New year and new beginnings
I did indeed survive Kemetic New Year, Retreat, the huge lightning storm on Set’s birthday, waking up to kiss the Face of Ra, and now we are in regnal year 16 in the House of Netjer. I am REALLY looking forward to this year, as the Gods of the Year are Ra and Khnum (I had a strong feeling it would be Khnum). It’s a year of creation and building, for which I am so primed. If some of this is confusing you, perhaps you might like to read the oracle for this year. My favorite line? “If you find reasons not to nurture each other, you will lose much. “ I think this goes for all, not just people in the House.
I underwent Weshem-Ib (Testing of the Heart)* last week as well and am now a Shemsu-Ankh in the House, and I am also now a trained fedw reader for Wepwawet. If you have a question that you think the Opener of the Way can answer, drop me a line and I’ll gladly read for you. The cost is free.
It was a week of very high woo, and I am still at a point of very low energy. Thus there is not much pressure for me to do a lot in the way of practices. I have a reprieve of a month, because I did the Seven Arrows of Sekhmet bath and it was advised that we not do any major heka(magic) for that time to let the effects of the baths truly take home.
Once that month is up, things will be changing again. Just being in a venue where magic was happening daily meant that a lot of my internal blocks were less of a problem and I could Hear better. Before Weshem-Ib I had a visit that I cannot brush off because I KNOW it happened. Both Freyja and Frigga came to me and said that since I am now upping the ante in one of my traditions, I had to do it in all of my traditions. The Aesir, Vanir and Etins I know all took a step back during the last year to give me time and space to settle in with my Dad and Beloved. Now, I am definitely well-connected with Netjer, so I can have those multiple currents running through my life better. My first hope is that I can start up an overall devotional practice with my various Gods and Spirits, giving that focus without letting Anyone feel left out.
Oh, this is going to be a fun year. Being it on!
*Don’t ask for details, I cannot give them.
A brief pause in our story
I was hoping to get some more material online here this month, but not everything has made it. The next two weeks are primed to be very busy for me. This week is my birthday (Wednesday), bringing together more of my grad school application, and packing for next week. Next week is Wep Ronpet, the Kemetic new year, and I will spend it at Tawy House, the House of Netjer main temple in Illinois.
When I return I plan to make a few more posts: spiritual traditions, life as a Pagan mystic, and one inspired by a search string that hit my blog: how to create a syncretic spiritual path. If the person who did the last one would like to comment here on the topic, I’d be very thankful for someone to help bounce ideas.
Divination trading request
I am looking to expand/increase my divination skills. I can only do so many readings for myself and for friends before the need to branch out becomes overt. Eventually my hope is to be able to offer these skills regularly for others, and possibly for pay.
On my way to that, I would like to offer trades with people who have more experience than me, up to professional. We trade a reading for a reading, you with your system, me with mine, which is currently runes. Although if anyone would like to help me with my Tarot skills I would not object.
If you are interested, leave a comment. I’m reluctant to post my e-mail address right now.
Beloved Dead
My mother and I have a tradition of going out to dinner on Friday nights. 98% of the time we go to a local Mexican restaurant and unwind with chiles rellenos and margaritas. During the dinner conversation I said that we should make a visit to a nearby locale as it was July 18th. She agreed, so we made our visit…
26 years ago this morning, she found my father dead in bed. The weeks before his death (I was 7 and not quite of the awareness to realize what was happening), she and I were sleeping downstairs on the fold out couch. What I remember of that morning is waking up to several people in the house, including the pastor of our church, and a state vehicle in the driveway. Mom hustled me out to my cousins’ house around the corner, I was confused and scared and couldn’t see for not having my glasses. A little while later my mom came by the house. Originally I had forgotten this next portion, she told me, and she has since forgotten. She came in, sat me down, told me my father was dead, and my first reaction was “oh, I knew that.”
If only I could have known then to be conscious of that keen sense for death. That’s neither here nor there.
Tonight we cleaned up my father’s headstone, paid a visit to his sister D. who passed last fall and her husband, then visited their other sister E. (who died when I was 5) and her late husband. E.’s marker had a great deal of grass growing over it. We’re going to go back there soon with a shovel and space and clear up her marker some more.
One of the aspects of polytheism I love is that just about all traditions also come with ancestor veneration and teachings of some sort that the dead who have passed still watch over their descendants and care about their lives. I think it makes death a much less frightening and “final” thing. I’ve had some interesting independent, third party confirmation of this fact. This is part of why my everyday jewelry includes a gold bracelet that originally belonged to my namesake. Mom gave it as a gift to me when I graduated college. I have another charm bracelet of hers that I got when I turned 18. That is rarely worn as it has a habit of getting caught on things, and it breaking would devastate me.
Hail to the beloved dead. Thank you for keeping watch over us who are living.
It all started with a book.
One question I periodically get is likely well known to anyone who’s open about being Pagan.
“How did you become a Pagan?”
That question is somewhat loaded for me. The short answer is that I came to wanting a connection with the Gods based on practicing magic for about a year. That year will likely never be documented in full detail, because while it was pivotal to me becoming who I am today, it also included so many incredible and rather unbelievable events that to share it would open up to far too many statements of impossibility. Or worse, someone would buy me a white jacket that would let me hug myself all day long.
Let me tell you instead how I got to that year. To give you some background, I will give you an image of the person I was as a teenager. Insecure, timid, gawky, trying desperately to fit in so I’d have some friends and not be picked on daily, but still too “weird” (myself) to fit in. I kept trying though, desperately looking for that solution. One of my hopeful solutions came through reading Seventeen magazine. My mother got me a subscription that started around my 17th birthday, the summer of 1991. In one of those issues, there was an ad for a book triology due to come out in the fall. There was… something about this book. I just saw its cover and a little blurb in the 1/3 page ad, but I knew I had to read it. In September I found the second book first in a little Waldenbooks at the downtown mall. I started with that book, but jumping in at the middle of the story I could already see how much I had missed. So I waited and soon the store had in the first book. I devoured the trilogy that fall, weeping silently at the end of the third book.
The story wouldn’t leave my mind. Nor would the sensations it gave me. I know now it was my intuition waking up, plus the writing style sparked something in my brain. My yearning for occult, supernatural and esoteric material was born, knowing and believing there was something to it. Something more to reality. So I started looking, and I started finding.
Those of you who know me well probably know what I am referencing. Those of you who do not may be shocked to find out what this series is, which incidentally has been re-released.
Give up?
It’s The Vampire Diaries.
Some of you may scoff and wonder how some young adult supernatural romance could have been the launching point of my occult career. If you do, go read the series. It’s stood up to the test of time.
Since that quartet of books came out (Dark Reunion came out around May 1992, I found it in June, and a month later reality did a complete 180 on me), I’ve read every word that L.J. Smith has written. Night of the Solstice, Heart of Valor, Secret Circle (Cassie is disturbingly like me), Forbidden Game, Dark Visions, and Night World, which is in the process of being re-released. It was rereading the first Night World book, Secret Vampire, last week that inspired me to post this. Had I not paid attention to that inner prompting so long ago, I know I would not be the person I am now. I’m quite excited that L.J. is writing again; the promise of a conclusion to the Night World series, and new Vampire Diaries books focusing on Damon fill me with joy. I look forward to again immersing myself in a world where vampires are very real, witches are undeniable in being Other, and love will not be denied.
Thank you L.J. Smith. You changed my life and I can never thank you enough for it.
Glad Midsommar
Happy Midsummer/summer solstic, Blessed Litha, and happy Feast of the Beautiful Reunion to all of you.
I’ve been home from my vacation for nearly a week now, and I still am not too pleased to be home. It was one of the best vacations I ever had–I relaxed like I rarely allow myself to do, much spiritual work happened, and I finally got to see Pearl Jam live. Coming back to my “regular” life has been a bit of a letdown, but I refuse to fall back into the patterns I perpetuated beforehand. Plus, I came home and caught a cold, so I was physically incapable of going back to my self-imposed pushing to be “productive.”
My plans for Midsummer include spending a day this weekend with one of my kindred sisters in ritual and also starting the virtual Reiki retreat. I am also re-purifying my Kemetic Shrine.
Despite the cold, I am feeling renewed and full of an optimism I thought I would never find again.
When life gets in the way of blogging
Or in my case, life and a touch of writer’s block.
I’ve had more stress heaped on to me this year than I care to think about, and not nearly enough respite from it, big or small. It builds up to the point where I go into survival mode and can only focus on handling what’s right in front of me. It also greatly interferes with any spiritual practice I may want to do outside of the most basic meditations and simple rituals.
So I’m not really doing that much, and what’s worse, all the stress has led to a definite degree of writer’s block. I have posts that I still want to write for this blog as well as some articles I was hoping to submit for the next issue of Rending the Veil. They’re not going to happen before this weekend, which, incidentally, is when I depart for Florida for a little over a week of respite with my best friend.
In the meantime I am trying to take off as much of the pressure I and the world heap on myself. It’s a wonderful application of the principle of ahimsa, non-harming. My yoga teacher has been speaking of it for the last few weeks. This means not worrying about self-imposed deadlines and relaxing them.
I am hoping that while I am on vacation I can gather my thoughts enough for a few posts here as well as the RTV material. Give me about two weeks and, Gods willing, I will be fully recharged and reconnected.
Dua Netjer
My primary spiritual tradition is Kemetic Orthodoxy and I am currently a Shemsu in the House of Netjer. I highly recommend the previous links as well as Kemet.org to give a better sense of the faith than I can do with this blog post. What I will tell here is how the religion of ancient Egypt came to hold its place in my heart and spirit.
While I was never a person who went gung ho into studying any particular culture or mythology in my youth, I did always enjoy any material on ancient Egypt. One minor details that stands out as potentially significant is recalling that in fourth grade we had to decorate a folder for out unit on ancient Egypt. I wound up copying an image of people on a boat from this time. I never finished it, because it would have taken a lot of work, but even to my hypercritical eye I was reproducing the picture extremely well. Freehand, no tracing.
The interest lingered but never manifested into anything major.
Fast forward to 1999. I dated someone who described himself as a priest of Anpu (a more Egyptian rendering of the name, Anubis is the Greek spelling), who was the first to mention the House of Netjer. I have to admit, I thought it was a little odd, especially since they had a king. No, I’ve never been big on authority figures. During the time we were dating though I started to look into Egypt a little more, or at least indulge my spending on Egyptian stuffs. I have an Aset (Greek: Isis) pendant purchased then as well as a false copper relief of Anubis weighing the heart vs. the feather. I treasure them both, but especially the relief. A few months after buying it, I noticed that along the edges, the green-tinted fiberglass seemed to be giving way to more patches of copper. Periodically, I will still look at it and notice new portions that seem to shine where there was only green before.*
I continued poking my nose around Egyptian material, and buying jackal-themed items where I could. I also had a few dreams involving the jackal-headed one. The first was on Valentine’s Day night 2000. The aforementioned boyfriend turned out to be a right jerk, and I found an interesting humor in dreaming that his God was walking with me down the street from my house… and past the cemetary there. In 2004 I had two more dreams at different points during the year. One was of Yinepu (again with names, this is Anubis in the original Kemetic language) having a ritual fight with Djehuty (Thoth) in a log cabin. I have yet to find out what this may mean. The other dream was of seeing a small jackal-headed god figure and in the dream being told this was NOT Yinepu and to find out who it was. One of my friends in the House suggested Wepwawet, another and older jackal headed God, but at the time it didn’t seem right.
In the interim I started to make friends with people who were in the House, and since none of them seemed too nuts and had a good sense around the faith, I looked more at the House. Finally, in the fall of 2006 I decided to sign up for the beginner’s class the House offers. This is a ten week course that acts as an introduction to some basics of ancient Egyptian belief and culture as well as some practices specific to the House. I was not able to complete the class due to life getting in the way and was debating if I would ever continue.
Then Pantheacon 2007 happened. I roomed with two of my friends who were in the House (one is actually one of the original House members), and when walking with him early on that Friday we came across several House members. My friend had his minutes of saying hello to everyone and we all wound up in the elevator. When we got in there I recognized Tamara and as I was on a non-Egypt mailing list with her, I introduced myself. Suddenly behind me was a chorus of “Hi Soli!” from Imakhu Meres and Imakhu Sedjemes, who had been involved in the previous round of beginner’s class (the one I dropped). Long story short, I ended up spending a good deal of Pcon with the members of the House and instantly felt such a feeling of community and connection that I knew I had to complete beginner’s class and become part of the House.
This past September I underwent the Ritual of Parent Divination (see the Wikipedia article above under Shemsu for a brief overview), as well as Naming. I was divined a daughter of Wepwawet and beloved of Seshat and in the House am now known as Shezatwepwawet, Zat for short.
There is more I could tell, like the shock of being Divined a Wepwawet kid, but I shall leave it for now.
*This may need to become a post on its own, but I guess it bears saying now. Yes I am one of those people who believes in signs and has had enough things happen that can’t be normally explained to believe in them. As a disclaimer, I also do not automatically believe that anything possibly odd is of “supernatural” origins.
My practices
I have this and two more background posts that I want to put online before the end of the week. Then, it’s more about looking forward than filling the unknown you in on what has come before. It’s a little scary to consider right now, if only because it means I have another marker by which to measure any work I do.
The following are my various practices which seem to defy any set spiritual tradition, but some fit in with all. As always, if you have any questions feel free to ask. (I also think that you currently have to be registered with WordPress to comment. I should look into that.)
*Ancestor veneration. This is a core practice among most pre-Christian traditions, though the form varies. I’ve kept a boveda (scroll down) since 2005, after an Ifa divination I received gave this as a remedy. Even with several years of offerings, ancestor blots, and lighting candles, it’s only been fairly recently where I’ve been feeling connected to my ancestors enough to where I am hearing them and sensing their taking a potentially more active role.
*Yoga. I originally started practicing in 2001 during my final semester of college. In 2002 I signed up for a six week beginner course but only did two weeks. Early this year the yoga studio near my house offered a day of free classes. As part of a resolution to break out of my comfort zones, I opted to go to two classes that were somewhat more than the very basic introduction to poses. I was hooked like I had never been before. Yoga has now become a regular part of my life, even considering the month and a half break I had due to travel and various minor illnesses. I take three classes a week currently–Kundalini, Hatha Tantra, and Tantra Ayurveda. They are my most overt methods of mind-body-spirit connections. Each class pushes my body in new ways and connects me better with it, and thus the world around me. Yoga also takes me away from all the day to day nonsense and reminds me of what I consider to be most important in my life. I never leave class in a bad mood or feeling upset.
*Magic. Yes I do it. I tend to prefer folk magic like candle spells and chanting. Ritual magic of any form is next to impossible for me, unless it’s a ritual laid out by someone else. I am hoping to incorporate it into my life but it is slow going. I am also enrolled in cat yronwode’s Hoodoo correspondence class though I regret to say I am sorely slacking on doing that work.
*Divination. I read runes as well as Tarot. If you’re interested in a reading, contact me.
*Trance work and shamanism. I’ve been doing this since 2003 and I’d say it’s been my most consistent practice. I had a major “experience” with Odin that spring (a story I may or may not recount here, but people who have known me for some time will possibly remember it), which led me to becoming involved in a long distance “trance class” led by Diana Paxson. This is where I first formally learned the methods of trance work into other worlds, as well as how to come back, which is a VERY necessary skill. In 2004 I took some additional classes locally along with some friends of mine led by a woman originally trained in core shamanism but then branched out using her own techniques in addition. While the classes themselves did not manifest into major work with the woman, those of us who had known each other before have since continued to do trance/shamanic work on our own, and sometimes together.
I reserve the right to add to this post as material comes up that I may have forgotten, but I think this covers the major touchstones I will discuss publicly.
Syncretism in medieval Iceland
A discussion of saints in medieval Iceland included the idea that possibly that the worship of saints replaced the worship of the Heathen Gods.
I’m sitting here and pondering the implications of this. I do have a decent knowledge base regarding saints and their syncretism with the lwa and orishas in African religions, but what I know of ATR is that it’s potentially easier to adopt this world-view. Catholicism, Vodou, and Yoruba-based faiths include the idea of God being immense and somehow removed from this world, and the saints/lwa/orishas act as intermediaries to God and more likely to be involved in the workings of this world. As far as we know with Heathens pre-conversion, there was never such an idea around the Aesir and Vanir.
We shall have to see how this develops.
(original link from Jordsvin, posted to the troth-members board/e-mail list. Thanks!)
