01.28.10
Posted in Festivals, Thoughts and Reflections at 12:59 pm by Shefyt
Earlier this week, in the wake of the torrential downpours, a beautiful, burnished evening — the trees like bronze in the westering light, the woods warm and wet, filled with numinous pools reflecting the gold-tinged sky. And I thought, can this really be January? But then I realized with a shock that January is already almost over. The snowdrops under the apple tree have been poking their stubborn heads up for a couple of weeks now; the light is noticeably stronger. Sunset is just beginning to enflame the sky at 5:00 as I walk across the parking lot to the gym to work out. The weather has turned cold once again — there was brief, startling shower of snow this morning — but spring is undeniably closer.
This has always been a special time of year for me. And conveniently, there’s a Feast of Heryshef right about where I once would have celebrated the waxing light and the first glimmers of spring with Imbolc during my semi-Wiccan days. So I’m planning to do something next week to honor Him, although I haven’t yet decided exactly what. It seems remarkably appropriate, considering that Heryshef was known as the ba of Ra and also of Wesir — a manifestation of the sun god and also of the god who brings forth the greenness of the world. I’ve been wanting to get to know Him better anyway, so this seems like an ideal opportunity.
Dua Heryshef! Nekhtet!
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12.29.09
Posted in Festivals, Netjeru, The Wild Sky at 2:14 pm by Shefyt
This morning, before getting in the car to go to work, I paused outside the garage to look up. Above the branches of the pine tree across the road, silhouetted against the gradually lightening sky — a pale swath of delicate cloud veil and a single star, golden and startlingly bright.
Later, during the drive, I looked up again, out the car’s window. The dawn sky was filled with clouds in serried ranks, as if marching from the east, advancing across the land. The Gods are in procession, I thought, on this day of festival, as the Divine Cow raises up the sun.
Today is a holy day, the day that Ra establishes His place in the heavens. Look up!
Dua Nut, Mother of the Gods! Dua Ra in Your rising! Nekhtet!
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12.27.09
Posted in Being Kemetic, Festivals, Ten Days of Joy, Thoughts and Reflections at 9:59 pm by Shefyt
A major part of the process of settling and growing in Kemetic religion is figuring out one’s calendar. With some hundreds of known festivals filling almost every day of the year, it can be entirely overwhelming! Most people seem to prune it down to a handful of focused observances, with at best a quick candle lighting or a moment of prayer to acknowledge some of the other days.
The festival known as Bast Guards the Two Lands (sometimes called Bast Guides the Two Lands) is one of my big ones, and this year it was even more of a production than usual, with the Northeast gathering on one weekend, my own personal observance on the following Friday, and the Ten Days of Joy meditations spanning both. It included fellowship, singing, the decoration and shaking of sistra, the lighting of candles, offerings of chocolate and flowers and cookies and oranges and roast duck (among other things), long bouts of contemplation, a renewed sense of purity and the beginnings of a shift in spiritual focus, and through it all, the overpowering warmth and presence of my Mother’s love.
Six years ago, I celebrated this festival for the very first time, although I didn’t realize it then. It was a time of deep reflection, as it still is today, a time of sitting in darkness and opening to the light, a time of stillness and profound listening. And yet it’s also a festival of song and rejoicing, of group celebration and festivity, of laughter. It was interesting to me that the Ten Days of Joy also seemed to swing between stillness and exuberance, inward and outward, contemplation and action. Perhaps one could say that joy and love both reconcile all opposites.
Praise to You, Bast, pre-eminent in the field of the god! Mistress of Heaven, O Peerless One, Firstborn of Tem! May You guide us, may You guard us, in every day and every hour, as You guide and guard the Two Lands! Nekhtet!
(The picture above is from after the group celebration, when everyone else had left and our burned-down celebrant candles were removed from the bowl of sand, leaving just Bast’s central candle in place.)
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12.25.09
Posted in Festivals, Ten Days of Joy at 9:48 pm by Shefyt
Today is the Feast of Bast Guarding the Two Lands. In the dark time of the year, She is the flame that never dies, the Eye that never ceases in Its vigilance, the great Goddess Who acts without faltering, effective in the upholding of ma’at.
Today, even while it was a day of rest and holiday, I pushed through my inertias and anxieties — not with force but gently, and yet with an engaged will. I slept in the shrine room overnight, overcoming the nervousness that comes with trying something new. I worked on craft projects, despite being tempted to procrastinate and put them off until tomorrow. I achieved a goal in my reading, rather than lying down for a nap in the afternoon. And I honored my Mother with offerings and time spent in the shrine, despite a cold that kept me from being pure enough for formal rites.
Today’s joy was the joy of a balanced strength, of inner victory without inner violence, of peace in the midst of action and action arising out of peace. Today’s joy was the grace of doing, the shining flame of desire and accomplishment.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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12.21.09
Posted in Festivals, Ten Days of Joy at 12:51 pm by Shefyt
I spent the weekend hosting a Bast festival get-together for the House of Netjer’s Northeast region, so I wasn’t able to post for a couple of days. Time to catch up….
Day 4: The joy of sitting in the darkened shrine room with my brothers and sisters in the faith, talking quietly together about our gods and our religion, the golden glow of the candles that we’ve lit flickering across the face of the icon as She watches over us, while outside the world is perfectly silent, muffled by the swiftly falling snow.
Day 5: The joy of waking up to the aftermath of a perfect snowstorm: just enough light, powdery snow to be a significant fall but not a paralyzing one, easy to shovel and quick to clear the roads for people to travel home; a breathtakingly blue sky; the beautiful glitter of flakes blowing in white cascades from the pine trees (even though they’re cold and wet down the back of the neck! But there’s joy and laughter in that too.)
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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09.23.09
Posted in Festivals, The Wild Sky, Thoughts and Reflections at 12:34 pm by Shefyt
Out of the overcast day, a moment of sun — brilliant white clouds pull together like slow Symplegades, thin swirls of cirrus curling between them like the spray of waves against stone. They kiss, and gray shadow falls again.
We’re in the midst of Opet, the festival of the Theban triad, celebrating the union of Amun and Mut, the bright promise of Their son Khonsu, and the renewal of the sacred kingship. Where the Lord of Thrones meets the Lady of the Crowns, where the hidden meets the manifest, where the Divine and the human worlds touch, we are in neheh, cyclical time, the spiral of becoming. The play of light waxes and wanes. But there will always be healing.
Dua Amun! Dua Mut! Dua Khonsu! Nekhtet!
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