MAAT

Maat, you who are within me and around me

Who offers us divine justice;

Let me breathe in the essence of Maat

Which is eternal truth

Let me live by Maat, for Maat and in Maat.

 Maat is the Egyptian goddess of justice, divine order, cosmic harmony and balance. She is usually pictured standing or sitting on her heels, wearing an ostrich feather and holding a sceptre and the ankh, or key of life. She is called 'The Mother', the 'Lady of the Judgement Hall', the 'Virgin', and 'the Daughter of Ra'. Her law governs all the worlds and even the gods have to obey her rule.

She was present before the dawn of creation when Atum the creator, wishing that his heart might live, breathed in the essence of Maat, and everything began. Maat is often pictured as giving the breath of life to the pharaoh, as well as to the other gods and goddesses. Her husband and male counterpart is Thoth, the divine scribe, lord of books and learning, inventor of hieroglyphs and numbers, and the director of the planets and seasons.

It was the pharaoh's duty to maintain the rule of Maat, and Egyptian social organisation was meant to be a reflection of the divine and natural order. If the pattern should be transgressed against, then chaos and its consequences would follow. The pharaoh carried an effigy of the seated Maat as a sign that he represented her regime, which had not been disturbed since the day of its creation. Judges wore a lapis lazuli emblem of Maat on their breasts. The Egyptians were urged to 'Speak Maat, do Maat' and to live 'by Maat, in Maat and for Maat'. The goddess is righteousness embodied, incapable of envy, maliciousness, deceit, or evil.

At death, the human soul is conducted by Thoth, god of wisdom, into the Hall of Double Justice and the presence of Osiris, Lord of the Dead, together with the forty-two Assessors, or Judges of Maat, who pass final judgement on the soul. The heart, which represents the person's essence, is weighed in the Scales of Justice against the feather of Maat. If he or she has led a good life, then the scales will balance perfectly. If he or she has committed a crime against the forty two divine rules, then the scales will tilt and the heart is eaten by Ta Urt, a hideous monster from the underworld with crocodile head, hippopotamus body and lion feet. The soul had to declare that, in life, it was not a wrongdoer, a person of violence, evil minded, a rapist, a murderer, a cheat, a thief of sacred properties, a liar, a stealer of food, lazy, a transgressor, a killer of sacred animals, fraudulent, a land-grabber, an eaves dropper, a gossip, nosy, an adulterer, promiscuous, one who deliberately frightened others, a criminal, sharp tongued, one who was deaf to the suffering of others, coarse in behaviour, the cause of another's tears, prone to unnatural lusts, one who indulged their anger, one who cursed, aggressive, inconstant, cruel to animals, a doer of mischief, a traitor, a polluter of the environment, loud, a blasphemer, partial, greedy, or an offender of the gods.

The scales are a powerful symbol of Maat, since balance is the key to her nature. She abjures all extremes: greed, overindulgence, excess, laziness and slovenliness.

The god Atum said that when the heavens were sleeping he lived with his daughter Maat, 'one within me, the other around me'. This is the mystery of the 'double Maat' or union of opposites that creates harmony. Maat represents balance in all its aspects- male and female, black and white, night and day, Upper and Lower Egypt, fertile flood plane and barren desert: the perfect balance of two opposites that make a single, harmonious whole. The balance of Maat was the expression of the natural, immutable law of the universe, which is held in equilibrium. The feather of Maat is light, and the heart that is weighed against it must belong to one who has trod lightly on the earth.

Maat's justice is concerned with more than punishing the wrongdoer and vindicating the innocent. Though the scales of Maat are the familiar Scales of Justice, an image we still use today, they are also representative of her role as the keeper of divine balance and cosmic harmony. A crime against the rule of Maat was an offence that disturbed this unity, documented in the forty-two laws that included cruelty to animals and polluting the environment.

All actions, whether good or evil, carry the seeds of their own justice.

NB: This short article is not from my more comprehensive Goddess Encyclopaedia