Pop Culture Paganism.

Disclaimer: This is one of those posts that will piss someone off, somewhere.

My son has this really ridiculous habit of requesting people refraining from doing something because he doesn’t like it. My son is five, so I get these ridiculous requests quite often. In every instance, I’m sure to say a variant of the following, “Is it hurting you? Is it hurting other people?” The answer, in each case, is that whatever he wants someone to stop doing is definitely not hurting him or anyone else he knows. It is at that point that I point out to him that not only is whatever it is not hurting him, but that it doesn’t impact him in any way. He gets the point but the ultimate lesson of “mind yo’ beeswax” is kind of lost on him because he’s five.

The reason I mention this is because this is all I can see with the sudden influx of pop culture paganism (henceforth, PCP) debates goin’ round the blogosphere. In those instances, I am instantly thrown back to a moment where I am continuously attempting to teach my son to mind his own business. Whenever someone starts waving around, pointing fingers, and generally being an asshole about PCPs and their practice, this is all I can see and think. However, instead of an adorable five-year-old’s face with two missing front teeth, I see the pagan sphere as a kind of overblown version of that iconic movies scene of torches and pitchforks, each citizen intent on catching Frankenstein’s monster. Only in this instance, the form of this legendary beast has suddenly taken the form of the not-so-mythic pop culture pagans (henceforth, PCPs) and the egregore that they have relationships with.

So, someone please explain to me how in the world whatever they are practicing is bringing harm to the very people so outspoken against it? Someone please explain to me how in the world whatever they are practicing is bringing harm to the pagan hemisphere in any context? If I were in an auditorium, I would literally poll every single person sitting in front of me. Unless PCPs’ practices are going to cause imminent danger to you or to someone you know, then frankly, shut the fuck up about it. I hate to break it to everyone whining against the practices therein but since they are not going to bring harm to you or to others, then they are not doing a damn thing that impacts you in any way, shape, or form. And as I tell my kid on a nearly daily basis, “Mind yo’ beeswax.”

We are fighting so hard against each other that we are forgetting that there are more important things at stake than who can or should practice what. We are so focused on the in-fighting between ourselves that we forget that we should be uniting and presenting that united face against the world at large. We are already considered crazy by many and child-molesting, animal-sacrificing dunderheads at worst. And yet, we can’t even unite long enough to win any form of legitimate acceptance in the world, at large. There are still people who are having their homes attacked as well as people who have been killed for being a practicing pagan. And yet, those of us who are privileged enough to live in an area of the world where a general acceptance of our practices are so fucking focused on PCPs and what they do that they need to write endlessly long, rambling, wordy posts about it?

Get the fuck over yourselves.

Get the fuck over the fact that people are different.

Get the fuck over the fact that each person can practice in their own way.

By excluding an entire section of paganism, you are doing the community you are praising so highly a severe disservice. Not only are you, possibly, pushing away future converts to paganism who are interested in PCP, but you are also removing the very real possibility of another part of the community that you may actually need some day. One day, we may all get together and start demanding that we be taken seriously, with placards waving and legal protests organized against the Christianization of a nation that was not founded on any one religion. And the pagan with the placard beside you may just end up being one of those PCPs you’ve been ranting and raving about on the Internet. No imagine that fake protest without them there, another sect pulls up stakes and disavows its pagan roots because too many assholes made them feel unwanted in a fractured, immature community that is nowhere near where it should be.

Those PCPs that you are busy offending could be the very reason we get accepted as a legitimate religion, one day.

Not only are you behaving childishly, clique-like, and foolishly when you are so busy ranting about what they do, which is not hurting you, but you are bringing to mind a very “interesting” subsection of American culture. They are also very exclusionary… They wear ugly white robes and have a thing for placing burning crosses on people’s lawns. I’ll let you think about my vague metaphor a moment and then mention yet another exclusionary branch of humanity. They also wore pointy hats, but their uniforms tended toward green and they had a thing about racial purity. Only instead of placing burning crosses on people’s lawns, they killed millions of whomever they deemed as undesirable.

While I would like to assume that my fellow pagan “community” wouldn’t go so far as all of that, one never knows. The propaganda against PCPs and their practices has already been written. The nasty PR is already gumming up the works and painting what was once a clear issue – don’t be a dick – with Vaseline and smearing it all up to hell. And all because a bunch of people don’t particularly care for how someone else practices their religion. (As someone from Massachusetts, I have to admit that this story sounds oh, so familiar. I wonder why.)

And as I made it quite clear in my head covering post about the drama from last year,

I came into paganism because I was sick and tired of the Abrahamic faiths making decisions about me and my body and my soul without my consent. Yep. That’s why I started out down this road. I loved the freedom that I’ve learned and discovered in paganism. And now as time goes by, I find myself more and more not wanting to do anything in this “community” because it’s turning into the exact same shit as I found when I was a fucking Christian. Before I know it, I’m going to have BNPs (big name pagans) telling me if I can get an abortion, use birth control, vote for the next presidential candidate, etc. And that really just doesn’t fly with me. The whole point, to me, in this practice is to be able to do what I decide is proper in my spiritual practice. And if that means that I feel the need to wear a white bandana on my head when I’m communing with the lwa, then so be it. If that means that I have to go running around naked under the full moon, then so be it. If that means that I have to tap dance to the National Fucking Anthem while touching my nose and patting my stomach, then so be it. This is my religious path and what I do is my fucking business. That’s what makes it MINE.

And that goes for anybody else who is a practicing pagan.

Their path, their rules.

So, metaphoric pagan police, just stop worrying about how this portrays the “community at large.” There isn’t a fucking community, at large. If we’re all so worried about what the hell other people are doing in their practice, long enough to write those blog entries about it, then we’re forgetting that we should be out doing instead of thinking. If we’re all so worried about what’s going on in the obviously fulfilling practice of those PCPs, then we’re forgetting about what the hell we need to do for our own practices. By writing all of those damn words lambasting a sub sect of paganism, then there are some things that your practice are not fulfilling since you can spend that much time being worried about public sentiment and others’ belief systems.

Get over yourselves.

Stop thinking about what other people are doing.

Stop worrying about how that may, one day, impact you.

If you’re so interested in community, foster one instead of being a dick wheel to someone who you don’t like or whose practice differs so largely for your own.

Get off your high horse and go do something productive for once.

And above all, don’t forget that their religious practice in their own and impacts you in no way.

Their path, their rules.

That’s Faith.

One of the things that no one will ever tell you about having a religion is that it is easy. They will never sit down and tell you that if you do X,Y, and Z then everything will work out perfectly, the way you hope it will. This is because religion, no matter the flavor, is not easy. Instead of a pretty path, walking through the forest with flowers in bloom and birds flying overhead, you will end up in a rocky outcropping and be forced to climb a cliff face. The thing is that it’s a matter of maintaining a certain status quo between constantly doubting that this all is really happening to you and constantly believing that this is all really happening to you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about doubt lately because lately, I’ve been doubting. Since Hetheru showed up to talk to me about beauty, I’ve been doubting everything. I’m always doubting, anyway, but there are days where that doubt is stronger than others. Don’t get me wrong because I honestly think doubting is a good idea. I tend to equate it along the lines with discernment, the fun and exciting word that consistently makes its rounds amid the pagan blogs. If you throw yourself wholeheartedly into a religious practice, then part of that wholehearted toss will end up being doubt. I think we, as pagans and polytheists, go through this right alongside the Christians and the Jews. I think they doubt, just as we do. None of us happen to know what’s right and what’s wrong concretely and we probably will never have concrete proof of things.

That’s faith.

The thing about faith is that it can be very difficult to maintain. Sometimes, I think that what we term as “faith” is really like a flowering plant. And sometimes, the flowers are full and in bloom and you just know that everything you are going through is incredibly real. But, on other days, the blooms don’t open in the sunshine and maybe it starts to look a little wilted because you haven’t been paying as much attention to it lately. And that’s when the doubt really starts to eat away at you, both your mind and your soul. It can get kind of heavy – doubt – and then it comes down to what the next step is. You can continue to doubt or you can get right back in there and start maintaining your plant of faith again in the hopes that everything will go back to how it used to be.

A while back, I was reading a post on Dver about how when things turn really bad, we tend to turn away from our religion. That post, Do Not Stop Your Devotions, is something that I think about a lot, especially as I’m in the middle of one of my heavy doubt sessions. I can be in the middle of doubting every single ounce of my religion, but if I can just keep doing all the things that I do on a daily and/or weekly basis while I’m doubting, then I think I will get through it. I used to, I’ll admit, just stop doing everything whenever doubt would overpower me and I would lie, crying, on the floor about how I’m obviously insane and everything I think, feel, and know is actually a product of my imagination. After reading that post, though, I realized that it didn’t matter how much doubt I was going through: I had to keep going.

That’s faith.

I know this is from a movie, but it always stayed with me. I don’t remember what movie this is from (so if anyone else knows, can they let me know?), but there was discussion about those who have the deepest faith in something can sometimes be afflicted with the worst doubt. That’s not really how it was portrayed or discussed in the movie, but that’s the message I gleaned from whatever the hell the conversation was about. (Is this from Stigmata, maybe?) I just remember sitting back and thinking for a long time about how having faith can be intertwined so heavily with doubt and that the more faith you have, the more you can be racked with heart-wrenching doubt.

Ask any one who knows me on a personal level – I have a large influx of faith. The faith that I had eschewed in high school and beyond has filled me up, ten to fifteen years later. I can remember not having any faith in anything and never really doubting. Now, though, I have faith in my gods, in my religious path, in my astral life, in the lessons I’m learning. And in this constant faith, I am now constantly and horrifically assailed with this doubt. Though I am not like the saint who decided to probe the wounds of Jesus Christ on the cross, in a way, it could be said to be similar. Only instead of probing wounds inflicted upon the living son of the Christian god, I am probing my own wounds in not having concrete evidence that what I do, what I learn, and what I believe is true.

That’s faith.

Just as putting together a stack of blocks can be a process, so too is having faith. While my son will build huge, large, flying structures across the living room carpet for me, I am busy building the faith that I have in everything that I do and everything that I believe in. My blocks may fall over, just as my son’s do. And that process is one of doubt. In that moment, I will have to rebuild whatever it is that I was building in the first place, just as my son does. And it can be frustrating, irritating, and a back-breaking process. As the screams and stamps of frustration of my son suppose, building the structure of blocks back up to what we had in our mind’s eye is something that is not even remotely easy. Especially when you place that one last block in the absolute perfect place, only to have it tumble down around your feet [again].

But, having faith is a process. It’s a long process. It’s a hard process. You are assailed on all sides by things that would tear down your sturdy structure. Sometimes the things that assail that faith is yourself. Sometimes the things that assail that faith are outsiders, peering in. Sometimes the things that assail that faith are personal tragedies. Sometimes the things that assail that faith are personal goals achieved. Whatever it is that is scaling your fortress of solitude’s walls in an attempt to cause doubt doesn’t really matter. What does matter is, even amid the frustration and anger, you are still willing to attempt to build that wall, that structure back up again. What does matter is, even amid all the frustration and anger, you are still willing to give that little faith-plant love and tender care as you try to nurse it back to health.

That’s faith.

An Exploration in Beauty.

Yesterday morning, I got to explore all types of beauty while driving to work.

Some days, I spend my drives to work marveling about things or having deep, philosophical conversations with my gods. On other days, I just ignore everything while I focus a little too much on the fact that I am driving. Yesterday, I chose to focus on the fact that Hetheru is in my life and more often than not, I don’t know why. I know the original reason, but she has stuck around through all of my sobbing, whining, and refusing to do what she wanted of me (and doing it anyway under the mantle of her sister-self, Sekhmet). But she is the complete antithesis to who I am, honestly. She collects things and they’re not like two or three bookcases of books or sets of divination cards out the wazoo. She collects things like beauty products, and sparkly rocks, and seashells. None of these things, if you look at me or even know me, are things that would even remotely equate to who I am, in any form. So, why does she hang around? What’s the point?

While mulling over the fact that I have a main deity in my life who has never really, overtly, explained why she’s here, I began catching flickers of color from the corner of my eyes. No big deal – I was driving and most of the area that I was driving through is flush with spring’s first blush. However, green and white and pink do not equate to gold and red. So, as I turned my head to glance into my passenger seat, thinking I was going crazy, there was a goddess sitting there. She stared at me with gentle eyes and she was… breath-taking. It was as though I was looking at that man who got kicked out of that Middle Eastern country for being too beautiful? Only instead of a male body, it was a female body. And she was wearing a white, thin sheath with golden bangles down her wrist that clacked together when she moved her wrist.

And her movements… they were every ounce of grace that I had ever seen in ballet performances. She moved with an economical intent, making sure that each movement of her arm or positioning of her body was bringing her more and more fully into focus. As I kept glancing over to see her, I couldn’t help but realize just how beautiful she actually was. I had envisioned a perfect paradigm of earthly and unearthly beauty, but I was getting something that tugged at heart-strings and made me feel oh, so inadequate. With each second she was in my car, she shimmered from corporeal to thought-form and back again. I was pretty sure I was crazy, so it stood to reason that she would start talking.

“You’re beautiful, too, you know,” she says softly. Her bangles slide up and down her arm as she reaches out to touch my forearm.

I glance down at the paunch leftovers of bearing a child and of not bothering to work out, of eating what I want, and usually not caring. “I hardly think we could both be classified as beautiful. You are the epitome therein. I am just… something that generally alludes to a feminine splendor that doesn’t deliver and you are the actuality of that splendor.”

She giggles. “You are beautiful. You bear the hallmark, the badges of creating life and bringing it into this world.”

I touch that paunch and think about the nine months of horror and of joy at having my son growing in there. I think about the days when his kicking and tumbling about were the most exciting things in the world. I think back to the bitchiness and grouch of demanding him out every five minutes in the last month. “Being a mom… that’s not beauty. Butterflies are beautiful. Flowers are beautiful.”

“You are wrong. You are beautiful because you are a mom. You are beautiful because you wear the badges of honor for being a mom.” I mull that over for a minute while she says, “And you are beautiful because you are human. All humans are beautiful.”

“Hardly,” I retort.

“If they have a heart, then they are beautiful,” she says.

I thought about this statement for a long while. What was it about humans that could equate them all to being beautiful, no matter the outer shell they reside within, if they had a heart? By her statement, one could assume that no matter the doings that may stain that heart, then a human was still beautiful. Or, maybe it was because we were given free will to preserve a heart that does not weigh more than the feather of ma’at, then we are beautiful because of that? I honestly tried to pick the meaning. Was it just because I had a heart that made me beautiful? Or was it because I could make decisions to preserve the perfection of that heart so that the feather weighs as much as my ib?

In all honesty, such philosophical tripe isn’t normally my repertoire as I drive the forty-five minutes to work in the morning. But, Hetheru – and the other netjer, to be honest – have this habit of forcing your mind outside of its usual trappings. Instead of mulling over what to make for dinner when I got home and what my first plan (that never ends up happening) to get moving on when I got to work, I was trying to figure out what it was about humans having a heart that made them all beautiful. In a manner of speaking, I got it. It was a message of not paying attention to what’s on the outside, but what is on the inside. But, she was saying all humans and not all of them were nice people with good hearts.

Then again, maybe she didn’t think those kinds of people even had hearts anymore.

Or, maybe, once a human being stains their heart with a failure to live in ma’at, they are forfeit in her thought processes.

I went back to the whole being beautiful because we had hearts thing, trying to figure out what it was about my heart that made me beautiful. Or what it was about Joe Blow’s heart that would make him beautiful.

“You’re over-thinking this,” she says to me, finally. She breaks my concentration with her words. She points to a man in the distance. He wears a day-glo green shirt as he rides a mower, doing his job in the morning sunlight. “He is beautiful. Now tell me why.”

I had no clue. I had no idea why a man, mowing a lawn and doing his job, was beautiful.

“He is providing. Providing for oneself and one family – that is beautiful.”

If I was reading into this conversation correctly, then she was telling me that what we do because of our hearts is what makes us beautiful.

“You’re still over-thinking this,” she says. Sighing, she turns to look out into the world around us. We are driving down past the correctional facility. There is a giant, barren field of grass on the right and the soccer field the man is mowing on our left. She points at the barren field, “That is beautiful, too. It has a heart and it is beautiful.”

“All nature is beautiful – wild or ordered,” I reply, on much firmer ground here.

“That building is beautiful,” she says to me. It is the face of a mechanic. It is brown with white lettering. There are cars littering the front parking lot and the sign out front is in some need of repair. It is quaint, to me, more than beautiful but I love architecture – all kinds. I am on even firmer ground here. I agree that architecture and that building is beautiful. Smiling, she points to a yellow sign. “That sign is beautiful.”

I am tempted to stop the car, but I do not. The sign is that glittery yellow they use for road signs. In the center of it, there is a man on a horse. A forewarning that we are entering a countryside where people own horses and ride them in public places. “That sign is beautiful because… why?”

“Humans made it with a purpose. That purpose was for good – they wanted to let people know that there were horses and riders in the area and to be aware so that no harm will come to anyone. That purpose is a good purpose. That sign is beautiful.”

Driving further down the road, I started to look for things that she would tell me were beautiful. It was easy to pick out things that were obvious. The over-sized rocks in the middle of people’s lawns, placed in a carefully manicured subplot were beautiful. Someone had taken the time and energy and forethought to work that rock, either because it was already there or with its being placed their intentionally, to landscape their front yard. Not only was the pattern of the red and green plants surrounding it beautiful, but the person who had worked on that project was beautiful. Whether it was the homeowners themselves or a professional landscape artist who had done it, it didn’t matter. They had worked something beautiful into the world with their intention and that was beautiful.

But, I was putting off the inevitable. The inevitable was that I would have to start finding things that didn’t seem to go hand-in-hand with beauty to make my goddess happy. She didn’t just want me to think about nature as being beautiful, though I do strongly ascribe to the principle that all nature – both ugly and clean, both ordered and chaotic – is beautiful. She wanted me to think outside of that beauty box like she had with her horse riding sign.

I began really looking. I looked at the street lights coming up a they switched from red to green. I continued driving at my speed as I tried to find a reason why those lights were beautiful. In same vein to the road sign with the rider on it, they were beautiful because human beings had made them with the intent of keeping the rest of humanity safe. Along the same lines, I could assume that the cars we were all driving, with their pollution and their break downs and their flats and their loud mufflers and their talking-on-cell-phones-illegally drivers, were all beautiful, too.

“But that’s a little different,” she says. “Humans create things to make their lives easier. They made the wheel to help transport things more easily. That is beauty, too, but cars aren’t just beautiful because of the assembly line someone made in Detroit for that car. They are beautiful because they have a heart, too. Just like you and me and your son and the dog, just like the trees and the flowers and the clouds. Everything has a little bit of a heart in it but a car’s heart is part the car and part the human who loves it.”

We were discussing animism, I was pretty sure. There’s been a sudden burst in urban paganism lately, on Tumblr, so I was passingly familiar with this. It was after reading Zenith’s entry about cars that really nailed home for me the types of personalities each person can have with their electronic items. And I knew the personality of my car – Olga – even prior to reading that entry. (It was only after that entry that I began paying attention to the personalities associated with my laptop and my tablet.) And since I had no doubt about the personality of my car – old, tired, doggedly attempting to keep up her fighting weight – it stood to reason that every other car on the road would have a type of personality, too.

And those personalities could be part owner and part the car’s own.

On firmer ground, I was able to tell Hetheru about how and why Olga was beautiful. In same vein, I was able to explain why Dell, my aging laptop who has the same dogged personality as my car, is beautiful. (What? I’m not so original with naming my electronics – sorry.) I was able to explain why all the cars on the road were beautiful. I was able to point out what made them beautiful and what made them unique. I was getting into the exercise of this exploration on beauty. I was able to give her satisfactory answers and I was able to point out houses, signs, 18-wheelers, and depict why they were beautiful in the eyes of this goddess.

She smiled with each passing answer, pleased that I was finally getting the hang of what she was trying to teach me.

“You are beautiful because of your relationship with TH,” she says, out of left field.

I clam up, deep inside, not willing to discuss this. I could not bring myself to say anything on my relationship with TH at the moment. It did not seem like there was anything beautiful, right now, with my relationship with TH. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.

“You love him. You love him so foolishly and stupidly and that is beautiful. You would fight for anything he asked you to fight for. You would protect and cut out the eyes of anyone who would dare destroy your family, even if that person is you or TH. You are beautiful because you love, head over heels, deep emotional love, for that man even with all the problems you two have lived through.

“You are not just beautiful because you are a mom.

“You are beautiful because you love selflessly.”

I could feel myself choking up. To hear from one of my gods that I am beautiful because I love a man who drives me insane some days and who makes me happy on others was nice, if a little painful. I knew that if we continued this conversation, I may cry. The music on the radio was in line with the revelations that she was telling me. And even though, in a secret part of myself, I knew how much I loved that man and even though we continue to have the same old problems, I’m not willing to give up. I’m not willing to just walk away because nothing ever appears to change or because we end up in a new batch of shit-fry. I just keep it going and going because I love and I don’t give up.

“You are beautiful because of your relationship with the Sister, too,” she says to me. I shake my head, not willing to discuss this further. I did not want to talk about my interpersonal relationships at the moment. I wasn’t willing to go further with this conversation, but that was quite all right. To a goddess, it did not matter if the person they were speaking to was willing to continue the conversation. They would talk and that person would listen, whether they really wanted to or not.

“You know you are beautiful because of your friendship with her. You are beautiful because of all that you have done for her.”

The message was clear: it was the part of ourselves that we put into things that makes us beautiful.

So, endeth the lesson.

Akhu Veneration for the Recently Deceased: Deities To Help Deal With Grief.

As I’ve tried to remain the stalwart island of calm for the last six days amid the grief of TH’s family at the loss of his maternal grandfather, I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my veneration of my akhu. As everyone has attempted to handle their grief in the ways that are socially acceptable – most notably, drinking a lot more than usual – I’ve been having those thoughts about how, one day soon, I am going to be the person who requires an island of radiating calm when my maternal grandfather goes into the West. As I sat in the chapel at the veteran’s cemetery, fervently praying that the netjeri in the Duat would grant the deceased a reprieve for not knowing the proper spells and incantations and names, I realized that one day, I will be hoping and praying for that for my grandfather. And it is quite possible that those prayers will be sooner as opposed to later, for me, as my grandfather is older than both of TH’s grandfathers were when they past. I knew, as I prayed and as I thought, that what I’ve been doing for my akhu has no equal to what I will have to do when it is my turn to cry in front of family at the loss of my patriarch.

My akhu veneration has little to do with the intense grief that can impact people when they have a loss. I found this out, acutely, at the loss of Sweet Pea. I was the only one who was really upset with her loss. I was, also, the only person who has grieved for her. No one else has thought of her with fondness or with sadness. No one else has called out to a dog who will not answer me [on this plane of existence] anymore. No one else can even remotely claim that they fell to the floor, wracked with sobs at her loss. When I went through that first touch of grief the week, or so, after her death, I spent a lot of my time on the floor, curled into a ball and sobbing in that ugly way while trying to prevent my current dog from licking my face. (I will give this to Jasmine: she sure knows how to pull you out of ugly sobs.)

With the loss of Sweet Pea, I felt that I had nothing and nowhere to turn to with my grief. I did not have anyone, really, around me who would understand or care how I felt. I didn’t have a god, ready to go, for just such an occasion. I walked around in a daze of pure emotion, being unable to reconcile the overwhelming pains of guilt, grief, and horror at the loss of a dog who had been my closest companion for the last nine years. And I know, deep down, that the loss of my maternal grandfather will elicit about the same amount of emotional gulag as the loss of Sweet Pea had done.

It’s difficult for me, working as heavily as I do with the akhu of this area and remaining in semi-constant contact with my into-the-west family members, to admit that at the actual moment of loss, of grief, I don’t know where to turn. I know exactly who I need to speak with and in regards to what when I’m in the graveyards. I know how to pass honor to and who to leave some offerings for when I’m there. I know what to do and when to do when someone is already dead, but when they’ve only just recently become that way…? When someone you love, whether of the animal or human persuasion, is gone from you… who do you turn to?

I’ve been looking into the mythologies a little bit in an effort to solidify this portion of my practice. While turning to any one deity will not be the totality of akhu veneration for the recently deceased, it’s a good place to begin. Plus, not only would I like to be able to handle my grief willingly and capably and constructively by turning to deities adequate to handle such things, but I’d also like to have this benefit put together if and when my son has to go through loss of this nature. I would like to also be able to give people somewhere to turn when they are going through these losses and feelings. So, as I’ve looked into some of the mythologies, I’ve compiled a sort of go-to list of various deities who would be able to assist us with grief specifically borne out by the loss of a loved one.

I think one of the best deities we, as humans, can turn to in our hourweeks of grief would be Aset. Of all the deities in the Kemetic pantheon, there are very few deities who have had to contend with grief on the level that she has. Not only did she have to suffer the loss of her husband and the desecration of his corpse, she also had to hide the birth of her son only to finally watch both her son and her brother duke it out, so to speak, over who would rule the land of Kemet. To know grief is to live with that grief and while she is a goddess, and perhaps far more capable of handling her feelings than we, she must have still known such intense emotions at all of the happenings in her life. Aset is a goddess who knew grief and managed to come out of the other side of her grief to become mother to the ruler of Egypt.

In same vein, we could easily turn to her sister, Nebt-het, in our time of grief, as well. While she would also be a good goddess to go to for difficulties with the spouse – as she must have had numerous difficulties, lying to Sutekh while she helped her sister raising Heru without his knowledge – she was also there to aid her sister with her grief over the loss of Wesir and the finding of Wesir. Both she and Aset are depicted on either end of a deceased’s bier, attending to them prior to their resurrection. Professional mourners in ancient Egypt were associated with Nebt-het as she was a goddess of mourning. She knows what it is like to have pain and grief mixed together, and she, along with her sister, would be ample in assisting in the dealing with one’s grief.

Sutekh could be a deity to turn to when the grief is in relation to, possibly, the loss of a brother. Even though he is the reason he lost that brother in the first place, he still had to have felt some grief at the loss, itself. While I’ll not air my thoughts on Sutekh’s role in the Osirian Myth Cycle or the Contendings, he knows grief even if he is the cause of said grief. Not only would he be an appropriate deity while in mourning for the loss of a family member, but many of his followers tend to see him as a deity who oversees the grief-stricken and the lost. In this capacity, he can easily be a deity to turn to while in the thick of things, barely able to function because you’ve lost someone whom you love so very much.

Heru-sa-Aset would also be an appropriate choice to work with in the stages of grief. While he may specialize in the grief one feels over the loss of a parent, he would still be an appropriate choice for any type of grief. And as a deity who lost his father, and yet was able to overcome that grief in order to overtake his uncle and become king, he may be one of the best choices, right along side Aset. While we do not see a constructive and healthy way of maintaining our grief and working through it in relation to Sutekh and Nebht-het, we do see it with both Heru-sa-Aset and his mother. They were both able to feel the deep, ragged hole of loss and overcome it to live their lives as they should have been lived without the loss that triggered the myth cycle.

UPG Alert Sekhmet is, also, a goddess who would be capable of helping to aid one through the grief cycle. While personal experience has shown that she’s not always the type of person who will pat you on the back or curl up around you when you’re having those ugly sobs due to loss, she is capable of helping to teach you how to transmute your pain into a healing experience. There have been, as I’ve said before, numerous times where I have curled up around the base of her altar, crying for the things that I have lost over the years. While these items aren’t necessarily related to death and dying, it is still grief that I have shown her. And even though she hasn’t done the things I’ve requested – made me feel better with attentive pats on the back or curled into a lion pile of pain – she has still assisted me, gladly, in the process of my grief. /UPG

You will notice that I have left out the two gods we oft associate with the Duat and death: Anup and Wesir. Both of these deities are intimately involved in the Duat and the rebirth of the deceased. And while I think it is completely possible and probable that these two deities would be helpful in grief management, I tend to view them in other roles that I will discuss in future posts.

And besides, these five deities are only recommendations and suggestions.

Each Kemetic has a set group of deities that they turn to. And I do not deny that turning to the gods that you work with the most would be another appropriate response when in mourning. However, these suggestions are for those of us who, maybe, freeze up and feel a little lost when it comes to handling grief. These are possibilities for forging new relationships when in need. These are possibilities for that moment when, after you learn that someone has gone into the west, you freeze and are unable to think properly. Even though I work with two out of the five suggestions, I still have felt like I’ve been unable to walk over to the appropriate altars and say, “Help me.”

While that is an issue I’ve discussed in “Grief of an Akhu Venerator” and an issue that I am still working on, personally, it is something to keep in mind for future moments when I will be put into this situation again. I have gods that I work with who are both capable and probably willing to assist me when I call out, in need of some assistance. And there are other deities to turn to, should I feel the need to find a deity who has felt as I do because they have gone through similar circumstances. Freezing up and not reaching out to gods is not a solution – it is a problem. And hopefully, with an arsenal at my disposal, I’ll be less likely to do so in future.

The Hekatean Prayer and Ritual Book: Call for Submissions

Reblogged from The Crossroads Companion:

Since doing Hoofprints in the Wildwood, I've been wanting to do a devotional for Hekate. However, there are so many Devotionals out there for her already most notably by Avalonia and B.A. So I've decided not to do a devotional proper, but rather a Hekatean Prayer and Ritual book, which I think there is much need for. This will be a book of prayers and rituals only, with images for meditational use.

Read more… 441 more words

A call for submissions from all those people who work with Hekate.

Kemetic Round Table: Heka.

The Kemetic Round Table (KRT) is a blogging project aimed at providing practical, useful information for modern Kemetic religious practitioners. For all the entries relating to this particular topic, take a peek here.

Side note: As with ma’at being a concept and a deity, so are heka, hu, and sia. Let’s talk about the concepts.

One of the most difficult parts about working with a religion that’s been dead for millennia is trying to puzzle out some of the most basics of basics. It doesn’t help that the only aspects of the religion that we can build from are from leftovers from priesthoods that are long since over, especially since not every single one of us want to rebuild a priesthood but just a functional practice for the layman. We have to rely, heavily, on academic books that may be overly dry and boring, enough to make your eyes glaze over when you attempt to read them. Another problem is that this particular religion is definitely outside of a Western thinker’s framework. We come into these ancient religion with our preconceived notions of definitions and beliefs, bringing holdovers from monotheistic religions in a lot of cases. It can be one of the hardest things when you’re going along and finally decide to ponder the meaning behind important concepts like ma’at and heka without much of a jumping off point.

As I had stated in my initial Kemetism is Orthopraxic post, I have had exceedingly difficult times with figuring out what ma’at is. In same vein, I have had similar difficulties when it comes to heka. Generally, it is defined as “magic.” This isn’t inaccurate, but it’s not the actual definition of the word if we can really say that the definition we have is accurate since the language has been dead for thousands of years. In effect, the literal translation (near as I can figure) is activating the ka (the ka was the immortal aspect of the ancient Egyptians complicated soul concept – this is also the part of the soul that I believe reincarnates with each new life). But what in the world does that even mean?

In the last year, I’ve tried to define it with mixed results.

My initial thoughts on it were more in line with one of the concepts that heka is associated with as opposed to the actual meaning of the word. These two concepts are hu and sia. Sia is the power of perception and hu is divine utterance. I was thinking more along the lines of these two concepts as what heka actually was and I honestly don’t think I am correct at all. They are related, honestly, but they do not equate to one another. Sia is, to me, about what can come about, is created by, the action of hu. While these two concepts are kind of the foundation of what the great, wide world of understanding heka can be, they are not the totality of the concept. It isn’t just about watching your speech because you never know what you’re throwing out into the world – though this is important – it’s about activating or use of your ka.

But, specifically, what does that even mean? Is it like having super powers at your disposal without you realizing it? In a manner of speaking, we could easily say that the answer is “yes.” It is through our ka that we are able to inflict change, in the forms of hu and sia specifically, upon the world. It is through the ka that we have a deep connection with divinity, “Upon the body’s demise the ka rejoined its divine origin, but always remained in close proximity of the body.” [X.] It is through their ka that gods like Amun self-fertilized, Ptah created the world, and Khnum shaped clay into the vessels of men. While they are gods and probably are more aware of what needs to happen to use effectively their heka, they created us in similar image. They gave us the exact same piece of the soul, the ka, to do similar acts. While our acts may not be as grand as self-fertilizing or creating an entire world, they are still acts that we can do in order to effect change in the world.

And doesn’t that sound familiar to anyone who has studied witchery in any context? I’ve seen it explained that by using spells and poppets, witches are pushing their will into the world to create a change that they would like to see happen. It’s not really all that far-fetched now to see why heka is usually loosely translated to mean “magic.” Magic isn’t necessarily a bad definition, but it’s not the totality of the subject matter. Heka is more about what you have to do – in witchy words, building up the energy based around your desire – in order to create whatever you want to see happen. It isn’t just about deciding to do something, but in the acts that lead up to that moment as well as the ingredients needed, the correct word usage, and the will to have perceptions change to include what you’ve just thrown into the world.

Now, as I said above, I’ve had difficulties defining this concept, to the point where I was conflating the two foundational concepts – hu and sia – to equate to heka. While, as I said, they are important aspects because they teach you what it is that you must do in order to utilize heka effectively, they are not the sum total of the concept. It’s almost as if we have an ancient recipe on our hands that we must follow exactly in order to get the final result – the dessert – that we are aiming for. If you go a little over on the measurements, you may be short-changing what it is you want with your heka and end up with something completely different than what you had intended.

I’ve been thinking about whether or not this concept is something we need to make manifest on a daily basis. Is heka and it components necessary for a layman in modern times? Is understanding this concept, and thereby using it, something that we, as modern practitioners, require? I’ve written one set of responses and realized I was wrong. I’ve written another set of responses and realized that wasn’t the totality of what I wanted to say.

Honestly, I think that even though we see it used so often in ancient Egyptian myth in specific occurrences, specific events, that it is something that modern recons/revivals/eclectics need to take into consideration on a daily, hourly, or even minute by minute basis. It was, probably, used frequently by priests in the ancient days because that’s part and parcel to the religion itself. Using good heka meant the world would continue for another day, another hour. It was probably used just as often by healers and magicians, for the common folk, because they were literate enough to decipher the texts that are associated with heka. But we don’t have a specialty class anymore. We don’t have a specific priesthood, specific magicians and healers, that we can go to in order to properly and effectively use heka. We are the people who cavort with the gods, who are de facto priests of the gods, and we must learn about heka in order to ensure that we are doing things appropriately in the name of our gods and in the name of our religion.

But, how do you do that? How do you start working with a concept like heka?

You start off small.

For example, you will see that many Kemetics do utilize, at least in part, the hu aspect of heka when we discuss religion. You will see the name Apep “ritually” destroyed in our conversations. Some people remove some letters, other people use a strike through to ritually destroy the name. In this vein, we are practicing heka, more specifically the concept of divine utterance. By desecrating this name, we are making sure that it does not gain power and cause ma’at to fall from the world, generally speaking. Do we do this daily? In some instances, yes. When we are discussing our religion with outsiders or with one another, these discussions may span days in forums, blogs, or groups and each time, we will do this. This is minor heka. It is about activating our ka. It is about perceiving this name as being destroyed. It is about performing a divine utterance. However, this is small – minor, really – in comparison to larger acts that we may perform, such as a spell, an execration, explaining things to newbies, etc.

I think we should be aware of what we say to other people and how we say it. I think we should be aware of what sort of perceptions can be sent into the world about one another, but about ourselves. And I think we need to be aware that, perhaps, our use of spoons is about throwing the energy into the world about X, Y, and/or Z when we don’t mean to. I think all of these things are important enough to keep a kind of mental sticky note on the mirror to say, “How are you spoons? Are you using your heka effectively?” And I wonder how many of us will come back from this exercise to realize that we were activating our ka in regards to something, tossing some spoons into the world for the fun of it, and then shutting back down again.

I’m pretty sure I’m guilty of this and I’m almost positive that I’m not the only one.

And I think that’s really, honestly, the only way outside of major undertakings (like ritual destruction) that we can and should use heka. Pay attention. Look around. Do some internal surveys. Double and triple check your thoughts on something so that you don’t have to backpedal later when you fail to explain yourself properly. Watch your spoons and how you manage them. But above all, be cognizant of the best advice a Kemetic has ever shared, “don’t be a dick.”

The Hard Truths of Djehuty.

Note: I know this first part is something my long time readers have read before. He’s asking me to start at the beginning, so…

I was a pretty morbid child. As a pre-teen and into my early teenage years, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell you that I wanted to be a medical examiner. I had no delusions about medical school or anything like that, but it was the most morbid and depressing thing I could think of to answer that question, which is partially why I said it. The other reason was because I had a fascination with death after the early death of my father that came out in very strange and weird ways. It was because of this that I ended up taking anatomy and physiology my senior year in high school (and also because I desperately needed that science credit to graduate). To this day, I still have a bit of a thing for the biological and health sciences, but not to the point where I would tell anyone that, if I had been smart enough to plan my future better, I would have ended up in medical school and would have become that medical examiner I used to profess to wanting to be.

However, my secret and most fervent desire was, actually, to be a writer. Since I was pretty sure I wasn’t a very good author of anything, I never really said I wanted to be a writer out loud. You had to be legendary and awesome in order to publish things to the public. While I have some poems published because of high school, I tend to believe that’s just because there are not a lot of decent teenage poets out there and because my teachers had slim pickings. The thrill of having things in a book is still something that can elicit titillating giggles from me, but I’ve long since given up on hoping and dreaming. Now, I mostly write in this blog and if I begin to work on stories, it’s mostly as a way to pass the time. I can create an entire universe and do the research necessary to make that universe work out properly, but that doesn’t mean anyone else is ever going to read it.

Let’s be honest here: the reason I let the dream of being a writer take backseat to everything is purely selfish. It is because I wasn’t positive I could be successful that I didn’t bother. To me, what was the point in the attempt if I couldn’t make something out of it? I didn’t just want to be a writer so that I could say, “I write for a living,” but I wanted to be successful at it. I suffered from big fish, little pond syndrome (That is when you are the most popular, well loved, awesome-est person at a school, a job, etc. You may be all of those things at the place you are currently, but if you get to the next level, will you still be as beloved as you are now?) when it came to my writing. Everyone ever said that my writing was “wonderful.” They all told me how “good” everything was. I’ve gone back through my writing from those years and I can tell you: nope, nope, nope. And while a writer can be the most critical reader of their own writing, I knew that whatever I was writing wouldn’t necessarily make me successful.

So, why bother?

And that “why bother” attitude has followed me through the years.

With my secret desire banked in my fiery heart, it really wasn’t surprising to find Djehuti on my doorstep. In fact, from the first that I began looking into paganism as a whole, and Kemeticism in minor, I figured that the patron deity I would end up with would be Djehuti (since at that time Sekhmet was off the table for reasons). The whole thing made a lot of sense, though. I liked writing, he was a god of that. I liked to read, there was a connection with reading to him in some form or another. All joking aside, I’m really not kidding when I thought that Djehuti would end up as my patron deity. The fact that he only just showed up and I’ve been able to ignore him, successfully, for nearly five years is a personal best for me.

The thing is that if you ignore something, particularly a god, they will start to make things a little harder and then a lot harder until you can’t ignore them anymore.

Djehuti is a fan of just showing up randomly and talking to me about I could be writing and yet I’m not. We have this discussion about twenty times a day.

D: You should be writing.
Me: I’m driving…?

Or, if not like that, then it goes something like this.

D: You should be writing something.
Me: I don’t really have anything in my head to write that isn’t a blog entry.
D: Oh, no. We’re not blogging. That isn’t what I mean.
Me: But, that’s all the time I have for.
D: Then make the time.
Me: I don’t have the spoons to be up at X o’clock to be writing.
D: You should really be writing, you know.

To say that he is tenacious about whatever he wants is a complete understatement. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he’ll sit back for a little while and then come back in full gear. With his writing engine roaring in my ears, the conversations turn to one word, clipped responses very similar to how one of my co-workers will remind us to update our repair tickets in the program we use.

D: Writing.
Me: I know–
D: Writing.
Me: I hear you, but–
D: You.
Me: I can’t–
D: Should.
Me: Look, please, just–
D: Be.
Me: Would you–
D: Writing.

I’m not really used to this kind of behavior, which is why I normally will infer heavily that Djehuti is a troll.

When Sekhmet wants something, she tells me that I need to do it and that if I don’t I will suffer the consequences. I’ve ignored her enough times to know what kind of consequences she is referring to that I just do whatever she needs me to do. I may not like it *cough* shadow work *cough* and I may not think that it’s a good idea *cough* getting to know new deities *cough* but I will do it because I remember those long, dark periods where I ignored her desires. I’m not willing to go back down that road again [with her] especially after all of the strides I’ve made to move forward. So, I do what she wants, usually in a general time frame, and leave it at that.

However, with Djehuti? There is no time frame. There are no consequences. There is only him, constantly telling me what I need to do. But, where as Sekhmet will generally tell me why or allow me to figure it out on my own (because it’s obvious), Djehuti won’t sit down and tell me why my writing is so important. I have to figure that out on my own.

About three or four days ago now, Djehuti turned the volume up on his desire. It was very strange. While I was sitting at work, doing what it is that I do in front of my dual screen desk, I had this intense desire to sit down in front of a short story that I wrote in high school and just re-read it. There was nothing to do with writing except, perhaps, to add some minor edits to sentence structure or something of that nature. It wasn’t that I wanted to write but that I just wanted to fall back into the mindset that the story can give to me. (I don’t know if this is true of other writers, but when I go back to re-read some of the work that I wrote in high school, I get transported to the mindset of the high school student who wrote it or I get transported directly into the world that I had once created so that I can see if what I have written correlates with what I saw in my head… if that makes sense.) It was so intense that I couldn’t actually not do it – I had no choice.

So, I went into the story, which lowered the volume so to speak. And Djehuti was quite pleased that he had found a way to get me to do something that he wanted me to do – since you know, I’m a consummate ass and can put things off indefinitely if I’m so inclined – and that I was working on this short story in particular. In doing what he wanted, it made me realize that I was very, very, very sad about not being able to spend an entire night in front of my computer, listening to the radio, and creating an entire world or universe in that single night. It also made me wonder what it was that made him choose this story. It’s very old (about 13 – 14 years old) and it’s very poorly written in comparison to my writing style now.

Since that night, I’ve been thinking about this profoundly in every waking moment that I have. Why this story? Why now? What is it about it that makes the desire so intense? Why have I been breathing this short in my off moments? Why have I allowed it overtake me? What is it about this. particular. story. that Djehuti needed me to pay attention to?

Yesterday, while driving to work, I began to have a bit of an epiphany that was put on hold for the rest of the day because of reasons.

This is when I realized that all of my gods are slowly but surely working together to get the things they want out of me, which is namely shadow work right now. I have been planning, and I may have mentioned it here, on a new series that detail my high school shenanigans and all of the really shitty things that impact me still, to this day. This particular short story was written in high school and the main characters are based off of me and an ex that I had from back then. When I had that realization, the music oracle (or Djehuti) came on in and played nothing but songs that remind me of this ex and let me tell you, I was not happy. (I shut off the radio.) This is when I heard Djehuti laughing uproariously and when he said, It took you long enough.

Djehuti is yet another layer for the gods to ensure that I get around to doing what I intend to do. Now, I’ve been putting off this bit of shadow work for reasons that have to do with my last batch of shadow work, but I am going to be doing it. However, I was having some minor issues on how, exactly, to write back that far without having anyone to help me remember. (As anyone who read my last series may remember: I had to ask the Sister repeatedly for information on things that happened with my ex-husband that I purposely forgot.) I don’t need anyone if I have stories that detail my emotional state of mind from back then, now do I? And apparently, Djehuti is a constant reminder – an obnoxious reminder – to get going with it already. So, now, I have visions of my gods doing one of those carefully choreographed water dance things that all end up with me doing what they want in the middle.

But, while all of that is very important information to have for the next batch of shadow work I have planned, it’s really only a very minor thing. It’s not even the thing; it hardly qualifies as little more than a “huh” moment. The important part was the reminder–

Wait.

I don’t really do things that relax me. I have items that make me feel better about things or that will calm me down after a lot of really shitty days in a row. I will occasionally take a hot, warm bath while I read a book, which is calming. I go grave-tending as many Saturdays as I can before the weather turns too hot or too cold, which soothes me. I shuffle Tarot cards without any real reason because the sounds calm my nerves. Sometimes, I will just go driving around pretty landscapes and listen to really loud music. This is the sum total of what I do that “relaxes” me, that makes me feel human, that reminds me that I belong in this body, in this time, and while things can get really bad that doesn’t necessarily mean that I should give up.

Writing is something that used to relax me. If my entire high school world was falling apart, I could jump into the middle of a story, or start a new one, and things would be okay. I could make those characters suffer the worst possible injustices that my teenage mind could think up and have everything work out okay. I could escape into fantasy, horror, and love from a youthful writer’s perspective to get away from the constant drag of a depressive phase that was pretty much constantly from 13 to 19. And when things got bad between my ex-husband and I, I could just jump into a new series of stories and make the lives of my characters as wonderful or as bad as I deemed fit. The act of creation was what soothed me. The act of writing was what made me calm after a bad fight, a bad night, a bad whatever.

That’s the point.

That’s the important bit.

I am so busy working and raising a child and living with my boyfriend and seeing to everyone else that I kind of forget that I am important, too. There is always something that I must do that is household related, whether it is cleaning or it is bill paying or it is tucking my son in or it is walking the dog. Or. It doesn’t matter what the things I have to do are because they are all necessary and they’re the usual batch people have to do when they live on their own and/or have a family. And I am so damn important because I am what makes this household run, financially and mentally and emotionally. I know that I am important, consciously, but subconsciously is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish that is kind of beyond my control. And in being important that means that my needs and desires need to be met, as well, on a personal, relaxing, intimate level.

And they aren’t.

But, you know what?

Writing. Writing is enough to make me feel better for a little while and it is enough to get me out of the doldrums of reality for a while. Writing is an important part of who this soul named Aubs is. And that, my friends, is something Djehuti needed me to figure out on my own.

Let Us Be Silent, That We May Hear the Whispers of the Gods.

Note: The above title is taken from a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

This morning, I woke up with a mission in my head. I had gone to the astral – as I have been for the last few weeks – in search of something. Somehow, my astral self ended up in front of a god who is not mine and will never be mine. This god requested that I reach out to a follower of theirs and just saying, “X told me to find you.” That was the mission. That was the entirety of what this god wanted and I completed this mission. However, this makes me intensely sad in a way that I can’t begin to fathom. I woke up with the mission – knowing that I would do it – in my brain and knowing that this changes something somewhere. This means a lot of things but what irritates me the most is that this god, knowing I would not want to do this but would do it anyway, used my kindness against me.

This is part of the reason why I don’t work with that particular pantheon. From what I have seen from other polytheists, they are not above taking advantage of a person to get what they want from that person.

This was me, this morning.

I know that my gods – my Kemetic pantheon – are not above doing this, either. I also know that each god begins forging a relationship with us pissant little pipsqueaks for all their own reasons. I know why Sekhmet is here. I know why Aset is here. I know why Djehuti is here. I know why Hetheru is here. I know why Bes is here. However, while I may not particularly like what it is they may want of me and while I may kick and scream all the time about it, I still end up doing those things. Their purpose in my life – outside of Djehuti’s intense desire to get me to start writing again – are for things that are necessary to who I am, to who I will be, and what my purpose in this life is for. They are very, very open about that…

… now.

Even a few months ago, I would have still been guessing as to what their overall purposes in my life would be. But, it’s as though I’ve turned a corner or perhaps just because more mature on the subject matter. Whatever the actual reason is, I’ve passed something or surpassed an unknown point and they’re more likely to fill me in. Maybe it’s just because I have dedicated myself to them and to their vision of what I should be so much that they know that, as much as I may piss and moan about it that I will still end up doing it because I am aware of the Bigger Picture. Whatever their reasoning is, they will tell me, either in that moment or some time later, and I trust in that.

However, when a god outside of my pantheon requests something from me and I don’t know the reason why, I get more than a little pissed off. I get upset and irritated and very, very sad. It makes me feel used in a way that anyone who has ever been used by a god or by a human being should understand. It makes me feel like the person I actually am – not the loud-mouthed, fast-talking Leo, but the person afflicted with a Gemini moon – is something that other gods look down on, snort about, and will make use of just because they know that I will not say no.

This is the point where my friends who astral regularly will say, “You can always say no.” Or they will say, “grow a thicker skin.” And I’m just… I can’t really convey how not like that I am. I’m actually really quiet, shy, and introverted. I don’t view the astral as they do, in any way. One tends to view it as a home away from home, so to speak, and the other tends to view it as a cray-cray place with things that are even more cray-cray than the place itself. (I’m generalizing so that I don’t say too much about really great friends and make them feel like I’m shitting on them while also trying to keep their astral lives private.) I don’t see it as a cray-cray place with things that are insane – I see it as a scary place that I have to go to in order to find that thing I’m looking for. I don’t view it as a home away from home – I view it as a viper-infested pit, trying to suck me into it.

Ask anyone who I have had a real conversation with and they will tell you that I went into the astral, kicking and screaming because I didn’t want to open up that can of worms. I had no choice, as last night’s revelations have made me realized (revelations prior to god asking me for my messenger ability), but that doesn’t necessarily mean I like it. I do not want to live there. I do not want to be there. All I want is to find what I’ve been looking for in the last few months, do what I need to with that thing, and then move on with my life. My next problem being, you know, that since the door is open, it will be 10x harder to shut now, if impossible.

As my friends will point out – and anyone else who is reading this – they will remind me that I can say no, and vehemently. As I have said in the past: It is just fine to say no to a god. I absolutely agree, but I’m that jerk face who will give you everything I have in order to make you happy, to the point where I will actively begin sacrificing myself before realizing that there is something wrong here. Let me put it to you this way: it wasn’t until my past employer asked me to break federal law that I realized that the job was killing me and I should probably begin job hunting. (And not even a few days later, they fired me so, ha!) I am that asshole who would willingly jump into a vat of acid for anyone. I may say mean things, I may be acerbic, but generally, I’m willing to sacrifice the core person who qualifies as “Satsekhem” for other peoples’ happiness.

Surprise.

In same vein, I end up wearing my fucking heart on my sleeve, either here or in the astral, and everyone can see what exactly they need to do in order to get me to the point where I will do whatever they want. The god, as mentioned above, probably didn’t have to look too hard. In fact, he was probably purposely searching for me to do his messenger bit, knowing just what makes me tick. And I did it. And I’m sitting here, drinking my morning coffee, trying to not to cry because there’s now a whole new group of people that I don’t want to have anything to do with who can and will take advantage of my nature.

What makes this even worse are two things.

My gods will not prevent this from happening. That’s the lesson. I have to learn it. Sekhmet flat out said that I had the option to say no but didn’t. And while she understands the kind of person I am, as she explained to me earlier, that is one of the things that they’re trying to help me out with and it’s time to buck up and get working on that.

I am actually a Leo, through and through, but it’s because of other things that few people know about me that have caused me to be like this. The person I am supposed to be – the one the gods I have are working towards – is supposed to be very akin to Sekhmet. But right now, other aspects of myself are at the surface and there’s nothing I can do about it until I complete more shadow work and complete yet more execrations.

And in the mean time, I’m going to be taken advantage of and I have no way to prevent it.

So, the moral of the story is that if you are a nice, kind, give-the-shirt-off-your-back person, don’t go to the astral.

The Hermit.

Source.

Recently, my Radiant Rider-Waite deck and I have been in a hate-hate relationship. It started requiring a lot more energy than usual in order to use them. I’m pretty sure it’s my fault that this ended up happening, but it happened. So, I put them up and away for a while, telling them that they needed to behave themselves when I use them. And everything was fine until a friend of mine requested a reading. This friend has asked me a couple of times since I put the deck up and away for a reading and yesterday, I decided to pull them out. I tend to bring my deck with me to TH’s family get-togethers as a way to obviously ignore people. (Since apparently my reading means that everyone has to come over and see what I’m reading and ask questions, but not with Tarot cards – I don’t fucking get it.) And I figured if I was in public, the deck would behave itself properly. And it did. On a whim, I began shuffling and “lololol” asked it about my religious life. The first two cards of the reading were unimportant as I’m passed that, but my current phase? It’s the Hermit.

At first, I thought that this was entirely based on my community mongering. I’ve been so intent with community building and the project therein that I’ve written about needing one no less than once a month in the last year (or more). And in all that time, I’ve been so focused on the community that I’m having issues in my personal practice. The thing is that we are working with a religious framework that, while it is community based, is also outside of our normal framework. Many of us solitary Kemetics are coming into this religion from a monotheistic background, which may or may not have a communal backbone as Kemeticism does. (I know my childhood monotheistic practices were not community based, though there was a community within it.) And to compound the appearance of getting nowhere fast with the community posts that we’ve had going around, I’m rather tired of people as a whole and Kemetics, in minor. I go through phases where I am an extreme introvert, which is usually categorized as my “I hate everyone” or “let’s nuke the planet and start over” phases.

I said it was excessive, didn’t I?

The thing is that this is only part of the whole Hermit-ting the card is getting at. I can look at it in one aspect and see, “ah yes. I’m using too many spoons on that when I need to be conserving them for this.” However, I tend to view my divination practices as more than just simply two-dimensional readings. The card wasn’t just simple about having to pull back my spoons and pulling away from my community for a while. It was more about worrying about me, about my practice, and what that actually happens to be. I’ve become so complacent with my practice that I’m beginning to worry about everyone else and what they are doing and what sort of drama-mongering Tumblr is up to that I’m forgetting I have gods who need/want me, I have lwa that require me, and I have a life to lead.

On a whole, I think this is something that all people, of polytheistic, Kemetic, and-or pagan stock, need to pay attention to. If you send things out on the Internet all the time, what does your practice look like? How often are you online, worrying about what others think about you? How often are you online, calling someone else out on what you perceive to be a slight or injustice? Is your relationship with your gods suffering because you’re so focused on things that have no impact on you? Is your practice suffering because you’re so focused on “teaching a thing” to people who have absolutely no part in your life aside from having seen them in passing online?

I was so focused on what other people were thinking about me and worrying about not saying things that I felt because of how other people would react that I was forgetting the most important thing in my entire practice. I was at the point where I was so focused on coming home from work to see the latest drama on Tumblr or to see who was pissed off at whom on Facebook that I was forgetting about the most important facet in my entire practice. And that most important thing is me. There is no one else here who can pick up my mantle should I fall. There is no one else around who will be able to write the guide I’m planning for Sekhmet. There is no one else here who can do the work Papa Legba has asked of me should I get caught up in outsiders’ drama.

And frankly, what is the point in all the things that I’m doing with my practice if I’m focused on other people?

My practice, as I’ve been harping on lately, is orthopraxic. I don’t have to sit around and debate theology with anyone about anything (although I will, occasionally). My religion has nothing to do with what I’m thinking or what Joe Blow Tumblr is thinking. This practice is about what I’m doing. And if I’m focusing on other people and other things, then all of the shadow work, SVP entries, grave-tending, and devotional acts go down the drain. They all end up failing the ultimate test, which is to create a functional, cohesive practice on a solitary level so that, maybe one day, we can create a functional, cohesive practice on a community level.

As Sekhmet said to my earlier,

Being a hermit isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be a good thing. It’s not an act of selfishness to lock yourself away from other people. It is an act, as you are already aware, of unconditional love. And sometimes, those acts of love require you to step away from the whole and work on the one. I haven’t been working so hard on you for all these years for you to be of no use to me now.

Rache Manyok Bay Te a Blanch (SVP).

Uproot the manioc [cussava] and clear the land.

The worst part about deciding to enter, or at least look into, a religious tradition that is outside of your frame of reference is that you don’t really know where to begin. When it comes to pagan religions, new practitioners have it easy. There are forums and networks online that you can find, as well as books in local libraries with mythology aplenty. There are eBooks and Amazon for all of those resource references, but when you’re looking into a religion that’s been kept in the dark recesses for almost the entirety of its existence, things are much more difficult. What are good books to read? What are good blogs to read? Where can you find the information you’re looking into? Where do you look? How do you know what you’ve found is a diamond or a piece of coal?

In my research, I was incredibly lucky that I stumbled upon a few bloggers who practiced voodoo. I was able to pump their brains for information and one of them (linked below) had a good resource list ready for me to squee over. However, there are a lot of other people out there who are not so lucky. I honestly think that I was meant for this because of how lucky I was in finding bloggers who practice and blogged about it. It really was no time at all before I found resources and a little net of people that I could talk to, if needed. Again, though, I know that I’m one in a million here and that, as someone who has been around this Internet for a while, I’ve been able to do things that other neophytes aren’t capable of doing. They don’t have that sort of safety net because they don’t know where to look or no one who has the experience has found them yet.

While it’s possible to approach a lwa and hope for the best, I don’t recommend this without knowing what you can get into. The lwa can be very much like little children at times with their wants and desires. If you don’t have the time, energy, and wherewithal to handle what it is that they need or want, then maybe this isn’t something for you. (I will write all about this later, I swear.) Besides, the lwa that you approach may not even be an actual lwa. You can pluck a name from lists or from Wiki, hoping that you’re making contact with the right one, but I honestly don’t think it is a wise choice to just go plundering into a religious practice because you want something so desperately. As much as you may think you are getting into something you can handle, I can assure that you are getting into something that you can’t.

I have spent many, many hours, crying at the base of Papa Legba’s altar because of all the things I have been forced into after becoming his servant – not because I don’t want to but because it is hard and painful and lonely – and those days are still not over. While the jokes and dick imagery in working for the Guédé is hilarious, they are just as intense as Papa Legba in their requests. While I do not work with any other lwa, except for a passing occasional with Gran Bwa, I can tell you that this is a very difficult, painful path. It is outside our frame of reference for many of us and there are some of us who will never join a sosyete for one reason or another. This is a religion and jumping into something because it looks cool is never recommended. While I’ll get into what you can expect from the lwa in future posts, let me just say this: Doing something because you think it will look cool on your religious resume is fucking stupid and you should stop looking into voodoo or vodou if that is your intent.

Now, about getting started, I’ve already told anyone who has been reading to look into the Haitian Revolution. In so looking, you will begin to pick up bits and pieces about the history of the island in and of itself. Learning about the Taíno natives, as well as the slaves who ran away, are all important aspects to this religion. It tells you what pieces are a part of the religious tradition today. It tells you where this began and why this began. In doing the research on the history of the island, specifically in looking into the revolution, you will begin to learn about the actual history of the island. As I said in that previous post, you will be able to get glimpses and glimmers from each voodoo or vodou related book you pick up, but it’s important to know more than the quick history lesson authors are willing to give you. It goes deeper than that because the island itself and the lives of those people, both prior to the revolution and after, are important aspects of this religion.

But in looking up the history of the island, you’ll get more than just a minor history lesson in what these people went through. In continuing through with your research to encompass the lives of these people after the revolution and through to the 20th century, you will begin to see how oppressed the people were and how it was this religion that gave them something to live for. When your daily lives are nothing more than toil, there’s little that will give you the gumption to continue on, but vodou made these people strong and willing to be put through a lot of shit. Also, in learning about the post-revolution era, you will see, not just the oppression, but the Westernized belief that this nation is a bunch of “backwards” people. In some cases, at least economically speaking, the country is backwards. But we based that belief off some mistaken idea that non-Christian, non-Jewish, and non-Islamic religions are “backwards.”

Wrong.

The thing is, at least in my household, there are days where I’m fed up with history and I want to know more about the religion, itself. There are days where I’ve read my history books and I’m done with facts because my brain is muddled with them. Then, then comes the moment of research about the religion itself and in those moments, it can be difficult to find accurate resources. As I said above, not everyone is lucky enough to have a blogging network or a forum network that is supportive of those religious choices that may seem questionable to outsiders. I guess, really, I’m just insanely lucky on this front.

There are three types of resources that a non-initiate can look to.

1. The books on the religion, itself.
2. The blogs of other vodou or voodoo practitioners.
3. The Internet.

Now, the Internet is a fucking morass a lot of the time. The thing about having websites is that anyone can make one and pepper it with misinformation. They can do that knowingly or unknowingly because they misinterpreted or got their sources from yet another website that isn’t sourced accurately or because someone just made up some “facts.” Wikipedia is insanely guilty of this because anyone who is able to can edit their pages with information. While Wiki may be an interesting starting point in order to learn some names outside of Papa Legba and Bawon Samedi for the lwa, it is not an accurate source of information. In same vein, a lot of websites are not based off any legitimate information but off of Hollywood propaganda and made up realities. So, while most people will do their research on the Internet, I honestly do not recommend it with vodou or voodoo. However, I also understand that not everyone is actually able to get the books, so for them, I say: discernment.

This is a common term found in most pagan circles and while vodou/voodoo are not pagan in any context (no, they’re not), this terminology is just as important when trying to find good information on the ‘net. As Dver said on her landmark post on the subject, “It is important to discern between what a god might like, or do, or say, and what They actually do like, are doing, are saying.” While she’s talking, specifically, about polytheists, we can translate this particular sentence to include research and resources. “It is important to discern between an informational website of dubious nature and a website of properly sourced information.” So, my advice here is to look for sources. If you don’t find any, walk away. If you don’t like the sources they do provide, walk away. Entering a religious tradition with massive misinformation because you got click happy on Google is not okay.

What is okay? Discerning.

The one time I will tell you to throw this advice out the window is when you find a website associated with a sosyete. If you click on the link and you are taken to the main page, the name of the sosyete the website is affiliated will be there. And if you’re not sure about whether it is or is not a sosyete, look for key words like “mambo” and “houngan.” Now, obviously, there are a lot of different opinions out there as far as different sosyete. I have heard good things about the Sosyete du Marche. I have not heard a lot of good things about Mambo Racine, who is associated with the Roots Without End Society. In that regard, go back up to the commentary on discernment and use some as you peruse the websites. (Personally, I like using the Gade Nou Leve Society website for information purposes.)

Bloggers have only been a very recent addition to the vodou and voodoo universes. It’s been only in recent years that anyone with a hint of vodou or voodoo flavoring, much less actual houngan or mambo having blogs and websites. Prior to this, vodou and voodoo were something you did quietly or with a sosyete only. But, with the advent of the Internet, everyone out there can make a blog. And in same vein, there are some bloggers out there who are initiated and non-initiated. You can do searches for blogs with various keywords to find them (vodou, voodoo, houngan, mambo) and see what pops up.

As I said, I was lucky in that I had found someone who knew a thing or three about voodoo when I first began and I was able to network. I’ve pulled back on the blogs that I read to include only one or two Vodouisants and I occasionally peruse others. This is only because I am more Kemetic, outside of certain parts of my practice, than I am a Voodooist and I’d like to keep my blog more associated with the Kemetic side of things than the voodoo side of things. On this one, you have to make up your own mind about things. Do you really care what others have to say on certain subjects? Do you really want to know what their practices are like, especially if you are unable to be initiated and they happen to be initiated into a sosyete? It comes down to personal preference here, but you should ask yourself these questions. Not simply because you may end up wanting something – becoming an initiated – by reading those experiences and maybe that’s just not viable.

How much information do you want to pull from bloggers and Internet resources, knowing that a good portion of it will be blocked from you because you are not an initiate?

And yes, that is a lot of the case. One of the reasons I’m even remotely mentioning or linking to Mambo Racine’s website for the society she is with is because there are bits and pieces in there for the non-initiated. This is incredibly rare. Most websites and, to an extent, bloggers will not tell you about certain parts because it is an initiate tradition. There are things that, as an initiate, you are not able to share with anyone – Met Tet, kanzo, etc. It’s similar, I guess, to Wicca in that regard. Some parts are mysteries because you have to be a part of that group in order to get down with those mysteries. And if you are never, ever going to have a chance to become an initiate, do you really want to know? Besides, why bother prying into the secrets of a group of people if you aren’t going to join in? While I, personally, don’t need to know those things or particularly want to know those things, not everyone is like me.

So, it comes down to you asking yourself, is networking with other people worth it if I’m never going to go to a Fet and/or become initiated?

Now, most of my research comes from books. I am a book snob in a lot of ways, but I also prefer the tangibility of owning a book and being able to easily find the information I’m looking for. Some of the books that I am going to mention probably have free eBook versions out there, although I cannot comment on that. I do not have a Nook or Kindle and I refuse to get one. I like the physical nearness of my books (as I said, book snob). So the books I have as resources may or may not be available to people who have to keep this stuff hidden or do not have the financials to actually be able to go out and buy the books. (And if you do have the money but it must be hidden, I highly recommend buying a used hardcover edition and switching out the dust cover to something less inflammatory.)

A lot of the books I’ve used as research tools are anthropological in nature. I am a geek, of course, so that type of resource is invaluable to me. However, I think it’s invaluable to anyone who is looking into voodoo or vodou because it will show you the perspective of things back when these books were written and it will also give you an intimate glimpse. Some of these books are fairly old, but they’re still prevalent today. While we have books out there that will give you a basic rundown on how to get started, knowing how things were done and seen as far back as 50 years ago is still important today. You will notice the attitudes of so long ago being found continuously in today’s society as well. We may have come and made some strides, humanity, but we’re still at the point where a lot of people think that the religion of vodou is “backwards.”

Now, if you aren’t pulling from a bibliography, as I have, of other vodou practitioners, then you may not know exactly how to find adequate resources. I’m not going to bore you with anything right now because someone did this work for me. My friend, Sard, wrote a blog entry a while ago about how to find good academic resources. Before I link to it, let me just say that academic resources are important here because it’s only been in the last five years that anyone has even remotely begun to pay any attention to this religion outside of New Orleans tourists. So while there are books being published by mambo and hougan, the anthropological books are still important resources. So, to tell how you have a really good academic source (which can be used for e-d-u websites and books), read this, please.

Resources are important, especially for those of us who will never be initiated into a sosyete. Good resources are even more important because we don’t want misinformation and lies peppering our relationships with the lwa. Historical references are extremely important because you don’t want to steal from a religious tradition that is initiation bound and end up being an asshole. Excellent discernment skills are mandatory because you may end up getting screwed over in the end by a lwa who is willing to take advantage of your stupidity.

Websites

1. Sosyete du Marche
2. Gade Nou Leve Society
3. Roots Without End Society

Bloggers

1. Houngan Matt
2. Kenaz Filan
3. Cheshirecat Man
4. Crow Woman

Tentative Bibliography*

1. The Book of Vodou by Leah Gordon
2. Divine Horsement by Maya Deren
3. Tell My Horse by Zora Neal Thurston
4. The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis
5. Voodoo in Haiti by Alfred Metraux

* This is not all of the books that I would like to add to this list, but I think a separate page, in future, regarding my bibliography will appear with commentary on the books I’m recommending and why.