#sapphic devotion

New year, new blog series! For the next several months, I'm going to be working on a series of posts focused on queer devotion. In this series, we will explore deities and spirits associated with different LGBTQ+ identities and ideas for how to connect with them. 

We're starting off with sapphic devotion purely because I am a sapphic woman and like to talk about sapphic history. 

Researching sapphic history can be a challenge, because women's experiences are often less well-documented than men's experiences. Even cultures that left a ton of documentation of queer relationships between men (such as in Ancient Greece) often left little or no evidence of queer relationships between women. Does this mean that queer women didn't exist in those cultures? Of course not. It simply means that men were writing the history books and tended to center their own experiences. 

Even so, if we look hard enough, we can find evidence of queer women's spirituality in the ancient world. Below are a few of the deities and spirits that are strongly connected to queer womanhood and love between women and femmes. (A lot of this information comes from my upcoming book, Lavender Witchcraft, coming in August of this year from Moon Books.)

Some scholars believe the Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) goddess Nephthys was understood to be a lesbian by her original worshipers. These scholars point to Nephthys’s marriage to Set, a god explicitly associated with male homosexuality. (More on Set in a future post!) The marriage of Set and Nephthys may be understood as a representation of the duality of male and female queer identity. 

According to Kemetic myth, when Set killed Osiris, his brother and the king of the gods, Nephthys sided with Osiris’s widow Isis in the following conflict. Nephthys helped Isis to raise Horus, her son with Osiris and the heir to the divine throne. When Horus was fully grown, Nephthys supported his claim against Set. 

Nephthys and Isis were frequently worshiped together, and are often depicted together in Egyptian art, especially funerary art. These sister goddesses share many of the same associations and are both connected to childbirth, magic, and protection. Some scholars believe that Isis and Nephthys can be understood as lovers and that their relationship represents the duality of birth (Isis) and death (Nephthys). 

To connect with Nephthys, consider placing an image of her in your sacred space. You can also write out her name in Kemetic hieroglyphs to place in your sacred space. (Check Wikipedia to find the hieroglyphs for her name!) Symbols associated with her include the kite (a type of bird), the ankh, and the temple enclosure. Like all Kemetic gods, she can be honored with offerings of bread and water. 

The most well-known goddess of queer women is probably Artemis. Artemis is an ancient Hellenic (Greek) goddess, twin sister to the god Apollo, and is associated with the moon, hunting, wilderness, childbirth, and virginity. Artemis was worshiped in the Hellenic world as the protector of young girls. (It is important to note that in Hellenic culture, a virgin was any woman who had never had sex with man. This included women who had only had sex with women.)

Artemis never married and completely rejected the domestic roles assigned to women in Hellenic cultue. Instead, she spent her time roaming the wilds with her hunters, who were all women. 

Artemis has long been claimed by the sapphic community. In the 1960s and 1970s, lesbian activists used symbols of Artemis to tie their work into the history of queer womanhood.

To connect with Artemis, consider placing an image of her in your sacred space. You can also write out her name in Ancient Greek to place in your sacred space. Symbols associated with her include the deer, the snake, the bow and arrows, the crescent moon, and the spear. Like all Hellenic gods, she can be honored with offerings of fruit, flowers, incense, or honey. 

Aphrodite, the Hellenic goddess of love, is also strongly associated with sapphic identity. Sappho, from whom we get the terms “lesbian” and “sapphic” called Aphrodite the patron of love between women. Other sources say that she is the patron of all same-sex relationships. Aphrodite is also associated with sex, pleasure, and beauty.

Aphrodite is also associated with intersex and transgender identities. The Roman author Macrobius wrote about an aspect of Aphrodite with a beard and a penis who was worshiped in Cyprus. Some statues of this version of the goddess have survived to the modern day. They depict Aphrodite in feminine clothing, lifting up her skirts to reveal her erect penis. 

To connect with Aphrodite, consider placing an image of her in your sacred space. You can also write out her name in Ancient Greek to place in your sacred space. Symbols associated with her include seashells, pearls, roses, doves, and swans. Like all Hellenic gods, she can be honored with offerings of fruit, flowers, incense, or honey. 

If you'd like to invite a sapphic deity or spirit into your life, try the following ritual: Set up a small sacred space with an image of your deity of choice (a print-out of a free image from the Internet is totally fine) and a candle. Make a small offering of water, coffee, or tea, or of one of the historic offerings listed above. Talk to them, either out loud or in your head, and ask what they want from a relationship with you. 

These are only a few of many, many deities and spirits associated with sapphic identity and love between women. If this is a topic that interests you, I strongly encourage you to do your own research. And if I missed your favorite patron of sapphic identity, please let me know!