Red Heart

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

Memories

It is becoming more difficult to remember what it was like to be twelve, with the itchy polo shirt and the despised kilt that set me apart from the other youth at the after school program who wore what they wished. As the only person there from a private school, my personality did not matter, I was one of “them,” and so I was alone. At twelve it just seems unfair; I didn’t understand the money and the privilege and the justification for why I was assumed to be a certain way, so I sat by myself in a place that was safe, and I let my mind drift so that the “panther woman” can find me.

Given time, and patience, she finally does, and I give Her a name because She says She’s not ready to tell me the true one. I reach a point where I can walk around the outer yard and still talk with Her, even envision Her, sleek and feline and protective. By the time I am fourteen I am convinced that She is the Goddess, and I try to see Her in the forms that the books describe, but she will not be reforged in the likeness of others. She remains Herself, dark skinned and grinning, feline-faced or feline-masked, wielding knives to lead me on dangerous adventures through what I still think is mostly just in my mind.

At fifteen I wonder if she is a spirit of sorts, a teacher to guide me, as guide She does, but now through feelings and sensations that I am frightened by because my world has taught me that they are wrong. It is okay to love both women and men, She assures me, it is okay to listen to whatever music speaks to your soul. My love grows for those around me, my love grows for metal and the raging guitar that soothes me, my love grows for Her.

Yet at 18 I nearly lose Her, and those memories are perhaps the most difficult. Why did college make me doubt what I’d already lived, make me turn from the unseen mother, the unnamed guardian, who had helped me survive the growing pains of adolescence? I have thoughts there, but they are not so critical anymore. I returned to Her, and She had been waiting. Waiting for me to be ready, and waiting to give me Her name.

I am Bast.

I am your daughter.

Loyalty

When I kneel before the shrine there is a vow in the gesture. I pull one fist fiercely to my chest, the other facing you, palm forward. I speak your names with pride, and in my mind I am lifting you with my voice. I rise and step back four paces, imagining lifting your carved faces upon heavy staves to each shoulder, preparing to carry your standards – and the standards you have set for me – into the world.

My life, my values: they are also my loyalty. My willingness to serve is my willingness to hold you aloft with each step I take in the world.

You have earned this standard bearer’s trust: no small thing in her eyes. You have burned away the scabs to reveal and heal the raw places. You have known when to push to the point of breaking but not beyond. You have shown me a better version of myself and I have chosen her over the old, chosen to keep improving upon her with each new day that is lived in your service.

Dua Set! Dua Bast! My loyalty to You both has become a brighter way of being.

Weakness

I am weak today. My lungs are tight, exhaustion weighs heavy on my frame, my skin flares in time with the internal imbalances.

I am still writing. Writing as I ride the bus and struggle to stay awake. Writing after sitting in shrine this morning despite my weariness because I needed to hear you, be near you. Writing because there’s some small bit of strength coming from keeping this up despite the physical travails, honoring you with words on a screen when I’m too tired for much else.

Walk with me in my weakness, my gods. Grant me health, grant me energy, grant me patience.

Strength

http://catfolk.org/track/walk-forth-in-strength

The word “Strength”, considered in relation to my gods, will probably always remind me of this song. I wrote it shortly after Set and Bast claimed me as Their daughter through the Rite of Parent Divination. Though I remain someone who firmly believes that a parent-child relationship with the divine can be developed through many different paths, my personal path saw the gods asking me to become a part of Kemetic Orthodoxy, and so when I call Set Father, or refer to myself as Their daughter, it is within the context of the House of Netjer, my spiritual home.

It was an emotional time for me, receiving this confirmation that Set – who had already given me so much of His strength – was my Father. Set who brought so much change for the better, who challenged me and damn near broke me, but in the end left me standing taller, and more fiercely than before. Set whose presence was felt during surgical biopsies for cancer scare #2, Set who helped me push through weariness and emotional fatigue to be with, and care for, my mother in the hospital. Set who helped me appreciate my own worth, and gave me the courage to stand the hell up to anyone who tried to tear me down.

The song reflects a lot of that; but I’m thinking I almost need a second one for my newer teacher in strength.

Heqat has provided balance to Set’s “push through no matter what.” It’s not Bast’s emphasis on self-love and self-care, it’s more externally directed (to support those around me) while simultaneously promoting internal health. Heqat works with me on the strength of accepting what I cannot change, of sitting with hurts and letting them be without taking them into myself. If Set’s strength keeps fighting, Heqat’s strength lives with and moves through. Both are necessary to function, both take tremendous courage. I continue to work towards incorporating both into my day-to-day life

Dua Set. Dua Heqat. I am stronger in many ways for your mutual guidance.

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

Companionship

If most of my devotions throughout this month long effort wind up directed to Set, it is not for lack of love of, and devotion to, the other gods in my line-up. But my Father is always present in a manner that the others aren’t, available both in moments of formal ritual and the ridiculous nonsense of everyday life. He’s always been that way, a companion as much as a god, or perhaps asking me to be His companion (the concept of Set acting like the Doctor has been written about by a friend of mine here:https://gbmarian.wordpress.com/2015/01/11/the-companions-of-seth/).

If I reach out, He’s there. I don’t know why He’s opted to be so readily available to me, but I do my damnedest to prove myself worth the time. Sometimes that’s in the standard way: he gets a daily offering of coffee each morning and a small dedication ritual, regardless of whether or not I’m pure enough for other formal rites. I’ve not missed that in what feels like a very, very long time, and suspect that the next time I do my whole day will feel off.

Sometimes it’s anything but standard: I’ve lifted weights in His name, invited Him to be present at a metal shows (and flinging massive dudes off my tiny 5’5’’ frame on the edge of the mosh is made vastly more entertaining when you’ve got Set laughing His ass off in your ear), cooked for Him (spice-tastic), watched science fiction together (A mutual favorite is Klingon heavy Star Trek episodes. He’s right there with me debating how His khopesh would fare against a batleth, or if He’d prefer to use His spear.) He tells me again and again that He loves these moments of companionship, these moments of experiencing what humanity can offer.

But the companionship also extends to the internal thoughts I want to share with Him. Things about gender identity and sexuality that have become complicated with the awareness of my privilege in how the rest of the world reads my physical body. Companionship there is Him listening, Him seeing and knowing and loving the whole of me, Him telling me to be proud of who I am and know myself to be regardless of however the world may view me.

So, yes. I am gladly, and proudly, Set’s worshipper, daughter, and coffee-offering companion. Dua Set!

Friendship

I don’t really view my relationships with the Netjeru as “friendships” per se. Even Set (who as I noted previously is happy to accept my more casual interactions and offerings) is still not an entity I could ever see myself referring to as my “friend.”

Where do I find friendship in my interactions with the gods? I find it in the human beings that They have helped me come to know as I’ve walked Their path. I have developed deep friendships, friendships which progressed at a rate that sometimes unnerved me, often with people I only see in person every few months, if at all. I have forged friendships with Kemetics across the whole damn globe, friendships that wear down every instinctive wall I throw up between myself and anyone new because trust is something I have always found exceedingly difficult, and which life has, on occasion, made even more difficult with its twists and turns.

Yet trust just gradually seems to happen with the people my gods have directed me to worship beside. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re all talking about these core, heart-hitting aspects of our lives; that we’re all trusting each other with information which we know would make other people raise an eyebrow and doubt our grasp of reality. I don’t know if it’s some unknown factor that unites us, something that mutually led us to this particular form of the divine, or if our joint efforts to live by ma’at just make it a little easier to talk to each other about things.

It’s not always easy. We don’t all magically get along. We’re still individuals with different backgrounds and values and means, and we can fight like internet-proverbial honey badgers when these values don’t line up. But for the Kemetics who have become my friends, the folks I’ve been privileged enough to worship with, laugh with, sing with, write with, and pray with … It’s been amazing. They are treasured friends and in many cases family. I thank Netjer every day for their presence in my life.

Love

I close my eyes and focus on the sound of my heartbeat, allowing myself to drift from this world to the next, finding myself garbed in white save for the ritual jewelry They have asked me to wear in their honor. I move swiftly to the oven, practice my focus over here by baking the bread by hand, going through each step as if it were my physical hands and not this transient form in the other side which kneads and rolls and shoves and finally places it in the oven.

While it bakes I move to the temple itself, always astounded at how large it has become. I wash my hands and bare feet and face with the pitcher of water placed at the outer door, then move within, torches lighting along each side their flames hidden in lotus columns. I place incense before each statue that I have carved at Their request with my will, moving past those gods who I have come to love and respect through varied and limited interaction, to the gods that walk with me each day as Parents and guides. Set and Bast guard the entire building, in full animal theophany, massive statues to the left and the right of the great offering table, with a beautiful painted stela behind, depicting Them both in Ra’s boat. They receive prayers and incense, I ask them to wake and listen for what They wish of me this day.

I move to the left of their great altar, down a long passage that leads back outside, winding down the hill on which the great temple is perched, over a rocky path and then to a river’s edge. It is almost always night here, as Hethert-Nut prefers. She greets me from her star-strewn blanket over head, while Aset-Hatmehyt and Heqat emerge from the river itself or rise from where They had waited beside its bank, embodied and warm and full of more life than I can stand. They take me into the river and purify me, submerging me and lifting me again, touching my forehead, my hands, my lips. It is so gentle that I feel no discomfort, so seemingly as it should be that I feel no fear below the great waters.

I rise when they are finished and fill a second pitcher from a place farther upstream from that where I bathed. I return to the front of the temple and find the bread ready, and a local wind netjeri assists in cooling it. I then move through the temple, making offerings of bread and water to all gods, beer and wine where requested, again listening to what else may be needed, but They also insist that I speak in turn.

And in the moments of offering and speaking there is love present, love built into every inch of this self-constructed temple in the duat. Love when I take the time to bake the bread by hand, love in the hands of the goddesses that purify me both for this purpose and for my own well being. Love when I have been gone too long and Set and Bast awake to the incense nigh shouting, perhaps even appearing in flesh to wrap me up in an embrace and ask where the hell I’ve been!

It is an all encompassing thing, the love that I feel when I am able to serve. To walk the halls built over years, to greet the gods in as direct way as I know how, and to receive such a powerful affection in return for my time and efforts. It has always been worth it, may it always continue to be so.

Anger

She challenged me in order to best assist me, knowing I needed the goading, telling me to let my Father in, to let Him rage.

I thought back to times before: His cool fire enforcing my spine as I sat erect and unbending on the phone with my abuser. My voice hardened as it entwined with His, the words coming from my mouth unshakeable: “It is over.” And it was, after years of waffling and trying to make it work and giving of myself that which I did not wish to give:  it was done in one night.

I let Him in again when I began to see how one member of my family verbally assaulted the other, and it was His shield and spear in my hands as I stood in the hall, unafraid to block someone a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier before he could run away from his deeds and said, “No more.”

It has been His storming in my eyes when I read of the injustices in the world, His thunder pounding in my spirit when I see silence in response to murder and famine and plague. His winds throwing me forward to find more ways that I do more, be more, help more: anything.

And it His anger that came through me that night as I screamed of my own sorrows and frustrations and pains. His rage that carried mine from where I have kept it so tightly hidden, entrenched in politics and social etiquette and the training from childhood to be so very polite. He released it and we ran with it together, grief burning away before our great voice, shame attacked as though it were the hideous sneak itself, stabbed and crushed and destroyed in the power of our mutual fury.

I was exhausted when He left me, but I still stood, still functioned. For if the anger is His, the strength to bear that anger is my own, and as His daughter, I will not turn away from necessary rage.

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

Hope

What was it that you saw in me, battered and ruined as I was?

There was little left in the husk of a being who had forgotten how to dream and who was so very startled
to have visions of spirit return at all and then you –
you, so bold and living and full of every passion –
who came warring through my despair and would not look away.

Why, I ask, even now,
still struggling to trust that I could be worth your time
did I earn your patience and impatience,
your laughter and your strength?

How could I possibly have merited that
all encompassing fury and the rage,
rage on my behalf,
rage of such magnitude inspired by my sorrow
rage that was the only thing that ever could have proven how desperately
I needed to break from chains of self-loathing,
Break from the power of one who controlled and abused,
Break from a life that was lived only for lack of caring,
Break from the preference of perhaps not living at all.

Was I worth the effort, Father?

I hope, I pray, that the answer is yes.

For there was so little hope of any kind before you came,
So little of me left to dare consider such a concept.

Now I dream again and it is not startling.
I dream of a future of serving You,
A present of protecting others in Your name.

I hope that I might share some small portion of the fire
you returned to me with those who wander in darkness.
Burning brightly enough to help them seek
whatever light this world might yet provide.

Faith

This will be brief, my gods,
As I am tired and worried and stressed
And sleep is the best remedy for all.

But I have faith that you will protect zir from zir sorrow.
I have faith that you will help her keep going after her loss.
I have faith that he will one day play again without pain.
I have faith that you will help me find the right balance of asking for help and keeping things private.

I have faith because I love them all too much to do otherwise.
I have faith because Your presence has carried me this far to aid myself and provide aid in turn.
I believe because the alternative is terrifying.
Difficult though it has long been to trust, I must trust in this.
In You.

Soul

It is good to close my eyes and remember that the core of me

Those several ageless pieces which drive daily aging flesh

Remains healthy and unhindered, and that when You look

You as one small piece that represents the enormity I could not wholly withstand

You see only life, loyalty and my intent.

You see me and then stand embodied:

human and sha-faced, or hound-bodied and sleek,

knowing before I do which aspect will best match my inner form this day.

Shall we walk as Father and child, me in white,

your red beads at my neck, dark spear in my hand?

Shall we run as hounds through the desert

Swifter than the horses that draw chariots before other gods

amused by later human invention?

Or perhaps we shall hunt as both and then neither,

the soul of the red god unbound by any rules of form,

While the voice of His daughter rings with laughter

alive and mad with the rush of the storm she gladly rides.

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

How did you become involved with your devotional topic?

Bast was probably always there, though it would take me nearly two decades to determine that my imaginary cat friend from childhood was something beyond a toddler’s invisible playmate. The Eye of Ra guarded me at different points in my life as what I understood as the Goddess, a spirit guide, a “totem” (before I knew better than to use that terminology), a housecat that appeared in the corner of my eye in the worst nights of collegiate sleep deprivation, and finally as Herself.

Set came next, as a red-furred greyhound with a too-long face and ears that my mind wouldn’t interpret correctly, who showed up in dreams and mental wanderings during the day. He would not let me ignore Him, would not let me continue my life as I was living it, showed me so many things that were too blatant to be coincidence. Within a month of meeting him I ended an abusive relationship of four years, moved out of an unhealthy living environment, and started life fresh in a new city, new graduate program. It hurt like hell while I lived it, but looking back, I remain incredibly grateful.

Hethert-Nut was met in Her component parts, as I initially did not know Her syncretic form existed. Hethert began to appear once I had met Set and Bast as Themselves, and began studying Netjer in earnest, my musical background drawing me to Her, and Her taking an immediate (and so kind, always so kind) interest in turn. Nut was also there in the early days, appearing one night when the skies were clear and the blue at the heart of a candle’s flame drew me into a deeper meditation than I had managed in years. I learned of Hethert-Nut as both Beloved and as a syncretic deity through the Kemetic Orthodox Rite of Parent Divination (RPD), and the pieces fit together perfectly.

Heru-wer and I only began to know each other after the RPD, and our relationship is still a work in progress. I almost feel that in some ways I am not particularly involved with Him, even now, and am not sure if this is something I should be working to rectify, or if He prefers our relationship to remain oriented towards specific tasks, rather than day-to-day interaction. Hopefully time will tell.

Heqat is the most recent addition, having met Her about two years ago now when Her w’abet Maret placed a tiny frog statue in my hands and in my efforts to figure out where I would place the wee votive, a world of artistic ideas just started flying from my lips after months of creative drought. Over the course of the following year, Heqat’s ageless wisdom and inspiration continued to brighten my life, while simultaneously teaching me how to keep some of that energy for my own self-care. A second divination at the next Wep Ronpet gathering revealed Her to be my third Beloved, and She has brought completion to my spiritual family that I did not know was missing.

Your relationship with your devotional topic.

My relationship with my Parents, Set and Bast, has reached a stage of balanced, constant communication, which I am grateful for. For most of the time I’ve identified as Kemetic, I have been closest with Set, both in terms of the ease of our relationship, and the regularity of it. I offer coffee to Him with a small, personal ritual every morning and we chat about the day to come. I can reach out to Him at any time and He will be there, even if the ease of that connection varies based on my health and present mental well being. He will also frequently chuck the “godphone” at my head for attention, which I actually sort of enjoy. It keeps me solid in my beliefs to have a god Who is so constantly LOUD and present and willing to engage with me both in serious ritual and utter ridiculousness (ever attended a metal show with the god of storms? I recommend this thing.)

Only in the last year have I reached something similar with Bast, though it has its own flavor, and took a fair amount of learning on my part to realize that She is highly unlikely to initiate things. The creation of an evening gratitude ritual before bed, something I’m still hammering out the details of but have initiated in a fluid format for the time being, has connected us better on the daily level, outside of formal shrine rites. She and I remain substantially more formal in our interactions than Set and I, but a fierce closeness has developed, which I am grateful for.

As for my Beloveds, Hethert-Nut and Heqat also have strong relationships with me, while Heru-wer remains a god that I approach on occasion. Heqat is perhaps the closest of the three, and that largely in the sense of the familial relationship we share. I call Heqat grandmother because She is so loving and present during our interactions, so willing to share stories, or hear my stories in turn while petting my hair, or leaving a calming hand on my shoulder. She also played a tremendous role in preparing me for, and comforting me following, the loss of my biological grandmother earlier this year. Hethert-Nut is… farther off, in part just because of Her vastness-as-sky, and when She is more embodied, She largely feels like… the encouraging, fun friend who wants you to go out and do more than you’re entirely comfortable with, but know you’ll have a blast if you just give it a shot.

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

I’ve noticed that on important days, my Father Set likes to wake me up roughly fifteen minutes before 6:00 a.m. For someone who almost always requires an alarm to get up and moving at the necessary time, these days stand apart. I get out of bed, even if still a little weary from a shortened night’s rest, and go about morning offerings as the dawn rises. I watch Zep Tepi in its most literal sense, seeing orange and red flood the sky over the Allegheny river valley, all the people in the neighborhoods below my apartment’s hillside perch turning on lights, starting their morning, getting in their cars and making the most of the new day, a first day unto itself.

I think I needed it this morning. This past April proved to be one of the most difficult months in recent memory, as I dealt with hospital visits for severe allergic reactions and infections, attempted to care for my partner’s illnesses in the midst of my own, was let go from the job I’ve been at for the past seven months, and most significantly, experienced my first loss of a very close family member. The last was not unexpected, given this loved one’s age, but the passing was swift and I’m still sorting out how to grieve for someone my mind has not wholly processed as actually being gone, even several days after the funeral. In the midst of sorting through all of these personal things, I’m also hurting for Nepal and Baltimore, the latter of which being very near the place where I grew up.

Life goes on with each new sunrise. I’m adjusting to the care my body needs. I start a new job on Monday. I’m allowing myself to grieve for my loved one. I made it through all of my school work for my first semester of my new program. I’m working to remember how to hope for a brighter future for my country and for those countries dealing with environmental or political tragedy.

I credit much of my (somewhat surprising, given how I believe I might have failed to handle all of this four years ago) resilience to my sibling Tenu, my partner, and my spiritual communities. The amount of support I received via social media, email, phone, and even in-person visits has been overwhelming in the best of ways. I have tried to express in words several times over the depth of my gratitude, and will keep doing so through my actions in the days to come.

I also give a great deal of credit to my gods. I have not been able to hear or sense them as easily as I usually do in the midst of everything that has happened, but I could still feel the magnitude of their presences, always near, waiting, strong and stable, until I was ready to reach out to them again.

Inspired by many of G.B. Marian’s recent artistic posts and Joan Lansberry’s beautiful works, I tried my hand at drawing on a particularly difficult day. Without even really thinking of it, Set appeared in my journal, contemplating the storms in His hands. It was a comfort, and a small way to start to reconnect (if obviously just a quick doodle by an amateur who very much needed the creative therapy.)

I was divined three years ago today as the daughter of Set and Bast, beloved of Heru-wer and Hethert-Nut. Heqat joined our family of gods earlier this year, but is no less celebrated this day than the others. I am grateful for all five of these Netjeru, for what they bring to my life, how they remind me that each new day holds potential for me to live in such a way as to reflect their strength, their beauty. I will honor Them today in shrine, fittingly the first day in several weeks that I feel pure enough in body and heart to do so. I will also endeavor to honor Them through my words and actions, by moving forward, respectfully reflecting on what has been while always looking to the future and what I can bring to my community, my gods, and my world.

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

Two days prior to this past Friday, February 13th, I found myself reading through G.B. Marian’s recent blog update regarding The Holy Month of Miew Khem (or “Black Cat”). It’s well worth reading through his thorough explanation of this time, held sacred by the members of the LV-426 Tradition, which takes place between the rare occurrence of two consecutive Friday the 13ths. Marian’s group considers this time significant for, “…celebrating (1) the positive results of killing Osiris and (2) the marriage of Seth to Ishtar and Anath (as any of our normal Friday the 13th rituals would be); it’s also a time for (3) experiencing some major initiatory event.”

Though personally identifying as Kemetic Orthodox in terms of tradition, my spiritual path has benefited greatly through participation in reconstructionist-based, revivalist and modern rituals, as well as practices specific to my particular branch of Kemeticism and those from the wider Kemetic, polytheist, and general pagan communities. With this in mind, it was surprising, but not uncomfortably so, that the concept of the month of Miew Khem grabbed me almost immediately, with that sort of palpable force that many of you may be familiar with. The one that translated into words would go something along the lines of, “Hold on to your hat, kid, we’re in for a bumpy ride.” I sought permission from G.B. to participate (initially uncertain if this was something other-Set-worshipping folks could join in on) and upon receiving permission continued about my Wednesday, full of thoughts of the past and curiosity towards the future: namely what that impending WHOOMPH feeling was going to translate to come Friday.

Regarding the past, I’ll just share what I wrote in response to the initial blog post about Miew Khem, as it sums it up fairly well:

“[Your post] got me thinking back to what I was doing around this time in 2009, and I admit, I… was somewhat blown away at the realization. I don’t honestly remember all that much of the details of what happened during that month. I was in my junior year of college, I was at the lowest point that depression has yet to take me in my life, but this was… legitimately when it all hit critical mass. I wound up leaving school for a week at the end of February after almost doing something drastic, spontaneously fled … to be with my sibling Tenu, got off all the medications that seemed to have made things so much worse (for me) and in the midst of the vast red mountains, took an oath to whatever gods/spirits may be (I was too low to believe in anyOne specifically at this point) that I would do whatever it took so as to never scare and hurt my family so deeply again, even if I couldn’t see reason enough just yet to take these steps for myself.”

Initiatory? Yes. Messy as hell? Yes, again. Worth acknowledging as an incredibly significant moment in my life?

Absolutely.

With that in mind, I had intended for this Miew Khem to be about celebrating how far I’ve come since the prior occurrence of this month. I wished to honor how Set showed up roughly two years later and helped/forced (either verb would be accurate!) me to make drastic changes in my life that led me to become the healthier, stronger, more independent person I am six years on. I wished to acknowledge how Bast stayed with me through all of it, shifting through various forms that my mind could make sense of from childhood on, guarding and guiding through the turbulence of adolescence and my early twenties, and finally revealing herself as who She truly is once I was ready. Wednesday evening and much of Thursday I started to pull together plans for a personal ritual that would accomplish just this.

The celebration was put on hold come Friday 13th.

A brief note here before I continue: I am about to share some relatively personal information on what I know to be a public blog. I will avoid specific details, but I have made the decision to share the general gist of what occurred because I believe that mental health is something that is not discussed frequently enough in my part of the world and that abuse is not something the victim should be made to feel ashamed of or for. I also believe that sharing some of this is significant for my own well being, part of the process of acknowledging it, making it part of my reality. If this bothers or triggers you, I respect that and do not wish to harm anyone with my words. Please stop reading now.

Friday the 13th, I had scheduled a counseling appointment for myself. As someone who is in training to be a counselor, I had previously recognized that I had some unresolved issues from my past, things that fed into my experiences back in 2009, and knew that I needed to work on these things in order to be an effective helping professional for my clients.

My counselor, after hearing my story regarding this prior relationship, wanted me to admit that I was a survivor of physical and emotional abuse. I denied it. Defended the other party in question. Explained why I deserved much of what had happened, minimized the severity of it, claimed that I had not gone through enough to merit the “title” of abused. My counselor pressed me, kept showing me the truth of it, metaphorically holding the mirror up to my own face and making me took a good, long, look at myself.

I finally relented. Spoke the words that would begin the process of acknowledging that this had indeed happened to me, that it was not merely an unhealthy relationship but something worse, something that had warped my perception of my self-worth, something that had led me to do things, give things, I had not wanted to do or to give.

I made it home, and then I broke. For the next several days I was utterly useless to the friends and family I love. Grieving for something I’d known but had gotten by in not acknowledging. Angry but too exhausted to express that anger. I mostly hid in my apartment with my partner, reaching out only to him and to my sibling. I used Monday to force myself out into the world again, knowing that the evening would see me in class again, the following morning back in the office. I had to function, I had to find a better balance between wallowing in this new reality, the endless repetition of “how could I” and “why did I” needing some relief in the form of self-care and strength, even if that strength was somewhat forced.

Meeting the necessity of various obligations got me moving: class, work, online meetings, and finally — shrine.

I was not up to the festival I’d planned, when I finally managed to light candles and incense. I said the words of the senut ritual and then I just sat there, exhausted and not really wanting to be doing the rite. I felt dirty. I felt stained. I felt… abused.

“Sing.” Came the voices of several gods, “Sing our songs.”

I didn’t want to. I didn’t know if I could. But They kept asking, and so I did, working through the lyrics for Heqat, Hethert-Nut, Heru-wer, Bast, and finally Set. I started in on one of Set’s songs but He abruptly cut me off.

“Not that one. The first one.”

I was surprised — His opinion of my music has always been one largely of mild amusement. He appreciates the gesture but isn’t so… picky as Bast or Hethert-Nut, who’ve more direct associations with that sort of worship. So if He actually had a preference for once, I’d listen. I refocused, shifting my headspace from the fierce “Daughter of the Storm” chant to the low ballad of “Dua Set.” I sang the first verse, the chorus, the second verse, chorus again, then headed into the bridge:

“Tear me apart, challenge my soul. / I must be broken that I might yet be whole.”

I promptly choked back the rush of emotion that flooded me. I was and am so very broken. Less so today than on that initial recognition of the 13th, but still aching, still tender in spaces I’ve not explored for the better part of five years. It hurts in ways I can’t fully express to go delving back into my past, ways I don’t want to express, because I hate the rawness of it, hate the showing of those weak spaces, hate the tears that once earned me such harsh critique. Sekhmet pulled the depths of it from me once in a semi-public setting and oh how I burned with the shame of it. I do not like to cry at all. I absolutely abhor crying in front of damn near anyone else.

I couldn’t even fully cry then, in front of Set. I almost did, I almost am now, remembering the moment. He showed me in the lyrics from my own hand that I need to let it out, probably at some point fairly soon, but it may take a god again to haul it from me. Every time I try to release… whatever this weight at the pit of me is, there’s a wall. If I could just get past that, I think He would be willing to take it from me. I think Bast would too as She was there, less tangible but still present, an external wave of concern and acceptance of the mess that I struggled with and subsequently contained after the initial wave.

How do I do this? Where do I go with this? I’m so… lost again. Lost in a time that I was initially so happy to celebrate for all the good that I’ve found. Perhaps this is the true spirit of the month, the not knowing, the challenge and the change. I am doing my damnedest to honor that spirit, but gods above and below, it is so, so very hard.

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

I needed to sit on this final post for awhile. As I told my friend last night, in so many words, the week brought up a tremendous amount of feelings and insight for me. I’m not entirely certain I’ve come to terms with all of it, even a week after it’s all drawn to a close, and I’m also not sure of how to write about my experiences in a way that doesn’t smack of self-aggrandizement, something I generally aim to avoid. I do want to try to share some of it though, for I got so caught up in the thrill of things, the challenge of balancing prayer, personal ritual, and community efforts along side my day to day wedding planning, graduate school, and day job, that I stopped being able to share when I was actually in the thick of it.  I don’t want to let that become a reason for writing nothing, in part because I want to remember, and use those memories as a foundation for future efforts, future personal growth.

—

The candles and barque have been put away for some future festival, the red festival shrine cloth folded and waiting to be washed of what incense and wax escaped their holdings. The small bronze hued statue of Set, Lord of so much more than any epithet can capture, has been tucked back into my cabinet where extra icons remain. The table that burned brighter and brighter with the light of six, sacred flames has been returned to a crafting space for music, words and clay, a space of creation, with a small shrine holding images of both Set and Bast, alongside Heqat and Khnum who watch over my efforts. My Father was honored here for six days. Each night as I sat with Him, He tore away obstacles, guided me to confront those things still holding me back, and helped me to see what will make me a better worshiper, counselor, leader. Now this small place of homage has been returned to a space where I can move forward, unbound, free again to add beauty to the world.

On the seventh day, I celebrated Him with seven others. We celebrated all He had done for those who followed Him, be they long time devotees who have known His ways for years, or newcomers, stepping beyond past assumptions to reach out to a god they had not yet greeted in shrine. We sang for Him, we destroyed our fears on clay pots in His name. We crafted ropes to remind us of the threads of His tail which serve as ropes for a sacred barque, and put our strengths into them that we might hold fast to such strengths in darker days. We gave Him many, many offerings; we reverted those offerings in fellowship. We returned to His shrine after night had fallen and naught but candles lit the room. We toasted Him again, and again, and again, each person present Honoring the Lord of the Red lands with strong voice and strong drink.

And we had time to sit with Him individually, as the candles burned and He remained so very present. Each had time if they chose to sit and pray by the flicker of the candle light and the passing from shadow to fire’s glow. A few of us sat with Him deep into the night, holding vigil with our thoughts and feelings even as Set held vigil over Ra on their nightly journey below the horizon.

I sat with Him by myself at one point and found it quite difficult to find words adequate to thank Him for everything He’d shown me in those past seven days. How do you thank a god for reminding you how deeply you care for a sister, and in truth, how deeply you care for your whole spiritual community? How do you express gratitude for the necessity of being bluntly shown your flaws, reminded that no matter how much work you do, things can and will go wrong and the best you can do is try to repair them after the fact? How do you find words for the clearest moment of recognition that you’ve had in four years of following a god of why He chose you, and how His influence has lead you to the professional path you’ve chosen to walk?

The answer: you don’t. There’s nothing to encompass the sheer emotional mass of it. In recognizing that, I just endeavored to share with Him the fullness of spirit I felt, the gratitude that was emanating from what felt like every fiber of my being. I believe He accepted that small offering of sorts, and I believe I felt some sense of pleasure in return, that He was proud of everyone who had worked so hard to make these things come to pass, that He enjoyed the extra time so many spent honoring Him, learning about His complex, occasionally even confounding, methods of upholding ma’at.

I know, for myself, it will take many more weeks beyond His festival, beyond even this first effort to share some of my reactions, to fully delve into everything I believe Set shared with me during His week.

…but I very much look forward to the challenge.

Dua Set! Dua Netjer! Nekhtet!

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

It is Tuesday night, the end of Day Three. I sit beside my Father’s statue and struggle to find words for what I’m feeling, when two days ago I wrote with confidence about my goals for the week, and those words rang true without question.

Tonight, there is a flickering candle, transient between moments of darkness and light, and my several attempts to launch into an in-depth analysis of the past days’ events have all felt hollow.

I focus beyond words.

There is an ache in my back from additional hours spent before a screen, organizing, planning, making foolish mistakes and trying to fix them. There is a tension in my shoulders and neck from nerves relating to a new graduate program, and a particularly trial-by-fire first day of class. There is a weight in my chest for the loved ones near and far whose mental and physical demons I cannot seem to slay, who have had less of me in the past few days than I would normally give. (There is even a tic in my eye from entirely too much caffeine in a 48 hour span!)

There is also a fierce joy beyond measure at the creative works and stories in Set’s name that have spread across my community’s forums and even a few blogs beyond. There is a boundless depth of gratitude that so many continue to lend their time, their presence, their service to this event which honors the Son of Nut. There is a reverbant thrum of excitement that a few individuals who had been gone from my community chose this week to return, perhaps because of Set’s festival, perhaps because of the New Year, perhaps because of a chance.

There is also, admittedly, a growing solidity at the core of me, summoned by the soft, firm voice that says of  my school and work and caretaking, “Yes. You have done well.”

The owner of that voice sits with me and I Him, the incense I’ve lit blowing up against His statue and back to my face.

I breathe and I am so grateful for all that has already occured and what has yet to come.

I breathe and I wish other things had happened differently, that I might have done better by my community members and our gods, both of whom I endeavor to serve.

I breathe and recognize that I cannot control whether the flame casts me in its shadow or holds me aglow.

I breathe and I think that tonight, sitting here with the One who embodies such transformations, I can accept the uncertainty.

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

“Hey and you snatch your rattling last breaths
With deep-sea diver sounds
And the flowers bloom like
Madness in the spring”

– Jethro Tull, “Aqualung”

…

Winter can be a notoriously brutal time for many of us, wreaking havoc on health both mental and physical. I’ve been following the words of many fellow bloggers and online friends with no small degree of empathy as they fight lengthy battles with illness. I’ve listened to those coping with SAD, trying to hold to stability as the sun gradually returns to a higher place in the sky, the light lasting a bit longer with each day. I’ve read the words of folks like Aubs, who took a genuinely terrible injury after falling on the ice and yet found wisdom from it. I’ve shaken with anger alongside Aine as she described what she lives through on a daily basis as someone who is chronically ill, black, and poor. I read about these experiences with bodies that have been hurt or are constantly hurting, see discussions through various media platforms about the dangers of uncritical positive thinking regarding one’s health, and in turn find myself struggling with a vague, writhing sense of how can I make this better while simultaneously looking at my own body and recognizing things about it that would have been much simpler to let well enough alone.

You see, I really hate caving to limitations. Hate admitting that there are things that I physically cannot do. I’m as stubborn as anyone I’ve ever met when I take on a challenge, and if I say I’ll do something, it will damn well get done, come hell, high water, or hypertension.

I had the realization recently, after talking with Khenne about the trend amongst dual-Parented members of the House of Netjer to connect more with one god over the other, that this relates to why I lean so much more strongly towards Set in my spiritual practice. I take pride in the sheer grit that He represents for me and that I aim to reflect in my active, day-to-day worship of Him. Every single dawn He’s up and fighting the Uncreated One, taking the bites and the poison, largely because someone has to but no one else can. There is no sense of “backing down” in this aspect of Set’s nature, there is no “today I’m going to take a break because I need some time for self-care.” There is only moving forward, getting the job done, and putting that critical necessity, that responsibility, ahead of everything else.

Through this lens did I view my responsibility to family over the past month, cramming five cities worth of travel by bus, car, and train into ten days.  All the while I played marital counselor to aging, angry parents, served as nurse to a relative who handled his illness as maturely as a five year old, and worked as organizer for an extended family who largely seem to have stopped caring about bothering to schedule time with those who travel for hours to be with them. I did this without complaint, keeping the grief I felt contained, and instead charging forward, getting through it, seeing my responsibilities through.

I was not surprised when I became ill half way through the trip, violently so by the time I returned to Pittsburgh, fighting my way through work on Friday through the necessity of keeping my job, and then effectively collapsing after taking the bus home.

But it was not Set whose presence I felt during the days that followed, my lungs rattling from the fluid in my bronchial tube, each breath an exercise in deliberate motion, shallow and controlled, trying to avoid the minutes-long coughing spells that would leave me dizzy and occasionally half-blind from lack of oxygen. It was not Set who watched me with concern and frustration as my right hand blistered over with hot, red welts triggered by a prescribed antibiotic that my body rejected, nor was it His voice that I heard as I reached out to my gods in a panic during my third day largely confined to bed, albuterol shakes and a fever ramping my anxiety to levels that left me irrationally convinced that I was actually going to die at age 26 without some way to fight the infection, some way to help me breathe.

It was Bast who watched me with cool green eyes, Her immense presence surrounding me and then forcibly drawing out the whole of my grief for a family that had hurt me, and a body that had caved, as it so irritatingly and frequently does under such stress and pressure, to bronchitis, anxiety, and allergic response.

I wept, I choked, I gasped, I wailed, and I hated every single minute of being so utterly out of control. I hated it all the more for occurring in my partner’s presence, when he’s had his own health battles to deal with of late. But then the experience was done, the rage and grief largely out of my head and heart, and I slept more fitfully than I had in days. My life predominantly continued to revolve around sleeping for several days following. I made it to work, I did the bare minimum for other obligations, but for almost everything else which I normally hold myself responsible, I just said, “No.”

I hear Bast in that “No.” See Her in the actions of my own black-furred cat who was dealing with a cold at the same time as I fought bronchitis. For all of Sammi’s sweet “nurse-cat” temperament when I am ill, rarely leaving my side when I’m under the weather, she instead took a few days to largely rest beneath my bed by herself, until she was ready to come back and be my loyal familiar once more. Bast is far more than cat goddess alone, yet the feline propensity for self-care, self-focus (a very different beast than self-centeredness, as I would be wise to learn) is something that I believe She would have me better understand. But it keeps me from so readily embracing Her as I do Set. I feel no pride in stepping back, in admitting that my body has been “defeated” or was too weak to continue. I despise the limitations that asthma, cancer scares, and ongoing battles with anxiety and depression place on my life, how they limit what I can physically offer to the world. I struggle to love and accept my body, because I am increasingly aware that there is no amount of will power that’s going to make all of my ailments magically go away. I cannot be Set’s stubborn, get-shit-done, tough-it-out daughter all the time, much as, in my ideal world, I would.

How do I accept my Mother’s lessons, and in turn accept myself? How do I become closer to the Eye who knows how to burn brightly without burning out?

I have no answers as of yet. Only frustrated acknowledgement that this… this needs to be dealt with.

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

Preparing for senut last night, I reached out to my gods, probing for the now-familiar sense of Who wished for what kind of offering this evening, Who wanted to speak with me and had a particular request for food or drink in turn. I usually hear from a few of Them each evening I manage time in shrine, their responses not necessarily coming in words, but instead more of a small, mental nudge towards a particular form of bread, tea, or fruit. Usually from this I can expect, even before I light candle and incense, Who will require my focus on a given evening, based on what I know of Their preferences, or the general feel to the presence behind the request.

Last night, I was surprised by Set.

Not surprise for Who was asking, of course. As my spiritual Father, the god who all but hauled me straight into polytheism after years of disbelief, the Name who has flipped my life upside down several times over to help me reach necessary, if difficult, goals — Set tends to get the focus of my devotions.

No, it was what He wanted that threw me for a loop.

“Offer the cards.”

While I knew immediately what He was referring to, I couldn’t wrap my head around why He was being so insistent about it. He genuinely seemed to want me to get out the Moo-mas cards and put them on the offering plate!

By way of brief explanation, Moo-mas is a fun nickname for an actual Kemetic holiday, the Establishment of the Celestial Cow.

This day celebrates Hethert-Nut’s lifting of Ra into the sky, carrying Him away from the wars of mankind that had worn Him down, giving Him the opportunity to start anew as he began a new form of leadership, ruling from the sky. The holiday celebrates Her strength, the unwavering love and power required to complete this tremendous act, even though texts specifically reference the difficulty, noting how Her legs shook from the effort until she was granted aid. The Establishment also represents the wonderful opportunity to start fresh, one of countless conceptualizations of Zep Tepi, new dawns, new beginnings, that we have in our religion.

This Kemetic celebration often falls on December 25th, the day on which many of our Christian friends and family celebrate Christmas, and a holiday whose many secular traditions such as caroling, holiday card exchange, and tree decoration may hold some appeal. The name Moo-mas seemed to stick, and new traditions developed.

The Moo-mas card exchange is one such recent practice, and one that I have treasured for the past three years. I have kept every card I’ve received in that time, put them on display as they arrived, and then tucked them away in a small basket near my akhu shrine.

But with Set’s request, I went and retrieved them. I set them on the offering plate, still confused but willing to go with the flow, going through the rest of the formal rite, and then offering them alongside pure water.

I often sing in shrine, having now written a song for each of the five gods I primarily worship, but Set cut me off even before I could begin the first verse. Again, the strong sense of the cards.

I picked them up. I opened the first. I read the message, found myself running my index finger along the ink. This was an old one, from my first year of participation. My friend still addressed me as Ekunyi here, before I’d become Saryt to her. I thought of the small sculpture that had accompanied this card, the many conversations that had followed on art, clay, creative devotion.

I opened another, touched by the small, hand-drawn depiction of both Set and Bast, the blessings offered in a handwritten script.

One of the newest cards, specifically selected for me because of the frogs on the cover, with a written in “Dua Heket!” I laughed aloud at that the first time I’d opened it, just the day before, and laughed again, appreciating the time and thought that had gone into the card’s selection, and the kind message that accompanied it.

I went through more cards, from different years, different friends and acquaintances. Yet my hands kept seeking more, even after I’d closed the last card. I opened up the doors to the storage below my shrine, pulled out beaded necklaces, bottles of sacred oil, paintings and drawings and poetry from the talented hands and hearts of so many acquaintances who had gradually become family over three years of time and shared experience.

My hands rested on a piece of linen, my Father’s outline embroidered in my Mother’s colors, a gift from a friend and spiritual sibling who is even farther away than many of the others. I teared up, just… needing to touch it, in that moment. I needed to hold it, to treasure the tangible reminder that this faith has brought me so many amazing connections, so many incredible moments of shared understanding and compassion.

Without ever having realized that I’d lost sight of it, I suddenly recognized that I had desperately needed this physical reminder of why I do as much as I do, why I give what I can of my time and energy to these incredible people all around the globe. That it counts for something. That despite the difficult times, all the horrible grief and violence and pain in the world right now, there is beauty in these connections that have been established through our mutual faith and belief in our gods.

It is such a small thing, holding a card, a beaded necklace, a piece of embroidered linen in your hand, and yet there is a profound significance to the reality of it. Touching what has been crafted with you in mind, remembering that you matter to someone, and they to you in turn.

A thousand blessings on all of you this holiday season. Thank you, all of you, for being in my life.