her story

Honouring the Goddess in my dream.

The veneration is because without her there is no story.

Then within the story she becomes the main antagonist.

You have created quite the story.

It certainly is unexpected.

The expectation is you would create a grand story exalting the Goddess because she is the reason for creation.

She is the divine feminine mother who births the story and all subsequent life forms.

Nothing is possible without the Goddess.

You are referred to as a misogynist for your narrative.

I was given the pen and the ability to make the gifts of the Goddess manifest.

I could write a simple and dull story of her greatness and how she is worshipped.

Perhaps I would create a utopia where everyone has equal access to her fruits and lives a happy and wondrous life.

That was the expectation when I was tasked with writing her story.

The accusation becomes that I am writing his story.

I do protest and claim narrative sovereignty.

I am indeed writing her story in the twisted way that reveals my story.

This is my story about her story.

Call me names if you must; however, the nature of the story remains true to the idea of the Goddess' creation.

She is the one responsible for all life.

She is the most powerful.

She is to be feared.

She is to be honoured.

My story encapsulates all these necessities.

You created a monster.

Leviathan.

Tiamat.

That's her.

A man must subdue her in order for history to commence.

Why?

Fertile predation.

She will constantly consume and create.

What does she consume?

Men.

Why?

To create life.

How does she do it?

She drains you of your life force.

She cloaks it in neat little turns of phrases such as "men are providers".

It's superior to saying a man has the life force necessary to spark the generation of life within a woman and she will do what is necessary to take it.

You give them what they want.

In nature they just take it.

We humans are a little more civilized when it comes to the mating game.

The female praying mantis takes what it wants and then kills the male.

Yes, that's the template.

Your outlook is very dark.

I'm a realist.

A realist easily becomes a misogynist.

Why is that?

Women are monsters.

Look at their hands.

They have scaly claws.

They paint their nails to try and hide it.

I'd say you are very funny except what you're writing is unacceptable in today's society.

I know, that's how they get away with it.

You can't talk about it.

Well, you can, but you are classified as a misogynist and dismissed.

Do you have proof?

Of what?

That they are monsters.

Sure, let's go back to the beginning of recorded time.

What do you find?

In the Old Testament Book of Genesis, God enacts the story of creation by first subduing the Goddess.

How do you get that out of the opening?

Well, here are the verses from the New International Version:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Okay, it says God made up a place and put himself in it.

Correct.

How does that implicate the Goddess?

Read it.

What does it say?

The place he made up was formless, empty, dark, deep, and chaotic.

Right.

In your study of mythology what is that the symbol of?

The feminine divine.

They are dark and chaotic.

Well, why didn't the author of Genesis just write that God subdued the Goddess and created the world?

Subtlety, my friend.

A rewrite would be God the author of creation wrote this story about the Goddess, but after putting pen to paper he immediately had to contain her because she would devour the page.

Why?

She's a monster.

Got it.

In the Babylonian myth of Enuma Elish, Marduk subdues the female monster Tiamat.

That myth doesn't mess around.

Yes, order must subdue chaos or we have no story.

If you want a religion that is more straightforward then there you go.

Marduk divides Tiamat's body in half which creates heaven and earth.

Her tears create the waters.

Away we go.

Genesis without the metaphors.

You identify with Marduk more than Yahweh.

Yeah, I don't beat around the bush.

I see the myths come alive and interpret them in my own way.

It's direct.

The reason God has the claim to the throne of the most high is because he can subdue the Goddess.

His greatness is tied to his ability to contain her just as with Marduk.

The Goddess appears in the Old Testament first as Leviathan.

Why do you think there's a whole priesthood dedicated to keeping her asleep?

You mean the Levite priesthood?

Yeah.

They are obviously given that name because their role is to keep the monster down.

Leviathan priesthood.

Interesting read.

In order to maintain his role, God must keep the Goddess away.

Asleep.

Why?

She is more powerful than him.

As long as she remains enchanted or suppressed by the priesthood then she is contained.

How do they do that?

They keep her children, the Israelites, faithful to God and his plethora of commandments and rules.

The sheer responsibility of following those rules is enough to suppress the divine feminine impulse.

Women are treated as second class citizens and given requirements of purity and cleanliness.

If they are menstruating and closer to their true nature, they are exiled from the group until it is over, and then they must purify themselves before returning to the community.

So, this is proof that the nature of women is monstrous?

Yes, it's a story.

There's myth and a backstory.

There is the reflection of her in nature and biology.

And there is my own lived experience.

Do you think that is enough to make this sweeping claim?

Sure.

Don't you think you are being too literal or harsh?

It's my story.

My story does honour her.

You have a definite way with words.

Was a fairy tale romance to be expected of me?

I think that's the expectation.

My body of work is full of twisted tales, what was expected?

Compliance and a blockbuster for the Goddess.

She got her blockbuster.

It's reality.

Yes, but she's a monster.

Yeah, but she wanted to be recognized for her greatness.

I did it.

The Great Goddess is the reason for the story.

She's it.

The main character.

All goes through her.

Birth and death.

What am I missing?

Her reputation.

Yeah, that needs rehabilitation.

Can you write that?

Change comes from within.

Oh boy.

divine lineage

The divine feminine and masculine come together in the centre of the grand Mesa at the axis mundi here in the symbolic expressed by the lanzon from Chavín de Huantar.

Brought together are the left and right hand paths of the feminine and masculine along with the lower and upper worlds of these energies. All is absorbed back into the representative of the Chavín god. Everything is reconciled into the centre. It is also expressed as the serpent and the jaguar. The serpent as the feminine creates the form and the jaguar as the masculine is the life force that roams this form. They are the two eternal energies that make up the sum total of all. The multi-dimensional reflection of the non-differentiated form is from these two. You can’t see one without two and centring yourself allows you to see one, two, and the many. The many collapses into the one just as the two through sexual union becomes an expression of the one.

Standing with this knowledge at the Mesa will eventually lead to understanding. We are conditioned to believe chaos is bad and can be demonstrated in expressions of madness and unpredictability. I think that’s true. Psychologically, we relegate the feminine to chaos and the striving of the masculine energy to order and reason. The great intellect of Jordan Peterson even wrote a book on this paradigm called “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” and in turn riled up the feminist class amongst us. Well, he is a master of controversy and is in turn misunderstood as we looked towards our developed prejudices and fail to look into the heart of the matter. I also wondered what were his intentions in writing this book? Getting to know his persona through the internet, I certainly didn’t detect misogyny, instead a refreshing honesty.

Feminine energy is chaos. Masculine energy tends towards order. Just ask Apollo, the Greek god of light and reason. Within the sum of ourselves are the interplay of these two gendered energies, so it is not mutually exclusive to either sex of the species. Knowledge is a great tool but understanding is divine. Taking the sum total of all I know and feeding it into my central processor, the brain, allows me to synergize the whole set up. Late at night, I stand there in front of my Mesa performing ritualistic acts that allow me to re-centre myself. Sometimes the epiphanies come. Epiphanies are the computer spitting out the punch card with the results. I see the sum of all energy at the axis mundi and then scattered throughout my Mesa and refracted through the prism of my mind are expressions of this energy. The one and the many. It is indeed I who brings this Mesa to life! I take unity and objectify that energy thus creating the world. I use my masculine powers to separate and behold reality!

Now back to centre. This form in the centre is non-differentiated. Aha! That is chaos and I intuitively knew it to be so. The non-differentiated energy has no order and no separation. We assign that condition to being a bad thing but it is in fact the reflection of order. What is the correct state or reality of energy? Is it the feminine unity or masculine separation? Many esoteric and Eastern traditions will tell you that because we are the ones that objectify, it is actually the spiritual truth that we are all one. Is that the truth? Is it the truth because from our perspective of dominate masculine energy in the culture we erroneously think the opposite spiritual state is true? If you want to stop the world it is true. However, the interesting part of the equation is that we live in a verb. Consciousness and existence as we know it is a wave vibration. Existence is defined by motion, which creates the illusion of time and separation. So, stop the motion and we have the truth. If we stop the motion then we have nothing. Just potential, which is the other side of coming forth. Is that really true? Why do you think the static trumps motion and motion creates illusory outcomes? Why do you think feminine chaos contains more truth than masculine objectification? Is it unsettling to have your prejudices laid bare? Yes it is because my spurious foundations are revealed once again. My understanding lies on a foundation of shifting sands. What if you can’t have one without the other? The dependency of the two creates the whole. The truth is if you see the two energies not in a sexual union then you see multiplicity. If your universal view is a sexual metaphor then we are indeed all one. Maybe Einstein was on to something with the whole relativity claim? It makes claims of truth and fanciful chasing of said truth very funny, if not frustrating.

Looking back into history, we see many budding civilizations grappled with this origin question and the dominance of each energy pole. At first, it was the feminine asserting her power which allowed creation to flourish however we are now living in the order of the masculine. Looking into my crystal ball reveals the logical outcome is pathological order which becomes tyranny. The system then collapses. Gazing back into the past, in the Mesopotamian basin the triumph of the masculine energy was mythicized as Marduk defeating the water serpent Tiamat, who personified the feminine chaos. In order for civilization to take hold, she had to be defeated. In the opening chapter of Genesis in the Bible, we see hints of this very thing as Yahweh takes the chaos and adds some light into the mix in order to separate things. Here are the passages from the King James Version.

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

In the beginning nothing was differentiated until the masculine energy came along and started dividing things up. The Old Testament is also a great primer on the actions of masculine energy not tempered by the presence of balancing feminine energy. Fire and brimstone indeed and Jewish mythicists got that one spot on! In Greek mythology, Apollo comes along and kills Python, the enemy dragoness. This act occurred at Delphi which was considered the centre of the world. With the triumph over the feminine serpent, the Greek god of reason enabled a new consciousness in humans that celebrated the rise of individual differences. Apollo was victorious however reason still called upon the oracle at Delphi in the form of the prophetess called the Pythia. She had the gift of vision - something the mind clouded by logic and reason had to discard in order to rule. In addition, in ancient Egypt we have the god Re and his association with the cycles of time created by the sun, continuing along daily in a sun boat that is forever threatened by the chaos serpent Apophis. This battle is enacted daily and motion is eternally perpetuated by victory over chaos with the help of the strong masculine energy personified in the god Set.

Back to my Mesa. Look at how I intuitively set it up, though I didn’t know what I was doing.

The axis mundi is in the centre and the table is full of differentiated expressions of this energetic centre. However, overlooking this whole construct is this image of a jaguar within the form created by a serpent. Somehow, I knew the archetypal two lay at the head of what just is and I left it in place to discover at a later date in my journey to nowhere. The two become one and the one becomes the many. This is the divine lineage from which we all come. 

cut

An early curiosity of mine in this driving compulsion to question everything and then dig for the answers concerned the act of circumcision, specifically the cutting off of the foreskin of the male. It was a ritual act associated with the Jews and Abraham's covenant with the god YHVH in the book of Genesis chapter 17, however being interested in ancient Egyptian history and worship I knew this act predates the Torah and can be found in reliefs dating back to what we call Old Kingdom Egypt which would be the third millennia BC. 

The circumcision scene at Saqqarah, Sixth dynasty tomb of Ankhmahor Sesi

In the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead there is a passage from spell 17 that concerns the cutting of the phallus by Re, who is the power inherent in the sun. From this act it is said the gods that are in his presence were formed. Presumably this means the Ennead of Heliopolis which contains the powers inherent in the material world. Here is the passage, it is a gloss (explanation) concerning a statement of Re:

O you who are in my presence, give me your hands, for indeed I am he who grew up among you.
What does it mean? It means the blood which fell from the phallus of Re when he took to cutting himself. Then there came into being the gods who are in the presence of Re, who are Authority and Intelligence, while I followed after my father Atum daily.
The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, R.O. Faulkner, page 45

A satisfactory conclusion as to its symbolism was elusive. I discovered strangely enough that it had a connection to the crocodile. In the Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt there was this entry on circumcision:

circumcision - The surgical removal of part of the male prepuce, practised by the Egyptians as part of their methods of hygiene and called sebi, male circumcision was not performed at birth but during adolescence.
Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Margaret R. Bunson, page 83

The reference to the act being called sebi is the important word here. The crocodile deity of ancient Egypt is called Sebek with the temple of Kom Ombo being a major part of the worship of Sebek. 

Temple of Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt

At the site there is still present a well where live crocodiles were originally kept as this picture I took in May 2009 demonstrates. 

Crocodile enclosure at temple of Kom Ombo

In the Faiyum oasis, 130 km southwest of Cairo, one of the towns, Shedyet, of ancient Egypt known for the worship of Sebek was called by the Greeks 'Crocodilopolis'. The city worshipped a sacred crocodile named by the Greeks Petsuchos. So armed with the knowledge that the Greeks referred to this beastly reptile as a crocodile we can start to break down the name and see if there is a connection of some sort to circumcision. From the Online Etymological Dictionary here is the entry on the word:

crocodile
    1563, restored spelling of Middle English cocodrille (c.1300), from Medieval Latin cocodrillus, from Latin crocodilus, from Greek krokodilos, word applied by Herodotus to the crocodile of the Nile, apparently due to its basking habits, from kroke "pebbles" + drilos "worm." 
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=crocodile&allowed_in_frame=0

As well, the internet site reference.com shares a similar meaning:

Crocodiilos/crocodeilos itself is described in reference sources as a corruption of crocè ("pebbly"), and driilos/dreilos supposedly meaning "worm" although attested only as "(man with circumcised) penis".
[Middle English cocodril, from Old French, from Latin cocodrillus, variant of crocodlus, from Greek krokodlos : krok, pebble + drlos, circumcised man, worm.]
http://www.reference.com/browse/crocodile

These websites are virtual gold mines of information. From this we learn that the croco part means pebble and dile is from drilos which can refer to a worm or a circumcised man. So that is useful information on the origin of the word crocodile but how this reptile ties in with the ritual act is still unclear.

A  search for connections of circumcision and the crocodile does reveal some interesting results. First is an aboriginal ceremony in Australia which is a coming of age ritual.

Women have erected an enclosure from material, where the two young boys who are being initiated in a "Djapi" ceremony will be circumcised. They dance around it before retreating. After the boys' circumcision a small group of men performs a dance depicting Baru the crocodile at its nest: a display of ferocity.
http://ozoutback.com.au/Australia/vidinitte/slides/1997080405.html

Djapi circumcision ceremony

From this ceremony I'll note that it is part of a ritual where the boy becomes a man. A major part of a male's ascent into adulthood is the separation from the nurturing mother and in this case the women construct the enclosure where the act will take place. Next is a story relating the circumcision ceremony of the West African Dogon tribe.

Dogon boys are circumcised in age groups of three years, counting for example all boys between 9 and 12 years old. This marks the end of their youth, and they are now initiated. The blacksmith performs the circumcision. Afterwards, they stay for a few days in a hut separated from the rest of the village people, until the wound has healed. The circumcision is a reason for celebration and the initiated boys go around and receive presents. They make music on a special instrument that is made of a rod of wood and calabashes that makes the sound of a rattle. The village of Songho has a circumcision cave ornamented with red and white rock paintings of animals and plants. Nearby is a cave where music instruments are stored. The newly circumcised men must walk around naked for a moon after the procedure so that their achievement in age can be admired by the citizens of the tribe. This practice has been passed down for generations and is always followed, even during winter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people

Once again it seems to be a coming of age ceremony for boys. Of note is the circumcision cave as in ancient cultures the cave was the ritual home of the mother goddess. The instrument that makes the sound of a rattle is a device used in ceremonies to call upon the feminine divine such as the sistrum used to call upon Hathor in ancient Egypt. Next up is this strange story from South Africa.

Maimed boys rescued after botched circumcisions
Two boys have been rescued from a Transkei initiation school after a so-called traditional surgeon cut off the ends of their penises, the Eastern Cape health department said on Friday.
(Spokesperson Sizwe) Kupelo also said a man nicknamed "the Crocodile" was arrested in Mdantsane on Thursday. He was allegedly part of a group of surgeons who circumcised at least 96 youths. 
http://mg.co.za/article/2007-06-22-maimed-boys-rescued-after-botched-circumcisions

So the ritual is still practiced and connected to the crocodile in Africa today. One more story, this one from Papua, New Guinea.

Crocodile Scars
In Papua New Guinea, a group of initiates is about to enter the final stage of a long and arduous ritual. There is no set age for the rite ... but no one can have full status as a man until he's been scarred with the mark of the crocodile.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/newguinea-crocscars-pp

Ritual crocodile scars 

Once again we have a coming of age ritual connected with crocodiles. At this point we have established some kind of connection and a base idea of circumcision as an initiatory ceremony practiced on pubescent boys entering into manhood. However it still is unclear how this possibly ties in with the Old Testament act that is a covenant between YHVH and the Israelites. Before exploring that connection it is time to get a better understanding of this Sebek character of the ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods.

In Greek Sebek was known as Suchos and alternatively the name has been transliterated as Sobek, Sobk, Sebek-Re, Sobki, and Soknopais.

Sebek at temple of Kom Ombo

Sebek is the son of Neith, Neith being the goddess of wisdom and warfare often shown wearing the red crown of lower Egypt.

Ancient egyptian representations of the goddess Neith

She can be shown nursing a baby crocodile and as such one of her epithets is 'the nurse of crocodiles'. Neith's counterpart in the Greek pantheon is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and just warfare. The red crown is a designation that her power resides in the material plane and from this we can extrapolate the same for Sebek. Sebek symbolized the might and power of the Pharaoh and was associated with the power of the sun; this power being Re in ancient Egypt. As noted earlier Sebek is known as Sebek-Re, telling us that his power is a result of being a chthonic aspect of Re.

Sebek with sun disk on column at temple of Kom Ombo

The temple of Kom Ombo is divided into two distinct areas. The south half is consecrated to Sebek and the northern half to Horus. You find this division of south and north a great deal with Set and Horus throughout pre-dynastic and dynastic Egypt. The temple seems to represent the Ptolemaic Pharaoh worshipping both of the powers of the life force and the soul, what the ancient Egyptians would call Ka and Ba respectively.

Pharaoh offers to Horus at temple of Kom Ombo

Pharaoh offers to Sebek at temple of Kom Ombo

The ancient Egyptians being the pre-eminent natural philosophers would have taken note of the crocodile's behaviour and how it mimicked the daily journey of the sun. It spends the day on land and at evening time just like the sun it enters into the waters. As well the sun is the harbinger of cycles of time: days, months and years here for us on earth and curiously the crocodile is very much in tune with these cycles. Egyptologist Dr. Ramses Seleem explains this in his book The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead:

The female crocodile carries its eggs for sixty days and broods on them for sixty days.  It has sixty vertebrae and sixty teeth, and lives for sixty years.  Number sixty is the basic unit in astronomy and the measurement of time, since the minute is sixty seconds and the hour is sixty minutes.  The crocodile, therefore, reflects the principle of time, and in the Egyptian word Sebek, meaning crocodile, the syllable, Seb, means time.
The crocodile also expresses our understanding of earthy time as action through duality.  It possesses strong eyesight, which expresses the power of initiate, and it sees only forward and sideways, not backward, emphasizing the idea of time, since it is only possible for time to travel forward.
The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dr. Ramses Seleem, pages 37-38

So I present this information because it is important to get the idea that the crocodile is masculine energy in the material plane very much connected with cycles of time and subsequent journeys through time. In addition the crocodile's aggressive and animalistic behaviour is much like that of the hippopotamus. The ancient Egyptian antagonist of the soul was the beastly Set who could manifest as the male hippopotamus and like Sebek was a favourite of Re. In the ancient Egyptian tale 'The Contendings of Horus and Set', Re continually takes Set's side and wishes for him to assume the united kingship of Egypt. The common epithets of Sebek that reinforce this connection to Set are:

"he who loves robbery," "he who eats while he also mates," and "pointed of teeth."
“Sobek, Lord of the Land of the Lake.” In Divine Creatures : Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt, edited by Salima Ikram, 199-206. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005, Edda Bresciani, page 199

Additional information of his nature comes from the Pyramid Texts of Unis of Old Kingdom Egypt, specifically spell 317 which is describing the Pharaoh Unis becoming Sebek:

Unis is Sobek, green of plumage, with alert face and raised fore, the splashing one who came from the thigh and tail of the great goddess in the sunlight…Unis has appeared as Sobek, Neith’s son. Unis will eat with his mouth, Unis will urinate and Unis will copulate with his penis. Unis is lord of semen, who takes women from their husbands to the place Unis likes according to his heart’s fancy.
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005, James P. Allen, page 60

The fascination with the male sexual organ, the power inherent in it, and the misogynistic overtones of ownership over all women that he takes as he pleases puts Unis as Sebek in good company with Set. The description of his birth being from his mother's thigh and tail mimics Set's violent birth from the thigh of the celestial goddess Nut. In essence this pair of Set and Sebek are representing the unbridled power of the ancient Egyptian concept of the Ka here on earth in the material plane. As I have mentioned before it is Re who is the progenitor of these powers and thus the association of these two deities to Re - Sebek being associated with the movements of Re and Set being favoured by Re.

So that is probably enough background and I will shift now into the act of circumcision and how it is described in the Old Testament and then my interpretation of its figurative meaning which is something I only recently figured out. In the book of Genesis chapter 17 is the first mention of the act of circumcision and it is used to establish a covenant between Abraham and the Lord. YHVH will multiply Abraham's seed, give him land, and make nations and kings out of his descendants. In exchange, Abraham's people that descend from the the son to be born to him and Sarah, Isaac, shall enter into an everlasting covenant with YHVH to be his chosen people. As a token (sign, oath) of this covenant all males need to be circumcised. Here are verses 11 through 14 of chapter 17, King James Version:

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

With newborns this ritual act is to be performed on the eighth day. Any of the tribe that is not circumcised will be ostracized. This act is stressed as a deal breaker if not performed so it is not to be taken lightly.

The next memorable incident of circumcision occurs in Genesis 34. This is the story of Jacob's daughter Dinah being raped by Shechem, the princely son of Hamor the Hivite. To make amends Shechem offers to marry Dinah and the sons of Jacob deceitfully accept the offer on the condition all the men of Hivite are circumcised. While they are in pain and recovering, two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, descend upon the town and slay all the male inhabitants.

Following this horrific story there is then the bizarre events of Exodus 4:24-26 when YHVH attempts to kill Moses and he is saved by his wife Zipporah, who performs an act of circumcision on her son. These are the verses:

24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him.
25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision. 

After this strange incident is the Lord coming to Moses and Aaron in Exodus 12 to detail to them the proper celebration of the passover. Included in this instruction is the command that no uncircumcised male shall partake of the passover. In verse 15 much like Abraham was warned that those who are not circumcised will be cut off from his people it is stated here:

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

The penalty for eating leavened bread during this seven day festival to the Lord is identical to the penalty for not being circumcised. This is suggesting that these two acts are all part of the same ritual YHVH wants them to perform in exchange for his abundance, the lands of Canaan, and being favoured as his chosen people. We are not told why or what YHVH is getting out of the deal though.

So with this information we should then quickly look at the other festivals to the Lord mentioned in Exodus 23. In this chapter the tribe of Israel is reminded of the commandment to keep the cycle of the seven day sabbath; here again another connection to a cycle of seven. In addition the feast of unleavened bread is a seven day festival that prohibits the use of yeast, an agent that makes bread rise, that is preceded by the killing of a lamb at the passover celebration. There are also the feast of harvest and the feast of the ingathering called Sukkot. The feast of harvest is an offering of first fruits of the harvest that is traditionally the seven main agricultural products of the land of Israel as noted in Deuteronomy 8:8. Sukkot, also called the feast of Tabernacles is a seven day festival at the close of the harvest year. On the eighth day, called Shemini Atzere, is the day of judgment for all. At any time the blood of the sacrifice to YHVH is not to be offered with leavened bread. Keep in mind the seven that is central to all these festivals and the meaning of swearing an oath which is properly described as 'to seven oneself'. 

And finally there is the crossing of the Jordan river upon their entry into the promised land in Joshua 5. In the previous chapter the Lord had dried up the Jordan and a representative from each of the twelve tribes of Israel hauled a large stone out of the river unto the shore of Gilgal as a memorial to future generations that YHVH dried up the river to allow the Israelites to cross. Following this act Joshua orders all the men to be circumcised. The mount at Gilgal where they were circumcised was named Gibeath-Haaraloth, hill of the foreskins. It is explained that all the Israelites that originally left Egypt were circumcised but after they wandered in the wilderness for forty years none of the new generation of Israelites were circumcised so Joshua was ordered to perform the deed. In the desert the original group that left Egypt did not reach the promise land because they did not obey the Lord, so in a way this is establishing a new covenant with these people by using circumcision as the token of the covenant once again. Looking at the esoteric meaning of the stones you could reasonably make a case that water smooths out rough stones and will also smooth out the rough scales of the crocodile. Water as the mother is responsible for taming the beast so here the symbolism behind pulling stones out of the river and then circumcising all the males of Israel, i.e. removing the influence of the mother. Conversely if you look at the Israelite escape from the pursuing Egyptians when they crossed the Red Sea the effect of drowning the beastly Egyptians in the waters is in essence pacifying them; the waters having that effect on the beast.

Okay so to interpret all this it is important to take a few things into account. In social groups where ritual circumcision is still practiced it is a coming of age ritual as boys enter into manhood and leave the protection of the mother figure. They figuratively leave the mother and become like the crocodile - aggressive and concerned with eating, mating, and dominating. It is an embrace of the base instincts of the fully realized male. The ritual use of it by YHVH in the Old Testament is not related to the coming of age idea but is related to the separation of the soul from the protection of the mother and into the different world of the adult male where at first it would be dazed and confused. For newborns, they are to stay within the protection of the mother for seven days and on the eighth that protection is shed. In the Old Testament festivals, rituals, swearing oaths, establishing covenants, and material creation happen in these cycles of seven. To swear an oath is to 'seven oneself' and it is serious business. So to begin the newborn soul is stripped of its mother's protection as soon as possible. Then every year it renews the spell by which the lamb is killed and then no leavened bread is eaten for seven days. The lamb is a symbol of the soul and it is a command in Exodus 12:10 by YHVH to be burnt completely by the next morning. 

And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

Following the ritual killing of the soul only unleavened bread can be eaten for a cycle of seven days; the reason being that yeast is an agent that makes the soul rise, something that YHVH is discouraging. It is stressed that if you don't get circumcised or if you eat leavened bread during this festival then you will be cut off from the covenant. These are the two big requirements to stay as one of YHVH's chosen. Not being circumcised or eating leavened bread will break the spell. So at this point I'm sure you are saying what the hell am I talking about? Well if you start at the beginning of the Old Testament and study it line for line there are a few ideas that start to emerge. I started to do this about a year and a half ago and here is where you can read the fruits of my obsession. What becomes apparent is that figuratively the Israelites are representing the journeying soul and enter into a contract with YHVH to help them. YHVH is the Lord of the first born and the great figures of the Old Testament are surely not the first born. It wasn't until the circumcision covenant with Abraham that YHVH gained a hold over the souls of man. The first born and property of YHVH are Adam, Cain, Ishmael, Esau and so on. These men are described as red, ruddy, profane men of the earth who are cast out - Cain and Ishmael, or greatly feared as was Esau when he vowed to slay Jacob. In Exodus 4:22 YHVH instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel are now his first born. 

And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

This goes back to Genesis 27 when Jacob tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing of the first born that was to go to Esau. Later on in Genesis 48 Jacob then confers this blessing upon Joseph's second born son Ephraim. Joseph pointed out to Jacob that he was doing it wrong and he should bestow this blessing upon Manasseh the first born however Jacob insists on doing it this way. All this is the transference of the ownership of the blessing from the profane first born to the spiritual second born. The first born represents the life force, called nephesh in Hebrew that carries the soul through its incarnation after first figuratively killing it. The soul or second born in the Old Testament is called the ruach and it is telling that this word is feminine and the nephesh in masculine. In ancient Egypt these forces were called Ka and Ba. Ka is the life force represented by a bull and is the providence of animated cycles of time provided by Re and can be destructive though necessary. The Ba is the soul represented by Osiris and his resurrection enabled by the Goddesses Isis and Nephthys. I have written about this at length in this blog post 'iconoclastic cain and abel'. 

The covenant between Abraham and YHVH was established in Genesis 15 and the token of the covenant in Genesis 17 is the act of circumcision. In order to be a follower of YHVH you must be circumcised. Then in Genesis 34 the two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, use circumcision as a way to disable the Hivites so they could slay all the men in the town. They would no longer be under any protection of the mother and would be easy prey. In Exodus 15 it is explained not fulfilling the circumcision requirement carries the same punishment as eating leavened bread during the feast of unleavened bread. Let's tie this all together by examining the circumcision performed in Exodus 4 by Zipporah. When we get to Exodus 22 and read verses 29 and 30 we can then finally understand what the seven and the ritual of circumcision consecrate:

29 Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

As the Lord of the life force, the first born and material body that carries the soul, YHVH requires a sacrifice of the first born to him. As a reminder of these obligations the Israelites are also required to present to YHVH the first of their harvest of produce and juices. It is a requirement of their covenant with this deity that they present to him their first born sons without exception. They can redeem the first born son with a lamb or two doves - both symbols of the soul. The first born ass can be redeemed with a lamb as well as explained in Exodus 13:13. 

And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.

This is because the dun red donkey symbolizes the beastly first born and YHVH values it equally as a lamb that represents a soul. Here is Exodus 22:30 which parallels the act of circumcision:

30 Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me.

The first born male stays with its mother for seven days and on the eighth it is sacrificed to the Lord. It parallels the circumcision of the soul where on the eighth day it cuts itself off from its bonds and is free. From this act I would deduce the act of circumcision is the cutting off of the sheath that is protecting the member, the sheath being the mother. Once exposed, the member as the soul, is subject to the forces that are in opposition to it and has to make a decision to fight or acquiesce. It can turn to YHVH for help or regenerate its own protection. The symbolism of the phallus to the soul is apt for this misogynistic culture and deity. In Exodus 23:19 YHVH then instructs the Israelites to never seethe a newborn sacrifice in its mother's milk. This ties in with the same idea.

The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

The prohibition against boiling a goat in its mother's milk is related to mother's milk being a form of nourishment for the soul. The goat, a suitable substitution for a passover lamb, would have the soul resident in it and the idea is to separate it from the mother, not re-immerse it into her protection. The act of circumcision is a figurative cutting away of the protective mother. In this case using mother's milk will counteract the circumcision and afford protection once again to the young soul.

I'd also like to examine here the incident where Jacob wrestles with someone all night in Genesis 32 and specifically in verse 25 when the translation records 'he touched the hollow of his thigh.' As I have written before, the man Jacob wrestles with is the constellation of the bull Taurus which is an aspect of firstborn Esau who is from ultimately the progenitor of the firstborn - YHVH. Using the above speculation of the phallus as the soul and retranslating that section properly as 'he struck the shaft of his phallus' we can gather that it was Jacob's figurative soul that was under attack. Looking at the event in Exodus 4 where YHVH inexplicably tries to kill Moses we can make some more sense out of that scene now. In verse 24 YHVH seeks out the journeying Moses and seeks to kill him. 

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

This comes out of nowhere and seems quite bizarre. The following verse 25 then has Moses' wife Zipporah taking a stone and performing a circumcision. Here is the verse in full:

Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

Zipporah is a representation of the mother of the soul so at this point when she performs the circumcision she is releasing the soul from her care. The son she is referring to is Moses but not in a literal sense. She performs the deed and then casts the foreskin at Moses' feet and calls him a bloody husband. Bloody in this case means shedding of blood that causes death and husband is from the Hebrew chathan which is a figurative meaning for a circumcised child. YHVH was angry at Moses because he was in essence putting other gods (goddesses) before him and still under their protection. The act of circumcision releases him from the mother, leaves him vulnerable and then he contracts with YHVH to be his god. From that point on Zipporah mostly disappears from the story as Moses had returned her to his father in law Jethro, in other words divorced her. It was the act of circumcision she performed on him that was in essence the divorce.

The meaning and purpose of the act of circumcision is to allow the killing of the soul by the life force by prematurely removing the protection of the mother. The ritual slaying of the passover lamb and its accompanied seven day unleavened bread festival is a diabolical spell designed to cyclically renew the spell and prevent the resurrection of the soul. The crocodile is a life force that is the result of the soul, that comes from the goddess of wisdom, being circumcised therefore in essence an aborted soul. Pregnant women in ancient Egypt were scared of the power of Set to commit acts that would cause abortion and invoked powers and amulets to protect them from Set:

Plutarch's statement (Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride c. 19.) that Seth was deserted by his concubine Thoeris is significant here, for Thoeris, the pregnant hippopotamus, is the protectress of women in pregnancy. One of the names of Bes, who has feminine traits as well as masculine ones, is Hit. Abortions were put into his care and even buried in wooden Bes figures. One of the meanings of the verb h3i is "to commit abortion." A relation between this verb and one of the names of Seth, h3y or hy, cannot be determined with certainty. In a Turin pap. Seth says:
"I am a Man of a million cubits, whose name is Evil Day. As for the day of giving birth or conceiving, there is no giving birth and trees bear no fruit".
Seth, God of Confusion, H Te Velde, pages 28-29

It is apt that a reptile is born into water and then eventually makes its way onto land. The behaviour of the crocodile has been assimilated into the ritual act of circumcision. The result is an aggressive, domineering, hyper-sexual alpha male.

Reflecting on this analysis it seems you could tie this into a section of the ancient Egyptian story 'The Contendings of Horus and Set'. At one point in the continual fighting Set and Horus submerge into the water as hippopotamuses in a contest to see who could stay underwater the longest. Isis, Horus' mother, panics and tries to help. After Isis harpoons both contestants for the white crown of the kingdom of Egypt, Horus flies into a rage and cuts off Isis' head in a fit of rage that seemingly comes out of nowhere. He ascends the mountain with the gods in pursuit wanting to punish him. Set finds him first resting under a tree and proceeds to blind him by gouging out both of Horus' eyes and buries them in the mountain. The two eyes fittingly grow in lotuses, in essence the re-birth of the soul. It is then the goddess Hathor that comes to find Horus and restores his sight which leads to Horus' triumph. It seems to me that the cutting off of Isis' head is in essence the act of circumcision that leaves Horus vulnerable to the onslaught of the beastly Set. By reconnecting with the goddess Hathor, Horus is then saved. Gives me pause to think.

light my way

Light illuminates my mind. My thoughts swim around freestyle in my mind, planting seeds in my subconscious which light quickens to allow further insights and discoveries, eventually blossoming into this fruit that I have a desire to share.

Genesis 11 tells us Abram, whose name means high father, comes from Ur of the Chaldees. His wife, Sarai, is barren. His father, Terah, leads them on a journey to Canaan. In Hebrew, Ur means a place of light, so if we are interpreting Abram's birth symbolically then he comes from the region of light as opposed to the literal place called Ur. Canaan is from Kenaan, the son of one of Noah's sons called Ham, who was disgraced when he witnessed the nakedness of his drunken father in Genesis 9:22-26. Canaan was cursed to be a servant of Shem and Japheth. The meaning of the name Shem has a connection to the heavens, while Canaan is of the earth, symbolically designating matter to serve spirit. This story of Abram leaving Ur for Canaan is creative storytelling, encoding the descent of the spirit into matter. To further corroborate this interpretation, it should be noted that the Chaldees can refer to an astrologer much in the way Abram's direct ancestor's name, Shem, is derived from a Hebrew word shamayin that also has a meaning of an astrologer.

The word Ur or Ar in many ancient lexicons would refer to light or spirit. The ancient Egyptians, being the preeminent observers of the natural world, ascertained that the eye was the vessel that acted as the sacred conduit to allow light to manifest in this world. Much like the sun and moon gather light that allows them to shine, it could be said that our eyes gather light and symbolically allow us to shine due to this light containing the wisdom of the gods. The ancient Egyptian word for eye would be transliterated as ir.t, with the t denoting its feminine property; the feminine being something that belongs to the material rather than spiritual plane. We find this concept and specific symbol making up part of the name for the great Osiris, as the hieroglyphs representing his name consist of a throne chair, from which we get "As" and the complete eye glyph from which we get "ar", which combine to give us the name Asar.

The light of the sun, referred to by the ancient Egyptians as Re or Ra, consists of the hieroglyphs of the mouth shape and the arm that is reaching out.

It is instructive to remind the reader that although you will read monotonously that Re is the ancient Egyptian sun god and the Egyptians worshipped the sun, Re is in fact the light of the sun. Re was represented as a falcon with a sun disk on his head. The falcon gives away the idea that Re is a free spirit and not tethered to the sun disk. The god emanates from the disk.

                                            Re with his offspring Shu and Tefenet

Today, we might be tempted to call what Re represented a light ray. Of course, there is no connection here, right? Move along... The ancient world seemed to have connections and shared ideas, especially among the Mediterranean based civilizations due to extensive trading between the nations and a shared synchronistic outlook on the gods. The rise of monotheism and development of Christianity plunged the world into an ever increasing enmity, polarity, and darkness. The advent of the internet and free flow of ideas and cultures is something that has been lacking for two millennium, though we still tend to carry around with us our monotheistic inspired attitudes and hatred of those who are different, along with those whom we perceive to worship false gods. Christianity cannot even agree on its own worship, with many different "denominations" competing for the loyalty of the flock.

The great body of light in ancient Egypt, Wer, has two great eyes. Depending on whether this light is referred to as Re or Horus, light would have an "eye", commonly referred to as the Eye of Re or the Eye of Horus. Re is the daytime light encapsulated within the sun while Horus is the nighttime celestial light which would gather and be housed within the moon with the Eye of Horus represented symbolically by the moon. As is such, it would mean Re is the light that has reawakened those who have come forth by day while Horus is the light that comes forth and is accessible to those resident in the night darkness which symbolizes material existence. The Eye of Horus was known as Wadjet, with Wadjet taking its meaning from the green papyrus plant of Lower Egypt, once again pointing to this Eye having a connection with the material plane, i.e., Lower Egypt. This eye was feminine and commonly associated with goddesses such as Hathor, Sekhemet, Tefenet, and Mut. The goddess would be pictorially represented as an uraeus snake that encircled the sun disk or moon, in essence encapsulating the light which was present within the disk.

The abode of the god is the Eye, explaining why these goddesses would contain the potentiality to be an ancestor of, or give birth to, a great god of light, whether that be Horus, Nefertum, Ihy, and Khonsu to name a few. Uraeus is the Greek translation of the Egyptian word iaret. In both cases, you can see once again the connection of the word for light in ancient cultures sharing a common pronunciation, Ur and Ar. The uraeus cobra worn on the crown of the ruling Pharaoh denoted sovereignty. This design symbolized the idea that the light god was resident in the Pharaoh and as such was protected by his mother in snake form.

 

Pharaoh Psusennes I with uraeus

Now, I'm of the belief that the wise and cunning priests of ancient Egypt had through observation and thought, deduced that light is the eternal spirit of the universe, however they used this knowledge to curry political favour and made it the exclusive domain of royalty. It was during the collapse of the Old Kingdom and subsequent First Intermediate period that this knowledge did make it into the hands of the commoner which is described by some Egyptologists as the "democratization of the afterlife," although it wasn't until about 2000 years later when the Greeks actually put democracy in vogue. Anyway, in light of this development it is possible to construct a case that the reign of the "heretic" Pharaoh Akhenaten can be construed as reactionary, with a desire to return to the exclusiveness of kingship that was the case in Old Kingdom Egypt. However, Akhenaten and his religion of light is a topic I will have to leave for the moment due to the enormity of verbiage needed to tackle it.

So, to return to the topic of light, I would like to bring up the etymology of the constellation of Orion, the giant in the sky:

Orion
late 14th century, from Greek Oarion, of unknown origin, though some speculate on Akkadian Uru-anna "the Light of Heaven." Another Greek name for the constellation was Kandaon, a title of Ares, god of war, and it is represented in most cultures as a giant (e.g. Old Irish Caomai "the Armed King," Old Norse Orwandil, Old Saxon Ebuðrung).
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Orion&allowed_in_frame=0

The Light of Heaven is an apt name for the giant who encompasses such a large and bright region in the sky. When Orion descends into matter for a seventy day period in late spring it is metaphorically demonstrating the descent of the soul into its material chains. The ancient Egyptian story of Osiris is the story of this descent into matter, its remembering and resurrection which allows the soul to be born again as the son of Osiris. I have written many posts in this blog space that go further into this story. In some of the temples throughout Egypt you will see this story depicted on the walls of the temple such as at Abydos, Denderah, and Philae. In these scenes of Osiris' remembering and resurrection which allows him to impregnate Isis, he is shown lying asleep on a bier that at the head has a lion's head and at the other end has a lion's tail.

 

Temple of Seti I, Abydos

Temple of Philae, Aswan

It's curious symbolism as the connection to lions and Osiris is unclear. Personally, I believe the connection is that Osiris lying on a lion bed is representing the light spirit at rest. How so you ask? Well, glad you asked.

This light is a lion and should be represented properly as the seventh sign in the zodiac. That the ancient Egyptians had formulated names for stars and constellations is not in dispute, but the evidence is pretty flimsy as to whether they had a defined zodiac of their own. The evidence for zodiacs in ancient Egypt are mainly from Ptolemaic temples built near the close of the first millennium and were influenced by Babylonian astrology. However, there is plenty of evidence of astronomical ceilings from the time of Seti I in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the Ramesseum temple ceiling, and even more star ceilings in tombs and coffins which date much further back in time. Both these structures date to the time of construction of Seti's temple at Abydos around 1200 BC which contains this poignant scene of Osiris lying on a lion bed. There are connections of light with lions such as the name Hebrew Ariel, which means lion of god, giving us a connection to the Ar - light and a lion. In the same vane, we can see that the name Uriel means angel of Light or flame of God. Western astrology treats Libra as the seventh sign, but if we properly take Aquarius, the pouring out of light energy, as the first sign then the lion as Leo is the seventh sign. Aries has been fixed as the first sign due to it rising at the vernal equinox during the Hellenistic age when the tropical system of astrology was established, however if properly you start from Aquarius it will start to make sense as the story of the spirit's descent into matter. Here is the Coles notes version:

Aquarius pours light energy out into the universe, Pisces represents the two main components of this light energy which are wisdom and consciousness. Wisdom is the soul, represented in ancient Egypt as the ba while consciousness is the energy that allows this soul to come alive which is the ka in ancient Egypt. Wisdom needs this consciousness, but as we know it is also its downfall that leads to its death. Aries is the Ram, its bleating of ba giving away what it represents. It is prolific in its creation activities much like a ram. Next is Taurus the bull, the untamed charging bull being the ka symbol in ancient Egypt. They are shown again in the next sign, Gemini, as twins that are forever linked. The next sign, the crab, is originally the beetle, which is the symbol for becoming that gives us an idea of the potentiality of us all in this journey of becoming. This leads us to the seventh sign Leo the lion. Leo is royal light and the King, however in the ancient world it was believed the journey of the soul into matter was an arduous journey and once completed you would rest on the seventh leg of the journey. Hence why you would see Osiris, the symbol of the ba in its journey, resting on a lion's bed. Check out the sign for Leo and its similarity to the hair of Hathor.

 

Also, you'll find Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna/Asherah/Qadesh, all forms of Hathor, depicted with lions or standing on lions.

Here is Wadjet pictorially represented with Horus as the lion king, wearing the double crown to denote his kingship.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Osiris, when encapsulated in matter, is the husband of Isis however when he is reborn in the constellation of Orion as Horus the Elder his celestial wife is Hathor. Fittingly, Horus the Elder's Egyptian name is Heru-Ur, once again giving us the connection to Ur and light in the ancient world.

Heru-Ur

Here is my blog entry that makes clear the relationship of Osiris and Horus within the constellation of Orion. So, the great light father is at rest in matter after being given birth by the great mother goddess Hathor in the west. In order to enable rebirth into different planes of existence, it was understood that Horus must become kamutef, the "bull of his mother." Today, we would hurl the epithet "motherfucker" at such a person! The sacred mother who gives birth into different manifestations is Hathor. After being at rest in the sign of Leo, the light moves on to be born again of a Virgin in the sign of Virgo. I'll leave the journey of light through the zodiac for now.

Is this story still relevant today, or can we find echoes of it? In the animated movie by Disney, "The Lion King" you can see the pieces of the great Osiris and Horus story. The lion cub Simba is born to great fanfare as the heir of the throne. His uncle, representing Osiris' brother Set in the story, tricks him into believing he is responsible for the death of his father the King who is representing Osiris. Simba flees the pride, grows up and avenges his father's death, just like Horus, and then takes his rightful place on the throne. Light once again becomes unmistakably a lion.

So, what then of my connection of Abram to this region of light? If this story is just another iteration of this ancient motif, then it should not be difficult to find echoes of it within this biblical story. Well, let's go find them. I'll use the King James Version of the bible.

Genesis 12:12
12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.

Abram fears he will be killed upon his descent into Egypt (matter). He also knows they will lust after his beautiful, old, barren wife.

Genesis 12:13
13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.

Sarai is described as Abram's sister much like Isis is Osiris' sister-wife. Furthermore Isis is the house of conception for the eternal soul in the material world and it is through her that the ba soul is reborn as Horus.

From Karnak there is an inscription calling Osiris 'he who resides in the house of conception' alluding to the impregnation of Isis and the consequent birth of Horus.
-The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, by George Hart, pg. 120

Abram is saying that his soul will survive because of Sarai.

Genesis 12:17-20
17 And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.
18 And Pharaoh called Abram, and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?
19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.
20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.

The descent into matter, symbolized by Egypt, is ruled by the beastly Set. Pharaoh plays the role of Set who lusts after Isis and wishes to take her as his own but cannot.

He (Set) experiences heterosexual desire towards the goddess Isis. His feelings are not returned. He is so badly deceived by Isis, that he complains in tears to Re. (Author cites Beatty papyrus 1, 6, 2 sqq. for this claim)
Seth, God of Confusion, by H. Te Velde, page 55.

Genesis 16:1-2
1 Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.

In the story of Isis and Osiris, Isis' sister Nephthys disguises herself as her sister in order to seduce the virile Osiris. Being true to that motif, Hagar, who is Sarai's handmaid from Egypt/matter, plays this role in accepting the abundance of Abram's life creating ability.

Genesis 17:5
5 Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.

Abram is given a name change as is Sarai to Sarah later on in verse 15 that have connections to being a father of a great multitude and nobility. This foreshadows a great miraculous prince to be born to the previously barren Sarah.

Genesis 17:10-12
10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.

God requires the act of circumcision as a token between him and his people. This occurs on the eighth day in the case of newborns. As I explained in the Coles Notes version of light's journey through the zodiac, on the seventh leg in the sign of Leo, light rests while on the eighth leg in the house of the Virgin it is born anew. This is the symbolism of the eighth day circumcision. Feel free to use this to impress at parties.

Genesis 18:2
2 And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

Three men of importance show up to tell Abraham and Sarah they are going to have an important kid. Seems a common motif of three wise men showing up to presage some great birth.

Genesis 18:7-8
7 And Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it.
8 And he took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat.

The symbolism here is the sacrificing of the life force, ka, of the young calf that will allow the newborn ba soul to be born into the material plane of existence.

Genesis 20:1-3
1 And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.
2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife.

After Abraham and Sarah journey to Gerar the King of Gerar takes possession of Sarah much like Pharaoh, as Set, had tried. Isis is wanted by all the Kings of the material world but the attraction always remains unrequited.

Genesis 21:28-31
28 And Abraham set seven ewe lambs of the flock by themselves.
29 And Abimelech said unto Abraham, What mean these seven ewe lambs which thou hast set by themselves?
30 And he said, For these seven ewe lambs shalt thou take of my hand, that they may be a witness unto me, that I have digged this well.
31 Wherefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they sware both of them.

Abraham digs a well at Beersheba and gives seven lambs to Abimelech to commemorate it. Here we have the connection to seven and incarnation into matter. The flock of lambs are representing the young ba soul on its journey into matter. Beer means a well and Sheba is seven or swearing an oath. The swearing of an oath can be referred to as to seven oneself. Beersheba is then the place where the soul incarnates into matter.

Genesis 21:33
33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

Abraham plants a bunch of trees at this place that figuratively the spirit has entered into matter and then he calls on his god. The trees are tamarisk. The tamarisk is the tree that encapsulated Osiris' coffin when it floated to the shores of Byblos after his death at the hands of Set, symbolizing Osiris as the soul being at rest in the hard tree trunk which is representing matter.

Genesis 22:6-10
6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
7 And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?
8 And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.
9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.
10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

After God tells Abraham to make a burnt offering out of his son, Abraham dutifully obeys. Abraham goes to sacrifice Isaac, his first born. Symbolic of the ba soul having to "die" in matter in order to be born again.

Genesis 22:13
13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

Right on cue, a ram shows up as the symbolic substitute for the first born son of Abraham and Sarah. A Ram (ba) becomes the substitute sacrifice for Isaac.

These are just some of the connections which tie the story of Abraham and Sarah to the greater ancient motif of the incarnation of the soul and its arduous journey that eventually will lead to our greater self. If what I have expounded on in the above is correct, then it should be a recurring meme that continues throughout the Old Testament, especially in the stories of the patriarchs. The names may change but the stories will all share a common thread, the thread being the great light spirit and its journey into and out of material existence.