To the loves of my life,
my Ladies dressed in dusk,
my thousand-blessed Mothers:

I adore You.

Sweep me aloft and lift me to
the sky-Your-body, the sky-Your-home,
so I may breathe the sweet celestial wind
that is Your breath and Your laughter.

Shroud me in shadows that are Your arms
embracing me when my light is
too deep beneath the waves to be gleaned;
enwrap me and keep me from sinking, too.

Hail to my Mothers, my Makers,
the hearts beating beneath the fabric
of the universe that I know
and all the mysteries that I do not.

Dua Nebt-het! Dua Hethert-Nut!

Disclaimer: Herein lies statements of subjective experience, opinions, and selfhood. The generalizations I make are from my personal experience; I am fully aware that your mileage may vary and that no experience or group of people is without flaw. :) This post is not the post I thought it would be, but I think it’s worth sharing anyways, howevermuch I waffled about posting it at all.

It Does Get Better; hell, sometimes, it starts good and goes from there.

I’m queer. I get mistaken for the opposite sex fairly often in person and online, I identify as genderfunky (genderqueer/genderfluid), and I’m pansexual. I have dated males, females, and a genderqueer person who shared my first name. I see gender as an immense, fluctuating, color-wheel-esque spectrum, not a line from girl to boy, and certainly not a binary of yes/no either/or. On any given day, I may be more masculine or more feminine, depending on the onlooker’s gender paradigm and my own shifting nature. Essentially, though, I am always checking the “Other” box when asked to describe myself, and I am very open and “out” about my non-normativity in daily life, including my corporate dayjob in Texas. (Kid you not: I walk into my nine-story office building every day in blue-jeans and a flannel, sporting a mohawk and a scorpion talisman, surrounded by suits and skirts. No one says a word.)

Given my identity and given the gender binary and heteronormativity of many mainstream types of paganism, what’s a queer cat to do?

Well, when I got into Wicca-flavored paganism, I was a teenager and did not identify as genderfunky yet. I identified as a strong young person who wanted to be proud of everything it was, including its sex and gender, and tell you what, Wicca supported me there. Wicca made pure and powerful both genders, both sexes, finding things for men and women to rejoice in and treasure, both in themselves and in those of the opposite sex. People who were not stereotypically girly or boyish still found deities they could jive with and a subculture that was beginning to explore the potential range of gender expressions.

By the time I claimed the label genderfunky, I was away from any particular brand of paganism and following only the goddess Sekhmet. My companions within sight of my winding path were of all sorts, but many or most of them were some kind of queer or queer-supportive, as well as being some kind of pagan. Now, I find myself at home in Kemetic Orthodoxy, where queerness is welcomed with open arms and even our gods show that it’s not all male/female all the time.

I know there are a slew of potential queer pagan issues out there, particularly in traditions/styles/groups that have a strong duality or sex-based roles. I myself just… don’t really run into them. My path is either eclectic and solitary, where I make my own rules and rituals and magic, or I’m participating in a group that doesn’t even bat an eye when I fall outside the typical gender pronouns. This is one of those cases where my matter-of-fact attitude about my honest self-expression feels like an immovable object: I just don’t have any problems with being queer in a pagan world. I am Queer Rock, hear me roll.

Amidst all the uncertainties and challenges surrounding life as queer, it’s kind of nice not to have to fret about how my gender, sexuality, and spirituality mesh. I know plenty of queer pagans have trouble getting all the ducks in a row, and I am nothing but grateful that I’ve somehow avoided most of the jagged rocks. Now, granted, there are plenty of issues with being queer in the secular world, but that’s politics, and I hate talking politics. I’d rather enjoy the fact that the path I walk feels custom-made for the soles of my feet and leave it at that.

To my fellow queer pagans who may feel there is not enough queerness in paganism: roll up your sleeves and dive in. If you can’t find old-school queer deities to suit you, see if there are any new-school ones willing to say hi – or look at those old deities in a new light. Tired of binary rituals for Sabbats and Esbats? Write new ones. Magic and paganism are very personal paths, and there’s nothing really stopping you from customizing it to fit you (short of inflexible rules of a particular tradition). If the Universe gave birth to the full range of human gender identity and sexuality, then we can certainly expand our spirituality to include this variety and diversity.

Being queer, in any crowd, is rarely easy. I’m immensely thankful that, of all the cats I could hang with, pagans are more accepting of my kind of folks than most. Props to all the wonderfully tolerant and supportive people out there, pagan or otherwise, queer or otherwise. You rock.

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

What happens when you combine a thorough guide to sigil theory and construction, my recent-found love of painting, and inspiration from some beautiful handmade magic scrolls?

Well, you get this:

(Left side for color distinction, right side for sheer shininess.)

The first sigil of a shoal that I intend to hang over the painted tapestry that’s over my altar. You’ll notice I used Kalash, my artificial alphabet, instead of English script to create the sigil itself; that’s because I already use Kalash for prayers and charms, and also because it looks really friggin’ cool, especially when I get to arrange the letters artistically like this.

This sigil is for my partner J and I both, but the initial idea was his: he wanted a sigil for “inspired action,” or inspiration with the capacity/willingness to manifest it into reality. The blue is vivid and deep, the primordial waters, cauldron of life; the sigil is in gold, for creativity and molten ore; strands of sacred purple come down from the stars as inspiration, and orange roots snake down to reach the fertile earth below and manifest the ideas.

Working through this has delighted my inner facets of geek in so many ways. Figuring out how to phrase the goal/intention to be linguistically aesthetic in English, psychologically effective, and magically active; using Kalash to make it visually cryptic and elaborate and pleasing to look at; using my knowledge of magical color symbolism and the psychology of color; and then getting to paint it myself! And that’s not even going into any rituals or magic that will be performed over/for the finished painting before I hang it as “active” on my wall. :D

In short, I loved doing this, and I’m eager to do the next!

I’m toying with the idea of posting photos every month of my shrine, just to see how it changes. Right now, it’s had a definite expansion: I oil-painted two small shelves to give me more surface area, which means more of the things inside the altar itself get to be placed in open air.

Here’s the shrine in total; you can see my corkboard up on the wall where I keep my religious/otherwise sacred jewelry when I’m not wearing it, including Sekhmet’s pendant and Serqet’s amulet:

To the left, I’ve added a red-painted shelf for Sekhmet alone, as I have the most icons of Her and I feel they deserve a special place:

To the right, I added a teal-and-purple shelf. I wasn’t sure Who it’d be for while I was painting it, but I knew I wanted a place to showcase my non-Sekhmet, non-RPD gods icons, so here we have Twtw and Renenutet:

I did a second painting recently for Hethert-Nut, which She requested; She liked the first one, but She prefers the iconography of Mehet-Weret, a golden cow with deep blue stars. I added the dark indigo background as tribute to the royal purple color I associate with Her. (Also, as most of my paintings, this one is metallic, so it takes poor photos. Also also, I did not use a reference for the cow shape, which is why She looks slightly deer-like.)

And lastly, I acquired a gorgeous statue of and for Ma’ahes, made by the ever-fabulous Nicolas of Shadow of the Sphinx. (He also made my little Sekhmet votive and both Twtw’s and Renenutet’s statues.) People, if you ever need any Egyptian statuary, go to this artisan first – there is no one better in terms of courtesy, skill, affordability, and receptivity to custom work.

Today I do senut, which I intend to make a regular practice as a full-fledged, formal ritual on the first weekend of every month. In it, I will offer my gods the following, and then ask each of Them for a message concerning the month ahead, via my divination tools (cards or coins, whichever They each prefer).

hetep-di-nisut, an offering which the King gives:

To Sekhmet, I offer Her the red shelf, a sacred place of Her own.

To Nebt-het, I offer a black bone ankh and a stormy grey-violet amethyst.

To Hethert-Nut, I offer Her the second painting, may it please Her, as well as night-sky-with-stars beads I found today.

To Ma’ahes, I offer the lion statue.

To Serqet, I offer a banana-milk smoothie. (Don’t look at me, She requested it.)

To Ma’at, I offer a white bird made of shell.

To Set, in thanks for His oracle assistance, I offer peppered jerky and two slim jims, as promised.

And to my akhu, I offer a painting of us; may I always think of my ancestors fondly. (I will finish it before senut today and post a picture of it later.)

Dua Netjer!

I did this painting of and for my akhu, my ancestors, the blessed dead. It was made with their guidance, which was considerably lighter/subtler than I receive when painting with Netjeru, but I still do feel they had a hand in it. (As usual, forgive the awkwardness that is photographing metallic paints. I swear I will figure out a good way to do that someday.)

Hail akhu, true of voice, shining as stars in the vault of Nut! May you receive a thousand of all good and pure things.

In November, I started my personal prayerbook, a spiral-bound unlined notebook that I filled with the prayers from and for my community, written in a script called Kalash. To date, I have filled over a third of the book; I have just finished doing some major catch-up work that took me over an hour to record. (This means that, my siblings in Kemetic Orthodoxy, if you have requested prayers, I have prayed for you, even if I didn’t leave a comment in the forums.)

More interestingly, though, is that I’ve gone from simply scribing to making it a mini-ritual. Purification requirements are light – clean hands and a clean space – and the tools are simple: a candle, a single offering cup, and incense. I light the incense, light the candle, offer my Mother Nebt-het Her favorite drink, and leave a small bite of chocolate for Netjer. It’s all done at my computer desk instead of my altar; I need the computer to go through the prayer request forums.

And now, instead of simply writing the prayers, I write them and then speak aloud my requests, calling upon the Netjeru in my family to help. I realized, not too long ago, that I essentially have a god for every occasion with me, and it only makes sense to name Them when I pray for others. Nebt-het, guide of the dead, comforter of the mourning. Hethert-Nut, Who provides love and joy. Ma’ahes, protector and upholder of ma’at. Serqet, Who can help with any poison, be it mental, physical, or emotional. Sekhmet, Who is the patron lady of doctors, especially surgeons.

It feels very right to be maintaining my prayerbook this way, involving my gods and making it a mini-rite. I genuinely feel that doing this is an act done in Nebt-het’s name, and that brings me joy and a sense of responsibility and accomplishment.

Dua Netjer! May You hear the words of Your children and bless them.

As a genderfunky and pansexual individual myself, I have a special interest in mythological figures who are also queer in some fashion. To my pleasant surprise, we have several Egyptian gods, or Netjeru, Who have some queerness in Them. This post is meant to be a brief introductions to the ones I know.

Firstly, we have Nit, the Creatrix. Of the handful of primary creator deities in ancient Egypt, Nit was the only one said to be female, but all creator deities are to some extent genderfluid and/or genderless, being gods that have reproduced asexually through various means (masturbation, spit, intentional thought) to create the rest of the gods. Nit Herself, despite being hailed as a goddess, bears the epithet “The Mother and Father of All Things” and has been addressed as “Male Who made female; Female Who made male” at the temples of Esna. She is the God Who bore women and the Goddess Who bore men, and so within Herself contains all sexes, all genders. Nit is said to have created childbirth, and, when referred to as a creatrix, Her name is written with the hieroglyph of an ejaculating phallus. She has been referred to as the deity of the Nun (pronounced noon), the great primordial waters of creation, or as the Nun personified. Another snippet from the Esna inscription reads:

Wide water Who created eternity; water Who made everlastingness;
Who rose in Nun while earth was in darkness.
Living Ancestor, Who had Her origins in Nun, before the creation of Geb and the raising of Nut.
Genetrix, Cobra Who was at the beginning, Mother of time primordial, She Who created Her own birth…

(Geb is the god of the earth; Nut is the goddess of the sky.) For more about Nit, you can read the research I’ve compiled thus far.

Nit has also been identified with/as Nebt-het (Nephthys), Lady of Death. In ancient texts, Nebt-het has been described as being “an imitation woman with no vagina” because of Her barrenness, and She has no children with Her husband, Set, Lord of the Red Desert, which is a striking difference from most Kemetic triads of mother-father-child. Some modern Egyptologists have interpreted Nebt-het as being a lesbian; more to the point, She is sekhyt, a Kemetic word often translated as “eunuch” but more accurately indicates any person who doesn’t fit within the traditional gender roles of male or female, any person who is infertile, and/or a sexless/unsexed person.

That leads us to Nebt-het’s husband and consort, Set, God of Chaos. Set is a highly sexual god; He’s been lured off after Aset (Isis) in guise of a beautiful maiden before, and He’s also tried to seduce Heru-sa-Aset (Horus the Younger), both during the Contendings of Horus and Set, which is the tale of Who would become king after Wesir’s (Osiris’) death. Heru-sa-Aset, in turn, tricked Set into consuming some of His semen on lettuce, also as a part of the Contendings myth. Some Egyptologists suggest Set is strictly homosexual, but He would also be more suited to the term sekhyt, as He’s often considered sterile due to His association with the barren desert, over which He rules. Heru-sa-Aset may or may not be considered bisexual or sekhyt, depending on the source; He does go on to father the four Sons of Heru, showing that He is indeed fertile, but His actions with Set may suggest a bisexual inclination (or just an attempt to gain a political upper hand).

In addition, Hapi, god of the Nile, was a male deity associated with the fertility and life-giving powers of the Nile river; as a result, He was shown as a round-bellied man with full breasts. The breasts may have been symbolic, or He may have been considered a fully hermaphroditic deity, though He did still have a wife.

Fertility was a big deal in ancient Egypt and was the primary requisite for a person receiving the full privileges of womanhood or manhood, but even in the biggest myths, genderbending and alternate sexualities were represented; there’ve also been inscriptions in tombs indicating homosexual relations between men. (I don’t know of any between women; if you do, please share!) Set and Nebt-het, both important deities in Kemet, were sekhyt Netjeru, and all creator deities, especially Nit, held within Them both male and female qualities. If I’ve missed any queer Egyptian gods, please feel free to chime in, or add your opinions/experience with the gods mentioned here!

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

long form

Hail Bast, Lady of the East,
Invisible Paw, Giving All Life.

May I hold infinite patience within my head
and endless compassion within my heart
as I live alongside Your children,
who are not the least of what is Yours,
though they are the smallest.

May I slow down.
May I remember to breathe.
May I treasure each moment,
each touch of fur,
each eager purr,
each sleeping face.

May I always know that it is I
who must hold the space
and provide the structure
that allows them to thrive.
May I always act mindfully
and with gentleness.

May I remember my heart-held duty
as caretaker, as caregiver,
to these who are part of my family,
and may I treat them with the same grace and love
with which You treat Your children,
human and feline alike.

…

short form

May I love my cats as Bast loves Her children.
May I care for my cats as Bast cares for Her children.

Feral is a big word. It means the long-term guest-cat living in our household, who has slowly learned what it means to not hiss and flee from any still object that’s even remotely animal- or person-shaped. It means all the cats and dogs living in urban and suburban areas without human caretakers. It means all the human-brought domesticized animals that got out into the countryside and went native– often ousting truly native species and wrecking ecosystem balance in the process.

Feral means non-human sometimes, or maybe just non-thinking. Instinctive, perhaps even intuitive. Feral is a word that evokes a sense of dangerousness, of unpredictability, of wildness. Feral can bite the hand that feeds and lick it tenderly not a minute later. Feral evades capture. Feral cannot be reached with logic, and only sometimes can it be tempered with the reliable structure that logic can build. One rehabilitates a feral animal in part by providing a secure, unchanging rhythm and structure until it learns it does not need to fear or aggress. Our half-feral girl has come from living on a closet shelf to sleeping on my stomach at night because she learned I don’t react when she hisses; I do not take advantage of her fear or vulnerability, and so I am not a threat. A non-threat may be lived with peaceably; a non-threat may even be trusted.

For me, the word feral overlaps with the word pagan. Both of them speak to less civilization and more nature, more blood and marrow and greenery and sickness and danger and risk. I do not romanticize old days with nonexistant roads, poor or no education, more primitive medicine and surgery, and frequently terrible human rights. But I do see the disconnect from wildness that exists in my urban, civilized, well-educated, sanitized world now. It can be very hard to be feral in healthy ways when everything around you is automated machinery and political maneuvering. It can be very hard to be nature-based pagan when everything around you is plastic and steel and pavement and glass.

I am in some ways feral, a human animal who has not lost its ties to instinct and flesh. I am sometimes-tame, domesticated enough to live in the world we have constructed, civil enough to wish for joy and abundance and love for all people, intelligent enough to understand compassion and justice and social contracts. But beneath this veneer of well-cultured humanity is still an animal seeking to survive the chaos of life in whatever way it can, and I react to trauma like my half-feral cat has reacted to her own, despite all my efforts at cultivating zen within myself.

I seek feralness in others. Most of the heart-deep friends I have understand the nature of the human animal and share it with me, bound to visceral experience and strong instinct and the sense of striving to live, even within our blessedly privileged and safe lives. Most of the gods I follow have feral natures– the keening kite, the roiling black sea, the sunning lion, the hunting lioness, the stinging scorpion, the roaming stallion. The poetry I write drips with imagery for all the senses, and the novels and short stories I craft feature creatures or monsters or shapeshifters of some sort far more often than humans. The media I consume – music, movies, books – revolve around the highlights of feral entities, the struggle to resolve feral nature with compassionate morals, glimpses of things that are not purely human. The martial art I study seeks to train the instinct to react appropriately, knowing the body can move so much more quickly than the mind in a hot situation, knowing the body is its own kind of animal.

I have said before that I love Celtic paganism and my Kemetic path in very different ways. Kemeticism is the sun upon my skin, the wind and light through clean branches, the warmth of the working day when words are said clearly and things are built strongly. But in Celticism are my roots, deep within the loamy soil, untouched by sight and light, coiling and winding, drinking deep of the world and its marrow, full of blood and spit and sweat and hairs. When I engage with Celtic gods and Celtic paganism, I do so as a feral human animal; when I act as a Kemetic, I do so from the higher faculties that I possess, logic and structure and order and reason. This does present unique challenges, such as finding it difficult to intellectually study Celtic history and mythos as I have Kemeticism, such as finding it difficult to interact with my human ancestors within a non-feral Kemetic framework. The dynamic between feral and not-feral feels like the twisting spiral of my very DNA, the centerpoint around which all of my work – physical, spiritual, and creative – revolves.

Much like I need both animal nature and human intelligence to call myself a human animal, I need both Celtic and Kemetic nourishment for my spirit to truly thrive.

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

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

So, has anyone else ever meditated to Tool’s Parabol + Parabola?

Click here to hear both songs together.

parabol

so familiar, and overwhelmingly warm
this one, this form I hold now

embracing you, this reality here
this one, this form I hold now

so wide-eyed, and hopeful
wide-eyed, and hopefully wild

we barely remember
what came before this precious moment

choosing to be here, right now
hold on, stay inside

this body, holding me
reminding me that I am not alone

this body
makes me feel eternal
all this pain is an illusion

parabola

we barely remember who or what came before this precious moment
we are choosing to be here, right now
hold on, stay inside
this holy reality, this holy experience
choosing to be here in

this body
this body holding me
be my reminder here that I am not alone in
this body
this body holding me
feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion

alive

in this holy reality, in this holy experience
choosing to be here in

this body
this body holding me
be my reminder here that I am not alone in
this body
this body holding me
feeling eternal, all this pain is an illusion

twirling ’round with this familiar parable
spinning, weaving ’round each new experience
recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this
chance to be alive and breathing
a chance to be alive and breathing

this body holding me reminds me of my own mortality
embrace this moment
remember, we are eternal
all this pain is an illusion

When I was just getting into paganism, I created prayers to say on awakening and just before sleeping. It was a really enjoyable, beneficial habit, and I’m going to try to re-establish that. Here are the prayers I’ll be using, with some flexibility in the adjectives I choose and any specific gods I may mention.

…

morning

Good morning, Universe and all within it.
Thank You for my rest and my dreams
and for the zep-tepi of a new day.
May today be positive and productive;
may I walk with Ma’at in compassion and peace.
Kheperu, so may it become. Dua Netjer!

…

evening

Good night, Universe and all within it.
Thank You for all the good things of today
and for all the souls I am blessed to know.
May my sleep be restful, my dreams enjoyable,
and my awakening pleasant and timely.
Kheperu, so may it become. Dua Netjer!

This post is much more of a thought-seed than an essay, so please treat it as such; I lack conclusions. :)

In Hemet’s booklet Nebt-het: Lady of the House, she states:

Nebt-het, or nb.t-hw.t, means “lady of the house” or “lady of the mansion/temple,” as hw.t represents a more formal structure than does the usual pr, “house.”

…

Some Egyptologists suggest that the “house” in the name Nebt-het should have the same, celestial-oriented meaning as does the “house” (hw.t) in the name of the goddess Hethert (Greek Hathor, Kemetic hwt-hr), but Nebt-het does seem to have a very intimate connection with humanity and not just the sky. In this regard, I believe the celestial component is interesting … but unnecessary for an understanding of Her nature.

Given that my Mothers are Nebt-het Herself and Hethert-Nut, Hethert-as-the-sky, Hethert-the-Celestial-Cow, I am quite interested in this potential connection created by the hw.t, “-het,” in both Their names.

And since yesterday was a holy day for Tasenetnofret, The Good Sister, Whose name is one of Nebt-het’s epithets and yet Who is a form of Hethert, well…

I have to wonder where these two great goddesses might touch or even overlap each other. Nebt-het, goddess of death, guide to the souls of the passed and comforter to those mourning, and Hethert, lady of joy and love and music, in Her form of Hethert-Nut, the great cow of the night sky, upholder of the Sun Himself. Netjeru of the firmaments and all the souls and stars within them. Perhaps it was even Hethert-Nut Herself Who established that the house of the gods was within the sky, when She lifted Ra away from humanity on Earth so that He could watch from a safe distance.

And where Hemet mentions Nebt-het’s intimate connection to humanity, well, I cannot say that Hethert lacks such a connection – She, the Lady of love and pleasure and happiness, which we humans seek out and delight in! Hethert, Who ancient Egyptians praised as one of their foremost goddesses! And if Hethert is still a sky goddess in Her own right, especially in Her name of Hethert-Nut, then surely Nebt-het can also be part of the heavens without being distant from us. Besides, Nebt-het has been an Eye of Ra before, a fierce daughter of the sun, and all the Eyes have always been celestial, too.

So, perhaps it is not such a far stretch to see that Hethert-Nut and Nebt-het can meet in the darkness and depth of the sky, these ladies of life and death, sun and shadow.

edited to add:

According to the 2010 edition of the Nebt-het booklet mentioned above, there is, in fact, a syncretization of these goddesses! Hethert-Nebthet is listed as a Hierakonpolis Netjeru, and Nebthet-Hethert is the Lady of the House of the Sistrum, one of the Seven Hetherts/Hathors. The latter is especially fascinating to me, given that Nebt-het was the first deity I ever played music for, let alone created original music for!

And, from the preface to the 2010 edition, I now find these very relevant lines:

Nebt-het is the Lady of the House. The House is the sky, the place where ancestors shine down from as the twinkling stars, to watch all we do and guide us through our human lives.

Indeed, it looks like the sky is the common ground for Nebt-het, Hethert, and Nut, all the ladies Whom I call Mother. :)