She is supposedly the twin sister of the cat goddess Bast They represent a duality of good and evil, yet Sekhmet herself is portrayed as having both good and evil sides. Her qualities as Healer, Mother and Protector are often overlooked. In the realm of Ancient Egyptian Medicine, almost all healers and surgeons of Ancient Kemet would most certainly have fallen under Sekhmet's jurisdiction.

Sekhmet the Spiritual Warrior ...

Sekhmet is the wrathful form - polar opposite - of Hathor - goddess of joy, music, dance, sexual love, pregnancy and birth. With leonine head, female human body and the strength of Her father, She is the noontime sun - intense blinding heat. Hathor took Sekhmet's shape when She made war on men. as the goddess Hathor, is the daughter he plucked from his head and sent out into the universe to avenge his anger. Nu spoke, "Let thine Eye go forth against those who are rebels in the kingdom." Then the gods spoke together, "Let thine eye go forth against these rebels. When It cometh down from heaven, no human eye can be raised against it." Sekhmet/Hathor, in the form of a lioness, hurled herself upon the men who had rebelled against Ra. She attacked them with such fury that the sun god feared she might exterminate the entire human race and begged her to stop the carnage. She had no ears to hear it. So Ra spilled 7,000 jugs containing a magic potion composed of beer and pomegranate juice in her path. Sekhmet, mistook the red liquid for human blood, lapped it up and become too drunk to continue the slaughter.

She was the goddess who meted out divine punishment to the enemies of the gods and of the pharaoh. In this capacity she was called the "Eye of Ra." She also accompanied the pharaoh into battle, launching fiery arrows into battle ahead of him. Sekhmet could also send plagues and disease against her enemies, but was sometimes invoked to avoid plague and cure disease. Sekhmet's capacity for destruction is well-documented. In one story, Ra sends Her to punish those mortals who have forgotten him and She ends up nearly destroying the entire human race. Only the cleverness of Ra stops Her rampage before it consumes every living thing.

Sekhmet,

On the feast day of Hathor/Sekhmet as many jugs of reddened beer were offered as there were priestesses of the sun. Mistress and lady of the tomb, gracious one, destroyer of rebellion, mighty one of enchantments. Her body draped in red, Sekhmet faces West; her sister-daughter Bast in green, personification of the domestic cat, faces East.

There was a temple to Sekhmet-Hathor at Kom el-Hisn in the western Delta, and in his temple at Abydos Sety I (Dynasty XIX) is suckled by Hathor whose title is 'mistress of the mansion of Sekhmet'. In this legend the sun-god Re fears that mankind plots against him. The gods urge him to call down retribution on men by sending his avenging Eye down to Egypt as Hathor. As the goddess slays men, leaving them in pools of blood in the deserts where they fled, she transforms into the 'powerful'.

This legend is the same legend of the goddesses Kali/Durga and the plea that Shiva and other male Gods made to the Himalayas to send down a woman to fight the evil "Rakshastras," whom they were defenseless against.  Durga came down on her tiger and manifested Kali from her brow (third eye) who came down on her lion, and together they fought and won over all negativity symbolized by the "Rakshastras."