Myths about the three deities of the first meditation
ANUBIS
The first divinity we meet is Anubis. We are in the times of ancient Egypt, this god takes the form of a man with the head of an animal that is a cross between a dog, a jackal, a hyena, and a wolf. An animal that lives in the desert lashed by the hot evening wind roaming near cemeteries. It is here where the first function of Anubis arises: the protector of graves, also known as the epithet “Lord of the Westerners,” alluding to the fact that the deceased buried on the left bank of the Nile were called Westerners.
However, he is also known as, “He who is upon his mountain,” because it is from above that the burial places can be guarded ensuring nothing happens to those who rest in peace.
Anubis, whose figure is connected to the practice of embalming takes care of the bodies and the places that preserve them. Not only that: he is also a psychopomp, accompanying souls to the Afterlife. Sometimes, along this journey, he illuminates the way with a moon that he holds in the palm of his hand. Once arrived at the gates that separate the living from the dead, Anubis proceeds to weigh the soul, the psychostasia. We are in the Hall of the Two Truths, in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld, and the god is bent over a scale: on one platter rests the feather of the goddess of Truth, Maat, while on the other lies the heart of the deceased. Only if the weight of the heart does not exceed that of the feather, then the gates to the realm of Osiris will open. The lightness of the heart, the seat of the soul, is the key that guarantees eternity, and Anubis is the keeper of the sacred scales and the guarantor of correct weighing. The fate of the heart that is too heavy will be to be devoured by the monster Ammit, and the deceased will remain a prisoner of the Duat forever, without access to the realm of Osiris.
The bond between Osiris and Anubis is told in the great myth of the death of Osiris,
killed by deception and dismembered by his envious brother Seth. In this myth, Anubis helps Isis, Osiris’ sister, and wife, to embalm him and, according to one tradition, receives his organs as a gift.
In another myth we see him defending Osiris’ body from Seth, who has mutated into a leopard. Anubis manages to brand his skin with red-hot iron and, after skinning him, he wears it, then to be used by the priests to commemorate Anubis’ victory over Seth. Anubis protects, defends, and measures: care is needed to approach the underworld, which hides treasures and dangers; the purity of a brave and light heart is needed.
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PERSEPHONE
OSIRIS
We arrive at Osiris, the divinity and mythical king of ancient Egypt. His figure is characterized by two main aspects, related to life and death, reminding us of Persephone, in her straddling of the dimensions that constitute the totality of life itself by his death at the hands of his brother Seth, which we have already discussed in connection with Anubis. Osiris occupies a pivotal role in the development of human civilization, as the inventor of religion and agriculture, the protector of the flooding of the Nile, and the regulator of the cycles of the seasons, and even of the smooth running of the stars. He taught men how to cultivate the land and produce wine. His birth is linked to the myth that tells the origin of the five epagomenal days, won by Thot to the moon so that he could allow the sky goddess Nut, guilty of betraying the sun god, Ra, with Geb, God of the earth, to give birth. Osiris will be born on the first day and he will be followed, day after day, by Horus, Seth, Isis, and Naphtj.
It will be Isis, sister and bride, who, in despair, will wander the earth searching for the pieces of her beloved, dismembered by her brother Seth, and, with magical arts will reconstruct his body. Another myth relates that, in the momentary return to life, Osiris will unite with Isis; together, they will conceive Horus, who will collect his father’s legacy.
Contact with death will make Osiris the ruler of the Afterlife, a guarantor of the weighing of the soul.
Osiris has many epithets – designating each a function of his own – one of which sums up, clearly, his complexity: “He who has many names,” and, according to the Book of the Dead, these are the names the deceased recite to gain access to eternal life.
The figure of Osiris speaks to us of an energy that creates what humans need, connects worlds, and rebuilds unity from the fragmentation suffered.
In this regard, we like to recall that a “minor” myth points to Osiris as the inventor of sailing. While traveling in a boat with Isis and others, a wave more impertinent than the others wet the dress the god was wearing. He then hung it on the mast for it to dry. Immediately, the boat began to follow the direction of the wind: the unexpected turns into the flow that can take us on new adventures.
