Talking to God.

I’ve tried to write this post a million times, and each time, it comes out like a chain of scattered thoughts that don’t belong together and never will. I want to try again, and this time, even if this post is as organized as a garage sale in August at noon, it will make it past the drafting page. This entry is a thousand times important.

In a few entries here and there, I refer to my gods as having spoken to me. In the entry titled “Unexpected Messages”, I go into great detail about Wepwawet’s ‘conversations’ with me, written in English. I wish I could say that communicating with God was as easy as that – as easy as hearing a cosmic voice streaming down from the sky – but it’s not.

Talking to God (for me – individual mileage may vary) consists of a full-body type experience. I pray constantly. I gaze heavenward – or very often, instead of gazing heavenward, I gaze sideways and grin crookedly – and call out to Whomever I’m going to call out to. The answer comes in any number of ways. Usually, it is coupled with a tactile and emotional sensation that I have never yet been able to induce in any other way. The sensation is much like someone putting his or her hands on my shoulders; also, occasionally, it is more the feeling of a blanket or towel being wrapped around me. I have never experienced these sensations by any other mechanism; I haven’t even been able to conjure them by the same method that I can induce phantom pains anywhere in my body (oh, the power of the mind). Occasionally, and these times are interesting, I will experience the sensation of being embraced. Suddenly I find myself wrapped in Divine arms, all the hug endorphins pinging around, and no mortal being is responsible. Depending on which deity I am ‘speaking with’, the origin of these feelings is different. Wepwawet’s sensations begin at the left, while Sekhmet-Mut’s begin at the right, both behind me. Bast’s approach from before me or directly behind me, and Nut’s from above me.

Beyond this, it varies. Sometimes there’s words. Sometimes there’s feelings that feel oddly foreign – I know that I am not feeling sad, to creat an example, but the feeling of sadness will move over what can only be described as the outside of my head, should said deity wish to express sadness. The words snap into my head faster than I can think. Rarely – and I mean like, twice in my two years of honoring Netjer – I will hear words that no one else around me has heard. One example was a demand that I not attempt to put off lunch ’til I’d accomplished other things that day – I was feeling faint but wanted to keep on truckin’ – which was expressed as an insistent “EAT ALREADY”. This was coupled with the not so subtle reminder that there was a pizza place around the corner, and that Wepwawet would appreciate extra cheese as an offering. All of these thoughts were instant, split second realizations, that moved faster than my inner monologue normally does.

Now, people can say what they like: it’s your own thoughts, it’s your imagination, it’s all in your head – and you know something? I bet it is. I bet all of this comes down to chemical reactions and endorphins and biology. I bet those hugs are just little neurotransmitters swimming through my synaptic gap; those words are just my brain firing off logical responses.

Because God can do that. Science and religion get along quite swimmingly, when you realize they are both just different lenses through which we view the world. So God can create a brain designed to work with divine communication. Just because something is entirely and wholly natural does not mean it is not divine. I don’t want to go into that now, because it’ll rob me of future excellent blogging material, but suffice to say this: it makes far more sense – to me at least – to believe that religious experiences are fully within the realm of physical possibility. Why would God make a world where He/She/It had to break the rules to talk to His/Her/Its children?

So when you see these posts when I say, “So and So Deity said X, Y, & Z,” know that I am not exactly being literal. Those words are my transcription of an experience that consists of my body, soul and mind. I’m trying to put it into words to vaguely summarize it for everyone. I find that the more I talk to Them, the more I know Them. And it’s in talking to Them that I get that ‘coexperiencing’ thing. I have experiences with God, and I talk about it with other people, who recognize the same things that I do. Plus, if nothing else, it’s cathartic to speak out to a God, any God. Pick your favorite.

And as I write this, Wepwawet is grinning, as He is wont to do, and Mother is pleased. Senebty for now.