May 31, 2010
Posted in Festivals, Netjeru, Poetry and Prayers
at 11:27 am
by Shefyt
This morning I got up at the crack of dawn to do a small ritual for Memorial Day (as I’d mentioned previously). Out on the front lawn, I set up a little shrine with offerings and read the following prayer out loud at sunrise:
A Memorial Day Prayer for Heru-hekenu and the Akhu
Dua Heru-hekenu! O Son of Bast,
You Who travel with Ra through the Duat,
You Who journey on the night barque through the land of Wesir,
You Who preserve the body and protect the soul,
may You preserve and protect all those who have died in service:
our soldiers, our police and rescue workers, our heroes.
May You bring light for their eyes.
May You bring breath for their nostrils.
May You bring fragrant unguents for their bodies and their kas
and every good thing so that they might live.
Great solider, Master of Protection,
may You spread Your wings out above the living as well,
may You bless the ones who put themselves in danger,
fighting to protect all that they love.
May their bodies be strengthened,
may their hearts be pure,
and may they return home safely at the end of their service,
until the day when all the lands are forever at peace.
May there be rest and healing for all the veterans
and great glory for the courage that they have shown.
An offering which the King gives to Heru-hekenu, Son of Bast, at the shrine of Saut-sen Iryt Ra: a thousand of bread, a thousand of barbecue, incense, flame, and cool water for the honored dead of this nation, true of voice. Dua Akhu! May you give your protection and guidance to those who fight today and to all the veterans who have served in the past. May you be remembered for as long as the stars shine in the sky. And may you live.
Dua Heru-hekenu! Dua Akhu! Nekhtet!
Afterward I sang “Taps” and then sat in meditation until the incense had burned down.
It was unusual for me, because I don’t usually do anything to celebrate Memorial Day. But this year it seemed right and necessary, as a sort of follow-on to the celebrations of the Beautiful Feast of the Valley. And it was a lovely moment, sitting outside in the early morning, in the cool air touched by the scent of sandalwood incense, feeling a sense of things in harmony, of ma’at in this kind of remembrance.
Heru-hekenu may seem an odd (and obscure!) choice of deity to petition in a ritual like this. It was an intuitive jump at first, but upon further thought it made reasonable sense. As mentioned in the prayer, Heru-hekenu does sail on the night barque with Ra. (In the picture at the head of this page, Heru-hekenu is the hawk-headed figure standing directly behind the ram-headed Ra.) The journey of the sun into darkness and ultimately to regeneration and renewal is also the journey of the deceased; thus Heru-hekenu could be seen in the role of a funerary protector and assistant. According to the Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, He lights the way for the ba of the dead, and He does actually receive offerings in a hotep di Nisut formula (although I’ve written my own here, not having tracked down the original yet). His name is also another indicator — Heru-hekenu can mean “Heru of the unguent” as well as “Heru of praises.” Just as oils and lotions were used to protect the living body against the ravages of a hot, harsh climate, so they were also used to protect the body of the deceased, preparing it for the tomb and its former inhabitant for the journey through the afterworld. Thus Heru-hekenu would be a protector of both the living and the dead.
So He seems to have a somewhat more liminal nature than some of the other forms of Heru. Yet he also has that warrior quality, as well as a very primal-seeming raptorial nature, which fits in well with one associated with battle and soldiers. It seemed appropriate, in the end, to call upon Him in remembrance of those who have fought and died for their country, and to ask Him to guard our living heroes as well.
A close-up of the statue I’m currently using for Heru-hekenu. The double crown is appropriate — He appears with it in reliefs from per-Bast — and the pots are about as close as one’s likely to find to perfume jars. The necklace draped around Him is one that I made for Him, and the red tissue-paper poppy came from a veterans’ organization.
Dua Heru-hekenu! Nekhtet!
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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!
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October 7, 2009
Posted in Netjeru, Stalking Beauty, Thoughts and Reflections
at 3:00 pm
by Shefyt
I went out for a walk along the canal today — a perfect windy autumn day, leaves flying, the sunlight glittering from a thousand ripples on the riffling water, a day that was made for joy. And as I walked, I began to pray to Heru-hekenu: “May You lift me up. May You lift me above fear, above depression, above anxiety, above anger — may You lift me on Your shining wings as You soar toward the sky, singing the praises of Netjer, Your beautiful fragrance pouring down onto the world.”
Netjer praising Netjer? came the response, soft and subtle.
“Everything,” a pause as the thought unfolds, “…praises itself.”
And then an impression like a slow, quiet smile. True.
So praise yourself today, as the tree revels in the arch of its branches, as the drifting clouds sing the glory of water and air, as Netjer loves and honors Itself — praise yourself as a child of God, beautiful and beloved. Even if something within you refuses believe it, say the words anyway. Words have power — what you speak moves that much closer to reality.
I praise myself as a singer of songs for Netjer, as a dreamer, as a good friend, as a lover of cats, as one who serves with joy. I praise the legs that carry me, the hands that do Netjer’s work, the senses that perceive, and the mind that remembers, draws connections, and invents. I praise the lungs that breathe and the heart that beats, giving me life. I praise all my hopes and longings, all my strivings and surrenders, and all the possibilities hidden within me that are yet to be born.
Dua Heru of Praises! Nekhtet!
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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 29, 2009
Posted in Books, Reviews: Nonfiction
at 12:24 pm
by Shefyt
Horus: Royal God of Egypt
By Samuel A. B. Mercer. London: Luzac & Co., 1942. Hardcover, 252 pages, line illustrations. [out of print]
I hunted this down because I was looking for information about the relatively obscure gods Heryshef and Heru-hekenu. It does indeed include snippets of information about Them, along with other lesser-known aspects and syncretizations such as Heru-Khenty-Khety and Heru-Amun, in addition to the more prominent Herus, such as Heru-wer and Heru-sa-Aset. There are over a hundred little line drawings of Heru and other gods, and an exhaustive list of epithets of Heru, so there are plenty of interesting bits of knowledge in this book.
On the down side, it’s rather dated — the author relies heavily on Budge, so be warned, and there’s a great deal of speculative history about the “people of Horus” coming to Egypt from somewhere in the Middle East, probably Arabia, which has been rejected by more contemporary studies. I honestly found it rather tedious whenever he began trying to trace a historical trajectory for anything, and there are three chapters of background before he really delves into Heru Himself. I was most interested in the chapters on Heru and the Names identified with or associated with Him; on the Eye of Heru; on representations of Heru; and the worship half of the chapter on theology and worship of Heru. (The theology part attempted to trace the development of Heru’s character through various stages, but given the author’s questionable history and the fact that he keeps conflating Heru-wer and Heru-sa-Aset in ways that I’m just not sure are accurate, I couldn’t bring myself to trust that portion of the chapter.) The chapter on places where Heru was worshipped got a bit listy, so I mostly skimmed it, but it’s certainly comprehensive.
The book is out of print and as of now [June 2009] doesn’t seem to be available online. Used copies are very expensive, so your best bet is probably to check it out of your local university library, unless you’re a Heru devotee who’s trying to acquire all possible resources for your personal library. It’s a really good compilation of data from many older sources (including a lot that aren’t in English); just be sure to double check things, especially when the author starts straying into interpretation.
[If you have access to JSTOR, there's a review from 1943 here, which basically sums up to "facts good, historical interpretation interesting but unsupported, beware of taking literary/Hellenistic sources over actual papyri/inscriptions." I'm amused that the reviewer calls the index "adequate" — damning with faint praise? — as I personally found it kind of sketchy. (It failed to include Bast at all, and She was definitely in there.)]
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