Archive for July, 2012

Today is Set’s birthday, the third of the epagomenal days, five days that fall between the end of the Kemetic year and Wep Ronpet, the Kemetic New Year on August 3rd.

Hail to the Progenitor of Chaos,
standing fearless at the sun’s prow
and forever slaying the Uncreated One.

May You bless this coming year
and guard it as You guard Ma’at
in brilliant, crackling, blazing fierceness.

Red as a firestorm behind dark smoke,
as powerful as the inexorable turning of the world,
Dua Set, Great of Strength!

In Set’s honor, a sigil for ferocity.

My initial thoughts on the Year 20 oracle.

… see the blue of the Great Flood …

Nut -> Mehet-Weret (The Great Flood) -> Hethert-Nut. For me, this is my Mama’s year. =3

The year is about Balance, and Hope, both of which require attention, commitment, and patience. It calls us to remain constant, steady, sure, just as the sky goddess Who oversees and embraces us all.

Consistency has always been a huge weakness in me. But I have created, this past Ptah-year, a greater consistency in many areas in my life than ever before. Even if some of them fell by the wayside eventually, they still paved an easier path between synapses for my next efforts to flow down. I know that I can do more now than a year ago. And I know how to do it. I am growing. I will keep growing.

Balance. Hope. Patience. Consistency.

Patience and consistency in getting finances under control and growing them appropriately; likewise with thriving in the workplace and ensuring my needs are being met in pragmatic matters; likewise with tending my body with nutrients and movement.

Balance and consistency in doing the work of becoming a better person, in my ways, to my standards alone; likewise with spending more time with my gods.

Patience and hope in forging through self-therapy and working through SAD this winter and, for lack of a better term, trauma.

Balance and hope in maintaining my creativity and expanding my crafts as my heart desires.

There is so much more to explore here, but this will do for a start. :)

Dua Nut! Dua Hethert-Nut!

I did not want to answer this question, posed on the Kemetic Orthodox forums as a way to contemplate the past Kemetic year in preparation for the new one, which begins August 3rd.

My avoidance is probably a sign that I should, indeed, explore my answer. ^^;

Ptah’s year was not a building year in the way I expected, planned, and hoped. My love and I moved to Texas shortly before the Kemetic year changed over; my job relocated me with a very promising paycheck, which we wanted to use to pay off my debts and make some serious inroads on my partner’s student loan debts. I intended to build my skillset, my network, my seniority, and my savings account. My goals were all pragmatism and foundation-shoring.

Instead, I’ve endured some of the rockiest company transitions I’ve ever experienced, a flurry of managers in quick succession, and a wildly fluctuating job description. I have shifted back into my “lean times” budget with admitted reluctance (but also with gratitude that I have lived as dirt-poor before and know how to handle it). My savings account stands empty thus far. I have broadened my professional network, but only because so many people have come and gone through my office. I have increased my seniority by virtue of outlasting the roughest waves, but those who are above me now are newer than me, and so my seniority doesn’t matter a whit as I re-prove myself to them, as I proved myself to their successors and those who came before.

But rather than looking to the bricks I’d hoped to lay down, what about those that were unexpected and strong?

Thanks to the madhouse at work, I am tenfold a better worker in both capacity and skills. I feel I have matured greatly because of what I’ve experienced, grappled with, and adapted to.

With Texas came a house that is beyond wonderful. Our landlords are gracious and superbly respectful of our privacy, we have a fenced back yard, and we have a glorious amount of space that is laid out in an atypical, delightful way. (Our house is horseshoe-shaped!)

My partner and I are even more tightly tied as a family, and we were able to adopt a stray we found recently. Despite already having five cats and a dog, this new dog has fit in unbelievably well in what I had always considered was a household of critters prohibitive of having a bigger dog. My partner and our animals bring me so much joy.

Ptah’s year saw me engage and evolve as a Remetj of Kemetic Orthodoxy, drawing increasingly closer to Ma’ahes and Serqet, and then getting my RPD in November, where I was divined a child of Nebt-het and Hethert-Nut, beloved of Ma’ahes and Serqet. I have deepened and explored my relationships with my gods, and while perhaps I have not done as much as I would have liked to in this regard, I have certainly done more than nothing. :)

My crafting sort of exploded this year, unexpectedly and unplannedly. I wrote music for my gods, including my first-ever experience putting guitar to original lyrics, and I participated in a challenge to write an album in one month. I began painting. I began making sigils. I opened up Mythic Curios with my love. I began making jewelry. I began making sculpeytures. I wrote over 100k on a rough draft of a new novel in the late fall/early winter, then 50k on a rewrite of another novel idea, and almost a dozen short stories in May. I laid down the groundwork for a consistent creative habit that I intend to last me indefinitely – I am never done making things.

I am incredibly grateful for the skillset, family, spirituality, and creativity that I have built in Ptah’s green year. Dua Ptah!

Today is Heru-wer’s birthday, the second of the epagomenal days, five days that fall between the end of the Kemetic year and Wep Ronpet, the Kemetic New Year on August 3rd.

Hail to the Way-Lighting Falcon,
soaring through darkening tumult
and deterring the lightning.

May You bless this coming year
so that it may shine as brightly
and stand as tall and rightful as You.

Gold as the noonday sun,
as unerring as the hunting hawk,
Dua Heru-wer, Master of Fear!

In Heru-wer’s honor, a sigil for flight– of the falcon and of the arrow to its target. (Click here to see it in the light.)

Today is Wesir’s birthday, the first of the epagomenal days, five days that fall between the end of the Kemetic year and Wep Ronpet, the Kemetic New Year on August 3rd.

Hail to the Once-Living King,
sacrificed by His brother
so that He may lead the beloved dead.

May You bless this coming year
as You blessed Aset with Your son;
the year stands strong in ma’at as Heru does.

Green as the dancing rushes,
as fertile as the flooding Nile,
Dua Wesir, the Lord of Life!

In Wesir’s honor, the tiniest sigil I have ever painted – it is for growth.

It wasn’t until I was Kemetic that I understood what it meant to serve.

That’s a very strong statement to make, but it’s not untrue. I am an extremely insular person, something of an internet-dwelling hermit, and as an HSP and introvert, I do not do well in situations where I am among throngs of people, working towards a common cause. Public, out-there forms of service and volunteering and communal work have never drawn me in, both in terms of what I can do and what I’d like to do, given my own skills and limitations.

And so the essence of “to serve” has eluded me. It never felt important. I never felt pulled or pushed to do it. My personal focus has been on bettering myself, both internally and externally: being the best person and the best me that I possibly can. That’s how I help the world: by being better to it on a very personal, one-on-one level.

But now I am Kemetic; now I have a community. Now I have gods Who are with me for life, and while Their roles in my life may fluctuate as I grow with Them, and our relationships will certainly evolve, I do not worry that someday They will decide I am unworthy and leave. And while the future is never certain, and I cannot guess how humans will change, I am very fond of and comfortable with my House, my spiritual family, however quiet or communicative I am at any given week.

And for my gods, for my community, there is the question of service. There is the question of what I may offer them/Them, without draining or damaging my own self and life, that will enrich and enhance Them or help them in some way that matters. “Giving back” has been said so much, and it’s only recently that I have any emotional sense of what it really means, what it feels like to mean that.

I wrote about it, too. I asked how I could serve and what being devoted means to me. It was an intellectual question, a thoughtful probing of the social contract, before it was ever a heart-feeling.

But now it’s a heart-feeling. And I have been learning how to take action on that feeling, to manifest it into the world in some way that makes me proud and grateful, in some way that honors my gods and helps my community.

I designed a fresh look for the Tawy House website. Web design is something I do well and heartfully, and I was so happy and proud to be able to offer myself up to fill that need.

I am copyediting The Bennu, a Kemetic Orthodox devotional anthology. I am quite good at the layout of text and finding and fixing typos. I am very happy and grateful to be able to assist the project lead, and the community, with an actual publication. I want our words to shine as brightly as those who speak them.

I have, only a few times but hopefully more in the future, crafted for my brethren. I have made necklaces and paintings for the people my spirit loves, and I have touched their gods in doing so, and I am truly honored to be able to offer up the art of my hands to others’ deeply personal practices.

I maintain a prayerbook, and while my consistency in updating it leaves something to be desired, I have not stopped or given up. I have faithfully recorded every single prayer in it since last November. I have prayed over it; I have invoked my gods’ aid; I have offered drink and flame and scented smoke and chocolate. I write each name and each request in a language I have made for myself, and it is holy to me. That is my service to Nebt-het in particular, my Mother, my shadowed lady.

All of this has given me a deeper understanding of giving, of generosity, of offering up oneself in terms of time and energy. I feel I better know what it means when I say “let me know if I can do anything to help,” because I have experienced giving and serving, and the essence of that sacred, zen-like feeling is what pervades when I tell my loved ones that I am there for them, that I will do whatever is within my power to make their lives better if they but ask.

I am still respectful of my own limitations; I am still very self-aware. I know that I do not have infinite time or energy or emotional capacity or material means. I do not offer what I cannot afford to give, and what I can afford to give varies by day and by need. I do not compromise my own health or life in order to assist others.

But it means something more now when I offer to help, because I feel it instead of just think it, and I am more compassionately willing to act on what is asked for. That, for me, is a wonderful feeling.

I am not done learning about service and how it feels. But I have come a very long way in the past year, and for that, I am immensely grateful.

The Circle of N

Nebt-het, She Who Borders The Sea
which was once all that existed
as the Nun, primordial ocean
which is deified as, among other Names,
Nit, the Creatrix, all-gendered
Who begat all the world
and can take the form of
the Celestial Cow
which is Nut, the starry heavens,
the uplifted sky arched over
Her lover the earth;

and this enormous divine cow
is also the goddess The Great Flood
and is a form of not only Nut
but also Nit
Who is likewise a form of Nebt-het
and is also the Nun personified;

and so we come full circle,
the proto-ocean Nun
into the creatrix Nit
into the Lady of the House, Nebt-het,
and that House is the sky, Nut.

This post brought to you as part of the Pagan Blog Project.