This talk was given for the 40th Anniversary the Founding of the Fellowship of Isis in March 2016
ORPHANED OF THE GODDESS
 |
| The Ever Living Lady by Danuta Meyer from The Celtic Book of the Dead by Caitlín Matthews |
The Manifesto of FOI begins with: 'Growing numbers of people are
rediscovering their love for the Goddess.' How those words have echoed down the
last 40 years!
Like many other people born in the 1950s, I
had a sense of growing up in a world in which many things could come into
being, although you would need a fine imagination to envision this. The Second
World War had left the city of my birth in ruins, resources were scarce, life
was pretty drab and the food was awful, but a sense of spiritual liberation was
abroad, and a chance to rise up and seek ways to remake our world in a better
pattern.
Spiritually, things were very conventional
on the surface: people went more commonly to church then, but just under the
surface, there were the buds, shoots and rootings of a wider tree that nourished
the soul. As a child, I was mostly
unaware of these flourishings about me that were all present in the city of
Portsmouth. I only knew that when I went to church that the imagery and nature
of deity seemed alien compared with my experience. When I went into nature, when I lay in bed at
night pondering these things, it seemed to me that my intimation of the divine
had a feminine nature. By the time I was
twelve, I had made my own liturgy and rituals to this feminine divinity who had
a number of different aspects.
Of course, all over the world, we know that
this same sense of the divine as Goddess, not God, had once been commonplace:
in other parts, the Goddess had never gone away - or rather, people had not
absented themselves from her. Our loss
of that sense of a divine feminine in our worship and in our daily lives, had
resulted in us being orphaned of the Goddess - something that has profoundly affected
our development as human beings and our world in general. It left the administration and practice of
spiritual expression without priestesses of any kind. It resulted in a
socio-economic pattern in which the balance of the sexes was severely skewed. Throughout
the 60s and 70s, a rising wave of feminism, which was taken up by men as well
as women, was making headway, campaigning for equal rights, equal pay and a
place at the table of life.
Here at Huntington in Clonegal,
consciousness of the Goddess had already taken hold in a big way. Well back before I was born, the Goddess was
at work within the Robertson family, who had been brought up to welcome spiritual
integrity and inspiration wherever it was encountered.
In her appreciation of a talk given by
Derry at the Wexford Festival in October 1974 - two years before FOI was
launched - Nicola Gordon Bow stated that, 'Mr Durdin Robertson has been instrumental
in the creation and gradual development of a shrine and centre for creativity -
of a musical, poetic and magical nature where the Bardic Tradition of our
forefathers can be continued in the harmonies of music and song, where things
of beauty can be carved, painted and depicted, and ritual festivals
celebrated.' (from The Cult of the
Goddess)
So we can already see how an understanding
of the Goddess with her civilizing and inspiring works was at work here,
wherein the inspiration of the Muses, a respect for the ancestral traditions of
Ireland, and a desire to live a ritual life, all blended together. For no
spiritual belonging can exist without these three: divine inspiration, respect
for the land and the ancestors, and a ritual liturgy to hold it in place.
THE HEARTH OF THE GODDESS
The first I knew about the Fellowship of
Isis was from the pages of an occult magazine in the adverts section in 1977.
John and I had been together for just a year and were both working in a library
in London. We noticed that our friend,
Geoffrey Ash, had joined the FOI - knowing that he was a Catholic, we were
intrigued - what kind of fellowship was this that could accept someone who
belonged publically to one of the major religions and yet still welcome him as
a devote of the Goddess? Accordingly, we
went off to study the Manifesto to discover more, both joining in that year.
The manifesto was and is so all-embracing
that people of all walks of life and religious traditions could align
themselves with its principles and still not be constrained. It did not demand a unified belief system nor
did it exact any dues. Individuals
followed their chosen deities, in the tradition of their choice. This breadth of vision was what I had been
yearning for, and it encouraged me to engage more deeply and with greater
confidence in my personal practice. It proved to be a meeting ground of real
soul-friends, people whom I now regard as my spiritual family.
Our founders - now the spiritual ancestors of all FOI members
- Olivia, Derry and Poppy, understood that no-one can continue in any spiritual
way without support, and this is where the liturgy arose, offering a way for
all to study and learn by way of rituals that could be performed alone or with
others. The scholarship of Derry was the essential mine from which these
rituals were quarried, but it was the inspirational vision of Olivia that wove
them together.
Of all the words that I read of those early
liturgies, none affected me as much as idea that the domestic home was 'a hearth
of the Goddess.' When Olivia wrote of
devotees shrine-keeping in a bedsit, she was addressing me, who had been living
in bedsit land in Kensington since I came to study at drama school. It was the first time I had left home and I couldn't
afford much space, so my first rental was a room that was a converted bathroom
- it had just room for a bed, a sink, a wardrobe and a gas ring. When our tutors
told us to go home and practice our exercises, I had to admit that I hadn't even
enough room to lie down in order to do some of them - so I was simply directed
to use the landing instead! In so
straightened a space, the sacred indwelling of it was really important to me.
It was an era when a tarot pack was not a
common thing and there were very few outlets where you could buy lovely statues
and icons of Goddesses. I had a simple
wooden shrine case with folding doors in which a figure of Mary stood - you
could hold it in between your two hands and it would vanish, so small it was. I
would light a candle before it and then go to bed at night, having said my
prayers. That daily service was often all I could manage while I was a student
as my acting day started early and finished late.
I had been a member for the Fellowship for
some years but didn't come to Ireland to visit the castle until the early 1980s
and it was then that Olivia ordained myself and John. I was not one of those who had ever spent a
lot of time here, although I had friends who had been deeply involved with the
early developments of the FOI, including Vivienne O'Regan who ran the Centre of
Isis and Sophia of the Stars in West London.
While I lived in London, I attended her Lyceum, and a later the Lyceum
of Astraea run by Felicity Wombwell in North London. John and myself were
commissioned to form a Lyceum by Olivia in 1989, forming the Lyceum Domus Sophiae Terrae et Sancte Gradalis.
I think we were the first to chose a Latin
title, something that delighted Derry, who himself was a keen Classicist. It
was he who noted the new calendar date of the foundation of the Fellowship as starting
from the coming of Cesara, in Latin, of course! Now Cessair or Cesara was a
primordial being who, according to Irish myth, brought with her fifty women in
a ship when the world was flooded, landing here on Irish shores. This event was
dated by Archbishop of Armagh James Ussher, who in the early 17th century attempted
- in the face of little information from geology or science - to date the
beginning of the world. The date that was adopted by the Fellowship and which
appeared on all publications, including early copies of Isian News, concurrently with the temporal date of each issue, bore
the name of Cessair, becoming the imprint name for all publications issued from
Huntingdon - Cesara Publications. So the equivalent date for 2016 is 4364 Anno Deae Cesarae, from the year of the landing
of the Goddess Cesara on Irish shores.
 |
| Island of the Crystal Net by Danuta Meyer, From The Celtic Book of the Dead by Caitlín Matthews |
I chose to bring up this seemingly tiny
detail to your attention because this renaming of time not only marked the
foundation of the Fellowship of Isis, in the year 4328 Anno Deae Cesarae, 40 years
ago on the Vernal Equinox, but also something more important than that. From that time to this day, we have been
living in Our Lady's time, in sacred time. Our every day, week, month and year
has been given in her service: it is not the same as living in ordinary, temporal
time. The opportunity has been given to us to live with a scope and a devotion
in which ordinary life is hallowed.
All of us whose forebears were orphaned of the Goddess
have been given a very great gift. All who live now and those who follow us can
offer our service and ministry, comporting ourselves as her devotees, so that our
words, deeds and thoughts may be reflective of hers, as her garments - for it
is humanity that can give hands, feet and voices to deity so that the care of
the Goddess may be known upon earth. The Goddess returns to the shores of our
soul through our service - not just the fifty women who arrived with Cesara 4364
years ago - but thousands more - men as well as women who, scattered throughout
the earth, all do their part.
Our numbers have increased considerable since then, of
course. There are many members who cannot be with us today but who are
celebrating in their own groups, temples, and groves. What is it that brings us
together? What holds us together?
THE BLESSINGS OF THE EIGHT RAYS
Throughout world religion, the number eight
gives rise to precepts or pathways by which people can live: In Buddhism, the
Noble Eightfold Path requires
•
Right understanding:
Understanding that the Four Noble Truths are noble and true.
•
Right thought:
Determining and resolving to practice Buddhist faith.
•
Right speech: Avoiding
slander, gossip, lying, and all forms of untrue and abusive speech.
•
Right conduct:
Adhering to the idea of nonviolence (ahimsa), as well as refraining from any
form of stealing or sexual impropriety.
•
Right means of making a living: Not
slaughtering animals or working at jobs that force you to violate others.
•
Right mental attitude or effort: Avoiding
negative thoughts and emotions, such as anger and jealousy.
•
Right mindfulness: Having
a clear sense of one’s mental state and bodily health and feelings.
•
Right concentration: Using
meditation to reach the highest level of enlightenment.
Similarly in Christianity, there are the Eight Beatitudes, from the Sermon on
the Mount:
"Blessed are the
poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for
righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure of heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called children of God.
Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of
righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Gospel of St. Matthew 5:3-10)
But in the Fellowship we have another
eightfold path. Olivia's conceptualization of the soul's belonging to the
Goddess was enshrined in what became known as the Cosmic Web: this diagram with
its four spirals emanating from the centre of an eightfold web, she said: 'illustrates the emanation
of Life from the Divine Matrix, Womb of the Goddess, and the Path of Return
thereto with harvest of attainments.' The spirals were named for Tiamat, the
great creating Goddess of Mesopotamia who took the form a dragon, while the
eightfold web was named for the Goddess, Ishtar, whose sign was the eight-pointed
star.
Each of the daughter foundations of the Fellowship -
the College of isis, the Noble Order of Tara and the Spiral of the Adepti,
Spiral of Alchemy and Druid Clan of Dana - all follow this Web, and to it are
assigned the rainbow rites that offer us pathways to initiation and the
coming-in of spiritual gifts that shape our souls.
Each of these pathways offer possibilities of
progress, but according to our individual aptitudes and needs, as Olivia wrote,
'The spiral is open-ended. There is no correct way to travel through it. You
can start at the centre of extreme idealism, and work your way through to wider
horizons. Or you can start with a wide view, enter from outside, and travel
through a series of experiences until you reach centre.... using rites on the
diagram (the Candidate) should choose them in the order most helpful to his or
her own chosen Path.'
Each path on this Cosmic Web is assigned to a colour of the Rainbow: the
seven rays which are familiar to many from Theosophical and Hindu teaching,
with the colour white, giving us 7+1 or the octave.
Eight is the number of the pleroma, the fullness
of the cosmos, combining the 7 Classical Planets’ blessing, with the wisdom of
the Earth itself, for Olivia assigned the 8th pathway to the earth and to the
rainbow.
|
Connexions
|
Planets
|
Numbered
Rites
|
Cosmic
Rays
|
|
0. North to Centre:
Winter Solstice
Earth
Nature
|
Earth
& Pluto
|
5 The Spheres
13 Earth Magic
21 Pisces & Ceridwen
29 Scorpio & Kundalini
|
0 & 8th
White/
Rainbow
|
|
I. N.E. to Centre:
Brigantia
Fire
Power
|
Mars
|
6 Demeter & Persephone
14 Mars & Morrigan
22 Aries & Durga
30 Sagittarius & Brynhild
|
1st C.R.
Red
|
|
II. East to Centre:
Vernal Equinox
Water
Love
|
Venus
|
7 Eros & Psyche
15 Venus & Vishnu
23 Taurus & Isis
31 Capricorn & Terra
|
2nd C.R.
Orange
|
|
III. S.E. to Centre:
Beltane
Air
Truth
|
Mercury
|
8 The Labyrinth
16 Mercury & Sophia
24 Gemini, Artemis & Apollo
32 Aquarius & Juno
|
3rd C.R.
Yellow
|
|
IV. South to Centre:
Summer Solstice
Light
Initiation
|
Jupiter
|
1 Rebirth
9 Space
17 Jupiter & Hathor
25 Cancer & Tiamat
33 Mystical Initiation
|
4th C.R.
Green
|
|
V. S.W. to Centre:
Lughnasadh
Ether
Science/Occultism
|
Saturn
|
2 Ordination
10 Time
18 Saturn & Astarte
26 Leo & Sekhmet
|
5th C.R.
Blue
|
|
VI. West to Centre:
Autumnal Equinox
Bliss
The Arts/Ritual
|
Uranus
(& Inner Sun)
|
3 Wedding
11 Sun
19 Uranus & Sarasvati
27 Virgo & Dana
|
6th C.R.
Indigo
|
|
VII. N.W. to Centre:
Samhain
Night
Mystical
Awakening/Devotion
|
Neptune
& Moon
|
4 Awakening of Osiris
12 Moon
20 Neptune & Ngame
28 Libra & Kwan Yin
|
7th C.R.
Violet
|
This Cosmic Web with its eightfold
structure and its four spiral paths has proved to be an enduring framework for
our life and liturgy. It offers each
soul a series of approaches to Deity, for the soul cannot shape itself without
the aid of the Gods and we need the pathway of their Mysteries.
THE MYSTERIES
We are here to celebrate the fullness of
the years with this celebratory anniversary. Some of us who have been alive
over these 40 years may see another generation or three, depending on our age,
but we also acknowledge that some of us here will not see another 40
years. Our service is to teach and seed the
work and worship of the Fellowship to other generations. In a changing world,
we have to ask a few questions. Where
will the Fellowship have most influence and be most effective in the future?
To some extent, this for us is the Grail
Question: 'Whom does the Grail serve?' It is one which each of us must answer.
'How may I best serve? Where do my skills and the world's needs meet? How can I
help weave the spiritual and physical worlds closer together, so that the
sacred can be respected in all places?'
 |
The Cathar Grail by Wil Kinghan, from The Cathar Tarot by John Matthews |
I believe we have to return to our
founders' vision. They understood that the most grievous error over the last
2000 years has been the denial of Deity, the denial of the Gods - the female as
well as the male Gods. By the practice
of following deity within our heart, we are lead to discover the gifts and
truths that the Gods distribute to the universe. This abundance overflows like
a never-ending river that irrigates everything with the life-giving water of
creative ideas.
We live in a time where, for many, the Gods
do not exist. We also have dominant religions that are predicated on a vision
that leads to 'the end of the world.' There
are few visions more damaging to the cosmos or to the human spirit than this,
for it leads, on the one hand, to a carelessness for our whole Cosmos and
environment, and on the other hand, it belittles the power of eternal
Deity. Such a belief in 'the end of the
world' causes its believers to live in fear - one of the greatest obstacles to
union with the divine. Such a belief
causes disempowerment for all: our society becomes infected with expedient and
short-term solutions to problems. By even considering the end of the world as a
mission to which we are inevitably travelling, Deity itself is reduced and
diminished to a monotheist demiurge who creates, only to destroy again: a
figure that we recognize in the Gnostic Yaldabaoth, William Blake's Old
Nobadaddy, or Philip Pullman's The Authority in His Dark Materials. Deity is
much, much more than this sorry travesty.
Living in a time and society that has this
vision underlying it, it is vital that we do not ourselves fall into this trap.
It is essential to keep before us the true vision - that the nature of Deity is
abundant, ever-flowing, rhythmic: unending, enduring, ever good and beautiful. The
way that we have communion with Deity is through the soul, for the soul of
every creature has seeded within it all the ideas and essentials that Deity has
already comprehended. As Proclus, the
5th century Neo-Platonist, wrote:
'Let us celebrate Deity as unfolding into
light the whole intelligible totality of the Gods, as the unity of all unities,
more ineffable than all silence, and more unknown than all essence, as holy
among the holies, that is concealed in the Gods themselves.' (Proclus, Theology of Plato II,11.)
The Gods who lead our soul, guide us to the
essential truth of Deity through memory, experience and virtue. Many of the
myths of the world show us this truth. But let's note that, in our time, myth
is being used to mean 'a falsehood,' but a proper understanding of myth is rather
as a guide to truth. Myth is language that speaks of the divine metaphorically
- it is not to be taken literally: in its patterns and stories, it reveals
greater truths to us.
Let us take just one of them: among the
Greeks, Kronos and Rhea are among the first Gods. The name of Kronos is a
corruption of Kore-Nous or 'Virgin Intelligence' yet, rather than allowing that
intelligence to be shared with his children, Kronos swallows his progeny, for
he is a static God who does not proceed creatively. But his consort, Rhea, is very
different. Her name means 'flowing', and she is the one who hides the infant
Zeus who finally enables her children that have been swallowed up to be
released from Kronos' belly. It is she who becomes the fountain-head of all souls.
Like Sophia, Rhea releases souls from the entrapment of stasis and ending,
enabling them to flow again. And in her son, Zeus, that Virgin Intelligence
which his father Kronos tried to lock up, is permitted to come forth and join
with Rhea's flowing and life-giving power.
The Greeks saw Rhea as manifest within
Demeter, the Mother: and in Kore, the Maiden, Persephone becomes symbolic of
every human soul who takes its journey to divine union. It is a helpful myth,
for it speaks of that journey and gives us lots of clues.
The soul's journey into life is through
memory, experience and virtue. We forget
and remember; we live and experience the vicissitudes of life which turns into
knowledge within us; and by our striving to speak, think and do well - in
imitation of the Gods - our virtue brings us to Deity, because we mirror forth
the truths and essentials of Deity according to our circumstances and
understandings. We are guided on our
journey by taking different initiations.
This is what Damascius, the last head of the Platonic Academy, wrote
about this initiatic journey of the soul:
The soul descends into generation, in the
manner of Kore,
She is scattered by generation, after the
manner of Dionysus,
Like Prometheus and the Titans, she is
bound to body.
She frees herself by exercising the
strength of Heracles,
Gathers herself together through the help
of Apollo
And the saviour Athene, by truly purifying
philosophy, (practices)
And she elevates herself to the causes of
her being with Demeter.
(Damascius, Commentary on the Phaedo of Plato 1, 130)
Athena
Here the Gods lead the soul to Deity,
taking it through many initiations until it becomes one with Demeter/Rhea
again. This is a cycle, not an ending,
for the soul comes into incarnation and goes out of it, passing to and fro in a
migration that the ancient Irish called a tuirgin
- described in Cormac's Glossary as:
'A birth that passes from every nature into another,' or 'a birth of the true nature.'
We can think of it as a circuit of births in which we draw closer to Deity.
Such a circuit of lives is influenced and
guided by the Mysteries, which give us the points at which we engage with the
myths of the Gods: they are our template, a Cosmic Web on which we are never
lost, but through which we work out those adverse parts of ourselves that have
built up over many lifetimes, so that our soul's wings might unfurl.
LOVE AND VOCATION
What does all this have to do with daily
life, and the future that lies before us? By holding in our hearts the vision
of our founders, we envision the world in a different light, as part of our
soul's journey - the point at which love and vocation come together. The
Manifesto recognizes this journey:
At first, this love (of the Goddess) may seem to
be no more than an inner feeling. But soon it develops; it becomes a longing to
help the Goddess actively in the manifestation of Her divine plan. Thus, one
hears such enquiries as, "How can I get initiated into the Mysteries of
the Goddess? How can I experience a closer communion with her? Where are her
nearest temples and devotees? How can I join the priesthood of the
Goddess?", and many other such questions.
The Fellowship has squarely faced these questions by making provision
for these Mysteries to be experienced through the liturgy, but that initial longing
'to help the Goddess actively in that manifestation' has to remain the
wellspring of our work. It is vital that
we each understand our own role in it.
Our manifesto, thanks to Poppy's wonderful suggestion, contains an
important clause: that, 'All members are equal, and are not subject to anyone.
All work with the Goddess - or Goddess and God - of their own Faith. Every
Being - human, animal, bird, tree - element - is an eternal offspring of the
Divine Family of the Mother Goddess.' Though many of us specific tasks within
Fellowship, we each carry equal importance. Our individual vocations contribute
to the wellbeing of the universe: they are the unique blessing that we came
into this life to deliver. These are what make the difference to our future,
when our souls are guided by Deity to play our part. One person may be drawn to
work with the environment, another through the path of science, others will be
inspired to work with animals, with the education of children and so on.
How we each follow our soul's vocation does not confer status upon any
of us. I am often disturbed when I attend events around the world to hear some women
introduce themselves to the circle as the Goddess, or as a Goddess - of course,
this is hubris. I hope and believe that what they really mean is that they are
available to be a garment of the Goddess: someone whose hands, feet, heart and
voice are given to Her service. A
priest, priestess or devotee is a servant of all, not the one who is served.
The real sense in which we become divine is through the attunement of
our soul to the Gods: like a sympathetic string that, though unmoving in the
music, vibrates with the string that is being struck, so we too come closer in
communion with Deity by sharing that vibration - not only in prayer, song,
meditation, dance and ritual, but through the working out of our vocation.
The soul's true likeness to Deity is shown
in other ways. As the Manifesto says, The Fellowship believes in the promotion of Love,
Beauty and Abundance. No encouragement is given to asceticism. The Fellowship
seeks to develop friendliness, psychic gifts, happiness, and compassion for all
life.
The ascetic, self-flagellations of some traditions are not required of
us. As members of the Goddess, our part is to repair the imbalance and damage
that is done through such practices, as well as through human default, by fixing
our attention on how the Goddess moves our soul. Her divine plan brings us into
Ma'at, justice, balance and harmony,
quelling Isefet or the chaos that
threatens to overset it.
Those who live by 'the end of the world'
scenario look dour and driven. But those who live by the doctrine of
ever-abundant Deity and the guidance of the Gods have a different demeanour.
Olivia wrote that you could always recognize a member of Fellowship by their
cheerfulness, which is a word she liked a lot and often used.
it is also worthy of note that, while under
different forms of monotheism, we suffer wars of religion; under polytheistic
cultures in our history such religious wars are hard to find. The Goddess of peace and concord, of the
civilizing arts and sciences, does not require us to go to war on her behalf. This is an influence that we wish would
spread further, but we are not missionaries. So how is our influence experienced
in the world?
Many in this dear world of ours have souls
that are forgetful. These are like Osiris when he lies prone in his coffin:
souls without sign of life. Like Osiris, souls await to be re-awakened and
re-membered. And our prayer goes to all who have no hope, health or happiness
of soul, who have neither guidance nor goodness, for whom the divine abundance
is more a taunt to their poverty of spirit, rather than a promise of their natural
heritage. For them we pray, 'Awaken, O souls at the touch of Isis who brings together
what is scattered into one place and breathes back life into what is dead. With the wings of Horus, arise, O souls, and
fly about the world! - In the name of Deity, may it be so!'
Our task is to be the gatherers who re-member,
the ones who by our work and worship reveal the Goddess as the seed at the
heart of all life, in the soul's centre.
Respecting the soul in whatsoever state it is, recognizing the likeness
of the Goddess in the features of all we meet, cherishing that seed of the
Goddess in all life - this is our task.
There is a simple way that we can daily engage with this - through
mediation.
The Love of the Goddess can be mediated to
all, from the Planetary Being that is the soul of our planet, to the very cells
of our world that make up its physical substance. We do this by mediating what we understand of
Deity to every part of our planet, so that, whether the soul that receives this
mediation is developed by spiritual practice, or is evolving and growing, or in
need, or in ignorance and denial, no being is left out. Much as an older
sibling cares for a younger one by being their way-shower and supporter, so the
love of the Goddess, our Mother, is shared with all that is. This is our
'eternal offering,' to the whole of her family.
The spiritual heritage that passes into our
hands has been recovered after being buried for so many centuries: to love the
Goddess, to worship the Gods, to venerate Deity. It may seem a difficult task in a time that
turns its back upon such matters, but consider yourselves as heroes and
heroines - just like the Gods and heroes of the living myths. Remember that
seemingly impossible quests have been successfully accomplished by the
unfolding of the soul's power, with the divine help that is with us always, and
with the love that is poured out upon us from the Goddess.
Now for our Mother Centre, I invite you to pray
and mediate that love:
O Beloved Land of Ireland, O Genius and
Juno of this Temple, we give thanks for all the wisdom that you have awoken in
us. We ask a blessing upon all the guardians of this holy place who maintain it
still, and we honour the ancestors and founders of this fellowship who have
gone to be with their Ka. We ask a
blessing upon all who live in this land: the sidhe, the people, animals and
vegetation: may health, joy, and
abundance be their portion!
We
give thanks to all the divinities who have revealed themselves to us, and to
all those unseen - the guardians of temples and sacred places, the keepers of
the secrets of primordial Deity. All you invisible, we bless your guiding
presence as we gather in reverence and wonder. And to all our members of our Fellowship of Isis gathered here, and those at
their hearths and shrines, and those yet to join us, may joy, health, love and
peace be theirs this day and forever!
