Category: Priesthood and Service

In Service.

I have made bright Ma’at which Ra loves, I know that He lives by it;
it is my bread too; I eat of its brightness.

Inscription of Hatshepsut at Speos Artemidos
The public washing of hands marks my official consecration of a w’ab priest.

10 years ago yesterday, I stood before the Shrine of the Truth and the Mother, taking a vow of service to my gods. I am stunned that somehow, while I wasn’t paying attention, 10 years crept by — and now I have spent a decade in the service of the Netjeru.

But life changed. My household was significantly impacted by Hurricane Sandy. My father, also my employer, became seriously ill, and I stepped into his role at work. I moved into a 1-bedroom apartment with my fiancé. I got married. I did a year-long unpaid internship. I finished graduate school. I got seriously ill (and recovered, dua Netjer). I moved into a bigger apartment with my husband. I started working in my field. I changed jobs. I bought a house. I moved again. And now, a global pandemic. Not to mention the challenges within the religion itself during that time — changes and conflict are a matter of course when you work with other people, and the temple is no exception.

I struggled at times. I found myself feeling like it was impossible to continue my service some days because I could not maintain the consistency with which I first approached the priesthood. If I couldn’t live up to what I had done in my first year of service, how could I call myself a good priest? If I couldn’t observe every festival, show up for every event, greet every sunrise — how was I carrying ma’at to my gods and Their people?

When I came to the priesthood, I assumed that integrating that work into my life would mean establishing strict routines and prioritizing religious work over other things. I tried that, for a while; it didn’t work. I am a human being before I am a priest; a human who wants to be in relationship with others, have hobbies, and have a meaningful career. At some point in the last year — I couldn’t pinpoint if I tried — I dropped that approach. I dropped the judgment. I set boundaries for myself. If I go to work, I don’t go to shrine; if I don’t go to work, I go to shrine. I think that eased the pressure for me; now instead of judging myself for “missing shrine” five out of seven days of the week, I celebrate when I go both Saturday and Sunday. It also taught me that the trick to service is not in pushing harder, or doing more, but in being deliberate and finding that sweet spot of balance. Ma’at, anyone?

I am grateful for the growth that being a priest has permitted me — personally, professionally, and spiritually. I am proud and honored to serve the gods in ritual, and in all I do. I am optimistic that as I continue this work, I can continue to carry my gods to the people who love Them, continue to grow, and continue to serve Them to the best of my ability.

(I’m also hoping to write more — even short snippets here and there — because I really do miss blogging. So hello again — I hope I can be more present here this year.)

“You are My priest.”

The lights in the conference room were dimmed, and in my memory candles are flickering on Her altar, though no candles were lit besides the fake ones that the venue permitted. She had come before Her people embodied; Sekhmet the Great sat before us, enthroned.

I knelt before Her, offering gestures of praise before She bade me to rise and sit with Her. We spoke together of my fears; of the things that have been holding me back. She listened. She offered quiet reassurance. And suddenly, She took up a bottle of frankincense oil, wet Her fingers with it, and placed Her hand on my head. She smiled, and I wondered what She would do.

“You are My priest,” She said, “and you are His priest.”

I smiled and sighed deeply as I realized what She had done.

Earlier in the week, myself and the other lay priests who were present at Retreat were offered the opportunity to take on legal ordination. The distinction between the two priesthoods is muddy, but the main difference is that ordained priests are responsible for pastoral duties as well as liturgical duties. We had planned to announce this formally on Nebt-het’s day, or Wep Ronpet Eve, as is typical for elevations during Retreat.

It would seem Sekhmet had other ideas. The ordination blessing is conferred via anointing with sacred oil–just as She had done. After the ceremony, a fellow priest told me that she knew what Sekhmet was doing the moment She reached for the oil. She knew I was being ordained before I did.

And here we are–I am legal clergy of the House of Netjer and Kemetic Orthodoxy. This does not, and will not change the fact that nothing written at this blog constitutes an official statement from the House of Netjer or Kemetic Orthodoxy. I will continue to share my experiences and my thoughts as they happen, without any sort of authority or official meaning. It has always brought me great joy to do so, as has serving the gods as Their priest.

Welcome back to W’ab Wednesday

Note: this post contains opinion, not doctrine of any kind, and is intended as thought-provoking contemplation rather than instructional writing.

W’ab Wednesday is a series I started for writing about purity. To recap, in brief: I am a lay priest, or w’ab priest, in Kemetic Orthodoxy. In this context, the word w’ab translates to “pure”, “purity”, or “to be pure”. My job is to be a ritual technician, and a large portion of that means maintaining something called “ritual purity” — meaning, a state of spiritual and physical cleanliness in which the highest rituals may be performed.

Ritual purity isn’t a requirement for worship of the gods. Prayer and offerings made without ritual purity still count. So why bother?

To state the obvious — the gods don’t live where we do. They live in the Duat, while we live in the physical world. When we pray or make offerings, we are trying to communicate from one world into the next. The more ritually pure we are, the more effective our interactions with the gods and the Duat will be. Impurity — things like physical dirt, Unseen dirt, distractions, etc. — is the static that interferes with our communication.

This is partly why I believe so strongly in the concept of purity as a continuum. We will never have 100% effective communication to the Duat as living humans. The more we can shed the dirt of everyday living, the closer we can scoot to operating at full capacity (which will vary from person to person).

When doing State rituals, like the priests’ rite or certain holiday rituals, we want to be sure there is as little “static” as possible — hence the requirement for more purity. There is bigger heka here, so it’s easier for the static to get in the way. Informal offerings and casual candle-lightings are harder to mess up, so the purity requirement is much lower.

On sabbaticals.

Taking time off from serving as a priest of my deities has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever received. When I made the decision to temporarily suspend my service, I grieved a little. I felt like I was giving up, like I was losing a piece of myself, like I was a failure. My inability to remain committed to my worship felt like a personal fault, rather than the natural consequence of increased academic and professional requirements.

In response, I withdrew from everything. I stopped doing Senut and stopped tending my shrines. Everything came to a halt, until I slowly picked up one thread at a time. I briefly engaged with other pantheons. I worked at connecting with the most basic forces that drew me to polytheist — the spirits of the land and the Divine Itself. I began to feel enthusiastic about engaging with the Divine again. By Wep Ronpet, I felt like engaging with the gods again — and engage I did, worshipping with fervor during Retreat.

Senut began to feel fulfilling again. As I was doing my priest work, it had started to feel meaningless, like a lot of vague hand-waving that didn’t do anything.

More than that, my desire to serve the gods rose in me again. It had dwindled over the past four years, to become vaguely burdensome. I found myself planning research, sketching out festival rites, envisioning my reconstructed shrine.

I dropped everything, and then picked up one piece at a time, and it has been restorative in a way I never imagined it would. I am patiently waiting for my internship to end to consider returning to service with renewed purpose.