Category Archives: The Fiery One

Isis, Lady of Fire

Lady of Light & Flame
Lady of Light & Flame

Happy May Day and Blessings of Beltane to all who celebrate. In honor of that Festival of Fire, I bring you this post about Our own Lady of Holy Fire…for Isis is a fiery Goddess indeed.

Just as it does at Beltane, in ancient Egypt, fire could represent life and renewal—both very Isiac concepts, as you know.

For examples, during his rejuvenating Sed festival, the king kindled a “new” fire that symbolized his magically renewed life.

The Sun was known to be a living fire Whose birthplace and home is the Isle of Fire. The protective uraeus serpent Who coils on the brow of Re, as well as other Deities and royals, spits poisonous fire and fiery light comes forth from Her throat. Many Goddesses took the form of this fire-spitting serpent, among Them, from an early period, Isis.

A lake of fire in the Egyptian underworld guarded by the baboons of Thoth
A lake of fire in the Egyptian underworld guarded by the baboons of Thoth

The Egyptians also considered fire to be purifying and protective. In Late Period funeral rites, torches were sometimes burnt to cleanse the deceased from any earthly defilement. Flame could be used to drive off evil and exorcise demons. The justified dead could harness the power of fire to protect themselves, or they might even become a living flame themselves. They could drink from the Otherworld lakes of fire without harm, and could even be refreshed by the fiery drink. The unjustified dead, however, had reason to fear fire. They could be plunged into the lakes of fire and eternally tormented by fiery demons. Goddesses and Gods of fire threatened them and fiery gates kept them away from the path to the heavenly realms.

Uraeus serpents spitting fire

Isis is at Her most fiery when She is in Her aspects as Divine Protectress or as Avenging Goddess. At the entrance to the chapel of Osiris in the tomb of Seti I at Abydos, Isis is called Wosret, the Fiery One, and She protects Osiris from His enemies. At Philae, the king is shown adoring Isis in this fiery aspect; he calls Her his mother and the Lady Wosret.

In one of the hymns to Isis on the temple walls at Philae, She is Nebet Neseret, Lady (or Mistress) of Flame, and She is the fire-spitting uraeus cobra Who instantly destroys the enemies of Re with Her fire and Her potent magic. She is said to assault the rebels and to instantly slay Apophis, the enemy of Re. As the fiery uraeus of Re, She gives orders in the king’s ship.

Isis also partakes of the fiery fierceness of Sakhmet. On one of the gateways, or pylons, at Philae, She is “the mighty, the foremost of the goddesses, daughter of Geb, the sun goddess, the primeval one” and She is identified as “Sakhmet, the fiery goddess.” Yet another Philae hymn calls Her “Sakhmet, the fiery one, who destroys the enemies of her brother.” A papyrus from Oxyrhynchus praises Isis as the Lady of Light and Flames.

This fiery Isis is also connected with initiation, magic, and healing. In Plutarch’s rendition of the Isis myth, Isis nurses the child of Queen Astarte during the day, but at night magically sets the child aflame, making him immortal.

A fiery Eye of Horus the Initiate
A fiery Eye of Horus the Initiate

The Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri suggest an explanation for this fire magic Isis works on the queen’s son. The Charm of the Syrian Woman of Gadara  says, “the most majestic Goddess’ child [Horus] was set aflame as an initiate.”

Initiation is here seen as purification by fire so that the mortal parts of the initiate are burned away, allowing her or him to more fully understand the ways of the Deities. Some scholars believe that this initiatory fire magic may have had its origins in Egyptian healing magic and what they call the “burning Horus” formula.  This refers to an Egyptian convention that connects poisoning with fire. In the same way that the uraeus spits fire, when Horus is poisoned, he is also, in a sense, burned.

“Set aflame as an initiate”

Burn-healing formulae identify the sufferer with Horus and say that “a fire has fallen into” Horus, that is, the sufferer. They invoke Isis to put out the fire and heal the burn. The initiatory connection may come from the fact that the poison-burned Horus experiences near-death before being healed by Isis. Mystery initiates, too, regularly undergo symbolic near-death experiences before being saved by the Goddess or God of the Mystery Rite.

Isis is Iset Wosret and the fire-spitting Cobra Goddess. She is the Mistress of Light and Flame Who slays evil and protects us all. And She is the one Who not only initiates us by fire, but also warms us by Her illuminating light.

Isis & Sakhmet or Isis-Sakhmet?

I absolutely adore this beautiful modern Sakhmet by Desiree Isphording. See the artist’s statement here.

A friend was asking about Sakhmet today, and so here’s a little something about Isis and Sakhmet…

Many are the modern devotees who are attracted to Sakhmet, ancient Egypt’s fierce Lioness Goddess. Her name means The Powerful One, the Mighty One, or the Female Power. And She is powerful indeed.

Quite a few images of the Goddess remain to us, for hundreds of them were set up at the Temple of Mut at Karnak. The Vatican Museum has about a half dozen of these and has created a semi-circle of the bigger-than-human-sized Sakhmet images in an outdoor area that is part of the “profane” section of the museum. (Yes, of course, I headed straight to the profane section.) I have also been fortunate to have seen several of these beautiful statues here in Portland as part of traveling museum shows.

But it was a smaller image of Sakhmet in one of these shows that literally blew my astral hair back. All that was left was the head, about eight inches high. It was made of a yellow, semi-translucent stone and it quite simply hummed with magical power. After all these years. Still. Powerful. I was mesmerized. It’s probably a good thing the image was behind glass because I certainly would have touched it—and probably gotten tossed out on my tushie as I had already been tut-tutted at for almost touching one of the larger Sakhmets. Such is Her power.

One of the classic Sakhmet images in granite from Karnak, now in the Metropolitan Museum

If you’ve been following along, you’ll already have noted that Isis has Her fierce aspects, too. And in the typical fluid way of the ancient Egyptian Deities, Isis and Sakhmet can become One. One of the places where this is true is in the Isis temple at Philae where Isis and Sakhmet are specifically identified. Here’s one of the hymns to Isis from that temple, translated by Louis Zabkar:

Giver of Life, Lady of the Sacred Mound,

Lady and Mistress of Philae,

August and mighty one,

Lady of the southern lands;

Sakhmet, the fiery one, who destroys the enemies of her brother,

Those disaffected of heart, the enemies of Hor-ankhti;

Princess, Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt,

Mighty one, foremost of the Goddesses;

Ruler in Heaven, queen on earth,

Sun-goddess in the circuit of the sun-disc;

Mistress of battle, Montu of combat,

One to whom one cries out on the day of encounter;

Mighty protectress without her equal,

Who saves all those she loves on the battlefield;

Whatever comes forth from her mouth is accomplished immediately,

All the gods are under her command;

Great of magic, when she is in the palace,

Great one upon whose command the king gloriously appears on the throne.

As we see here, Isis is specifically called Sakhmet, as well as being described as “mighty,” and “the mighty one,” the very meaning of Sakhmet’s name. You’ll also recall that in the Jumilhac papyrus, Isis is said to have transformed Herself “into Her mother Sakhmet.”

In this hymn, Isis appears as a strong battle leader, destroying enemies, protecting Her people and their king through Her powerful magic. For the Egyptians, this type of power was often expressed using fiery imagery. Thus, in the hymn above, Isis-Sakhmet is “the fiery one.” Elsewhere at Philae, Isis is called Lady of Flame. She is also the fiery Sun Goddess. And She is one of the fire-spitting Uraeus Goddesses Who sits on the brow of Re as one of His Eyes. As the Eye of Re, She is the fiery Power That Goes Forth and “slays Apophis in an instant,” according to another Philae hymn.

At Her great temple at Philae, we see many sides of the Great Goddess Isis. She is at once the beautiful Cow Mother, watering the sarcophagus of Osiris so that new life sprouts from His dead body, and the fierce-faced Isis-Sakhmet, Isis the Powerful One, the Great Female Power. May Her strength always protect you.

Sakhmet & Isis, together again