Author of Steamy Romance & Goddess Facilitator: Books, Divine Library & Services
Anuket
I love to explore the Divine Feminine and write about Goddesses. For a list of those, click on the link: Goddesses. In order to become more balanced within ourselves and, through that, to bring greater balance and harmony to the world around us, we must find greater balance between the masculine and feminine energies within ourselves that each one of us possesses, regardless of physical gender or any other ways of self-identification.
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Khnum & Antelope
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Anuket is an Ancient Egyptian Goddess and personifies the Nile. Together with Khnum and Satet (or Satis), her parents, she is part of the triad of the island of Elephantine, Abu in Egyptian. She was also called Anaka or Anqet and her sacred animal is Gazelle or Antelope.
Anuket is the goddess of the Nile inundation and is typically depicted as a young woman with a headdress of either ostrich feathers or reeds. In her hand she holds the ankh, symbol of life. Throughout the New Kingdom, she was also shown suckling the Pharaoh and later, became associated with lust as well and was eventually associated with the Cowry shell, especially the one resembling the vagina.
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The Nile Inundation
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In this time period, Anuket was worshipped each year with the commencement of the inundation of the Nile. People held processions and threw precious gifts into the water like jewellery, coins and other valuable offerings. It was to give thanks to the Goddess for the life-giving floods of the Nile and also to ensure that the water levels rose to a good height in order to ensure a good crop and subsequent harvest.
The Ancient Egyptians depended on the annual flooding of the Nile. It washed fertile red earth ashore, watered the fields and allowed for growing plentiful crops. Without a certain level of water during the annual flood, people in Egypt would starve, if there was no grain left over from previous years. Therefore, good administration ensured that the granaries were always full in case there was a low flood in some years and the population needed to be fed from reserves.
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A Tender Embrace
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Anuket’s association with the Gazelle is perhaps not obvious at first, as the gazelle is a land animal and one would think that a river Goddess should be symbolised by a water creature. However, looking at the flow of the current of the river, especially in the time of the flood, when it was quite wild and turbulent in some stretches, especially further South, the Gazelle’s ability of running at great speed and leaping high and far in the air is quite similar. And Anuket is also Goddess of the hunt. Thus, the association is now relatable.
Because of her symbolising the life-giving waters of the Nile in an otherwise dry desert-like climate, Anuket was also Goddess of fertility. Her name means Embrace and this can be seen on more levels than one. There is the embrace of the waters of the Nile at inundation, but also the embrace of the mother of her child and the woman who embraces her lover to create new life. She is the Goddess of childbirth, as well as of abundance, (read more about this topic in the article on Goddess Abundantia). Anuket was also worshipped by the sailors for safe passage and safe return on the Nile river. As a patroness of the poor, she supplies those in need with wealth and fertility.
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In my romance novel A New Family for Christmas, the female MC is faced with the pain of not being able to conceive children when she has always wished to have a family. Her ex-husband left her because of this to find a new woman to have children with. However, Anastasia saves a little girl and eventually, the girl and her father become her family. This teaches us to be open to possibilities and opportunities that may come in forms we do not expect.
If we remain closed to other ways of fulfilling our desires and dreams than we originally thought they would come about, we are in danger of missing out on a myriad of smaller and greater miracles life wants to bestow on us.
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Protection
Anuket teaches you to allow energy to flow freely. She protects you in times of distress and eases your fear, especially in labour and childbirth. She nurtures and nourishes and reminds you that you are always provided for with all you need at any time. Working with her energy will open the gates to free flow of energy where before you have restricted or blocked it. Celebrate life’s abundance in your own personal experience and note how this increases, the more you acknowledge and appreciate it.
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