@ldfriend56 said
"the 'choose ye well' makes the most enlightening sense when the option is to 'choose both the serpent and the dove'"
😄
Invoke me under my stars!In ancient Egypt both Ursa Minor and Draco made up an asterism of stars associated with the Hippopotamus Goddess 'Taweret' (aka 'Tuat'). As the Goddess of Childbirth and fertility, she is stationed in the sky approximate to the crotch of the Goddess Nuit, where she plays 'catch the baby' in the place where the child is to be born.
According to legend, the Eye of Ra transformed herself into the Hippopotamus. Crowley associates the Hippo with the Goddess AHAThOOR.
"From Liber Samekh:
(.......a Solar-Phallic Hippopotamus** of a Venereal nature.)
[** Sacred to AHAThOOR. The idea is that of the Female conceived as invulnerable, reposeful, of enormous swallowing capacity etc.] "
Hail unto thee who art Ahathoor in thy triumphing
Even unto thee who art Ahathoor in they beauty
Who travellest over the heavens in thy bark
At the midcourse of the Sun.
Taweret - 'Great One' and 'mistress of the horizon' - is sometimes shown with seven stars lined down her back, which are most likely the seven stars of Ursa Minor. She is depicted with pendulous breasts heavy with milk to suckle the child with.
"...and the Lord Adonai is about it on all sides like a Thunderbolt, and a Pylon, and a Snake, and a Phallus, and in the midst thereof he is like the Woman that jetteth out the milk of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars from her paps. - LIBER CORDIS CINCTI SERPENTE"
The Goddess Tawaret is also associated with Death.
"Quite contrarily, she also took on the role of a funerary deity in this period, evidenced by the commonplace practice of placing hippopotami decorated with marsh flora in tombs and temples. Some scholars believe that this practice demonstrates that hippopotamus goddesses facilitated the process of rebirth after death, just as they aided in earthly births. These statues, then, assisted the deceased’s passing into the afterlife. - Wiki."
http://robertbauval.co.uk/articles/articles/images/cciae12c.gif