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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November 10, 2010
Posted in Creative Fire, On Writing, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:46 pm
by Shefyt
A briefly golden morning, the sun slanting upward through a narrow gap in the overcast east to emblaze hilltops, thinning cloud trails, the highest branches of the trees. A lotus-light, fleeting and magical.
Last month I wrote my fiftieth song for the Netjeru.* I’m still a little incredulous at this, considering that I’d never imagined I would be writing songs at all. And it was for Amun-Ra, who started the whole thing nearly four years ago, as I knelt before His shrine and wondered aloud what special service I could do for Him. Sing! He told me emphatically, and from that moment, that first awkward, self-conscious rendition of the House of Netjer classic “Ankh, Ujda, Seneb,” which was the only vaguely appropriate song that I knew at the time, has somehow arisen a whole repertoire of songs for many different Gods and festivals.
The sources of creativity are certainly mysterious! But it makes perfect sense that it would be Amun-Ra who set me on this path. As the syncretism of Amun and Ra, He’s always seemed to me an embodiment — an en-God-ment? — of the creative process itself, the journey that extends from the Hidden to the Manifest, from the first leaping electricity of connection and inspiration to the particular luminosity of the finished work. And now that I’ve been reminded of this, I plan to offer my nonmusical writing projects to Him and to seek His help in getting those off the ground as well.
Dua Amun-Ra, Lord of the Hidden Wind, Lord of the Radiant Sun! May You bless all the works of my mind and imagination!
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Photo of my Amun-Ra shrine, with the statue featuring the new plumes that I *finally* made for Him this past summer (detail; click photo for the full shrine.).
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* And in the time it’s taken me to get around to writing this post, I’m already up to song #53. Note to self: Life does not stand still and wait for you to blog about it.
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June 18, 2009
Posted in Being Kemetic, Netjeru, Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 8:01 am
by Shefyt
Some time ago, in the throes of one of my periodic attacks of “What should I do with my life?!” I was sitting before Amun-Ra’s shrine. And I asked Him, “What is ma’at?” (i.e., what would be the right path for me to follow).
Go and ask your Mother, He said, adding, almost as an afterthought, Ma’at is to follow the heart.
Last weekend, I was reading from Miriam Lichtheim’s Ancient Egyptian Literature: The Late Period, and I came across the following lines, in the statue inscription of Nebneteru:
Happy is he who spends his life
In following his heart with the blessings of Amun!
In the footnotes, Lichtheim comments:
This sentence sums up the Egyptian concept of the good and blessed life. “Following the heart” (shemsu-ib) is to make the best and fullest use of what life holds: it is being active, generous, and joyful.
And I realized that I had completely misunderstood what Amun-Ra had meant by following the heart. I had thought that I should listen to the aches and pangs, that I should take the prickings of anxiety as a message, a warning, a prod to get me moving toward some other, “better” life…when instead ma’at is to listen to and to dwell in the heart’s joy in each moment. To live, to give, to create, to be open to all the good that is.
And of course, my Mother, Bast, is the Mistress of Joy.
May Bast guide my heart in its dance; may She open my eyes to the beauty everywhere around me; may She bless all that I touch and every word I speak.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast!
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