The Goddess Bast

We live in a vast universe. The spirits of Ancient Egypt, skilled in Shamanism, are perfectly equipped to navigate it. Their anthropomorphic natures give them inherent skills and highly evolved senses human beings are still developing. The Egyptians, who were excellent observers of nature, witnessed these spirits in an animistic universe.

The Egyptian pantheon offered their services as protectors, farmers, embalming experts and artisans. Bast, like many a goddess named the Eye of Ra, was regarded as the avenging, offensive hand of the imperial sun. Her protection extended to Lower Egypt, as the northern counterpart of Sekhemet. She was not a less feral, sated version of the aforementioned lioness. It was Artemis, after all, the cunning, solitary huntress, who the Greeks associated with Bast (and by extension, the Italio-Roman witch queen Diana, I suppose).

Bast is a keenly realized deity whose bright eyes are always observing me. She is clear and crisp as peppermint. Though I don’t mean this in an amorous context (Bast is, after all, not considered a patron of sexual or romantic love), there is a romantic side to Bast. It’s in her refined, displaced nature, like the aloof desert cat or strays I met in Albuquerque. She also has the ability to change her shape, as the Ancients Egyptians discovered. Even after she became represented as a woman with a cat’s face, she held in her hands an aegis bearing the face of an angry lioness.

It should be noted that Bast is still a mystery to us in the modern day. What little information survives from the ancient world comes from pyramid and wall texts. There are no prayers from these bygone days preserved to Bast. Much of these records relate to her relationships with the pharaoh, the state and Ra. We do know that the Egyptian people prayed to her and that countless cat statues were offered to her by everyday people. She and Sekhemet were similar in prominence to Uadjet and Nekhebet, the transcendent bird-snake goddesses found in countless artistic renderings and the pharaoh’s crown.

For my part, I felt Bast’s presence gradually, and when I finally acknowledged her, she produced vivid omens and audible responses. But in the end, only Bast can teach you about Bast.I believe she can help us travail new Shamanic depths. If you feel endangered or that someone wishes you ill, Bast can defend you. If you feel you’ve been cursed, if you lack good fortune, Bast may be able to help you. She can rip away negative energy and associations. Hexes are no match for her.

Bast is also a provider who can teach you how to access the universe’s abundant nature. I have known Bast to attend her totem animals, and return them if they’ve wandered off from home; though she is not strictly the “Goddess of Cats.”

She responds favorably to chanting and drumming, like the lwa of Vodou and African Diaspora. Offer Bast fresh water, flowers, incense, bars of chocolate and jewelry.   More information on Bast can be found in S.D. Cass’s stellar essay, and Ellen Cannon Reed’s book, Circle of Isis.