The Divine Feminine & How It May be Symbolized in Freemasonry

"There was a boundless darkness in the abyss, and water and a subtle intelligent spirit, abiding by divine power in Chaos; then a holy light sprang forth, and the elements were compacted of sand from the humid substance, and all the gods distributed the seminal principles of nature."...Hermes Trismegistis

Fig. I.—Heaven and Earth, separated by Air (the god Shu). (Egyptian original in the Museum at Turin.)

Nut, the great mother goddess of the ancient Egyptians, is a personification of the heavens, and there are many pictures of her extant. She is commonly represented as star-spangled and bending over in such a way that both her hands and her feet touch the ground. Under her lies Seb, her husband, the god of earth. His body is painted over with plumes. Nut and Seb were once united in close embrace, but Shu interfered and separated the two, producing a space between them and thus dividing the watery mass above the firmament from the dry land below.

As I pointed out in previous blogs, most of the titles addressing Masonic symbolism pre-WW2 tended to look at the esoteric aspects of Freemasonry, where after WW2 most appealed to the fraternal aspect "we make good men better men". This particular blog entry would appeal to another time, a time prior to today's Freemasonry, pre-WW2.

In many of the older titles it was not uncommon to find esoteric Masonic authors attempting to date the inception of Freemasonry in Ancient Egypt, a mistake which can understood when we consider how symbolism is actually interpreted. 

Each symbol contained within Freemasonry can be interpreted from three perspectives, personally, culturally, or universally, and some times more than one.

We also know, as we are told Freemasonry is veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols, which means Freemasonry is an exoteric as well as an esoteric science, one which is clearly articulated to the candidates through the oral interpretations of the working tools which reveals a moral science, but at the same time a veiled side that few candidates will ever endeavor to uncover.

I showed my few readers a good example of this in my blog entry "Talk About Time Off - My Evolution", where I attempted to show that the United Grand Lodge of England jumped the gun when they removed the penalties attached to the degrees (for the disclosure of the secrets they have defined as modes of recognition, another mistake). By removing the penalties may have appeased the exoteric brothers, but sadly the esoteric brothers are missing very important keys that lead to the inner sanctum.

Now as to why many of our esoteric brothers assumed the origins of Freemasonry to be   Ancient Egypt, I believe they were intuitively seeing the symbols universally, and were beginning to connect the dots.  

If we look at the illustration above, Fig. I.—Heaven and Earth, separated by Air, we see a trinity much older than that of the Christian era, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Interestedly in the older illustration, and unlike that of the Christian era where the trinity becomes a male dominated trinity, we find great mother goddess Nut, the divine feminine displayed prominently.    

How does this relate to Freemasonry you may (or not be) asking? 

What is the most common symbol used to illustrate water?

The downward pointing triangle, the ancient symbol of femininity, symbolizing the downward flow of the divine.

Now where do we find this inverted triangle symbolized in Freemasonry?

Now as to why many of our esoteric brothers assumed the origins of Freemasonry to be   Ancient Egypt, I believe they were intuitively seeing the symbols universally, and were beginning to connect the dots.  

If we look at the illustration above, Fig. I.—Heaven and Earth, separated by Air, we see a trinity much older than that of the Christian era, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Interestedly in the older illustration, and unlike that of the Christian era where the trinity becomes a male dominated trinity, we find great mother goddess Nut, the divine feminine displayed prominently.    

How does this relate to Freemasonry you may (or not be) asking? 

What is the most common symbol used to illustrate water?

The downward pointing triangle, the ancient symbol of femininity, symbolizing the downward flow of the divine.

Now where do we find this inverted triangle symbolized in Freemasonry?

On the flap of the Masonic apron.

The question than becomes, if the square represents earth (or possibly Seb in this case), and the inverted triangle represents the downward flow of the divine feminine (Nut), who is wearing the apron?

As we saw in the illustration, Shu can be seen supporting the sky goddess and daughter Nut (or Nuit) above his head while the earth god Seb (or Geb) resides below his feet. It has been said that if Shu were to ever be removed from his place, chaos would come to the universe and all life would cease.

What could this mean today?

As physicist Heinz Pagels puts it, "Human intention influences the structure of the physical world," which is not a picture of the real, but a creation deriving from our interactions with it.

According to another popular physicist and writer Fred Wolf, "the whole universe comes into existence whenever we observe it" and therefore "we are the artists in the game of the universe."

Could this Shu that holds the firmament up over the earth actually be ourselves? (and the Egyptians and early Freemasons knew it)