Shu and Tefnut are the first divine couple on earth. They have one soul. According to the Heliopolis cosmogony, these gods were born by Atum at the beginning of creation: Shu arose as the god of the wind, and Tefnut-Maat as the goddess of the world order, and only thanks to her Atum was able to create the world. In the cosmogony of Memphis, Tefnut is sometimes identified with the “heart and tongue of Ptah,” that is, his original Word and Thought, which were embodied in Atum and Tefnut-Maat. Traditionally, in the religion of Ancient Egypt, Tefnut was revered as the goddess of moisture.
After the world was created, Tefnut became the Eye of Ra - the Solar Eye, the guardian of justice and laws.
The Golden Age came - a time when the gods lived on earth with people. The gods reigned in turns, replacing each other on the earthly throne. The first and longest was the era of the reign of Ra, the sun god, “Lord of All That Is.”
At the beginning of the Golden Age, Tefnut quarreled with Ra. Taking the form of a lioness, she left Egypt and went south to Nubia (Egyptian Kush), into the desert.
Tefnut was the goddess of moisture, so when she left, a disaster struck the country - a terrible drought. The rains have stopped in the Nile Delta; the hot rays of the Sun dried out the soil along the banks - it cracked and became hard as stone; date palms stopped bearing fruit; The Nile became shallow and sandstorms began. People died of thirst and hunger.
Then His Majesty Ra called the god Shu to him and commanded him:
- Go find Tefnut in Nubia and bring this goddess back!
Shu turned into a lion and went in search of his sister. Soon he managed to find her. Shu told her for a long time and eloquently about the misfortune that befell her homeland, and finally moved Tefnut to pity and convinced her to return. When they came to Egypt together, the Great River immediately overflowed and generously saturated the meadows and arable lands with water, and the life-giving “heavenly Nile” rain poured into the lands of the Delta. The drought ended and the famine stopped.
After Shu brought his sister from the Nubian Desert, he married her. From this marriage a second divine couple was born: Geb, the god of the earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky. Geb and Nut loved each other very much even in their mother’s womb and were born hugging each other tightly. Therefore, at the beginning of creation, heaven and earth were fused together.
Nut gave birth to stars in the evenings, and in the morning, before sunrise, she swallowed them. This continued day after day, year after year. And one day Geb was angry with Nut for eating the stars, and called her a pig eating her piglets.
The Lord of All That Is, Ra, was very unhappy with the quarrel between Nut and Geb. He called the wind god Shu to him and ordered him to break the embrace of Geb and Nut, to separate heaven and earth: if they cannot live in harmony, let them live apart.
Shu fulfilled Ra's order: he separated heaven from earth and set the created world in motion. Therefore, it is believed that Shu is the embodiment of the creative energy of Ra-Atum. His name means “Emptiness” (i.e. air). The Egyptians placed small wooden figurines of Shu into the sarcophagi of the dead so that the deceased would not suffocate in the Afterlife, where there is no air.
Shu wears an ostrich feather on his head: this is the hieroglyph of his name.
When Shu broke the embrace of Nut and Geb, the goddess Nut, in the guise of a Heavenly Cow, ascended above the earth. The height made her dizzy. The Sun God ordered Shu to support Nut. Since then, Shu always holds his daughter during the day, and at night he lowers her back to the ground. Therefore, one of the emblems of Shu is four feathers: symbolic columns that support the sky.
Tefnut sometimes helps her husband hold Nut above the ground, but she gets tired very quickly and begins to cry from fatigue. Her tears - rain - turn into plants.
In the morning, Nut leaves Hebe, takes the form of the Heavenly Cow Mehet Urt and gives birth to the solar disk. Khepri, the god of the rising Sun, rolls the Sun in front of him like a scarab beetle rolls its ball, and, having reached the zenith, passes the solar disk to Ra. Ra takes the Sun and in his sacred Boat of Eternity carries him across the heavenly river - along the belly of Nut.
Sometimes Rook is attacked by the eternal enemy of the Sun - the giant serpent Apep. On such days, the sky becomes cloudy or a sandstorm blows in from the desert. The goddess Nut hides in the mountains until Ra defeats Apep. If the snake manages to swallow the Rook, a solar eclipse occurs - but even then, Ra ultimately still defeats Apep and sails further along the heavenly river. In the evening, having completed his great mission, the Sun God gives the disk to Atum, and Atum lowers it beyond the horizon.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru