In the Womb of Nut
The following material is copyrighted by Jean Houston and is an excerpt from the book
The Passion of Isis and Osiris | A Union of Two Souls Copyright 1995 by Jean Houston
(also available in the US at Barnes and Noble)
Our story reference begins on page 28
In the beginning, there was the great He/She: Atum. Complete. Whole. Perfect. And lonely. Passion without form. Atum was everything and nothing – an ourobouric serpent biting its tail, a cosmic dervish (atom/Atum), whirring in the void or perhaps nothing more than Spirit. There was neither height nor depth, neither past nor future. All was eternal darkness. A hot breath, a long sigh, moved across the primordial waters of Chaos. Lonely and isolated in His/Her perfection, the divine being desired companionship with an Other, with the possibility of selves that existed within the one Self. Therefore the
Word was spoken, a breathing of the vowels of a divine name: Atum or Om or Yod-He-Va-He—all the single name of the Self.
Said Atum, “These arms arise from the waters of nothingness; from Nun I uplift myself, the gods.” And there came into being every god, the lesser and the greater. And on every side there was magic (Heka) and wisdom (Hu) and knowledge (Sia) and truth (Ma’at). Said Atum, “I am the creator of myself, in that I gave my Self according to my desire and in accordance with that which lived in my heart. Thus the heart and the will form the Word that becomes the Great Becoming.”
From this union of self with Self, Atum, the Great He/She, begat two tawny lion- headed children. Shu, the son, became the practical, the mind, the god of air. Tefnut, the daughter, became the passionate, the emotional, the goddess of moisture. He was yesterday, she was tomorrow. Together they settled in the sand upon their haunches. Like golden-eyed sphinxes, they gazed in opposite directions, their tails entwined, guarding the entrance to the world. And they begat two children, who were Heaven and Earth.
The daughter, named Nut, was dawn and dusk. The son, named Geb, was the passionate life force of the Earth, which lay below. They were a pair of divine lovers; whatever emotion passed through Geb passed also through Nut. What mattered to Heaven mattered to Earth. What mattered to Earth mattered to Heaven. The two lay together as one in an embrace as long as eternity. Geb inclined himself ever toward his wife, the sky, rising up as a hill, a mountain or pyramid toward that which he adored. In the same way, Nut, covered in shimmering stars, bent over to hover above Earth, her beloved.
Therefore it was said, “As above, so below; as below, so above” – meaning that what happens here matters there, and what happens there matters here. And so between the two of them, there existed space in which children might be born.
Because of the love of Earth and Heaven for each other, there dwelt in the body of Mother Sky a thousand souls, which were the stars and planets, who called out to each other like sparks of fire in the darkened heavens. Nut bore Geb a pair of sons who emerged red and round from her vulva during the hours of dawn and dusk. One she named Ra, the golden child and noble sun. The other she named Thoth, the silvery orb of Moon. These two brilliant children crept out of their mother’s womb and crawled upon her belly, circling ever round and round her. As Sun and Moon, they measured the cycles, and because of them there existed time, in which other children might be born.
The two children, golden and silver orbs, shone forth their light upon their parents so that at last Nut and Geb could see the splendor of each other’s bodies, which before they had only touched and felt. Now there appeared before their eyes a vision of woman and man—the changeable dreamy blue nature of Nut, the sky, and the verdant green growth of trees and plants, the solid valleys and hills of the body of Geb. Just as quickly, Nut became pregnant again and her body swelled with the presence of her expected children.
As her excitement about her pregnancy grew, so grew the irritation of her firstborn, Ra. Jealous of his mother’s love, he, who by birthright was heir to the kingdoms of his Mother Heaven and his Father Earth, devised a way to separate his parents. Relying upon the strength of Grandfather Shu, he commanded the god of air to uplift Nut. Now she found herself removed ever farther from her beloved, able always to see him, but unable to touch him except at the edges of the horizon, where her fingers and toes brushed Earth.
Said Ra: “I who invented night and day…I who measure the length of years and months, decree that no other child shall be born on any day of my year. Furthermore, I shall create children of my own, flesh of my flesh, for I have no need of a wife.”
Meanwhile, the cries of the increasingly pregnant Nut rang throughout the edges of the universe. Skies rained, stars darkened and Earth’s bones quivered. The planets stood still. Heaven shrieked and Earth trembled. Nut bellowed and moaned like a great cow whose udders are too full of milk. Her belly grew rounder and rounder. Day by day, her breasts swelled, her thighs strained, and her arms ached. Yet she could not be delivered of her children, whom she loved as much as life itself but who now became an unbearable burden to her.
Ignoring the clamor all around him, Ra withdrew and gave himself over to the pleasures of his own hand. All alone, he gave birth to a multitude of children, men and women who he named the “Remit”, likewise called humanity. They were as seeds fallen to the ground, and like the seeds of all earthly life they were both good and evil. Blown to the far corners of the world, they took root, prospered, and grew wild as weeds. They could not be contained.
Meanwhile eons had passed. It is impossible to tell how long Ra’s brothers and sisters, as yet unborn still lived in shadow in the womb of Nut. Dreaming red dreams, they turned in the dark. They sucked their thumbs, rocking to the beat of their mother’s heart. Her body sang the thrum of Africa, the dark rumble of thunder, the syncopation of the universe. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. They followed the pulse of these ancestral drums. Brothers and sisters, they danced blindly with the light of their own becoming, mad with the spirit incarnate, pounding fists and feet against Earth and Sky, which were the limits of Nut’s nurturing belly. She groaned, then bellowed a sweet, loving song.
Dressed in the bone-white clothes of spirit, they danced; and the first three ages passed. Their turnings brought no hurry. They ripened like figs on the branches of eternity. They grew into their bodies. Their mother sang as she knitted the web of flesh, binding their fates, tying knots, stitching time to space, spinning the whole cloth of their stories. She imagined the bronzed skin of their bodies, the perfect curve of their hips, the amber light in their eyes, the faces of incarnation. Her children rocked and listened. Boom, boom. Boom, boom. My heart, my mother. My heart, my mother. Boom, boom. As above, so below.
There was Osiris, brother, son, father, husband, watcher in the dark. There was Isis, woman, wife, widow, dancer, goddess of desire, mother of a god. There was Horus, whom the mortals called Hero, the divine son of a divine couple, twice born, once in Heaven and once on Earth. There was Nephthys, lady of the house, mistress of the shadows. There was Seth, warrior and rebel.
Woe to he who forgets the divine names. Banished from heaven is she who mocks the neters with smiles. Isis, Osiris and their brothers and sisters slept nine ages inside the Great She, mother Nut, daughter of air, blue stone of heaven, cerulean primordial water. Her children were as swollen planets, sailing in and out of clouds, each turn in the womb accompanied by the flute and bird song of distant stars. Say the word—their secret names—and they become the pattern of all future becoming.
The ages passed. And again the ages passed. The children grew tall, beauteous and full of desire. Brother married sister: Seth and Nephthys; Isis, Queen of Heaven and Earth, and Osiris, Lord on Earth and in the realm of dreams. He was a handsome man — dark and almond eyed, muscular, his backbone straight; she his dark-haired, blue-eyed, passionate sister. Together, they lay four ages, eight thousand years. (But what is time to lovers?) Draped in the blue linen of sky they lay, wrapped in embraces, inhaling each other’s breath. Oh the scent of ambergris and musk! Breast to breast they lay, feeling one body with its thousand longings. Skin to skin. Lip to lip. He entered her. She licked salty tears from beneath the curve of his chin. They lay so long that a world sprang from his lips, then swallowed itself, and with the next breath was reborn. Ages passed in but a moment.
Said she, “I’d know the dark, loamy smell of his beard anywhere. I’d know by touch any single strand of hair on his head, the ripple of his ribs, the bulb of his phallus. He is as much a part of me as my own skin.” Man and woman, they were one destiny. Eons passed while she lay in the crook of his arm. Time’s thread wove in and out, pulled along by the silver crescent of Moon. There Isis learned the sacred vowels, the breathings caught in the rapture of his hands. In deep
rivers of passion, then soaring birdlike to the heights, amid great waves of light, the two lovers imagined, then counted and named the greater and lesser constellations. They gave their names to the stars.
Ages passed while the five children lay in the dark womb of their mother, waiting to be born. It was not necessary to speak for they knew each other’s thoughts, dreamed each other’s dreams. So great was their attunement that a whole world rose out of their dreaming. Images streamed beneath their eyelids and bubbled out of the ground: sandals
for feet, staffs for hands, honeyed cakes for the tongue, the scent of ambergris for the perfume of their breaths. The sigh of one brother rippled across them all, as a wind stirs the branches of a sycamore.
But in the outer world, things fractured. Waves of light bent into ten thousand directions. Forms took shape, breathed, walked on the land. A ball of flame roared across the sky, scorching the land, burning the belly of the heavens, frightening animals, and blinding men. Women fell face down upon the ground. The savanna lands withered; the elephant,
the giraffe and the baboon withdrew into the darkest parts of the world. Grains shriveled on their hollowed stalks. Shamans slaughtered lambs, oxen, birds, chieftains, children. Holy dancers entwined themselves in asps, chanting, “Great Mother! What sin have we committed that you must torture us with such bright contempt?”
Nut, Mother Sky, gave forth no answer but the panting of the hot wind and the rustle of dried papyrus stalks. The labor of Heaven was long and arduous. Her lament became the soured waters of Earth. Once verdant fields turned to dust. Strange birds nested in the marshes of the Nile. Crocodiles devoured the fish. And the river shrank in its banks every day. Brothers sat with their backs to each other; young boys killed their old fathers. The Sun roared through the world, searing, blinding. It was not day, for there was no night.
It was Ra, the bright Sun, who lived and no one else.
“Am I not perfect?” he said. “Am I not unlike anything you have ever seen?” His hot breath seared the yellow sand, dried the lakes to salt. “Always and always essentially myself, I do not tire myself with evolutions and becomings. Am I not glorious as I am, my face burning bright as metal? Self-made am I. I had no mother. Self-created, an eternity of magnificent selves. See, there are no golden others like me. Fall down, man. I am your master.”
After a time, even the children of Nut understood that something was wrong. They pressed their ears to Heaven’s belly, heard the mother’s sick moaning, heard the voice of Ra.
“What filth our older brother speaks” shouted Seth. “He professes to be The God. He denies even the ripe womb of our mother.”
Nephthys trembled like a dim star at dawn. “Sixteen thousand years have passed! Do you not hear our mother’s groaning while we sleep? She is heavy with our becoming. She shivers and shakes and cries out. ‘Let my children be born! Release me from my belly’s burden!’ But Ra pretends not to hear.”
Said Horus, “It is Ra who imprisons us here. He has written a decree. In no day of his year shall we be born. He has ordered some invisible god to uplift Nut. And the god himself now strains beneath the weight. How she suffers, and we feel that suffering, imprisoned as we are in her belly, separated as is she from what she loves.”
“Bastard Sun!” shouted Seth, waving his staff. “Could I but see him face-to-face, I’d poke out his eye. I’d…I’d…” The unborn god was a dark storm. His rage shattered even the dreams of the dead. “Turn about, turn about,” he cried. “Turn about oh sleepers, in this haunted place, which you know not, but which I know utterly.” Beneath his sandals, the red dirt spawned snakes.
In sympathy, Isis and Osiris threw their arms about him. They whispered words of comfort in order to stay his spell, but he cast them off, as if they were ropes binding him. “If you are not against Ra,” he shouted, “then you stand against me. Now and forever. The damage is done. Sorrow follows us for all time. But with my last breath, I shall fight.”
With this, he withdrew to nurse his rage in silence, to sit apart and mutter, sharpening the end of his staff into a sword. By his mad rage were the gods, brothers and sisters, disjoined. Even Osiris felt his heart harden and cleave like an ancient stone. He stood apart from Isis, lost in his own dark musings. Nephthys reached out to Seth, touching his face, bathing his feet in her tears. He spurned her, and she stood weeping, not knowing what to do.
And so, the last age passed, a lifetime in the dark, pulsing womb, long seasons of disparate silences that words could not mend. Thoth, the god of the Moon, stood apart. He saw the sickness of Nut, the Mother Sky; he saw the bereavement of Geb, his abandoned Father Earth. He heard the mutterings of the unborn, and he knew what it was to be hidden from the world by the Sun’s powerful light.
The Birth of the Gods
No other way to birth Nut’s children could be found, no way to release the mother’s burden, except that moments of time be stolen from the grain heap of eternity, except that the glistening sweat that dripped from Heaven’s forehead be captured in a cup of form. Here was a great sacrifice. Where the unborn children grew beautiful and suffered not from the ravages of time in the womb of their mother, now they must be born in time. Time became the net that was needed to catch them in their descent from Heaven. Time would hold them and bind them to the eternally shifting forms of light and dark, night and day, until the ends of all things.
And, being of like mind, the children of Mother Sky agreed, “Isis, Osiris, Seth, Nephthys and Horus must be born,” they said in unison.
Thus it was that somewhere in Heaven or on Earth, the subtle and cunning Moon, Thoth, played endless rounds of checkers with his arrogant brother, Ra, the Sun, letting Ra win a majority of the games. Yet Thoth was such a clever gamesman that over time he slowly won from Ra several small parts of the god’s golden light. Furious at having been
deceived, Ra beat his hands on the gaming table, and the Earth shook. The Moon god gathered his winnings.
“You are bright, brother Ra,” Thoth said. “But greed hinders your brilliance. Let’s make a deal. I have, by my own reckoning, won five days of your light. These days shall be returned to you on the condition that the children of Nut be born, one child for each day I have taken.”
Ra banged his hands and feet together; but at length he finally agreed. Then the five sky- born gods and goddesses of Heaven gathered at the edge of the great abyss, drawing lots to see who should be born first. Osiris. Horus. Seth. Isis. Nephthys. Osiris agreed to go forth first and make peace with Ra, to join forces with the Sun in reviving the land, in
returning the river Nile to abundance. Seth complained that he wanted to be firstborn to go out and do battle with the Sun on the first day.
“The lots are cast as they are cast,” said Horus. “There are those of us who would prefer not to be born at all. It is an endless striving, full of unfulfilled desire, and regret. But this is the way of our becoming. The law of gods and goddesses is unfaltering.”
Isis placed her hand in the hand of Osiris and they left the others. She lay down once more with her husband and bound her soul to his with a silver cord. “In three days, we meet again, my brother,” she said. “Let the way be opened unto you. May I gaze on your face and form in three days, and we shall pass eternity thereafter together.” Brushing his lips against the palms of her hands, Osiris took leave of her.
With a sigh from Mother Sky and a rush of amniotic waters, the first god-man was born complete with his seven souls—his intelligence, his name, his heart, his shadow, his flesh, his beatific body, his double. Because he was the first to see the world as a divine god-man, the Great Mother gave him the most beautiful eyes. His was a quiet strength, a subtle knowing. He fell out of heaven and into time, and where his feet first touched the ground there rushed up a green field of wheat. Wherever he passed the dry rocks cleaved and water flowed to the ground.
Then Horus was born. But he clung to the belly of the Sky– a hawk of gold whose clawed feet never pressed against Earth. Keen were his eyes and wide his vision. To the ends of the universe he flew and back again. From the heights he observed how the laws of heaven and earth were formed, how deep the night, how bright the noon, how cool the
shade, how beautiful the dusk and dawn.
Then Seth, malformed by his rage, was born with the head of an ass. He was hideous to behold, his noble heart hardened into a lump of iron. On the day of Seth’s birth, Ra sent forth a whirling red and ocher windstorm, full of fury and sand. And Seth raised his fist in defiance against the Sky. He changed himself into an asp and slithered away into the crevice of some desert rock to wait out the storm.
Three days had passed in the red orb of time. Isis held Nephthys. They wept for their husbands—only three days, yet it seemed they had been separated from their lovers for a lifetime. “Sister,” cried Nephthys. “Your sorrows are mine. I feel in my own bosom the sorrows that shake you to the core. Hold my hand. Let us comfort each other in the darkness, two swallows skimming the sky at dusk.”
“Beloved,” said Isis. “Heart of my heart. You and I will spend our lives together. Your children will be my children. My children will be yours. We shall be mothers of the world. We shall be as two kites, soaring at dawn, rejoicing in our good fortune.”
On the fourth day, the sudden windstorm ceased. Then Isis passed through the portal of time, leaving Nephthys alone, awaiting deliverance from the darkness. In the eastern sky shone the yellow orb of a gentle sun; in the western sky hung a hot, white star, which was the fiery soul of the goddess herself, held between the horns of the pale, white Moon.
At the divine birth of the beautiful one, there came not a moan from the lips of Mother Sky, but a song like that of a lark. Said Nut, “I am mother of the gods; and you, my daughter, shall be mother of the world. And Nephthys who awaits yet shall be your twin soul. As I have given birth to you, my children, you have given birth to me. You have molded me. You have shaped me. You have created me in the image of your mother.”
Then a breeze like the caress of a woman’s hand wrapped itself around the world.
On the fifth day, the goddess Nephthys was born amid a shroud of mystery. She hid her light in the way that the Sun often hides the face of the Moon by day, or in the way that some faint stars can only be seen at night when viewed from the corner of the eye. It is said that on the evening of her birth wolves howled and frogs, gulping air, leaped from the depths of the river. And it was said that she carried truth with her into the land of Egypt, but her kind of truth could be glimpsed only in dreams.
Perhaps Nephthys often sat apart on Earth because she was the last born. In green gardens of light, Isis sang her woman songs of becoming, while by night Nephthys sang her songs of unbearable sorrow. Gods and goddesses remember their becomings, their births, their lives in the womb. From these patterns was the world made, and the gods called their land Kemet.
Follow Us!