January 22, 2012
Posted in Netjeru, Pagan Blog Project 2012, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:00 pm
by Shefyt
I debated whether I should do a PBP post on Bast. For one thing, this blog is already largely about my relationship with Her and my experiences as Her priest. For another, Bast is so multifaceted for me that I could probably write a whole book just on Her. But since She is so central to my religious practice, it seemed inescapable that I should write something about Her. So last night, while I was in the shrine, I asked for Her guidance on how to focus this piece.
Bast who lives in the heart.
So. Picture the heart as a flower, a rose, fragrant and lovely. Trace the inner curves of its petals, winding deeper into their labyrinth, traveling in your mind toward its center as the flower slowly unfolds and unfolds, opening ever further, layer after layer of sensuous richness, seemingly endless. Until at last you find, at the very center, the darkness of the deepest night, velvet black, a place of perfect peace and stillness. And as you rest in that darkness, eventually there is a flicker of gold, of flame, two golden eyes growing larger, coming closer, the gold of the Great Lioness emerging from the night like sunrise. Until you are washed in gold, the light of the sun filling you, widening your heart until that light spills over and shines out from you. Breathe out the golden light of the sun, illuminating the world. Breathe out the fragrance of the heart, delighting the Gods. Breathe in the love of Bast that makes the soul tremble and sing. Breathe in the beauty that feeds the ka.
For Bast is the Mistress of Joy, and joy dwells within the heart. The ancient Kemetic word for joy was in fact awt-ib, “the widening of the heart”; a close friend was called “one who has entered the heart.” For the people of Kemet, the heart was the seat of intelligence, emotion, inner mind, and soul. It is in the heart that we remember, that we feel love and loss and delight — and the pricking claws of conscience when we step outside ma’at. In all of these, Bast is there.
O Bast, Beautiful Lady, may You open our hearts to joy. Your perfume comes to me, O Bast. May my perfume go to You.
Dua Bast — nekhtet!
An amulet composed of the hieroglyphs for awt-ib, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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December 12, 2011
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 8:08 pm
by Shefyt
It’s time once again for the annual Ten Days of Joy, a celebration of the unique joy of each day as we approach the Festival of Bast Guards the Two Lands.
Today’s joy is the joy of strength and will unlooked-for, of rising to meet a challenge rather than surrendering to inertia.
Dua Bast, Mistress of Joy, O Strong Lady, hail and praise to You! May You bless me in Your season. May You lift me up!
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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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December 25, 2009
Posted in Festivals, Ten Days of Joy
at 9:48 pm
by Shefyt
Today is the Feast of Bast Guarding the Two Lands. In the dark time of the year, She is the flame that never dies, the Eye that never ceases in Its vigilance, the great Goddess Who acts without faltering, effective in the upholding of ma’at.
Today, even while it was a day of rest and holiday, I pushed through my inertias and anxieties — not with force but gently, and yet with an engaged will. I slept in the shrine room overnight, overcoming the nervousness that comes with trying something new. I worked on craft projects, despite being tempted to procrastinate and put them off until tomorrow. I achieved a goal in my reading, rather than lying down for a nap in the afternoon. And I honored my Mother with offerings and time spent in the shrine, despite a cold that kept me from being pure enough for formal rites.
Today’s joy was the joy of a balanced strength, of inner victory without inner violence, of peace in the midst of action and action arising out of peace. Today’s joy was the grace of doing, the shining flame of desire and accomplishment.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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December 24, 2009
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 10:34 pm
by Shefyt
Today’s joy was supremely simple: the joy of being at home. Holiday shopping done, presents wrapped — nowhere else that I need to go for the next day or so, nothing planned but reading, relaxing, and celebrating. I can just be here, in the place where I am. And I give thanks for my good fortune, that I have this place: my own house, my sanctuary that surrounds me with warmth and shelter, with peace and satisfaction.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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December 23, 2009
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 11:40 pm
by Shefyt
Today I was out doing my holiday shopping, not at the mall (thank the Gods!), but in the artsy small village of New Hope, PA. The recession seems to be hitting the place pretty hard — a number of stores were closed, and since it was a weekday afternoon the streets and sidewalks were far less crowded than they usually are when I visit on the weekends, giving the place something of a ghost-town atmosphere. But there was a moment, picking my way along the brick sidewalk, being careful of the lingering patches of ice and slush, when I suddenly felt the quiet of the streets, the warmth of the winter sun, heard the whisper of the creek spilling over the lip of the millhouse waterfall, on its way to join the Delaware River — a moment of being perfectly awake and aware of my surroundings, not lost in distractions or busyness or priorities or plans. And with that shock of awareness, a slightly bittersweet pang of joy: the twinge of seeing the processes of time and change at work on a familiar place, wearing away some things and leaving others behind, like wind and water carving outcroppings out of layered stone, and yet at the same time a piercing sense of vibrancy. This is a place where people live, both in good circumstances and in bad. It’s real. It’s alive. And so am I!
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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December 22, 2009
Posted in Cats, Ten Days of Joy
at 8:25 pm
by Shefyt
Today’s joy was a quiet one: the peace of drowsing beneath a cluster of warm, happy, purring cats. Three cats are actually enough to make a very substantial furry blanket!
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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December 21, 2009
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 8:34 pm
by Shefyt
The piercing pang of resolution. The kindling of renewal on the shortest day of the year. The sweet, brilliant light of clarity. Today’s joy is an instant of seeing things as they are, of seeing what needs to be done, of seeing all the places where I’ve fallen short and yet feeling no despair, no anger at myself — just the surety that I can do better, that the way is standing open before me, and I have only to gather myself and step forward, into that growing light.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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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 18, 2009
Posted in Ten Days of Joy
at 6:43 pm
by Shefyt
Today’s joy is stillness after constant motion: sitting on the couch with a cat and the computer, a candle burning nearby, resting now, with the whole house cleaned and tidied. Now there’s just the waiting for the guests to arrive, the hush of preparation awaiting its fulfillment, the quiet anticipation of the celebration ahead.
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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