AmberLou2 
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(2/29/04 12:42 am)
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Hathor
Hathor-Affection
More than three thousand years ago, when these invocations were created in Egypt, one goddess was the most beloved. And why not? Other goddesses brought wealth and fertility and power, but it was Hathor who brought the sweetest gift: love. From the moment when she recieved us in to life-for she was one of the midwife goddesses-until the moment we encountered her at the sycamore tree in the west, where the souls go after death, Hathor was intimately connected with our dearest pleasures and joys.
Is it any wonder that she was so beloved by the ordinary people who sang songs like those to her? Egyptian literature is studded with these gems of longing and joy, sensuousness and delight. Some of the world's most lovely poetry was written to this goddess during her long rein-almost three thousand years-in the hearts of her people.
She was called the lady of love, the golden one, queen of the dance. Dancing was one of her primary forms of worship. Egyptian art shows us that Hathor's people danced together in gender-segregated groups, expressing themselves with individual movements to the music rather than preordained steps. Women, Egyptian art suggests, danced more frequently than men, often clad in sheer robes or wearing only a little ribbon around the hips. These dances must have been exciting to watch, for paintings show women doing acrobatic back-bends and kicks and somersaults, as well as swaying to music we can almost hear, so vivid are the ancient paintings depicting Hathor's followers.
Accompanying the dancers were women playing musical instruments or claping their hands in rhythm. Because if the joy it brought, music too was under Hathor's dominion. She was especially the goddess of percussion, her designated instrument being a kind of rattle that the sistrum. Often, in sculptures and paintings, her head decorated that base of the sistrum, topped by a crown of metal strips strung from wires between two poles. When her worshipers shook this rattle, a chiming rhythmic sound was created.
Hathor was one of the oldest Egyptian goddess, far preceding the entry into the Nile valley of such foreign gods as the now-familiar Ra. In her original form, she appears to have been a goddess of the sun, for an ancient text shows her arguing with Ra over possession of the solar vehicle. She had returned from a sojourn in the south, only to find that Ra had replaced her with a sun god. Angry, she demanded the sun back, but Ra instead turned her into a snake and placed her on the crown of Egypt's pharaoh.
Another myth shows Hathor similarly angry, but this time at humankind. Disgusted with humanity for failing to worship the gods, Hathor began a worldwide massacre, killing people as fast as she could. Fearful that no one would be left alive after the goddess's rampage, Ra had vats of red ale brought and placed in Hathor's way. Mistaking them for blood, she drained the beer-and got very, very drunk. Unable to continue her attack on earth's people, she stumbled home to heaven to sleep it off.
These do not seem to be myths of a happy, loving goddess; in both stories Hathor seems stern and angry. Neither of these myths explain why Hathor is the oine envoked to bring love and affection into one's life. Perhaps there were other myths the Egyptians knew, but have since lost, that explained how the wild eyes, raging Hathor turned into the happy goddess of music and flirtation. Her connection with the gentle cat goddess Bast and with the raging lion goddess Sekhmet suggests that Hathor had a dual identity: as gentle protector and as fierce force of purification. If her myths show her in the latter form, her rituals tend to hornor the former, for Hathor was invoked as a goddess og beginnings-including infactuation, which marks the beginning of love.
Symbols of Hathor
Hathor's primary symbol is the mirror. Egyptian mirriors were made of metal polished to a high shine; often the body or head of Hathor formed the handle, so that the user never forgot to honor the goddess in using her implement. In addition to small hand-held mirrors, massive ritual mirrors were fashioned for use in Hathor's festivals. Some of them were inscribed, all across the front, with symbols and depictions of the goddess and her myths.
The connection of goddess and mirror is often said to be because lovers make themselves attractive for each other by checking their appearance in the mirror; similarlym Hathor is said to rule cosmetics, used to make oineself more attactive to potential lovers. But there is another, deeper reason for the connection of this goddess and the mirror, and that is the ancient connection of Hathor with the sun, which is symbolized in many lands by the mirror. Mirrors bring the sun's light right down to us, making them magical implements allowing her worshipers to connect directly with the solar goddess.
Like the Greek Aphrodite, Hathor is addressed in invocations as "The Golden One," signifying both her solar identity and her connection with the golden light of love. Golden jewelry pleased her, as did the color yellow in robes and other clothing. Most pleasing of all was the golden glow of lovers holding each other's bodies and sharing delight.
Hathor also appears in two animal forms. As the winged cow of creation, it was Hathor who gave birth to the universe. She is often shown as a protective bovine, her head towering above that of a pharaoh whom she guards. As a cow, she provides sustence for her worshipers; in this animal form she is also a symbol of maternal love.
Hathor also appears as a cat. Two Egyptian cat goddesses, Bast and Sekhmet, are connected with her through this image; they have originally been seperate goddesses who merged with the overwhelmingly powerful Hathor, or they may have been seen as aspects of her, the pleasant sun of winter and the scorching sun of summer, respectively. Rituals to Bast at her city of Bubastis are the same as Hathor's at Dendera, and the same story of drunkenness is told of both Hathor and Sekhmet. Hathor's cat identity, like the cow, connects her with maternal protectiveness, for the cat was a vital protector of the stored grain, keeping it safe from ravenous rodents.
All information was taken from the book The Goddess Path written by Patricia Monaghan
Edited by: AmberLou2 at: 2/29/04 12:45 am
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