Temple of Ra - The Universal Master

Note from me:

Goddess Sekhmet

Sa Sekhem Sahu!

This Goddess is very special to me for I call on her for my daily courage, my ability to face all battles/obstacles and the she is my power to overcome and to succeed. I have also called on her to be my guardian angel and to hold a healing hand over me.

Sekhmet is the Egyptian goddess for:

destruction, regeneration
Healing
Clearing away that which no longer serves you, to make way for the new
Moving forward in life
Developing will power, strength and courage
Increasing assertiveness, standing up to people
Protection
Dealing with anger
Balancing one's masculine and feminine sides
Sexual energy
To provide her love and support during healing processes

Beware, she is extremely powerful!

In accondance of my feelings, I took my time compiling the information for this page. I have read many pages, made summaries from several internet pages and books which took the last few months to compile, but in the end I quoted most of the extracts on this page from one of my favourite book, for it described the Goddess in her totality and also I favour this information above all. I will recommend this book to any who walk the path of Bast and Sekhmet.

Bast and Sekhmet - Eys of Ra

Written by Storm Constantine and Eloise Coquio.

En Sekhmet, het nebet nofret wabet (to Sekhmet, all things beautiful & pure)

Em Heset Net Sekhmet (be in favor with Sekhmet)

Sa Sekhem Sahu

Sa: The Breath of Life

The Sa is the life force, the Breath of Life that comes into the human body at conception.

Sekhem: Power

The word “sekhem” is associated with power. This word has also been associated with energy, particularly the energy associated with the Indian concept of Kundalini. Sekhem is the power that animates the Sahu; it is the power that leads one to spiritual consciousness.

Sahu: The Spiritual Body

Sahu is the spiritual body, one of the Five Bodies of each human according to Egyptian cosmology. Sekhmet is associated with the awakening of the Five Bodies, particularly the Sahu. The Sahu is made conscious through spiritual practice. The awakening of the Sahu is the last stage of the integration of the Five Bodies, the final stage in becoming a Realized Human.

SA! (breath of life)

SEKHEM! (sacred might)

SAHU! (realized human)

Regarding the Goddess in short:

Father: Ra, the Sun God (Some records show that she might originated earlier than this era)

Consort: Ptah (Creator God)

Son: Nefer-Tem (God of Medicine)

Name: Comes from Sekhem, meaning strong, mighty powerful and violent

Origin: From the Triad of Memphis

Element: Fire

Direction: South and North

Known as: Revenging angel of Ra, Power of the sun, Great One of Healing, Nesert (flame), Goddess of War, Goddess of Love and Feminine sexuality. Protector of the Underworld, The Goddess of sunset, destruction, death, and wisdom

Aspect: Crone (Bast the maturing one, Hathor the mother, Sekhmet the crone)

Attributes: Sekhmet can be a healer and can enhance sexual energy, but she is still a War Goddess and can be very wrathful. When invoking her in ritual, its best to "play" to the character trait that best suits your desires. Because Sekhmet has so many different aspects, its important to correlate every part of the ritual to the side of her you think will be most helpful..

Blood, menstruation or menopause, red wines, the sun, wilderness, the desert, snake, lion, heat, red clothing, sexual passion, healing, trance and altered states, solar plexus chakra, willpower

Zodiac: Sekhmet rules the first house of Aries. She is associated with the element of fire. Attributes of Aries in this system include: warrior goddess qualities, courage, strength, and individual willpower. According to this system, which differs from our modern, traditional system, Aries individuals may be fiery, passionate, impatient, and even short-tempered.

Colour: Red

Perfume: Spicy exotic

Insence: Fiery and spicy

Food to offer: Food you like

Plants: Belladonna and opium

Candle colour: Crimson, gold or orange

Counterpart: Hindu Goddess Shakti of the East

Day of the week: Wednesday

Month: Khoiak, of the season of Akhet (Inundation)

Mid October to Mid November

Feast days: Normally on October 31 (Forerunner of Holloween)

The Goddess Sekhmet

We were not ever of their feline race

Never had hidden claws so sharp as theirs In any half-remembered incarnation;

Have only the least knowledge of their minds Through a grace on their part in thinking aloud.

From Frightened Men by Robert Graves

As Bast was associated with the Delta (northern) area of Egypt, Sekhmet's region was mainly in the south. The temples there are more intact than those in the north, so we know more about their gods and goddesses. There is thus much more information available about Sekhmet than about Bast.

Sekhmet appears as a woman with the head of a lioness, wearing a sun-disc on her head. Sometimes her linen dress has a rosette pattern over each nipple, which is said to represent the knot hairs found on the shoulders of lions.

Sekhmet's name means 'powerful, mighty, violent' and, like Bast, there are several variations, such as Sekhet or Sakhmet. She too was seen as the daughter of the sun god Ra, and myth tells us that she was placed in the uraeus on his brow from where she would spit flames at his enemies. Her main temple was at Memphis. She was the consort of the god Ptah, and the mother of Nefertum.

Sekhmet and Hathor

Sekhmet had strong links with the goddess Hathor, although they were distinct entities. The best known of Sekhmet's myths shows the relationship between them.

Ra feared that humanity was plotting against him, having come to the conclusion that he was too old and frail to govern them any more. The other gods encouraged him to punish the ungrateful humans by unleashing the power, or fire, of his avenging Eye upon them. Hathor, Sekhmet and Bast were all known as the Eyes of Ra.

The God sent Hathor into Egypt to exact retribution from the people. Once there she transformed herself into a lioness and became Sekhmet, and she slew everyone she came across so that the land became red with their blood. At nightfall she left the land to sleep, but she planned to return the following day to finish her bloody work.

Ra realized that Sekhmet had developed a taste for blood and had become unstoppable. It was all going too far, a full-scale massacre was in prospect. He needed to stop the slaughter. He instructed the high priest at Heliopolis to obtain red ochre from Elephantine and mix it with 7,000 jars of beer to create a red liquid that looked like blood, but had rather different properties. The priest spread the mixture over the land.

In the morning, Sekhmet returned to Egypt to finish off what remained of the people there, and lapped up what she assumed was their blood on the ground. The beer made her drunk, which effectively ended her rampage of bIoodlust.

One of Sekhmet's titles is lady of the bright red linen. Although this may refer to the colour of the soil of her homeland, it also ilIustrates her warlike aspect, in that her costume or that of her enemies could be imagined as drenched in blood.

Both Hathor and Sekhmet were believed to have seven aspects of themselves. The Seven Hathors were mostly seen as benign, and would pronounce a person's fate at birth, which might be good or bad. Inevitably, people would object to some of the Hathors' predictions and the priests would then have to work magic in order to

change their destiny. The Seven Hathors were also petitioned in love spells, and people used red hair ribbons, perhaps consecrating them as ribbons of the Hathors, to bind enemies or malevolent spirits.

The Seven forms of Sekhmet, however, were never a force for good. They were known as the Arrows of Sekhmet and always brought trouble, especially in the form of illness. Other multiple manifestations (or bau) of Sekhmet were known as the Slaughterers of Sekhmet, and we can easily imagine how the people would have feared them. The Slaughterers were seen as messengers of the goddess and were most active at certain times of year.

The nature of Sekhmet

Because of the powerful and ferocious nature of Sekhmet, her Arrows and her Slaughterers, they could be invoked or appealed to by priests and workers of magic to act as weapons on their behalf.

The ancient Egyptians were not squeamish about the terrible aspects of some of their gods, and did not believe that they should be avoided or shunned. Priests would harness the energy of these entities to attack their enemies (or enemies of the kingdom itself) and protect themselves. Sekhmet, for example, could be used to avert the Evil Eye.

Sekhmet is still sometimes seen as a representation of evil in modern Egypt. The statue of her in her shrine at the temple of Ptah Karnak is said to have been responsible for the murder of seven local boys who were employed as basket-carriers by archaeologists. A few years ago, some Luxor locals, who believed their actions might stop the goddess walking at night, broke Sekhmet's beautiful statue into three pieces. Fortunately, it has now been restored.

However, the lioness goddess was not just seen as a warmonger and the vengeful eye of the sun god. Because she was believed to bring plagues, the priests performed a kind of sympathetic magic to ward off and heal infections and illness. In this role, Sekhmet was known as the Lady of Life, and many of her priests were also physicians. In times of plague, they might perform huge, large-scale rituals. During the reign of Amenhotep III, hundreds of larger than life statues of Sekhmet were created, thirty of which are now in the custody of the British Museum. It seems conceivable that such a massive display of respect and veneration to the goddess might have been to avert and drive out a particularly virulent plague.

Sekhmet also had a male form, known as Sekhmet Min. There is a representation of her in this aspect in the temple of Khonsu at Karnak, Luxor, which shows the king standing before her to invoke her mighty strength in Min form.

Sekhmet seems more complex than Bast, but probably only because more material survives about her. To the pharaohs, she was seen as a symbol of their prowess as warriors and their ability to succeed in battle. On one limestone fragment, she is shown apparently breathing her divine life force into the mouth of the pharaoh Sneferu of the Fourth Dynasty.

Sekhmet/Sakhmet

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Associated with the god Ptah and the son god Nefertem

Goddess incarnating the solar eye and dangerous forces whose function is to annihilate the enemies of the sun

Principal place of worship: Memphis (lower Egypt]

Representation: woman with a lioness head

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Among the gods of the Egyptian pantheon, there are several female deities whose personalities have some of the devastating aspects of Sakhmet. They are called the "dangerous goddesses" and they all symbolize a specific aspect of the solar force. Also called "the Powerful One,"

Sakhmet is a goddess representing the omnipotence of the sun's rays. She incarnates the flaming eye of the sun, "the Eye of Re' in fury." Her main function is to annihilate the enemies of the creator and to avoid the manifestation of the forces of chaos. In this last case, she is in charge of their destruction, so that the balance dictated by the gods and wanted by men could reign. She appears as an aggressive lioness, or simply as a lioness-headed woman, who likes wandering in the desert. But her character is very ambivalent: she incarnates the destructive force of a malevolent lioness, but once calm and quiet, she becomes a cat and adopts the appearance of the goddess Bastet.

Because her fits of fury can be so tremendous, Sakhmet has to be appeased, especially during the five last days of the year, the Epagomenal Days. During these days, her wrath is let loose; and the people, afraid that the annual cycle would not come back, sing her praises and litanies and offer her presents and offerings'to pacify her. In those moments, her fury is such that the creator himself cannot remain close to her without fearing for his life.

He may seem a little timorous, but it must be said that the goddess has a crew of blood-thirsty and terribly feared spirits at her disposal. These are inferior spirits, raised to blindly obey their mistress and to protect her. They are strongly bound to the vengeful aspect of the solar eye and they are supposed to be born to it. Sakhmet uses them to manifest her power and will to men and gods. They are armed with spears, arrows and knives, and they fall upon anything or anybody their mistress tells them to destroy or annihilate. When they attack, they are so quick and precise that no one can escape them. When the goddess gives the order, they scatter wars, epidemics, diseases and death. However, just as Sakhmet knows how to send catastrophes, she also has a cure for every difficulty; she then takes on the guise of one of the peaceful and healing goddesses, such as Mut for instance, and she protects the corporations of doctors and veterinary surgeons.

Her main sanctuary is in Memphis, where she is venerated with Ptah, the creative god of the town, and Nefertem, the little lotus god. This association was made later; in the beginning, each of them had his own independent cult. As years went by, they were associated in a couple and then in a triad when Nefertem became the child god of Memphis.

Want to know or read more:

Temple of the Goddess:

http://www.templeofthegoddess.org/home.htm

http://www.sekhmettemple.com/

http://www.relache.com/travel/temple/index.html

http://members.tripod.com/SekhmetRing/temple.html

Groups:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sekhmettemple/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sekhmetsden/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/per-sekhmet/

Overview:

http://www.orderwhitemoon.org/goddess/Sekhmet.html