March 22, 2010
Posted in Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 11:07 am
by Shefyt
Last Friday I went back up to the library to renew a book (The Role of the Chantress in Ancient Egypt, if you’re curious). By the corner where I was overwhelmed by fragrance, the magnolias had come out, their flowers flaring white and dazzling in the sun. And I found myself glad that I’d been there just a few days earlier, before the magnolias were actually in bloom, because, like a number of other passersby I overheard, I probably would have assumed that heart-catching perfume had to be coming from those great, glorious, shining flowers. I might never have guessed that it wasn’t the magnolias at all, but the low, dark green shrubs around their feet. Because obviously it’s the showy and beautiful flowers that have the sweetest scent, right?
But sometimes it’s the smallest, most ordinary, least remarkable of things that hold the perfume of the Gods.
A whisper on the wind, a glimmer in the dust, the small, comfortably smooth weight of a pebble, a nubbly little flower no bigger than a dime. You never know where (or in whom) you might glimpse something wonderful, an astonishing instant of beauty, a spark of light from the creator Gods’ zep tepi.
Maybe, if you look closely enough, in everything.
I brought a sprig of the sweet box back to work to share it with my office mate and told her the story above about the magnolias. Magic, we agreed –
It’s magic.
Permalink
March 17, 2010
Posted in Thoughts and Reflections
at 8:30 am
by Shefyt
In the wake of last weekend’s nor’easter, suddenly the daffodils have sprung up! It’ll be a while yet until they bloom, but not too much longer. And yesterday as I was out walking at lunchtime, there was the most amazing fragrance by the corner of the library. It stopped me right in my tracks and made me walk around in circles trying to find the source of it. I think it came from the tiny white flowers on one of the ground cover plants — possibly dwarf sweet box? I had already been planning to get some flowers for my desk at work, but inspired by the mystery fragrance I decided to get hyacinths, for their scent. Blue-purple hyacinths, an offering for the Lady of Joy….
I’ve been spending a lot of time on research lately, both focused, as I try to uncover more information about the Seven Arrows of Bast, and a random snatching at any interesting snippet of information that happens to come my way. It’s been fascinating and very worthwhile, but at the same time I feel as though I’ve swung a bit out of balance. A little too much overstimulation, a little too much information overload, and not enough sense of how to integrate those bits and pieces into the actual lived religion. So with the lengthening spring days, I want to turn my focus more toward the experiential and the contemplative. To work on presence, on listening for the voices of the Gods, on the vivid simplicity of being in the midst of all my doing.
The other day I made a list of various spiritually oriented activities, trying to figure out what would help to expand my practice. And as I mused over which ones it would be best to pursue, an answer came, unexpected: that which brings you joy. It was a new way of looking at the idea of practice, not as a stretch of time set aside for something that I should do for self-improvement, but as a way of being and a fulfillment in and of itself.
So I’ll be looking at my list with a new eye, one tuned to seeking out the sweetness of the moment. Not to avoid the exercise of discipline (as Bast once said, by way of one of my sisters, Disicipline and joy can go hand in hand), and not to ignore or deny the bitter, because to truly know joy in all its fullness you need to know its opposites — sadness, pain, withdrawal, fear. But to know them in their relationship to joy itself, and how each informs the other, like a shape and the negative space that surrounds it, complementary forms that help to define each other.
At work, I have a weekly calendar of Susan Seddon Boulet paintings paired with inspirational quotes. This week’s quote, from Shakti Gawain, reads, “We always attract into our lives whatever we think about most, believe in most strongly, expect on the deepest level, and imagine most vividly.” The Law of Attraction has been somewhat overplayed in recent popularizations like The Secret, but there’s truth in it too. Our hearts and minds and senses all open to what we think of; our attention is awakened, alert to every smallest and most subtle sign. When we’re in love, we glimpses traces of the beloved everywhere. And I can see that law’s workings in the choices I’ve made and the paths that have opened as a result, in all my wrestlings with the angel of anxiety, in the steady unfurling of wonder day by day.
O Mother, may I think of You; and may You think of me. My perfume goes to You, O Netjer; may Your perfume come to me. Lady of Joy, may Your presence surround me, everywhere shining, everywhere a delight. And may I too bring joy and beauty into the world.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
Permalink
January 28, 2010
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!
Permalink
January 20, 2010
Posted in Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 12:50 pm
by Shefyt
I finally went to see James Cameron’s Avatar last weekend. It was splendidly done, no question, a visual spectacular, showing a satisfying triumph of beauty and spirituality over corporate greed and blindness. I enjoyed it greatly, and yet I came away from it not feeling profoundly moved. My reaction may have been colored by the issues of romanticized racism that have been raised elsewhere — the idealized and pure native peoples needing to be saved by the Great White Soldier-Hero — but it wasn’t only that. It may have been that the characters didn’t hit any of my particular triggers (aside from being felinoid, which is always an attraction, blue or not), but it seemed that there was something more. And as I thought of the luminous, otherworldly forest that the movie depicted, the vivid and brilliant wings of the irkan and the toruk flashing against the sky, the perfect union of the bond, the realization came, sudden, startling, and sure:
Beautiful, yes. But not as beautiful as my Mother’s eyes.
The green-tinged gold of the winter hillsides; the moss of my lawn, lush in the brief, damp thaw; the flawless, living clarity of the brook — the caress of the sun; the wind’s sweet, subtle stirring; the leap of my heart, the sense of presence like an embrace; Her warm and endless regard holding me, always. The kinship of those who care for me and whom I care for, of those who hear echoes of the same callings, a silver, flickering music.
I feel a little sad for the people who come out of the movie theater pining for a place that they’ll never get to. The connection to something larger, to the universal web of beauty of which the self is one part, isn’t out there, on Pandora. It’s right here, right now, in the eyes that see, in the heart that opens itself in exhilarated joy and welcome like the outstretched wings of a bird.
The day after Avatar, I went for a walk to the local nature preserve and sang an offering to the stream’s spirit; at home, I raked leaves, cut back perennials, and hauled firewood, alive to the contours of the land beneath my feet, to the fall of the light. Whatever its flaws or its virtues, I’m grateful to Avatar for this: for reminding me of what beauty truly is and where it lives.
I see you, the Na’vi greet each other.
What do you see?
Permalink
January 1, 2010
Posted in Thoughts and Reflections
at 2:23 pm
by Shefyt
Ten years ago, I was at the peak of my fandom phase, heavily engaged in writing fanfiction and moderating a mailing list, and without much at all happening in the way of spirituality. Five years ago, I was halfway through the House of Netjer’s beginners’ course, still not sure of where it was going to lead me, but finally starting to click with the sense of community and being very profoundly moved by some postings by the Imakhiu on the subject of service.
In the last decade, my father died, leaving me the only member of my family on this continent; I was divined a daughter of Bast, became a Shemsu, a Shemsu-Ankh, and then a w’ab priest; I left my job of thirteen years and found a new one, plus I started freelancing; I finished my epic fanfic and began work on an original novel; I started writing songs; I drove all across the United States by myself; I overcame two of the three addictions that had been plaguing me; I traveled to Japan and to Egypt. For much of the time I felt lost, anxious, blocked, and tremendously frustrated with my life, but I look back now and realize how much happened and how much I accomplished. And that realization gives me a sense of hope and a surge of positive energy for going forward into the next decade.
That said, my resolutions for 2010 are:
- to refine my service as a priest of my Mother
- to tend what’s mine to tend
- to make decisive progress in my writing
- to balance the opposites: strength and beauty, focus and freedom, discipline and joy
Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!
Permalink
December 27, 2009
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.)
Permalink
December 16, 2009
Posted in Stalking Beauty, Ten Days of Joy, Thoughts and Reflections
at 10:38 pm
by Shefyt
[From today, the new moon, through the Feast of Bast Guards the Two Lands on December 25, I'll be doing posts for Ten Days of Joy. This was an exercise for the Shemsu and Remetj of the House of Netjer, a couple of years back, which honored Bast by sharing with each other daily that which brings us joy. It seemed like a good thing to revive.]
Today’s joy was in contrasts: sun and shadows sliding beneath bare branches as the chill wind blew, tiny pillows of intensely emerald moss nestling amidst the brown winter grasses. It feels so good to walk outside, even in winter — especially in winter, perhaps, when everything is stark and clean, and the smallest traces of life and movement stand out so vividly.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
Permalink
December 7, 2009
Posted in Netjeru, Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:12 am
by Shefyt
In my last post I was talking about the darkness of winter — and then the day after that was dazzling, brilliant with sun on the half-melted, lacy snow crust and on the jewels of ice and wet snow clinging to the trees, the road shining white with salt and the sky a crystalline, piercing blue. Winter is the darkest time, but in some moments it can also be the brightest as Set, the Lord of Storms, passes through and then departs, trailing a glorious, transfigured beauty in His wake. Without the storm, we’d never see this radiant and transformed world; without His rivalry with Set, Heru would never be a true king, tested and tempered. So honor Set for His wild strength that shakes the sky; honor Heru Who arises in splendor.
Dua Set! Dua Heru! Nekhtet!
Permalink
December 5, 2009
Posted in Thoughts and Reflections
at 7:24 pm
by Shefyt
I’ve been feeling lately like one of those acrobats who balance spinning plates on the ends of poles. It’s challenging to keep them all in motion without dropping anything. I’ve been working on my first novel, which means that this blog lost momentum for a while. Now I have a new freelance assignment, and I also need to prepare for the Bast festival that I’ll be hosting at the shrine in a couple of weeks, plus assorted other projects, as always. At least I’m never stuck with nothing to do.
But during this last week I managed to squeeze in Senut once, for the first time in a long while. And there was so much joy in it, so much that it made my heart sing. At the center of the spinning, there is this, this — the hush of Zep Tepi in the instant before the song of creation, the perfection of the single unfolding moment.
Today is the first day of the first month of Peret, the Kemetic season known as “growing,” the time of planting and tending the fields after the influx of the floodwaters has receded. And it’s snowing here, the first reasonably serious snowfall of our New Jersey season. It seems contradictory at best to honor the growing time as we sink deeper into the darkness of winter’s short days, as the last leaves lose their grasp and fall, leaving stark branches reaching up against the snow-heavy, cloudy sky. And yet, growing doesn’t start with the first green shoots. It starts with the bare field, harrowed and plowed, with the seed pressed down into the darkness beneath the soil and left to lie there in stillness and silence, the new plant curled up within, waiting for its time.
Tonight I’ll light a candle and offer perfume and cool water to Bast, in honor of the new month. And I’ll pray for the renewal to be found in rest, and the promise of the flowering that’s to come.
Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
Permalink
October 22, 2009
Posted in The Wild Sky, Thoughts and Reflections
at 12:21 pm
by Shefyt
Last evening, driving home, was an evening of layers: blue sky high above great sheets of sun-and-shadow clouds; the late golden light cutting across the air to ignite the treetops, turning them into brassy many-colored fires, or striking lower, between them, to burn on houses, grass, cars; the transitioning leaves in all their autumn hues overlapping like feathers; and, most keen of all, my own awareness of existing on multiple levels, of making the everyday drive, part of the New Jersey routine of commuters, and at the same time being with the sky, and also every place in between, breathing between earth and heaven, like Shu.
This morning I got up early to offer to Heru-hekenu on His feast day: flame, cool water, a little Florida water for scent, and teriyaki chicken. His message to me in return was very simple: Fly.
What does it mean to fly? I won’t ever suddenly sprout wings, except perhaps in dreams. But even while my feet are on the ground (or the gas pedal), I can still soar.
What sets your spirit flying?
Dua Heru-hekenu! Nekhtet!
Permalink
