The Children of Atum

In the Heliopolis tradition Shu and Tefnut mate, producing Geb and Nut. Geb represents physical reality, the earth and the material world. Nut is the sky-goddess whose body is seen as the starry heavens. Nut is the barrier that separates Nun from the manifest universe. She is depicted throughout Egyptian history as either a cow with gold stars on her belly or a beautiful naked woman stretched out over the night sky.

One of the symbolic images recurrent in Egyptian religion is that of the sun god being swallowed each evening by Nut, only to be rejuvenated and made young in her womb, in order that he may be born each morning.

The creation myth continues by explaining that Nut and Geb were deeply in love. So
much so that they remained locked in sexual embrace for ages. As a result there was no space for anything else to live or grow. Ra-Atum ordered Shu, the Neter of air and "void", to separate the two lovers. With Geb under his feet Shu lifted Nut’s arching body high into the sky

Nut was pregnant, Ra-Atum declared that Nut may not give birth on any of the 360 days in the (civil calendar) year. In the meantime Djehuty (Thoth in Greek), the Neter of wisdom and writing, had been observing the situation. He took pity on Nut. So by gambling with the moon he won five extra days in the year, which became the five independent days that occur annually between the previous year’s civil calendar and the newer civil calendar.

On each of these five days Nut gave birth to a different child. The brief involvement of Djehuty (Thoth) at this point in the myth may seem odd, however, in reality it is a significant clue to understanding the spiritual nature of the Neteru who were born to Nut. For it is important to understand that Djehuty is a Lunar God.

This part of the myth is clearly a reference to the difference between the civil calendar that is concerned more with mundane affairs and the lunar calendar that is set aside for the timing of religious festivals. Ra-Atum’s refusal to allow the birth of the gods during the civil calendar attests to their spiritual nature. For only with the lunar/religious calendar can they come into being. With this event Ausir (Osiris), Heru-Ur (Horus the Elder), Sutekh (Seth), Aset (Isis), and Nebet-Het (Nephthys) were born.

In this myth the forces that brought the universe into manifestation are represented by the Neteru embodied as the Nun, Ra-Atum, Iusaas-Nebet-Hetepet, Hathor Shu and Tefnut

From there a transition occurs in which Nut and Geb act as the channel through which the divine becomes manifest in the material world. Their children are the quintessence of the cycles of life, death and rebirth in the universe following the original act of Atum’s "becoming".

An other myth tell us also about Ra journey across Nut’s back. Ra is the Sun God, and his journey across Nut’s back is the path taken by the sun across the sky. The Sun represented light and dark, hot and cold, life and death, and defined the cardinal points of the compass – North, South, East, West. And when it came up in the morning, the deep dark was banished, and light was cast over the land of Egypt.

We should not be surprised that so many ancient peoples worshipped the Sun. Its appearance every morning represented the victory of day over night, life over death, good over evil. But why did the Ancient Egyptians believe that the Sun was swallowed by a giant woman who later gave birth to him? The story of Ra and Nut is not just a description of the daily journey of the Sun – it is also a clever way of representing the position of the Sun in the sky at different times of the year.

For the Egyptians, Nut represented the Milky Way. Strangely enough, this hazy spread of stars does appear to bear the shape of a woman arching her back over the horizon. Next, the Egyptian astronomers realised that at the spring equinox the Sun rode to a point corresponding to Nut’s mouth, and moved over the next nine months through her body to be born, nine months after the equinox, at a point corresponding to her birth canal (see picture, right). For the Egyptians, this period of nine months was self-evidently the period of gestation of a human being; added to that fact was their belief that a woman conceives through her mouth, and suddenly the myth of Ra and Nut makes a lot more sense.

The myth of Ra and Nut, then, helped the Egyptians mark two points in their year: the vernal equinox and the mid-winter solstice. But decoding the myth raises further questions: why did they want to mark these points of the year? And why did they worship the objects in the sky as Gods?

With the Ancient Egyptians we see for the first time the idea of a Heaven in the skies, and this heaven was populated by a bizarre collection of gods and goddesses that they associated with the stars and planets. When they looked at the planet Mercury, the Egyptians imagined the god Seth, the evil god of chaos and destruction. When they observed the planet Venus, they thought of Isis, the lovely goddess of fertility. And when they looked upon red Mars, they imagined they were charting the progress of angry Horus, the falcon-headed son of Isis.

This myths explain in highly symbolic terms the origins of the physical universe, it describes the energies that make up the essence of spiritual reality. The principal of polarity with the dynamic interplay that occurs in the creation of life whether on a physical or spiritual level are represented throughout. Deep wisdom can be found in this myth if considered carefully.