A heart amulet inscribed with magical text

When we say we are “thinking with our hearts,” we mean that we are being led by our emotions rather than our rational minds. The ancient Egyptians would have thought that we had it only partly right. They knew that they thought with their hearts all the time; it was, after all, the organ of thought. In the myth of Isis and Re, Isis was said to have pondered “in Her heart” how She could become more powerful and to have decided “in Her heart” how to do so. Of course, the heart was also the seat of emotions, but most importantly, it was the center of life itself. The heart was so important to the wholeness of the individual that it was the only organ not removed during mummification.

There are two main Egyptian words for “heart,” ib and hati. As it turns out, the relationship between ib and hati is much debated in Egyptological circles. Early in the history of Egyptology, the two terms were considered synonyms and both related to the physical heart. In the 1930s, Alexandre Piankoff argued that hati was the physical heart, while ib was the metaphorical one and described the emotions. Many examples exist that seem to go along with this idea. Having great fear could be described as “the heart not being in the body.” Being happy was “broadness of heart.” “To wash the heart” was to suppress a desire. Friends “entered into each other’s hearts.” “To immerse the heart” was to hide one’s thoughts. Yet not all examples of the use of ib are quite that clear. We sometimes find ib as a seemingly physical thing and we sometimes find hati as a seemingly metaphorical thing.

Isis and Nephthys guard the heart scarab that is given to the deceased.

In the Coffin Texts, the ib (as well as the belly) is a container for magic. Coffin Text 657 instructs the heart to “remember what is in you,” that is, magic. Other texts refer to “magic, which my ib sends out” or command magic to “come to this, my ib.” Knowledge also resides in the ib. In a more metaphorical vein, the hati can be “set against” someone. And in Coffin Text 75, the deceased says “Your hearts (hati) have spoken to me, You Gods.” A number of the texts, known as “heart spells,” often have the two terms in parallel, like Coffin Text 20:

There will be given to you your heart (ib) which you had from your mother, your heart (hati) which belongs to your body, your soul which was upon the earth, your corpse which was upon the ground.

The parallelism of the sentence might provide a clue. In the same way that soul is intangible and corpse is tangible, perhaps the “heart which you had from your mother” and “your heart which belongs to your body” are intangible and tangible concepts, too. Because both the ib and the hati will be given to the deceased, it is the totality of the heart, in both physical and spiritual aspects, that is required in the otherworld; both will be needed for rebirth.

On one side of the balance, the heart, on the other the Feather of Truth; note the chains made of the Knot of Isis and the Djed of Osiris that uphold the pans of the balance.

Isis and Her sister Nephthys are among the foremost givers of hearts in these funerary texts. In the Pyramid Texts, Isis says, “I am Isis; I have come that I may lay hold of you and give you your heart for your body.” In the Coffin Texts, Isis and Horus reciprocally bring Their hearts to each other—and will do the same for the dead: “I bring for you your heart into your body even as Horus brought the heart of his mother, even as Isis brought the heart of her son Horus.” A similar passage comes from the daily rites of the temple of Amun Re. Isis is said to bring Horus His heart to “set its upon its seat.” Then Horus brings Isis Her heart to set it upon its seat. There was an Egyptian idiom, iset ib, that may shed some light. It literally means, “seat of the heart” and is equivalent to our “having set one’s heart upon” something. The iset ib is the heart’s desire. Were Isis and Horus giving each other Their heart’s desire?

Yet for Isis devotees, there is another interpretation of iset ib that I think is even more beautiful. In this case, the iset ib would be the Iset Ib:  the “Isis Heart” or “Heart of Isis.” The Iset Ib is that inner core where our individual hearts touch the heart of the Great Goddess Isis. The Isis Heart is the intangible, spiritual “heart that I had from my Mother,” the Great Mother of us all, Isis. It is that piece of the Goddess that lives within all of us and through which we can access Her greater Divine Heart and Being.

Just as the ancient Egyptian dead needed their hearts, ib and hati, to be reborn, we, too, need our hati heart of our bodies to live and our ib heart to commune with the Divine. The Iset Ib is the ‘heart that I had from my Mother Isis’ and through it, we can discover Her at any time. We become still, we breathe, and we focus on our hati heart, the living muscle in our body, which is the physical heart, but also seems to have been more. As we relax and open the hati heart, we also open our ib heart. The physical becomes a gateway to the metaphysical. One heart opens another heart to commune with a Divine Heart. Isis speaks to both our hati and our ib hearts. And then She awakens our Iset Ib, our own Isis Heart, and we become “aware in my heart,” just as the Book of Coming Forth by Day says.

I am aware in my heart, the heart that I had from my Mother Isis

A depiction of the Dark Night of the Soul: Ce Que Je Suis by angelitonegro on Deviant Art

I read a short blog post the other day that made me sad…and sympathetic. It was by a young woman who felt she had lost the mystery of her Pagan path. The power of the rites had flown. She doubted. Her anguish was palpable in what she wrote.

This may have been the first time that had happened to her.

Yet I can guarantee that, if we follow any spiritual path for a sufficient length of time, this same thing will happen to each of us. At some point, the mystery dries up. The excitement dies down. The thrill of discovery is not as thrilling as it once was. Usually, this doesn’t happen all of a sudden and usually not in the early part of our journey with Isis. Rather, it’s a slow erosion that we don’t even notice. We just don’t feel like tending Her shrine or meditating or making offering today. We find we have other things to do. Practice slips away. That wonderful sense of Isis being with us in every step of our lives slips away. But we hardly notice.

Isis giving sustenance to the ba in the Otherworld

Until we do. Notice, that is. Then, we might panic a bit. Especially if we have chosen a priest/essly relationship with Isis. O my Goddess, O my Goddess, O my Goddess! What happened? Where is She? What have I (not!) done?

If we’re not careful—and forget to breathe—thoughts and feelings can quickly escalate from there. Why am I even doing this? What if it’s all a lie? Where is She? Where is She? Where is She? We ask questions, but get no answers. It isn’t like it was before. We don’t seem to be who we were before, either. We may feel like strangers to ourselves just as we feel like strangers to Isis. We feel alone, cut off from the Goddess, perhaps even cut off from other human beings and from other pleasures in our lives.

The first thing we must understand about such periods in the spiritual life is that, though we feel desperately alone, we are not. Spiritual people throughout the ages have had this experience. Prehistoric shamans probably had it. There’s even a term for it, a term you probably know. It’s the “dark night of the soul,” which is the title of a poem and a treatise written by the 16th century Christian Mystic known as Saint John of the Cross. He writes of it as a necessary part of the soul’s journey to union with God. The phrase is so perfectly evocative that it has been adopted by many spiritual traditions today.

A man and his ba greeting each other

There’s even an ancient Egyptian precedent. It’s generally known as A Man Tired of Life in Dispute with His Soul (Ba) and is found in Berlin Papyrus 3024. The papyrus itself has no title. What we have left is the last part of the work; the first part is missing. In it, a scribe is arguing with his ba, trying to convince his ba to die with him. The man berates himself and declares the world around him to be a horrible place. The ba argues that the scribe should live and die only when it truly is his time. Egyptologists consider the papyrus very obscure and difficult. As a result, there are many different translations of the papyrus and they differ widely in their interpretation.

We do not know the purpose of the papyrus or the period to which it is dated. Most scholars put it in the First Intermediate Period, a time of confusion between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Some have theorized that the author’s despair is a reflection of the chaos of that Intermediate Period. Bika Reed, who is of the Schwaller de Lubicz school of Egyptology, has interpreted it as an initiatic text, essentially dealing with the dark night of the soul.

We don’t know for sure, but the point is, this happens—and it has always happened. But what do we do when it happens?

A beautiful statue of a ba

Having just had a birthday, and feeling rather ancient of days, I can tell you that I have had more than one dark night of the ba in my life with Isis. I have learned that patience and persistence are the keys to survival (as they are in so much of life). In these dark and dry places, we must be patient with ourselves and with the Goddess; we must persist in our practice. Even if we don’t feel anything happen when we meditate with Isis or when we place flowers upon Her altar, we must continue to do so. But we must also give ourselves a break. It’s okay if we don’t feel anything right now. It doesn’t mean Isis has abandoned us. It only means we are in a period of transition, even of initiation. Some consider a dark night to be part of the process of ego death that must precede a deeper relationship with the Divine, in our case, with Isis.

We may even give ourselves another type of break. If it had been our practice to meditate daily, perhaps we do so once every few days or once a week. That’s okay, too. The important thing is not to stop altogether, even if the sense of connection isn’t there. We just persist. Eventually—in a month, or even a year—something will change. The shell surrounding our hearts will crack. Like the Child Horus, our hearts will struggle out of the egg and be born. Eventually, we will return to our practice and find that it, too, is transformed. It is deeper, richer, juicier.

Held in Her wings, we are Becoming, even when we don’t know it.

“Birth of Isis. Feast of ‘revealing the face’ of this Goddess with Her Ennead. Performing all the rites of the feast of robing . . . according to the ritual of the place of the First Feast. They make a great oblation of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, wine, milk, pomegranate-wine, [gazelles, oryx, ibexes], cranes, pigeons, fattened ducks, with fresh vegetables and all fruit. It is sweet to serve the Beautiful One with right offerings!”

                                                       —The Denderah Festival Calendar

This is how I have imagined making offering in the ancient temples of Isis…

An Egyptian shrine

Each night, while I sleep, the light is withdrawn and a darkened world returns to primordial chaos. This disorder is Isfet, the opposite of Ma’et—Rightness, Truth. Like dark water, Isfet is of infinite, even frightening, possibility. Will it seep up moist like ground water, like dreams, to nourish growth and change? Or will it burst forth, unchecked, unsettling, and destructive? Anything might happen. Anything might exist out there in night’s shadowed darkness.

The formlessness of the unillumined world is why, each morning, I welcome with full heart the awakening of the Golden One. As She scatters Her gold dust across the world—bringing light, creating form—I release my breath to Her in relieved sighs. I am Her servant. I serve the Great Goddess Isis. “Ise” is how we whisper Her holy name. I am called the First of Those Who See Her for it is my privilege and duty to open Her shrine, unveil Her face, and make offering to Her each morning. I know better than most how sweet it is to serve the Beautiful One with right offerings.

I honor Thee, Isis

While Isfet is still trembling at the edges of the world, I rise and make my purifications. My body, which will perform the ritual, is made pure with water. My mouth, which will speak the words of power, is made pure with natron. It is salty and, if I have much to purify, it sometimes makes me gag. When I am cleansed, I put on the white linen and white sandals and walk through the night-cooled corridors of the temple toward Her closed shrine.

The cooks, the bakers, the butchers have already been at work. They have prepared Her morning feast. The Pure Ones, the Wab priests and priestesses, have placed it in the Hall of Offerings and even now they chant for Her. The sistra of the priestesses rattle softly as I pass through the Hall of Offerings to finally stand before the closed doors of Her shrine.

Into the darkness before that sacred place, I speak the words that avert evil so that I may approach giving no offense and receiving no harm. I break the clay seal. I draw back the bolt, but I do not yet open the doors. For first I must offer incense to Her Eye, the fierce and fiery Serpent Goddess Who guards the Great One—and indeed Who is another of Isis’ kheperu, Her forms. When that Fierce One has taken Her pleasure and been pacified by the incense and the words of my mouth, I open the doors. Heaven and Earth open before me!

My living Isis image in Her temple shrine with flower offering

On my knees, I enter Her shrine, offering incense. The sweet smoke rises into the still air to encircle the Iset Weret, the Great Seat or Throne of the Goddess, Her innermost holy place. My heart remembers one of the Mysteries of my temple: that Isis is She Who is Upon Her Throne, and Who is also the Throne itself, for that is the very meaning of Her name. Isis is All Things; it is a great secret that I know as I prostrate myself before the Goddess Throne. I kiss the ground. My belly touches the Earth before Her. I speak the Adoration of the Goddess with all my heart. As they do every morning that I wear the white sandals to serve my Goddess, tears blur the vision of my eyes as I lift the Goddess’ veil to look upon Her beautiful face.

Isis is alive in Her sacred image. The Goddess is at home in Her temple. I can feel Her magic vibrate within the shrine. Her ka speaks to mine. I bid Her peace in awakening. In Her presence, I purify the food offerings with water and with incense. I name what we have prepared for Her.  She smiles at me with golden lips.

I am now privileged to touch Her image. I take Her sacred body from the Great Throne into the shrine chamber. I wipe away yesterday’s unguent, She having received its ka. With the little finger of my right hand, with my gentle finger, I anoint the uraeus upon Her brow anew with Eye of Horus Oil. It makes Her limbs whole. It destroys evil like the strong talons of Her falcon child.

The king making offering to Isis, from Denderah

I remove the linen cloths placed upon Her image the day before. They will be taken away and washed. With Her unclothed image before me, I adore Her four times. I feel tender toward the Goddess Whose body I touch. I speak only truth before Her. My adorations are never rote. I speak heart-words to my Goddess. As I re-clothe Her in fresh linens—the white, the green, and the red—I purify with natron between each dressing. I purify again with water and incense. I circle Her image four times before returning it to its seat.

Once more upon Her Great Throne, Isis receives Her ornaments and implements of power. I place them upon Her body. I offer Her precious unguents, full of power. I take up pure sand and with ancient and holy words, I pour it out before Her. It grits beneath my white sandals as I enfold Her image first in the white head cloth, then in the Great Cloth. Now She is veiled once more in the protection of the Weaving Goddesses Who spin magic into linen.

Again I offer incense and circle Her living image four times. I take up the bundle of heden plants. As I back out of the shrine, I use them to sweep the sand clean, obliterating my footprints and returning the holy place to its primordial perfection. I close the doors, bolt them. Outside, I offer incense upon the brazier and circle the room four times, speaking protections.

By the time the rite is complete, the sun is high above the horizon. Day has come. Isfet is banished. The face of Isis shines like molten gold as She smiles upon Egypt. I am content.

                                                    —from the introduction to my Offering to Isis

Making offering is one of the most ancient and eternal ways we may interact with Isis. Do you make offering? If so, what do you do?

An Orientalist imagining of a procession for Isis, complete with Her shrine; art by Frederick Arthur Bridgman, mid 1800s

I invoke Thee, Isis!

I adore invocation.

I remember the first time I invoked and really—really—felt Her presence, knew She was with me. Or with us, I should say because this particular invocation was with a small group here in town. I was pretty new at public invocation and I was pretty nervous.

I had memorized the invocation (highly recommended!) and when it came time, I spoke the words. The nervous energy became strength. The memorized words truly expressed my desire for Her. With each breath I drew in to begin each sentence of the invocation, I also drew in more of Her. And I could tell I wasn’t the only one feeling it. The entire circle began to psychically “buzz” as everyone awakened to Her growing presence.

That particular invocation stuck with me as you might imagine. I even included it in Isis Magic. It’s this one:

O Isis, Beautiful in All Thy Names,

I call Thee with the breath of my body,

I call Thee with the beat of my heart,

I call Thee with the pulse of my life,

I call Thee with the words of my mouth,

I call Thee with the thoughts of my mind.

I call Thee Power and Life and Creation.

I call Thee, Isis, Isis, Isis!

This is sort of what it feels like when invocation works.

Seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? It is. A good invocation doesn’t have to be complicated or long. On the other hand, sometimes long and complicated invocations are completely wonderful, providing us with the luxury of enough time to reach the right state of mind/soul.

The word invocation means “to call upon”. It’s originally from the Latin word invocare, but comes to us by way of late 15th century French envoquer. You’ll sometimes see the word used exclusively to mean calling a Deity or spirit into yourself (because of the “in” part of the word). While invocation can be used for that purpose, it doesn’t have to be.

…and like this.

Invocation is a way to focus our intention and attention upon Isis. It offers a method for awakening and re-awakening in ourselves the knowledge of Her eternal presence. It opens a channel of communication and communion between us and Her. If we have done it well, invocation of Isis will evoke a corresponding emotion from us. When our defenses are down, our emotions are up, and we fully open our hearts and selves to Her, that’s when our invocations are effective and we find that She is fully present with us. And that is how the magic happens.

Invocation is a wonderful way to explore the many aspects of Isis. By invoking Her by Her various epithets (epithets are names or descriptive phrases that express various aspects or powers of the Goddess), we can experience and better understand the many facets of Isis’ nature.

To this end, I thought I’d share some of Isis’ many epithets, both well and lesser known, which you may wish to try out in your own invocations.

Great Goddess

Nutjeret Weret (Egy.); Thea Megiste (Gk.); Iset Weret (Egy.; “Isis the Great”). This is Isis in Her all-encompassing form as Goddess of All Things, and indeed, She is specifically called Lady of All. Other related epithets are Isis in All Her Names, Isis of Many Names and Many Forms, both of which refer to the ability of Her devotees to see Isis in all other Goddesses and all other Goddesses in Isis. At Denderah, She is called Lady of the Sky, the Earth, the Underworld, the Water, the Mountains, and the Nun (the Primordial Watery Abyss) for She is the Goddess of all manifest as well as all un-manifest things.

A noble and queenly Isis…who is actually an Egyptian nesutet named “Isis.”

Isis the Noble

Iset Shepshyt (Egy.). This is a very interesting one for me. Before I knew of this name, I had often described Her to myself as “noble.” Several other priestesses I know described Her that way as well. And then I learned that She was actually called “Noble” anciently as well. To me, She is somewhat aloof, yet entirely awe-inspiring, in this aspect. A related epithet is Isis, Lady of Dignity or Great of Dignity. At Isiopolis, there is an inscription that says that the Deities bow down before Isis’ dignity.

Isis the Queen

I just thought you’d like to have this word in Egyptian: Nesutet (“Queen”). This, of course, refers to Isis’ sovereignty over ancient Egypt. Yet as the Throne, Isis is Sovereignty Itself; She is the ruler and She confers rulership.

Beautiful Khabhuet

Khabhuet (Egy.; “Libationess”) is related to concepts like the Great Celestial Deep and the Watery Abyss. Thus this is Isis as the one Who makes effective—surely magical—libations and as a Goddess of the Primordial Depths.

Lady of the Journey on the Abaton

In an Egyption temple, the abaton is the sacred place where no one may walk, the Holy of Holies. As Isis is the Lady of the Journey on the Abaton, we may understand that She is so inherently holy that She may indeed walk there, or perhaps may even serve as our guide for such a journey; the shrine of Osiris on Biggeh, the island of Osiris’ tomb near Philae, was called the Abaton.

A Uraeus Serpent, one of the Divine forms in which Isis is sometimes depicted

Isis the Uraeus

Iset Uraiet (Egy.; “She Who Rears/Rises Up”). Uraeus is a Latinized version of the Greek word ouriaos, which is itself a version of the Egyptian word uraiet, which indicates the rearing, coiled cobra. The root word has to do with rising up or ascending, so that uraiet, a feminine word, can be interpreted as She Who Rears/Rises Up. The root word is also used to refer to the upward licking of flames. And indeed, the uraeus is often depicted spitting fire. This serpent fire represents both magical fire and the burning pain of the serpent’s venom.

In this form, Isis is the Cobra Goddess upon the brow of Re and His “Eye.” She is the Iret Eye (“the Doer”), the active power of Re. The idea is similar to Shakti, the active, feminine power related to the God Shiva in some Hindu sects.

Isis the Good North Wind

In different texts, Isis can be identified with various directions, but She has a strong identification with the north and the north wind. To understand, you have to know that to the ancient Egyptians, the north wind was the cooling, beneficial wind. It was thought that the north wind “dammed up” the Inundation, which flowed from the south, enabling the water to flood and nourish Egyptian fields. So Isis is not only the one Who heralds the Inundation and even causes it to flow (as Sopdet/Sirius), but also keeps it in place where it will fertilize the fields. She is called the Good North Wind and the Living North Wind.

A hip-hop singer has taken up the Sotera name…

Isis the Savior

Even in Egyptian texts, we find Isis as a saving Goddess. She is the one Who dispels evils, storms, and “rescues the weak from the fierce.” When Isis moves into the wider Mediterranean world, we find Her called The Savior (Sotera, Gk.), All Savior or Savior of All (Pansotera, Gk.), and the Great Hope. She is both literal savior, helping and protecting people in their every day lives and She is the spiritual Savior, Who offers those who are Hers “a life given by grace” (Apuleius, Metamorphoses). The funerary inscription of a priest of Isis declares that because of the secret rites he performed during his life, he has traveled not to dark Acheron, but to the “harbor of the blessed.” The Goddess and Her Mysteries are a spiritual harbor in storm-tossed seas—an image that is still used today by devotees of the Christian Savior God.

Enough to chew on for now, I think. May your invocations of Isis in All Her Names be blessed.

Someone’s beautiful Isis altar… if this is yours, please let me know. I love it!

If you’ve read Isis Magic and Offering to Isis, you may have noticed that—except when something actually is in the past—I always refer to the Goddess in present tense. In fact, I have been very, very, very, very conscious of doing so.

Because, you see, She IS.

She’s is not a Being Who was but is no more. She is not “just a myth,” some silly old story deserving of the past tense. Indeed, She is All that Was, and Is, and Ever Shall Be. She existed then, She exists now, and She will exist when the rugged, snowcapped mountain that, on a clear day, I can see from my rooftop has become a gentle, green hill.

And I know you know that. Which is why I am so puzzled when I sometimes see modern Pagans, Polytheists, Wiccans, and insert-your-self-definition-of-choice using the past tense about their Deities.

I am all that was, that is, that ever shall be…

It usually happens when telling Their sacred stories, trying to offer a brief “definition” of the Deity, or describing Their relationships with other Deities: “Isis was the Goddess of Magic.” Osiris was the husband of Isis.” Isn’t She still the Goddess of Magic? Isn’t He still Her husband? Now if you said, “To the ancient Egyptians, Isis was the Goddess of Magic and Osiris was Her husband,” that would work. No more ancient Egyptians around today, so what they considered is indeed history. To me, however, Isis IS the Goddess of Magic and Osiris IS Her beloved husband.

I may have had a tiny rant on this subject in Isis Magic:

In writing of the history of the Isis religion and the many aspects in which She has appeared to humanity, I have always kept in mind that, to the people who worshipped Her then, as well as to those of us who do so today, Isis was and is a Living Goddess. She is not a historical curiosity. She is not a metaphor for our times. She is not feminist wish fulfillment. She is not merely a psychological archetype. She is Divine Love, Life, Magic, Mystery. She is Goddess and She is.

And speaking of myths, a myth isn’t something that is false—”oh, that’s just a myth.” No. A myth is a sacred story meant to tell us something about the Deity or Deities of the myth. Myths are “things that never happened but always are,” in the words of the 4th century CE Roman writer Sallustius. Or maybe myths are things that never happened historically, but are eternally true. Or ask Joseph Campbell. Or Jean Huston. And remember, just because it belongs to the corpus of the dominant monotheisms doesn’t mean it’s not mythology. Egyptian mythology is. Christian mythology is. Jewish mythology is. They are all sacred stories and they are all mythology.

Okay. I’m done. Enough said. And may we all mind our tenses and our mythologies.

I kinda love this. Isis is a public dance party in San Francisco, mixed by the Bulgarian artist KINK. 

The Is-ness of Isis

But how do we know that Isis is? How do we know that She’s “real”? Must we simply have faith? Do we just choose to “believe in” Her? Can we prove Her is-ness?

We can prove Isis’ is-ness, Her reality, exactly as much as any human being can prove the reality of any Deity, which is to say, we cannot. There is no scientific proof for the Divine. There is no infallible book that holds all the answers to all the questions. Yet this—happily—means exactly nothing when it comes to the truth of Isis’ existence.

This question of belief and faith is much more vexed for those of us in non-mainstream (O how I dislike that designation!) religions. How often have you been asked by some friend or family member or (hopefully) well-meaning stranger, “Well, then, what do Isians—or Pagans or Polytheists or Wiccans or insert-your-self-definition-of-choice—believe?”

And how have you answered?

A powerful Madonna & Child

Many of us involved in alternative spirituality today were reared in one monotheistic religion or the other, most often, Christianity. From early on, we were taught to “believe in” God and Jesus. We were told that a particular book was the Word of God, “proved” that God was real, and explained precisely what He wanted us to do with our lives. In terms of religion, the clergy were to be our role models, the ones whose faith was strong, whose belief was true; we should have faith and believe as they do.

We got used to using those words, faith and belief, when speaking about religion. But perhaps those are not the right words.

For me, what proves that Isis is real is my experience of Her, not my faith or belief in Her. No single book is the touchstone for my spirituality, though I find spiritual truths in many, many books written by many, many wise human beings. I can’t transfer my deep knowing of Her reality to anyone else (though I do admit that the exercises and rituals in my books are attempts to at least set up the conditions that will enable others to open up to their own experiences of Her). Nevertheless, experience of the Divine is an individual thing; each one of us must experience Isis for ourselves—even if we do so in a group. Clergy can facilitate. Books can show us a way. The experiences of others can strengthen us in our desire for our own experience of the Goddess. But, in the end, we will not truly know Isis for ourselves until we have our own experience of Her.

When that experience comes for the first time, it may bring awe, tears, joy, pain. When it comes again and again, throughout the many years, I can tell you that it may still bring all those things. But repeated and ongoing experience of the Goddess will also bring a true knowing, a personal gnosis, of Her. No longer operating just “on faith,” now we know Her reality because we have experienced it. No longer just believing, we have discovered Her truth for ourselves and it has become our truth.

Yes, that’s it, Goddess, O yes!

Oregon’s Painted Hills

I’ve just come back from the Red Land.

Not in Egypt, but in eastern Oregon. That’s my Red Land; just over the mountains from Portland.

The eastern Oregon desert is starkly impressive dressed in its iron-rust reds, dry-grass golds, basalt blacks, and pale, dusty sagebrush and juniper greens. And the Painted Hills! O my Goddess, beautiful, beautiful.

In honor of the Red Lands then, let us dive into the color red, its symbolism in ancient Egypt, and its relationship with Isis.

A modern rendition of fiery, red-headed Set

The ancient Egyptians had an interesting relationship with the color red, in Egyptian, desher. It was considered very powerful—in both a bad way and in a good way. The bad way connected red with danger, anger, and of course, the non-life-sustaining desert or desheret. (As you can see, our word for “desert” comes from ancient Egyptian desheret.) Red was associated with the red-haired and red-eyed God Set, a God Who can be angry, powerful, and destructive—as well as helpful and protective. In the magical papyri, you will sometimes see instructions that tell the magician to obtain a lamp “not colored red,” no doubt so as to not taint the magic with the negative aspects of the color red. The Egyptians described someone who was raging or furious as “red of heart.” Red ink would be used to write the names of dangerous creatures or Divinities in the temple scrolls. In the calendars that show lucky and unlucky days, the unlucky days were written in red ink, while the lucky ones were written in black.

The head of a pharaoh carved of red jasper

On the other side of the ledger, red could also be associated with life, warmth, and protection, while still maintaining its ambiguous nature. Life-giving blood is red and connected with birth, rebirth, and regeneration, but it can also mean death if we lose too much of it. Warming and light-giving fire is red, but can be dangerous if uncontrolled. Red is the color of the radiant Sun God Re, but it was also the color of the Eye of Re, the Serpent Goddess Who could be either destructive or protective.

When it comes to Isis, we usually find red in its positive aspects. (Though it is true that the myths show that Isis can get a bit “red of heart” when it comes to protecting Horus’ interests.) Nevertheless, Isis is most often associated with red’s favorable characteristics: the promotion of life, protection, and regeneration.

Her famous amulet, the Knot of Isis or tiet, was usually made of red stone such as red jasper or red carnelian. In what I suspect is a modern legend—yet quite appropriate to the mythology of Isis—it is said that Isis wept tears of blood over the death of Osiris and these crystallized as carnelian. From them, the Goddess carved Her red tiet amulet.

The classic red Knot of Isis

The tiet first appears in Egyptian iconography in the third dynasty. It was frequently used in association with the djed pillar of Osiris and so eventually became almost exclusively associated with Isis. Used together, the two symbols could refer to the power of the Goddess and God to engender Life. Because of this, the symbols may also be seen as sexual symbols; the pillar referring to the phallus of the God and the knot to the vulva and womb of the Goddess.

Once born, the new or renewed life would have to be protected, the perfect job for a magical knot. In fact, the formula to be spoken over an Isis Knot of red jasper connects the red of the amulet with the blood, power, and magic of the Goddess and is intended to protect the deceased during her or his transformation after death:

You have Your blood, O Isis. You have Your power, O Isis. You have Your magic, O Isis. This amulet is a protection for this Great One and which will drive away whoever would commit a crime against him.

                                                        —Formula 156, Book of the Dead

The Knot of Isis personified as a life-giving Goddess

You may recall that this amulet is also called the Blood of Isis and may represent the red lifeblood of birth or even red menstrual blood. Some say the amulet is shaped like the cloth worn by ancient Egyptian women during menstruation. Others have interpreted it as a representation of a ritual tampon that could be inserted in the vagina to prevent miscarriage. In this case, it would have been the amulet Isis used to protect Horus while He was still within Her womb.

In addition to Her red amulet, Isis is one of the Goddesses Who is the protective and powerful Eye of Re and we have already seen how Isis is associated with the redness of fire as well as the redness of a fierce nature. In a text from the Temple of the Birth of Isis at Hathor’s temple complex at Denderah, Isis unites the power, magic, and life-renewing qualities of the colors red and black in Herself for it is said that She was born “in the form of a black and ruddy woman, endowed with life, sweet of love.”

Red is the color of Isis’ distinctive, protective amulet. Red is the color of Her life-giving blood. Red is the color of Her powerful magic. Red is the color of the warmth, strength, and illumination of Her fire. Red is the color of the powerful, magical, fiery, life-giving Goddess Herself: Red Isis.

A lovely painting of a lunar Isis by artist Katana Leigh. Visit her site here.

Modern Pagans often think of Isis as a Moon Goddess. And, it’s true, in later periods of Her worship, She was indeed associated with the Moon—and, in fact, that’s how She entered the Western Esoteric Tradition. The Isis-Moon connection first started when Egypt came under Greek rule in the 3rd century BCE, following the conquest by Alexander the Great. To the Greeks, Goddesses were the lunar Deities, so as Isis made Her way into Greek culture and hearts, Her new devotees naturally associated Her with the Moon.

In Egypt, Osiris, Khons, Thoth, and I’ah were the Deities most associated with the Moon. Isis, for Her part, was connected with the star Sirius as far back as the Pyramid Texts; the star was said to be Her ba, or soul. Yet Isis is also linked with the Sun.

As the Sun was the image of one of the most important Gods to the ancient Egyptians, it should not be surprising to find that Isis, one of the most important Goddesses, also has strong solar connections. In some places—notably, Her famous temple at Philae—Isis was worshipped specifically as a Sun Goddess. Among Her solar epithets are Female Re (Re-et) and Female Horus (Horet).

Phoenix by the famous illustrator Boris Vallejo; looks like a rather Isiac phoenix to me!

Isis’ most common solar manifestation is as the Eye of Re, the Uraeus, the Cobra Goddess Who coils upon the Sun God’s brow to protect Him; and Who fights a constant cosmic battle against His great opponent, Apop (Gr. Apophis). An inscription at Philae calls Isis “Neseret [fiery]-serpent on the head of Horus-Re, Eye of Re, the Unique Goddess, Uraeus.” A hymn from Philae calls Her “Eye of Re who has no equal in heaven and on earth.” The Eye of Re is His active power. While He maintains His place in the sky, the solar power—the Eye Goddess—goes forth to manifest His Divine will. In this way, Isis and the other Uraeus Goddesses (such as Nephthys, Wadjet, and Tefnut) are similar to Shakti, the active, feminine Power related to the God Shiva in some Hindu sects. Isis is also one of the Deities Who travels with Re in His solar barque as it moves through the Otherworld. Again, Her function is to protect Him and help battle His foes.

A vintage illustration of Isis learning the name of Re by H. m. Brock.

Isis is also associated with the Sun God and the Sun in several of Her important myths. In the tale of Isis and Re, Isis gains power equal to Re’s by learning His secret name, first by poisoning, then by healing the ailing God. In another, with Her magical Words of Power, Isis stops the Boat of the Sun in the sky in order to receive aid for Her poisoned child, Horus.

But it was at Isis’ influential temple at Philae that She was most clearly worshipped as a Sun Goddess and even as the Sun itself. A Philae hymn to Isis praises Her saying, “You are the one who rises and dispels darkness, shining when traversing the primeval ocean, the Brilliant One in the celestial waters, traveling in the barque of Re.” An inscription on the first pylon (gate) at Philae says Isis is the “One Who illumines the Two Lands with Her radiance, and fills the earth with gold-dust.” (I absolutely adore this praise of Her!)

Like many other Egyptian Deities, Isis was often envisioned with immortal, golden, solar skin. Some of Her sacred images would have been covered with gold, earning Her, like Hathor, the epithets The Gold and the Golden One. A Philae hymn addresses Her, “O Golden One; Re, the possessor of the Two Lands, will never be far from you.” Some scholars believe that the holy of holies at Philae may have once been gold-leafed so that it always appeared filled with golden, solar light. O how I would love to have seen that.

When NASA sends a probe to the sun, it will go in the name of Isis. Yes, this is the real mission logo. Check this link for the science and you’ll see that they indeed meant ISIS.

At Her Philae temple, Isis is first of those in heaven: “Hail to you, Isis, Great of Magic, eldest in the womb of her mother, Nuet, Mighty in Heaven Before Re.” She is the “Sun Goddess in the circuit of the sun disk” and Her radiance outshines even that of Re.

From Her great temple at Philae, Isis’ identity as a Sun Goddess flowed back up the Nile to Her temples at Memphis and Isiopolis in the delta. From there, it entered into the Graeco-Roman culture in the famous aretalogies (self-statements) of Isis. From a papyrus found in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, we learn that one of Isis’ many names is Name of the Sun and that She is responsible for the rising of the Sun:  “Thou [Isis] bringest the sun from rising unto setting, and all the Gods are glad.” In an aretalogy from Kyme, in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I ordered the course of the sun and the moon.” And later in the same text She says, “I am in the rays of the sun” and “I inspect the courses of the sun.”

Throughout Her worship, Isis has always shown Her life giving, fructifying power in the image of the Sun. She is the Radiant Goddess, the Lady of Sunlight.

Now enjoy this lovely animation of Isis birthing the Sun by Lesley Keen:

Isis on the coffin of Ankh-Wennefer, WA St. History Museum; photo by Joe Mabel, wikicommons

Let’s talk about theophoric names.

You may have spotted that “theophoric” is a Greek word; it means “Deity-bearing.” In other words, the name of a Deity is incorporated into the name of a human being. Isidora is an example. It means “Gift of Isis.” In the ancient world, a name like that would probably have meant that the parents credited the Goddess with helping them conceive, so the child was Her gift. Since for me Isidora is a “taken” name rather than a given one, I take it to mean that the Goddess has given me many gifts.

Of course, the simplest form of naming for the Goddess would be to just adopt Her name. There was at least one ancient Egyptian queen named Isis (Iset, in Egyptian), a queen mother named Isis, and a God’s Wife of Amun named Isis (who was also a royal princess). There may have been a whole slew of ordinary Egyptians so named, but alas, we have no records of them.

This is the most common hieroglypic writing of Isis’ name in Egyptian.

But for me, calling myself by Her name—without any modifications—would have made me squirm. (However, I admit I find it charming that some modern parents are once again naming their daughters Isis, though probably because they are giving them the name of a strong female figure rather than because they are devotees of Isis. But you never know. If you were born an Isis, hail and blessings to you, lucky girl!)

I recently came across a cache of other Isis-bearing names, some of which I’d like to share with you. They’re in Kockelmann’s Praising the Goddess. Rather than stringing you along for a paragraph or two, I want to cut right to the chase and tell you about the best Isiac theophoric name EVER.

The awesome scene from “The Mummy” when the statue of Isis raises the ankh to save Her reincarnated priestess from a lovestruck but murderous mummy

Why is it the best Isiac theophoric name ever? Well, I must digress for a moment to explain. Those of you who have been reading along may know that I have a thing for the original Boris Karloff Mummy movie. See here and here. (Oh, I know. Bad Egyptology, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, it’s awesome; it scared the ever-lovin’ b-jezus outta me as a kid, and Isis saves the day in the end. What more do you want?)

So in The Mummy, the name of the princess reincarnated in Helen Grosvenor (played by Zita Johann, who actually was something of an occultist) is Ankhesenamon (Ankh-es-en-Amon). That theophoric name means “She Lives for Amun.”

Well, we also have records of an Ankh-es-en-Iset: “She Lives for Isis.” Oh my Goddess! I think I’m going to have to adopt that as my super-secret Isiac name or something. Ankheseniset! Two of my favorite things have come together in one very magical name!

Whew. Calm down, girl. In fact, that’s not the only very cool Isophoric personal name of which we a record. Here are a few others that you may also enjoy:

Isetneferet (Iset-neferet)—”Isis is Beautiful”

Isetaneferet (Iset-ta-neferet)—”Isis the Beautiful”

Panehemiset (Pa-nehem-Iset)—”He Who is Saved by Isis”

Nehemsejiset (Nehem-sej-Iset)—”Isis Saved Her”

Isetweretayesnekht (Iset-Weret-tay-es-nekht)—”Great Isis is Her Strength” (Kockelmann gives it as “Isis the Great is Her Power”)

Tadjaisetankh (Ta-dja-Iset-ankh)—”Isis Gives Life”

Taheniset (Ta-hen-Iset)—”She Who is Entrusted to Isis”

Paremetiset (Pa-remet-Iset)—”The Man of Isis”

Taremetisest (Ta-remet-Iset)—”The Woman of Isis”

Paeniset (Pa-en-Iset)—”He is Isis’s” or “He Belongs to Isis”

Taeniset (Ta-en-Iset)—”She is Isis’s” or “She Belongs to Isis”

Saiset (Sa-Iset)—”Son of Isis”

Satiset (Sat-Iset)—”Daughter of Isis”

Khajiset (Khaj-Iset)—”Isis Appeared/May Isis Appear”

Isetemrenpy (Iset-em-renpy)—”Isis is Rejuvenation”

Isetiyet (Iset-iy-et)—”Isis Has Come”

Djediset (Djed-Iset)—”Isis Said” (perhaps a shortened form of “Isis Said: He Will Live” and referring to an ill child who recovered; I kinda like it as is, though)

And the Egyptian version of Isidora: Shepeniset (Shep-en-Iset)—”Gift of Isis”

Looking at these names, it won’t come as a surprise that Egyptians were big on shortening their names and calling each other by nicknames.

Of course, I’d never shorten Ankheseniset…

A regal-looking Isis by Russian artist Nicholas Burdykin. See more of his work here.

Roman Isis, from the 2nd century CE, in the Farnese Collection in Naples. Image copyright Forrest 2009.

Statisticians will do the darndest things.

I just read an article that was a statistical analysis of the conditions that aided in the spread of the worship of Isis from Egypt into the wider Mediterranean world. The period we’re talking about here is roughly from the second century BCE to the second century CE, a period of about 400 years.

Yeah, I know; boring.

Well, much of it, yes. But there is something in it of interest to Isis devotees, which I’ll get to in a moment. First a quick summary.

You’re probably well aware of how, during the time period we’re talking about, the worship of Isis grew out of Egypt and flourished in the nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea, eventually being carried into Europe. Today, there is hardly anywhere on earth that educated people don’t know the name of Isis. Indeed, I am constantly amazed at how often Her name, or an acronym of it, is used for everything from scientific journals to women’s outdoor clothing to (horribly; please stop, please stop) a terrorist group.

Christian symbols carved on the walls of Isis’ temple at Philae

During this ancient period of the diffusion of Her worship, at least 35 new sanctuaries for Her were constructed. And those are only the ones of which we’re found evidence. Egyptologist Laurent Bricault (who is on academia.com, by the way) made an atlas of Isis sanctuaries at the time and found 167 of them in Africa, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Gaul, the Balkins, Britain and Spain.

Scholars often note that Her worship particularly appealed to women, yet merchants, sailors, and soldiers (most of whom were, presumably, men) were important in spreading Her cult. It’s probably more accurate to say that the worship of Isis appealed—and still appeals—strongly to both women and men.

This terracotta of an Isis devotee is Roman, but made in Egypt; now in London in the British Museum. Credits: Barbara McManus, 2001

The author of the statistical study, Robert A. Wortham, identified four hypotheses he wanted to test. They are:

• That Isis temples were established earlier in larger cities

• That Isis temples were established earlier in urban locations closer to Rome

• That Isis temples were established in urban centers with high degrees of religious pluralism

• And that (here’s the interesting one, folks) the diffusion of the Isis cult and the diffusion of Christianity were intertwined

Here’s what he found:

While Isis was indeed worshipped in larger cities, the statistics did not support the idea that the city had to be large in order for Isis temples to be established; i.e. the correlation was not “statistically significant.”

The “distance from Rome” hypothesis didn’t seem to be statistically significant either. The spread of Isis worship seems to have been so pervasive that it didn’t matter whether the sanctuary was in a small town or a large city or whether it was close to Rome, the center of the universe at the time.

All these and more, please

However, the “religious pluralism” hypothesis was strongly supported. It is also interesting how Wortham defined religious pluralism; it was by the presence of a Christian church, a Jewish synagoge, a Gnostic church, or any combination thereof. Those had to be the indicators of pluralism since the world was generally polytheistic and temples to many Deities was the norm. It was the acceptance of monotheisms that proved pluralism.

Another factor was that these “religious marketplaces” were “deregulated” in that they were generally not controlled by the state and the people living there were open to, even hungry for, new spiritual opportunities; the market wasn’t “saturated,” so there was room for something new. Unmet religious needs existed.

The Isis-Christianity relationship was also highly supported. Wortham took note of the correlations between the Isis-Osiris-Horus death-rebirth myth and the Christos’ death-rebirth myth as well as the Madonna and Child imagery of both Isis worship and Christian worship. Since it is easier for people to accept new ideas if they are similar to old ideas, it is possible that the “cultural continuity” between Isiacism and Christianity may have aided in the spread of Christianity. These harmonies between the two spiritualities are still being discussed, debated, and making some people rather agitated even today.

The Holy Mother & Her Holy Child

I must admit, knowing what eventually happened, I was a little saddened by learning that Isis may have paved the way for the religion that, wherever it spread, would eventually kill not only Her ancient worship, but that of all the Deities save the Christian one(s). A sociologist much discussed in Wortham’s study, Rodney Stark, concluded from his studies that when exclusive religious groups in a competitive free-market environment challenge non-exclusive religions, exclusive faiths eventually prevail.

But I don’t think exclusive vs. non-exclusive is the whole story. In terms of the rise of Christianity, exclusivity certainly made proselytizing simple, but it seems to me that the real key was Christianity’s rising political power. Once Constantine converted and started making anti-Pagan laws, it was all over. When your choice of Deity means you can be fined, excluded from the best jobs, especially political ones, have your property confiscated, and perhaps even forfeit your life, well, you’re kinda screwed. (No, I’m not forgetting Roman persecution of Christians. But the Romans were equal opportunity about it; they also persecuted Isiacs and Jews and Bacchants and I’m sure there were others.)

Religious freedom for all of us means we need the vibrant existence of many religions and many religious ideas in the “marketplace.” Frankly, I don’t know what the answer is when it comes to religions that insist that theirs is the one true way. How do we tolerate intolerance? How far can religious freedom go before it interferes with the liberties of others? But there is one thing that I do know: no religion—mine, yours, or anybody’s—should have the political wherewithal to enforce religious beliefs with actual laws. The separation of church and state is a vital, even if not always a perfectly realized and sometimes imperiled, concept.

Isis & Thoth (far left and right) add Their magic to Horus’ on the famous Metternich Stele

Ancient Egypt’s two Great Divine Magicians are Isis and Thoth.

Interestingly, both went on to have rather illustrious careers outside Their native Egypt as key players in the Western Esoteric Tradition; Isis as THE quintessential Goddess of esotericism, Thoth as Hermes Trismegistos, THE quintessential teacher of esoteric wisdom.

In fact, the two Divine Magicians have always had a close relationship. Although in earlier Egyptian tradition, Isis is the daughter of Geb and Nuet, Earth God and Sky Goddess, by Plutarch’s time (1st century CE) he is able to say that “many have related that she is the daughter of Hermes,” that is, of Thoth. One inscription calls Her the “vizier and daughter of Thoth.” J. Gwyn Griffiths, one of my favorite scholars, says the two Deities were probably thought to have a family relationship because both were known to be exceptionally wise.

Thoth, Thrice Great

A Hermetic aside

You may be wondering about that Thoth-Hermes connection. How did the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes become identified? At first glance, it may not seem like They have a lot in common. But not so fast. An important first point of contact is Their connection with souls. Hermes is the psychopomp of the dead, guiding them to the realm of the dead. Thoth, too, is a guide of the dead and takes part in the vital post mortum judgment. Both Gods are associated with the moon and medicine (remember Hermes’s staff the caduceus), and both are known for inventiveness and trickery. The syncretism of Thoth and Hermes eventually resulted in the God/Teacher Hermes Trismegistos, which is an epithet Hermes gets directly from Thoth. In an effort to express Thoth’s majesty, when writing His name Egyptian scribes would often append the epithet Ao, Ao, Ao (literally “Great, Great, Great,” meaning “Greatest”). Greeks and Greek-speaking Egyptians translated the Egyptian epithet as Trismegistos, also using it for ‘their’ Thoth—Hermes. (An excellent book about Hermes Trismegistos’ Egyptian background is Garth Fowden’s The Egyptian Hermes.)

Now back to Isis & Thoth

Thoth & Seshat, the Lady of Books

As noted earlier, the two are linked by Their wisdom. This wisdom, in turn, empowers Their magic. In fact, both work Their magic similarly—primarily by speaking. The words of Isis “come to pass without fail;” the words of Thoth are “Truth.” At Busiris, Isis is even called Djedet Weret, the Great Word, no doubt because of Her magical ability with words. Both are associated with the wisdom and magic of books. Thoth is the patron of scribes and the Divine author of all books. Isis and Thoth together are credited with invention of hieroglyphic and demotic writing in several of the Isis aretalogies. The Cairo calendar calls Isis “provider of the book” and the Oxyrhynchus aretalogy notes Her skill in writing. And, as She is with so many Goddesses, Isis is sometimes assimilated with Seshat, Goddess of Writing.

Both Isis and Thoth are Bird Deities. Thoth is so identified with His sacred bird, the ibis, that He never goes anywhere without His bird head. Some scholars think that his Egyptian name, Djehuty, may come from a very ancient form of the Egyptian word for ibis: djhw. If so, this would speak to the ancient nature of Thoth. Isis, of course, is associated with Her sacred raptor, the kite, and sometimes takes on birdform, through She never appears with just the head of a kite as Thoth does with the ibis.

Edward John Poynter: Feeding the Sacred Ibis in the Halls of Karnac

In the ancient world, wisdom could also be expressed in cleverness and even trickery. Both Isis and Thoth can be tricky. In the story of Thoth and Tefnut, Thoth calms the angry Goddess and lures Her back to Egypt by telling Her amusing stories all the while bringing Her closer and closer to home. In the story of the birth of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, Set, and Horus told by Plutarch, Thoth plays a game with the Moon and wins five extra days in the year during which Nuet can give birth to Her children. The myths of Isis have Her tricking Set time and again to ensure that Horus gets His throne.

One very interesting aspect of the relationship between Isis and Thoth is that Isis often comes to Thoth for help. In the tale of the “Sufferings of Isis,” Isis has been imprisoned by Set in a spinning house. Thoth finds Her and counsels Her (counseling is one of Thoth’s key functions) to escape with Horus to the papyrus swamps, which She does. During the course of the tale, Isis cures the village headwoman’s son of poisoning from seven magical scorpions. (The scorpions were traveling with Isis and got pissed when the headwoman wouldn’t allow the Goddess with Her seven rather scary scorpions in.) Later in the tale, Isis own son, Horus, is poisoned by a scorpion sent by Set and Isis stops the Boat of the Sun to receive magical aid from Thoth.

Isis (in center) of the Bembine Tablet; Thoth, (second from left) has Her back as always

One of the Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri (PGM IV. 94-153) has Isis running to “Ape Thoth, Ape Thoth, my father” in tears because of the adultery of Osiris and Nephthys. It is the beginning of a compulsive erotic spell that (apparently) Thoth is giving to Isis so that She can make Osiris return to Her. Another papyri text (PGM VIII. 1-63) invokes Hermes saying, “Whereas Isis, the greatest of all the gods, invoked you in every crisis, in every district, against gods and men and daimons, creatures of water and earth and held your favor, victory against gods and men and [among] all the creatures beneath the world, so also I, [name of the person invoking], invoke you.”

Thoth aids Isis & Horus in the papyrus swamps

I have often wondered why Isis, Great of Magic, Lady of Words of Power, Greatest of All the Gods, Who Knows Re by His Own Name, would need anyone else’s magical assistance. Perhaps the Thoth-Isis relationship goes back further than we have record of it. If Thoth were the elder Magician, it would make sense to call upon His experience. If Thoth can be considered Her father, calling on Dad for help makes sense, too. Or perhaps we’re seeing an ancient version of something still current among some today. For instance, some say that you shouldn’t do a divination for yourself; you’ll skew the results by being personally involved. Sometimes healers can have trouble healing themselves when they are perfectly wonderful when healing others. Some psychologists, those modern-day shamans, can be perfectly terrible at dealing with their own issues while being a great help to others.

Maybe that’s what’s going on in these tales. Sometimes you need a little distance to see clearly—or magically, in this case. It is always during a personal crisis that Isis calls upon Thoth. When Horus is poisoned, Isis is completely distraught and declares that “my heart is adrift.” In such a state, She is not Her magical self. She needs help. As we all do from time to time. In such times, is is well to have friends to call upon as Isis does in Her great friend Thoth.

I generally do not post anything political on this blog. But I must admit that my stomach has been churning with each newscast I listen to because it is inevitable that I will hear the name of my Goddess used as the name of a terrorist group.

So I applaud the action taken by the UK’s Pagan Federation to ask news outlets to spell out the initials of the I-S-I-S or I-S-I-L rather than saying “Isis.” In fact, I had been thinking of doing something similar. So thank you, Pagan Federation.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be getting much traction; the Huffington Post apparently thought it was kinda cute that “Pagans are really annoyed…”

Naturally, I did ask Her about it.

She figures She can outlast it.

And, of course, She can.

A modern Isis by Meghan Hetrick from the Classic Mythology series.

I missed this past weekend’s post as I was out celebrating the Solstice. I hope yours was bright and beautiful. Next weekend, back to more interesting subjects, I promise.

That’s Sirius at the bottom of the picture, framed by the trees. To day, I haven’t found a convenient calculator for discovering when She rises in your area. If you have, let me know. Probably the most accurate method is given here. But there’s also an interesting visualizer here.

She is hidden now.

At least here on the west coast of the US, the beautiful Star of Isis (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek, Sirius in Latin) cannot now be seen in the night sky. She won’t be visible until later in August. When She first reappears in your area depends on your latitude; the further south you are, the earlier She is visible. For me, Sirius will be above the horizon for about a minute before the light of the sun obscures the starlight on August 13-14. However, I probably won’t be able to see it (there are significant trees on my horizon) until some few days after that, when Sirius rises earlier and the sun rises later.

But now, at the end of June, Iset Sopdet, Isis the Star Goddess remains hidden.

For the ancient Egyptian, the time before the rising of Sopdet was the end of the year. Then, when Sopdet was observed rising before the Sun God Re in the dawn sky, the New Year arrived and the renewing Inundation, the Nile flood, would soon follow. Isis Sopdet was called The Fair Star of the Waters and its rising meant food for the people.

Few of us have an Inundation to await these days; not even Egyptians, for the river dams now control the waters. And perhaps our own calendrical New Year may hold more potency for us than a late summer New Year. So how can we honor Isis in the hot, dry months of summer?

A most beautiful Nuet; I do not know who’s art this is…can you identify it?

Perhaps we can look at another ancient Egyptian event tied to the rising of Sopdet: the celebration of the birthdays of Osiris, Set, Horus, Isis, and Nephthys. The Deities were said to be born on the five days at the end of the year that were “outside of time.” So at this time, before the rising of Sopdet, we may consider Isis to be within the womb of Her Divine Mother Nuet.

While I have no declared priestesshood for Nuet, She draws me. A lot. In fact, almost anytime I do spiritual work with Her, I am overawed by Her Eternity, Her Depth, Her Beauty, and I want to lose myself in Her.

Nuet is the mother of Isis. She is also 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 said to be in Her. She 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.

When Isis is in Her mother’s womb, She is also in the Otherworld 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. It may even be a particularly safe time to do so 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.

Nuet, Lady of Heaven and the Underworld

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 not long 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 sons, for that matter) can have issues. Now, with the light of summer and the help of the Goddesses available to us, might be a time to shed some light on those issues.

But even if we don’t have mom stresses, this can be a time to honor 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…on the next clear and starry night.

A stunning modern Nephthys by—appropriately—a pair of artist sisters, Katya and Lena Popovy

Older Egyptological books informed us that Nephthys was never worshipped alone and had no temples of Her own.

But that was only because they hadn’t found any yet.

Thankfully, we now know of several Nephthys temples, a smaller New Kingdom one within a Set temple precinct at Sepermeru, halfway between Heracleopolis and Oxyrhynchus (where that huge cache of texts, including magical texts and a praise of Isis was found), and a Ptolemaic and Roman-era temple at Komir, near Esna.

In Her Komir (Egy. Pr Myr)  temple, there is a lengthy hymn to Her that identifies Her with many other Goddesses, just as Isis is known by many names. She is “the Great, the Most Excellent, dwelling in the Beautiful Country—the abode of Her brother Osiris, Who comes to life again in Her, She Who renews for Him the body that once was, in Her name of Renewing of Life.” She is invoked as Meshkenet, the Birth Goddess, Hathor, Mistress of Drunkeness and Joy, Tefnut “in the moment of Her wrath,” and Seshet, Lady of Writing and “of the Entire Library.” She is Mut and Mafdet and Meret and Heket. She is the one Who “utters divine decrees, Great of Magic, who rules in the Mansion of Archivists.” She is Excellent of Kindness and unites Herself with Ma’et. She is the Mother of Amun and the Daughter of Re. She is Mighty, Formidable, Beautiful.

In a papyrus known as the Book of Hours—Ptolemaic and probably from Memphis—praises are recorded for a select group of Deities, including Nephthys. There She is called Kindly of Heart, Mistress of Women, the Valiant, the Strong-Armed, Who Begat Horus, Potent of Deeds, the Wise, the Acute of Counsel, and the Sad at Heart.

Nephthys, the Lady of the Temple

Interestingly, Her epithets in this papyrus do not parallel those of Isis, Who is In All that Comes Into Being at Her Command, Lady of What Exists, Sharp of Flame, Who Fills the Land with Her Governance, Who Pleases the Gods with What She Says, the Savior, Isis-Bast and Isis-Sakhmet, the Sister of the Great One, Who Comes at Call, and the Living North Wind.

As Twin Goddesses, Isis and Nephthys are often called “the two” this or that. You’ll find a list of those twosome names in a previous Isis and Nephthys post here. We often think of Isis as the Bright Twin and Nephthys as the Dark Twin. And it’s true. Sort of.

For instance, the Pyramid Texts instruct the deceased king to

Ascend and descend; descend with Nephthys, sink into darkness with the Night-barque. Ascend and descend; ascend with Isis, rise with the Day-barque. (Pyramid Text 222)

The Two Goddesses bear light and dark children 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.”

The Two Sisters protect the deceased

While Isis summons the Barque of the Day, Nephthys is “a possessor of life in the Night-barque.” As in Pyramid Text 217, Nephthys is paired with Set, a God of dark moods and dark reputation and associated with Upper Egypt, while Isis is paired with the benevolent God Osiris and connected to Lower Egypt. In the tomb of Tuthmosis III, Nephthys is said to be the Lady of the Bed of Life, by which was meant the embalming table. She is also Queen of the Embalmer’s Shop. Plutach preserves the tradition that Nephthys was associated with the desert and the fringes of the earth, while Isis is that part of the earth made fertile by the Nile.

But wait. As with most Things Egyptian, it’s not that simple. It’s not that black-and-white nor dark and light.

Isis is not just about rebirth and sunrise. She is also the Great Mooring Post, the one Who calls each of us to our deaths. She is the Goddess “ruling in the perfect blackness” of the Otherworld and She has Her own wrathful and fiery moods. Nephthys, on the other hand, is not only about descent in the Night-barque. She is right there with Isis at the sunrise rebirth. And She is a Goddess for Whom festivals of drunkenness and joy were celebrated. She is the Lady of Beer and while Isis, too, can be so called, I know of no festivals of Divine inebriation celebrated for Her, even given Her close connection to Hathor, the original Queen of Divine Drunkenness.

Nephthys in Her protective stance, a mirror of Isis

The Two Sisters are not so much opposites as complements to each other. It is interesting that Isis and Nephthys seem to have become attached to different aspects of Hathor in Their association with Her. Sad at Heart Nephthys became connected with Hathor, Lady of Joy and Divine Intoxication. Lady of Governance Isis became connected with Hathor the soft-eyed Cow Mother, the Mother of the God, and the Lady of Amentet. Yet, as always, these roles are fluid and the Two Sisters flow into one another, even as They express different aspects of Their Divinity.

So are Isis and Nephthys two different Goddesses or one Goddess? Yes. And no. And of course, I know that doesn’t answer the question. They are One and They are Two. In my personal work with the Two Sisters, I can’t say that Nephthys feels very much different than Isis, but that may be because I pay a lot of attention to Isis’ own darker aspects. But that admission inspires me to take some time this holiday weekend to honor Nephthys, Excellent of Kindness, and see what more She may wish me to know.

“Nephthys” by the Popovy sisters

Since we last met, I have become quite involved with Nephthys. It seems I shall have more to say about Her.

O, She is a Hidden One. In the Book of Caverns (an afterlife text), She is even described as the one Whose “head is hidden.” Yet She reveals Herself when you pay attention, when you search, when you ask.

Remember that lovely image of Nephthys by the two sister artists in last week’s post? Well, I found a couple more shots of it. Turns out the artwork is stranger and more unexpected than you would have thought having seen just the first photo.

Nephthys Herself is like that. She is stranger, more intriguing, and indeed more beautiful and powerful than you might, at first, think.

When we first read our Egyptian mythology, we see loyal Nephthys always in Her more dramatic sister’s shadow. She assists Isis with Osiris and Horus; She gets stuck with the troublesome, rowdy, and too-dry-to-be-fertile Set for a husband. As I mentioned last time, we used to think She didn’t even have Her own temples. But She did. And Her own priesthood, too.

The whole Nephthys sculpture…not what you expected? Me neither.

When in a dyad with Isis, Nephthys is decidedly the “darker” one. The Pyramid Texts advise the king to “descend with Nephthys” in the Barque of the Night, but arise with Isis in the Barque of the Day. Nephthys speaks and the pathways of the Otherworld are obscured. The one being reborn is to “throw off the tresses of Nephthys” like he throws off his mummy wrappings at his rebirth. (I refer you back to a post on the magic of hair in Egyptian funerary ritual.) Nephthys is called Keku, Darkness itself. She is the Lady of the West, She is “in the Cemetery,” She is Lady of the Duat (the Underworld), Mourner and, like Her mother Nuet, She is called “Coffin.” She shares a number of these epithets with Isis (Who can be quite as dark as Her sister when She so desires).

Some researchers see Her darknesses and consider Sad-at-Heart Nephthys to be Death Itself and specifically the first half of the death process—the dying part, the entering into death part that does indeed make us sad at heart. Plutarch records that one side of the sistrum was decorated with Isis’ face while the other had Nephthys’ face, symbolizing creation and death respectively. (On Isis and Osiris, section 63)

It is an interesting and useful identification—and you can certainly make a good case for it. Yet it doesn’t quite satisfy me. Not that Death isn’t a Big Thing. Death is possibly the Biggest Thing we face in our lives—outside of being born itself. But because it is so big, many of the Egyptian Deities are Death Deities. For instance, we could certainly consider Amentet to be Death Herself for Amentet means “The West,” that is, the Egyptian Land of the Dead and Amentet is often called the Beautiful West and welcomes the dead to Her realm.

A classic Nephthys

Death is among the concerns of many Deities and it is indeed an intimate concern of Nepththys. But we’re not there yet. Where else can we look for Nephthys?

One place some scholars have looked is Her connection with other Deities. One of the more interesting ones is Her surprisingly close connection with Seshat, the Lady of Books, the Mistress of Builders.

Yeah, I know. Not the first one that would come to mind, is it?

As early as the Pyramid Texts (the oldest ones date from 2400-2300 BCE), Nephthys is said to have “collected all your members for you in this Her name of Seshat, Lady of Builders.” (Pyramid Texts, Utterance 364) Her much-later hymn from Komir invokes Her as “Seshat the Great, Mistress of Humanity, the Mistress of Writing, the Lady of the Entire Library. To You, Who utters divine decrees, Great of Magic, Who rules in the Mansion of Archivists.” There may be Isis-Nephthys parallelism in this spell from the Book of the Dead in which the deceased is seated beside the Great of Magic (possibly Isis) while Seshat (possibly Nephthys) is seated before him or her: “Thou coolest thyself on the cedar tree beside the Great of Magic, while Seshat is seated before thee and Sia [Divine Perception] is the magical protection of thy body.” (Book of the Dead, Spell 169)

In Her name of Seshat, Lady of Builders

A Ptolemaic text from the Denderah temple says that Nephthys is “She who reckoneth the life-period, Lady of Years, Lady of Fate,” which Seshat does for the Pharaoh by a primitive method of marking notches on a palm rib. (This, of course, brings us back once again to Nephthys association with death.)

The Coffin Texts say, “O <name>, Horus has protected you, He has caused Nephthys to put you together, and She will put you together; She will mold you in Her name of Seshat, Mistress of Potters, for such is this great lady, a possessor of life in the Night-barque, Who raises up Horus, and She will bring to you.” (Coffin Texts, Spell 778) Texts at Edfu and Kom Ombo also record Seshat as a form of Nephthys. (However, it is well worth noting that Isis and Seshat were assimilated as well; which should remind us that, when it comes to Egyptian Deities and when it comes to spirituality, nothing is ever completely without contradiction or complication.)

The priesthoods of Nephthys and Seshat seem to have overlapped in places, too. Nephthys is married to Set and is the mother of Anubis with Osiris; interestingly, we have records of a priest of Seshat who served both Set and Anubis—and who was also in charge of “controlling the foreigners.” More on that in a minute.

The most complete discussion of Nephthys-Seshat (that’s available in English and accessible via your library, if your library is subscribed to Jstor) is in a paper by G.A. Wainwright from the 40s called “Seshat & the Pharaoh.”

A Seshat with a five-pointed star and two serpents forming Her headdress

He proposes that both Seshat and Nephthys were so old by the Old Kingdom that They were already starting to be forgotten and that Nephthys may have originally been rather Hathor-like, having been a Sky Goddess and a Love Goddess and a Victory Bringer (think Goddesses like Inanna and Ishtar, Who are involved in both love and war and are connected with the planet Venus). Plutarch, in the 2nd-century CE, noted that some called Nephthys Teleutê (“End”; more on that shortly), others Aphrodite, and some Nikê (“Victory”). (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, section 12) Nephthys got renewed life by being brought into the Isis-Osiris cycle, while Seshat came into the counting house of pharaoh and became connected with Thoth.

A Nephthys-Seshat connection that doesn’t seem to have been made by anyone I’ve read so far jumped out at me right away. So…speculation alert; here we go.

As Lady of Builders, one of Seshat’s main functions is to lay out the boundaries for new buildings, especially temples, via the ceremony of “stretching the cord,” which was a method of using a cord or rope to measure out straight foundations for a building. She is Goddess of architecture, math, and accounting, as well as being the Divine Scribe. Broadly, these are concerns of delineation, creating limits, setting boundaries, deciding what is in and what is out. Keep that in mind as we go on to the next part.

A statuette of Nephthys with Her name glyph showing the neb basket and the temple “blueprint”

Next, let’s look at Nephthys’ name. In Egyptian, it’s Nebet-Hwt, the Lady (Nebet) of the Temple (Hwt). You will also see it as Lady of the House. “House” is one translation of hwt, but that translation has, for most of us at least, connotations of the home or household—but Nephthys has little in Her of Hestia or Vesta. More usually, hwt means a mansion, temple, or even tomb. (Remember those similar meanings for Isis’ name?)

The hieroglyph for Nephthys’ name combines two other symbols:  a neb bowl placed on top of the hwt sign, which is a rectangular sign with a little square or rectangle in the lower right. The neb glyph represents a wickerwork basket and conveys concepts such as “lord” (neb) or “lady” (nebet with the feminine t ending) and “all” or “every.” My guess is that because neb meant “all” it was also used to refer to the ruler of all, the lord or lady. Gardiner (Egyptian Grammer) says the hwt glyph is an “enclosure seen in plan,” in other words, we’re sort of looking down at a blueprint for a building.

What better name glyph for the Lady of Builders than one that represents the blueprint of a building? The Lady of the House—the Goddess with a blueprint in Her name—is also the architecture Goddess Who delineates the foundations of all buildings—but especially the sacred houses of the Deities, the temples.

At Denderah, we even find an ibis-headed Nephthys, which only strengthens the connection between Nephthys and the Divine Scribe, this time with the Divine Male Scribe, Thoth (Sesh), rather than the Divine Female Scribe, Seshat.

The ibis-headed Nephthys from Denderah; I’m working on finding the hieroglyph translations…but you can see Her name above Her head

Now, let’s go back to Plutarch’s comments about what people in his time called Nephthys: Teleutê. In Greek, it means ending or completion. Plutarch says,”They give the name Nephthys to the ends of the earth and the regions fringing on mountains and bordering the sea. For this reason, they call Her Teleutê and say She cohabits with Typhon [Set].” (On Isis and Osiris, section 38) Later he says that Nephthys is what is “below the earth and invisible” in contrast with Isis Who “is above the earth and manifest.” (On Isis and Osiris, section 44) Both statements speak of Nephthy’s mystery and liminality. She is the border between here and there, then and now, in and out. And if She is that border, She also controls it. The priest of Seshat mentioned earlier was also “controller of the foreigners” and Nephthys’ husband Set is God of foreigners and foreign lands; thus the Goddess and God delineate or “draw the line” between us and The Other.

An Egyptian epithet of Nephthys calls Her Nebet-er-djer Em Em Netjeru, which Tamara Suida translates as “Lady to the Limit Under the Gods.” (Thank you, Tamara for your booklet on Nebt-het…and most especially those epithets.) There’s also a God called Neb-er-djer, which I’ve seen translated as Lord to/of the End or Lord to/of the Utmost, so we may also translate this Nephthys epithet as Lady of the End (Teluetê again!) or Lady to the Utmost Em Em (“among”) the Deities. Here again, Nephthys is the border, the line, the limit between “all of this” and whatever is beyond the End, the Limit, the Utmost.

The Nephthys again, just because

As you probably figured out, djer in Egyptian is “end” or “limit.” Faulkner (Middle Egyptian) thinks djeri may mean an enclosing wall, a djeru is indeed a boundary, and the djerty are the Two Kites, Isis and Nephthys. This last, the Djerty, may mean nothing other than being an interesting coincidence. On the other hand, perhaps we can think of the Two Djerty circling aloft, delineating a space in the heavens—one that may even be reflected on earth, for example, as They protectively encircle the body of Osiris as He awaits rebirth.

Now let us come back once more to the Lady of the Temple. What are temple walls but the boundary and the limit between sacred and profane? Thus it is Nephthys, the Lady of the Temple, Who founds and builds the temple walls, enclosing the sacred within, setting it aside as special, protected, and preserved.

Whew! I’m stopping now. I think I’ve must have worn us both out for today. Yet this is just part of what’s been going on with Nephthys and me lately. I have one more thing, of a more personal nature, that I’d like to share with you. But that will wait till next week. In the meantime, may the Lady of the Limit walk beside you and protect you whenever you find yourself at those strange boundaries between Here and There.

Amma, Nebet-hwt.

A contemporary Nephthys by artist Desiree Isphording. You may purchase this piece on etsy.

This time I’d like to share two things: a thought on how Isis and Nephthys may relate to each other in light of what we talked about last time and a meditation/vision I had with Her.

The vision has particularly struck me and hasn’t quite left since. It may or may not strike you; we’ll see. Even better, perhaps you will have your own vision with the Lady of the Limit.

First, you may remember the idea of Isis, the Goddess “Throne,” as the first Something that came into Being:

In the Coffin Texts, the Creator God Atum says He was “alone in lassitude” in the Nu, the Primordial Chaos, and describes it as a time “when my throne had not yet been put together that I might sit on it.” Here, the throne is a symbol of everything. With the coming together of the throne is the coming into being of all things. Thus, I believe we can say that the Goddess Throne is the Goddess of Existence. She is the seat not only of the king, but of all things. Without the Throne, nothing exists but the Primordial Chaos and the Divine consciousness.

The Goddess Throne is the Seat, the Abode, the Place; but importantly, She is The First Place, the First Holy Point of Being, the Sacred Something that First Came Into Existence from Nothing. The Goddess Throne is the One Who First Came Into Being and She is also the Divine Creatrix, the One Who Brings Into Being.

The full post is here.

The Lady of the Limit, Encircler, Surrounder

If Isis is the point in the center of the circle, so to speak, perhaps Nephthys is the holy wall that surrounds and encloses the point. Isis is the Beginning, Nephthys is the End or Limit. And because the space that Nephthys encloses is not just any space, but sacred space—temple space—it is specially set-aside and protected and may serve as a place of contact with the perfection of First Creation as well as with the Goddesses and Gods. And indeed, that is, in many ways, how the ancient Egyptians envisioned their temples.

A Visit to the Temple of Nephthys

The doors are nearly half-a-story tall, of dark wood, and plainer that I would have expected. As I stand before them, they swing outwards, pivoting smoothly on their hinges. I enter Her temple.

In contrast to the sandstone-red desert outside, inside is a living jungle. Palm trees, lush wetlands, lotus flowers blooming everywhere; they open their inner hearts to me as I pass by. The Great Above is a beautiful shade of twilight in the Temple of Nephthys. The temple ceiling—or is it the sky?—is deep indigo blue, as deep as the most precious lapis lazuli and flecked with diamond stars.

The twilight jungle inside Her temple

I am immediately aware of all the living creatures around me. An enormous crocodile wanders by, yawning, showing its teeth. A huge serpent moves, seeming to flow past, yet taking no notice of my presence. I am a bit disconcerted by all this dangerous life. But the voice of the Goddess says, “They are satisfied.” At the time, these words of the Goddess did not penetrate home to me. Later, they did. A little. They were hotep, “satisfied;” they felt no need to snack on me; I need not be afraid. And yet, I think that I have not yet quite unpacked that whole interaction. There is a mystery in the hotep-ness of the beasts that will come.

They live within Her temple. They exist in Her primordial perfection—for indeed, that is what Her temple encloses, encircles, surrounds: Primordial Perfection, Paradise—the Garden, the First Place, the Mound That First Arose from the Nun, the Ancient Chaos. It it still muddy and moist. And it is beautiful; as beautiful as you could ever want, as beautiful as you could ever imagine. It exists in dark warmth and deep blue twilight. Life burgeons within. Satisfied.

I know I should go to Her, find Her within Her temple. So I walk on and, of course, soon come to Her throne room, for She is indeed seated upon a throne.

Temple by full moonlight

I approach, kiss the ground before Her beautiful face. I can’t quite “see” Her fully. She seems to exist in an indigo cloud as well. I sense dark blue and black with glimmers of red and gold. She does not leave Her throne as we talk.

I ask Her about Her relationship with Isis and how it came to be. She tells me that, first of all, the Goddesses are all sisters and so, of course, She is the sister of Isis. She also tells me something that, as far as I know, has not been suggested by any scholar to date, so I won’t share it for now. More research is required. (I can sense Her laughing a little in my head as I type this.)

Now for this next bit, you have to know that I’ve been working on shapeshifting and having a certain amount of difficulty with it. And that by “shapeshifting” I mean taking on the astral or imaginal form of a sacred animal, in this case, the sacred kite of Isis and Nephthys, and then employing that form to explore.

Nephthys, in a very sisterly way I may add, says that She is a better shapeshifter than Isis. She shows me a particular, somewhat uncomfortable, posture. And almost instantly I am shapeshifted (all but my feet, which wouldn’t quite go there). I am Kite. Glossy brown feathers, sharp beak, weird side-of-the-head vision, light avian bones. Not wanting to leave the Goddess, I don’t fly away, but She invites me to come back for more lessons. And I will. I let my form, my kheper, melt back to my own.

That’s most of my visit to Her temple. I’ve been back several times since. I have been trying to sense the differences between Her and Isis. Overall, She feels a bit wilder, more shamanic, if I may use that term. But even in Her wildness, She does not seem erratic; it’s not that kind of wildness. She is wild in the way that Her overgrown temple is wild, She is close to the Primordial, but it’s a paradisiacal, encircled, and surrounded Primordial that She has created or delimited in order to interact with us.

The Two Sisters

Ha! Here’s a footnote to this…I just ran across a little piece of paper on which I had scribbled a note a while ago. It is another name for the Two Sisters. They are also called the Herti, the Two Pacified, Peaceful, or…wait for it…Satisfied Ones.

Please join me for a New Moon Meditation on GoddessAliveRadio this Saturday at 8pm eastern, 5 pm pacific. Here’s what we’ll be meditating on…

On this night of deepest darkness, we invoke Iset-Sopdet, Isis-Sothis, Isis the Lady of the Beautiful and Brilliant Star of the Goddess, Sirius. We open our hearts to Her blessing. Oh yes, we make bare our hearts before Isis the Goddess. We illuminate our hearts in Her diamond starlight. And on this dark and deep and star-filled night of new moon in Leo, She imparts to us some of Her strength and Her power and Her courage.

I’ll be talking with your hosts, Kimberly Moore and Tracey Paradiso, about Isis, of course…and who knows what else we’ll get into.

Here’s how you can tune in: Check out the promo here at the MotherHouse (love that; like the MotherShip).

And you can listen live at this link.

Or dial in from your phone: (347) 945-5979. I believe they take questions. Whether or not I’ll be able to answer them is another thing entirely.

Rising of Sirius Calculator UPDATE

A number of people have been looking for the Sirius Rising calculator…and it has been located by the wonderful Tatiana. Here are her instructions:

You need to go to Client Area http://www.culturediff.org/english/clientareatest1.php
and then, enter your email and password softtests.

That last bit—softtests—is the password ;)

May your celebration of the Rising of Sothis be brilliantly beautiful!

Please join me for a New Moon Meditation on GoddessAliveRadio this evening at 8pm eastern, 5 pm pacific. Here’s what we’ll be meditating on…

On this night of deepest darkness, we invoke Iset-Sopdet, Isis-Sothis, Isis the Lady of the Beautiful and Brilliant Star of the Goddess, Sirius. We open our hearts to Her blessing. Oh yes, we make bare our hearts before Isis the Goddess. We illuminate our hearts in Her diamond starlight. And on this dark and deep and star-filled night of new moon in Leo, She imparts to us some of Her strength and Her power and Her courage.

I’ll be talking with your hosts, Kimberly Moore and Tracey Paradiso, about Isis, of course…and who knows what else we’ll get into.

Here’s how you can tune in: Check out the promo here at the MotherHouse (love that; like the MotherShip).

And you can listen live at this link.

Or dial in from your phone: (347) 945-5979. I believe they take questions. Whether or not I’ll be able to answer them is another thing entirely.

Rising of Sirius Calculator UPDATE

A number of people have been looking for the Sirius Rising calculator…and it has been located by the wonderful Tatiana. Here are her instructions:

You need to go to Client Area http://www.culturediff.org/english/clientareatest1.php
and then, enter your email and password softtests.

That last bit—softtests—is the password ;)

May your celebration of the Rising of Sothis be brilliantly beautiful!

Sirius Rising Calculator

Many of you have been searching for information on the Star of Isis and when it rises in your area. So today’s post is a repeat with information on both.

Depending on what latitude you’re at, Sirius could be rising anytime from July to August in the Northern Hemisphere. Here’s link to a calculator:

Go to the Client Area at  http://www.culturediff.org/english/clientareatest1.php and then, enter your email and the password softtests.

Isis & Her Star

If you have ever seen the star of Isis, Sirius, through a telescope, you will never forget it. She scintillates. She glows. She shoots off rays of blue, green, pink, and white. Yes, really. Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, second in illumination only to the sun. No wonder we notice this brilliant and beautiful star. And from at least the time of the Pyramid Texts, if not before, Sirius is connected with Isis.

To locate Sirius, look to the left of Orion’s belt

In the sky, Sirius is to the lower left of the extremely easy-to-spot constellation of Orion, which has always looked to human beings like a human torso. Orion has been visualized as a Great Shepherd, Hunter, Warrior, or simply a Giant. And since every shepherd or hunter must have his hunting hound, Sirius itself, as well as the constellation in which it is the lead star, has been envisioned as a Great Dog. Interestingly, this is true in cultures throughout the world, from ancient Mesopotamia to China (where Sirius is a wolf) to Native North American tribes like the Blackfoot, who called it Dog-Face, and the Inuit, who called it the Moon Dog. (The Wikipedia article on Sirius seems to be pretty good and includes references.) Surely it was envisioning Orion as a shepherd, hunter, or warrior that led so many ancient peoples to see Sirius and its constellation as a companion dog.

Sirius cannot be seen during a period of about 70 days, from May to sometime after midsummer. At this time, Sirius and the sun are in conjunction so that the sun’s greater light blocks the visibility of Sirius. The heliacal rising of Sirius is when the star and sun are sufficiently separated so that—for the first time in 70 days—Sirius can be seen on the horizon just before dawn. In the northern hemisphere, this occurs in mid-to-late summer, the hottest part of the year. From Classical times, this period has been known as the “Dog Days” since the Dog Star of Sirius is once again visible. As those suffering through this year’s drought can attest, this hottest time of the year can be miserable. Homer knew it as a time of fevers and suffering. The Romans thought it made dogs act crazy. We think of it as a time when we’re panting like a dog because of the heat.

An Egyptian image of Sopdet Who is Isis

In contrast, ancient Egypt didn’t originally connect Sirius with dogs or wolves. It did, however, connect the star with something vitally important—the Inundation, the annual flooding that enabled farmers to grow the crops required for Egypt to feed itself. The heliacal rising of Sirius was the herald of the Nile flood and its rise marked the beginning of the New Year; thus Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian) was called the Fair Star of the Waters and the Opener of the Year. In Egypt’s earliest written records, the Pyramid Texts, Sopdet is Isis: “Your sister Isis comes to you [Osiris] rejoicing for love of you. You have placed her on your phallus and your seed issues into her, she being ready as Sopdet, and Hor Sopd has come forth from you as Horus who is in Sothis [the Hellenized version of the Egyptian Sopdet].” 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.

When Egypt came under Greek and then Roman rule, Isis got Her canine connection. In a later-period aretalogy (self-statement) from Kyme in modern Turkey, Isis says of Herself, “I am she that riseth in the Dog Star.”

Just as Orion the hunter is inseparable from his 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 soul. Sopdet was identifed as Isis (as in the text above) or as Her soul. 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.

Osiris on His back (note the position of the three belt stars) with Isis-Sopdet below (framed by the trees), upraising Him

Yet there is another interpretation of the movement of the stars through the sky that takes us to an even more important point in the Isis-Osiris myth. You see, when the Orion constellation first appears on the horizon, Osiris seems to be on his back, with Isis-Sopdet rising beneath Him. As the night passes and the constellation rises higher into the sky, He “stands up,” with Isis at His back all the while, pushing upward until the God is raised. Even more so than the myth of Isis following Osiris to pick up the pieces, we can see the rising of Orion and Sirius as Isis raising Osiris from the dead, the stellar model of the ritual of Raising the Djed Column, which the pharaoh, with the help of Isis, performed on earth.

An early Greek Kore, looking very Egyptian, complete with braided wig

Most modern scholars now accept the influence of ancient Egypt on ancient Greece. We are finally able to take ancient Greek writers a bit more seriously when they tell us that—well, yes—the fractious city-states of Greece were indeed impressed and influenced by the ancient-even-then, ever magical, amazingly unified, and seemingly peaceful land of Egypt.

Hey, nobody operates in a cultural vacuum and the ancients didn’t either.

Writing in the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus told his readers flatly that in the Egyptian language Demeter is Isis. In fact, he seems convinced that most of the names of the Greek Deities and many of the Greek religious rites came to the aboriginal Greeks, the Pelasgians, by way of Egypt. Among these rites are the famous Greek women’s rites of Demeter called Thesmophoria.

In his essay On Isis and Osiris, the Greek priest Plutarch remarks that “Among the Greeks also many things are done which are similar to the Egyptian ceremonies in the shrines of Isis, and they do them at about the same time.”

One of the Eleusinian priests, the Dadouchos

Diodorus Siculus, a Sicilian historian, records that Erechtheus, the mythical king of Athens, was himself Egyptian and it was he who instituted the Eleusinian rites after obtaining grain from Egypt during a Greek famine. He also said that the Eumolpids, the family that traditionally ran the Eleusinian Mysteries, were of Egyptian priestly stock.

How seriously should we take this? Could there be an Egyptian seed at the center of the defining Mysteries of ancient Greece, the Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Kore?

It is quite true that we have no incontrovertible proof of an Egyptian origin of the important Eleusinian Mysteries. We do, however, have interesting footprints to follow up. We know for certain that either Egyptians were at Eleusis or that Greeks brought Egyptian talismans to Eleusis for Egyptian scarabs and a symbol of Isis, which date to the ninth or eighth century BCE, have been discovered there. The eighth century is the time to which the Eleusinian rites are usually dated, though it is likely that their true origins go back further, even if the rites were not in the form they eventually took.

Greek Bee Goddess…in what looks like an Egyptian nemyss.

The correspondences between the Eleusinian myth and the Isis and Osiris myth as related in Plutarch are notable: the search for a missing Divine Beloved, the mournful aspect of the searching Goddess, the connection of the Beloved with the Underworld, and the (possible in the case of Eleusinian myth) birth of a Divine Child. Plutarch’s 2nd century CE rendition of the story is usually seen as Demetrian influence on Greco-Egyptian Isis and Her Greco-Roman Mysteries. But what if it was the other way around?

There are scholars who have traced magical formulae from Egypt to Greece, then followed them as they returned from Greece—changed—to be re-adopted in Egypt at a later period. Perhaps something like that happened with the Eleusinian/Isis-Osiris myth. While the basis of the myth—missing Beloved, searching, mourning, finding—may have its roots in Egypt, by the time it came back to Egypt, it had been changed. For instance, the “weeping at the well” incident in both the Demeterian myth and Plutarchian Isis myth is not found in any Egyptian rendition of the Isis and Osiris tale. It would indeed seem that this revised piece of the story was adopted from Demeter’s myth into that of Isis.

Egyptian death rites as Mysteries

While this is speculative, it’s not just me speculating. There are actual scholars thinking along these lines. One of them is the highly controversial Martin Bernal (author of Black Athena, which traces African origins for a great deal of Greek culture). The much less controversial Walter Burkert has something to say about eastern influence, too, in his The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Even scholars of a more classical bent admit the influence of Egypt on early Greece, especially in matters of religion.

Bernal’s work as a whole should not be dismissed just because he goes too far in some cases. In my opinion, overall he’s right: Egypt particularly, as well as other long-established near eastern nations, exerted a huge influence on early Greece in its formative stages. Once Greece became established, of course, it developed its unique culture. But again, no culture exists in a vacuum. We are all influenced by each other.

The entrance to the Eleusinian sanctuary today

Bernal spends a lot of time making etymological connections (etymology is the study of word origins) which are, at the very least, interesting. For instance, there are a number of Eleusinian terms that have no Indo-European cognates, yet can be explained in terms of ancient Egyptian or West Semitic. I won’t go into all the details because, if you’re not an etymologist, you might start to snore. One of these terms is the word “mysteries” itself. While it is usually explained as coming from an Indo-European root that refer to “closing the mouth” or staying silent, Bernal suggests that it might be better and more directly explained by an Egyptian root that refers to secrecy.

In this scenario, “mysteries” is derived from ancient Egyptian em sesheta (you can see the “m” and “s” sound there), meaning “in secret.” Sesheta, “secret,” was a word often used in relation to the Isis-Osiris rites, as well as other Egyptian rites.

Bernal also make connections between Greek words associated with the Mysteries and other Egyptian words, but frankly, I don’t have enough etymological background to judge. For instance, Bernal offers a connection between the Greek root of telete (initiation), which also means “completion” with the Egyptian djer, meaning “limit, end, or entire.” (You may recall this word from our discussion of Nephthys as the Lady of the Limit during the last few weeks.)

The Hierophant from the Thoth tarot deck; the Hierophant is the High Priest at Eleusis, and of the Eumolpid family

As I mentioned earlier, Diodorus Siculus recorded the tradition that the Eleusinian priestly family, the Eumolpids, were originally Egyptian. The ancient Greek scholar Apollodorus said that the Eumolpids were from Eithiopia. Apparently the Eumolpids themselves believed they had Egyptian origins, while others said they were from Thrace. Bernal suggests that the name Eumolpid, as well as the name of the second Eleusinian priestly family, the Keryxes, who served as Sacred Heralds, have  plausible Afroasiatic origins. In fact, he thinks that Greek keryx comes from Egyptian qa kheru, “high or loud of voice.” And that, if true, is extremely cool.

Of course, the big thing that may have come to the Greeks from Egypt is the idea of a blessed life after death. In the work of early Greek poets like Homer, the afterlife is a place of wan grey ghosts and no joy. Where did the idea of a joyful afterlife—for initiates, anyway—come from? Surely, surely it was influenced by Greece’s neighbors to the south, where they were well-versed in the ways of the afterlife and its joys, assuming one knew the proper passwords and pathways. It seems likely that this knowledge, which would have been sesheta until Books of the Dead became more widely available for everyone in Egypt, could have been turned into a Mystery cult at Eleusis, where a Goddess searched for a missing Beloved, eventually found Her, though She was forever changed having become the Queen of the Dead, and then bestowed the Mystery of a blessed life after death on Her initiates.

And we haven’t even gotten to the harmonies between Isis and Demeter, which are much more interesting than just Their “Mother Goddess” connection. Perhaps we’ll go there next time.

The monumental head of Isis-Sothis-Demeter from the Roman Emperor Hadian’s Villa, now in the Vatican Museum; I have seen Her in person and She is wow.

As all my hours are filled this weekend, I offer you this long-ago post on perfumes for the Goddess. At this time when so many of our gardens are filled with blossoms, it seems appropriate. 

The Goddesses and Gods of ancient Egypt (and probably everywhere else, too) were always associated with scent. But in Egypt particularly, you knew that a Deity had arrived when you smelled Her or His perfume in the temple air.

Egyptian women making perfume

The Egyptians apparently blended scents appropriate for their Deities; for instance, there is a record of an unguent called “Aroma of Horus.” Surely, there was an “Aroma of Isis,” too, but alas, we have no record of it to date. Today’s magical perfumers, on the other hand, almost always have a scent for Her. Isis’ association with scent remained part of Her manifestation even after Her worship spread beyond Egypt. In Apuleius’ account of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, his protagonist sees Isis in a vision and remarks that She breathed forth the “blessed fragrance of Arabia.”

My personal favorite scent for Isis is stargazer lily. With its deep pink, engorged-looking blossoms, stargazers are downright sexual in their showiness. Of course that is exactly what any flower is; sexual. As you may know, flowers are the sex organs of plants, which they display for all the world to see, marvel at, and enjoy. No wonder we have always given flowers as a love gift.

The stargazer lily; thus do we offer unto Isis that which is Hers

I like the blatant, vulva-pink sexual display of the stargazer to be sure. And the flower’s name reminds me of Isis’ own starry connections. But the main reason I associate them with Isis, and give them in offering to Her, is the scent. The stargazer’s soft, sweet perfume is deepened with a dark, funky musk that is almost animal-like in its pungency. The stargazer is my “jitterbug perfume.” (If you have not read Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume, oh please do!) The mixture of sweet and strange all wrapped up in an audacious package seems to me a perfect floral resumé for Isis. She offers us the sweet love of a mother one moment, then freaks us out completely with some weirdly magical happening the next. Like the flower, She is not shy; never shy. She will always tell you what you need to hear even when you don’t particularly want to hear it. Thus do I offer unto Isis that which is Hers: the beautiful stargazer lily.

The ancient Egyptians had no stargazers, alas. But they did associate a variety of other scents with Isis as well as with other Deities.

Expeditions to Punt for cinnamon, frankincense, myrrh, and other precious resins, were common throughout Egyptian history. The huge gardens attached to the temple complexes also supplied vast quantities of herbs and flowers for the creation of the gallons of scent, pounds of incense, and thousands of bouquets offered in Egyptian temples. Many temples, such as those at Edfu and Denderah, even had special laboratories for making perfume and incense. Perfume was, after all, one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.

Egyptian women enjoying perfume

Cleopatra VII, the queen who styled herself “the New Isis,” was reputed to use a different perfume for every part of her body and was credited with writing a book on the subject. But Cleo’s perfumes would not have been the clear, alcohol-based liquids we think of as perfume today. Egyptian perfumes were oil and fat-based; similar to our solid perfumes that liquefy as they are rubbed into the skin. A number of Egyptian perfumes were quite famous, the name brands of their day.

Lily was the dominant scent in Susinon, a perfume that seems to have been made exclusively by women. Perhaps this was because the lily was connected with female sensuality and spirituality and lily oil was a common treatment for “female complaints.” Lotus oil, from the sacred blue lotus (actually a blue water lily), was a favorite essential oil and associated with rebirth. It was the fragrance most favored by Egyptian priestesses. Other Egyptian perfumes include Magaleion, a complicated, difficult-to-make scent; Mendesian, known simply as “the Egyptian,” which was a spicy, resinous perfume; Metopion, a mixture of resins, herbs, sweet wine, and honey; and Sampsuchum, a marjoram-based scent sweetened with herbs and nasturtium flowers. And then there was Kyphi, both an incense and perfume.

Recipes for Kyphi perfume are engraved on the walls of the temple of Isis’ son, Horus, at Edfu and at Philae, Isis’ own great temple in Upper Egypt. Kyphi was used especially to welcome the Deities to Their temples. Wine-based, Kyphi also includes sweet flag, rushes, cinnamon, juniper, raisins, myrrh, frankincense, cardamom, and gum mastic. In his essay “On Isis and Osiris,” Plutarch reports 16 ingredients and says that Kyphi calms, soothes, and can lull to sleep. It is also said to sharpen the intuition and promote dreams.

A priestess friend and I once made a ridiculously huge batch of Kyphi from Plutarch’s recipe, which I am still burning to this day. It has a warm smell; like spicy raisin cookies. In fact, you could eat it without harm—and I believe the Egyptians did, medicinally. Luckily for me, it seems to get better with age.

A beautiful piece of stargazer lily art