Isis' story is a lunar myth and deals with feminine magic. When Isis needs the help of her mentor, Thoth the Moon god of Wisdom, she does it to enhance the powers of the divine Feminine--that is Life. It takes the focus and will of Naming something to create magic and healing. You have to know what it is you want to create or heal! As for Naming, the words had to be pronounced with the correct tone of voice. Like chanting, these words of power have to resonant and vibrate to open the way for healing and magic.
That's what makes this utterly wrong naming of a terrorist organization so evil. The very power that belonged to the goddess Isis is being used against her.
Thoth was an ibis-headed god of Wisdom and Healing. The Egyptians thought that the ibis was the most helpful creature in the delta, killing snakes and scorpions. Its habit of bending over and wrapping its trunk around itself, tucking its head into its chest, gave it a heart shape. The Egyptians made this heart-shape into the hieroglyph representing Thoth, which conveyed the meaning of 'knowledge and an understanding heart'. Hence, it represents Wisdom. Thoth was a guide of souls, helping them transition from one state of being to another. He is the Alchemical guide, the one who brings us knowledge and an understanding heart so we can be transformed. I would say that he is the masculine energy of the divine Feminine, the ability to name and focus and order the world.
Healing brings us out of disharmony into balance. We need to know what's wrong to attempt to heal something. We need to name it. Chanting creates the vibration that will entrain in us and therefore bring us into harmony. Ritual is also about bringing harmony and balance into play in our lives. A ritual sets a form that is appropriate for its function.
It is a great evil that in our modern world people and corporations use powerful symbols and names to corrupt their original intent. Isis is the Goddess of Life, death and rebirth, and naming a group of terrorists with her name sullies it and us.
Perhaps we can begin to heal this group of crazy men by remembering that Isis as the Great Mother, the Mediatrix between heaven and Earth, the Magus and Healer who brings us the gifts of civilization. Perhaps if we meditate and call on the life-force that is Isis, we can restore the balance and wipe out the ignorance that is creating chaos in our world.
May we pray to Isis to help bring us to a new age of peace and prosperity, equality and creativity.
1. Anne Baring & Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess, (London: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 224.
2. Kathleen Burt, Archetypes of the Zodiac, (St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Pub., 1997), p. 201.
3. Ibid. p. 208.
Images added by Managing Editor Meryl Ann Butler.
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