10/05/2020
Labyrinth Meditation Aids
Over the last couple months, I have been working with the idea of touch as a means of trance induction, specifically running a fingertip through a small labyrinth with one's eyes closed. To this end, I have constructed two tactile labyrinths of pine and poplar.
The first (1.0) is based on a pattern found on the web. It is a vague, meandering, square spiral, terminating in the center. Its virtues lie in the simplicity of the path and the ease of traversing it. Tracing it quiets the mind and centers one.
Labyrinth 2.0 experiments with idea of tracing the 'name' of the Goddess 3st (Greek, Isis). One of the things that I appreciate about the ancient Egyptians is that they wrote with their art. Every symbol had at least one meaning and was believed to be alive, a vehicle of manifestation for that which it represented. As elaborate as any piece was, from small amulet to temple wall, there was no fluff. Nothing was there simply because it was pretty. Everything had meaning and its own vibration.
Here, I am hoping that by feeling the name of this Great Goddess, that we may draw closer to Her. The hieroglyphs, which spell her name, are, proceeding clockwise from the upper left, using Gardner’s Sign List designations:
N14 – Star – Ideogram for a star, sometimes used as a determinative for the Blessed Dead and Gods
N35 – Ripple of water – In this case, like many artistic uses of this hieroglyph, simply a symbol of water
X-1 – Loaf of bread – Shaped like a semi-circle, this commonly used hieroglyph was an ideogram for feminine
H-8 – Egg – Determinative for feminine in Goddess and women’s names
Q1 – Throne – Ideogram for seat or throne, phonogram for st
N14 – Erect cobra – Ideogram for Uraeus, Determinative in Goddess names
R8 – Cloth on a pole, later a flag flying from a pole - a Logogram for God/dess
The throne is the principle glyph, sometimes used alone, with the loaf and egg used as feminine determinatives. On the left, the star, flagstaff, and cobra are all determinatives of divinity, which appeared with Her name, although never all together (to my knowledge.)Two of the latter determinatives were also principle glyphs for Goddesses with tight associations with 3st and later identified with Her:
The star refers to Spdt (Sirius), whose helical rise heralded the inundation of the Nile and was thought to summon it forth. The water glyph, touching one of the rays of the star, represents this connection. Spdt was called the Ba (soul) of 3st, and later identified completely with Her. The black sand background, covered with epoxy, alludes to black silt and water that blanketed the land during the inundation. It also resembles the night sky, into which the other stars of Canis major have been set.
The cobra has several associations with 3st. It was the symbol of Renenutet, a Harvest Goddess dating to the Old Kingdom, always closely tied to 3st. By the Ptolemaic period, the two were fused as Isis-Thermouthis, or Isermithis. Early and late representations show Her wearing the cow horns and solar disk, as did Isis in later periods. The cobra also refers to two epithets of 3st, Nebet Iaret (Mistress of the Uraeus) and Weret Hekau (Great of Magic).
