Just about everyone seems to have dry spells, periods where they have trouble being as immersed in their spirituality as they’d like. Whether it comes about from major life changes, a hectic day-to-day routine, a bout of depression or anxiety or other emotional crash, or just entirely randomly, I’ve heard so many people refer to it happening that I can’t say I feel alone when it hits me.

I lit a candle for Nebt-het today and poured Her Her favorite-so-far drink, and I sat before my shrine and played guitar for Her. I wanted– really, intensely wanted– to feel Her presence as I had before, a tall slender woman in violet-grey with long, cool fingers.

But my head was cloudy, and while I felt strangely certain She was around, I couldn’t for the life of me actually pick up on Her presence with my senses as I normally could. It was hard for me to focus, though I tried.

Instead, I wrote in my prayerbook and prayed over it, sending my words and hopes to Netjer on behalf of other people.

And I want to find other ways I can serve– serve Her, my Mother, serve Netjer, uphold ma’at. I will donate money to causes where I can, I will spread the word when I can, but that feels like the very least I can do, not something that’s really done out of service to Netjer. I want to think about what else I can do, in terms of a short-notice not-formal-volunteering thing. Putting in time at the local shelter or soup kitchen is a wonderful thing, but not something that can be done spontaneously at 11h30 at night, you know?

Is posting on the forums and welcoming my siblings in Kemetic Orthodoxy a service to Netjer? Is praying for the sick, the injured, the passed a service in my Mother’s name, She who is guide to the newly dead and comfort to those grieving? Does it really matter and have an impact when I do these tiny, intangible things? Am I really making the world better, even in the smallest possible way, or am I taking a token action only to make myself feel like I am?

I don’t know the answer. I might never know. But I want to find concretely Good Things to do when I feel the need to offer some part of my time and energy to the world in gratitude for being alive in it.