Djehuty’s Maze

Since the turnaround in energy this year, I’ve been reestablishing contact with my associated deities. Of course Djehuty is one of them, he was around before I got formally into Kemeticism, and then showed up at my KO divination as a beloved. That’s not surprising because writing and thinking too much about things have long been habits of mine.

I talked to him about how my belief in, well everything, has been waning, especially this last year, especially in winter. It’s hard to get around that analytical voice in my head that seems to want to counter everything. Now, if it seems contradictory that I’m having a conversation in my head with a god about how I’m not sure that he’s real, well, that’s just how I roll.

Then I realized that being overly analytical was squarely in long-beak’s domain. So, I asked him how I might solve the issue. How do I find my way through this maze? It had already become apparent, just from a practical, mental health standpoint, that I need belief to keep me healthy. I’ve tried it both ways, with and without, and with is definitely better for me. Nihilism is not good for my soul.

He told me to “walk between the raindrops” while giving me a visual of a model of atoms with wide spaces between them. In other words, the world is not as solid as it appears. Science is not an all-knowing monolith. There are wide gaps in understanding there too.

I told him that idea was great in theory, but I’m currently inhabiting a body made from atoms and they may not be solid, but they sure as heck act like it. And while there’s technically nothing stopping me from walking between raindrops, it is a practical impossibility. When it rains, I get wet. As you can tell, I wasn’t terribly impressed with his answer. I almost accused him of using the word “quantum” out of context.

The next morning, I was reading a science article about how certain people were questioning a theory that had previously been thought to be pretty solid, but there were some anomalies that made them question it. They set up simulations and decided that if they measured a seemingly unrelated thing and got a certain answer, then it would support their hypothesis and call the other theory into question. Djehuty, of course, was reading over my should and saying “See? What did I tell you?”

I took that to mean that I might find answers while examining seemingly unrelated incidents. Science is not about proving that the world is a certain way. It’s about recording observations, and a single, though repeatable, observation can turn accepted thought on its head at any time. Don’t ignore the anomalies, pursue them. But don’t cover them with fluff either. Don’t lose track of the analysis in order to improvise, or at the very least, try to recognize when you’ve started to do so.

I opened my journal and got started on the maze. I wrote down the different anomalies I could think of, things like those extra short glimpses of the future,  very occasionally hearing others’ thoughts, tarot cards making more sense than random chance should allow, and a few others. These things are not provable to the world at large. They’re things that I’ve experienced and have a reasonable confidence in. I’m not solving this maze for the whole world, just for myself. Your list of anomalies would probably look different from mine, and would probably lead you to different ideas. The plan is to go through each one and ask, what does this imply? What kind of Universe do we live in if this is something that happens?

That precognition one is loaded with stuff. Does it prove the existence of gods? Not really, but it does partially indicate the existence of the soul. Some part of my consciousness jumped forward in the time stream and then jumped back. My physical body didn’t do that, so it had to have been something else. Everything outwardly was the same, down to small details. This leads to questions of predestination. I know people hate that concept, but here we are. Although, from what I remember, my thought processes weren’t identical when seeing it the first time and then again the second time. That indicates that my thought processes are not predetermined, or otherwise exist outside of the “simulation.” Simulation? Experience? Movie? Time stream? I wasn’t able to change anything that happened in mine, but I have heard others report being able to do so. As you can see, there is a lot to unpack here, just for this one example. I could spend a long time going through that list and following up on the side questions as they come.

As you can see, the maze is huge and there’s no guarantee what you will find in there. Everything is labeled with question marks, as they should be. It would defeat the purpose to grab one of those question marks and declare it as Truth with a capital T. It’s the journey, not the destination, as they say. The thing is not going to be solved any time soon, but it will give that analytical side something else to think about.

Already?

I guess hibernation time is over now. The energy shifted a couple days ago. I’m sure that living in the south helps a lot with that. Having a dry and therefore sunny winter probably also made a difference.

Where before I felt like I was slowly suffocating, I now have some of the opposite effect. Reminds me of when I used to be in band and got slightly giddy from using so much air. Feels like it’s lifting me up rather than weighing me down. It’s a nice change, but can be distracting in its own way.

Just last week I was lamenting the lack of anything spiritual, and a lack of my own belief. Since then it’s all come back like a flood. The skeptic hasn’t changed, but the believer has found more interesting things to focus on.

I thought what I needed was more light, more fire, but my ka was already worn ragged from all of that. This winter, I allowed the garden to go fallow. I stripped it back to its foundation to see what was there. Basalt underneath, strong, igneous, blood of the earth itself. In the garden, a thick layer of rich black earth, Kemet’s own namesake. In the astral, it’s a subtle mix of various energies, nutrients for growth. I buried myself in it to restore my ka.

The blue Horian pool was looking pretty low. I floated in the water, with Heru supporting my head. He encouraged me to relax and open up to the flow. I’d been closed off for most of the year, with good reason, but I can’t do that forever. It hurt, but he told me to stay with it, to release the tension. Eventually, it started to flow clear again. When I stood up from that, the garden was flooded. It seemed like a good sign for my renovation project. That probably had something to do with the early shift in energy. Since then the soil has absorbed the water, and it feels like the green is on the verge of sprouting.

Fitful Hibernation

A few days after the November full moon, the one where I didn’t do the Kemet-Wesir ritual, I went to visit Wesir. I wanted to check on things even if I wasn’t going to try to actively do anything. I asked him if the Eye was still shining. He said it was. I looked at the ground where I sat. He told me that it was still black and rich, waiting for spring. It was ok to rest. It will still be there when I’m ready again. I felt relieved. Then he told me to go visit Ra to warm up. Apparently, just being there in the dark leeches away my heat. I’m not sure if it’s the place itself, or my own desire to give what I can even when I should be resting.

The sun is not as bright and doesn’t shine as long. The moon is on the wane. Even without exhausting myself with magic, winter is still winter. But at least I didn’t blow off that protective outer layer this time. It’s a passive layer of energy that naturally shields a person. You don’t even notice it’s there until you try to get along without it. I usually visualize it as a layer of feathers, others might prefer a bubble or a cocoon.

The few days after October’s moon were rough. My feathers felt patchy and not all there. Everything seemed to hurt in a not-quite-physical way. It’s still pretty rough out there, in my city especially. I went back to my astral garden and just screamed and cried.

This morning I woke from another creeping lava dream. Those seem to be my standard stress dream. Something bad is coming and it can’t be reasoned with and you just have to find a way to avoid it, but it seems like it’s everywhere. The solution to the dream is to remember that I can fly. So that’s what I did, except I was the only one who could. Everyone else was stuck on the ground. One guy asked me to carry him, but I had to tell him that I was barely keeping myself in the air. I could maybe carry a small child, but that was about it. I guess the dream won. I still felt helpless.

In the morning, I woke up feeling feathers covering my body, talons on my feet, and sunlight shining through my skin. I’m hardly doing anything spiritual at this time of year, but the morning always reminds me.

For the rest of it, I got a bright desk lamp that I keep above eye level. Around sunset I jump into VR and either use the meditation program that puts me on a bright sunny beach, or I explore alien planets in No Man’s Sky or Subnautica. The trick is to fool my brain into thinking that the sun is staying up later. It does seem to help, as long as I keep up with it.

Hallow-wasn’t

It was the Halloween that wasn’t. We’re all staying home this year, at least everyone who is smart is staying home. I don’t know what we’re going to do in two weeks when the fallout from parties and Election day will be felt. The hospitals are at capacity now. People are already being airlifted to other cities. More than 900 people are in the local hospitals, three times as many as the July spike. I’ve been using the hospital numbers to gauge the severity of the disease in town because the testing numbers fluctuate, but the numbers of those who get sick enough to go in don’t depend on testing. That gauge may fail me now that we’ve hit the limit. They’re talking about closing nonessential businesses again. Sounds like they need to.

During the cartel wars, the daily death total averaged about ten per day in Juarez, right across the river. We had ten in one day die here a couple days ago. I’m afraid we will have more days like that, and worse.

I did the full moon ritual last night, since I didn’t want to do it directly on Halloween, because who knows what kinds of noise or disruption might go on outside my window. There’s a loud car stereo thumping out there right now with its bass drone pressing against my eardrums. If it’s that loud inside my room, that person in the car must be going deaf.

My mind was hitting a slightly deeper layer than usual. Less politeness, more passion when greeting the three ladies. Aset offered her breast and I forgot to be embarrassed by it. Het-hert looked like a flame. Nebt-het’s blessing practically dragged me down before I was ready. I met Wesir in the Underworld and he held me in his arms to steady me. I called up the blue Horian flame, and wrapped it in Ra’s sunlight to make the Eye. A tiny twist, and it shone with all the colors of Netjer. I opened the silver threads that tied me to Them and prayed for them to go forth into the world, to flow outward like a river, to bring comfort to those in need. There are so many out there who need them. When I started to waver, I placed the Eye on a pedestal and wrapped it with a string to hold it in place as I drew back from it. It took effort to focus enough to follow Nebt-het back up to the surface, back to my garden and out.

Het-hert supported me as we walked out of the circle. It was a struggle to stand up straight. Someone handed me a glass of honey mead to energize me. I gulped it down quickly, starving for that sweet liquid sunshine. Het-hert did her best to get me to stop focusing on the Underworld and to focus on her instead. She succeeded in that.

It’s important to get your mind and energy back in order before waking up to avoid side effects from difficult workings. I’ll use any trick that works. It’s better than coming back feeling drained, freezing my butt off, and being wiped out the next day.

Post-Op

 

It’s been four weeks since the big day. The thoughts in my head go along the lines of “I have my chest back!” or that I have a “normal chest” again. Obviously my mind never really agreed with the way my body was shaping up. Even in that long-ago vision, seeing that jeweled collar sit flat against my chest felt so natural that I didn’t question it. Why Egyptian? Why men’s? But not a single thought asking where the boobs went. They were never really included in my self image. 

I finally got cleared to take off the compression vest yesterday. I thought that would be a relief, but it still feels like I have a band wrapped around my chest, even though I don’t. The skin is tighter than I’m used to, and the nerves aren’t all there. Through some combination of the nerves sorting themselves out and me getting used to it, I’m sure that will improve. I’m still puffy under the armpits where I had lipo, and I was assured that would settle down soon and I need to massage it. I’m still prohibited from lifting things for another two weeks. Stretching to reach for things is not something I’m going to do for awhile either. As for the scars, it just looks like someone drew across my chest with a violet-red marker. I have no doubt those will go silver without much problem. 

Overall, I’m happy I finally got it done. I was extremely lucky to get it scheduled at the time that I did, in the lull between one Covid peak and the next. Who knows when numbers will be that low again with the holiday season coming up. Right now the local numbers are higher than ever and the state is sending us extra medical staff. It does worry me, but worry isn’t going to help much beyond keeping up the same precautions I’ve been doing all along. 

It was a treat to finally be cleared for long soaking baths rather than just quick showers. I dropped a few grains of natron into the tub, so now I’m back among the ranks of the ritually pure, not that I’m much of a ritual person anyway. The energy sensitivity is coming back and I can feel the sunrise again. Some mornings it’s obvious and others I just sleep through it. I can also feel the distinctive chill and oppressive downward current of fall, even when it’s 90 degrees outside. I’ve also gotten in the habit of visualizing a layer of feathers over my skin that insulate me from those fluctuations. Intense workings have a way of burning off that layer, so I’ve been keeping it calm.

Did the surgery affect any of that? Other than the expected diversion of resources for healing, sort of, not really. In tai chi I learned that part of the interface between energy and the body is in the fascia, at least that’s where it can be felt. Fascia is the tissue that connects everything and keeps it in place, and it seems to communicate subtle movements from one part of the body to another because it’s all connected, like how a spider can feel when something touches its web. That said, I think I’ve got a minor sticking point in the center of my chest that pulls a bit at the slightest provocation. If that’s the only sticking point, then I’d say I got off rather light. I’ll just have to work on unsticking it later. 

 

Shed my Skin

…This is the new stuff I go dancing in!

By Labor Day Weekend, the 4th of July Covid spike had gone down almost to pre-holiday levels, and that nagging feeling of important things being delayed started nagging again. So I pulled some cards. At the beginning of the year they were practically standing on a chair and screaming “Nooooo!” This time they gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.

So, once the weekend was over, I called the plastic surgeon about top surgery. I’d already had a consultation last year, so they had me on file. They said they had some cancellations and would I like to get it done this month? Otherwise I’d be waiting until the second half of November. Sooner is better! I’m scheduled to have surgery tomorrow morning, September 21st. I’m not publishing this until it’s over because I don’t want to jinx anything. Of course, being two weeks after Labor Day, that spike is getting started. Still, I hope to get in and get out before there’s flu on top of it. Antibody and Covid test said I’ve been able to avoid it so far. And what better time to be confined to my house than when I’m already confined to my house? Is it still risky to have cosmetic surgery done in the middle of a pandemic? Yes, it is, but this isn’t just cosmetic and the delay has been weighing on me. (Somewhat literally. They tend to pull my shoulders forward. I will be so glad when they’re gone!)

I am nervous and barely slept last night, knowing that today is my last “normal” day for awhile. What if something goes wrong with the anesthetic? I’ve always felt like I was born in the wrong world, and wouldn’t terribly mind leaving, but there’s the family to think of, always the family. They keep me grounded and make me feel needed here. Actually my biggest concern is that if something goes wrong with the anesthetic I’ll wake up and find that the surgery didn’t happen, and I’ll just be stuck this way.

That scenario is highly unlikely, but there is a nonzero chance. Most likely, everything will be fine and I’ll just spend the next week feeling miserable and complaining pitifully about being stepped on by an elephant in my shiny new compression vest. And then, once it’s healed up a few weeks later–blessed freedom! The thought of never wearing a bra again sounds better than birthday and every holiday throughout the year combined, and no matter how nervous I am, there’s not one hint of wanting to delay it any longer.

The last week has been about doing the things that needed to get done before the next month or two. That included getting the car checked, and mucking out the fish pond. It doesn’t look anything like the picture right now. The plants have been severely cut back, but I left enough for the traumatized gold fish to hide under. Luckily they all survived staying overnight in a bucket and adjusted back into their home relatively well, and now the water is clear enough to see them easily. Don’t worry, it’s deeper than it looks. I couldn’t just reach over the edge while cleaning, I had to stand in it, up over my knees.

Spiritually, I’ve deliberately not been doing anything. I need to keep that extra cushion of chi intact because it will get used. In the past, September was when the beginning of fall has made me irritable. Then, around the equinox I’d do some kind of big working. It’s as if my old skin was getting itchy and ready to shed, like a snake. Afterward, I’d settle down into fall and winter more quietly. Looks like this year I’m going to do a more literal version of that. I assume that I’m not going to do anything for the October 1st moon, but might do something for the 31st, and that will be it until the year turns again.  I learned my lesson last year about trying to do workings during the winter.

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Just got back from the day-after followup and they say everything is looking good. Didn’t get much sleep last night, but I’m taking my meds on schedule so it isn’t too bad.

Thanks Netjer for keeping an eye on me!

Animals and Crocodiles

I’ve been hanging out with Sobek lately.

He’s teaching me about animals. I’m an animal, you’re an animal, we all are.  Ok maybe not everyone, assuming the existence of sentient plants, minerals and noncorps. Though some noncorps have a lot in common with animals anyway. Sobek for example.

He’s always been the quietest member of my RPD lineup. Crocs aren’t much for conversation, except for that deep rumble thing. Certainly not as chatty as all of the big-headed apes that I know. Not as chatty as my cats. Certainly quieter than the traumatized half-tail squirrel that lives in the back yard. He’s easy to overlook, and that’s a very croc way to be.

Occasionally he tells stories and puts his own twist on them. There was the king who came down to the water to drink during a drought, and then fell into snapping jaws. No one’s fault, really, just a thing that happened. There was the warrior who lost his eye in battle, except he wasn’t blind. In fact the blinders had come off and Ma’at’s fury found its way to the surface, with no care for where those arbitrary battle lines had been drawn. He talked about how, by devouring Wesir’s special part, he increased the fertility of the river, rather than allowing it to pass into the underworld. Sorry, not sorry. Just an animal, doing what animals do.

He said I wasn’t low on energy at all. I’d been holding back for so long that I didn’t realize the difference.  But–I needed to treat my animal-self with more care. It’s only trying to do what it knows how to do. He’s been working on my well being. I would say he’s working on my depression, but he’s not focusing on that. He’s steering me in another direction.

What about the fitness cult? There’s a little bit of that, but not the kind with some trainer yelling in my face. More like a gentle reminder that I would feel better if I did my stretches in the morning, and then some other kind of exercise in the afternoon. I’ve been behaving as if it’s been January (winter depression time) since March, diving into the computer for escape and comfort, with the tendinitis is coming back for revenge.

We talked about the difference between enjoying things versus tolerating or enduring them. (This question only works in areas where you do have control, otherwise it just reminds you of what you can’t do.) Do I enjoy letting my schedule go however it goes and sleeping late? Or, am I just enduring the brain fog that goes along with that? Am I enjoying the mildewed shower curtain with the butterflies, or just tolerating it? Maybe time to order a new one. Am I enjoying not having to clean my room, or just enduring the boxes on the floor that I haven’t recycled yet? The bathroom and the bedroom both look better. I’ve almost had something like a schedule going for a couple weeks now. There is no “should” involved, just a gentle realization that I have a choice. Sobek doesn’t care if I have boxes on the floor or not. He does care that I instinctively feel more relaxed in an open space. He reminds me that if I take better care of the animal, it will take better care of me.

After weeks of pushing posts for deadline’s sake, I think I’ll shelve this for awhile unless I can think of something I want to write. Not much new has been happening spirit-side for awhile, and the things that do happen don’t really make good posts. Regular Tuesday posting is on hold, and I’m going back to a when-I-feel-like-it basis.

Layers of Sight

Recently it feels like my vision has shifted while in the astral. There’s one kind of vision where you focus on what appears to be physical-like structures, walls, decorations, plants and humanoid people. Then there’s another way of seeing in which those things stop seeming important, where you see right through them, if you see them at all, and instead focus on the energies underneath. There’s probably a word for that, but today the term that feels right to call it is pattern sight.

I’ve always done a bit of both, but lately it’s been more of the second one. Between the two, it’s harder to write about because it’s harder to describe. It conveys a lot of information in a compact form, but unpacking that into something you can talk about is difficult. It’s like describing a scent, if the scent were condensed into a solid object.

Ra has always preferred that I see him this way. Sometimes my brain rebels and slaps some image over him, often some TV character of questionable motive, sometimes a former boss, and sometimes I make up an image. That might tell you something about how I’ve always been a little uneasy about our relationship. Many times I’ve stood right in front of him, having a conversation in my projection of how his office on the barque appears, and could not tell you a single thing about what he looks like, except “dark.” It may seem ironic that a sun god’s energy would appear that way. I’ve always attributed it to the idea that he’s covering up his brilliance for my protection, like that time when I watched a solar eclipse through a welder’s helmet. Other words I might use would be powerful, authoritarian, masculine but also loving, giving, protective. He has a deep gravity well that pulls you into his orbit.

Heru on the other hand, gives me big brother vibes. He is warm, like a more gentle version of the sun, with a taste of wind on a summer’s day.  That’s when he’s in a good mood. The sky has many moods. There’s always a sense of motion there even when he is still, like an underground stream.

Last week during the ritual I didn’t see the garden exactly, maybe a thin ghostly version of it. I went to the knot of energy that was the natron spring to purify myself. I saw the glowing pillars of the three ladies. I dropped through to a landscape of lines and energies. I only saw flashes of images as my mind translated and labeled the structures. I took molten glowing lines and wove them together like a rope.

I often feel this that this is the true way of seeing, and assigning shapes to things that don’t require them is something of a crutch that humans use to interact here. Ra seemed to imply as much, in that he refused to settle on a form because I shouldn’t need him to do so. On the other hand, maybe the visual layer also has a measure of reality to it, and maybe that’s why I got burned this lat time. I wasn’t paying attention to my own shape while working on that deeper layer. Maybe it’s false to think that one is more important or more real than the other and it’s just a matter of focus.

Integrity and Internal Magic

The ritual over, I brought my awareness back home, to my room. I felt Djehuty hanging around close by. My energy body felt tired but not too bad, then I noticed the blisters along my arms as if I’d been burned. Djehuty covered the phantom wounds with aloe vera bandages.

“I don’t remember doing that.” It didn’t hurt exactly, but it didn’t look good either.  The bandages helped a lot.

You were very focused. Djehuty told me.

“Nebt-het didn’t stop me.”

You weren’t done yet.

I thought about how I’d grabbed various energies and wove them together, strengthening the connections between them. It’s possible that interrupting me partway would have ruined the whole thing.

I wore the bandages for a couple days. Overall it wasn’t too bad. If the results were half as good as I hoped, then it was worth it. Unfortunately, I usually don’t see the results of my efforts. I keep doing it because it feels like the kind of thing that I was made to do.

—

Internal magic involves the concept of changing yourself in order to change the world, or at least your corner of it, whichever part of it you can reach. If external magic is about ritual, spell components, and sigils, then internal magic is about energy work, journey work and shapeshifting.

Changing yourself, being willing to change, doesn’t always work out the way you planned. There’s a certain integrity, the structural kind, that is disrupted with any change. The energy body heals faster than the physical body, but those little imbalances can add up over time. I can’t do this kind of stuff as often as I used to.

If your sense of identity is rooted in your appearance, then changing your appearance can be disorienting. If your sense of stability depends on reality being just so, then any change of the rules can leave you off balance. If you have a clear sense of what is inside and what is outside, then any blurring of those lines will make you have doubts about where self ends and other begins. It can make you wonder who the self even is and if anything is safe from these changes.

But I’m the kind of person who is drawn to this. Being too solid, too hard, feels like being trapped. I used to feel like I needed to break something, even if that something was myself. I don’t feel that way as much anymore. It’s important to put it back together when you’re done. It doesn’t have to be the same as before, but it’s important to rest and recharge, to settle into the new shape.