Was Hathor in vibrational conversation with the universe, the script encoded into Her temple’s walls?
“Each temple is ‘tuned’ to a unique musical scale based on it’s dimensions and proportions.” – Harpist Ani Williams and Antoine Seronde. Listen Ani Williams play the Abydos Temple Scale.
Perhaps music AND images are ‘tuned’ into temple harmonics. When I wrote Understanding Tanit Through Felt Experience. I visualised Tanit’s triangular logo, a vulva symbol, as a metaphor for holding space and generating energy. Tanit leads me to Hathor’s Temple in the Dendera Complex in Upper Egypt – the triangle featuring in artwork there. As Goddess of percussion and music Hathor IS sound and rhythm – the sistrum was created in Her image. Her carved ‘cow face’ forms a three-sided space enclosed by her hair. Resonant objects, including the human aura, pick up sympathetic vibration. Can hieroglyphs and reliefs carved into temple walls respond to vibration? Is there life in the stone?
“Everything in the universe has rhythm, everything dances.” – Maya Angelou.
Votive offerings to Hathor include mirrors, mirroring being an artistic technique used in the composition of the temple friezes, perhaps reflecting the perfection of divine creation, or hinting at ‘mirror universes’ where time runs differently. Mirroring the right-angled Kepler triangle creates an isosceles triangle. Images of seated deities fit within the silhouette of the Kepler triangle, as does the graphic for ‘woman’. When the wings of Isis fan energy they form an isosceles triangle. Nut is decorated with trilateral waves representing the ‘flow’ of the Milky Way. The negative space beneath the ‘Dendera Lightbulbs’ (ovaries?) forms an obtuse triangle. Schenti; feet of the deceased; arms in veneration; the snout and ears of Anubis; the Ba Bird and bird hieroglyphs form triangles.
The plucked string creates triangle waves. In friezes processions of legs repeat like triangle waves. Processions of barques repeat like sine waves. Serpents drawn as light waves could describe kundalini energy. A script emerges from this patterning possibly to be read like a music score.
There is rhythm in the temple. The human form, united in common purpose, eyes forward not engaging with the viewer, indicates hive activity. We get so used to the geo-centric vision of man as anatomical perfection in Classical art that the symbolic how and why the human figure is drawn in other cultures is brushed aside as naive or incompetent by comparison.
The ancient Egyptians were conversant with anatomy and capable of portraying anatomically ‘correct’ human form, as the Nefertiti Bust 1345 BCE shows us. They chose to draw the human figure in ways that were important to them – torso facing forward, legs and head in profile, arms bent in veneration – component parts forming triangles. Try to stand in this position. Can you feel an energy shift? Perhaps these poses were based on ancient Kemetic yoga – consider Nut in pyramid pose arching over Geb in lizard pose. Was the Divine drawn into the human form or is it simply stylised art?
Streams of triangles represent the energy of the sun god Ra. Hathor is the Eye of Ra so perhaps the triangle embodies both Hathor and Ra energy.
“Gender is in everything; everything has it’s Masculine and Feminine; Gender manifests on all planes. – Hermetic principle 7 – The Initiates, The Kybalion.
Hathor energy synergised with male energy. Yet the entire lower half, bird beak faces and outstretched arms of predynastic Bird Goddess icons form triangles, pointing to its origins as a female power symbol, holding space, generating energy and perhaps a vehicle of ascension – migrating birds fly in triangular formation. As with most Feminine mythologies the triangle may have been subject to patriarchal reversal. Perhaps the upward pointing triangle was hailed as male energy to assert patriarchal power.
Goddess of malachite, perfume, cosmetics, music, percussion, dance, joy, love, mining, fertility and drunkenness, Hathor is a girl’s girl and her temple cluster: the temple of Isis, the Hathor temple and the Mammisis (birth houses), where Cleopatra gave birth, could be a gateway to the Divine Psychedelic Feminine experience.
Colour stirs emotion and has resonance. Crystals, including malachite, were ground into pigment for cosmetics and paint for temple walls. In crystal healing malachite regulates the menstrual cycle and lessens labor pain. Egyptian Blue was used for the ‘Eye of Hathor’, a luminescent astronomical scene on the ceiling of the Hypostyle Hall. It’s a copper based pigment pulsing with infrared light which helps cells regenerate and repair.
Perhaps the temple was a battery harnessing life force, including energies of unity consciousness, female cycles, birth, light, sound, creativity, scent, joy, cosmic forces (Dendera Zodiac), euphoria and lucid dreaming, possibly through consuming the psychoactive Blue Lotus flower.
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” – Emily Dickinson.
Imagine the scene: chambers scented with sandalwood, cedar and spices, priestesses wandering beneath the Eye of Ra, temple pulsing with the healing arts: chromotherapy, aromatherapy and sound therapy – dissonant tones indicating disease, harmonic tones raising lower frequencies of the body’s energetic field, including depression and shame.
“The medicine of the future will be music and sound.” – Edgar Cayce.
Light, sound, emotion – all are vibration. Creative energy is divine energy and ancient Egyptians engaged their higher selves – surely the symbols ‘worn’ at the crown and star chakras show they are open?
“Hathor is [ ] the Lady of the Gates of transitions – music and sacred sound open the pathway through the dimensions.” – Ani Williams.
Do bird hieroglyphs hint at birdsong as a temple language? The full vocalisation was not written out so were the gaps filled in with song – healing vowels similar to the resonant AUM? I can’t speak for the intention in Spirit Of Hathor’ by Aurora Dendera but I can imagine sonorous vocals activating the power of symbols.
Hathor’s temple pulsed with energy celebrating the creative process, including birth and birthing free flowing thought and ideas – the Feminine Principle. Without balance masculine energy is unreasonable and chaotic. As the patriarch gained momentum they set about destroying female power. They climbed ladders to reach Hathor’s face and chip it off. Free thinking women were murdered (Hypatia). Men were divided from women and trust was broken using divisive language: good / bad; clean / dirty. Aggressive rape myths – Medusa was raped by Poseidon at Athena’s temple – put low frequency ‘fear’ into the Goddess space.
How is this relevant to us today? Hathor mirrors the Divine within ourselves. As the ‘energetic’ Eye She can be rebellious. Her destructive, blood thirsty and ultimately healing side is the lioness Sekhmet. We know vorticity was built into these buildings and this energy is rising. How will it manifest? As Hathor, Sekhmet, the Eye of Ra’mpage’ or within ourselves?
Links to music
Ani Williams presenting the Abydos Temple Scale
Spirit Of Hathor by Aurora Dendera
Tears of Isis by Ani Williams at Dendera
Invocation to Hathor by Ani Williams
Bio-Acoustic Medicine with Ani Williams
Links to temple tours and images
Dendera Temple, Egypt – Matt Travels
This Egyptian Temple Is Connected to the PLEIADIANS – Gaia.
References and links
The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece -Three Initiates.
Drugs in Ancient Egypt: The Lotus Eaters – Cairo Scene.
Overtones, sympathetic vibration and resonant frequencies – Laurarileymusic
Hathor Divine Feminine Principle – Denise Grobbelaar.
Ancient Egyptian pigment has cool contemporary potential – Sarah DeWeerdt – Anthropocene.
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