December 13, 2010
Posted in Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 10:09 pm
by Shefyt
After yesterday’s rain-washed mild temperatures, today proved to be windy and surprisingly cold when I went out at lunchtime. I picked up soup to bring back with me, then decided to detour to the flower shop to find something for my desk, as it had been far too long since I’d had flowers.
Afterward, walking back to the office carrying three bright yellow Gerber daisies, I felt as though I was carrying warmth with me, tucked into the crook of my arm. A trace of fleeting sunlight flickered through wind-thinned clouds, gilding the bare trees and turning the remaining dry, brown leaves to bronze — and warmer than the sun, the heat of awareness, the delight in beauty, an inner fire of enthusiasm that feels life’s echo everywhere, even when the world might so easily be mistaken for a frost-gnawed, barren shell. The heart, already lifted, leaps! And the dance goes on.
Tomorrow begins my annual observance of the Ten Days of Joy that lead up to and include the Festival of Bast Guards the Two Lands. But it’s good to be reminded that joy can be found at any time, in even the simplest things, and that every day has the potential to be special — today, now, and always.
Dua Bast, Mistress of Joy! Nekhtet!
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October 6, 2010
Posted in Being Kemetic
at 6:50 pm
by Shefyt
It seems as though a lot of my posts relate either to my commute or to being at the gym, so let’s have a change of scenery today. The picture above is of my desk at work (click photos for larger versions). Although the picture was taken back in the spring, the space still looks largely the same, even though the work, reading material, and some of the plants have changed.
The old joke says that “a clean desk is a sure sign of a sick mind,” but for me, it’s very important that my personal spaces are both well ordered and soul-nourishing — and considering that I spend more time at work than I do anyplace else except my bed, I definitely consider my cubicle/office to be an essential personal space. The plants help to clean the air and bring their living colors, textures, and energy to my work area; the empty desk spaces give a tired, overscheduled mind a sense of quiet and calm, a place to rest. It’s always a clear signal of overwhelm when the clutter begins to take over. Yesterday I finally managed to get my desk back into order after a long struggle with stress and inertia, and everything feels so much better. I’m blessed as well with a large light-filled window that helps the plants to thrive, that lets me revel in the warmth and golden beauty of the sun, and that provides a view of the ever-changing sky.
Of course, Bast is present at my desk as well. The space next to my computer speaker houses a small cat statue to honor Her, a photo of a stream to give Her a home, and my collection of assorted rocks and semi-precious stones, found jewelry, and other objects. (This was recently cleaned up a bit as well.)
And finally what would a jungle be without a resident big cat? Meet Milo, the Very Helpful Smilodon:
The Gods are never far, and beauty can be found or made anywhere; thus we live, thus we breathe, thus we possess our lives.
Hail to You, O Beautiful Ones, in Your coming and Your going! Nekhtet!
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August 14, 2010
Posted in Stalking Beauty
at 9:13 pm
by Shefyt
So I was in shrine early this morning, planning out my day, recounting how I was going to do this, that, and the other thing.
…and dance, said the little voice in the back of my mind.
Mrrr, I thought, but I already have a lot to do, and it’s a long way to go to get a class, and I don’t feel like dancing by myself in my room…. As the resistance was kicking in, my eyes fell upon an object in my shrine, a six-sided die with a picture of a cat on the one-pip side, which had been given to me by one of my Bast-sisters at Retreat, along with the message “You need more Bast in your life.”
“Cats, I’ll dance,” I said, and rolled the die.
…cats.
Did I really expect any other answer?
So I went to the Saturday morning Nia class — which, it turns out, was actually just what I needed — and danced in celebration of balance to honor the Lady of Grace.
(And I’ve only just realized tonight, after the fact, that at the prayer chat on Tuesday I had prayed “that there be more dancing.”)
Dua Bast, You Who sometimes works in mysterious and whimsical ways! Nekhtet!
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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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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.)
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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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Afterward, walking back to the office carrying three bright yellow Gerber daisies, I felt as though I was carrying warmth with me, tucked into the crook of my arm. A trace of fleeting sunlight flickered through wind-thinned clouds, gilding the bare trees and turning the remaining dry, brown leaves to bronze — and warmer than the sun, the heat of awareness, the delight in beauty, an inner fire of enthusiasm that feels life’s echo everywhere, even when the world might so easily be mistaken for a frost-gnawed, barren shell. The heart, already lifted, leaps! And the dance goes on.
