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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December 21, 2009
Posted in Festivals, Ten Days of Joy
at 12:51 pm
by Shefyt
I spent the weekend hosting a Bast festival get-together for the House of Netjer’s Northeast region, so I wasn’t able to post for a couple of days. Time to catch up….
Day 4: The joy of sitting in the darkened shrine room with my brothers and sisters in the faith, talking quietly together about our gods and our religion, the golden glow of the candles that we’ve lit flickering across the face of the icon as She watches over us, while outside the world is perfectly silent, muffled by the swiftly falling snow.
Day 5: The joy of waking up to the aftermath of a perfect snowstorm: just enough light, powdery snow to be a significant fall but not a paralyzing one, easy to shovel and quick to clear the roads for people to travel home; a breathtakingly blue sky; the beautiful glitter of flakes blowing in white cascades from the pine trees (even though they’re cold and wet down the back of the neck! But there’s joy and laughter in that too.)
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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December 17, 2009
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 4:18 pm
by Shefyt
Today’s joy was two-fold, relating to preparations for this weekend’s festival: the feeling of clearing out old magazines that have been collecting for months, lightening the burden of clutter and letting me breathe more freely; and the discovery that it is, in fact, extremely easy to make your own candies with chocolate molds. Now I’ll have chocolate cats and udjat eyes to share with my guests!
Dua Bast! Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!
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December 16, 2009
Posted in Stalking Beauty, Ten Days of Joy, Thoughts and Reflections
at 10:38 pm
by Shefyt
[From today, the new moon, through the Feast of Bast Guards the Two Lands on December 25, I'll be doing posts for Ten Days of Joy. This was an exercise for the Shemsu and Remetj of the House of Netjer, a couple of years back, which honored Bast by sharing with each other daily that which brings us joy. It seemed like a good thing to revive.]
Today’s joy was in contrasts: sun and shadows sliding beneath bare branches as the chill wind blew, tiny pillows of intensely emerald moss nestling amidst the brown winter grasses. It feels so good to walk outside, even in winter — especially in winter, perhaps, when everything is stark and clean, and the smallest traces of life and movement stand out so vividly.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! 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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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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