January 28, 2009
Putting words on the page
Bit of a lull there, as in the wake of finishing up a couple of freelance assignments I finally had the time and mental space to really delve into a personal creative writing project, so I plunged headlong into it. It’s kind of funny that I would have more time for posting in this weblog when I’m under deadline for paying work than when I’m messing about on a piece of fanfiction, but there you go. I suppose it’s because I can dip in and out of the freelancing more easily, whereas I need to build up momentum in order to make substantial progress on the fiction, and lately I’ve been feeling a lot of internal pressure to make that progress, to finish at last the giant project that I’ve been working on for years so I can finally set it aside and go on to other things.
Lately my thoughts have been circling around the idea of what I can contribute, of how to make a difference in the world. Possibly this is inspired at least in part by the idealism of the new Obama administration, although I think, too, that I’m just getting to a point in life where I’m running up against the limits of living inside my own head. One of my current projects at work is a book about how Muslims in France form new institutions within the framework of secular French society and carve out spaces for community participation in religion, and as I read it I think, “I want that” — I want to be part of building something that’s both shared and substantive. I want to be part of the growth of the House and of Kemetic faith in general, and I want to see the beautiful results of that growth — I want us to have sacred spaces, artworks, libraries, classes, a record of artifacts, a thriving social network beyond the online forums. I want processions, damn it. We’re starting to develop some of these things, and where we have them, they’re truly precious; but as a religion we’re geographically scattered and still few, and the work is slow, and this cat gets impatient sometimes. Some days on my lunch break I sit in the university chapel to meditate, and I wonder if our hands will ever make something so large and lasting, or if the age of Kemetic monuments is past — if there will never again be the resources nor a true need for such things.
But large-scale works aside, there’s still a lot that we can do. Last weekend the HoN’s Northeast region had a New York-area get-together, the first in a series of “God of the month” discussions, and it was fantastic — not only as a social and educational gathering in and of itself, but as a chance to make plans for future events, and even more than that as a source of inspiration. One of the high points was a ritual of meditation on Sokar, Who was the focus of discussion, and Whom I had never really met before, but gazing into the eyes of His statue, I suddenly realized that I knew Him after all — the terror of the empty page waiting to be written upon, and also the wonder of it, the endless ground of potentiality. And so it is with every endeavor on the brink of its beginning. (It reminds me once more of New Year’s Eve, white on white beside the river.) It’s time to take a deep breath and step forward into life, into motion, into the projects that need to be brought out of thought and dream and into this world.
Hail, Sokar, Lord of Time, Still-heart, mighty Hidden One! Dua Netjer, nekhtet!