Kemetic Round Table: Welcome to the New Deja Vu.

I’ve been trying to remember how long I’ve been doing this shtick and you know, I can’t honestly remember when I started being mystically bewildered. I think I started all of this bullshit about 6 years ago, but the memories from so long ago are hazy. I guess this is what happens when you have so much shit going on in your life: it’s hard to remember the exact details of what was happening half a decade (or more) ago. I guess it doesn’t matter because as far as it feels, I’ve been tap dancing to the same beat for an eternity.

Sometimes, it seems so clear and other times, it seems lost in a fog bank. (Image by Ben Canales.)

Things have changed so much in the intervening years, I know that much. At times, I am both amazed and horrified by how things have turned out. It’s almost as if I had this sort of set plan for what I was hoping to achieve, which was less a plan and more of a vague arm wave in a general direction, and I have veered completely away from whatever that plan was supposed to be. And still at other times, I am very much relieved that I am not that wide-eyed, naive little shit. I have developed and redefined both myself and my relationships. I have an arsenal at my disposal – something that old me would have been whining about not having – and I am grateful for it.

But there are days, where I do indeed miss being the naive little shit.

Looking back down the fucking years, I think the question more appropriate here is how hasn’t my practice changed since I started all of this because everything has changed. I mean, I actually have a practice for fuck’s sake! I started this blog with a bunch of whining and sniveling about how I wanted to be like everybody else but didn’t know how to get there. I have things that I do regularly; I have prayers that I say to myself; I have an established dictionary of referenced and not-referenced UPG; I have books that I can go to for information; I have relationships with deities for shit’s sake. Sure there have been exciting additions and some sorrowful subtractions, but at the end of the day, my practice has changed so much that to actually discuss it with any fucking semblance of brevity would probably require about 20 years and a lot of generic arm flailing.

I do still whine about not having a manual. I think about half of my posts I’m commenting about having missed out on the sale of all of the HOW TO books that must be floating out there. I mean, for real, they have to exist because there are so many other bloggers out there who seem to have their collective shit together. And that’s something that hasn’t changed either: I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. I mean I have things and stuff that I do and I guess that could qualify as “looking” as if I have my collective shit together, but honestly, I end up whining and crying about not understanding what’s happening more often than not.

So, I guess that’s a win for constantly feeling like I’m at the tip top of a roller coaster, getting ready to zoom down at a million miles an hour.

The overwhelming thing that hasn’t changed though is that Sekhmet is still here. (Why?) She’s pushed me, pulled me, destroyed me, burned me to cinders, loved me, protected me, molded me anew, killed me, brought me back to life, slit my throat, sewn up the wounds, fucked with me, put up with my bullshit, let me cry, let me whine, made me fall in love with her, forced me into uncomfortable places, et cetera. She’s turned me into a pretzel of her own devising and it sucks.

There are so many days where I’m screaming inside, crying unshed tears, and demanding to know why the fuck I’m going through this, but at the end of the day, I am glad for it all. It’s changed me so much into the person who I am today. I can remember times where I didn’t like who I was at all and now, I can honestly say that while I may not “love” myself in the ways that those stupid trippy posters tell you that you should, I can honestly say that I respect myself. And I can’t in all honesty say if that would be the case if Sekhmet wasn’t around.

I never expected anything that’s come my way since I tentatively said to my friends (of the time), “I think Sekhmet is calling and I think she has been for a very long time.” I thought that once I entered into that relationship then I was halfway to finding a solid path. I honestly believed that by finally admitting that this was a thing then I would end up with, like, some idea of what was going to come next. Or maybe I just assumed that the alpha and omega was Sekhmet. And you know, that is actually true but there’s so much more to everything I do – the relationships, the daily offerings, the whining, the initiations, the services, the ranting, etc – than just she being the beginning, middle, and the end. But now I have whole books’ worth of UPG just regarding our relationship, never mind anything else.

She gave me the candy and I got into the van. (Image by stoopidgerl.)

Honestly, if someone new were to look at this entry and wonder what it was that they could learn from me, I would honestly have to say that they shouldn’t go into this with the idea that they’ll end up having a practice that looks like someone else’s. If they do and things don’t work out the way that they expect them to, then they’re going to be disappointed with the whole experience. I went into this whole thing with a sort of panicked wide-eyed gleam and no real idea about what the hell I was doing. It was only after I entered down this road and began networking that I got the idea that I wasn’t good enough or that I didn’t meet up to some invisible standard I was holding myself to which caused a lot of issues between Sekhmet and I. I laugh about it now but I have to say, holding myself to everyone else’s ideas of what a path should be like fucked with me and fucked with my relationship. So don’t do that.

And you know, it’s okay to be scared of what’s going on.

And don’t get upset if your UPG doesn’t quite match up with anyone else’s.

And don’t think that there is one true way here because we’re all individuals with individual relationships and individual preferences.

And don’t think that there’s a moment in time where you’ll be able to say, “I’ve done it; I’ve learned everything.” There will always be something new and exciting and terrifying on the horizon waiting for you.

And don’t worry that you’re doing something wrong because you don’t have a godphone or you don’t have UPG or you can’t astral or the gods don’t come down as beings of white light to give you dreams or whatever. That’s okay. Not everyone’s cut from the same cloth and so too our relationships with our gods.

And don’t hesitate to tell people that they can have fun when they’re doing the serious rituals and stuff. And don’t forget to remind yourself of that.

And don’t think that Egyptological books are the start and finish of everything.

And if you love your fucking gods, then you fucking love your gods.

And if shit comes at you from left field, you are perfectly entitled to scream and run away.

And if you’re so fucking pissed at your gods that you hate them, then by golly you fucking hate them.

And if you don’t have a strong emotion either way but this is a job to you, then you rock at that job of yours.

And like kick ass and take some fucking names.

Kemetic Round Table: But Why?

As a kid, I attended a Methodist church and I can remember sitting beside my mother during the [boring] sermon on more than a handful of occasions. If I wasn’t busy trying to play hang man by myself or staring up at the architecture (it was that church, to be honest, that made me appreciate Gothic architecture as that was what it was modeled after when built), I was so busy trying to figure out what was so special about the person in the pulpit that gave them the ability to shepherd my soul and my faith onto its path to redeem the inherent sinner that I, as a Methodist, clearly was.

I got that the person in question went to specialty school and had been indoctrinated in all the things that were required in order to perform rituals and services under the teachings and dogma of the Methodist church. And I understood that the role of that minister was to take my hand (so to speak) and guide me on my path in my relationship with Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and God. But I couldn’t really figure out why I needed that person over there, pulpit or not, ritual officiant or not, to guide me. I constantly had to ask myself, but why?

While sitting at the front of the church with the other acolytes, admiring the really ornate altar that I got to light and put out the candles for, I still wondered. I went to Sunday school and when I wasn’t dawdling on my millionth bathroom break back into church, I was always trying to figure out why there had to any person between me and my relationship with God. Didn’t I have the ability to pray just as well as the priest? Was there something in the induction from any ole human to priest type human that made their prayers, on my behalf, that much more clear? Or was it all just a bunch of hype?

It doesn’t matter what answers, if any, that I may have come up with. I’ll be honest, I can’t think of any damn things that I came up with to explain why the person in the pulpit, who wore the garments ascribed to our sect, had the right and the wherewithal to shepherd my soul. I kept coming back down to the fundamental question of: but why? Maybe that makes me a bit of a troublemaker or maybe I missed something in Sunday school that I should have paid attention to. Whatever the case may be, I had nothing but the ongoing ramble of but why why why why why? in my head enough times to seriously side eye the whole fucking concept.

Frankly, changing my faith from monotheistic to polytheistic hasn’t really stopped the whole, but why?

I started looking up things about the ancient Egyptian priesthood a few years ago when I got a card reading that was kind of like, “hahaha, you’re going to be a priest!” And I just about flipped my shit and sulked about it for a while. I knew a sum total of this about the priesthood in ancient Egypt: (a) they were everywhere, (b) they got up really early, (c) there was some ritual purity standards or something, and (d) they stood in for the pharaoh for everything who was the Big Cheese as far as the religion was concerned. So, realizing that if this was going to end up happening, I decided I should look a little further beyond what I knew.

And I found out a lot things about the priesthood and none of them were even remotely what I had come to believe a priest was for. I was coming at this point-of-view, of course, from the Christian faith I was raised in. I was informed that the minister was supposed to be a sort of intermediary of sorts between myself and my relationship to God. The minister officiated at really important rituals like baptism, marriage, and communion. These are things that they did for the parishioners. Again, in my limited information regarding what I had figured out over the years, it was this shepherd thing (something hearkening back to Jesus’ image of the Good Shepherd, iirc) that the priests and ministers and whatnot were supposed to do.

That was so not even the case in ancient Egypt.

The entire point in the priesthood in ancient Egypt was to serve the gods in whatever capacity that particular priest had been hired for (or bribed to get the position for). There were numerous priests within the priesthood hierarchy – not just one guy at the top of a pulpit, preaching on about whatever the case may be. The priests who maintained the temples and completed the rituals did so on behalf of the gods that the temples were for and to maintain ma’at by providing for those gods – not to shepherd the laity on their bumbling path with their faith and offer them spiritual guidance on how to proceed. While they did complete things on behalf of the laity, such as writing things, providing healing, and/or interpreting dreams, this was only if the person had paid for those services. As far as I could discern, it seemed like how the temples’ functionaries (the priests) worked with the laity was minimal.

Another thing to consider was that since the duties of the priests were twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, there were no breaks. They did not stop and take a week vacation from their job. They had four months of doing the job and then they were off the rotation to do whatever it was their personal lives required of them. But when they were in rotation, the outside world was immaterial to the duties that they had to perform on behalf of the temple and the gods. The priests I grew up with only were around for Sunday services and the Methodist specific rituals, which in my experience tended to take place on Sundays.

Even remotely looking at the ancient Egyptian priesthood with the perspective of someone born and raised within the Methodist church was hard to handle. It was like two polar opposites had crashed head-on in my brain and I honestly couldn’t even begin to reconcile it. And that was kind of when I realized that viewing the priesthood from a Christian heavy perspective was probably not a good idea.

So, I tried to view it from a modern-day Kemetic perspective and had to admit that the nagging question come back in spades: but why?

In order for a priesthood to exist in any context akin to what had been established in antiquity, there would have to be an established temple. And frankly, I haven’t joined any of the established temples because I don’t want a theocracy regarding my religion, which would need to be the case in order for it to bear any resemblance to antiquity. I don’t want someone from on high – like the people in the pulpit – to tell me what my function was. I wouldn’t want someone to give me a position, which I may not feel suited my abilities or my personal desires for what I wanted my personal relationship with my gods to look like, and have to turn it into, well, a job. That seems like such a terrible idea on so many different levels.

If I remove the idea of an established temple and all of the possible hazards and pitfalls that could occur with an established temple, I have to admit that the nagging question of but why comes up louder and louder. If there is no temple, why in the world would a priesthood be needed? I mean, after all, isn’t that what most of the solitaries are doing?

Think about it:

They’re maintaining their relationships with the gods, seeing that the gods are pleased with offerings and any rituals they feel like doing, and doing their damned best to both live in and maintain ma’at. From that perspective, it kind of looks like those of us who fall under the “solitary Kemetic” persuasion may already be what the ancient Egyptian priesthood was… without all of the in-fighting, politics, full-time work, and bribery.

If looked in that particular way, then technically, all of us are our own priests… so then what’s all the hype about?

How often do I see people going on about priesthood like it’s the top echelon of super religious achievement? I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen people just spout on and on about how great the whole idea of a priesthood totally would be if only we could do X, Y, Z. Well, I hate to break it to all the “ra ra priest” cheerleaders out there, but it’s kind of already in existence from a solitary perspective. And many of us don’t even want to look at the fucking word priest, much less, use it in any context to describe what we’re going. The word has some serious baggage; it’s a dirty word; it’s blown up and blown out of proportion; and did I mention the baggage?

To be perfectly frank, I’m kind of tired of people looking at the whole priesthood thing like it’s something that we should all strive for. Let’s not forget that the priesthood of antiquity was a hierarchy from scribes to prophets, from high priests to cooks in the kitchen. By stating that “priesthood” is the be-all, end-all, we are definitively stating that we need to create strata within our community. And by so doing, we could quite easily make it seem like there is a clique for the haves and an exclusionary circle around the have nots, which should not be the case for a religion that is as community centric as ours. Besides, we see how destructive such things can be within the wider Tumblr pagan community – the constant battle cry of “speshul snowflake” – so why the fuck are we going to invite the conflagration to our party before we really have gotten our feet under us?

I think the more important thing is focusing on the personal path that we are all walking on and how it relates to us as human beings and how it relates to the gods to whom we cultivate these relationships for. Priesthood was a many splendored pain in the ass in antiquity from what I’ve read and frankly, I don’t want to be associated with it… even though I am, for all intents and purposes, doing precisely what the ancient priests did in my position… only without the conniving and bribing of other people (I’ll totally bribe and connive with my gods though).

I truly believe that people who push this idea that priesthood should be or will be the highest point that one can aim for on their path is detrimental to the fomenting of the individual paths we all walk down. I think that it leaves a lot of people feeling inadequate, people who may be frightened of the term priest or who may look askance and distrustful of the terminology priesthood. The focus on a religion that is so widespread and predominantly made up of solitary practitioners should be less on something that requires a temple to work properly and should be more focused on boat paddling, community, and what each individual needs from both in order to establish themselves on their path.

So if the whole point in the ancient Egyptian priesthood was to do what each modern person building a personal relationship with their gods is already doing (in whatever context that particular relationship requires or ends up becoming), then I go right back to point A, which is the question, but why?

Maybe if there was a temple that had more of a “it’s okay to be laity” point-of-view and less of a “the priesthood are super awesome” mentality, I could answer that question. In the mean time, I shy away from the word even if I really am doing the job of a priest and I continue to think that at this stage, modern priesthood really just isn’t important.

Further Reading

1. TTR’s WP Clergy Tag
2. TTR’s Tumblr Priesthood Tag

Kemetic Round Table: Here Be Dragons

Subtitle: The Dragons are Really Crack

I think part of the reason I chose the “spiritual turnpike” for the name of this blog, and my path to be honest, is because I was hoping that there was a map. The only thing was that I had to find the map. No problem, though – I would search everywhere and eventually, the map would appear when I was ready. I think I expected this map to have very clear instructions on where my relationship with my gods and, more specifically, my relationship with Sekhmet was going to eventually end up. It would be a nice clean environment; it would be full of unicorn farts and glitter; and there would definitely be peanut butter cups and heart eyes. What I learned instead is that there is no map; there is absolutely no fucking anything to help guide you into unexplored territories. If I did have a map, I would probably be mired in the sections labeled “here be dragons.”

I’ve been mired so long in this place with the dragons that I’m beginning to suspect that this is normal [for me]. Since I was obviously going to be hanging around with these dragons for a fair length of time, I had to go looking for ways to overcome them. To borrow from fairy tales a bit here, the knight always goes out to kill the dragon so that he can rescue the princess. It occurred to me, though, that this was probably not the best mindset to have if I was going to (A) continue to encounter dragons and (B) it seemed to me to be a rather a dick move [against the dragons]. Instead of looking for ways to successfully beat them, I began looking for ways so that we could coexist. For the most part, I think I’ve been successful – I have my moments, of course; I think everyone does when things come out of nowhere. I think my dragons and I, while maybe not the best of friends, we at least don’t try to eat each other.

The gods began throwing me for a loop when they introduced me to dragon the first. We’ll call her Astral Dragon. She was glittery and frilly and had blue whiskers. I ignored her for a long time. It was easy enough, at first, because she was a baby dragon. She had cute little wings and didn’t breathe anything like flames or ice at me. She just sat on top of my head and periodically picked a little hole until I had a nice, steady fissure for her to stream woo in my direction. I was able to write that off, too, because I couldn’t recreate it, ergo it did not exist. My first response (as you’ll see) is to ignore something. I ignored Astral Dragon, as adorable as she must have been as a baby dragon, until she grew so large that I couldn’t breathe under the weight of her. I began paying a bit better attention then.

I started off by researching what was happening and networking with people who had advised that they experienced similar happenings. This helped me get over the idea that I was all alone in a cruel world, surrounded by weirdness that only I went through. I will admit here that I was lucky: there were resources for people like me. I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for the first person who began having Astral Shenanigans pop up and into their brains. So, I looked around and found that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t actively encourage Astral Dragon; she just kind of threw some more at me whenever she felt the need arose. And thus, I was introduced to woo.

I don’t think I have a very positive relationship with the woo and I have to say that may be par for the course. I get bitter. I get angry. I get irritated. I get frustrated. There is a lot of unexplored territory especially within the Kemetic community. And since most of the woo tends to happen within a Kemetic context (not all of it has, but much of it has), there are still limited resources available. It can be very irritating to have to map out areas of the Duat on your own because you just want to confirm something that you dreamed about… only to have it confirmed in a book and getting thrown for a loop all over again. I have a lot of moments where I doubt entirely what’s happened to me either because I haven’t found a correlation within a dry resource book written for Egyptologists or because it’s just too much to take in all at once and there’s no fucking way this is really fucking happening. Give me proof or give me doubt; so I doubt instead.

The thing is that Astral Dragon brought a friend. This friend was red and flame-ridden and he had gray whiskers, puffs of smoke streaming from both nostrils, and a ferocious bite. We’ll call him Initiation Dragon. He showed up after a while and began leading me in a direction that can only be described as initiation. On this, I fought very hard against it because no fucking way. He and I got into a lot of fights and I spent a lot of my time in a dull funk about the whole experience. It was almost like because I had found a decent groove where I had been able to work closely with Astral Dragon, she had to up the ante by bringing a friend along. That seemed like some bullshit right there. But after enough kicking and screaming, I began going through what I had to go through.

About a year ago, I died. It was while I was in the middle of this painful death (just because you aren’t dying in this realm doesn’t make it any less painful, bee tee dubs) that I began looking into what the fuck I was experiencing. I needed some form of frame of reference. This is when I came upon the word “initiation,” which had been cropping up in circles a little too frequently for the six months or so prior to my astral death. The really big problem was that in the grand scheme of Kemeticism, there isn’t much initiation talk outside of Kemetic Orthodoxy. I have found a little bit of information, which seems to work with what I went through, but it doesn’t fully explain it. I had to start looking elsewhere for more information.

Outside of that, I have found next to nothing regarding initiation. So, it didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. I had to look elsewhere for my answers. And while I found them, I have to admit that the subject matter is pretty problematic because it relates to shamanism… yeah, that’s right, the culturally appropriative word that anthropologists use to designate people with other. So, I went looking and found a lot of parallels with my path and what I had just gone through. It got worse because death was actually a beginning –this was all building to “bigger and better things” (the quotes are fucking air quotes and yes, they are sarcastic). I will admit that it was kind of nice to find something like what I was experiencing even if anthropologists are pieces of shit that steal words and then use it to encompass a way of life that is probably better described as KEY SMASHING.

I know for a fact that I don’t have a very positive relationship with this particular brand of the woo. Again, I think it’s probably normal to go through an experience of this magnitude, which fundamentally changes you on a level that you can’t even fathom, and be a little frustrated and embittered by the entire experience. What makes this worse is that there is no way to map anything out here. It’s one thing to find confirmation of your UPG in a book, but quite another when you’re flying solo and blind on a mad dragon, doing barrel rolls in the air to see if you fall off.

As if Astral Dragon and Initiation Dragon weren’t hard enough to handle, I ended up accidentally bringing home yet another dragon. And this was completely accidental – I didn’t go seeking this on purpose, looking for this particular dragon. We’ll call this particular one Hmmphmm Dragon. This dragon has aqua and lavender swirls up and down its side with a white beard, pink google eyes, and a lopsided grin. I think most people can infer what the hmmphmm is a metaphor for. For those who haven’t caught on, it means sex. That’s right, folks; I have a relationship with a deity – consensual – that would best fall under the category of “god sex.” It is not a romantic relationship. It is not a marriage. There is no oath involved. It is a relationship between a devotee and their god that has sexual overtones periodically. Talk about totally off the fucking map, right?

I’ll tell you what – there is absolutely nothing I can do as far as looking for information on how to handle this. The deity relationships that include sexy times tend to fall within the godspouse dynamic (not saying all by any stretch just that many do) and most of those relationships are not within a Kemetic background. I think I can count on one hand how many people who have admitted, in private, that their relationships fall within this particular paradigm in the Kemetic community. And I think I have only spoken with two Kemetics who have stated that they have god sex. And that’s great – I have a tiny niche that I can reach out to if I need advice. But that doesn’t help in the long run or the fact that I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing or how this happened to me. What happened to having a nice normal practice?

I don’t have a good way to handle any of this. There are a lot of reasons for it, but at the core of this is that I’m ace, remember? It can be really difficult to handle the fact that one facet of my person is not ace while the rest of me, right now, really fucking is. How do I handle waking up from sexy times with a god? I get crotchety and bitchy; I get frustrated enough to the point where I want to fucking break everything around me. I get snotty and depressed. I deny everything going on as some kind of sick fucking subconscious fantasy. Sometimes, it’s easier to deny it all than to figure out a way to handle the fact that super ace me has a part of her who isn’t so super ace.

Another problem is that, at least with Astral Dragon and Initiation Dragon, I have some resources. I don’t have that for Hmmphmm Dragon. I want books that I can read. I want an Egyptologist to write about how the ancients had sex with their gods, either under the influence of mind altering substances or not. I want them to explain to me what the hell is happening, why it is happening, and to give me sources from antiquity. The thing is that I can’t get this information. It’s either not available or this is a new metamorphosis from the gods or the ancients just never bothered to mention it (always possible) or the resources that do discuss it are completely lost to us. Whatever the case may be, I’m wandering around with Hmmphmm Dragon completely at a loss of what I’m doing or how I wound up here.

This is me at any given moment of the day.

Looking back at all of that, I think I could have probably handled any of these experiences with a lot more grace and aplomb. The thing is that I am so completely out of my depth that I don’t know how to handle any of this with either of those things. All I have done and continue to do is cry (and I have… a lot) and whine about it, hoping that I haven’t completely made shit up. I have spent a lot of time, hoping that someone would tell me that they had seen it in a dream or that they had tangible evidence that what I have been going through is legitimate. The problem with craving legitimacy here is that none of these dragons can really provide that to me. I don’t think anyone really can provide me with that and even if they could, I don’t know if I would believe them. It’s a vicious circle when things go off the map – your lines in the sand are constantly getting moved back and no matter what it comes down to, you will always have those moments where you just deny everything.

My religious life has long since wandered off the carefully mapped out section of what I thought it was going to be. Honestly, if I sit down with Five Years Younger Me, I would have said that my religious life would have been fulfilling, happy, exciting, making and/or had made me into a better person, and all about the laity: what that means, how that works, and being an “unexceptional, not speshul snowflake.” That is what the person I was five years ago would have said.

What I can say now is that my path is definitely making me into a better person. It definitely falls under the broad definition of “exciting.” But more often than not, it can be frightening and worrisome, with strategic stops at “bitter,” “irritated,” “confused,” and “angry.” I was knocked for a loop a few years back and I’ve been kind of reeling from it all ever since. That is why, in my opinion, a map would be fucking useful right about now.

Kemetic Round Table: More 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!

When I first got started in the wild realm of heka, I think I overcomplicated the concept to myself. I tried to look at it from the same frame of reference as the ancient Egyptians. Don’t get me wrong – that’s important especially for those of us who are recreating the religion. But I spent so much time worrying about my words and what sort of associations, ramifications, and unintended hurts may end up being inflicted on others that I stopped saying anything of merit at all.

I can assure you – this is not how you work with heka.

I think the thing that hung me up the most is that, while the ancient Egyptians saw words as inherently powerful in their own right, things have changed to an extent. We don’t take as much time with the wording of something. I think our modern viewpoint negates the inherent ability within us to effectively create heka. It’s important, of course, to be mindful of our words and how tone, inflection, and the wording can impact others, but I don’t necessarily equate someone being a twatwaffle when they speak to utilizing heka.

When I use heka, I tend to save it for “larger” occasions, specifically during the rites and services I do on behalf of Sekhmet, during major holidays, or larger magical undertakings. So, for example, I have been cooking up (so to speak) a large personal rite that has aspects of both sympathetic magic and heka interwoven together. Outside of these instances, however, I very rarely use heka in my life on a day-to-day basis.

I found that my past failings with attempting to monitor my words and mind my attitude had ended up disastrously: it impacted me negatively by feeling as if I couldn’t say anything with any substance as well as setting off my anxiety. It also made it that much harder for me to communicate effectively. I still have leftovers from this – anyone who knows me that I go quiet on the Internet frequently. This isn’t always caused because of spoon management (or lack thereof) but because I don’t feel as if I have the ability or wherewithal to (A) add anything to the conversation or (B) say anything that wouldn’t, eventually, end up coming out badly.

So, I stopped worrying about my words on a daily basis and started worrying more about them when I was in ritual and when I was working on magix. I found that I worked on it all, studying what it was I was hoping to achieve by turning to heka (healing, protection, execration, etc) and using that as a firm foundation. From there, I built upward with what I felt was needed in order to have good heka in use for the goal I was aiming to achieve.

But you know what I discovered after a while? I’ve become far more mindful of my speech on a daily basis.

Part of this, of course, could be because my job is 95% done through written communication. Much of what I work on is highly technical… and I have to communicate the technical aspects to people who would not understand the lingo. I often find myself paying more attention to how I’m phrasing a problem and what the resolution for that problem was. I pare it down to its most basic component – as an example, the carrier made a wiring repair – and reflect that in my communication.

I do this, as well, within my written communication over the Internet and my conversations with friends and family. I think about what it is they are wanting to know from me, pare it down to its most basic component, and work upward from there. (For those just getting to know me via Tumblr, this is why 99% of my responses are so short.)

When I became aware of this, I started looking around to see if there were other instances where I would use heka on a more daily basis. And I found that I did have my moments. I can’t say it’s something that comes to me either naturally or often, but it is something that I do.

Periodically, I will do a sort of invocation of one of the netjer to see me through the day. The ancient Egyptians were fond of equating themselves as the gods when they were undertaking heka. It added a layer of legitimacy along with a layer of power to the heka that they were trying to do. Most often, as anyone can guess, I reach out to Sekhmet in my attempt to embody what she is capable of: getting through some bad ass shit.

I will admit that this has had mixed results, though I don’t think it’s necessarily because my heka is ineffectual as a whole, but because I tend to do this in a fit of pique. I don’t think that being at my wit’s end necessarily assists me with what I’m trying to do… which is why I tend to plan out for quite a long time frame beforehand what heka I am undertaking.

When it comes to getting started with heka, I honestly don’t know how someone should get started. I think studying the concept in an effort to understand how it was used in ancient Egypt is a good idea. However, when I did, I found myself anxious and overwhelmed both by the concept (since it isn’t exactly an easy one to figure out in a single go) and how it could possibly impact my life.

I think baby steps are probably the best way to go, but that’s honestly the case with about 99% of anything one wishes to study. When it comes to heka, I would go through Kemetics’ blogs and read through any posts tagged under “heka” or “heka hut.” That should give you a rough understanding if what it means to the modern day practitioner.

The next few baby steps that would be the most effective would be to start off small: execration. Execrations are probably the easiest, most cathartic, and the most common forms of heka modern practitioners utilize. (Have a whole KRT topic on it even!) I’m almost positive my first official act of heka was an execration. Besides, who doesn’t like the idea of beating the crap out of a pot or piece of paper when you’re frustrated beyond your measure?

From there, I would take it one step at a time. There’s never a rush when it comes to this sort of thing. Rushing into these types of endeavors can lead to more problems in the long-run anyway. And of course, as always, make sure you have fun with it all, you know? Don’t get boring with it.

Kemetic Round Table: The Afterlife

Coming face-to-face with your own mortality can be hard to handle. I know this myself; just recently, I sat down with a life insurance salesperson and talked numbers. The whole experience was terrifying and not just because I was being forced to put a price on what the hell my life should pay out for should something happen to me. But it was also terrifying because I had to answer questions like, “what will your family do if something unexpected happens to you?” It really puts into perspective that quote by Benjamin Franklin: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

A need to bury the dead goes back pretty far in history. Scientists have reported that Homo neanderthalensis practiced burial culture. Undisputed burial customs for Homo sapiens go back at least 100,000 years. The experts seem to say that the fact that the ancient bipeds of our past buried their dead means that they had a concern for the dead, which is partially why grave goods were a thing, too. I don’t know about all of that, but I can kind of understand, especially in connection with my own recent reminder about my own mortality, why people would feel a need to provide creature comforts to the dead.

When I was an atheist, I was pretty sure the whole point in religion was so that people had something firm to believe in for that moment when they absolutely had to come to grips with the fact that, at the end of it all, they were going to die. That moment of facing your own mortality can really sneak up on you and punch you in the face with a tin can, in case you weren’t aware. So, I understood it all from that perspective. People needed something bigger to focus on in the hopes that there was something that happened after The Moment, not just for themselves but for all the people who had gone on before them. I got it, but back then, it just wasn’t for me.

It’s almost ironic now that the religion I’ve turned to and practice has a firm, strong basis in afterlife mythos and beliefs. It’s almost like I needed to go the complete polar opposite of how it was when I was an atheist. From the unsettling desire to want more as an atheist – thus the disturbing tenacious need to cling to something like reincarnation – to the full-blooded beliefs of the ancient Egyptians. I guess, one might say, I don’t really do anything half-assed.

Afterlife by Cristiano Pelagracci

The ancient Egyptian civilization lasted for over three thousand years. In that time, the beliefs in the afterlife changed and morphed. What we’re often taught in school is a bastardization of the rich beliefs. Teachers can’t even begin to touch the whole of it – three thousand years of belief on a specific subject in a single class? Hell, people go to college for the stuff and they can’t possibly learn the whole of it. I’m going to try and be as succinct as possible here, but I’ll admit that I have a thing for rambling about stuff and tangents may happen.

The ancient Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife get their start pretty early. Most Egyptologists will tell you that it stems from some high roller accidentally finding a body that naturally mummified in the dry climate of the desert after a burial. Maybe – I mean, who really knows? Jackals, specifically, are known to have scavenged around the necropoles that arose out of a need to bury the dead. Experts will tell you that this is why Anup has a jackal head. Maybe – again, who actually knows?

The point being that the reason why the ancient Egyptians went with what they did for their afterlife beliefs is never going to be known. We’ll have suppositions and theories, of course, because that’s kind of what we do. But we’ll never officially know what it was that made them go, “yeah, man. Let’s mummify this guy in some salt and then have a big jackal-faced guy stand guard while we do that!” For all we know, they got the idea because someone had a dream once and it just kind of stuck.

The earliest burials were conducted with who knows how much ceremony – they have one thing in common though, the people were buried with a single pot. We don’t know what the pot was for although popular theories tend to hold that this was a holding vase for food. During later Pre-Dynastic times, the people continued to be buried with a single vase or pot, but the burials grew. Bodies were arranged to face either east or west and in either a crouched or fetal position. The grave goods grew more elaborate with painted imagery on the pots and personal items, such as weapons for men and cosmetic palettes for women, joined the originally very limited burial customs.

The difference between the poor and the rich began to gain momentum even so far back as then. It wasn’t until the Early Dynastic period, though, when people began to have brick-lined tombs. Of course, these tombs lasted until modern Egyptologists could excavate them while those of the poor are lost to us. We have a million different little clues – many of which make no sense to us now – about how the rich and royals were buried. Chances are the beliefs held across the board and a desire to be taken care of after death was just as important as it was for those who could afford a better tomb.

The ancient Egyptian beliefs in the afterlife during the Old Kingdom culminated in the Pyramid Texts and the royal necropoles that litter the landscape: Saqqara, Abusir, Dahshur and Giza being the most well-known. The zenith in all of this belief was the protection and resurrection of the pharaoh to ascend into the heavens. The Duat, as we’ve come to know it, wasn’t fully developed by this point. It was the transcendence from human to star that the pharaoh was aiming for. I often wonder if the lay people wanted to become a star, too, but because of the whole poor be poor and rich be rich thing the ancient Egyptians had going on, they were barred from the practice.

The belief in the afterlife morphed throughout the First Intermediate period. I suspect that the fragmentation of the country and the different factions that arose are the reason why the more common people were allowed access to an afterlife. Since it had become clear with the collapse of the Old Kingdom, anyone who was powerful enough and edgy enough could make a name for themselves. The world of the ancient Egyptians had been built upon the principle that the pharaoh was a god on earth. But the people had to admit that it was possible to fell a good and the politico-religious world that they had crafted.

The Coffin Texts began to show up around the First Intermediate Period. They began as an offshoot of the Pyramid Texts. The difference being that everyday wants and desires were added to the lists, which seems to reflect the commoners were using them as well. The afterlife was no longer a royal monopoly, but open to anyone who had enough wealth to secure a good artist and a coffin.

It is during the Middle Kingdom that the Book of Two Ways gets its beginnings. This book starts to give the geographical details regarding the Duat. This original book insinuated that the Duat was made up of seven gates (which would later be changed to twelve during the New Kingdom) with each gate being guarded by a serpent and two deities. To name each correctly was to allow the deceased passage through to the next gate. The “two ways” seems to indicate that there were two ways to pass through the Duat on the deceased’s way to Rosetjau and the home of Wesir: one by land and one by sea.

This theme is fully explored throughout the New Kingdom. It is from the New Kingdom that we are mostly taught about the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians’ afterlife. This is where you hear about the Book of the Dead, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, and the Amduat. As long as the person had enough money to pass on to a scribe, they would be guaranteed the correct spells and incantations to pass through the Duat. Only now, instead of just leading towards the abode of Wesir, we have the Field of Offerings, the Field of Reeds, and of course, the ever present judgment chamber where the heart is weighed against the feather of truth.

But all of this is about the soul, to be honest. It was the soul that was important here. The body was going to end up being taken care of by priests with offerings in abundance and temples, or it wasn’t. The body was going to end up, inevitably, forgotten in the sands of time. The body part was pretty fucking important but it wasn’t necessary so long as the memory withstood and there were adequate representations of the deceased for them to inhabit. How they buried the dead tells a lot about them, but it’s the fracturing of the soul after death that is the most important.

The soul fragmented itself after death into eight parts: the body (khat), the mummy (sah), the heart (ib), the name (ren), the ka (ka), the ba (ba), the shadow (shut), and the akh (akh/akhu). Each part was fundamental to the greater good of the resurrection: the body, or a close approximation, was needed in order to perform the magical rites of mummification. It was these two fundamentals that were the first steps which led the deceased on the roller coaster that would lead them through the Duat and into their resurrection.

The ib was the essence of the life of the deceased. It was considered to be the power house for the mind and the seat of one’s emotions. The ib was necessary so that the records of all of the good deeds and bad deeds that the deceased had committed could be written in the Hall of Records and the gods could weigh it against the feather of Ma’at.

The ren was the part that needed to be spoken in order to keep the memory alive. To write one’s name in stone was to give it permanence, which is why the ancient Egyptians would hack out names for those that were deemed in need of punishment.

The ka was the part that seems to have been most like the soul as we know it today. It came into being at the birth of a person and it was the ka that required nourishment. The ka according to the ancient Egyptians was immortal. This is the part of the person that I tend to associate with my belief in reincarnation, but that’s UPG of course.

We don’t know what the point in the shut was, honestly. It could partake of nourishment. It was also needed to pass through the Duat and there were dangers specific only to the shadow.

The ba is most often associated with the personality of the deceased. The ba returned to the body every evening in order to continue the deceased’s existence in the afterlife. The ba required nourishment in the forms of food, drink, and sexual energy.

The akh is the part of the person that transcended and became one with the sky. The akh is not as tied to the rest of the sum total of a human being. It tended to leave the rest behind and quest for immortality by becoming a star.

All of the literature we read about how the ancient Egyptians buried their dead is only part of the whole. The tombs, the books, the texts – it’s all about where the soul was going to go and how it needed to get there. I think that we forget that the whole of it isn’t simply about how expensively and how lavishly they could bury their dead, but that the things left behind were needed in order to ensure the total composite parts of the soul were taken care of.

Personally, I think that’s kind of bad ass. They spent all this money and left a million different types of grave goods, but it wasn’t really about the here and now. It was about whether or not they were remembered and whether or not they would get to live some more in the afterlife. I think, as a modern American, I can understand that. Don’t we have enough of our own monuments all for the very same purpose? We only do it on a smaller scale.

Giza Pyramids by More Altitude

As I mentioned above, I believe in reincarnation. I won’t bore people with the details, but honestly, how the ancient Egyptians believe things happened and how I believe things happen don’t actually work against each other. I believe that it’s the ka that is reincarnated in life after life. I’m not alone; I’m not the only Kemetic out there with this belief. We all have our own reasons for it, but it works for us. Just because the ancient Egyptian culture had a rich belief system when it came to life after death… it doesn’t really mean it’s going to negate what we, ourselves, believe. Sometimes, it just adds to it.

Personally, I don’t really think that Duat functions the way it used to. From my excursions over there (UPG, of course), it seems more like a store house or a stopping place. The belief in the place stopped thousands of years ago and I strongly suspect that’s wreaked some havoc. I don’t know if the gates are still all there, although from what I’ve found, there are certain places that do still exist. I know from other spirit workers that they’ve gone to specific places over there, as well. But to be perfectly frank, I don’t think the Duat is set up the way it once was. It’s possibly the landscape has changed, yet again, due to the disbelief or the falling out of belief. But it’s also possible that the energy the netjeru needed to maintain the landscape dissipated when they fell out of favor.

And we can’t really discount others’ beliefs. Many Kemetics who have attempted to honor their ancestors based on the ancient Egyptian belief system of akhu veneration have met with fierce resistance. I, myself, am one of those people. So, perhaps it isn’t simply that the Duat doesn’t function that way anymore but that the soul transfiguration output machine has closed up shop since the last believer has long since died. Maybe with our belief we’re rekindling it a little bit at a time, but mostly, I think, it’s just a place the netjeru go to escape the ravages of time, space, and humanity.

Maybe that’s why reincarnation among many Kemetics seems to be a thing. Or perhaps the ancients got it partially wrong in the first place. As I said above, we’ll never really know the truth. We can only move forward with our own beliefs and hopes and dreams and fear of our own impending mortality. All the more power to those of us who, at least, don’t go towards it with an ever-pressing fear but more with the eye of yet a new adventure eternally on the horizon.

Further Reading

1. Body and Soul @ Reshafim
2. Funerary Practices @ Reshafim
3. What is a Soul? by Satsekhem
4. Funerary Practices by Satsekhem
5. Funereal Liturgy by Satsekhem
6. The Akhu category by Satsekhem

Kemetic Round Table: Vocabulary.

Words are important.

Language is important.

If we don’t have language, and at its most basic level words, then we have no way to communicate properly. Sure, there are things like body language that we can rely on but how many times have you assumed the cute smirk on the girl next door meant she had a crush on you when in fact she was silently picturing your death at her hands? Or, the mistaken kiss cue that was really just your not-lover’s way of getting to an awkward itch on their back. Seems to me like relying on something like body language when we’re all raised on using verbal and written speech patterns may not be a good idea.

And of course, it can be highly stressful when people can’t communicate on the same language level. Have you ever tried to take the order of someone who speaks a completely foreign language and has no basis for same-language communication? Or, how many times have you been anxious as all hell because you need to ask where the rest room is but all of the signs pointing the way are incomprehensible? Or what if you have never once heard what verbalizing is even like and you have to have an interpreter around for every little attempt at communication?

As this quote says best: “Through language we can connect with other people and make sense of our experiences.”

Consistency in jargon can be important when it comes to practicing an ancient religious tradition in a modern context. By sustaining the status quo with wording and definitions, it can help to provide a sort of legitimacy that some traditions may feel are robbed when modernization enters the mix. In other words, it can inflate egos and make people feel more comfortable with the fact that they have no fucking clue what the hell they’re doing.

However, by keeping the old and throwing out the new, we’re also preventing ourselves from growth. We’re trying to retain a two-dimensional image when we’ve been shoved into the third dimension. And by allowing modernization, both with terminology and in other areas, then we can keep ourselves comfortable while realizing that we have no fucking idea what the hell we’re doing. Of course, we’ll probably still see people with inflated egos (something like “only my definition is the true definition” or something), but at least we can bring the past into the present.

I find myself waffling back and forth on this.

On the one hand, I don’t personally care who calls who by what name and who uses what sort of definition to describe words specific to the religion – like heka, ma’at, and isfet. But on the other hand, it helps to have a common basis linguistically. If I use the term “ma’at,” then most people will know what I’m saying even though we may all translate it differently. If I use the term “isfet,” then, again, most people will know what I’m saying even though we may all bicker about the specifics regarding its definition.

When it comes to talking to newbies, I think maintaining a certain set of parameters regarding terminology could be a good idea. Some of the words that many of us still retain from the ancient Egyptian lexicon are important foundational facts of the religion itself: ma’at and heka, for example. And those particular words can come out sticky and warped if we try to translate them into languages not quite built to incorporate those types of concepts.

However, while I think it may be a good idea to continue to use the ancient Egyptian word-form for things like those concepts, I also think it’s important to use the warbled translations we so often expound to others: ma’at means balance; isfet means a type of chaos; heka kind of means magic. This provides legitimacy to a more modern interpretation, which is important to the great community and its steady growth in the wider pagan community.

The thing is that I strongly believe that having a strong foundation for any practice is important. Terminology and phraseology can provide stones to aid in the building of that foundation. Without that foundation, things can crumble down around our ears without our really realizing what’s happened. Terminology and phraseology that’s universal also provides common ground with co-religionists and, hearkening back to the quote I wrote above, it gives us a firmer connection with those co-religionists, even if the little things (like exact definitions and nuances of rituals) are different.

So, how necessary is terminology and language?

At the very, very bottom line: it’s important. You can’t go out and create something without having some form of basic nomenclature, which is made better if that nomenclature is already established. However, as time moves on and things change, the common ground becomes constricting and a need for a more modern outlook must be made. The leap from the old to the new can be terrifying and worrisome, but I think it’s pretty thrilling, too.

Personally, I tend to use the established terminology – ma’at, heka, and the like when discussing certain concepts. I don’t do this to differentiate myself or to make myself feel superior, but because I know that new people are going to be reading what it is that I am writing. And so, by giving them the possible building blocks with the established vocabulary, I’m hoping that they will one day get to the point where they will feel the need to take a leap into the more modern world.

The thing about terminology is that, outside of certain words and phrases, it can kind of get wishy-washy. So, let’s look at the names of the gods. As an example, we have Heru-Wer, Heru-Wr, Heru-Ur, Haroeris, and Horus the Elder. They all mean the same deity, but which one is the best name? Or, more accurately, which one is the correct name? They all are correct because they’re all referring to Horus the Elder. When it comes to talking about the gods, use whatever works out best for you. (Just be prepared for someone to look at you funny or to ask you what the hell you mean.)

When it comes to the names of the gods, it doesn’t matter, in my opinion, nearly as much as certain words would because they are all correct and they all mean the same thing. Besides, no one actually knows what the gods’ “real” names are. Their real names, for all we know, could be something so ridiculous that we would laugh ourselves hoarse if we ever had to say it or write it.

So, in summation, the thing about terminology is that having a general framework that is already established is pretty important. And it’s pretty important for newbies to learn that established framework just so that they can have a good foundation to build their practices on. But, once a comfort level with the established framework has been reached, then you know what? Go crazy. Use words that make sense for you (as long when posting publicly you at least denote that those words aren’t necessarily canon but your own interpretation of canon) so that you can get comfortable even more.

Kemetic Round Table: Ma’at & Isfet.

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!

When it comes to certain concepts within the ancient Egyptian religious tradition, some of the most popular words bandied about are ma’at and isfet. For many modern Kemetics, these words have quickly entered our daily lexicons in our various and personalized attempts to both find an understanding for words that are difficult to translate in to modern dang lingo as well as provide that knowledge to newbie Kemetics.

As a newbie Kemetic, I wanted the easy way out: I wanted someone else to tell me what the hell these types of concept things were about and I would just go with the flow. While this worked out for a while, after a time, it dawned on me that I could go with someone else’s flow but it didn’t really satisfy me anymore. I often thought that it kind of equates to the quote from Liz in the movie Dogma: “He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you’re young, the glass is small, and it’s easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn’t fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.”

After a few years of listening to what other people were saying, I realized that I actually needed to get up and fill the glass with water from my own damn tap.

While I’ve detailed my repeated attempts on what to quantify ma’at (linked below) as, it was through conversation and positive reinforcement from my Kemetic friends that the basis for my definition of ma’at came about: it is balance. There are a ton of different ways various Egyptologists have defined the concept over the years. But in my opinion the simplest way to look at it would be to simply think of it as shades of gray and balance.

When it comes to determining what ma’at means, those of us who have been around the proverbial block a few times can, of course, tell you what it means. But if you look to the historical record and see what qualified as living in ma’at, then that is when you’ll see what I mean by shades of gray. Some things that were considered living in ma’at were,

1. Being good to the gods (like giving them offerings and not stealing said offerings)
2. Warfare (with other countries)*
3. Not being an intentional jackass to others
4. Execrations (aka cursing)

* Please note that there was a very big difference between war amidst nome leaders, which was considered isfet, and war with an enemy of the state, such as foreigners.

But how is that even a thing, right? If living in ma’at entailed things like being a pretty stellar human being, but also allowed the whole cursing thing – what the fuck? How is it possible to have a concept that both includes things like blood-letting on a massive scale and possibly blood-letting on a personal scale?

That’s the thing about ma’at – it’s not all roses and sunshine. If things like bloodshed and curses can be considered a part of ma’at, then clearly the phrase “shades of gray” is highly appropriate when defining it. I think another way to describe it as a mix between “be excellent to each other,” (a quote from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) coupled with “but take no fucking shit lying down.” The best thing, in my opinion, about what ma’at is would be that it doesn’t demand that you lie down and take whatever guff you think or know that people are going to throw your way; it demands that you stand up for yourself in any way available, only demanding that your desire to be an intentional ass face be checked at the door.

The thing is that most people have no idea how to integrate this concept into their daily lives. Living in ma’at was the foundation of the ancient Egyptian state and religion (which, technically, went hand in hand). It was this difficulty that brought us those two important rules of Kemeticism that Tumblr Kemetics spout a lot:

1. Give stuff to the gods.
2. Don’t be a dick.

Since the belief in the gods was immaterial what with the ancient Egyptian religion being an orthopraxy (correct action; not correct dogma), rule number one could be thrown out the window so long as rule number two is followed.

The thing about “don’t be a dick” is that people tend to think of it as allowing people to walk all over you; they conflate it with some deep-held belief that it means you should be nice all the time. The thing that’s implied, but not emphatically stated with that rule, is that it’s “don’t be an intentional dick” as I stated above. However, as we know, it also means that when it comes to protecting yourself and others, you must do whatever you must do in order to guarantee that protection.

When it comes to living in ma’at, which is of course probably the most important religious thing ever, I have to admit that I still get stuck. I give stuff to the gods; I try not to be an intentional dick to anyone. (Let’s face it – I’ve been a dick for more years than I’ve not been a dick, so I’m going to backslide occasionally.) But is that the be-all, end-all to how this particular concept can infiltrate one’s life? Or is it possible to have it fully incorporated on a grand scale?

How people decide to work on incorporating ma’at into their daily lives is going to vary from person to person. Some people put shopping carts away. Some people are nice to everybody and try not to judge. Some people take those 42 pesky little principles of ma’at and attempt to live by them. Some people don’t change how they behave at all.

Personally, I know that I was successful in having at least achieved living in ma’at when I come home from work. After a long day of being everybody else’s chew toy or reciprocating said chew toy status upon unsuspecting unhelpful carrier representatives, when I step into my house and I can clear my head enough, spend quality time with my family, go online without taking out the day’s frustrations, and settle down to sleep without harping on my perceived mistakes… that’s when I truly feel as if I’ve managed to achieve some semblance of establishing, maintaining, and living in ma’at. I don’t always succeed and I honestly don’t think that it’s possible to succeed every day in living in ma’at especially since I wasn’t raised with the notion.

But on the days where I don’t feel like I’ve been pummeled nearly to death with stress and worry, those are the days where I feel like I’ve been successful.

The opposite of ma’at is known as isfet. Just as with ma’at, defining the term can be a little difficult. Since there are so many different words which are oft-equated with ma’at, so too the opposite of those words can be defined as meaning isfet: harmony, balance, order for ma’at while on the opposite end of the spectrum, disharmony, imbalance, chaos for isfet.

The thing is that, just like with ma’at, isfet can be best determined to be shades of gray as well. The thing about ancient Egyptian trains of thought on religious items like these is that there is nothing pre-defined and easily checked off into a neat little box. Ma’at can incorporate isfet and isfet can incorporate ma’at.

So, for example, living in ma’at, as I stated above, could mean that chaos may be required in order to set that balance into motion. Take the god Set for example: he is a deity of chaos and yet, he is also shown as maintaining and establishing ma’at as well. My day may be shitty and nutty and I may come home feeling like the shit end of the stick, but the next day means that projects are set in motion, my task list is a little lighter, and I can actually feel like I’ve adequately achieved something because I suffered through the chaos or isfet of the day before. Without that day of isfet, hour of isfet, second of isfet then the next day may have been just as shitty but because I did have that crazy day, I was able to establish myself for the rest of the week.

It is through isfet that the entirety of creation was made manifest. The waters of the Nun are equated with that primordial, frightening chaos that is most often seen in a negative light when you start reading really boring Egyptological papers and books on the topic. However, if not for those chaotic waters, we wouldn’t have the world that we live in today. Isfet, however, was also seen as the evil within someone’s heart. (I couldn’t say what sort of evils that were or if it means all evils. Or even how people knew that their hearts were evil before the whole reconfigured for being all dead and whatnot thing, but you know, it was apparently a thing.)

As far as how much or how little isfet has anything to do with my practice, I would like to say that it has very little to do with me. Clearly, that’s not the case. I’ve had days where I’ve come away and said: “Why yes, today was the embodiment of isfet,” as I’ve said above. But I don’t think those types of isfet really are a part of the primordial, terrifying chaos that was the very thing the ancient Egyptians were trying to prevent from gaining territory and from destroying the world at large by the ritual acts of the pharaoh, the correct living of the people, and the ritual acts of the priesthood [in the stead of the pharaoh].

Some days are so hectic and crazed that I need to do a ritual execration (or curse) in order to feel myself being freed from the aftereffects of having been within the hold of isfet all day. Some days, I can shrug it off and know that just spending time with my family will be enough to make me feel better. And other days, I have to wonder – because of how bad shit is – how it’s possible that the sun can rise the next day, thereby alerting me to the fact that ma’at still reigns supreme, when everything sucks so fucking badly. But the sun continues to rise and that renews me as well as the world around me to fight it off in any way both myself and the world are capable of doing.

These concepts are not easy and, frankly, I long for the days where I used to have someone else tell me how to think about this stuff. But to be honest, there’s only so long one can take being spoon fed what other people think. We all need to come to decisions about these things on our own. And there’s no telling how simple or how difficult it will be to come to terms with both what these concepts mean and what, if anything, they mean for each of us. I can assure anyone reading this that even close friends who have had discussions about these concepts, meanings, and share similar thought processes can and will differ on the fine points. And that’s okay. Don’t stress it if what you think ma’at and isfet happen to be don’t exactly correlate with everyone else. We’re all individuals, graced with individual experiences, and those individual experiences will color those definitions and interpretations.

Further Reading

1. Ma’at
2. Isfet
3. Kemeticism is Orthropraxic
4. Kemeticism is Orthopraxic II
5. Kemeticism is Orthopraxic III
6. Violence and Ma’at
7. Isfet…

Kemetic Round Table: The Mysterious Godphone!

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!

The amount of times that I’ve seen someone reach out, in desperation, asking about godphones is enlightening. It leads me to believe that many newbies enter into their chosen paths with this intense desire to have one. I honestly suspect that newbies seems to think that the ultimate culmination in a fulfilling and intensely personal devotional relationship is the ability to hear their deity clearly and concisely on a regular basis. Considering all of the myriad of things that can go into a devotional relationship and considering all of the different little side paths that relationship can wander down, I honestly have to wonder if maybe the focus on the godphone thing is a good idea. I mean, of all the things to aspire to, newbies want to talk to their gods on a regular basis and hear things back? Just from an outsider’s perspective that may sound kind of silly. From an insider’s perspective, I have to admit, it still sounds pretty foolish.

And to be perfectly frank, I wouldn’t ever think that the ultimate culmination in a devotional relationship has anything to do with hearing the gods, but has to do with feeling as though you are doing it right. But, that’s just me; people often tell me that my opinion on various subjects isn’t exactly mainstream or normal.

If only it were as simple as dialing a number…

For those not in the know, the godphone is exactly what it sounds like: it is the ability to have open lines of communication between yourself and your deity. The phrase, “godphone,” actually began its life as a joke, but has since metamorphosed into the thing seen today: the intense and earnest desire to be able to communicate with the gods on a regular basis. As with all forms of titles and linguistics, aspects to its original definition (in this case, a trait specific to individuals who were capable of communicating regularly with their gods) have since changed to encompass the heart-wrenching cries from the neophytes for some sign from their gods (in this case, the desire to be able to communicate regularly with the gods).

It honestly astounds me with how many people have posts running around, specifically on Tumblr, discussing the desire for one. It honestly goes to show that the desire to have that personal relationship with the gods appears to be universal, no matter what type of path one may be on. It also goes to show that my suspicions regarding Christianity and the lack of ability to have that kind of personal relationship is possibly why so many people are converting to other forms of religious traditions. Be that as it may, and my suspicions have no bearing on anything, the godphone phenomena is picking up speed and there are no breaks on this particular crazy train…

Having a godphone is incredibly painful, incredibly difficult, and can open a giant can of worms for those afflicted. Of course, outsiders, who are very busy looking in without knowing the specific nuances of the relationships they’re stealing peeks into, are just going to assume that we’re bitching and moaning. The thing is that having a godphone can lead to a lot of doubt, a lot of issues, and a lot of hemming and hawing over your own grip on sanity. These are aspects, though, that most people aren’t going to take into consideration if they’re looking in. All they see is the glitz and glamor of being able to communicate regularly with the gods; they’re not going to take into consideration what those messages may contain or even what those messages may mean to the person who is receiving them.

This is actually what it’s like more often than not.

As someone with a godphone, I can tell you just how much I doubt my sanity – daily. Every morning, I wake up after having had some intense dreams or experiences with various netjeru and I have to wonder if I’m making it all up. Just because there is historical contexts for communication via dreams, especially within the ancient Egyptian religion, doesn’t matter much to me. Historical information is well and fine, but I have to wonder if the ancient Egyptian priests or the people of ancient Egypt who did dream divination in their temple of choice ever had moments where the gods told them, “do the shadow work or your life is forfeit,” or “I need you to kill this spirit for me in as painful a way as humanly possible and no, I’m not going to tell you why,” or “Can you please just shut the fuck up about how much you hurt and kneel on this stone floor for months on end without me telling you why you’re doing this?”

Something tells me that my godphone-like experiences and their godphone-like experiences are two aspects of a single spectrum… with a huge fucking brick wall in the middle.

What makes it worse are the glimmers of feelings that I get regarding something.

I can go for days with this intense need to go and sit on the lawn, for example, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. And if I don’t do it, then I start to get really fucking bitchy and annoying to those around me because I have this inexplicable fucking desire to SIT ON A LAWN FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER (and no, it couldn’t possibly be my lawn because that makes sense) and it won’t go away until I finally do it. And of course, it’s only as I do it that I realize that this is some weird act of devotion to –insert deity here–. Or, the really fun part where I have incredibly random song lyrics stuck in my head on endless repeat until I figure out the meaning behind such things.

And of course, we can’t possibly forget those intense moments where I am sitting in a slightly meditative state and I have actual conversations with the deity in question.

This is all just so joyful.

I know, I know. I’m sounding about as bitter as I probably feel. And I really do apologize for anyone who came into this entry, hoping for something that wasn’t bitter. I can’t help that there are moments where I honestly have to wonder if this is even worth it. Like, is this helping me at all? I don’t think so, but I can’t know that because I have a godphone and it works. So, I can only wonder if the grass is really greener on the other side and of course, those without are just assuming that the grass really is greener on the other side.

But how do I live with it and still manage to live my life?

In all honesty, I tend to ignore things a lot. While the gods may think that whatever message they’re pushing on me is important, I have things to do like pay the bills, tuck in my son, walk my dog, and any other random and mundane things. The gods’ time lines and my time line may not exactly add up, which is quite possibly why I can get so bitchy about not understanding the message or feelings that I am receiving. Whatever the case may be, I just continue to do my regular and mundane thing, hoping that at some point in the future, it will become clear.

And if it doesn’t become clear to me in what I feel is a timely manner, then it’s a back burner kind of thing. If it’s not important enough for the gods to tell me in a way that I would clearly and truly understand on the first try, then it’s something that I will pull out and mull over when I have a free moment or three to do so. However, if they feel like using some form of confusing hand gesture or Wing Ding to communicate with me, then they’ll just have to be patient with me.

The thing about godphones, too, that many people don’t seem to understand is that they arne’t always reliable. Things happen and life happens, which can cause “reception” to go down. It’s very much, in my experience, like a bad cell phone connection: the call is crackling, words are echoing, and there are whole aspects to the conversation that you’re missing out on because it went silent for about 30 seconds. The cell phone companies may go on about “better and more reliable networks” but the gods haven’t upgraded, in my opinion. There are still long stretches of time where I have to hope that I’m getting the message down properly.

This is, honestly, why I will put off things for as long as I do. I like to be sure that the intense desire, for example, to randomly sit on some stranger’s lawn is because an OTHER™ is telling me to do it versus, I just think that they are telling me to do it. When it comes to godphones, discernment is important. And maybe, the message came in all garbled. Perhaps there is more to all of this than just sitting on a lawn: maybe I was given specific instructions, but the message came through on such a shitty connection that all I am getting is the need to sit on some random person’s lawn.

If the feeling goes on long enough, I assume that I’m either losing my marbles or it’s time to sit down on some random person’s lawn, hoping that I’ll get something in return for all of it. Unfortunately, usually it’s more garbled messages that I have to parse out on my own.

I think, though, that the one thing most people without a godphone just don’t take into consideration – even with all the other things I’ve listed here – is that it can and will go down, for no reason. Phone lines go down fairly often enough. Usually, the actual lines themselves won’t go down but there will be an issue on the carrier level that prevents calls from connecting properly or at all. In this technical (and possibly boring) metaphor, we can make the correlation that the same thing can and will happen to those with godphones – and then where will you be after having been informed that you really need to rely entirely on your godphone?

Nowhere.

Godphones are capricious things, in my experience. I mean, just look at it from here:

1. Not everyone has one.
2. Not everyone has them utilized in the same way.
3. Not everyone can confirm others’ godphone-ing.
4. Not everyone can use theirs all the time.
5. Not everyone has clear reception.
6. Not everyone hears the godphone in the same way.
7. Not everyone can use the godphone regularly.

These are all things that I’ve mentioned and discussed in this very entry. Based on this list, it looks like godphones are not really an effective form of communication when it comes to devotional relationships. But again, that’s just me! Outsiders are always going to formulate an opinion on something they have no experience with based on minute glimpses into what seems like the “promised land” or, on the flip side, what seems like “a bunch of bullshit.”

When my godphone starts acting up, I honestly just enjoy the respite.

After months and months of having intense and regular communication with the netjeru, sometimes I need a break. And I would like to assume that they need a break from me. You can’t always be in the presence of your family, your friends, or your partner, can you? Possibly not without wanting to kill any of the above mentioned. I would assume that it’s the same for the gods with their godphone-enabled devotees. And possibly even the same when it comes to those devotees with their godphone-enabled. I mean, I can tell you that there are long moments where I would very much like a break, need a break, and damn it, Sekhmet, just shut up for five minutes okay?

This is what it used to be like before I discovered that I have the godphone.

I can remember when my godphone wasn’t very active. It was always there since, I feel, it’s something that you either have or you do not, but not having it turned “on” all the time made my life much easier. I didn’t doubt myself as much and I didn’t worry as much about what I was seeing/being asked to do/thinking about/feeling the need to do. Since I didn’t need to rely on this internal thing that allowed me to have these conversations and nudges, I often checked in with Tarot cards or oracle decks, hoping that what I was doing was all right.

And since divination is an imperfect science, it meant that I was left frustrated and angry because I couldn’t hear what the fuck they were trying to tell me. I could only hope that I was interpreting what I was seeing properly. But even with that frustration in the background, it was still easier. Even if I was completely misinterpreting whatever the hell the cards were telling me – and I had on quite a few occasions – I was still able to go back and check either with another deck or with another user of divination at some later date in time.

Without the godphone, I was always able to double and triple check myself; I could confirm what was being said or done or seen in the cards. Confirmation via the cards now is iffy at best since I’ve been told, repeatedly, that relying on “outdated communication is no longer necessary.” Too often, I spend hours trying to figure out why the hell that card is in the same reading as this other card and… well, it’s just not working out as well for me now that I have the ability to communicate “regularly.”

There are days, and I’ll admit that it’s at least weekly, that I miss the simplicity of divination to figure out what in the world is happening in my devotional relationships.

Further Reading

1. The Godphone
2. Entries Tagged “Godphone” by Devo
3. What is a Godphone? by Del
4. The Godphone Thing by Alex
5. GLE on Godphones
6. Godphones and Godspouses at Adventures in Vanaheim
7. Everywhere a Godphone by Myriad
8. Discernment by Devo

Kemetic Round Table: Offerings.

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!

I tend to associate the act of giving things to the gods as the “next step” on anyone’s religious path. It’s one thing to say that you are a devotee of X deity or a specific pantheon, but it’s still a realm of theory. It’s easy to debate that theory, both with yourself and with others until you’re blue in the face, without having anything concrete to back it up. You’ve read all the books; you’re hip to the lingo; you follow all the “proper blogs” everyone has recommended; you’re down with it. But in my experience, it was only once I began to actively do in the name of the gods I was working with that I began to feel as though I were an established practitioner. Everything, to me, prior to that was just something that I could wipe off easily from a chalk board. When I went to the next level by actively providing things to my gods, I realized that I had carved a message into the slate and going back would be a hell of a lot harder then.

When it comes to providing offerings, I think what to offer is probably the most popular question asked.

I honestly think the more important question is less about what and more about who, if anyone. The thing is that most people, when it comes to offerings, they’re ready to explore the next step, but it usually means that they have a specific deity in mind, usually termed as the “patron deity.” While I don’t necessarily discourage the practice of feeling the need to have a patron deity, I don’t necessarily encourage it either.

By focusing all of their newbie excitement and willingness into a single deity, perhaps one who may not even be interested, they are willingly excluding themselves from other deities who may be interested. We’ve all heard about deity collectors – those “weird” people who “collect” deities on the regular, such as myself – but I think what people are neglecting to take into account is that those who “collect” deities as often as I do is why the hell some of these deities are approaching established devotees when there are whole avenues of newbie blood available.

I think, too, that by giving an all-encompassing offering to all deities within a pantheon, the person in question will be better able to establish themselves as someone serious about this polytheistic life. I have always maintained that it was the act of giving an offering on a daily basis that established me on this path – it was the ability to do that daily rite, day in and day out, that gave me the ability to feel like I was actually living my religion, which was important to me. By moving forward with not having a specific deity in mind, they’re leaving themselves breathing room before the fun begins and a relationship begins to become fully formed.

Pictured: two priestesses provide food and wine offerings. Temple of Ramesses, Abydos.

As to what is to be provided to the gods, most often people get stuck here. Personally, I always recommend the more tried and true offering methods as shown in ancient Egypt to start off with. According to every offering related picture ever created in ancient Egypt, things like bread, flowers, figs, wild game, incense, cool water, water fowl, meat hanks, grains like wheat and barley, onions, lettuce, and wine were all used as providing offerings to the gods. Any of these items can be provided to the gods without worrying too much based on legitimacy. Since this comes from historically attested sources, you can’t really go wrong with using any of those.

(Obviously, I’m not going to recommend that you place a pair of live ducks or go and hunt down a deer to give as an offering to the gods. Unless that’s how you roll, just don’t do that.)

Another form of measure is to decide how modern the food product is. I can show that you won’t find a bag of Doritos or a can of Arizona on any of those offering images depicted in ancient Egypt. If possible, it’s always a good idea to stick to as historically accurate an offering as one can get when first starting out. Offering junk food, like chips or overly processed foods is okay, but it’s always best that the beginner go with as natural an offering as possible. There’s no need to have to defend oneself against the “you’re doing it wrong” brigade and again, you know that you aren’t entering the realm of UPG, so therefore, won’t have to defend yourself to anyone who feels like saying anything.

As time goes on, however, and a level of comfort is established in the act of providing offerings, then I highly recommend branching out of the established patterns the ancient Egyptians have set for us. We live in a modern world and I am a very vocal person when it comes to providing a more modernized practice for the gods. This will include items like chocolate, soda, Doritos, and ice cream. While I don’t think it’s a good idea to give these things every day, I think it can be an added bonus or a sort of treat to provide on “big occasions,” such as festivals and feast days or to celebrate something big that you accomplished [for or with your gods].

Fruit offerings provided to Sekhmet during one of my services in her name. Chocolate is hiding on the outskirts of the image.

Some more modern offerings that I can and do give to my gods include chocolate. I will also give shots of vodka and diet Coke to my gods. I’m not sure if the ancient Egyptians had cheese (and I’m too lazy to give it up), so I’ll give that in lieu of milk. All of these things are things that I ingest regularly (to a degree) and so, in my eyes, by giving them as an offering to my gods, I am actively sacrificing something to provide it. Even though I will revert it later, it’s still hard to just plunk it down in front of them and not immediately gobble up that chocolate square or drink down that perfectly chilled glass of diet Coke.

When it comes to offerings, obviously, the most commonly cited things are food. But in ancient Egypt, sweetly scented oils and incense were often provided to the gods. Nice smelling things were very important to the ancient Egyptians and so, these things were provided to the gods. Based on what I can find historically speaking, some of the more common incense blends were kapet (which is most often known today as “kyphi”), frankincense, and myrrh. Scented oils included scents perfumed with lilies and roots of iris.

(When searching for a good incense blend, I will often look for something that is organic. The ancient Egyptians abhorred bodily waste and most often, modern incense is made with urea. While I don’t hold too much with ritual purity, which can vary from practitioner to practitioner anyway, I do attempt to find incense blends without urea within them.)

Offerings can include non-historically attested items, as well. Usually, when it comes to giving things that aren’t historically accurate, it depends highly on the deity the item is being offered to. I have a knife blade on my altar to Sekhmet since she is a deity of warfare and bloodshed. The knife type isn’t something found in ancient Egyptian annals, but the concept behind the blade is. I have offered pink quartz to Hetheru, which is not attested to in my research on her, but it’s a pretty item and she is definitely a deity of “the finer things in life.” I have a rock with the word “magic” etched in it that I gave to Aset when she and I began working on strengthening my heka together.

None of these are things that, on the face of it, would have been given to the gods in the temples. It’s possible these smaller items would have been given in family shrines in the home, if these types of items existed back then. However, these are all items that make sense to me and are specifically entrenched in my UPG. As time goes by, a newbie will begin to create their own UPG that perfectly encapsulates the relationship(s) they are building with their deity(ies).

The final form of offering is to do things for the gods. Since most ancient religions are orthopraxic, I think it makes a perfect kind of sense to get up and go in the name of the gods. Sometimes, actions that I choose to provide to the gods are specific to that deity – I am cleaning for Hetheru as a household deity; I am singing and laughing with my son in the kitchen to Bes as a fun-loving and child-protecting deity; I am execrating my enemies for Sekhmet as a justice deity – but sometimes, they are all-encompassing actions to all the gods on my steady, but sure progress to live in ma’at.

Spongebob, telling it like it is.

I think that most people will get a little more nervous when they decide to offer actions to their gods, mostly because they’re not sure about how to go about it. Do you announce what you’re doing? Or do you just do it? Won’t it be weird if you just say that you’re going to do something for the gods? But won’t they already know what you’re doing? Personally, I used to announce that I am doing X for a specific deity just to ensure that they were listening. As time went by, however, I found that it mattered less and less if they were listening because I was going to do the thing anyway. While I reflected later that I had done that thing for the deity in question or possibly mulled over whether or not they liked that thing, it didn’t matter at the time of action if the deity was aware of that. All that mattered was that I was doing it and upholding ma’at in my own little way.

And above all else, upholding and maintaining ma’at, no matter how we define it ourselves, is probably the greatest action that can be given to the gods. It is to them that ma’at is upheld with their actions and it is our ability to assist them with our own actions that it continues. Even if cleaning the bathroom for the gods doesn’t seem like you’re upholding ma’at or even if it doesn’t seem like a suitable offering to the gods, it actually is. It’s something you are doing. It is maintaining your household. It is a part of your life, for good or ill. No matter how big or how small the task may be, if you decide it’s an action offering, then it’s an action offering and so be it.

When it comes to offering foods to the gods, we always talk about reverting the offerings. In ancient Egypt, the priests would disseminate the food items out to the people of the temple and eat them down. This is most often what Kemetics are discussing when we mention “reversion of offerings.” It’s one thing to sacrifice a food item to the gods and quite another to just throw it away afterwards. Sometimes, it may be a part of the offering to feed the birds with bread offered to the gods, but especially for those of us on a very strict budget, we can’t just throw food out because it was the gods’ food first.

However, sometimes, even the idea of offering food on a regular basis can be kind of dicey because of strict budgets. Another work around would be to offer meals that you are eating to the gods. This way, you don’t have to feel like you need to leave something out for “long enough” so that the gods take their fill before you whisk it away and devour it yourself. Offering what’s already going into your stomach also provides you with the ability to hide what you’re doing if you are living in an environment where you have to practice your religion on the down low.

Getting right down to it, the things to provide to the gods will vary from practitioner to practitioner. Whether or not the offerings are overt or quietly; whether or not they are done each day or once a week; whether or not they are provided with play food (like dollhouse food items) or with real food… it all depends on what works best for the person in question. And of course, the only way to find out how it will work out for each one of you is to give it all a try.

Related Posts

1. Offerings 101
2. Offerings 201
3. Offerings 301
4. On Offerings

Kemetic Round Table: Living and Breathing.

The Kemetic Round Table (KRT) is a blogging project aimed at providing practical, useful information for modern Kemetic religious practitioners.

From time to time, I will look down at the ankh I wear around my neck in an effort to remind myself that I am the sum total of all my parts as opposed to a human-looking Zord composed of different, autonomous parts. In those moments, I grip that pendant in my hand and hope beyond all hope that I am doing the symbol it stands for – my religion, my life, my gods, my family, and everything in between – justice as opposed to a disservice.

Whichever the case may be, I tend to feel a little stronger in the face of whatever it is that is causing my consternation and am able to move forward with the hectic nature of the day. Sometimes, just the grip is enough and sometimes, it is a matter of minutes before I can feel strong enough to continue. Oh gods, I always think, let me be able enough to live this life. Whether or not I am able to do it justice is another story.

When it comes to life and living and having a religion that must be kept covert, I will usually think that the things I don’t do matter. They probably don’t. There is no one better at making me feel like a guilty, shame-filled terrible devotee than myself. And there are extreme moments, daily sometimes or just periodically, where I’m pretty sure I’m doing everything wrong and I’m not “living” my religion the way I should be. During those moments, I pause and remind myself that since I haven’t been smote to fuck yet, I must be doing something right.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes me to get through.

Sometimes, I need more than just reminding myself that I’m still breathing.

I used to think that if people were living their faith appropriately, they would just know. I always looked forward to that moment, in the hopes, that the doubt and fears that continuously plague me, even now so many years in, would just go away. I would wake up one morning and think, oh, I’ve definitely got this, and be on my way with that knowledge. I think I may live in books and movies too much; isn’t the hero or heroine supposed to have a magical epiphany regarding things?

I’ve had plenty of epiphanies since I started walking this path, but I can’t think of any that have been particularly magical. Or even awe-inspiring. They’ve all just been a bland and boring, oh, well now I understand a bit, and I move on. But I always kind of expected bells and whistles or something. Instead, I have those freak moments where I’m gripping my ankh in my hand, with eyes narrowly focused on the feel of the arms biting into my palm.

I think I’m living my faith as capably as I possibly can, but I just always kind of expected something a bit more rainbow and unicorn farts when I got to this point.

I guess I just always assumed that, one day, when I was “adult enough” to do all of this, then things would be easier. I’m not really sure what made me have that assumption. I just remember, looking forward in moments of acute stress and panic, and knowing that it wouldn’t always be that hard. And in the grand scheme of things, I suppose I wasn’t all that wrong. Things aren’t always that hard; they’re just hard in different ways now. I suppose things got easier somewhere, but when I ask myself what it is that’s easier, I usually get muddled with all the things that are hard [in the moment of asking].

So, I guess I can safely say what living a religion, in my opinion, is not.

1. It’s not no longer having doubts, fears, panic attacks, or stressful moments.
2. It’s not having an easy time.
3. It’s not having a clear moment of realizing you really are living your religion.
4. It’s sure as shit not living fancy free.

Well, I’ve talked about what I thought it would be like and have found it to not be like. But what is it, to me?

When I sit down and think about it, I think back to what I said earlier. I said that I have intense moments, throughout the day, the week, the month, the year, in which I clutch the ankh pendant I wear daily around my neck. Sometimes, I have it nestled beneath my shirt and I have to pop it out in order to grasp it in my hand. Sometimes, it’s out and glinting in the light, waiting for my palm to clasp it. No matter what the purpose or how hard I grip it or the intensity behind my fervent wish that I am enough to get through my life, I think that is what living a religion – any religion – is all about.

By gripping that damn thing in my hand, I am reminding myself in the most tangible way that I am a Kemetic. I am also reminding myself that I am a living, breathing human being who may or may not be successful in their endeavors. (And the amount of success, of course, always varies depending on the moment and what it is I am enthusiastically wishing about.) And lastly, I am reminding myself that the life I am living is the only one I have available to me and by golly, I’m going to fucking live that shit the way I want to fucking live that shit.

To me, living my religion is characteristically summed up as clutching the ankh and feverishly hoping for the next moment to hurry the fuck up already.

It isn’t, though.

That’s not all of it.

It’s just that moment of such intensity where I need to feel the threads of my religion underneath my fingertips that leads me to cause the distinction.

Everything I do and say and write and breathe is an aspect to my religion, whether it looks like it is or not. The advice I offer to people who don’t know anything about my religion is part of it. The looks I give people walking down the street is part of it. The songs I listen to on the ride into work are a part of it. The books I read on my breaks at work or when I get home are a part of it. The way I sit in a chair is part of it. How I grip the steering wheel is part of it. The air that I breathe, the food that I eat, the clothes that I wear are all a part of it too. Everything I do is a part of it because my religion is as integral a piece of me as my hair color and my eye color; it’s just, maybe, a bit more hidden than all of that.

I say that the grip of the pendant is what living my religion is because it’s the most physical and obvious aspect. But everything I do, really, is summed up as living my Kemeticism. Everything is microcosmically interwoven together to be a part of who I am; it’s just the macrocosmic parts that seem a bit out of whack.

I thought I would be able to give advice on this topic, honestly. I thought I could write some things and then end it with how others can be like me, or something, and live their Kemetic ways. Or, other religious ways. But as I think back and I look down at the ankh around my neck, I have to wonder if how I live my religion is even something that others do or others should even remotely aspire to. I say that they’re all interwoven in some big cosmic Aubs that exists in the world who does the Kemetic thing and does the work thing and does the driving thing and drinks vodka on the regular like and it’s all a part of my religion.

But is there any way that someone out there could possibly look down at their pendant of choice, whisper a few words (possibly soaked in foul language) and know that they’re living their religion? Maybe, it’s just me that’s like that. Let’s be real here – it’s probably just a me thing. And I honestly don’t know if I would recommend how I do this to anyone else. Or even remotely have anyone build what they will do off of what I do.

I don’t think how I do this is, maybe, the right way or even the best way, but it works for me.

I can give some advice, though. Sometimes I have that stuff in spades; not so much today. But the bits I can assure you on are these:

1. Don’t assume that because you don’t feel like you are living your religion that you aren’t actually living your religion.
2. Don’t assume that how anybody else lives their religion is the “one twoo way” because that’s just ridiculous. There’s no one way on any of this shit, no matter who says otherwise.
3. Don’t assume that you’ll just automatically know when you’re “actually” living your religion because, clearly, epiphanies of that magnitude are probably never going to happen.
4. Don’t assume that you’re the only one out there constantly doubting your shit even if you do feel like you’re living your religion. I doubt it all the time.
5. Don’t assume that I’m bugnuts because I equate clutching a piece of metal as living my religion. I can assume I’m bugnuts because of that all on my own.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that you can read my post and think about it however you want, but it doesn’t mean that how I go about this will work for anyone else. I honestly hope it doesn’t work out for anyone else because I can assure anyone who has made it this far in the reading that shit is fucking hard and there are moments that I’m clutching that fucking pendant less for a steadying influence or anchor and more out of intense anxiety at the belief that I’m doing everything fucking wrong, wrong, and more wrong. It’s a tethered link, so to speak, with my religion that I hone in on often enough, but it’s my tethered link and doesn’t do a damn bit a good for anyone else, I shouldn’t think.

I suppose the best way to do this for anyone who isn’t me would be to stop periodically and assess yourself. In effect, that’s what I’m doing with my ankh. Step out into the day and look up at the sun or down at the grass or look at the flowers in bloom on the bushes or in the yards and assess yourself. Come to your own conclusions about what it is to live a religion and whether or not it’s an integral part of yourself. If you think it is, then I think… maybe, you’re probably doing this just the way you need to be.