I have been looking at this book for a few months. I have been leery of purchasing it because the last book I purchased on Sekhmet turned out to be straight garbage. But this one seemed like it was safe. It is pretty decent, not the greatest, and not the worst.
The first section is on Articles and Essays. This is just about people’s experience when coming into Sekhmet for the first time. Some of it was melodramatic, but it was still interesting to see how they found her, or she found them. I always like to see how people come upon their Deity.
The next section is Prayers and Invocations. This section was pretty interesting with a lot of prayers, hymns and devotionals to her. A lot of them are well written and you can tell they come from the heart. The ones I found useful that I can add and modify into my practice are:
Daily Prayer
A Prayer to Sekhmet
Prayer of Protection
Daughter of Sekhmet
Fierce Sekhmet
Invocations of Sekhmet ( I found these to be wonderful. There are five in all:Artist, Desctuctor, Healer, Warrior and Teacher)
Hymn to Sekhmet II
Prayer to Sekhmet
Awakening of Sekhmet
Awakening of Sekhmet with Egyptian Translation (I would use this on more than the other)
There are around 15 more I believe, but these resonated with me the most.
The third section is called Rituals and Meditations. I found nothing there of any use. Well the last one Sekhmet’s Ritual Objects, but even that is nothing new or useful to me. I do not like a 20 pag ritual, to me it seems they are more worried about the theatrics of the ritual than the ritual itself. Even in my coven we aren’t that melodramatic. Don’t get me wrong, we use props but we don’t spend 3 hours talking. They are geared for a group workings if anything. ALl her rituals that I have came across that have been writing by Pagans are always group workings that seem to like to hear themselves talk. So I read them, half of each, lost my taste for it and skipped them all together. Others may find it useful I don’t.
The last and final section is called Recipes. I found use in this section. I love recipes. I like to get knee deep in my workings. It makes it so personal. These recipes I liked
Sekhmet Blessing Oil (it contains blood for those who may not work with blood)
Sekhmet Oils
Sekhmet Incense (it has a LOT of ingredients, heads up)
Libation offering (very easy only three ingredients)
I can say this book was alright. Was it worth the money, yes. I will be going back to the second part Prayers and Invocations, more often than not for the wealth of information that is there. I see there are some that I may need in the future. A nice addition to our library, no doubt.
Serenity of the Dark 