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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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 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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October 23, 2009
Posted in Friday Findings
at 12:11 pm
by Shefyt
This is an interesting piece. The museum’s Web page says that it’s a triad including Bast, while the label in the photo calls it “Seated Figures of Bast.” Is it Bast and two other lionness-headed Goddesses? And if so, who are They? Or is it supposed to be three different manifestations of Bast? Or, since three in Kemetic thought is the number of indefinite multiplicity, was this piece intended to signify Bast in all Her forms? Mysteries, mysteries….
(Click the image to go to the museum’s site, where you can view a larger version of the photo.)
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October 12, 2009
Posted in Tending the Shrine, Thoughts and Reflections
at 2:45 pm
by Shefyt
Sometimes when life seems too busy, when it seems as though there’s so much to do and so few hours in which to do it, this anxious and rebellious small voice pipes up to protest spending time in shrine. So it was at the end of last week. I was sitting before Bast’s icon, having just come to grips with the fact that I’ve been letting resistance get the better of me lately and that I need to put more conscious effort into all the many facets of tending the shrine. Somewhat plaintively, that inner voice blurted out, “Does that mean I’m supposed to live my life in the shrine?”
No, Bast replied.
Live your life from here.
Begin it here and end it here.
Trust a God to turn your perspective sideways. Consider the difference between spirituality that takes the place of day-to-day life and spirituality as a ground and context from which that life arises, between ritual as obligation and burden, something that consumes you, and ritual as source of renewal, that which gives life and energy, and as a source of rest. Like a home that you go out from every day and to which you return, again and again…that’s the distinction I need to embrace, as a palliative against that resistance, which ultimately arises from nothing more than a mind clouded by tension and fear.
So for the present I have a new practice, where every day I go to my shrine as the first thing when I get up and as the last thing before I go to bed. It only needs to be for a few moments, just long enough to calm myself, to remind myself, to center myself by touching that wellspring of life. We’ll see what comes of it.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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September 25, 2009
Posted in Parks and Rivers, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:47 am
by Shefyt
I went down to the lake at lunchtime yesterday, to sit and watch the reflections of the willows, the sun, and the passing clouds, to drop leaves into the water and watch them turn in the slow, eddying currents.
Sometimes patience is so hard. Taking time is so hard. It seems as if it should be easy, just living, just letting things come. I know that there are ways to rest, even while in motion, but somehow, far too often, I don’t.
This week has been about finding that rest: playing with the new kittens, sitting and reading in the evenings (more pleasure reading than I’ve done all summer!), doing the one thing that just has to be done each day. This week has been about kindness to myself. And I think I’m starting to feel the fruits of that kindness: a little more clarity, the feeling that I might be able to start writing in earnest again.
Tonight I’ll pour water for Khonsu, beneath the waxing moon, and for the Seven Arrows of Bast, in thanks and in prayer.
Dua Khonsu! O Shining One, Great Healer, may You watch over me.
Dua Bast! Beautiful Mother, may I rest peacefully in Your embrace.
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September 17, 2009
Posted in Stalking Beauty, The Wild Sky, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:37 pm
by Shefyt
Wep Ronpet is well past, and the season of the Inundation is underway. The golden rain trees around the fountain plaza are starting to turn, shedding their first delicate yellow leaves, living up to their name. This morning was wrapped in gray, a promise of drizzle, a heavy overcast that intensified even the smallest spots of color: blue chicory by the roadside, a fiery clump of tickseed sunflowers, one prematurely red maple branch. The rumor of autumn is in the wind, breath of coolness and change, ready to sweep everything clean before it, opening the way for all possibility.
Over the last few years, I’ve spent a lot of time caught up in a looping pattern of anxiety, one of the most frequent manifestations of which has been a circular inner monologue: “I want something. What do I want? I don’t know what I want! But I want something….” This week I was finally able to put on the brakes by means of a very simple, basic affirmation technique: taking the negative statement at the heart of that distress, turning it into a positive one, and repeating it with intention, like a mantra.
I know what I want.
I know what I want.
I know what I want.
And the answers came.
I want to be strong.
What does it mean to be strong?
To be whole and sound. To be effective in the world.
I want to move through life with grace.
What does it mean to be graceful?
To be centered in myself. To be conscious, as I move, of my relationship with all that’s around me.
I want to live in beauty.
What does it mean to live in beauty?
To be aware. To discover richness and sweetness with all of my senses, every day, everywhere. To choose always the beautiful and the true.
I want to create beauty.
What does it mean to create beauty?
To use all my talents to write, to sing, to make things that are lovely and satisfying. To “share your lapis,” as I was told once in an inner journey. To make the world a little brighter, to make life a little easier and happier for everyone around me. To reflect all of the beauty that I see and experience and imagine.
Everything else? All the passing flickers of interests, obsessions, the one-true-goals, the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-times? It’s all window dressing, all veils and curtains, all outward forms that come and go. The essence is what’s deep and true. So if I can stay with and follow that essence, and worry less about the particulars, then I’ll find my way out of that endless loop at last.
– –
And then, having realized that, today I went out for a walk at lunchtime and sat for a while on a set of abandoned steps, watching the cloud-blown sky. And all at once the next key came to me: part of the urgency that lies behind my anxiety is this feeling I sometimes get of being filled with a tremendous energy and having no idea what to do with it. There’s a desperation to find something big and important and most of all right, the perfect thing that I’m “meant” to do, at which I can hurl all of this gathered tension and force. (Thus the almost frantic need to answer that question of “what do I want,” to find some kind — any kind — of direction and purpose.) And what the wind and my Mother told me is — that it’s all right to hold this energy. To contain it, as the bas jar contains the secret of its perfume. And to let it find its own expression when it’s needed, when I can see what it’s really good for — as not a single outpouring flood but a thousand subtle uses, the virtue of a thousand different resins and flowers.
Two hawks swept by overhead, flying against the wind, and the sun came out.
Dua Bast! Dua Heru-hekenu! Nekhtet!
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June 30, 2009
Posted in Being Kemetic, Thoughts and Reflections
at 3:18 pm
by Shefyt
A lot of yard work this weekend, since the weather was cooperating. Actually, the weather has been quite cooperative in general over the last week or so: rain when I need to be indoors working on a freelance assignment, sun when it’s time to work outside. (And rain again when I’ve worked more than enough and just don’t want to admit it.) Almost four hours of leaf-raking, weed-pulling, and mowing on Sunday might have been a little much, but I’m starting to feel as though order is being restored to the place, bit by bit. And I still had time enough to visit the farmers’ market, and also to stop at one of the local farms and self-pick a pint of raspberries — offering the joy of harvesting abundance on such a beautiful day to Bast, and offering the berries themselves to Her later, in shrine.
Time enough — that’s abundance too. For years, I’ve struggled under the anguish of never having enough time to accomplish everything that I want to do. I don’t suddenly have more time than I used to — more like the opposite! And in fact I didn’t get to everything on my to-do list last weekend. But I did…enough. I filled the days well, with solid work interspersed with moments of calm and rest, and had no regrets at the end of it. What I didn’t get to, I’ll get to eventually, if it’s truly important. It’s a shift in perception brings relief, at last, from anxiety: satisfaction as the focus, and with that satisfaction comes peace.
Time spent in shrine is an offering. And the way we spend our time in general — not merely what we spend it on, but how we spend it — is an offering too, one that reverts to us, just as the reversion of food and drink offerings returns their benefit to the ones who offered them. The Kemetic word hotep means “offering” — and it also means “rest,” “satisfaction,” and “peace.” The more I ran around looking for peace, the less I found it. So let peace become my offering, and my offering becomes peace in its turn.
Em hotep, Bast, em hotep.
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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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