The Story of Bast: Re-Membering Place Through Story

Bubastis, the Threshold Town

At the northeastern edge of the Nile Delta sat Bubastis, a gentle town that marked one of the first major towns on the way into the heart of Old Kingdom Egypt, towards the source of the Nile. With its rich black earth, regular floods, and beloved cats, Bubastis beloved lived under the care and protection of its tutelary goddess, Bast. Here, cats were honored as living extensions of Bast herself, both as companions and guardians of place.

Yet, Bubastis was also exposed. Set on the Eastern frontier of the Kemetic world, it endured waves of invasions from Hittites, Akkadians, and other tribes from the Levant. Each attack strained the calm rhythm of the town, and what was once a soft and fertile land became tense and uneasy.

The Flight of the Goddess

One day, after a particularly devastating invasion, Bast herself was shaken to the core. Like a startled, skittish cat, she fled! Up a nearby mountain, and even further up, into the branches of a lone tree. Bast held fast to a branch, shivering. Thanks to the invaders, Bast no longer felt safe in her own town.

With her departure, life drained from the soil. The Nile’s once-familiar flooding ceased, and the quiet harmony of Bubastis dissolved. The town began to starve and suffer.

And although the people prayed, called and cried out to Bast, she’s nowhere to be found.
So the people beseech other gods to bring Bast back — Yet none of the gods could locate her.

Finally, the great sun god Ra sends Thoth, the divine scribe and story-keeper, god of wisdom and memory, to seek her out. 

Thoth Finds Bast

Flying across the sky and over the land, Thoth searched until he saw her:
A trembling figure perched high in a mountain tree, far from human reach.

He approached gently and delivered the pleas of the people: Come home, Bast. Return to Bubastis.

But she refused. She was too terrified, too unsettled by the memory after memory of invasion.

What’s a tutelary deity to do when she cannot protect her own?
Bast was lost. What made her town, hers? How could she trust in Place again?

The Persuasion of Memory

Understanding now, Thoth changes his approach. He returns to remembrance.

“Do you remember,” he asks, “the smell of petrichor on the Nile’s first flooding? That rich, earthy scent that belongs to no other place but yours? The soil of Bubastis has a special alchemy.”
Bast’s ears twitched. She remembered.

“Don’t you remember the incense? All the holy woods burned in your name? The daily perfumes worn to exalt you? The sweet anointing oils mixed in prayer?”
Bast sighed. She did remember. Those were her favorites.

“And the cool, fresh water,” Thoth smiled, “set out for you every single day, in every home and market? Wherever you roamed, there was always cool water waiting. And you could go and come as you please knowing that there would always be cool, fresh water, wherever you come and wherever you go.”

Thoth looked around at the dry, exposed mountaintop. “I don’t see any cool water on this mountain. Did you find any here, in all this time?”
Bast now noticed how dry and sharp her tongue felt. She would love water.

And with that, Thoth offered to fly her back to her home so that she could be reunited with her people, and with all the things that she loves about the place she holds so dear. 

The Return of Bast

With these memories reawakened, Bast accepted Thoth’s invitation to return home — not in fear, but in anticipation! She readily returned to her people, to her scents, her cats, her waters.

And with her, harmony returned. Crops grew, incense burned, and the Nile swelled again.

And Bast was pleased. She now knew: invaders might come and go, merchants might pass through, and travelers may visit, but she was enduring. Her love of Place would outlast any human flows and fluctuations. Her time was not measured by battles or even civilizations, but by cycles of flood and soil, by the eternal rhythm of rivers.

Above all, it was Bast’s immortal pleasure body that re-rooted the goddess back into Place.

The distinctive beauties of her namesake town — its scents, specialties, and harmonies — were indelible. Thus, Bast’s pleasure permeated the town and wafted throughout the region in the form of amulets, trinkets, and talismans: Reminders of how pleasure, Place, and protection are intertwined.

A Spirit of Place Restored

This is the tale of a goddess who fled, and of the power of story and memory to call her home again.

Bast’s retreat reveals the danger of community without continuum, and the hollowness of Place without Story. Her return re-members the reciprocal devotion between people, Place, pleasure, and rememberance.

This is the story of a spirit of place that was dis-located, then returned to her rightful role, reigning in harmony with a land that loves her back.