Sheshat Lady of the Library

The Song of Seshat

By Charlotte Babb

They have forgotten my name But I remember They call me The Female Scribe As though I was not The Original One who invented writing at the beginning Who taught Djeuty to write That baboon Not the "Thrice-Great One" Ibis So revered of the Greeks Foremost in the Library, indeed My pupil became my father-spouse-brother Thus the Moon loses his face and Nut bears her five children On the five days added to the year. And I am divided against myself the Great and the Small To hedge their bets Do they not remember the Letter and the Spirit The Words and the Meaning? Forgotten, with no priests to call my name I teach the pharaoh to face his fate How to be born of the Mind How to bear the weight of the Crown and the Eye How to negotiate with those who come through me Foremost in the House of Foreigners I measure his reign by the words of Ra I record his deeds Measure his spoils of war His inundations of the Nile And the number of hairs on his head His name is known Because I have recorded it on my palm leaf On the Ished Tree of Life His years are long, As many as the tadpoles in the flood Because I have written it so. Yet he forgets my name, calling me only Mother Mistress of Builders I taught my priests to measure the polar star To find true north when no star pointed the way The King himself Stretches the Cord Marking the foundations of temples To other gods and his tomb But only with my help Offerings to me are laid In the foundations The builders know me They honor me with the talismans of the tools of their trade Because I am the one who makes the building stand In this physical world, and in the unseen world I am the Lady of the City of Eight, The Birthplace of the Gods But in the condominiums of the gods They forget my name They don't remember Why I wear the leopard skin of the blessed dead Of the funerary priests With its markings of the myriad stars of Nut I am the mother of the dead The soul passes through my womb To be born again I am old, great-grandmother to Isis, Who lately came to me with her brother-husband In pieces so that I might Re-Member him I am the Mother of the Dead Bearing those who die into the next life Though she forgets my name She forgets on whom she called Though she stole the magical name of Ra Yet, I know, both his Name and Mine. The mourner who remembers But they forget my name and Why my cartouche is the… What? A seven-petaled flower? I am the Lady of the House of Books They would know that no such flower exists. If they would read what is in the Library I am the Right and True flower in the Hand of Ra The blue lotus of healing Have they also forgotten the number of months in the year, My feathered horns? It is then a marijuana leaf? Hemp that makes the cord The pharaoh and his vizier stretch? No, that cord is leather But they have forgotten Yet my builders know how to use A hempen rope to move the slabs of rock For I have taught them physics and geometry and engineering I am the Lady of the Builders Can my crown then be perhaps A star, and the horns of the crescent moon Although they look more like the horns of the Apis bull Or a bow? I am She of the Seven Horns, or She who Lays by the Two Horns Nine is my number, yet They do not know my name For I am she who counts the stars I am she who knows the Secrets The Lady of Years The Lady of Fate I am she who writes the deeds of the world Recording them forever in my library of wisdom Many call me by many names Some call me Oyá, and they bring me nine flowers, the color purple Some call me lwa Ayizan, the female priest, Who keeps the tradition with her palm leaves, as I do Some call me St. Clare of Assisi, who was given a palm branch on Palm Sunday Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower, who wrote much and loved flowers. Golden they call me Great of Magic The Lady of Heaven The Eye of RA— As if we goddesses were all the same As if they cannot remember our names Nit, Au Set, Hat-Hor, Hekt and Wadjet are my sisters, Makers of Magic: Secret, Hidden, the Mysteries With Nit the Creatrix and Nekt-Hebt the Death Mother I am Time, Existence, History, and Memory Egypt lives because I remember And I remember I remember Who I am I Remember My NAME My pen is Eternity, my ink is Forever As long as I remember Your name You will live

References
Djeuty. (2002) Houser of Netjer. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://www.kemet.org/glossary/djehuty.html
Seshat. (2002) Houser of Netjer. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://www.kemet.org/glossary/djehuty.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Names and Titles. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://seshat.org/seshat/page2.html
Dean, D. (2002).Seshat: Names and Titles. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://seshat.org/seshat/page3.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Symbols. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://seshat.org/seshat/page3.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Functions. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://seshat.org/seshat/page4.html
Dean, D. (2002) Seshat: Connections. Retrieved September 28, 2005 from
http://seshat.org/seshat/page5.html
Seshat (n.d.) September 28, 2005 from http://membres.lycos.fr/anacharsis/seshat.html
(automatically translated by Google)

The Crones of Spring

Cackling Crones are the stuff of Samhain, perched on their brooms or stirring their cauldrons. But a number of goddess stories contain a "minor" figure, often an elder woman: a nurse, a crone, a wise woman, or a maven who plays a crucial role in bringing back Spring.

In the Greek story of Demeter the goddess of grain and agriculture and her daughter Persephone, goddess of flowers, the crone who got Demeter off her rock and back on the path was called Baubo or Iambe, depending on the version. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, the king of the underworld to be his queen. Demeter did not know what happened to Persephone, and while she mourned for her daughter, the earth dried up and began to die. Baubo/Iambe offered Demeter a drink and tried to console her, but Demeter was far too distraught for that. Finally Baubo/Iambe started making dirty jokes and danced around, even exposing herself to the goddess. At that, Demeter smiled, and was able to get on with her quest to find her daughter. Persephone's annual return from the land of the dead is the metaphor for Spring. The Eleusinian mysteries celebrated and initiated people through this story, including an evening ritual called the Stenia, where women talked dirty and hurled insults at each other to relive their stress with laughter.

A Japanese story of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu has a similar theme. Amaterasu hid in a cave after her brother, god of storms Susano-O, got drunk and wrecked her weaving room, killing some of her ladies. When the sun hides, everything gets very cold, and soon all the other eight million gods were coaxing and calling Amaterasu to come out of her cave before all the people died. The crone who got her attention was Uzume or Ama No Uzume. She got the other gods and goddesses to clap and make noise while she danced, her bare feet making a drum of the tub she was standing on. She too exposed herself, and the other deities laughed, making Amaterasu most curious about what was going on. When she poked her head out, Uzume shoved a mirror in front of her so that Amaterasu could see her own beauty. She had never seen herself. When she came out of the cave, life was restored to the earth.

Even in a later Egyptian story, great Hathor exposed herself to her father Ra to bring him out of a deep depression during one of the conflicts between Set and Horus. Again, he laughed at the brazen display, which helped him take his focus off his depression and put it back to the problem at hand.

The name Baubo means vagina, and her gesture of raising her skirt [in Greek ana-suromai] is a mythical way of warding off evil, known as apotrophaic magic. The oldest figures of human beings [ ca. 30,ooo years ago] are of women/goddesses called Venus by early archaeologists because their primary feature is their large pubic triangle. This faceless and often arm and legless female seems to embody the very life force, both bringing us into the world as the saying goes, and taking us out. Almost all of the most ancient sites have images of vulva, sometimes without any accompanying body.

Lubell tells other stories of women who expose themselves as part of magic. The followers of Bast sailed down the Nile to Bubastis, exposing themselves and yelling raunchy insults to the women on the river banks. Women banding together using this gesture not only blocked the retreat of the Persian men in battle against the Medes, but even faced down the god of the sea when Bellerphon cursed the people of Lycia and called on Poseidon to wash away the city. The Celtic hero Cu Chulainn was stopped from attacking his own countrymen by Scandlach and 150 women with their skirts raised. More recently, the Kalina women of Luzon in the Phillipines used their feminine power to block the building of a dam which would have flooded their ancestral lands. In their case, they exploited a male honor taboo that the men would not touch them since they were naked and without weapons. They took away the men's weapons and stripped them, even in some cases, wrapping their skirts around the men's heads to shame them.

What are the messages here for us as we shiver in the still cold winds of March here in the Northern Hemisphere?

• We need to laugh. Laughter is the best cure, even laughter at non-PC dirty jokes. Bad things happen even to goddesses, so we can learn from them how to manage, how to keep our spirits up in dark, cold times. After all, when the fate of the world rests on the smile of a goddess, she might as well grin.
• We need to see our own beauty and not allow ourselves to become so depressed that we can't respond to our environments. Each of us is beautiful, from the youngest girl to the oldest crone. Ugly is what happens when we try to hide who we are. Taking our energy away from the world leaves it dark and cold. We need to acknowledge the wonderful goddess in teh mirror and let her energy flow through heaven and earth.
• We need our elders. Mavens, a word I like better than crone because it implies a person who has special, esoteric knowledge, have much to teach us because they have been there, done that, frequent flier miles and all. The maven or crone remembers when this crisis (pick one) happened the last time, or maybe the last three or four times, and she knows what doesn't work. She is practical and earthy, so she gets by with shocking us out of our rut.
• We need our feminine sexuality. If you have no partner, take care of yourself! Be comfortable in your body. Know that you are a channel for the life force. Let your physical self support and nourish your spiritual self. Dance. Sing. Kick up your heels. Help the Spring Maiden return. Peek in the mirror. She might look back at you, if you are lucky!

Come to FindAGoddess to learn more about goddesses, their symbols, totems and stories. contact Sheshat the Scribe

sources

Lubell, W. L. (1994) The Metamorphosis of Baubo: Myths of Woman's Sexual Energy: Myths of Women's Sexual Imagery. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP.