Shrine of Aset from the Navigation of Aset festival.
Close-ups of three of Aset’s statues.
Paper Boats with prayers written on them and candles.
Images taken by my friend T. Used with permission.
Category: Aset, Auset, Isis
Books Update
- Solar Lioness: Ancient Hymns for Sekhmet (Ready to Send to Formatter)
- Mother of Nine: An Anthology for Oya (almost done)
- River, Star and Sky: Poems for the Egyptian Gods. (Work in Progress)
- Lady of Magic: Honoring Aset Today (Work in Progress)
- Queen of Kings/Creation Mother: Ancient Hymns for Mut (working title) is going to take longer as I’m hoping to be able to include the Crossword Hymn to Mut in it. (Work in Progress)
- Lord of the Ways: An Anthology for Wepwawet (Work in Progress)
- Water Lioness: Ancient Hymns for Tefnut (Work in Progress)
- Lord of Eternity: An Anthology for Osiris (Work in Progress)
- Two Horizons: Ancient Hymns for Egyptian Gods. (Work in Progress)
Return of the Wandering Eye Goddess
There are many Eyes of Ra celebrated at this time of year: Aset, Nebet Het, Nit, Sekhmet, Mut, Bast, Hethert and Tefnut just to name a few. An Eye of Ra is a title of many ancient Egyptian goddesses who protect the sun god, Ra with magic, weapons and flame. They are the solar goddesses whose journey reflects the shortening and lengthening of days of the seasons of the year. This is the time of Their return.
So light candles and lamps. Offer water, milk, beer or wine. Offer food and drink to the Goddess as She returns to Her father Ra. Her anger is appeased. Her spirits are joyful.
Let there be light, laughter, reverence, love, strength and peace throughout this time of year. To all the F words: Faith, Family, Friendship, Forgiveness and Forever.
Have a blessed holiday. Blessings of the Goddesses to you all!
If you need any gift ideas for yourself or someone else, I have books on many ancient Egyptian goddesses:
For several Goddesses:
For Aset (Isis):
For Nebet Het (Nephthys):
Goddess Spell Books
I have a love-hate relationship with Goddess Spell Books. On the one hand, I love them. I love goddesses, learning about them and seeing many goddesses from all around the globe in one book warms my heart. On the other, I often find some factual errors or a very simplistic view of the goddess in question. Aphrodite gets pigeonholed into the love goddess archetype all the time. And She is a love goddess, but She is also a war goddess, a goddess of roses, a sea goddess, a mourning goddess and a Lady of the Graves.
Isis and Hathor get confused all the time. Hathor is the goddess of motherhood, romance, love, beauty, music and dance. Isis is the goddess of magic, a mother of Horus, a goddess of familial love and self-possession, a goddess of beauty, and a grieving widow. They are not the same goddess!
As for the factual errors:
- Hathor is married to Horus the Elder (Heru Wer) and not Heru-sa-Aset (Horus, son of Isis). These are not the same god.
- Oya’s main animal is the water buffalo
- Nephthys is not a battered wife and Set is not evil
- Isis is a moon goddess due to Roman influence. The ancient Egyptian Aset is a solar and stellar goddess. Aset’s association with the moon is due to Wesir and Heru being killed/harmed and reborn/healed.
Anyway, I would like to see a Goddess spell book have many goddesses from one pantheon and having them be in different categories because they have more than one aspect.
Like for a Learning/School section, you could have Seshat as the Goddess of education, math, writing, organization and libraries and Aset, the Lady of all knowledge, writing and research.
For a home and hearth section, you could have Bast as guardian of the home, Nephthys as Lady of the House, Hathor as a home goddess and Taweret as the home goddess. Aset was also honored this way in the Late Period.
For prosperity and abundance, you could have Aset as Lady of Prosperity and Hethert (Hathor) as Lady of Abundance.
For beauty and self-love, you could have Aset, Hathor, Mut and Tefnut for various reasons.
For protection and strength (mental, physical, spiritual), you could have Aset, Possessor of Strength and Eye of Ra and various other Eyes of Ra like Mut, Bast, Sekhmet, Nit (Neith), and Tefnut.
For creativity and art, you could have Nit as the creatrix, Hathor as the Lady of the arts, music and dance and Aset as Lady of the Arts.
For change, sorrow and grief, Aset and Nephthys as the mourning women and Ladies of transformation.
For compassion, you could have Aset, Nephthys and Nut as the Ladies of Kindness.
Anyway, so here are my thoughts on this.
Good Beginner Books for Kemetics
I highly recommend Rev. Dr. Tamara L. Siuda’s book, The Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook. This book has many prayers, invocations and hymns for specific Kemetic deities (including Set!), prayers for holidays, children and certain situations. This book also has a daily ritual called the Senut which is the main daily rite for Kemetic Orthodox House of Netjer. Siuda also has another book about Kemetic Holidays which is also excellent, The Ancient Egyptian Daybook. (Her books are also available through Amazon).
Richard Reidy’s book is very dense and extremely traditional. Many Kemetics use his daily ritual from this book in their daily practice. A link to his book is here: Eternal Egypt. His companion book to this one is here: Everlasting Egypt.
Kerry Wisner is the Head Priest of the Akhet Hethert (Hathor) temple. He has three books out about the Kemetic faith: Eye of the Sun (for beginners); Song of Hathor (intermediates); and Pillar of Ra (about festivals). These are great books to add to your library especially if you love Hathor.
Are there any other books you’d recommend?
We Walk With You
My religion has many creation myths and all of them are true. They tell us about creation. Atum masturbated and Ptah spoke and everything was created. The Celestial Cow as Mut or Hethert or Mehet Weret or Nit gave birth to the sun god Ra and as She spoke everything was created. Aset spoke the Word in the Beginning as did Nit and everything was created.
The other Gods, the air in the form of Shu, moisture in the form of Tefnut; Geb and Nut in the forms of earth and sky. Ma’at and Life in the forms of Ma’at, Tefnut and Shu. Ra, Shu, and the Eye Goddesses gave birth to light. Wesir, Heru Wer, Set, Aset and Nebet Het were born and thus more was created by them.
Do you not see? One became many. Creation cannot exist without differentiation. There are many Netjeru for a reason. For each job to be performed, someone must be equipped to do it. Some of Us have the same job, yet do it differently. To borrow a phrase: Diversity is Our Power; Unity is Our Strength.
All of nature is touched by these Gods and Goddesses. Sunbeams are Ra, Mut, Tefnut, Bast, Sekhmet, Aset and other solar Goddesses. The air you breathe is Shu or Aset. The earth you stand on is Geb.
Future Projects
I have tons of projects I’m working on right now. I’d like to narrow my focus so I can get a few of them done.
- Solar Lioness: Ancient Hymns for Sekhmet.
- Creation Mother: Ancient Hymns for Mut. (As someone else is helping me with this via translation, this will take longer).
- River, Star and Sky: Poems for the Egyptian Gods.
- Lord of the Ways: An Anthology for Wepwawet. (Due date for submissions is January 7, 2020)
- Lady of Magic: Honoring Aset Today.
- Hymns of the Two Lands: Ancient Hymns for Egyptian Gods.
- Mother of Nine: An Anthology for Oya.
On a separate note, I need help for figuring out the title of Mut’s book:
- Lady of the Double Crown
- Creation Mother
- Mother, Queen and Matriarch
- Queen Mother
