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.

Awake in the Dark

TW: Seasonal depression

Dear Ra,

I’m trying my best to stay awake this winter like you asked, but I really don’t want to. The days and the hours just crawl, and yet I’m still not getting much done. It’s been dark and cold the last couple weeks. As someone who chose to live in the desert southwest, I want a refund. Yesterday the sun came out, and I spent hours zoned out and trying to soak in as much of it as I could until my energy channels were exhausted and my stomach started growling.

It’s Tuesday, my usual WP day, and I can’t think of much to write about. I don’t want to just sit here and complain, but that’s about all that I’m feeling today.

Even as I sit here writing this, I feel you out there shining again, even as I hear the cold winds blow. I can feel your light tugging at my soul. Are you sure I can’t just shut it all out and play video games and read and sleep walk until spring comes again? Why do you even care if I’m awake or not?

I’m not doing the social media thing anymore. I thought I could handle it if I limited my exposure to it, but now I’m sensitized beyond all reason and things that used to slide by cause me too much grief. Even with my reduced follow list, it was still too much of a distraction. Back to being a hermit, I guess. I thought the gods wanted me there, but in truth, you all never really said. I just assumed. The good parts were good, and the bad parts kept me awake at night. Maybe it’s just too much togetherness and humans weren’t meant to know every thought that crosses each other’s minds.

One less distraction and emotional drain on my time and energy.  So now what? I find myself asking that question a lot. I do have things I need to do, and not a lot of energy to do them. So the answer to that question might be less interesting than I would hope. I guess that’s another good thing about leaving social media, there’s less pressure to be interesting.

One more month until the barque turns and the days start getting longer. Two more months until I start to feel the difference. I’d like to think that this whole “stay awake” thing has some purpose to it. You seem to be very insistent upon it.

Green Tomorrow

Hethert has been hanging around more lately. I’m somewhat tempted to call her Hathor, a name that feels like it is hers alone rather than one dependent on her husband. At the time I got married, I was outwardly the wife half of “husband and wife” and I did not change my name. (Now it is “wife and spouse” and the dress is on the other side of the aisle.) It makes me nervous that her identity is wrapped up in his. It makes me nervous that my identity is also wrapped up with him but in a different way. What the heck am I supposed to say to her? She tells me not to worry about it. Hethert will do just fine.

Whenever she comes around, the one thing she always asks of me is to not hide my heart from her. I try to do as she asks, but sometimes I don’t succeed. The habit is too ingrained. I learned from a young age to hide my feelings from those who would take advantage of them, and when I’m stressed, I do it automatically.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I can feel her embracing me like a warm glow. I tell myself to relax and let her in. That takes some effort to do. If I succeed, I can feel that her love for me is genuine. She tells me that she has sent me friends over the years to look after me, and when I look back I do see her reflection within the people I’ve known.

She tells me that tomorrow will be green. With all the bad news spreading around, and with my own day-to-day living, where each day completed is another day survived, it was something I forgot to believe in. The future is not just survival, but also growth? Happiness? How can that be? But when she says it, I start to believe her. I start to believe in her. I ask her to keep saying it, over and over so I don’t forget. She’s a goddess who is worth living for.

I’m doing the Kemet-Wesir ritual again tonight, and she’s going to be standing next to me, reminding me of why I’m there.

***

The ritual went pretty well last night. Actually I planned to do it Tuesday night, but when I went to my astral home I realized that I was feeling pretty good and should probably get it done just in case. I guess spending a few hours in meditation soaking up what sun is available at this time of year helped, though if you had asked my opinion, I would have preferred to spend that time doing something else. So that means I didn’t do any of the physical stuff before hand, like take a natron shower or put out offerings. I bathed in the natron pool when I got there, and went through the motions of making everyone cookies before I began. They seemed to like those.

This time, instead of just seeing black earth or tiny sprouts, I saw green grass and wheat. I said a lot of words that probably sounded good at the time. Something about how what they needed would be brought to them, and that those who needed them would find them. I can’t really remember all of it now. After awhile I saw Wesir standing over me and telling me I was done and needed to go back. I always feel like I should do more, but he was right, the energy I brought with me had been spent.

After I was done, Ra invited me back into the back room on the barque, which is really too big to be called a room. It’s where the sun is. He was pleased with my progress and let me warm up in there before I woke up again. Getting back to “normal” before waking up is important to avoid side effects, like being miserable the next day.

Dreaming

The Greening ritual only happens once a month. And this is the wrong half of the month for it. The moon is waning, and so is the sun. I might also have picked up a cold, judging by the sore throat. So of course I have doubts. Is my work effective? Or is it just something I do in my own head? I turned to Ib-heru and asked, “Am I a magician, or just a dreamer?” He stared at me like I was an idiot. Let me translate for those who weren’t there for the info-dump nature of that look: “Of course you’re a Dreamer, dumbass. Did you forget what that word used to mean to you? You treat it like it was nothing. Did you forget that this is the stuff of creation?”

A magician takes a piece of this and a part of that. They combine them together and rewrite the rules, reorganizing them into a new shape. A dreamer starts with nothing. A dreamer is nothing, until they open their heart and their eyes. A magician changes the world. A dreamer becomes the world, and changes themself.

“Is it effective? I’m sitting here talking to you, right?” Ib says. Right, the transformation of Heru-on-the-Cliff into Ib-Heru was decades in the making. Some people think that seeing the world differently is an effortless task. They should try it sometime.

“What is your dream?” he asks. All of us together, strong and proud. Tapping into the earth, tapping into something that is real. The wellspring bubbles up and fills us. I see wildflowers after the fire, their delicate petals fluttering in the wind. Underneath it all, the current is rising. We just can’t see it yet.

I’m staring at the downward side of the calendar, under a dim moon, (not the best time for someone with Seasonal Affective Disorder,) but when he asks me, I can feel it there, just below the ground. Until I open my heart I am nothing, I have nothing. We are the heart of Ptah. We started dreaming before he ever spoke a word.

Daily Meditations

I’m starting to get in the habit of doing three meditations each day. Each exercise has a different purpose to it. These are things I need to practice anyway and it makes sense to do them together, in sequence. These are the tools that will keep me balanced and on my game.

(Warning: There have been cases where people have had unexpected and negative side effects from meditation practice. It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen. There’s a lot of debate about how and why that happens, and not a lot of useful info on how to predict it or what to do about it. If you have doubts about your mental state, then it might be best to skip it. If you run into trouble, don’t try to keep pushing through, just stop.)

Nourishing the Heart

The first one is about that self-love thing I’ve been going on about. It’s important. Very important. There isn’t a single person I know who couldn’t benefit from this. What about all those warnings about not getting a big head? Those apply to very few people, and the people they do apply to won’t listen to them anyway. Most people who act like they have “a big head” are in fact overcompensating for a lack of genuine self-love.

This one is very simple, though don’t mistake “simple” for “easy.” The more you need it, the harder it will be to do. First, get into your preferred meditation position. This might be sitting, standing, walking, spinning in circles, in the bath, whatever helps to get you in a relaxed and focused state.

Now, focus on your heart. Try to summon a feeling of comforting warmth there. You might start with just a small ember, but keep it going and encourage it to grow. The goal of course, is to create a feeling of love and turn it on yourself. If that seems difficult, start by thinking of someone or something else that you love to get the feel of it going. We’re just looking for a feeling here, so don’t think too hard about it. What does love feel like to you? How do you imagine it to feel?

It’s possible, if you’ve suffered some kind of trauma, that even summoning this feeling might cause you pain. If that’s the case, go slowly, and keep breathing with slow, deep breaths. Observe what’s happening without making any particular judgement about it. Be kind to yourself. Try not to analyze it too hard, just let it be. It will leave when it’s ready.

Focus both on the giving of love and the receiving of it. Let it surround you like a blanket. Know that there is nothing you need to do in order to deserve this love. Simply the fact that you live, that you are a person who has experienced your own story and have survived up to this point is enough. You are a strong person who does deserve to be loved. You are a strong person who is capable of loving.

Be very patient with yourself. Go one step at a time, and if you can’t get through all the steps, come back and try it again tomorrow. It takes a lot of courage to do this, particularly if you’ve had people tell you that you don’t deserve it. Learn to be your own best ally. This is not about fluffy affirmations. It’s about sitting down, facing those inner doubts, and coming out on top, putting yourself on top. As I said before, difficulty scales with how much you are in need of it. If you happen to find this easy, then great! Keep it up!

After doing this as a daily practice for awhile, you’ll get better at it. You’re learning a new skill. It will take time to get used to it. Eventually you will be able to summon that feeling during the day, or night, whenever you need a boost. When you’re feeling anxious, or scared, or angry, this might not make it go away, but it will make it a little better. It’s a nice thing to have around when you need it, or even when you don’t need it.

The down side is that once you start loving this person you may feel compelled to take better care of them. You might wonder how to go about doing that if your current lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to that. You might want to start being a little bit selfish, to establish and maintain boundaries. You might even find yourself saying “no” to things you used to do without thinking. That’s actually a sign of progress. Think before you give yourself away. The whole thing takes some getting used to and you probably won’t have all the answers. I don’t have it all figured out either, but I am more motivated to give it a try than I was before.

The Eye of Heru

I’m posting this one more for completeness sake (pun?) than as an expectation that anyone else will do it. Mostly that’s because I don’t think that it will translate universally. Also, this is something I figured out on my own. It might not bear much resemblance to ancient ideas. (What about Wadjet the goddess? Good question. Maybe I’ll figure that out later.) The Netjer seem to approve of it though, and it has made the list of things they want me to keep practicing.

Step one, hold out your hand, and within it imagine and feel a blue flame made of Horian energy.  See? This is why I’m not sure everyone can do this one. First you have to know what Horian energy is like, and then you have to be able to summon it into your hand. It is like the blue sky, uplifting and always in motion. It is harmony and flow, qualities that are equally suited to a healer, a magician, or a martial artist.

Step two, wrap the flame in a sphere of solar energy. It is bright, yellow-white, with the kind of warmth that seems pleasant and loving at first, but with increasing intensity it will start to burn. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much love.

Step three, give that solar energy a little twist, like a prism. Observe the pretty colors. Ra is a creator deity. All of creation is encoded within him. Here we have the many colors of the netjer. Happiness, worship and love, are right in the palm of your hand.

(What happens if you skip the Horian energy and go straight for Ra’s sunlight? Let’s find out…Turns out, I can’t make it hold its shape. I can’t seem to grasp it for the twist. Well, that answers that question. I also got dizzy shortly after trying it. Not recommended.)

Em Hotep (regular old meditation)

Now the only thing left to do is to say, in your mind, “Em Hotep” (In Peace) over and over. Pay attention to your breathing. Think “Em” on the inhale and “Hotep” on the exhale. Breathe long and slow, from the belly. That’s it, really, just keep doing that for fifteen minutes, more or less, or until you feel like you’re done. If your mind wanders off, don’t worry about it as long as you keep the Em Hoteps going.

This will bring about a relaxed state. You’ll know what it feels like through practice. When you start, it will probably feel like you’re just sitting there wasting your time. You’re not. Keep doing it every day. This is exactly how I got started, though I used a different mantra back then. This one works though. I’ve been using it lately. It has a good message and a Kemetic theme. The slow focused breathing and giving your mind something to do is what makes it work. Eventually, you’ll be able to hit that relaxed state with only a few repetitions of the mantra. It’s like being half asleep and half awake. Don’t try to rush yourself when waking up at the end. Take your time getting back to a normal waking state.

While it is possible to “see” things during meditation, do not go looking for that when you’re learning. It will just get you side tracked before you get a solid grasp of the skill itself. If you want to try journeying, do it at a different time.

This is how you strengthen your godphone, and possibly get yourself into journeywork and astral stuff. I was meditating this same way when Sekhmet dropped in and gave me that one vision many years ago. I wasn’t trying to see anything at all, and most days nothing remarkable happened beyond a bit of stress relief. I’m getting back into the practice now because it’s good to go back to the basics and make sure I’m still hitting that state of mind properly. After awhile the meditation isn’t needed anymore, but it’s not good to get sloppy and take it for granted. The connection is clearer if you get a good trance going first. It helps you to stay focused so you don’t wander off in the middle of things.

Thunder Being

Warnings: violence (pretty much all astral, my daily life is much more tame), self-harm (also astral), probably appropriation, but I was introduced to her in good faith, and I did my best to serve as she asked of me. I’ve been told that it can happen though, so I’d be called a Thunder Dreamer and not a Heyoka. As an outsider, my perspective probably differs from tradition, and I am leaving some stuff out. Don’t go looking for her. You have no idea what you’d be in for. S/He* is absolutely a “gloves off” kind of spirit who can kill you.

 

The storm rumbled and flashed like it had something to say. I turned off the music and shut everything down because the lightning was getting serious. Ib-heru confirmed that this was not Set’s storm. It belonged to someone else, someone who was very much present this night.

I caught him staring up at her in awe and worship, captivated by her absolute beauty, and I thought, “Oh, no, no. We can’t do this a second time!” I used to look at her the same way. To see her is to go insane, and love is a form of madness. Imagine what would happen if Ma’at synchretized with Set. It’s not that simple, of course, but it gives you an idea. If that thought broke your brain, it’s understandable because she does that. I’ve said before that Wakinyan is not a trickster. She only tells the truth. We’re the ones who can’t stop lying.

I’m still grateful to her because she cured me. I paid her price, but as horrifying as it was I still think I got the better end of the deal. I used to think I needed to be punished. I needed to feel pain, that somehow that would make it right. She burned away my scars so they might heal better the second time, while I screamed and cheered her on. Eventually, she forced me to kill the part of myself that wanted to die. I was horrified by my violence. I wanted to say it wasn’t me, but it was, very much so, standing there in that moment of clarity, knowing it could go no other way. It was unspeakably brutal. But it was effective.

She taught me that there would always be a price and there was no way to dodge it. If I chose to fight, I also chose to bleed. I would cut myself before battle, just in case the enemy failed to score a hit. It made me think about how there would always be a cost, win or lose. I had to decide from the start whether or not it was worth paying.  If I forgot to do this, I would feel sick afterward with the debt unpaid.

But what happens when the cost is just too high and you can never take it back? When no amount of blood, yours or theirs, could ever make it right again? Maybe that was the question she wanted to ask Ib-heru when she took her price from me. She tore the heart out of my chest and carried it with her as she flew away, leaving me to bleed over the side of the cliff and into the void. She wanted to know what that heart would say. There was a man, and I attacked him viciously. She asked me why. “Because he gave up too easily,” I told her. Then she brought the heart back. In the real world, my energy was gone and I got sick for an entire month.

What do you do when the price is too high and the debt can never be repaid? You pay with blood during the battle, and you pay with tears afterward. And still, it isn’t enough. What can you do then? You don’t give up. You plant new seeds and you watch them grow. You water them with your tears and you pray for a better tomorrow. And no, it won’t ever be the same again, but life continues.

I hear her song and it’s the most painfully beautiful sound: creation and destruction at the very same moment, cracking through reality in a thin white line.

 

(Storm was last Thursday. Post has been queued. Tuesday is now my normal publish day.) 

*Wakinyan’s gender is a bit strange. Wakinyan is officially referred to as female, but she can also appear as a man. They are rather fond of people who don’t fit neatly into the usual preconceptions of gender. I used to use more masculine pronouns, but I’m in the mood to use feminine ones this time.

…Also shout out to Yumni who hit my house and threw dust at my window recently. (Just now got that part of the roof tarred and hammered back down.) He left a beach ball in the back yard and a cigarette box outside my window. Thanks for the presents! I’m sorry I threw the box away, I wasn’t thinking. Tobacco means something different to me than it does to them. Cross cultural stuff is tricky. I need to figure out how to say thanks. I think my wife still has her old stuff in the closet. I’m sure I could get some tobacco and juniper together, then add in some old fashioned Kemetic hospitality. I’m not sure what has prompted them to say hello after all these years. I hope they don’t decide to drop a rock on my house next.

The Eye

I know, nothing…nothing…nothing, then BAM. That does sort of sum up how it’s been going lately.  So, this thing, from my journal. I felt like sharing:

I think I finally know what the Eye is. It is a focus point that brings the hawk and the sun together. (I would tell you to see: The Heru You Know is Already Synchretized, but I haven’t written that post. Use your imagination.)  I have a better understanding of what the sun side is and how the combination brought about what we are today.

In the beginning, there was We. Heru, Wind Rider, is not the name of an individual, but a species, a collective. Then we started to move. Movement is wondrous, free, and fun. We move. Our movements were able to regulate and harmonize the energies around us. They were also able to disrupt and divide. We could heal and we could kill. It was all the same to us.

Later on we became guards, fighters, and healers. Somehow people seemed more interested in the fighting part. Our collective nature meant that there could be a thousand Heru guards covering a temple, and we would all act as one. Like martial arts masters, only the movement mattered. We did not rage like Set, nor crave blood like Sekhmet. The movement was its own reward. They, whoever they were, used us to fight, but we were a little too good at it and didn’t always go where they wanted or stop when they wanted. We were a machine that didn’t even see what, or who, were were cutting down.

That’s when they had to do something. Ra gave us part of himself so that we would see. The graft contained images of all the other gods. Our collective link latched on to it, and suddenly those other gods weren’t just family, they were part of us. The link was open. If they were hurt, we were hurt.

That meant the link wasn’t always stable. It could cause us pain. The link could also be disrupted. The sun eye could be damaged, and needed repair. So, we get the lunar eye to represent this issue.

The Eye had a few more side effects. Having access to all that information made us see that our way wasn’t the only way, and not always the best way. It made us protective of our family. It also made us more understanding of humans. Humans are made of the same energy as the Netjer, it’s just more mixed together, not as polarized. That makes them very adaptable, but also more chaotic. Their own energy can conflict with itself. It’s not their fault. By right of having the same energy present in the Eye, they are family also. When they hurt, we hurt, and they never stop hurting. The lunar eye is here to stay.

All of this adds up to why Heru became a king. They forced him to care, and it worked a little too well. The king and the people are one.

Why Believe?

At my core is this feeling that I need the gods and spirits around me to feel whole. I discovered this when the Lady of the Mountain told me she was going away and I panicked. It was confirmed while traveling and finding a place where no spirits answered my greetings. It made me want to curl up and hide. I could blame it on the chunk of Heru I’ve got inside me, but those memories aren’t mine. I know why he feels that way, but why do I feel that way?

It is my belief that humans need gods and spirits. We’ve been interacting with the unseen from the earliest times. Evidence of spiritual thinking is practically a marker for the development of human consciousness. The scientist in me might suggest that it’s directly tied to our capacity for abstract thought. A lot of modern scientists might argue that we’ve grown past that and have no more need for “imaginary friends,” but I disagree, obviously.

Like most modern Kemetics, I wasn’t born into the religion. I’m a convert. Like many other converts, I still have baggage from my previous belief system to contend with. I don’t believe that I’m going to hell when I die, because I’m not sure that there even is a hell, or a heaven, or a duat. Is it all in my head? Is it just a random firing of nerves and a mixing of chemicals? The comfort is, that if the atheists are right, I won’t have any time to worry over it when I’m gone. So I might as well live the kind of life that feels right to me now.

If the atheists are right, then that means that my worst nightmare is already true. That still doesn’t explain why I see it as my worst nightmare. Ok, second worst nightmare, the first would be the end of the world and everyone in it, but I wouldn’t have much time to mourn that one either. My gut reaction is that the world would be a much emptier place without them.

On a personal level, they sort of fill in the gaps. They’re around when I’m tired or depressed or lonely. They’re like a second family. They’re not just for my comfort, however. They challenge me to see other perspectives. They push me to be a better person. They remind me to care. I tell my skeptical brain that those are all very good effects whether their existence is literally true or not.

Atheists like to harp on the evils of belief, as if that is what has caused all the problems in the world. (Belief is often the excuse, but rarely the cause.) They don’t like to recognize the good that it does. I have this construct in my head that makes me act like a better person. It’s a sounding board for developing ideas and organizing priorities. Sure, I don’t have to call it a god. I could call it a mental exercise, but honestly, it wouldn’t be as effective if I did that. If I didn’t believe in this inner counselor, then why would I bother listening to it? There are plenty of psychological exercises that do something similar, role playing, visualization, dream interpretation. But if your visions have no life breathed into them, they’re not going to be as powerful. I’m more likely to follow through if a living, loving, god tells me to do something than if my own mental construct says to do so. Yes, I do sometimes tell the god to eff off, but I always listen first.

I hear arguments about the virtue of objective truth, but to me, they are self-defeating. If death simply means Game Over, then why should I care about the virtuousness of objectivity? There are no cookies in it for me. If my subjectivity offers me advantages, then there’s no reason not to use it. So, that is basically how I tell the skeptical side of my brain to shut the hell up. This is how a rational, intelligent person can believe in gods. I haven’t even gotten into my arguments about symbolic and metaphorical truths that help explain the human condition. I’ve got a bunch of those too. In short, it works, so I use it. Experience has shown that I am not better off without it. I’ve tried.

It is my belief that belief itself is a basic human need. When people want to control others, they hijack their belief systems and hold them hostage. The wealthy and the powerful demonize those aspects of spirituality that are accessible to all in order to put their priests in charge. Why do people not simply abandon belief itself? I don’t think it is that easy. Every culture that I know of has had some kind of spiritual belief system. (The Soviet Union was an experiment that didn’t actually work so well, and there were plenty of people still practicing their beliefs underground.) That indicates to me that it does fill a need of some kind. It is a thing of value. Why else would the wealthy hijack it? Why else does it actually work when that happens? Not every person believes, but within a population, it persists. It’s built in, much like our capacity for mathematics or language. And it is the hijacking of belief that everyone points to when things go wrong. Belief isn’t the enemy. Taking it away from the people in order to control them is.

And that begs the question. How do we do it right this time? Is it even possible to prevent it from being screwed up? Screwing up also seems to be a built in part of human nature.

False Mirror

Oh, is this thing still on?

One of the most visible attributes of monkhood is seclusion. I seem to be doing a good job of that. I still read my Dreamwidth account, but I rarely post. I still check in on Facebook, but my friend count is deliberately low, and it’s a more informal atmosphere. Tumblr was, fun, but overwhelming.

I started getting the message to back off, from everything. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It wasn’t the first time I’ve been told. That advice is easier to follow in the winter. I started writing less.

This morning I went to the gym with my mother. This is a thing we’re trying to get into three times a week, though one of those times is when I teach tai chi. Tai chi is not really cardio or weight training. I’m not too large, but I definitely could be in better shape. My mom is in her seventies. I want her to go and it’s easier if we both go together.

I teach tai chi at a gym. It’s not the best arrangement. I can’t promise any sort of a beach body unless you happen to already have one. I can teach you how to knock down those who do have beach bodies, but if you were that kind of person I probably wouldn’t want you as a student anyway.

As I waited for my mom to get done with the bike, I did a few tai chi exercises. I felt horribly self-conscious while doing my tan tien exercises. I’m sure they do look weird. I stand still and my midsection moves just a little bit. My mom said something about dancing. I agreed that yes, there were some similarities to belly dancing.

Surely everyone thought I looked weird. Surely they had no idea what the heck I was doing. I was tempted not to do the exercise at all. But how do I know what they’re thinking? I don’t. Does it matter anyway? I knew what I was doing and why.

This would be the point at which a person might start explaining or getting defensive or getting into an argument with no one at all. I’ve had many imaginary discussions in my lifetime. They’re a complete waste of energy. That jerk you’re arguing with, yourself, will never let you win. You may even feel so silly arguing with yourself that you’ll look for a fight with a real person in order to prove that the argument is worth having. You have all those great comebacks saved up. It would be a shame to let them go to waste.

If you look at yourself in the mirror and imagine what someone else sees, that image is almost certainly false. Even if someone agrees with your distortion that doesn’t make the imagined vision true. They make assumptions, and you make assumptions about their assumptions. How does anyone ever get anything done?

How do you throw out the false mirror?

Seclusion does have one thing going for it. If I’m not seen as often, the mirror doesn’t have as much influence. It takes the pressure off. I know that’s only a temporary fix. I’m not here to escape. I’m here to learn. I have to do no less than change my thought habits in order to defeat these various snares. Where is the trap? What can I do differently so that I no longer fall for it?

What would it be like to go to the gym or hang out in a community without constantly checking myself in the mirror? It sounds a lot more relaxing and productive.

Where has the peace gone?

Hotep is one of the first, maybe only, words that people learn in ancient Egyptian. Most don’t know what it means, but they’ve heard of it. Hotep is peace, satisfaction. Imhotep does not mean “killer magic zombie mummy” it means “one who comes in peace.”

So why is there so little of it in Kemeticism these days?

The symptoms of its lack have appeared from several places in my follow list. If it was just one person, it wouldn’t mean much. What does it mean when it keeps coming up again and again? It means that something isn’t right. All is not well in modern day Kemet.

Is it a community thing where so-called leaders pretend to offer nourishment, but instead are serving poisoned bread? “This is the right way, and you’re an uneducated idiot if you don’t do XYZ.” I don’t mind reading pointers here and there that give me thoughts to consider. I really do enjoy seeing what people find out in their research, but I’d rather not have to duck when the backhand comes around.  No wonder Kemetics are so twitchy. Use one hand to cover your rear and the other hand to point at others? And if I mention it then I’m doing the exact same thing, of course.  My New Year’s resolution might be to put my hands to better use.

Is that really the cause though? Could it be the gods themselves? Even before I came to the community, my interactions with Them were not exactly peaceful. They have Expectations. They also seem a little fuzzy on the difference between asking and telling. Or they just skip over the telling part altogether.

All that said, I do believe that they love me on a personal level. I was distant from them. Not the other way around…except for him. It’s complicated, and I’ve asked Sekhmet to kick his ass if he tries that again. Or to kick mine. Is ass kicking the only language I know? No wonder peace and I are off to a rocky start.

I’m working on it though. Heru is trying to teach me. He’s been trying for a long time, but I’m a thick-headed student. Wonder where I got that trait from, eh?

It’s a problem and I don’t know the answer. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

Got any ideas?