Domain: The sun, creation, kingship, order Symbol: The solar disk, the falcon, the scarab, the barque, the uraeus
Overview
Ra is the sun god and, for much of Egyptian history, the king of the gods — the source from which the world was spoken into being. In the great cosmogony of Heliopolis he rises out of the primordial waters of Nun as the first light, and from himself brings forth the first divine pair, from whom the sky, the earth, and every other god descend. He is not merely a god who governs the sun; he is the sun, a living presence whose daily journey is the pulse of creation itself.
Each day Ra sails the sky in his solar barque, crossing from horizon to horizon, and each night he descends into the underworld to travel the twelve hours of darkness. There he must pass the serpent Set — or in the older telling, the chaos-serpent Apep — who waits to swallow the sun and end the world. That the dawn returns at all is a nightly victory, order wrested again from the dark. In this ceaseless voyage he is the archetype the tarot names The Sun: radiance, vitality, the light that makes life possible and asks nothing in return but that you turn toward it.
Key Myths
The creation at Heliopolis. Alone upon the first mound rising from the waters of chaos, Ra brings forth the cosmos from his own substance. The sun's first rising is the first act of order over the formless deep, and every dawn afterward repeats it in miniature.
The secret name and Isis. Grown old, Ra let his saliva fall to the earth, and from it Isis fashioned a serpent that bit him. Only she could cure the venom — but her price was his true, hidden name, the word that held his power. He surrendered it at last, and with it a measure of his sovereignty passed to her and to her line.
The night voyage. By night Ra sails the underworld in his barque, defended by the other gods against the serpent of chaos. His triumph each dawn is not guaranteed; it is fought for. The rising sun is a god who has survived the dark again.