M. Isidora Forrest's Blog, page 45

What does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis? Key 4: Worship

A worshipper giving worship and receiving energy that looks like flowers from the God

Some time ago, I was corresponding with a man in England on Dionysian subjects. (You may recall that, in addition to my devotion to Isis, I also have a passion for Lord D.) During the course of our conversation, I said something about worshipping Dionysos. He wrote me back to the effect of “you wouldn’t catch me worshipping anybody or anything!”

I suspected we had a definition problem—and that turned out to be so; because when I explained that what I meant by worship was an expression of love, appreciation, and honor toward the Divine, my Dionysian pal wrote back saying he’d decided that, in that case, he guessed worship was okay with him.

Always good advice

I think a lot of people share my friend’s ideas about worship. The word is too…um…”churchy.” For many, it has come to have a hollow sound and worse yet, a hollow feeling. Some associate it with merely going through the motions—attending church, sitting in rows, singing ill-harmonized hymns, and eventually passing the collection plate. Others may associate worship with bowing before some cold and distant deity. (I am inevitably reminded, and perhaps you are, too, of Monty Python’s toadying minister: “Oh God, You are so gosh-darned BIG…”) Such prostration appears to them to have no respect for the sacred possibilities of either humankind or Nature and leaves an unpleasant taste in their mouths.

Kissing the ground before Her beautiful face; prostration as reverence

Yet worship is one of the most significant ways we can relate to the Goddess. It is certainly an appropriate way for a priestess or priest of Isis to relate to Her.

True worship has to do with reverence and appreciation for the Divine, as well as for that which is sacred in others, in ourselves, and in the manifested world. Worship is a meaningful way of expressing our feelings and inner selves to the Divine. It is a way of speaking about and participating in that which we find sacred. Worship requires that participation not by the mere rote actions of our bodies, but by the focus of our minds, the openness of our hearts, and the willingness of our souls and spirits.

Two worshippers adore the God

When we sense Isis’ heartbeat and understand that She senses ours, we are participating in worship. When we finally, actually know, in our bones, in our guts, in our hearts that She really is there, the door to worship is flung wide. The temple of our soul is opened, and She indwells. When we taste Her truth upon our tongues, and are grateful, grateful, grateful for that taste, then we worship. When Her Mystery allures and deepens us rather than merely baffling, that is worship. When we know Her in the light in our lover’s eyes, a blade of grass, a spider’s dance, we are worshipping.

We may do this intuitively or, using the priest/essly art of ritual, we may speak to Isis, sing to Her, listen to Her, make offerings to Her, express our gratitude to Her, commune with Her in a ritual context. When we do this consciously and with full intent to expand our souls and spirits, it is then that we truly worship. As we come to know Isis through our acts of devotion, we come to love Her and to understand that She has always loved us.

The fiery heart of true worship

And love…love is the true essence of the worship a priestess or priest of Isis gives to her or his Goddess.

Next time: The last installment of this series, Key 5: Spiritual development

And speaking of love, and a little late for Valentine’s Day, here are some thoughts on Isis as a Goddess of Love.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Definition of worship, Dionysos, Goddess, Goddess Isis, Goddess worship, Isis, Isis as a Love Goddess, Isis Magic, Isis Magic book, Isis worship today, Priestess and Priest of Isis, priestess of Isis, The meaning of Priest/esshood today, what worship means, why worship and how, why worship Isis, worship is love

The Lotus Shrine in Winter

Unlike most of the country, we had our first actual snow here in Portland last weekend. Thought you might like to see the incongruous-ness of an Egyptian temple in the snow! Ah, she is lovely, is she not?

The Shrine of the Lotuses, enjoying playing in the snow

Filed under: Goddess Isis

What does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis? The Art of Ritual

The art of ritual

I believe that the priestess or priest of Isis should develop some facility with ritual. Of course, this is more important if we are involved in ceremony with other people, less important if we work solitary. But even for solitaries, having some ritual skill benefits our spiritual work by making it more graceful. This, in turn, enables us to be less self-conscious and better able to focus on developing our relationship with Isis.

Ritual is how we human beings do religion. Throughout the world—almost without exception—the practice of religion involves the practice of ritual. Even quiet, private prayer or meditation is normally ritualized in some way. Whether by folding our hands, sitting in a yoga asana, counting a rosary, or simply lighting a candle, some sort of ritual pattern is usually incorporated in spiritual activity.

Ritual is a communicative art that goes beyond what we are able to express by speech alone, dance alone, music alone, or intellectual effort alone. Because ritual can combine all these things—and energize them with the power of symbolism—ritual enables us to communicate with the other people in the ritual and with the Divine in ways beyond our normal capacity. Some things, particularly the ineffable, sacred things we are trying to express in a relationship with Isis, can only be expressed through ritual.

The Christian ritual of the eucharist

Ritual takes us beyond the body-mind/soul-spirit split. It gives us a holistic way to communicate with and relate to Isis. It is a primary tool of the priestess or priest of Isis for worship and spiritual growth. Working to gain ritual proficiency is particularly appropriate for an Isis priestess or priest because of the strength of the ritual tradition in Egypt and because Isis is a Goddess of Sacred Magic, an art that is almost always practiced through ritual. What’s more, I can tell you from my experience with other priestesses and priests of Isis, it seems that the Goddess often gifts Her priestesses and priests with rituals that they are then asked to share.

Just like every Pagan ritual you’ve ever been to…right? (Bouguereau, The Youth of Bacchus, 1884)

What ritual does

Ritual is completely natural to human beings. It is an essential, even primal, human activity. Indeed, some of the earliest evidence from our cave-dwelling ancestors is evidence of ritual.

There are biologically based rituals in which we engage—for example, sexual behaviors. We also take part in social ritual. We may shake hands when we meet each other; we mark life passages such as marriage or death with ceremony. These types of rituals give us ways to interact with each other and to understand each other, especially at times when words fail, such as funerals.

And then there is sacred ritual. Sacred ritual not only helps us recognize changes in our lives, it helps us create changes and—this is important for the priestess or priest of Isis—provides us with a means to worship our Goddess.

Ritual is not just a set of actions we move through by rote. Ritual is powerful because it deeply affects us. It affects us psychologically and it affects us physiologically, both of which, in turn, feed back into our spiritual selves.

A solitary ritual (Waterhouse, The Magic Circle, 1886)

You may be familiar with the work of psychologist and human potential researcher Jean Houston. She has done extensive work on what she calls “psychophysical” exercises. They include such things as visualization, working with the kinesthetic body (some ritualists might call this the astral body), learning through conversation with a personified aspect of the self, and personification of an object to discover its “essence.”

Many of us would recognize these things as elements of at least some types of ritual. From her studies, Houston concludes that these exercises give people the ability to learn more quickly, to think on multiple tracks at once, and to tune into the symbolic and mythic parts of themselves at will. This alone would make ritual worthwhile, but there’s more.

In therapy, Houston says these ritual-type exercises work much better for patients than talking therapies alone because talking therapies involve only one part of the person’s being while ritual involves the whole person.

I strongly agree that the holistic nature of ritual is deeply valuable for human beings. By addressing the whole person, physical and spiritual, ritual can move us toward greater wholeness. Wholeness is one of the keys to spiritual growth and spiritual growth is one of the keys of priest/esshood, a key we’ll be addressing later.

Invocation and offering

Some of the basic components of ritual include chanting, singing, drumming, spoken invocation, moving in circles, dancing, meditation, and repeated patterns. Researchers have studied the effect of these things on the brain and the human nervous system and there seem to be two main things that these ritual components do in the human system: they trigger our emotions and they decrease the distance between us and others—including the Divine. These repeated patterns affect the brain’s neurological ability to define the limits of the self. They break down the walls we put up between ourselves and others—including those we erect between ourselves and the Goddess. Thus ritual helps us find self transcendence. By becoming less focused on ourselves, we can better open ourselves to the experience of Isis.

On the emotional side, strong rhythm or repetition (of a mantra, for example) has been shown to produce positive limbic discharge in the brain (the limbic system is part of the brain that deals with emotion among other things), which results in intensely pleasurable feelings. If these feelings are prolonged, a part of the brain called the amygdala gets involved; the amygdala is connected with the fear-arousal system. Some researchers think that the combination of pleasure and a slight elevation in the fear-arousal system could produce the feeling of religious awe that many of us experience. 

Ritual has also been proven to lower blood pressure, decrease heart rate, lower rates of respiration, reduce levels of the hormone cortisol (the “stress hormone”), and and create positive changes in immune system function. It seems that ritual is even good for our health.

See what the artists say about this very cool Newsweek cover here: http://tinyurl.com/nys8fp8

Built for spiritual experience

None of this means that there is no magic in ritual. Far from it. What it means is that our physical bodies are built this way so that we are able to participate in the magic of ritual and to better communicate with the Divine; in our case, with Isis.

Our bodies are not the mere cause of the effect; they are its result. As the ancient Hermeticists would say: As Above, So Below. We are a microcosm reflecting the way the macrocosm works. Our bodies do not make us experience the spiritual. They enable us to experience the spiritual. We have evolved this way because the spiritual is real, because it is valuable, and because we human beings need to be able to experience it.

The magic of ritual profoundly affects us. Whether it’s a scripted group rite, a drumming circle, or an unscripted intuitive rite, ritual is one of our most powerful tools for human growth, spiritual expression, and Divine communion and the priestess or priest of Isis should indeed have some facility with this important tool.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Aspects of Isis, body/mind, Egyptian Temples, Goddess, Goddess Isis, Goddess worship, Isis, Isis Magic, Isis Rituals, Isis worship today, Lady of Magic, priest of Isis, priestess of Isis, The art of ritual, The meaning of Priest/esshood today, The value of ritual, why worship and how

What does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis? A responsibility to gain knowledge & experience

The Temple of Isis, a temple of learning; photo by Ivan Marcialis, Quartucciu, Italy; used under Wiki Creative Commons usage guidelines

There is a saying in the western esoteric initiatory tradition that seems particularly apt for the priestess or priest of Isis:  “I desire to know in order that I may serve.” In means that we are not entering into our priest/esshood simply because we’re greedy for secrets or status. It means that we seek knowledge so that we can better serve the Goddess, our communities, and our world.

Since priest/essly service is essentially about giving, improving our own knowledge base and experience also means we will have something valuable to give.

Knowledge

Of course, priestesses and priests have always been expected to have some special knowledge, for example, knowing how to properly conduct the rites required to create and maintain a relationship with Isis. But priest/essly devotion to learning goes beyond that, too. The Greek philosopher, Porphyry, in his work On Abstinence, paraphrases the Stoic philosopher Chaeremon’s observations on the Egyptian priesthood:

“But they divided the night into the observation of the celestial bodies, and sometimes devoted a part of it to offices of purification; and they distributed the day into the worship of the Gods, according to which they celebrated them with hymns thrice or four times, viz. in the morning and evening, when the sun is at his meridian altitude, and when he is declining to the west. The rest of their time they devoted to arithmetical and geometrical speculations, always labouring to effect something, and to make some new discovery, and, in short, continually exercising their skill. In winter nights also they were occupied in the same employments, being vigilantly engaged in literary pursuits…” (Porphyry, On Abstinence, book 4, section 8)

Seshat, Goddess of Wisdom, Knowledge, and Writing, shown with Her stylus

Thus, being a priestess or priest means not only knowing the proper rites, but also pursuing knowledge of all kinds, striving always to “make some new discovery.” There can be no doubt that teaching went on in the Egyptian temples. Of course, this was knowledge only for a very select group of people. Yet it informed the work of the priesthood so that they could be more effective in their service on behalf of Egypt and her people as a whole.

The Mysteries, such as the Mysteries of Isis or the Mysteries of Eleusis, were open to a wider group of people—as long as you could afford the travel and other expenses. Here, too, the priestesses and priests who officiated were expected to have special knowledge and understanding. Furthermore, they were expected to share that information with the initiates.

It was, in part, for this special knowledge that one undertook the Mystery rites. Initiates might expect the revelation of certain secrets regarding the Deities of the Mysteries. They might learn about new aspects of the Deities or be taught secrets of myth or ritual. Many would have been given important information about how to ensure a happy afterlife, as were Orphic initiates who were instructed on the proper spring from which to drink on their journey toward rebirth. In fact, it was quite commonly expected that the priests and priestesses of the Mysteries led their clients to knowledge.

Young scribes learning their trade

You may recall that in Apuleius’ tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, he was shown certain books (seemingly in hieroglyphs) that contained the instructions for his preparations for initiation. In fact, one of Isis’ late epithets is Lady of the Book. The aretalogy from Oxyrhynchus says that She was called ; and Isis has always been a Lady of Wisdom. Isis is a Goddess Who encourages learning and wisdom in Her devotees, and especially in Her priestesses and priests.

Alas, modern Isiacs have no great temples in which to study or established Mysteries of our Goddess in which to serve.

As is our path in general, our course of study in Her honor must be more individualized. As a priestess or priest of Isis, there are things we should know. As far as it is possible, we should know the history of Her worship, how people honored Her in the past, what they thought and said about Her. That is one of the reasons I wrote Isis Magic. To be Her priestess, I needed to know these things; and then, I needed to pass them on. That was one of Her tasks for me. Acquiring that knowledge formed a large part of my personal training. Even so, there is much Isis-related scholarship out there in the world and I still find out new things about Her and how people have related to Her throughout history. I try to share those new discoveries here on Isiopolis.

As a priestess or priest of Isis, you will likely be in a position to influence others. If you are teaching, you will need to know something in order to be able to teach it. As your students learn, you will have to continue learning so that you may always have something new to teach them. If we don’t keep on learning, we become dry vessels—not only for any thirsty students we may have the privilege to teach, but for ourselves as well. To keep our intellectual and spiritual juices flowing, we must keep learning.

And Experience

May you experience Her holy wings

But “book learnin” is just one of the priest/essly ways of knowing. The other is experience. This means we must develop our personal relationship with Isis; we must experience Her. This is a subtle kind of learning. It is different for each individual. And yet, there are commonalities. It is these subtle commonalities that let us know we’re connecting with Isis specifically.

This is even trickier when it comes to Isis because She is a Great Goddess. She has many, many aspects and different priestesses and priests may connect with different aspects. Still, there is a feeling commonality. I’m pretty sure that if you connected with Isis as Great Mother and I connected with Her as Great of Magic—and we could share each other’s feelings—as Her priestesses, we would know that we were both experiencing Isis.

In the grand scheme of explaining things, that doesn’t help much, does it? Yet that’s what experience does. As a priestess or priest of Isis, you should be able to tell. On the other hand, we can’t let our experiential knowledge be used to deny someone else’s experience, even if we don’t agree with it, or to boost our own egos because we have the “right” answer. Our experience should be used to guide, and only with the permission of the guided (as in a teaching relationship).

A priest purifying

The Pagan blogosphere has recently been lit up with a good deal of theological soul-searching about the nature of the Divine and our relationship to the Divine. It is very exciting that we have grown to the extent that it is time to have these discussions; I just wish we could have them without so many arguments.

Our experiences as priestesses and priests of Isis will lead us to find our own answers to these important questions. Our experiences can add value to the ongoing discussion about the nature of the Divine and our relationship with It. Our experiences may be used to guide others as they begin their own paths and until they find their own answers. But we must use our experiences wisely. Developing that wisdom is part of our Work as priestesses and priests of Isis.

Next time, Key 3: The Art of Ritual
Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Ancient Egypt, Aspects of Isis, Deities, Egypt, Egyptian Temples, Goddess, Goddess Isis, Isis, Isis Magic, Isis Rituals, Isis worship today, spiritual experience, spiritual knowledge, The meaning of Priest/esshood today, What does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis

What does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis?

The pharaoh, as High Priest, makes offering to Isis

In the earlier days of the NeoPagan community, there was often a general assumption that “we are all priestesses or priests of the Deities.” It was meant to combat “high priestess disease,” assert our equality before the Divine, and empower the individual.

All worthy goals, indeed.

While I have always been sympathetic to that position, I don’t fully agree with it. I believe we all have the potential to be priestesses or priests. I believe we can all have a deeply meaningful personal relationship with the Deity or Deities of our choice. But being a priestess or priest is a particular kind of relationship; a particularly worthwhile one if you find yourself attracted to Isis.

If you are already a priestess or priest of a particular Deity or in a particular tradition, you have, no doubt, done some thinking on this topic. If you are not, then you may decide, sometime in the future, that you’d like to have a deeper, more formal relationship with Isis as Her priestess or priest.

But what does it mean to be a priestess or priest of Isis? The glib answer is that it means different things to different people. The more difficult, and truer, answer is that we each have to figure out for ourselves what it means to us.

So how do we do that?

A priestess shakes the sistrum to please the Goddess

A good place to start is with what it has meant to be a priestess or priest. So over the next few posts, we’ll talk about some of the things we know about ancient priestesses and priests of Isis and then some of the ways we can discover for ourselves what being a priestess or priest of Isis may mean to us today.

Key #1: Serving the Goddess

Service has been part of a priestess or priest’s job description as far back as we know. In one sense “one who serves” is the very definition of a priestess or priest; it is certainly true of the word “minister.” To minister is to serve. Generally, that service goes two ways: to the Divine and to the greater circle of worshippers.

For people in mainstream religions, which have very prescribed ways to serve, things are—in at least this way—easier. For example, if you are a Catholic priest (you can’t be a Catholic priestess), you would have a very clear idea of what it meant in your particular religion to “serve God.” You would have gone through specific training meant to teach you precisely this.

A priest of Isis carries a sacred vessel in veiled hands

That was true in ancient temples of Isis. Besides the upkeep and maintenance of the temple complex, there are precise ritual acts that had to be performed every day. Opening the shrine of the sacred image of Isis each morning and “putting Her to bed” each night. I imagined this daily opening of the shrine in the introduction to Offering to Isis. And of course, there were offerings to be made, festivals to be celebrated, and funerals to conduct. A priestess of Isis might play the role of the Goddess in certain rituals. Both priestesses and priests would learn the words to the sacred songs and invocations and how to perform them properly in the rites. Some served as sacred musicians. Interestingly, we know of a priestess named Isis (Iset) who was the God’s Wife (High Priestess) of Amun in the 20th dynasty. She was a royal princess and served as priestess for 25 years.

But this type of formal structure of service is not available to us today. In a non-mainstream, more informal type of spirituality—such as those of the modern pagan-polytheist-wiccan-insert-your-identifier-of-choice-here communties—things are less clear. It means that this path, if truly and deeply followed, is more difficult than those of mainstream religions because we have to blaze our own trail. It also requires a significant degree of perseverance and self-honesty to be able to make the important decisions that we must make when creating a personal path.

A priestess carries a sacred vessel in veiled hands

To take this alternative path, we need perseverance because we will not always know which branch of the path to take…or it will be dark…or it will even be boring. We need self-honesty because we often walk this path alone. And walking alone, with no one to consult, we can sometimes take a wrong turn. We can delude ourselves into not seeing things about ourselves that we should be seeing.

On the other hand, this path can be extremely rewarding precisely because it is difficult. Whereas in mainstream religions there tend to be established answers to the Great Questions, we must find our own answers—fresh and new every time. What happens after death? What does it mean to serve Isis? Why is there evil in the world? What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of humanity? What is the nature of the Divine?

All these are important questions that spiritual people have tried to answer from the beginning of time, and for which we still seek answers today. It is worth our time, as lovers of Isis, to seek our own answers to these questions.

Roman priestesses and priests of Isis in sacred procession

Some will define service as “doing Goddess’ will on earth.” That’s a valuable insight; but how do you know if you’re doing Her will? Is it as simple as listening to your inner voice? Perhaps. Yet how do you know you’re hearing correctly and not coloring it with your own personal psychology or desires? I can tell you for a fact, it will ALWAYS be colored by your own personal psychology and desires. Which brings us back to that self-honesty thing.

How do you get around yourself? Discovering how to do that is part of the work a priestess or priest of Isis. For some, it may be the key part. So I’m going to come back and talk about this some more when I come to the topic of personal spiritual development in a later post. For now, back to service.

What about the other kind of service—service to the greater circle of worshippers?

A modern priestess of Isis enters the temple at Isis Oasis

You’ll find a wide variety of expressions of service in this area. Some priestesses are always available to help those in their circle, whether with spiritual or personal problems. Some take the responsibility of organizing a circle and keeping it running as their service, but don’t expect to be called on the solve personal problems. Some represent their tradition to the greater Pagan community by organizing large festivals. Some organize or moderate blog communities. Some teach. Some don’t.

Again, it is a personal decision as to how a priestess or priest of Isis intends to serve. Yet I do think that a priestess or priest of Isis is obligated to do some service of this type. By serving other people in these ways, we acknowledge the importance, the value, of other people. By serving people, we integrate this knowledge in a deep, intimate, and personal way. (I hear some of you moaning right now. People are SO difficult. Yes. Yes, they are. And complicated. You bet they are. But they are also very worth your time and care. So very, very worth it.)

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“A Votary of Isis” by Edwin Long

The same is true of service to others who are not a part of your circle; humanity as a whole. Many religions—most religions, actually—place value on helping those in need. Feeding the hungry. Clothing the cold. Sheltering those without shelter. This sort of service is appropriate for the priestess or priest of Isis as well. Caring in this way makes us aware of other people and their needs and problems. It encourages our compassion and discourages our ego-centeredness. At the very least a priestess or priest of Isis should give money to charity—anonymously, if possible. Do other good deeds. Help people. And be aware of doing whatever it is you are doing in the spirit of service—with an open, compassionate heart. In this, we do our best to imitate the compassion of Isis Herself when She healed the child of the woman who refused Her shelter or withdrew the spear from Set even as He threatened Her own son, Horus.

Ultimately, serving others makes this world a better place one person at a time. Spread kindness and you will serve Isis.

Next Time, Key #2: A Responsibility to Gain Knowledge & Experience
Filed under: Goddess Isis

Nubian Isis

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“The Ethiopians, Africans, and Egyptians know Me by My true name of Queen Isis.”

In Apuleius’ story about Lucius’ initiation into the Mysteries of Isis, the Goddess Herself appears in answer to his desperate prayers and gives an aretalogy describing Her powers and names. In it, She says,

“But the Ethiopians who are illuminated by the first rays of the Sun God as He is born every day, together with the Africans and the Egyptians who excel through having the original doctrine, honor Me with My distinctive rites and give Me My true name of Queen Isis.” (Apuleius, Metamorphoses Book XI, 5; capitalization mine)

By Apuleius’ time, Isis was deeply into Her Myrionymous phase as Lady of the Ten Thousand Names. Yet even then, he knows that the “Ethiopians, Africans, and Egyptians” are the ones who best know Her proper rites and Her true name of Isis. Isis has a deep and abiding relationship with those who know Her in this ancient and authentic way.

So for today’s post, I’d like to tell you something about Isis as She was known in the lands to the south of ancient Egypt, often known as Nubia. The name Nubia comes from an Egyptian term for “gold,” nub. Thus Nubia is the Gold Land. Nubia is (roughly) the ancient kingdom of Kush, with its famous capital city of Meroe, while Ethiopia, to the south and east of Nubia, may be what the Egyptians referred to as the Land of Punt. Today, Nubia is part of southern Egypt and Sudan and some of the people there still refer to themselves as Nubians. You may also recall that in the last days of Philae, it was Nubian peoples such as the Blemmyes and Nobade who continued Isis’ worship at Philae even after the temple was officially closed. In Classical Greece, Kush was called Ethiopia, so in many texts any distinction between Nubians and Ethiopians is unclear. In this post, I’ll use Nubia and Nubian as general terms for the land and peoples to the immediate south of ancient Egypt.

The coffin lid of 25th dynasty Theban Priest, Djeddjehutyiuefankh

Ancient Egypt and Nubia have a complex and interweaving history, at various times dominating and influencing each other. (Egypt’s 25th dynasty was a Nubian one.) During all this co-mingling, some Egyptian Deities came to Nubia, Isis among them. Probably established in Nubia around 1950 BCE (when Egypt was dominant and Nubian royalty adopted much Egyptian custom), Isis has long been a Nubian Goddess.

Isis was known throughout Nubia as The Great Lady of Nubia. In the British Museum, there is an Egyptian healing text in which Isis specifically says of Herself, “I am the Nubian and I have descended from heaven.” The formula is for the cure of poisoning. In the formula, Nubian Isis is the first in a long list of Deities Who come to bring healing to the sufferer. As the Nubian Who descends from heaven, She comes bringing with Her the rich blackness of the heavens, of fertility, and of healing magic. Lana Troy, in Patterns of Queenship in Ancient Egyptian Myth & History, suggests that Isis’ Nubian “blackness” counteracts the painful “redness” of the poison.

Diodorus Siculus preserves a Nubian tradition that the Egyptians were actually colonists sent out by Nubia (he says Ethiopia) under the leadership of Osiris. According to this tradition, what was then Egypt was, at the beginning of the world, only sea. It was the silt flowing north down the Nile that formed the land of Egypt. The tradition also says that Egyptian customs and writing are Nubian as well. (Diodorus Siculus, Book 3, section 3) Indeed, archeological investigations reveal this area as one of the world’s oldest civilizations, alongside Mesopotamia and Egypt. In Meroe, they used both hieroglyphs and Meroitic writing, which has been partially decoded.

The Kandake, Queen Amanitore

We find evidence of Isis throughout Nubia, but most strongly in the great city of Meroe and in Wad ben Naqa. Both are cities on the Nile; Wad ben Naqa is about 70 kilometers upstream from Meroe. We also find a strong presence of Nubians at Isis’ great temple at Philae, which became a place of pilgrimage for Nubians during the 25th dynasty when Nubians ruled in Egypt.

From Wad ben Naqa we have a pedestal of King Natakamani and Queen Amanitore that has both Meroitic script and hieroglyphs and which has helped enable decipherment of Merotic so far. The inscription addresses Isis:

“Stay, stay on the great throne, Isis, Mistress of the Underworld, like the living sun-disk in the horizon, in that You let your son Natakamani remain on his throne. Stay, stay on the great throne, Isis, Mistress of the Underworld, as does the moon that grows like an egg in traversing heaven. May it give life to Your daughter, Amanitore.” (My capitalization again.)

It was said that Nubian kings ruled with the Queen Mother, called the Kandake, so Amanitore may have been Natakamani’s mother rather than his wife.

Isis was important especially in Nubian funerary customs and in the kingship. Kings are frequently said to be the Son of Isis or Beloved of Isis. Some inscriptions indicate that it was Isis Who watched over the post mortum transformations of the deceased and eventually gave the Ka (Kha in Meroitic) permission to leave the tomb and go to the Otherworld. Isis was paired with Osiris in relation to funerary customs, in which Osiris served an Anubis-like function as Otherworld guide.

A Nubian aegis of Isis, from about 300 BCE

This inscription on a statue now in the Berlin Museum comes from the Nubian city of Napata and gives us some ideas about the powers of Nubian Isis. (Please note that I have removed the parentheses that the translator inserted to indicate implied words to make it easier to read):

“Give noble renewal, O Isis, to the new vivification. Give renewal, give its erection. Reflect on the patron [that is, the person who dedicated the statue] and guide good prosperity on the good path indeed. Desire patron [I presume this means the patron desires] the bestowal of a rebirth to resound in Henel. Goodness comes into being as an Object of Respect for the patron. Give existence to the new vivification. Go now and give it leave. Fashion wonderment and order, O Isis, you will commence to make wonderment in abundance.  The good Supporter even goes to wipe out much non-existence.  The hero to behold all. Act now to bear approbation.You give guidance and nourishment. This is done by transmigration; give its existence. The disciple indeed to reflect on Isis the good, she  puts on you guidance.

Isis leads. She commences to arrange your transmigration. Arrange now the gifts. The patron of Isis is to be exalted, like new. Spread the bequeathal of the hero in a pile. Rise to arrange and guide us to honor, O Isis. Much praise goes forth, Isis is to also bring authorization for the new vivification. The new vivification to give birth to the Kha anew in truth and dignity. The Patron has permission to realize it. Isis is to make it happen…”

In addition to worshipping the Goddess in their own land, Nubians travelled to Philae to honor Isis at Her great temple there as well. We know them from the “adoration graffiti” or proskynema they left at the temple and the surrounding area. Philae is at what was the borderland between Egypt and Nubia. Interestingly, the temple faces south, towards Nubia, which is not the usual temple orientation in Egypt. Excavations have found Nubian-like pottery at Philae, predating the temple there. The earliest certain evidence of Nubians at Philae is from about 690 BCE, during the 25th dynasty.

The Nubians who visited Philae were priests and “agents” of Isis and seemed to have timed their visits to coincide with the Festival of Osiris during Khoiak, which marked His death and renewal as well as the recession of the Nile flood and the time of sowing crops, and the Festival of Entry. They often brought donations of gold and other valuables for the temple there. One interesting inscription says that the envoy was to give ten talents of gold to the Philae priests and their daughters. I wonder if this meant that the daughters were all serving as priestesses of Isis?

Merotic script and Egyptian equivalent

The Festival of Entry was the time when Isis journeyed to the nearby island of Biga with its Tomb of Osiris to pour milk libations for Him. During this time, the statue of Isis would be taken to Biga to preside over three ten-day Egyptian weeks of offerings. (A weekly version of this Festival took place at Philae, too, but apparently the big one was held once a year and that’s the one attended by the Nubians.)

A good deal of the Nubian graffiti at Philae attests to a personal relationship with Isis as a Goddess Who is disposed to helping the worshipper and Who “hears the petitions of those who are far off.”

The Great Lady of Nubia brings Her healing from heaven, She watches over the transformations of the deceased and brings new vivification, new life, and—as always—She welcomes a deeply personal relationship with Her devotees.





Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Aspects of Isis, Goddess Isis, healing of Isis, I am the Nubian, Isis, Isis Magic, Meroe, Milk libations, Nubia, Nubian, Nubian Isis, Osiris, Power of Isis

Isis Fire

It is deep winter. For many of us, it is an extremely cold winter this year. So our topic for the day is an antidote to butt freezing. Let us warm ourselves beside the Holy Fire of Isis. For Isis is a fiery Goddess indeed.

Lady of Light & Flame

In Egypt, fire could represent life and renewal—very Isiac concepts as you well know. During his rejuvenating Sed festival, the king kindled a “new” fire that symbolized his magically renewed life. The Sun was known to be a living fire Whose birthplace and home is the Isle of Fire. The protective uraeus serpent Who coils on the brow of Re, as well as other Deities and royals, spits poisonous fire and fiery light comes forth from Her throat. Many Goddesses took the form of this fire-spitting serpent, among Them, from an early period, Isis.

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

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

Isis is at Her most fiery when She is in Her aspects as Divine Protectress or as Avenging Goddess. At the entrance to the chapel of Osiris in the tomb of Seti I at Abydos, Isis is called Wosret, the Fiery One, and She protects Osiris from His enemies. At Philae, the king is shown adoring Isis in this fiery aspect; he calls Her his mother and the Lady Wosret. As Nebet Neseret, the Lady of Flame, Isis is the fire-spitting uraeus cobra Who instantly destroys the enemies of Re with Her fire and Her potent magic. In one of the temple hymns to Isis at Philae, Isis is called Mistress of Flame and She is said to assault the rebels and to slay instantly Apophis, the enemy of Re. As the fiery uraeus of Re, She gives orders in the king’s ship. Isis also partakes of the fiery fierceness of Sakhmet. On one of the gateways, or pylons, at Philae, She is “the mighty, the foremost of the goddesses, daughter of Geb, the sun goddess, the primeval one” and She is identified as “Sakhmet, the fiery goddess.” Yet another Philae hymn calls Her “Sakhmet, the fiery one, who destroys the enemies of her brother.” A praises Isis as the Lady of Light and Flames.

A fiery Eye of Horus the Initiate

But this fiery Isis is also connected with initiation, magic, and healing. In Plutarch’s rendition of the Isis myth, Isis nurses the child of Queen Astarte during the day, but at night magically sets the child aflame, making him immortal. The Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri suggest an explanation for this fire magic Isis works on the queen’s son. The Charm of the Syrian Woman of Gadara  says, “the most majestic Goddess’ child [Horus] was set aflame as an initiate.” Initiation is here seen as purification by fire so that the mortal parts of the initiate are burned away, allowing her or him to more fully understand the ways of the Deities. Some scholars believe that this initiatory fire magic may have had its origins in Egyptian healing magic and what they call the “burning Horus” formula.  This refers to an Egyptian convention that connects poisoning with fire. In the same way that the uraeus spits fire, when Horus is poisoned, he is also, in a sense, burned. Burn-healing formulae identify the sufferer with Horus and say that “a fire has fallen into” Horus, that is, the sufferer. They invoke Isis to put out the fire and heal the burn. The initiatory connection may come from the fact that the poison-burned Horus experiences near-death before being healed by Isis. Mystery initiates, too, regularly undergo symbolic near-death experiences before being saved by the Goddess or God of the Mystery Rite.

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

Filed under: Goddess Isis

Early Feminist Margaret Fuller & Isis

This painting is by Nicholas Roerich, and is called Mother of the World. I first encountered it as the cover art of Caitlyn Matthew’s book on Sophia. Beautiful and powerful, as Goddess is.

Almost from the moment I began to think about my own spirituality, I intuited that I needed the Divine Feminine, the Goddess—a Deity in Whose image I, a woman, could be considered to have been created.

I joyfully credit feminism with offering not only me, but our society as a whole, the freedom to consider that Deity not only could be feminine, but had been for a very long time. Like maybe forever. With this freedom, in time, I found what my soul and spirit needed in Isis.

Indeed, I have always considered Isis’ myth to be a pretty strongly feminist tale, especially for its day. I’ve written about that here.

As it turns out, Isis has been inspiring feminists for quite a long time. Only recently I discovered that Margaret Fuller, a journalist and prominent early women’s rights advocate, also had a thing for Isis. More on that in a moment. First, more on Margaret.

Born in 1810, Margaret Fuller was the first female editor of the New York Tribune and its first female foreign correspondent. She advocated for the rights of women, the emancipation of slaves, and prison reform. She earned such a reputation for scholarship that she was the first women Harvard allowed to use its library. Her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1845, is considered the first feminist work in America and the first major work since the English writer Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. In addition to equality before the law and in marriage, Fuller argues in her book for woman’s need to gain intellectual and religious freedom, which she believed would in turn promote enlightenment for both sexes.

An illustration of Margaret Fuller

Her book began life as an essay published in The Dial, a transcendentalist paper that Fuller edited. Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement of the time. Central beliefs included the goodness of the individual and nature, the unity (as opposed to trinity) of the Divine, and the rejection of much of the organized religion of its day as subject to corruption. Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are two names closely tied to transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was inspired by a variety of religions and religious writing, including the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the work of Emmanuel Swedenborg.

Yes. We’re getting to Isis. I mention transcendentalism to give you an idea of Fuller’s religious explorations and to introduce you to Emerson, who played an important part in Fuller’s life with Isis.

Isis and entourage visit Iphis’ mother in Ovid’s tale of Iphis & Ianthe

Fuller was first exposed to Isis when she read Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a child. She fell in love with the story of Iphis & Ianthe in which Isis is a prominent figure. Don’t know that story? Read all about Isis, Iphis & Ianthe here.

Much later, Isis played a role in helping Fuller define her ideas about feminine Divinity in the face of the all-masculine images of God so prevalent in her (and our) society; this according to Jeffrey Steele, who has studied Fuller’s work extensively. We have one of Emerson’s letters in which he notes that Fuller adopted the Isiac sistrum as a personal symbol—clearly pointing to how important the Goddess was to her. From their letters, we know that Emerson and Fuller discussed Plutarch’s essay “On Isis & Osiris” and that, to some extent, Emerson identified with Osiris and Fuller with Isis. It is clear that Fuller was seeking Goddess from an entry in her 1839 journal: ”I have never been so near the fountain of inspiration, yet I have not attained to drink. The divinity flits before me, a glittering phantom on the mead, her eyes divine look up to me from the depths of still waters, yet I can never lay hold of her robe or dive to the depth of her grotto.”

A highly romanticized painting of the pharaoh’s daughter finding Moses by Edwin Long, 1886.

In a short story Fuller wrote, “A Tale of Mizraim,” Zilpah, a Hebrew slave, is in love with the Egyptian prince, Amaris. He tries to persuade her to stay with him and that Isis, Whose worship is love, is superior to Jehovah. Yet Zilpah must go with her people who are just about to leave Egypt on the heels of all those biblical plagues. Then Zilpah has a dream-vision of Isis:

“By her side sat a fair being, a woman of majestic mien, arch brow; but the soft, pale sadness of her lips, forbade awe in her presence, and turned the heart to tender reverence. Her forehead was surmounted by a glittering crescent, and when her blue eyes were fixed upon the waters, a long line of silvery light appeared. After a while, she turned on Zilpah a smile so bewitchingly sweet, that the maiden sank at her feet…”

Then the vision changes and Zilpah sees Amaris drowning. As she desperately tries to rescue him, the vision ends. Ultimately, however, Zilpah chooses Jehovah, begging Moses to pray that Jehovah spare her child by Amaris from the coming plague of the first borns. There is no mercy from Jehovah for Zilpah. Their child dies. In mourning, Zilpah leaves with her people only to see her beloved Amaris die as the Red Sea closes over him. At that shock, Zilpah herself expires. Even though the story seems to endorse the choice of Jehovah, modern readers are left to wonder whether Zilpah wouldn’t have been happier remaining in the land of Isis.

As part of her work toward the intellectual freedom of women, Fuller held a series of Conversations, which were intended to provide information about topics to which women of her day were not often exposed. Among these were what might be learned from all that old Pagan mythology. Fuller seems to have recognized the overarching theme of the Great Goddess, a Feminine Deity found in myths all over the world. She was particularly struck by the myths of the searching Goddesses—Isis and Demeter most prominent among Them, of course. At a certain period in her life, Fuller felt herself to be wandering as she tried to come to terms with her own need of Goddess, an option that simply was not available to her at that particular time and place.

Interestingly, in an appendix to her important Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Fuller included a translation of Apuleius’ famous tale of initiation into the Mysteries of Isis. Even earlier, she had written a poem clearly inspired by that story. Here’s an excerpt:

So in Egyptian clime

Grows an Isis calm sublime

Blue black is her robe of night

But blazoned o’er with points of light

The horns that Io’s brow deform

With Isis take a crescent form

And as a holy moon inform.

The magic sistrum arms her hand

And at her deep eye’s command

Brutes are raised to thinking men

Soul growing to her soul filled ken.

There is much more to this complicated woman than I can even summarize here. She had tempestuous relationships with women and men. She argued with Emerson. She went through spiritual crises. She traveled to Rome to write a history of the Republic. She fell in love and married an Italian nobleman. She died too early, shipwrecked on her way back to America, her manuscript on Rome lost. I am sure she must have seen much of Isis in Italy that connected with her love of Apuleius’ tale of the Goddess.

I wonder what she would have thought of those of us today, women and men alike, who love Isis as she seems to have done, but who now have more freedom to express that devotion.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Apuleius, Early feminists, Egypt, Feminism, Goddess, Goddess Feminism, Goddess Isis, Great Goddess, Ianthe, Iphis, Isis Magic, Isis Magic book, Margaret Fuller, On Isis & Osiris, Ovid Metamorphoses, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Transcendentalists, women's rights

The Keeper of the Pharos of Isis

I don’t know whether I believe in reincarnation; at least in the usual contemporary new-age-y sense.

An artist’s depiction of reincarnation

Egyptologists are almost unanimously certain that the ancient Egyptians did not believe in reincarnation; presumably, they had enough going on in the afterlife already. On the other hand, we do have ancient Greek reports of Egyptian belief in reincarnation or the “transmigration of souls.” Herodotus writes,

The Egyptians say that Demeter [that is, Isis] and Dionysos [that is, Osiris] are rulers of the world below; and the Egyptians are also the first who reported the doctrine that the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body dies, the soul enters into another creature which chances then to be coming to the birth, and when it has gone the round of all the creatures of land and sea and of the air, it enters again into a human body as it comes to the birth; and that it makes this round in a period of three thousand years. This doctrine certain Hellenes adopted, some earlier and some later, as if it were of their own invention, and of these men I know the names but I abstain from recording them. (Herodotus, Histories Book II, 123)

Portrait of Herodotus; Roman copy of a Greek original of the early 4th century BC. From the area of Porta Metronia, Rome. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Diodorus Siculus also reported prominent Greeks who adopted Egyptian teachings, including the transmigration of the soul:

Lycurgus also and Plato and Solon, they say, incorporated many Egyptian customs into their own legislation and Pythagoras learned from Egyptians his teachings about the gods, his geometrical propositions and theory of numbers, as well as the transmigration of the soul into every living thing. (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book I, 98)

Plutarch mentions it, too:

The Egyptians, believing that Typhon was born with red hair, dedicate to sacrifice the red coloured oxen, and make the scrutiny so close that if the beast should have even a single black or white hair, they consider it unfit for sacrifice; because such beast, offered for sacrifice, is not acceptable to the gods, but the contrary (as is) whatsoever has received the souls of unholy and unjust men, that have migrated into other bodies. (Plutarch, “On Isis & Osiris,” 31)

Becoming a Hawk of Gold

It may be that Herodotus misinterpreted the post mortum transformations of the dead (“Becoming a Hawk of Gold,” for example) as transmigrations of the soul. It may be that Diodorus and Plutarch, writing after Herodotus, just picked up his idea. Empedokles, a contemporary of Herodotus, refers to “polluted daimons” who are forced to wander the world in many forms “changing one toilsome path of life for another,” though he does not refer to this as being an Egyptian conception. (Empekoles, Katharmoi) In a number of his works, Plato mentions transmigration as punishment souls suffer for bad deeds in life. The idea entered the Roman world as well. It can be seen in Virgil’s Aeneid, where reincarnation was seen as a reward for a good soul rather than a punishment for a bad one.

For the Egyptians, the transformations of the dead were simply part of an active and happy afterlife. The dead could become a hawk, a lotus, a serpent…and godlike. Louis Zabkar (an Egyptologist who made a wonderful study of the Isis hymns at Philae) believes that this is a way of ensuring the ba of the person has unlimited freedom to come and go at will on earth and in the otherworld. Several pharaohs took the name Repeater of Births, which sounds like a reference to reincarnation, but probably isn’t. More likely, it was taken as a symbol of an Egyptian renaissance that the pharaoh hoped to usher in or referred to his divine daily rebirths with the sun.

All that said, I want to tell you a past life tale of my own. During my epigomenal vacation this week, I had the luxury of frequent invocation of the Goddess. During the Opening of the Ways, I “saw” a flash of a scene that had a deju vu feeling about it, so I decided to follow up on it with Isis. In vision and under Her wings, I traveled back in the Boat of Millions of Years to locate the “life story” with the scene that had touched me.

Princess or priestess getting ready for her day

A woman of about 20 is looking out across the Alexandrian harbor. Her name is Ankes Philia and she is the priestess of the Pharos, the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Her duty is to perform something like the Opening of the Ways ritual—but for the opening of the Alexandrian harbor and for fair, “open” weather. This is done within the Pharos itself, about halfway up the structure. That’s where the scene that first attracted me is from: overlooking the harbor from the Pharos.

And while Isis is the Goddess of the Lighthouse, it is not Isis who is in Ankes Philia’s heart, but only her duty to the city. She has almost no personal freedom and must stay on Pharos Island at all times; except when there are great festivals in the city. Then she may go to see the processions, but that is all. I have the feeling that she was “given” or vowed to the Pharos, though it was not her own vow; perhaps her parents? In a way, it reminds me of the later Christian anchorites.

An artist’s vision of the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria

The priestess is from a wealthy, but not noble, family. Her parents own a shipping business, but now her father has retired to the priesthood and her mother runs the business. Her father sometimes visits Ankes at the Pharos. She rarely sees her mother. She has two brothers, both in the military. Though she has had no choice in her fate, I sense no rebellion or resentment in her. I have the feeling she is perhaps not very well educated, bright, or curious. She simply does the duty that has been given to her without complaint and with conscientiousness. Ankes Philia died in her early 30s after contracting a disease that came into the harbor city from overseas.

And that’s it. Past life? Fantasy? I don’t know, but I’m pondering what it may mean to me.

Filed under: Goddess Isis Tagged: Ancient Egypt, Diodorus Siculus, Goddess Isis, Herodotus, Isis, Lighthouse of Alexandria, Pharos, Plutarch, Reincarnation & Egypt

My Epigomenal Days; Isis & the Winter Solstice

A very warm, peaceful, sacred, and Happy Winter Solstice to you all.

Isis the Mother and Her Holy Child Horus

This is most definitely not the time of the ancient Egyptian end-of-the-year epigomenal days. However, from Winter Solstice to the New Year are my epigomenal days—not only because these are the end-of-year days of our modern calendar, but also because I am on much-needed vacation from now until the beginning of next year.

That being the case, let’s talk a bit about the epigomenal days, including some ways to celebrate the end of the year with Isis.

Since today is the solstice, you might invoke Isis the Mother and celebrate the birth of Her Holy Child Horus. If you missed the post about Horus’ winter solstice birth from a couple weeks ago, you can read all about that here. Since both Isis and Horus are especially known as protective Deities, you could ask Their protection for yourself and your loved ones in the coming year. (Chapter 3 of Isis Magic will tell you more about the motherly aspects of Isis.)

The ancient Egyptian epigomenal days were the five days before the late summer rising of the Star of Isis, Sopdet (Sothis in Greek, Sirius in Latin). With the rising of Her Star, the New Year began. You see, the Egyptian year had only 360 days, but the solar year has 365+. The Egyptians made up the difference by adding five epigomenal—that is, outside the calendar—days at the end of the year prior to the rising of Sopdet and the start of the new year.

The beautiful Star of Isis, Sirius (Sopdet in Egyptian, Sothis in Greek) is directly overhead at the New Year

Without the protection of the confines of the calendar, the Egyptian epigomenal days were considered a dangerous time. People wore additional amulets and priests might perform the ritual of “Pacifying Sakhmet,” since the fierce Goddess seems to have been particularly antagonistic towards humankind at the end of the year. (Another good reason to ask Isis and Horus for protection now.)

Epigomenal days as birthdays of the Deities

As early as the Middle Kingdom (2050-1650 BCE), these five extra days were also associated with the births of Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Festivals of these Gods and Goddesses were duly celebrated during the epigomenal days. The time between the winter solstice and our new year is longer than the Egyptian period, but if you’d like to celebrate the birthdays of the Deities, one every other day rather than one per day would work out pretty well.

An ancient Egyptian calendar from the temple of Karnak

On the other hand, if you are more Isis-centric in your worship, you could consider the entire period as holy days of the Goddess. We can look to some ancient calendrical inscriptions for the day of Isis’ birthday to give us some clues about options for honoring Her at this time.

In a papyrus known as Leyden I, She is called “The Great One, Daughter of Nuet.” She is said to be “in Chemmis,” that is, in a particular city in the delta, and She is invoked particularly for protection. In another papyrus, Leyden II, the fourth day is said to be named “the pure one who is in his field.” The masculine pronoun would seem to exclude Isis. It could allude to Osiris or it could be a scribal error. If it should have been the Pure One Who is in Her Field, it would make a good deal of sense in connection with Isis since Isis was associated with the pure new plants that would soon be coming forth from the Egyptian fields with the New Year. In two calendars known as the Cairo calendars, the fourth epigomenal day is said to be named, “the one who makes terror.” Isis is also called the Goddess Who Guides the 3kt-Eye, Daughter of Nuet, Lady of Chemmis. Another calendar notes the fourth day is called, “the child who is in his nest; the Birth of Isis.” (I wonder whether this child is Horus or Isis Herself since the day is Her birthday?) There is some evidence that Isis’ temple at Philae may have been dedicated to Her on the 4th epigomenal day, as a birthday present. At Hathor’s temple of Denderah, which also had a smaller Temple of Isis, there are numerous references to Isis’ connection with the New Year and the renewal it brings. Osiris’ own birthday in this same period only reinforces the connection with rebirth and renewal. For more on Isis and a lamp festival on Her birthday, check out this post.

Thoth purifying the pharaoh from Isis’ temple at Philae

So what can we do with all this? What hits me most strongly is the rebirth and renewal aspect—which is entirely in harmony with our modern New Year celebrations. We begin again. We start over. We rededicate ourselves. We make resolutions to do things better. Purification is often associated with such reboots and so the epigomenal days would be a perfect time for purification. We might purify ourselves via bathing, fasting, purchasing new clothing, or purify our sacred spaces by cleaning and straightening up our shrines, all the while invoking Isis by the epithets from the calendars.

If you’re looking for a more formal rite, Isis Magic includes one called The Rite of Loosing the Eyes, which involves purification and an oracle for the New Year delivered by Isis and Nephthys (pg. 353 of the new edition).

Epigomenal days as the time of the Star of Isis

During our winter epigomenal days, we don’t witness the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis as the ancient Egyptians did during their epigomenal days. However, there is something very special that happens at this time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere: Sirius reaches its highest point in the night sky. The beautiful, glittering star of Isis reaches midheaven, directly above us, on January first and can be seen shimmering in that position for about the first week of January. Just as the heliacal rising of Sirius heralded the ancient Egyptian New Year, so the midheaven arrival of Sirius can serve as a marker for our modern New Year’s celebration. You’ll find a small rite for that purpose here. There is also a ritual for the Prophet/ess of Isis in Isis Magic called Causing Sothis to Rise (pg. 513) in the Temple, in which the Prophet/ess blesses the elements through the power of Sothis.

An illustration of the glittering Star of Isis over the pyramids

Personally, I look forward to doing many of these rites during my own epigomenal days. May your epigomenal days be just as blessed.

Filed under: Goddess Isis, Modern Paganism Tagged: Birthdays of the Egyptian Gods, Epigomenal days, Goddess Isis, Horus, Isis, Isis & Sirius, Isis Magic, New Year, Philae, Sirius, Sopdet, Star of Isis, Temple of Isis, Winter Solstice