Bastet the Mother and sensitivity

[Wannabewizard]

I am really struggling at times without having an obvious deity symbol.
I have had cats in my dreams lighting my way through darkness.
And who doesn't like a Sexy cat goddess, especially one that escorted the ladies in such a provocative way down the Nile

Bastet seems a mother figure that could help heal the mother wound, I need a positive image of woman to recover from misogyny.
It's also a deity away from anything christian, so a wonderful act of blasphemy and disapproval, a deep shadow work process.

I see deity like this
An Archetype first,
Psychic contact with powerful spirit second,
Establishing Bastet cult and obsessive daily worship thirdly, is optional.

As I have a tendency to regress to a small child wearing a wizards hat far too easily, and jump strait to the third option, I am cautious about this and any kind of 'possession' or saying something stupid to annoy a goddess. Part of me says 'yeah this is cool', another has extreme caution about entertaining any spirit.

Most of an adult lifetime was spent oblivious to what Bisexality is, despite getting a lot of attention and not wanting it. I still don't consider my self that way, even if there is part of me inside that does. The price of trauma and identity confusion.
I liked girly stuff early on - as that meant actually feeling loved as opposed to feeling dead inside.
The result is a feminine sensitivity and masculine strength, which I have concluded is probably why my father was such a bastard towards me.

So I have this thing whereby the feminine is easier to approach, but even that has issues...
I guess you could say I feel called by Bastet and maybe pair up with Anubis, but it could just be insanity.
Is goddess work going to help, or even a good idea?

 

[Galahad]

I am really struggling at times without having an obvious deity symbol.
I have had cats in my dreams lighting my way through darkness.
And who doesn't like a Sexy cat goddess, especially one that escorted the ladies in such a provocative way down the Nile

Bastet seems a mother figure that could help heal the mother wound, I need a positive image of woman to recover from misogyny.
It's also a deity away from anything christian, so a wonderful act of blasphemy and disapproval, a deep shadow work process.

I see deity like this
An Archetype first,
Psychic contact with powerful spirit second,
Establishing Bastet cult and obsessive daily worship thirdly, is optional.

As I have a tendency to regress to a small child wearing a wizards hat far too easily, and jump strait to the third option, I am cautious about this and any kind of 'possession' or saying something stupid to annoy a goddess. Part of me says 'yeah this is cool', another has extreme caution about entertaining any spirit.

Most of an adult lifetime was spent oblivious to what Bisexality is, despite getting a lot of attention and not wanting it. I still don't consider my self that way, even if there is part of me inside that does. The price of trauma and identity confusion.
I liked girly stuff early on - as that meant actually feeling loved as opposed to feeling dead inside.
The result is a feminine sensitivity and masculine strength, which I have concluded is probably why my father was such a bastard towards me.

So I have this thing whereby the feminine is easier to approach, but even that has issues...
I guess you could say I feel called by Bastet and maybe pair up with Anubis, but it could just be insanity.
Is goddess work going to help, or even a good idea?

I perceive many threads here and I can identify with most of them, especially when I think back to my teens.

In the first thread, I perceive there is a desire to reclaim the mother-aspect of the feminine but coupling that with personal freedom. I may be way off, but I'd hazard that past experience of female authority has been puritanical and/or miserable. I'm biased: I have felt Her tread alongside me all of my life but, still, I cannot think of a better goddess to connect with than Bast to blow all of that away.

Bast combines a strong maternal, nurturing and protective dimension with the capacity to take pleasure from your pleasure, in the way a loving, supportive parent would or, in fact, as cats generally do for the humans who they've chosen. This is all especially powerful if you're engaging with your sexuality and confronting desires. Many of the qualities thought to belong to cats come to the West and the Middle East from Egypt (and, to a lesser extent, Japan) and so the magic, sensuality, intelligence and so on that are commonly perceived in cats, indicate qualities which were once associated with Bast. It's worth remembering too the ancient idea of cats as warders-off against evil. This falls under their protective nature and, in the case of Bast, this can involve a transformation into Sekhmet. In other words, while She plays the doting mother to those She takes as Her own, woe betide those who would try to harm those who She's adopted.

The second thread connects with this. Worship in a context such as this is less about "obsessive daily worship". Grovelling is, in fact, antithetical to the force which Bast represents. A better approach is to honour the force by honouring its presence within yourself. This could involve allowing expression of sensuality in an affirmative, nurturing way and developing in your personality other patterns associated with cats like gracefulness, quick wit, perception, etc. It also involves literally taking care of cats as participants in Bast. All cats point towards the presence of the goddess, simply by being themselves. You may not be in a position where you can adopt but you can still honour this principle by donating cat food to shelters, using your internet presence to call for better treatment of cats, etc., etc. All of this will deepen your connection and, in time, you will begin to perceive Bast in Her essence, that is noetically.

Is goddess work going to help, or even a good idea?

In the instance you've mentioned, I do not see a downside. It will contextualise your Work and lead to you developing a number of characteristics which will be of use to you in any context. These can be adapted if you later discover that you'd like to draw other gods into your personal Work. You'll also be of some practical virtuous use to the world by making the lot of beautiful creatures a little easier than it might otherwise have been.

If you want to engage in a working of "blasphemy" against the forces of stupidity (which so fear the idea that beauty, power and intelligence might be gathered in one image

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) aligning with Bast will repudiate all of that, while strengthening you. It would be an excellent move to make.