Sekhmet, Goddess of War
Sekhmet, whose name means "powerful one,” is the lion-headed Egyptian goddess of war. Her father was Ra, the sun god, a central figure in the Egyptian pantheon, represented with a falcon’s head, symbolizing creation, royalty, and order.
In one myth, Ra sent her to punish his enemies for conspiring against him, but once unleashed, Sekhmet’s thirst for blood was unquenchable. She killed indiscriminately, as if possessed by the savage embodiment of death itself.
Finally, Ra tricked her by dying a river of beer the color of blood with red ochre. She drank and drank until she was sated and intoxicated. Only then did she cease her murderous rampage, sparing what was left of humanity.
Despite her association with destruction and retribution, Sekhmet is also considered a healer. She is a goddess of medicine and magic, with powerful protective abilities. In this capacity, she’s often invoked to ward off disease and illness.
She was also believed to protect the pharaoh in battle, serving as a fierce guardian and defender of the ruler, and several temples were dedicated to her worship. Her temples often featured physicians and healing rituals.
War, Etcetera
I love how ancient goddesses of war always had some other unexpected dimensions to their personality. Like Athena, most famously the Greek goddess of war and wisdom, revered for her strategic thinking and battle readiness, but also associated with weaving and the arts.
Like, weaving? Really? But as the primary technologies of the ancient world, crafts like weaving and metalwork were as critically important as engineering. Not only to the Athenian war machine that made it the dominant force in naval battles, but in the mass production of crops and textiles possible.
You can build all the roads and ships you want, but you still need the goods to feed and clothe the masses. If your only export is death and destruction, it’s hard to build a civilization.
Those arts and crafts we think of as quaint farmer’s market attractions now were essential skills in the ancient world, enabling commerce across the vast network of city-states and satellite commonwealths. Trade, much more than war, was the engine on which ancient empires were built.
The Duality of Destruction
We like to think of the ancients as an old boys’ club, but they sure knew how to write a well-rounded goddess. In the myths of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Romans and Norse, among many others, you’ll find a wealth of multi-faceted female deities.
Warrior women with a knack for healing, wielding the scalpel and an apothecary full of mysterious plant medicines. Military strategists who doubled as master craftswomen, weaving tapestries that told of mythic battles and hard-won victories, transcribing the stories that soldiers would tell around the campfire for generations.
War is hell, but it’s a hell that’s hard-coded in our DNA, a legacy that informs so much of our history and technology, it’s hard to imagine a version of humanity that didn’t evolve through endless cycles of genocide and colonization.
We can only hope—and maybe pray to our favorite goddesses of war—that one day we can transmute our warlike nature into something more sustainable. It feels very late in the human game to still be waging savage, primitive war on each other.
Our dual nature, as embodied by the healer-destroyer goddess, gives us the knowledge that it’s wrong and stupid, counter-productive to all that is human and divine (or in a more secular vernacular, sentient). The question remains, can we innovate and empathize our way out of the vicious cycle of our warlike history before it’s too late?
Thanks for reading, everyone!
Art & Astrology
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