Peret.

Today is the first day of Peret, on the Kemetic Orthodox calendar. Akhet brings the flood, and Peret brings the growing.

It is also the first really wintery day here. The sky is beautifully blue and clear, and the air is dry and cold. I’ve been relying on chapstick and hand lotion pretty heavily. This is probably the season with the greatest disconnect for me, as a Shemsu in a very different climate. It is hard for me to imagine Kemet with snowy fields and frozen lakes, but that’s what Peret means here.

It encompasses the depths of winter, complete with blizzards and sleet and hail. It also touches the beginnings of spring, the verbal equinox, just at the end of the season.

Peret is a word referring to coming forth, to emerging. It is the word in the Kemetic title of the Book of the Dead: the prt m hrw, the Book of Coming Forth By Day. I know I don’t feel much like coming forth at any point, day or night, during the winter. And yet, I will always emerge on the other side, cautiously peering out in the spring. Perhaps the coming Forth is not something done during this month, but at the end – after I have spent time withdrawn, curled in a quiet space, growing in my own way.

This season, my thoughts turn to the colder gods. To Sokar, to Nebthet, to Set, Yinepu, Nut. And especially to my Akhu, whose stars are more visible in the clear winter sky, and mirrored in the holiday decorations around town. May we be blessed in this season of quiet growth.