Saturday Goddess Blogging

Isis

Wiki says that, in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Isis was known as:

She who gives birth to heaven and earth,
She who knows the orphan,
She who knows the widow spider,
She who seeks justice for the poor people,
She who seeks shelter for the weak people

Throughout the Graeco-Roman world, Isis becomes one of the most significant of the mystery religions, and many classical writers refer to her temples, cults and rites. Temples to Isis were built in Iraq, Greece, Rome, even as far north as England where the remains of a temple were discovered at Hadrian's Wall. At Philae her worship persisted until the 6th century, long after the wide acceptance of Christianity- this was the last of the ancient Egyptian temples to be closed, and its fall is generally accepted to mark the end of ancient Egypt.

She was venerated throughout ancient Mesopotamia as a queen who bestowed riches upon [people] and the land alike. Her powers are both human and divine, for she conceived and brought up her child Horus to be a king of Egypt, and grieved her husband's death as a woman would. Her role of mother and compaion to Osiris was sublimated to the mythical content of Egyptiona religion, for her figure incarnates the seat of origin of all things and the center of female power.

The archetype of Isis represents the fully-flowered power of a mother. There are different ways for a woman to experience ths role, but when the Isis archetype is active, she may feel that she is in touch with other-worldly powers. Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood represent for the Isis woman a movement of her consciousnes, a step toward the unveiling of her own personal feminine strength. The Isis mother stands at the center of existence, like an open passagefor the flow of life and she is conscious that her act is the necessary repetition of the continuous regeneration fo nature without which al living things would come to an end.

. . .

Isis was venerated as a virgin-mother and she is often portrayed seated with Horus suckling at her breast, an image that was later to be borrowed by Christianity to represent the Virgin Mary. The Goddess's virginity isa symbol for her own individuality of character, being "one-in-herself."

~From The Song of Eve
by Manuela Dunn Mascetti

Isis seems like a good Goddess to discuss along with Demeter. Indeed, there are interesting correspondences between the two:

Isis was the Goddess of the Earth in ancient Egypt and loved her brother Osiris. When they married, Osiris became the first King of Earth. Their brother Set, immensely jealous of their powers, murdered Osiris so he could usurp the throne.

Set did this by tricking Osiris into stepping into a beautiful box made of cedar, ebony and ivory that he had ordered built to fit only Osiris. Set then sealed it up to become a coffin and threw it into the river. The river carried the box out to sea; it washed up in another country, resting in the upper boughs of a tamarisk tree when the waters receded. As time passed, the branches covered the box, encapsulating the god in his coffin in the trunk of the tree.

In a state of inconsolable grief, Isis tore her robes to shreds and cut off her beautiful black hair. When she finally regained her emotional balance, Isis set out to search for the body of her beloved Osiris so that she might bury him properly.

The search took Isis to Phoenicia where she met Queen Astarte. Astarte didn't recognized the goddess and hired her as a nursemaid to the infant prince.

Fond of the young boy, Isis decided to bestow immortality on him. As she was holding the royal infant over the fire as part of the ritual, the Queen entered the room. Seeing her son smoldering in the middle of the fire, Astarte instinctively (but naively) grabbed the child out of the flames, undoing the magic of Isis that would have made her son a god.

When the Queen demanded an explanation, Isis revealed her identity and told Astarte of her quest to recover her husband's body. As she listened to the story, Astarte realized that the body was hidden in the fragrant tree in the center of the palace and told Isis where to find it.

Sheltering his broken body in her arms, the goddess Isis carried the body of Osiris back to Egypt for proper burial. There she hid it in the swamps on the delta of the Nile river.

Unfortunately, Set came across the box one night when he was out hunting. Infuriated by this turn of events and determined not to be outdone, he murdered Osiris once again . . . this time hacking his body into 14 pieces and throwing them in different directions knowing that they would be eaten by the crocodiles.

The goddess Isis searched and searched, accompanied by seven scorpions who assisted and protected her. Each time she found new pieces she rejoined them to re-form his body.

But Isis could only recover thirteen of the pieces. The fourteenth, his penis, had been swallowed by a crab, so she fashioned one from gold and wax. Then inventing the rites of embalming, and speaking some words of magic, Isis brought her husband back to life.

Magically, Isis then conceived a child with Osiris, and gave birth to Horus, who later became the Sun God. Assured that having the infant would now relieve Isis' grief, Osiris was free to descend to become the King of the Underworld, ruling over the dead and the sleeping. His spirit, however, frequently returned to be with Isis and the young Horus who both remained under his watchful and loving eye.

We worship Isis when we care for widows and for children. So, basically, in America, not so much. How would our existence be different if we worshipped a female face of divinity specifically devoted to familial love?

Art found here and here.