Faces of the Goddess Magazine SGC 21

one option; he would need to trick her into
relenting and so ordered for the production
of a substance made from red ochre and beermash,
that would have an appearance and
consistency ‘just like human blood’. Seven
thousand jars of this thick, scarlet liquid were
poured upon the land, flooding the fields of
Egypt. This was much to Sekhmet’s delight as
she discovered it the following day:
‘The goddess set out in the morning, and
so she found these fields inundated. Her face
became delighted. So she proceeded to drink…
[and] returned so drunk that she had been
unable to recognise mankind.’
Ra was so relieved when Sekhmet stumbled
home to the Delta, intoxicated from red beer,
that he declared the introduction of an annual
festival in her honour.
Despite her blood-thirsty eagerness, Sekhmet
was the primary defender of ma’at, the
concept of Order and balance in the universe.
When we consider her angry destructive
aspects, it is important to remember them
in the context of a Goddess whose ferocity
is primarily aimed at defending creation, by
whatever means possible (although granted
she can go over-board!). At times Ma’at,
personified as a Goddess, was also named a
daughter of Ra, though her protection of him
was considerably less aggressive than that of
her sister’s. Similarly, other Eye Goddesses,
such as Aset (Greek Isis) offered protection
through the use of magic, or heka. Bastet
is another popular Eye Goddess, who was
originally shown lion-headed, but later
became more associated with cats instead.
The benign and fierce duality of Bastet and
Sekhmet is humorously demonstrated in one
Egyptian text which describes how married
women can be at one moment gentle cats
(like Bastet) and at another enraged lionesses
(like Sekhmet). However, despite references
to Bastet’s nurturing side, she certainly
also appeared as the terrifying Eye of Ra,
having her own ‘Slaughterers of Bastet’ who
dispensed plague just as mercilessly as the
Slaughterers of Sekhmet.
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Tefnut is another Eye Goddess commonly
connected to Sekhmet. Taking place earlier
in the mythic timeline than the previously
mentioned story is the Myth of the Sun’s Eye,
commonly named the Myth of the Wandering
Goddess. This myth takes place at a time when
the Creator still lived upon the earth as ruler
of Egypt, with his Eye, Tefnut by his side. One
day, for unspecified reasons, Tefnut decided to
leave her father and wandered south to Nubia
(modern day Sudan). Ra missed his daughter’s
company almost as much as he feared the loss
of protection conferred by her fiery gaze. In