The Legend to ISIS - Child of Earth and Sky
           In the beginning, all was darkness in Nin,
               the primordial ocean of chaos.
         And then came a great fire in the heavens
and his name was Ra.
       He created Shu (the air), and Tefnut (the moisture);
                          they in turn created heaven and earth.
       Nut, Goddess of the sky, and Geb, God of the earth,
                        were filled with desire for each other,
    knowing that with the union of the ethereal womb
  of the heavens and the material seed of the earth,
          all things might be possible.
       Ra, master of the cosmos,
                                   was envious of the potential they possessed,
  and forbade the union.
But with courageous disobedience they soon
                 came together and knew a brief but passionate embrace.
                    When Ra learned of their defiance,
                      a consuming rage came upon him,
                                      and he ordered Shu to eternally divide them.
To this day, the lonely earth reaches up in arousal,
                                     seeking to hold his beloved sky once more.
                Ra was too slow, however, and their brief union was fruitful:
              Nut gave birth to four children - brothers Osirus and Seth,
                  and sisters Isis and Nephthys -who became the four cardinal deities
                            of the earth and lords over all therein.
  Of these four, Isis - Goddess of life - was supreme.
                              Isis is the Mistress of the Four Elements
             (terrestrial earth and water, and celestial wind and fire -
                      symbols of the both the divided functions of body and spirit
      and the rational and creative aspects of the mind).
As the embodiment of all the forces of nature,
             She is the Mother of all life.
     It is Her Elemental Will that forges the transcendant,
        static, ethereal, (the sky) with the immanent, dynamic,
                   material,(the earth) into the unitary miracle of living things.
                 Isis, the great Mother Goddess, exists at the centre of all life.
                  She draws the earth upward, that Her blood might flow down
                                 to nourish the four corners of the world.
      And the seeds of the earth are born upon Her breath,
                         that they might find a home in the desert, and thereby  bring the fiery spark of new life to that once desolate place.
                      The oasis in the desert, like life in the cosmos,is a miraculous little      jewel,improbable almost to the point of impossible.
                   Only the fourfold energies of Isis that penetrate space and time
                               to intersectat this place, bring forth Life.
                      Isis holds next to Her breast the Egyptian symbol known as ankh.
                          It literally translates as life or vitality,
             but it is also a pictograph of man (head, arms and body).
                           This is the image of mother and child.
                   Like all mothers, she struggles to protect Her children - and cannot.
                As children grow and wander far from their mother's gentle
                               protection, they must eventually suffer.
           And like all mothers, Isis suffers the pain of Her children,
                                         and suffers in Her helplessness to prevent it.
    But the passive, nurturing Beauty of the Goddess is a
              component of the life force the She provides to sustain us.
                                   To be sensitive to the energies of nature,
                   is to be attuned to the Goddess and Her transcendant nourishment
                                             that informs the needs of both body and spirit.
                   Between the passive and active extremes of the living experience,
           is the center wherein one makes contact with the Goddess,
                   and is replenished and sustained by Her life-giving benevolence.
          It is a central role of the feminine archetype
- the Great Mother Goddess -
                  to bring one into this centre, where the transformation occurs.
        The ancient Egyptians tell a story of a spiritual coupling,
                               between Isis and the dead body of Osirus
                  (once leader of the terrestrial Gods, but killed by his brother Seth).
               From this union came Horus -
                                          the living God and supreme Lord of the cosmos.
   This story appears many, many times
across the earth, and across history.
        Our stories about Gods, are stories about ourselves.
           And our desire for the miracle benediction of the Goddess,
                    is pervasive indeed: from Cybele
(the most ancient deity we know of
                   - who later becomes Ishtar in Persia, Isis in Egypt,
      Artemis in Greece, and Diana in Rome),
                    to Devaki (the human mother of Krishna -
         God incarnate on earth),to Queen Maya
         (virgin mother of Buddha -enlightenment incarnate),
     to the Virgin Mary
                (another human mother of a famous God incarnate on earth).
                    Even the Sage-prophet Merlin (from the grand Arthurian tradition
                  Christianized from more ancient pre-Christian Celtic mythology),
                  is conceived of a virgin mother and a "golden being of light".
     The promise for us within these stories is that we too
           can join with the Truth - and become the Sage-Prophet.
              And the Mother of the Prophet is a virgin
            because no physical union has occurred;
                 when God penetrates into the soul, it is a purely spiritual act.
As the physical feminine brings forth physical life,
               so, too, does the spiritual feminine bring forth spiritual life.
It is through this aspect of the Goddess
   we hold in our hearts that we are reborn:
           not merely physical, but now spiritual beings.
               When one has learned to resonate with and unify those divine
elemental vibrations of earth and sky
(that is, unify the two halves of consciousness -
                  the terrestrially informed rational and celestially informed creative,
                    the masculine and feminine, and the conscious and the unconscious),
                 then they are invited to fly upon the wings of enlightenment
         up to a great pyramid of light
          upon which awaits the Lord Creator of the cosmos.
          

       
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