May 27, 2010
Posted in Being Kemetic, Festivals
at 1:24 pm
by Shefyt
The Beautiful Feast of the Valley has just ended, the great twelve-day festival during which the holy triad of Gods from Uaset, the city of Thebes — Amun, Mut, and Khonsu — sail to the western bank of the river to pay Their respects to Hethert and Wesir, and during which the people of Kemet would honor their Akhu, their beloved dead, with picnic feasts among the tombs. I think this is one of the festivals that loses a lot in the modern day — even if we could take a twelve-day holiday from work or other responsibilities, most of us would still be missing out on the processions, the revelry, the sheer emotional force of an entire populace joined in rituals of celebration and remembrance.
That said, it’s still worth celebrating. Last weekend, I enjoyed a lunchtime feast before my Akhu shrine, during which I talked with them about the past and also about my life right now. I actually spent quite a bit of time talking to my mother; and I was finally able to express my regrets that we probably had never understood each other very well, and to work through some of the ambivalence that I’ve been feeling toward her lately. At the end of the feast, I played my sistrum for the Akhu, which she seemed to think was a fun idea — I had the sudden mental impression of her shaking her own sistrum and doing the funny, awkward little bobbing dance that she used to do. It made me laugh. I’m not particularly adept at communicating with the dead, but I feel that we made a connection there, or perhaps cleared up a connection that was in danger of growing occluded.
Last night there was an online celebration in the House of Netjer chatroom, during which we named all of our Akhu and made offerings to them. Not quite the same as a live ritual, but powerful nonetheless to see that list of names scroll upward, to speak aloud the names of my own Akhu as I typed them in, the ripples of single drops falling into that great river. This year, unfortunately, daily life caught up with the Northeast region and we weren’t able to organize a get-together for the festival, but I hope we’ll be able to manage it again next year. The more that we can share in the great festivals of our religion, the better.
I’m also planning a personal Kemetic Memorial Day observance for this coming Monday, as a sort of addendum to the Beautiful Feast of the Valley. I’ll post about it here afterward.
May you and your dead be at peace, and may they bless you with good fortune and the everlasting comfort of their love.
Dua Akhu! Nekhtet!
A shrine for the online Beautiful Feast of the Valley ritual, featuring offerings of peonies from the garden, cool water (three glasses for the Theban triad, and a shot glass for the Akhu), and white chocolate (divided as well between the Gods and the Akhu). Note too the modern appurtenances: a binder serving as a windbreak to keep the air conditioner from blowing out the candles and a squirt bottle to chase away the cats.
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May 14, 2010
Posted in Friday Findings
at 2:50 pm
by Shefyt
I think that this might possibly be one of the most beautiful Sekhmet faces ever. (Click on the picture to see it on its home site, the Virtual Egyptian Museum, and be sure to look at the other views of the piece as well.) This bronze from the Eighteenth Dynasty is so expressive, its features so fine and tender, almost wistful, it melts me every time I see it.
Dua Sekhmet — hail and praise to You!
Edited to add: In case clicking on the picture takes you to a page other than the Sekhmet figure, select “Full Collection” if it isn’t already highlighted, click on “By God,” then from the “Jump to…” pop-up menu select “Sakhmet.” The figure is “Bronze of Sakhmet seated, early Dyn. 18.” (The coding on the Museum site makes direct linking tricky.)
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May 7, 2010
Posted in Friday Findings, Netjeru
at 12:25 pm
by Shefyt
I just found something pretty, and it’s a Friday, so I thought I would try to revive my idea of posting “Friday Findings” here.
The painting is Hathor Redux by NibbleKat, and I love the delicacy of it, the graceful turn of Her head, the subtle wash of colors. Those ears are wonderful, too!
It’s a revision of the artist’s earlier Hathor painting, which I actually like a lot as well, even though the artist wasn’t satisfied with it. In the original painting, there’s a more earthy, sensual quality to Her, less serene and dreamy than this newer one. Both versions are lovely — pick your favorite flavor of Hethert!
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May 4, 2010
Posted in Poetry and Prayers, Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 11:35 am
by Shefyt
Hard rain yesterday, although fortunately it had eased off each time I had to go outside; a hard month last month, although not as hard as it was last year at this time. I don’t know why I tend to go off the rails in April. Maybe it’s all that energy, pushing outward to grow, to bloom, that exacerbates my tendencies toward anxiety and overwhelm and leaves me not knowing what to do with myself, with my life.
At any rate, here we are in May, and it’s the beginning of a new Kemetic month as well — the second month of the season of Shomu, the season of heat and harvesting. Only three more months until New Year and Retreat. Soon I’ll start going through my journal for the last year, looking at the patterns, the questions asked and the answers that I may have received without even realizing it.
What does it mean, to live? That question was posed to me the other day by Nefertem, god of the unfolding lotus blossom, lord of perfumes. Of the Seven Arrows of Bast, He’s the one I’ve struggled the most to feel connected to. So to honor Him, and to try to foster that connection, I’ve begun reading a prayer to Him each morning, the first thing I do when I get out of bed.
Nefertem, You are awakening.
Nefertem, may I awaken.
Nefertem, You are awake.
Nefertem, may I be awake.
Nefertem, You arise.
Nefertem, may I arise.
Nefertem, You go forth into the world in beauty.
Nefertem, may I go forth into the world in beauty.
O great Creator, may I see Your beautiful face.
May I live. May I live. May I live. May I live.
What does it mean when I pray, “May I live”? What am I asking for? Walking through my days, doing my work, praying to my Gods, is there any time when I’m not alive? Or is it just that I forget, closed up breathless inside the shell of myself, tensed against the twin pressures of fear and blooming?
Yesterday and today, I read my prayer for Nefertem. And yesterday and today, the gardenia on my desk at work, which has limped along for the last year with shriveled buds and yellowing leaves, has put forth white flowers, perfuming the air.
Dua Nefertem! Nekhtet!
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April 1, 2010
Posted in Parks and Rivers, Thoughts and Reflections
at 3:21 pm
by Shefyt
My little brook is in full flood after all the rains. I love the waters of spring: the surging, overflowing streams; the springs that nourish the first searingly green new growth; the rainpools swallowing the fields, gray sheets mirroring the sky, their surfaces riffled by the passing winds, and in their depths the submerged grasses and weeds transformed into a strange, half-seen aquatic forest; the tiny rivulets along the roadsides, miniature rivers winding between chunks of broken blacktop, their beds lined with flecks of quartz; the low, drumming murmurs of raindrops on the roof. I even kind of love it when the power goes out, the sump pump fails, and the basement starts to flood, although at the same time I’m likely to be cursing frantically and trying to get the washer and dryer up high enough to save them. (Luckily it hasn’t happened this year, or at any rate not yet.)
It was the wettest March on record in New Jersey, and towns like Bound Brook have been suffering from severe flooding. The power of the waters is definitely something to be respected and not ever taken for granted. We have some finite ability to channel and contain them, to use them for our own needs, but ultimately they’re beyond us, mysterious in their risings and fallings, stunningly powerful in their gathered force. And that wonder and that terror are ultimately a part of their beauty — are inextricable from it.
I grew up playing alongside this little brook, in all seasons and weathers, and later along the larger streams and rivers that it feeds into. I suppose it’s no great surprise (as I’ve said before) that I ended up in a religion where the primal waters and the yearly cycle of the great River’s inundation and subsiding are so central. Even “my” Bast has a strongly riparian presence: Lady of the Pool, of the riverbank, the shimmer of sunlight on the ripples, the low chuckle of the waterfall. And maybe there’s a lesson to be learned in the many faces of the waters: to see how anxiety and exultation, joy and sorrow are different aspects of the same emotional energy, the same inner tide. And to understand that only by acknowledging their interplay and by owning both can I truly know the depths of my own heart.
O Netjer, may I walk in a world where Your shining waters bring life and transformation. And may I dare the dregs of sorrow in order to drink deeply of beauty and joy.
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March 30, 2010
Posted in Festivals, Netjeru
at 8:00 am
by Shefyt
Two weeks ago, witch hazel and white crocus were ablaze all along Shapiro Walk. Last week, those fiery explosions had already faded and dried to a dark maroon, and the crocuses had slumped down onto the mulch, their lightless petals shriveled and translucent. This week the forsythia are in full cry, and the lily-flowered magnolias are just cracking their buds, clouds of pale pink and ivory rising up against the rain-dark trees and the pale stone of the university buildings. The beauties of the season pass so quickly, it seems as though we barely glimpse them before they’re gone.
Yesterday and today comprise the Festival of Set, Lord of the Oasis. It’s oddly appropriate for this time of year in the northeastern United States — for, if you think about it, winter is our desert, ruled by the Lord of Storms, with the green world’s life locked away in dormant trees and frozen earth. But now the winter’s grip has (hopefully!) loosened, the rains of renewal are falling, and the land is bursting forth into brief-lived, frenetic blooms, just as the desert blooms for mere hours after its own rare rain showers. And if Set is Lord of Change, then He is there, too, in the wild and fleeting flowers, in the splitting open of the buds, in the wind-shaken cherry blossoms’ fluttering fall.
The oasis is the place of reprieve from harshness, of the irrepressible arising of life from the depths of the earth. And although it’s limited by the desert that surrounds it and by the finite length of this stage in our journey, it’s a place that we can always find and return to.
Yesterday I made offerings and sang for Set, thanking Him for sparing my house and household during the winter storms and asking Him to smile upon us for the rest of the year. May the Lord of the Oasis grant you a peaceful spring as well!
Dua Set! 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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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.
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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!
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March 10, 2010
Posted in Festivals
at 8:40 pm
by Shefyt
The snow crocuses are blooming, gold, pale blue, white, and lavender on the southern slope of the lawn. The willows are showing the first tinge of yellow-green along the lake shore. The earliest hints of spring that I mentioned in my last post have become more than mere hints as warmth settles over the land. There may be snow and storms yet to come, but for this week at least we can revel in the signs of newly awakening life.
Last weekend I celebrated the Feast of Ra and the Eye of Ra and the Day of Chewing Onions for Bast with some other members of the Northeast region of the House of Netjer. We put together a shrine filled with flowers and other offerings, did a little heka to cleanse our lives of unwanted things, and made prayers to Bast, the Lady of Joy. After that, we retired to the local Outback Steakhouse to feast on steak and a bloomin’ onion (at least, those of us who can and will eat onions).
This post is a little late, but still — happy Onion Day! May all good things come to you, and may you find renewal in the turning of the season.
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