Rivers and of Seas; Skilled in Writing and Calculations, Understanding; Who Also Bringest Back the Nile Over Every Country; the Beautiful Animal [probably, the Cow] of All the Gods; the Glad Face in Lethe; the Leader of the Muses; the Many-Eyed; the Comely Goddess in Olympus; Ornament of the Female Sex and Affectionate; Providing Sweetness in Assemblies; the “Lock of Hair” in Festivals; the Prosperity of Observers of Lucky Days; Harpocratis [possibly an expression meaning something like the “darling”] of the Gods; All-Ruling in the Procession of the Gods, Emnity-Hating, True Jewel of the Wind and Diadem of Life; By Whose Command Images and Animals of All the Gods, Having … of Thy Name, are Worshiped; O Lady Isis, Greatest of the Gods, First of Names, Io Sothis…
Roman Isis, from the 2nd century CE, in the Farnese Collection in Naples
Thou rulest over the Mid-Air and the Immeasurable; Thou devisest the weaving of . . . ; it is also Thy will that women in health come to anchor with men; all the elders sacrifice; all the maidens at Heracleopolis turn to Thee and dedicated the country to Thee; Thou art seen by those who invoke Thee faithfully; from Whom … in virtue of the 365 combined days; gentle and placable is the favor of Thy Two Ordinances [like the Commandments, I want to know!]; Thou bringest the Sun from rising unto setting, and all the Gods are glad; at the rising of the stars the people of the country worship Thee unceasingly and the other sacred animals in the sanctuary of Osiris; they become joyful when they name Thee; the spirits become Thy subjects; [the next few lines are very fragmentary] and Thou bringest decay on what Thou wilt and to the destroyed bringest increase, and Thou purifiest all things; every day Thou didst appoint for joy; Thou … having discovered all the … of wine providest it first in the Festivals of the Gods.
Isis with Horus upon Her lion throne
Thou becamest the discoverer of all things wet and dry and cold and hot, of which all things are composed; Thou broughtest back alone Thy Brother, piloting Him safely and burying Him fittingly; Leader of Diadems; Lady of Increase and Decay, Thou didst establish shrines of Isis in all cities for all time; and didst deliver to all human beings observances and a perfect year; and to all human beings in every place, Thou didst show . . . in order that all might know that Thou . . .
Thou didst establish Thy son Horus Apollon everywhere, the youthful Lord of the Whole World and for all time; Thou didst make the power of women equal to that of men; and in the sanctuary Thou didst . . . ; Thou, Lady of the Land, bringest the flood of rivers—in Egypt, the Nile, in Tripolis, the Eleutherus, in India, the Ganges; owing to Whom the whole exists through all rain, every spring, all dew, and snow and all the land and sea; Thou art also the Mistress of All Things Forever; Thou madest the . . . of the Dioscuri; Thou hast dominion over winds and thunders and lightnings and snows; Thou, the Lady of War and Rule, easily destroyest tyrants by trusty counsels; Thou madest great Osiris immortal and delivered to every country religious observances; likewise Thou madest immortal Horus who showed Himself a benefactor and good; Thou art the Lady of Light and Flames… [then the Invocation moves to a praise of Horus, and then it breaks off]
There is much to meditate on here. Perhaps you will be inspired, as I am, to call upon Her in some of these many names—and maybe even add your own to the list. “In Portland, Great of Magic, Queen Isis, Mysterious One…”
Come, Hathoru, You Seven Hathors, You Egyptian Muses—come and help me to sing in praise of working rituals with groups of actual living humans.
These days, many of us are doing our rituals, spells, and meditations solitary. I’m reading an academic study of this particular phenomenon right now. (Yes, there are scholars who actually study us—though not that many.) Solitary ritual was a trend before the pandemic. But afterwards, it’s something of a landslide.
Why?
Sometimes, where we live doesn’t give us easy access to a like-minded community. Sometimes people have had a bad (sometimes very bad) experience with a group and are, as a result, “group-shy.” Sometimes, it’s just a lot of trouble to coordinate a get-together. If it’s formal ritual, then there’s rehearsal, too. But, even if it’s very informal ritual, you still need to have a certain level of comfort with each other—that is, you have to know each other at least a little to do ritual effectively. And that never comes automatically.
When Egypt re-opened the Avenue of the Sphinxes at Luxor, they did group ritual—a boat procession. (Okay, Egyptian media were very careful to say the participants were “actors.”)
These are all reasonable reasons.
And yet.
Music, often a part of group ritual
If you’ve ever been in a group ritual that really worked, you will know that there is nothing like it. When the stars align and the group is focused; when the Ways are open and all hearts are open; when the Goddess ARRIVES and the entire group ignites with Her energy—then, then, then the result is unlike what we can achieve in a solitary rite. There are times, during and after ritual, when I look at everyone in the circle with me and I deeply know how incredibly beautiful each and every one of them is. I see them through Her eyes for we have been together with Her, enfolded in Her wings, nourished by Her magic. Together.
Having been connected and in communication with Isis, we become connected and in communication with each other as well. (And this is one of the keys for when conflicts arise in groups, as they do. We have developed paths of communication and connection with each other, which we can then use to resolve issues. I’m not saying it’s easy; it’s not. But I am saying it’s possible. And I am saying it’s worth it. I’ve been in groups in which members went though a divorce and still managed to have the group remain stable, offering support to both members.)
In solitary ritual, our ritual actions tend to be more informal. Perhaps we light a candle, chant Isis’ name, and meditate or offer a prayer to Her. Often, this works beautifully and profoundly. It is the greater part of my own spiritual work.
Getting ready for festival
When we are doing group ritual, however, we are usually doing a rite with a more formal structure: cast-the-circle, call-the-quarters, invoke-the-Goddess, for instance. And that’s good because group ritual is about communication, human to Divine, Divine to human—and when it is group ritual—human to human and individual to group. By being a form with which everyone is familiar, the understanding and communication between all group members helps us easily build a sacred container for the group experience. In turn, that lets everyone relax into the form, enabling them to become more open, in both body and spirit. And this lets the magic flow, helping us more easily open to our perceptions of Her and connection with Her.
Carriers of the sacred boat at Luxor
What’s more, the energy in group ritual is often more than the sum of its parts. Each individual brings their own innate magic to the rite. But combined, something happens. There is an alchemical blossoming of power and magic that makes it easier to connect with Deity—and/or accomplish the purpose of the rite. More than once, I’ve entered into a group ritual feeling low energy and maybe even grumpy for having to be there. But never once have I left feeling anything other than spiritually uplifted and grateful for having participated. Group energy can not only help carry a member through the rite, but can also replenish someone—who, like me—may be feeling depleted.
More celebration of the opening of the Avenue of the Sphinxes
Ritual like this helps us gain other benefits, too. Researchers have studied the effects of the basic components of ritual, such as chanting, drumming, and invocation, and found them to be beneficial to us both physically and mentally. I would add spiritually as well. Read more about why I think ritual itself is important here.
I have been fortunate throughout my entire magical life to have been able to find people with whom to work magic, with whom to do group ritual. Some of us have been friends for a very long time and I love them all dearly. But some of us are new friends and I’m just getting to know them. For instance, some of my friends, new and old, are working together on a festival—the Return of the Wandering Goddess (Hathor! Sakhmet!)—for next summer solstice. And I can’t wait to do more group ritual with them all.
Modern Egyptians put wheels on their sacred boats!
Sunrise at the “castle” at the summit of Rocky Butte, our Sirius Rising viewpoint
Well, once again, Portland weather foiled my plans for watching the Star of Isis rise last Thursday.
But I have some amazing folks coming today to talk about our summer solstice festival for next year: The Return of the Wandering Goddess—so I need to get ready for them.
For today then, instead of a new post, I’m reposting a report from a time when Portland did not foil my Sirius rising plans.
There’s always next year!
Wonderful, wonderful.
That’s not what I was thinking when the alarm went off at 3:20 this morning, but it is exactly what I’m thinking now.
I have just come back from witnessing the rising of Sirius, the Star of Isis, in the morning skies over the city of Portland, Oregon. And it was glorious. A fellow priestess of Isis and I traveled to one of the high places in the city to watch Her be born from between the thighs of Her mother Nuet.
Our vantage point is known as Rocky Butte. It is an extinct volcanic cinder cone that rises to an elevation of 612 ft. within the city limits and is a less-than-ten-minute drive from my house. At its summit, there’s a city park surrounded by castle-like walls, which is a popular viewpoint for visitors and natives alike. From Rocky Butte, you can see the slow serpent of the Columbia river that forms the border between Oregon and Washington and the layered silhouettes of the ranges of the eastern mountains, including the archetypal, snow-capped presence of Mt. Hood (though I prefer its Native American name, Wy’east).
When we arrived shortly after 4 am, we could see Orion-Osiris clearly, so we seated ourselves before Him to await Her Rising. We brought stargazer lilies, bread, and milk to offer to Her at Her Appearance, and we each also had that wonder-working wand of modern priestesses, a phone equipped with Google Sky so we could check Her progress toward the horizon. Even though the morning was clear enough, with the haze of the city lights on the horizon, we weren’t certain we’d be able to see Her, but we settled in to wait.
This is what we saw in the pre-dawn sky
Then, to the far left of where the Goddess’ star would rise, we noticed something strange and beautiful. It turns out that this was the one and only morning to see another pre-dawn cosmic wonder: a perfect triangle in the indigo sky of Jupiter, Venus, and the slimmest crescent of the waning Moon. As the triad rose higher in the sky, the crescent turned from ruddy orange to milk white and, from our viewpoint, framed a small stand of fir trees before us on the Butte. It was spectacular. I’ll take that as a portent for the New Year anytime.
At just about 5 am, Google Sky told us Iset-Sopdet should be above the horizon, but we still couldn’t see Her for the city lights, haze, and mountains.
Then—wait, what’s that? Yes, we could see something flashing through the haze, shooting off sparks of red and white and blue-green: Iset-Sopdet appeared. She scintillated. She glittered. She sparkled.
Iset-Sopdet
We watched Her Rising in silence, but for the sounds of the night and the coming dawn.
We meditated, each in our own way. Then, after a time, we poured the milk, offered the bread, and placed the vase of stargazers on the surrounding wall so that they were in alignment with Her star. I really hope someone finds them later today and takes them home to enjoy the incredible fragrance of those lilies. She, I am sure, has already enjoyed them.
The heliacal rising of Sirius, August 23, 2014, was for me, quite simply, a perfect experience.
I enter Her shrine, light the candles, ignite the charcoal in the censer, pour Nile Water into the cup. The stillness of the morning settles in the shrine and in me. I sit on the floor before Her sacred image, looking up at Her.
“Hello, Isis,” I think to Her. No response. But I do not really expect one. Not yet.
I breathe, slowly, deeply. I focus on my own consciousness, which I sense centered in my head. Then, on a breath, I let my consciousness roll out and out and out, expanding into the unseen world, where She Is, where I can greet Her.
“I am open unto Isis, only Isis,” I whisper into the stillness. I breathe, opening my mind and body and Self to Her.
The water vessel filled with Nile Water
I take up the cup with Nile Water, elevate it. I call out to the Souls—the Bau—of Night asking Them to imbue this water with Their purifying powers in Her name. I envision blue light flowing into the cup. I sense starlight. I feel a slight heaviness in the cup.
I sprinkle water throughout the shrine. East, south, west, north. I sprinkle myself with this ensouled water. I speak the purifying formula, adapted from ancient texts. “Isis is pure, I am pure…” As I breathe in, blue light spirals into my core. As I breathe out, it reverses direction, carrying impurities out with it. I do this until I feel balanced and ready to come before Her in worship.
A hand-painted censer with lotus flowers
I take up the censer, place incense on the coal. Scented smoke rises. I call out to the Bau of Day asking Them, in Her name, to fill the censer with Their consecrating powers. Red light settles around the censer; its heat increases. I waft the smoke throughout the shrine as before. “Isis is consecrated, I am consecrated…” I coax the scent over my body. I breathe in the red consecration until I am replete, consecrated to Her worship.
I sit. Breathe. Open my consciousness again. I sense Her waiting on the edges of that consciousness.
I raise my hands, beckoning. I speak the very simplest of all the Egyptian invocations I know. “Iu en-i (Eeoouu-en-ee). Iu en-i, Iset,” I say. “Come to me, come to me, Isis.” I repeat this, softly, letting my words, my desire flow out to Her.
And suddenly the shrine is full of wings. Now it feels a bit crowded in here, but I let my ka relax, that it may better touch Hers. She shows Her beautiful face to me. Large, dark, almond eyes. Wide mouth. Long, wide nose. The shrine is full of wings and feathers, impossibly multi-hued. And it is full of Her.
She has serpents and sistra
I have come to worship, so I ask what She desires. “Your thoughts and offerings help Us abide in Our images [She means the sacred images we obtain and consecrate for Her and for all our Divine Ones] and in your hearts,” She says. “Spend time, make offering.”
She is before/around me now. She begins to breathe through my being. She is concentrating on the shenu—the energy centers—of my third eye and my heart. [I think this means either those centers are the most sensitive in me right now, or perhaps the least sensitive and they need work. I am not sure.] She breathes out, I breathe Her into my centers. Hold. I breathe out, She breathes into Her shenu and holds the power. We do this again and again. “What do you feel?” She asks. “Expansion. Excitement. Connection to You,” I say. “Worshiping is communion,” She says. “Your thoughts of Me are the flowers I choose for My garden.”
She, with Harpokrates, Werethekau, and the Goddess with Upraised Arms
I think blue lotuses for Her.
She takes them.
“Look into My eyes,” She says, “into the Black of the Kore.” [She is referring to this.] I do. “Worship begins at the Origin and ends there, too,” She says. “Worship is exchange, energy, offering, love. Worship is being in harmony with. Worship is rising in the Boat of the Morning and setting in the Boat of the Night. Worship is surrender that I may uplift you. Worship is vulnerability before Me, a release of fear. Worship is just love; you for Me, Me for you,” She says.
I sit then, in worship, as I do whenever I enter Her shrine, and whenever I think of Her. I am content. She, I think, is also content.
Look down from Orion’s belt; the bright star near the horizon is Sopdet.
I’ve written a lot on this blog about the heliacal (“before the sun”) rising of the Star of Isis—Sirius in Latin, Sothis in Greek, Sopdet in ancient Egyptian—which marked the beginning of the Egyptian New Year and the return of the life-giving Inundation flood. (You’ll find the basic information on Isis and Her holy star here. For more, just search “Sirius” on this blog.)
When Sirius rises in your area depends on your latitude. For me, in 2024, Her rising is August 22, in the hour before dawn. Thanks to the wonders of modern online astronomical calculators, we can know pretty precisely when the Fair Star of the Waters will rise before the sun. (To use the linked calculator and find out when Sirius rises in your area, just enter your email and the password: softtests. You will need to know the latitude and altitude of wherever you are observing Her rise. This info is easily google-able.)
But for the ancient Egyptians, and for those of us who honor the Ancient Egyptian Deities today, something else happens prior to the rising of Our Lady’s star: the “Five Days Upon the Year” or the epagomenal days. These were five days outside of time that marked the transition from the Old Year to the New Year. These five days, added to the Egyptian 360-day year, brought them up to the requisite 365 (or almost; they were short a quarter-day).
On these five days, the birthdays of Osiris, Horus (or Horus the Elder), Set, Isis, and Nephthys were celebrated. But this time wasn’t just a happy birthday party for the Deities. This time-outside-of-time, this liminal period, was also a period of great danger. This was the period before the coming of the yearly flood that fertilized Egypt’s fields along the Nile. It was the time of the lowest water; in some places, boats could no longer navigate. All along the Nile banks, everything was drying out. The food stores from last year’s harvests were running low. People were beginning to anticipate—and be anxious about—how high the waters would rise this year. Would there be famine or feast?
To those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this may feel quite familiar in August. The foliage that used to be lush green has started to look dried out and dusty. Heat sits heavy upon the land. In some places, people are bracing for the possibility of their own high waters from hurricanes. And though my local farmers’ markets are brimming with harvest produce, my social feeds are filling up with people canning and preserving—for we still feel the need to conserve today’s harvest against the coming darker months.
Our epagomenal Deities, plus (I presume) young Anubis with Nephthys
For the ancient Egyptians, the epagomenal days were also the time that Sakhmet sent out Her plague demons to infect the people. Known as the Messengers, Slaughterers, or Arrows of Sakhmet, these frightful Beings struck people down, sickening or evening killing them. There is new research showing that the infamous bubonic plague or Black Death may have originated in Egypt—and indeed that it, or something like it, had been plaguing Egypt for centuries. The Ebers medical papyrus, dated to about 1500 BCE, lists a disease that includes the description of a bubo, an infected lymph node that was characteristic of the bubonic plague.
An example of the protective amulet with 12 destructive Arrows of Sakhmet shown.
All this is to say that Sakhmet’s Arrows were not to be taken lightly. And people did not. The king and the temples worked to protect Egypt during this time with the rituals of Sehotep Sakhmet, “pacifying” or “satisfying” Sakhmet, for She Who could bring plague could also protect against it. The people themselves wore special amulets and used particular spells to avert the plague, or other calamity, at this time of year.
One amulet listed 12 of Sakhmet’s Messengers “who bring slaughtering about, who create uproar, who hurry though the land.” To make the amulet, you draw Them on a piece of linen, knot it 12 times, and wear it around your neck (one of our most vulnerable spots). Then you repeat a particular prayer regularly from the time you put it on until the New Year. You were also to make offerings of bread, beer, and incense as part of activating the amulet. Archeologists have even found some examples of these linen amulets.
As a great Magician Goddess, Isis is particularly associated with magical knots, especially in relation to protective magic. When an ancient Egyptian referred to a “knot amulet,” what they usually meant was the famous Knot of Isis, one of the amulets that protected the dead. Isis and Nephthys are said to work protective magic for Osiris with knotted cords. Knot magic continues to be a popular form of spellwork today.
A linen strip with the image of Isis drawn on it. It’s pretty faded, so a sketch of the image is included in the lower left corner.
In addition to this overall protection, there were particular spells and amulets associated with each of the five epagomenal days. Linen amulets, similar to the one already mentioned, featured the image of the Deity Whose birthday was celebrated that particular day. We also have a few examples of these, but not a complete set. On the right is a picture of the one we have for Isis’ birthday; the other two existing ones are for Nephthys and Osiris.
Another reason that the epagomenals were an apprehensive time of year was that normal cyclical time, neheh-time—the yearly changes and renewals, came to a stop. The old year had ended and the new one had not yet begun. Djet-time, perfected unchanging time, took over. Now, you might think perfected time would be good. And it is. Eventually. But not for life on earth. Life here needs the changes of the seasons and the development of the years to survive. For more about neheh and djet time, go here and here.
For me, with the rising of the Star of Isis on the 22nd, the epagomenal days begin on the 17th of August. I plan to honor each of these Great Deities on Their birthdays, perhaps with similar amulets and prayers, and certainly with bread, beer, and incense.
This year, I am definitely feeling the unsettled liminality of the approaching epagomenal days. It has much to do with the political situation here. I have renewed hope that with the rising of the Star of Isis later this month—and with Her even more brilliant position in the night sky in…oh, let’s say, November…that Ma’et will prevail. But we don’t yet know how high the river will rise. And so we work toward Ma’et, we do our civic duty—perhaps do some protective magic with Isis as well—and we wait.
I’ve been working on some new material for the new edition of Isis Magic (yay!). But that means I didn’t get to the post I was planning for today—some juicy tidbits about Isis in Rome (She’s still there, of course).
Instead I’m reposting the story of when I knew Isis had accepted me. I’d love to hear you story, too. Please do share in the comments, if you’d like.
Wings and lotuses, always
I am terrible with memories. I don’t mean my memory is bad. I mean I don’t honor ‘things past’ enough. I don’t take many pictures (and certainly not of myself). I tend not to care for traditional souvenirs. And I definitely have the “get rid of it” gene (which my beloved does not). In my defense, I don’t generally dwell on past wrongs either.
Earlier this week, this post was going to be on an entirely different topic. But then I came across an old magical journal. And there were memories in it.
Not my magical journal, but I like…
I do keep magical journals. I don’t record everything all the time (good Goddess, the paper trail would never end!). Usually, I keep them during periods when I’m doing a lot of magical work. This particular journal, as I have said, is old. I mean really old. Like “before the fire” old. Yes, of course, you don’t know what I mean.
Before we moved to the Pacific Northwest, we lived in an apartment in Tennessee. One night the complex caught on fire. Neighbors knocked on neighbors’ doors, telling them to get up and get out. We grabbed the cat and the insurance papers and got out. The next day, with the fire quenched, we were able to go back to survey the damage. It had been a weird fire. Things like our stereo system were completely and utterly incinerated. Things like our irreplaceable magical papers (papers!) were saved. This journal was among them. I can tell from the singed edges.
So I thought I’d sit down and read it. There was lots of visionary work pertaining to a magical system I was training in. But every now and then, there were entries about Isis. This was before I knew very much about Her, before I became Her priestess, and way before Isis Magic. Yet I clearly had been working with Her (or She was working with me).
A magical, glowing blue lotus
One entry reads, “I have had a very strong Isis connection since my dream the other night.” That dream was not recorded, but a vision was. I was working on love and acceptance. For the vision, I called on Isis to touch me and help me let Her love of humanity come through me. I sensed Her great, but gentle hand descend from above. She placed it on top of my head. Waves of Her not-quite-orgasmic love passed though me and out into the world. I describe that flow of energy, then write, “I again saw the bright, bright, blue glowing lotus.” It had been so bright that I couldn’t tell one petal from another; eventually, the lotus-light enveloped me. I conclude, “I am feeling very worshipful of Great Isis.”
I see myself falling in love with Her through this journal.
Another entry says, “A most wondrous dream! A prayer answered!” Apparently, my beloved was snoring, so I took my bedding and went into our temple room to sleep. I was overcome with a desire to know, truly know, that Isis was with me. I write that it was “a demanding, revealing need” for Her presence. I prayed to Her “more emotionally than ever before” to send a dream to let me know She was with me. I chanted Her name for a while, then slept.
This art was inspired by a dream the artist had of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. See what her dream was and more of her work here.
“A few hours later,” I write, “I came from a full, deep sleep to awake with loud sobbing from happiness and amazement.” (My sobbing.) Due to the abrupt awakening, I lost part of the dream. But the actual content of the dream wasn’t the point. The point was that, in the dream, the resolution to a dream-problem happened by a miracle. By Her miracle. And it made me so happy that I woke up crying with joy. And I again saw the blue lotus flower.
Woman picking blue lotus
I remember this event. The details are a bit fuzzy now, but I vividly remember the visionary blue lotus. I could see it anytime I closed my eyes with crystal clarity instead of the vague dreaminess that vision often has. “I must look up lotus symbolism and I must make a blue lotus talisman,” I wrote. See how much I didn’t know then? Another entry says simply, “I love Her.” And now you know why the Isis temple in my backyard is called the Lotus Temple.
Next, I found an entry that I had marked IMPORTANT with a drawing of a star, a lotus, and a sickle on top. I wrote, “In the dark month of February, on the 15th of the month, with the moon waning in Capricorn, I have taken and been taken by Isis in Her Black Aspect as my Lady, my personal Goddess.” But this wasn’t when I became Her priestess; that was long in the future then. This was my forming a true bond with Her, a bond that will last my entire life. She became “my” Goddess, I became Her devotee. This is when I really began learning about Her.
There is, of course, more in this journal. I see my own inner struggles, doubts, fears, angers, and depression. But this particular record is incomplete. These are loose-leaf pages without a binder…and it seems that some are missing. After we moved to Portland, I began buying blank-but-bound books for my journals. The next one—which I am still writing in—starts with the time when I actually did become Isis’ priestess. In this journal, I can see that I am working out the magic part for what will eventually become Isis Magic.
But I think I have regaled you with quite enough of my journal entries for now. And I have learned my lesson that I should better value memories and keepsakes. Perhaps you will do some magical work with Isis yourself today? After all, your story will be a much better tale—because it will be yours. Just don’t forget to write in your journal.
As I look to the night sky, I cannot see the star of Isis, Sirius, for She remains hidden now. Yet I anticipate Her rising late next month. But in the meantime, I contemplate the vastnesses of Her mother, Nuet, the Sky Goddess, Who is filled with the Indestructible Stars that Are in Her, and within Whom Her daughter now rests.
A most beautiful Nuet
I am not Nuet’s priestess, but O, the Secret One draws me. I am awed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her. And right now, in the northern hemisphere at least, Our Lady Isis is Herself lost within the beautiful body of Her mother Nuet.
Right now, the star of Isis, Sirius, is hidden. Here in Portland, Oregon, She will not be seen again until pre-dawn in late August. Astronomically, that’s because the star is in conjunction with the sun. As the sun rises, its greater light makes the light of Sirius invisible to us. By late August, Sirius and the sun will move further away from each other so that, just before dawn, we can once more see the brilliance of the star in the twilight sky.
But that’s just astronomically. Mythically, Isis sojourns within the body of Her powerful mother Nuet. She Who is called the Mistress of All and the One Who bears the Gods and Goddesses. She is the Splendid and Mighty One in the House of Her Creation. She is the Great One in Heaven and the Indestructible Stars, that is, the circumpolar stars that are always visible, are within Her, just as Her mighty daughter Isis is within Her.
Nuet embraces the deceased king and each of us “in Her name of Sarcophagus” and “in Her name of Tomb.” She is the Mistress of the Secret Duat (the Otherworld). She is the Glowing One (perhaps as the Milky Way) and in Her we are joined to our stars, Becoming Divine. She is the one Who gives birth to us and Who welcomes us back into Her starry body at our deaths. She is Heaven and She is the Otherworld. She gives birth to the Sun God Re each day and receives him back into Her body, by swallowing, each night. She is the one Who is “Amid the Iset Temple in Dendera” for She is over Her daughter and Her daughter is in Her.
But now, while Isis is in Her mother’s body, She is also in the Underworld—for Nuet is the Lady of the Duat and Her body is both the Heavens and the Underworld. So now in the heat of the year, our Goddess is in the cool depths of Eternity. Perhaps this is the time for us, as Her devotees, to enter the Otherworld as well.
Nuet, the Circle of Eternity, encompassing All
Sopdet (Sirius), the Star of Isis
We usually think of symbolically going into the Underworld during the dark part of the year rather than the light part. Yet now, in the light of summer, it may be a particularly safe time to take that Underworld journey, for now we have the support of Isis Who awaits us there.
If we have scary things to face in our own personal Underworlds, now is a more supportive time to do so. The light of dawn comes more quickly now and the sunlight of Isis the Radiant One is more readily available to us after we have faced those inner darknesses that we must face in order to grow.
This may also be a good time to explore our relationships with our mothers. A strong priestess of my acquaintance, who was serving as a Priestess of Nuet at a festival a while ago, told me an interesting thing about how she perceived the relationship between Nuet and Isis. It was her distinct impression that Nuet did not get along with Her daughter. Of course, in the human realm, this is far from an uncommon thing. Mothers and daughters (and mothers and all their children, for that matter) can have issues. Now—in the light of summer and with the help of the Goddesses available to us—now might be a time to shed some light on those issues.
Sarcophagus lid with Nuet opening Her protective wings over the deceased
But even if we don’t have mom stresses, this can be a time to honor and remember our mothers, both human and Divine—perhaps under a star-filled sky. Since my own mother has already been enfolded in the wings of Isis, I shall plan to honor my Divine Mother Nuet and Her Starry Daughter Isis as I look up into the next clear and star-filled night.
It’s hot here, as it is in so much of the US and across the middle latitudes. But in the often-cloudy pacific northwest, there is a benefit. It’s the night. O, in the night, the sky is clear and we can finally see the brightly shining stars. And so today, whether you can see the stars at night or not, I offer you this meditation on your own unique star, the Star of Your Soul, the Star of Your Self. If you want to know more about the background of this star, have a look at this post.
The Rite of Touching Your Star
Contemplate the image of the stars above or remember how the night sky looked the last time you stargazed. Purify and consecrate yourself using the formulae of the House of Isis, or use any method that you usually use to prepare yourself for ritual.
Facing east, raise your arms in the Sign of the Wings of Isis and say:
Ritualist: Iset Sopdet, Daughter of the Stars, Queen of Souls, I have come to You that You may help me to find and to touch the light of my own Beautiful Star, my own Divine Light. Amma, Iset, let it be so.
Continuing to face east, be seated comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe deeply and slowly for several minutes. When you are ready, visualize the following:
Imagine that you stand before the great pylon gates of an ancient Egyptian temple of Isis. It is late evening. The sky is a luminous indigo color and the stars are beginning to show themselves. As you stand there, the doors of the temple swing open and you enter. It is quiet and no one else seems to be here, though someone has clearly lit the torches that illuminate the interior of the temple.
If you look to your right, you see that stone stairs have been carved into the wall of the temple and a torch burns near the first step. You approach the steps and begin to climb. If you look at the walls beside you, you will see many Egyptian five-pointed stars carved into the walls, with hieroglyphs in neat columns beside them.
Continue climbing and you will soon emerge on the roof of the temple. Here, it is completely dark. No torches illuminate this place—only the light of the millions and millions of stars that fill the night sky above you. Walk to the very center of the roof and you will find that someone has made a place for you. Soft rugs and cushions have been placed there for you. Take your seat there and make yourself comfortable.
Let one star catch your attention.
The voice of the Goddess speaks in your mind and says, “Gaze at the beautiful belly of My Mother, Nuet. Narrow your eyes slightly and scan the sky, to the right, to the left, above, below, and behind you. Continue to scan the sky until one star catches your attention.”
Let this take as long as it takes. Continue to look at the sky until one star seems to jump out at you. When you have found this star, kiss your hand and extend it toward the star and say:
Ritualist: I greet You, O Star of my Soul. I welcome You. Come to me, come to me, O Star of my Self. Come to me that I may be joined to your light.
And indeed, the Beautiful Star does come. It moves gently through the sky until it is just before and above you in the night.
As you watch, the star flashes and a beam of starlight extends from the star to touch the top of your head. You feel a tingling and a warmth there. You will now draw the light of your star into the shenu, or energy centers, of your body.
Breathe in and the starlight fills your mind. Take note of any image that arises as the starlight is in your head.
Breathe in and draw the starlight into the shen at your throat. Once more take note of any image or thought that comes to you.
Breathe in and bring the starlight into your heart. Knowing the importance the Egyptians placed on the heart as a center of the self, let the light linger there a bit longer.
Breathe in and bring the starlight into the shen at your genitals and note your feelings, thoughts, and any images.
Breathe in and let the starlight fill the area between your knees. Once more, make mental note of your experience.
Breathe in and bring the starlight all the way through your body, into the area just beneath your body.
Become aware of the channel of starlight that flows from the star above you and all the way through your body. Then open yourself even more. Breathe deeply once more and open yourself yet more. Breathe and feel the light of the star breathing with you, moving through and within your body.
Do this until you feel complete, at least for the time being. When you are ready, stand, and thank your star by making the Sign of the Wings of Isis.
Ritualist: I thank You, O Star of my Soul. I thank you. May your light continue to guide me until I come to you again. In the name of my mother Isis, may it be so. Amma, Iset.
Watch as your star withdraws and returns to its normal place in the beautiful night belly of Nuet. Kiss your hand and extend it toward the star in thanks. When you are ready, walk back down the steps and out the temple doors.
Let your consciousness return to the here and now. Thank Isis in your own words. The rite is ended.
This meditative rite should be done many, many times over the course of your lifetime. Different things will happen at different points in your life and you will discover new things each time. The more you do it, the more you will weave the connection between yourself and your star, a connection that can serve as a guide in this world…and the next.
NASA says this is a nebula. It looks to me like the astral hand of the soul reaching for its star.
Several posts ago, I mentioned a particular type of graffiti found at Isis temples in Egypt and in other locations throughout the Mediterranean. These are the images of a foot or feet or footprints that were sometimes scratched on or near Her temple or shrine. Similar feet have also been found carved on separate stone slabs and placed within temples. In Egypt, we find these feet images associated with Isis in Abydos and Philae. Outside of Egypt, we find them in Delos, Chaeronea, Thessaloniki, Maroneia, Rome, and more.
A knot of Isis like the one She took as offering
If you’ve ever traveled to a sacred place, you may have been tempted to leave behind an offering or token of some kind to mark your journey. On my own recent pilgrimage to Isis’ temple at Philae in Egypt, it seems I left such a token—if inadvertently. On the boat ride to Her temple island, I was wearing two pieces of jewelry: a knot of Isis and a tiny sistrum. I paid no attention to them at all while we explored Her sacred temple. But on the boat ride back, I had only the tiny sistrum. The knot of Isis must have fallen off sometime during our visit.
Yet the loss made me happy. Why? Because I had had a premonition that something would happen while I was there. I believe that what happened was that Isis accepted the offering that I had unconsciously brought Her. I have since wondered if the Goddess re-gifted it to some other visiting priestess and absolutely made her day, week, and month. I hope so; that’s my fantasy, anyway.
A votive footprint from a temple in the Egyptian Faiyum
Of course, I would never have etched my footprints or left graffiti on Her temple as some ancient visitors before me had done. I mean, what were they thinking!?! And, in fact, that’s exactly what I’d like to explore today: what were they thinking, and what are those footprints about anyway?
In a general sense, footprints are tangible proof that someone was here; right here—and substantial enough to leave a print. Remember the Ice Age footprints discovered in New Mexico several years ago? They are of a woman and child and they’re the longest continual track of fossilized footprints found to date; they continue for almost a mile. Because of the pace of the footprints and the changing depth of the imprints, researchers can tell something about what may have been happening to those people at that time. Or remember how affecting seeing Buzz Aldrin’s human footprint in the dust of the moon was? Or perhaps you’ve been intrigued by the celebrity footprints (and handprints) outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood? Like a fingerprint, a footprint uniquely represents the one who made it.
Etched footprints of (probably) priests of Khonsu on the roof of His temple at Karnak
Footprints can often have a spiritual significance, too. Across the world, people have always pointed out what they say are footprints of Deities, heroes, and supernatural beings. Some are natural footprint-shaped indentations in rock, while others are human-created, like the giant God-footprints in Syria’s ‘Ain Dara temple. Such physical evidence is meant to clearly demonstrate the Deity’s Presence. These God-sized footprints may be meant to commemorate a human being’s experience of Divine epiphany. Or their permanence, especially in a temple, may be meant to say, “the Deity is always here.” However we interpret them, there is magic in them.
The “walking” footprints from Isis’ Baelo Claudia temple; you can see Her name in Latin in the upper left of the photo
Isis is, of course, one of the Deities Who left such evidence of Her Divine Presence in Her temples. We have a limestone slab from Alexandria, Egypt that shows a single, large footprint that has been conveniently labeled for us in Greek: Isidos Podas, “Foot of Isis.” Separate stone slabs like this, incised with a Divine foot or feet, seem to have been an Egyptian thing and is attested for Egypt from at least the 5th century BCE. Similar carved slabs are also found throughout the Mediterranean, and often in temples of “The Egyptian Deities.” During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, “the Egyptian Deities” meant specifically Isis, Serapis, Harpokrates, and Anubis. Sometimes, other symbols related to the Deity are carved along with the foot or feet, or the dedication informs us that it was given to fulfill a vow or “by order of” the Deity.
We sometimes also find votive footprints carved in stone that would then be set into the floor of the temple. In the Isis temple in Baelo Claudia, Spain, the footprints are offset, as if in movement, and seem to lead toward the altar. (I love this.) In this case, the footprints have been interpreted as the path walked by Isis’ priests as they served Her or as the steps of the Goddess Herself as She attends the ceremonies at Her temple. Another small Isis sanctuary near Seville shows similar treatment with the footprints approaching the sanctuary entrance.
Votive “footsteps” dedicated to Isis Dykaiosyne from the sacred island of Delos
From the sacred island of Delos in Greece, we have a pair of footprints, labeled as “footsteps” and dedicated to Isis Dikaiosyne, “Isis of Justice,” by “order of the Goddess.” Another set of Goddess-sized footprints from Delos were dedicated to Isis and Anubis by at least three women. From Chaeronea, we have sandalled feet dedicated “following the command of Isis.” We have similar dedicated footprints from the acropolis in Athens and from Thessalonike.
While oversized footprints usually represent Deities, smaller, human-sized ones represent Their human worshipers. The footprint demonstrates the worshiper’s presence before the Deity at Their temple. Some of the earliest examples come from Egypt. We find them not only in temple complexes, but also in hilltop locations, perhaps putting the human closer to the Divine in this elevated position. In Egypt, there are hundreds of examples and they date from as far back as the Old Kingdom. Some were made by visitors to the temples, but many were made in areas—such as the roof—that were inaccessible to anyone but the clergy. Thus it seems to have been a privilege of the priests to be able to put themselves in continual proximity to the Deity of the temple. In fact, the four instances of footprint graffiti found at Isis’ Philae temple come from a single family that served there as priests of Isis. (Researchers also note that some of the footprints from Egypt are found in secular contexts, often made by soldiers, and simply say, “I was here.” Because. Humans.)
Footprints of the Goddess and Her devotee from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece
Sometimes we find a larger footprint beside a smaller one, perhaps to represent the Deity and Their worshiper. An example of a set of footprints like these comes from the Temple of Isis Locheia in Dion, Greece. They may be meant to show that the devotee is walking beside her Goddess. Since Isis Locheia is a protector of women in childbirth and of children, we can surmise that the footprints represent a pregnant woman asking protection from her Goddess.
We also find a number of these footprint dedications given by now-free, formerly enslaved people. Both Isis and Serapis were known to help manumit slaves through a fictitious “sale” to the Goddess and God.
Later, during the Roman Imperial period, a new kind of “foot” comes into vogue. It is a gigantic 3D sculpture of a Divine foot. A famous example is the Piè di Marmo (“Marble Foot”) that now resides on Via del Piè di Marmo in Rome and which is believed to be a large foot of Isis (or possibly Serapis) from the temple of Isis Campense or the Serapium. These feet are free-standing and not part of a large, lost statue. In other words, the whole Deity is represented by the foot. Scholars believe that this trend, too, first developed in Egypt and was exported to other sanctuaries in the Mediterranean.
The Piè di Marmo in Rome
The concept of representing ourselves or our Deities by footprints—by the traces left behind by our presence or Their Presence—is found worldwide. People everywhere do it and have done so for thousands of years. The many “footprints of Buddha” are just one example from outside the Mediterranean region. They are, I believe, similar in meaning to the prehistoric handprints found in caves from Indonesia to France.
In Egypt, we have Old Kingdom evidence of the idea that “my footprint means I was here” in both secular and sacred contexts. By the New Kingdom, oversized Divine footprints begin to appear. But instead of being etched into temple walls or roofs, they are often carved on separate slabs of stone and dedicated in temples. We begin to see this trend outside of Egypt, too, especially in temples of Isis and Serapis, but also in temples of other Deities in sanctuaries throughout the Mediterranean. Remember the ones at Hekate’s temple in Karia?
For the Isis shrine in my backyard, we purchased two slabs of rock that we intend to have sandblasted with a pair of votive feet, right foot on one, left on the other. This is a project yet to be done, but after looking into this interesting little chapter in the worship of Isis, I’m gonna have to get on that. She needs some footsteps of Her votary—me—leading into Her temple.
In my own work with Isis over the years, I have come to settle on four qualities that seem to me to capture much of Her “flavor” for me. They are power, wisdom, love, and magic.
When we first come to Isis, we often immediately perceive Her love, flowing out to us, enfolding us in Her sheltering wings. We are warmed in Her love. We rest in Her wings.
Her power reveals itself later.
The “Isis of Coptos”
First, there is Her metaphysical power. This is the power that blows my hair back, makes we want to “kiss the ground before Your beautiful face,” as the ancient texts put it. This power makes me gasp, thrills my body and makes me shiver. Before this power, I can say only, “yes, Goddess.” And rejoice. Sometimes there’s a stupid grin on my face in Her powerful Presence. Sometimes Her power kicks open all my doors, both physical and spiritual and I have no idea what sort of expression might be on my face. Isis often hides this metaphysical power behind Her famous veil, for without the shielding of the veil, Her full Presence could overwhelm us.
But there is another, more earthly, kind of power that She shows us as well. And this is the power of persistence. Plutarch, in his essay On Isis and Osiris, says that Isis serves as an example to those enduring suffering in life. And so She does. As Her myths instruct, each time the Goddess suffers a tragedy, She uses Her power to pick Herself up and go on; and ultimately, to succeed.
Perhaps this seems a boring power? I don’t think so. For human beings, I believe this power of the Goddess is one of the keys to living. We will all experience pain, failure, death; indeed, some will suffer more than others. But we can all look to the stories of our Goddess passing through these things Herself to find our own power. What’s more, in our times of trouble, we can borrow some of Her strength. She will lend it to us in abundance. She is the fount of power, both mystical and persistent, and She never, ever runs dry. When we are in pain, She will take our hands and She will make us stronger, filling us with Her holy power.
What qualities does Isis manifest in your experience?
I am thrilled to let you know that both Isis Magic and Offering to Isis WILL be back.
Offering to Isis: Knowing the Goddess Through Her Sacred Symbols is being published with updated text and new illustrations of the offerings later this year (2024). It is from Azoth Press and will be available from Miskatonic Books. I’ll share more information as soon as I have it.
Isis Magic: Cultivating a Relationship with the Goddess of 10,000 Names, 25th Anniversary Edition will be available in spring of 2026. It will be published by REDFeather, Mind, Body, Spirit, which is known for its beautiful oracle decks and other topics in personal transformation and empowerment.
Oh, you saw that “25th Anniversary Edition” thing, too? Woof. I can’t believe it’s been that long. On the other hand, when I think of the tiny Mac computer with the floppy disks that I first started writing Isis Magic on while seated at our kitchen table, I actually can believe it.
As those of you who have been following along with this blog know, I don’t talk much about myself here. I prefer to keep the focus on Her. She’s the reason you’re here. She’s the reason I’m here. And She’s the reason both of these books are here. But I thought I’d break my rule just a little bit to share with you something about me and how these books came to be…
The earliest I can remember writing stories was in the sixth grade. Influenced by the spy TV shows that were popular at the time, I wrote about secret agent cats and their clandestine organization, P.U.R.R. Yeah, you don’t want to know what that stood for.
Next, I graduated to monster and horror stories inspired by the Creepy and Eerie graphic novels (we called them comic books then, but they were graphic novels).
I never really thought of myself as a capital-w Writer, though I made my living from marketing writing. During this time, I learned how to research. I found The Goddess and connected with my local Pagan communities. I studied magic and psychism, both on my own and through training in a Hermetic magical tradition. And of course—I’m sure I share this with many of you—I never lost my deep interest in ancient Egypt.
With all that in the background, it isn’t really surprising that, when I did find Isis—or She found me—that the task She wanted me to do was to write books for Her.
As I worked on that little Mac on the kitchen table, I researched to discover everything about Isis that I could find in order to bring it all together in one book. (There was no Google when I began. I know; shocking.) The devotions, meditations, and rituals in both books were inspired by what I learned about ancient Egypt and by Her. In fact, She used many of them to train me as Her priestess. One piece of UPG (unverified personal gnosis) that She gave me during the writing of these books, is that these books would bring seven important devotees to Her service. They would be leaders and would help more people come to know Her.
I hope this has already happened. I hope you’re one of them.
So. Those are the bare bones of the story of Isis Magic and Offering to Isis. I’ll keep you up to date on when the new editions will be available and share with you any new information as it comes along. Thank you all for your devotion to—and if you’re new here, interest in—Isis. She is the most wonderful and magical of Goddesses. She is Divine Magic, Divine Wisdom, Divine Power, and Divine Love. And She IS.
The House of Isis is open unto you. It always has been. Come.
I love this Hekate by Talia Took. Buy her artwork here. She is an amazing artist. I am the delighted owner of several pieces by her.
Enough people have asked me about the connection between Isis and Hekate that I guess it’s time to do some pondering about that. So let’s.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting both these Goddesses in ritual over the years. As you know, I have been a devotee of Isis for, well by now I can round up to “forever.” Hekate has always been in my Dark Goddess mix, but I had an opportunity to serve as Hekate’s oracle at our last community fall equinox celebration—which meant that I spent a lot of time invoking and experiencing Her over an extended period of time in preparation for the rite.
The question before us is often asked as to whether Isis “is the same as” Hekate—as She is so decidedly said to be in several ancient texts that we have left to us. (Specifically, Apuleius’ Golden Ass and the aretalogy of Isis in Oxyrhynchus papyrus 1380, to name two.)
I have this beautiful Isis from Thalia. I also have a Hekate, interestingly enough.
As is so often the case, for me, the answer is both yes and no.
Let’s look at the “no” side of the answer first.
From my personal experience, I can say that the two Goddesses feel quite different. That said, for the festival rite above, I was working very hard to psychically tune into Hekate specifically. I needed to separate myself from my easy connection with Isis and come to a place where I could “hear,” then speak aloud, the words of Hekate. For our ritual, we were invoking both the “witchy” Hekate that so many people are familiar with today, as well as the Theurgic Hekate of the Chaldean Oracles and from Whom at least some of the Oracles were channeled.
How you might answer this question for yourself depends in part on your own experiences and what variety of Pagan (I am using “Pagan” in its broadest, modern sense) you consider yourself to be. If you’re a ‘hard’ polytheist, then your answer is likely to be that They are two quite separate Goddesses and never the twain shall meet. They come from different lands, are part of different pantheons, and are separate personalities with Their own individual needs, wants, and agendas. (All of this is true, of course.)
In this case, the answer to our question is a simple no; Hekate is not the same as Isis nor vice versa. The two Goddesses are quite distinct.
The “yes” side of the answer is, well, a bit more complicated.
And it again depends on what you think about the structure of the Divine Reality and how it works. Here are two posts on some of the various ways we could think about that Divine Reality and how Isis might look through those various lenses: Isis, the One & the Many; and Isis, the One & the Many More.
Your answer might also depend on what you think about syncretism or theocrasia, the mixing of Deities, in this case, Isis-Hekate. This is not a modern invention; the ancients did it all the time. It was common throughout the Hellenic and Roman worlds. But it was especially true in Egypt. Egyptian Deities can become one another, take up each other’s traits, or be the ba, or manifestation, of each other. Isis-Hathor is a very Egyptian example.
Isis and Hathor also feel different to me on Their own, and yet They are intimately connected, each residing in the other’s temples and having harmonious attributes and powers. When syncretism was done cross-culturally, I’ve always believed it was a way for people to understand each other’s Deities. “Oh, you’ll like Isis, She’s sorta like Demeter, but different and Egyptian.”
The image you see to the right is identified by the National Archeological Museum of Athens as “Isis the Magician.” She is portrayed like most Hellenistic Isis images: Isis knot between the breasts, Egyptian wig, uraeus crown-base on Her head (the rest of the headdress may be missing). The missing arm probably held a sistrum or a serpent. But She has three faces. This is a very unusual portrayal of Isis. Some Egyptian Deities are shown with multiple heads, but it is usually two or four (the Two Lands frequently prefer even numbers), though triplicities were important in Egyptian symbolism, too.
Hekate plaque, now in Prague’s Kinsky Palace museum
However, triple faces/heads/bodies are not at all unusual for Hekate. So, are we looking at a syncretic Isis-Hekate in the statuette now in Athens? Is that why the museum has identified the image as “Isis the Magician”? I think so. In Sorita d’Este’s book, Circle for Hekate, she notes another Isis-Hekate on Roman-period coins from Memphis, Egypt. It shows a triple-faced Goddess standing next to the Apis bull, which was considered the ba of Osiris in Memphis. The Apis’ connection with Osiris would argue for the triple-faced Goddess’ identity as Isis, Isis the Magician, or even Isis-Hekate.
Now, I’d like to return to the texts mentioned above, the ones that equate Isis and Hekate—just so you know what they say. The first one is from Apuleius’ ostensibly fictional tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. It is from the speech that the Goddess Herself makes when She comes to rescue the protagonist, Lucius, from having been magically turned into an ass. She lists all the many different names that She is called by people throughout the Mediterranean. She says that She is called Venus and Diana and Ceres and Proserpine (Apuleius is writing in Latin, so the Goddesses are the Roman ones) and Juno and Bellona and Hekate and Rhamnusia (aka Nemesis), but that Her true name is Queen Isis.
An interesting AI Isis, though the algoes never get the jewelry or crowns right; Her headdress reminds me of my beloved Egyptian Rocket Goddess by Audrey Flack.
The second one is found in one of the papyri from Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. The text gives the names by which Isis is known in cities throughout Egypt and the Mediterranean. It tells us that in Caria (in Asia Minor), Isis is called Hekate. Some of you may know of Hekate’s great temple at Lagina, Caria. Surely, the author is thinking of this Hekate and naming Her as Isis. Hekate also had a shrine at the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, also in Caria. Who else did? Yep, it was Isis. You can read the whole Oxyrhynchus aretalogy of Isis here.
Why was it so easy for these authors, writing in about the second century CE, to identify Isis with Hekate? Well, once you start looking into it, turns out that there are quite a few rather solid connections between the two Goddesses. But since this post has already gotten fairly long already, we’ll detail those next time in Part 2.
As you might guess, I’m always on the lookout for articles about Isis. Recently, I came across a Master’s thesis that—while it didn’t tell me much new—did remind me of the charming Isis temple in Pompeii, which is the only Italian Isis temple left standing today. I had a chance to visit it, lo those many years ago now. So I thought I’d tell you a bit about Her temple there.
One thing we know about Pompeii is that, in a city of about 20,000, about 10% of the population considered themselves Isiacs. So about 2,000 Isiacs were in Pompeii at the time it was buried in volcanic ash. Assuming you didn’t have to get them all in the sanctuary at one time (the temple grounds are not huge), that would have worked pretty well. Out of a group of about 2,000 Pagans, how many of them would actually show up for the rituals at any given time? About as many as would fit in that modest temple…a hundred, maybe 200 at most.
Temple fresco with Isis and Serapis, and Isis in Her boat
But being buried in volcanic ash wasn’t the first blow suffered by that lovely temple. Pompeii had ALSO had a recent earthquake, in 62 CE, with the Vesuvial eruption following in 79 CE. The earthquake had rattled down a lot of Pompeiian structures. In fact, one of the reasons that the Isis Temple was so well preserved (it is considered the most well preserved building in Pompeii) was that it had been rebuilt following the earthquake…and not all the other public buildings had.
Numerius’ dedication of the temple in the name of his son
A wealthy Pompeiian, Numerius Popidius Ampliatus, had had the temple rebuilt in the name of his six-year-old son, Numerius Popidius Celsinus, so that Numerius Junior would have a free ride to the Senate. (Politics never change.) But what’s of interest to us is not the political machinations of Dad Numerius, but the fact that rebuilding the Isis temple would have conferred that much status. Clearly, Isis was popular; connections with Her and the support of Her religion were politically expedient.
One of the amazing frescoes unearthed at the temple
The temple was located behind the city’s main theatre building, which emphasizes the close relationship between Isis and the God of the Theatre, Dionysos or Bacchus. Dionysos was identified with Osiris; and so, He was a natural partner for Isis. In fact, a sacred image of Dionysos, along with His requisite panther, was located in a special niche on the backside of the main Isis shrine.
On either side of the Dionysos image was a pair of large, stuccoed ears. The existence of these ears shows a direct connection between the Italian temple and Egyptian tradition. Egyptian temples often had God-sized ears carved on the back of the temple, just behind the innermost shrine. The common folk, who could not enter the holy of holies, could—by virtue of these Divine ears—speak directly to the Goddess or God of the temple. A hole drilled through the back of the temple, and a priest or priestess on the other side, served to transmit the concerns of the suppliant to the Deity. No doubt the same thing was intended in Pompeii.
This next photo is the main shrine, the naos and pronaos, of the Isis temple. The sacred images of Isis and Osiris would have stood here.
There was a mosaic floor in this area, which has now been lost. Lost where? I don’t know. Perhaps stolen from the site. On either side of the main entrance (the central opening you see here), were two niches, perhaps intended for images of Anubis and Harpocrates, to Whom two altars within the sanctuary were dedicated.
The small building where the sacred water for the Isis rites was kept
The low structure on the left is the main altar; the remains of a sacrificial fire and burnt offerings were found there.
Just to the left of the main altar is a small building where they kept the sacred water for purification. Likely, this would have been Nile water. Roman satirists mocked female Isis devotees for making pilgrimage to Egypt to bring back the sacred waters of the Nile. (We cannot be sure whether the satirists were more interested in mocking Isiacs or women by such statements, but either way, nice, huh?) The sacred water was kept in an underground chamber.
You can see a little way into the building, which is about the size of one of those pre-fab garden sheds. The main altar is on the right, in front of the building.
The thing we can’t really imagine from any of these pictures is how the living temple would have looked. Paintings covered most all the walls; colorful mosaics decorated both walls and floors; shaven-headed priests and veiled priestesses moved to and fro in service to the Goddess.
This one isn’t from Pompeii, but from Herculaneum; you can see that they were indeed trying to keep the “Egyptian” in temples of Egyptian Deities
Behind the main shrine, there was a large-ish room in which, I subsequently learned, the initiates of Isis met. I didn’t take a picture of it because the site really didn’t look like anything much. But that was because they took all the good stuff to the museum. The walls had been covered with images evocative of Egypt. Near the entrance, archeologists found a beautiful marble head of Isis. The body of the image was of wood and was dressed in garments of real fabric and would have been cared for on a daily basis by the temple personnel.
This is not that image. But it IS one of the statues rescued from the temple. I didn’t get to see it in person because the Naples Museum had that wing of the museum closed the day we were there. Dang. From what I’m reading, it looks like they may have made a replica and put it in place in the sanctuary. I hope so. Let me know if you’ve seen it.
At any rate, this is one of my favorite non-Egyptian Isis images, and I leave you with Her graceful Self:
I’m recovering today from a bit of surgery, so I will leave you with this photo of some Isis statuettes we were privileged to see at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Isis, Isis everywhere!
So many folks I know are going through something right now. I’m not talking about The State of the World. (That’s a whole other difficult story.) I’m talking about personal things that loom large in our own lives. Health. Family. Huge decisions. Scary changes.
Maybe it’s just spring?
Because as beautiful and as welcome as each spring is, there’s also something unsettling about it. Everything is roaring to get going. But we’re not quite there yet. And we can’t quite move yet. Do you feel it, too? I know I do.
So you may be wondering, “Where is Isis in all this?”
She is here.
As She has always been.
An Egyptian votive stela asking for the Deity to hear.
And She is listening.
Isis is one of the Deities particularly known to hear our human cries, to hear our prayers. She is called the One Who Listens. In ancient texts and on temple walls, Isis is She Who Hears Petitions; Who Hears the Petitions of Millions. She is particularly known to come at the invocation of Her devotees: Isis is She Who Comes to the Calling; people Call to Her in Every Place. A graffito from Thebes says, “O you of all lands, call to Isis, the Great Goddess, She listens at every moment!”
Why then does She not snap Her magical fingers and make it all go away? Because that’s not how it works. Whatever we are going through, these are our problems to solve. And we will solve them—with a little help from our friends.
Isis reminds us that we are each a feather in Her Wings, the blood in Her veins, an extension of the magic in Her heart and in Her hands.
This is a time not to neglect our connection with Her. Meditate, make offerings, chant. She invites us to let our souls fly to Her and be enfolded in Her Wings. “Bring your heart to Me,” She says. “Speak pain. Speak truth.” She will take us as we are right now.
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.
I’d like to share with you some beautiful art of Our Lady that was shared with me recently.
I absolutely adore the fact that She inspires so much art. It seems that sometimes art is the only way we can express our feelings for Her or our experiences with Her. For me, often, it is the art of ritual that helps me both express and share my love of Her. For others, it’s poetry or visual arts or music. What about you? Is there an art that you use to express yourself about or to Her?
This beautiful altar image was commissioned by my fellow Isiac, Patrick, who so kindly shared it with me. It is based on a compilation of some of the next images, with personal touches requested by Patrick. The artist is Lupherd Hernandez Lozada. The Latin beneath Her feet says, “You, being One, are All, Goddess Isis.”
And here are some photos from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo that inspired this lovely sacred image:
I’ve been wondering who or Who these amazing images on the facade of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo are supposed to be. Isis and Cleopatra are the most common identifications. But according to the Egyptian Museum itself, They are Goddesses representing Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. The Goddess above is the Goddess of Lower Egypt with the uraeus on Her crown…so Wadjet.
So this must be Nekhbet. It looks like Her crown has several lotus buds on it, the flower emblem of Upper Egypt. Both Goddesses were sculpted by the French artist Ferdinand Faivre (1860-1937). It may be that They aren’t intended to be specific Goddesses, but just She of Lower Egypt and She of Upper Egypt.
Faivre also carved the keystone image. Now this one most likely IS supposed to be Isis, perhaps as a Goddess Who unites the Two Lands or just as the most well-known Egyptian Goddess at the time the sculptor was working.
Here is the Egyptian archeologist and the architects of the museum with the keystone image.
And here they are raising the Isis keystone into place.
And how they all look on the front of the museum. Note the papyrus and lotuses uniting Upper and Lower Egypt in the water pool.
So, do you do art about or for Isis? Please feel free to share in the comments.
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.
Some of Cairo’s red-brick buildings; they’re ubiquitous in Cairo—and every town and city we saw while there.
Egypt is a land of bricks. From the ancient sun-dried mudbrick temple enclosures to modern Egyptian apartments, everything was and is made of bricks. (And, modernly, supplemented by concrete.)
It’s because there never were many trees and the native ones aren’t very suitable for large building projects. Even anciently, building wood was imported.
So bricks were and are still the answer. the ancient Egyptians encountered bricks on the way into life, during life, and on the way out of life.
Ancient brick housing
The ones they encountered on the way into and out of life were special. There were magical.
On the way into life, there were four bricks, stacked in pairs, that served to elevate a birthing mother so that when her child emerged beneath her, the baby could easily be caught in the hands of the midwife. (According to midwives even today, a squatting or sitting posture is preferable to the supine position in which most modern Western women give birth, generally resulting in a faster, easier delivery.)
Giving birth while squatting on birthing bricks and supported by Divine midwives
On the way out of life, there were the four talismanic bricks that were placed in niches in the four sides of a burial chamber. These bricks were decorated with amuletic figures: in the east, the Anubis jackel; in the south, a flame; in the west, the djed pillar of Osiris; and in the north, a mummiform male figure. All of them protected the deceased.
Doubtless, the talismanic bricks that surrounded the body of the deceased in the tomb were meant to assist in rebirth into the next life, just as the birthing bricks assisted in a child’s birth into physical life.
A set of the magical bricks with the amuletic figures atop them
The Goddess most closely associated with the birthing bricks is Meskhenet, Protectress of the Birthing Place. The bricks were called meskhenut (pl.) after Her. Meskhenet is depicted either as a woman-headed birthing brick or as a woman with a distinctive curling headdress that has been identified as a stylized cow’s uterus. She protects mother and child during the dangerous process of birth, She foretells the child’s destiny as the baby is born, and She is among the Deities of rebirth Who witness the judgment of the deceased in the Otherworld.
Meskhenet as the personified birthing brick; the bricks were also called “meskhenets”
With Isis’ own connection to both birth and rebirth, you will probably not be surprised to learn that Isis is closely associated with Meskhenet. At Osiris’ temple complex at Abydos, four Meskhenets serve as assistants to Isis in the great work of rebirth done there. At Hathor’s temple complex at Denderah, a combined form of Isis and Meskhenet (Meskhenet Noferet Iset or Meskhenet the Beautiful Isis) is one of the four Birth Goddesses of Denderah. And in the famous story of the birth of three kings found in the Westcar papyrus, both Isis and Meskhenet are among the four Goddesses Who assist in the kings’ births.
Strangely, here pharaoh Seti I wears Meskhenet’s distinctive headdress of the “horns” of a cow’s uterus
Both tomb bricks and birthing bricks were protective. In an inscription from the temple at Esna, Khnum, the God Who forms the child’s body and ka on His Divine potter’s wheel, places four Meskhenet Goddesses around each of His various forms “to repel the designs of evil by incantations.” As Birth Goddess, Meskhenet is associated with the ka as well. A papyrus in Berlin invokes Her to “make ka for this child, which is in the womb of this woman!”
We have a few surviving spells that were used to charge the birthing bricks. They were used to repel the attacks of enemies to the north and south of Egypt and may indicate that the birthing bricks, like the tomb bricks, were connected with the directions.
And here’s another tidbit showing parallels between the magical tomb bricks and birthing bricks. In an Egypt Exploration Society article by Ann Macy Roth and Catherine H. Roehrig, the authors point out an interesting gender-reversed aspect of these magical bricks.
Discovered in 2001, this is the only example of an ancient Egyptian birthing brick that has yet been found
You may recall that four Sons of Horus are the Gods Who protect the four canopic jars that contain the internal organs of the mummy. These four Gods are, in turn, guarded by four Goddesses. In Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Goddesses are Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith. Roth and Roehrig suggest that we may be able to explain the amuletic figures associated with the tomb bricks in a similar, though opposite, manner. If the four meskhenets are personified as four Goddesses Who protect the birthing place, perhaps the four figures on the tomb bricks—the God Anubis, a mummiform male, a Divine pillar associated with Osiris, and a flame, the hieroglyph for which is rather phallic—may be considered Divine Masculine Powers Who protect the four Meskhenet Goddesses, just as four Goddesses protect the four Sons of Horus.
A recreation of the scene on the mudbrick birthing brick above
It is worth noting that these magical bricks were made in the same way as were the traditional mudbricks of Egypt. They were fashioned from the fertile Nile clay and sand, mixed with straw, which may be associated with Isis as Lady of the Fertile Earth, then they were dried in the brilliant heat of Isis-Re, the Radiant Sun Goddess. And, of course, as a Divine Mother Herself, Isis is connected with every aspect of human and animal fertility, from conception to birth, as well as the protection of the children as they grow.
As we have a south-to-north flowing river here in Portland, I might see if I can get some Portland “Nile” mud to create four miniature mudbricks. Then I could magically charge them by naming them “Meskhenet Noferet Iset” and placing them in the four quarters of the temple—or even outside, one on each side of the house. They might provide some very fine magical protection.
Two Meskhenet Goddesses as birthing bricks awaiting the judgment so that They may assist in the deceased woman’s rebirth
For me, of course, a highlight of our recent Egyptian pilgrimage was the visit to Her temple at New Philae, or Agilika (or Agilkia), island.
So I thought I’d share some photos with you so you can see what it looks like from more angles than you might usually get to see. There are more exterior shots than interior because the interior of the temple was freaking FULL of tourists. (Tourist tip: if you go, go as early or late as you can. We neglected to do this.)
But first, do you know the story of how they moved this temple, considered the most beautiful of all Egypt’s surviving temples? If not, I’ll tell it briefly…
With the building of the second Aswan dam in 1971, the Temple of Isis on the original Philae island was flooded.
The kiosk of Trajan and the (I think) second set of pylons of the temple when flooded
It’s even eerier with a color photo from the water
Happily, it does not look like this today thanks to an enormous international effort that moved the entire temple—block by block—to a new and higher island, which was landscaped to look like the original.
Nile cataracts prior to the dam
Ancient Philae was situated at the Nile’s first cataract, the beginning of Nile whitewater, which was much more dangerous before the building of the dam. This area was where Egypt ended and Nubia began. Thus Aswan, the nearest town, became a huge market town. Aswan’s original name, Sunu, means “market.” The Nile is beautiful everywhere, but the cataracts are, I think, exceptionally beautiful—and an appropriate place for the beautiful temple of the Beautiful Goddess.
While the dam had calmed the waters, it had flooded Philae. To save the temple, UNESCO and the Egyptian government worked to move the Philae temple. But that wasn’t all. There were about 20 temples that were flooded and moved, including the spectacular Abu Simbel temples. But our story today is Philae-centered.
Pumping the water out of Philae
To save Philae, they built a retaining wall around the island, then pumped the water out of it.
After that, they were able to deconstruct the temples and monuments, move them, and reassemble them on the re-landscaped Agilika island. You can still see the numbering on some of the temple’s blocks that helped the team rebuild it. And you can also still see the darkness that seeped into the temple’s sandstone blocks from the black, silt-filled Nile waters during its time underwater—the same silt that made the Inundation so important for the fertilization of Egypt’s fields every year. With the dam, there is no longer an Inundation, but there is water control and there is electricity. By the way, none of this was easy or quick. It took from 1972 to 1980 to accomplish.
Our guide told us that the star alignment for the rebuilt temple is slightly off. But I haven’t been able to check that out for myself.
Philae today
Herself, next to Greek graffiti; did you know Philae has THE most graffiti of any Egyptian temple? Learn more about that here.
I will tell you one thing that shocked me. I knew that images had been purposefully damaged (not only at Philae, but at every temple). But the extent of the damage! Almost all of them. As in the image above, the faces were hacked away, and often the hands and feet as well.
The main altar in the holy of holies
Philae was one of the last places to preserve the ancient Egyptian religion, but when Paganism was outlawed, the temple was converted into a church
Some of the better-preserved pillars at Philae temple, beside the mammisi, celebrating the birth of Horus
And here’s a recreation of what the temple might have looked like
Those of you of a Kemetic bent already know that the ancient Egyptian New Year began with the predawn rising of the Star of Isis, Sirius, in mid to late summer. After a long absence, this summertime rising marked both the start of the New Year and the coming of the all-important Nile flood.
But there is another time in the year that the Beautiful Star of the Beautiful Goddess is most prominent. And I would argue that it is then that She is even more glorious than during Her summer heliacal rising.
That time is right now. At our own modern New Year.
Sirius is even more breathtaking now because we can see Her illuminating the nighttime sky for much longer. In summer, we get only a brief glimpse of Her light just before dawn—and then Her starlight disappears in the greater light of the rising sun. But now, ah now, those of us in the northern hemisphere can bathe in Her starlight all night long. (In the southern hemisphere, Sirius is best viewed in summer.)
Sirius is the bright star on the lower left; it is the heart of the constellation of Canis Major
But there’s yet another wonderful Mystery. At midnight tonight—as we ring in the New Year—Sirius reaches its highest point in the night sky. She will be high overhead at midnight on New Year’s Eve. And so we are completely justified in claiming Sirius as our star of the New Year, too, just as She was for the ancient Egyptians.
I utterly and completely love this fact.
Of course, Sirius continues to dominate the night sky throughout the winter months, so tonight isn’t your only opportunity to admire Her. As a devotee of Isis, I take it as a sacred duty to spend at least some time during the winter observing the beauty of the star of the Goddess in the night sky and offering Her the praise of my heart.
If you’d like to join me, look to the east-southeast after sunset. See that diamond-like star near the horizon? That’s Her. No other star in the belly of Nuet can match Her for brilliance (in fact, the second brightest star is only half as bright as Sirius). And of course, if you continue lifting your gaze upwards, you will see the constellation of Orion, which the Egyptians associated with Osiris, the Beloved of Isis. As the night goes on, She rises higher into the sky, until at midnight, She reaches Her highest point.
Iset-Sopdet in Her celesial boat following Usir-Sah
If you have access to a telescope, O please, please do use it to look at Her, especially when She is near the horizon. The Goddess flashes with green, blue, pink, and white starlight.
To acknowledge the Goddess’ ancient connection with Her star, some shrines and temples of Isis, including the small Isis temple at Ptolemaic-era Denderah, were oriented towards Sopdet, the Egyptian name of the star.
The location of Sirius in the Canis Major constellation, as well as Her ancient association with Anubis, connects Isis with canines. In a second-century aretalogy (self-statement) from Kyme in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I am She that riseth in the Dog Star.”
Osiris on His back (note the position of the three belt stars) with Isis-Sopdet below (framed by the trees), upraising Him
Just as Orion the hunter is inseparable from his hunting hound, so the Egyptians saw a connection between the constellation they called Sah (Orion) and the most brilliant star in the heavens, Sopdet. Sah could be identified with Osiris Himself or considered to be His Ba, or Divine manifestation, just as Sirius could be Isis’ manifestation. As Orion rises before Sirius, you can see the ancient myth of Isis searching for Her lost husband played out before you as the constellation Orion appears to move through the sky ahead of the Beautiful Star.
I hope the skies where you are are much clearer than our cloudy Portland skies. While I probably won’t be able to see Her myself tonight, that doesn’t mean She isn’t there.
She is always there. Even if we can’t always see Her.
May your New Year be prosperous, beautiful, deep, and renewing. Amma, Iset.
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.
Hello, Isiacs. I’m reposting this because, well, it’s that time of year and this question must be answered. Again.
Every year, at about this time, one post on this blog starts to get a lot more “traffic,” that is, visitors viewing it, than any other. (In fact, it’s already started.)
It’s the one about Horus being born on December 25th. Likely, people are searching for information about how Christianity absorbed Pagan winter solstice traditions (from the non-Christian side) or how it most certainly did not (from the Christian side). The statement about Horus’ birth on that date is often used to dismiss the Christian tradition of the birth of the Christ on December 25th (and by inference, Christian tradition in general) as “mere Pagan superstition.” Which is rude to both Pagans and Christians.
Early Christianity most certainly was influenced by the people and cultures around it. But the thing I specifically wanted to look into was the birth of Holy Baby Horus from the Holy Virgin Isis on December 25th.
Gotta love the expression of both Deities’ faces.
What bothered me about it was that I thought that the December 25th date was stretching the truth to make a point; the point being that the “real meaning of Christmas” was, in fact, the celebration of a Pagan Deity Who was born on the winter solstice. Why should we have to distort the truth to make that point?
As you might expect from a sun-focused culture—the winter solstice was quite important in Egyptian culture and religion. There are many inscriptions and texts to support this, as well as a number of temples and monuments oriented toward the winter solstice sunrise. Temples with that orientation were often dedicated to Re-Hor-Akhty, Re-Horus of the Horizon.
In the 17th year of the reign of Pharaoh Amenemhet I (approx. 1991-1962 BCE), the king chose to take a new title as the sun approached winter solstice. The title was Nem-mestu, Repeater of Births. This designation was also given to the dead and may refer to daily/yearly solar rebirth or even to reincarnation.
Amenemhet I, Repeater of Births
But still, that’s the winter solstice, usually December 21 or 22, not December 25.
The Greek priest Plutarch, writing in the late 1st and early 2nd century CE, is our source for the most complete version of the Isis and Osiris myth that we have. In his essay, he mentions several Egyptian winter solstice traditions, including the birth of Harpokrates (from Hor-pa-khered, Horus the Child) on the winter solstice. (I quote it here at length because I like the snarky lead-in):
Thus we shall attack the many boring people who find pleasure in associating the activities of these gods with the seasonal changes of the atmosphere or with the growths, sowing, and plowing of crops, and who say that Osiris is being buried when the corn is sown and hidden in the earth, and that he lives again and reappears when it begins to sprout. For this reason it is said that Isis, when she was aware of her being pregnant, put on a protective amulet on the sixth day of Phaophi, and at the winter solstice gave birth to Harpocrates, imperfect and prematurely born, amid plants that burgeoned and sprouted before their season . . . and they are said to celebrate the days of her confinement after the spring equinox.
Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 65B-c
Since Horus is a solar God, His birth at the winter solstice—even to the extent that He is “imperfect and prematurely born” at that time—makes symbolic sense. (Calendar translation is always tricky, but in this later period, the 6th of Phaophi would be sometime in October or November by our calendar. So if Isis was going to give birth at the solstice, She would have had to have been pretty inattentive to have only worn a protective amulet that late in Her pregnancy. Seems more likely that She put on the protective amulet in the more dangerous weeks just prior to giving birth.) This tradition of Horus’ winter solstice birth was still going strong in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. Another writer, Macrobius, famous for his book about the Saturnalia festival, notes that:
…at the winter solstice, the sun would seem to be a little child like that which the Egyptians bring forth from a shrine on the appointed day, since the day is then at its shortest and the god is accordingly shown as a tiny infant.
Macrobius, Saturnalia, 1.18:10
The Egyptians weren’t the only ones to note and welcome the winter solstice with its soon-to-be-lengthening days. Just as there are today, there were other winter holy days around the time of the winter solstice. You’re probably familiar with the Roman Saturnalia (Greek Kronia) which took place from December 17th through the 23rd (at its most developed stage). It was a carnivalesque festival with plenty of partying and gift-giving on the last day, just a day or two from the astronomical solstice.
The 4th century CE Christian polemicist, Epiphanius, notes two very interesting Pagan festivals that took place “on the very night of Epiphany,” which is Epiphanius’ preferred date for the birth of the Christos (January 6). He grouches that “many places deceitfully celebrate a very great festival on the very night of the Epiphany, to deceive the idolaters who believe them into hoping in the imposture and not seeking the truth.” (Epiphanius, Panarion, 22,8) Of the celebration in Alexandria, he writes:
First, at Alexandria, in the Koreum, as they call it; it is a very large temple, the shrine of Kore. They stay up all night singing hymns to the idol with a flute accompaniment. And when they have concluded their nightlong vigil, torchbearers descend into an underground shrine after cockcrow and bring up a wooden image which is seated naked on a litter. It has a sign of the cross inlaid with gold on its forehead, two other such signs, one on each hand and two other signs, one actually on each of its two knees—altogether five signs with a gold impress. And they carry the image itself seven times around the innermost shrine with flutes, tambourines and hymns, hold a feast, and take it back down to its place underground. And when you ask them what this mystery means, they reply that today, at this hour Kore—that is, the Virgin—gave birth to Aion.
Epiphanius, Panarion, 22,9
Isis-Kore/Persephone, from Heraklion, Crete
Some scholars believe that the Alexandrian Kore or Virgin was Isis (some ancient Egyptian Hymns call Isis “virgin;” in the Hermetic text, Kore Kosmou, Isis is likely the “Cosmic Virgin” of the title) and that the “crosses” on Her limbs may have been ankhs. Could be, but doesn’t have to be; Alexandria was, after all, a polytheistic city. Epiphanius goes on to mention other identical and, in his mind, deceitful festivals in Petra and in Elusa celebrating the birth of the “only son of the Lord” of a Virgin Goddess. In Petra, the Holy Child is Dusares, an Arabian God identified with Dionysos, Who was, in turn, identified with Helios, the sun. (Epiphanius, Panarion, 22,11)
Those of you who have been following along with this blog may recall that the famous Roman Calendar of Philocalus (354 CE)* lists a festival called The Isia from October 28 through November 1.**
Much earlier, in the 1st century BCE, the Greek mathematician and astronomer Germinos noted that the Greeks believe that the Isia—which was derived from the ancient Egyptian Khoiak festival—occurs at the winter solstice. (The Khoiak festival celebrated the death of Osiris and His finding, lamentation, and resurrection by Isis.) Germinos says that that was true 120 years ago, but that, in his time, it had shifted a month earlier. The modern Kemetic Orthodox religion celebrates the Khoiak Festival in late November; so just about now.
Isis and the pharaoh raise the Djed pillar, the symbol of the resurrection of Osiris, as part of the Khoiak festival
However, here at the 45th parallel, we are happily privy to a calendar Mystery. The ancient Khoiak Festival took place in the fourth month of Inundation, which began on the Egyptian New Year. As you likely know, the New Year was heralded by the heliacal rising of Sirius, the Star of Isis. The festival took place over a period of many days, culminating at the end of the fourth month with the resurrection of Osiris.
Here in Portland, the Star of Isis rose this year on August 23. Four 30-day Egyptian months from that date is December 21, the winter solstice. So if you were here in Portland with me, we could celebrate the Isia on the days leading up to and ending with the winter solstice.
Yet, as fabulous as that is, it’s still not December 25th, is it?
Well, as it turns out, the answer to this little puzzle is not all that mysterious after all.
You see, the Roman calendar went through a certain amount of upheaval and—bottom line—December 25th was considered the “traditional” date of the winter solstice, even if that was off from astronomical solstice. (If you want to calendar geek on that, check this out or this.) From a number of ancient sources, including Epiphanius, we have that “the eighth before the kalends of January” was considered to be the winter solstice. (Epiphanius, Panarion, 22,3) Because of the inclusive way the Romans counted, this “eighth before the kalends” was December 25th. (In the Roman calendar, the kalends is the first day of the month.)
What’s more, the early Christians who chose that date, chose it precisely because it was the winter solstice and was connected to the return of the light. In a work attributed, perhaps falsely, to the 4th century Christian church father John Chrysostom, the writer connects the birth of Jesus with the birth of Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun, which was celebrated on Rome’s traditional winter solstice, December 25th:
But Our Lord, too, is born in the month of December . . . the eighth before the kalends of January [25 December] . . ., But they call it the “Birthday of the Unconquered.” Who indeed is so unconquered as Our Lord? Or, if they say that it is the birthday of the sun, He is the Sun of Justice.
Chrysostom, De Solstitia et Aequinoctia Conceptionis et Nativitatis Nostri Iesu Christi et Iohannis Baptistae; “On the conceptions and births of our Jesus Christ and John the Baptist on the solstices and equinoxes.”
On this protective amulet, Isis & Nephthys guard the shining solar child, Horus.
Another interesting thing about the choice of December 25th is that—even just those few days after the astronomical solstice—you can begin to see that the light is indeed returning. Some scholars have suggested that the December 25th date for the solstice reflects this perceivable change, so that even though the exact moment of astronomical solstice is prior to the 25th, it becomes noticeable about the 25th.
So there we have it. There actually IS reason to connect the winter solstice birth date of Isis’ Holy Child, Horus, with the traditional December 25th birth date of Mary’s Holy Child, Jesus.
Should we claim that early Christians “stole” the birthdate of Horus (or any of the other solar Gods Who always were and always will be born on the winter solstice)? Nah, let’s not. In fact, it makes perfect sense to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, the bringer of the light of Christianity to its believers, at that time of year when the light of the sun begins its return to the world. It is an excellent symbol and early Christians would have been silly to ignore it.
Artist Alex Grey’s mesmerizing Cosmic Christ
Of course early Christianity was influenced by the many religions around it. And remember that much early Christian development was in Alexandria, Egypt. For early Christians, as for ancient Egyptians—and indeed for modern people as well—the return of the light at the winter solstice is at once an uplifting environmental fact and a hopeful spiritual symbol.
And so, as we begin the count down in the waning days of the year, I wish you all Many Happy Returns of the Light as we celebrate the upcoming holy days of December 21st and December 25th.
*The reason Philocalus’ calendar is so famous, is that it contains the oldest reference to a regular celebration of the birth of the Christos. The calendar notes: “Eighth day before the kalends of January, Birth of Christ in Bethlehem of Judea.” Earlier, one of the Church fathers, Cyprian (200-258CE), commented how very, very providential it was the when the sun was born, so was Christ.
**If we go by Philocalus, that late October-early November date for the Isia, with its emphasis on death, lamentation, and renewal, makes a perfect option for our own Samhaim/Halloween celebrations.
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.
I’ve done some more reading and some more meditation and I want to come back to neheh and djet. Why? Because I am very inspired by a 2022 work by Egyptologist Steven Gregory on the subject.
Unless you’re super geeky on this subject like me, I don’t think you’ll want to read all his arguments for how he thinks neheh and djet should be defined and translated.* (Translating is the trickier part, tbh.) So I’ll summarize and then we can discover some things we might do with these insights.
As we saw last time, Egyptologists have tried translating these two Egyptian concepts in a variety of ways, all of which, I think, add to our understanding. Their interpretations usually have to do with a repetitive time cycle for neheh and a perfected and unchanging time cycle for djet. But rather frequently, when translating the ancient texts, Egyptologists will translate the two terms as if they were synonyms. That’s when we get translations of neheh djet as “forever and ever.” This is Gregory’s big bugaboo.
He argues, persuasively as far as I am concerned, that they are very much not synonyms and that we miss an important part of what the texts are telling us if we so translate. In the book, he takes a while to get to his point because he gives lots of examples, but the point itself is actually fairly easy to home in on. It is simply this: that neheh is physical and temporal, like the cycles of sun and moon in our “real world;” djet is metaphysical and atemporal. In other words, they are not really types of time (though they are sort of), but conditions. Neheh is the condition of the existing world. It is imperfect and changing, providing for natural cycles and regeneration. Djet is the condition of the ideal world; it is the state of the Deities. Djet is outside of time. It is, or contains, the ideal Forms of everything.
Art by Bill Bounard, “Open Your Heart”
And if that makes you think of Plato and his Forms/Ideas/Ideals, yes indeed, Gregory suggests that Plato may have been inspired by the ancient Egyptian concepts of neheh and djet. The Greek philosopher is, after all, said to have studied in Egypt.
If we were to apply those terms to Plato’s philosophy, neheh would be his world of appearances, which is a shadow of the more-real World of Forms. Djet is the realm of the Forms/Ideas/Ideals, which are “abstract, perfect, unchanging concepts or ideals that transcend time or space.”
As I said, I think all the translators’ translations are helpful in understanding these key concepts. And sometimes, thinking of them as variations on time is quite useful. But layering on Gregory’s physical-metaphysical definitions just opened the doors wider for me. It’s funny how sometimes a little thing like a new avenue for looking at things can blossom and unfold and burst into galaxies in your head. This was one of those for me. And it just reinforced for me how much the ancient Egyptian scribes and priests knew what the hell they were doing. They KNEW they were writing about different levels of reality. Always. Because our examples of this go back all the way to the earliest writings. In funerary texts, temple texts, and ritual documents of all kinds, they were very much aware of the different Worlds and they addressed those Worlds in their works, calling them out as neheh and djet. What’s more, thinking of djet as the metaphysical realm, we get additional hints as to how the ancient Egyptians may of conceived of the Divine realms.
I still do like the idea of neheh-time and djet-time, as well as neheh-eternity and djet-eternity, even though my guy Gregory doesn’t so much. But with his insights, we can now add new layers to our own definitions. We can think about the neheh-realm and the djet-realm—Neheh World and Djet World—so that we have levels or planes of reality as well as different dimensions of time and eternity. Of course, we’ve always known about the realness of the heavenly and underworlds in Egyptian thought, but adding the extra mystery of djet-time-eternity to it just adds to the complexity of Reality, which for me reveals a little bit more of what is true, what is right, what is Ma’et.
If you would like to experience these concepts for yourself, try the following visualization and meditation. This one focuses on djet, but you can do something similar for neheh.
Purify and consecrate yourself in any manner you wish. If you’d like an Isiac version, you could use the first part of this, up to “Entering.”
In your vision, imagine yourself in the Temple of Isis. It is night. The temple is illuminated by wall torches, burning in startling colors of blue and orange. As you enter in, you smell the smoke of incense, dark, sweet, and musky. You feel the cool stone floor on your bare feet. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you begin to make out the designs of wall paintings. In the flickers of torchlight, their colors are muted. The low, rumbling sound of soft chanting comes to your ears. You hear Her name being chanted over and again with devotion, with love. Join in, if you wish.
Ahead there is a doorway, and beyond it, another. And another, and again. A long passageway stretches before you. Impossibly, it seems you can see into forever. A soft, deep voice whispers in your mind, “Enter the Chamber of Secrets.”
You enter the passageway, moving through each doorway. In a little while, the path begins to angle upward. Then you see a stairway that you somehow know will take you to the roof of the temple.
Walk up the stairs and you emerge on the temple roof. Look up. And you look into the infinite belly of Nuet, full of stars. Stars and space, moving slowly in their infinity, envelop you. Your eyes can see into the depths of space, opening, opening, opening. Your eyes, your heart, your mind, opening, opening, opening.
And when you let your attention fall back to the roof of the temple, you see the Boat of Millions of Years docked near the edge of the roof. It floats on darkness and stars. Thoth, the master of this vessel, motions you aboard. As you step upon the deck, the boat rocks and dips as if it were floating in water. You take your place, facing the prow, facing the night.
In a moment, the ship begins to move. First, slowly. Then faster. And faster. Moving upward into the depths of space and time. Starlight streaks by you. Your hair is blown back as the Boat of Millions of Years sails and sails.
Then suddenly, it stops.
The soft voice in your head, the one you know is the voice of Isis, says, “Call to Her.” And you do. You call to the Great Goddess Djet, asking Her to come to you, come to you.
Do this now.
In an unknown period of time, the Great Goddess Djet answers. “I am all around you and I am in you. The threads of My Magic knit you together. You are born from Me, but do not live in Me.” And you ask Her how you can better experience Her. She says, “Imagine yourself perfected.”
And you do. Allow as much time as you need for this thought experiment. What would you be like? Who would you be? How would you feel? How would you be?
When you are complete with this, thank the Goddess. The soft, deep voice of Isis speaks in your mind. “Come now,” She says. And you are once more aware of the Boat of Millions of Years. It once more begins to move, this time backwards. In time, you arrive at the roof of the Temple of Isis, thank Great Thoth, and disembark. Move down the stairs, through the many doorways. Thank Wise Isis and let your consciousness return to the here and now, to neheh.
*If you are super geeky and want to read the whole thing for yourself, get Tutankhamun Knew the Names of the Two Great Gods: dt and nhh as Fundamental Concepts of Pharaonic Idealology by Steven R. W. Gregory.
Here in the US, we just set our clocks back an hour, returning that daylight hour we borrowed in the spring. We all just decide to agree on this human-determined construct of time by which we will lead much of our lives until next spring.
There are rhythms of time that are natural, of course. The risings and settings of sun, moon, and stars. Sleeping and waking, eating and fasting. Some things cycle back eternally; the days, the nights, the seasons. Some things are experienced and do not return; like history. And yet, each cycle, when completed, becomes part of history. And every day in history was once part of a cycle.
Neheh, on the left; Djet on the right; Neheh is sometimes Heh (as you see here; there’s no “n” shown in His name label) and Djet is sometimes identified as Heh’s female counterpart, Hauhet
The ancient Egyptians had names for these two ways humans experience time. The great German Egyptologist Jan Assmann explains that the Egyptian concepts are based not only in these two types of time experiences, but also on the time system inherent in the ancient Egyptian language. He writes that, instead of a language that is based on three main tenses (past, present, future) as ours is, Egyptian is based on the idea of the thing in time being either perfected or not perfected. Assmann calls these perfective and imperfective.
Nephthys and Isis support Osiris-Re as djet-Osiris and neheh-Re unite as one so that the All may continue
Perfective time, the ancient Egyptians called djet time. When something is perfected and completed, it exists in djet. Neheh time refers to ongoing repetition and regeneration. (The regenerative aspect seems crucial to me; neheh isn’t just an eternal hamster wheel for us, but is the time in which all things are renewed and reborn.) The heavens exist in djet. The earth exists in neheh. The world of the Deities is djet. The human world is neheh.
Two Gods are representative of these time concepts: Osiris is djet and He has an epithet to prove it. He is called Wenennefer, “He Who exists in perfection.” Re, the Sun God, rises and sets each day in neheh time. The union of Osiris and Re each night is one of the Great Mysteries. It is by uniting with djet that neheh can continue. I should note as well, that the identification of Re with neheh time and Osiris with djet time is not exclusive. Each God is, in one text or another, also connected with the other type of time.
The perfection of djet is prior to the repetition and renewal of neheh, since neheh cannot perform its cyclical and renewing function without regular reconnection with djet. After death, the ancients wanted to enter into djet, the time of the Deities. The mummy was created as a perfect, eternal body for the dead. Moral perfection on the scales of Ma’et ensured passing the judgment of Osiris, joining Him in djet time.
Perfective and imperfective time aren’t the only ways scholars have translated and discussed neheh and djet time, as you can see from the graphic here. Quite a few have translated neheh as “time” because it is the everyday way humans experience time with its cycles and renewals of the days and seasons. Time is then paired with “eternity” for djet is perfected and unchanging—as westerners often think about eternity. Others have designated neheh and djet as “circular” and “linear” time, “ongoingness” and “completedness,” “all-time” and “not-time,” “eternal change” and “eternal sameness,” “infinity” and “everlastingness,” “the existent” and “the non-existent,” “temporal reality” and “changeless, atemporal reality.” All of which, I think, can help us start to wrap our brains around these Egyptian concepts. At least a little.
So.
What can we do with these Egyptian notions in our desire for connection with Isis? Besides being interesting in and of themselves, are these ancient Egyptian temporal concepts of any help to us in our relationship with Her?
Perhaps we can answer the question in the title of this post? As a Deity, Isis exists in the everlastingness of djet time, right? But then do we not also experience Her in our world of changes? In the risings and settings of the sun, moon, and stars? In our daytime offerings and nighttime dreams? I keep coming back to the Great Mystery of Osiris and Re. Each needs the other. The cycles of the Sun God need to touch and unite with the Eternal to continue. The perfection of the Eternal needs to touch and unite with the forces of renewal to express itself.
I am just starting to explore this. I have more reading to do. But in the meantime, I’m going to try a little meditation to see what I can learn or experience.
Do let me know if you have any interesting intuitions, too.
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.
