Red Heart

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

The Kemetic Round Table works to connect Kemetic bloggers of various practices and paths in order to provide helpful information for those new to Kemeticism. More information about the project can be found here.

There were many questions included in this prompt, but I have chosen to focus on: “When you look at the Kemetic community as a whole, what flaws, hindrances, and negative trends do you see at work? What methods and tactics should we employ to improve Kemetic presence on a local level; to encourage Kemetics to network not just online, but also in ‘the real world’ ?”

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 The Kemetic community has its fair share of obstacles to overcome, as other Round Table authors have discussed. We are mentally divided by our opinions on the appropriate way to worship; physically divided by our many, varied locations across the world; and emotionally divided by our seeming inability to hold rational and respectful conversations without the moments of disagreement devolving into unproductive vitriol. For such a small community, a community that could so greatly benefit from developing a network of support amongst its members, regardless of their particular brand of Kemetic belief, many of us still find ourselves bobbing along, solitary.

The internet provides some relief for this. For some, like myself, the House of Netjer offers weekly fellowship or duas — group rituals led by Rev. Tamara Siuda or a high ranking priest — in IRC chats, and for that hour, give or take, we participate with other people in the worship of Netjer, we commit ourselves as a group to a cause of self or community-improvement, and the connection is fulfilling. There are also less formal methods of Kemetic networking. Facebook hosts a relatively lively community across several different “pages” and the Kemetic Round Table, of which this post is a part, has created a space for the exchange of ideas on different Kemetic topics in a more involved manner.

Yet I often find that the internet cannot completely fulfill my desire to experience the Kemetic community in my day to day life. It serves as more of a salve that briefly soothes the lingering ache of something missing, than an actual cure for what I lack. I suspect I feel this way for the following reasons:

1.) The juxtaposition of my communal life online with the physicality of my individual practice is quite jarring.

I don’t use a computer when I am in shrine. So much of my practice involves a physical and mental shift from the profane to the sacred: the purification with water and natron, the burning of candle and incense, the reversion of offerings. It is a deliberate time to be away from the stress of my work, so much of which takes place at a laptop, staring at a screen. It can be difficult to really feel like I’m entering the right “headspace” when I participate in virtual rituals, as much as I cherish them and understand that they are really the only option at the present time.

2.) I am jealous of the physical communities of churches/synagogues/mosques etc. I see near me.

Thank Netjer I don’t belong to a faith where coveting is some terrible “sin”, because come Sunday mornings, I freely admit that I am envious! While I don’t miss my childhood experiences of receiving a guilt-trip of a sermon once a week, I freely admit that I do miss the experience of going to church. I miss seeing the people who considered me part of their religious family, singing together, sharing coffee and brunch as a spiritual community after the service was over. It was good to belong to something, good to have a place to travel to once a week, good to have a special space where people gathered and praised God and acknowledged the start of a new week. The internet just can’t quite match this.

3.) The internet provides anonymity.

Whenever I teach an older relative how to use Youtube, I always warn them: “Don’t read the comments.” Why? Because the internet is full of anonymous faces hiding behind computer screens, ready and willing to say whatever the hell they want without threat of repercussion. You don’t have to look a man in the eyes when you insult him, the filter of conscientious interaction is removed. I think this contributes to the frequent flare-ups of drama within our community, where in-person interaction might inspire greater diplomacy.

The virtual wall of anonymity can also make it more difficult to meet new people. There’s no coffee hour after a dua where you can walk over and introduce yourself to that intriguing woman who raised a poignant question after worship. In the ‘real world,’ you might see a group of long term friends chatting and be inspired, or invited, to join them. On the internet, they’re likely chatting in a private space, and there’s no way to add your voice unless given the appropriate web address or password.

 Okay Ekunyi, the internet sucks, we get it. What do we do about it?

Reach out, one person at a time.

There may not be any self-proclaimed Kemetics living near you: I live in a decent-sized city and it’s slim pickings even here, so this is a highly probable situation to find yourself in.

But there are other spaces, other groups, that will welcome you. Try Meetup.com, use Facebook, seek out groups welcoming Pagans, Heathens, Wiccans, or Druids. They exist, and if their gods are different than yours, so be it. There’s still something to be learned, something to be gained through conversation, something viscerally ka-feeding that can be found in the companionship of another polytheist over coffee. Visit a Unitarian Universalist church and I suspect you’ll find that their Covenant fits quite nicely into the concept of ma’at, plus the discussions in such a multi-faith locale can be quite inspiring.

And those discussions are key. You want to have conversations with the people you meet in these spaces. In teaching others you will simultaneously be learning more about your own beliefs, and perhaps will even find another person who also worships Kemetic deities, or was always interested in learning more. Community is built just like a road, you lay the mortar between bricks, one at a time, establish connections between people, one at a time. It doesn’t matter if these people are “little” or “big,” only that they reach out, seek each other in the physical world, and live their religion by living it with others. 

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

The Kemetic Round Table works to connect Kemetic bloggers of various practices and paths in order to provide helpful information for those new to Kemeticism. More information about the project can be found here.

Members of the Round Table were given the following prompt: “How does being a Kemetic effect your daily life? Does it? Do you do things differently than you used to because of your faith/religion?”

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This post is highly personal, but I share it in the hopes that perhaps it may be of use to others. The follow trigger warnings should be noted: discussion of depression, suicide, and self-harm.

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I believe I was seven when I made my first threat of suicide, telling another young friend that I was going to throw myself off a bridge because I had started to recognize the cruelty of other human beings and the unfortunate futility of my own existence. My mother’s conversation with me that evening, minutes after my friend’s father called home to report my announcement, taught me to hide those feelings when they recurred in the years to come. I did my best not to make her, or anyone else, ever have to weep again over my strange, existential angst, and channeled the feelings into a daily ritual I referred to as “watching cars.” To most it would appear that I was zoning out, watching local traffic go by. Only in my head did I visualize throwing myself in front of them and only in the privacy of my bedroom, during the winter when long sleeves covered any damage, did I ever take a small blade to my forearms.

In college, finally living apart from the parents I protected by never speaking of my feelings, I finally found the nerve to seek counseling. Medications and a few less-than-stellar counselors generally made the situation worse, not better, and in my junior year I made a noose from a belt, attached it to a ceiling pipe, stared at it for awhile, and eventually walked outside to inform my roommate that I was committing myself to the college’s mental health services for the subsequent 48 hours.

While things have recently improved a great deal, I still don’t know what it is to go through an entire day without being aware of the presence of depressive thoughts. I have described the sensation in the past as a bottomless pit, a gaping hole in my peripheral vision that tempts me. I want to turn to face it and toe the edge, full well knowing what would occur if I allowed myself to actually jump in. On the best days I am too busy, too fulfilled with the tasks I’m working towards, to think of it much. On the worst days, the days when I have nothing to do, nothing to strive for, it is as if that pit is the only thing I can think about, and the longer I dwell on it, the harder it is to look away. Depression is experienced differently by every individual, but for me it has always been something of a mind game. The past year or so of mindfulness and cognitive behavioral techniques (CBT), the first “therapeutic regimens” to genuinely seem to improve things for me, has made this all the more apparent.

In my personal experience, my daily Kemetic practices solidly align with and enforce these strategies. To oversimplify the matter a fair bit, much of CBT relates to a sort of re-programming of your thoughts, cutting off the panic or mental self-abuse before it spirals out of control, re-directing your thoughts elsewhere. There is a prayer to Set from Rev. Tamara Siuda’s Ancient Egyptian Prayerbook which I haven taken to using in these situations. If my anxiety begins to rise and I recognize that I am beginning to slip back towards that “pit” of disproportionate reaction, I do my best to pray rather than simply lose myself in the self-abuse.

Storm Lord,
Pilot Who sails over evil Ap-p’s Back
Captain of the secret Boat!
You Who bind Ap-p, bring me a Boat,
Make me a strong rope so I can sail forth. 

I repeat this four times, focusing on the visual imagery of the boat carrying me away from the emotions, the strength in my own body becoming a rope, holding me taut, keeping me from falling into the current of irrational thoughts and emotions. I also recite this prayer preventatively, any time that I sit in shrine, as a reminder of my goal to keep Ap-p bound, to keep my mental tendencies of self-hatred and self-destruction caged.

A less structured aspect of my daily practice that also contributes to my mental health is simply the sense of awareness (“mindfulness” could also apply here) that I have developed over the past two years. I am more open to receiving communication from my gods, be it through speech, visualization, or even what is going on in the physical world around me. As I have grown more accustomed to tuning in to Their words, so have I become more accustomed to tuning in to myself. I am more conscious of when I begin to feel a certain way, where those emotions are coming from. In developing this consciousness, so have I also developed a means of accepting those emotions and moving forwards. Sometimes I can do this of my own volition, other times I seek Netjer’s aid. Set in particular is quite, ah, “skilled” at telling me to get my ass out of bed when I’m feeling lower than dirt, to physically move and get the endorphins flowing, to work my way to the shower to purify physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Finally, there is the significance of heka in a more general sense. The power of the spoken word cannot be overstated, and there has been more than one occasion where, in the midst of an anxiety attack, repetitively speaking aloud “I breathe. I stand. I walk.” has gotten me up and functioning when little else could. Shaping these positive statements into something more, something magickal, something intended not only as self-help but also praise and prayer, only strengthens their intent: “Serqet makes me breathe. I stand in Set’s strength. I walk at Bast’s side.” Here is my own will reinforced by my verbal supplication and devotion to the divine, and in this, I have found that I am able to overcome even the bad days.

So yes, in this sense (and indeed, in many others as well) being Kemetic has changed my daily life. It has provided me with a means of overcoming my own mental health concerns, and I remain incredibly grateful for this. Dua Netjer!

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

As this is technically a weekly blogging project, I am perhaps stretching the rules a bit by posting a creative work. But they’re really more “guidelines,” no?

Eye of Ra

I am as waves, shifting and pulsing,
a vibration that once was my visceral cry
quickens from roar to scream to explosion

In that instant I am more than the single strand of belief
which held me between your imagined sky and walked earth
Ecstasy holds me taut, faith draws a hand across me,
and those who know both will erupt with my birth
into the vision of humanity’s dawn

I am light and sound in that boundless repetition
My voice slows into the shaking of the sistrum at my right
My Eye rises into the blaze of the wand at my left

Sound in darkness
Light in silence
I am the destroyer of mere sensate dichotomies
And live in the soul of those who would burn
as more

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

The Kemetic Round Table works to connect Kemetic bloggers of various practices and paths in order to provide helpful information for those new to Kemeticism. More information about the project can be found here.

This week, members of the Round Table were given the following prompt: “UPG, or Unverified Personal Gnosis, and doxa are a large part of many modern Kemetic practices. For this round, we discuss the nuances of UPG and doxa. What do these terms mean? Are there rules regarding these terms? How important is UPG and doxa in your practice, and how important should others’ UPG and doxa be in my practice?”

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My issue with the acronym UPG (used for “Unverified Personal Gnosis”)  largely resides in the first word of the three.

Personal is fine. UPG does relate to a personal idea or belief. It is a term which refers to something that happened in your life, or perhaps something that you alone experienced.

Gnosis is a little more complicated, if only in that it’s a complex, multi-faceted concept being shoved into three word phrase. But for now, let’s call it — extremely roughly, mind — knowledge, or insight.

Back to Unverified. Unverified, by virtue of that lovely prefix at the beginning, seems to suggest that it exists as part of a binary. Something is verified, proven to be true, proven to be real, proven to be authentic, or, quite simply, it is not.

And that’s about as gross an oversimplification of the matter as my awful two word definition for gnosis a few lines back.

Now here’s why:

Language is a tricky little git. It gives the illusion of presenting an honest to gods replica of that which it describes, but it never completely encompasses the genuine essence of the experience. Events do occur in time, bodies move, interact, live, breathe, and die — but as soon as any given moment has passed, it can never fully be experienced again save through representations that attempt to revitalize that moment in art, in text, in speech. But none of these ever truly allow the moment to be as it was again: it will be always be bounded by someone’s choices in how to create that representation. The colors, voices, words that are used to encompass some portion of the moment affect how others interpret it in turn, constructing new interpretations of the moment in variations upon variations.

So it goes for our concepts of history.

When I talk with some of the war re-enactors involved in my research, to a man they all contrast the re-enactment history of their group with the “history history,” placing the unverified traditions of their organization in stark opposition to textbook-verified traditions. The re-enactment history: a modern bugle song, anachronistic to the war they seek to portray, yet used for the past 20 years because that’s the way they’ve always done it, becomes a sort of… UPG to these men. A meaningful experience, and yet viewed as a personal choice, something they’ve brought into their own monthly ritual of the re-created war camp without backing it up with proof. In contrast, a brass arrangement of a mid-19th century broadside ballad provides something from the “verified” history — never mind that the primary source was pulled from an edited collection, and that the performance practice is based on a modern-day scholar’s argument of how it might have once been played.

And that’s the issue here: even the “history history” has a touch of “unverifiability” to it. Historians make choices when they decide what goes into their book and what doesn’t. They present us with certain ideas —  some backing these ideas up with sound logic and sources, others not — but these ideas still shape how the history is conveyed. No one writing about ancient Egypt today lived there to tell us how things truly were, we only have the writings of academics, mediated by background and belief and schooling, to give us possible interpretations. And granted, even in considering the history we have lived? That’s mediated too, by emotion, by memory, by nostalgia.

The question raised at the end of all of this: what is the authentic, real, verifiable “history”?

My response:  There isn’t one.

You’re nuts, Saryt. You might say to this.  Why the heck are you involved in a reconstructionist faith if you don’t think there’s a history to be re-created!?

Well here’s the thing. You’re right in saying I don’t believe there’s a history to be re-created. I believe there are histories: personal, communal, national… and each and every one of them valid to the beholder.

And indeed, the way to deal with this plurality of histories and memories is to shift the questions around. I offer the following:

In her seminal work  In Search of Authenticity, folklorist Regina Bendix wrote this critique of research projects devoted to seeking out the history or tradition which was purportedly “authentic” or “real.”

The crucial questions to be answered are not ‘what is authenticity?’ but ‘who needs authenticity and why?’ and ‘how has authenticity been used?’ (Bendix 1997: 21).

With this in mind, let’s ask the following: (a) Who needs a verifiable, authentic Kemetic faith and why? (b) How have verifiable, authentic concepts of Kemeticism been used?

(a) Who needs a verifiable, authentic Kemetic faith?

In my humble opinion, this applies anyone who wants to be a part of the Kemetic community and claim a Kemetic religious identity. There are certain aspects of an identity that can only be stretched so far before it ceases to serve as a marker of a group. There is room for flexibility here: no two people claiming any sort of identity are going to be exactly alike (as a self-proclaimed Irish-American who barely drinks, boy howdy do I know that!) But certain points, certain tenets, must be mutually valued amongst those claiming the title, why else have a title at all.

Chances are good that if you claim to be Kemetic, you’re going to worship certain gods and not others, but the hard versus soft polytheism may vary. Chances are also good that you’re going to find value in the concept of ma’at, but whether or not that becomes a historically informed interpretation of ethics or a more immediate experience of “balancing” in your interactions with gods will different from person to person.

(b) How have verifiable, authentic concepts of Kemeticism been used?

I would argue that verifiable, authentic ideas in Kemeticism, much like any form of historical re-construction (be it other recon-oriented faiths, re-enactment, or even Early Music Performance), are often — but not always! — viewed as a form of what I’ll call subcultural capital. Sarah Thornton defines subcultural capital as that which:

 ..confers status on its owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder. … Subcultural capital can be objectified or embodied. Just as books and paintings display cultural capital in the family home, so subcultural capital is objectified in the form of fashionable haircuts and well-assembled record collection … Just as cultural capital is personified in ‘good’ manners and urbane conversation, so subcultural capital is embodied in the form of being ‘in the know’, using (but not over-using) current slang and looking as if you were born to perform the latest dance styles. (11)

Many of the individuals  that have garnered a fair amount of esteem in the virtual Kemetic community, be they bloggers or spiritual leaders, have objectified subcultural capital: impressive libraries and even degrees. For example, while Hemet balances her academic background with spiritual and community-service based reasons for leadership, people outside of Kemetic Orthodoxy mainly recognize and respect her work courtesy of the several advanced degrees she holds in topically-relevant fields. These individuals also have embodied subcultural capital: they site academic sources, they know the feast days and esoteric information, they write lengthy, academic blog posts. It has arguably become a point of status in the community, certainly a point of recognition, to be well versed in the academic history of Ancient Egypt.

And don’t get me wrong: all of these folks definitively deserve our respect. They’ve worked hard to know what they know, to produce their extensive writings and share their expansive projects. We need folks like them to continue to share what we know of the past, to maintain representations of what was in as close and accurate a replica, mediated though it must be, as words or art can convey. They maintain the community I discussed in point (a) — if newcomers to the faith don’t have access to the vital ideas that allows us to mutually define ourselves as Kemetic, if we lose sight of the agreed upon essentials, we aren’t going to have a community.

But it’s worth it to remember that in the end, both the verifiable “history history” and the unverifiable experiences that we bring to our own interpretations of history are, in their own ways, constructed. Better to be aware of why you need a particular spiritual idea, what it contributes to your religious experience, and to be aware of where that idea came from, be it a textbook, the gods, or your own creative mind, than to beat yourself up over whether or not you can verify it as genuine. That knowledge, that awareness of how the idea was constructed, will serve you well in adding to our community, keeping the debate going as to how we define ourselves now and in the future, and keeping the Kemetic tradition vibrant, changing, and alive.

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

Note: This may be a little more “woo” than previous posts, which have focused largely on ritual with occasional mention of interaction with the gods. If you do not believe in journeying/traveling/astral projection, that is fine, but I ask that you read this with an open mind, as these experiences are quite real to me.

If you’ve been following this journal at all, you’ll know that Bast has been in my life as long as I’ve had any sort of connection to what I now refer to as the Unseen. I have called her (at least) two other names over the years: Kyana, my imaginary black “panther” friend in childhood, and Black Leopard/Jaguar Woman, one of my main guides through meditative journeying as an adolescent, who took second fiddle only to Great Horned Owl. As Set pushes me to change for the future, Bast calls me to remember and grow from my past, and a substantial portion of what She asks of me necessitates the return to journeying in earnest. I hope to record some of those experiences here, though more personal matters may be relegated to protected posts on my dreamwidth.

For many who journey, having some sort of “base” if you will, a place where you slip between worlds, a safe(r) space to begin your travels, is key. Mine has shifted dramatically from when I first began, when I had the focus to actually “build,” stone by stone, a temple. I carved statues in my mind to honor my primary teachers, shifted the architecture to include impressive columns and a reflective pool in the center. Perhaps my adolescent self had some need of the grandiose, I don’t know.

At a particularly low point in my life, I began a journey in this space and almost immediately the world around me began to shake and groan. The ground ruptured, tearing apart years of work and building. When it finally finished I sat, stunned, amidst the rubble. It was only when two of my guides, twin green mambas, found me that I was able to rise and move away from what had been. I remember walking and walking to the point where I almost lost focus, couldn’t keep the hold any longer, until I found a small round fruit. I picked it up, and it melted in my hand, revealing a seed at the core. The snakes coiled around my neck, a small comfort. The next journey saw me following Great Horned Owl across the ocean until we found a small island. I planted the seed, and the tree that would become my new starting space, my “heart tree” grew, flowered, and thrived.

On September 11th of last year, I tried to go back. The results were… dramatic. I’ll share an excerpt of what I wrote following the experience:

“Almost instantly [after beginning the journey] I saw Great Horned Owl (GHO) over me, an orb of lightning (blackish sphere, with silver lightning bouncing around inside, the way my personal energy usually feels when I do energy work) in her talons. She took off almost immediately into the sky which is when I realized it was raining.

I tried to follow, couldn’t. Tried again, she was going farther away, would not wait. Then I realized there was a golden hawk with me, blazing through the rain, to my other side. He did wait, helped, encouraged, waited for my body to lift out of itself, and flew above me the entire time, holding tight to me as I struggled to focus on something, anything, and we kept up with GHO together, until she landed on a far too familiar tree. My tree, my old heart tree, dead, withered, on its island, water polluted around it. I tried to land on the branch next to her, promptly fell off.  …  I was able to climb the tree. Settling beside her and the golden hawk (I now think, maybe Heru-wer?) I gave thanks as the golden hawk took off and left us behind. I looked to her, expecting something, but she merely looked skywards and I watched as a huge bolt of lightning came from the sky and set my tree on fire.

I freaked out. This was MY TREE, dead though it has been for the past number of years every time I had struggled to visit it in a brief, meditative effort. Now it was burning, and GHO was taking off again, still carrying the lightning orb. The lightning flashed again, only this time in slow motion, and it just sort of stayed, branched out, a writhing, electrified bridge into the heavens.

… The tree is burning from the bottom up, there’s smoke, the rain doesn’t seem to be putting it out, and the only course available to me is to walk on *lightning.*

Booming voice, from a disembodied source above me, which I recognized as my divined father, Set — “Since when is my Daughter afraid of my hand?”

I had to laugh at that, and fighting to stay focused with so much going on in my mental view, stepped out onto the lightning bridge. It solidified at my touch, becoming a glowing white stairwell that eventually sort of vanished from visibility once I passed the cloud cover. Here I had to just keep going, not look down or panic. Fear sent me tumbling towards a now-very-distant earth, confidence kept me walking — literally — on air.

Once I mastered my fear (after a few very near splats) I caught up with GHO again, on top of a cliff. The lightning orb condensed into itself, and became a small seed. I looked at it and her for a moment, briefly confused, then [took the seed]. I dug into the soil on the clifftop until my hands were bleeding, and planted the seed. Almost immediately a new, living, healthy tree sprung forth. GHO took her place amongst the branches, field mouse came springing out from between the roots, a buck nodded his approval as he emerged from sort of a mist that extended farther along the land ahead. Then black leopard woman/Bast came forward, first as a dark-skinned woman, then just *was* a huge black cat, no shifting involved. She raked her claws down the side of the tree, and rubbed her mouth on it, not to hurt it, but to mark it, stake a claim on this new place.

I climbed up into its branches, felt it pulsing with life beneath me. I found GHO and sat with her awhile, struggling greatly now to keep focused. She told me I had not disappointed her, but that I must move forward, must practice, as I was about to lose my ability to stay here.”

Since this experience, I’ve done nothing in journey but practice. Bast has set me to the task of visiting the tree once a week, tending to its needs, nothing more. I show up, I place my hands on the rough bark and give thanks that it is still there.  I root out insects that would eat it from the inside, I trim branches that are dying, and I nourish the earth around its roots with energy. I take note of creatures that have taken up residence, the birds, the rodents, the helpful insects.

Last week, Bast told me that my next task is to identify it. To know the tree, and thus know a little more of myself as it was born of my energy. I’ve not yet accomplished this: my knowledge of flora is extremely limited. Also, quite frankly, it is a struggle for me to stay still. To put so much effort into visualizing a single thing in detail, rather than wandering around a somewhat blurred world on various adventures and lessons. I feel a little like Bast is pulling a Mr. Miyagi, “What does ‘wax on wax off’ have to do with my own skills at journeying?” Indeed, my own doubt makes me wonder if it *is* a tree that exists on this side, but Bast seems to think it is, and so I’ll do my best. Examine the leaves, the bark, the flowering portions. See what the tree has “to say.” Trust that there’s something substantial to be gained from this.

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

This past Friday night I had the pleasure of attending a showing of the film “Searching for the Fourth Nail.” American-Romani director George Eli used the film to document a journey of identity and faith, seeking out the reasons as to why the Rom lived under the “Gypsy” stereotype. He began with the story his mother shared with him as a small boy, a story that supposedly all the Rom knew.

As the story goes, when Jesus was to be nailed to the cross, there were originally four nails, not three. Two for his hands, one for his feet, and the last for his heart. A Romani thief took the fourth nail, preventing an immediate death and enacting the events that would lead to Jesus’ resurrection. Because of this, Eli’s mother claimed, God gave the Rom the right to steal from the non-Rom gadje. 

Eli’s journey involved discussions with family members and complete strangers. He visited conferences, videoed a Baptist service which many Rom had adopted as their own faith, and dug through countless historical works to trace Romani history back to India. In a particularly emotional moment, he visited the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC with his son, where he found a single book in the museum store relating to Rom in the Holocaust. His conclusion was that a history of oppression led the Rom to, in a way, view themselves as the outside world viewed them. In turn, they invented stories that kept the stereotypes alive, but converted them into a source of pride.

After the film, Eli took questions from the audience, and one elderly white woman raised her hand asking: “If you want to be assimilated into our culture, why do you keep making it a case of us versus them? Why do you keep using that term… gadje?”

I don’t think the woman meant to come off as racist and ignorant as she sounded to those of us sitting around her who collectively facepalmed. I think her question was an expression of genuine hope for a future in which, to use a Lennon-ism, “the world will live as one.”

Nevertheless, had Eli been angered by this, I doubt many of us would have blamed him. But to his immense credit, he remained calm, even compassionate.

I’m paraphrasing of course, but he said something along these lines:

I don’t want to be assimilated. I am Rom, my sons are Rom. I am Rom first, a New Yorker second, and an American third. This doesn’t mean I don’t love my country. I was born here, I am a citizen, and after 9/11 my community wanted to reach out and help as much as any others. I just want my country to know why I am Rom. I want them to understand the oppression that shaped me and my community, that forced us to steal. I want them to know where we came from originally, that we do fortune-telling because we believe in it, because it’s a part of our culture. I want my sons to be proud of being Rom.

Maybe we should stop using gadje. But that’s a part of human nature. No matter who you are, there’s going to be an “other.” And you’re going to have a term for that other. I think it’s more important to make sure you respect that other and that he respects you, take pride in your differences but not let them divide you. 

…

Now let me put it out there from the start that I am an extremely privileged, able-bodied white woman who has known nothing in the way of the genuine discrimination that George Eli and his community have faced. But of course I’ve seen division in my life, in almost all of the communities I’ve participated in. We all have.

We’re not always going to get along and we’re not always going to understand each other. We have different backgrounds, different beliefs, different rituals, different leaders, different ways of writing, different ways of portraying ourselves, different methods of supporting our arguments. This much difference is going to engender debate.

But I keep returning to George Eli’s words.

There’s going to be an “other.” Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s me. She or he will exist. We can choose to stick a name on her (or better yet, let the “other” choose her own name) but difference will remain. We can’t possibly merge into one vast monotony of agreement.

And who would want to? I’m proud of who I am, the faith I hold, the research I do. I’m proud to claim my community of friends all walking unique paths of Druidry and Animism and Kemeticism and Atheism and Christianity and Buddhism and more. I respect myself, I respect my acquaintances, and I can only be who I am and hope that me will eventually earn respect in turn. I don’t want our differences to prove divisive.

But, of course, it’s not that simple. Emotions muddy the waters. We build a sense of loyalty to our community, we find individuals who we love so deeply as to want to defend from any perceived attack. The goal of cultural (or perhaps, for the purposes of this blog series, spiritual) relativism, is an ideal, not a reality.

Perhaps that’s what Eli was doing. His argument for difference without division was no less an ideal than the elderly woman’s vision of a unified, culture-blind America. But, at least in this author’s humble opinion, it seems an ideal to which we can more readily aspire, an ideal that, while never fully achievable, is more likely to promote positive change, more likely to make us respect difference even as we debate it.

Just food for thought.

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

I struggle with maintaining a sense of discipline in my practice. Picking a day to sit in shrine and sticking to it, constantly meeting the goals set forth by my gods. There’s no mystery to this problematic inability to establish a habit — I don’t make it a priority.

Spiritual time, in my head, feels like a luxury. It’s forced relaxation. I shower, purify, enjoy the feel of tension released at the heat of the water, the pleasant sense of the day’s work washed away, the scent of incense filling me with each breath, the comfort of candles’ glow.

Yet if I haven’t accomplished enough that day for work, if I haven’t met whatever (often unreasonable) scholastic goals I set for myself that day, I genuinely feel like I haven’t earned the pleasure of sitting in shrine, of being with my gods.

This, my friends, is really stupid.

For one, as I’m sure occurred to many (if not most) of you upon reading the above, it’s not just about me! We worship/walk with/study under gods. No matter what way you spin it, no matter which way the balance tilts, it’s a two-way relationship, built on trust, time, and effort.

And, as was pointed out to me this evening, I’m starting to reach the extreme where even purification is tainted by stress and to-do lists, creatures of the mundane. I was washing my mouth out with purified natron-water and Set just rumbles, What are you doing?

I paused, “Purification.”

No, what were you doing. It certainly was not pure.

And the truth of it? I had been thinking about the fact that I’d forgotten to provide extra comments for a student’s essay who’d requested the more detailed response. I then started to mentally berate myself. While I was swishing natron around in my mouth.

I acknowledged this, apologized, began to re-rinse my mouth… and promptly caught myself doing it again. This time making a to-do list in preparation for the meetings I have scheduled tomorrow afternoon. 

I genuinely struggled, the rest of the shower, to not think about work. Instead, I just tried to release those self-accusatory thoughts and shift myself into a more neutral state of mind.

Yet even once in shrine I realized: great job, self. It’s Sunday. You completely forgot to do something dedicated to Bast today as you’d promised.

I sang one of the songs I’d written, but my heart wasn’t in it. This was an afterthought. It was not the journeying She’s asked of me for months, it was not quality time with Sammi, it was not even a new creative work. This was not good enough.

And yet, I received no anger from Her or Set, despite how He had mildly expressed His discontent earlier in the rite. From Set, I was told only to recite my favorite prayer related to Him, to memorize it, to let the words become a mantra of calming and mental clarity when next my worries and self-accusations ran off with my thoughts again.

From Bast, I was shown the tree that I have been instructed to care for while I attempt to regain my skills at “seeing” while meditating. It sprang from where it was rooted my heart, up through my chest and out my head, branching off in countless different directions. She placed a massive black paw on the bark that I visualized filling my chest, and the outline of the tree flared golden-red as Her energy coursed up my chakras, clearing them, and leaving me feeling far more… alert and energized than I have in days.

I didn’t know what to say in the moment beyond thank you.

Looking back, a few hours later, I am beginning to wonder if my mental fog will be cleared by allowing myself to become as disciplined with the spiritual matters, both in shrine and in journey, as I have been with academia.

Balance. Always balance.

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

There is a trope common throughout literature, film, and mythology that if you know the true name of a thing, you have power over it. I have found that the names given to us, as gifts or in moments of ritual, often serve as a starting point in a journey to gain better power over ourselves by means of self-discovery and personal exploration.

For example, the name I use on this blog was given to me (at least) six years ago, during a meditative experience. I received it from a spiritual entity I’d worked with extensively. After a lengthy, fire-based ritual that dealt with matters related to coming-of-age, I was told that I would, from then on, be known within that territory of the unseen as Ekunyi, “little alpha” or “little leader.” It has no equivalent meaning in any human-based language that I’ve encountered, beyond the number “ten” in several Bantu languages. That said, the knowledge of earning the title of a little leader, someone behind the scenes whose efforts nevertheless played a significant role in organizing groups and helping others, led me to take on several challenges in college, and even graduate school, that I might have been too timid to take on before.

On February 6th, I received a new name, an important component of my recent Shemsu (“follower”) vows to serve my parent gods and my Kemetic Orthodox community. With these oaths, and my initiation into the community,  came another charge: to consider the name I was given, and discover the depths of its meaning in my life, my goals, my sense of self.

The name, which Kemetic Orthodox believe to come from their Parent deities through Hemet, is Sarytsenuwi, meaning: “Standard (bearer) of (my) Two,” or “Two Standards (for me).” 

I’ll grant that I had just had a small surgical procedure that morning, and was more than a little emotional from the worries and fears wrapped up in the possibilities of what that biopsy might mean, but I suspect I might have teared up a bit at this name even if I’d been perfectly sound, body and mind, coming into the ritual. You see, the day before had marked the end of a very difficult week. I had struggled to keep my focus despite my health concerns, worked hard to get through a substantial amount of effort required for my thesis, courses, and teaching responsibilities. The final project to complete before I could relax and ready myself for the procedure involved several hours of transcription of an interview where I spoke with a Civil War re-enactor about the significance of regimental banners. When I finally finished it, I got up to get something from the fridge, and as my mind cleared from the haze of listen-type-repeat, I heard the following in the mental voice I associate with Set:

 I will never let you doubt. Your name will have meaning you cannot deny.

Excited as I was, I then proceeded to react in a perfectly rational manner: by scouring the kitchen for anything around me that might relate to a possible name. “Are my Parents going to name me after Water? Food? Nourishment? AAAAAUGH.”

Perhaps not so rational. *wry grin*

But yes, given that I had mentioned this comment to no one, in the moment of Naming there was little question of accurate discernment: this was too much for even skeptical me to take as coincidence. Set had done exactly as He said, as He has from our first meeting, nearly two years ago.

But what, exactly, is a “standard” in the Ancient Egyptian context. I’ve become familiar with flags and banners in American military settings courtesy of my thesis research, but this was new to me. I found the following by amateur Egyptologist André Dollinger (emphasis mine):

  Ancient armies were generally small compared to modern mass armies. The Egyptian army of the New Kingdom was composed of three divisions under Seti I on his Canaan campaign … The overall command lay in the hands of the pharaoh himself or one of his close relatives, generally a son. Similar to the administration of the whole kingdom, the army was divided into a northern and a southern corps overseen by Chief Deputies. The line of command included ranks corresponding to the modern generals, battalion commanders, standard bearers and adjutants at the company level, lieutenants leading the platoons, and non-commissioned officers in charge of squads.

Standards themselves were not the waving flags I am accustomed to, but generally featured the visage of a god, or other important symbol, atop a staff. Included below are photographs of Neb-Re, carrying the standard of Sekhmet and  Khaemwaset, son of Ramses II, carrying the Abydos standard.

Neb-Re and Sekhmet Standard

Khaemwaset and Abydos standard

Katherine Griffis-Greenberg of the Oriental Institute offers a bit more insight into these images:

According to the Liverpool website, Neb-Re was indeed of high status, with other texts noting him as the commander of the fortress at Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham. Apparently, god Ptah and his wife, the goddess Sekhmet, were the patron deities of the area around Zawiyet Umm el-Rakham.

Carrying a standard of the deity of an area was a high honour, and often imparted that the bearer had religious duties to the deity/ies as part of his duties. A similar statue of prince Khaemwaset, son of Ramses II, now in the British Museum, interprets his bearing of the Abydos standard as “…Khaemwaset displaying his piety before Osiris by holding one of the god’s symbols, the emblem of the nome (province) of Abydos.”

With all of this in mind, carrying a standard (sryt from the Gardiner dictionary), comes with quite a bit of responsibility. If I am to be a standard bearer (t3w-sryt or TAw-sryt) of my two Parents, I have duties to uphold to both of them, goals that must be met. I take this as the second time I have been given a name as a call to leadership, albeit on the small scale: the military standard bearer led the company, not the entire army, but nevertheless made an important difference at that level of command. The religious standard bearer made visible his devotion to a particular, regional Netjeru, and upheld that sacred Name in action and word. 

I am happiest when I have some project that I am helping to guide. I founded the graduate student organization in my department upon discovering the lack, was quite successful in my position as assistant to the head event planner for all important occasions that were held at my undergraduate campus. I enjoy leading in educational environments, and am capable of leading in situations which are less pleasant. I have also become painfully aware that the lack of human interaction in my current lifestyle, as I spend hours each day at the computer,  delving into my research, is becoming increasingly harmful to my emotional well being. This Name’s historical associations were an important reminder of that, and I hope it will continue to assist me in my future challenges as I seek a path that better suits me.

Yet this Name also has several meanings to me beyond what insight ancient history provides:

For one, I feel like Set establishing that direct connection to my thesis work is a gentle reminder of support that I can and will finish this damn project. When I keep thinking of how much more I have to write, how my energy for the topic is waning, the name reminds me of the incredible significance of standards, banners, symbols that communities latch on to in times of trial. It makes me excited about it again, in a way that I never could have expected. It gives that extra bit of “oomph” to keep going so that I can get this degree and move on to the next phase of my life without dragging things out more painfully than necessary.

The Ancient Egyptians also enjoyed exploring the various meanings held within a single word, often in the form of punning. If I look to the Egyptian, sryt, it also means “cough.” As someone who has struggled with her asthma for her entire life, giving up certain opportunities because I so easily become ill, struggling for air in places where a healthier person might thrive, this just made me shake my head. I am “cough.” Or more accurately, I’ve allowed myself to become “cough.” I’ve defined myself around my nebulizer, whined and complained when, yet again, a cold crawls steadily towards pneumonia despite my best efforts. I’ve backed out on opportunities saying, “Oh, no, sorry, I can’t, I have asthma.” The biggest of these was a career in singing: I assumed, because I was so ill, that I would never be able to sing professionally. But I’m not my cough, I’m not my lungs, I am all of me, and I will never know if I can handle singing at that level if I don’t try.

Which leads me to another pun, this one off of the english translation: “standard.” How many times have I had a request to sing a jazz, blues, or pop standard, one of the songs so beloved to people of all generations that they are considered part of the canon? One of my most defining moments was at age 14, stuck in a hotel after being evacuated from the path of hurricane Isabel. We went downstairs to the lobby where the hotel had tried to throw a hurricane party to “lighten everyone’s spirits,” but the room was full of quiet, frightened, albeit mildly intoxicated people. My father pushed me up to the karaoke machine, and asked me to sing something, anything: given the crowd I picked Mary Chapin Carpenter’s relatively well known country hit, ”Down at the Twist and Shout” and by the time I reached the bridge “They got a alligator stew and a crawfish pie / A gulf storm blowin’ into town tonight / Livin on the delta’s quite a show / They got hurricane parties every time it blows”  there were people singing along and we just… forgot about the threat of windows blowing in and whatever the hell was happening to our houses near the coast. I learned the power of singing in that moment, and have never let it go.

There’s also the idea of the “standards” to which we hold ourselves, and there most assuredly are “two standards for me” in that regard. I am much, much harsher on myself in matters of emotional, physical, and academic perfection than I am on anyone else. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years, that self equals others, and that I don’t have be so damn cruel to myself when I don’t quite reach the bar I’ve set for myself.

Yet, last but not least, to bring things back to the historical concept, there are “two Standards for me.” Two banners waving, two deities who I must carry and represent, but who support me in turn. They were with me during last week’s medical procedure, They are with me as I’ve struggled to catch up on work this week, They will be with me through the trials ahead. They want me to succeed in my studies, but They want me to remember that I am a “little leader” and a singer and that I should seek these things out, become them again.

I am so, so very grateful.

Dua Set! Dua Bast!

(And much love as well to my sibling Emky/Tenu, for hir love and support during the past week, keeping me excited about our special, shared naming day.)

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

Yes, “conversations over coffee,” and no, I swear that the oddball nature of my selected topic is not (*cough* at least not entirely) because I’m currently on pain medications. Bear with me.

In my experience, spiritual space can be found or made. I’ve known mornings wandering through the woods when a group of deer ran past me and I was awed by their fluidity and power, afternoons at the top of mountains in Colorado watching a thunderstorm miles off and recognizing how small I was, evenings by a lake as the sun sets, crickets sing and the world descends into darkness after the brief brilliance of a blood red sky reflected across the water. These are found moments of wonder in my life, lived expressions that I am fortunate enough to see, feel, touch by the grand chance of my being in the right place at the right time.

Yet there are other spaces deliberately created. Preparing for and entering my shrine, of course, is an obvious instance of this. My next post, which I’m happy to say will be a part of the exciting, new Kemetic Roundtable project, will describe the purification process I undertake to fully transfer myself out of the secular and into the sacred. Yet there are other places, other ways, in which moments of spirituality creep into my life. Most notably: cafes.

I adore cafes. I do almost all of my writing in such. I love experiencing the sounds and sensations of people flowing in and out, noting how lives briefly touch other lives, seeing poems written, listening to the murmur of conversations held. There’s an energy in a cafe that is hard to recreate elsewhere, and it’s a vibrant thing, as so many words are put to countless pages or exchanged across tables, yet never really overlap. Each little nook, chair, bench becomes a tiny territory of invention and being, and you can almost sense the power of the place if you really care to look.

When I sit in a cafe by myself I can choose to wall myself away to delve into my own research, pulling up articles to read, finding new facets of the past which I can reshape to suit my spiritual needs in the present. Yet I also have one particular spiritual entity I work with who enjoys, at the very least seems amused by, my time in cafes.

Originally published at Ekunyi's Embers. You can comment here or there.

Many thanks to those of you who’ve contacted me here and elsewhere to let me know you wish to attend my Naming. As some of you may have heard, the House lost one of its own this past weekend, and understandably Hemet needed to reschedule the celebration for next week while she grieves for a friend of twenty years and helps with the funeral. Many prayers to Hemet and the family of Rev. Butta; may Deena’s ka be justified and those who loved her find comfort.

Emky and I will thus be taking our vows next week, on the evening of February 6th, at 9:30 pm Eastern.

It will be an… eventful day for me. Due to an inconclusive ultrasound I had today of a breast mass I’ve been monitoring with my doctor since October, I will be having a small, surgical biopsy that Wednesday morning. Fortunately ritual purity does not seem to be an issue for this particular occasion, so I promise to be online, excited for the event albeit possibly a bit groggy from pain medications? (We’ll just say it adds to the general “WHEE! I’M A SHEMSU!” of the day.)

Such is life when you’re the daughter of Set, I suppose. Roll with the punches, and take your vows on the same day you have a mildly disconcerting medical procedure.

(…sometimes you’ve just gotta make light of things, you know?)