Greek goddess of life

Goddess of the life of the Slavs - Zhiva, Egyptians, Romans and Greeks - Isis or Isis. About it and will be discussed in the article.

Archetype of Isis

The goddess Isis is portrayed as a woman in a headdress in the form of a throne. It has an Egyptian origin, but over time its cult has spread throughout the Greco-Roman world.

The goddess of life Isis belongs to the category of great mother goddesses and is revered as the ideal spouse. It is identified with fertility and is the defender of women, artisans, sinners and oppressed.

The goddess of eternal life of Isis is the highest expression of a kindred soul with the conscious use of female power, love and mysticism.

Mythology

Isis - the great goddess of motherhood and fertility in Egyptian mythology. Her cult comes from the Nile delta. The Goddess has many talents, but the main one is the manifestation of female power through will and compassion.

Isis was born in the swamps of the Nile in one of the first days of the creation of the world. She is the first daughter of Geb, the god of the earth, and Nut is the goddess of Heaven. Isis taught women to grind grain, weave flax, weave it and tame men in family life. Isis lived with her brother Osiris, the god of the waters of the Nile and his flora. Upon reaching adulthood, they got married. Their union was happy and harmonious. The young devoted all their days to the perception and management of the world. By combining their efforts, the gods sent grace to their native Egyptian land and to the fertile waters of the Nile. At night, the divine couple indulged in amorous pleasures, and nothing in this world could interfere with their union.

People worshiped and loved Osiris and Isis. All except their envious brother Seth. He decided to overthrow their rule. To do this, Seth killed Osiris, hiding his body in a stone coffin. Later a large beautiful tree will grow from it. The goddess Isis after the news of the death of her husband was heartbroken. She cut her long beautiful hair, tore her clothes, mourning the loss of her husband. Seeking the body of her lover, Isis went to Phenicia, where Queen Astarte took her to herself out of pity. Thus, the goddess Isis became the nurse of the future prince at the royal court.

Ishida took care of the child. But one day she put the boy in a firebox, where he was found by an angry queen. Isis opened her magical powers to her, and the future prince became immortal that day. The Queen Mother, in turn, showed the goddess a place where there was a tamarind tree growing from the body of the god Osiris. Then Isis decided to bury her lover. This was learned by her brother Seth. He chopped the body of Osiris into twelve pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt.

The Resurrection of Osiris

Ishida, turning into a bird, flew over her native land in search of her husband's remains. Combining the found fragments with wax with the help of Anubis, she discovered the absence of the body of Osiris genital organ. Ishida made a new instrument of love from gold and wax and completed the collection of the remains of her deceased husband.

Subsequently, thanks to her magical powers, the goddess of life and health revived Osiris for a short time. This allowed her to conceive a son from him. The goddess gave the boy the name of Horus. A born child wore the head of a falcon. He was born a strong and powerful god, who later avenged Seth for the death of his father.

This myth played an important role in the Egyptian culture. It was believed that spilling the Nile River is the tears that Isis sheds about the deceased Osiris.

Worship the goddess

Isis is considered one of the most famous and revered goddesses in the Mediterranean basin. From the Ptolemaic era, the worship of the goddess - the symbol of the bride, mother, fertility and patron saint of seafarers, spread to the Hellenistic world, and from there to Rome. It was there that the cult of the goddess acquired a mystical coloring. That is the fault of Isis's connection with the other world.

At birth in Egypt, the goddess was named Au Seth, which in Egyptian means "soul." But the Greek colonizers, distorting the pronunciation, spread the cult of Isis worship from the Nile delta to the banks of the Rhine. So the name of the goddess Isis (Isis) became known to the whole world.

During the development of the Roman Empire, the cult of the goddess of eternal life and health was expressed in magnificent celebrations and processions through the streets of cities. The priestesses of the goddess wore white clothes and decorated her hair with numerous flowers. Hence the beginning of the cult of chastity, because white is identified with purity and innocence.

In the more ancient version Osiris is identified with the Moon, and Isis - with nature. Therefore, its colors are green. But after the wedding, Isis became the wife of the moon god, because of her color changed to white.

The goddess who defeated death in the hope of returning her lover is capable of eliminating it with equal ease for followers of her faith.

Attributes of the goddess Isis

The goddess of life among the Greeks was a mother-nature. She fought for the harmony of the world and tried to resist natural disasters. With Isis identified two aspects: the moon and nature. Her name is often interpreted as knowledge and wisdom. The innate ability to follow the nature of things is characterized as the inevitable mutual development of relationships. It is the wisdom of the instinct that the goddess possessed.

Isis is often portrayed with a child in his arms. The baby is the result of the love of the goddess and the reincarnation of his beloved husband. During the period of mourning, the goddess of eternal life was dressed in black robes, like a black maiden from the shrine of Europe, the goddess of healing. The statues of the black Isis have a different meaning. As a shadow of the moon, in search of the missing husband, the goddess desperately wants to reunite with him.

The famous veil of Isis

The colorful veil of Isis has a resemblance to the famous veil of Maya from ancient Indian philosophy. It represents several forms of nature, identified with the holy spirit.

A veil, or a veil, Isis is a form of ever-changing elements, whose beauty and tragedy constantly float before the human eye. It includes images of trees, hills, the sea, people and their emotions. A person can only contemplate this picture, but he can not change it. This is the law of life.

The mortal who touched the veil of the goddess of life and health of Isis is rewarded with God's mercy and fortune.

Iconography

The goddess of life and health in ancient Greek mythology is often identified with a cow, between the horns of which the sun is enclosed, and also appears as a hawk or a woman with wings symbolizing the wind. In the winged form it can be seen on the lids of the sarcophagi.

The image represents the act of making the soul of a new life. In other icons, she appears as a dressed woman holding a lotus flower - a symbol of fertility and power, as well as a woman breastfeeding a newborn son. Sometimes the symbol of the goddess of eternal life of Isis is the Egyptian knot of guns. The exact meaning of this detail of clothing is unknown, but there is an assumption that it identifies immortality.

Symbolism

In the rituals of celebrating the Day of Fertility, a pot or cup filled to the brim with water was installed in front of the image of the god Osiris during the procession. This symbol denoted the eternal and changeless change of generations. Also in primitive rituals one could see a torch designating a man, and a cup symbolizing a woman, as a ritual of conception of the heir Osiris and Isis.

• Animals representing the Greek goddess of life were a hawk, a scorpion, a crocodile, a snake.
• Plants: tamarind, flax, wheat, barley, grapes, lotus.
• Metals and stones: silver, gold, ebony, ivory, lapis lazuli, obsidian.
• Colors of Isis: silver, gold, black, red, blue and green.

Rituals of Isis

The main ritual of the goddess of life of Isis was the revival of the beloved from the world of the dead. It was the hope of resurrection. In ancient Egypt, every year held a sacred ritual dedicated to this event. He was one of the most important religious rites of the country.

Only people who lost their relatives and friends could take part in it. The guests of the rite observed the process of revival of Osiris in the image of the son of Horus. The pain of loss was represented by the black attire of those present.