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 22, 2010
Posted in The Wild Sky, Thoughts and Reflections
at 9:40 pm
by Shefyt
Rain all day today, drenching at times, so for the most part I did indoor things: dusting and vacuuming the shrine room, making my weekly offerings, catching up on the House boards and reorganizing my email accounts. A good day, a gentle day — not the most productive ever, but peaceful. Among other things, I finally set up my shrine to the God of the season, Ra, which was long overdue.
In the late afternoon, though the rain kept on unabated, the sun came out, a transfiguring golden light washing over everything, filtered through the watery air. The photo does no justice to it, that heart-stopping luminosity like a glimpse of another, transcendent world, although you can catch a trace of the mystery: the mist, the shimmering rain drops, the sun dazzling through the curtain of trees in the west.
The candles glow in the shrine room; born from the flood, Ra burns with a soft, numinous flame; and my year of beginnings is finally ready to begin.
Dua Ra! O Shining One, hail and praise to You!
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October 14, 2009
Posted in Thoughts and Reflections
at 12:13 pm
by Shefyt
Sitting in shrine this morning, I found myself fascinated by the candle — the flame utterly still, seeming to float upon a pool of deep blue wax. It made me think of Isheru, the lake where the Eye of Ra is cooled and purified after Her raging. A perfect, timeless hush, the fire resting on the water, at peace yet holding the potential for action — a sustained note of tension held in containment and thus in exquisite balance.
May I be pure as well, O Eye of Ra.
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June 10, 2009
Posted in Tending the Shrine, Thoughts and Reflections
at 2:20 pm
by Shefyt
The temptation is very strong to delete the first line of the previous post, considering how embarrassingly I’ve failed to live up to that aim. But that would be sort of dishonest, so I’ll leave it. At any rate, I got lost again, which is always so confusing, because when I’m most lost it always seems as though there’s someplace else I ought to be, and it’s not here — it’s anywhere but here — and I go frantic trying to answer that call…but it’s only when I stop looking for the place where I “should” be that I stop feeling lost and instead begin to feel at peace. You’d think that I’d learn after the third or fourth or tenth time. And it all sounds so simple and obvious when I write it like this, but when I’m in the throes of that desperation all I can think of is escape.
I thought that I wanted a writer’s hermitage, spare and clean and far away, all twilight and simplicity. And when the dust settled, I looked around and realized how much I’ve been neglecting the home that I have now, the place of my shrine, that I dreamed of making beautiful for Bast. Those are the two poles that keep pulling at me — far flight into the abstract and remote, and settling into the specificity of honoring the place where I am. But it’s not really as simple as a straightforward polarity. I need to balance both, to thread them through each other, warp and weft.
Two weekends ago, finally in recovery after a long stretch of the crazy, I took on some very overdue yardwork, cutting back the multiflora roses and mowing the trails to the brush piles. As I worked, I pledged to Bast that I would reclaim the overgrown and weed-choked places, that I’d make this land her well-loved temple after all. And in the days following that — the songs! Suddenly the floodgates opened, new songs began to pour through, and old songs in progress leaped closer to being done. Clearly this was a step down a good path, or at the very least a creative one.
Dua Netjer, Dua Bast! Nekhtet!
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