Baronette Imaginings

I’ve been planning (and now working on) an entry for the Deities/Gods contest over at the Ancient Egypt group I’m part of on DeviantART, and this has led to a new spiritual development for me, so I’m sharing it here cause I’m so excited about it even though its early and I’m still at the support-job.

I’ve actually never been into Egyptian mythology much before, except a “dabbling” kind of attitude since there are certain aspects of it that do appeal to me. I’ve always been more into Greek mythology, especially as my Patron goddess has been Athena since I was in the 5^th grade (not kidding). I’ve also been looking into Celtic mythology lately, since I’m getting more into my Irish heritage. So not really much with the Egypt. I joined the DA group mostly just to support a good friend of mine, who’s one of the people who runs it. And I had done a couple Egypt-themed pieces in the past, but really only two of them and one large painting in one of my old college classes, so its not like that culture had a great influence on my art either.

Anyway, for the contest, I had been planning to do this piece about Bast (who has interested me a little bit since I like kitties, and she’s rumored to be the goddess of lesbians). But then I noticed that a couple other contestants had done pieces based on her already, so I decided to scrap that idea and choose someone else. A couple weeks went by (and at this point, the deadline is fast approaching), but I still hadn’t figured out who I wanted to draw instead, and hadn’t had time per se to sit down and do research.

Then, the day before last, I started thinking about Hathor, mostly in a “her name just popped into my head” kinda way. I had to work, though, and it was a VERY long day (eight hour shift at the desk, then almost 4 more hours helping my girlfriend with her housekeeping job because our boss thinks one housekeeper can clean an entire hotel…but that’s another story, sorry), so I didn’t get to it that night. Instead, I mentioned it while talking to my girlfriend yesterday (we both had the day off). At that, she actually encouraged me to also look up Nut (pronounced “newt”), goddess of the night sky – not because she knew anything about her either, but just on a hunch. So I sat down and did research on both of them. It turns out that they’re connected – both are goddesses of cows, and of the sky: Nut is night, Hathor is day (by way of being a solar goddess), and they share a lot of the same symbolism, if not specific realms of influence.

What really struck me though, as I should have expected, was Hathor herself. She’s AMAZING. She’s the goddess of love, motherhood, and joy, and also covers dance and song and creativity, and she’s a solar goddess which I absolutely love (I also consider Athena a solar goddess). She had more festivals than any other Egyptian deity, according to what I read, and more children were named for her than any other deity. It has also been theorized recently that she is THE Egyptian mother goddess, implying (to me at least) that she predates the rest of the pantheon. OMGYAY. And she’s a horned goddess, even though female cows don’t have horns (maybe the ones in ancient Egypt did?). The Greeks and Romans both associated her with Aphrodite/Venus, which is also cool, but Hathor seems more….I dunno, independent than Aphrodite or Venus seem to me. That may change as I work with her more, but she already seems so whole in herself as I think of her, so full of happiness and purpose without needing a consort, but still the goddess of love so she embraces love in all its forms with all her heart.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I am SO going to be working with her in the future. All this research I did yesterday, and how I feel working on this drawing of her and Nut, has convinced me that I have something to learn by communicating with her personification of the divine.

So I was thinking about the whole thing, and how I might begin a relationship with Hathor (as T. Thorn Coyle says, you have to buy the gods a drink first before you ask them for something) – imagining getting a little cow statue or something else to symbolize her and ask her what’s up and all that. I specifically imagined myself saying to her “I think you’re trying to contact me.” Then I heard in my head, in a female voice not much older than my own but definitely not MY voice, the words “I am.”

I’m not sure what you believe, as you read this, but I truly feel that that was her speaking directly to me to affirm what I’ve been feeling is true over the last day and a half. I’ve only felt that distinct, sure connection once before in my life – when I was doing a guided meditation, in which Athena came to me, kissed me on the forehead and told me that I am her daughter. I hardly EVER have experiences like that, direct connections and experiences with the divine force as I believe in it. I was raised Catholic, which crushed my intuitive senses and belief that I can just connect to and know things (also fucked up my sense of body and pride and respect for the physical, but that’s another story too).

So for the first time, I say “Praise Hathor,” and set myself walking down her path.

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Tags: art, contest, egypt, hathor, nut deviantART, pagan, spirituality