Category Archives: akhu / ancestors

June 15, 2016 · 8:41 pm

Heart of Red Jasper Is Your Name

Ptahmassu has written some wonderful words and painted breathtaking art representing Sekhmet.

Heart of Red Jasper is Your Name

The Goddess Nuit brings you with her lips when she comes;
west’s mouth opens at twilight where your flashing star rises.
Your luminescence foretells the rising flank of the naked moon;
‘lips of lapis lazuli’ is your name at the moment of his ascension.

Djehuty declares you by the enchantment of his tongue;
you glide from his divine speech as a silver crescent’s boon.
What graces my mouth is the fullness of heaven’s eye;
‘tongue of silver’ is your name when his gleam strikes my lips.

The Goddess Auset binds you to me with her girdle;
she brings at her breast the sanguine knot of sky’s magic.
Seven knots surround your center on her seat of constant ardor;
‘heart of red jasper’ is your name where my breast keeps you.

Ausir the green raises you from his pasture when he comes;
sprouting seed weaves your field as the earth my…

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The Importance of Names

What’s in a name? Plenty. A name is the essence of who we are. It can be the name that we are given at birth, or a nickname which signifies who we are within communities, or it can be an Initiatory name. Sometimes a name is a persona we choose for ourselves in order to keep us safe from the prying eyes of employers, or those who wish us harm such as ex-spouses, abusive family members or stalkers who want to impinge on our personal lives and our personal freedom. Names that do not appear on our birth certificate, Social Security card or driver’s license are no less valid than the initiatory names and pseudonyms that we use. Some may use a ‘fake name’ to bilk, defraud or deceive others online. Facebook, Google and many other places have in place so-called real-name policies that are designed to help, but sometimes end up hurting.

This past week, this policy ended up happening to me. My “real name” is not Fanny Fae. It is the nickname of an ancestor of mine, Frances or Françoise McKay and used the name of this blog, Fanny Fae. My reasons for doing this on Facebook and elsewhere, primarily were to 1) protect myself from my ammo-sucking, gun-toting, “Take ‘MERICA back for Jesus”, and “Convert to Christ or DIE”, and “Left Behind” series-believin’ family members who object to my being a polytheist & lesbian woman legally married to her partner after 22 years, and 2) This name is a brand that I own and intend to keep on owning it. She started as a fictional character on Livejournal and PanHistoria more than a decade ago and I have fiction and other things that are mine written under that name – and they will stay being MINE. Those that know me knew of my motivations. There were never any attempts by me to deceive, defraud anyone. Just a nice safe, almost-anonymous ID to be able to live and to work unencumbered by my religious extremist family and to protect what I perceive to be my intellectual and DNA property. Most everyone in the writing, Pagan and polytheist communities knows me by that name and I have made quite a few friends with it.

From my understanding, Christian Day, an occult shop owner with stores located both in Salem, MA and New Orleans, a radio host, author and “warlock” who rose up to take on the Evil Charlie Sheen a year or so ago, decided to out or ‘dox’ me and anyone else that he knew who had a “fake name”. He took it upon himself and enlisted the help of his friends, groupies and flying monkeys to follow him in this endeavor. That is what I was told. I have no idea because I was not online at the time. It really isn’t important at this point how or why it happened or who did it. I refuse to participate in feeding negative energy to a person who claims he “swiffs” it for his own purposes. The end result was Facebook logging me out of my account and telling me that I must use my real name, but could add Fanny Fae as a nickname in parenthesis. I did so.

I admit, at first I was angry. This sensation lasted all of about five or ten minutes. Then I realized that with the Sekhmet book, hopefully in production to come out soon, it was probably a good thing to stave off potential objections by those who do not equate this ID with my real name. When I explain to them the circumstances and my reaction to it, most have been very accepting and understanding. Some, still safely behind their initiatory names or ones that they have contrived to also stave off inquiries from employers, abusive ex-spouses, etc. have been more than understanding. I daresay that Mr. Day will not be able to swiff their energy from them either.

The biggest inconvenience to me, so far, has not been my weirdo, religious wing-nut family pounding on my virtual door -( though I do expect this to happen eventually), but so many people in the groups that I either admin or those who I am friends with now asking, “WHO the F*** is Christina Paul?!” I have to explain to them what happened in a Cliff’s Notes version and it always ends up being o.k.. Most did what I did and just shrugged and moved on.

What companies like Facebook, Google and all of the other social venues and corporate conglomerates don’t understand is that most of our lives are online these days. All it takes is someone with a bit of tenacity, some basic computer skills and a credit card and they can get whatever information on any of us that they want to. The entire backlash by consumers about issues of privacy, should also include the ability of persons such as myself and others to give good reasons why they want to hide behind another name. Ninety-five per cent of the time, those who do, are not trying to do anything illegal. They are just trying to live their lives quietly and unemcumbered . Not everyone who chooses to use a pseudonym has gone through abuse, or has to put up with hands-in-the-crazy relatives, or employers that want to know what their employees do on their off-time as much as they do for the time that they have those employees on the clock. Being able to mask at least some part of our lives that we feel is private and not open for public scrutiny should be as natural as closing the shades at night when we get undressed. We are all pretty much at least virtually undressed when all of our lives are out there for everyone to see.

With all of the recent bouts of identity theft – whether financial, or someone such as a celebrity having someone impersonate them – of course, knowing who you are dealing with is a very good idea. On the other hand, there needs to be dialogue about having a choice for those who have very good reasons for wanting to stay hidden. Companies such as Facebook and Google should not assume that the only reason why people choose “fake names’ or are reluctant to not use real names on their services is for potentially illegal reasons. It isn’t. Having a safe space to be able to interact with others is of paramount importance. Facebook and Google, et al, have unfortunately become the village square du jour. You can always opt not to use those services, but to do so leaves you potentially cut off from what most people use as a support network. Someday we may have other choices that offer more privacy -or we can hope that these companies get a clue and realize that they have become part of the problem that allows the rise of social ills such as online bullying and stalking. Companies such as Lifelock and other identity theft and credit monitoring services are doing a booming business these days. I am left wondering if Facebook and Google don’t get some sort of kickback because they are by their own policies very probably helping to create the problem in the first place.

I know you….I know all of your names.

That is a bit of ancient Kemetic or Egyptian heka or authoritative utterance that is said when you gain knowledge of all of the names of someone and you are set to either magically protect or curse them. We Kemetics take things like the words we use, and especially names very seriously. There is the legend about how Aset (Isis is Her Greek Name) wanted to get the secret name of Ra and by manipulation was able to obtain that secret Name or Ren. Ra knew that with it, Aset could destroy Him. But He also knew that without paying the ransom to Aset by giving it to Her, that He would die. Like that story, our names and how we are identified and move through this world are double edged swords. They can hold great power and they can be used to destroy us utterly. As I always have said, “My name is my integrity”. Nothing is more potentially dangerous as when something does something in your name that you don’t approve of. Like your word, your name serves as a bond. Naming is branding. Some of us like to have absolute control over our names and our branding in order to set us apart from everyone else. Celebrities, recording artists, authors, etc. know this reality all too well. The more we are out there and participate in social media, the greater for the potential for companies such as Facebook and Google to be used by those who DO want to do illegal things and bilk others to gain more and more power. It is a fine balance to walk, and having one-size-fits-all policies serves no one in the end. These venues have already been used for such purposes. The real name policy in most of these incidents did nothing to safeguard it from happening.

This is an issue that I think deserves more discussion. My outing came from someone else wanting to be vindictive and to cause me and others harm. They failed in that endeavor with me other than it has created a few minor inconveniences. These have already been overcome, so the major explosion that he likely expected ended up being more like a dud firecracker. Still, privacy is an issue that will not go away and it will take thoughtful consideration rather than wholesale policies in order to make things more safe for everyone.

‘Sekhmet Meritamen, Physician of Qenbet’ – by Wbnrnpt, for the website, Ancient Sites, now known as Ancient Worlds

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Filed under akhu / ancestors, business, dreamwidth, fiction, kemetic, livejournal, magickal alchemy, mystic woo-woo, pagan, politics, sekhmet, update, writing

Tagged as current events, facebook, google, pagan community, privacy, update

June 25, 2014 · 2:11 pm

Regarding Spiritual Arrogance, Racism & Bigotry

“Do not be arrogant because of your knowledge, but confer with the ignorant man as with the learned for the limit of skill (art) has not been attained, and there is no craftsman who has fully acquired his mastery.” – The Maxims of PtahHotep

Sooner or later, we all have to come face to face with the spiritually arrogant. It may very well be, that we ourselves have bouts of spiritual arrogance of our own to contend with. It can be as simple as looking down our noses as to why we are right in our beliefs and the other party or parties are wrong. The whole phrase, “Religious tolerance”, is not the same as religious acceptance. Tolerance infers that we are putting up with something, and yet all the time view our way as being superior. Acceptance means that we can accept the differences in how others do things and how their approach practice without being judgemental about it.

Being Kemetic, I find that this issue often raises its head. The leadership or membership of one Kemetic group disagrees with and/or dislikes another group because of doctrine or practice, or there is just plain jealousy. Accusations of one sect or another being a ‘cult’, or ‘mindlessly dogmatic’ are hurled and understanding is nowhere to be found.

One of the best cures that I have personally found for such an affliction is through interfaith work. It is the choice to leave our own neighborhoods where the spiritual ghettos seem to get constructed without our even realizing it that seems to help the most. For me, it began by doing interfaith work with Kashi Ashram. The experience of having attended Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati’s birthday celebration and fire puja in Sebastian, Florida was a profound one. We were also privileged to have witnessed a ceremony in which several dedicants were committed to priesthood. SenyasiMa taught that her way was not so much a religion but a way of being in the world where the centermost idea is to practice kindness wherever possible. That meeting and that event, however, led me to doing more research into Hinduism and interfaith work with the local Hindu community. I am, of course, no expert. However, I do feel that the experience made me, I believe, a better member of the Kemetic priesthood.

Even with all of this, I realized after a time that I was feeling particularly smug and condescending toward other Kemetics and Neo-Pagans in general. I wanted to get back to my own Zep Tepi – the foundation of spiritual belief and doing ritual work and heka that would make me a better Priestess and representative of Sekhmet.

In recent years, there has been a new resurgence of relgious groups which focus on race and skin color. I have even been around members of one such group that insisted all of its members get DNA tests in order to ensure that they are of the right blood group – all to prove their lineage to certain historical bloodlines that mark them as “superior” to their human counterparts. They claim that this bloodline goes all the way back to either the bloodlines of the Tuatha de Dannan or to the Annunaki. The members of this group, which was once headed by a self-styled prince, fervently believe that rulership, and hereditary nobility sets them apart and entitles them to be a part of a higher caste and class that the rest of humanity. As far as the members of this elitist group are concerned, everyone else who doesn’t share in their bloodline are more or less shuffling herd animals incapable of real thought or any kind of magical or spiritual ability.

Unfortunately, these sorts of ridiculously bigoted nonsensical ideas have migrated their way into Kemetic groups. Afrocentrist philosophies are certainly not new. I am actually in agreement with the assertion that, yes, the world’s greatest civilizations did in fact begin in Africa. Homo sapiens (humans) began in Africa. That means that as humans, we all ultimately have a tie there. This is true whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

In the early days of the internet, the militancy of some afrocentrist groups had reached a fevered pitch. Some of the members of these groups or their fringe followers would troll the newsgroups on Usenet. These groups include ones such as alt.archaeology, sci.archaeology or alt.culture.egyptian. The trolls would start screaming about blackness and racial issues that really had less to do with ancient Egypt at all and more about some sort of bragging rights or never-ending angst over an inaccurate, rendition of history. One of their favorite claims that still persists to this day is that Napoleon or his troops decided to test their canons out on the nose of the Great Sphinx since the obviously African features of the ancient monument offended their Eurocentric sensibilities.

For the record, that particular rendition of what happened to the nose of the Great Sphinx is patently FALSE. Napoleon was very much in love with and in awe of Egypt. So devoted to this ancient civilization, Napoleon enlisted an entire corps of artists, architects and engineers for an expedition to explore and catalogue what they could find there so that they could study it, long after they returned to France. As a result, this expedition produced one of the greatest inventories of the ancient monuments in the form of the multi-volume, le Description de Egypte. That Napoleonic inventory of the riches of Egypt is still the most accurate one that we have to date. Napoleon would have likely put to death anyone who would do something so heinous as to shoot off the nose of the Great Sphinx. In all fairness, some of his men left initials behind on some of the monuments, but such defacements were minor compared to what they are currently accused of having done.

The unconscionable Sphinx defacement was, in fact, done at the behest of a Muslim cleric in the 13th Century AD. That is just a little bit too early for even Emperor Napoleon, I’m afraid. Apparently, this particular Muslim cleric was quite upset that tourists went to the desert to see, or as he saw it, ‘pay homage to’ a graven image. He considered such behavior and reverence to the past to be very ‘Un-Islamic’. He saw it as his personal responsibility to put a stop to it. This is not at all unlike what some within more radical factions of Islam are proposing to either cover the ancient monuments in wax or to completely obliterate them as the Islamic State has done to the city of Palmyra or in the fashion that the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan. One can still see the marks from the pry-bars are still visible on the Sphinx itself as evidence. These marks are still visible if you get close enough while reconstruction crews are at present trying to preserve the ancient beast.

So much for the claim by Afrocentrists that Europeans have tried or are still trying to obliterate the monument because of alleged ‘racist motivations’.

Currently there are even more scores of books and web pages almost everywhere you look that posit the notion that melanin = spiritual enlightenment and along with it, the inherent birthright to the kingdom of the Pharaohs. According to them, people who don’t have sufficient levels of melanin have pineal glands that are pretty much non-functioning. Proponents of this line of thinking propose the idea that if you don’t have enough melanin in your skin, you may admire ancient Kemet, its culture, people, history, etc. However, without the requisite melanin in your skin, you have absolutely no business worshiping the ancient Kemetic Netjeru at all.

I have experienced this myself. When I was in my late teens, a woman noticed the pendant depicting a winged Aset (Isis) and proceeded on a tirade. Pointing at the necklace she screeched, “How dare you worship African gods! You’d best be looking to your heritage and get your own gods instead of stealing ours!”

As someone who was about 15 years old, I can only say that the experience was devastating to me. I was quite honestly shocked and hurt for having been the recipient of such vitriol that seemingly came out of nowhere. I have been told that, unfortunately, my experience is not at all unusual. Many others, even those who have African heritage and yet have lighter skin or are not distinctly African looking, have suffered similar incidents. For my part, I know that I didn’t choose the Netjeru. I believed at that time, and I still firmly believe, that They chose me. They were the ones who decided to show up in dreams and put Themselves in my path wherever and whenever they could. When things looked dire, I was always reassured when I could look to the sky, catch the sight of a hawk or a falcon overhead. It served as a personalized reminder that Aset (Isis) and Heru (Horus) were watching me from overhead and that things were going to change. It gave me the hope I needed to realize that inevitably everything would be alright. How some woman, whom I didn’t even know, inexplicably walks up and tried to tell me that my connection is not mine at all and to wear Egyptian-themed jewelry was inappropriate was inexplicable. As far as she was concerned, my notions of this were nothing more than some wishful, white girl, honky, wannabi fantasies and that I should just move along and get me back to a church pew at the nearest Christian house of worship.

It was, and still is, beyond belief.

Racism or bigotry of any sort, between one culture or sect of humans against another, is a horrible stain upon humanity. It is becoming sadly, more and more prevalent in the past decade and more specifically since nationalist sentiments have insinuated themselves in governments throughout the world. Political correctness discarded for the moment, I will say that, ‘Yes, we do need to discuss the past.’ The slavery that happened in the Americas from its inception till after the Civil War and beyond as well as the many, many horrific injustices that happened to African-Americans from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Civil Rights era right up to the present day should never be forgotten. I would never expect anyone who is of African American heritage to ever “get over it” any more than they should expect me and mine to ever “get over” the Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee I and II, and the enforced sterilization of American Indian Women. That and scores of other dirty little secrets that were a part of BIA and other government policies. The wounds are fresh for many of us, and we are not likely to forget them. Sometimes even forgiving seems like an impossibility. Yes, we need to acknowledge the pain and the sacrifice of the ancestors on whatever side of whatever equation actually went through. We carry those memories in our DNA. We carry all of the prayers, the horrors, the sacrifice and the tremendous accomplishments deep within ourselves. All of these things are carried within our bones and make up the foundation upon which we build our own lives today. The prejudice, the discrimination, the snide arrogance of stereotyping people into groups based on certain markers, unfortunately, still goes on.

Racism and bigotry, especially within spheres such as religion and culture really are about ignorance. Culture is not something that boils down to skin colour or even regionality. I know what is like to have a bigotted person tell me I shouldn’t worship Egyptian deities because my skin isn’t the right colour. I also know what it is like to have been raised Indigenous and know that when you are “claimed” by a People as one of their own and adopt that culture as your own in terms of how you identify, NO ONE (!!!) can gainsay that.

One of my favourite examples of this is in the person of Mr. JDK Chipps. He is counted as a member of the Chipps family and a member of the Lakota Nation. JDK himself was born into a white family. This is not particularly notable excpt that he is in no part Lakota or any other Nation of Indigenous Americans by blood at all. However, because of JDK’s devotion to the Lakota People and to the preservation of lands and his protection of wildlife, especially the buffalo, he was adopted by the Lakota Nation as one of their own. JDK is Lakota now. Period. Anyone who has ever dared to tell JDK, or the Chipps family, or any of the People of his Nation that he is not Lakota because his skin color finds out very, VERY quickly just how wrong they are in that assumption. What’s important is that the Lakota Nation and his community knows who JDK is and vice versa. In the end, that is all that is necessary. Those are the kinds of things that simply don’t fit into neat little boxes of blood quantum or DNA. Racism and bigotry are both complex issues. However, knowing who you are, who your People are, and devotion to that – without trying to hold yourself above others, that’s the point.

Even with all of this acknowledgement, however, it doesn’t take much to realize that we do not solve the issues by screaming at people who are appreciating something beautiful and wonderful throughout the countless civilizations throughout the world, as well as all of the vastly diverse peoples who created them. It does not help anyone to act belligerently toward sincere people who love the gods and love ancient Egypt or any other culture for itself. Telling them to go away, or judging them as some other, or “Them” inevitably ends up being a kind of racism or bigotry itself. What happens, then, when children come from a mixed racial background want to find out who they are? What is considered “African enough”? What is Indian enough or Asian enough or European enough or whatever? What parent, ancestor or heritage should someone eschew in order to fit into these newly constructed ideas of race = culture? These days, DNA testing can narrow down where certain groups of people were and how they migrated as it . Humanity has been meeting, mingling throughout history. PBS has had some wonderful specials on just that. It is amazing and awe-inspiring just how far science has come in that it has determined that we truly do carry our akhu (ancestors) within us, but it doesn’t get to the heart of the issues surrounding race or culture.

So what happens, if after the DNA test results come out, and a person is actually presented with the scientific evidence and knowledge that none of their blood ancestors cannot be traced to a specific tribe, area, country or culture? What if certain people of colour have no connection to the spiritual things that resonate most to them? How far does it go when someone finds out that their own bloodline has been “polluted” somewhere along the way, and they are not purely one thing or another? When does it stop and where does it end?

Certainly, our akhu of ancient Kemet would not do that. They had no problem with people worshiping their gods – or allowing them to bring their own into the country just as long as the ideal of Ma’at was adhered to. If faced with such a reality, does that mean that those with no DNA connection would also have to stop paying attention to the Netjeru and go only with what their true ancestors did and how they believed? What about those who are called – though we may not ourselves understand what a specific Name of Netjer may have in mind for that person – and they are still called? Is it ‘cultural appropriation’, then, to love something and want to appreciate it and give thanks for it by murmuring a prayer to Sekhmet or to HetHert or Ptah somehow wrong? Is holding one’s hands up in the gesture of henu or praise at seeing the sunrise and giving thanks to Ra somehow taking away from another culture and ‘stealing’ from it?

I don’t believe that it is.

There is also another disturbing trend within the ranks of Afrocentrists and Afrocentrism and that is the use of materials that are 1) completely out of date, eg. the public domain works of Sir. E.A. Wallis Budge. I have written about this before. Yes they are cheap, sometimes they are even free – but during the time that they were created, the author was clearly a citizen within a large empire, populated by people who did not appreciate the Egyptians for who they were but rather wanted to do as much as they possibly could to make them like themselves. During the Victorian era, expeditions, particularly to Egypt and the ancient world, were more easily funded if it promised to underscore the thoughtform and religious beliefs of the status quo based on some ancient model that it was allegedly derived from. These same people were the very definition of eurocentrism – far more than current Egyptologists who offer more current up to date and affirming works. Many if not nearly all of those early authors were racists. They believed in things such as the heiress theory and the idea that a certain caste and class of people oversaw the darker skinned commoners and did everything that they could to keep those bloodlines pure. One of these authors went as far as to say, “Egypt must never be allowed to partake of Africa’s spirit.”

Budge and his contemporaries were cut very much from the cloth of eurocentricity during that time. Of course, the times have changed and we now have in the ranks of egyptology, those who are not just native born Egyptians – but also Americans, Europeans, Asians, and Africans from all over the continent. In the days that Sir E. A. Wallis Budge was penning his works, there was an underlying idea of an apartheid system with a ruling class made up of a white minority who oversaw all aspects of power. They set themselves up so that they might oversee the majority of darker skinned non-European people. Budge ‘s works do have some good typesetting, however, his translations were completely off in many ways. To the point, we need to not only take the contents of books into account but also the the eras in which those writings were produced and how the cultural mindset of the authors whose views very probably bled over into the thesis and conclusions that were made.

How is this sort of prejudice and racism any different from what the slave masters of the south believed? How is it different from the views that were put forth in Nazi propaganda by Adolph Hitler and the Third Reich? How tolerable would it be for those who are not of African-American decent to make the same sort of bigoted claims that many within afrocentrism seem to make today?

My guess is that the public outcry and the flurry of social media backlash would be astounding if not downright deafening. What makes us different in terms of religious beliefs, culture, and out outward appearance is, I believe, what makes us beautiful. There is a beautiful line of dialogue in that wretched film, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”, where a little English girl comparing her skin colour to that of the Moor, Hakim (played by Morgan Freeman) asks, “Why did God paint you?” And Hakim smiles at her and gives her the most simple, yet breathtakingly beautiful answer: “Because He loves infinite variety.”

Infinite variety should not instill arrogance in any of us. If anything, it should instill an almost overwhelming feeling of awe.

Sources Cited

Furr, Grover. “Fallacies of Afrocentrism.” Fallacies of Afrocentrism. Monclair State University, English Department, n.d. Web. 18 June 2014.

Jaroff, Leon. “Teaching Reverse Racism.” Time. Time Inc., 24 June 2001. Web. 23 June 2014.

Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard, “Melanin , Afrocentricity, and Pseudoscience”, Academia.edu

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Filed under afrocentrist, akhu / ancestors, indigenous, Kemet is Cool Project, kemetic, racism, Religion, sekhmet

October 7, 2013 · 3:18 pm

God Is Not Your ‘B*tch’!

Recently the question came up in one of the discussion forums I am in as to whether or not we need Divine and vice versa.

Inevitably, we get the well-considered answers, and then we get the children who think that the profundity of the entire Universe is somehow in that precious treasure trove between their ears, and that everyone else is dying to find out what it is that the rest of humanity has somehow missed.

Does the scientific reality of photosynthesis cease if plants don’t pay attention to it or believe in it? No. It still exists. I think humans like to console themselves on the arrogant notion that somehow the Divine would be somehow gone or irrelevant without our participation in the equation.

In my not-so-humble opinion: Bullshit.

I’ve been referred to all sorts of arguments by anyone and anything from the penned opinions of the late Isaac Bonnewitz to Terry Pratchett’s books and frankly none of it has any relevance whatsoever to my personal practice or praxis on the matter. I am Kemetic; Kemetic Orthodox to be exact. I have been at this as a practitioner of the Kemetic religion in some form or another for 30+ years. I think I know by now what it is that I am doing and are pretty secure in what I believe without the compare and contrast inserted by others into the equation, thank you very much. Purity, piety and fear of Netjer is a part of Kemetic religious devotion and practice, and that exact phrase goes back to antiquity and carries a lot of weight. However, that idea is not as dogmatic as that might sound. Nature IS. Netjer IS. It will be there – as a constant. Our participation is not necessary in either case. Both Netjer and humanity get something out of the deal and I believe that love on both sides of the equation has a great deal to do with why it works to this day. That is, I know, my opinion. Y’all are entitled to your own.

Which brings me to this: The God(s) are not our bitches. Add to that the notion that He/She /They is/ are not necessarily our “buddies” either. We don’t get to haul them out and play with them like Celestial Barbies or G.I. Jove. It is not all fun, or warm or fuzzy. It is hard WORK and sometimes that is necessarily difficult and frustrating. You will probably shed tears from time to time.

Get over it.

The relationship between humans and the Divine is just that….a relationship. All relationships if they are worth a damn at all, take work on both sides or it is just superficial and has no sort of depth or intimacy to it. To really know another, be it a person or a Deity, there has to be deep levels of insight on both sides. That is the hard part.

God / the Gods (the One in the Many or the Many in the One) Netjer is/are not here as the Eternal Wish Grantor(s) to be approached only “when we need something” or to be blamed when stuff goes wrong. It fascinates me just how many people become suddenly religious when they are faced with a crisis of some sort of another. We need money, we need a Divine pep talk, we need to see what lies beyond the bend in the road and we suddenly go into “religious mode”. We light a candle, or bow our heads, or get suddenly reflective or we scream to the sky, “Why me?!” Some of us may choose to perform magical rites and do heka or authoritative utterances, demanding to get our way. Sometimes we might think that resorting to threats and having a temper tantrum to get our way is the approach. We need a sign. We need reassurance we need something, and in the darkest reaches of our hearts, we know if we just get a teeny, tiny glimmer of hope, everything will be ok.

However, just as soon as some of us get that, and the crisis is seemingly over, too many simply skip along our merry way after saying, “Thanks, God! That was mighty cool of you!” And then quickly and ever-so-conveniently forget. That is they forget until the next crisis rolls around and the whole process begins all over again.

Is this any way to live our spiritual or even our day-to-day lives? Is this any way to navigate our way through the things that keep us motivated and moving? Does this give us any real connection to the Divine or even to our deepest selves? I personally don’t believe so.

I recently read a wonderful blog post by Adam Sicinski, God Does Not Grant Wishes but rather Opportunities to Make Wishes Come True that was written almost seven years ago but I found to be both lucid and insightful. Beyond the fact that Adam did not try to ram Christian-themed belief down the throat of the reader, he rather neutral on the subject; the post contained some real gems, such as this one:

“There are so many of us out there who rely on God or an Infinite Power to heal them, to make them rich, and to make their dreams come true. What these people fail to understand is that God will not fulfill their desires. It is rather up to the person asking for these things to keep an eye out for opportunities coming their way that may possibly enable them to fulfill their needs and wants.”

Even when you practice magic, or the Craft of the Cunning folk, heka. spells or whatever you want to call it, things can go wrong. Sometimes the answer is,”No.” Or it is, “Not now.” Sometimes the things we ask for or the things we think we want are better left unfulfilled. Being prepared to take on the responsibility of the thing or situation desired is important.

I have seen far too many people, Neopagans especially, pick up specific deities or entire pantheons because they think that going to that Deity or that set of Deities will get them the results that they want. If Deity has the least little bit of intelligence that we believe that it does, do you think maybe that it is possible to determine when someone is hanging out in their shrine or making alms and prayers that the person is after something? Sincerity, or lack thereof, does have a certain air to it. Most people can discern whether or not someone likes us, or is talking to us or saying complimentary things out of sincerity, and when someone is trying to get something out of the person that they are making overtures to.

The Divine is not so insecure as to need to be flattered, or plied with copious amounts of food and drink in the guise of “offerings”. It’s not unlike the husband who takes his wife out to dinner and plies her with candy and flowers and wine and maybe even some bling in order to get something or make nice. She’s no fool. She knows that this is all a part of the negotiation for whatever it is that he is after – sex, forgiveness, telling her that they are moving to South Dakota in the middle of nowhere – whatever it is. He wants something. Or the televangelist who tells viewers to send in $100 and God will “press it down and multiply it and turn it into $1,000!” In return, that viewer gets a special “prayer cloth” made of 100% polyester, cut with pinking shears to prevent ravellng and to be kept in your wallet as a reminder of your faithful covenant with God. Why do people do that? Does it have to do with faith as much as it has to do with wanting something in return?

I am fairly certain that the Divine is smart enough to figure that sort of thing out, too.

So why do we do any of this stuff? Why do we erect shrines in our homes? Why do we make offerings, why do we even bother with all the ritual and the reflection and everything that goes with it?

Speaking only for myself and my relationship that I have with the Netjeru, I do it because I want to. I enjoy spending time in my shrine with the perceived presence of Sekhmet, or Amun, or Aset or Heka – or Melek Taus or Durga or even with my akhu (ancestors). It’s a relationship. Relationships take work. I am willing to do the work, make the effort, not just because I want something, or that I hope to get anything out of it except a clearer sense of myself and where I am going, the world and how I can be in it and assist others, not just myself. That has nothing to do with being a priestess or a retired priestess. That has everything to do with humanity needing to work with our environment, with the people and even the experiences that seem to be ordinary, and yet there are inexplicable things that are extraordinary. Power or Sekhem comes in many forms. It exists deep within us, but it also can be found in the ordinary. Seeing the power of a rainstorm or seeing the blood red sky in the morning both remind me of Set. Such a simple thing was not something I asked for, but it is no less a gift for which I am thankful. Seeing the vultures fly overhead remind me of Mut and Nekhbet. The cry of a hawk outside my door reminds me of Heru and that His Eye is always upon me. The herbs that I harvest and the power to heal with them reminds me of Sekhmet. Those are the big things in all of the “little things” that make a difference in our lives. When we remember that, what part of our lives does not, therefore, become a prayer?

The gratitude for each and every day and the countless experiences we can find to remind us that we are not alone, that we are a part of a greater whole. God is not here to grant wishes, necessarily. I do not foresee Yinepu going into the kitchen any time soon to fetch a chicken pot pie. What the Divine does do is provide us the inspiration and the sense of accomplishment in creating things for ourselves. In that, lies the true gift.

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October 4, 2013 · 1:33 pm

For Service, Slavery, and Sex : Tattooing in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

An excellent piece by Sarduríur Freydís Sverresdatter and definitely well worth the read. The subject of tattooing in Ancient Egypt. From slaves to Gods Wives of Amun, tattooing had special significance for certain sectors of society in the Two Lands.

For Service, Slavery, and Sex : Tattooing in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.

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September 12, 2013 · 1:07 am

Kemetic Round Table:The Mythic Mystique

“Send Your Eye down as HetHert (Hathor). This goddess indeed went and She slew people upon the desert.
Then said the majesty of this God [Ra], “Welcome in Peace, HetHert. You have done that which I sent You to do.”
Then said this goddess:”As You live for Me, I have been powerful over the people! And it is pleasing to My heart!”
Then said the majesty of Ra,”It is in order to diminish them [humans] that I have sent the power of My kingship.”
Thus did Sekhmet come into being.” (Translation by Tamara L. Siuda)

Mythology: How necessary is it? Does it affect your practice? Should it?

My own answer to this question is a rather dependent upon what we are talking about. Surely when the sun rises every day, and the sky is red, I am reminded of the Kemetic myth that it is because Set has slain the Ap/ep serpent and the waters of the Nun are red with its blood so that Ra may rise again. I hold up my hands in the gesture of praise, or henu and say, “Dua Ra, Dua Set!”

Everyone who considers themselves to be Kemetic has heard the myths about Sekhmet and the Destruction of Mankind. It is one of the most well-known and important myths in all of Kemetic culture and religion. Unlike many practitioners of other religions and spiritual traditions, Kemetics tend to be a bit less dogmatic about those mythologies.

The above passage, was translated by Tamara Siuda. Tamara herself an Egyptologist and the founder of the House of Netjer Kemetic Orthodox Temple, of which I am a member. One of the things that Tamara teaches, is the reason for Sekhmet’s creation by Her Father Ra was fairly clear. In the time when the Netjeru and Humans lived together in the world, mankind got arrogant. They became arrogant in the pride of their own accomplishments, and collectively they decided that they no longer needed the gods. Not only did they plot to overthrow the Netjeru, they plotted to destroy Them. The benign Hathor, when She learned that humanity wanted to harm Her Father, became the rampaging Sekhmet.

But in terms of Kemetic belief, what does this really mean?

This idea is in itself a metaphor for many of the Kemetic myths. The stories serve to teach us things about how we deal with life’s challenges, phenomena in the natural world and other concerns. Few Kemetics take them as an absolute truth. In the case of the myth of Sekhmet and the Destruction of Mankind, as found on the Golden Shrine of Tutankhamun, it serves as a metaphor for the nature of anger and how destructive it can be justified or not. Anger, even or especially when attached to righteous indignation can become quite volatile and unpredictable. Who in the world would not want to destroy utterly anyone who would dare raise their hand to their loved ones or those whom they care about? In this case, Sekhmet’s anger with its fury and destruction that almost wiped out the whole of humanity is understandable. Humans were plotting to kill Her Father, Ra. Her anger was indiscriminate, without warning, and absolute.

For anyone who has been so angry that they almost seemed as if they were outside of themselves, they can tell you there reaches a point when that anger produces a high of its own. I have been so angry in one particular incident, that I remember distinctly standing outside of my own self and thinking, “Wow…I am really pissed off.” There was that instant of wanting to stop but being unable to. When anger reaches that point, it is as if you are quite literally drunk on it.

A little bit like Sekhmet, perhaps? Maybe. If anything, the mythology teaches that there is always appropriate action. Sekhmet’s anger was initially quite appropriate, but then it reached the point to where it “got good to Her,” and Sekhmet became less than reasonable to the point where She almost destroyed the whole of Mankind. Going overboard is not what one would call appropriate.

I have found that there are those in and around the Kemetic faith sphere who are divined, or consider themselves to be children of Sekhmet who use it as an excuse. Too often I hear too many of them try to flippantly write off their bouts of poorly managed anger, co-dependent flailing, and just general bad behaviour on being a “child of Sekhmet”. There are still other children of various Names of Netjer who try to blame their need to get drunk every other night or on the weekends as how they deal with being a child of X Name of Netjer. Frankly, I think we all know that this is nothing short of a steaming load of bullshit. It may sound logical, but it really is just abdication of responsibility. Ultimately, you and you alone are responsible for your bad behaviour – putting it off on Deity is quite clearly a cop-out; and a weak one at that. Trying to dodge personal responsibility in that manner is pretty ridiculous. So why do it?

What to do? Well, certainly we are not going to wait around till Djehuti fills valleys with beer stained red with ochre and spiked with mandrake so we can get “happy” and forget why it was that we were pissed off about in the first place. We need to take the myths in the context in which they were, as far as we could tell, originally intended.

They were stories, meant to educate masses of people about natural phenomena that they encountered in their lives. Is the sun (Ra) really being pushed across the sky by a giant dung beetle (Kheperi)? Did Atum create All that Exists by self-pleasure and masturbation? (Talk about a “Big Bang Theory”!) Is the whole yearly cycle culminated by the epagomenal days and Djehuty has to beat Ra at a game of dice so that poor Nut can give birth to her children, Heru-Wer, Wasir, Set, Aset and NebetHet? Do we at the end of those five days, in all actuality destroy the Uncreated One when we perform the Rite of Turning Back the Enemies of Ra – or the sun won’t rise and the world will end? I suppose it really all depends upon your point of view. Certainly when someone wants to tout the benefits of teaching Creationism in schools, I pipe up with the one about Atum. That usually puts a kabbash on any further assertions about teaching Creationism in public education. Apparently teaching school aged children about some cultural mythology can potentially open up a whole other set of issues that some folks just aren’t prepared to explain to their kids!

Myths have served as road maps of a kind for man since antiquity. They help us understand what is going on in the world around us and within ourselves and the struggles that we face on a day-to-day basis. They give us pause during annual festivals of the year and when the seasons change or we gather together and remember our ancestors and our collective pasts. Certainly we see this sort of re-membering in almost any faith that you care to name. Of course, for myself, I tend to think of it in terms of my own Kemetic beliefs, which in many ways are quite similar to Hindu beliefs in how we integrate our religion into our lives. The myths and ritual actions that go along with them serve a purpose to get us to stop, to connect deeper with the Unseen. When we do this, it is my experience that we are healthier, calmer, more contemplative and reflective for having done so.

We also tend to be a little less dogmatic than other faiths because in our beliefs we do not feel the need to “prove” our extant liturgical texts. I have talked to many in non-Kemetic faiths who were excited when archaeological bits turned up that ascertained what was contained in their religious scripture was “proven” by what had been found. If you have Faith, why would actually “proving” something be at all necessary? You either believe something as being a truth religiously or philosophically or you don’t. You either find a way to integrate the beliefs and the symbolism into your life or you are oblivious to it. These things are what make up faith. It doesn’t necessarily need to be proven. Ultimately, I think that’s why it’s called ‘faith’.

Kemetic myths are rich and varied. These myths changed over periods of history and many were considered regional. Some of the better books on Kemetic myth are Daily Life of the Egyptian Gods, by Dimitri Meeks and Christine Favard-Meeks, The three-volume set of Ancient Egyptian Literature by Miriam Lichtheim. Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms, Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom, and Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume III: The Late Period . ANother good standby that is a bit older than the other aforementioned books is R.T. Rundle Clark’s classic book, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt. Any of these go over some of the myths that many of we Kemetics hold up as part of our religious heritage.

For me, the most wonderful thing about these myths is that the longer I am around various folks who practice the Kemetic faith, I get exposed to other myths that I had never heard or just wasn’t paying that close attention to. Certainly in a religion where there are over 4,000 different Names for God and the various manifestations of the Divine, it becomes rather difficult to take them all in. That is certainly alright. Kemetic myths have a way of showing up at the time when they are the most relevant to us and in a time that we most need to hear them. There is something about this that is far less dogmatic and far more freeing when you can look at the sunrise and somehow imagine the Barque of Ra traveling across the sky.

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May 11, 2013 · 2:37 pm

Every Large Thing is Accomplished by Many ‘Little’ People and ‘That One Large Thing’ That Can Unite Us

What suggestions do you have regarding bridging divides between different Kemetic factions and encouraging cooperation toward common goals?

There is something that I think every single Kemetic wants. It is something that is a bit of a pipe dream. Some of us have been told that maybe we shouldn’t set our sights so high or the unrealistic nature of actually attaining this thing. It would mean that maybe, just maybe, that Kemetics are serious about becoming their own culture once again. Certainly there are those within more Afrocentrically leaning Kemetic community who have suggested this thing long before I have. For that I applaud them, and perhaps since Kemetic belief is an African Traditional Religion or ATR, we can look to them for inspiration and guidance.

We want our own language. If we had this, if we truly want true reconstructionism, using the various texts, whether we used Faulkner, Hoch or even Budge we could all collectively create or recreate that. All of us already know how much we love the aesthetic of ancient Kemet – the art, the music, the architecture, and on and on. Part of those that aestheitc is language. We are already using just a smattering of the language now.

Many of us know how we felt hearing it spoken in bits and pieces in movies like ‘The Mummy’, ‘The Mummy Returns’, ‘Stargate’, brought to us courtesy of the work of anthropologist, Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith, and even that horrible Charlton Heston film, ‘The Awakening. I will confess, a few years ago, I was actually trying to write a script for a film about the transition period between AMunhotep III and Akhenaten and how much a manipulative and megalomaniac bitch Nefertiti was. I was writing it in English and then wanted to translate the whole thing into ancient Kemetic. Of course, the cost of providing materials and language coaches for the actors alone, would have been astronomical. And of course it would have to have incredible sets, costumes, driving the cost of making the film into the tens of millions, but it would have been made in what I would like to think of as our language. What better way to spend a very large film budget? The intensive use of a (albeit, popular) dead language alone would have all but insured that it got into the Toronto Film Festival and Cannes. Hell, I still might try to do a campaign on Indiegogo or Kickstarter for it. The script is pretty well written as it is.

In my temple, the House of Netjer, those of us in the priesthood would regularly get asked by beginners and established members alike for the Daily Rites in Kemetic. The request was always refused on the basis that it was felt that to recite a religious rite to your deity in a language that you were just parroting it by rote and probably had no comprehension of what was being said. Further, such an exercise would be just an elaborate going through the motions. To speak from your heart, it was further rationalized, you needed a language that you were born into.

That is a pretty good argument against it. However, I would offer up the prime example of the traditional Latin mas and how passionately some Catholics feel about hearing and participating in a mass that is in Latin – which, btw is a mostly dead language. I am still old enough to remember when it was taken away from some congregations. There was much upset about this and those for whom the Latin Mass was substituted for one in English, it was traumatic. Some drove long distances just to get to a church that still recited the Catholic mass in Latin. The reason for this, I think is that there was and is something comforting about that source language for worshipers. Certainly much of the Jewish rites are done in Hebrew.

ALthough I can see the point of knowing what the hell it is that you are saying and not just reciting by rote, I do agree there is something to saying rites in their original language. Language, it’s sound, tone and vibration does affect the brain, and in religious rites it can help the adorer or worshiper to make that shift from the mundane world into a more reverent and contemplative one. It was always a dream of mine to have that long before I was Kemetic Orthodox to be able to pray in Kemetic if I want. I still have that dream. I believe that if we had a developed language that went beyond, “Em hotep,” as a greeting, “Dewa nefer“, for “Good morning,” or even “Dua Netjer en ekh / etj”, which means “Thank you,” or more specifically, “Thank God for you.” We already have copies of the short form of “grace” that is said before a meal that is in Kemetic. Wny not more than just these very small snippets? If we, as a community, worked to create this, it would no longer be incoherent gibberish. For those within the community who were determined to use it, it would be invaluable, it would be special and it would be all of ours once again. We would know what we were saying, and if children were raised speaking it, just think of what change we could effect in bringing about true reconstruction of Kemetic religion and culture! Why is this idea any different from anyone trying to learn the fictional languages of Elvish or Klingon?

It isn’t.

What is most ironic about this entire train of thought is that it was not a fellow Kemetic, a book or movie or anything connected to ancient Kemet that got me seriously thinking about pushing for it. It was this guy, Benny Lewis, creator of the Fluent in 3 Months language system, the man has been billed as “The Irish Polyglot”. Lewis’ work was introduced to me via one of my former history professors when he linked Benny’s site on his Facebook page. It was this that ultimately got me to really considering this as a possibility. Benny Lewis has gone around the world and learned tons of languages. His secret, as he says on his website, is to start speaking your language of choice from day one. He is also currently even trying to revive a dead language (Hungarian).

That REALLY got me to thinking about this!

It is my personal belief that this effort would serve to potentially unite Kemetics across the board. I believe we can do this collectively and it would help all to maybe at last get beyond the petty backbiting and social media headgames that seem to erupt. I myself am no expert, but I do know that many do study ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and the like. My point is that none of us individually know as much as all of us do collectively. This is the collective effort we need in order to bring together not just the temples, but the people who love the ancient Netjeru as we do. Things like skin colour, philosphy, location, etc. – none of that will even matter. Even if we did end up with different dialects via the different groups, we will have brought something back from extinction and by our attempts we are honouring our Gods, our akhu, the culture they gave us and we love so much, and ourselves.

I want to hear more from others about their ideas about this topic. Maybe it truly is an unrealistic hope. But who among us has not dreamed about hearing the beautiful lilt of spoken Kemetic? Who wouldn’t want to see it happen in our lifetime? It is my firm belief that though the Kemetic community is relatively small in comparison to other faiths, perhaps even smaller than those fluent in Klingon or Elvish, the fact is collectively, we want this. We want it because it’s time.

I say let’s collectively bring about the dream. I say, ‘Let’s do it’.

Resources:
The Pronunciation of Ancient Egyptian Notes

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Tagged as akhu, community, crowdfunding, kemetic, Kemetic Round Table, language, pagan

October 28, 2012 · 1:36 am

On being a woman and why politics matters

I don’t often talk about politics. I try not to wear my beliefs or anything else like that on my sleeve or publish it on my blog. This post will be the rare exception to the rule. I hope those of you who are regular readers, especially those who re more than a little sick of all the political din will at least hear me out. It’s important, no matter who you vote for, which I personally believe should be according to one’s conscience.

Recently, in this present election cycle, there have been certain politicians who have said things about women and women’s issues that have me more than a little concerned. First we had the candidate for the Senate, Todd Akin (R-MO) make some sort of claim that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” What exactly is a “legitmate rape” vs. an “illegitimate” one? No one has been able to answer that one for me yet.

Then within the last couple of weeks, some other dim bulb by the name of Mourdock quips, “….I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

Seriously. What is wrong with these people? Have the last fifty years in women’s rights not taught us anything? Did our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and colleagues that bravely went before us fight for nothing? Is it really inevitable that women will never truly attain equality? Was all the progress we made in the sixties and seventies and even into the eighties with regard to civil rights for everyone in vain? Why are there still small pockets of people, mostly corporate plutocrats, who honestly believe that women, minorities and those of different sexual orientation are somehow inferior? Thank the Gods for a generation who mostly know that all the rhetoric and cited scripture or legal precedent used to discriminate against others is just flat out wrong.

I do not and cannot share the belief that any Creator of any credibility whatsoever would ever approve of the heinous crime of rape. You can couch it and rephrase it any way that you like in order to soften it, but it really boils down to an act of violence against a woman is committed. And according to these men’s’ personal religious beliefs, she should be required to give birth if she is unfortunate enough to become pregnant as a result. This of course goes to an even deeper issue that women are somehow not people, or they are of less value or violence against them can be ultimately excused or hushed up or even discounted. If a man raped another man and could potentially become pregnant, do you think the reaction to the situation would be any different?

Not on your life!

Many politicians within the GOP keep abdicating responsibility for acceptable social behaviour and passing it off onto their religious beliefs. There is a holier-than-thou false morality that seems to want to turn back the clock to the 1950’s. They acre continually trying to push for it as if somehow, if we can just manage to get the genie on women’s issues back into the bottle, then everything will be so much better socially and economically!

To that I say, “Bullshit!”

These people don’t (or won’t) ever say it out loud, but it is really quite clear that they would rather that women would mostly be back home, in front of the stove, taking care of the kids and accepting whatever hand that the men in various positions within her sphere want to deal her. Really when you look at the rhetoric that is being espoused on the campaign trail, some of it may as well have been a statement made by the Taliban. To my mind, there is really very little difference between the Talibn and what I not-so-lovingly refer to as the ‘Christoban’.

In past elections, I always made my voting decisions along the lines of the things that politicians did with regard to First Nations / Indigenous issues. It is something that I grew up with my whole life. I cut my teeth on the Mohawk Nation’s paper, Akwasasne Notes and also the Cherokee Advocate. I was reading those sorts of “radical rags” from age 9 onward. I watched what was happening then, and I remember the riots and the siege at Wounded Knee II. Seeing the perspective outside of mainstream media was deeply ingrained in me long ago. Civil rights for everyone is an issue that cuts deep within me. I am always shocked when people from my generation or in the rare instance, of those who are younger, act as if these things should somehow be up for debate. I was raised within a culture that is largely matrifocal and matrilineal. No man or woman can be Chief within the Nation without the approval of the Clan Mothers and the Grandmothers, and they can remove him or her if they feel that he or she has betrayed the People. To my mind, that is the way it should be. If we had that sort of checks and balances in place, we might not have half the issues that we do right now in the realm of politics. No doubt certain people would never hold public office!

As a woman, and a divorced, single mother, things are tough enough without some men in public office, many of whom make many times over what I have made in the last ten years, deciding whether or not I am “worthy” to be able to choose for myself what I can do with my own body, whether or not I can see to my healthcare through an organization like Planned Parenthood, who not only provide birth control, but also preventative care for women of all ages, including mammograms, pap smears, and other preventative care. As a woman I am also deeply concerned that my child, now an adult, will get to stay on my healthcare plan, and that he can finish his education and I can finish mine. I cannot fathom how in the 21st Century we are even entertaining the possibility that these same men could potentially take away many of the choices that we women have taken for granted for at least the last 30 years.

This year, when I cast my ballot. I will have made certain to take a look at the voting record on how every politician voted and introduced legislation not only for Indigenous First Nations issues, but also with regard to women’s, LGBT, student, the poor and all other forms of civil rights. I would encourage everyone, if they have a bit of time, to do at least a little research in that area and make sure the candidate of your choice really does have your best interests at heart, or if they are just conveying a message that they hope will be just enough to get them elected.

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September 14, 2012 · 1:21 am

The Spiritual Art of Letting Go

recumbant lion
I have been having a few thoughts about letting go on 9/11 of this year. This of all days, on the anniversary of 09/11 – a day that is indelibly etched in the minds of most modern adults. Like when JFK was shot or when Challenger exploded, we can never forget where we were or what the day looked like or how we felt. On that day, 11 years ago, I was with my mother, who was dying of terminal cancer. Less than a month from that date, she would pass to the Beautiful West. That day, I got an email from a gentleman whose YouTube videos I had commented on and was so impressed by that I wrote to his private email address late last month. His production values were very high, and I thought it was a definite standard that I hoped my own work could rise to. I was very interested in talking to him about my documentary project.

Three weeks after I had sent that email, and thinking to myself that that he was probably just too busy to answer, or just not interested, I shrugged and didn’t think any more about it. On Tuesday, 9/11, I received a return email apologising for having not replied sooner but was undergoing treatment for a terminal illness that was making him feel, quite understandably, rather crappy. He went on to ask for forgiveness but should be ready to send me a proper reply in a week or so.

I felt completely chastened and humbled by that email. It made me think about an earlier interview I had seen on Youtube on Karagan Griffith’s ‘Witchtalk’ video blog, where he interviewed John of Monmouth about his involvement with the Royal Windsor Coven and the Regency. Both organisations were very closely connected to Robert Cochrane and later traditions, such as 1734 and Clan of Tubal Cain and others that had evolved from Robert Cochrane’s work. In the interview, there was a definite emphasis toward a “letting go of the artifacts”.

As someone who is Kemetic Orthodox and who has felt the pressure that many reconstrictionists feel that you must find only the authentic bits and ditch all recreations and deviations from what is known and archaeologically or scientifically verified, as well as things gained through unverified personal gnosis or abbreviated simply as UPG. You can definitely do this, and I most certainly did for a number of years. However, what you have is a rote set of rites and a list of “shoulds” or “should nots” and there is very little left that speaks to our greater connection to everyone and everything else.

For myself, I searched for many, many years for some semblance of good, solid ritual the way it was intended for the various Egyptian deities, Sekhmet in specifics. What I found was a whole lot of new age bullshit that somebody channelled. I wanted the real deal, not made up nonsense.

My reason?

Because with over 4,000+ years of residual energy surrounding any deity, I have found that it pays to take at least a little bit of historical context into the equation. If you don’t, you’re just flat out being inaccurate. Those energies, particularly the ones considered as volatile and dangerous, have proscriptions in place for very specific reasons. It pays to at least attempt to figure out what the reasons are. Yes, there is always a bit of UPG involved – and it is good to make that differentiation about what part is based in antiquity, and what is adapted vs. what you pulled out of your own consciousness. In the past, I got extremely enraged over a certain, well-known author, married to another well-known author who wrote about Sekhmet and was essentially selling Priestess initiations for the cost of dropping acid and sleeping with him In all of my years of researching Sekhmet and her worship from the extant writings from antiquity and from other egyptologists, et al, those kinds of requirements were definitely not how things were done. He and I had many extremely heated arguments on this topic over the years. Now, several years after his passing, I have let go to the outcome. All I can do is re-educate those who have had the misfortune of reading the book and thinking that is all that there is.

I find that everyone tends to gets their own version of whatever deity that they find themselves connected to. But of course, we as humans can’t make it just that simple. Even reconstructionists in the attempt to try to get to a place of connection find that the rites that went before are there as a guideline. Wanting to connect with those guidelines should not be considered a disease or dogma. It’s just another form of devotion – of being completely enamoured of a particular Deity, whether it is Jesus or Buddha, Allah, Sekhmet, to care enough to want to find out all that they can. Devotions tend to be highly personal for everyone, and no one should dictate that to another.

Another key point in the interview with Karagan and John of Monmouth was about real power is not just the empty, hollow rituals but the real raising of energy and that can only happen when tuning into and experiencing the Rites that you really go beyond description. Language falls far short, and yet so many of us try. The consciousness of interconnection between Self and all that is, is something which is sought in almost every religion, and yet it seems to be a constant battle for people to keep it all pertinent and real. Such an opening does not tend to happen when relying only on what has been set down by others, or by a list of instructions. Each person is unique and therefore while spiritual experiences are in some way similar to one another, they are not ever going to exactly the same for any two people. Also, some of the experiences in any faith, particularly when you do let go and follow it, go far beyond words. There is that occultist’s adage, “To Know, To Will, To Dare and To Keep Silent.” The bit about “Keeping Silent” isn’t always because it is taboo to discuss these experiences, but rather it can also be taken to mean that it is near to impossible to adequately articulate them to someone else. Certainly they are never going to benefit from the telling as they weren’t there and have no frame of reference. Any attempts to do so, more often times than not, fail miserably. Several have done a pretty good job, but those things are very rare and only touch the surface. Still, it is very difficult to look at the works of someone like Hildegaard of Bingen, whether it is her art, her music or her herbals or the art of Michelangelo, the poetry of Rumi and not feel some sense of each of their having really connected to the Divine and everything else on some deeper level.

When we let go of the push toward the logical mind, the part of the brain that must always maintain control, we open ourselves to things that we never before experienced or even imagined. Getting to that place where you are at peace with yourself, that either comes with practice, or maybe it a matter of time. I would like to think that wisdom can be gained not just by simply getting older.

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Filed under akhu / ancestors, kemetic, pagan, sekhmet, traditional witchcraft

Tagged as ancient egyptian religion

August 25, 2012 · 3:03 pm

Spiritual Musings from the Edge of the World

the Faery Universe You can talk to the Divine at any time with varying degrees of formality. practice your faith when just about everything becomes a prayer. You can offer your efforts in cooking a meal as thanks to Netjer for what you have been given, offering a portion of that in shrine. You can pray to Netjer behind the wheel of the car (and I often do that, myself!) or you can go out into nature and just appreciate the infinite variety of manifestations in Creation that shows the Divine to us. Really, it is about your personal relationship and the things you do personally to connect to the Divine. Proscriptions about doing A, B and then C, ad infinitum are ok, but nothing beats the internal, intuitive dialogue that only you can have with your Gods.

The so-called Pagan “community” can be a very petty, very cliquish, undisciplined lot, filled with opportunists of every stripe. Conversely, some within that community can be really wonderful, giving people. I gave up dealing with “groups” outside of the House many, many years ago and prefer to deal with individuals. I have some very close friends who are Elders in the Wiccan, Asatru, Alchemist, Ceremonialist even Diabolist ranks. Each one of them on their own are great people whom I think the world of. However, some of their “buddies” in the groups that they are affiliated with I wouldn’t eat or drink with them because, (let’s face it) they are absolute jerks and are not my kind of folks. So,taken with their customary dish of salt, the groups have their uses.

Some of us would be offended at the Pagan label. Just because something is not of the big three (ie. J, C or I) does not mean it is “Pagan”. Call some Native American religious traditions’ Pagan’, and they will show you the door in very short order. Some Hindus and certainly Buddhists also bristle at the term. Pagan has become a convenient catch-all for those who are not in the Big Three, and that really diminishes them. As Kemetic Orthodox, I do not like the term. I am not a Pagan. I am a monolatrist (not monotheist- there is a huge difference that I won’t go into right now). The bottom line is it is all about everyone having the right to self-identify. Some Satanists call themselves Pagan – and yet, watch the ranks within Wicca, et al scream at the temerity of those bleeping Satanists for doing. The neopagans love to insist that the Satanists and Diabolists are “little more than misguided Christians in rebellion”. That is far from the truth. Nothing is ever that simple that one pigenhole applies. 99.99% of those who believe that have never truly ever asked anyone from those ranks what the core beliefs are or taken the time to learn.

There is no absolutism that it is monolatry vs. paganism. I can see Kemetic Orthodoxy as both. That is the beauty of having polyvalent logic built into one’s spiritual belief. I personally dislike the term “Pagan” because it has for the most part been used as a derisive term against any belief system that does not toe the line or match up with what whatever dominant culture has as its core belief system. I honestly don’t think that the ancients thought about, “gee, if I worship Aset or Mithras or Tausi Melek, would I be considered a “Pagan”?” I find it interesting that modern culture needs to parse it so much. It really is ok, in my view, for people to not really have a name for what it is that they believe. Certainly the ancient Egyptians didn’t.

As a devotee of Sekhmet, I have found that there are those to whom when you do actually take the time to explain to them what it is that you believe, already have preconceived notions over what your beliefs and practices are. This is not at all unlike members of the big three. Pagans like to include you under their spiritual umbrella, especially if it will tend to bolster their numbers. They will also think nothing of conveniently ignoring your protestations about being lablled “just like them” in terms of belief and practice, when in fact, you aren’t. On one hand they are correct – on another hand, there is quite a bit of confusion at any possible objection to being put into the pagan box on the part of those who are not J, C, or I. It There is often also confusion that those who work magic(k) must be, by default, pagan. If we go by the idea that all prayer or focused intent is in fact heka or magic, then that would include every single religious and spiritual belief under that umbrella. In Egyptian belief in magic(k) or heka, it is very much a part of the belief system and is completely integrated into the lifestyle. Every act, ideally, becomes a prayer or heka. However, I think mainstream magical folks seem to have a decidedly different idea of what that means at times than what we as Kemetic Orthodox do!

It isn’t that people find the term Pagan incompatible with Kemetic Orthodoxy. It is just that the ancients really had no concept of parsing religious beliefs down as much as modern people insist upon doing today. Plus, there are many of us within Kemetic Orthdoxy who will never forget that it was Roman Pagans(*gasp*!!) who destroyed ancient Kemet’s religion – not the Christians, as so distressingly many in the Pagan community insist on believing. It’s all too easy for group minds to sink into a sort of meme of “us” vs. “them” mentality and then slap labels onto other groups which those groups would not dream of calling themselves. Those very terms may in fact end up insulting them in the end and yet pagans often seem oblivious or incredulous to this. Pigeonholes and preconceived notions are things we should be at least a little mindful of this. You can never go wrong by asking someone how they prefer to be called and then honouring that request.

But there is always some sort of perceived discrimination on the part of others because you do not follow the norm of the status quo.

So, while I am from the school of thought that our secular lives, though we integrate our religion into it; I still wonder why would anyone choose to advertise it? First of all, it is against the law for anyone to even ask, or discriminate based on that. I am not saying that it doesn’t happen- I sometimes think that people really bring on a great deal of the prejudice against them upon themselves. Wearing pentagrams or ankhs the size of manhole covers is nothing less than advertising. You may as well climb up onto your desk or climb the walls of your cubicle with a megaphone and shout it to all and sundry. Really, with any faith, there needs to be an awareness that wearing loads of crystal, symbols and amulets around one’s neck and a large, pagan-themed ring on every finger might make someone who does not share your beliefs just as uncomfortable in the workplace as you might be seeing an open Bible or Q’aran on the desk of a coworker. Faith is a fine thing. However, putting out a neon sign proclaiming it even to those who have not asked or have no care one way or another really does nothing to foster understanding, either.

As a Servant of the Eye of Ra – Sekhmet / Hathor, the Divine Feminine, and as someone who knows who Amun-Ra, Durga, Aset and Azazel are, and having been down a road where the dominant, herd culture likes to paint the things it does not understand in the worst light possible, I can say without hesitation nothing is ever as simple as people make it out to be. Layer upon layer of lies, deceits, manipulations of half-truths and outright falsehoods designed to mislead people from thinking for themselves, doing for themselves and realizing what their birthrights truly are, still permeate the consciousness of the majority of people outside of our collective groups.

Let’s face it: ‘The Goddess’, be it Sekhmet or Hecate, or the God, whether that be Osiris, Set, Lucifer / Satan, Azazel / Malek Taus, et al, were vilified by the dominant culture in an effort to increase the territory that the Church and the attached governments controlled in all aspects of people’s lives. This was true over the course of current common era (CE) history. My only suggestion is that today we need to take a large step back and look at who the real deceivers were and their motivations for having done so in the first place. The so-called “Beast” is ignorance and complacency and the forgetting of who we truly are and our responsibility to the world and our place within it. We must ask ourselves, what is it exactly that have we learned about the whole of it all? These are the question which bear some serious consideration on all of our part.

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