Lapis eyes shut, drifting along the edge of consciousness, noctambulist Seshat measures the sand-scape, stretching and shifting the cord. Beneath this witching sky the creative landscape is female. In meditative silence, She walks the cool of the night, plotting the ‘four corners’, aware morning is near. It’s precision work. Shifting cord. Shifting sand. Shifting cosmos. What is she measuring and what forces guide her?
Seshat, ancient Egyptian Goddess of writing, knowledge, measurement and book keeping holds considerable significance because women were cast into the “footnotes of history” – men wrote about men, meanwhile distant constellations illuminate the shadows of herstory. Wisps of writings confirm women shaped the past intellectual landscape. Enheduanna, the first ‘known’ writer, was female. Shredded remnants of Naunakhte’s will show women owned and inherited property. Tomb hieroglyphs describe Peseshet as ‘Overseer of Woman Physicians.” One single page, the Chrysopoeia, hints at Cleopatra the Alchemist’s scientific research. Sappho’s nocturnal awakenings exist as charred fragments.
“Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us.” – Sappho. Goodreads.
Now is that ‘other time’. Let’s talk about the looting, desecration and incineration of knowledge; ancient libraries torched and ‘witches’ burnt; Pagan temples tramped under churches or lost to desert sand.
My search for the Divine Female within symbol has led to Seshat. Seven horns, seven-pointed star, sundial, star clock, world tree, papyrus frond, cannabis leaf: interpreting Her headdress symbolism is subjective. In the absence of words, symbol asks we tune into the creativity of ancient artists to see how they see.
Working with Divine Female energy in symbolism invokes She Who Spins. Clotho, Neith, Grandmother Spider, Ariadne and over-arcing Nut – a few Goddesses in ‘celestial spin’ – draw cosmic energy to weave reality and destiny.
The cosmos in motion, as metaphor for the omnipotent Goddess, is drawn as an astral alignment in one Pictish symbol. On Samarra pottery and in one illustration in the Voynich manuscript, the female form spins, where Ursa Major spins, around the omphalos, Polaris. Both are variations of the swastika. Demonising this ancient divinity symbol is possibly the ultimate example of patriarchal reversal – both meaning and direction of spin were reversed.
How does the Divine Female, constantly in motion, relate to Stretcher of the Cord and Mistress of the House of Architects, Seshat, measuring and plotting the layout of temples? Her seven-pointed star may point to the Pleiades, but is more likely to evince the seven stars in the Ursa Major constellation.
“I take the measuring cord in the company of Seshat. I observe the progressive movement of the stars. My eye is now fixed upon Meskhetiu (Ursa Major). The god of time-keeping stands by me, in front of his merkhet (star clock). Then, I have established the four corners of the temple.” – inscription, Temple of Horus, Edfu. Seshat: Mistress of the Books, We Are Star Stuff.
Seshat’s ‘seven-pointed star’ is framed by two arcs – possibly horns; lunar crescents; over-arching Nut; an inverted breast [think Milky Way]; or a sky dome, through which consciousness rises. Gardiner’s glyph N13, ‘half month festival’ is similar. Meaning in symbolism is multi-layered, so these cleaved orbits may describe Venus, as the morning and evening star, permanently in retrograde, spinning in the opposite direction to Earth, or the waxing and waning moon crescent. Both frame, either the nocturnal portal, or the calendric time frame for working with star energy.
I think it’s a mistake to assume Her headdress (as it appears in the Luxor Temple) is solely a seven-pointed star because there are eight directions in this symbol: seven rising, with the eighth, descending through her crown chakra, overlooked.
In the Voynich manuscript a square, formed of eight circles, circumscribes Polaris, possibly representing the four rotational positions of Merak and source of apotropaic magic, ‘corner star’, Alkaid – stars forming part of the Ursa Major constellation. I found using this key to map the Luxor temple has been revelatory. I’m using the Luxor temple because it is dedicated to the Royal-Ka (soul), Ursa Major is a symbol of rejuvenation and Seshat, as architect of the King’s life-span, has potency there.
The Luxor temple was built over time, so I’m using the completed complex to illustrate how this temple plotting method works. Superimposing an image of the four directions of Ursa Major, onto a floor plan of the Luxor Temple, positioning ‘fixed star’ Polaris at the centre of the Peristyle courtyard of Ramesses II, whilst positioning Merak at the external corner of the Sun court, and rotating the star map, just as the constellation rotates in the heavens, the temple corners can be mapped. Aligning pointer stars Merak and Dubhe along the Avenue of Sphinxes, towards Karnak, explains temple ‘kink’. The technique of rotating and marking in increments eventually plots the positions and proportions of walls, shrines, chambers, doorways, pylons, buttresses, colonnades, widths of corridor, walls and entrances. This is an intuitive technique.
Peering through the stars to Earth, from within the spooling cosmos, temple mapping is seen as divine mark making on an epic scale. Writing is divine mark making on a smaller scale – both were sacred and magical.
“I write only because
There is a voice within me
That will not be still” – Sylvia Plath, “Letters Home” – AZ Quotes.
Seshat takes a tantric turn when She pulls cosmic wisdom down into the temple of ‘self’. At the apex of her headdress is a third arc, possibly a ‘marker’ for pointer star Merak directing star magic down to the womb space.
Superimposing the Tree of Life with the Ankh, the womb and Seshat’s headdress reveals commonalities in proportion. All embrace ideas of a cosmos, in perpetual motion, flowing through the body. We have a geocentric vision of self, from our fixed point on Earth, around which all else spins. Liberation is understanding we are part of a mechanism far vaster than our internalised stories.
“We don’t see things as THEY are, we see them as WE are.”- Anaïs Nin. Goodreads.
So how is this relevant today? Seshat’s eighth direction may point to the yoni gateway – portal to the sacred womb space, sanctum of creativity and ‘knowing’ (patriarchy desperately tries to sever women from this ‘inner divinity’).
So does Polaris, as centre, feature on the body map? Perhaps it is the G-spot; an internal medicine wheel – centre of self-healing; or the swirling vortex of energy centres that is the human body. Maybe the vortex transcends boundaries, spiralling within and outside the body. We are all born of star dust so open your heart, mind, soul and yoni gateway and let the universe in.
“Every atom from the tip of your toes to the top of your head is shifting, shuttling, and vibrating in a collective purr within which the entire history of the universe is implicated,” Adam, Frank. Scientists Found Ripples in Space and Time. And You Have to Buy Groceries. – The Atlantic.
When Ksemaraja wrote “Recognition Sutra One”,
“Awareness free and independent is the cause of the attainment of everything.”,
he used a feminised Sanskrit word because Goddess Awareness is omnipotent and autonomous.
Let’s use Seshat’s tools to map our own knowing, honouring the cosmos / yoni connection. Seshat shows us mark making is language, symbol, communication, comprehension, inner journeying, cosmic connection, self expression, emotion, infinite vibration, edges blurring between bodymind and consciousness, letting love and the universe flow through us.
“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” – Carl Sagan. Goodreads.
References
Seshat: Mistress of the Books, 18, Oct. 2017. We Are Star Stuff. earthandstarryheaven.com/2017/10/18/seshat/
Dunn, Jimmy, writing as Andrews, Mark. Luxor Temple of Thebes in Egypt, Part I: An Introduction. Tour Egypt. touregypt.net/featurestories/luxortemple1.htm
Sylvia Plath (2011). “Letters Home”, p.56, Faber & Faber, Quotes, Authors, Sylvia Plath., AZ Quotes. https://www.azquotes.com/quote/412799
Adam, Frank. Scientists Found Ripples in Space and Time. And You Have to Buy Groceries. 29. Jun. 2023. The Atlantic. theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/06/universe-gravitational-waves-nanograv-discovery/674570/
Nin, Anais. Quotes, Quotable Quotes. Good Reads. goodreads.com/quotes/5030-we-don-t-see-things-as-they-are-we-see-them
Wallis, Christopher D. The Recognition Sutras A Complete Translation and Explanation of the 1,000-Year-Old Spiritual Masterpiece the Pratyabhijña-Hrdaya by Rajanaka Ksemaraja. Sep. 15. 2017. Mattamayura Press. amazon.co.uk/Recognition-Sutras-Illuminating-000-year-old-masterpiece/dp/098976138X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&asin=098976138X&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
Sappho Quotes. Quotable quote. Sweetbitter Love: Poems of Sappho. Goodreads. goodreads.com/quotes/188453-someone-i-tell-you-in-another-time-will-remember-us
Sagan, Carl. Contact. Quotes. Quotable Quote. Goodreads. goodreads.com/quotes/432011-she-had-studied-the-universe-all-her-life-but-had