Follows: Seshat Mistress of the Yoniverse
“An artist should stay for long periods of time looking at the stars in the night sky.” – Marina Abramović – An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović’s Rules of Life, Solitude, and Silence, Popova, Maria, The Marginalian. [1]
Nut, Hathor, Sothis and Seshat embody star gazing within the flesh of their being. Sun dropping to the dunes, emerald eyes glinting, these exotic, perfumed, resolutely strong and divinely feminine Goddesses recline upon gilded stools, sipping hibiscus tea. As the light fades to indigo they take up their positions in the cosmogenic womb space, ethereal costumes merging with the nocturnal sky: astral headdress; lapis hair; panther skin and sheath dress scattered with glittering constellations, reminding us there is life out there in the cosmos…. and it’s female.
Beyond sartorial expression there are other ways the Sky Goddess weaves celestial geometry and motion into the fabric of civilisation. Awakening us to our transcendent selves and to the power of the night, Nut personifies the eternal void and Milky Way; Sothis embodies the heliacal rising of Sirius, marking the start of the Sothis Year; ‘Lady of the Stars’ and cosmic Mother Cow, Hathor births the sun; Seshat records time and uses a star clock and Ursa Major to plot the layout of temples.
“The decans of Egyptian astronomy were 36 stars or star groups near the ecliptic whose rise or transit could be used to tell the time during the night.” – Smit & Palarczyk, Egypt: Temple of Dendera,, Pinterest. [2]
Rebalancing the universe, by revisiting the Sky Goddess Matrix, is important because the female connection to the heavens was severed by sky god religions.
Seshat was eclipsed by Thoth, Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus. Seshat Mistress of the Yoniverse discusses the symbolism hidden within Her headdress and Her method of using Meskhetiu (Ursa Major) and a merkhet (star clock) to plot the layout of temples. This method also seems to work on architectural drawings of the Great Pyramid, plotting the height, external slopes and positions of inner chambers.
“The Cheops Pyramid [ ] becomes an Amplifier or a Resonance Chamber because all it’s finest measurements are encoded in our human form.” – Jain 108. [3]
Perhaps Seshat harnesses celestial motion to draw cosmic consciousness into both sacred architecture AND the art within it, including drawings and sculpture of the human form. Harpist Ani Williams and Antoine Seronde [4] talk ‘temple scale’ – drawing down ‘cosmic musical frequency’ into sacred spaces – so why not pull cosmic motion and proportion into temple art, connecting sentient beings on earth to a higher consciousness?
““Seshat opens the door of heaven for you.” Spell 10 – the Coffin Texts.” – Mutere, Malaika. [5]
Predating spare-rib mythology by eons, did Seshat create woman in the image of the Goddess, as a cosmological reflection of a universe in motion?
We consider the idealised, ultra-realist forms of classical sculpture to be High Art, assuming other representations of the human form are unaccomplished in comparison. Ethereal white marble ‘perfection’ is aspirational.
The less body-centric, ancient Egyptian portrayal of the human form may draw upon the astrological proportions and motion of various constellations. I’ve sat with this idea for months now because it’s difficult to prove since there’s simply eons of ancient Egyptian art. Visualising the Energy in Hathor’s Temple simplified it’s artwork into a grid system of triangles, whilst pondering some meaning behind this. Now I’m looking at Dendera (also known as Hathor’s ‘Womb of Time’) with new eyes, wondering if Seshat’s method of using stars, to create structure, plots the human form and layout of the artwork there.
Rotating ‘Meskhetiu’ (Ursa Major) in increments around the North star, placed upon Hathor’s third eye, appears to plot the dimensions, contours and positions of features, including extended eye-liner, of Hathor’s curiously proportioned, cow-like face, sitting atop the pillars at Dendera. Interestingly, in ancient Egypt Ursa Major is called the ‘ox-leg’. Generally nature’s code, the golden ratio and the fibonacci sequence, shape universal balance and proportion, yet once seen, it’s hard to un see this constellation reflected in Her face. She also tops the sistrum, so perhaps this instrument is in conversation with Ursa Major.
It appears celestial motion, expressed for example as a foot moving forward, implies there is a cosmic destination that deities, profound beings and ordinary humans move towards – the Book of the Dead is also know as the Book of Going Forth by Day. As opposed to the geo-centric vision of man at the centre of his universe, ancient Egyptian imagery appears to express humanity as part of a cosmos in motion.
Revisiting the Sky Goddess Matrix, time and again, peels away complex layers of celestial consciousness held within the language of symbol. Understanding consciousness, which reveals itself in increments, is a slow and organic process, rather like fermenting wine.
“For one consciousness to understand another – to understand what it is like to be another – might be the supreme challenge of communication and coexistence….” – Popova, Maria, Music, the Neural Harmonics of Emotion, and How Love Recomposes the Brain, The Marginalian. [6]
On the Hypostyle Ceiling an image of Hathor’s Eye, [7], encircled by Her mirror, faces a ‘precession’ of fourteen deities, including Nut, Sekhmet, Isis and Tefnut, all with one foot forward, moving towards their celestial destination. The fourteen are possibly part of the 36 decans (ten day weeks) of the Sothis Year. Fourteen may relate to the Isis / Osiris myth (he was chopped into fourteen pieces, Isis retrieved thirteen). I’m pretty certain their destination is ‘Sirius Rising’ because superimposing an image of Canis Major over this composition – Sirius is part of this constellation – lining the Dog Star up with Hathor’s pupil, the other stars in the constellation mark the outer corner of Her Eye; the direction of Her tear duct (symbolising the inundation of the Nile?); the distance between brow and liner; three points on the mirror’s circumference; and the positioning of panels of hieroglyphs flanking the mirror.
The day Sopdet (‘Sirius’ in Greek), personified by Egyptian Goddess Sothis, rose in the sky (July 19th, Julian calendar, according to some sources), was their New Year’s Day, the day the Nile flooded, fertilising Egypt. Hathor’s Eye is a star portal and sharply focused witness to the process of ripening and dying along the germinating mulch of the river bank.
Another image of Hathor’s Eye [8], carried by a barque, appears to embody the proportions of the seven star cluster Pleiades – the ‘Celestial Herd’ or ‘Seven Sisters’. Superimposed over the image, the stars mark the position of Hathor’s Eye in relation to the circumference of the disc encircling it, the bottom of the barque and the position of paddles. There are two rows of seven female characters, one above, one below Her eye, possibly representing the Seven Hathors, in the heavens and underworld.
In their essay, “The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers.”, Amelia Sparavigna makes the point that the Seven Hathors are,
“..usually represented by seven cows [ ] as a heaven herd providing the nourishment, bread and beer, in the Underworld.” [9]
Working with star energy is a specific type of delirium. I see stars everywhere. The language of symbol spirals like a labyrinth into the cosmic womb space, amplifying mantra, destiny and meaning concealed within human posture and gesture. Vast ideas may be represented by simple images: arcs, spirals, a foot moving forward, a headdress, stars scattered over dresses.
As the Age of Pisces dawned, the lone Star of Bethlehem momentarily eclipsed the significance of all other stars, signalling the advent of Christianity and the turbulent demise of the Goddess, yet there is a whole universe of galaxies out there and Female Power has always been encoded into the language of the stars. Still is.
Women were the time keepers. The Goddess orbit was of celestial proportion. Awareness shapes reality and this is the age of remembering.
References
[1] Marina Abramović – An Artist’s Life Manifesto: Marina Abramović’s Rules of Life, Solitude, and Silence, 30.11.2016., Popova, Maria. The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/11/30/marina-abramovic-artist-manifesto/?fbclid=IwAR3AktRnspQy-ZvbUMDEzfhq9REAUeGrfiv60OYrotHII-nNY4vmoKS4SX4
[2] Egypt: Temple of Dendera, Smit & Palarczyk, Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/384494886948165285/
[3] Jain 108. https://jain108.com/
[4] Ani Williams presenting the Abydos Temple Scale, soundbringer, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6p8FIJARm8
[5] Seshat – Opener of Heaven’s Door, Malaika Mutere, 23.09.2017. https://malaikamutere.com/2017/09/23/seshat-opener-of-heavens-door/
[6] Music, the Neural Harmonics of Emotion, and How Love Recomposes the Brain, Popova, Maria,12.04.2021, The Marginalian. https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/12/04/general-theory-of-love-music-emotion/?fbclid=IwAR2tfCQQCsLGgsXB-bfbxbAbm7gXd4JVDsfXzF649-kdUEi8PFCRIpyJwAk
[7] File:Dendera Deckenrelief 03.JPG, Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dendera_Deckenrelief_03.JPG
[8] Egypt: Temple of Dendera, Smit & Palarczyk, Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/660973682791820153/
[9] The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers, Sparavigna, Amelia. https://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.1592.pdf#:~:text=In%20the%20ancient%20Egypt%20seven,star%20in%20the%20Taurus%20constellation.
[10] Seshat Mistress of the Yoniverse, Dorey, Claire, 1.4.2024, Return to Mago E* Magazine. https://www.magoism.net/2024/01/art-essay-conversations-with-women-and-plants-a-transcendental-opening-via-the-voynich-portal-by-claire-dorey/