Shapeshifting with Nephthys

It’s been a while since I made a post about Nephthys, but you might remember that She has been working with me on shapeshifting because, according to Her, She does it better than Her sister.

So I sat down in the shrine, purified and consecrated myself, and ran some energy to get warmed up. When I was ready, I invoked the Beautiful Sister and envisioned myself at the doors of Her temple.

She has, by the way, a most beautiful, most unusual temple. It is something like the images here, but it is always twilight there, neither day nor night; neither light nor dark.

The garden temple of the Beautiful Sister

Inside is Her garden. It is gloriously lush. You can smell the greenness as you. breathe. in. deeply. Many creatures (including many fierce ones) live there with Her, hotep-peaceful in Her presence. You can smell their scents, too. Wild and sharp, warm and deep.

The doors of Her temple open to me. I enter. And I am within Her ecstatically alive garden.

My eyes adjust to the twilight as two enormous cobras glide up to me, one on each side. They rear up, spread their hoods. I understand that I am to place my hands upon their heads. They are sun-warm to the touch, their bodies strong and flexed. They guide me smoothly down a passageway to the throne room of the Goddess.

She is already there, upon Her hwt-throne.

She is shrouded in shifting darknesses—and veiled by the multiple faces that move across Her countenance. Most, but not all, are animal faces. I am reminded of those images of Hekate with Her multiple animal heads. I kneel and kiss the ground before Her beautiful face.

I ask Her, “may we shapeshift today?” (I can’t remember now whether I heard Her voice or I just knew that She’d answered, “yes.”) I become aware of Her long, long beautifully alien fingers.

I was wondering which animal it would be then. For a moment, I thought, “lioness,” because lionesses have been on my mind. But no. It was to be The Weaver. The Weaver? A human weaver? I wondered.

The male weaver with his yellow “hello, gorgeous” head coloring and the handsome nest he has built

But no, again.

A bird.

Now I am tiny. I am brown and white. I am inside a nest and I am weaving bits of leaves and string and twigs and straw into the interior walls of the nest. I am in a hurry, weaving deftly, but quickly. I am a female Weaver and the coming eggs must have their nest.

I am not a bird person, so I didn’t know that Egypt is home to two types of weaver birds: the Streaked Weaver and the Village Weaver.

The female weaver checking out his work

The Village Weaver is relatively new to Egypt and is mostly found in sub-Saharan Africa, but just recently breeding grounds have been found around Lake Nasser. The Streaked Weaver was probably established in the Egyptian delta by the period of Persian rule in ancient Egypt.

The male Streaked Weaver builds the exterior of the nest to attract the female. Once she says yes, she completes the interior of the nest, readying it for the eggs and chicks.

I am not, at present, aware of any particular connection between Nephthys or Isis and the Streaked Weaver. There’s plenty of bird and egg symbolism generally from ancient Egypt, of course. For instance, the innermost sarcophagus was sometimes referred to as “the egg.” There’s a Pyramid Text where Isis and Nu are discussing how the king will “break out of his egg” to be reborn. They decide that while Isis has formed him within the egg, all the Deities will help him break free. Eggs were placed in some tombs as symbols of new life. Bird-winged Goddesses protect the process of rebirth with Their powerful, feathered wings.

But that wasn’t it. “It isn’t about the eggs,” I think.

And now I am an ancient Egyptian magician, weaving magic.

“Oh,” I think at Her. “Yes,” She smiles back.

I am in a small chamber with plain walls. There are no windows and a single door. The place has an alchemical and underground feel to it. There are jars and potions and books (so, I can read!) on a central table. The room is lit by wall sconces holding torches. Yet the central focus of the room is a large loom.

But there’s no thread in the loom.

Instead, I understand that the loom frame serves as a kind of scrying space, an aid to the magician for weaving hekau, magics. “May I practice a spell? I ask. “Yes, She says.”

I stand before the loom frame and strongly sense Her behind me. Aaaand… then I realize that the shapeshift I am to do today is shapeshifting into Her. “Okay, I know this,” I think. “I can do Kheperu.” She smiles indulgently and turns me to face Her. In Her long-fingered hand is an egg. (Oh crap. Apparently, it is about the eggs. She is teaching me that Her magic always begins with a natural prototype.) With Her other hand, She reaches into my chest, opens the vessel of my heart (for it is a jar-like vessel at the moment) and places the egg within.

The world starts spinning clockwise and I understand that time is passing. At length—but in no time—the egg grows to envelop me. At length—and when I am ready—I make the Sign of Opening the Shrine before me. The egg cracks open. I emerge as She. With multihued wings, long, long fingers, and large, narrow eyes. I am the Weaver, Great of Magic. My body feels long everywhere. My mind is filled with Everything. I am a thread of magic. I am the weaver of the threads.

I turn to the loom and know its name: She is Becoming. In the frame I see the desired end result of My Weaving, My Spell, My Working. I know precisely what it takes to weave it. My long fingers pluck threads from across time and space, knotting them together. I knot connections between people—many people my human self does not know. There are an astonishing number of threads to knot together to create this Weaving, this Spell, this Working.

I knot the threads. Over and over.

When the intricate knotting is complete, I let down a single thread, down to the floor. There, a scarab beetle collects the thread, gathering the Weaving into Her dung ball, where Her Child awaits its Becoming.

Time passes. I watch.

I see the One Becoming, the Scarab Child, as it is born. It emerges from the solar dung ball, spreads its elytra, its shell-like wing covers, to flutter-dry its new wings. Then, in a beautiful, green iridescence, it flies up to land on My index finger. The Magic is born.

I-Nephthys open My bird wings and fold them about Myself. In an instant, I am the magician, Becoming the egg once more, the egg within my heart. “Leave it there,” says Nephthys, Tasenetnoferet. “It is the seed of your Becoming.”

I thank Her with all my egg-heart.

And now, I am back before Her throne, within Her garden temple. I kiss the ground before Her beautiful face. The cobras return, guiding me back to the outside world. The vision fades.

I am once more in my own shrine, where I make offering unto Nephthys. M’den, Tasenetnoferet. Accept it, Beautiful Sister.