Pagan Festival Shout Out: Festival Of Neteret Bastet

Bastet is the Egyptian goddess of the home, domesticity, women's secrets, cats, fertility, and childbirth. She protected the home from evil spirits and disease, especially diseases associated with women and children. She was the daughter of the sun god Ra and is associated with the concept of the Eye of Ra (the all-seeing eye) and the Distant Goddess (a female deity who leaves Ra and returns to bring transfromation).  

Bastet appears early in the 3rd millenium BCE in her form as an avenging lioness in Lower Egypt. By the time of the Pyramid Texts (c. 2400-2300 BCE) she was associated with the king of Egypt as his nursemaid in youth and protector as he grew. In the later Coffin Texts (c. 2134-2040 BCE) she retains this role but is also seen as a protector of the dead. The goddess was worshipped primarily at Bubastis but held a tutelary position at Saqqara and elsewhere. They celebrated the festival of the goddess by drinking, dancing, making music, and displaying their genitals" (116). This "raising of the skirts" by the women, described by Herodotus, had as much to do with freedom from social constraints as it did with the fertility associated with the goddess