February 3, 2012
Posted in Creative Fire, On Writing, Pagan Blog Project 2012
at 10:34 pm
by Shefyt
(I wasn’t sure I would be able to squeeze out this Pagan Blog Project post. Because the songs just wouldn’t stop coming….)
Kemet is rife with creator Gods, and we, their children, are creators too. Our words take on life, the breath of our mouths as we speak or sing or laugh; our hands with their skill give form, color, and texture; our bodies are eloquent in movement, tracing the shapes of our emotions, our patterns of our relationship to the space around us. Even if we don’t necessarily consider ourselves “artists” or “talented” — we write, we draw, we do crafts, we sing alone in the car, we arrange our homes or our rooms or our shrines, we collect things and put them together in ways that speak to us, we weave magic and rituals, we build, code, problem-solve, design, embellish, and adorn. And so much more. In so many ways, we shape worlds, and we fill them with what’s in our hearts.
Writing is my own main form of creativity, although I also dabble in various others. Whatever form it takes, though, my creativity tends to be compulsive, cyclical, and all-consuming. I get swept up by what I’ve taken to calling “enthusiasms,” which feel very much like what I imagine the Celtic experience of “fire in the head” must be. (“Fire of the sun” in a Kemetic context, I suppose. Or maybe “fire of Sia.”) Once I’m struck, there’s no letting go until the energy has burned through me. And then it passes, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself until the next round begins.
Sometimes it can be exhausting. Especially when I’m working on a song and I end up singing a tune over and over and over waiting for the words to come — my voice gives out, my brain feels hot and raw, scraped by the repetition of half-finished lines, and I just want to whimper, “Please, God, make it stop!” But I don’t really want it to stop. Because then I would miss the extraordinary joy and triumph of accomplishment when the work is finally done and ready for me to let it go. That feeling never dims, never gets old. Each creation is unique in its process, its challenges, its significance. Each one shines with its own light.
The work is part of my service, too, to my Mother Bast and all the Gods. Whether it be songs or poetry, fiction or blog posts, plays or rituals, it’s one of the gifts that I have to offer. I always hope that some reader finds pleasure in it, or insight, or fellowship, or even a moment’s distraction. But even if no one ever read me at all, I think I would still have to dance with the words. For the sake of connecting with and telling the story of whatever it is that inspires me. For the sake of the worlds that want to be born.
A glowing ball of pulsating light
that fills up the space before the dark night,
the thing that shines on the world below
and on me and you, wherever we go.
— my first poem, written at age seven
All You Creator Gods, may You bless the work of our hands and hearts! Dua Netjer!
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February 1, 2012
Posted in Administrivia
at 9:18 am
by Shefyt
Since I’m being fairly active here (nekhtet!), I figured I’d post an update on some of my activity elsewhere:
I hadn’t gotten around to saying so here, but I did get reconfirmed as a W’ab priest, and I’ve been back in service since the beginning of this (secular) year. So my shrine log, The Book of Nekhen Saut-sen Iryt Ra, is back in operation. Since it basically consists of what I offer each day and random (or not so random) impressions, it’s likely not of much interest to anyone else. But you never know.
I’ve posted a bunch of new songs to Songs for the Netjeru — well, some of them are actually new, and some are older songs where I’m finally relatively satisfied with the recordings. I’ve also added an updates page, so now it’s actually possible to tell what’s been added recently.
I’ve created a Tumblr, KemeticFindings, which is going to be taking over from my old Friday Findings posts on this blog. At the moment it’s pretty much all Bast; that will probably stay the main focus, but I expect to be including other things of interest as well.
Enjoy!
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January 31, 2012
Posted in Festivals, Netjeru, Pagan Blog Project 2012
at 1:09 pm
by Shefyt
For the Pagan Blog Project‘s Imbolc prompt:
Imbolc was one of my favorite Sabbats, back when I was kinda-sorta Wiccan. Although the beginning of February was generally still cold and wintery, it was the point at which I could always see the lengthening of the days, the hint of a shift in the wind, the very first stirrings of the coming spring. It lifted my heart with the promise of sun and warming earth and flowers.
Happily, there’s a Kemetic festival at just about the same time that ties into that theme well enough that I’ve been able to shift my affections over. This is the Feast of Heryshef, the ram-headed God of Hnes. You could think of Him as something like a syncretism of Atum, Ra, and Wesir, as well as, or alternately, Heru. He’s rather large. He’s also sometimes a son of Bast, and in my own reconstruction He’s included as one of the Seven Arrows of Bast. My personal mythology is that with the sun’s return, Bast awakens/arouses/causes to come into being Heryshef, who is embodied by the freshening spring wind and the kindling energy of the first new growth.
For the His festival, which was yesterday, I got up early to sing and pray and to offer Him incense and cool water, apples and bread. Not at all coincidentally, I’d been hit with the beginning of a new song for Him the day before, so I finished writing that during my commute to work. At lunch I went for a long walk to enjoy the day, and at dinner I offered Him our spinach and artichoke pie. And yesterday morning the sun rose before the end of my commute for the first time this year, the first pale purple snow crocuses were in bloom (unusually early due to the mild winter), and the wind breathed promises through the still-leafless trees, all reminders of His presence. Simple connections — not a day of pomp and ceremony and high ritual, but nonetheless one that was intimately entwined with the God and His mystery.
Dua Heryshef! Nekhtet!
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January 27, 2012
Posted in Netjeru, Pagan Blog Project 2012
at 9:47 pm
by Shefyt
I was all set to write about baths for my second B entry. Between the purity requirements for my daily rite, the Seven Arrows of Sekhmet baths at Retreat, and experiences of ritual bathing in general, I figured I would have plenty to say. But then, as I was sitting in shrine the other day (as is usually the case when these things happen), I was informed that I was to do this entry on Bes.
At first this seemed entirely random. Bes? What on earth am I going to write about Bes, who has yet to really show up in any part of my devotions? But then I realized that it wasn’t actually random at all. I’m in the midst of floating a new addition to my practices: the idea of having Gods who are over various parts of my house, to guard and bless it. This was triggered by, of all things, FlyLady‘s housework zones, which I had been contemplating as a way to focus and improve my overall care of my home. And I’d thought, if I’m going to to be concentrating my practical attentions on different parts of the house, why not bring the Gods into it and blend in a religious element as well? So I pondered and came up with a personal set of household Gods to call upon, as part of a week-by-week routine of house cleaning and blessing.
What room are we on this week? The bedroom. And which God did I select for the bedroom? Bes, who traditionally watches over sleepers, who was depicted in bedrooms and on the head- and footboards of beds, as on the bed of Queen Tiye, shown below.
Ah, Bes, the apotropaic lion-dwarf: holy dancer, mighty laugher, fierce and tender protector. It is Bes who appeases the angry Eye of Ra with merriment and music; who watches over the heedless — the child, the dreamer, the lovers, the woman in the throes of labor; whose image decorates cosmetic items such as mirrors and kohl tubes, the tools that highlight and enhance beauty so as to awaken desire, bringing forth new love and new life.
As I lit my candle for Bes tonight, offering him spicy chocolate and a coffee-flavored frappuchino, I found myself laughing almost involuntarily, struck by humor when I least expected it.
Welcome, Bes, into my home!
Dua Bes — nekhtet!
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January 22, 2012
Posted in Netjeru, Pagan Blog Project 2012, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:00 pm
by Shefyt
I debated whether I should do a PBP post on Bast. For one thing, this blog is already largely about my relationship with Her and my experiences as Her priest. For another, Bast is so multifaceted for me that I could probably write a whole book just on Her. But since She is so central to my religious practice, it seemed inescapable that I should write something about Her. So last night, while I was in the shrine, I asked for Her guidance on how to focus this piece.
Bast who lives in the heart.
So. Picture the heart as a flower, a rose, fragrant and lovely. Trace the inner curves of its petals, winding deeper into their labyrinth, traveling in your mind toward its center as the flower slowly unfolds and unfolds, opening ever further, layer after layer of sensuous richness, seemingly endless. Until at last you find, at the very center, the darkness of the deepest night, velvet black, a place of perfect peace and stillness. And as you rest in that darkness, eventually there is a flicker of gold, of flame, two golden eyes growing larger, coming closer, the gold of the Great Lioness emerging from the night like sunrise. Until you are washed in gold, the light of the sun filling you, widening your heart until that light spills over and shines out from you. Breathe out the golden light of the sun, illuminating the world. Breathe out the fragrance of the heart, delighting the Gods. Breathe in the love of Bast that makes the soul tremble and sing. Breathe in the beauty that feeds the ka.
For Bast is the Mistress of Joy, and joy dwells within the heart. The ancient Kemetic word for joy was in fact awt-ib, “the widening of the heart”; a close friend was called “one who has entered the heart.” For the people of Kemet, the heart was the seat of intelligence, emotion, inner mind, and soul. It is in the heart that we remember, that we feel love and loss and delight — and the pricking claws of conscience when we step outside ma’at. In all of these, Bast is there.
O Bast, Beautiful Lady, may You open our hearts to joy. Your perfume comes to me, O Bast. May my perfume go to You.
Dua Bast — nekhtet!
An amulet composed of the hieroglyphs for awt-ib, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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January 21, 2012
Posted in Pagan Blog Project 2012
at 11:02 am
by Shefyt
How do I see Amun-Ra?
He is both the Hidden Wind and the Manifest Sun, and also their meeting place, where unseen power infuses the visible appearance. For me, He embodies the process of creation itself — whether the creation of a world, or a single being, or a work of art. He is the indrawn breath of inspiration, of light and life, and the passage from that inspiration to existence, the shattering exhalation, the call of the wild goose, the cry of birth. If the Eye of Ra is raw energy — “the force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” to quote Dylan Thomas — then Amun-Ra is the idea of the seed and the order of the plant’s development, the flower that issues forth and the influence of that flower on the heart that perceives it. He is the power that is greater than power, the matrix that contains force, giving it direction, shape, and limit.
People tend to experience Amun-Ra as very formal, very kingly; He favors ritual and commands obedience. Perhaps it’s because that kingly role provides a certain structure, a vessel to contain his immensity and abstractness, to translate it into human terms. To the common people, there would have been something ineffable about the king, who was rarely seen yet whose influence was everywhere. But Amun-Ra is not just remote; he is also the compassionate friend and benefactor of the people, prayed to for help in all sorts of matters. Perhaps in ancient Kemet there was a political angle to this, promoting an image of the ruler’s beneficence toward the people by drawing connections between him and the King of Gods, but it’s true of Amun-Ra nonetheless. He is the divine ear that hears all prayers. And while his responses to a seeker’s questions may be unexpected and often challenging, they strike to the heart.
As I was lying on the couch last weekend, thinking about what to write for this post, I suddenly heard, Get up and go into the shrine room. Oh, but I was comfortable, and the cats had just snuggled up to me….
Go to the shrine.
…and I really wanted to fall asleep….
Get up now.
I got up. I went to Amun-Ra’s shrine, lit sandalwood incense for Him, and knelt before the shrine in prayer. And I felt that connection at once, even though in all honesty I haven’t been paying much attention to Him or serving Him lately, felt His care and close involvement, His hand upon my own creative work.
How can I get closer to You? I asked in sudden love and longing, and the realization came to me:
He is everywhere — how can you get closer than that?
A Sufi master once assigned his disciples the task of killing a chicken where no one could witness the act. One took his chicken out into a cave in the wilderness, another took his down a deep well, a third shut himself in a dark closet and tied a blindfold around his own eyes. When the disciples all returned to the master, one of them still carried a living chicken. When asked why it was still alive, he replied that he had not been able to find any place where the eyes of God could not see him.
Amun-Ra is guide and commander, both subtle and inexorable — He is everywhere, watching and hearing. As He hears, He is also speaking; listen for Him.
Dua Amun-Ra! Nekhtet!
I’m running a bit behind at the moment, but hopefully I’ll have my first “B” post out sometime this weekend.
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January 16, 2012
Posted in Pagan Blog Project 2012
at 8:32 pm
by Shefyt
This post is the first in a series, written as part of the Pagan Blog Project 2012. The idea of the Project is to make one post a week on some topic related to your spiritual or magical path; the first two weeks are for topics beginning with “A,” the next two for topics beginning with “B,” and so on. I got a late start, so I’m just posting for “A” now, even though the last “A” post was supposed to be last Friday. I may squeeze in a second “A” this week or just move on to “B”; I haven’t decided yet.
The Akhu are the Shining Ones, the ancestors, those who came before us. In Kemetic Orthodoxy, we honor them first during the daily ritual of Senut; we also give the offerings on the sixth day of the Kemetic month, as well as at various festivals throughout the year, such as the Beautiful Feast of the Valley. I have a personal ritual that I observe each Sunday, in which I make offerings to the Gods of my RPD, the Gods of the month and the year, the Seven Arrows of Bast, and finally my Akhu. I usually do a brief check-in with them, telling them what’s going on in my life, asking for their protection and guidance, and wishing them well in their ongoing lives in the West.
The Akhu are supposed to be our first go-to when we need help, even before the Gods — the premise being that they were human once, they better understand our trials and tribulations (the Gods have never had to find a job, for instance, or deal with a plumbing emergency), and they have a vested interest in us as their kin. This is something I have difficulty with, though. I tend to default to the Gods, perhaps because I grew up in a culture where nobody ever talked to the dead, and I’m not one of those people who readily sees and hears them. Praying to the Gods just seems to come more naturally to me. This is something I’d like to work on, though, developing that relationship with my Akhu.
I do actually have one close-to-home example of an Akhu relationship. Late in his life, my dad, a staunch Old-World Catholic, started practicing his own form of ancestor veneration. Every morning he would light a candle and incense in the little shrine on top of his dresser, before the pictures of his parents and his brother. He would sit in the old recliner, the cat would get into his lap, and he would pet her as he talked to his departed family. I never discussed the Kemetic religion with Dad before he died, but I think he would have understood my Akhu shrine, at least. And I think it must make him happy that now I offer flame and incense to him.
Dua Akhu, shining as gold in the vault of Nut! May you live forever, true of voice.
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December 28, 2011
Posted in Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:22 pm
by Shefyt
This morning, sitting in shrine with Bast, I saw an image of a small tree with gnarled, twisting branches, deep, velvety-brown bark, and clusters of large, lovely white flowers. And I heard, in that soft inner voice, Would you cut the tree down just because it doesn’t grow the way you want it to?
I have a chronic tendency to want to throw everything away and start over. For many years I wanted to leave my job and go back to college, “do it right” this time, broaden my horizons, take classes in a multitude of subjects, without limiting myself to a single major. More recently, it’s manifested as a nearly frantic impulse to purge almost all of my possessions, including the house, move away someplace, and reinvent myself.
Not very practical, is it? And also, it assumes an irreparable wrongness in the way things are at present. Maybe if my life were truly toxic, if I was in an abusive relationship, or sunk in addiction, failed dreams, or despair, razing everything to the ground might be productive. But it isn’t, and I’m not. Instead, I’m truly blessed in so many ways. And if there are places that aren’t perfect, if my life in general doesn’t fit some imagined idea of perfection — so what? Finally, with a little nudge from my Mother, I think I’m okay with that.
No, I wouldn’t cut the tree down. It’s beautiful just as it is. The lean of the trunk, the jutting branches tell a story of growth and change, of the interplay of yielding and strength; the luminous flowers float like clouds against the sky. There may be room for a little judicious pruning, with love and respect for the tree’s integrity. But always in service to what’s already there. To do otherwise is to deny myself and all that’s created me as the person I am today.
Every day is Zep Tepi, the First Time of Creation. And yet, every day we start where we are. We are new, we are renewed, and we are ongoing, all at once.
Dua Kheperu! May I become.
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December 27, 2011
Posted in Home and Temple, Tending the Shrine, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:28 pm
by Shefyt
I’m a little bit tired today; it was a slow, rough, frustrating day at work. Fortunately my festival calendar is clear until the end of the week. Or perhaps not so fortunately after all. Some festivity might rejuvenate me. Well, instead here I sit with a peppermint hot chocolate and two sleeping cats being ridiculously adorable as I try to put some words together in meaningful patterns. There are much worse ways to spend a rainy evening.
I’ve put in my request to be reinstated as a W’ab priest of the House of Netjer, and while I wait for official confirmation I’ve been continuing to sit with my thoughts and feelings about the job, as well as with my goals and priorities for my life in general. I think I’ve finally managed to set aside the pages-long list of things I think I want to do, or should do, or that might be cool to do if twenty thousand equally cool-seeming things weren’t jostling for my attention and energy. I have myself down to just four general categories now: priest work, relationships, writing, and care of self and home. Of course, each of those by itself is infinitely expandable. The secret is going to be to keep balance among them, and also to hold onto that simplicity of focus when the next shiny distraction comes along.
I had a dream a few nights ago that I was at some sort of convention or fair, and I found this amazing wolf pelt on a table of hides. (In the dream it was identified as “coyote,” but recalling it, it seems too large and heavy-furred to be anything other than a wolf.) It was pale silver-grey and white, and it glittered as though tiny fragments of mirrors had been stitched to it like sequins. I woke up briefly, and when I went back to sleep I was trying on the wolf pelt in front of a mirror, pulling the head down over my face. I made a singularly unconvincing wolf.
I think it comes back to the question of what is and isn’t my work, and acknowledging that just because something may seem beautiful and wonder-filled and intriguing doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good fit. (In fact, the dream came just as I was on the verge of chasing down one of those enticing rabbit trails.) I’m still figuring out what the right fit actually is, but I think I’m circling in on it. Or at least drawing the circle to exclude what it isn’t.
I walked into work this morning and found my dictionary open to the word “purity.” In shrine one time I received the message Purity is priority. Not only that purity is a priority for a W’ab priest, but that purity lives in what we set as our priorities. What we keep foremost in our hearts.
May I be pure.
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December 25, 2011
Posted in Parks and Rivers
at 6:05 pm
by Shefyt
Today I walked down to the stream at the nearby nature preserve, and I was stunned to see how much it had changed since I’d last been there, how its course had shifted. A great, deep bay was carved out of the high bank, a new S-curve had been created, trees had fallen, and a sandbar had been wiped away. I realized then that I hadn’t visited the place since before Hurricane Irene came through in August, perhaps long before that. I don’t remember the last time, and that’s sad, because that stretch of the stream is a very special place for me.
So one of my goals for the coming year is to visit the park at least once a week, to reconnect and to follow its changes through the seasons.
Hail and praise to you, spirit of the stream! May I be a friend to you; may you be a friend to me.
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