Working with Goddesses

During our Shamanic rituals, we call in the Four Directions, Four Elements, Four Archangels, and Goddesses to protect us and assist us with the ritual.

As with the Archangels we are covering a few of them here, the list of Goddesses and Gods is endless that we can work with.

I work often with the Egyptian Goddess Isis, Wadjet, Sekhmet, Bast.

They each bring in powers and assistance and I list those here;

Isis The Egyptian Goddess

Isis, Goddess of magic and Healing, is called "Great Goddess" and “The Divine One”. 

She is described as the Goddess of Magic & Healing, Great Lady of Magic, and Lady of the Words of Power. 

And it’s her Magic powers that I tap into when I ask her for her assistance in Shamanic rituals, she is a great healer.

A brief History of Isis's life: 

She is the daughter of Nut and Geb, her siblings included Osiris whom she married, and brother Set and her sister is Nephthys. Her only child was Horus.

Together with Osiris, she ruled the Gods until he was killed by Set, her jealous brother.

Unable to accept his death she used her magic and healing to bring Osiris back to life and he fathered her child Horus.

Set found out and destroyed Osiris again, Isis used magic once again and granted Osiris immortality.

The Goddess ran away and brought up Horus in secret. 

She is revered as an excellent mother and there are several works of art that depict her with her son on her lap. 

She has many names: 

Lady of Green Crops, Mother of the Gods, Mother of the Universe, Queen of the Earth. In this role, she became the protector and patron of women and children.

Goddess Isis is associated with all of the four elements: 

•  Earth as a fertility Goddess
•  Air through her association with the wind especially the North wind
•  Fire as a solar Deity she is described as the Maker of the Sunrise and the Brilliant One in the Sky 
•  Water, as she was linked to the flooding of the Nile

She is also associated with the sea and boats, responsible for bringing the ships safely home.

Isis has absorbed many of the funerary Goddess roles, replacing Hathor on the solar barque, the ship upon which the dead Kings and Gods sailed the heavens.

She has so many different areas of influence that have earnt her the title of Lady of Ten Thousand Names.

Her name has been said to mean "female of the throne"  and she is often illustrated with a headdress depicting empty throne symbols suggestive of both her husband's absence and that she was the seat of the Pharaoh’s power. 

Isis is frequently shown as a mother figure with her infant, son Horus. 

Alternatively, she is shown with a solar disk, and cow horns on a vulture headdress. 

In her funerary role, she was often given wings and carried the Ankh symbolising immortality.

Sacred Animal: The cow, snake, and scorpion.

Sacred Birds: Hawks, swallows, doves, and vultures.

Wadjet The Egyptian Snake Goddess

Wadjet is a snake deity and the patron goddess of Lower Egypt. Her shrine was called Per-Nu, meaning ‘house of the flame’, due to the fact that she can spit flames in defense, much like a Dragon can. 

I work with Dragons in my Shamanic rituals and my main guide is a large Cobra who comes with two smaller Cobras, in the same manner as the Caduceus. The larger Cobra rises up my spine and enters my third eye and the smaller cobras enter the soles of my feet and rise up my Chakras and look out of my eyes. The clarity of seeing through three Cobras' eyes is very powerful.

In some myths, Wadjet is said to be the daughter of Sun God, Ra. She is also said to be the wife of Hapi, the deity of the Nile River. Wadjet gained more popularity and fame after the unification of Egypt, when she and her sister, Nekhbet, became the patron goddesses of the country.

Wadjet is a powerful deity who protected and guided the other gods as well as the Egyptian royal family. She is typically depicted as a serpent goddess, which refers to her strength, power, and ability to strike the enemy. She is also depicted as a cobra with a lion’s head, and as the Eye of Horus.

Wadjet frequently appeared in royal garments and monuments as a cobra, sometimes entwined around a papyrus stem. This might have influenced the Greek Caduceus symbol which features two snakes entwined around a staff.

Wadjet and Horus

Wadjet played an important role in the upbringing of Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis. After Set killed his brother Osiris, Isis knew that it wasn’t safe for her son Horus to be near his uncle, Set. Isis hid Horus in the marshes of the Nile and raised him with Wadjet’s help. Wadjet served as his nurse and helped Isis keep him hidden and safe from his uncle. 

You can see here that the Goddesses are linked and working with Isis, Bast, Sekhmet, and Wadjet is a powerful feminine triangle of power and protection that I invoke whenever I start a Shamanic ritual.

Sekhmet The Egyptian Lion Goddess

The name of the Goddess ‘Sekhmet’ is believed to be derived from the Egyptian word ‘Sekhem’ which refers to ‘power’ or ‘might’. This is the reason for which her name is often translated as ‘the one who is powerful or mighty'.

Her name means ‘the female powerful one’. This refers to the destructive nature of the goddess. Her name was also used to be spelt as Seket, Sachmet, Sakhet.

I call on the powers of Sekhmet during Shamanic rituals, for her powerful destructive nature and protection, I am privileged to have a Lion and Lioness as my body protectors and honour them by calling in the Lion Goddess. 

Origin of the Goddess

The origin of Sekhmet is associated with the myth of ‘Eye of Ra’ where she is considered the daughter of the sun god Ra. Once the human subjects of Sun God Ra started to disobey him by not properly following the laws and hampering the essence of justice. This made Ra very angry. He became very anxious to maintain justice.

To solve this issue, one aspect of Eye of Ra became lioness goddess Sekhmet. Ra sent this fearsome goddess to earth to punish the disobedient subjects and to maintain harmony, but this led to the negative side of the goddess and the destruction which was started by him became unstoppable. This led to the destruction of all humanity.

To stop the massacre started by Sekhmet, Ra tried to trick her and succeeded in his plan. This saved humanity and brought justice and harmony once again.

Breath of Sekhmet

The powerful nature of goddess Sekhmet also can be seen in the origin of the desert wind. The hot desert wind was believed to be born from the breath of the goddess as her breath is so powerful.

Protector & Healer

Sekhmet was believed to be the great mother who protects the pharaohs. In Pyramid Texts, it is stated that Sekhmet conceived the king. She was also regarded as ‘Mistress of Life’ because of her healing power.

Iconography of Sekhmet

The standard iconography of Sekhmet is depicted through a representation of a semi-anthropomorphic form. Here she is depicted in a body of a woman and with the head of a lioness. In this depiction, a solar disk is balanced atop her head. Sometimes she can also be depicted in zoomorphic form as a lioness. 

Bast The Egyptian Cat Goddess

Bast, the Egyptian cat Goddess is both a nurturing mother figure and a terrifying avenger.

In her early days, she was the fierce lion-headed Goddess of the lower Nile who protected the Pharaoh and the sun God Ra. This is why she has the title of "Goddess of protection." 

And I call her in for this feline protection when I go journeying on my Shamanic adventures. And my Shamanic temple contains large cats, who protect me and I see the Goddess energy in our domestic cats, who often hold a space of energy protection when I am doing breath work, meditation, and journeys.

In this role, she became Goddess of the rising sun and holder of the utchat, the all-seeing eye of Horus.

Later the Egyptian cat Goddess was depicted with the head of a domestic cat, representing her more nurturing aspects. 

Women of the time would buy amulets of this Goddess illustrated with different numbers of kittens, representing the number of children they wished to have. The links to fertility and childbirth were further strengthened by the Greeks. They likened this Goddess Bast to Artemis and she also became associated with the moon and children.

As cat Goddess, she also protected houses from rats and snakes and so ensured the health of the occupants.

She was also known by several different names including Bastet, Basthet, Boubastis Ubasti, and Pasht. The name Pasht is the root of our word passion, linking this Goddess to physical pleasure.

A Patron Goddess of firefighters due to the unusual Egyptian belief that if a cat ran through a burning household she would draw the flames out behind her.

In the Book of the Dead, she is mentioned as destroying the bodies of the deceased, with the royal flame, if they failed the judgment hall of Maat.

The Goddess is linked to the music and dance due to the special rattle that she carried known as the Sistrum. These special rattles were used to celebrate her festivals.

Portrayed as a lion-headed or cat-headed woman. She was also often shown with kittens.

She carried an Ankh, as did Goddess Isis, representing the breath of life, and papyrus wand symbolising Lower Egypt. 

And it is one of the reasons I use an Ankh too, to increase and focus the Shamanic powers, I use it for distance healing, to ensure the direction and full power arrives.

Statues of Goddess Bast are placed in households to protect them from thieves.

Sacred Animals: Lions and domestic cats.

Sacred Plants: Catnip.