Goddess of the Week — Isis

For our second Goddess of the Week, we have Isis. She’s the Queen of the Egyptian Pantheon, much like Hera in the Greek, and a rockin’ babe.  She’s powerful in her own right, and much like Hera, you don’t mess around with Isis.

Cult Center: There is a temple at Philae, which is in the middle of the Nile.

Represents: Mother goddess, Maternal power in all forms. One bad-ass Mother.

Her Story: She is the child of Nut (Sky) and Geb (Earth). Husband to Osiris (and also his sister– squick, I know, but all these mythos have those wacky relationships. Osiris, after being tricked by his brother Set and cut into little pieces and spread all over Egypt, became God of the Afterlife.

Isis, not waiting for anyone to save her husband, tracked down all but one piece and restored Osiris. She is also mother to Horus, the sky god (falcon-headed one), AND she tricked Ra the sun god into telling her his secret name, thereby giving her power over him.

Isis was central to Egyptian magic and ritual. Hail Isis!

Goddess of the week — Persephone

I don’t know why I chose Persephone, except that her name just popped into my head when I came up with the idea for this blog feature. Maybe it’s because I was watching Percy Jackson with my son the other day. Or maybe it’s the ridiculously hot weather we’re having. Anyway, let’s find out about her, shall we?

Goddess of: Springtime and The Underworld (actually, she’s Queen, but we’ll get to that later.

Father: Zeus

Mother: Demeter (goddess of the harvest)

Her story: One day, Persephone was out gathering flowers, minding her OWN business. Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, thought she was beautiful, and he wanted her for himself.  So he kidnapped her. Nice, huh. These Greek gods never got sensitivity training, apparently. Persephone was beside herself — she didn’t want to stay with the creep who was in charge of dead people (don’t blame her), but no one but Helios, god of the sun, had seen what happened. Meanwhile, Demeter, Persephone’s mother, wandered the earth looking for her and not paying attention to her duties making stuff grow. The earth grew cold and all the plants died.

Finally Helios spilled his guts, and Demeter went down to the underworld to get her daughter back. Hades didn’t want to, but his big brother Zeus made him. BUT before the deal was done, Persephone ate some pomegranate seeds that Hades had given her, and so she was bound to the underworld. In a compromise, Hades and Demeter promised to share Persephone — she would spend 1/2 of the year with Hades, and the rest of the time with  Demeter above ground. While Persephone was with Hades, Demeter let everything grow cold and die — which was how the Greeks explained the changing of the seasons from Spring/Summer to Fall/Winter. When things start to bloom, Persephone has come home to Mom.

Makes sense, I guess…except that now we know how things work in the Southern Hemisphere, as far as the seasons go, I think there’s a flaw to that theory.