This is part of a series on Goddess spirituality and political activism. It is worth restating that every myth has multiple versions which may contradict one another, and endless theories as to what they mean. This is a feature, not a bug. If anyone claims to have the One True Interpretation, they probably also want to tell you about rafting kangaroos .
I’ve always been suspicious of the concept of karma. It’s comforting to believe that your actions for good or ill will come back on you, and it’s wise to conduct yourself as if this were true. But we can all think of examples where it simply doesn’t apply (child abuse, for instance). And there’s a branch of conservatism that believes in blaming victims for everything from poverty to domestic violence. I’ve noticed that the people who smirk when they say that "Life isn’t fair," seem to be secretly convinced that it is.
The Egyptian Goddess Sekhmet is unfair. She has a notion of karma, but it’s collective, not individual.
Sekhmet is the fierce lion-headed Goddess of the sun, although she also has a protective aspect and is the patron of physicians. She is sometimes connected with Bast , the cat-headed Goddess of the sun, music, and healing. More often, though, she is identified with Hathor , the cow-headed Goddess of the heavens, the Nile, and yes, the sun. (Ancient Egyptians were very big on sun deities; presumably it’s the climate.)
Hathor was summoned by Ra , the hawk-headed sky king and God of (say it with me) the sun. Ra sent Hathor to stop a group of humans who were plotting against him. Hathor transformed herself into the deadly Sekhmet, and went on a killing spree across the earth. She devoured the rebels, but she didn’t stop there. She carved a bloody path across the world, feasting on the innocent and guilty alike.
Ra tried to reason with Sekhmet, telling her that her job was done and she could stop now. Sekhmet replied that she would not stop: she had come to like the taste of blood. The Nile overflowed with blood, flooding the land, and even the seas began to rise.
Ra gathered the remaining people together. He had them bring beer and pomegranate juice, and mixed them in giant vats. Then the people poured out the mixture, a red river in Sekhmet’s path. Mistaking it for blood, Sekhmet stopped to drink. And drink. Finally she fell into a long, peaceful sleep. When she awoke, she was once again the gentle Hathor.
Sekhmet, the sun, doesn’t respond to individual innocence or guilt. When global warming causes floods, the people affected are not necessarily the ones responsible for the increase in greenhouse gases. She doesn’t care whose fault it is: she’s just going to keep shining as the earth heats up.
Sekhmet is unfair. Life is unfair. This is not an excuse for inaction. It is a challenge for collective action.
I’m all for individual virtue and good intentions. But even Ra, the king of the Gods, couldn’t individually contain the danger he’d unleashed.
What makes it so difficult is that the people with the resources to solve the problem aren’t necessarily the ones in Sekhmet’s direct path. While Sekhmet was at the other end of the country, no doubt the folks at Freegyptian Republic were churning out scrolls proclaiming that there was no giant lion-headed Goddess, the reddish tinge to the Nile was just a reflection of sunspots, and anyway, it was all made up by al-Gore.
Conservatives like to spin myths about self-reliance. They pulled themselves up by their bootstraps, they don’t need no stinkin’ FEMA, the people in New Orleans had only themselves to blame, we all know the drill. (Now send us another trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout.) But no individual action is enough to hold back that sea once Sekhmet makes it rise.
The notion of collective responsibility requires a certain amount of faith. You may not be the one in Sekhmet’s path, but you trust that when an emergency does affect you -- economic crash, medical crisis, Kali dancing on the cremation ground -- others will feel the same responsibility toward you. Some of them won’t. Unfair again. Bring what you have to Ra’s mixing vats anyway, with faith that enough others will follow.
And since I seem to have settled on a title for this series (again, hat tip to MazeDancer and Caneel), here is How a Woman Becomes a Goddess:
By finding a way to incorporate beer into a sacred story.