June 16, 2010
Posted in Being Kemetic, Home and Temple
at 11:07 pm
by Shefyt
Yesterday morning, I heard my Mother’s voice for the first time.
Usually when I “hear” Bast, what comes through is an impulse or a knowing that immediately is translated into words inside my head by what I call the “Bast voice,” which is not unlike the inner voices that belong to my various fiction characters. While this translation certainly helps my understanding, it can also be deceptive — sometimes it’s difficult to tell whether something is really Bast or is instead some part of myself.
On Tuesday I finally took a genuine first step toward getting some major home repairs and maintenance issues taken care of. The impression I got in shrine that night was that Bast was extremely pleased by this; in fact, She wanted some sistrum shaking to celebrate it. Later I also had a very striking dream that featured some powerful household protection imagery.
Yesterday morning, I was reflecting again on tending my home as part of my service to my Mother — on the true significance of it, when the shrine itself is considered to be the house of God. And a voice rolled through my head that was emphatically not mine:
I am there.
I wish I could describe that voice to you, but the memory of it has already blurred. I only remember that it was beautiful and resonant, that it was nothing like I would have imagined Bast to sound like, but at the same time it was utterly perfect for Her.
It’s funny — I’m so drawn to the mystical, the mythical, the poetic, and what does Bast want from me? A bathroom remodel. Well, to be more serious, there are a number of potential health and environmental issues that we’ll also be addressing: critters in the attic, potential mold inside the walls, an aging underground oil tank. On a level of practicing purity and living in ma’at, Bast’s engagement in all of this makes total sense. I still never quite expect God to be so pragmatic, though. And it was just as unexpected to hear Her speak at last, a moment of astonishment and wonder that I think will linger with me for a long time.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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March 23, 2010
Posted in Being Kemetic, Festivals, Home and Temple
at 9:35 pm
by Shefyt
Last weekend was the spring equinox, and the weather was absolutely beautiful, so I spent a large chunk of time outside…doing yard work. (Which I actually do enjoy, although right now I have more tasks than I do energy.) At any rate, my plan on Saturday was to begin by picking up some pine cones out the back, and then move on to clearing up around the driveway. So I picked up cones and raked up pine needles and raked out a lot of old, dead grass, and over an hour later, I found myself asking, “Why am I still working on this one slope at the back of the house, instead of giving more attention to the front areas?”
And a few minutes later, I realized, “…oh. It’s because this is ‘the Door of the Sun,’ where I sometimes stand to salute Bast and Atum at sunset, especially during the lighter months of the year.” And thus reminded, on Sunday evening I did just that, acknowledging the next tick of the year’s clock and the ending of the Feast of Zep Tepi, to the trills of spring peepers and evening bird songs — adding in Heru-hekenu for the first time, to honor the full holy triad of per-Bast.
The Gods have a way of reordering one’s priorities.
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October 19, 2009
Posted in Home and Temple, On Writing, The Wild Sky, Thoughts and Reflections
at 4:43 pm
by Shefyt
On Sunday I went for a walk down the road and around the school, the first time in a long while that I’ve taken that particular walk. I often go for similar walks on my lunch break at work, around the university campus, down by the lake or along the canal, but they don’t have the sense of exhilaration that yesterday’s walk did. Was it something in the wind? Or was it because it was that wind, gusting down the length of the valley, that sky arching overhead, from hillside to hillside, that roll of the land and the rivers, the scattering of orange leaves like a drift of fire on the hill leading up to the cow farm’s main house, the pines along the athletic fields swaying against the ragged and illuminated clouds? Because it felt like coming home?
I’d never even realized that I’d been away, and yet, in some sense, I was. And is it a coincidence that I also spent much of the day writing, something that I’d been too busy or too anxious to do for a long time? There are a lot of distractions, a lot of ways to be absent to one’s self and one’s life.
O Netjer, may I be truly present. May I live. May I live.
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