The Festival of Chewing Onions for Bastet

March 21, 2026 - The Goddess Diaries

The Ancient Egyptian calendar was filled with festivals each and every day, some lasting just one or two days, and others lasting nearly three weeks. Each day was watched over by protector gods/goddesses, each month was protected, and even hours were protected. One such protector goddess was Bast-et, who was a lioness-headed or cat-headed woman known as one of the Eye of Ra goddesses. These goddesses often associated with flames, arrows, and fierceness were honored in festivals and feast days.

There were multiple festivals to honor Bastet throughout the year, including the Festival of Bast, the Festival of Drunkenness (also shared with Eye of Ra Goddesses, Sekhmet, Mut, and Hathor), and a little obscure festival called the Festival of Chewing Onions for Bastet.  This festival took place over two days in our calendar month of March and as farmers took their harvests to the local market, they would bring onions for protection from evil spirits and snakes.  The chewing of onions was said to only take place on the first day of the festival and the second day was filled with sailing of boats carrying statues of the Goddess Bastet, dancing and singing and feasting with offerings of bread, beer, geese, fruit, birds, flowers, incense, and wine.

I love being creative with the ancient festivals because in doing so, the rituals can have a more significant meaning in the modern day. This particular festival was also intriguing to my Priestess Initiates in my Iseum so I sat with Bastet and thought about how we could celebrate this festival today. Ideas of cooking with onions or writing a poem about onions…..or creating art with onions …came to mind so this is what my Priestess Initiates in the Iseum did for our monthly Gathering. I thought I’d share my creations of art with cats and onions.

There is healing in rituals….

I have done rituals for many years, but it seems that since all the struggles from last year and my healing process, that the past few months’ rituals have been especially sweet, powerful and impactful. I feel their effects lingering after the ritual and I’ve never felt especially connected to Bastet, but I can say that her presence has been very tangible and I have loved the feeling of having her near - teaching, healing, encouraging, revealing.

As always, I’m allowing her to guide and inspire and it truly has been wonderful. I feel very inspired and creative and have felt the elements more, felt connection to All That Is more, been drawn to draw more, start doing watercolor painting. Why? I don’t know that there needs to be a definitive answer to that, I’ve just been enjoying these new creative ventures immensely.

I don’t usually share my spiritual practices with my family, choosing to keep it to myself due most likely to my upbringing where religion and church-y things were front and center, but this time I did. The thing about it was, cats are fun and Bastet, in particular, was closely linked to domestic and family matters….so why not try to share a little of this day with my family? And experiencing a modern-day twist on an ancient festival with an intriguing name filled the ritual day with so much joy! My 4-year old granddaughter painted and drew with me, we dressed in our cat outfits to make it special, we sat on the floor to create multi-media art while her cat ran through the construction paper chasing a pom-pom, we talked about onions and cats. The whole day was alive and so fun that even sitting here to recap it brings back all the feelings and memories filling me with happiness all over again.

Our cat and her adventures….

I’ve always been a dog-person and of course a horse-crazy girl but living with my family again, there are cats in the family and they are very special to me. Recently, our indoor/outdoor cat, Jager, didn’t come home one evening and I was very upset, feeling at fault - which of course, I couldn’t have stopped the events of the day.

The night before she disappeared, everyone left to go out of town to a wedding and I was here taking care of the furry family members. I let her out in the morning before going to work all day and that night she wasn’t around. Before I went to bed she hadn’t returned. The next day….still no sign of her. Then my family was soon to return and I had to tell them that she wasn’t home and I didn’t know where she was.

Oh, my, that was such a hard time! You don’t realize the place all your animals have in your life until one of them isn’t there….I mean you KNOW but not until then do you REALLY know. Fortunately we had an AirTag on her and after about 3 days, she pinged 14 miles south of us!! We took turns going down there to look for her but no luck. Then after a week, one evening around 10 pm (it’s lucky I was still awake!) she pinged again but at a slightly different address in the same area so I drove down there to look for her, hopeful that in the dark with a flashlight, her eyes would reflect the light and she might be easier to find.

I said a prayer to Sekhmet on the way, and I was filled with feeling like I would find her. It was an excitement and a calm at the same time.

I followed the pings and parked on the rural country roads, walking into the yards of the addresses she was pinging at with my flashlight shining on their doorways and flower beds, hoping that they didn’t have outside dogs that would attack me or someone thinking I was a menace and shoot me in the dark! Finally, I decided that since the pings were moving around, I would just stay until I found her. Suddenly, the AirTag said that she was “with me NOW” and I grabbed the flashlight and got out of the car calling for her. She popped out of the tall grasses onto the drive and came to me and oooh, I was so happy! I scooped her up and brought her home, and she sat in my lap most of the 30 minute drive.

Cats and the Wandering Goddess

Not a part of the Festival of Chewing Onions for Bast-et, but another festival is the Return of the Wandering Goddess. The Ancient Egyptians believed the cat and lioness had many lessons to teach, much protection to give, and healings to perform….and through Time, the cat has held this place of magic and power.

Final thoughts…

Eating onions may not seem ultra ‘spiritual’ and painting cats and onions may not seem like “serious” rituals, but to chew and ingest the power of protection IS a very powerful practice, and creating art opens the mind to insight and clarity. Through observing and celebrating this festival through the arts, through listening to the wind, connecting with the healing elements of nature, attuning to the joy of Life (Meres-ankh’s message), I came to realize that a forgotten part of me was re-awakening. The past few weeks, I have been experiencing the most all-over bliss, happiness, and out of body experiences. I’ve begun having lucid dreams of floating above fields of flowers feeling my connection to all of life and dreams of simply lying on the earth, feeling the warmth, the life, the heartbeat and embrace, the scent of the soil and grasses and all of my being aligning with it all, feeling more balanced and grounded …. and whole.

I feel like I now understand the meaning of why the Ancient Egyptians had a festival every day….it was a way to stay connected to their divine nature, a way to tap into their birthright of bliss, a way to remember that they were Light and Love and connected to each other and their world around them, and that each day was sacred….a gift of life with the possibility of boundless joy….and we can all use an extra bit of THAT!

~Auset

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about Bastet and other neteru, you can join the TGI Egyptian Mystery School and Community on Patreon! There are PDF’s, audio lessons, video presentations and more on all aspects of Ancient Egypt! AND this year it’s expanding into a Community….so come join us for support in your spiritual journey through the Egyptian Mysteries HERE