Protective Shell

[cedar_grove]

Before you were born, when you were a spirit,
Nut, sky goddess, dark body with its mighty heart,
you grew strong in the belly of your mother Tefnut.
Somewhere within you, even then, was perfect knowledge
of your selfhood. Somehow you recognised your perfect name.
You stirred in your mother's womb when that name was spoken,
Nut, daughter more powerful than your powerful mother,
Nut, great goddess who became the sky, the arching sky,
Nut, goddess so beautiful your beauty fills the earth
which you embrace with your powerful arms,
which you hold
like a mother, like a queen, like a woman in love.

--Egyptian song to the sky goddess

It is common for us to think of the sky as "above' the earth, but from space it is clear that the atmosphere is a kind of skin around the earth, like a breath she exhales.

I have to confess that the first thing that came into my thoughts when meditating on this was that I thought Like a breath she exhales would make a good title for a story of some kind, and that of course sent my mind spiralling off down many pathways for a while.

I've learned with my meditations that when or if that happens, just to go with the flow at least for a little while, because attempting to rein it all back in end sup making it impossible for me to meditate at all. So I let it go, for a little while at least, before refocussing on the actual thought of the atmosphere being like a protective breath of our Earth Mother.

It isn't a way I've ever really looked at it before, mostly I suppose because it was always Earth Mother and Sky Father... kind of a Native American way of looking at things I suppose, but also other cultures, some of which invaded England after all. So... while I understand the concept, I get the idea, as it were, it's still quite difficult for me to embrace it. It's not that I don't like it, actually I find the idea quite appealing, just... I guess, different to what I'm used to.

Perhaps I should take some more time to just meditate on Nut... to find out a little more about her than I already know, and to see how I can relate to this aspect of the Goddess that I'm not terribly familiar with. just yet.

In the meantime I should also maybe see where that title takes me... perhaps do a few freewrites with that as the prompt. Perhaps in that way I can come to see what that aspect of the goddess means as far as my own journey is concerned, and I might also find that I have some good written pieces.