Mirror of Isis - An Official Fellowship of Isis Publication

Heart and Hands of the Goddess: Sacred Creativity

Isis, the Lotus Bearing, art by Linda Iles

This is a season of reflection. Most of us take the time to look back and remember the happenings of the year, as we prepare for Samhain. Scholars believe Samhain marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year. It marks a period when the veils between worlds are at their thinnest. And although it is indeed a time of reflection, assessment of the years work, of contact with the spirit world and honoring those who have passed over, I also see it as something else. This season of the year has always marked a period of personal and creative growth.

There is nothing more central in the life and activities of a devotee of the Goddess than the creative process. Isis and many other Goddesses were associated with the arts; in ancient times members of the Isian priest/esshood were often artists, poets, musicians or craftspeople.  The connection between art, creativity and the priest/esshood is an ancient one, pre-dating the temples of ancient Egypt. Ancient cultures viewed the ability to perform a creative act as an implication of special favor from the Divine Source, the close association of art with ritual and Deity goes back into the mists of prehistory!

The act of creation attunes an individual to the most potent principles of the Goddess. She is the vehicle through which all life is made manifest. Bringing an idea into physical reality requires intuition, visualization, preparation and decisive action. It also requires empathy for the subject.

Many people feel that creativity is manifested solely in the arena of the arts. This is not so. Healing techniques that utilize transference of subtle life forces from healer to patient begin by first inflaming the healer's heart with spiritual compassion or loving empathy. This is accomplished by focusing inner awareness to cause a concentration of etheric energies in the heart center. A force of ‘etheric generative light’ created from life energy and love is then directed to the healers hands where it is transferred to the affected area of the patient's body. This type of healing utilizes creative visualization and is a manifestation of creative force. The healing energy is brought through the healer, who opens up and becomes a channel, but the healing comes from Deity.

Much the same thing happens with any artistic endeavor. Artists, musicians, poets and writers have a reputation generally, more a cliché really, of being sensitive, temperamental, passionate. These individuals are keyed into the Creative Source, and songs, words, images, colors will come into their minds and hearts. They are inflamed with inspiration and impulse during the creative process and become a channel. Many times these individuals will say of their own work, that they feel 'guided' or that the ideas just 'come' or are 'given' to them.

Individuals who doubt their creative potential are using it unconsciously every day. A good cook, a fine seamstress, a skilled sports player, a gifted mechanic, an avid gardener, all display empathy by being so attuned to the logistics and performance associated with their activities. A loving mother or father who is sensitive to the moods, needs and teaching of their child uses the creative powers of empathy and inventiveness. Even keeping a positive frame of mind can be a creative experience in stressful situations, requiring a burst of inspiration and intuition to cope with the difficulties presented. If these activities are performed with a conscious dedication to Goddess, they become sacred.

A Priestess or a Priest - and every member of the Fellowship of Isis - when they chant, sing and pray, keep the altar(s) and shrine(s) within their homes and/or temples open and energized. This is another way to keep open a gateway for divine and creative energies to enter the world. Devotees of the Goddess who find their vocation of service use their empathy guided by intuition to find an avenue with which they resonate. They open up within to hear the inner small, still voice of the Great Mother.

This is the basis of sacred creativity. It is not only about executing a work of art or craft that honors our Goddess (or God). It is far more than that. Sacred creativity is the act of consciously reaching beyond our usual sphere of activity (and comfort) to learn, grow and be. This is creative effort of the best kind. Our consciousness deepens when we honor our tutelary Deities, by infusing our ideas with loving dedication, bringing them to physical manifestation through our actions. When we operate on this level, the loving empathy of the Goddess as 'Mother of All' flows through us.  

During my priestess training I was called upon to be creative in ways that were very much out of the realm of my previous experience. One of the most difficult involved making my own crown for ordination. It was a requirement of my training to make my own robe, wand, stole and crown while preparing for the ceremony. Although I have a professional background in jewelry making as a silversmith, stretching back over thirty five years, the design and construction of such a large piece - most especially soldering it together - was a challenging assignment. Further pressure was added by severe restrictions of time since ordination was scheduled to take place in a few weeks. As work began there was no guarantee that things would run smoothly since this was my first attempt to make this type of item. Before every work session, I asked Isis for her guidance and inspiration when problems did arise.

I will always remember the still small voice that told me to turn and look out my window on that first work day. A hawk was sitting in the uppermost branches of a tall tree-like shrub in our backyard. It returned to the same place and sat quietly every day while I worked until the crown was completed. When I finished work for the day, he left. When I started work on the crown the next day and the days after, he came back. I had never seen a hawk there before, perched so close to the house and patio. Since ordination I have been called upon to perform many tasks that I had not done previously. The memory of that hawk has served as inspiration and I have grown in a positive direction with each new experience.   

As devotees of the Goddess and members of the Fellowship of Isis, we have become visible to the public eye as we openly declare our affiliation to the Isian spiritual heritage. This is an exciting time which is providing us with the opportunity to rebuild the temples, recreate the clerical vestments, ritual tools and temple furniture to furbish the houses of our Goddess. Many of us work to enact the old festivals, reconstructing as best we can the ancient hymns and rituals from the remnants that are left to us.

Shortly before writing this article, I began preparing for the Convocation at Isis Oasis. I cannot help but think of the grounds of Isis Oasis as I write, which are the end result of the creative vision of Loreon Vigne; in the form of her enamel work, her stained glass, her painting, her ideas for re-furbishing the buildings and planting the grounds. Isis Oasis as it exists today has been her life’s work since the 1970s, a labor of love for Isis, Loreon‘s tutelary Goddess. And I remember too, that this same piece of land was the starting place for the Baha'i who now have six large, beautiful temples in different countries throughout the world. The knowledge of their growth served as an inspiration to Loreon over the years, and it has also inspired so many others to maximize their connection to and use of sacred creativity.

Writing about Sacred Creativity of the Goddess brought back memory of a vivid dream of some years ago, when I was given a vision and message from a Sea Priestess! I managed at the time to awaken and write it down in my dream journal. I feel led to share some of that here, ending with these lines that the Sea Priestess gave to me then. They seem fitting for the time of year.

“This vessel of beautiful purity contains the song of the sea. 
Once it sheltered the body of a living creature, tenderly.
Now it is a gem fit for royalty. 
Nothing that ever lives is wasted,
Nothing of value is outmoded,
For truth will ever be. 
All serves a purpose,
And maybe more than one purpose,
In the living out of it's destiny.”

In the vision, the Sea Priestess told me to 'look to the West.' I realized when the hawk appeared all those years ago, that he was a messenger, a guardian. I thought of him as a form of Horus. Now, as I write this, I am suddenly inspired, and gifted with a moment of clear inner vision. I associate the hawk now not only with Horus but with one of His four sons, Qebehsenuef, Falcon of the West.

Because of years of study of ancient Egyptian religious thought, I know that the light of Qebehsenuef, falcon-headed Son of Horus, illuminates regions of the subconscious mind and depths of the soul where hidden inner truths reside. Qebehsenuef works with our intuition and our emotions. The emotions are ruled by the subconscious and unless we are very aware, our emotions may sometimes trigger responses that seem to have no apparent or visible cause.  Emotions fuel chemical changes in the physical body which alter our mental activity.

Ancient Egyptian cosmology teaches west is the direction of the land of the realms of the dead.  It is the abode of Osiris and the Gods of the Otherworld.  It is the direction taken by the celestial ferry or sun barque to reach the pillars of malachite of the heavenly realms.  Qebehsenuef, the son of Horus has right of passage into the Otherworld, his solar powers bring illumination both to the uncharted regions of our own subconscious and to the western realms of his grandfather, Osiris.

The Sea Priestess of the West brought everything full circle. But the way her message corresponded to another Goddess related experience in my life hadn't occurred until taking on writing this article for Mirror of Isis. It all came together when I was working 'in the creative flow.' And it is a fitting revelation to come to one during the Samhain season!