How not to demand answers.

A question was posed to me by a good friend of mine. He’s Catholic, so his religion does not condone the use of divination, and he asked me how I resist the temptation to turn to divination constantly for answers — which is a darn good question!

I think everyone comes to their own understanding of their boundaries with divination. I hardly ever use divination for myself, as the result of an agreement between me and my gods; but plenty of others consult it regularly for their own guidance. The thing I’ve noticed is that most people who use divination regularly aren’t looking for concrete answers. They aren’t asking questions like, “Will I get a job this month?” or “Should I invest my money in the stock market?” They’re asking things like, “Will this job be a good fit for me?” or “What changes do I need to make to achieve success?”

The prevailing opinion that I’ve encountered is that divination isn’t capable of providing concrete answers, so turning to divination for everything would be meaningless. Even fedw, which offers yes/no responses, doesn’t give definite answers — only a glimpse at what may be if all things remain as they are currently. The future is too malleable, under the influence of the consequences of our actions and those of others. What is the point of asking for constant reassurance if the answers could change soon anyway?

Divination is also not something that passively provides answers. Most diviners I know find that things get funky after a while. Maybe they start getting meaningless answers. Maybe there’s a reading that means “knock it off”. Either way — many say that it is nearly impossible to chain reading after reading without getting garbled answers.

In my own experience divination simply fails if I get too persistent, so perhaps my experience isn’t very informative here. How do you all resist the temptation to constantly seek divination for reassurance?

Carrying Their Light, Every Day

I’ve known for years that I was meant to work in a service-oriented position. In elementary school I thought that meant being a teacher. In high school, I waffled between psychology and music education. As an undergraduate student, I landed squarely on the side of psychology, in a tiny corner called “counseling”.

The funny thing about counseling is that you don’t really get to experience it until you’ve already expended significant effort training in it. The work of counseling is so delicate that you have to be carefully trained – and even then, it takes years of supervised practice in most states before you’re permitted to launch your own counseling practice. So for years, I was chasing a goal that felt as alien as the moon — and yet as dear as the grass beneath my feet. How could I love this field so deeply without experiencing it? Real talk — I have no freaking idea. I loved counseling wildly for all four years of my undergraduate training and for all five, laborious, snail-slow years of my graduate training, and I have no idea how.

Now I have the luxury of sitting in my office, embracing the trials of the clients who come through my door. I love every minute of the chaos, of the heartbreak, of the frustration, of the anxiety. I love seeing the face of someone who hears “I’m in your corner” from another person for the first time. I even love the hard stuff. I love sitting with someone in the depths of psychosis, sick and scared and a world apart, compassionately assessing their needs, and advocating for their treatment. I love extending my hands to hold someone’s grief with them for a short space of time.

I first met my gods when I sought out gods for the work that I wanted to do. Sekhmet was the first deity of healing I encountered; Wepwawet just felt right, for reasons I have difficulty articulating. Wepwawet opens the door to healing, creates the space of safety I try to create in my office. Sekhmet illuminates the space with Her light, chasing away the darkness. My Beloveds, too: Bast brings music and joy, the compassion needed to embrace sorrow; Nut brings patience, endurance, wisdom; Khonsu, the surgical precision that carves out pain and exposes bitter truths; and Nebthet, most recently come to my shrine, brings quiet comfort, a gentle mirror to gaze into and reflect.

Even on the hardest days — the days when I’m leaving job #2 at 11 PM after starting job #1 at 5:30 AM, after I’ve been yelled at, told off, had my training questioned, written and re-written assessments, made mistakes and cleaned them up — I still walk out full of joy, with my chin up, feeling like I am finally in the right place.

My goal since becoming Kemetic has been to carry the light of my gods wherever I go. Through the work I’m doing now, I believe I can.

Seasons and Gods

My gods seem to have an arrangement. In the summer, when the air is thick and humid and the sun is an unforgettable presence in the sky, my Mother comes forward. She teaches me about healing, about mercy, about justice. I feel Her wrap Her arms around me as the heat presses against my skin and the sun beats down on my shoulders. It feels like a dance, spun with red linen and turquoise, gold and lapis.

Slowly, as the heat wanes, She retreats and my Father comes forward. As the trees turn burning red and shed their leaves, He starts to whisper in my ear. He teaches me about magic, and authority, and the power to move effortlessly between any two places or roles. He is as crystal clear as the frigid air that starts to show my breath; strong and steadfast, the silence space between the mountains.

I am always my Mother’s child, and I am always my Father’s child — but as the seasons shift, so do They. Perhaps my Mother follows the Wandering Eye myth cycle, being distant at the winter solstice. Perhaps They just want to make things easy on me. Perhaps I’m the one making the division. Who knows? There are some things I just… don’t question, when it comes to the gods. 😉

Top Ten Tunes: #TeamWepwawet

There is an old adage that music is the universal language. Music is so deep a part of the human experience that it affects our brains in a way that no other activity or creative art does. It makes sense, therefore, that music would be such a popular language of expression for the relationships we have with the gods. We use music to help us focus our meditations, to communicate our experiences, to engage in worship — even just to feel connected in our everyday lives.

Here are my top ten tunes for Wepwawet, presented in no particular order, for your listening pleasure. Some of them have been shared for Music Monday before, so I’ll try to give you a little commentary this time to keep things interesting. 😉

Continue reading “Top Ten Tunes: #TeamWepwawet” →

Go Team Wepwawet!

So here’s the thing… you know that jackal-headed guy?

anubis_attending_the_mummy_of_sennedjem — Source

No, not him — that’s Anubis (or Yinepu, or Anoup, or Anpu, or… you get the idea).

This guy! This is Wepwawet. Sometimes you might hear him called Upwawet, or Upwaut, or Upuat, or even just Wpwwt. And he’s kind of a big deal.

His name means “Opener of Ways”, and that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. A lot. Sometimes it means opening the way for the dead.

Sometimes it means opening the way for the military, being carried on a standard.

ivorylabelofden-britishmuseum-august19-08 — Source

Sometimes there’s even TWO of him, that’s how important he is.

He has associations with legitimizing the king’s reign through this thing called the Sed festival. He also makes sure the king gets to the right place in the afterlife. Here he is hangin’ with his BFF, Seti I.

He looks pretty much like any other jackal-headed deity, to be honest. He gets confused with Anubis/Yinepu/Anpu/etc. quite a lot. It’s a little confusing, especially when they show up in the same place from time to time.

aedd2b87fc0dc402406382ccb98c1b27 — Source

He’s got some bitchin’ nicknames, too. Some people call him He Who Possesses the Two Lands in Triumph. Some people call him Lord of Carnage. Others call him Lord of Joy. (He’s got a pretty good reputation.)

So why am I raving about this most excellent dude? Well, every year the House of Netjer holds a contest as a fundraiser. It’s almost like the Penny Wars, if you ever played those in high school or summer camp. The goal is to collect the most votes for your team. Each vote is a small donation (in this case, anything over $1), limit 1 per day. Don’t forget to write that you’re voting for Wepwawet in the donation notes!

This year, I am pushing HARD to get Himself a spot in the winners’ circle. Don’t you think he deserves it?

I mean, look at that face.

#TeamWepwawet – let’s get this done!

(You can check the leaderboard here!)