jackalbones

[jackalbones]

Recent God Ponderings:

Weh I don’t feel connected to most of my Beloveds, some of them I never have. I don’t know where that leaves me.

Leading to:-

Oh, you can feel unconnected to your Beloveds, and that’s normal and ok? Nice!

and

Time to EXPLORE.

Which led to:-

Is Nit not just “Opener of the Way haha what a coincidence”, but actually a mirror point for Wepwawet, a magnifying lens? Or possibly a similar energy, more constant now that Wepwawet is shifting about with all this Sed and justice business.

I feel unconnected to Bast, but what if she was a lioness? Ooo, what are these other “iru”? What about Wadjet? Wait, Wadjet can be a lioness? Wait, don’t I have a statue of Wadjet as lioness? Omg. It all makes sense.

Wait, if Hethert is his consort, Nit is his counterpart, and Wadjet is on the front of his standard, that’s three of my five Beloveds connected to Wepwawet. Welp, gotta work on the other two XD

Oh, Wenut is also very cool, and similar to Wadjet. And can be an aspect of not only Bast but of Wadjet as well. HMMM. (Shesemtet is also pretty cool looking, please send help.)

For now, I have put my Wadjet-lioness statue on my Senut shrine, where I used to have a traditional cat-Bast with sistrum. It feels better, but figuring out who exactly it really is might be a challenge. Wadjet fits but that doesn’t mean it’s her. Or just her.

We shall see. Either way, I feel reinvigorated, and more hopeful.

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most of us need to be shown how to be considerate

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Yesterday was Jól for me, using the lunisolar calendar. Which I admit I partly used because I was bummed I walked into heathenry straight after Jól and therefore during a huge festival gap lol.

I didn’t do much. I added a blue cloth to my altar. I have green and red scraps as well that I should have enough to be able to seasonally cycle, which will be nice. I had some new offerings so I gave those (salt which I offered to the wights, honey to the ancestors, and oats to Frigg, as well as incense sticks for more general offerings). It was only my second hearth cult so I was still really clumsy and basically was like “heeeeey, offerings, 4 u”.

But yanno, it worked. And I felt surrounded by so much love. Very surrounded, as if there were many many sources of it. I have a suspicion it was my ancestors? It was beautiful and moving. It felt so unconditional.

I finally understand why people say to work with your ancestors, say to go to them for the everyday and little things rather than the Gods, and say that the ancestors have more time and interest for us little folks.

I am used to a very good and vibrant relationship with my Gods, and a silent one with my ancestors. I get a lot of feedback from my Gods, I talk to them, they talk back, I get emotional feedback, etc. And I’ve never managed to connect to my ancestors.

I realise now that part of that is the format of what I was doing. Senut is how I interact with the Netjeru. I sit, open a sacred space, and open myself to them. I spend time not just talking but opening my heart, and then I truly listen. I know how to listen.

With my akhu shrine, I just have a static shrine. I maybe put offerings on it, I maybe say thanks for stuff, but I don’t really do what Senut does. So it’s natural I’d never get the same vibes.

Hearth cult, it’s very like Senut. Except it includes wights and ancestors. And it’s like, now that I’m essentially doing “ancestor Senut”, the floodgates have opened. I get it now. The Netjeru, as interactive as they are, are only so interactive. You only get messages so often, you only feel them so frequently. But I get the impression it’s not so much like that with the ancestors. There’s so many of them, all interested in you, that there’s always an outpouring of emotion, always some commentary, always something, waiting. It just took me this long to get over my fears, and to find the right ritual, to actually connect with them.

I’m so glad I took the plunge with this path, honestly. I feel like even if I dropped it tomorrow, heathenry has improved me as a Kemetic. 100% worth it.

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Sun dog

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I wish IRL star signs actually meant shit aside from like.. gay tumblr overthinking… i wish they were like the elder scrolls ones. Accidentally locked yourself out? Good thing you’re a virgo and you can open a medium lock every 24 hours

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is it scurvy? is it lead? is it tuberculosis? is it the crippling loneliness? who knows we’re all dying

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So I’ve been feeling very lightly pinged by the Norse pantheon for... many years, actually. But I’ve avoided them.

Partly, I’m a happy Kemetic. Partly, that pantheon seems very masc. “Sweaty gym” masc I’ve said, hyper almost toxic masculinity. Very beefy, lots of fitness and drinking and fighting and not a lot of space for the soft and the weak.

But, re-watching the MCU (where Frigga features), and weirdly, ordering from a shop with perfumes mostly based on the Norse pantheon (all of which jumped at me but Freya in particular was screaming), reminded me that the pantheon has some really gentle forces. And I remembered some seidr talks I’ve been to that spoke of how not-hyper-masculine some of the Gods have been.

So I decided to let down my walls a bit.

I got a feminine prescince, I think it might have been Frigg but my senses aren’t tuned yet, asking me essentially why I wanted this. A gentle and curious tone, not accusing. It was a valid question, and I think she was satisfied with my answer?

I am happy with my current pantheon. I don’t need anything more, technically, on that front. But in terms of IRL community, and in terms of community for possibly seidr training and work, which I’ve been interested in for a long time, the Norse pantheon could potentially be a gateway. And if I do feel a connection to them, what shame there?

So I guess I’m kind of. Exploring this. Seeing where it goes. Might go nowhere. Might not have the energy for it honestly. But it has been niggling for a long time so I guess we’ll see?

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I am a servant of your temple.

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I’ve been seeking a method of divination that compliments Fedw, because I mostly find Fedw useful as a “yes/no” type system and there are often questions, including ones I’d be asking of the Netjeru, where it just can’t be jammed into that kind of framework.

I do have decks that might work (the Threads of Fate Oracle deck comes to mind, as does possibly the Earthbound Oracle but I’d need more practice with that first as it’s quite abstract), but to use alongside Fedw, I’m not super vibing “deck”? I really like the look of the Tessera Oracle, but it’s £170 before shipping and tax. 

I’m looking at runes, as I do have a set, and a good book or two, but I’m wondering, is that weird? Not only am I not of that style of Pagan, I’d be actively using it alongside/to compliment a Kemetic method of divination. It feels a bit like I’m trying to mix two very different forces there.

I’m also wondering if it might be a little blunt for what I’m looking for :V But time will tell with that.

(Since I queued this I have given runes, and runes in combo with ToF a try, and they’ve worked really well, and I established permission from Wepwawet-Sed to use the runes in the same way that Fedw is used, as a communication tool. Which is great, but I’m still wigging out about the cultural contrast.)

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So in non-Kemetic news, I am squinting sideways at Buddhism.

A while back, I took up meditation. I tried via Headspace at first, getting halfway through Basics 2 (so about 15 sessions) before getting bored. I picked up The Mind Illuminated and tried with that and had much more, and much more rapid success. I used Insight Timer as a session counter and a timer and I got a lot out of it. I rapidly found my reactivity (I have BPD and anxiety and stuff) starting to tone down.

But IIRC I went on holiday and fell of the wagon, and never got back on.

With the secular new year, I looked at Headspace’s 365 course and went “hmm”. And I just, started. A day late but I somehow found the energy, and started. This is what has started my Senut practice back up btw, b/c my Senut shrine is currently where my meditation stuff used to be so I’m just doing Senut and meditating at the same time in the same space and it’s a good little habit stack-y routine. Senut is only every other day though to avoid burn out.

I’m 11 days in, starting the “Basics 2″ (the old Take 15) section of the course.

After mentioning that it’s kinda McMindfulness, someone recommended some other apps, and I started with the Waking Up meditation app, so I do Headspace in the afternoon or early evening, and Waking Up in bed before sleep. I’m on day 7 of that.

And I’m noticing I’m getting those benefits again? I’m becoming less reactive. Not massively so but I’m feeling calmer and slightly more able to pause before I snap, or to realise I’m snapping and pull myself out of it.

This, and the fact that most of my own self-help stuff meshes with DBT, has made me curious about Buddhism. So I’ve been reading books on it, I’ve signed up for a free zoom course from my local Buddhist centre. So far it seems... difficult. There’s a lot of abled nonsense, a lot of stuff that assumes, if you’re Buddhist you’ll eat well and exercise well, and my personal favourite was a line that seems to consider people who kill themselves just, not practiced enough in mindfulness. Instead of you know, consumed by very real illnesses.

So there’s a lot of abled, hell ableist nonsense in Buddhist literature. But there’s also a lot that makes sense, and I think once I dig and look for intersectional discourses it might actually be of interest to me?

It’s a thing to contemplate. Shifting my whole worldview like that will take a lot of time and a lot of spoons-over-time, but also, meditation and self-help is showing me that it might actually be something helpful for me, even if I never become “a Buddhist”.

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Compounding the problem of the interpretation of ancient Egyptian images is the fact that nothing can be analyzed simplistically due to the multilayered nature of ancient Egyptian symbolism.35 The example of the use of the ostrich feather aids in elucidating these difficulties. The ostrich feather in Egyptian iconography can be a symbol for:

an abstract phenomenon like justice and divine power, or

an actual circumstance such as the pattern of social life which presents itself in an intellectual, emotional or behavioural aspect, or

the living goddess MAat.

The Tekenu and AE Funerary Ritual by Glennise West, pg 4

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Praise to your ka, Wepwawet of Upper Egypt, Controller of the Two Lands I am a servant of your temple. May you enable me to see in darkness. Create peace for me so that I can recount your power. —-

[Text from a stela to Wepwawet, dating from the New Kingdom and discovered in the tomb of Djefaihapy III, nomarch of Asyut. Sourced from T. DuQuesne, “The Salakhana Trove: Votive Stelae and Other Objects from Asyut” via C. Bolton’s anthology “Lord of Strength and Power: Ancient Hymns for Wepwawet.”]

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So, a year ago my health was a lot better. I was tired but it’s really over the past year that my major deterioration has happened. Some of my last posts involved going to Leeds for the UK KO meet. Now I’m practically housebound, and have to manage my energy carefully within the house.

I’m not feeling too negative about that right now, as my thoughts on what might be causing it have cycled around to sleep apnea, and that’s treatable. So fingers crossed in that regard.

As for an update, well, I was glancing back and actually, this post seems like an interesting place to start, and a healthy reminder for me. To go over where I’ve got with those goals:

I’ve started meditating again in the past couple of weeks, but honestly, being severely ill and having your life grind to a halt, having your life goals snatched from you, has a way of being very... grounding. I’ve made a lot of peace over the past year with things going how they need to go. I’ve got better at managing my mental health as well. The only thing that continues to frustrate me is my physical health, but I’m doing better at not getting tangled in my emotions with that too often.

Yeah I fucked this, due to health. With that said, in the new year I apparently pulled some kind of motivation out of my arse. A month or two ago I’d found the energy to move my shrine to a better spot, more accessible, and then when I started meditation a couple weeks ago I meshed it with Senut and so far so good. Touch wood.

I’ve come at this from various angles, most of which got pushed aside due to my health. But honestly the main one I keep coming back to is that I like just, being there. I like being a friendly face, I like giving advice. I feel like that is what I am supposed to do. And I’ve started doing it again, I think, in recent months. At least I hope people are getting good out of my input.

Got this done finally at least. Haven’t devoted to using it much yet, but hopefully once I’m settled in with my Senut routine it will be “safe” to.

Did this a bit. Half the reason I managed to move my Senut shrine is that there was space due to me cutting down. So that’s good.

I lost my way with Sau for a while. I couldn’t do one of the tasks at all, physically, and that discouraged me from Sau altogether. I think I’ve found a way though so I’ve started back up, though it’s still hard to find the energy and brainspace.

Still trying. Doing a little better with Serqet, at least.

Per 1, I think I am doing better at this. A lot of this is to do with priesthood, although a lot isn’t, and I think I’m doing good at actually just... existing. Striving to become better for its own sake.

I sent an email to Hemet updating her on my situation, and per that email, even if my health makes priesthood as a job inaccessible to me, I want priesthood as an ideal to be something that stays with me always.

I’m trying to be someone I’d admire. Health be damned, I think I like the progress I’m making.

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I have new followers so I came here to post an update. I haven’t posted in like, a year.

I stopped and thought, “Where was I a year ago, where has my path taken me over the last year, how far have I come?”

And promptly dissociated into the sun.

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Happy secular new year from the Bennu! The Bennu bird is an Ancient Egyptian deity Who takes the form of a heron, and has strong associations with rebirth (perfect for the new year!). In some myths, He created the universe after flying over the primordial waters of the Nun, which is why I depicted Him emerging from water. He is frequently depicted with the Atef crown, and may have been the inspiration for the Phoenix. Prints available here.

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Meet yourself where you are at with your practice and not where you wish you were instead.

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One time my rabbi told us, “imagine you had a box with a little bit of god in it. What would you do with the box?”

So we were like ?? “We’d protect it and keep it nice and clean and polished” and he was like “your body’s that box. Stop eating markers”